Israel says Hamas is failing to meet commitments under Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan, while Hamas says Israel’s destruction makes recovering captives’ bodies nearly impossible. With 11,000 Palestinians also still under rubble, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh says tensions threaten the fragile truce.
Published On 16 Oct 202516 Oct 2025
Share
UN special rapporteur on right to housing says Palestinians returning to destroyed northern Gaza face ‘profound trauma’.
Published On 11 Oct 202511 Oct 2025
Share
Israel must allow tents and caravans to immediately be delivered to the Gaza Strip, a United Nations expert says, as displaced Palestinians returning to the north of the bombarded territory have found their homes and neighbourhoods destroyed.
Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, said people are finding nothing but rubble in areas from which Israeli forces have withdrawn in northern Gaza.
list of 3 itemsend of list
“The psychological impacts and trauma are profound, and that’s what we are seeing right now as people are returning to northern Gaza,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview on Saturday.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been streaming back into Gaza’s north after Israeli forces pulled back on Friday as part of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to halt the two-year conflict.
Palestinians across the coastal enclave have welcomed the suspension of Israel’s bombardment, which has killed more than 67,700 people since October 2023 and plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis.
The UN estimated that 92 percent of all residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the war began, and hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have been forced to live in tents and other makeshift shelters.
Rajagopal noted that tents and caravans were meant to be delivered to Gaza during a ceasefire early this year but “almost none” of them was allowed in due to Israel’s strict blockade.
“That is really to me the crux of the issue right now. Even immediate relief and aid to the people of Gaza is not possible unless Israel stops controlling all the entry points. That is essential,” the UN expert told Al Jazeera.
Rajagopal, who has used the term “domicide” to describe the decimation of homes across the Strip, said the destruction of housing in Gaza has been a central component of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.
“The destruction of homes and clearing people from the area and making the area uninhabitable is one of the main ways in which the act of genocide has been committed,” he said, adding that the recovery process will ultimately take generations.
“It’s like another Nakba,” he said, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine when Israel was created in 1948. “What has happened in the last two years is going to be something similar.”
Despite missing the last three weeks of the season with a fracture on his right hand, catcher Will Smith was included on the Dodgers’ roster for their best-of-three wild card series against the Cincinnati Reds this week, the team announced ahead of Game 1 on Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear if Smith would be able to start Game 1 at Dodger Stadium. Ben Rortvedt was also on the roster, and is expected to start behind the plate if Smith can’t go.
Still, even having Smith’s presence as a potential pinch-hitter will be a boon for the team, which was bracing to begin the playoffs without the two-time All-Star before he made late progress this week in his recovery from his hand injury.
Max Muncy and Tommy Edman, who both missed time last week with minor injuries, were also on the roster as expected.
The other big development from Tuesday’s roster announcement was the absence of outfielder Michael Conforto, the $17 million offseason signing who struggled mightily for much of the regular season but had continued to get playing time through the end of the schedule.
Conforto hit only .199 this season, the lowest mark of any hitter with 450 plate appearances. He also managed just 12 home runs (a full-season career-low), 36 RBIs and struck out 121 times (albeit while drawing 56 walks and keeping his on-base-percentage above .300).
Conforto did finish the season better, batting .228 with a .678 OPS after July 1 and going 15-for-61 (.246 average) in September. As a left-handed hitter, he also appeared to have potential value off the bench.
However, the Dodgers elected to roster trade deadline acquisition Alex Call and defensive specialist Justin Dean (who finished the season in the minors) on their wild card roster. They also kept infielder Hyeseong Kim, who is a speed threat but has been equally inconsistent from the left side of the plate down the stretch.
There were few surprises among the Dodgers’ pitching staff, which included only 11 arms (not including two-way player Shohei Ohtani) for this abbreviated opening-round series.
Rookie phenom Roki Sasaki, who returned from a shoulder injury and impressed in two late-season relief appearances, was on the roster as manager Dave Roberts had hinted the day before.
So too were right-handed veteran Blake Treinen and embattled left-handed closer Tanner Scott, who were major disappointments in late-inning roles this year but flashed some improvement in the final days of the regular season.
The rest of the Dodgers’ bullpen includes converted right-handed starters Tyler Glasnow (who will likely return to the rotation if the team advances to the division series) and Emmet Sheehan, hard-throwing rookie right-hander Edgardo Henriquez, and three other left-handed options in addition to Scott: Alex Vesia, Jack Dreyer and Justin Wrobleski.
Anthony Banda was the only snub from the team’s regular-season roster. Clayton Kerhsaw was also left off the roster as expected, but could have a role in future rounds if the Dodgers advance.
Home Depot’s multiyear downturn could be nearing an end.
When Home Depot (HD -0.68%) talks, the stock market listens. The blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average component is a bellwether for consumer spending and the housing market.
In recent years, Home Depot’s results have disappointed. Earnings have been falling, and fiscal 2025 same-store sales are expected to grow by just 1%. But that sluggish growth could quickly fade into the rearview mirror.
In an effort to maximize employment and reduce inflation to 2% over the long run, Jerome Powell and the Federal Reserve are cutting interest rates by 0.25% — citing a weak labor market and “somewhat elevated” inflation. More cuts could be in the cards to boost consumer spending and avoid a recession. Although artificial intelligence (AI) has been driving the stock market to record highs, U.S. gross domestic product growth is projected to be just 1.6% in 2025 and under 2% every year through 2028 — illustrating weakness in the broader economy.
Here’s why an interest rate cut is great news for Home Depot, and whether the dividend stock is a buy now.
Image source: Getty Images.
Higher interest rates have a significant impact on consumer spending, particularly on discretionary goods, services, and travel. When money is more readily available for borrowing, consumers may opt for a car loan or a mortgage because the monthly payment is lower. Or they may finance a home improvement project. In this vein, lower interest rates can lead to an increase in renovation projects, which benefits Home Depot.
There’s a big difference between going to Home Depot for a few spare parts to fix an appliance and redoing an entire room or section of a house. And Home Depot’s poor results suggest that a lot of customers are putting off big projects until conditions improve.
On its August earnings call (second quarter 2025), Home Depot said that lower interest rates would help boost demand and provide relief for mortgages. Home Depot CEO Ted Decker said the following:
When we talk generally though to our customers, each of our sets of consumers and pros, the number one reason for deferring the large project is general economic uncertainty, that is larger than prices of projects, of labor availability, all the various things we’ve talked about in the past. By a wide margin, economic uncertainty is number one.
The prospect of good-paying jobs and lower interest rates could certainly give Home Depot’s residential business a lift. However, the company has also been investing heavily in its professional and commercial contractor business. In June 2024, Home Depot completed its $18.25 billion acquisition of SRS Distribution, expanding its home improvement and construction business. SRS specializes in selling roofing products to contractors — which provides cross-selling opportunities with Home Depot’s retail outlets.
Home Depot made the SRS acquisition in the middle of an industrywide downturn — a sign that it is investing for the long term. SRS essentially makes Home Depot even more of a coiled spring for the next cyclical expansion period, potentially amplifying the benefits the company will feel from lower interest rates.
The market is forward-looking and cares more about where businesses are headed than where they have been. And unfortunately for investors considering Home Depot, the stock is already priced as if interest rates will continue to fall.
As you can see in the following chart, Home Depot’s earnings were on the rise leading up to the pandemic, then entered a new phase during the pandemic as consumers accelerated spending on do-it-yourself home improvement projects, driven by low interest rates.
But Home Depot’s earnings have been ticking down in recent years even though its stock price is around an all-time high — suggesting that investors are looking past the company’s near-term struggles in anticipation of a recovery.
In February, Home Depot raised its dividend by the lowest amount in 15 years and issued a dire warning to investors about a prolonged downturn in the home improvement industry. So it could take several interest rate cuts to really move the needle on consumer spending at Home Depot.
In the meantime, the stock is on the expensive side, with a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.2 and a forward P/E of 27.7 compared to a 10-year median P/E of just 23. Meaning that Home Depot’s earnings would need to grow 20% faster than its stock price just for the valuation to come back down to historical averages over the last decade.
Home Depot is an excellent company, but it is already priced for a recovery. So the stock isn’t a screaming buy now.
The good news is that Home Depot could still be a good buy for long-term investors who believe in the company’s potential for store expansions, same-store sales growth, and that the SRS acquisition will pay off. If Home Depot enters a multiyear period of double-digit earnings growth, its valuation could quickly come down, making the stock more attractive.
Home Depot could also reaccelerate its dividend growth rate, building on its 16-year track record of consecutive annual dividend raises. Home Depot yields 2.2% — which is better than the 1.2% yield of the S&P 500.
All told, Home Depot isn’t a no-brainer buy now because the stock price has run up ahead of anticipated rate cuts. But it’s still a decent buy for long-term investors.
The crew had just poured a concrete foundation on a vacant lot in Altadena when I pulled up the other day. Two workers were loading equipment onto trucks and a third was hosing the fresh cement that will sit under a new house.
I asked how things were going, and if there were any problems finding enough workers because of ongoing immigration raids.
“Oh, yeah,” said one worker, shaking his head. “Everybody’s worried.”
The other said that when fresh concrete is poured on a job this big, you need a crew of 10 or more, but that’s been hard to come by.
“We’re still working,” he said. “But as you can see, it’s just going very slowly.”
Eight months after thousands of homes were destroyed by wildfires, Altadena is still a ways off from any major rebuilding, and so is Pacific Palisades. But immigration raids have hammered the California economy, including the construction industry. And the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this week that green-lights racial profiling has raised new fears that “deportations will deplete the construction workforce,” as the UCLA Anderson Forecast warned us in March.
There was already a labor shortage in the construction industry, in which 25% to 40% of workers are immigrants, by various estimates. As deportations slow construction, and tariffs and trade wars make supplies scarcer and more expensive, the housing shortage becomes an even deeper crisis.
And it’s not just deportations that matter, but the threat of them, says Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist at the Anderson Forecast. If undocumented people are afraid to show up to install drywall, Nickelsburg told me, it “means you finish homes much more slowly, and that means fewer people are employed.”
Now look, I’m no economist, but it seems to me that after President Trump promised the entire country we were headed for a “golden age” of American prosperity, it might not have been in his best interest to stifle the state with the largest economy in the nation.
Especially when many national economic indicators aren’t exactly rosy, when we have not seen the promised decrease in the price of groceries and consumer goods, and when the labor statistics were so embarrassing he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and replaced her with another one, only to see more grim jobs numbers a month later.
I had just one economics class in college, but I don’t recall a section on the value of deporting construction workers, car washers, elder-care workers, housekeepers, nannies, gardeners and other people whose only crime — unlike the violent offenders we were allegedly going to round up — is a desire to show up for work.
Now here, let me give you my email address. It’s [email protected].
And why am I telling you that?
Because I know from experience that some of you are frothing, foaming and itching to reach out and tell me that illegal means illegal.
So go ahead and email me if you must, but here’s my response:
We’ve been living a lie for decades.
People come across the border because we want them to. We all but beg them to. And by we, I mean any number of industries — many of them led by conservatives and by Trump supporters — including agribusiness, and hospitality, and construction, and healthcare.
Why do you think so many employers avoid using the federal E-Verify system to weed out undocumented workers? Because they don’t want to admit that many of their employees are undocumented.
In Texas, Republican lawmakers can’t stop demonizing immigrants, and they can’t stop introducing bills by the dozens to mandate wider use of E-Verify. But the most recent one, like all the ones before it, just died.
Why?
Because the tough talk is a lie and there’s no longer any shame in hypocrisy. It’s a climate of corruption in which no one has the integrity to admit what’s clear — that the Texas economy is propped up in part by an undocumented workforce.
At least in California, six Republican lawmakers all but begged Trump in June to ease up on the raids, which were affecting business on farms and construction sites and in restaurants and hotels. Please do some honest work on immigration reform instead, they pleaded, so we can fill our labor needs in a more practical and humane way.
Makes sense, but politically, it doesn’t play as well as TV ads recruiting ICE commandos to storm the streets and arrest tamale vendors, even as the barbarians who ransacked the Capitol and beat up cops enjoy their time as presidentially pardoned patriots.
Small businesses, restaurants and mom and pops are being particularly hard hit, says Maria Salinas, chief executive of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Those who survived the pandemic were then kneecapped again by the raids.
With the Supreme Court ruling, Salinas told me, “I think there’s a lot of fear that this is going to come back harder than before.”
From a broader economic perspective, the mass deportations make no sense, especially when it’s clear that the vast majority of people targeted are not the violent criminals Trump keeps talking about.
Giovanni Peri, director of the UC Davis Global Migration Center, noted that we’re in the midst of a demographic transformation, much like that of Japan, which is dealing with the challenges of an aging population and restrictive immigration policies.
“We’ll lose almost a million working-age Americans every year in the next decade just because of aging,” Peri told me. “We will have a very large elderly population and that will demand a lot of services in … home healthcare [and other industries], but there will be fewer and fewer workers to do these types of jobs.”
Dowell Myers, a USC demographer, has been studying these trends for years.
“The numbers are simple and easy to read,” Myers said. Each year, the worker-to-retiree ratio decreases, and it will continue to do so. This means we’re headed for a critical shortage of working people who pay into Social Security and Medicare even as the number of retirees balloons.
If we truly wanted to stop immigration, Myers said, we should “send all ICE workers to the border. But if you take people who have been here 10 and 20 years and uproot them, there’s an extreme social cost and also an economic cost.”
At the Pasadena Home Depot, where day laborers still gather despite the risk of raids, three men held out hope for work. Two of them told me they have legal status. “But there’s very little work,” said Gavino Dominguez.
The third one, who said he’s undocumented, left to circle the parking lot and offer his services to contractors.
Umberto Andrade, a general contractor, was loading concrete and other supplies into his truck. He told me he lost one fearful employee for a week, and another for two weeks. They came back because they’re desperate and need to pay their bills.
“The housing shortage in California was already terrible before the fires, and now it’s 10 times worse,” said real estate agent Brock Harris, who represents a developer whose Altadena rebuilding project was temporarily slowed after a visit from ICE agents in June.
With building permits beginning to flow, Harris said, “for these guys to slow down or shut down job sites is more than infuriating. You’re going to see fewer people willing to start a project.”
Most people on a job site have legal status, Harris said, “but if shovels never hit the ground, the costs are being borne by everybody, and it’s slowing the rebuilding of L.A.”
Lots of bumps on the road to the golden age of prosperity.
Aug. 27 (UPI) — The State of Nevada was the target of a cyberattack, and recovery efforts are ongoing, according to the office of Gov. Joe Lombardo.
A “network security incident” affecting state systems was identified Sunday, and recovery efforts were initiated, Lombardo’s office said Tuesday in a recorded statement, adding some state websites and phone lines may be slow or offline as a result.
“At this time, there is no evidence that personal information has been compromised,” according to the recorded statement published on X.
“The issue affects only state government systems.”
A statement from the governor’s office further said that the incident is under state and federal investigation and was unable to provide technical details about the intrusion.
“The State is focused on restoring services safely and validating systems before returning them to normal operation,” it said.
The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles is one of several state agencies affected by the statewide network outage.
On X, it said in a statement that all offices are closed until further notice.
“The DMV is currently working to resume normal business operations,” it said.
Nevada State Police said its administrative offices and online services were unavailable Tuesday, though the governor’s office said emergency call-taking and essential services, including 911, remain available statewide.
Maputo, Mozambique – Down the main aisle of a bustling conference pavilion in Mozambique’s capital, Maputo, Lucia Matimele stands surrounded by lush green leaves, peppers on the stalk, and bunches of ripe bananas.
“We have land, we have water, we have farmers!” she enthuses. “What we need is investment.”
Matimele is the director of industry and commerce for Gaza province, a region about 200km (125 miles) away that is one of the country’s main breadbaskets. She and her team packed up some of their most promising crops and joined thousands of others – from within and outside Mozambique – to exhibit their wares and make industry connections as the government works to promote economic growth and development in what has been a politically challenging year.
More than 3,000 exhibitors from nearly 30 countries are in Mozambique this week for the 60th annual Maputo International Trade Fair (FACIM) – the largest of its kind in the country. Tens of thousands are expected to attend the seven-day event, the government said.
Crowds of exhibitors and eager attendees gathered at the sprawling conference site on the outskirts of Maputo for day one of the event on Monday. A dozen pavilions are hosting local businesses, provincial industry leaders, such as Matimele, and regional and international companies looking to trade in or with Mozambique.
Standing before delegates and businesspeople at the opening ceremony, Mozambican President Daniel Chapo focused on the need to ensure a good environment for foreign investors, while also building an inclusive and sustainable local economy.
“Mozambique has a geostrategic location, with ports, development corridors and various other potentialities; vast resources, mineral, natural, agricultural, tourist, and above all a humble, hard-working, friendly and welcoming people,” Chapo said in Portuguese, highlighting the country’s “unique opportunities” for international partners.
But at home, he affirmed, “economic independence starts with agriculture workers, farmers, the youth, women – all of us together”.
With that in mind, the government, with financing from the World Bank, has instituted a new $40m Mutual Guarantee Fund to help finance small and medium enterprises in the country. It will provide credit guarantees to at least 15,000 businesses and aims to assist mainly women and young people, the president said.
“One of the concerns we hear repeatedly at all the annual private sector conferences is the difficulty in accessing financing,” Chapo said while launching the fund at FACIM on Monday.
“We know that high interest rates have been almost insurmountable barriers for small- and medium-sized businesses, which represent the heart of the national business fabric, hence the creation of this fund, specifically dedicated to this group of companies, because they are responsible for 90 percent of the dynamism of our economy, generating income mainly for young people.”
He added: “This instrument is not just a financial mechanism, it is a bridge to the recovery of the Mozambican economy.”
Mozambique has “ample resources”, the World Bank says, including arable land, abundant water sources, energy, mineral resources and natural gas deposits.
However, its gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2025 is projected to be just 3 percent (it was 1.8 percent in 2024 and 5.4 percent in 2023).
Experts point to a raft of challenges facing the Southern African nation: for years it was besieged by a $2bn “hidden debt” corruption scandal that implicated senior government officials; it is still recovering from post-2024 election protests that affected tourism; and it faces an ongoing rebellion by armed fighters in the northern Cabo Delgado province, home to offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) reserves.
The armed rebellion has halted TotalEnergies’ $20bn LNG project, and, with it, put added strain on the region’s finances and near-future economic prospects, noted Borges Nhamirre, a Mozambican researcher on security and governance with the Institute for Security Studies.
“The economy of Mozambique was prepared for the next 20, 30 years to rely on natural resources … But now the most recent problem is the insurgency in the northern part of the country. So that affects the economy of Mozambique deeply,” Nhamirre said.
“And unfortunately, Mozambique did not diversify the source of revenues, did not invest in other sectors like agriculture, industry, manufacturing – relying mostly on natural gas,” he added.
“Mozambique needs to bet on producing its own food,” the researcher said, noting that it is not affordable to keep importing when the country has the potential to feed itself. “The land for agriculture is there, water is there. So, the problem is just mentality and a bit of capital.”
At her booth in one of the pavilions at FACIM, Matimele has similar thoughts. “We can feed our people best,” she said, surrounded by fresh produce from small farms in Gaza province. Across the aisle from her, another booth boasts supplies from the province of Tete: grains, seafood, vegetables, livestock; while throughout FACIM, businesses are selling locally sourced items, including coffee and honey.
In Gaza, Matimele says, people farm rice, bananas, cashews and macadamias, much of which they send abroad to countries such as South Africa and Vietnam – and she would like to increase exports and reach new places.
The challenge for them is not production, but processing and distribution, she says.
“We need big industry getting into this business,” Matimele said, adding that small farmers need guarantees that what they produce will be sold and not go to waste.
“FACIM helps us by giving us a secure market,” she explained.
For other observers, FACIM’s focus this year on investment and the Mutual Guarantee Fund are a step in the right direction, especially for small business owners in the agricultural sector.
“Agriculture is our main resource. It employs millions of people and feeds millions more,” said Rafael Shikhani, a Mozambican historian and researcher. Yet, there remains a longstanding “problem” with the sector, he noted from Maputo.
“[Historically], we have had so many breakups in that [agriculture] cycle,” he said, highlighting the 1977-92 civil war, and in the midst of that, a severe drought that hit the country from 1982 to 1984. “It was a sort of disruption to production,” he said, one that has had ripple effects.
Current challenges facing Mozambican agriculture, the researcher said, include a lack of capital for farming, as well as some people preferring to take an easier route by importing food from neighbouring South Africa to sell locally instead of growing it from scratch.
“In many areas, the funding is a key motivation,” Shikhani said. “If you don’t have funds, you can [still] start a very nice business, but there will be a certain way you will get stuck – you’ll need equipment, you’ll need to pay people, you’ll need a truck, you’ll need to put up a fence; for whatever, you will need money.”
That is where the Mutual Guarantee Fund could come in handy.
“More investment in agriculture is good,” Shikhani said. It will also help the sector evolve from individuals farming small plots of land to small and medium-sized farming businesses that make more informed choices about “the type of land, where you farm, and how you exploit your land”.
For analyst Nhamirre, the way the Chapo government goes about tackling the country’s most pressing economic issues will go a long way in determining the outcome.
But he remarks that external factors, such as the armed rebellion in the north and internal governance issues, will also play a part.
“There are internal things that the government needs to do well … The people are still very frustrated,” he said, pointing to the past year’s post-election violence, saying there is a chance protests may flare up again.
Meanwhile, Shikhani looks at the issue through a historian’s lens. “There is a cycle of crisis: if there is an economic crisis, it leads to a political crisis, and it leads to social unrest. If you deal with economics and you feed people, there will be no more social unrest, and there will be no political crisis. So, you start with economics,” he said.
“Give people food, give people jobs, give people hope – they will work and make money.”
At her booth in FACIM, Matimele and her team stand ready in matching red shirts emblazoned with the words: “Gaza, the route of progress” in Portuguese. Ahead of them is a week of networking that they hope will lead to more – more food, more jobs, more hope.
“Investment is the right way to follow,” said the provincial industry chief. “If we have investment, we can solve all the issues.”
Each morning before Cameron Brink pulls on her Sparks jersey, she scans a taped-up collage in her closet. Olympic rings, a WNBA All-Star crest, snapshots with her fiancé and a scatter of Etsy trinkets crowd the board.
The canvas is a handmade constellation of who Brink is and who she longs to be. Between magazine clippings and scribbled affirmations, Brink sees both the grand arc and the small vows that tether her: to show up as a teammate, a daughter and a partner.
“You have a choice every day to have a good outlook or a bad outlook,” said Brink, the Sparks’ starting forward. “I try to choose every day to be positive.”
That choice seemed to matter most when the future felt furthest away. The practice emerged in the thick of a 13-month recovery from a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Brink — the Stanford star and Sparks No. 2 draft pick — was forced to measure life in the tiniest ticks of progress after injuring her left knee a month into the 2024 season.
Sparks teammates Cameron Brink and Dearica Hamby clap hands as they pass each other on the court during a game against the Storm in Seattle on Aug. 1.
(Soobum Im / Getty Images)
Sparks veteran Dearica Hamby recognized how rehab was grinding down the rookie. One afternoon, she invited Brink to her home, where the dining table was set with scissors, glue sticks, stacks of magazines and knickknacks.
“I’ve always been taught growing up that your mind is your biggest power,” Brink said. “So I’ve always been open to stuff like that. I heavily believe in manifesting what you want and powering a positive mindset.”
Hamby had been building vision boards for years and believed Brink could use the same practice — both as a pastime and as a mechanism to combat the doubts that surfaced during her lengthy and often lonely rehab.
“If she can visualize it, she can train her mind the opposite of her negative thoughts and feelings,” Hamby said. “When you see it, you can believe it. Your brain is constantly feeding itself. And if you have something in the back — those doubts — you need something to counter that.”
The board dearest to Brink wasn’t crowded with stats or accolades. She crafted what she calls her “wonderful life,” layering in snapshots of her fiancé, Ben Felter, and framed by symbols of family and team.
“You’re a product of your mind,” Brink said. “Everything in my life, I feel like I’ve fought and been intentional about.”
Fighting was what the year demanded. However inspiring the boards looked taped inside her closet, the reality was gradual and often merciless.
From the night she was carried off the court last June to the ovation that greeted her return in July, Brink’s progress unfolded in inches — from the day she could stand, to the day she could walk to the day she touched the hardwood again.
Sparks forward Cameron Brink, left, and guard Rae Burrell, who are injured, shout and celebrate from the bench after their team scored against the Chicago Sky on June 29.
(Jessie Alcheh / Associated Press)
“It’s been such a journey,” Sparks coach Lynne Roberts said. “Cam’s mentality was just trying not to freak out. She was really focused on not being anxious about it.”
Brink came to practice with her game on a leash, her activity hemmed in by doctors’ timelines. While teammates scrimmaged, she studied sets from the sidelines.
Roberts praised her patient attitude as “great,” a skill Brink sharpened by the ritual of opening her closet and trusting the journey.
Kim Hollingdale, the Sparks’ psychotherapist, worked closely with Brink during her recovery. While bound by confidentiality, she spoke to how manifestation tools can anchor an athlete through the mental strain of long recovery.
“Being able to stay in touch with where we’re ultimately trying to get to can help on those days when it’s feeling crappy,” Hollingdale said. “Visualization helps us be like, ‘OK, look, we’re still heading to that vision. This is part of the journey.’ It gives purpose, direction and a little hope when you’re in the mud of recovery.”
That sense of purpose, she added, is about giving the brain something familiar to return to when progress stalls — a way for the mind to rehearse what the legs can’t.
For Brink, that meant keeping her game alive in pictures she ran through her head. Putbacks in the paint became reruns in her mind, and Hollingdale said the brain scarcely knows the difference: If it sees it vividly enough, the muscles prime themselves as if the movement truly happened.
What mattered wasn’t just mechanics. Tuning out noise became essential as Brink was cleared to return as a WNBA sophomore by calendar yet a rookie by experience. What could have been crushing pressure was dimmed by the vision boards — the “mental rehearsal,” as Hollingdale labeled it.
Sparks forward Cameron Brink shoots a three-pointer against the Connecticut Sun on Aug. 7.
(Luke Hales / Getty Images)
“I didn’t want to focus on stat lines or accolades coming back from injury,” Brink said. “I learned the importance of enjoying being out there, controlling what I can control, always having a good attitude — that’s what I reframed my mindset to be about.”
During Brink’s return against the Las Vegas Aces on July 29, she snared an offensive rebound and splashed a three-pointer within the first minute. And since, she has posted 5.9 points and four rebounds an outing, headlined by a 14-point performance through 11 minutes against Seattle.
Hollingdale tabbed Brink’s return a rarity. She often prepares athletes to weather the gauntlet of “firsts” — the first shot that clangs, the first whistle, the first crowd cheer — without expecting much beyond survival.
But upon Brink’s return, those firsts weren’t looming unknowns. They were rehearsed memories.
“That is a testament to her being able to manage herself, her emotions and her anxiety and all the stress and pressure,” Hollingdale said. “To come out and make a meaningful difference to your team straight away speaks to the ability to stay locked in and cut out the noise.”
By refusing to sprint through recovery, Hamby said Brink insulated herself from the pressure that shadows young stars. The vision boards, Hamby added, became a tangible expression of Brink’s decision to trust herself.
“She’s done it differently,” Hamby said. “For her, it’s more of a mental thing than a physical thing. She took her time, not listening to people tell her she should have been back sooner.”
When Brink shuts the closet door and heads to Crypto.com Arena for game day, she’s already spent the morning tracing the steps of the night.
On the next blank corner of her canvas?
“Being an All-Star and going to the Olympics,” she said.
Joyce Birdwell survived the North Complex fire in 2020, though it devoured her home, and a life she loved, in the mountain town of Berry Creek.
Her partner, Art Linfoot, built the house they lost, a cabin with a wraparound porch and a year-round brook where deer drank and the sound of the water lulled the couple to sleep. Birdwell fired up her chain saw nearly every morning, she told me, aware that keeping the brush at bay was crucial for safety.
Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.
But the fire that came through their Butte County home didn’t care about her trimmed trees, or her hard work or our persistent belief that everything will somehow be OK after a disaster. Birdwell, 69, and Linfoot, 80, are in Irvine now, with no intention of returning, or rebuilding.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
“I never thought twice about it as soon as we went back there and saw what was left,” she told me. “I know how long it takes for a tree to grow, and I just knew this would never, never work out for us.”
Hers is a bit of wisdom that is too often lost in our conversations about urban fire: Sometimes, recovery is not rebuilding. Politicians won’t admit it, but the ethos of #strong — measuring success with how quickly we can raise up houses on scorched earth — is snake oil, an emotional rallying cry that often delivers little more than a slippery bit of comfort that benefits the rich more than the rest. Because even rebuilding the most beloved of homes at the fastest of paces will not restore lives or communities to what they were. Or what they need to be. And by focusing on this powerful but narrow idea of recovery, we do a disservice to individual survivors and our collective good.
We need to change our understanding of what recovery is, because we live in an era when the climate crisis has created not just survivors, but refugees and migrants in California and the United States — and they deserve more than a slogan that, to steal a favorite phrase from our governor, does not “meet the moment.”
As we hurl forward to rebuild after January’s fires in the Palisades and Altadena — and all the disasters yet to come — it’s time to acknowledge that recovery and rebuilding, for all our talk, is never fair. There is a bias toward the rich embedded in the process. And for every recovery that we allow to be unfair under the guise of #strong, we march deeper to a California where the elite live in comfort and the rest live in fear — a rightful anxiety that everything we have is tenuous, given and taken as afterthoughts in a tug-of-war between Mother Nature and the wealthy.
The idea that fire recovery is fair has always been a scam. In his infamous 1998 essay, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn,” the much-revered and equally despised environmental activist and historian Mike Davis wrote that the “flatland majority” has always been paying “the ever increasing expense of maintaining and, when necessary, rebuilding sloping suburbia,” those rarefied neighborhoods that consider themselves part of Los Angeles proper only when they need something from the rest of us.
If that was true at the turn of the millennium, it’s even more so now.
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
Sean Greene LOS ANGELES TIMES
When Davis wrote his controversial piece, he also noted that “late August to early October is the infernal season in Los Angeles.” More than three decades later, climate change has intensified our weather so much that floods and fires haunt almost every month of the California calendar, eclipsing the chthonic terrors of earthquakes that rattle us only now and then.
Summer Gray, an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara who studies the inequities in our responses to climate change, says disaster recovery can be “highly performative, often driven by more privileged members of the community” who have the money and clout that allow them to suck up resources. She saw this firsthand by examining recovery after the debris flows in Montecito in the wake of the 2017 Thomas fire.
Though talk in the ultra-wealthy enclave was all about community recovery, Gray concluded — through interviewing community members — that those with the ability to speak loudest and earliest often received more help, and set the agenda for what recovery included, and didn’t. She found that “narratives of resilience were actually obscuring systemic inequalities.”
Gray warns that sometimes, whether consciously or not, these privileged groups leverage “the optics of this collective recovery to accelerate their own rebuilding,” leaving working-class survivors “sidelined or ignored.” Gray calls this attitude part of “conspicuous resilience,” conflating being temporarily displaced and inconvenienced with being oppressed and vulnerable, leading to the celebration and glorification of a recovery that mostly benefits the few.
“I am not saying that our billionaire class has bad intent,” Gray said. But the elite, “don’t really understand what the needs are.”
My colleague Liam Dillon reported not long ago that before the fire, “the average home in Pacific Palisades cost $3.5 million, the median household earned $325,000 and the total number of rental units restricted as affordable housing was two.”
Two.
When Dillon asked former mayoral candidate and developer Rick Caruso, whose super-high-end mall is an anchor of Palisades commerce, if that should be expanded at this unique moment when everything must be rebuilt anyway, Caruso told him, “Now is not the time for outside groups with no ties to the area to slow down the ability of people to rebuild their homes by trying to impose their agenda.”
Two people ride past a burning house off Enchanted Way in the Marquez Knolls neighborhood of Pacific Palisades in January.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
No ties to the area except our tax dollars, of course, and our erstwhile equality as Angelenos and Californians.
Mayor Karen Bass’ now-ousted recovery czar, developer Steve Soboroff, who supported more affordable housing, put the mood more succinctly.
“We’re not rethinking,” Soboroff said. “We’re rebuilding.”
But if now is not the time to rethink, when is?
The climate crisis is costly, whipping up more and more disasters each year. When Davis wrote his book, there were about six natural disasters in the U.S. every year where the costs of recovery exceeded a billion dollars. Last year, there were 27. This year, we stopped counting, as part of government cost cutting, but that has not stopped floods, fires and heat waves.
Even if the federal government, largely through our taxes, was able to pick up the tab for every tornado, hurricane and wildfire, our current administration has made it clear it does not want to. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been gutted, and may hand off many of its former duties to states, including California, that even if prosperous, lack the money to cover those costs.
Add to that the financial precariousness of tariffs that are making building more expensive, immigration policies that are decimating our construction workforce and insurance costs that are skyrocketing, if you can get a policy, and the prospect of the poor and middle class recovering from fire as quickly as the rich seems naive at best.
There are three actions we can take that have the potential to keep California from further devolving into climate rich and poor, housing winner and housing loser.
First, we need to end the fixation on speed.
“If it’s speed without a plan, it means you’re more likely to return to the status quo,” Laurie A. Johnson told me. She’s an urban planner who specializes in disaster recovery and a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire Safe Recovery convened by L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.
Johnson views a focus on speed as “an empowerment of those who have everything they need, or who can easily get it.”
Volunteer archaeologists Elyse Mallonee, left, and Parker Sheriff carefully sift through rubble and ash while looking for cremated remains at a house in Altadena on Feb. 18.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Why don’t we acknowledge that fire destroys more than owner-occupied houses and give equal weight to graduation rates for affected students or the number of renters successfully relocated to safe apartments? What about measuring success around health outcomes for those with asthma or heart conditions exposed to the smoke, or count the number of people who feel their mental health needs have been met or their jobs stabilized?
Certainly home ownership is emotionally and financially important, especially in unique places such as Altadena where a Black middle class found refuge and economic security. But home ownership — and by extension rebuilding — is predominantly a measure of an upper-class recovery, especially in L.A. County, where less than half of the people own the place where they live.
It’s time to slow down, and, yes, rethink.
The second action that will help us reform how we handle disaster is even more difficult: Openly talk about who gets to recover with public money (which repaves roads and fixes water systems and sewers, for example) and who gets to decide who recovers with public money.
Returning to Davis’ point all those years ago, do we continue to rebuild in places that we know, for certain, will experience fire again? What do we owe places such as Malibu, where housing values have increased significantly with each post-fire rebuilding and which have made their elitism part of their identity? What do we owe places such as Altadena, if we allow homeowners with modest means to rebuild without robustly mitigating risk of a future fire?
Maybe not every place should be rebuilt. Maybe in some places, it’s time to let Mother Nature win, or at least create buffers so that she doesn’t have the upper hand.
Our better natures want to help everyone who faces loss, rich or poor. The idea that we would tell a community that they cannot have the money to restore themselves sounds like a political and moral absurdity. But it is increasingly likely that there simply will not be enough money in the future to rebuild everything.
To be honest, we are not rebuilding everything now, though we shove that truth out of our consciousness. Trump has already denied or delayed federal disaster aid to places including West Virginia and Washington state. North Carolina remains in crisis from its recent floods. And in the middle of both hurricane and fire season, FEMA recently proposed cutting $1 billion in grant funding for disaster preparedness and security, while at the same time allocating funds to build immigration detention centers.
It is absolutely time to impose a recovery “agenda” that takes into account the realities of climate change and our housing crisis and seeks to create communities that are safe and in service of our collective needs. Anything less ignores the reality of the majority, and nearly ensures that these places will return more gentrified, wealthier and even more exclusive, the exact opposite of what public dollars should support.
The Tahitian Terrace mobile home park, destroyed by the Palisades fire, is seen along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu on Jan. 10.
(Zoe Meyers / AFP via Getty Images)
The last action we need to take to better face a difficult future is to expand what recovery means. It is not always rebuilding. More often than we like to acknowledge, it means moving on. But currently, few of our resources or even our conversations include help for those who don’t want to stick around. In fact, they’re often scorned or simply forgotten.
The Palisades fire wiped out 600 homes in Malibu, 5,500 overall. The Eaton fire destroyed more than 9,000 homes and buildings. Almost certainly, something will be built on all of those lots. Developers are already snapping some of them up. But almost as certain, many of the people who once lived in these places will not return — and probably shouldn’t.
Age, finances, health — there are myriad reasons why spending five to 10 years rebuilding a lost home is not the right decision. Recovery needs to support other options with government money, including moving elsewhere, without shame and without the pressure of the elite-driven #strong ethos that forces us to believe recovery looks like the past.
California’s best example of what this could include is the ReCoverCA Homebuyer Assistance (HBA) Program. This program gave financial assistance of up to $350,000 per household through a forgivable second mortgage loan to low- and middle-income folks, mainly renters, displaced by past fires — basically helping to buy houses for economically-challenged survivors.
The catch? The new home had to be outside a high-risk fire zone. That’s a win for displaced people, for the climate, and for encouraging safe housing and wealth building for the future. But the state is not currently funding the program for fire survivors, though some impacted by floods have a shot.
None of this is to argue that rebuilding is wrong, or that losing a home is undeserving of sympathy or help. It is. But there is so much more to survivors, and recovery, than a house.
Birdwell, who lost her home in Berry Creek, still thinks of that cabin as a “slice of heaven” and reminiscences “about how life used to be.” But she is left with anxiety — a remnant of the fire for which no one has offered her help — and a sense of dislocation and discontent. A few nights ago, she dreamed fire was coming at her again.
“I woke up, my heart was beating out of my chest,” she said. “That might be something that will happen the rest of my life.”
Her fire was five years ago, but like so many, her recovery is as incomplete as it is ignored. The conversation about Berry Creek still doggedly sticks to rebuilding.
In the next 30 years, we will assuredly have more climate refugees, more climate migrants, like Birdwell and Linfoot and the thousands of Angelenos still reeling from our recent fires. We can plan for that now if we choose to, leave behind the gratifying but false camaraderie of #strong and instead broaden our response to ensuring everyone who survives climate tragedy has options and equity.
If we don’t, we will simply move further into a future that bends recovery to benefit the wealthy, as Davis predicted long ago — prioritizing the rebuilding of hazardous communities again and again until the only people who can afford to live in them are the people who can afford to watch them burn.
Joyce Birdwell survived the North Complex fire in 2020, though it devoured her home, and a life she loved, in the mountain town of Berry Creek.
Her partner, Art Linfoot, built the house they lost, a cabin with a wraparound porch and a year-round brook where deer drank and the sound of the water lulled the couple to sleep. Birdwell fired up her chain saw nearly every morning, she told me, aware that keeping the brush at bay was crucial for safety.
Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.
But the fire that came through their Butte County home didn’t care about her trimmed trees, or her hard work or our persistent belief that everything will somehow be OK after a disaster. Birdwell, 69, and Linfoot, 80, are in Irvine now, with no intention of returning, or rebuilding.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
“I never thought twice about it as soon as we went back there and saw what was left,” she told me. “I know how long it takes for a tree to grow, and I just knew this would never, never work out for us.”
Hers is a bit of wisdom that is too often lost in our conversations about urban fire: Sometimes, recovery is not rebuilding. Politicians won’t admit it, but the ethos of #strong — measuring success with how quickly we can raise up houses on scorched earth — is snake oil, an emotional rallying cry that often delivers little more than a slippery bit of comfort that benefits the rich more than the rest. Because even rebuilding the most beloved of homes at the fastest of paces will not restore lives or communities to what they were. Or what they need to be. And by focusing on this powerful but narrow idea of recovery, we do a disservice to individual survivors and our collective good.
We need to change our understanding of what recovery is, because we live in an era when the climate crisis has created not just survivors, but refugees and migrants in California and the United States — and they deserve more than a slogan that, to steal a favorite phrase from our governor, does not “meet the moment.”
As we hurl forward to rebuild after January’s fires in the Palisades and Altadena — and all the disasters yet to come — it’s time to acknowledge that recovery and rebuilding, for all our talk, is never fair. There is a bias toward the rich embedded in the process. And for every recovery that we allow to be unfair under the guise of #strong, we march deeper to a California where the elite live in comfort and the rest live in fear — a rightful anxiety that everything we have is tenuous, given and taken as afterthoughts in a tug-of-war between Mother Nature and the wealthy.
The idea that fire recovery is fair has always been a scam. In his infamous 1998 essay, “The Case for Letting Malibu Burn,” the much-revered and equally despised environmental activist and historian Mike Davis wrote that the “flatland majority” has always been paying “the ever increasing expense of maintaining and, when necessary, rebuilding sloping suburbia,” those rarefied neighborhoods that consider themselves part of Los Angeles proper only when they need something from the rest of us.
If that was true at the turn of the millennium, it’s even more so now.
California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
Sean Greene LOS ANGELES TIMES
When Davis wrote his controversial piece, he also noted that “late August to early October is the infernal season in Los Angeles.” More than three decades later, climate change has intensified our weather so much that floods and fires haunt almost every month of the California calendar, eclipsing the chthonic terrors of earthquakes that rattle us only now and then.
Summer Gray, an associate professor at UC Santa Barbara who studies the inequities in our responses to climate change, says disaster recovery can be “highly performative, often driven by more privileged members of the community” who have the money and clout that allow them to suck up resources. She saw this firsthand by examining recovery after the debris flows in Montecito in the wake of the 2017 Thomas fire.
Though talk in the ultra-wealthy enclave was all about community recovery, Gray concluded — through interviewing community members — that those with the ability to speak loudest and earliest often received more help, and set the agenda for what recovery included, and didn’t. She found that “narratives of resilience were actually obscuring systemic inequalities.”
Gray warns that sometimes, whether consciously or not, these privileged groups leverage “the optics of this collective recovery to accelerate their own rebuilding,” leaving working-class survivors “sidelined or ignored.” Gray calls this attitude part of “conspicuous resilience,” conflating being temporarily displaced and inconvenienced with being oppressed and vulnerable, leading to the celebration and glorification of a recovery that mostly benefits the few.
“I am not saying that our billionaire class has bad intent,” Gray said. But the elite, “don’t really understand what the needs are.”
My colleague Liam Dillon reported not long ago that before the fire, “the average home in Pacific Palisades cost $3.5 million, the median household earned $325,000 and the total number of rental units restricted as affordable housing was two.”
Two.
When Dillon asked former mayoral candidate and developer Rick Caruso, whose super-high-end mall is an anchor of Palisades commerce, if that should be expanded at this unique moment when everything must be rebuilt anyway, Caruso told him, “Now is not the time for outside groups with no ties to the area to slow down the ability of people to rebuild their homes by trying to impose their agenda.”
Two people ride past a burning house off Enchanted Way in the Marquez Knolls neighborhood of Pacific Palisades in January.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
No ties to the area except our tax dollars, of course, and our erstwhile equality as Angelenos and Californians.
Mayor Karen Bass’ now-ousted recovery czar, developer Steve Soboroff, who supported more affordable housing, put the mood more succinctly.
“We’re not rethinking,” Soboroff said. “We’re rebuilding.”
But if now is not the time to rethink, when is?
The climate crisis is costly, whipping up more and more disasters each year. When Davis wrote his book, there were about six natural disasters in the U.S. every year where the costs of recovery exceeded a billion dollars. Last year, there were 27. This year, we stopped counting, as part of government cost cutting, but that has not stopped floods, fires and heat waves.
Even if the federal government, largely through our taxes, was able to pick up the tab for every tornado, hurricane and wildfire, our current administration has made it clear it does not want to. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been gutted, and may hand off many of its former duties to states, including California, that even if prosperous, lack the money to cover those costs.
Add to that the financial precariousness of tariffs that are making building more expensive, immigration policies that are decimating our construction workforce and insurance costs that are skyrocketing, if you can get a policy, and the prospect of the poor and middle class recovering from fire as quickly as the rich seems naive at best.
There are three actions we can take that have the potential to keep California from further devolving into climate rich and poor, housing winner and housing loser.
First, we need to end the fixation on speed.
“If it’s speed without a plan, it means you’re more likely to return to the status quo,” Laurie A. Johnson told me. She’s an urban planner who specializes in disaster recovery and a member of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Climate Action and Fire Safe Recovery convened by L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.
Johnson views a focus on speed as “an empowerment of those who have everything they need, or who can easily get it.”
Volunteer archaeologists Elyse Mallonee, left, and Parker Sheriff carefully sift through rubble and ash while looking for cremated remains at a house in Altadena on Feb. 18.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Why don’t we acknowledge that fire destroys more than owner-occupied houses and give equal weight to graduation rates for affected students or the number of renters successfully relocated to safe apartments? What about measuring success around health outcomes for those with asthma or heart conditions exposed to the smoke, or count the number of people who feel their mental health needs have been met or their jobs stabilized?
Certainly home ownership is emotionally and financially important, especially in unique places such as Altadena where a Black middle class found refuge and economic security. But home ownership — and by extension rebuilding — is predominantly a measure of an upper-class recovery, especially in L.A. County, where less than half of the people own the place where they live.
It’s time to slow down, and, yes, rethink.
The second action that will help us reform how we handle disaster is even more difficult: Openly talk about who gets to recover with public money (which repaves roads and fixes water systems and sewers, for example) and who gets to decide who recovers with public money.
Returning to Davis’ point all those years ago, do we continue to rebuild in places that we know, for certain, will experience fire again? What do we owe places such as Malibu, where housing values have increased significantly with each post-fire rebuilding and which have made their elitism part of their identity? What do we owe places such as Altadena, if we allow homeowners with modest means to rebuild without robustly mitigating risk of a future fire?
Maybe not every place should be rebuilt. Maybe in some places, it’s time to let Mother Nature win, or at least create buffers so that she doesn’t have the upper hand.
Our better natures want to help everyone who faces loss, rich or poor. The idea that we would tell a community that they cannot have the money to restore themselves sounds like a political and moral absurdity. But it is increasingly likely that there simply will not be enough money in the future to rebuild everything.
To be honest, we are not rebuilding everything now, though we shove that truth out of our consciousness. Trump has already denied or delayed federal disaster aid to places including West Virginia and Washington state. North Carolina remains in crisis from its recent floods. And in the middle of both hurricane and fire season, FEMA recently proposed cutting $1 billion in grant funding for disaster preparedness and security, while at the same time allocating funds to build immigration detention centers.
It is absolutely time to impose a recovery “agenda” that takes into account the realities of climate change and our housing crisis and seeks to create communities that are safe and in service of our collective needs. Anything less ignores the reality of the majority, and nearly ensures that these places will return more gentrified, wealthier and even more exclusive, the exact opposite of what public dollars should support.
The Tahitian Terrace mobile home park, destroyed by the Palisades fire, is seen along Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu on Jan. 10.
(Zoe Meyers / AFP via Getty Images)
The last action we need to take to better face a difficult future is to expand what recovery means. It is not always rebuilding. More often than we like to acknowledge, it means moving on. But currently, few of our resources or even our conversations include help for those who don’t want to stick around. In fact, they’re often scorned or simply forgotten.
The Palisades fire wiped out 600 homes in Malibu, 5,500 overall. The Eaton fire destroyed more than 9,000 homes and buildings. Almost certainly, something will be built on all of those lots. Developers are already snapping some of them up. But almost as certain, many of the people who once lived in these places will not return — and probably shouldn’t.
Age, finances, health — there are myriad reasons why spending five to 10 years rebuilding a lost home is not the right decision. Recovery needs to support other options with government money, including moving elsewhere, without shame and without the pressure of the elite-driven #strong ethos that forces us to believe recovery looks like the past.
California’s best example of what this could include is the ReCoverCA Homebuyer Assistance (HBA) Program. This program gave financial assistance of up to $350,000 per household through a forgivable second mortgage loan to low- and middle-income folks, mainly renters, displaced by past fires — basically helping to buy houses for economically-challenged survivors.
The catch? The new home had to be outside a high-risk fire zone. That’s a win for displaced people, for the climate, and for encouraging safe housing and wealth building for the future. But the state is not currently funding the program for fire survivors, though some impacted by floods have a shot.
None of this is to argue that rebuilding is wrong, or that losing a home is undeserving of sympathy or help. It is. But there is so much more to survivors, and recovery, than a house.
Birdwell, who lost her home in Berry Creek, still thinks of that cabin as a “slice of heaven” and reminiscences “about how life used to be.” But she is left with anxiety — a remnant of the fire for which no one has offered her help — and a sense of dislocation and discontent. A few nights ago, she dreamed fire was coming at her again.
“I woke up, my heart was beating out of my chest,” she said. “That might be something that will happen the rest of my life.”
Her fire was five years ago, but like so many, her recovery is as incomplete as it is ignored. The conversation about Berry Creek still doggedly sticks to rebuilding.
In the next 30 years, we will assuredly have more climate refugees, more climate migrants, like Birdwell and Linfoot and the thousands of Angelenos still reeling from our recent fires. We can plan for that now if we choose to, leave behind the gratifying but false camaraderie of #strong and instead broaden our response to ensuring everyone who survives climate tragedy has options and equity.
If we don’t, we will simply move further into a future that bends recovery to benefit the wealthy, as Davis predicted long ago — prioritizing the rebuilding of hazardous communities again and again until the only people who can afford to live in them are the people who can afford to watch them burn.
German Olympic biathlete Laura Dahlmeier was struck by falling rocks while scaling Laila Peak in Pakistan on Wednesday.
Authorities have abandoned efforts to recover the body of German Olympic biathlete Laura Dahlmeier, who died in a mountaineering accident in Pakistan this week.
Dahlmeier was confirmed dead on Wednesday, having been hit by falling rocks while climbing at an altitude of 5,700 metres (18,700 feet) on Laila Peak in the Karakoram range.
Attempts to recover her body were abandoned due to “dangerous” conditions at the site, Dahlmeier’s management agency said Thursday.
In consultation with the Alpine Club of Pakistan, the agency said her relatives would “continue to monitor the situation … and are keeping the option of arranging a rescue at a later date”.
Several of Dahlmeier’s colleagues confirmed the two-time Olympic gold medallist had said she did not want her body recovered if it put any would-be rescuers at risk.
German mountaineer Thomas Huber was part of a team that had attempted a rescue, but told reporters on Thursday, “We have decided she should stay, because that was her wish.”
Another member of the rescue team, American Jackson Marvell, told AFP it would be “disrespectful” to recover her body contrary to her wishes.
Marvell said, “The recovery of Laura’s body will be possible, but it involves incredible risks, both on foot and by helicopter.”
Dahlmeier’s climbing partner Marina Krauss, who was with her at the time of the incident, said at a press conference on Thursday that the former Olympian did not move after being caught in a rockfall.
“I saw Laura being hit by a huge rock and then being thrown against the wall. And from that moment on, she didn’t move again,” Krauss told reporters.
Krauss said she was unable to reach Dahlmeier and called for outside support.
“It was impossible for me to get there safely,” she said.
“It was clear to me the only way to help her was to call a helicopter. She didn’t move, she didn’t show any signs [of movement]. I called out to her, but there was no response.
“She only had a chance if help arrived immediately.”
Dahlmeier won seven world championship gold medals, and at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, she became the first woman biathlete to win both the sprint and the pursuit at the same Games.
Dahlmeier retired from professional competition in 2019 at the age of 25.
DeShaun Foster was hired on a hunch.
What other way was there to evaluate someone who had no experience for the role he was being brought in to fill?
The hope was that the longtime position coach could quickly grow on the job as UCLA’s football boss while leveraging his unrivaled passion for restoring his alma mater to the glory it had last enjoyed during Foster’s playing days.
Nearly a year and a half later, there are an increasing number of signs indicating that Foster’s hire might have been a smart gamble.
Newsletter
Sign up for UCLA Unlocked
A weekly newsletter offering big game takeaways, recruiting buzz and everything you need to know about UCLA sports.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
After the Bruins won four of their last six games to end 2024 with a 5-7 record, Foster didn’t simply point to that late-season success as a reason to stay on the same path. Instead, he quickly pivoted to revamp a coaching staff that had been hired on the fly and generated one of college football’s most disappointing offenses.
Among the newcomers were several dogged recruiters who immediately revived the team’s ability to land the sort of elite high school recruits who had usually looked elsewhere under the Chip Kelly regime. UCLA’s 2026 recruiting class, which includes a quartet of four-star players and is currently ranked No. 21 in the country by 247Sports.com, could be the Bruins’ best since Jim Mora challenged the likes of Michigan and Ohio State for the nation’s top prospects.
Another encouraging development revealed itself Thursday inside a Mandalay Bay convention center in Las Vegas. Foster chased away the ghosts of his 2024 Big Ten media days bumble by delivering a 6 1/2-minute opening monologue that presented a coherent message amid a touch of self-deprecating humor, the coach referring to his infamous “We’re in L.A.” line from a year ago as “the most obvious geography lesson in Big Ten history.”
“You’re gonna see growth in my team this year, and you saw growth with me with this press conference,” Foster told a small group of Los Angeles-based reporters afterward. “But, you know, I was looking forward to this, and like I told you guys before, I’ve been waiting on this opportunity to come back out here.”
Perhaps the biggest difference between Foster’s latest public performance and his stumble a year ago was that he actually prepared this time, clutching several sheets of paper instead of riffing off the top of his head to regrettable results.
That’s not to say that Foster has fully silenced the doubters. As his team prepares to open training camp Wednesday in Costa Mesa, there are unknowns galore about a roster that will feature an almost entirely new defense and a transfer quarterback who has only a month to master the offense after transferring from Tennessee.
The baseline for success in Year 2 under Foster should be at least six wins and an accompanying bowl game, which would still fall well short of what the Bruins accomplished with Foster on their roster. Remember, they nearly made the first BCS title game at the end of Foster’s freshman season in 1998 (Damn you, lack of instant replay on the alleged Brad Melsby fumble).
But a winning season combined with a horde of promising prospects on the way would serve as the biggest signal yet that maybe, just maybe, Foster is the right guy for the job.
Nico Iamaleava walks off the field after the UCLA Spring Football Showcase on May 3.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
It would have been easy for UCLA to squirrel away its new 6-foot-6 quarterback until the season started, saving Nico Iamaleava from a fusillade of questions that felt like a Congressional hearing.
But there was the transfer from Tennessee on Thursday, facing one of the biggest scrums of reporters near the end of the final Big Ten media day.
“I wanted to bring him here,” Foster said. “Just, you know, it’s time to let you tell your story. A lot of people wrote a book for you and didn’t talk to him about it, so I just wanted him to be able to come out here … and, like, really tell his truth.”
Iamaleava told a fairly straightforward story about wanting to move closer to his Long Beach home to play in front of family for a team that he considered attending out of high school. More importantly, he never came close to getting frazzled by a series of probing, repetitive questions about the circumstances of his departure from Tennessee.
“He’s just somebody that I don’t think can really get rattled, you know?” Foster said. “Personality wise, he’s kind of quiet a little bit, but, you know, has confidence. But a quarterback, you’ve got to be able to function with stuff [happening] around you.”
Letting Iamaleava get the media scrutiny out of the way now was a smart move that will let him fully focus on something far more important — preparing for the season opener against Utah on Aug. 30 at the Rose Bowl.
UCLA is installing a new grass practice field outside the Wasserman Center,
(Ben Bolch / Los Angeles Times)
For the first time since it slogged through the San Bernardino heat in 2016, UCLA will hold its football training camp off campus.
The team will use the Jack Hammett Sports Complex in Costa Mesa, a previous home to the Chargers and Las Vegas Raiders.
The site’s proximity to coastal breezes could prevent the Bruins from spending as much time soaking in ice baths as they did in San Bernardino, where temperatures routinely reached triple digits.
Right tackle Garrett DiGiorgio said the team’s hotel was only four minutes away from the practice fields, meaning players won’t be stuck on buses for a long commute.
The move to train off campus was made in large part because UCLA is installing a new grass practice field outside the Wasserman Center, but it could have additional benefits for a team that’s integrating dozens of transfers and high school freshmen.
This could be a historic year for UCLA sports.
After finishing fifth in the Learfield Directors Cup that measures broad-based success in college athletics, the Bruins could challenge for the top spot in 2025-26 based on an extraordinary combination of returning talent and gifted newcomers.
What’s perhaps most intriguing is that the football and men’s basketball teams could join their Olympic-sport counterparts in winning big upon the arrival of Iamaleava and point guard Donovan Dent.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Times, UCLA athletic director Martin Jarmond said he was bullish on the Bruins’ chances to follow up a prosperous debut Big Ten season with even greater success.
“A lot of people put in a lot of work to put us in this position, and we’re going to keep working, you know?” Jarmond told The Times. “So I’m really, really proud and I’m really excited about what we’re doing and where we’re going.”
Does Terry Donahue belong on a Mt. Rushmore of UCLA football?
(Reed Saxon / Los Angeles Times)
UCLA has produced some legendary football coaches, from Terry Donahue to Red Sanders to Tommy Prothro. Its list of celebrated players is far longer, including numerous inductees into the college and pro football halls of fame.
Who are your favorites? If you had to pick four figures to place on a Mount Rushmore of UCLA football (say, along a Bel-Air hilltop overlooking campus), who would they be? Email your responses to [email protected] and we’ll post the results next week.
Foster has experience coming off a disappointing UCLA season with a tough opener at the Rose Bowl like his team will face late next month when Utah coach Kyle Willingham brings his team to Pasadena.
In their 2000 opener, the Bruins faced third-ranked Alabama at the Rose Bowl and it looked like things might get ugly. UCLA lost starting quarterback Cory Paus after the first drive with a sprained shoulder ligament. The Bruins fell behind when the Crimson Tide scored the first touchdown on a punt return.
But then backup quarterback Ryan McCann and Foster engineered a stunning 35-24 victory that coach Bob Toledo at the time called the second-greatest of his UCLA career behind only a double-overtime triumph against USC in 1996.
Foster tied a school record with 42 carries for what was then a career-high 187 yards and McCann completed 14 of 24 passes for 194 yards, including a 46-yard touchdown to Freddie Mitchell. You can watch that game here.
Unranked at the time, UCLA went on to win its first three games en route to a No. 6 ranking before finishing the season with a 6-6 record after a 21-20 loss to Wisconsin in the Sun Bowl.
After successful Big Ten debut, UCLA has designs on something even bigger
‘It came down to me wanting to be back home’: Nico Iamaleava details move to UCLA
A year after stumbling at Big Ten media days, UCLA’s DeShaun Foster is poised and confident
Wide receiver Kaedin Robinson suing NCAA in bid to play for UCLA this season
‘It was a real blessing’: Ben Howland remains grateful long after leaving UCLA
Thank you for reading the first UCLA Unlocked newsletter. Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future newsletter? Email me at [email protected], and follow me on X @latbbolch. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Six months to the day that flames ravaged Altadena and Pacific Palisades, Mayor Karen Bass was preparing to mark the occasion alongside Gov. Gavin Newsom and other leaders.
But instead of heading north to the Pasadena news conference last week, the mayor’s black SUV made a detour to MacArthur Park, where a cavalcade of federal agents in tactical gear had descended on the heart of immigrant Los Angeles.
In a seafoam blue suit, Bass muscled her way through the crowds and could be heard on a live news feed pushing the agents to leave.
Ultimately, she sent an underling to join Newsom and U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla to discuss fire rebuilding and recovery, as she held an impromptu City Hall news conference decrying the immigration raid.
This is the delicate dance Bass has found herself doing in recent weeks. Recovering from one of the costliest natural disasters in American history remains a daily slog, even as a new and urgent crisis demands her attention.
The federal immigration assault on Los Angeles has granted Bass a second chance at leading her city through civic catastrophe. Her political image was badly bruised in the wake of the fires, but she has compensated amid a string of historically good headlines.
Killings have plummeted, with Los Angeles on pace for the lowest homicide total in nearly 60 years. Bass has also made progress on the seemingly intractable homelessness crisis for the second consecutive year, with a nearly 8% decrease in the number of people sleeping on city streets in 2024.
A “Karen Bass Resign Now” sign on Alma Real Drive on July 9 in Pacific Palisades.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
But there is a widening gulf between Pacific Palisades, where the annihilation remains palpable as far as the eye can see, and the rest of the city, where attention has largely flickered to other issues. Amid her successes, the mayor still faces harsh critics in the wealthy coastal enclave.
“The mayor has been very clear that every day that families can’t return home is a day too long, and she will continue taking action to expedite every aspect of the recovery effort to get them home,” Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl said.
Bass was on a diplomatic trip to Ghana, despite warnings of severe winds, when the conflagration erupted in early January. She floundered upon her return, fumbling questions about her trip, facing public criticism from her fire chief (whom she later ousted) and appearing out of sync with other leaders and her own chief recovery officer.
Those initial days cast a long shadow for the city’s 43rd mayor, but Bass has regained some of her footing in the months since. She has made herself a fixture in the Palisades, even when the community has not always welcomed her with open arms, and has attempted to expedite recovery by pulling the levers of government. Her office also led regular community briefings with detailed Q&A sessions.
Bass issued a swath of executive orders to aid recovery, creating a one-stop rebuilding center, providing tax relief for businesses affected by the fires and expediting permitting. The one-stop center has served more than 3,500 individuals, according to the mayor’s office.
Felipe Ortega raises the California flag at Gladstones Malibu on July 2 in Malibu. After sustaining damage from the fire, Gladstones reopened for business earlier this month.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
A number of restaurants and other amenities have also reopened in the neighborhood. The Starbucks on Palisades Drive is set to return later this month.
Bass frequently touts the Palisades fire recovery as the fastest in modern California history, though recent natural disasters don’t offer an apples-to-apples comparison.
Sue Pascoe, a Palisades resident who lost her home in the Via Bluffs neighborhood and helms a hyperlocal website called Circling the News, said the mayor has made some inroads.
“I think she’s tried very hard to repair relationships. She’s come up there a whole lot,” Pascoe said. “But I’m not sure it’s worked, to be honest with you.”
When Bass visits the Palisades, said Maryam Zar, head of the Palisades Recovery Coalition, residents tell her she has not done enough to hasten rebuilding.
“She always seems truly mind-boggled by that” accusation, Zar said. “She looks at us like, ‘Really? What have I not done?’”
The issue, in Pascoe’s view, is more about the limitations of the office than Bass’ leadership. Residents traumatized by the loss of their homes and infuriated by a broken insurance system and cumbersome rebuilding process would like to see the mayor wave a magic wand, slash red tape on construction and direct the full might of local government to reviving the neighborhood.
But Los Angeles has a relatively weak mayoral system, compared with cities such as New York and Chicago.
The mayor is far from powerless, said Raphael Sonenshein, executive director of the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation and a scholar of local government. But he or she shares authority with other entities, such as the 15-member City Council and the five-member L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
“To move things in L.A., you always need mayoral leadership, combined with the cooperation, collaboration — or hopefully not opposition — of a lot of powerful people in other offices,” Sonenshein said. “And yet, the mayor is still the recognized leader. So it’s a matter of matching up people’s expectation of leadership with how you can put the pieces together to get things done.”
Take the issue of waiving permit fees.
Construction workers rebuild a home on July 9 in Pacific Palisades.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
In February, City Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the fire-ravaged area, introduced a proposal to stop levying fees for permits to rebuild Palisades homes.
Pascoe and others cheered in late April when the mayor signed an executive order supporting Park’s plan.
But as Pascoe moved forward with rebuilding her longtime home, she was confused when her architect gave her a form to sign that said she would pay the city back if the City Council doesn’t move forward on the fee waivers.
As it turned out, Bass’ order did not cancel permit fees outright but suspended their collection, contingent on the council ultimately passing its ordinance, since the mayor can’t legally cancel the fees on her own.
Park’s proposal is still wending its way through the council approval process. Officials estimate that waiving the fees will cost around $86 million — a particularly eye-popping sum, given the city’s budget crisis, that may make approval difficult.
Apart from the limitations of her office, Bass has also confused residents and made her own path harder with a seemingly haphazard approach to delegating authority.
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 April 17.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Within a month of the blaze, Bass announced the hiring of Hagerty Consulting as a “world-class disaster recovery firm” that would coordinate “private and public entities.” To many residents, Bass had appeared to give the firm the gargantuan task of restoring the Palisades.
In reality, Hagerty was retained as a consultant to the city’s tiny, underfunded Emergency Management Department, whose general manager, Carol Parks, is designated by city charter as the recovery coordinator. Bass also brought out of retirement another former EMD chief, Jim Featherstone, who has served as de facto recovery chief behind the scenes.
But based on Bass’ public statements, many Angelenos thought the recovery would be led by a familiar face — Steve Soboroff.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and her disaster recovery czar Steve Soboroff, left, talk to media during a news conference at the Palisades Recreation Center on Jan. 27 in Pacific Palisades.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Soboroff, a developer, civic leader and longtime Palisades resident, signed on for a three-month stint as chief recovery officer and was initially tasked with creating a comprehensive strategy for rebuilding. But his role was soon dramatically scaled back. When he left in mid-April, Soboroff said he had been shut out from high-level planning essentially from the start and spoke candidly about his issues with Hagerty.
The city brought in a headhunter before Soboroff left, but the position has now been unfilled for longer than Soboroff’s 90-day tenure. (Seidl said Wednesday that the city is “in the process of interviewing and thoroughly vetting qualified candidates,” though he did not set a timeline.)
In June, Bass shifted course again by tapping AECOM, the global engineering firm, to develop a master recovery plan, including logistics and public-private partnerships.
Yet Bass’ office has said little to clarify how AECOM will work with Hagerty, and at a public meeting last month, leaders of the Emergency Management Department said that they, too, were in the dark about AECOM’s scope of work.
“We don’t know a whole lot about AECOM other than their reputation as a company,” Featherstone said at the City Council’s ad hoc recovery committee.
Seidl said Wednesday that AECOM would be working in “deep coordination” with Featherstone’s department while managing the overall rebuilding process. The firm is responsible for developing an infrastructure reconstruction plan, a logistics planning in coordination with local builders and suppliers and a master traffic plan as rebuilding activity increases, he said.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, left, U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and California Gov. Gavin Newsom tour the downtown business district of Pacific Palisades as the Palisades fire continues to burn on Jan. 8 in Los Angeles.
(Eric Thayer / Getty Images)
Hagerty, meanwhile, continues to work with EMD and has charged the city nearly $2 million thus far, Seidl said, most of which is reimbursable by the federal government.
Zar, head of the Palisades Recovery Coalition, said she was told to expect a meeting with AECOM more than a month ago, but that meeting has been delayed “week after week after week, for four or five weeks.”
“That organized recovery structure isn’t there, and that void is really creating space for Palisadians to be fearful, fight against each other, and be divided,” said Zar. “That our leaders and lawmakers have yet to come to the table with a plan is unforgivable.”
The work awarded to Hagerty, AECOM and another firm, IEM, which is assisting in federal reimbursements, prompted City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez to remark in June, “For a broke city, we find a lot of money to give out a lot of contracts.”
Bass’ 2022 mayoral opponent Rick Caruso has been a frequent — and very public — antagonist since the fires, questioning delays and taking other shots at the mayor.
Caruso’s Steadfast L.A., the nonprofit he launched to support fire victims, pushed for an artificial intelligence tool that could swiftly flag code violations in construction plans and trim permit processing times.
Steadfast representatives got buy-in from L.A. County. When they presented the tool to Bass’ team, they said they encountered general support but a plodding pace. Frustrated, Caruso reached out to Newsom, who, according to Caruso, quickly championed the technology, pushing the city to embrace it.
Bass’ spokesperson disputed the suggestion of delays, saying the mayor’s team has discussed technological innovations with Newsom’s office since February.
This week, L.A. County rolled out a pilot program in which fire survivors can use the AI plan-check tool. The city launched beta testing of the tool Wednesday.
The episode exemplified to Caruso why the recovery has moved slowly.
“There’s no decision-making process to get things done with a sense of urgency,” he said.
It has been more than a year since Cameron Brink suited up for the Sparks, and excitement is building around the return of one of the team’s biggest stars.
Sidelined by a torn ACL and meniscus, Brink has steadily progressed through drills and contact work since training camp.
Head coach Lynne Roberts, who spoke with her last week, said Brink is making significant progress and is champing at the bit to get back on the court.
There’s no set timeline, as the team remains cautious about pushing her too hard during recovery. At this point, her return depends on when team doctors and Brink agree she’s ready.
“I want to know as much as you do about when she’ll be back — and I don’t,” Roberts said. “It’ll be sooner rather than later, but soon could be a couple of weeks or it could be a month. I don’t know.”
Dearica Hamby, who is close with Brink, said she has seen “the commitment it takes not to give up and show up and pour into herself and her teammates — and being optimistic about getting back.”
Through 17 games, the Sparks are 5-12 — just one win better than their start last season — but there’s confidence they can eventually turn the tide with a healthier roster.
Still, the process has been frustrating, not just because of the losses, but because of how many of them unfolded.
“If we don’t show up and play collectively, with a spirit, we’ll get beat,” Roberts said. “We’ve learned the hard way, too many times this year. Chicago was a good example — we had that game and just fell apart. Really frustrating.”
The return of Odyssey Sims, who missed time for personal reasons, and Julie Allemand, fresh off a EuroBasket championship, has brought renewed optimism.
“Part of the team I signed up to coach is getting close to being back,” Roberts said.
Hamby said the frustration is felt “individually and collectively, at each level — upper staff, lower staff.”
“We’re going to take those frustrations and build off them so we can learn from them to be better,” she added.
The road ahead doesn’t get easier. The Sparks now face a tough three-game trip against the defending champion New York Liberty, the Indiana Fever with a potentially returning Caitlin Clark and the WNBA-leading Minnesota Lynx.
With making the playoffs still a goal, the team currently sits 11th in the standings, as the gap continues to widen between contenders and those on the outside looking in.
Rae Burrell is off crutches for the first time in six weeks after suffering a knee injury in the season opener.
Initially given a six- to eight-week timeline for recovery, Burrell returned to practice right on schedule and has begun working toward game action. The team is easing her back now that the broken bone in her knee is fully healed.
“We don’t want to throw her into the fire right off the bat,” Roberts said. “Today was her first day out there, but no contact was allowed.”
Roberts said Burrell’s reintroduction probably will move quickly based on updates from the training staff. She will travel with the team and is expected to absorb more contact starting with tomorrow’s practice.
Depending on her progress, her return to the rotation could come as early as Saturday against the Fever.
“She’s amped up,” Roberts said. “She doesn’t look tired like the rest of them — got bounce in her legs. She’s ready to roll. So it’d be good to get her back there, bringing athleticism and length to our perimeter.”
In the beginning there was chaos.
Three years ago, FX’s “The Bear” splattered across our screens and made it impossible to look away. The yelling; the cursing; the gravy-slopping, bowl-clattering, grease-slick, jerry-rigged anxious sweaty mess of the Chicago sandwich shop the Beef and the wildly dysfunctional group of people who worked there, including elite chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), who inherited the Beef from his dead-by-suicide beloved brother Mikey (Jon Bernthal), wowed critics and raised the culture’s collective cortisol count to eye-twitching levels.
Critics used terms like “stress bomb” and “adrenaline shot”; current and former restaurant workers described symptoms not unlike those of PTSD, and viewers ate it all up with a spoon.
Season 2, in which Carmy follows through on his plan to turn the Beef into a fine-dining establishment, only increased the anxiety level. With real money on the table (courtesy of Carmy’s uncle Jimmy, played by Oliver Platt), along with the hopes, dreams and professional futures of the staff, including Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Marcus (Lionel Boyce), Tina (Liza Colón-Zayas), Sugar (Abby Elliott) and, of course, Cousin Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), stakes were cranked to do-or-die.
When the episode “Fishes,” a stomach-clenching holiday buffet of trauma, revealed the twisted roots of a family forged by alcoholism — Carmy’s mother Donna (Jamie Lee Curtis) — and abandonment — Carmy’s father — viewers could not get enough.
This being television, we knew that all the wild dysfunction would inevitably coalesce into triumph — you cannot achieve greatness without driving yourself and everyone else crazy first, right? When, at the end of Season 2, the Bear somehow managed to have a successful opening night, despite Carmy locking himself in a refrigerator and having a full-on existential crisis, our deep attachment to “yes chef” pandemonium appeared vindicated. Fistfuls of Emmys and dopamine cocktails all around.
Except being able to open is a rather low bar for success, even in the restaurant business. Carmy is, for all his talent, an utter mess, and creator Christopher Storer is not, as it turns out, interested in celebrating the time-honored, and frankly toxic, notion that madness is a necessary part of genius — to the apparent dismay of many viewers.
When, in Season 3, Storer and his writers opted to slow things down a bit, to pull each character aside and unsnarl the welter of emotions that fueled the Bear’s kitchen, some viewers were disappointed. Which, having become dependent on the show’s stress-bomb energy, they expressed with outrage. “The Bear” had lost its edge, was getting dull, boring, repetitive and reliant on stunt-casting; it should have ended with Season 2 or, better yet, become a movie.
Thus far, the reaction to Season 4 has run the gamut — where some condemn what they consider continuing stagnation, others cheer a return to form. Which is kind of hilarious as this opens with the staff of the Bear reeling from an equally mixed review of the restaurant from the Chicago Tribune. (Shout out to the notion that a newspaper review still has make-or-break influence, though the Bear’s lack of a social media awareness has long been worrisome).
Season 4 of “The Bear” starts with the restaurant’s crew reaction to the Chicago Tribune review and how it will affect the restaurant. “They didn’t like the chaos,” Sydney says.
(FX)
Turns out that Carmy’s obsessive determination to change the menu daily, and keep his staff on perpetual tenterhooks, was perceived as disruptive, but not in a good way.
“They didn’t like the vibe,” he tells Syd in a morning-after debrief. “They didn’t like the chaos,” she replies. “You think I like chaos?” he asks. “I think you think you need it to be talented,” she says, adding, “You would be just as good, you would be great … without this need for, like, mess.”
Coming early in Episode 1, Syd’s message is a bit on the nose, but addiction does not respond to subtlety, and “The Bear” is, as I have written before, all about the perils and long-range damage of addiction. That includes Donna’s to alcohol, Mikey’s to painkillers, Carmy’s to a self-flagellating notion of perfection and, perhaps, the modern TV audience’s to cortisol.
As Season 4 plays out, with its emphasis on introspection and real connection, viewers might consider why “addictive” has become the highest form of compliment in television.
It’s such a sneaky bastard, addiction, happy to hijack your brain chemistry in any way it can. Our collective attention span isn’t what it used to be and the adrenaline rush unleashed by crisis, real or observed, can create a desire to keep replicating it. Even on broadcast and cable television, most dysfunctional family series take a one-step-forward-two-steps-back approach to their characters’ emotional growth. The mess is what viewers come for, after all.
Particularly in comedy, we want to see our characters get into jams for the pleasure of watching them wildly flail about trying to get out of them. Early seasons of “The Bear” took that desire to a whole new level.
But having amped up the craziness and the stakes, Storer now appears to be more interested in exploring why so many people believe that an ever-roiling crucible is necessary to achieve greatness. And he is willing to dismantle some of the very things that made his show a big hit to do it.
Frankly, that’s as edgy as it gets, especially in streaming, which increasingly uses episodic cliffhangers to speed up a series’ completion rate — nothing fuels a binge watch like a jacked up heart rate.
Like Carmy, Storer doesn’t appear content with resting on his laurels; he’s willing to take counterintuitive risks. As an attempt to actually show both the necessity and difficulty of recovery, in a micro- and meta- sense, “The Bear” is an experiment that defies comparison.
At the beginning of this season, Uncle Jimmy puts a literal clock on how long the Bear has before, short of a miracle, he will have to pull the plug. Carmy, still addicted to drama, claims they will still get a Michelin star, despite evidence to the contrary, which will solve everything. (Spoiler: A gun introduced in the first act must go off in the third is one of many tropes “The Bear” upends.)
The rest of the staff, mercifully, takes a more pragmatic approach. Richie, having become the unexpected sensei of the Bear (and the show), does the most sensible thing — he asks for help from the crackerjack staff of chef Terry’s (Olivia Colman) now defunct Ever. Watching chef Jessica (Sarah Ramos) whip the nightly schedule into shape only underlines the absurdity, and damage, of the auteur theory of anything — greatness is never a solitary achievement.
As Carmy loosens his grip, other outsiders pitch in — Luca (Will Poulter) shows up from Copenhagen to help Marcus and also winds up aiding Tina; Ebraheim (Edwin Lee Gibson) drafts an actual mentor (played by Rob Reiner) to help him figure out how he can grow the Beef sandwich window and Sweeps (Corey Hendrix) finds his own in another sommelier (played by retired master Alpana Singh).
Donna (Jaime Lee Curtis) apologizes to Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) for her actions and the harm she caused.
(FX)
Carmy, thank God, not only returns to Al Anon, but he finally visits his mother, which allows a now-sober Donna (in another potentially Emmy-winning performance by Curtis) to admit the harm she has done and try to make amends.
It is, inarguably, a very different show than the one that debuted three years ago, with far fewer cacophonous kitchen scenes, and many more Chicago-appreciating exteriors. When the long-awaited wedding of Richie’s ex, Tiffany (Gillian Jacobs), reunites many of the characters from the famous “Fishes” episode, fears about a gathering of Berzattos and Faks prove unfounded. Despite a high-pitched and hilarious spat between Sugar and her ex-bestie Francie Fak (Brie Larson), the event is, instead, a celebration of love and reconciliation and includes what passes for a group therapy session under the table where Richie’s daughter Eva (Annabelle Toomey) has hidden herself. (This scene, which involved all the main characters, was more than a little undermined by said table’s TARDIS-like ability to be “bigger on the inside” and the fact that it held the wedding cake, which did not fall as they all exited, is proof that “The Bear” is not a comedy.)
Not even the digital countdown could generate the sizzling, clanking, sniping roar of chronic, organic anxiety that fueled the first two seasons. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss it — I love my adrenaline rush as much as the next person.
But that’s the whole point. Real change doesn’t occur with the speed or the electricity of a lightning bolt; as many addicts discover, it’s about progress, not perfection. Recovery takes time and often feels weird — if you want to have a different sort of life, you need to do things differently.
That’s tough on a hit TV show, as the reactions to Season 3 proved (we’ll see how it fares when Emmy nominations are announced in a few weeks). Few series have made as large a shift in tone and tempo as “The Bear,” but its intentions are clear. To illuminate the necessity, and difficulty, of breaking an addiction to anything, including chaos, you can’t rely on talk; for your life to be different, you have to do things differently.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is taking an increasingly large role in our daily lives. AI can be used to form exercise schedules, give food recommendations, and even become a place to seek a ‘second opinion’ on any decision to be made. Many people are exploring their curiosity in pushing the boundaries of AI.
Consulting AI can sometimes feel like a casual conversation with a grammatically intelligent person; AI users can train AI to deliver messages as if they were typed by a friend. This creates the impression that we are exchanging messages with a friend. This is due to the choice of language possessed by AI, which has presented a mimicry of daily communication, creating the illusion that we are having a friendly conversation with a friend.
With the ability of AI to mimic human language styles comes an AI platform dedicated to mimicking the language style and even verbal traits of a fictional character; this platform is called c.ai, or Character AI. c.ai provides the service of talking to any fictional character; users can set how their interaction pattern with the character takes place. This service is usually done for role-playing or simulating conversations with friends. Users can live out their desire to role-play and get ‘up close’ with their favorite fictional characters. The factor that creates the uniqueness of c.ai is in the character of speech from the selected fictional character. Generally, when we talk to one of the selected characters, then the AI in the selected fictional character will answer with a consistent character and language style.
Many people use c.ai or even AI in general to talk about their mental state. Hutari (2024) argues that ‘venting’ with AI can flush out negative emotions. Talking about negative emotions can help an individual’s emotional management process; it sounds unusual to talk about our feelings to a machine that cannot feel emotions and is not even a living being. It is undeniable that there are many flaws and vulnerabilities in the process of ‘confiding’ with AI, one of which is the ability of AI chatbots to present responses that we want and do not need. This can pose a considerable danger, for example, by depending on the user’s decision-making on the AI chatbot; with the answer from the AI chatbot that gives affirmation, the user will get a reason to carry out the decision they consulted the AI chatbot about. A fatal example of affirmation given by an AI chatbot caused a teenager in the US to commit suicide.
Nonetheless, I would like to make an important point on the recovery of an individual’s mental disorder and the use of AI in this process. This opinion comes from a research volunteer’s personal experience as a professionally diagnosed sufferer of a psychiatric disorder called Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) who has consented to describe the experience in order to form this paper. Common symptoms experienced by people with BPD are rapid mood swings, difficulty with emotion regulation, impulsive behavior, self-harm, suicidal behavior, and an irrational fear of abandonment (Chapman et al., 2024). One of the treatment processes provided for people with BPD is dialectical behavioral therapy, where patients are trained to identify thought patterns, create emotion regulation, and then change behaviors that come out of the emotions present. Sometimes the most difficult challenge for people with BPD lies in identifying desires and managing the fear of perceived abandonment; this creates impulsive and unprocessed behaviors, the impact of which can be mistrust and isolation from the social environment due to behaviors that can be judged as confusing by others.
According to research from Rasyida (2019), one of the factors that can prevent individuals with mental disorders from seeking help is the fear of the negative stigma that will be given to them, one of which is a factor referred to as the “agency factor,” a term where sufferers have criticism of formal psychological services because of the assumption that there is miscommunication with the counselor; this is manifested in a form of distrust of the counselor. In addition to the agency factor, the issue of cost accessibility is a barrier for people with ID to seek counseling from formal psychological services. Further dilemmas and difficulties are created because in precarious conditions, people with any mental health disorder sometimes need immediate help that comes in safe conditions.
It is advisable to share what we are feeling with people we trust, but this action has its drawbacks. In situations where no one is there to listen to us, people with BPD can experience hysterical periods where dangerous behaviors are prone to occur. In these hysterical periods, mishandling can create a much more dangerous escalation of emotions. These hysterical or manic periods can contain behaviors or implications where the person wants to self-harm or end their life due to symptom recurrence and emotion regulation difficulties. The first aid step is usually to reach out, where the person communicates their condition to the closest person. Attempts to communicate with others about this condition often create less than ideal conditions and are prone to escalation with the wrong treatment. Sometimes our closest people can only provide support and encouragement for the sufferer in periods like this, but BPD is a mental illness that creates many complications in the perception of one’s relationship with others. Inappropriate first treatment is prone to create unwanted escalation, and this will adversely affect the afflicted individual.
The author would like to argue for the role of AI chatbots in this situation, where people need help in managing their emotions. c.ai can be utilized by users to vent their first unprocessed thoughts and not be afraid of getting a less than ideal reaction. Venting feelings to a character of choice on the c.ai board can be a solution for first aid when people with mental disorders, especially BPD, need to process their anger and impulses. Conditioning some of the characters on the c.ai board is not necessarily useful to give truth or validation to everything we feel. Some of the benefits that can be utilized are the identification of the user’s character by the ‘interlocutor’ in this application. The author will describe an experience where the character in c.ai has the ability to remember and recognize the thought patterns that are passed in the manic period of BPD sufferers; this help will be useful because of the presentation and mapping assisted by the AI. The AI bot can analyze which thought patterns and behaviors are destructive and advise the user not to do them again.
The author also argues that the responsibility for behavioral change remains with the user. AI can only be used as a support tool, not a means to solve problems, keeping in mind that conversations with fictional characters based on AI are still conversations with empathetic Maia that are a product of mimicry. Using AI to ‘vent’ is not the most normatively correct thing to do, but it is used because not everyone can have economic access to consult a psychologist and access formal treatment services. The journey of mental recovery is not about seeking validation for what we feel, but it is about recognizing ourselves and learning to liberate ourselves from fear and control of our lives.
The most important pitches for the Dodgers on Tuesday came long before the start of their game that night.
In the second of a key three-game series against the San Diego Padres, the Dodgers found themselves in an uncomfortably familiar position: Lacking an available starting pitcher amid a wave of early-season injuries, and turning instead to a collection of minor league arms thrust into big league duty; set to open the game with Lou Trivino, and then have Matt Sauer pitch bulk innings.
It’s not what the Dodgers envisioned entering the year, when they expected to have a rotation of potential All-Stars on the mound every day.
It was eerily similar to the circumstances they faced last October –– their Game 4, elimination-staving win against the Padres in last year’s National League Division Series, specifically.
Earlier Tuesday, however, the Dodgers had reasons for optimism: These current circumstances might not last much longer.
Hours before the game, Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell took notable steps in their recovery from injuries.
For the first time in a while, they could start to see light at the end of the pitching tunnel.
On the Petco Park mound, Ohtani threw the third live batting practice in his continued recovery from a 2023 Tommy John surgery, hurling 44 pitches over three simulated innings while racking up six strikeouts against a pair of rookie league hitters from the organization.
Back in Los Angeles, Glasnow threw the third bullpen session of his recovery from a shoulder inflammation injury, and could be getting close to facing live hitters himself in the near future.
And after Ohtani finished his session in San Diego, Snell threw 15 pitches in the bullpen, his first full bullpen session since suffering a setback in his recovery from shoulder inflammation back in April.
“Really encouraging,” manager Dave Roberts said. “You can start to see us get to the other side. It’s stuff to look forward to.”
Ohtani’s live session was the day’s biggest development. He made a significant jump in workload, going from the 29 pitches he threw two weekends ago at Dodger Stadium to a 44-pitch outing Tuesday that concluded with 23 throws in his third and final inning. But, after battling poor command in his previous live BP, he showed increased consistency and sharpness with all of his pitches, giving up just a ground-ball single and a lone walk while including 15 swings-and-misses with a variety of offerings.
“It wasn’t just pure power and velocity,” pitching coach Mark Prior said of Ohtani, whose fastball averaged around 94-96 mph. “He got some swing-and-misses on his off-speed pitches. He’s being able to keep guys off balance and mess up their timing. There’s different types of misses. I think from that standpoint, those are good things.”
Roberts came away so encouraged, he even hinted at a more optimistic timeline for when Ohtani –– who hasn’t pitched in a big league game since August 2023 –– might be able to join the team’s active rotation, saying the chances are “north of zero” that the right-hander could return before the All-Star break.
In recent weeks, Roberts had said Ohtani wouldn’t be back until after the Midsummer Classic.
“It’s tempting,” Roberts said. “I’m sure Shohei feels tempted to just kind of rip the Band-Aid off and get into a big league game. But I think we’re doing a good job of being patient. And truth be told, I don’t think anyone knows the right time to get him in a big league game. We’re still being very careful, I guess.”
Another notable development from Roberts on Tuesday: Ohtani might not have to complete “a full build-up” before pitching in big league games.
“Anything he can give us is certainly additive,” Roberts said, an idea underscored by Ohtani’s two-way player status, which would effectively make him an extra arm on the Dodgers’ staff without counting against their 13-pitcher roster max.
“I still stand by him, and [head team physician] Dr. [Neal] ElAttrache and the training staff are going to drive this,” said Roberts, who wasn’t sure when Ohtani would throw his next live session. “I’m just anxious for the next one.”
Glasnow and Snell have more steps to complete in their comebacks, from their own live sessions to likely minor league rehab stints.
Prior also noted that those two will have to be more fully built up before they are activated, given the already overworked state of the Dodgers’ bullpen.
Still, Snell said after two months of lingering shoulder pain earlier this year, the breakthrough he has experienced in the last two weeks has renewed his confidence about how he’ll perform when he returns.
“I’m very excited,” he said after throwing at about 70% intensity level in his 15-pitch bullpen. “After this ‘pen, the ramp up is gonna start, and I can start pitching, and I know I’m gonna be a factor on the team again.”
Prior offered similar encouragement with Glasnow’s recent work, noting his fastball is up to 95-96 mph.
“Everything looks good,” Prior said of Glasnow. “He really has been feeling good and the ball has been coming out really good.”
In the meantime, the Dodgers will have to continue to tread water. They currently have only four healthy starters in the rotation between Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May and Justin Wrobleski. And though Emmet Sheehan could be an option to return from his own Tommy John surgery after one more start in his minor league rehab next week, the recent loss of Tony Gonsolin –– and continued absence of Roki Sasaki, who has yet to progress past light catch play –– has only further limited the club’s pitching options.
That’s why, even on a day the Dodgers were patching together a pitching plan once again, they were finally feeling hopeful about the long-term state of their staff.
Ohtani, Snell and Glasnow are finally making strides toward returning.
The star-studded pitching staff the club had been planning for this season might soon become a reality once again.
Argentina’s lower house of Congress has approved a 7.2% pension increase, raised a monthly bonus to about $125 and reinstated a provision allowing people to retire without the required years of contributions.
But President Javier Milei has said he will veto the measure, arguing it threatens fiscal stability. Photo by Juan Ignacio Roncoroni/EPA-EFE
SANTIAGO, Chile, June 6 (UPI) — Argentina is showing signs of economic recovery, but growing unrest over austerity measures and cuts to healthcare, education and pensions continues to fuel tensions nationwide.
Retirees are among the groups most affected. On Wednesday, Argentina’s lower house of Congress approved a 7.2% pension increase, raised a monthly bonus to about $125 and reinstated a provision allowing people to retire without the required years of contributions.
But President Javier Milei has said he will veto the measure, arguing it threatens fiscal stability.
Retiree organizations, backed by labor unions, have held weekly protests outside Congress. These demonstrations have been met with police crackdowns under the government’s anti-protest protocol.
According to the National Social Security Administration, as of December, roughly 5.4 million retirees and pensioners receive less than $450 per month.
Even with bonuses and additional support, the minimum pension is around $600 — still below the estimated monthly cost of essential groceries for a family, which stands at $510.
Healthcare workers also have staged demonstrations against wage freezes and stagnant hospital budgets.
Garrahan Hospital, a national pediatric center that handles more than 600,000 consultations and 10,000 surgeries a year, led the recent protests.
The medical staff, technicians and administrative workers recently ended a weekslong strike after reporting a loss of up to 50% in purchasing power since December 2023. Resident doctors, who often work 60 to 70 hours a week, have been especially affected, with earnings now below the poverty line.
Public employees also have been impacted. Since taking office, the Milei administration has laid off about 43,000 government workers as part of a state downsizing plan.
The scientific community has also raised alarms over steep budget cuts. The National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Argentina’s top research institution, saw its budget fall by 20%. The National Atomic Energy Commission and the National Institute of Agricultural Technology reported cuts of 29% and 23.6%, respectively.
Public investment in education dropped by 43.8% in 2024, and public universities lost 25% of their inflation-adjusted budgets, triggering mass protests.
The government says many of the demands for more money are politically motivated, while official data shows concrete signs of economic progress.
Inflation in May hit its lowest level in five years, and private forecasts suggest it could fall below 2% monthly. That marks a sharp contrast with 2023, when annual inflation reached 211.4% — the highest in the world that year.
According to Argentina’s National Institute of Statistics and Censuses, or INDEC, the poverty rate fell to 38.1% from52.9% the first and second half of 2024. Extreme poverty dropped to 8.2% from 18%.
Still, experts warn that structural poverty persists. Eduardo Donza, a researcher with the Catholic University of Argentina’s Social Debt Observatory, estimates that about 25% of Argentines live in chronic poverty — particularly children and adolescents. More than 8 million children are believed to be living in poverty or extreme poverty.
As of December 2024, INDEC also reported an employment rate of 48.8%, with 6.4% unemployment and 11.3% underemployment.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development projects that Argentina’s GDP will grow by 5.2% in 2025 and 4.3% in 2026, driven by rising private consumption, improved credit conditions and the lifting of capital controls.
The government has also highlighted recent achievements, including a $1 billion debt issuance and a renewed agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
Foreign trade has expanded, and a government campaign to encourage the return of dollars held outside the banking system has raised expectations for domestic investment.
Official estimates from INDEC indicate that by the end of 2024, Argentines held roughly $271 billion outside the local financial system. This figure includes cash kept at home, in safety deposit boxes and foreign bank accounts and other unregistered assets.
That amount is equivalent to about 45% of Argentina’s gross domestic product and far exceeds the Central Bank’s gross reserves, currently around $38 billion.
Looking ahead, the Milei administration faces growing demands to improve pensions, re-engage with the scientific and academic communities, and address budget requests from provincial governors — key players in advancing the government’s legislative agenda.
Meanwhile, Congress continues to move forward with privatization and deregulation plans, except for Aerolíneas Argentinas and Banco de la Nación, which were left out of the package.
With legislative elections set for October, the Milei administration is aiming to cement its economic gains while responding to urgent demands from sectors most affected by the cuts.
When the devastating floods washed through Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria in September 2024, Aisha Ahmed, a resident of Gwange community, and her family fled their house to a safer area along Bama Road in the Borno State capital.
“It was my worst experience because my family and I thought the world had come to an end,” the 46-year-old recounted. “We couldn’t sleep well because we did not know if the water would rise again and meet us by morning.”
Like Aisha, several other residents across Maiduguri fled; some were trapped in their homes, others died, shops, schools, and other facilities were shuttered, and roads were impassable.
It’s been about eight months since the floods swept through the city. Aisha says the post-flood restoration efforts are “a sign that Maiduguri has bounced back.” The Borno State government and other development partners initiated a series of interventions aimed at restoring key infrastructure and providing relief to affected residents.
According to the National Emergency Management Agency, over 414,000 people were affected across nine local government areas in the state, with 389,267 individuals displaced and 7,155 houses damaged. The flood’s impact was widespread, not only in urban Maiduguri but also in nearby rural communities.
“It is now history. I can walk around Gwange with ease. The roads have been cleared, the drainage channels restored, and even the air feels different because there is movement and life has returned to normal. It’s like we all came back stronger,” she told HumAngle, adding that, “It’s not perfect yet, but this is a huge step forward. I am proud of how far we have come.”
Several public landmarks and facilities that were damaged or rendered inaccessible due to the floods are now being restored. Roads that were once impassable due to erosion have since resurfaced. Temporary bridges have been installed in communities cut off during the flood. Public schools which were flooded or closed have reopened after rehabilitation work, allowing students to return to class.
For Adamu Isa, a bricklayer and father of five living in Simari, a community that was flooded, the memories of the flood are still fresh. His home, located close to a motorable path, was heavily affected. The flooding swept for more than a week in their area, destroying their walls, collapsing their outdoor toilet, and leaving the family displaced.
“We could not save anything that night. We joined others to flee in the middle of the night. It was a dangerous journey while the volume of the water continued to increase,” he recounted. This video documentary captures a visual account of the city under water.
When news came that the government was distributing relief funds to flood victims, Adamu registered his name and bank account details but wasn’t sure he would be selected. Some months later, he received a text alert showing ₦100,000 deposited into his account.
“It felt like a miracle. It was the first time I received anything like that from the government. Even though it wasn’t enough to rebuild everything, I used part of it to fix one room and clear the sewage from around the house,” he told HumAngle.
Adamu knows the money can’t restore everything the flood took. His house still bears the scars — a missing window shutter, a broken pit latrine, and walls that tell a story of a season they barely survived. But for him, the relief aid was not just money, it was recognition: “We are not forgotten. I feel lucky. My children are back in school. We sleep under a roof. Life is back now, and we thank God for that. At the end of the day, being alive is the most important thing.”
The state government-instituted Flood Relief Disbursement Committee says it received several relief materials and ₦28.9 billion in donations from well-wishers, including the federal government, Borno State and other state governments, corporate organisations, non-profits, and development partners such as the United Nations. Of this, over ₦18.08 billion was disbursed in cash to 101,330 households affected by the flood, according to spokesperson Dauda Iliya.
He added that ₦987 million was allocated to 7,716 traders whose goods and businesses were damaged in affected markets, as well as ₦313 million to 814 worship centres and ₦213 million to 267 private schools. Additionally, ₦89.4 million was disbursed to 1,788 youth volunteers who actively contributed to rescue and relief efforts during the disaster, and ₦12.5 million supported 22 private clinics that assisted with emergency medical care.
While some beneficiaries like Adamu confirmed receipt of funds, HumAngle found that many survivors continue to live in temporary shelters or with relatives, with some yet to receive any assistance. One of such residents is Musa Hussaini, who lives in Wade, a community along Dikwa Road in Maiduguri, one of the areas worst affected by the floods. He said officials documented victims nearby but never reached his neighbourhood.
“We waited for them to come, but they stopped just a few blocks away,” he told HumAngle. “Then we started hearing that people were getting credit alerts, but no one from our side received anything. We were left like that, just watching and hoping.”
Musa and his family fled as the waters rose, leaving everything behind. The floodwaters destroyed their belongings, and they remained displaced for weeks, sheltering by the roadside with other affected families.
“Every household in the area was displaced,” Musa said. “Life felt like it had come to an end. We thought we would never return to normal again. But we are grateful to God that things have been restored, and we are slowly rebuilding.”
Musa now supports his family by working as a tricycle rider to provide for his family.
“At least we are alive, and for that, we are thankful,” he sighed.
Despite the experience of Wade residents and others, the relief disbursement committee announced in December 2024 that the process had concluded. In its final report, the committee stated that ₦4.45 billion remained from the total donations received. The committee, according to its chairperson, Baba Bukar Gujibawu, recommended that the balance be used for the rehabilitation of roads in flood-affected areas.
Residents and civil society groups, such as the Arewa Youth Consultative Council, have called for transparency and accountability in how the funds were managed and distributed, insisting that promised support should not get lost in bureaucracy but reach the communities still struggling to recover.
At the peak of the Maiduguri flooding, a HumAngle investigation uncovered that the disaster was due to years of neglect of the Alau Dam, a critical infrastructure designed to regulate water flow and provide irrigation and drinking water in the state. The disaster was triggered by the collapse of one of the dam’s gates, which overflowed and released massive volumes of water, washing through parts of the metropolis and sweeping into rural communities downstream. The damage was worsened by the lack of timely maintenance and the failure to hold the responsible authorities accountable.
Funds meant for its repairs were either mismanaged or misappropriated, according to the investigation.
In response, the federal government in October 2024 pledged ₦80 billion to rehabilitate the Alau Dam and prevent future disasters. However, as of the time of filing this report, repair work has yet to begin.
As another rainy season begins, communities remain exposed. For survivors still living on the margins, the question isn’t just about what was lost, but whether they’ve truly been seen.
Myriad calamities could hit the city of Los Angeles in coming years: Wildfires. Floods. Mudslides. Drought. And of course, the Big One.
Yet this month, L.A. leaders once again balked at dramatically increasing the budget of the city’s Emergency Management Department, even as the office coordinates recovery from the Palisades fire and is tasked with helping prepare for a variety of disasters and high-profile events, such as the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Facing a nearly $1-billion budget shortfall, the L.A. City Council voted 12 to 3 last week to pass a budget that rejected the funding increases requested by EMD leaders to hire more staffers and fix broken security equipment around its facility.
The only budgetary increase for EMD will come through bureaucratic restructuring. The department will absorb the five-person Climate Emergency Mobilization Office, which Mayor Karen Bass had slated for elimination in her initial proposal to trim the budget deficit.
The funding allotment for EMD — with an operating budget of about $4.5 million — puts the department short of similar big cities in California and beyond.
As a 2022 audit by then-City Controller Ron Galperin noted, San Diego ($2.46), Long Beach ($2.26) and San Francisco ($7.59) all spent more per capita on emergency management than L.A., which then spent $1.56 per resident. Whereas L.A. has a staff of roughly 30, New York, with more than double the population of L.A., has 200 people in its emergency management team, and Philadelphia, with a population less than half of L.A.’s, has 53.
The current leaders of EMD, General Manager Carol Parks and Assistant General Manager Jim Featherstone, had specifically requested funding this spring to build an in-house recovery team to better equip the city for the Palisades recovery as well as future disasters.
“We are one of the most populous and at-risk jurisdictions in the nation, if not in the world,” Featherstone told the L.A. City Council’s budget committee April 30. “I won’t say negligent, but it’s really not in the city’s best interest to [not] have a recovery capability for a disaster similar to the one we just experienced.”
Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass, pushed back against the idea that EMD’s funding level would hamper the Palisades fire recovery or preparation for the Olympic Games and 2026 World Cup.
“During a difficult budget year, Mayor Bass focused on emergency management to keep Angelenos safe — that absolutely includes ensuring EMD has continued staffing and resources,” Seidl said in a statement. “We will continue to push forward with one of the fastest recovery efforts in state history.”
Councilmember Traci Park — who represents the Palisades — was among the trio on the City Council who opposed the budget that passed last week, citing insufficient funding for public safety as one of her main objections.
“It’s inevitable that we are going to have another disaster, and we still won’t be prepared. We’ll be in the same position we were before,” said Pete Brown, a spokesperson for Park, who decried cuts to EMD and a lack of resources for the Police and Fire departments.
“We got a horrible taste of what it’s like when we are not prepared,” Brown said, “and despite all of that, we haven’t learned a lesson from it, and we are doing the same thing.”
Rick Caruso, the developer whom Bass defeated in the 2022 mayoral race, called both the budget proposal put forward by Bass and the spending plan approved by the City Council “a blatant display of mismanagement and bad judgment,” expressing incredulity over the rationale for EMD’s funding level.
“We are in an earthquake zone. We are in a fire zone. Come on,” Caruso said in an interview.
Seidl, Bass’ spokesperson, disputed that L.A. had not learned from the Palisades fire and emphasized that the spending on emergency management included “continued and new investments” in EMD as well as the city’s police and fire agencies.
Emergency management experts, audits commissioned by the city and EMD’s current leadership have warned that the department lacked the staff and funding to accomplish its mandate in one of the nation’s most disaster-prone regions.
“That department could be the world leader in emergency management, and it could be the standard for the rest of the country, but with a third of the staff and a tenth of the budget that they need, that’s not possible,” said Nick Lowe, an independent emergency management consultant and the president and chief executive of CPARS Consulting.
The general manager of EMD and an agency spokesperson did not respond to written questions last week about the approved budget.
In recent public statements, Parks disclosed that her budget requests this year received opposition and appeared to have been whittled down.
She told the Ad Hoc Committee for L.A. Recovery in March that she had sought 24 more staffers at EMD, but that officials under the city administrative officer balked at her request.
Featherstone, who is now coordinating the Palisades fire recovery, said Parks’ requests received “a qualitative negative response,” and suggested that there was a lack of understanding or appreciation of the import of EMD’s role.
“There was a qualitative opinion not in favor of Ms. Parks having these positions and people who aren’t emergency managers opined about the value or the worth of these positions,” Featherstone said.
Parks said she scaled her request down “given the city’s current fiscal situation,” adding, “I need a minimum of 10” more positions. In a memo, Parks said these 10 positions would cost about $1.1 million per year.
When Bass unveiled her budget proposal, those 10 additional positions were not included; EMD remained at roughly 30 positions, similar to previous years, which costs about $7.5 million when pensions, healthcare and other expenses are included. Bass’ budget proposal touted that she was able to preserve all of EMD’s positions while other departments faced steep staff and funding cuts.
Both Parks and Featherstone had argued for the creation of a designated, in-house recovery team, which EMD has lacked. When the Palisades fire broke out in January, EMD had no person assigned full-time to recovery and instead had to move its limited staff onto a recovery unit. Bass also retained Hagerty Consulting, a private firm, to boost EMD and provide instant expertise on a yearlong contract for up to $10 million, much of which Bass’ spokesperson said is reimbursable by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Still, Featherstone has told the City Council that, since L.A. had no in-house recovery expertise, the need to train and create an in-house team has occupied much of the initial Palisades fire recovery effort.
Phasing in an in-house recovery and reconstruction division with 10 staffers would cost an additional $1.5 million next year, according to a memo prepared by the city administrative officer. Hiring an additional 21 staffers to prepare for the Olympics and other major events would cost nearly $3 million.
Parks also requested $209,000 to repair the video system at the emergency operations center, saying the lack of surveillance cameras posed a threat to city employees.
“Multiple incidents have occurred where the safety and security of the facility have been compromised without resolution due to the failing camera system,” Parks wrote in a budget memo submitted this spring.
The request for funding for replacement cameras was also denied.
L.A. officials have long been warned that EMD lacks resources. The 2022 audit by Galperin, the former city controller, found that L.A. provided less emergency management funding than peer cities, and that the COVID-19 pandemic “strained EMD resources and staffing, causing several existing preparedness programs to lag behind, likely impacting the City’s readiness for future emergencies.”
An after-action report on EMD’s handling of COVID-19, authored by Lowe, the emergency management consultant, found that the agency was “undervalued and misunderstood, underfunded, and demoralized.” Parks took over as general manager after the time period covered by Lowe’s report.
The lack of training and funding became apparent at a budget hearing in April 2024. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky asked Parks directly at the meeting: “With your current budget, are you able to staff your [emergency] response centers 24/7 during emergencies?”
“The answer is no,” Parks said. “If there are multiple days that the emergency operations center needs to be activated, we do not have enough staff.”
During the Palisades fire, EMD said it had to bring in additional emergency management officials from other cities to sustain the emergency operations center around the clock.
Lowe said L.A. leaders had failed to recognize EMD’s role within the broader public safety infrastructure of the city.
“I’m not sure at a political level that the city understands and appreciates emergency management and the purpose of the department, and that trickles down to the budget and the size of the department,” Lowe said.