Thursday, May 14, 2026

Harabedian Bill Would Bar Insurers From Forcing Mental Health Patients to ‘Fail First’

AB 1970 clears Assembly Health Committee 15-0; supporters say step therapy delays treatment for the most vulnerable

Patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and substance use disorders would no longer have to try and fail on cheaper medications before their insurers cover the drugs their doctors actually prescribed, under a bill by Assemblymember John Harabedian (D-Pasadena) that cleared its first legislative hurdle this month.

AB 1970, which passed the Assembly Committee on Health on a 15-0 vote on April 21, would prohibit health plans and insurers from requiring step therapy — a practice widely known as “fail-first” — for prescription drugs used to treat serious mental illness and substance use disorders. The bill heads next to the Assembly Committee on Appropriations.

Harabedian, who represents the 41st Assembly District including Pasadena and serves on the Assembly Insurance Committee, has made behavioral health access a legislative priority since taking office in 2024. The bill comes after Governor Newsom vetoed Harabedian’s AB 1032 last October, which would have required insurers to cover 12 additional behavioral health visits for wildfire survivors — a measure the governor rejected amid concerns about rising health care premiums.

Thursday, May 14, 2026

LA County Assessor Takes Fire Survivors’ Tax Questions in Free Webinar Tonight

Jeff Prang will cover Misfortune and Calamity claims, a newly secured four-year deferral, and what rebuilding means for Altadena homeowners’ tax bills

Sixteen months after the Eaton Fire leveled their neighborhoods, thousands of Altadena property owners are still paying taxes on homes that no longer exist — and tonight, the county official who sets those assessed values will explain how to stop.

Los Angeles County Assessor Jeff Prang will take survivors’ questions directly in a free, one-hour Zoom webinar hosted by the Every Fire Survivor’s Network, the 10,000-member advocacy organization that grew out of an Altadena pickleball WhatsApp group in the days after the January 2025 fire.

The session, scheduled from 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday, will cover how to file Misfortune and Calamity claims, what a recently secured four-year property tax deferral means for individual homeowners, and what happens to a survivor’s tax base when they move, rebuild larger or have already made payments.

The webinar arrives at a critical moment for fire-affected property owners.

Thursday, May 14, 2026

California Has 6 Weeks of Gas Supply. After That, It Gets Expensive

By Alejandro Lazo, CALMATTERS

Eleven weeks into the Iran war and a global energy shock, California drivers are paying the highest gas prices in the nation, an average of $6.15 a gallon this week.

The pain at the pump is colliding with California’s ambitious push away from fossil fuels, as refinery closures, supply disruptions and a deepening debate over reliance on imported oil and gas raise new questions about whether the state can keep gasoline affordable during the transition.

Here are five things to know about how Sacramento is responding to the crisis and what it could mean for prices in the months ahead.

California can confidently forecast gasoline and crude oil shipments coming in through about mid-June, and supply looks stable through that window, Siva Gunda, vice chair of the California Energy Commission, told an Assembly oversight hearing last week.

After that, oil and gas will cost significantly more to secure,

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

PUSD Advisory Committee Stops Short of Recommending School Consolidations

By ANDRÈ COLEMAN, Managing Editor

The Pasadena Unified School District’s (PUSD) School Consolidation Advisory Committee concluded its work this week without recommending that schools be consolidated at this time, leaving the final decision to the Board of Education as the district continues studying declining enrollment and long-term financial pressures.

According to a district update released Tuesday, the committee held its final meeting May 11 and provided comments and input for consideration by the board following months of discussions surrounding possible campus consolidations and closures.

“The committee’s feedback is that there is no recommendation to consolidate schools at this time,” the district said in the update. “No consolidation or closure decisions have been made by the Board of Education.”

The issue has drawn significant public attention in recent months as district officials grapple with declining student enrollment, rising operational costs and concerns about maintaining academic programs across under-enrolled campuses.

District officials said a draft Equity Impact Analysis report will be presented during the Board of Education’s regular meeting on May 28.

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

LA County Supervisors Advance Housing Ordinance Update, With Barger Amendment Preserving Existing Density Caps

The measure, which applies to unincorporated areas including Altadena, creates a new “Acutely Low Income” tier and tightens affordable-housing replacement rules

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday took a step toward overhauling the County’s housing ordinance for unincorporated areas, voting 5-0 on an amended measure after first adopting, 3-2, an amendment by Supervisor Kathryn Barger that preserves the County’s existing density bonus caps rather than raising them.

The ordinance, presented by the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning, applies to unincorporated communities across the County — including Altadena, where thousands of structures were destroyed in the January Eaton Fire. Among its provisions: a new “Acutely Low Income” category for households earning less than 15% of the Area Median Income, a requirement for “like-for-like” replacement of affordable units that are demolished, and broader eligibility for density bonus projects to include shared housing and residential care for the elderly.

The action was not the final adoption of the ordinance.

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

L.A. County Moves to Shield Hospital Workers and Patients From Immigration Enforcement

The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to create an oversight committee and expand staff training at county medical facilities, a response to months of confrontations between health care workers and federal agents

Health care workers at Los Angeles County hospitals will soon receive new training on how to protect patient rights during encounters with federal immigration agents, after the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a motion to strengthen protections at county-operated medical facilities.

The motion, authored by Board Chair and First District Supervisor Hilda L. Solis and co-authored by Board Chair Pro Tem and Second District Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell, directs county staff to establish an internal oversight committee to enforce and improve hospital protocols that have been strained by a surge in immigration enforcement activity since 2025. Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who has previously cited governance concerns when voting against or abstaining on immigration-related county measures, abstained.

For Pasadena and Altadena residents — who are served by L.A. County’s Department of Health Services,

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Pasadena Hindu Temple Plans Its First Shanti Path and Fire Ritual, Open to All

The Rosemead Boulevard nonprofit will host a free Vedic ceremony on May 17 combining group chanting, sacred fire offerings, and a communal dinner

Thirty-two devotees will sit together inside the Pasadena Hindu Temple on Sunday afternoon and chant sacred mantras 108 times — the opening act of a multi-part Vedic ceremony the temple says it has never held before.

The ceremony combines four elements: group Shanti Path chanting, a Maha Yagya fire ritual involving Vedic mantras and offerings, Navagraha blessings invoking the nine planetary deities of Hindu tradition, and a concluding Aarti followed by Maharprasad — a communal dinner of food considered blessed.

The event, known as a Shanti Path and Navgrah Maha Yagya, begins at 4:00 p.m. on May 17 at the temple’s home on Rosemead Boulevard. It is free and open to all, according to the event’s organizers.

The Pasadena Hindu Temple, operated by the Hindu Temple and Heritage Foundation, is a nonprofit that traces its origins to a living room gathering in 1986,

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

California Voters are About to Elect a New State Superintendent. It’s Barely on the Radar

By Carolyn Jones, CALMATTERS

The primary for the state’s top K-12 schools job is in less than a month, but judging from the polls, it’s debatable whether anyone is paying attention.

A whopping 32% of voters are undecided with just a few weeks until the June 2 primary for state superintendent of public instruction, according to a recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California. In the past, it’s been one of the state’s hottest races, with millions of dollars in spending.

Among the dozen or so candidates, none had more than 10% of voters’ support, meaning that the race is essentially a 10-way tie.

“There’s no lack of qualified candidates, but previous elections had an urgency and a sense that who won really mattered,” said Morgan Polikoff, an education professor at USC. “We don’t have that this time.”

One reason for the malaise, observers said, may be that voters are more focused on education policy unfolding in Washington,

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Caltech Research: Universal Voting-By-Mail Increases Voter Turnout for Both Major Parties

By Katie Neith, CALTECH

In recent years, voting by mail has been the subject of numerous lawsuits and attacks that often claim the process gives Democratic nominees and legislative bills an edge. But a recent Caltech study shows that sending ballots to all registered voters boosts turnout for both major parties. Co-authors R. Michael Alvarez, Caltech’s Flintridge Foundation Professor of Political and Computational Social Science and co-director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, and Yimeng Li (PhD ’22), a former graduate student in Alvarez’s group, outlined their findings in a paper published in the Journal of Politics.

“We found a three to four percentage-point increase in turnout due to the policy,” says Li, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at Florida State University. “The impact was larger for partisan voters compared to nonparty affiliate voters but among partisan voters, we saw no evidence of Democrats getting an advantage, which has been a common narrative.”

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Expanded CalAssist Program Assists LA County Fire Survivors

CITY NEWS SERVICE

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced that more than 1,000 Los Angeles-area firestorm survivors have received mortgage assistance through the state’s expanded CalAssist Mortgage Fund program.

According to the governor’s office, more than 1,100 disaster survivors have signed up for the program since it was expanded to provide up to $100,000 in mortgage payments over 12 months for homeowners recovering from disasters including the 2025 Los Angeles-area fires.

The CalAssist Mortgage Fund, administered by the California Housing Finance Agency, launched in June 2025 to provide direct mortgage assistance to homeowners whose primary residences were destroyed or severely damaged in qualifying disasters.

Under the expanded program, eligible homeowners can receive up to one year of mortgage payments made directly to mortgage servicers, a significant increase from the previous three-month benefit, officials said. The maximum benefit also increased from $20,000 to $100,000.

Assistance is available to homeowners who are current on payments, in forbearance or behind on their mortgages.