Ancient deity, pet and endangered species. Why is axolotl Mexico’s most beloved amphibian?

• February 21, 2025

By MARÍA TERESA HERNÁNDEZ

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Legend has it the axolotl was not always an amphibian. Long before it became Mexico’s most beloved salamander and efforts to prevent its extinction flourished, it was a sneaky god.

“It’s an interesting little animal,” said Yanet Cruz, head of the Chinampaxóchitl Museum in Mexico City.

Its exhibitions focus on axolotl and chinampas, the pre-Hispanic agricultural systems resembling floating gardens that still function in Xochimilco, a neighborhood on Mexico City’s outskirts famed for its canals.

“Despite there being many varieties, the axolotl from the area is a symbol of identity for the native people,” said Cruz, who participated in activities hosted at the museum to celebrate “Axolotl Day” in early February.

While there are no official estimates of the current axolotl population, the species Ambystoma mexicanum — endemic of central Mexico— has been catalogued as “critically endangered” by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species since 2019. And though biologists, historians and officials have led efforts to save the species and its habitat from extinction, a parallel, unexpected preservation phenomenon has emerged.

Axolotl attracted international attention after Minecraft added them to its game in 2021 and Mexicans went crazy about them that same year, following the Central Bank’s initiative to print it on the 50-peso bill. “That’s when the ‘axolotlmania’ thrived,” Cruz said.

All over Mexico, the peculiar, dragon-like amphibian can be spotted in murals, crafts and socks. Selected bakeries have caused a sensation with its axolotl-like bites. Even a local brewery — “Ajolote” in Spanish — took its name from the salamander to honor Mexican traditions.

Before the Spaniards conquered Mexico-Tenochtitlan in the 16th century, axolotl may not have had archeological representations as did Tláloc — god of rain in the Aztec worldview — or Coyolxauhqui — its lunar goddess — but it did appear in ancient Mesoamerican documents.

In the Nahua myth of the Fifth Sun, pre-Hispanic god Nanahuatzin threw himself into a fire, reemerged as the sun and commanded fellow gods to replicate his sacrifice to bring movement to the world. All complied but Xólotl, a deity associated with the evening star, who fled.

“He was hunted down and killed,” said Arturo Montero, archeologist of the National Commission of Protected Natural Areas. “And from his death came a creature: axolotl.”

According to Montero, the myth implies that, after a god’s passing, its essence gets imprisoned in a mundane creature, subject to the cycles of life and death. Axolotl then carries within itself the Xolotl deity, and when the animal dies and its divine substance transits to the underworld, it later resurfaces to the earth and a new axolotl is born.

“Axolotl is the twin of maize, agave and water,” Montero said.

Current fascination toward axolotl and its rise to sacred status in pre-Hispanic times is hardly a coincidence. It was most likely sparked by its exceptional biological features, Montero said.

Through the glass of a fish tank, where academic institutions preserve them and hatcheries put them up for sale, axolotl are hard to spot. Their skin is usually dark to mimic stones — though an albino, pinkish variety can be bred — and they can stay still for hours, buried in the muddy ground of their natural habitats or barely moving at the bottom of their tanks in captivity.

Aside from their lungs, they breathe through their gills and skin, which allows them to adapt to its aquatic environment. And they can regenerate parts of its heart, spinal cord and brain.

“This species is quite peculiar,” said biologist Arturo Vergara, who supervises axolotl preservation efforts in various institutions and cares after specimens for sale at a hatchery in Mexico City.

Depending on the species, color and size, Axolotl’s prices at Ambystomania — where Vergara works — start at 200 pesos ($10 US). Specimens are available for sale when they reach four inches in length and are easy pets to look after, Vergara said.

“While they regularly have a 15-years life span (in captivity), we’ve had animals that have lived up to 20,” he added. “They are very long-lived, though in their natural habitat they probably wouldn’t last more than three or four years.”

The species on display at the museum — one of 17 known varieties in Mexico — is endemic to lakes and canals that are currently polluted. A healthy population of axolotl would likely struggle to feed or reproduce.

“Just imagine the bottom of a canal in areas like Xochimilco, Tlahuac, Chalco, where there’s an enormous quantity of microbes,” Vergara said.

Under ideal conditions, an axolotl could heal itself from snake or heron biting and survive the dry season buried in the mud. But a proper aquatic environment is needed for that to happen.

“Efforts to preserve axolotl go hand in hand with preserving the chinampas,” Cruz said at the museum, next to a display featuring salamander-shaped dolls. “We work closely with the community to convince them that this is an important space.”

Chinampas are not only where axolotl lay its eggs, but areas where pre-Hispanic communities grew maize, chili, beans and zucchini, and some of Xochimilco’s current population grow vegetables despite environmental threats.

“Many chinampas are dry and don’t produce food anymore,” Cruz said. “And where some chinampas used to be, one can now see soccer camps.”

For her, like for Vergara, preserving axolotl is not an end, but a means for saving the place where the amphibian came to be.

“This great system (chinampas) is all that’s left from the lake city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, so I always tell our visitors that Xochimilco is a living archeological zone,” Cruz said. “If we, as citizens, don’t take care of what’s ours, it will be lost.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

​ Orange County Register 

Republicans are eyeing cuts to Medicaid. What’s Medicaid, again?

• February 21, 2025

By Renuka Rayasam, Sam Whitehead, KFF Health News

In January, during a congressional hearing on his way to becoming secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got basic details wrong about Medicaid — a program he now oversees.

He said that Medicaid is fully funded by the federal government (it’s not) and that many enrollees are unsatisfied with high out-of-pocket costs (enrollees pay limited, if any, out-of-pocket costs).

Medicaid is complex. The $880 billion-a-year state-federal program offers health coverage to millions of disabled and low-income Americans. The program covers different services for different people in different parts of the country — and enrollees may interact with private insurance companies without “Medicaid” in their names, leaving some unaware that they’re on the program at all.

Although President Donald Trump promised to “love and cherish” Medicaid, Republicans in Congress have announced federal budget proposals that could dramatically curtail the program. As that debate begins, here is what you need to know about Medicaid.

What is Medicaid, and how is it different from Medicare?

Medicaid and Medicare were created by the same legislation — an addition to the Social Security Act — that was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965.

Medicaid is a government health insurance program for people with low incomes and adults and children with disabilities.

Medicare, by contrast, generally covers those 65 or older.

For older Americans with low incomes, Medicaid covers out-of-pocket costs for Medicare. Such people are commonly called “dual eligibles,” because they qualify for both programs.

Who is on Medicaid?

More than 79 million people receive services from Medicaid or the closely related Children’s Health Insurance Program. That represents about 20% of the total population of the United States. Most enrollees qualify because of low incomes.

About 40% of all children in the country are covered by Medicaid or CHIP, created in 1997. Both pay for services such as routine checkups, vaccinations, and hospital stays. Medicaid also covers pregnant people before and after they give birth and pays for more than 40% of all births.

Medicaid also covers people with disabilities or complex medical needs and helps them afford services that allow them to live independently in community settings, outside of institutions such as nursing homes and state-run hospitals.

The program serves a diverse cross section of the country. About 40% of people under 65 who use Medicaid are white, 30% are Hispanic, 19% are Black, and 1% are Indigenous people.

Federal Medicaid dollars cannot be used to cover immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal permission, though some states, as well as Washington, D.C., have used their own funds to extend Medicaid coverage to such individuals. California was the first state to do so.

What are the income qualifications?

Eligibility generally depends on whether a person is low income, and states have different ways of defining that. For a four-adult household without dependent children, the current national median coverage level is $44,367.

The Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, which passed in 2010, allowed more people to qualify for Medicaid on the basis of income. This is what is known as “Medicaid expansion.”

The law offered states a sizable incentive to add more people to their programs: The federal government would pitch in more money per enrollee to help cover them.

The intention behind the expansion was to close gaps in health insurance programs for the millions of Americans who don’t get coverage through an employer. Medicaid would cover people with extremely low incomes, and as their incomes rose, they could move to subsidized health plans sold through the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court said the decision of whether to expand the program would be left up to individual states. Today, 40 states and the District of Columbia — led by Democrats and Republicans alike — have opted in.

In the 10 states that haven’t expanded Medicaid to more low-income adults, the median earnings qualification level is $5,947 a year for a single-person household in 2025. Those who make more are not eligible.

Adults in those states who make too much for Medicaid can also make too little to qualify for help buying plans on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, leaving some unable to afford coverage. An estimated 1.5 million fall into this coverage gap.

Where does the money to pay for it come from?

The federal government pays most of the cost of Medicaid by matching a portion of what states spend.

Currently, the federal government matches at least 50% of state spending and offers states more money for some services and enrollees — for instance, for children and pregnant women.

Less wealthy states — determined by considering residents’ per capita incomes — receive a higher match, translating to a higher percentage of federal dollars. In Mississippi, for instance, the federal government picks up 77% of the cost of Medicaid.

States also receive a 90% match from the federal government for enrollees eligible for Medicaid under the ACA’s expansion.

There is no limit on how much states can spend on the program, and hundreds of billions of federal dollars flow into states each year. In 2023, states spent about 15% of their own budgets on Medicaid.

What does that money pay for?

Federal law requires all state Medicaid programs to cover certain services, including emergency medical transportation, X-rays and lab work, family planning, and medication-assisted treatment for people with opioid use disorder. The program also covers many nursing and home health services, though federal law allows those benefits to be clawed back after an enrollee’s death.

Beyond that, states have the flexibility to choose the services their Medicaid programs cover. All states cover prescription drugs, and most cover eyeglasses, some dental care, and physical therapy.

Medicaid covers more mental health and long-term care services than any other type of insurance, public or private.

What is Medicaid called in my state?

Medicaid programs can go by many different names, even within the same state, in part because most states use private insurance companies to run them. This can be confusing for consumers who may not realize they are actually enrolled in Medicaid.

In New York, for instance, Medicaid plans are offered by major companies, such as Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield and UnitedHealthcare — and some you may not have heard of, such as Amida Care and MetroPlusHealth. In Wisconsin, enrollees may be in BadgerCare Plus; in Connecticut, Husky Health; in Texas, STAR; and in California, Medi-Cal.

How does Medicaid affect hospitals and doctors in my state?

Medicaid generally pays health care providers such as doctors and hospitals less money for services than Medicare or private insurance does. But it can be more money than they’d get caring for people who are uninsured — and without Medicaid, many more Americans would be uninsured.

Like states, providers and hospitals have come to rely on this money and express concerns that even phasing it out over time would require major adjustments.

What’s going to happen to Medicaid?

It’s not clear. Republicans in Washington are again pushing for major changes, which could take the form of cuts to federal funding. That could reduce the number of people who qualify, the services available, or both. A similar push focused on repealing and replacing Obamacare in 2017, during Trump’s first term, was unsuccessful.

Perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to changing Medicaid is its popularity: 77% of Americans — and majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans — view the program favorably.

At the heart of it all are key questions about the role of government in people’s health: How big should the U.S. medical insurance safety net be? Who deserves government assistance? And how will enrollees, states, providers, and the health care system at large absorb major changes to Medicaid, even if a rollout were staggered?

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Los Angeles district attorney to update public in Menendez brothers’ resentencing case

• February 21, 2025

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles district attorney will give an update Friday on the case of Lyle and Erik Menendez, brothers who are seeking release after their 1996 conviction for the murder of their wealthy parents at their Beverly Hills home.

District Attorney Nathan Hochman, who took office in December, has yet to say whether he supports the proposed resentencing for the brothers, which will be taken up at a March hearing and would make them immediately eligible for parole.

The brothers were found guilty in the 1989 murders of their entertainment executive father, Jose, and their mother, Kitty Menendez, and sentenced to life in prison without parole. They began their bid for freedom in recent years after new evidence of their father’s sexual abuse emerged in their case, and they have the support of most of their extended family.

In October, then-District Attorney George Gascón recommended the brothers be resentenced to 50 years to life, making them immediately eligible for parole. But Gascón lost his bid for reelection in November to Hochman, who called the recommendation a “desperate political move.”

A resentencing hearing originally scheduled for early December was delayed to the end of January after Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic said he needed time to review extensive evidence and give Hochman time to weigh in on the case. In January, Hochman pushed the hearing out another two months — to March 20 and 21 — because of the Los Angeles wildfires.

Hochman has met with the brothers’ relatives as he reviews their case, which includes thousands of pages of prison records to determine the “rehabilitation aspect” of their resentencing.

Lyle Menendez, who was then 21, and Erik Menendez, then 18, admitted they fatally shot-gunned their parents, but they said they feared their parents were about to kill them to prevent disclosure of their father’s long-term molestation of Erik.

Prosecutors said at the time there was no evidence of molestation, and many details in their story of sexual abuse were not permitted in the trial that led to their conviction in 1996. Prosecutors accused the brothers of killing their parents for money.

Roy Rossello, former member of the Latin pop group Menudo, recently came forward saying he was drugged and raped by Jose Menendez when he was a teen in the 1980s. Menudo was signed under RCA Records, which Jose Menendez was the head of at the time.

The case has gained new traction after Netflix began streaming the true-crime drama “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story. ”

​ Orange County Register 

Man gets 29 years in killing of rapper Pop Smoke in Hollywood Hills

• February 21, 2025

The lone adult charged in connection with the Hollywood Hills killing of rap artist Pop Smoke in 2020 was sentenced on Friday, Feb. 21, to 29 years in state prison.

Corey Walker, age 19 at the time of the killing, had pleaded guilty on Feb. 5 in downtown Los Angeles to voluntary manslaughter and two counts of home-invasion robbery.

Walker — who admitted gang and gun allegations — could have faced life in prison without the possibility of parole if he had been tried and convicted on the original allegations, which included murder during the course of a robbery.

Walker was the only adult among four people charged in the killing of the 20-year-old rapper, whose real name was Bashar Jackson. The other three were charged in juvenile court, and their names were withheld because of their ages.

In 2023, one defendant, who was 15 at the time of the killing, admitted a first-degree murder charge along with an allegation he personally discharged a handgun. He also admitted to a home-invasion robbery count, and he is expected to remain in a juvenile facility until he turns 25.

Another juvenile admitted to one count each of voluntary manslaughter and home-invasion robbery, and the third admitted to a charge of home-invasion robbery. The current custody status of those defendants was unclear.

Walker acknowledged that he became aware that the rapper was staying at a short-term rental home on Hercules Drive in the Hollywood Hills, and that he initially drove with a 17-year-old to case the house about 2 a.m. on Feb. 19, 2020, and then returned with three teenagers and another person — whose identity has not been released — shortly after 4 a.m.

Walker admitted to providing a 9mm firearm to one juvenile.

Walker also acknowledged that he had researched the Los Angeles Police Department and the house on the websites Zillow and Google, driven with the vehicle’s headlights off and kept an open line of communication with the 17-year-old while the rest of the group went inside the home.

He admitted that the rapper’s Rolex watch, along with jewelry and a purse, were taken from the home, and that the group later sold the watch for $2,000.

LAPD Capt. Steve Lurie said the 911 call that brought police to the Hercules Drive address came from someone on the East Coast who said a friend’s home was being broken into by multiple suspects, and that one of them was armed with a handgun.

“When officers arrived there approximately six minutes later, they discovered a victim inside the house had been shot,” Lurie said at the time. “They called the Fire Department, who arrived and transported that victim to Cedars-Sinai, where he was pronounced dead.”

The four were taken into custody just under five months later.

Pop Smoke released an album in July 2019, and one of the songs, “Welcome to the Party,” was considered by some the song of that summer. Nicki Minaj did a remix of the song a few months later. The rapper also collaborated with Travis Scott on a song called “Gatti.”

Pop Smoke was named top new artist, top rap artist and top male rap artist at the Billboard Music Awards in May 2021, while his “Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon” won top rap album and top Billboard 200 album.

The rapper’s mother, Audrey Jackson, accepted the top Billboard 200 album award on her late son’s behalf, saying then that she wanted to “thank the fans for honoring the life and spirit of my son so much that he continues to manifest as if he were still here in the flesh.”

“He created music for the kid who has to sleep four in a room, the kid who has to figure out how to get to school each day so he can graduate and make his mom proud,” she added. “He did this so that 14-year-olds would not have to kill to prove that they are somebody. That is the irony in this.”

According to various media reports, the New York rapper posted photos earlier on the day of the killing or late the night before from a party at the home, even revealing the address. According to TMZ, one of the photos showed a person holding a large sum of money.

​ Orange County Register 

Taco Bell partners with Milk Bar on a Birthday Cake Churro

• February 21, 2025

Taco Bell doesn’t usually serve churros, but the fast food giant will be offering them for a limited time.

Taco Bell is partnering with Milk Bar on a Birthday Cake Churro. The treat is filled with birthday cake frosting and topped with confetti sprinkles. They sell two for about $2.99 or one for $1.99 at participating locations, according to a news release.

Milk Bar is a New York-based bakery that has a location at 7150 Melrose Ave. in Los Angeles. It previously collaborated with Taco Bell on a Strawberry Milk Truffle in 2022. It will have its own take on churros, Churro Birthday Cake Truffles, the news release said.

Sweets on Taco Bell’s regular menu include Cinnamon Twists and Cinnabon Delights.

Other limited time items at Taco Bell include Cheesy Dipping Burrito.

Taco Bell, which is based in Irvine, plans to announce many of its menu innovations for 2025 at a fan event, Live Más LIVE, in New York City on March 4.

Information: tacobell.com

​ Orange County Register 

How George E. Johnson made millions in the hair care industry while following the Golden Rule

• February 21, 2025

George E. Johnson, at 97, is a rich man. He’s been a rich man since the 1960s. He’s owned yachts, cattle ranches and a home in France. Years ago, he took a French lover; they divorced after a short marriage. He lived in Glencoe much of his life. He had a tennis court and swimming pool, and when his first wife came home from Neiman Marcus carrying thousands of dollars’ worth of designer clothes, he blinked and showed concern, but Joan, his wife, said they had money, what was the worry? Johnson was a rich man.

His mother nicknamed him “The Rich Man” before he actually was a rich man. He acted like one. His mother left Mississippi at 18 and arrived in Chicago as part of the Great Migration. He grew up near Bronzeville and took small jobs as early as age 6. He waited tables, washed cars, swept floors, shined shoes. After he made a little cash, he took horseback riding lessons around Hyde Park. He bought wide-legged jodhpurs and liked to walk around wearing them. He would also carry a riding crop, just because.

“I worked my butt off and did things a young Black man didn’t do then,” he said recently. “I took my riding lessons in Washington Park. I went to the theater. I went to the opera. I dressed up for school every day. And I made money. I was never unemployed.”

The other morning he looked out across Chicago, from his apartment on the 64th floor of Water Tower Place. It wraps around a corner of the skyscraper. From here you can see the West Side; turn and watch steam curling out of rooftops along Michigan Avenue. Jeanne Gang’s long, skeletal St. Regis stands tall in one window, though it’s actually a mile way.

Behind him was one of the Picassos he owns.

Beside him was a grand piano topped with a white bust, Schroeder-like. Around him were sculptures and vases and elegant cream-colored furniture he’s been collecting for decades, mingled with the paintings brought in by his third wife, renowned art consultant Madeline Murphy Rabb. They were married three years ago, when Johnson was 94.

It’s been a life.

And yet Johnson, as he insists in his new memoir, “Afro Sheen: How I Revolutionized an Industry with the Golden Rule, from ‘Soul Train’ to Wall Street,” never thought of himself as a capitalist. Being a capitalist meant greed, an accumulation of wealth, and Johnson accumulated plenty, but he lived by a question you don’t hear often in 2025:

How much money does one man need?

He decided recently that his story, and the lessons of his career, might be useful now.

Johnson made his money selling hair care products designed for Black communities. Afro Sheen, Ultra Sheen, Classy Curl, Gentle Treatment, along with Black Tie cologne. He made those. He created Johnson Products Co., which had a warehouse beside the Dan Ryan for decades. (Today, it’s home to Perspectives Leadership Academy, at Lafayette Avenue and 85th Street.) In the 1970s, Johnson Products became the first Black-owned business traded on Wall Street. Johnson used the money from that success to bankroll a Chicago TV show with national aspirations, “Soul Train.”

Throughout his four-decade long control of Johnson Products, he had a profit-sharing policy with employees. He had hundreds of employees and provided full health care, an on-site nurse, six sick days annually, four-day (paid) weekends every holiday, family leave, college tuition reimbursement (a decade before it was common) and a subsidized employee cafeteria.

He is proof a company can trickle down profits, when the will is there.

“I had spent the money that I made early on educating (barbers and hair stylists) how to use my project and it worked out well,” he said. “But listen, when the stockbrokers told me I had to discontinue profit sharing, saying investors would not stand for giving away 25 percent of profits, before taxes, to employees, I said: ‘Well, that’s a deal breaker.’ They thought I was crazy. I was not crazy. I was determined to keep profit sharing. My company started in ’54. By 1960, I was profit sharing. My feeling was, look, these people helped make my money, why not share it?”

I’m going to pause a moment to peek outside and see if the universe imploded.

Nope, looks good.

On the wall of his office are photos you might expect someone with this kind of success. Johnson with Barack Obama. Johnson with the Clintons. Johnson with Jesse Jackson (a close friend). Johnson with Muhammad Ali. Johnson with Oprah Winfrey. Beneath those, a note from Martin Luther King Jr., who toured the Johnson factory and proclaimed: “Now this is Black power!” About 90% of the staff were Black. King announced the creation of Operation Breadbasket in the cafeteria. Within seven years of business, the company was pulling in $7 million (adjusted for 2025 dollars) and hosting hairdresser dinners. In 1961, Louis Armstrong was the entertainment.

All of which emerged from Johnson’s signature hair straightener for men, Ultra Wave, then his Ultra Sheen relaxer for women, which reduced the heat and grease needed for straightening. The products themselves, said Hilary Beard, who helped Johnson write his memoir, contributed in its own way to the growth of a Black middle class in America.

“His relaxer meant your hair would be permanently straight, or straighter,” she said, “and that meant Black people could access work — so they could be seen as human. It’s hard for people to understand that now, but George was practicing and helping diversity and inclusion before the rest of mainstream Chicago businesses even considered it.

“I grew up in a world George created.”

Johnson looks tired, and happy. He has a wide, ingratiating smile. He remembers exactly why he decided to write a memoir at 97: “It was Nov. 21, 2021. A Sunday morning. I was sitting in the family room in my chair and all of a sudden the room got bright and I heard five words: ‘YOU MUST TELL YOUR STORY.’ I never intended to do a book. When I retired people asked, but I had no intention. My grandkids asked how I started the company, I’d think about the lessons the Lord bestowed and start to cry. I didn’t like talking about myself. I could never get through a story.

“I also considered that the way I met Orville Nelson was God’s plan.”

Nelson was a hotshot Chicago barber to Black celebrities, and Nat King Cole’s personal barber. Johnson and Nelson met at Fuller Products Co., a Black-owned cosmetics business, where Johnson was the head production chemist. Nelson wanted Fuller to make a better straightener. When Fuller passed on the idea, Johnson started working on solutions. He partnered for a time with Nelson.

But soon Johnson learned that Nelson was selling his own variation on their straightener, using some of Johnson’s work, but without Johnson’s knowledge. Their partnership dissolved soon after, and Johnson remained an acolyte of his former boss, S.B. Fuller, who was one of the richest Black men in America in the mid-1950s. Like Fuller, he saw his new company not as a way to get rich but to create generational wealth on the South Side.

Johnson’s memoir, then, plays like an alternate history, as seen through hair. As Black Power grows popular in the 1960s and people begin wearing their hair more natural, Johnson pivots to Afro Sheen. As Jheri curls take off and curly perms show few signs of being a fad, Johnson feels squeezed by competition, including Revlon.

By the end of the 1980s, he resigns from the company and as part of a divorce settlement, he turns over a controlling stake to his first wife, Joan, who eventually sells to the Ivax pharmaceutical corporation, which is swallowed by L’Oreal, which divests itself of several Johnson brands, and Johnson Products Co. eventually peters out around 2009.

Back at his apartment, Rabb comes into the room.

“You said you were never afraid of failure,” she tells her husband.

Johnson nods.

“I wasn’t,” he said. “No, I wasn’t. I really wasn’t. I spent 10 years with Fuller, and his philosophy was the Golden Rule, and I absorbed it.” The Golden Rule, in case you’ve forgotten, is quite old school: Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself.

[email protected]

​ Orange County Register 

Election officials blast Trump’s ‘retreat’ from protecting voting against foreign threats

• February 21, 2025

By Matt Vasilogambros, Stateline.org

The Trump administration has begun dismantling the nation’s defenses against foreign interference in voting, a sweeping retreat that has alarmed state and local election officials.

The administration is shuttering the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force and last week cut more than 100 positions at the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. President Donald Trump signed the law creating the agency in 2018. Among its goals is including helping state and local officials protect voting systems.

Secretaries of state and municipal clerks fear those moves could expose voter registration databases and other critical election systems to hacking — and put the lives of election officials at risk.

In Pennsylvania, Republican Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt said states need federal help to safeguard elections from foreign and domestic bad actors.

“It is foolish and inefficient to think that states should each pursue this on their own,” he told Stateline. “The adversaries that we might encounter in Pennsylvania are very likely the same ones they’ll encounter in Michigan and Georgia and Arizona.”

Officials from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA, and other federal agencies were notably absent from the National Association of Secretaries of State winter meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Those same federal partners have for the past seven years provided hacking testing of election systems, evaluated the physical security of election offices, and conducted exercises to prepare local officials for Election Day crises, among other services for states that wanted them.

But the Trump administration thinks those services have gone too far.

In a Feb. 5 memo, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the administration is dismantling the FBI’s task force “to free resources to address more pressing priorities, and end risks of further weaponization and abuses of prosecutorial discretion.” The task force was launched in 2017 by then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, a Trump nominee.

In her confirmation hearing last month, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said CISA has “gotten far off-mission.” She added, “They’re using their resources in ways that was never intended.” While the agency should protect the nation’s critical infrastructure, its work combating disinformation was a step too far, she said.

This echoes the language from the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 document, which has driven much of the Trump administration’s policies. “The Left has weaponized [CISA] to censor speech and affect elections at the expense of securing the cyber domain and critical infrastructure,” it says.

But there is a direct correlation between pervasive election disinformation and political violence, election officials warn.

Federal officials led the investigations into the roughly 20 death threats that Colorado Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold has received over the past 18 months, Griswold said. Federal and Colorado officials also collaborated on social media disinformation and mass phishing scams.

“Trump is making it easier for foreign adversaries to attack our elections and our democracy,” Griswold said in an interview. “He incites all this violence, he has attacked our election system, and now he is using the federal government to weaken us.”

Colorado could turn to private vendors to, for example, probe systems to look for weaknesses, she said. But the state would be hard-pressed to duplicate the training, testing and intelligence of its federal partners.

Some election leaders aren’t worried, however.

“Kentucky has no scheduled elections in 2025, and we have no immediate concerns pending reorganization of this agency,” Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams told Stateline in an email.

Elections under attack

Since the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign, the federal government has recognized that it overlooked security risks in the election system, said Derek Tisler, a counsel in the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center, a left-leaning pro-democracy institute.

Further, he said, the feds realized that election officials working in 10,000 local offices could not be frontline national security experts. On their own, local officials are incapable of addressing bigger security risks or spotting a coordinated attack across several states, Tisler said.

Much of the federal expertise and training came through CISA, Tisler said.

“Foreign interferers are not generally looking to interfere in Illinois’ elections or in Texas’ elections; they are looking to interfere in American elections,” he said. “A threat anywhere impacts all states. It’s important that information is not confined to state lines.”

During November’s presidential election, polling places in several states received bomb threats that were traced back to Russia. Ballot drop boxes in Oregon and Washington were lit on fire, and videos falsely depicting election workers destroying ballots circulated widely.

The fact that these attacks have not had a meaningful impact on the outcomes of elections may be due to the amount of preparation and training that came from federal assistance in recent years, said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat.

Indeed, the right-leaning Foundation for Defense of Democracies praised the collaboration between federal and state and local partners on election security for dampening the impact of foreign interference in the presidential election, finding that adversaries did not “significantly” influence the results.

When Bellows took office in 2021, federal national security officials led state officials in emergency response training. After Bellows completed the training, she insisted that her state’s clerks, local emergency responders and law enforcement officers participate as well.

In addition, Maine coordinated with the FBI to provide de-escalation training to local clerks, to teach them how to prevent situations, such as a disruption from a belligerent voter, from getting out of hand. In 2022, CISA officials traveled to towns and cities across the state to assess the physical security of polling places and clerks’ offices.

Bellows said she’s most grateful for the federal help she got last year when she received a deluge of death threats, members of her family were doxed, and her home was swatted.

“I am deeply concerned that what is happening is actually gutting the election security infrastructure that exists and a tremendous amount of knowledge and expertise in the name of this political fight,” she told Stateline.

In Ingham County, Michigan, Clerk Barb Byrum last year invited two federal officials to come to her courthouse office southeast of Lansing to assess its physical security. Byrum got county funding to make improvements, including adding security cameras and a ballistic film on the windows of her office.

“The federal support is going to be missed,” she said. “It seems as though the Trump administration is doing everything it can to encourage foreign interference in our elections. We must remain vigilant.”

Scott McDonell, clerk for Dane County, Wisconsin, used to talk to Department of Homeland Security officials frequently to identify cybersecurity threats, including vulnerabilities in certain software or alerts about other attacks throughout the country. Losing that support could incentivize more interference, he said.

“I think it’s a terrible idea,” he said. “How can you expect someone like me, here in Dane County, to be able to deal with something like that?”

States fill the gap

Local election officials are nervous and uncertain about the federal election security cuts, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonprofit that works with state and local election officials to keep voting systems secure.

The threat landscape for elections is “extreme,” she said. And even though it’s not a major election year, quieter times are when election offices can prepare and perfect their practices, she said.

“It is a retreat and it’s a really ill-advised one,” she said. “It’s a little bit like saying the bank has a slow day on Tuesday, we’re going to let our security guards go home.”

With a federal exodus, there will be a real need for states to offer these sorts of programs and assistance, said Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer at the National Association of Election Officials, which trains and supports local officials.

“There’s going to be a big gap there for the states to try and fill,” she said. “Some of them might be sophisticated enough to be able to do some of it, but I think there’s going to be some real disparate application across the country of who’s going to be able to fill in those gaps.”

Bill Ekblad, Minnesota’s election security navigator, has leaned on the feds to learn the ropes of election security and potential threats, help him assist local election offices with better cyber practices and keep officials throughout the state updated with the latest phishing attempts.

He finds it disheartening to see the federal government stepping back, and worries that he won’t have access to intelligence about foreign threats. But after five years of working with the federal government, he is hopeful that his state has built resiliency.

“We have come a long way,” he said. “We will be able to move forward with or without the partnerships we’ve enjoyed in the past.”

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Mayor Bass fires Crowley as LA’s fire chief

• February 21, 2025

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass removed Kristin Crowley as the city’s fire chief on Friday, effective immediately. The mayor appointed former Chief Deputy Ronnie Villanueva to serve as interim chief.

Bass’ administration has maintained that cuts to areas of the fire department’s budget did not impact firefighters’ ability to respond to the fires, despite comments from Crowley that suggest otherwise. The fire chief recently lashed out against city officials, saying the city “failed” her and her department. Crowley also cast blame on the city for water running out when many of the hydrants tapped to fight the deadly Palisades fire went dry.

“I’m not a politician, I’m a public servant. It’s my job as the fire chief for Los Angeles city fire department to make sure our firefighters have exactly what they need to do their jobs,” Crowley told CNN at the time.

On Friday, Bass said 1,000 firefighters could have been on duty the morning the fires broke out but “were instead sent home on Chief Crowley’s watch.” The Palisades Fire gutted 23,448 acres, leveled nearly 7,000  structures and damaged 1,017 more. At least 12 people were killed.

“Furthermore, a necessary step to an investigation was the president of the Fire Commission telling Chief Crowley to do an after action report on the fires,” Bass added. “The chief (Crowley) refused. These require her removal.”

Bass also said Crowley refused to launch an after-action report on the deadly wildfires.

The mayor scheduled a press conference to discuss her decision for mid-day.

The mayor and her office have been inundated with questions since the first fire broke out  — everything from whether Bass regretted her trip to Ghana and if she should apologize to Angelenos for being away to whether the city cut the fire department’s budget and left it ill-equipped to battle the flames to whether city officials failed to ensure that L.A. had enough water to respond to massive fires.

In media interviews last week, Bass acknowledged she made a mistake by leaving the city. But she inferred that she wasn’t aware of the looming danger when she jetted around the globe to attend the inauguration of Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama. She faulted Crowley for failing to alert her about the potentially explosive fire conditions.

In her announcement, the mayor said she fired Crowley “in the best interests” of L.A.’s public safety and the operations of the L.A. Fire Department.

“The heroism of our firefighters — during the Palisades Fire and every single day — is without question,” Bass said. “Bringing new leadership to the fire department is what our city needs.”

Villanueva is expected to lead the LAFD while the mayor’s office leads a national search and engages with residents to what they’d like in their next fire chief.

The interim chief retired seven months ago, but he is ready to hit the ground running, according to Bass’ office.

Villanueva retired from the fire department as chief deputy of emergency operations, and has decades of experience in fire suppression, emergency management, and the management of thousands of operational and support members of the LAFD in various positions at the department.

Before becoming a chief officer, Villanueva spent 24 years in the field at active assignments.

Developer Rick Caruso, whom Bass defeated in the 2022 race for mayor, responded swiftly to the move.

“It is very disappointing that Mayor Bass has decided to fire Chief Kristin Crowley,” Caruso said in a statement. “Chief Crowley served Los Angeles well and spoke honestly about the severe and profoundly ill-conceived budget cuts the Bass administration made to the LAFD. That courage to speak the truth was brave, and I admire her. Honesty in a high city official should not be a firing offense. The mayor’s decision to ignore the warnings and leave the city was hers alone. This is a time for city leaders to take responsibility for their actions and their decisions. We need real leadership, not more blame passing.”

“Chief Crowley remains the most qualified member of the L.A. City Fire Department that earned her well deserved appointment as fire fhief,” said L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez. “I am outraged by the scapegoating revealed by the Mayor’s actions. I plan to use my authority as a Councilmember to set the record straight and encourage Chief Crowley to appeal the Mayor’s baseless termination to the City Council. The public deserves a full account of every single leadership failure that has taken place.”

Crowley was elevated to Los Angeles fire chief in 2022 at a time of turmoil in a department consumed by complaints of rampant hazing, harassment and discrimination among its 3,400-member ranks. As a career firefighter, she was portrayed as a stabilizing force.

She worked for the city fire department for more than 25 years and held nearly every role, including fire marshal, engineer and battalion chief.

This is a breaking news story; watch for updates

City News Service and the Associated Press contributed to this report 

​ Orange County Register