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Tag: process

  • San Diego is much better than L.A. at building apartments. Here’s why

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    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.”

    View of downtown San Diego skyline Jan. 16, 2026.

    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.

    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.”

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    Roger Vincent

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  • Amazon is issuing Prime refunds as part of an FTC settlement. Here’s who’s eligible and what you’ll get

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    Amazon began the process of issuing refunds to eligible Prime members this week as part of a large settlement the company agreed to over federal allegations that it misled customers.Related video above: Amazon Scam exposed — Don’t fall for this refund text trickIn 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Amazon. In it, and in media releases since, the FTC has said the company “enrolled millions of people in Prime subscriptions without their consent – and then made it hard for those unwilling Prime subscribers to cancel.”On Sept. 25, 2025, Amazon, without admitting liability, reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the FTC. “Amazon and our executives have always followed the law and this settlement allows us to move forward and focus on innovating for customers,” Amazon said upon reaching the settlement. “We work incredibly hard to make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up or cancel their Prime membership, and to offer substantial value for our many millions of loyal Prime members around the world. We will continue to do so, and look forward to what we’ll deliver for Prime members in the coming years.”As part of the agreement, Amazon agreed to offer $1.5 billion in refunds to eligible customers. So, do you qualify? Here’s everything we know about the Amazon refunds.When are refund payments being sent out? Amazon has already started the process of issuing automatic refunds to eligible Prime customers. The automatic payments began being doled out on Nov. 12, and that process will continue through Dec. 24, 2025. How much money will I get? According to the FTC, under the settlement, eligible Prime customers can receive a refund of their Amazon Prime subscription fees, up to $51.Who is eligible for the automatic refunds? To qualify for the automatic refund, you had to have signed up for Amazon Prime in the U.S. between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025.Customers only qualify if they signed up for an Amazon Prime subscription through a “challenged enrollment flow,” which the FTC says includes “the universal Prime decision page, shipping selection page, single page checkout, or the Prime Video enrollment flow.”If you’re unsure of whether you signed up through a challenged enrollment flow, you don’t need to worry. According to an FAQ document linked to the FTC’s alert about the refund payments, “you will not need to determine whether or not you signed up through a Challenged Enrollment Flow. That analysis is being completed for you.”Furthermore, to qualify, you must have used no more than three “Amazon Prime Benefits” in “any 12-month period following Amazon Prime enrollment,” according to the FTC. Those benefits include Prime Music or Prime Video products offered for free to Prime subscribers.How will payments be issued? Those who are eligible will receive an email. The FTC says refunds must be accepted within 15 days. Refunds can be issued via PayPal or Venmo. However, those who would rather get a check should “ignore the email from Amazon,” the FTC said in its alert. If you do not claim the PayPal or Venmo payment, a check will be sent to the default shipping address listed on your Prime subscription. The checks must be cashed within 60 days, the FTC said.What if I didn’t get an automatic refund?If you think you are eligible but don’t get an automatic refund, the FTC says you “don’t need to do anything right now.””In 2026, Amazon will begin its claims process for eligible Prime customers who didn’t get an automatic refund between November and December 2025,” the FTC said in its alert, adding, “You don’t need to contact the FTC to receive a refund.”The FTC said it will update its “Amazon Refunds” webpage when the claims process begins.You can also sign up to receive emails by going to this website.Don’t fall for scamsIn its alert about the automatic refunds, the FTC is cautioning consumers that the FTC “will never ask you to pay to get a refund.””Don’t pay anyone who promises you a refund in exchange for a fee. And don’t give personal information to anyone who contacts you promising a refund,” the FTC said.

    Amazon began the process of issuing refunds to eligible Prime members this week as part of a large settlement the company agreed to over federal allegations that it misled customers.

    Related video above: Amazon Scam exposed — Don’t fall for this refund text trick

    In 2023, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Amazon. In it, and in media releases since, the FTC has said the company “enrolled millions of people in Prime subscriptions without their consent – and then made it hard for those unwilling Prime subscribers to cancel.”

    On Sept. 25, 2025, Amazon, without admitting liability, reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the FTC.

    “Amazon and our executives have always followed the law and this settlement allows us to move forward and focus on innovating for customers,” Amazon said upon reaching the settlement. “We work incredibly hard to make it clear and simple for customers to both sign up or cancel their Prime membership, and to offer substantial value for our many millions of loyal Prime members around the world. We will continue to do so, and look forward to what we’ll deliver for Prime members in the coming years.”

    As part of the agreement, Amazon agreed to offer $1.5 billion in refunds to eligible customers.

    So, do you qualify? Here’s everything we know about the Amazon refunds.

    When are refund payments being sent out?

    Amazon has already started the process of issuing automatic refunds to eligible Prime customers.

    The automatic payments began being doled out on Nov. 12, and that process will continue through Dec. 24, 2025.

    How much money will I get?

    According to the FTC, under the settlement, eligible Prime customers can receive a refund of their Amazon Prime subscription fees, up to $51.

    Who is eligible for the automatic refunds?

    To qualify for the automatic refund, you had to have signed up for Amazon Prime in the U.S. between June 23, 2019, and June 23, 2025.

    Customers only qualify if they signed up for an Amazon Prime subscription through a “challenged enrollment flow,” which the FTC says includes “the universal Prime decision page, shipping selection page, single page checkout, or the Prime Video enrollment flow.”

    If you’re unsure of whether you signed up through a challenged enrollment flow, you don’t need to worry. According to an FAQ document linked to the FTC’s alert about the refund payments, “you will not need to determine whether or not you signed up through a Challenged Enrollment Flow. That analysis is being completed for you.”

    Furthermore, to qualify, you must have used no more than three “Amazon Prime Benefits” in “any 12-month period following Amazon Prime enrollment,” according to the FTC.

    Those benefits include Prime Music or Prime Video products offered for free to Prime subscribers.

    How will payments be issued?

    Those who are eligible will receive an email. The FTC says refunds must be accepted within 15 days.

    Refunds can be issued via PayPal or Venmo. However, those who would rather get a check should “ignore the email from Amazon,” the FTC said in its alert. If you do not claim the PayPal or Venmo payment, a check will be sent to the default shipping address listed on your Prime subscription. The checks must be cashed within 60 days, the FTC said.

    What if I didn’t get an automatic refund?

    If you think you are eligible but don’t get an automatic refund, the FTC says you “don’t need to do anything right now.”

    “In 2026, Amazon will begin its claims process for eligible Prime customers who didn’t get an automatic refund between November and December 2025,” the FTC said in its alert, adding, “You don’t need to contact the FTC to receive a refund.”

    The FTC said it will update its “Amazon Refunds” webpage when the claims process begins.

    You can also sign up to receive emails by going to this website.

    Don’t fall for scams

    In its alert about the automatic refunds, the FTC is cautioning consumers that the FTC “will never ask you to pay to get a refund.”

    “Don’t pay anyone who promises you a refund in exchange for a fee. And don’t give personal information to anyone who contacts you promising a refund,” the FTC said.

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  • Commentary: Nine months after the Eaton fire, ‘moments of wavering, or wanting to give up’ on ever returning

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    Nearly nine months after the Eaton fire destroyed something unique, something beloved, something cherished even more in death, the mountains remain scarred and dusty streets criss-cross the vanished neighborhoods of what is still, essentially, a ghost town.

    If it’s true that time heals all wounds, the clock is moving slowly in Altadena, where 9,400 structures were destroyed and 19 lives were lost.

    There will be a resurrection, without question. Building permits are grinding slowly through the bureaucracy, hammers are swinging and a new Altadena will one day rise from the ashes.

    I know one homeowner who hopes to be in his newly built house in a month or two. Victoria Knapp of the Altadena Town Council told me she knows people who sold their lots immediately after the fire and now regret it. And L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said the permitting process has been revamped and she doesn’t sense that many people are bailing on Altadena.

    But as we head for Halloween and Thanksgiving and round the corner of one year into the next, roughly two-thirds of property owners have not yet applied for building permits, and there is widespread frustration, exhaustion and uncertainty.

    People who were fully committed to rebuilding in the immediate aftermath of destruction are now rethinking it, having grown weary of the slog.

    “It could be years of living in a construction zone, and that’s had me awake in the middle of the night with some panic attacks,” said Kelly Etter, who lost the house where she lived with her husband and ran a Pilates studio.

    “When I go up there every week,” said Elisa Nixon, whose home was badly smoke-damaged and needs an interior gutting, “I find it really sad and really depressing. I’m trying to imagine myself living there, and it’s really hard.”

    Taylor Feltner, who lived with his wife in a smoke-damaged Pasadena home on the edge of Altadena, would like to stay in the area because his wife’s Altadena family is a big part of their lives. But they’re no longer sure what to do or how to decide.

    “We have wavered so much throughout this whole process, because every time we have a fight with the insurance company it’s like reliving the trauma of that night over and over again,” Feltner said.

    An aerial view of cleared properties and a home under construction this month in Altadena.

    (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

    He and his wife are in their eighth temporary home since the fire. His mother-in-law, whose Altadena home survived the fire, wears a mask when gardening in the backyard. Feltner said he and his wife planted fruit trees in their own yard, but wonder if it’ll be safe to eat the fruit when they go back home, given widespread contamination and haphazard testing.

    “Everything feels broken apart now,” Feltner said.

    I get it, and I honestly don’t know if I’d be able to endure what people from the Altadena and Palisades areas are going through. I get impatient if a problem isn’t resolved in a day. The fire survivors are in limbo, still, with no idea how many years of upheaval they’re in for.

    Joy Chen, co-founder of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, has been tracking community sentiment for months. She said an initial, “almost defiant” sense of pride, with T-shirts and property signs declaring “Altadena is not for sale,” still lingers. But “a dose of reality” has set in.

    Here’s what people are sorting through, said Chen:

    How long will it take to get back home? Can we afford to rebuild? Will our kids be safe, given lingering contamination? Is the Southern California Edison settlement proposal a fair deal or a ploy to avoid bigger payouts? Will the new Altadena remotely resemble the place we loved? And will we ever sleep well in an area that has not seen the last of wildfires and frightful winds?

    Even for those who can see their way past all of that, said Chen, there’s a gap between their insurance settlement and the cost of rebuilding.

    “It’s around $300,000 on average,” said Chen, “and that’s a huge hurdle.”

    Barger said the settlement proposal from Edison could help close that gap for some people. But the investigation into the fire’s cause is not yet complete, and some lawyers have advised clients not to accept what they consider a lowball offer. And yet, for those who pass up on the offer, it could take years for lawsuits to play out in court.

    Chen, a former deputy L.A. mayor, has been demanding that insurance companies deliver what their clients paid for, and imploring state insurance commissioner Ricardo Lara to get tough with them. According to the nonprofit Department of Angels, 70% of the roughly 2,000 insured Eaton and Palisades fire survivors who were surveyed said delays, denials and underpayments are “actively derailing recovery.”

    “These delays and denials aren’t just devastating to families, they’re illegal under California law,” said Chen. “It’s Commissioner Lara’s job to stop them. His refusal to act is stalling the entire Los Angeles recovery. Families who spent decades building stability for their kids are watching those futures slip away.”

    Lawsuits are pending against multiple insurance companies, including Feltner’s carrier: Mercury.

    “They’re fighting us on everything,” said Feltner, who has filed complaints with what he called the “toothless” state insurance commission.

    For one Altadena family, whose house survived with minimal damage, it wasn’t an insurance issue that exhausted their resolve. Initially committed to moving back in, they later sold their house and relocated to another area. They asked me to withhold their names for privacy reasons.

    “It boiled down to risk,” said the husband, citing concerns about contamination, years of construction noise and dust, and the impossibility of knowing if the new Altadena will resemble the one that drew them there in the first place.

    A sign adorns a homeowner's Altadena property.

    A sign adorns a homeowner’s Altadena property.

    (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

    “It was a head decision and not a heart decision,” said his wife, who still feels attached to her home, her street, and to Altadena. “I don’t think that will go away. Obviously, this trauma is a part of us now, but our heart and our memories will always be there.”

    Tim Kawahara, executive director of the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate, grew up in Altadena and his mother still lives there in a house that survived the fire. The rebuilding of Altadena is in the early stages, he said. With thousands of separate projects to push through the permitting process, and a construction workforce shortage compounded by immigration raids, the new Altadena is not yet on the horizon.

    “You’re talking about three years to start seeing some considerable building happening, and probably more like five years for something happening at some big level. But it could take up to 10 years,” Kawahara said. “And it’s not just homes. It’s schools, parks, libraries, police stations and infrastructure, too.”

    You could argue that there’s something exciting about the chance to draw a new community on the blank canvas of the old one. But that’s a lot to endure if you’re breathing the dust, and as speculators move in and properties turn over, who’s going to be in charge, what will homeowner insurance cost, and will character and history survive?

    “People are suffering and struggling to find their way, and they don’t trust anyone anymore,” said Nixon. “And with all of that comes this feeling of, this is too much. It’s hijacked my life, I can tell you that. It’s overwhelming, the amount of work it takes to stay on top of this and also just keep your life balance.”

    “Having so many unknowns is just incredibly exhausting and limits capacity for enjoying other areas of life,” said Etter. “The connection to community, to neighbors and fellow survivors has really been a lifeline. There’s shared resources, hugs, and midnight texts in the middle of the night when you’re panicked about whatever.”

    In coming weeks, I’ll be exploring different angles of the Eaton fire recovery story, so feel free to share your thoughts with me.

    What can be done to speed the process?

    What should Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators do to speed fair resolution of insurance disputes?

    Given climate change and the fire-prone natural geography, would you consider a move to Altadena?

    What will Altadena look like in five years, in 10, in 20?

    Who should decide?

    Who will decide?

    steve.lopez@latimes.com

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    Steve Lopez

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  • A Woodland Hills nursery is turning into a cemetery. Some locals are fighting it

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    Groves will turn to graves in Woodland Hills, where a developer has plans to redevelop Boething Treeland Nursery into a cemetery.

    The 32-acre nursery has grown trees and other plants for the San Fernando Valley for the last seven decades, but it sold last year for $3.96 million to Dignity Memorial, the nation’s largest funeral provider. The company is in the process of submitting plans to the city of L.A. to get approval for a cemetery and funeral home on the property.

    Some locals aren’t so ready for the change. The site is sandwiched between a trio of affluent communities — Woodland Hills, Hidden Hills and Calabasas — loaded with famous and outspoken residents.

    The region, known for its rolling hills and serene setting, has become a hot spot for rappers, athletes and Kardashians looking for privacy outside the bustle of L.A. Such peace has a price tag — homes there regularly fetch $10 million or more — so when the proposed development became public, residents started petitioning, claiming religious objections, traffic concerns or the fright factor of living next to a cemetery.

    More recently, the locals hired a law firm, Raskin Tepper Sloan Law, to push back on the project. On Monday, the firm sent a letter to the L.A. Planning Department urging the city to review the plans before giving it the green light.

    “We understand this represents a significant change for the neighborhood,” said Aaron Green, the project’s spokesperson. “We value being a good neighbor and look forward to open conversations as we move forward with our plans.”

    The site is sandwiched between a trio of affluent communities — Woodland Hills, Hidden Hills and Calabasas.

    (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

    Green said the cemetery will have a serene and garden-like aesthetic, complete with fencing and a landscaped privacy wall around the perimeter. Two buildings will be added: a storage facility and a space for celebration of life services. Memorials will take place only during the day.

    The developer will get construction and grading permits to make the property more walkable and add places for burials. The land is already zoned for use as a cemetery by right, meaning the process is expedited and doesn’t require any public hearings.

    Green noted that Dignity Memorial has already started speaking with local stakeholders, despite plans not yet being submitted.

    For some residents, that’s not enough. In response to mounting objections, the city of Hidden Hills released an update last month saying that the property is outside the city’s sphere of influence, and that since no new zoning is necessary, it doesn’t expect any public input in the process.

    No lawsuit has been filed, but the letter sent by the law firm claims that the project shouldn’t automatically be granted the zoning rights the developer claims it has. Instead, it argues it should go through a more rigorous approval process with a CEQA review that measures the cemetery’s potential impacts on the environment, traffic and the surrounding neighborhoods.

    “Dignity Memorial is attempting to sneak ‘by right’ approvals for their massive 32-acre cemetery without any public process or environmental review. Despite what may be months, if not years, of internal planning, Dignity has not shown a single site plan to nearby residents, businesses or schools,” said Scott J. Tepper, the attorney representing the residents.

    Tepper said the locals aren’t NIMBYs; they’re just asking for a more rigorous review process.

    In order for a project to receive the expedited timeline granted from zoning by right, it has to meet certain criteria that ensures it doesn’t disrupt the community. Green claims the cemetery plans meet all the criteria.

    For example, the city requires that any added buildings be at least 300 feet away from adjacent buildings in the surrounding neighborhoods. Green said the two buildings will be that far away.

    The city also requires security fencing around the entire property. Green said the fence and landscaped wall satisfy that requirement.

    That hasn’t stopped locals from weighing in.

    “Where was the process on this one?” wrote Helene Chemel under a Facebook post from Valley News Group, which has been reporting on the proposed development.

    Others are more welcoming.

    “The neighbors will be much quieter than the ones that would have been expected if the original plan had gone through,” wrote Alison Kenney, referring to earlier attempts to develop the property.

    In 1985, the Boething family proposed a 22-building complex with offices and condos, a 200-room hotel, and parking for 3,630 cars. The project was met with backlash and fizzled out.

    Plans ramped up again in 2017, with applications submitted for a 60,000-square-foot elderly care facility, 26 single-family homes and 95 small-lot dwellings for a total of 413,588 square feet of building space. Protests mounted again, and the plans never materialized.

    “Our family decided the nursery could not continue indefinitely, and neighbors made clear they did not want a large residential project,” said Bruce Pherson, chief executive of Boething Treeland Farms. “We felt Dignity Memorial was the right buyer and we knew a cemetery would be far less impactful.”

    Dignity will submit plans to the city next month. Upon approval, construction will start next year with the goal of opening the cemetery by late 2026 or early 2027.

    Green said that while public hearings won’t be necessary, the company will engage with neighbors once plans are submitted.

    “A cemetery is one of the least impactful, community-sensitive uses that can be proposed for this property,” he said.

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    Jack Flemming

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  • HHS moves to shut down major organ donation group in latest steps to reform nation’s transplant system

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    As part of its efforts to strengthen the country’s organ transplant system, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says it is moving to decertify a major organ procurement organization – essentially shutting it down and removing it from the nation’s network of organ donation groups.HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called the move a “clear warning” to other groups that also work to coordinate organ donations.HHS officials are moving to close the Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency, a division of the University of Miami Health System, after an investigation uncovered unsafe practices, staffing shortages and paperwork errors, Kennedy said Thursday.“We are acting because of years of documented Patient Safety Data failures and repeated violations of federal requirements, and we intend this decision to serve as a clear warning,” he said.The Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency is one of 55 organ procurement organizations that are federally designated nonprofits responsible for managing the recovery of organs for transplantation in the United States, in which they focus on specific geographic regions and work with hospitals.The Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) said in a statement Thursday that the Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency serves 7 million people across six counties in South Florida and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.“Through this process, AOPO pledges that we and our members will keep saving lives nationwide. We will continue to support the team at Life Alliance to ensure South Florida organ donors, transplant patients and their families have access to organ donation and transplantation services,” AOPO President Jeff Trageser said in a statement, while thanking federal health officials for recognizing the importance of organ donation.“Because there is only one OPO per donation service area, it’s critical for CMS/HHS to manage the situation carefully and work with Life Alliance, hospitals & the wider donation community to ensure there are no lapses in donation during this process so lives can continue being saved,” he added in an email.There is a process by which the Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency could appeal the decertification. Neither the organization nor the University of Miami Health System immediately responded to CNN’s request for comment.“The Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency based in Miami, Florida, has a long record of deficiencies directly tied to patient harm,” Kennedy said Thursday.“Staffing shortfalls alone may have caused – it was a 65% staffing shortage consistently across the years – and may have caused as many as eight missed organ recoveries each week, roughly one life lost each day,” he said. “Our goal is clear: Every American must trust the nation’s organ procurement system. We will not stop until that goal is met.”Kennedy also plans to direct organ procurement organizations to appoint full-time patient safety officers to monitor safety practices, report incidents and ensure that corrective actions are implemented, among other responsibilities.“This officer will be responsible for coordinating responses across clinical operational teams, ensure compliance with federal priorities and take corrective action whenever patients are at risk,” Thomas Engels, administrator of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, said Thursday.These moves are part of an ongoing initiative to reform the organ transplant system after a federal investigation earlier this year found what Kennedy called “horrifying” problems, including medical teams beginning the process of harvesting organs before patients were dead.‘We are sending a tough message’Each year in the United States, more than 28,000 donated organs go unused and are discarded because of inefficiencies in the system, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said Thursday.“We are sending a tough message to all the other nonprofit organ procurement agencies, organizations, so they know we’re serious,” Oz said. “We want them to know there’s a new sheriff in town, and we’re coming for them if they don’t take care of the American people.”Organ transplant programs are certified under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and they must meet certain requirements to be approved by Medicare.“We’re going to crack down on noncompliance with Medicare requirements,” Oz said, adding that more action could be coming.“We’re going to be tougher than ever before, because if we lose trust in the organ transplantation system of this country, tens of thousands of people are going to die yearly whose lives could be saved,” he said.Public trust of the organ donation system is essential since the system relies on people to volunteer to donate their organs when they die. Most sign up when they’re getting their driver’s license.As of 2022, about 170 million people in the U.S. have signed up to donate their organs, but there is always more demand than there are organs available.Last year, there were more than 48,000 transplants in the U.S., but more than 103,000 people were on waiting lists. About 13 people in the United States die every day waiting for a transplant, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration.Investigations into organ procurementIn July, HHS announced its intention to fix the nation’s organ donation system. The agency directed the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, the public-private partnership that runs the complex donation system in the United States, to improve safeguards and monitoring at the national level and to find ways to strengthen safety protocols and transparency.An investigation by the Health Resources and Services Administration – detailed in a hearing in July and a memo from March – found problems with dozens of transplant cases involving incomplete donations, when an organization started the process to take someone’s organs but for, some reason, the donation never happened.The cases were managed by a procurement organization that handles donations in Kentucky and parts of Ohio and West Virginia; formerly called Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates, it has merged with another group and is now called Network for Hope.Network for Hope said on its website in July, “We are equally committed to addressing the recent guidance from the HRSA and we are already evaluating whether any updates to our current practices are needed.”Of the 351 cases in the federal investigation, more than 100 had “concerning features, including 73 patients with neurological signs incompatible with organ donation,” HHS said in a July news release.The investigation was launched after one Kentucky case came to light during a congressional hearing last year. In that case, 33-year-old TJ Hoover woke up in the operating room to find people shaving his chest, bathing his body in surgical solution and talking about harvesting his organs. Staffers had been concerned that he wasn’t brain-dead, but the concerns were initially ignored, according to the federal investigation.Staff told CNN that the procedure to take Hoover’s organs stopped after a surgeon saw his reaction to stimuli.The federal investigation found “concerning” issues in multiple cases, including failures to follow professional best practices, to respect family wishes, to collaborate with a patient’s primary medical team and to recognize neurological function, suggesting “organizational dysfunction and poor quality and safety assurance culture” in the Kentucky-area organization, according to a federal report.Since the federal review, the Health Resources and Services Administration said, it has received reports of “similar patterns” of high-risk procurement practices at other organizations.

    As part of its efforts to strengthen the country’s organ transplant system, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says it is moving to decertify a major organ procurement organization – essentially shutting it down and removing it from the nation’s network of organ donation groups.

    HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called the move a “clear warning” to other groups that also work to coordinate organ donations.

    HHS officials are moving to close the Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency, a division of the University of Miami Health System, after an investigation uncovered unsafe practices, staffing shortages and paperwork errors, Kennedy said Thursday.

    “We are acting because of years of documented Patient Safety Data failures and repeated violations of federal requirements, and we intend this decision to serve as a clear warning,” he said.

    The Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency is one of 55 organ procurement organizations that are federally designated nonprofits responsible for managing the recovery of organs for transplantation in the United States, in which they focus on specific geographic regions and work with hospitals.

    The Association of Organ Procurement Organizations (AOPO) said in a statement Thursday that the Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency serves 7 million people across six counties in South Florida and the Commonwealth of the Bahamas.

    “Through this process, AOPO pledges that we and our members will keep saving lives nationwide. We will continue to support the team at Life Alliance to ensure South Florida organ donors, transplant patients and their families have access to organ donation and transplantation services,” AOPO President Jeff Trageser said in a statement, while thanking federal health officials for recognizing the importance of organ donation.

    “Because there is only one OPO per donation service area, it’s critical for CMS/HHS to manage the situation carefully and work with Life Alliance, hospitals & the wider donation community to ensure there are no lapses in donation during this process so lives can continue being saved,” he added in an email.

    There is a process by which the Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency could appeal the decertification. Neither the organization nor the University of Miami Health System immediately responded to CNN’s request for comment.

    “The Life Alliance Organ Recovery Agency based in Miami, Florida, has a long record of deficiencies directly tied to patient harm,” Kennedy said Thursday.

    “Staffing shortfalls alone may have caused – it was a 65% staffing shortage consistently across the years – and may have caused as many as eight missed organ recoveries each week, roughly one life lost each day,” he said. “Our goal is clear: Every American must trust the nation’s organ procurement system. We will not stop until that goal is met.”

    Kennedy also plans to direct organ procurement organizations to appoint full-time patient safety officers to monitor safety practices, report incidents and ensure that corrective actions are implemented, among other responsibilities.

    “This officer will be responsible for coordinating responses across clinical operational teams, ensure compliance with federal priorities and take corrective action whenever patients are at risk,” Thomas Engels, administrator of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, said Thursday.

    These moves are part of an ongoing initiative to reform the organ transplant system after a federal investigation earlier this year found what Kennedy called “horrifying” problems, including medical teams beginning the process of harvesting organs before patients were dead.

    ‘We are sending a tough message’

    Each year in the United States, more than 28,000 donated organs go unused and are discarded because of inefficiencies in the system, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said Thursday.

    “We are sending a tough message to all the other nonprofit organ procurement agencies, organizations, so they know we’re serious,” Oz said. “We want them to know there’s a new sheriff in town, and we’re coming for them if they don’t take care of the American people.”

    Organ transplant programs are certified under the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and they must meet certain requirements to be approved by Medicare.

    “We’re going to crack down on noncompliance with Medicare requirements,” Oz said, adding that more action could be coming.

    “We’re going to be tougher than ever before, because if we lose trust in the organ transplantation system of this country, tens of thousands of people are going to die yearly whose lives could be saved,” he said.

    Public trust of the organ donation system is essential since the system relies on people to volunteer to donate their organs when they die. Most sign up when they’re getting their driver’s license.

    As of 2022, about 170 million people in the U.S. have signed up to donate their organs, but there is always more demand than there are organs available.

    Last year, there were more than 48,000 transplants in the U.S., but more than 103,000 people were on waiting lists. About 13 people in the United States die every day waiting for a transplant, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration.

    Investigations into organ procurement

    In July, HHS announced its intention to fix the nation’s organ donation system. The agency directed the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, the public-private partnership that runs the complex donation system in the United States, to improve safeguards and monitoring at the national level and to find ways to strengthen safety protocols and transparency.

    An investigation by the Health Resources and Services Administration – detailed in a hearing in July and a memo from March – found problems with dozens of transplant cases involving incomplete donations, when an organization started the process to take someone’s organs but for, some reason, the donation never happened.

    The cases were managed by a procurement organization that handles donations in Kentucky and parts of Ohio and West Virginia; formerly called Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates, it has merged with another group and is now called Network for Hope.

    Network for Hope said on its website in July, “We are equally committed to addressing the recent guidance from the HRSA and we are already evaluating whether any updates to our current practices are needed.”

    Of the 351 cases in the federal investigation, more than 100 had “concerning features, including 73 patients with neurological signs incompatible with organ donation,” HHS said in a July news release.

    The investigation was launched after one Kentucky case came to light during a congressional hearing last year. In that case, 33-year-old TJ Hoover woke up in the operating room to find people shaving his chest, bathing his body in surgical solution and talking about harvesting his organs. Staffers had been concerned that he wasn’t brain-dead, but the concerns were initially ignored, according to the federal investigation.

    Staff told CNN that the procedure to take Hoover’s organs stopped after a surgeon saw his reaction to stimuli.

    The federal investigation found “concerning” issues in multiple cases, including failures to follow professional best practices, to respect family wishes, to collaborate with a patient’s primary medical team and to recognize neurological function, suggesting “organizational dysfunction and poor quality and safety assurance culture” in the Kentucky-area organization, according to a federal report.

    Since the federal review, the Health Resources and Services Administration said, it has received reports of “similar patterns” of high-risk procurement practices at other organizations.

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  • Trump administration moves to make U.S. citizenship harder with revised civics test

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    The Trump administration moved again Wednesday to make it harder to gain U.S. citizenship, announcing a slate of changes to the core civics test that immigrants must pass to be naturalized.

    The changes would expand the number of questions immigrants need to be prepared to answer, and increase the number of questions they must answer correctly in order to pass.

    The changes, announced as pending in the Federal Register, would largely revert the test to a similarly longer and harder version that was introduced in 2020 during President Trump’s first term, but was swiftly rolled back under President Biden in 2021.

    The shift follows other Trump administration changes to the process by which U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials determine whether prospective citizens are qualified, including enhanced assessments of their “moral character” and whether they ascribe to any “anti-American” beliefs, and intense checks into their community ties and social media networks.

    It also comes amid a broader crackdown on undocumented immigration, and what Trump has said will be the largest “mass deportation” in U.S. history. That effort has been heavily centered in the Los Angeles region, to the consternation of many Democratic leaders and immigration advocacy organizations.

    The new naturalization test, like the short-lived 2020 version, would draw from 128 possible questions and require prospective citizens to answer 12 out of 20 questions correctly in order to pass. Under the current test, which dates to 2008, there are 100 possible questions, and prospective citizens must answer six out of 10 correctly.

    Trump administration officials said the new test “will better assess an alien’s understanding of U.S. history, government, and English language,” and is part of a “multi-step overhaul” of the citizenship process that will ensure traditional American culture and values are protected.

    “We are doing everything in our power to make sure that anyone who is offered the privilege of becoming an American citizen fulfills their obligation to their new country,” Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

    Immigration advocates cast the change as an attempt by the administration to further impede the legal pathway to citizenship for hardworking immigrants already deeply rooted in the U.S. They say it is part of a broader, authoritarian campaign by Trump and his administration to vet potential new citizens and other legal immigrants for conservative ideology and loyalty to him — all while the administration aggressively targets people for deportation based on little more than the color of their skin and the work that they do.

    “The Trump administration lauding the privileges of becoming a U.S. citizen — while making it harder to obtain it — rings hollow when you consider that it is also arguing before the Supreme Court that law enforcement can racially profile Latines,” said Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center. “All this does is make it harder for longtime residents who contribute to this country every day to finally achieve the permanent protections that only U.S. citizenship can offer.”

    Earlier this month, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority ruled in a case challenging immigration raids in California that immigration agents may stop and detain people they suspect are in the U.S. illegally based on little more than the color of their skin, their speaking Spanish and their working in fields or locations with large immigrant workforces.

    Last month, USCIS announced that it was ramping up its vetting of immigrants’ social media activity and looking for “anti-American ideologies or activities,” including “antisemitic ideologies.” That announcement followed months of enforcement against pro-Palestinian student activists and other U.S. visa and green card holders that raised alarms among constitutional scholars and free speech advocates.

    Trump administration officials have rejected such concerns, and others about raids sweeping up people without criminal records and racial profiling being used to target them, as part of a misguided effort by liberals and progressives to protect even dangerous, undocumented immigrants for political reasons.

    In announcing the latest change to the naturalization test, Homeland Security said it would make the test more difficult, and in the process ensure that “only those who are truly committed to the American way of life are admitted as citizens.”

    The department also lauded its recent moves to more deeply vet prospective citizens, saying the new process “includes reinstating neighborhood interviews of potential new citizens, considering whether aliens have made positive contributions to their communities, determining good moral character, and verifying they have never unlawfully registered to vote or unlawfully attempted to vote in an American election.”

    In rolling back the first Trump administration’s test — which is very similar to the newly proposed one — USCIS officials under the Biden administration said that it “may inadvertently create potential barriers to the naturalization process.”

    By contrast, the agency under Biden said the 2008 test — the one Trump is now replacing again — was “thoroughly developed over a multi-year period with the input of more than 150 organizations, which included English as a second language experts, educators, and historians, and was piloted before its implementation.”

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    Kevin Rector

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  • Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial begins with jury selection

    Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter trial begins with jury selection

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    Alec Baldwin’s trial in the shooting of a cinematographer begins Tuesday with the selection of jurors who will be tasked with deciding whether the actor is guilty of involuntary manslaughter.Getting chosen to serve in a trial of such a major star accused of such a major crime would be unusual even in Los Angeles or Baldwin’s hometown of New York. But it will be essentially an unheard-of experience for those who are picked as jurors in Santa Fe, New Mexico, though in recent years the state has increasingly become a hub of Hollywood production.Baldwin and his wife Hilaria arrived at the courthouse Tuesday with their youngest child, Ilaria Catalina Irena Baldwin. The couple have seven children, ranging in ages from 1 to 10.Baldwin, 66, could get up to 18 months in prison if jurors unanimously decide to convict him. The jurors are tasked with deciding whether Baldwin committed the felony when, during a rehearsal in October 2021, a revolver went off while he was pointing it at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. They were on the set of the Western film “Rust,” at Bonanza Creek Ranch some 18 miles from where the trial is being held.Baldwin has said the gun fired accidentally after he followed instructions to point it toward Hutchins, who was behind the camera. Unaware that the gun contained a live round, Baldwin said he pulled back the hammer — not the trigger — and it fired.The star of “30 Rock” and “The Hunt for Red October” made his first appearance in the courtroom on Monday, when Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, in a significant victory for the defense, ruled at a pretrial hearing that Baldwin’s role as a co-producer on “Rust” isn’t relevant to the trial.On Tuesday, 79 people will be questioned and narrowed down. “It’s a process where both sides get to ask really specific questions of jurors,” John Day, a legal expert with sister station KOAT, said.He added, questions will come after some extensive research by both the prosecution and the defense.”Like, looked up their social media posts to see if they’ve said anything about this trial, or about guns in general, or Alec Baldwin in particular,” Day said.Candidates will also be grouped up in a 50-minute selection to ensure a faster process. Something that differed from Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s trial. Twelve jurors and four alternates were selected in her case.”They were feeling pretty strongly that she had one job, and she didn’t do it,” Day said. “Her job was to make sure that there was no live ammunition on the set and that the guns didn’t have anything that was going to hurt someone.”That means finding the perfect juror will be key in a limited amount of time. “The ultimate juror is someone who can say, ‘I might know about the case, but I don’t have an opinion,’” Day said.However, certain ideas may be favored.For the prosecutions, the team will be looking closely at gun safety.”You’re going to want people on the jury who are familiar with gun safety issues, right?” Day said. “Who knows about gun safety, and who is going to be skeptical of somebody pointing a gun at someone without knowing what’s in it.”As for the defense, attorneys will closely look at movie set protocols.”You’re going to want people who would agree that a film is not like real life,” he said. “That if you’re an actor on a film set and someone hands you a gun and says it’s safe, there’s no reason to think otherwise.”But each side can only reject a certain number of potential jurors. “People that can kick off or they can say, ‘we’re not going to take that person for this reason,’” Day said. “It’s a process of narrowing down a large pool into a much smaller pool of jurors and alternates.”Jury selection will begin Tuesday morning at the Santa Fe County Courthouse. Opening statements are expected Wednesday.The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    SANTA FE, N.M. —

    Alec Baldwin’s trial in the shooting of a cinematographer begins Tuesday with the selection of jurors who will be tasked with deciding whether the actor is guilty of involuntary manslaughter.

    Getting chosen to serve in a trial of such a major star accused of such a major crime would be unusual even in Los Angeles or Baldwin’s hometown of New York. But it will be essentially an unheard-of experience for those who are picked as jurors in Santa Fe, New Mexico, though in recent years the state has increasingly become a hub of Hollywood production.

    Baldwin and his wife Hilaria arrived at the courthouse Tuesday with their youngest child, Ilaria Catalina Irena Baldwin. The couple have seven children, ranging in ages from 1 to 10.

    Baldwin, 66, could get up to 18 months in prison if jurors unanimously decide to convict him. The jurors are tasked with deciding whether Baldwin committed the felony when, during a rehearsal in October 2021, a revolver went off while he was pointing it at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, killing her and wounding director Joel Souza. They were on the set of the Western film “Rust,” at Bonanza Creek Ranch some 18 miles from where the trial is being held.

    Baldwin has said the gun fired accidentally after he followed instructions to point it toward Hutchins, who was behind the camera. Unaware that the gun contained a live round, Baldwin said he pulled back the hammer — not the trigger — and it fired.

    The star of “30 Rock” and “The Hunt for Red October” made his first appearance in the courtroom on Monday, when Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, in a significant victory for the defense, ruled at a pretrial hearing that Baldwin’s role as a co-producer on “Rust” isn’t relevant to the trial.

    On Tuesday, 79 people will be questioned and narrowed down.

    “It’s a process where both sides get to ask really specific questions of jurors,” John Day, a legal expert with sister station KOAT, said.

    He added, questions will come after some extensive research by both the prosecution and the defense.

    “Like, [they may have] looked up their social media posts to see if they’ve said anything about this trial, or about guns in general, or Alec Baldwin in particular,” Day said.

    Candidates will also be grouped up in a 50-minute selection to ensure a faster process.

    Something that differed from Hannah Gutierrez-Reed’s trial. Twelve jurors and four alternates were selected in her case.

    “They were feeling pretty strongly that she had one job, and she didn’t do it,” Day said. “Her job was to make sure that there was no live ammunition on the set and that the guns didn’t have anything that was going to hurt someone.”

    That means finding the perfect juror will be key in a limited amount of time.

    “The ultimate juror is someone who can say, ‘I might know about the case, but I don’t have an opinion,’” Day said.

    However, certain ideas may be favored.

    For the prosecutions, the team will be looking closely at gun safety.

    “You’re going to want people on the jury who are familiar with gun safety issues, right?” Day said. “Who knows about gun safety, and who is going to be skeptical of somebody pointing a gun at someone without knowing what’s in it.”

    As for the defense, attorneys will closely look at movie set protocols.

    “You’re going to want people who would agree that a film is not like real life,” he said. “That if you’re an actor on a film set and someone hands you a gun and says it’s safe, there’s no reason to think otherwise.”

    But each side can only reject a certain number of potential jurors.

    “People that [the teams] can kick off or [that] they can say, ‘we’re not going to take that person for this reason,’” Day said. “It’s a process of narrowing down a large pool into a much smaller pool of jurors and alternates.”

    Jury selection will begin Tuesday morning at the Santa Fe County Courthouse. Opening statements are expected Wednesday.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • The Woolly-Mammoth Meatball Is an All-Time Great Food Stunt

    The Woolly-Mammoth Meatball Is an All-Time Great Food Stunt

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    On Tuesday, two men at a museum in the Netherlands lifted a black sheet off a table to reveal a cantaloupe-size globe of overcooked meat perspiring under a bell jar. This was no ordinary spaghetti topper: It was a woolly-mammoth meatball, created by an Australian lab-grown-meat company called Vow.

    The meatball, made using real mammoth DNA, supposedly smelled like cooked crocodile meat, and in press photos, it looked oddly furry, like it had been coughed up by a cat or rolled around by a dung beetle. Still, meat from a long-extinct behemoth that lived during the Ice Age—how could I not want to try it? Although some on Twitter were clearly grossed out, many others were also intrigued. “Bet it tastes better than Ikeas,” one user wrote.

    Disappointingly, the meatball was not made for consumption. Because it contains proteins that haven’t been eaten in thousands of years, the scientists who made it aren’t sure it would be safe. It was a marketing ploy cooked up by a creative agency that worked with Vow. I eventually realized that I wanted the meatball for the same reasons I wanted the Doritos Locos Taco, KFC’s Double Down Sandwich, and Van Leeuwen’s ranch-flavored ice cream: sheer, dumb novelty. This was stunt marketing 101 applied to the future of food, and I was the sucker falling for it.

    Food marketers have made an art of using stunt foods to draw attention to brands and court new audiences. Starbucks’s unhinged Unicorn Frappuccino begged to be Instagrammed; Buffalo Wild Wings chicken coated with Mountain Dew–infused sauce pandered to anyone who has ever experienced the late-night munchies. Typically unexpected, funny, or edgy, stunt foods are “pure marketing,” Mark Lang, a marketing professor at the University of Tampa, told me. They work because they’re bonkers enough to break through the noise of social media and get people talking, he said. But so far, they have caught our attention by twisting familiar items. Lab-grown meat, and all the permutations of protein it makes possible, is pushing us into a new era of stunt marketing, one involving foods people may have never tried.

    George Pappou, Vow’s CEO and founder, told me that the meatball was meant to “start a conversation about the food that we’re going to eat tomorrow being different from the food that we eat today.” Although the stunt drew attention toward Vow—I am writing this, and you are reading this, after all—the company doesn’t have any products on the market yet, only plans to introduce lab-made Japanese quail to diners in Singapore later this year. So what did it accomplish, exactly? “I don’t think of this one so much as a stunt as a demonstration,” Lang said. “It’s an exaggeration of the physical capabilities of new science.”

    Because lab-grown meat is still meat, just without animal husbandry and slaughter, it’s often held up as the future of sustainable, ethical carnivory. Beef or chicken made in this way probably won’t be widely available at your grocery store anytime soon, but according to an estimate by McKinsey, the industry as a whole could be worth $25 billion by 2030. Lab-grown meat—or “cultivated” meat, as the industry likes to call it—is made by growing animal cells in a large tank until they form a sizable lump of tissue. Then it’s seasoned and processed in much the same way as conventional meat, forming foods such as patties, nuggets, and meatballs. Vow’s meatball was grown from sheep cells that were engineered to contain a short mammoth DNA sequence, sourced from publicly available data. As a result, the cells produced the mammoth version of myoglobin, a protein that contributes to the metallic, “meaty” taste of muscle.

    Theoretically, this process can be used to create meat from any animal whose cells are readily available or whose DNA has been sequenced. Think of DNA as essentially an IKEA manual for building tissue. Even animals whose sequences are incomplete can be partly resurrected: Gaps in the woolly-mammoth DNA were filled in using sequences from elephants, like using Billy-bookcase instructions to build a Kallax shelf. Growing the mammoth meat, in a relatively small amount, was “ridiculously easy and fast,” Ernst Wolvetang, a scientist who worked with Vow, told the Guardian. The same could eventually be said of any type of cultivated meat if the industry can surmount the significant cost and efficiency-related challenges involved in scaling up.

    Imagine the stunts that could be possible then: nuggets for every dinosaur in Jurassic Park, even human meatballs. Already, a few companies besides Vow are pursuing more exotic fare: The New York–based Primeval Foods plans to release cultivated lion burgers, ground meat, and sausages, followed by meat from giraffes and zebras, founder and CEO Yilmaz Bora told me. Diners are always looking for something new, so food “must go beyond the current beef, chicken, and pork dishes and come without the expense of nature and animals,” he said.

    Using stunt marketing to raise awareness about the potential of cultivated meat isn’t a guarantee that people will want to eat those products if they ever become widely available. Sometimes the creations are too gross to even consider seriously, such as Hellmann’s “mayo-nog” or Oscar Mayer’s “cold dogs,” which were, uh, hot-dog-flavored ice-cream weiners on a stick. Yet unlike these stunts, people don’t have the same frame of reference for a meatball made of cultivated mammoth meat. “The risk is that it’s off-putting,” Michael Cohen, a marketing professor at NYU, told me. Or enticing.

    If the mammoth meatball made you think They can do that?, then perhaps it will have done some good. If not, then it was, at the very least, a valid attempt to engage with the science. “The meatball thing was a very well-crafted marketing activity for a product”—lab-grown meat as a category—“that I think is going to have very low adoption,” Lang said. A majority of Americans have “food neophobia,” a reluctance to adopt new foods, he said; many don’t even eat seafood. Still, in the past five months, the FDA granted its first two approvals to lab-grown chicken products, clearing a regulatory pathway for even more cultivated goods. If the technology is ever able to scale, perhaps foods like mammoth meatballs will no longer be seen as a stunt. Eventually, they might just be dinner.

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    Yasmin Tayag

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  • AMD and Vision Loss: One Woman’s Story of Acceptance

    AMD and Vision Loss: One Woman’s Story of Acceptance

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    By Jill Adelman, RN, as told to Kara Mayer Robinson

    I was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in November 2014, when I was 57. I’m now 66 years old.

    When I found out I had AMD, my initial reaction was complete devastation. I was in a state of shock, not knowing what the future was going to hold. At the time I was a registered nurse in a very high-volume trauma center. I realized that my career would end earlier than I expected. That wasn’t easy.

    To be honest, the feeling of devastation has never really changed. But at the same time, I feel as though there’s a reason for everything, and this has given me the strength to work through the daily changes of my life.

    Managing New Challenges

    For a long time, my vision was mostly stable. But recently, it’s been changing.

    Now I find it more difficult to accomplish tasks that were easier a year ago. Makeup has become almost impossible. General computer work has become more frustrating. I can always make the font larger, which is a big help, but sometimes it’s hard to balance contrast and glare. It would be wonderful if I were more computer-savvy.

    Navigating my environment has definitely become more difficult, especially when it’s dark out. I set my watch for sunrise and sunset so I know when it’s best to stay indoors. I’m no longer comfortable being in the car at night.

    Fortunately, the changes to my vision have been slow. But I’m always on the lookout for a shift in how well I see. Every morning when I get up, I look around to see if anything has changed.

    Living With Uncertainty

    Dealing with vision loss has been a struggle. It hasn’t been easy to accept the changes that AMD has led to. Another challenge is uncertainty. I don’t know what the future may hold, and that’s difficult.

    But I’ve learned how to adjust to each obstacle and make it easier to live with wet AMD. I’ve made lots of changes in my home and in my daily life.

    I have special lighting throughout my house. For example, I have motion-sensor lights in every closet and on the staircase. So as soon as I open a door, a light goes on.

    I always carry multiple devices to help me see better, like magnifying glasses and flashlights. I set all of my electronic devices, like my desktop computer and my iPad, to display large font with high contrast.

    Since I don’t see well at night, I rarely go out in the evening without my husband. He makes sure I’m safe and helps me in low-light situations.

    The Power of People

    Fortunately, I have a very strong family support system. My children, including my children-in-law, don’t treat me any differently since my diagnosis, but they’re always there no matter what I need. I never hesitate to ask any of them to take me somewhere, get something for me, or help me at any time.

    If we’re going somewhere and there’s a curve or a ramp, one of my older grandchildren is at my side to assist. They instinctively come and take my hand. I might not need as much help as they’re willing to offer, but this is what’s natural for them and I make it natural and normal for me.

    Another powerful way I’ve found to deal with AMD is being an advocate for others. I try to get the word out to as many places, organizations, and facilities that I can. I help the BrightFocus Organization advocate for more education, knowledge, and patient support.

    Being an advocate for others and showing them they’re not alone in dealing with this disease helps me mentally. If it gives one person a little bit of comfort, that makes me feel better.

    Acceptance and Hope

    I don’t think I’ve really come to terms with vision loss, but I’ve accepted that this is going to be a part of my future.

    I force myself every day to learn and readjust how I approach things, which helps me live the most normal life I can. Because there are new treatments on the horizon and more research is being done, I always have hope for the future.

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  • Learning to Live With AMD: A Caregiver’s Story

    Learning to Live With AMD: A Caregiver’s Story

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    By Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons, as told to Kara Mayer Robinson

    My father, Richard, had wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). As his caregiver, I saw him struggle with vision loss more and more over time.

    It was incredibly hard for him, especially since he loved to read. While it might have been nice if he just woke up one day and accepted that his vision would never be the way it was before, that’s not what happened.

    His AMD Diagnosis

    My dad was diagnosed with AMD just after he turned 64. He woke up one morning and couldn’t see anything. He went to an emergency eye doctor, who said it was macular degeneration.

    I learned later that he’d had blurry vision a couple of months before that, so it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when it started.

    He was living in an apartment in San Francisco at the time. He eventually moved into an assisted living facility for veterans, where he stayed for the last several years of his life, until he died at age 89.

    Learning to Accept Help

    My dad never got to the point of complete vision loss, which I’m grateful for. But living with AMD wasn’t easy.

    When he was diagnosed, I think he was angry. Absolutely angry. In the beginning, he didn’t know what to do. I told him he should get a cane. He refused. Only when he had atrophy in his feet did he start using a cane.

    Over time, my dad learned how to accept help.

    Thanks to the local VA, we learned about a store called Adaptations. It had tools that helped with vision loss, like magnifiers and a talking timer. We did a lot of mobility training. If he was going somewhere new, we went there beforehand and took note of bus stops, for example.

    My dad had stopped driving years earlier because he lived in the city and didn’t need a car, so driving wasn’t an issue. But cooking, which was intuitive for him, was trickier. During his last years, he started to buy prepared meals from grocery stores. He lived near Chinatown, so he’d also go to a restaurant there and ask what the special was, then eat that. 

    My dad loved to read. Losing that was what upset him the most. When he told me how much he missed reading, I said, “OK, we’re going to the library and getting you a library card so you can get audiobooks.”

    I showed him that the Library for the Blind has more resources, like audio versions of the nonfiction books he was most interested in. I helped him fill out the application and in minutes, he had access to audiobooks, movies with descriptions, and more.

    My dad borrowed books on a regular basis. I’ll never forget when he looked at me and said, “You’re good at this.” In some way, I think he was starting the acceptance process. After he died and I was cleaning out his room, I found a box of audiobooks from the Library of the Blind, many of which were books I recommended.

    There Was Only So Much I Could Do

    It was hard for my dad and he didn’t always handle his frustration well.

    Sometimes he’d go to a bookstore and ask if they had a certain audiobook, but it wasn’t available. I tried to convince him to get an iPhone and use apps like Audible, Chirp, and Overdrive, where you can borrow and listen to audiobooks. But he refused.

    He did have a special computer that talked to him, but he didn’t use it very much. I think it was because he was part of the Mad Men generation, where computers meant people could be replaced. 

    There was only so much I could do, and I often had to let go with love.

    Loving Him Was Enough

    There wasn’t a moment when my dad just accepted his AMD. I don’t think there was ever a time when he thought, “OK, this is it, I’ll be like this for the rest of my life,” and accepted it.

    A part of him hoped it could get better somehow. In the last years of his life, he wanted cataract surgery to improve his sight, but his doctors wouldn’t do it because of his age.

    I think he hoped that with that surgery, his vision could be improved somehow. He didn’t expect miracles, but he held onto that hope. I never wanted to be the hope dasher, but I also knew that I shouldn’t really encourage him to pursue the surgery. All I could do was love him. And I think that was enough.

    What I Learned as a Caregiver

    Living through this with my dad made us closer and taught me a lot about vision loss.

    I know AMD can be inherited, so I get my eyes checked on a regular basis. I’m also trying to stay healthy. I’m working on getting my cholesterol down, I do yoga, and I’m trying to practice mindfulness to keep my blood pressure down.

    My advice for family members is that it’s important to take care of yourself, too. It’s also helpful to reach out to your local independent living center. They can take you step by step through what to do next.

    Help your family member build up as many independent life skills as possible. It’s OK to ask if they want help, but don’t just assume they can’t do something. If they’re really stuck, they’ll ask for help.

    Most of all, I’ve learned that it’s best to try, and let go with love.

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