POLITICS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In her 28 years working for the federal government, Shea Giagnorio provided day care for the children of U.S. soldiers, training for employees and oversight for safety net programs.

Public service took her from Germany to Alaska to Kansas City, Mo., where she moved last year for a long-sought promotion.

But when she reported to a downtown federal building for work one day last month, her access card did not work. After a co-worker let her into the building, she checked her email: Her entire office had been let go in the latest mass firing ordered by the Trump administration.

The 46-year-old single mom has canceled her apartment lease, is selling her new furniture and may have to pull her daughter out of college. She wonders what will happen to the at-risk populations her team helped serve at the Administration for Children and Families, part of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Not only me, but all these people’s lives are turned upside down,” Giagnorio said.

The impact of the cuts by the Trump administration, led by billionaire advisor Elon Musk’s team known as the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, can be found everywhere in the Kansas City metropolitan area, which has long been a major hub for federal agencies about 1,000 miles away from Washington. Money once promised to the region for public health, environmental, diversity, food aid and an array of other programs has been axed, and thousands of local jobs are in jeopardy.

With nearly 30,000 workers, the federal government is the largest employer in the region. One longtime Kansas City economic researcher said he believes the region could lose 6,000 good-paying federal jobs, which in turn would wipe out thousands of others in service industries.

An Internal Revenue Service worker said thousands of her co-workers fear they will lose their jobs, even as they put in overtime processing tax refunds in a building so crowded that they struggle to find desks. Under pressure, hundreds more agreed last week to retire early or take a buyout.

“It’s a kick in the stomach to people that are doing everything they can to meet what’s required of them,” said Shannon Ellis, a longtime IRS customer service representative and president of the union representing local workers.

By Thursday, at least 238 Kansas City workers had taken the buyout offers and were expected to leave the agency in coming weeks. Ellis noted many of those workers had been told they were essential and required to work overtime during tax season, some seven days a week.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture grant revocation disrupted a historically Black neighborhood’s plan to expand its program growing fresh produce in a “food desert.” A nearby pantry reduced its monthly grocery allotment for those in need after federal cuts left food banks short on stock.

Urban farmer Rosie Warren grew 2,500 pounds of fruits and vegetables last year in community gardens to help feed the Ivanhoe neighborhood, where many Black families were concentrated under housing segregation policies of much of the 20th century.

Warren harvested greens, potatoes and watermelons as part of an effort to address food insecurity and health concerns in a neighborhood challenged by blight, crime and poverty. She was thrilled last fall when the USDA awarded the neighborhood council a three-year, $130,000 grant to expand the gardens and farmers market serving the area.

In February, the council received a notice terminating the grant. The USDA had determined the award “no longer effectuates agency priorities regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and activities.”

“What do you do if you don’t support providing access to food to people who don’t have it? Wouldn’t this make your job easier?” she said. “I think it’s absurd. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The withdrawal of federal funding for new lab equipment and vaccines means the city may be less prepared for the next pandemic.

The Kansas City Health Department’s laboratory is badly in need of an upgrade, with equipment dating to when the building opened in the 1990s.

One basement space is water-damaged and rarely used. Another has equipment so inadequate that the city has to ship samples to a state lab 150 miles away, causing inefficiencies, agonizing waits for results and delayed response times.

But the funding for lab upgrades was abruptly eliminated last month as part of the Trump administration’s $11.4-billion cancellation of federal grants to states for public health.

A Health and Human Services spokesperson said the agency’s downsizing, including cutting jobs and consolidating divisions, would save money and make the organization more efficient. As for the $11.4 billion in grant funding cuts, the spokesperson said, “HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago.”

The IRS has offered a similar rationale for its downsizing, saying it is making process improvements that will ultimately serve the public more efficiently.

Musk said last year that President Trump’s budget cuts would cause a “temporary hardship” that would soon put the economy on stronger footing.

One local economic researcher said it remained unclear just how deep that hardship will be in Kansas City, including whether it will just slow growth or cause population losses.

“It’s a big burden that’s being placed on a narrow group of people,” said Frank Lenk, director of the Office of Economic Development at the Mid-America Regional Council, a nonprofit of city and county governments in the Kansas City region. “It will definitely take some of the steam out of the local economy.”

Trump has credited DOGE with helping end “the flagrant waste of taxpayer dollars,” which he says will save billions to help improve the nation’s finances.

The White House didn’t respond to questions about Kansas City. But Trump said recently he would invite the Kansas City Chiefs to the White House to make up for a 2020 Super Bowl victory celebration that was canceled during the pandemic.

Foley writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Heather Hollingsworth contributed to this report.

SACRAMENTO — When the state of California paid prison supervising dentist George Soohoo $1.2 million last year, it wasn’t for a job well done. It was for vacation never taken.

Soohoo joined the rare club of state employee millionaires by cashing out thousands of hours of unused time off when he retired, setting a new record for the payouts. He topped a list of nearly 1,000 workers who left state service last year with $100,0000 or more in banked leave benefits, a Los Angeles Times analysis of state payroll records found. In all, California paid departing workers $413 million last year for unused time off.

That’s nothing compared with the massive financial liability the state faces for the banked time off still on the books, alarming government watchdog groups.

“I’m more disturbed than I am surprised,” said John Moorlach, a former Republican state senator from Orange County and current director at the Center for Public Accountability at the California Policy Center, a conservative think tank. “This is going to be a serious problem down the road.”

The state’s unfunded liability for vacation and other leave benefits owed to current employees ballooned to $5.6 billion in 2023, according to the most recent financial accounting report issued by the state controller’s office. That’s up nearly 45% since 2019, the year before COVID-19 curtailed travel and temporary work-from-home policies left fewer workers taking time off. Over the past six years, the number of retirees paid at least $250,000 in banked vacation time increased nearly fivefold to 73 employees last year.

The rising liability stems from generous time-off provisions for state employees — including vacation accrual of up to six weeks a year, 11 state holidays, a personal holiday and professional development days — and a failure to enforce policies that cap vacation balances for most employees at 640 hours.

While the amount of unused leave becomes public when an employee is paid out after leaving state service, the controller’s office would not provide the number of vacation days on the books for current employees, saying the information was confidential. However, the controller’s office did provide totals for unused time off by department for those using the state’s leave accounting system. That includes the vast majority of state agencies. It does not include legislative employees or local governments.

The data showed state employees had 110 million hours of leave on the books as of December, although 40 million of those were sick leave and educational leave time that can’t be cashed out when workers retire or otherwise leave state employment. Those unused hours can, however, be converted to service credit to increase their government pensions.

Among state agencies, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has the most leave time on the books with 22 million hours, according to records from the controller’s office.

“There’s no parallel to this in the private sector,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. “Obviously this is a problem.”

Theresa Adams, an advisor for the trade organization the Society for Human Resource Management, said many employees in the private sector don’t use all of their vacation time, perhaps not wanting to burden their co-workers or believing it increases job security. But there typically isn’t a financial incentive to do so because many employers have caps on how much vacation time can be accrued, she said.

Last year, the 10 employees with the largest vacation payouts in California took home a combined $5.3 million. For those retirees, the time paid out was the equivalent of taking a year or more of vacation. In the case of California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Assistant Chief Kirk Barnett, his vacation payout of $578,000 last year was worth three years of his salary, according to payroll records. Barnett, who worked three decades for Cal Fire, could not be reached for comment.

Prison psychologist Victor Jordan retired in 2023 with more than $530,000 in unused leave time — the top amount paid that year. The payout was 2.8 times his salary.

Jordan said he worked around the clock at California Institution for Men in Chino, especially during the pandemic, but that his leave balance grew steadily over his three decades with the state. He said by the time he cashed out his unused leave, he still had days off from a 1992 cost-cutting plan that balanced the state budget by reducing salaries in exchange for additional days off.

“I had hours sitting on the books for 30 years,” he said. “For me, it was a perk. … A state job with the benefits, that’s why I was there. I had job offers for better money, but I wanted the retirement. I wasn’t even thinking about the [vacation] cash-out.”

Jordan said he once was chastised for booking a long vacation, but for the most part he didn’t take much time off because he provided a vital service to inmates. He said his phone never stopped ringing during his career, including in the middle of the night.

“I’d go in there and I dealt with it because I was really so thankful of the benefits,” said Jordan, who now lives in Nevada.

He said he knew his unused vacation would be a lot, but estimated it would be around $220,000. Despite the high taxes he had to pay on the lump-sum check, he said he still can’t believe how much it totaled.

“I didn’t know it was going to be this much,” he said. “It was shocking.”

When retiring employees leave, it’s not just the time off they have on the books that is part of their payout calculation. They are also paid for any additional time they would have earned if they had taken the days off instead. For example, an employee with 640 hours of leave is paid for additional vacation time and holidays they would have earned had they taken those 80 days off.

Each hour of leave is paid based on an employee’s final salary — not what they were earning when the time was accrued.

Mike Genest, who served as budget director for former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said that meant that when he left state service, the vacation time he earned as a newly hired employee making around $17,000 was paid out based on his final salary of $175,000 in 2009.

Genest said while the current system is “fiscally irresponsible,” attempts to overhaul how vacation is earned or paid out would be “extremely unpopular.” Any changes would have to be negotiated with the state’s powerful and deep-pocketed public-sector unions, which are among the top donors to Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“That’s theoretically possible. It’s not politically possible,” he said.

Genest said he retired in 2009 with $37,000 in unused leave time.

“I’ve been in high-profile positions where getting a vacation in is tough,” he said.

But he said the price tag on stockpiled vacations today is simply unsustainable. If a retiring employee instead decided to burn down their vacation before leaving state service, they would receive their salary during that time including any raises their union negotiated, and the added time would count toward their pension.

“This shouldn’t be happening,” Genest said. “It’s bad budgeting. It’s bad practice.”

In New York, state employees can accrue a maximum of only 40 days of vacation, and when they retire, the payout for unused time is capped at 30 days. The state’s estimated liability for unused vacations was $1.1 billion as of March 2024, according to its annual financial report.

Texas state workers are also limited on how much vacation time can be carried over from one fiscal year to the next, with unused time off converted to sick days. The maximum amount of vacation for someone with more than 35 years of state service is 532 hours, or 66.5 days for those working eight-hour shifts, according to Texas state statute. The state’s liability for vacation time on the books for current employees is $1.2 billion, according to the state’s annual financial report.

California’s banked time could be a budget-breaker in a recession. The legally obligated payouts for unused time off wouldn’t pause, instead dealing a blow to dwindling budgets at state departments. Under state law, once vacation or other earned time off is accrued, it’s considered compensation and must be used or cashed out when an employee leaves, according to the California Department of Industrial Relations.

“It is on our mind because the balances have a value and the value grows over time,” said Eraina Ortega, director of the California Department of Human Resources. “So, we do think about it in terms of the financial liability of it being a growing problem with each year as compensation increases.”

For example, Soohoo, the prison supervising dentist paid $1.2 million for unused time off, saw his lump-sum payment increase by roughly $55,000 following a pay bump last year. Soohoo, who could not be reached for comment, retired in March with a $263,000 pension after three decades with the state.

Ortega said balances grew during the pandemic as workers — and the rest of America — weren’t able to travel as easily for vacation. At the same time, the state balanced its budget shortfall in 2020 by reducing employee pay in exchange for two extra personal leave days a month.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated the added days off at a time when people weren’t taking vacations increased the state’s unfunded liability for leave balances by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Some departments have offered workers a chance to cash out up to 80 hours of their unused time off in hopes of reducing the liability of larger payouts when workers retire at a higher salary. Between 2021 and 2023, the state’s vacation buyback program paid employees $288 million for unused hours. The program wasn’t offered last year amid a worsening budget outlook.

Beginning in 2022, Ortega said, the state started seeing more people using their vacation time. That trend could continue to improve with return-to-work orders, she said.

In March, Newsom issued an executive order requiring roughly 95,000 state workers to return to the office four days a week beginning July 1. The remainder of the state’s workforce was already in positions that require in-person work, such as prison staff, Highway Patrol officers and janitors.

Managers are supposed to have employees over the vacation cap create plans to reduce their saved time off, but Ortega concedes that those aren’t always followed and enforcement is “not uniformly implemented across all the departments.”

She said encouraging employees to take vacation time is not just about the financial liability to the state. It’s about “the health of our workforce.”

“That’s part of why we have vacation time,” she said. “You want people to take breaks and be refreshed.”

Jordan, the retired prison psychologist, said taking time off can be hard to do at times, especially for people working essential jobs.

“You start to earn so much vacation that there’s only so much you can take,” he said.

An evening show last week at the Hollywood Improv comedy club included poop jokes, a song about young people being too woke and a raunchy impression of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

There were no quips about President Trump’s international tariffs, even from a comedian who had just posted a lengthy podcast episode about the on-again-off-again executive orders that have led to a global trade war and, many fear, could trigger a recession.

To get your fill of trade-related chuckles these days, there’s a much more reliable, if unexpected, source: the official Facebook page of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C.

The site has been rapidly manufacturing memes and sarcastic captions to capitalize — unrestrained by any tariffs — on a hot international export, namely jokes at the expense of the United States and its tariff-loving president.

One meme shows a red MAGA hat on a store shelf bearing a “Made in China” tag. The $50 price is crossed out, replaced by a tariff-inflated cost of $77.

Another cartoon — labeled “The Art of the Deal,” after Trump’s 1987 book — shows a pair of gambler’s hands. One with the word “tariffs” on its suit sleeve draws from a deck of cards bearing percentages. The Embassy’s caption: “But… the cards are made in #China. #Tariffwar.”

In Canada, the premier of Manitoba, Wab Kinew, signed a decree in an oversized folder and held it up with his signature, à la Trump. “This order,” he said, “it’s a wonderful order. It’s a beautiful order. This order is pulling American booze off the liquor mart shelves.”

Premier of Manitoba Wab Kinew at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Feb. 12, 2025. In March, he signed a decree to remove American alcohol from liquor store shelves in response to tariffs imposed by President Trump.

(Ben Curtis / Associated Press)

And on Norfolk Island — a remote rock in the Pacific Ocean with about 2,000 residents and essentially no exports to the U.S. — a children’s book author memed a baffled-looking tropical wrasse fish. The caption: “When you find out Norfolk Island exports are getting hit with a 29% tariff … guess that’s one way to leave a fish floundering.”

There are many ways world leaders, businesses and consumers are grappling with the growing threat of a global trade war, but perhaps the easiest — and, for some, the most therapeutic — is to rely on dark humor.

Joking about Trump’s frenetic rollout of tariffs has become a common response to the altogether serious issue of an economic fight started by the president that has upended markets, led to boycotts of American-made goods and travel to the U.S., and sparked fears of a recession.

Some of the humor has a barbed, geopolitical aim in a war for the world’s hearts and minds — see the Chinese government’s fusillade of memes — but political scientists say that, for many people, humor is a natural response to stressful times.

Patrick Giamario, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and author of the book “Laughter as Politics: Critical Theory in an Age of Hilarity,” said humor is an important part of the modern political process — and, for many, an attempt to make sense of events that feel overwhelming.

“The fact that we’re laughing so much now is a sort of sign of how broken things are,” Giamario said. “We laugh when things stop making sense.”

In addition to global angst, the levies have spawned: References to Trump as a “domestic tariffist.” Videos generated by artificial intelligence that show obese Americans toiling in garment factories. And lots of memes about over-taxed penguins angry about Trump’s tariffs, which targeted a few barren, uninhabited subantarctic islands.

“Poor old penguins, I don’t know what they did to Trump,” Australian trade minister Don Farrell quipped to the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “But, look, I think it’s an indication … that this was a rushed process.”

Australian Trade and Tourism Minister Don Farrell, left, arrives for a meeting with Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao, right, in Beijing, May 12, 2023.

(Michael Godfrey / Associated Press)

Trump’s tariffs have kept much of the world’s collective heads on a swivel. When he announced them, he said they would bring “jobs and factories … roaring back into our country” — despite skepticism from economists across the political spectrum.

On April 2 — which Trump dubbed “Liberation Day” — he announced a baseline tariff of 10% on imported goods from all foreign countries. He also announced higher rates, which he called “reciprocal tariffs,” for countries he said were unfairly taxing American goods. Financial markets plunged.

A week later, Trump changed course, saying he would pause the so-called reciprocal tariffs for 90 days while leaving the universal 10% tariff in place. He wrote on his Truth Social account: “BE COOL! Everything is going to work out well.” Markets surged.

Meanwhile, Trump escalated his standoff with China, hiking levies on Chinese imports — except, he later said, on electronics such as smartphones and laptops — to 145%.

Beijing retaliated by raising its levies on U.S. goods to 125%. The trade war was joined by a meme war.

Many of the Chinese memes portray American workers as unprepared for the kinds of jobs that bring products to their homes at cheaper prices.

During a press briefing last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about Chinese officials sharing AI-generated videos depicting Trump, Vice President JD Vance and billionaire Elon Musk working in factories.

“I have seen the videos,” Leavitt said. “I’m not sure who made the videos or if we can verify the authenticity. But whoever made it clearly does not see the potential of the American worker, the American workforce.”

Screenshots of Leavitt herself being trolled by a Chinese diplomat who accused her of wearing a Chinese-made dress in the White House briefing room also have gone viral.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, April 15, 2025, in Washington.

(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)

“Accusing China is business. Buying China is life,” Zhang Zhisheng, China’s consul general in Denpasar, Indonesia, posted on X. “The beautiful lace on the dress was recognized by an employee of a Chinese company as its product.”

Ramesh Srinivasan, founder of the University of California Digital Cultures Lab, said it is clearly strategic for the typically staid Chinese government to turn to memes and internet jokes to communicate its stance on the trade war, which is that it “is ridiculous and unnecessary.”

“They’re presenting it in a much more innocuous and funny way, and that’s very, very intelligent,” Srinivasan said. “It’s a sign of the times.”

Donald Trump Jr. takes photos with supporters after a town hall meeting Monday, March 17, 2025, in Oconomowoc, Wis.

(Jeffrey Phelps / Associated Press)

Trump and his acolytes, of course, are veterans of the meme wars (his son and advisor, Donald Trump Jr., lists “Meme Wars General” in his Instagram bio). The president’s meme-filled X, née Twitter, account helped launch his political career, as did his crude-but-catchy nicknames for his opponents: Crooked Hillary Clinton, Sleepy Joe Biden and Little Marco [now Secretary of State] Rubio, among others.

Srinivasan said Trump, the former reality television star, has long been skilled at using dark humor to his advantage, especially online, where he is “this kind of hybrid troll-meme person.”

Traditional Russian wooden dolls called Matryoshka depicting China’s President Xi Jinping, President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin are displayed for sale at a souvenir shop in St. Petersburg, Russia.

(Dmitri Lovetsky / Associated Press)

On the internet, the tariff jokes keep coming.

One widely-shared POV — internet lingo for “point of view” — video on TikTok shows a grumpy toddler striding officiously through an empty office. The caption: “POV: Me on my way to HR yet again for nicknaming my co-worker ‘Tariff’ for costing the company more than they’re worth.”

On YouTube, Penguins International, an apolitical conservation nonprofit dedicated to studying and protecting penguins, couldn’t resist getting in on the fun.

After Heard Island and the McDonald Islands — Australian territories where lots of penguins and no humans live — were listed on Trump’s tariffs list, Penguins International announced an online Protest March of the Penguins.

“Waddle we want? No tariffs!” read one digital protest sign.

“Beaks up!” read another.

On Wednesday, the Colorado-based organization posted a YouTube video of the birds’ annual migratory trek across the ice to their breeding grounds. As they squawked and brayed, a narrator said: “This year, they march in protest. They are peaceful. They are flightless. But they are certainly not voiceless.”

“We wanted to take an unusual current event and make light of it and stir up some support for some penguins that are endangered and threatened to go extinct,” David Schutt, executive director of Penguins International, said in an interview. Before the tariff announcement, he added, “most people didn’t know about the islands that these penguins are on.”

James Austin Johnson as President Trump, left, and Andrew Dismukes as Howard Lutnick during the “Saturday Night Live” skit “Trump Tariff Cold Open” on April 5, 2025.

(Will Heath / Getty Images)

During an Easter-themed “Saturday Night Live” skit this month, Trump, played by James Austin Johnson, said: “Many people are even calling me the Messiah, because of the mess I, uh, made out of the economy — all because of my beautiful tariffs. So beautiful. They were working so well that I had to stop them.”

On her “Good for You” podcast on April 13, comedian Whitney Cummings joked about Trump’s stated motive of using tariffs to bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S., where workers — especially young ones who prefer remote work — don’t want them.

“I have nieces who are Gen Z,” Cummings said. “They’re not going to work in a factory. They won’t even work at the Cheesecake Factory because that would mean they would have a boss.”

Whitney Cummings at Hollywood Improv.

(Troy Conrad)

American manufacturing largely moved overseas, she continued, because “no one in America believes they should be working for some corporation who treats workers badly. They want to be the head of the corporation who treats workers badly.”

Two nights later, Cummings did a stand-up set at the Hollywood Improv, performing on a stage that has hosted comedy legends such as Robin Williams, Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy.

Cummings made some mildly political jokes — including one about growing more conservative after having a child and trading in her electric car for a gas model because gas stations are the only places where it’s socially acceptable to leave a small child alone in a vehicle.

But during her short set, she stayed away from tariffs — which are, perhaps, funnier on the internet.

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Sunday. I’m your host, Andrew J. Campa. Here’s what you need to know:

Choosing to leave rather than being led away

The then-19-year-old Peruvian woman arrived in the United States 20 years ago and overstayed her tourist visa.

She traded a potential career in South America as a graphic designer for the hard work of cleaning hotel rooms and offices in Los Angeles.

She paid taxes, made friends and took courses at a local community college with the hope she’d eventually gain legal status.

The latter never happened.

During the first few months of the second Trump administration, Celeste — concerned for her safety, she asked to be referred to by only her first name — acknowledged being unnerved by the images. Undocumented immigrants have been loaded onto planes, shackled like violent criminals, en route to their home country and even countries not their own.

The thought of being ripped from her home, without time to pack up belongings or say goodbye to friends, shakes her to the core.

So, Celeste has decided to return to Peru by year’s end.

Celeste is not alone as there’s a growing sentiment among the immigrant community that it’s best to leave on their own terms rather than against their will.

My colleague Rebecca Plevin documented Celeste’s case and the factors leading some immigrants to self-deport.

What’s causing this fear?

Trump promised the largest deportation effort in U.S. history prior to winning a second term.

His campaign rhetoric centered on undocumented immigrants who had committed violent crimes. However, shortly after he took office, his administration pivoted, considering anyone in the country without authorization a criminal.

What’s changed?

The new administration has employed tactics both explicit and subtle to urge immigrants to voluntarily leave.

The day he was inaugurated, Trump disabled the CBP One mobile app the Biden administration had utilized since 2023 to create a more orderly process of applying for asylum from the U.S.-Mexico border. Thousands of migrants had their asylum appointments canceled.

Instead, the Trump administration launched a replacement app, CBP Home, that allows immigrants to notify the U.S. government of their intent to leave the country.

The agency launched an ad campaign urging people without authorization to leave immediately. This week, Trump told Fox Noticias he’s formulating a plan to give a stipend and an airplane ticket to immigrants in the country illegally who opt to “self-deport.”

The administration isn’t just targeting undocumented immigrants. In recent weeks, Homeland Security has messaged migrants who entered using the CBP One app, telling them their temporary legal status has been terminated and they should leave “immediately.”

What do the numbers say?

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to The Times’ request for data regarding the number of people who have used the CBP Home app.

Three months in, it’s also difficult to estimate how many people are making the grueling decision to leave the lives and families built here to return to home countries that many have not seen for decades.

What are immigrants saying?

Luz Gallegos, executive director of TODEC Legal Center in the Inland Empire, said her staff members talk “daily” with folks who are considering leaving.

“What comes up a lot in the sessions is, ‘Prefiero irme con algo, que irme sin nada,’” Gallegos said. “I’d rather leave with something than leave with nothing.”

Elena, an unauthorized Mexican immigrant who has lived in the Inland Empire for nearly two decades, said she and her husband will move back to their homeland in the southern state of Chiapas by Christmas.

“My heart hurt so badly,” said Elena, who also asked to be identified only by her first name because she fears coming to the attention of immigration authorities. “I saw workers and people traveling with their families, people who had made their lives here, and suddenly this happens and their dreams are destroyed.”

She has three adult children — two born in the U.S. — and two grandchildren in California. She chokes at the thought of being thousands of miles away.

About 100 miles southeast, Maria, also an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, said that after 30 years in the Coachella Valley, she, too, plans to return and try to forge a new life in the western state of Michoacán. Like the other women interviewed for this article, she asked to be identified only by a first name.

“It’s as if I’m being divided into two parts,” she said. “I haven’t been happy here, and I won’t be happy there.”

For more on the situation, check out the full article.

The week’s biggest stories

(Salvadoran Government via Getty Images)

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Column One

Column One is The Times’ home for narrative and long-form journalism. Here’s a great piece from this past week:

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

In the early, chaotic days of the COVID-19 pandemic, transitional-kindergarten teacher Elizabeth Lam despaired. She saw distracted faces when she gazed across the virtual divide to her students learning at home. So she offered comfort. Lam donned a set of Minnie Mouse ears. Four-year-old students who might struggle with 2+2 or writing their names could focus on M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E. Lam become synonymous with the ears and was dubbed the “Disney teacher” on campus. She collected and kept more than 30 pairs in her classroom. Some were purchased to mark personal milestones, such as completing her 200th half marathon; others were gifted by students. On Jan. 7, they were all incinerated, along with most of Palisades Charter Elementary School, by the Palisades fire.

More great reads

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For your weekend

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Alana O’Herlihy)

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

(Dilruba Karalp for The Times)

He and his female roommate sat on the couch and chatted the day she moved in. She ventured to L.A. after a breakup with her boyfriend, while he had never been in a serious relationship. They had much in common, though, being Canadian and owning similar views on faith, morality and an unapologetic love of Cheez-Its. But they were just supposed to be roommates. Would more blossom from this relationship or did the couple friendzone each other?

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Elijah Wolfson, Environment, Health and Science Editor

Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

LEXINGTON, Mass. — Thousands of people came to this Massachusetts town over the weekend to witness a reenactment of how the American Revolution began 250 years ago, with the blast of gunshot and a trail of colonial spin.

Starting with Saturday’s anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the country will look back to its war of independence and ask where its legacy stands today. Just after dawn Saturday on the Lexington Battle Green, militiamen, muskets in hand, took on a much larger army of British regulars. The battle ended with eight Americans dead and 10 wounded — the dead scattered on the grounds as the British marched off.

The regulars would head to Concord but not before a horseman, Dr. Samuel Prescott, rode toward the North Bridge, warning communities along the way that the British were coming. A lone horseman reenacted that ride Saturday, followed by a parade through town and a ceremony at the bridge.

The day offered an opportunity to reflect on this seminal moment in history but also consider what this fight means today.

“It’s truly momentous,” said Richard Howell, who portrayed Lexington Minuteman Samuel Tidd in the battle.

“This is one of the most sacred pieces of ground in the country, if not the world, because of what it represents,” he said. “To represent what went on that day, how a small town of Lexington was a vortex of so much. … Lexington was the first town that was able to anywhere muster men and were the first to face the onslaught of the British.”

Among those watching the Lexington reenactment was Brandon Mace, a lieutenant colonel with the Army Reserve who said his fifth great-grandfather Moses Stone was part of the Lexington militia.

He said watching the reenactment was “a little emotional.”

“He made the choice just like I made and my brother made, and my son is in the Army as well,” Mace said. “We weren’t drafted. We weren’t forced to do this. He did not know we would be celebrating him today. He did not know that he was participating in the birth of the nation. He just knew his friends and family were in danger.”

The semiquincentennial comes as President Trump, the scholarly community and others mark a national divide over whether to have a yearlong party leading up to July 4, 2026, as Trump has called for, or to balance any celebrations with questions about women, the enslaved and Indigenous people and what their stories reveal.

The history of Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts is half-known, the myth deeply rooted.

What happened at Lexington and Concord?

Reenactors may with confidence tell us that hundreds of British troops marched from Boston in the early morning of April 19, 1775, and gathered about 14 miles northwest on Lexington’s town green.

Firsthand witnesses remembered that some British officers yelled, “Thrown down your arms, ye villains, ye rebels!” and that amid the chaos a shot was heard, followed by “scattered fire” from the British. The battle turned so fierce that the area reeked of burning powder. By day’s end, the fighting had continued around 7 miles west to Concord and some 250 British and 95 Colonists were killed or wounded.

But no one has learned who fired first, or why. And the Revolution was initially less a revolution than a demand for better terms.

Woody Holton, a professor of early American history at the University of South Carolina, says most scholars agree the rebels of April 1775 weren’t looking to leave the empire, but to repair their relationship with King George III and go back to the days preceding the Stamp Act, the Tea Act and other disputes of the previous decade.

“The Colonists only wanted to turn back the clock to 1763,” he said.

Stacy Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian whose books include biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams, said Lexington and Concord “galvanized opinion precisely as the Massachusetts men hoped it would, though still it would be a long road to a vote for independence, which Adams felt should have been declared on 20 April 1775.”

But at the time, Schiff added, “it did not seem possible that a mother country and her colony had actually come to blows.”

A fight for the ages

The rebels had already believed their cause greater than a disagreement between subjects and rulers. Well before the turning points of 1776, before the Declaration of Independence or Thomas Paine’s exhortation that “we have it in our power to begin the world over again,” they cast themselves in a drama for the ages.

The so-called Suffolk Resolves of 1774, drafted by civic leaders of Suffolk County, Mass., prayed for a life “unfettered by power, unclogged with shackles,” a fight that would determine the “fate of this new world, and of unborn millions.”

The Revolution was an ongoing story of surprise and improvisation. Military historian Rick Atkinson, whose “The Fate of the Day” is the second of a planned trilogy on the war, called Lexington and Concord “a clear win for the home team,” if only because the British hadn’t expected such impassioned resistance from the Colonists’ militia.

The British, ever underestimating those whom King George regarded as a “deluded and unhappy multitude,” would be knocked back again when the rebels promptly framed and transmitted a narrative blaming the Royal forces.

“Once shots were fired in Lexington, Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren did all in their power to collect statements from witnesses and to circulate them quickly; it was essential that the Colonies, and the world, understand who had fired first,” Schiff said. “Adams was convinced that the Lexington skirmish would be ‘famed in the history of this country.’ He knocked himself out to make clear who the aggressors had been.”

A country still in progress

Neither side imagined a war lasting eight years, or had confidence in what kind of country would be born out of it. The Founders united in their quest for self-government but differed how to actually govern, and whether self-government could even last.

Americans have never stopped debating the balance of powers, the rules of enfranchisement or how widely to apply the declaration that “all men are created equal.”

That debate was very much on display Saturday — though mostly on the fringes and with anti-Trump protesters far outnumbered by flag-waving tourists, local residents and history buffs. Many protesters carried signs inspired by the American Revolution including “No King Then. No King” and “Resist Like Its 1775,” and one brought a puppet featuring an orange-faced Trump.

“It’s a very appropriate place and date to make it clear that as Americans we want to take a stand against what we think is an encroaching autocracy,” Glenn Stark, a retired physics professor who was holding a “No Kings” sign and watching the ceremony at the North Bridge. “I feel strongly that it’s time to stand here and make it clear that we aren’t going to sit back and let this happen to our country.”

Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, who spoke at the North Bridge ceremony, also used the event to remind the cheering crowd that many of the ideals fought for during the Revolution are once again at risk.

“We live in a moment when our freedoms are once again under attack, including from the highest office in the land,” she said.

“We see things that would be familiar to our Revolutionary predecessors — the silencing of critics, the disappearing people from our streets, demands for unquestioned fealty,” she said. “Due process is a foundational right. If it can be discarded for one, it can be lost for all.”

Italie and Casey write for the Associated Press.

JACKSON, Mich. — Ryan Kelley thought he had a good shot at becoming Michigan’s governor in 2022.

That is, until he was charged with and eventually convicted of misdemeanors related to his role in the Jan. 6 riot and insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. His campaign sputtered and he finished fourth out of five candidates in the Republican primary.

Three years later, Kelley says, people ask him all the time to run for governor again. In today’s America, where President Trump returned to the White House and within hours pardoned some 1,500 Jan. 6 convicts, Kelley’s two-month prison sentence for his actions that winter day in 2021 isn’t the obstacle to public life it might once have been.

It may even be a ticket to political prominence.

Far from being sidelined, those who rioted, assaulted police officers or broke into congressional offices during the deadly attack — while trying to overturn Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election — are now being spotlighted as honored guest speakers at Republican events around the country. They are getting a platform to tell their version of events and being hailed as heroes and martyrs. Some are considering running for office, recognizing that, at least among a certain segment of the pro-Trump base, they may be criminals but they are hailed as patriots.

Kelley, a 43-year-old commercial real estate developer, is among those fielding new opportunities in the political arena.

At a recent county Republican committee event in Jackson, Mich., Kelley was met with hugs and handshakes. Dozens of attendees hollered and clapped when he introduced himself as “your favorite J6-er.” They gasped and shook their heads as Kelley recalled how his young son thought he was dead while he was in federal prison. They urged him to run for governor again in 2026. It is something he said he is debating.

After Kelley finished speaking, attendees said they were touched by his story.

“I’ve done much worse and did no jail time,” said 58-year-old Todd Gillman, a woodworker and Republican chairman for the local congressional district. “Thank God people like Ryan Kelley are not intimidated by the lawfare that was used against them.”

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It makes sense that Republicans are seizing the chance to showcase Jan. 6 rioters, said Matt Dallek, a historian at George Washington University who studies the conservative movement.

Trump, himself a convicted felon, has characterized those rioters as ”political prisoners” and “warriors” for defending him and his false claims that the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden was stolen. There is no credible evidence that the election was tainted or that Trump was the winner — facts backed up by federal and state election officials and Trump’s own attorney general. Trump’s allegations of fraud were also roundly rejected by courts, including by judges appointed by him during his first term.

“Those who are pardoned can testify, like no one else can, to the horrific power of the federal government to destroy their lives,” Dallek said. “It’s a potent rallying cry, and also probably a potent fundraising tool.”

There also is a danger to elevating them, he acknowledged. Many of those pardoned by the Republican president assaulted police officers and otherwise used violence to stop the peaceful transfer of power, and juries determined their actions to be criminal — felonies, in many cases.

“It is, I think, a mainstreaming, a growing acceptance on the right of political violence, as long as it’s done in the service of Trump and his ongoing election lie,” Dallek said.

Kelley, who did not commit violence or enter the Capitol, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor trespassing charge. He said he saw some things at the Capitol — people breaking windows, for example — that he did not like. But he also rejected an audience member’s use of the term “insurrection.”

“It was a protest that turned into a little bit of a scuffle later in the day for a couple of minutes, right?” he told the nodding crowd in Jackson, a midsize city west of Detroit that residents say hosted the first official meeting of the Republican Party in 1854.

Extensive video footage and testimony from the events inside the Capitol on Jan. 6 show more than a scuffle. A mob of Trump supporters — some armed with poles, bats and bear spray — overwhelmed law enforcement officers, shattered windows and sent lawmakers and aides running into hiding. Some were threatening to hang Vice President Mike Pence and hunt down Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers.

Some 140 police officers were injured, with some dragged into the crowd and beaten or attacked with makeshift weapons. Five officers died, as did four of the rioters.

Kelley said the reason he pleaded guilty was to avoid more serious charges. That differed from his tone in his sentencing hearing in 2023, when he told the judge that his actions outside the Capitol, from crossing the police line to riling up other rioters and ripping a tarp, were wrong. The judge told Kelley: “I think you misused the platform that you had as a candidate for elected office to minimize and, frankly, to lie about what happened.”

As he gazed out at an American flag banner while addressing the crowd in Jackson, Kelley said he “was a political prisoner for standing up for what I believe was right.”

That resonated with attendee Marilyn Acton, a 68-year-old mental health counselor. She hopes pardoned Jan. 6 rioters such as Kelley become more involved in Republican politics.

“I would like them to totally get involved, because I think people need to know the truth,” she said.

Pardoned, platformed and protested

By the Associated Press’ count, at least two dozen local Republican groups nationwide in recent months have invited Jan. 6 rioters to speak at regular meetings or special fundraisers, some with titles such as “Insurrection Hoax” and “Patriots Vindicated.”

They include people who trespassed at the Capitol but also rioters who were criminally convicted and pardoned for more serious crimes such as carrying a firearm on Capitol grounds or violently attacking law enforcement.

The Western Wake Republican Club in North Carolina in March featured remarks from James Grant, a pardoned rioter who was among the first to assault police officers and breach a security perimeter during the attack on the Capitol.

Grant, who later climbed into the Capitol through a broken window and entered a senator’s office, used the stage to reiterate his claim that the 2020 election was stolen as well as another falsehood — that the actions on the front line of the riots were led by “undercovers and federal agents.” In a video recording of the event, he also decried the conditions in prison and said the experience was traumatic for him.

A Republican women’s club in Lawrence County, Tenn., this month hosted an event for Ronald Colton McAbee, who was convicted of felonies for his violent acts on Jan. 6.

He was employed as a sheriff’s deputy in Tennessee when he went to Capitol, dragging an officer away from a police line and punching another officer who tried to stop him.

McAbee told the crowd that the jury that convicted him of five felonies was biased and said he had been trying to help the officer in the melee. He encouraged those listening to get involved in politics and said he had considered running for office himself.

“It has been a thought, and we’ll see what happens,” he said in a video recording of the event.

Some of the local GOP groups welcoming Jan. 6 rioters have faced resistance from their communities, prompting them to relocate or cancel scheduled events.

In California, the Assn. of Monterey Bay Conservatives’ event featuring six pardoned rioters faced so much public outrage that three potential venues canceled, according to TV station KSBW. When the event was ultimately held at a fourth venue, in Salinas, protesters demonstrated outside.

The Monterey Peace and Justice Center, a local nonprofit that condemned the event, said in an emailed statement that “rebranding these rioters as heroes is a dangerous distortion of history.”

Event organizer Karen Weissman told the AP in an email that her group believed that it was “important for our community to hear their stories and hear a different perspective.”

David Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer and co-author of “The Big Truth,” a book about Trump’s 2020 election falsehoods, said he is troubled by anyone who would reward or celebrate what happened on Jan. 6.

“We have to agree as a constitutional republic, as a democracy, that elections and the rule of law have meaning,” he said. “And if we lose that meaning, if we attack our own institutions, we are going down a path where something even worse could happen in the future.”

From conviction to candidacy

Some pardoned rioters are taking things a step beyond speaking at political events and setting their sights on local, state or even federal office.

Jake Lang, who was convicted for assaulting an officer, civil disorder and other crimes before he was pardoned by Trump, recently announced he is running for Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s former U.S. Senate seat in Florida.

Enrique Tarrio, the former Proud Boys leader who was sentenced to 22 years in prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes before his full pardon, said in an interview with Newsmax that he will take a “serious look at running for office” in 2026 or 2028 and believes his “future is in politics.”

In Texas, pardoned rioter Ryan Nichols announced a run for Congress but withdrew days later.

Kelley, who is considering the pleas that he make another run for Michigan governor next year, said is not sure he can commit his young family to the grind of the campaign. He said he wants Michigan to win, whether or not he is the one in office.

Still, he recognizes that Trump’s pardons have opened a window of opportunity that may not last forever.

“Now is kind of the time that I could catapult with that, right?” he said in an interview. “We get a lot of hate, but I’m also going to get a lot of support.”

Swenson writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

For Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, the list of problems keeps piling up.

She began the year facing a barrage of criticism over the city’s handling of the Palisades fire — her initial absence, her removal of an outspoken fire chief, the unpredictable doings of her recovery czar.

But even without that devastating emergency, there are other signs that the city has entered a precarious period.

Construction of new homes has steadily slowed, even as housing costs climb. Film and television productions have been fleeing the city, wounding an entertainment industry already in crisis. President Trump’s trade war and immigration crackdown threaten two other pillars of the economy: international trade and tourism.

On Monday, Bass will offer her assessment of the city’s overall health during her yearly State of the City address. That same day, she will release her budget for 2025-26, laying out her plan for addressing yet another huge problem: the city’s financial crisis.

Faced with a nearly $1-billion shortfall, Bass has been weighing whether to lay off more than 1,500 city workers — or almost 5% of the workforce — while also eliminating some vacant positions. Those behind-the-scenes deliberations have left many at City Hall anxious about the potential impact on street repairs, street lighting, animal shelters and public safety programs.

City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who took office in December representing part of the Eastside, said she has been taken aback by the magnitude of the challenges.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who took office in December, said she was taken aback by the magnitude of challenges facing City Hall.

(Ringo Chiu / For The Times)

“I knew our city services were broken. I knew we were not having the healthiest budgeting. But I didn’t expect to have to consider thousands of possible layoffs,” she said.

Bass, for her part, is seeking to project optimism. In interviews with The Times, she highlighted last year’s reduction in street homelessness, a recent double-digit drop in homicides and shootings, and a fire recovery that she said is moving more quickly than following other massive wildfires.

“The city has challenges, no question. The city is not in decline. The city, in fact, is going to prepare to welcome the world in a little over a year,” Bass said, referring to the 2026 World Cup.

Bass said she is still hoping to avoid employee layoffs, in part by securing financial relief from Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature.

The mayor and several council members went to Sacramento last month to highlight the city’s dire financial condition. The mayor also spoke with Newsom by phone on Thursday about the crisis — and the city’s need for aid.

“I didn’t hear from him that there is no hope. I hung up with hope,” she said.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass speaks at a discussion with local leaders and residents to mark 100 days since the start of the L.A. wildfires at Will Rogers State Beach on Thursday.

(Carlin Stiehl /Los Angeles Times)

While Bass publicly touts the idea of state financial relief, her labor negotiators are working behind the scenes to persuade the city’s employee unions to make financial concessions, such as postponing pay raises scheduled for the upcoming fiscal year. Those increases, backed by Bass over the past two years, are expected to add about $250 million to next year’s budget, which takes effect July 1.

So far, the talks have not yielded results.

Last month, the board of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents nearly 8,800 officers, took a stand against postponing the raises.

“You deserve every bit of compensation you receive,” the union’s board of directors said in a message to members, “and the city must look to other areas to tighten its belt.”

Service Employees International Union Local 721, which represents more than 10,000 civilian city workers, had a similarly combative message.

David Green, president of Service Employees International Union Local 721, vowed to stop “out-of-touch bureaucrats” from balancing the budget “on the backs of city workers.”

(Al Seib / For The Times)

“We’re not going to allow the out-of-touch bureaucrats … to balance the budget on the backs of city workers,” said David Green, president of SEIU Local 721.

The prospect of deep cuts to city services could further complicate Bass’ bid for reelection. Although she does not yet have any well-funded challengers, she remains a frequent target of criticism from real estate developer Rick Caruso, who ran against her unsuccessfully in 2022.

Caruso, who has not divulged whether he will run a second time, recently posted a video on social media highlighting the results of a new poll from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, which found that L.A. County residents were deeply frustrated with the region’s high cost of living.

That quality-of-life survey, which included residents outside L.A. who cannot participate in its city elections, showed that 49% of respondents had unfavorable views of Bass, up considerably from the prior year.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks in January with Pacific Palisades residents gathered at Santa Moncia College to learn about the logistics of debris removal.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Mindy Romero, a political sociologist who runs USC’s Center for Inclusive Democracy, said the Palisades fire and the events that followed eroded some of the goodwill the mayor enjoyed during her first two years in office. Monday’s speech, she said, could allow Bass to reset the narrative.

“The State of the City, the State of the State, the State of the Union — all those types of reports out to the public are always about informing the public, but they’re also about setting a tone,” Romero said.

Darry Sragow, a Democratic Party strategist, said the dissatisfaction felt by L.A. voters goes beyond wildfire recovery.

The discontent stems not just from big issues, such as the loss of entertainment industry jobs, but also day-to-day matters such as broken sidewalks, pockmarked streets and lengthy 911 wait times.

“There’s a sense that things are not under control,” he said.

Sragow contends that the city’s financial problems are largely self-inflicted. And he voiced strong doubts about a windfall arriving from Sacramento.

“I don’t know that there would be a lot of sympathy for plowing a huge amount of state money into rescuing L.A.,” he said.

In the run-up to her State of the City speech, Bass has begun dropping hints about her upcoming budget. Appearing in Pacific Palisades this week to mark the 100th day since the outbreak of the fire, she said she will not cut the fire department budget.

Nor does she plan to make any cuts to Inside Safe, her signature initiative for fighting homelessness, she told The Times. “We still have to solve the city’s problems,” she said.

Some City Council members have begun expressing concern about the cost of Inside Safe, which relies heavily on leases with hotels and motels to temporarily house people moving off the streets.

Mayor Karen Bass signs her first city budget in 2023, which provided $1.3 billion to address the homelessness crisis. Now, some worry about the cost of the city’s homeless programs.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

By early March, Inside Safe had moved more than 4,000 homeless people indoors, according to a public dashboard. Of that total, about 1,350 eventually returned to the streets, while another 70 died.

Bass, as part of her effort to reduce homelessness, has cut red tape for certain types of affordable housing projects. But housing construction has still been on a downward trajectory.

Last year, the city’s Department of Building and Safety issued construction permits for 8,706 homes, a 43% drop compared to 2022, the year Bass took office, according to a report from the research firm Hilgard Analytics.

Mott Smith, who chairs the Council of Infill Builders, an advocacy group focused on development issues, said the city has failed to make meaningful progress in approving policies that will make it easier to build homes. As a result, he said, major investors and lenders are fleeing the Los Angeles market.

“Even the most die-hard boosters are questioning whether it makes sense to do business here,” said Smith, who served on a city working group focused on streamlining the permitting process.

Smith said the slowdown in housing development is depriving the city of property tax growth, which in turn reduces its ability to deliver services.

Advocates for the entertainment industry have argued a similar case, saying the loss of local film and television shoots is having a ripple effect on the economy — and weakening the city’s tax base.

With fewer local productions, L.A.’s entertainment workers are spending less at supermarkets, restaurants, dry cleaners and other businesses, said Monica Levinson, a member of Producers United, which met last week with the mayor’s team to seek additional support for the industry.

“People are not putting money into the economy,” Levinson said.

Last month, City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo informed the City Council that tax revenues were expected to come in $315 million below previous projections, due to a slowdown in local economic activity.

Bass said she will continue to push for expanded tax credits for the entertainment industry, while also searching for ways to cut filming costs locally. On housing, she said she wants a faster permitting system but also believes the problem is caused in large part by market forces, such as higher interest rates.

Some at City Hall fear the budget crisis could result in a reduction in repairs to city infrastructure, such as streets and sidewalks.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Meanwhile, the city is confronting yet another financial issue: the growing cost of payouts stemming from police misconduct, broken sidewalks and other types of lawsuits against the city.

The city will need to devote an additional $100 million to legal payouts — both settlements and jury awards — in the coming budget year, Szabo recently told the council.

Bass portrayed the downturn in economic activity and the soaring cost of legal payouts as the biggest drivers of the city’s budget woes. She expressed zero regret about her decision to boost the wages of police officers and other city employees, saying the move was needed to prevent workers from leaving.

Former City Councilmember Bernard C. Parks, who ran the council’s budget committee for eight years, attributed much of the city’s financial woes to the high cost of its public employee salary agreements.

Parks, a former LAPD chief who served on the council from 2003 to 2015, said he adopted a strategy for spending taxpayer funds early in his political career: “Never put anything in the budget that can’t be sustained.”

Now, Parks said, every layoff approved by the city will mean a reduction in some type of city service.

Times staff writer Noah Goldberg contributed to this report.

Former Los Angeles Councilmember Kevin de León is facing an $18,750 ethics fine for voting on city council decisions in which he had a financial interest and for failing to disclose income.

De León has admitted to four counts of “making or participating in a decision in which a financial interest is held” and one count of failing to disclose income, according to a report prepared by the enforcement arm of the L.A. City Ethics Commission.

The ethics report says that in 2020-21 De León voted on three city council issues that benefited the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and one that helped USC — all decisions that were made less than a year after he received more than $500 income from each. According to state law, elected officials must disclose each source of gross income of $500 or more received in the 12 months before taking office.

Less than 12 months after receiving income from AIDS Healthcare Foundation, De León participated in three separate city decisions that affected the foundation in which he knew or had reason to know he had a financial interest, the ethics commission report said. But according to the ethics commission report, De León failed to disclose $109,231 in income he had received from the foundation before he took office.

On Nov. 25, 2020, he voted for the foundation’s application for historical designation of the foundation-owned King Edward Hotel. On April 22, 2021, he voted for an item regarding a city lease of the foundation-owned Retan Hotel. On May 4, 2021, he voted again for a city lease of the Retan Hotel.

De León’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but The Times received a statement from a spokesperson for De León: “This matter centers on disclosure — not personal gain. The items in question provided homeless housing during a pandemic and health services to vulnerable Angelenos,” the statement said. “They passed unanimously, and had Councilmember De León been advised that he should recuse himself, he would have done so without hesitation — the outcomes would have been the same.”

USC paid him $155,000 as an independent contractor from July 2019 to June 2020.

Less than 12 months later, De León participated in a city decision that benefited USC, according to the ethics commission. In June 2021, De León voted to approve the Housing and Community Development Consolidated Plan proposed budget, which included a $1-million allocation to the USC Keck School of Medicine.

In March 2020, De León was elected to represent Council District 14 on the L.A. City Council. In May 2020, while still a council member-elect, De León entered into a consulting agreement with the Healthy Housing Foundation, a division of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and began providing services as a strategic policy advisor.

The agreement said that De León was to “advise and strengthen strategy regarding partnerships and policy insights on behalf of HHF’s programs and portfolio,” and “[e]ngage with policymakers and regulators on all areas related to overall strategic goals of HHF,” according to the ethics commission.

De León took office in October 2020. He filed a financial disclosure form the next month, but did not disclose the AIDS Healthcare Foundation or its Healthy Housing Foundation as sources of income. In December 2020, he filed an amended financial form but did not disclose income from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which was “the true source of the income that he received under the consulting agreement,” according to the ethics commission report.

In determining the fine amount, the ethics commission said that De León cooperated with staff and that he has no prior enforcement history. However, the ethics commission noted the violations in this case are serious and that “the violations appear to indicate a pattern of conduct.”

Similar issues were highlighted in a 2023 Times story that found De León helped organized a meeting in summer 2020 with a group of city department heads and high-ranking mayoral staffers to address issues facing the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. At the time, De León had been elected but not yet taken office.

In the months before the meeting, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation was pursuing a lawsuit alleging the city illegally denied funding for an affordable housing project that the foundation was proposing. An email from the mayor’s then-deputy chief of staff to colleagues said De León “wants to engage and come up with a solution.”

Five city officials who attended the briefing or were involved in organizing it told The Times in 2023 they were unaware that De León was employed as a consultant for the foundation at the time — or of the more than $100,000 it was paying him in the six months before his taking office.

Political ethics experts, meanwhile, told The Times that De León’s relationship with the foundation and failure to disclose his financial ties raised a potential conflict-of-interest concern. They believed his actions could have left city staffers with uncertainty about whose interests he was serving — the city’s or his then-employer’s.