Palisades and Eaton wildfires caused up to $53.8 billion in property damage, study finds

• February 27, 2025

Last month’s Palisades and Eaton wildfires caused between $28 billion and $53.8 billion in property damage, with business disruptions projected to result in economic losses of up to $8.9 billion in Los Angeles County alone over the next five years, according to a study published Thursday.

The report commissioned by the Southern California Leadership Council and the LA County Economic Development Corporation studies the impacts of the destruction and economic havoc caused by the fires and offers data-driven recommendations to guide recovery efforts.

The study estimates that the fires could lead to up to 49,110 job-years lost and reductions in labor income of up to $3.7 billion, while federal, state and local governments could experience tax revenue losses ranging from $730 million to $1.4 billion.

The report looks at the economic damage and personal toll of the fires and discusses the need for investing in prevention and recovery, former state Gov. Gray Davis, SCLC co-chair, said during a virtual press conference.

“Speed matters in the recovery process … particularly from an economic perspective,” Davis said. “Job No. 1 is to help people rebuild and get back to their new homes. … We have to learn the lessons of this fire and previous fires. We have to build homes better … so we don’t repeat this terrible tragedy. … Let’s learn the lessons.”

The study analyzed the fires’ impact on key industries, with retail trade, health care, professional services, construction, and educational services among the hardest hit. Disruptions to supply chains and workforce displacement could further compound the region’s economic challenges, the report said.

LA County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said the disaster “has left lasting scars on our community” and the entire region — “not only in terms of physical destruction but in economic hardships.”

Echoing Davis’ comments, Barger said the county’s best path forward is expediting issues surrounding the rebuilding process. “I am laser-focused on streamlining” those issues, she said.

Stephen Cheung, president and chief executive of LAEDC, said a best-case scenario would be recovery by 2029, but the process could take many more years. The impact of the fires would grow with the length of the recovery period, he added.

Steps toward recovery, according to the report, include fast-tracking rebuilding efforts through coordinated permitting processes and financial incentives, can reduce recovery timelines by up to 50%, strengthening fire-prone communities with improved emergency response systems, microgrids and fire-resistant construction materials and methods as required in California’s current building codes.

Also, implementing alternative insurance models, such as parametric insurance, can ensure faster financial relief for affected businesses and homeowners. Parametric insurance pays a set amount based on the magnitude of the event, rather than the magnitude of the losses in a traditional indemnity policy.

Researchers further suggest direct support be provided to impacted businesses and displaced workers through grants, training programs and small business recovery initiatives to prevent long-term economic decline, the report says.

According to the report, establishing multi-agency wildfire task forces with clear recovery roadmaps can also cut response times and improve post-disaster efficiency.

To access the full report, go to laedc.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/LAEDC-2025-LA-Wildfires-Study.pdf, or read it below.

​ Orange County Register 

Dodgers held to 5 hits, shut out by Rockies

• February 27, 2025

THE GAME: The Dodgers were held to five hits in a 2-0 loss to the Colorado Rockies on Thursday afternoon at Salt River Fields in Scottsdale, Arizona.

HITTING REPORT: Freddie Freeman made his first start of the spring and went 1 for 3 with a single and two flyouts as the DH. … Michael Conforto started the spring 0 for 8 with four strikeouts, but he broke that hitless start with a double Thursday and also drew a walk. … Justin Dean, Austin Barnes and Griffin Lockwood-Powell had the other hits, all singles.

PITCHING REPORT: Landon Knack went the first 1⅓ innings and struggled with the command of his secondary pitches. He gave up two hits and a walk but no runs. … Kirby Yates, Blake Treinen and Tanner Scott each made their second appearances of the spring. Yates gave up the Rockies’ first run on doubles by Brenton Doyle and Ezequiel Tovar and didn’t finish the inning. Scott gave up the second run on an RBI double by Hunter Goodman. … Treinen pitched a scoreless sixth inning and Anthony Banda struck out the side in a 1-2-3 eighth.

FAMILY TIME: For the second time in four days, brothers exchanged the lineup cards before the Dodgers’ Cactus League game. On Monday, Matt and Sean McLain did the honors before the Reds-Dodgers game in Goodyear. Matt is the Reds’ second baseman and Sean, a minor-league prospect, started at shortstop for the Dodgers that day. Before Thursday’s game, Jared and Kyle Karros exchanged the lineup cards for the Dodgers and Rockies. Jared Karros is a pitching prospect in the Dodgers’ system. Younger brother Kyle is a third baseman in the Rockies’ organization. The two played together for two years at UCLA. Jared pitched a scoreless inning with two strikeouts for the Dodgers on Thursday. Kyle was 1 for 2 with a single. Their father is longtime Dodgers first baseman Eric Karros.

UP NEXT: Angels (LHP Yusei Kikuchi) at Dodgers (RHP Dustin May), Friday, 5 p.m. PT, at Camelback Ranch, SportsNet LA, MLB Network (out of network only), 570 AM

​ Orange County Register 

Woman suspected in Colorado Tesla dealership vandalism charged in federal court

• February 27, 2025

By COLLEEN SLEVIN

DENVER (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged a woman in a string of vandalism against a Colorado Tesla dealership, including throwing Molotov cocktails at vehicles and spray painting “Nazi cars” on the building along with a message that appeared directed at company co-founder Elon Musk.

Lucy Grace Nelson appeared in federal court in Denver briefly Thursday after being arrested on a federal charge of malicious destruction of property. Her ankles and wrists were shackled and she wore a purple tie-dye shirt and red-and-black checked pants, as she sat in the jury box with other defendants waiting for their cases to be called.

Nelson rocked back and forth slightly as Magistrate Judge N. Reid Neureiter informed of her rights and Nelson’s mother watched from the front row of the gallery.

When Neureiter questioned lawyers about why federal charges were brought, Nelson began to speak but her attorney, public defender Jennifer Beck, rushed across the room to stop her. Cassie Wiemken of the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the federal government had a compelling interest to prosecute the case because of the danger posed by the “incendiary devices” allegedly used.

After Neureiter noted that Nelson did not report any income or expenses in her application for an attorney, Beck told him that she receives support from her family.

Nelson’s mother and attorney declined to comment after the hearing.

Nelson’s sister, Jennifer McCown, said that her sister loves her family and has been recently volunteering to feed the homeless.

“She’s a loving, intelligent person who wouldn’t hurt another person for the world,” McCown said in a text. She did not comment on the allegations Nelson is facing.

Nelson was arrested Monday on separate state charges after police said she returned to the dealership in Loveland, Colorado with “additional incendiary devices” and materials used in vandalism. However, it wasn’t clear whether state prosecutors have filed formal charges against her. Police said Wednesday that they expected federal charges to be filed.

The case comes amid rising concerns voiced by Democrats and some Republicans about Musk’s influence over the administration of President Donald Trump and follows recent protests at Tesla storerooms elsewhere in the U.S.

Trump and cost-costing chief Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have been moving to slash the size of the federal government through large-scale layoffs, contract cancellations and other moves.

According to the federal criminal charges filed against Nelson, she is suspected of starting fires by igniting Molotov cocktails crafted from empty liquor bottles near vehicles that apparently did not cause much damage.

Photos included in the filing showed a small fire on the ground near vehicles. The dealership estimated that several incidents of vandalism over the course of about a month caused between $5,000 and $20,000 in damages, with an estimated $5,000 in damage to the vehicles.

Loveland police spokesperson Chris Padgett said police were investigating the possibility of someone else being involved.

In one of the incidents, someone spray painted an obscenity believed to be directed at Musk before being chased away by a security guard, according to a Loveland police affidavit.

Police said that at the time of Nelson’s arrest, they saw in her car cans of spray paint, gasoline, bottles and various cloth pieces that could be soaked with an accelerant.

​ Orange County Register 

Texas says doctor illegally treated trans youth. He says he followed the law

• February 27, 2025

By JAMIE STENGLE, Associated Press

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — On the Texas border, Dr. Hector Granados treats children with diabetes at his El Paso clinics and makes hospital rounds under the shadow of accusations that have thrown his career into jeopardy: providing care to transgender youth.

In what’s believed to be a U.S. first, Texas is suing Granados and two other physicians over claims that they violated the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, calling the doctors “scofflaws” in lawsuits filed last fall that threaten to impose steep fines and revoke their medical licenses. He denies the accusations, and all three doctors have asked courts to dismiss the cases.

The cases are a pivotal test of intensifying Republican efforts to prevent such treatments, including President Donald Trump’s executive order that would bar federal support for gender-affirming care for youth under 19.

Some hospitals have already begun unwinding services for pediatric patients. But, so far, only Texas is demonstrating what punishing doctors looks like when bans are allegedly broken.

Granados, in an interview with The Associated Press, said he was meticulous in halting transgender care before Texas’ ban took effect in 2023. He denied that he continued prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to transitioning patients and said he was initially unclear which patients, who are not named in the lawsuit, he is accused of wrongfully treating.

The other accused doctors — both in Dallas — are under temporary court orders not to see patients and only practice medicine in research and academic settings.

“Looking at the patients was hard because they were kind of disappointed of what was going on,” Granados said of ending their care. “But it was something that needed to be followed because it’s the law.”

The lawsuits are believed to be the first time a state has brought enforcement under laws that ban or restrict gender-affirming care for minors, which Republicans have enacted in 27 states, including this month in Kansas over the Democratic governor’s veto. Although those accused of violating bans face criminal charges in some states, they do not in Texas.

Nationwide, doctors and hospital executives are reevaluating transgender health programs that carry a widening risk of litigation and losing federal funding. For transgender Americans, the climate has narrowed options for care and deepened fears.

Trump has launched a broad charge against transgender rights quickly in his second term, signing executive orders that include barring schools from using federal education dollars to support students who are socially transitioning. Supporters say restrictions protect vulnerable children from what they see as a “radical” ideology about gender and making irreversible medical decisions.

The Texas lawsuits were brought by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has previously gone beyond the state’s borders to launch investigations into gender-affirming treatment.

His office did not respond to requests for an interview. At a court hearing Wednesday involving the Dallas doctors, an attorney in Paxton’s office declined to comment and referred questions to the agency’s press office.

“I will enforce the law to the fullest extent to prevent any doctor from providing these dangerous drugs to kids,” Paxton said in a statement this month.

A practice in El Paso

Granados is one of two pediatric endocrinologists in El Paso, a desert city of about 700,000 where mountains rise in the distance.

Granados, 48, is from Ciudad Juarez, the neighboring Mexican city that sprawls out south of El Paso. He said that after attending medical school in Mexico he completed additional training in New York and Connecticut but he wanted to return to what he said is an underserved region.

He opened a gender clinic at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso before starting his own practice in 2019. Before the ban, Granados said, treating transgender youth was just an extension of his practice that also treats youth with diabetes, growth problems and early puberty.

He said he accepted transgender patients only if they had first received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a mental health provider.

“It was not different from doing everything else that a pediatric endocrinologist does,” he said. “It was just taking care of children who required that specific therapy.”

Emiliana Edwards was among them. Now 18, she called Granados an “amazing” caregiver who carefully explained her gender-affirming treatment. But at her first appointment after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the ban in 2023, Edwards said the room felt different, “like there were wires everywhere.”

“It felt like we couldn’t talk about anything really, even the most simple stuff,” she said.

Her mother, Lorena Edwards, said Granados put a “cold stop” to her daughter’s care.

“It was just: ‘I don’t provide that care anymore.’ And it was done,” she said.

Bringing cases to court

At the heart of Texas’ lawsuits against Granados, Dr. May Lau and Dr. M. Brett Cooper are allegations of prescribing treatment to transition their patients’ sex after the ban took effect.

In one instance, the state accuses Granados of prescribing testosterone to a 16-year-old, alleging that although the doctor’s records identify the patient as male, the teenager’s sex assigned at birth is female. Granados and Lau are also accused of having instructed patients to wait until after the ban was in place to fill prescriptions.

Granados does not dispute that he has continued prescribing puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. He said those treatments are not for gender transition but for children with endocrine disorders, which occur when hormone levels are too high or too low.

He said he prescribes testosterone for many reasons, including for patients whose testicles don’t work or had to be removed because of cancer. Others have brain tumors, or surgery or radiation to the brain, that impact puberty. Patients with early onset puberty also need puberty blockers, he said.

Attorneys for Lau said she has always complied with the law and the claims have no merit. Attorneys for Cooper did not respond to requests for comment.

“This is really part of a bigger pattern of extremism within the state that even other states have shied away from replicating,” said Sarah Warbelow, vice president of legal for the Human Rights Campaign.

Transgender adults and youth make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, according to estimates by the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ+ research center at the UCLA School of Law.

Going elsewhere for care

Granados’ trial has been set for late October; trial dates have not yet been set yet for Lau and Cooper. While the cases are pending, Lau and Cooper agreed to practice medicine only in research and academic settings and not see patients.

Neither Lau or Cooper attended the Wednesday hearing in their cases by a judge who is set to decide where their trials will be held.

Under Texas’ ban, the state medical board is instructed to revoke the licenses of doctors who are found to have violated the law.

Lorena Edwards said she watched her daughter thrive during her transition then descend into melancholy as laws targeting transgender rights gained steam.

Emiliana Edwards has switched to receiving treatment in neighboring New Mexico — where gender-affirming care is legal — but she said attacks on the transgender community have taken a toll on her mental health.

“We’re normal people, too, and we’re just trying to live,” she said.

​ Orange County Register 

As Mardi Gras approaches in New Orleans, maskers and parades take center stage

• February 27, 2025

By JEFF AMY, JACK BROOK and STEPHEN SMITH, Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Carnival season 2025 is approaching its climax in New Orleans and across the Gulf Coast, with big parades rolling down the main routes as some revelers get fancied up for formal balls while others dress in costume to poke fun and make merry.

Three parades will roll Thursday night in New Orleans with scores of masked riders on colorful floats. More processions will continue every day through Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday. Costumed revelers will jam the French Quarter as more parades roll in New Orleans’ suburbs, other Louisiana cities, and all along the Mississippi and Alabama coasts.

What is Mardi Gras?

Carnival in New Orleans and around the world is rooted in Christian and Roman Catholic traditions. The season begins on Jan. 6, the 12th day after Christmas, and continues until Mardi Gras, which is the final day of feasting, drinking and revelry before Ash Wednesday and the fasting associated with Lent, the Christian season of preparation for Easter.

Carnival celebrations have become thoroughly secularized in New Orleans, where the largest and best-known celebrations in the U.S. include street parties, fancy balls and boisterous parades. Some of the parades are high-tech extravaganzas that feature massive floats laden with flashing lights and giant moving figures.

“It’s all about family. It’s like a six-mile-long block party and nothing could be more fun. It’s for everyone,” said Virginia Saussy of the Krewe of Muses, which is set to parade Thursday night. “You got to come experience it to understand.”

How else do people celebrate Mardi Gras?

On Mardi Gras in southwest Louisiana, some people will take part in the Cajun French tradition of the Courir de Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday Run. These rural processions, with links to rituals from medieval France, feature masked and costumed riders, with stops where participants perform and beg for goods. Inebriated maskers often chase live chickens to include in a communal gumbo at the end of the day.

In New Orleans, some African Americans mask in elaborate beaded and feathered Mardi Gras Indian suits, roving the city to sing, dance, drum and perform. The tradition, a central part of the Black Carnival experience in New Orleans since at least the late 1800s, is believed to have started in part as a way to pay homage to area Native Americans for their assistance to Black people and runaway slaves. It also developed at a time when segregation barred Black residents from taking part in whites-only parades.

How is New Orleans reacting to the New Year’s Day attack?

Following the Jan. 1 truck attack that killed 14 people in the heart of New Orleans, the Department of Homeland Security upgraded Mardi Gras to its highest risk rating. This means there will be significantly more law enforcement officers present than in prior years, said Eric DeLaune, who is leading Mardi Gras security as special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in New Orleans.

The city hosted the Super Bowl in early February and will employ many of the same security measures: SWAT teams on standby, armored vehicles along street corners, helicopters circling overhead and plainclothes agents mingling in crowds. The city will deploy 600 police officers, along with hundreds more from state and local agencies.

“We’ve made an effort to make carnival season as safe as we possibly can without intruding on the historical and cultural context of Mardi Gras,” said DeLaune, a Louisiana native who grew up attending the parades. “We didn’t want to change the feel of Mardi Gras.”

What are other security precautions?

Thousands of revelers will gather along the city’s oak and mansion-lined St. Charles Avenue to watch towering floats, marching bands and celebrities parade. To protect them, a “serpentine” layout of heavy barricades has been arranged on the road’s opposite side to bar fast-moving vehicles while still allowing traffic.

“You’re going to weave it like a snake,” New Orleans Police Department Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters at a February press conference. “That will slow anybody down who thinks they are going to use a vehicle as a weapon.”

Drones are banned, she added. Ice chests and coolers — which had been used to plant explosives during the Jan. 1 attack — will remain barred from the busiest section of the city’s historic French Quarter, said Louisiana State Police Superintendent Robert Hodges.

Why is Mardi Gras so late this year?

Because it’s linked to Easter, the date of Mardi Gras can fall anywhere between Feb. 3 and March 9. That’s because Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the beginning of spring in the Northern Hemisphere.

This year’s date of March 4 is one of the latest possible. That means warmer temperatures are likely along the Gulf Coast rather than the often cool and clammy weather of February. However, there’s a chance of rain on Tuesday in the region.

What are ‘throws?’

“Throw” is a noun used to describe the trinkets that float riders in parades and walking members of carnival clubs — known as krewes — give to spectators. Shimmery strings of plastic beads are ubiquitous, although some krewes are exploring alternatives out of environmental concerns. Participants in the parade of New Orleans’ Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club hand out highly sought-after painted coconuts.

At Thursday’s Muses parade, glittery hand-decorated shoes are the prize souvenir.

“The first year we created a bead that was a stiletto shoe and it was just to be a commemorative bead — but it took off,” said Saussy, who is the chairwoman of Muses’ theme and floats. “People love shoes, who knew?”

Amy reported from Atlanta.

​ Orange County Register 

As bird flu spreads, feds might undercut states by firing scientists, removing data

• February 27, 2025

By Nada Hassanein, Stateline.org

As bird flu cases inundate more poultry and dairy farms, state officials worry that the Trump administration’s firings of federal scientists and other actions will undermine efforts to track the virus and protect Americans.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture rushed to rehire workers who were involved in responding to the outbreak and were fired amid federal workforce cuts. These employees were part of a federal network that oversees labs responsible for collecting samples and confirming H5N1 tests.

State officials also fear funding cuts will hamper those federal labs, and say that by scrubbing some public health data from government websites, the administration may complicate efforts to track the outbreak.

Federal labs are “key for us to be able to do our work, and we need to make sure those labs stay funded, or we can’t do what we do,” said Dr. Amber Itle, the state veterinarian for Washington state. Itle said federal money pays for most of her office’s bird flu efforts, and that the nation’s bird flu surveillance system — one of the most robust in the world — needs to stay in place.

President Donald Trump’s budget cuts and firings include thousands of terminations across the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, among others. While the USDA scrambled to rehire its workers, public health experts say federal agencies often work in tandem to respond to health emergencies.

A dozen probationary employees also were let go this month at the Manhattan, Kansas-based National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, a USDA spokesperson told Stateline. The federal facility works closely with the USDA and aims to protect agricultural systems against animal diseases. The spokesperson said these positions were administrative and “not deemed essential to the functions of the lab.”

“When we start to take away resources that we need to support animal health response, that ultimately could threaten public health,” Itle said, “because if we can’t find it in animals, we could be exposing people without knowing it.”

The Trump administration initially removed reams of public health data related to poverty, pollution, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, adolescent health, racial inequities, sex, gender and LGBTQ+ people from federal agency websites. Some of the data was quickly restored. But Washington state health officials said they are downloading bird flu-related information in case it disappears.

Michael Crusan, a spokesperson for the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, compared state-federal bird flu cooperation to a dance.

“You can’t swing dance without a partner,” Crusan said. “So how are we supposed to keep this process running smoothly?”

70 human cases

The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, known as H5N1, has killed millions of wild birds and has led to emergency culling of commercial flocks.

Nationwide, there have been 70 confirmed human cases since 2024, according to the CDC. Most of these cases have been among farmworkers, who are in daily close contact with poultry and cattle.

California has tracked the most cases, with 38 patients, nearly all exposed to the virus from dairy herds, followed by Washington state with 11 cases. Other infections in humans have been confirmed in Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin.

In recent weeks, Ohio and Wyoming reported their first human cases of the virus. A CDC study found cases among three dairy veterinarians, with one working in a state that had no infected cattle.

In January, a patient in Louisiana died after contracting the virus, the first human death from bird flu. The patient was an older adult with underlying medical conditions, and had contracted the virus after exposure to a backyard flock and wild birds.

Hospitalization remains rare. For now, bird flu doesn’t easily infect humans and doesn’t spread from person to person, health experts say. The CDC says there is little risk to the general public, but that could change as the virus mutates and continues to infect mammals such as cattle. The virus also has been found in domestic cats.

To eradicate bird flu, experts are emphasizing comprehensive case surveillance, testing and an overall public health strategy that recognizes the interdependence of humans, animals and the environment.

“You can’t have healthy humans without healthy animals, wild and domestic, and healthy environments,” said Maurice Pitesky, a food security expert at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. “Ultimately, you’re trying to reduce the potential of the virus to move from those wild waterfowl to those farm animals.”

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said the pressure is mounting to safeguard farms.

“The longer this virus circulates on farms, especially infecting dairy cattle and exposing humans that work on those farms, the more chances it has to evolve to something that is more dangerous for humans,” Adalja said.

The virus has been detected in more than 200 mostly wild and feral mammals in the U.S. since 2022. Those mammals may have become infected from eating fresh wild bird carcasses, but there is no indication of transmission from mammal to mammal, experts say.

A recent CDC study found cases in two indoor cats belonging to dairy farmworkers. Other infections in cats have been linked to raw pet food. Officials are urging people to refrain from drinking raw milk and from feeding dogs and cats raw pet food.

“The more mammals it infects,” Adalja said, “the more chances it has to adapt to mammals.”

All 50 states

More than 166 million birds across all 50 states have been infected nationwide since 2022, according to CDC data as of Tuesday. Over the past month, the virus has been detected in 86 commercial flocks and 51 backyard flocks. Infected poultry flocks must be culled when an outbreak occurs. In groceries nationwide, egg prices have surged amid the shortages.

The virus is also suspected in recent die-offs of wild birds. In five Michigan counties as of mid-February, more than 300 dead wild birds, including geese and mallard ducks, have been found, the state Department of Natural Resources reported. The department has issued guidance on how waterfowl hunters and property owners can stay safe when encountering dead birds.

Melinda Cosgrove, laboratory scientist manager at the department’s Wildlife Health Section, said her state’s confirmed positive cases are mostly in poultry flocks. To stay abreast of potential cases in the wild, the state has an “Eyes in the Field” webpage by which residents can report sick or dead wildlife to help the department track potential cases.

Those migratory birds are behind the spread across farms, said Kevin Snekvik, executive director of the Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory. “Birds migrating north and south up to Alaska, they’re the culprits,” said Snekvik, who is also a professor at Washington State University’s Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology.

States have also been monitoring changes in bird flu patterns by tracking the virus in wastewater. The U.S. has long avoided vaccination of poultry because many of its trading partners will not import vaccinated birds. But federal officials earlier this month gave conditional approval of an updated version of a previous vaccine to protect poultry against the H5N1 virus.

Farmworker testing

In Nevada, a recent spillover to dairy cattle of a specific H5N1 genotype previously found in birds was detected in a milk sample, officials announced earlier this month.

Seventeen states have reported outbreaks in dairy cows. Cows usually recover from the virus, but cattle must be isolated when the virus is detected to prevent further spread. It can be spread to humans through close contact.

Despite the widespread cases in dairy farms, not all states have joined a federal-state partnership to test milk. Currently, 36 states test under the surveillance strategy.

Helping dairy and poultry farmworkers get tested is important for public health response. But many farmworkers are immigrants with no sick leave and who may speak primarily Indigenous languages or Spanish. The Trump administration’s deportation efforts have caused further reticence to report symptoms, said Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, a food systems scholar and human geographer at Syracuse University who studies agricultural labor.

“You have a population of workers who don’t have access to health care to begin with,” she said, noting how many dairy farm laborers live in rural or remote places far from city centers. “You have this geographical barrier. You have a linguistic barrier. You have a cultural barrier. And then, of course, today, you have on top of it a lot of fear.”

Since dairy cattle infections were first detected in California in September 2024, the state’s Animal Health and Safety Lab, the only lab in the state handling the most dangerous samples, has received between 400 and 2,000 samples weekly, lab director Ashley Hill wrote in an email to Stateline.

The lab currently has just five technicians authorized to do most of the testing and a handful of support staff who can chip in. Lab technicians are set to strike this week along with university health care, research and technical professionals across the state, according to the union, which represents 20,000 workers.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

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

​ Orange County Register 

How Trump could lower certain mortgage rates

• February 27, 2025

President Donald Trump wants to reduce short-term and long-term interest rates.

You’re probably wondering how a president can do that while not stepping over the Federal Reserve.

First, let’s consider short-term interest rates. With the inflation rate still at 3%, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell isn’t going to lower the short-term Federal Funds rate anytime soon.

The Fed’s target rate is 2%. The fed funds rate directly affects what the Prime Rate is. Today, the prime rate is 7.5%. This matters because home equity lines-of-credit are tied to prime.

Trump can’t force Powell to reduce rates, nor can he fire him. So, for now, we’re out of luck with short-term rates dropping.

Let’s turn to long-term interest rates.

Trump could order the Treasury Department to start buying mortgage-backed securities, like when the Federal Reserve bought roughly $1.45 trillion of MBSs during the Great Recession. That was popularly known as quantitative easing. Buying MBS can reduce mortgage rates by increasing competition and increasing mortgage market liquidity.

The Federal Reserve was able to effectively print money during the mortgage meltdown days.

The down side: Treasury would have to borrow money, which would increase the federal debt, according to Ted Tozer, former Ginnie Mae president under President Barack Obama.

“Increasing the debt is inflationary,” he said.

One sure-fire way to reduce interest rates is to get rid of the hidden (to consumers) mortgage fee or mortgage tax charged by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and known as a loan level pricing adjustment or LLPA.

Trump could mandate through an executive order for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (Fannie and Freddie’s regulator and conservator) to eliminate the LLPA. Or FHFA could do this on its own.

“It will be interesting to see how the new FHFA approaches the loan level charges imposed by the government agencies FNMA and Freddie Mac,” said Brad Seibel, chief investment officer, Sage Home Loans.

Seibel described the LLPA as “direct loan costs” that are passed from the lender to the consumer, significantly affecting lower-FICO score and lower down-payment borrowers.

“Hopefully we will see some relief from these charges that drive up the cost of homeownership for so many,” he told me.

The FHFA did not respond to my query regarding any intentions to drop the LLPAs.

What is an LLPA?

This fee is charged to borrowers who take out conventional mortgages from the likes of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Essentially, it is a risk charge that determines how much extra a borrower pays, for depending on various factors such as the lowest middle FICO credit score of all borrowers, loan-to-value, property type, purchase or refinance, cash-out refinance, occupancy type and number of units. The one-time fee comes at loan origination whether it’s a purchase or refinance loan.

For example, let’s say you were a well-qualified buyer buying an owner-occupied condo for $1 million, putting 20% down. Your middle FICO score is 740. Your LLPA amounts to 1.625% of the loan amount. If you took that hit in dollars it would be $13,000. If you take that risk-based pricing hit by converting the cost to a higher rate you would go from 6.625% to 7.25% for a 30-year fixed. That’s a 0.625% rate increase.

I’ll note that borrowers usually take the rate hit, rather than paying the LLPA up front.

Principal and interest payment at 6.625% is $5,122. At 7.25% your principal and interest payment would be $5,457. The LLPA drives up the monthly payment by $335. That is $13,000 or $335 x 360 months, equal to $120,600. In this one simple example you can knock the rate down by 0.625 if LLPA are eliminated. LLPA can be much more expensive than the example above I provided. For example, second homes and investment properties can take a 4.25% rate hit.

So, where is today’s risk for Fannie and Fred? Few borrowers are in financial trouble.

The mortgage payment delinquency rate in the last quarter of 2024 was 3.98%, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. As of January 2025, the foreclosure rate was 0.23%, according to Statista.

How did LLPAs come about?

Fannie and Freddie started using LLPAs following the 2008 mortgage meltdown, helping to mitigate risk and increase capital for the mortgage giants.

After the meltdown, regulators and Congress via Dodd-Frank tightened regulations on lenders offering risky loan programs. That’s why today’s loans perform so well — there’s a lot more underwriting rigor before a loan is funded.

What came before the LLPA?

The mortgage industry used risk-based pricing like credit scores and loan-to-value. It was a simpler matrix without the detailed calculations and adjustments provided by LLPAs.

Eliminating the LLPA would be a godsend for borrowers wanting to refinance. Purchase borrowers will also benefit from the lower rates, but home price spikes are likely with the increased borrowing power.

Freddie Mac rates

The 30-year fixed rate averaged 6.76%, 9 basis points lower than last week. The 15-year fixed rate averaged 5.94%, 10 basis points lower than last week.

The Mortgage Bankers Association reported a 1.2% mortgage application decrease compared with one week ago.

Bottom line: Assuming a borrower gets the average 30-year fixed rate on a conforming $806,500 loan, last year’s payment was $97 more than this week’s payment of $5,236.

What I see: Locally, well-qualified borrowers can get the following fixed-rate mortgages with one point: A 30-year FHA at 5.5%, a 15-year conventional at 5.375%, a 30-year conventional at 5.99%, a 15-year conventional-high balance at 5.75% ($806,501 to $1,209,750 in LA and OC and $806,501 to $1,077,550 in San Diego), a 30-year high balance conventional at 6.5% and a jumbo 30-year fixed at 6.375%.

Eye-catcher loan program of the week: A 30-year mortgage, with 30% down locked for the first 5 years at 5.75% with 1 point cost.

Jeff Lazerson, president of Mortgage Grader, can be reached at 949-322-8640 or [email protected].

​ Orange County Register 

Iowa’s Capitol fills with protesters as lawmakers consider bill removing gender identity protection

• February 27, 2025

By HANNAH FINGERHUT, Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Amid a heavy police presence and hundreds of vocal protesters, Iowa lawmakers on Thursday considered an unprecedented bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, a move opponents say could expose transgender people to discrimination in numerous areas of life.

Both the House and Senate were expected to vote on the legislation Thursday, the same day the Georgia House backed away from removing gender protections from the state’s hate crimes law, which was passed in 2020 after the death of Ahmaud Arbery.

Iowa’s bill, first introduced last week, raced through the legislative process, despite opposition from LGBTQ+ advocates who rallied at the Capitol on Monday and Tuesday.

On Thursday, opponents of the bill filed into the Capitol rotunda with signs and rainbow flags to rally before, during and after a 90-minute public hearing, shouting, “No hate in our state!” There was a heavy police presence, with state troopers stationed around the rotunda and hearing room.

Of the 167 people who signed up to testify at the public hearing before a House committee, all but 24 were opposed to the bill. Each time a person who had spoken opened the hearing room door to leave, the roar of protesters outside filled the room, forcing repeated pauses.

To avoid delays, state troopers blocked off the hallway outside the room, creating a “natural buffer,” said Department of Public Safety Commissioner Stephan Bayens. The move was intended to allow the public hearing to proceed while also protecting First Amendment rights to demonstrate, Bayens said.

In Iowa, gender identity was added to the civil rights code in 2007 when Democrats controlled the Legislature. If removed, Iowa would be the first state to undo explicit nondiscrimination protections based on gender identity, said Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project.

In Georgia, the changes to the hate crimes law were proposed in a bill that would restrict sports participation for transgender students. That’s something the state’s high school athletic association now does by policy but that Republican leaders insist needs to be in law and also apply to colleges and universities.

A Georgia House committee rewrote the bill at the last minute Wednesday to leave the word “gender” in the state’s hate crimes law after Democrats warned removing the word could end extra penalties for crimes motivated by bias against transgender people.

Iowa’s bill would remove gender identity as a protected class and explicitly define female and male, as well as gender, which would be considered a synonym for sex and “shall not be considered a synonym or shorthand expression for gender identity, experienced gender, gender expression, or gender role.”

Supporters of the change say the current code incorrectly codified the idea that people can transition to another gender and granted transgender women access to spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams that should be protected for people who were assigned female at birth.

Iowa Republicans say their changes are intended to reinforce the state’s ban on sports participation and public bathroom access for transgender students. If approved, the bill would go to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who signed those policies into law. A spokesperson for Reynolds declined to comment on whether she would sign the bill.

V Fixmer-Oraiz, a county supervisor in eastern Johnson County, was the first to testify against the bill. A trans Iowan, they said they have faced their “fair share of discrimination” already and worried that the bill will expose trans Iowans to even more.

“Is it not the role of government to affirm rather than to deny law-abiding citizens their inalienable rights?” Fixmer-Oraiz said. “The people of Iowa deserve better.”

Among those speaking in support of the bill was Shellie Flockhart of Dallas Center, who said she is in favor as a woman and a mother, a “defender of women’s rights” and someone “who believes in the truth of God’s creation.”

“Identity does not change biology,” Flockhart said.

About half of U.S. states include gender identity in their civil rights code to protect against discrimination in housing and public places, such as stores or restaurants, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank. Some additional states do not explicitly protect against such discrimination but it is included in legal interpretations of statutes.

Iowa’s Supreme Court has expressly rejected the argument that discrimination based on sex includes discrimination based on gender identity.

Several Republican-led legislatures are also pushing to enact more laws this year creating legal definitions of male and female based on the reproductive organs at birth following an executive order from President Donald Trump.

Trump also signed orders laying the groundwork for banning transgender people from military service and keeping transgender girls and women out of girls and women’s sports competitions, among other things. Most of the policies are being cha

Associated Press writer Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register