Bass, Hahn mourn labor icon Dolores Huerta, dead at 96
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn (D-Long Beach, San Pedro, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Whittier, Diamond Bar) mourned labor leader and civil rights icon Dolores Huerta, who died Wednesday at 96, her family said.
Born in 1930 in Dawson, N.M., and raised in Stockton, Huerta co-founded the farmworkers group with César Chávez that became the United Farm Workers in 1962 and coined the movement’s rallying cry, “Sí, se puede.” She later championed women’s rights and founded the Dolores Huerta Foundation. This year, after a New York Times investigation reported allegations that Chávez groomed and sexually abused girls and women in the movement, Huerta said she was among them, according to CNN.
In Los Angeles, NBC Los Angeles reported that Chávez’s face is being replaced with a portrait of Huerta on a Watts mural.
“Today, we lost an icon. Dolores Huerta was a remarkable woman, a fearless leader who fought for civil rights and advanced the labor movement for decades. Dolores inspired so many of us to activism. I admired her from a very young age, and it was an incredible honor and privilege not only to meet and know her, but to call her a friend. She inspired me through tough times and taught me to never give up. She supported me in every campaign and challenge I faced,” said Bass.
“Her work with farm workers changed our state and our nation. The movement she helped lead was about securing basic human rights for some of the hardest-working people among us. Their fight, their struggle, and their victories helped secure landmark protections nationwide, including the first state laws giving farm workers overtime pay after eight hours a day, and the first comprehensive standards to prevent heat deaths in California. She didn’t stop there. Dolores carried the fight into every arena where people were denied a voice. She championed women’s rights, reproductive freedom, and gender equality, and she organized communities, here in Los Angeles and across the nation, so that all people had a stronger voice in the decisions that shape their lives. Her legacy is one of dignity and equality for all, and proof of what ordinary people can accomplish when they organize,” Bass added.
“Dolores Huerta was an extraordinarily strong person. As a young woman she had the courage to lead the movement for the rights of farmworkers. In her later years, she demonstrated even greater courage to tell the truth about the abuse she herself had suffered in that movement. When I was growing up, most of our major civil rights leaders were men. I remember how powerful it was to see Dolores Huerta be equally strong and equally impactful. She showed generations of women what leadership could look like. We were lucky to have her in the fight for as long as we did. Her legacy will live on in the lives she changed and the movement she helped to build,” said Hahn.
Whitesides bill would track power shutoffs after county-wide outage
U.S. Rep. George Whitesides (D-Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Lancaster) introduced the Public Safety Power Shutoff Data Transparency Act, directing the U.S. Department of Energy to create the first national reporting program for preventive power shutoffs.
Nearly 70,000 households in LA and Ventura counties lost power in shutoffs two weeks ago, including neighborhoods in Canyon Country, Bouquet Canyon and Castaic Junction, after Southern California Edison warned that close to 260,000 customers could be affected, according to Whitesides’ office.
Utilities cut power to overhead lines in high-risk areas during strong winds and low humidity, because wind can knock lines into trees or damage equipment and spark a wildfire. Crews can’t restore power until they inspect the lines after the winds die down, so outages often last eight hours or more after the danger passes. Utilities have relied more heavily on shutoffs since the January 2025 fires, including the Eaton Fire, in which Edison equipment is suspected.
“After thousands went without power weeks ago, and hospitals and first responders were left uncertain how the power shutoffs would affect their facilities, it’s clear that we need to take concrete steps to address this issue. Power shutoffs can be a critical tool during extreme fire weather, but if we don’t track, report, and communicate these outages to the public, we have no way of making them less disruptive,” said Whitesides.
“My bill will bring transparency and accountability to the process, to make sure individuals and first responders understand when an outage is coming, how long it will last, and how many people will be affected,” he added.
The bill would require utilities with 25,000 or more customers, and smaller ones in high-risk wildfire areas, to report each shutoff to the Department of Energy within seven days of its start and end, including where it hit, how long it lasted, how many customers and critical facilities lost power, and how the public was warned. The department would publish the data, share it with hospitals, emergency medical networks, and FEMA, and let local governments submit their own impact accounts.
Hochman’s office wins life term for trafficker who fled trial
Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman announced that a convicted sex offender who fled in the middle of his sex trafficking trial has been tracked down and sentenced to 74 years to life in prison.
Calvin Lane was free on court-reduced bail when he disappeared between Aug. 26 and 27, just before closing arguments in his trial for trafficking a young woman and a teenage girl in Los Angeles and Long Beach in 2023.
The court found he had voluntarily absented himself, and on Aug. 28, a jury convicted him in his absence of forcible trafficking of a minor for a commercial sex act, human trafficking of an adult, pandering and possession of a firearm by a felon. An FBI fugitive task force, including a DA investigator, arrested him Sept. 21. He was sentenced Tuesday.
“Fleeing while on trial for such a serious and egregious crime is a blatant disregard for our criminal justice system. Rather than answer for his actions, he chose to run from accountability. I commend the FBI Fugitive Task Force, who worked tirelessly to locate him, track him down and take him back to court so he could face the judicial process,” said Hochman.
Deputy District Attorney Emily Chai of the Sex Crimes Division’s Human Sex Trafficking Section prosecuted the case, which was investigated by the Long Beach Police Department. Chai also prosecuted the Lebaron Alexander trafficking case, which LACP reported on Oct. 16.
