Photo of Madeline, via the Oregon City Police Department
The Oregon City Police Department is asking for the public’s help in locating a missing 11-year-old girl who was last seen Tuesday evening.
Madeline Cornwell was last seen by a friend on February 24 at approximately 6:00 p.m. in the 1200 block of Jackson Street in Oregon City, according to police.
Madeline is described as about 5 feet tall and weighing approximately 90 pounds. She has short brown hair with bright red coloring. At the time she was last seen, she was wearing a gray sweatshirt, black leggings, and carrying a black backpack with embroidered roses.
Police said she may be attempting to travel to Portland, though she is not familiar with public transportation.
Authorities urge anyone who sees Madeline to call 911 immediately and reference OCPD case number 26-003525.
The police department has not released additional details about the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
The Moreno Valley Mall in Riverside County remained closed Wednesday as owners faced fire safety violations that led the city to shut down most of the vast retail center.
The sprawling indoor regional mall is a centerpiece of Moreno Valley serving customers from Riverside and San Bernardino counties. It was built in 1992 on the former site of Riverside International Raceway, once considered one of the finest automotive racing tracks in the country and a regular draw across Southern California for decades before it closed in 1989.
On Feb. 19, city officials “red-tagged” the mall for the owners’ failure to resolve a multitude of unresolved issues related to its fire protection systems.
The owners said they are “working hard to end this interruption.”
Portions of the two-level, 1.1-million-square-foot mall were deemed unsafe by county and state fire inspectors who recommended the city shut them down “until all live-saving measures are addressed,” the city said in a statement.
Department stores Macy’s and JCPenney are independently owned buildings at the mall with appropriately maintained fire protection systems that are separate from the mall’s systems, allowing them to stay open, the city said.
The16-screen Harkins Theatres movie cineplex is also open.
City Councilwoman Elena Baca-Santa Cruz told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that the mall has “hundreds of violations,” though nine of them are preventing it from reopening.
“For example, there’s no backup generator. If there was a power failure, the whole place will go dark, and that’s a safety violation,” Baca-Santa Cruz said last week.
The owners of the mall, IGP Business Group, did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but owner Matt Ilbak said in a recent Instagram post that a new generator has been installed. The company has upgraded the fire sprinkler system and is working on resolving “all of the city’s issues.”
Other city complaints about IGP’s operation of the mall were outlined in a January letter to Ilbak that cited fire code violations and also complained about “property maintenance violations” that included severely cracked pavement and curbing, as well as dead plants outside. The mall had insufficient exterior lighting, the city said, and graffiti resulting from deferred or neglected maintenance.
In Orange County, Westminster Mall, a once-popular shopping center that has been tarnished by graffiti and vandalism since it closed last year, is on track for demolition soon.
It will be replaced with housing, a hotel and some shops and stores, part of a nationwide trend that is seeing outdated, failed malls in high-traffic locations swapped for mixed-use development that typically includes apartments. The process is often lengthy, leaving empty malls in danger of abuse.
ALL OF THEM WERE ON PAROLE OR PROBATION. SACRAMENTO CITY LEADERS ARE EXPECTED TO VOTE TOMORROW ON CHANGING CONTRACT POLICIES TO REPLACE OLD SACRAMENTO’S BOARDWALK. THE FOCUS HERE IS ON QUALITY BECAUSE NOT EVERYONE KNOWS HOW TO WORK IN HISTORIC AREAS. THE CITY IS REVITALIZING OLD SACRAMENTO, INCLUDING REPLACING THE OLD BOARDWALK. NORMALLY, THAT WOULD INVOLVE ASKING FOR CONTRACTS TO BID ON THE JOB AND THEN HIRING THE COMPANY THAT COMES IN CHEAPEST. BUT THE VOTE TOMORROW WOULD ALLOW THE CITY TO HIRE THE CONTRACTOR THAT’S MOST QUALIFIED, ACCORDING TO THE STAFF REPO
Sacramento considers changing contract policies for Old Sacramento Boardwalk project
Sacramento City Council is considering changing contract policies for the replacement of the Old Sacramento Boardwalk.The city would normally ask for contractors to bid competitively for the job, and hire the company that is most cost efficient. City staff, however, say revitalizing the historic boardwalk requires a contractor with experience working in historic environments.Former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg first announced plans to revitalize the Old Sacramento Waterfront back in July 2024. That plan includes replacing the wooden boardwalk. | PREVIOUS COVERAGE | Mayor pushing for plans to change the Old Sacramento WaterfrontSee more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter
Sacramento City Council is considering changing contract policies for the replacement of the Old Sacramento Boardwalk.
The city would normally ask for contractors to bid competitively for the job, and hire the company that is most cost efficient.
City staff, however, say revitalizing the historic boardwalk requires a contractor with experience working in historic environments.
Former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg first announced plans to revitalize the Old Sacramento Waterfront back in July 2024. That plan includes replacing the wooden boardwalk.
Malibu is filing suit against the state of California, the city of Los Angeles, L.A. County and additional public entities. Saying the seaside enclave’s “entire character” was changed by the Palisades fire, the city is seeking damages for the loss of property, business and city revenue.
Malibu officials confirmed Wednesday that the city had filed a civil complaint in Los Angeles County Superior Court with a list of defendants that included the California Department of Parks and Recreation, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
Malibu officials said the decision was necessary to try to recoup losses that affect “the long-term fiscal implications for Malibu and its taxpayers,” according to a news release. The complaint does not list a specific dollar amount the city is seeking in damages.
“The lawsuit seeks accountability for the extraordinary losses suffered by our community while recognizing that Malibu must continue to work collaboratively with our regional partners going forward,” Mayor Bruce Silverstein said in a statement.
The city’s “entire character changed” on Jan. 7, 2025, when the defendants’ “unlawful conduct caused the Palisades Fire to ignite,” according to the complaint.
The ensuing blaze killed 12 people, half of whom were Malibu residents, according to the city. Roughly 700 Malibu homes and dozens of businesses also were destroyed, the complaint states.
Those businesses included restaurants that were local institutions, such as Moonshadows, the Reel Inn and Rosenthal Wine Bar & Patio.
Malibu “is still reeling from the destruction” of the fire, “a hollowed out community, burned and destroyed buildings and homes, a shrinking tax base, emotionally and physically scarred citizens, and untold environmental damage,” the complaint states.
Malibu claims that the fire was “not an accident” but a “foreseeable and proximate result of unlawful conduct” by the defendants.
Each of the entities was blamed for its role in the fire, including not properly addressing the burn scar from the Lachman fire, which rekindled to become the Palisades fire; leaving “reservoirs empty for over a year”; and failing to ensure “essential firefighting infrastructure,” according to the complaint.
“This decision was not made lightly,” Silverstein said. “The city has an obligation to act in the best interests of our residents and taxpayers.”
Osceola County officials have issued a burn ban Monday on all types of outside burning, including open fire pits, campfires and yard debris.According to a release, officials say this comes as dry conditions persist. “The burn ban is effective immediately and will be lifted as weather and vegetation conditions improve,” the release said.The ban will be enforced by Osceola County Code Enforcement, Law Enforcement and Emergency Services personnel. Osceola County Fire Rescue will continue to monitor conditions to determine when the burn ban will be lifted. The burn ban comes one day after the city of St. Cloud issued a burn ban, and a nursery near Kissimmee was involved in a 3-alarm brush fire.
OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. —
Osceola County officials have issued a burn ban Monday on all types of outside burning, including open fire pits, campfires and yard debris.
According to a release, officials say this comes as dry conditions persist.
“The burn ban is effective immediately and will be lifted as weather and vegetation conditions improve,” the release said.
The ban will be enforced by Osceola County Code Enforcement, Law Enforcement and Emergency Services personnel.
Osceola County Fire Rescue will continue to monitor conditions to determine when the burn ban will be lifted.
The burn ban comes one day after the city of St. Cloud issued a burn ban, and a nursery near Kissimmee was involved in a 3-alarm brush fire.
PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to restore exhibits on slavery that the National Park Service had removed from the President’s House last month.
U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe’s ruling requires the federal government to restore the site “to its physical status as of January 21, 2026,” the day before the exhibits were removed.
The order did not set a deadline for restoration, but required the National Park Service to take steps to maintain the site and ensure the safety of the exhibits that memorialize the enslaved people who lived in George Washington’s Philadelphia home during his presidency.
Rufe, a George W. Bush appointee, compared the Trump administration’s argument that it can unilaterally control the exhibits in national parks to the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s “1984,” a novel about a dystopian totalitarian regime.
“This Court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims — to dissemble and disassemble historical truths when it has some domain over historical facts,” Rufe wrote. “It does not.”
The administration’s attempt to alter the President’s House is part of a nationwide initiative to remove content displays from national parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” under orders issued by President Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last year. For instance, Park Service employees removed signage from the Grand Canyon about the mistreatment of Native Americans.
Philadelphia filed a federal lawsuit against Burgum, acting National Park Service Director Jessica Bowron and their agencies the day the exhibits were dismantled.
The federal government has the option to appeal the judge’s order. The Interior Department, National Park Service and U.S. Attorney’s Office did not immediately comment on the ruling, which fell on Presidents’ Day, a federal holiday.
During a hearing last month, Rufe called the argument that a president could unilaterally change the exhibits displayed in national parks “horrifying” and “dangerous.” She ordered the federal government to ensure the panels’ safekeeping after an inspection and a visit to the President’s House earlier this month.
Monday’s ruling followed an updated injunction request from the city that asked for the full restoration of the site — not merely that the exhibits be maintained safely. In response, the federal government’s brief argued that the National Park Service has discretion over the exhibits and that the city’s lawsuit should be dismissed on procedural grounds.
The federal government also argued there could be no irreparable harm from the removal of the exhibits because they are documented online and replacement panels would cost $20,000.
But the judge found the city met its burden.
“If the President’s House is left dismembered throughout this dispute, so too is the history it recounts, and the City’s relationship to that history,” Rufe wrote.
The injunction itself does not resolve the underlying lawsuit, and is in effect for the duration of the litigation.
Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, the main advocacy organization leading the fight to protect the President’s House, was a little less than an hour into its Presidents’ Day event at the site when leaders got wind of their victory.
Michael Coard, a leader of the Black-led advocacy group that helped develop the site before it opened in 2010, told the crowd of about 100 people gathered at the President’s House: “Thanks to you all, your presence and your activism, I have great news: We just won in federal court.”
But the fight is not over, advocates said, with Coard expecting the Trump administration to appeal or ignore any future rulings.
“This is a lawless administration. The people are going to have to take over to force them to do the right thing,” Coard said.
Gutman and Roth write for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Great Britain have claimed a second gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics after Huw Nightingale and Charlotte Bankes won the mixed team snowboard cross event.
Faced with numerous complaints about broken streetlights that have plunged neighborhoods into darkness, two Los Angeles City Council members unveiled a plan Friday to spend $65 million on installing solar-powered lights.
With 1 in 10 streetlights out of service because of disrepair or copper wire theft, Councilmembers Katy Yaroslavsky and Eunisses Hernandez launched an effort to convert at least 12% of the city’s lights to solar power — or about 500 in each council district.
Broken streetlights emerged as an hot-button issue in this year’s election, with council members scrambling to find ways to restore them. Councilmember Nithya Raman, now running against Mayor Karen Bass, cited the broken lights as an example of how city agencies “can’t seem to manage the basics.”
By switching to solar, the streetlights will be less vulnerable to theft, said Yaroslavsky, who represents part of the Westside.
“We can’t keep rebuilding the same vulnerable systems while copper theft continues to knock out lights across Los Angeles,” she said.
Three other council members — Traci Park, Monica Rodriguez and Hugo Soto-Martínez — signed on to the proposal. All five are running for reelection.
Miguel Sangalang, director of the Bureau of Street Lighting, said there are 33,000 open service requests to fix streetlights across L.A., although some may be duplicates. The average time to fix a streetlight is 12 months, he said.
Repair times have increased because of a rise in vandalism, the department’s stagnant budget and a staff of only 185 people to service the city’s 225,000 streetlights, he said.
About 60,000 street lights are eligible to be converted to solar, according to Yaroslavsky.
Council members also are looking to increase the amount the city charges property owners for streetlight maintenance. Yaroslavsky said the assessment has been unchanged since 1996, forcing city leaders to rely on other sources of money to cover the cost.
Last month, Soto-Martínez announced he put $1 million into a streetlight repair team in his district, which stretches from Echo Park to Hollywood and north to Atwater Village. Those workers will focus on repairing broken lights, hardening lights to prevent copper wire theft and clearing the backlog of deferred cases.
On Monday, city crews also began converting 91 streetlights to solar power in Lincoln Heights and Cypress Park. Hernandez tapped $500,000 from her office budget to pay for the work. The shift to solar power should save money, she said, by breaking the cycle of constantly fixing and replacing lights.
“This is going to bring more public safety and more lights to neighborhoods that so desperately need it and that are waiting a long time,” she said.
In recent years, neighborhoods ranging from Hancock Park and Lincoln Heights to Mar Vista and Pico Union have been plagued by copper wire theft that darkens the streets. On the 6th Street Bridge, thieves stole seven miles’ worth of wire.
Yaroslavsky and Park spoke about the problem Friday at a press conference in the driveway of a Mar Vista home. Andrew Marton, the homeowner, pointed to streetlights around the block that have been targeted by thieves.
Many surrounding streets have been dark since shortly after Christmas, Marton said. He has changed his daily routines, trying not to walk his dog late at night and worrying for the safety of his family.
He said he reported the problem to the city and was told it would take 270 days to fix. He then reached out to Park, who contacted the police department, he said.
A couple of neighboring streets had their lights restored, he said, but his street remains dark at night.
Park said she and Yaroslavsky identified $500,000 in discretionary funds to pay for a dedicated repair team to fix streetlights, either by adding solar or by reinforcing the existing copper wire, in their respective Westside districts.
Los Angeles officials just made it easier to convert empty commercial buildings to housing, opening the door to the creation of thousands of apartments across a city clamoring for housing.
Developer Garrett Lee is already rolling.
After years of struggling to find white-collar tenants for a gleaming office high-rise on the edge of downtown, he has just begun converting its office space into close to 700 apartments.
With the new Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance going into effect this month, many more housing conversions are coming to Los Angeles, Lee said.
“This is monumental for the city.”
The ordinance opens the possibility of conversion for many more buildings than the 1999 guidelines, which paved the way for converting older downtown buildings and jump-started a residential renaissance that turned downtown into a viable neighborhood after decades as a commercial district where few wanted to live.
The first ordinance applied to buildings erected before 1975 and was focused primarily on downtown. Under the new guidelines, commercial buildings that are merely 15 years old throughout Los Angeles can be converted to housing with city staff approval, rather than going through lengthy review processes that may reach the City Council.
Streamlining conversion approvals for projects that meet city guidelines will remove one of the biggest hurdles for developers who have historically had to guess how long it would take to start construction, Lee said.
“When you take that risk off the table, it materially improves the feasibility of conversions,” he said.
“It addresses both the housing shortage and the long-term office vacancy issue,” said Lee, president of Jamison Properties.
Jamison Properties is converting this office high-rise on the edge of downtown Los Angeles into housing.
(William Liang/For The Times)
There are more than 50 million square feet of empty office space in Los Angeles, according to industry experts, spread among the city’s many commercial districts and corridors such as Wilshire Boulevard.
The new ordinance inspired developer David Tedesco to move ahead with plans to convert a high-profile office building in Sherman Oaks, a neighborhood that wasn’t previously included in the city’s adaptive reuse guidelines.
His company, IMT Residential, plans to turn the former headquarters of Sunkist Growers into 95 apartments.
The eye-catching inverted pyramid designed in brutalist style is visible from the 101 Freeway and served as Sunkist’s headquarters from 1970 to 2013. The Los Angeles Conservancy called the building “a symphony in concrete,” worthy of city landmark status.
Earlier, there were plans to renovate the building for new offices, but as demand for office space plunged after the pandemic, developer Tedesco says his company decided to use the new adaptive reuse ordinance to make it into residences.
The new rules mean “we could move forward a lot faster” and avoid a potentially lengthy environmental impact review, he said.
The 1999 ordinance proved that people wanted to live downtown and that converting old office buildings to housing or hotels could transform a neighborhood, said Ken Bernstein, a principal city planner in L.A.’s Planning Department.
People walk through the Union Bank Plaza in downtown Los Angeles in August.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Construction of new apartments followed the wave of conversions downtown in the early 2000s, and the ordinance was expanded to a few other neighborhoods with older buildings, including Hollywood and Koreatown.
But until this month, residential conversions in most of the city still required more approvals, permits and hearings as well as an environmental review, Bernstein said.
“That could be a very time-consuming, cumbersome and expensive process,” he said.
The new rules “unlock the potential,” he said, of thousands of underutilized structures all over the city, including such commercial centers as Westwood, Olympic Boulevard, South Los Angeles, Ventura Boulevard and the Harbor District.
The ordinance is not limited to office buildings. Industrial buildings, stores and even parking garages are eligible for conversion to housing.
Bernstein envisions shopping center owners converting part of their retail and garage space to housing under the new guidelines. Even smaller strip malls would qualify for conversion to housing.
While the new ordinance lowers hurdles for landlords interested in converting their underused buildings, they still face market and regulatory forces that bedevil all housing developers.
Mockup of an apartment inside a 1980s office tower at 1055 W. 7th St. in Los Angeles that is going to be converted to housing.
(Eddie Shih/E22 Studios)
Among them are interest rates that make construction loans more expensive . Higher tariffs have driven up the prices of construction materials and equipment, while the crackdown on undocumented workers has thinned and spooked much of the international workforce on which the housing industry depends.
Developers also say that Measure ULA, the city’s “mansion tax” on large property sales, hurts the outlook for the profitability of any housing.
Measure ULA “is really impeding developers from doing any development in the city of Los Angeles,” said local architect Karin Liljegren, who specializes in adaptive reuse projects and helped the city craft the new ordinance.
Developers also worry that new apartments won’t generate enough income to cover construction costs.
Apartment renters accustomed to steady price hikes saw a downward shift last year as the median rent in the L.A. metro area dropped to $2,167 in December — the lowest price in four years, according to data from Apartment List.
Experts disagree on the momentum behind the drop. Some say it’s a sign of things to come, while others suggest it’s merely a brief price plateau and rents will rise again this year.
Conversion activist Nella McOsker, president of the Central City Assn. business advocacy group, said the new ordinance is “tremendous” and creates “incredible flexibility” for owners who want to make changes. But L.A. needs to follow the example of other cities and do more in the way of financial incentives for developers trying to make a project pencil out.
The Central City Assn. wants the city to consider financial incentives for conversions, even though it is experiencing budget shortfalls, McOsker said.
City leaders should consider offering financial incentives, such as those used in other cities, to bridge the gap to profitability, McOsker said, citing programs in other central business districts.
New York, Washington and Boston have property tax abatement programs, for example. San Francisco offers transfer tax exemptions, and Chicago uses tax-increment financing to encourage some redevelopments. In Canada, Calgary offers direct grants.
In Washington and New York, there has been widespread adoption of adaptive reuse, Lee said, resulting in makeovers of buildings that each add 1,000 to 2,000 residential units.
Lee, who has converted nearly 2,000 apartments so far, said he plans to take advantage of terms in the new ordinance that will allow him to put more apartments on each floor.
“We’re taking projects that are fully designed already and we’re redesigning them for more, smaller units,” he said, which helps reduce rents.
The new rolling 15-year age requirement will also bring up a new crop of conversion candidates every year. More recently built structures need fewer upgrades and may not require seismic retrofits to meet safety codes.
“Vintage matters,” Lee said. “Converting a building from 1990 versus one from 2010 is night and day due to the differences in code eras.”
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman is running for mayor, shaking up the field of candidates one final time.
Raman said she will challenge Mayor Karen Bass, her onetime ally, campaigning on issues of housing and homelessness, transparency and “safety in our streets.”
In an interview, Raman called Bass “an icon” and someone she deeply admires. But she said the city needs a change agent to address its problems.
“I have deep respect for Mayor Bass. We’ve worked closely together on my biggest priorities and her biggest priorities, and there’s significant alignment there,” said Raman, who lives in Silver Lake. “But over the last few months in particular, I’ve really begun to feel like unless we have some big changes in how we do things in Los Angeles, that the things we count on are not going to function anymore.”
Saturday’s announcement — hours before the noon filing deadline for the June 2 primary election — capped a chaotic week in L.A. politics, with candidates and would-be candidates dropping in and out of the race to challenge Bass, who is seeking a second four-year term.
Raman would immediately pose a formidable challenge to Bass. She was the first council member to be elected with support from the Democratic Socialists of America, which scored an enormous victory last fall with the election of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Councilmember Nithya Raman jumps in the race for mayor, challenging former ally Karen Bass in the June primary.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
At the same time, Raman has deep ties to leaders in the YIMBY movement, who have pushed for the city to boost housing production by upzoning single-family neighborhoods and rewriting Measure ULA, the so-called mansion tax, which applies to property sales of $5.3 million or more.
Raman’s eleventh-hour announcement caps what has been the most turbulent candidate filing period for an L.A. mayoral election in at least a generation. She launched her bid less than a day after another political heavyweight, L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, decided against a run.
Until Raman’s surprise entry, the field had seemed to be clear of big-name challengers. Former L.A. schools superintendent Austin Beutner ended his campaign on Thursday, citing the death of his 22-year-old daughter. That same day, real estate developer Rick Caruso reaffirmed his decision not to run.
Bass campaign spokesperson Douglas Herman did not immediately provide comment.
Raman’s announcement comes as Bass continues to face sharp criticism over the city’s handling of the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Unlike some of the candidates, Raman has not publicly criticized Bass about the city’s preparation for, or response to, the disaster.
Bass, 72, faces more than two dozen opponents from across the political spectrum.
Reality TV star Spencer Pratt, a Republican, has received praise from an array of Trump supporters, including Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, of Florida. Pratt has focused heavily on the city’s handling of the fire, which destroyed his home.
Spencer Pratt poses for a portrait in Pacific Palisades.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Democratic socialist Rae Huang is running against the mayor from her political left. Huang has called for more public housing and for a reduction in the number of police officers, with the cost savings poured into other city services.
Brentwood tech entrepreneur Adam Miller, who has described himself as a lifelong Democrat, said the city is on a downward trajectory and needs stronger management. The 56-year-old nonprofit executive plans to tap his personal wealth to jump-start his campaign.
Also in the race is Asaad Alnajjar, an employee of the Bureau of Street Lighting who sits on the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council. Alnajjar has already lent his campaign $80,000.
At City Hall, Raman’s entrance into the mayor’s race is a bombshell, particularly given her relationship with Bass.
In December 2022, not long after taking office, Bass launched her Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people indoors, in Raman’s district.
Two years later, while running for reelection, Raman prominently featured Bass on at least a dozen of her campaign mailers and door hangers. Raman’s campaign produced a video ad that heavily excerpted Bass’ remarks endorsing her at a Sherman Oaks get-out-the-vote rally.
Raman, whose district stretches from Silver Lake to Reseda, ultimately won reelection with 50.7% of the vote. In the years that followed, she continued to praise Bass’ leadership.
In November, while appearing at a DSA election night watch party for Mamdani, Raman told The Times that Bass is “the most progressive mayor we’ve ever had in L.A.”
Last month, Bass formally announced that she had secured Raman’s endorsement, featuring her in a list of a dozen San Fernando Valley political leaders who backed her reelection campaign.
Raman ran for office in 2020, promising to put in place stronger tenant protections and provide a more effective, humane approach to combating homelessness. On her campaign platform, she called for the transformation of the LAPD into a “much smaller, specialized armed force” — but never specified what exactly that would mean.
A woman takes a photo with her phone at the C. Erwin Piper Technical Center on Saturday.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Since then, the LAPD has lost about 1,300 officers — a decrease of about 13%. The City Council has put in place new eviction protections for tenants, while also capping the size of rent increases in the city’s “rent stabilized” apartments, which were mostly built before October 1978.
Raman does not face the same political risks as Horvath, who had already been running for reelection in her Westside and San Fernando Valley district. Horvath, had she run for mayor, would have had to forfeit her seat on the county Board of Supervisors.
If Raman loses, she would still hold her council seat, since she does not face reelection until 2028.
A Brentwood couple is suing the city of Los Angeles and Mayor Karen Bass, claiming their constitutional rights were violated when city officials blocked them from demolishing the home where Marilyn Monroe died in 1962.
In a 37-page complaint that accuses the city of collusion and bias, the lawsuit filed by homeowners Brinah Milstein and Roy Bank claims L.A. “deprived Plaintiffs of their intended demolition of the house and the use and enjoyment of their Property without any actual benefit to the public.”
It’s yet another chapter in a saga surrounding the fate of the famous property, which began in 2023 when Milstein, a wealthy real estate heiress, and Bank, a reality TV producer with credits including “The Apprentice” and “Survivor,” bought the home for $8.35 million. They own the property next door and hoped to tear down Monroe’s place to expand their estate.
The pair quickly obtained demolition permits from the Department of Building and Safety, but once their plans became public, an outcry erupted. A legion of historians, Angelenos and Monroe fans claimed the 1920s haunt, where the actor died in 1962, is an indelible piece of the city’s history.
Councilmember Traci Park, who represents L.A.’s 11th Council District where the home is located, said she received hundreds of calls and emails urging her to protect it. In September 2023, she held a news conference dressed as Monroe — bright red lipstick, bobbing blond hair — urging the City Council to declare it a landmark.
The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission started the landmark application process in January 2024, barring the owners from destroying the house in the meantime. L.A. City Council unanimously voted to designate it as a historic cultural monument a few months later, officially saving it from destruction.
It’s not the first legal challenge brought by Milstein and Bank. The pair sued the city in 2024, accusing the city of “backdoor machinations” in preserving a house that doesn’t deserve to be a historic cultural monument.
An L.A. Superior Court Judge threw out the suit in September 2025, calling it “an ill-disguised motion to win so they can demolish the home.”
The latest lawsuit includes a variety of damages, claiming the property’s monument status has turned it into a tourist attraction, bringing trespassers who leap over the walls surrounding the property. In November, burglars broke into the home searching for memorabilia, the suit alleges.
The lawsuit accuses the city of taking no efforts to stop trespassers and failing to compensate the owners for their loss of use and enjoyment of the property. It also notes that the homeowners offered to pay to relocate the home, but the city ignored them.
An aerial view of the house in Brentwood where Marilyn Monroe died is seen on July 26, 2002.
(Mel Bouzad / Getty Images)
The feud has stirred up a larger conversation on what exactly is worth protecting in Southern California, a region loaded with architectural marvels and Old Hollywood haunts swirling with celebrity legend and gossip.
Fans claim the house, located on 5th Helena Drive, is too iconic to be torn down. Monroe bought it for $75,000 in 1962 and died there six months later, the only home she ever owned by herself. The phrase “Cursum Perficio” — Latin for “The journey ends here” — was adorned in tile on the front porch, adding to the property’s lore.
Milstein and Bank claim it has been remodeled so many times over the years, with 14 different owners and more than a dozen renovation permits issued over the last 60 years, that it bears no resemblance to its former self. Some Brentwood locals consider it a nuisance because fans and tour buses flock to the address for pictures, even though the only thing visible from the street is the privacy wall.
“There is not a single piece of the house that includes any physical evidence that Ms. Monroe ever spent a day at the house, not a piece of furniture, not a paint chip, not a carpet, nothing,” their previous lawsuit claimed.
With their latest lawsuit, Milstein and Bank are seeking a court order allowing them to demolish the house and compensation for the decline in property value after the city’s decision to declare it a monument.
Two Front Range cities are eyeing more oversight for their police departments.
Lakewood’s City Council voted last week to “work toward the establishment” of an independent civilian oversight board for the city’s police department. And in Aurora, the city set aside about $330,000 this year to fund an Office of Police Accountability — even as city officials say they are still considering how oversight should be structured.
The creation of an independent oversight board in Lakewood would put the city into the company of just a handful of Front Range cities with such boards, including Denver and Boulder. The push for more oversight came to a head in Lakewood after the death of Jax Gratton, a 34-year-old transgender woman who disappeared in April and was found dead in June.
Lakewood police faced criticism for their handling of the case, including for announcing Gratton’s death by using her deadname and, later, for a lack of transparency about the investigation. Gratton’s case spurred the move toward an oversight committee, but the push is also rooted in wider issues around trust between police and community, Lakewood Councilwoman Isabel Cruz said.
“Although this specific incident really brought this to the fore, and the demands of community activists really pushed us, it is rooted in a lot of different conversations,” she said.
City Council members overwhelmingly voted Jan. 26 to create a 12-month committee to work toward the creation of a permanent oversight board. The temporary committee will have access to police records, completed internal affairs investigations and body-worn camera footage, and will be able to review complaints submitted to the police department.
At the end of the 12-month period, the committee will report to the City Council about how a permanent police oversight committee would be staffed and structured, among other recommendations.
Council members will then have the power to move forward with the permanent board or end the oversight effort.
Lakewood Police Department spokesman John Romero declined to comment on the push for oversight. About three dozen police officers packed last week’s council meeting, where Lakewood police Agent Quinn Pratt-Cordova, an executive board member of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 21, spoke against independent oversight.
An oversight board would be redundant, he said, and could damage officers’ trust in the city. Such oversight might “deter top talent,” from the police department, Pratt-Cordova said.
“Civilian oversight boards are rare and often follow severe systemic issues like those in other cities, issues that the majority of you don’t agree exist in the local police department,” Pratt-Cordova told council members. “The unnecessary creation of an oversight board attempts to apply an unwarranted national narrative to Lakewood PD.”
Lakewood Mayor Wendi Strom said she hopes any permanent effort will be aimed at improving police-community relations in ways that go beyond traditional independent oversight.
“The oversight word, I think, it is a big sticking point and one that — especially for folks within the public safety realm — has a very specific meaning,” she said in an interview. “So what we end up with, it is hard to tell. But for me, and I think City Council has been pretty clear on this in multiple conversations over the last month, the end goal is ultimately to help our community members feel more comfortable reaching out when there is a need.”
In Aurora, the police department entered into a consent decree — court-ordered reforms overseen by an independent monitor — after the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died after Aurora police officers violently restrained him and paramedics injected him with a too-large dose of a powerful sedative.
McClain’s death was part of a pattern of racial bias and excessive force within the Aurora Police Department, state officials later found.
Aurora City Manager Jason Batchelor hopes the city’s two-person Office of Police Accountability will serve as an independent monitor for the police department when police exit the consent decree and are no longer under the supervision of the court-ordered monitor. The creation of such a position is a requirement of the consent decree.
The new office would report to the city manager, Batchelor said, but would be created with built-in protections aimed at ensuring its independence, including putting into city ordinance the office’s right to have free and unfettered access to information and budgetary safeguards to ensure it could not be defunded by the city manager. The protections would mirror Aurora’s approach to its internal auditor, which operates independently and would work in tandem with the new office, Batchelor said.
“I don’t get to tell the internal auditor, ‘That might make me look bad, don’t publish that,’” Batchelor said. “That can’t happen.”
The Office of Police Accountability, which Batchelor hopes to be ready to hire for in a few months, would have “contemporaneous oversight” of any city investigation, he said. The office would not oversee police discipline and would not conduct its own investigations into police misconduct. Instead, the employees would be able to flag problems or concerns about such investigations to Batchelor, the City Council or to the public.
Aurora Councilwoman Amy Wiles, who has helped to organize community meetings to discuss police oversight as recently as this week, said residents need a neutral place to report police misconduct.
“Right now, if you want to report something — you had a poor interaction with a police officer or you feel something wasn’t right — to call and report that is a bit invasive. You have to call the police department,” she said. “…So we are hoping this provides that level of security to community to say, ‘Hey if something went wrong, here is this neutral person you can reach out to.’”
The Office of Police Accountability could receive complaints of police misconduct directly from the public, Batchelor said, and then would “partner with the (police) department to make sure that any complaints are fully investigated.”
That approach concerns Omar Montgomery, Rocky Mountain state conference president for the NAACP.
“If you are going to have true transparency and true accountability, it can’t be that organization doing the investigation,” he said. “It has to be an independent organization. …If it goes back to the police department, I would have concerns (about whether) that is an independent department that is investigating abuse allegations.”
But he added that the Office of Police Accountability is “a good start,” and noted that it is already funded in a tough budget year.
Batchelor pointed out that some critical incidents, including police shootings, are already investigated by outside agencies. Colorado lawmakers banned police departments from investigating their own police shootings in 2015. Other types of complaints are handled solely by the police department’s internal affairs unit.
The city is still considering what the ultimate structure of the office and oversight will look like, Wiles said. The end design may include an advisory board of residents who work with the Office of Police Accountability in some fashion, though their role is limited by the city’s charter.
After the recent shootings of U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis, some police chiefs have joined the mounting criticism of the Trump administration’s immigration blitz.
One voice missing from the fray: LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell.
This week, the chief reiterated that the department has a close working relationship with federal law enforcement, and said he would not order his officers to enforce a new state law — currently being challenged as unconstitutional — that prohibits the use of face coverings by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents.
Top police brass nationwide rarely criticize their federal partners, relying on collaboration to investigate gangs, extremist groups and other major criminals — while also counting on millions in funding from Washington each year.
McDonnell and the LAPD have found themselves in an especially tough position, longtime department observers say. The city has been roiled by immigration raids and protests, and local leaders, including Mayor Karen Bass, have blasted the White House. But with the World Cup and Olympics coming soon — events that will require coordination with the feds — the chief has been choosing his words carefully.
Over the past year, McDonnell has fallen back on the message that the LAPD has a long-standing policy of not getting involved in civil immigration enforcement. Unlike his counterparts in Minneapolis, Portland and Philadelphia, he has largely avoided public comment on the tactics used by federal agents, saving his strongest criticism for protesters accused of vandalism or violence.
In a radio interview last spring, the chief said that “it’s critical that in a city as big, a city that’s as big a target for terrorism as Los Angeles, that we have a very close working relationship with federal, state and local partners.” He boasted that the LAPD had “best relationship in the nation in that regard.”
McDonnell stood beside FBI Director Kash Patel on an airport tarmac last week to announce the capture of a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder accused of trafficking tons of cocaine through Los Angeles. Then, at a news conference Thursday in which city officials touted historically low homicide totals, McDonnell said LAPD officials were as “disturbed” as everyone else by events in other parts of the country, alluding to Pretti’s shooting without mentioning him by name. He said the department would continue to work closely with federal agencies on non-immigration matters.
Explaining his stance on not enforcing the mask ban, McDonnell said he wouldn’t risk asking his officers to approach “another armed agency creating conflict for something that” amounted to a misdemeanor offense.
“It’s not a good policy decision and it wasn’t well thought out in my opinion,” he said.
Elsewhere, law enforcement leaders, civil rights advocates and other legal experts have decried how ICE agents and other federal officers have been flouting best practices when making street arrests, conducting crowd control and maintaining public safety amid mass protests.
After a shooting by agents of two people being sought for arrest in Portland, Ore., in mid-January, the city’s chief of police gave a tearful news conference saying he had sought to understand Latino residents “through your voices, your concern, your fear, your anger.”
Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal set off a social media firestorm after she referred to ICE agents as “made-up, fake, wannabe law enforcement.”
In Minneapolis, where the Trump administration has deployed 3,000 federal agents, police Chief Brian O’Hara reportedly warned his officers in private that they would lose their jobs if they failed to intervene when federal agents use force. And in a news conference this week, New Orleans’ police superintendent questioned ICE’s arrest of one of the agency’s recruits.
The second-guessing has also spread to smaller cities like Helena, Mont., whose city’s police chief pulled his officers out of a regional drug task force over its decision to collaborate with U.S. Border Patrol agents.
Over the weekend, the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, the nation’s largest and most influential police chief group, called on the White House to convene local, state and federal law enforcement partners for “policy-level discussions aimed at identifying a constructive path forward.”
McDonnell’s backers argue that the role of chief is apolitical, though many of his predecessors became national voices that shaped public safety policy. Speaking out, the chief’s supporters say, risks inviting backlash from the White House and could also affect the long pipeline of federal money the department relies on, for instance, to help fund de-escalation training for officers.
Assemblyman Mark González (D-Los Angeles) was among those who opposed McDonnell over his willingness to work with ICE while serving as Los Angeles County sheriff, but said he now considers him a “great partner” who has supported recent anti-crime legislation.
So he said was disappointed by McDonnell’s unwillingness to call out racial profiling and excessive force by federal agents in Minneapolis and elsewhere.
“We have to trust in a chief who is able to say ICE engaging and detaining 5-year-old kids and detaining flower vendors is not what this system was set up to do,” said González, the Assembly’s majority whip. “It would help when you’d have law enforcement back up a community that they serve.”
Inside the LAPD, top officials have supported McDonnell’s balancing act, suggesting that promises by officials in other cities to detain ICE agents rang hollow.
“Have you seen them arrest any? No,” said Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton.
LAPD officers serve on nearly three dozen task forces with federal officials, where they share information and resources to track down criminals, said Hamilton, the department’s chief of detectives. Cooperating with federal partners is essential to tasks including combating “human trafficking on Figueroa” and dismantling international theft rings, he said. As part of these investigations, both sides pool intelligence — arrangements that some privacy rights groups warn are now being exploited in the government’s immigration crackdown.
Hamilton said that “there’s nothing occurring right now that’s going to affect our relationship with the federal government across the board.”
Art Acevedo, a former chief in Houston and Miami, said that for any big-city chief, taking an official position on an issue as divisive as immigration can be complicated.
Being seen as coming out against President Trump comes with “some political risks,” he said.
But chiefs in immigrant-rich cities like Houston and L.A. must weigh that against the potentially irreparable damage to community trust from failing to condemn the recent raids, he said.
“When you don’t speak out, the old adage that silence is deafening is absolutely true. You end up losing the public and you end up putting your own people at risk,” he said. “The truth is that when you are police chief you have a bully pulpit, and what you say or fail to say is important.”
Those with experience on the federal side of the issue said it cuts both ways.
John Sandweg, the former director of ICE under President Obama, said that federal authorities need local cops and the public to feed them info and support operations, but the immigration agency’s “zero tolerance” approach was putting such cooperation “in jeopardy.”
“Ideally, in a perfect world, ICE is able to work within immigrant communities to identify the really bad actors,” he said. “But when you have this zero tolerance, when the quantity of arrests matters far more than the quality of arrests, you eliminate any ability to have that cooperation.”
Times staff writers Brittny Mejia, Ruben Vives and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
With all the snow and ice still on the streets after Sunday’s storm, one mayor in Maryland asked for volunteers to help clear sidewalks.For middle and high school students in Baltimore, it’s a chance to get credit for volunteer hours. For adults, it’s just the satisfaction of being a neighbor helping a neighbor.Volunteers come armed with shovels and clear walkways within minutes. They’re part of the Baltimore City Snow Corps, and their job is to break the ice and clear the snow — free of charge for homeowners.”I’m not going to lie. It’s very tedious. I (have fun) doing it,” said Joel Rodgers-Turner, a Snow Corps volunteer.”A mess. It’s just a mess. You have to really dig it up and take your time, though,” said Martrell Marshall, another volunteer.The program started with a call from Mayor Brandon Scott.”We are asking for people to help their neighbor. We want volunteers to help shovel out their neighbors across the city of Baltimore,” Scott said in a video posted to Instagram.”Mayor Brandon Scott. Big encouragement to come outside to help Baltimore City,” said Jordan Carter.Volunteers sign up and go to those in need — older adults, people with disabilities and others who may not be able to pick up a shovel and clear snow and ice from sidewalks.”The trucks are doing what they have to do on the streets, so we have to do what we have to do,” Carter said. “When you bring people help, they may help someone else. It’s better when we all come together and get it done. It’s going to get done a lot faster.”The group of volunteers said it has removed snow outside of 60 houses and off 80 cars throughout 12-hour shifts.”We do it quick, like 15 minutes. We’ll be in and out,” said Donta Crosby. “It’s really fun. It’s a fun job. I encourage everybody to volunteer and do it, too.”When volunteers aren’t working, they’re singing about the volunteer job they do.
With all the snow and ice still on the streets after Sunday’s storm, one mayor in Maryland asked for volunteers to help clear sidewalks.
For middle and high school students in Baltimore, it’s a chance to get credit for volunteer hours. For adults, it’s just the satisfaction of being a neighbor helping a neighbor.
Volunteers come armed with shovels and clear walkways within minutes. They’re part of the Baltimore City Snow Corps, and their job is to break the ice and clear the snow — free of charge for homeowners.
“I’m not going to lie. It’s very tedious. I (have fun) doing it,” said Joel Rodgers-Turner, a Snow Corps volunteer.
“A mess. It’s just a mess. You have to really dig it up and take your time, though,” said Martrell Marshall, another volunteer.
The program started with a call from Mayor Brandon Scott.
“We are asking for people to help their neighbor. We want volunteers to help shovel out their neighbors across the city of Baltimore,” Scott said in a video posted to Instagram.
“Mayor Brandon Scott. Big encouragement to come outside to help Baltimore City,” said Jordan Carter.
Volunteers sign up and go to those in need — older adults, people with disabilities and others who may not be able to pick up a shovel and clear snow and ice from sidewalks.
“The trucks are doing what they have to do on the streets, so we have to do what we have to do,” Carter said. “When you bring people help, they may help someone else. It’s better when we all come together and get it done. It’s going to get done a lot faster.”
The group of volunteers said it has removed snow outside of 60 houses and off 80 cars throughout 12-hour shifts.
“We do it quick, like 15 minutes. We’ll be in and out,” said Donta Crosby. “It’s really fun. It’s a fun job. I encourage everybody to volunteer and do it, too.”
When volunteers aren’t working, they’re singing about the volunteer job they do.
President Donald Trump is starting 2026 with a shift in an unlikely corner of the electorate: Americans living in the nation’s largest cities.
A new Fox News poll—conducted January 23-26 under the joint direction of Democratic pollster Beacon Research and Republican pollster Shaw & Company Research among 1,005 registered voters nationwide—found the president’s job approvalrising modestly among urban residents, a group that has been one of his weakest since he returned to office.
Newsweek contacted the White House for comment via email outside regular business hours.
Trump gained ground with urban voters in the late-January Fox News poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, as approval in cities rose to 40 percent from 34 percent in December, while disapproval fell to 60 percent from 66 percent, according to the Fox News survey’s cross-tabs and top lines.
Fox News’ end-of-year poll of 1,001 registered voters, conducted December 12-15 by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company, also had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Both polls selected respondents randomly from a national voter file. Interviews were completed through a mix of landlines, cellphones and online survey links texted to a subset of voters.
Although it is hardly friendly territory for the Republican president, this latest shift in how urban voters approve of how he is doing his job represents a meaningful movement.
A president who improves from 34 percent to about 40 percent in American cities does not suddenly become competitive in these largely Democratic strongholds, but he becomes harder to defeat statewide.
Urban softening can also bleed into adjacent suburbs, where political margins are often decisive.
This month-over-month shift among urban voters came as Trump’s overall approval held at 44 percent nationally in the same Fox News series, underscoring movement inside a key geographic subgroup even as the top line stayed flat.
Urban voters are one of the core subgroups tracked by Fox News in its national polling, which reports results by area—urban, suburban and rural—when subgroup sample sizes reach at least 100 respondents.
Because these area categories are weighted alongside age, race, education and region to reflect the registered voter population, shifts within urban areas can influence the overall approval picture.
In plain terms: Within a month, more city-dwelling registered voters told Fox News they approved of Trump’s job performance, and fewer said they disapproved.
Even with that improvement, however, most urban respondents still gave the president negative marks.
While Trump is still underwater by a wide margin, a six‑point increase inside such strongly Democratic territory signals that voter attitudes in the country’s biggest population centers may be shifting in tone, if not allegiance.
Urban voters matter because they anchor Democratic strength.
When they budge, even slightly, it often suggests that broader perceptions of presidential performance are settling in—especially among groups that have been highly resistant to Trump since his return to office.
What People Are Saying
Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who helps conduct Fox News polls with Democrat Chris Anderson, said: “The president faces two difficult obstacles—the virtually unanimous and intractable opposition of Democrats and the stubbornness of high prices. Republican officeholders think the economic benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill will kick in later this year, which will be critical for GOP prospects in the midterm elections.”
White House spokesperson Kush Desai told Newsweek in December: “Over the past year, the Trump administration has delivered critical progress to turn the page on Joe Biden’s economic disaster: cooling inflation, rising real wages, private-sector job growth, and trillions in investments to make and hire in America. The Trump administration will continue to build on this progress in the new year to continue delivering economic relief for the American people.”
President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on January 22: “Fake and Fraudulent Polling should be, virtually, a criminal offense. … Something has to be done about Fraudulent Polling.”
He added: “Isn’t it sad what has happened to American Journalism, but I am going to do everything possible to keep this Polling SCAM from moving forward!”
What Happens Next
The question now is whether Trump can build on this movement, or whether it represents a temporary fluctuation within a group that historically has little affinity for him.
Because both Fox News surveys used identical methods and margins of error, the December‑to‑January comparison is significant. But subgroup margins are always higher, which means future polls must confirm whether Trump truly is gaining ground among city‑based voters or whether these numbers plateau.
Still, if the trend holds—even modestly—it could matter in tightly contested states where major metro areas dominate the vote count.
In a polarized era, the center is dismissed as bland. At Newsweek, ours is different: The Courageous Center—it’s not “both sides,” it’s sharp, challenging and alive with ideas. We follow facts, not factions. If that sounds like the kind of journalism you want to see thrive, we need you.
A San Jose police officer was shot in the downtown area Wednesday while responding to an armed carjacking, according to the police department. Officials said the suspect is dead.San Jose police said the officer was taken to a hospital in critical condition, but is expected to survive.Sgt. Jorge Garibay of the San Jose Police Department said the “violent spree” began around 2 p.m. when the suspect stole a vehicle from a dealership. A law enforcement helicopter then tracked the suspect, who drove into San Benito County. In Hollister, more than 40 miles away from San Jose, the police department there said its officers, around 3 p.m., were involved in a pursuit that included gunfire. Hollister police said the suspect, allegedly driving a stolen green Corvette, abandoned the stolen vehicle in the city and “engaged with officers with the firearm” before running away. No Hollister police officers were injured, officials said.The suspect was then found by San Benito deputies, Hollister police said. Another shootout occurred involving the suspect and deputies, with no deputy injured. The suspect did, however, steal another vehicle at gunpoint. The suspect then led officers and deputies in a second pursuit outside the city limits and into Santa Clara County, Hollister police said. He was also firing shots out of the vehicle. Garibay said the chase ended on Julian Street near the intersection with Terraine Street in San Jose. That intersection is steps away from Highway 87.The suspect then got out of the stolen vehicle and exchanged gunfire with law enforcement, Garibay said. The suspect then tried to carjack another vehicle at that intersection when he was hit by an officer’s vehicle.San Jose police said the suspect in the incident was pronounced dead at the scene. It’s not clear if the suspect died from gunfire or from being hit by the vehicle. Garibay said the medical examiner would determine the cause of the suspect’s death.The California Highway Patrol said Highway 87 was shut down in both directions at Julian Street due to the law enforcement activity. This is a developing story. Stay with KCRA 3 for the latest. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
SAN JOSE, Calif. —
A San Jose police officer was shot in the downtown area Wednesday while responding to an armed carjacking, according to the police department. Officials said the suspect is dead.
San Jose police said the officer was taken to a hospital in critical condition, but is expected to survive.
Sgt. Jorge Garibay of the San Jose Police Department said the “violent spree” began around 2 p.m. when the suspect stole a vehicle from a dealership.
A law enforcement helicopter then tracked the suspect, who drove into San Benito County.
In Hollister, more than 40 miles away from San Jose, the police department there said its officers, around 3 p.m., were involved in a pursuit that included gunfire.
Hollister police said the suspect, allegedly driving a stolen green Corvette, abandoned the stolen vehicle in the city and “engaged with officers with the firearm” before running away.
No Hollister police officers were injured, officials said.
The suspect was then found by San Benito deputies, Hollister police said. Another shootout occurred involving the suspect and deputies, with no deputy injured. The suspect did, however, steal another vehicle at gunpoint.
The suspect then led officers and deputies in a second pursuit outside the city limits and into Santa Clara County, Hollister police said. He was also firing shots out of the vehicle.
Garibay said the chase ended on Julian Street near the intersection with Terraine Street in San Jose. That intersection is steps away from Highway 87.
The suspect then got out of the stolen vehicle and exchanged gunfire with law enforcement, Garibay said. The suspect then tried to carjack another vehicle at that intersection when he was hit by an officer’s vehicle.
San Jose police said the suspect in the incident was pronounced dead at the scene. It’s not clear if the suspect died from gunfire or from being hit by the vehicle. Garibay said the medical examiner would determine the cause of the suspect’s death.
The California Highway Patrol said Highway 87 was shut down in both directions at Julian Street due to the law enforcement activity.
This is a developing story. Stay with KCRA 3 for the latest.
On Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of protesters walked out of school and off the job to march in downtown Los Angeles and decry President Trump’s actions during his first year back in office.
The “Free America Walkout” at Los Angeles City Hall was among dozens of rallies taking place across Southern California and the nation. The event was coordinated by the Women’s March and intended to demonstrate opposition to violent ICE raids, the increased presence of military personnel in cities, families harmed by Trump’s immigration policies and escalating attacks on transgender rights.
Hundreds of protesters marched along Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. Among the slogans on their signs: “Democracy doesn’t fear protest, dictators do” and “We choose freedom over facism.” Meanwhile, similar marches took place in Burbank, Long Beach and Santa Monica. Scores of students at Garfield and Roosevelt high schools in East L.A. ditched class to join the downtown rally.
“I just don’t know if he’s [Trump] actually done anything that is positive,” downtown protester Mario Noguera told ABC7 News. “Everything’s been about depleting everything: resources, rights. I just don’t feel like we’re getting anywhere.”
The walkout took place on the anniversary of Trump’s inauguration, an event he commemorated with a nearly two-hour news conference in which he called his first year in office “an amazing period of time” where his administration accomplished more than any other in history.
“We have a book that I’m not going to read to you, but these are the accomplishments of what we’ve produced, page after page after page of individual things,” Trump said, holding up a thick stack of papers. “I could sit here, read it for a week, and we wouldn’t be finished.”
The Free America Walkout began at 2 p.m. local time in cities across the U.S. and was designed to differ from mass weekend actions such as the No Kings protests by deliberately taking place during the workday.
“A walkout interrupts business as usual,” stated organizers. “It makes visible how much our labor, participation, and cooperation are taken for granted — and what happens when we withdraw them together.”
In downtown L.A., protesters condemned the effects of ICE raids locally as well as in Minneapolis, where a federal agent recently shot and killed wife and mother Renee Good.
Roxanne Hoge, chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, criticized the stream of local anti-Trump protests on Tuesday.
“Their boring, predictable tantrums are now part of the L.A. landscape, much like the dilapidated RVs and dangerous encampments that their policies result in,” Hoge told the LA Daily News. “We are interested in good governance and public safety, and wish our Democrat friends would join us in advocating for both.”
As Los Angeles grapples with a housing shortage, it could learn from San Diego, which has proved better at convincing construction companies to build more.
The city is more welcoming to developers, industry insiders say, with fewer regulations and fees, better planning and less rent control.
“It is easier to build in San Diego over Los Angeles because of its legal structure, political culture and defined processes,” said Kevin Shannon, co-head of capital markets at real estate brokerage Newmark, which is overseeing the sale of a sprawling development site in San Diego that is zoned to have thousands of apartments.
The result: As of last quarter, the number of new apartments under construction in San Diego County rose 10% from three years earlier, CoStar data show. New apartment construction in Los Angeles County tumbled 33% over the same period, hitting an 11-year low in the three months through December. San Diego is expanding its apartment pool at nearly twice the rate of L.A. and other major city clusters in the state.
View of An apartment building is under construction in downtown San Diego on Jan. 16, 2026. The city is more welcoming to developers than Los Angeles, industry insiders say,
(Sandy Huffaker / For The Times)
L.A.’s vacancy rate is among the lowest in the country and rental rates are among the highest nationwide. Still, the supply of fresh rental units, which make up the bulk of new housing in Los Angeles, is thinning out despite robust demand.
Although local lawmakers create regulations to protect renters and keep rents down, hoping to combat homelessness, developers and economists warn that the wrong regulations often can add to the cost of building and maintaining apartments, making it hard to make a profit on new and existing projects. People who already have apartments may be protected, but over the long run, fewer are built, they say.
Rent control has been at the center of the debate recently. The city of Los Angeles just tightened its rent control.
It has just lowered the cap on rent increases for rent-stabilized apartments, a massive portion of the city’s housing stock that houses nearly half of the city’s residents. Although the cap doesn’t apply to units built after 1978, it still discourages developers, as it sends the wrong signal to those already worried about restrictions.
At the state level, a similar housing bill that would have halved the cap on rent increases to 5% a year died in the Assembly last week. Assemblymembers decided that too many restrictions can be counterproductive.
“That sounds nice and humanly caring and all that and warm and fuzzy, but someone has to pay,” said Assemblymember Diane Dixon (R-Newport Beach). “How far do we squeeze the property owners?”
San Diego doesn’t have traditional rent control, though it does enforce less restrictive statewide tenant protections.
In Los Angeles, Measure ULA, known as the mansion tax, is another top reason that developers decide to build elsewhere. They also point to other local regulations that make it challenging to evict tenants who don’t pay their rent.
“L.A. has been redlined by the majority of the investment community,” apartment developer Ari Kahan of California Landmark Group said in October.
It’s easier to do business in San Diego because of its real estate development policies, project approval process and overall business-friendly attitude, industry insiders said. It outlines what it wants in a general plan, and if projects line up with that, they can be approved at the city staff level.
“San Diego has a clear, enforced General Plan, and for the most part, it sticks to it,” Shannon said. “San Diego updates its Community Plan and then lets projects proceed if they comply.”
“In contrast, L.A.’s General Plan is outdated and inconsistent,” he said. “Almost everything requires discretionary approvals.”
A view of the downtown San Diego skyline Jan. 16, 2026. It’s easier to do business in San Diego because of its real estate development policies, project approval process and overall business-friendly attitude, industry insiders said.
(Sandy Huffaker / For The Times)
Elected officials in L.A., including the City Council, have the discretion to decide whether a new project can be built, which can add months to its approval process as the proposal winds through City Hall and public meetings.
“The City of San Diego continues to prioritize the permitting and development of new homes to address our region’s housing needs and support a better future for all San Diegans,” said Peter Kelly, a spokesman for the city Planning Department. “Through updated community plans, streamlined permitting processes and proactive implementation of state housing laws, we are working to increase housing supply and affordability in all neighborhoods.”
The city updates its Land Development Code annually to streamline the permitting process and accelerate housing production, he said. It also adds capacity to build new homes through rezoning and updates to the city’s community plans, with a focus on placing new homes and jobs near transit, parks and services.
“If we can bring more supply, it will hopefully bring down rents,” said Kip Malo, a real estate broker in JLL’s San Diego office.
Most new apartments are being built outside of downtown San Diego, Malo said. “The city has made a concerted effort to try to clean up downtown and it has gotten better, but it’s still got a ways to go.
Of course, developers in San Diego still face the same headwinds that affect developers in other cities, such as interest rates that make construction loans more expensive than they have been in years past.
Recent policy out of Washington also hasn’t helped. Higher tariffs have driven up the prices of construction materials and equipment, while the crackdown on undocumented workers has thinned and spooked much of the international workforce on which the industry depends.
An apartment building is under construction in downtown San Diego on Jan. 16, 2026. In L.A., elected officials, including the City Council, have the discretion to decide whether a new project can be built, which can add months to its approval process as the proposal winds through City Hall and public meetings.
(Sandy Huffaker / For The Times)
California’s construction industry depends on immigrant workers. Around 61% of construction workers in the state are immigrants, and 26% of those are undocumented, according to a June report from the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.
San Diego is “still California,” Malo said, and has hurdles to get projects approved that aren’t faced by builders in Texas and other states with more lax requirements for new projects, Malo said, but “the political winds have shifted in developers’ favor.”
