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explores the weird and secret bits of SoCal that would excite even the most jaded Angelenos. He also covers mental health. That spring-like, mid-70s weather is fading away this week as our region warms up.
Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties will see elevated fire weather conditions Monday and Tuesday. That’s because of temperatures reaching into the 90s in the valleys, low humidities and some wind. Mike Wofford, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told LAist there will be some elevated risk of small grass fires as fuels bake in the sun. The biggest fire risk will come Tuesday, with elevated winds in the forecast, Wofford said.
On Tuesday, gusts could get up to 45 mph in some areas. , the group leading the work, alongside developers Primestor and Bayspring, recently unveiled the project’s draft Master Plan at Alma Family Services in East L.A. , offering residents a closer look at the billion-dollar redevelopment expected to unfold in the next 15 years. The plan outlines a phased transformation of the shuttered hospital and surrounding property into a mixed-use campus with housing, retail, green space and community hubs.
The Master Plan is intended to serve as a flexible roadmap as different portions of the project move forward over the next decade. Developers estimate the full redevelopment will cost between $700 million and $1 billion over the next 10 years. , the group leading the work, alongside developers Primestor and Bayspring, recently unveiled the project’s draft Master Plan at Alma Family Services in East L.A.
, offering residents a closer look at the billion-dollar redevelopment expected to unfold in the next 15 years. The plan outlines a phased transformation of the shuttered hospital and surrounding property into a mixed-use campus with housing, retail, green space and community hubs. The Master Plan is intended to serve as a flexible roadmap as different portions of the project move forward over the next decade.
Developers estimate the full redevelopment will cost between $700 million and $1 billion over the next 10 years.
“This is such a special milestone. There’s more work ahead of us but we’re now advancing into a phase of the work to turn a vision into a reality,” Giovanna Araujo, the project’s director, said. Community members gathered at Alma Family Services on April 25, 2026, to learn more about the transformation coming to historic General Hospital.
Developers said years of community engagement and meetings with residents and groups such as Eastside LEADS, InnerCity Struggle, and The Wellness Center helped shape the proposal. The goal is to integrate community feedback to repurpose the old hospital and West Campus into a “vibrant health and community-centered district.
”Between 600 and 800 housing units inside the historic General Hospital buildingGardens to support native plants and animals As more buildings are developed around the campus, the number of housing units is expected to grow to more than 1,000, organizers said. Centennial Partners representatives also said that local jobs would be created in each construction phase but did not specify projected totals.
President and CEO of Alma Family Services Lourdes Caracoza suggested that housing and increased public safety may be the most crucial parts of the redevelopment plan. She also emphasized the historical role the General Hospital has played in her life and the lives of countless other Eastsiders.
“Historically, this is where you went to be healed or where you died,” Caracoza said. “Now, how do we make it a space where it’s focused on wellness? A lot of the families that come and speak, they know it’s not for them. They know it’s gonna be for their children.
They know it’s gonna be for their grandchildren. It’s a generational investment. ” Boyle Heights resident Gabriela Garcia said she worries the needs of her special needs children and her neighbors could be overlooked as the development moves forward.
“Psychiatric care, rest beds and those kinds of things are necessary for a child with special needs,” Garcia said. “Are they going to take Centro Estrella and the programs they’re inviting into account, or are they going to prioritize what they think we need? ” Centennial Partners representatives said that services currently offered by East LA’s Centro Estrella and other groups like the Wellness Center and InnerCity Struggle would be incorporated into the long-term vision for the campus.
In the coming months, developers plan to present final building designs, a development plan and construction documents to the public. The project must also complete and approval for an Environmental Impact Review , which evaluates potential impacts a project would generate, such as, noise, water quality or greenhouse gas emissions. If construction moves forward without setbacks, developers said the redevelopment should be completed within 15 years.
Groundbreaking for the seismic retrofitting of the old General Hospital building is expected to begin this summer. Participants view renderings of a proposed community corridor during a meeting about the historic General Hospital redevelopment at Alma Family Services on April 25, 2026. President Donald Trump says he wants the gas tax to be temporarily suspended as the war in Iran extends into its 11th week and keeps oil prices elevated.
Monday morning he wants the tax suspended"for a period of time" and would want it reintroduced"when gas goes down.
" Asked by reporters in the Oval Office later in the day how long the gas tax would be suspended, the president responded,"'Til it's appropriate. "on average before the U.S. bombed Iran. Now, the average cost per gallon has soared by more than 50 percent toA cost reduction of 18.4 cents would lower that average gasoline cost by around 4 percent. It would bring the cost of a 12-gallon fill-up down by $2.21.
President Donald Trump says he wants the gas tax to be temporarily suspended as the war in Iran extends into its 11th week and keeps oil prices elevated. Asked by reporters in the Oval Office later in the day how long the gas tax would be suspended, the president responded,"'Til it's appropriate.
"on average before the U.S. bombed Iran. Now, the average cost per gallon has soared by more than 50 percent to A cost reduction of 18.4 cents would lower that average gasoline cost by around 4 percent. It would bring the cost of a 12-gallon fill-up down by $2.21. Blockades imposed during the Iran war have stalled the passage of oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, causing gas prices to spike.
Around one-fifth of the world's crude oil usually travels through that strait. The potential suspension of the gas tax is a tacit acknowledgment from the White House of the toll that high gas prices have taken on American consumers.
Eight in ten Americans say gas prices are straining their budgets, including overwhelming majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans alike, according to In addition, 63 percent of Americans say they blame Trump"a great deal" or"a good amount" for those higher gas prices. That includes more than 6 in 10 independents and nearly one-third of Republicans. If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report.
Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. Seventeen U.S. cruise passengers returned to the U.S. early Monday, after weeks aboard the MV Hondius, the cruise ship at the center of a deadly, the Associated Press reported. The Americans disembarked the cruise in the Canary Islands on Sunday and boarded a medical repatriation flight, arranged by the U.S. government, bound for Nebraska.
The Dutch-flagged cruise ship departed from southern Argentina on April 1, and followed an itinerary across the South Atlantic with multiple stops in remote islands. Three of the passengers have died since the outbreak began. Seventeen U.S. cruise passengers returned to the U.S. early Monday, after weeks aboard the MV Hondius, the cruise ship at the center of a deadly, the Associated Press reported.
The Americans disembarked the cruise in the Canary Islands on Sunday and boarded a medical repatriation flight, arranged by the U.S. government, bound for Nebraska. The Dutch-flagged cruise ship departed from southern Argentina on April 1, and followed an itinerary across the South Atlantic with multiple stops in remote islands. Three of the passengers have died since the outbreak began. Also on Monday, a French woman tested positive for hantavirus, French Health Minister Stephanie Rist said.
The woman was among five French passengers repatriated Sunday to Paris. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention"For the passengers getting off the ship, I'd say, 'Welcome to Nebraska.
' You are coming to the premier facility in the United States, if not the world, to take care of you," says Dr. Ali Khan, dean of the College of Public Health at UNMC.who were on the ship from 23 different countries. They've endured in the midst of a hantavirus outbreak which has caused at least eight cases, including three deaths, according to thein their cruise cabins.
They will now be monitored for several more weeks, U.S. health officials said in a media call on Saturday. Most of the passengers are arriving at America's only federally funded quarantine unit, which also received cruise passengers from a different outbreak — the Diamond Princess Cruise, in early 2020 — which was one of the first known superspreading events of the COVID-19 pandemic. — and specifically the Andes variant which caused this outbreak — for decades.
"We do know that you can get small clusters of disease, but in 30 years we've never seen any large outbreaks," says Khan,"so this is unlikely to become a pandemic. " This strain of hantavirus can be deadly, but it isn't very contagious between people. It tends to take prolonged, close contact with someone who's showing symptoms.
"It's appropriate to be cautious," Khan says,"To monitor these people for 42 days they don't get sick. And if they do get sick during those 42 days, to make sure to put them into isolation.
" Health officials said the U.S. passengers would all be assessed clinically upon arrival, though they would not be officially quarantined. They suggested that some passengers could continue monitoring at home, with daily check-ins from their health departments. Lawrence Gostin, professor of global health law at Georgetown University, says the U.S. response has been fragmented, disjointed, and delayed for weeks, but it's finally coming together.
"The CDC was missing in action for quite a long time," he says. "Better late than never — but it is very late. " In response to a request for comment from NPR, Emily Hilliard, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services:"These claims are completely inaccurate. The U.S. government is conducting a coordinated, interagency response led by the Department of State.
HHS, through ASPR and CDC, is supporting efforts to protect the health and safety of U.S. citizens, including repatriation, medical evaluation, and public health guidance.
" She further described CDC's response activities, including setting up its Emergency Operations Center, deploying teams to the Canary Islands and Nebraska, and notifying state health departments of returning U.S. travelers. Many of these activities have come recently, and Gostin agrees that the U.S. government is now taking active measures to ensure that the passengers, their families, and the communities they're returning to are safe.
But health officials got lucky this time: the Andes virus is not very contagious, and health officials say this outbreak will likely be contained. The way the U.S. has handled this episode shows glaring gaps in its pandemic preparedness, Gostin says:"If this was a highly transmissible virus, you could imagine what chaos we would be facing now.
"General Motors agreed to pay $12.75 million in civil penalties for selling driving data of hundreds of thousands of California motorists to data brokers, allegedly without their consent. The settlement, announced Friday, is the largest ever for violations of the California Consumer Privacy Act, a 2018 law that requires companies to tell consumers about how their data is shared and to respect requests to stop the sharing.
It stemmed from an investigation by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, several county district attorneys, and the California Privacy Protection Agency, which enforces the privacy act. They said General Motors misled drivers who paid for the emergency roadside and navigation service OnStar and made approximately $20 million from the unlawful sale of their data between 2020 and 2024.
The information included names, location information, driving behavior, and contact information, Bonta said, which went to the data brokers LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk Analytics. General Motors agreed to pay $12.75 million in civil penalties for selling driving data of hundreds of thousands of California motorists to data brokers, allegedly without their consent.
The settlement, announced Friday, is the largest ever for violations of the California Consumer Privacy Act, a 2018 law that requires companies to tell consumers about how their data is shared and to respect requests to stop the sharing. It stemmed from an investigation by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, several county district attorneys, and the California Privacy Protection Agency, which enforces the privacy act.
They said General Motors misled drivers who paid for the emergency roadside and navigation service OnStar and made approximately $20 million from the unlawful sale of their data between 2020 and 2024. The information included names, location information, driving behavior, and contact information, Bonta said, which went to the data brokers LexisNexis Risk Solutions and Verisk Analytics.
“This trove of information included precise and personal location data that could identify the everyday habits and movements of Californians,” Bonta said in a press release. The settlement also requires GM to stop selling data to any consumer reporting agencies for five years and submit privacy assessments to the state,2024 New York Times investigation found GM collected data about millions of drivers nationwide and sold it to insurance companies in order to charge the drivers higher premiums.
Californians were not impacted by those premium hikes because a state law prohibits insurers from using driving data to set insurance rates, Bonta said. Bonta told CalMatters at a press conference Friday that it’s unclear if location data collected by General Motors was used by other companies to make predictions about the prices people are willing to pay for goods. That practice is better known asfrom San Diego County’s district attorney over its alleged use of location for the technique.
Bonta’s office began an investigation into the surveillance pricing practices of businesses in January.
“I understand that there could be some overlap and maybe we'll discover something in our investigation in surveillance pricing, but that wasn't the focus of this case,” he said. Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman said the case started with one person finding location data in a report they requested about the data collected on them.
That discovery, he added, led to investigations by journalists, prosecutors, and regulators.that General Motors made last year , Hochman called it an indication that companies should expect higher penalties in the future. California reached a privacy law violation settlement with Disney in February for $2.75 million, previously the largest of its kind.
In a statement shared with CalMatters, General Motors spokesperson Charlotte McCoy said, “This agreement addresses Smart Driver, a product we discontinued in 2024, and reinforces steps we’ve taken to strengthen our privacy practices. Vehicle connectivity is central to a modern and safe driving experience, which is why we’re committed to being clear and transparent with our customers about our practices and the choices and control they have over their information.
” Californians will soon have a new protection against companies that use their data without their consent. Starting August 1, the more than 500 data brokers registered with the state must comply with requests California residents can make using
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