Bass presses SCAQMD to hit Lineage with strict abatement order
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass testified before the South Coast Air Quality Management District’s (SCAQMD) Hearing Board on Tuesday, joining Boyle Heights and East LA residents to push for a strict Order of Abatement against Lineage Logistics following the cold storage facility fire that has left the community battling odor, pests and health complaints for nearly two months.
Bass’s office worked with Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, Assemblymember Mark González and State Sen. María Elena Durazo to bus more than 130 residents to SCAQMD headquarters in Diamond Bar for the hearing. The district has logged roughly 4,000 odor complaints tied to the fire, which struck the Boyle Heights facility in June.
“To this day, the putrid offensive odor coming from the tens of millions of pounds of rotting food in the warehouse is unbearable,” said Bass. “Now flies, rats and other pests have infested the community, and we are most concerned that schools are preparing to reopen amid unresolved concerns around air quality.”
Bass told the board Lineage has taken some steps but only under sustained pressure from government agencies and residents.
She also asked the board to require the company to translate all materials into Spanish, hold weekly bilingual community meetings, install permanent odor monitoring stations near residential areas, and establish a dedicated relocation and assistance fund for affected residents and small businesses.
On June 29, Bass issued two executive orders creating the Boyle Heights Unified Recovery Command to coordinate the city’s response to the fire. Her office also sent the SCAQMD Board Clerk a formal letter outlining the same requests in greater detail, calling for an enforceable process that holds Lineage accountable through fines and a complete cleanup.
Whitesides wants federal research on AI’s effect on students
U.S. Rep. George Whitesides (D-Santa Clarita, Palmdale, Lancaster, portions of San Fernando Valley) introduced the Understanding AI in the Classroom Act this week alongside U.S. Reps. April McClain-Delaney (D-MD) and Andrea Salinas (D-OR) of Oregon, directing the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study how artificial intelligence (AI) is affecting students as schools rapidly adopt the technology.
The bill would have NSF convene experts to examine gaps in the research on AI’s classroom impact, including its effects on children’s attention spans, learning independence, and cognitive, social, emotional and behavioral development.
The legislation also directs NSF to study how those effects vary by age, learning disabilities, English-language learner status and socioeconomic background, as well as the impact of AI systems designed to be over-flattering or falsely encouraging.
“Artificial intelligence is already reshaping the way students learn, but without concrete data, it is nearly impossible to create sustainable policies that protect students’ development,” said Whitesides. “This bill is a step towards increasing our ability to research and understand AI’s role in our children’s education, and what measures we need to implement to make sure schools are deploying technology responsibly.”
The bill arrives as schools across the country experiment with AI tools for tutoring, grading and classroom instruction with little independent research on the long-term effects, and as parents and educators increasingly raise concerns about screen time, over-reliance on AI-generated answers, and the technology’s effect on children’s social development.
Padilla bill targets Trump’s paid early access to his own posts
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) introduced the Stop Corrupt Trading Act this week, legislation that would ban any sitting president or vice president, and entities in which they hold a substantial financial interest, from selling advance or exclusive access to the president’s official or personal social media posts.
The bill follows Trump Media & Technology Group’s Aug. 1 launch of a subscription service offering paying subscribers early access to President Trump’s Truth Social posts for $100,000 a month. Trump owns more than 50% of Trump Media, and Padilla’s office cited one financial professional’s estimate that roughly 100 high-frequency trading firms could subscribe, netting the company $120 million a year while Trump remains in office.
“Despite already being the richest president in history, President Trump’s number one priority in office is to make himself richer while everyday Americans struggle to make ends meet,” said Padilla. “Selling access to his market-moving social media posts is just one example of the brazen corruption we’ve seen coming out of the Oval Office, and I am fighting back to put a stop to it. Americans deserve a government that works for them, not one that’s for sale to hedge funds and Wall Street banks that can afford the subscription fee.”
The legislation would define presidential social media data feeds not available to the general public as nonpublic information, banning their sale under penalties of up to twice the profit from the transaction and up to five years in prison.
Buyers of such access would face penalties of up to twice their profit, and the bill would toll the statute of limitations for conduct that occurs while a president is in office, while creating a civil right of action to recover the proceeds for the American people.
The push to restrict presidential profit-taking echoes a parallel fight in Congress itself. The House passed a bill in July barring lawmakers, their spouses and dependent children from buying new individual stocks, but it has stalled in the Senate. A more sweeping bipartisan proposal that would ban congressional stock ownership outright — and would extend the same restrictions to the president and vice president — has yet to get a floor vote in either chamber.
Hahn secures $20K reward in unsolved La Mirada road rage killing
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn (D-Long Beach, San Pedro, Diamond Bar, Whittier, Cerritos, Downey, Torrance, Redondo Beach, Hacienda Heights) won unanimous Board of Supervisors approval Tuesday for a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whoever fatally shot 30-year-old Nestor Tlahuel Mendez in a 2023 road rage attack near La Mirada.
Mendez, a food delivery driver, was shot once in the left shoulder while driving westbound on Rosecrans Avenue on March 29, 2023, and later died of his injury. His 15-year-old cousin, who was riding with him, was uninjured. Investigators believe the shooting was motivated by road rage and tracked the suspect’s vehicle, an older black sedan, leaving the area via Alondra Boulevard and the I-5 Freeway toward Firestone Boulevard.
“Someone took Nestor’s life in a senseless act of road rage,” said Hahn. “His family will never be made whole again, but we must do everything we can to bring the person responsible to justice. That individual is still out there. My hope is that this reward encourages anyone with information to come forward so the Sheriff’s Department can finally solve this crime.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact LASD Detective Christopher Dimmitt at (323) 890-5545 or cadimmit@lasd.org, or to reach Crime Stoppers anonymously at (800) 222-8477.
