Science
Behind his smile, a silent crisis: Parents seek answers after autistic son’s suicide
When Anthony Tricarico was diagnosed at 7 with autism spectrum disorder, his parents, Neal and Samara, were told that he might need extra support at school, so they made sure he got it. When doctors suggested therapies for his speech and motor skills, they sought those out too.
But when their kind, popular, accomplished boy began to experience depression and suicidal ideation as a teenager, no one told them that the same thinking patterns that powered many of Anthony’s achievements might also be amplifying his most harmful thoughts, or that the effort of masking his autism could be hurting his mental health.
None of the people or organizations they contacted for help said Anthony might benefit from therapies or safety plans adapted for autistic people, or even that such things existed. They did not say that he might not show the same warning signs as a non-autistic teenager.
Neal Tricarico holds one of many rocks in honor of his son Anthony that friends and relatives have left in a memorial garden.
And only after he died from suicide in May 2024 did the San Diego County couple discover that autistic kids — particularly those like Anthony, whose disability is not immediately apparent from the outside — are more likely to think about and die from suicide, and at earlier ages, than their neurotypical peers.
“Our son has always been different. So why wouldn’t how we approach suicide be different?” Neal said.
Suicide is a leading cause of death in the U.S. for kids aged 10 to 18. Prevention strategies that take neurodiversity into account could go a long way toward reducing the number of young lives lost too soon.
Autism researchers and advocates are working to develop better screening tools and interventions based on the unique strengths and differences of an autistic brain. A crucial first step is educating the people best positioned to help kids when they’re in crisis, like parents, counselors, pediatricians and social workers.
“We’re aware of the need for tailored approaches. We’re doing this research. We’re trying to get the word out.”
— Danielle Roubinov, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“These are kids that are experiencing all sorts of heightened risk,” said Danielle Roubinov, an associate professor and director of the Child and Adolescent Anxiety and Mood Disorders Program at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “We’re aware of the need for tailored approaches. We’re doing this research. We’re trying to get the word out. And [suicidality] is something that is treatable. This is something that responds to intervention.”
The percentage of U.S. children with an autism diagnosis has risen steadily in recent decades, from 1 in 150 8-year-olds in 2000 to 1 in 31 in 2022.
The diagnostic definition has changed dramatically in that time, inscribing children with a broad range of abilities, needs and behaviors within a single term: autism spectrum disorder.
Today, the diagnosis includes children whose autism was previously overlooked because of their propensity for “masking,” the act of consciously or unconsciously suppressing autistic traits in order to blend in.
Samara and Neal Tricarico with a portrait of Anthony at their home.
For autistic children without intellectual disabilities, like Anthony Tricarico, masking often enables them to participate in mainstream classes or activities. It’s also why many children, especially girls, aren’t diagnosed with autism until later in childhood.
Masking can exact a powerful psychological toll on autistic kids, and is strongly correlated with depression, anxiety and suicide.
Anthony Tricarico was bright, athletic and autistic. His parents, Neal and Samara Tricarico, share what they wish they’d known when their son first started to struggle with his mental health.
Children across the autism spectrum are far more likely to struggle with mental health conditions than their allistic, or non-autistic, peers. A 2021 study of more than 42,000 caregivers of children ages 3 to 17 found that 78% of autistic children had at least one co-occurring psychiatric condition, compared with 14% of non-autistic kids. Contributing factors include the stress of living in a world that’s sensorially overwhelming or socially impenetrable. Lights, noises, smells and crowds that others barely notice may cause incapacitating anxiety.
For kids who cope by masking, constantly deciphering and mimicking social responses is often cognitively and emotionally exhausting. “Masking is actually a risk factor of suicide for autistic people,” said Lisa Morgan, founder of the Autism and Suicide Prevention Workgroup, who is autistic herself.
One of many rocks in honor of Anthony that have been left in the family’s memorial garden.
Autistic people at all ages are more likely to die by suicide than those who aren’t autistic. That disparity begins early. One 2024 meta-analysis found that some 10% of autistic children and teens had attempted suicide, a rate more than twice that of non-autistic peers.
Their struggles are often invisible.
Neal and Samara had never heard of masking.
They saw how Anthony thrived on schedules and sameness. He rose precisely at 5 a.m. for a long workout, chugged the same protein shake afterward, took a shower at 7 a.m. on the dot. At the time they thought he was extremely disciplined; they believe now it was also Anthony’s way of fulfilling his need for routine and predictability, a common autistic trait.
They also saw that he preferred to keep his diagnosis a secret.
Anthony’s black belt in karate rests on a table in the family home.
In middle school, Anthony announced that he no longer wanted any accommodations for his autism: no more individualized education program, no more behavioral therapy, no more telling new friends or teachers about his diagnosis.
“It’s my belief he just wanted all that to go away, and to just be like everyone else,” Neal said.
The pandemic hit Anthony hard. He couldn’t work out at his favorite spots or fish, a beloved pastime. Other kids might have defied the closures and gone anyway, but Anthony followed rules with inflexible intensity, Neal said, especially the ones he set for himself.
His mental health started to decline. In 2022, during his freshman year, Neal and Samara learned that Anthony told a friend he was having thoughts of suicide.
They called the California suicide hotline, where a volunteer told them to contact his school. A counselor determined that since Anthony didn’t have a plan, he wasn’t at immediate risk.
When Neal and Samara asked him about it, he sounded almost dismissive. It was fleeting, he said. It wasn’t real.
Neal looks over a living room table covered in photographs and medals Anthony won in 5Ks, half marathons and other athletic competitions.
It’s impossible to know Anthony’s true thoughts. What is known is that suicidal ideation can look very different in autistic kids.
About a decade ago, psychiatrist Dr. Mayank Gupta started noticing an uptick in a particular type of patient at the western Pennsylvania inpatient facilities in which he worked: bright children from stable home environments who began having serious suicidal thoughts in early adolescence.
They showed few of the typical youth-suicide risk factors, like substance use or histories of neglect. A surprising number had autism diagnoses.
At the time, Gupta associated autism with behaviors like minimal verbal communication and noticeable differences in body language or eye contact. Nothing in his training or continuing education discussed the breadth of the autism spectrum, or how it might relate to children’s mental health.
He searched the literature, and was stunned to find how much published work there was on autism and suicide.
“In the last seven to eight years, there’s been more and more evidence, and more and more research,” he said. But not enough of it has made its way to the local psychologists, psychiatrists and pediatricians that parents are most likely to turn to for help with a struggling child.
Adults often assume that a child who can speak fluently on a variety of subjects can explain their thoughts and feelings with a similar level of insight. But up to 80% of autistic kids have alexithymia, or difficulty identifying and describing one’s own internal emotional state. For this reason, “it makes sense that all of the interventions that have been designed for a neurotypical youth probably aren’t going to translate in the same way to autistic youth,” said Jessica Schwartzman, director of the Training and Research to Empower NeuroDiversity Lab at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and assistant professor of pediatrics at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.
Autistic people are often stereotyped as unable to read other people, Morgan said, but neurotypical people often have just as hard a time accurately interpreting an autistic person’s emotional state.
“What people are looking for is that really outward display of emotions and tears and angst,” said Morgan, of the Autism and Suicide Prevention Workgroup. “But for autistic people, that all can be happening on the inside without the autistic person being able to communicate that. And in fact, the further in crisis they go, the less they’re able to verbally communicate.”
As high school progressed, Anthony gave “the appearance of thriving,” Neal said: a 4.6 grade-point average, two part-time jobs, a busy social life. He ran marathons and finished grueling Spartan Races.
“But for us, living with him every day, we saw the black-and-white thinking really, really intensify,” Neal said. “The intensity and speed with which he was coming up with new things to achieve became more and more, and the feeling of lack of fulfillment became even greater.”
“Living with him every day, we saw the black-and-white thinking really, really intensify.”
— Neal Tricarico, Anthony’s father
In 2023, Anthony told his mother that the suicidal thoughts were back. He wanted to go to an inpatient facility that could keep him safe.
They dialed every number they could find. They called a county mobile crisis response team, which determined that since Anthony had no clear plan, he likely wasn’t at risk. They called a therapist he’d seen when he was younger. But Anthony was clear: He wasn’t OK and needed to be somewhere that could help.
When they finally found a facility able to admit him, they checked him in with a sense of relief. Immediately, they all felt they’d made a mistake.
Some of the medals Anthony won in marathons, Spartan Races and other competitions.
The only available bed was in solitary confinement. He couldn’t exercise, go outside or follow his routines.
Emergency rooms or inpatient facilities are sometimes the only option to keep someone safe during a suicidal crisis. But separated from familiar settings, objects and routines, and inundated with stimuli like bright lights, many autistic kids find them more disturbing than therapeutic, researchers said.
“The people that work in those facilities are obviously incredible, but they may or may not have special training in strategies and communication practices and approaches that are tailored to meet the needs of autistic individuals,” Roubinov said.
Anthony called his parents begging to come home. After two nights, the Tricaricos signed him out. On the way home Samara asked him to promise he’d tell them if he ever had suicidal thoughts again.
“He said, ‘No. I will never,’” she recalled.
His parents interpreted his words to mean he’d never think that way again, and that the worst was over. They now believe he was really saying that he had lost hope.
Another year passed. In March 2024, Anthony and his sister met up with friends who later said he seemed happier than he’d been in a while. He gave one an envelope of cash he’d saved and told her to take herself to Disneyland.
He was surrounded by people who cared about him, all unaware that he was displaying classic warning signs of an imminent crisis: giving away valuables, a sudden lift in spirits, indirectly saying goodbye.
The next day he was quiet and downcast.
“I could tell he had been crying, and I said, ’What’s going on? Is it friends? Is it work? Is it school work?’” Samara recalled. “And he said, ‘It’s all of it.’”
That afternoon, after finishing his chores, Anthony told his parents he was going for some fresh air, which he often did to clear his head. They could see on their phones that he was taking a familiar route through their Cardiff-by-the-Sea neighborhood.
His icon paused. Maybe he got a phone call, his parents thought, or bumped into friends.
Dusk fell. Samara’s phone rang with a call from Anthony’s number. It was a sheriff’s deputy. They’d found him.
Anthony spent nine weeks in the hospital. He died on May 25, 2024. He was 16 years old.
Colorful, painted rocks in honor of Anthony decorate a memorial garden.
Months later, Neal got a message from a Facebook friend who worked at a suicide-prevention foundation, asking if he knew about the particular risks facing autistic kids.
It was the first time he’d heard of anything of the sort.
They scheduled a Zoom call and she walked him through all of it: The stats, the research, the reasons that warning signs for kids like Anthony can look so different that the most attentive parents can miss them.
There is no simple explanation for why any one individual dies by suicide. As seriously as Neal and Samara took their son’s mental health struggles, it was impossible to imagine him ending his life. It didn’t fit with his zeal for living or his disdain for shortcuts. In retrospect, they say, it was also too frightening to contemplate.
“You drive yourself crazy saying, ‘what if.’”
— Samara Tricarico, Anthony’s mother
But had they known how common such thoughts and actions are for young people in Anthony’s sector of the autism spectrum, they said, they would have approached it differently.
“You drive yourself crazy saying, ‘what if,’ Samara said. “But I would have liked to have known that, because it potentially could have saved his life.”
About 20% of U.S. high schoolers disclosed suicidal thoughts in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. When the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore asked caregivers of 900 autistic children if the children had thought about ending their lives, 35% said yes. Nearly 1 in 5 had made a plan. The youngest respondent was 8 years old.
The risk may be particularly high for gifted kids trying to function in a world designed for a different way of thinking. In one 2023 study from the University of Iowa, autistic kids with an IQ of 120 or higher were nearly six times more likely to have suicidal thoughts than autistic children with average IQ. For non-autistic children, the opposite was true: Higher cognitive ability was associated with a decreased risk of suicide.
There’s no clear protocol for families like the Tricaricos. There are therapists and psychiatrists specially trained in autism, but not enough to meet demand.
Researchers are, however, looking for ways to tailor existing therapies to better serve autistic kids, and to educate healthcare providers on the need to use them.
One starting point is the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale, the standard that healthcare professionals currently use to identify at-risk children in the general population. Schwartzman’s lab found that when the questionnaire was administered verbally to autistic kids, it flagged only 80% of those in the study group who were having suicidal thoughts. A second, written questionnaire identified the other 20%. Schwartzman recommends that providers use a combined spoken and written screening approach at intake, since some autistic people find text questions easier to process than verbal ones.
Another candidate for adaptation is the Stanley-Brown safety plan, a reference document where patients list coping strategies, helpful distractions and trusted contacts on a one-page sheet that can be easily accessed in a crisis. Research has found that people with a completed plan are less likely to act on suicidal thoughts and more likely to stick with follow-up care. It’s cheap and accessible — free templates in multiple languages can be easily found online.
But like most mental health treatments, it was developed with the assumption that the person using it is neurotypical. There isn’t much research on whether the Stanley-Brown is less effective for autistic people, but researchers and advocates say it stands to reason that some tailored adjustments to the standard template could be helpful.
Shari Jager-Hyman, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, and Lisa Morgan of the Autism and Suicide Prevention Workgroup are creating an autism-friendly version.
Some changes are as simple as removing numbered lines and leaving blank space under headings like “Sources of support.” Many autistic people think literally and may perceive three numbered lines as an order to provide exactly three items, Morgan said, which can be especially disheartening if there aren’t three people in their circle of trust.
Jager-Hyman and Roubinov, of UNC, are currently leading a study looking at outcomes for suicidal autistic children who use the modified Stanley-Brown plan.
The way adults interact with autistic children in crisis may also make a difference. Sensory overload can be extremely destabilizing, so an autistic child may first need a quiet place with dim lighting to calm themselves, and extra time to process and form answers to providers’ questions.
For parents and other caregivers, the best thing they can offer might be a quiet, supportive presence, Morgan said: “For an autistic person, it could be they want somebody there with them, but they just want to sit in silence.”
The knowledge Neal and Samara have acquired since losing Anthony has felt to them like a missing piece that makes sense of his story, and a light illuminating their path ahead.
Earlier this year, they founded the Endurant Movement, a nonprofit dedicated to autism, youth suicide and mental health. They have joined advocates who say the most effective way to reduce rates of depression, anxiety and the burden of masking is to ensure that autistic kids have the support they need, and don’t feel like they have to change everything about themselves in order to fit in.
“Suicide prevention for autistic people is being accepted for who they are, being able to be who they are without masking,” Morgan said.
The Tricaricos imagine interventions that could make a difference: practical, evidence-based guidelines that families and clinicians can follow when an autistic child is in crisis; information shared at the time of diagnosis about the possibility of co-occurring mental health conditions; support for autistic kids that frames their differences as unique features, not deficits to be overcome.
And above all, a willingness to have the hardest conversations before it is too late.
“Suicide prevention for autistic people is being accepted for who they are, being able to be who they are without masking.”
— Lisa Morgan, Autism and Suicide Prevention Workgroup
There is a common misconception that asking about suicide could plant the idea in a child’s head and lead to further harm. If anything, researchers said, it’s protective. Ask in whatever way a child is comfortable with: a text, a written letter, in conversation with a trusted therapist.
“Suicide is so stigmatized and people are so afraid to talk about it,” Samara said. “If we can talk about it, invite the conversation, we can normalize it so they can feel less alone.”
She and Neal were seated next to each other on a bench in their front garden, surrounded by rocks friends and family had painted with tributes to Anthony.
“We didn’t know that our son was going to take his life this way. If we knew that having the conversation could help, we would have,” she said, as Neal nodded.
“And so that’s the message. Have the conversation, as difficult as it feels, as scary as it is … . Have the courage to step into that, knowing that that could possibly save someone’s life. Your child’s life.”
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional or call 988. The nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Or text “HOME” to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line.
This article was reported with the support of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s National Fellowship’s Kristy Hammam Fund for Health Journalism.
A trio of satellites set to launch early Tuesday will give wildland firefighters more time to respond and scientists more information about fire-prone regions across the globe.
The launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base is the first phase in a constellation called FireSat that will eventually cover the globe with 50 satellites collecting high-resolution imagery of fires and conditions on the ground every 20 minutes.
Earth Fire Alliance, the nonprofit group behind FireSat, got the project off the ground with $69 million in grants from the Bezos Earth Fund, Google and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
San José-based Muon Space built the satellites. Muon and the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection are both FireSat partners.
The satellites use advanced thermal sensors to detect heat and can pick up signals from fires as small as a beach bonfire, as well as cooler fires that have been smoldering for days, according to Michael Falkowski, lead scientist at Earth Fire Alliance. That information will help fire officials, including the Los Angeles and Los Angeles County fire departments, understand whether blazes are growing, where they are headed and how much soot and smoke they are generating.
FireSat’s infrared instruments detected this small roadside fire in Medford, Ore., during a 2025 test flight.
(Muon Space)
“If we can differentiate between a smoldering fire and a flaming combustion fire, it really has a big impact on how we can understand the air quality emissions coming off the fire,” Falkowski said.
Fires that burn at low temperature produce more harmful gases than hot fires. Think about a campfire. When it’s burning hot with bright flames, there is relatively little smoke. When it’s smoldering, it produces lots of thick, white or gray smoke.
Wildfires work the same way.
A hot, fast-burning fire has enough oxygen and heat to burn with more complete combustion, producing less smoke for every pound of wood burned.
Earth Fire Alliance will provide data from these first three satellites in the next few months to Cal Fire and fire agencies in Oregon, Texas, Australia and Portugal. Cal Fire will share it with Southern California fire agencies.
The network will also turn its sensors on in the Amazon Basin for the Brazilian nonprofit Amazon Environmental Research Institute.
Cal Fire should begin receiving data from the scientists later this year, according to Falkowski, who joined Earth Fire Alliance last year from NASA, where he was an earth science program manager running the agency’s fire science program.
Instruments on the satellites will be able to detect fires the size of a shipping container, and distinguish between hot, intense wildfires and cooler, smoldering ones.
(Muon Space)
Falkowski said the new FireSat satellites are a big improvement over existing ones because they will be able to see smaller fires with better resolution and distinguish low-intensity “cool” fires from high-intensity hot ones.
“The satellites are really designed to measure fire across the entire temperature profile, so we can see cool fires all the way up to really hot fires,” he said.
That kind of granular information is important for emergency responders in the field and planners who make decisions about calling for extra help or ordering evacuations.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration operates three satellites that can detect a fire somewhere inside a square 1,230 feet across.
In contrast, instruments on the FireSat satellites will be able to detect small brush and roadside fires 16 feet across.
Cal Fire officials have long embraced new technology to get ahead of wildfires in recent years, testing autonomous firefighting helicopters and partnering with UC San Diego to use artificial intelligence to filter images from a network of more than 1,200 cameras on lookout towers and mountain tops. The Alert California program is able to spot smoke in a video and sends automated messages to one of 21 agency command centers across California.
In 2025, Alert California sent out automated warnings before authorities even received 911 calls from the public 51% of the time, according to Phillip SeLegue, staff chief of Cal Fire’s intelligence program.
A worker at Mountain View-based Muon Space puts the final touches on a wildfire-detection satellite scheduled to launch Tuesday on a SpaceX rocket. The satellites will be tracking fires across the globe.
(Muon Space)
FireSat will help incident commanders get better information more quickly, and, unlike fire-spotting aircraft, the satellites can linger over a fire for days or weeks and aren’t hampered by high winds or smoke.
Travis Medema, chief deputy for the Oregon State Fire Marshall, said his office will use FireSat to plan escape routes and monitor fires. “If we can fight these when they are small, we feel we will be more efficient and can protect Oregonians,” he said.
One expert noted that turning satellite data into information useful to firefighters and forestry managers will take some time. The FireSat data will “be amazing for fire nerds, but how and whether it helps individual fires remains to be seen,” said Joe H. Scott, founder of Pyrologix, a wildfire analysis firm based in Missoula, Mont. “Right now, we are not basing decisions on where satellites tell us a fire is,” Scott said.
Pyrologix develops wildfire risk management models for federal agencies, local governments and utilities. Scott said FireSat’s high-resolution data will help him build better prediction models that take into account weather, drought, plants and the history of fires in a region.
California voters will decide 14 statewide propositions in the Nov. 3 election, measures placed on the ballot mostly by either powerful interest groups or lawmakers that will affect the lives of millions of Californians.
While a proposed tax on state billionaires has dominated headlines, voters will also have a chance to weigh in on a number of consequential issues, from healthcare to voter identification requirements and more.
Californians are accustomed to legislating by the ballot and often face a list of propositions. But even by the standards of the state’s direct democracy process, the 2026 election stands out. The campaigns supporting and opposing the ballot measures have already collected more than $100 million in contributions, and are expected to use their money to inundate the television airwaves, livestreams and social media feeds and to flood mailboxes with glossy campaign mailers over the coming months.
Here are the measures on the Nov. 3 ballot:
Proposition 1: The Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026
Spurred by the state’s affordable housing shortage, state lawmakers are asking voters to approve an $11.25-billion bond to boost affordable housing construction around the state.
Advocates say the funds would help build more than 40,000 shovel-ready affordable homes that are unable to move forward because of a financing gap and help preserve thousands of other existing units.
Proposition 1 includes specific funding for high-need groups, including $1.25 billion for a veterans’ home loan program, $1.15 billion for supportive housing for homeless people, $350 million for student housing at state universities, $450 million for farmworker housing and $200 million for Native American tribes.
“In California, we don’t turn away from the needs of our people — we meet them head-on,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom in a statement about the measure. “We are giving voters the power to help shape the future of housing in our state. This bond is about building communities, expanding access and affordability in California, where every family has a fair shot at a place to call home.”
Some Republicans took issue with the measure’s title — “The Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026” — arguing that it included veterans to have broader appeal while doing little to actually help homeless veterans.
“It’s a sad thing to say that you have to use the veterans as bait to get the people of the state of California to approve an $11-billion bond, and I just think that’s shameful,” said Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), an Army veteran. “Call it what it is. It’s a homeless bond, and it does include some veterans’ benefits, but it is not a veterans bond.”
Proposition 2: Save for California’s Future Act
This measure would give California lawmakers more flexibility over state spending and allow them to save money that could otherwise go back to taxpayers.
The measure, supported by Newsom, seeks to exempt deposits into state savings accounts from a spending limit that voters adopted through a series of ballot measures dating back to the late 1970s, and to increase the share of tax revenue that can be put into the rainy day fund.
Under an existing state appropriations restraint, also known as the Gann Limit, lawmakers cannot spend more than an amount determined by a formula that takes annual tax proceeds, changes to the population and cost of living into consideration. Tax revenue above the limit must be divided between schools and refunds to taxpayers.
The measure could incentivize lawmakers to save more money because funds tucked away in the rainy day fund would no longer be considered expenditures counted toward the spending limit. By allowing lawmakers to set aside more money that is not subjected to state spending limits, it could also allow them to hold onto money that otherwise would be returned to taxpayers under current law.
This proposed constitutional amendment was placed on the ballot by state lawmakers.
Proposition 3: Fund schools and healthcare
If passed, this proposition would make permanent an existing tax on high-income Californians.
The existing tax, passed by voters in 2012 and extended in 2016, is set to expire in 2031. It applies to people who earn more than $360,000 for single filers, $721,000 for joint filers, and $490,000 for heads of household. It adds between 1% to 3% to these high earners’ personal income tax rates.
According to the initiative text, the funds are largely earmarked for local school districts and community colleges, with some portion of the money going to California’s rainy day reserves — which the state uses to prevent cuts to healthcare and other services when revenues decline. The measure says revenues cannot be spent on state bureaucracy or administrative costs.
The state’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office expects the measure to bring in between $5 billion and $15 billion annually, depending on how the stock market is performing, with the amount expected to grow over time.
Proposition 4: Public financing of campaigns
This measure would allow the state and local governments to offer public campaign financing to candidates running for elected office. Candidates receiving the funding must abide by expenditure limits and adhere to the criteria set by statute, ordinance or charter to demonstrate broad support, such as demonstrate a large number of small dollar contributions.
None of the public campaign financing can come from funds designated for education, transportation or public safety. The financing cannot discriminate based on party or whether a candidate is a challenger or an incumbent. The public funds cannot be used for legal costs, fines or to pay back personal loans to a campaign.
This measure was placed on the ballot by the California Legislature and governor.
Proposition 5: Recall elections
This measure would change the way recall elections are conducted in California. Under this proposed constitutional amendment, during a recall election, voters would decide solely whether a politician should be removed from their elected position. If the recall is successful, that office would remain vacant until it is filled in accordance with existing law — either by a separate election or by appointment.
Under current law, voters make two separate decisions during a recall election: Whether to remove the subject of the recall from office and, if they are booted, which candidate running to replace them should fill the position. The candidate who receives the most votes wins, even if they receive far less than 50% of the vote.
The proposed constitutional amendment would also allow the recalled politician to run in the next election to fill the vacancy, though they cannot be appointed to their former post. Under the current system, office holders targeted in a recall are barred from being a candidate to replace themselves in that same election.
The proposal comes in the wake of the unsuccessful, Republican-led recall campaign against Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2021, which in part tested voter sentiment about his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the sponsors of the recall-reform measure was Sen. Josh Newman (D-Fullerton), who was recalled from office in 2018 after he voted to increase gas taxes for road repairs, legislation pushed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown. Newman won back his seat in 2020.
This proposed constitutional amendment was placed on the ballot by the California Legislature.
Proposition 37: Homeownership loan program
Proposition 37 would create a down payment assistance program to help middle-class Californians buy a new home.
The measure, spearheaded by former state Senate Majority Leader Bob Hertzberg, would allow middle-class California residents — defined as anyone who makes less than 200% of an area’s median income — borrow most of their down payment for a new home that they plan to live in. It is designed to boost construction of single-family homes.
A down payment is traditionally about 20% of the purchase price of a home. If passed, the measure would create a state-administered loan program that offers qualified homebuyers a second mortgage of up to 17% of a home’s sale price.
The proposition would allow the California Housing Finance Agency to issue up to $25 billion in revenue bonds to administer the program.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office does not anticipate the measure to result in direct state or local costs because the costs are meant to be covered by homeowners’ mortgage payments.
Proposition 38: Immunology research bond
Proposition 38 asks voters to approve an $8.4-billion bond to support research in the burgeoning fields of immunology and immunotherapy, which study the human immune system and how it can be used to prevent, treat and cure diseases.
If approved, half of the funding would go toward the creation of a new immunology and immunotherapy research institute affiliated with the University of California. The other half would fund research grants for other California-based universities and nonprofit medical research institutions to study potential treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and heart disease.
The measure has a built-in discount program for Californians — it requires that any technology or drugs developed from bond-funded research be sold to California patients for a price at least 20% below the national average.
Backers of the proposal include the Alzheimer’s Assn., National Multiple Sclerosis Society and other healthcare groups. Supporters argue the funding would facilitate research that could save lives and save patients “billions of dollars in health care costs by preventing and curing a range of debilitating diseases and illnesses,” according to the initiative text.
Proposition 39: Voter identification
Proposition 39 would require Californians to show government-issued identification every time they vote at the polls.
Currently, Californians must affirm under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens and provide information to verify their identity, such as their birth date, driver’s license or Social Security number, when registering to vote, but they don’t have to present identification when they cast their ballot.
Under this measure, voters would also need to present government-issued ID each time they vote in-person at the polls or, if voting by mail, provide the last four digits of a “unique identifying number from government-issued identification” that matches the one they provided when they registered to vote. California would be required to provide free voter ID cards on request, and state and county election officials would be required to verify registered voters are U.S. citizens by using government data.
The voter ID measure has support from Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), who has framed it as necessary to prevent voter fraud and restore trust. It comes as President Trump is pushing for stricter voter identification requirements and severe limits on voting by mail.
Democrats and voting rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, oppose the measure, saying California’s elections are already secure — voter impersonation and noncitizen voting cases are rare — and that it would make voting harder for many eligible voters, including people who have changed names, move frequently or face housing instability.
According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the measure would make election administration more expensive, costing state and local governments anywhere from tens of millions to low hundreds of millions of dollars annually, plus tens of millions in upfront implementation costs.
Proposition 40: Billionaire tax
This proposition, supported by a healthcare worker union, would impose a one-time tax of 5% on taxpayers and trusts with assets valued at more than $1 billion.
According to a state-prepared summary of the measure, 90% of the tax revenues would be spent on healthcare and 10% would fund food assistance or education-related programs. California’s richest residents would be able to spread the payments over five years.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates it would generate “tens of billions of dollars” spread over several years, but would lead to an annual decrease in state income tax revenues of “hundreds of millions of dollars or more.”
Newsom has publicly opposed the tax, arguing it would lead wealthy residents to leave the state and lead to future budget problems. Other opponents include Planned Parenthood, the California School Boards Assn. and a nonprofit called Building a Better California that is backed by tech execs and venture capitalists.
Some billionaires have already proactively moved themselves or their businesses out of the state because of the proposal, which as written would retroactively apply to residents of the state as of Jan. 1.
Proposition 41: Requires limits and audits on new state special taxes
This is one of two ballot measures crafted by opponents of the proposed initiative to impose a new tax on California billionaires, and it would in effect undercut or curtail that wealth tax.
This proposed ballot measure would also prohibit any new state taxes from being excluded from the state’s current voter-approved spending limit. The proposed billionaire tax would have such an exclusion. If the billionaire tax proposal is approved by voters but this proposal receives more votes, the billionaire tax measure would be voided.
The measure would require the state auditor to conduct a financial and performance audit of proposed ballot initiatives and of the programs they fund. The measure would require audits of any program that would receive funding from the special tax in the proposed initiative to assess the efficiency of the program and recommend who ought to reduce its annual costs by 10%. If the measure passes, the costs of the audits would be paid via the revenues generated by the special tax.
This ballot initiative is one of two so-called poison pills to sink the billionaire tax that is being bankrolled by Building a Better California, which has raised well over $100 million from the state’s most affluent. The largest donor is Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, who has reportedly moved out of California because of the tax proposal. He donated at least $82 million to the group as of late June.
Proposition 42: Ban on new state personal property taxes
This is one of two ballot measures created by opponents of the proposed initiative to impose a tax on California billionaires, and it would in effect void that wealth tax.
This proposed ballot measure would prohibit new taxes on personal property, intellectual property, retirement accounts and other assets and would limit situations in which a ballot measure or state lawmakers can impose or raise taxes retroactively — both of which are essential parts of the billionaire tax initiative.
If the billionaire tax proposal is approved by voters but this proposal receives more votes, the billionaire tax ballot measure would be voided.
This ballot initiative is one of two so-called poison pills to sink the billionaire tax that is being bankrolled by Building a Better California, which has raised well over $100 million from the state’s most affluent. The largest donor is Sergey Brin, a co-founder of Google, who has reportedly moved out of California because of the tax proposal. He donated at least $82 million to the group as of late June.
Proposition 43: Voting thresholds for special taxes
The measure would prohibit local governments from imposing new special taxes unless the proposed tax receives approval from two-thirds of voters. The restriction also applies to citizen initiatives, which currently only need a simple majority vote to be approved.
The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. supports Proposition 43. The advocacy group has characterized the measure as an effort to “save” 1978’s Proposition 13, the landmark initiative that capped California property tax increases and required a super-majority of votes to approve most future tax increases.
Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who authored the legislation that became Proposition 43 — ACA 22 — opposes the measure and has urged Californians to vote against it. She said the only reason she crafted the bill was because it was a necessary bargaining chip to torpedo another ballot measure backed by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. that would have devastated revenues for local governments and retroactively rescinded some local tax increases.
“I authored ACA 22 not because I wanted it to become law — but because it was the only path left to get the more dangerous initiative off the ballot before time ran out,” Wicks posted on social media.
Proposition 44: Regulate health clinic spending
If passed, Proposition 44 would require federally qualified health centers to spend 90% of their revenue on “program services advancing their charitable purpose” rather than management and overhead. Community clinics that fail to comply would be penalized, with fines placed in a state-managed fund to be spent on clinic workforce programs.
Advocates say clinics spend too much on executive pay and other administrative costs and not enough on patient care. The measure, which would dictate how clinics spend money, is designed to fix that. The measure is backed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, an influential healthcare workers union, which argues it will help hold clinics accountable.
In May, the California Primary Care Assn., which represents more than 2,300 community health clinics, sued to block the ballot measure. The state’s powerful doctors’ lobby, the California Medical Assn., also opposes the measure, arguing it would ban clinics from keeping funding in reserves and hamper their ability to upgrade equipment or expand to new locations.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that enforcing the measure would cost the government up to the low tens of millions annually, and that much of the cost would be paid for through penalties and fees charged to affected clinics. The office says the measure has “uncertain” impacts and could lead to clinic closures.
Proposition 45: CEQA reform
This proposition would amend the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, and speed up the process for projects deemed “essential,” including certain housing, water, health, public safety, energy and transportation projects.
Jails, detention facilities and oil or natural gas production facilities would not be considered “essential” projects, according to the measure text.
If passed, the measure would set deadlines for public agencies to complete environmental review, allow expedited review of a project’s environmental impacts — currently, public agencies are required to consider a range of feasible alternatives to reduce environmental impacts — and establish deadlines for filing and resolving lawsuits.
CEQA lawsuits have often been used to block construction of housing in the state. For instance, in Berkeley, neighbors used CEQA — citing potential noise impact from partying students — to delay, for years, UC Berkeley’s construction of student dorms on People’s Park.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the state and local government implementation will cost in the tens of millions of dollars for the first several years. It notes the legislation would probably result in net savings in the long term due to reduced administrative and legal workload.
Times staff writers Seema Mehta and Phil Willon contributed to this report.
Science
July Fourth fireworks may bring ‘hazardous’ air quality to Southern California. What you need to know
L.A.’s love of fireworks makes for a colorful Fourth of July, with dozens of official celebrations and countless illicit explosions expected for the holiday.
But as each sparkler, Roman candle, palm and peony dissipates, it leaves behind a cloud of noxious gases, soot and finely ground toxic metals — some of which ends up in the lungs of revelers and passersby below.
Hazardous levels of air pollution are expected across central and southern Los Angeles County, northern Orange County, and Riverside and San Bernardino counties from 5 p.m. Saturday evening through 3 p.m. Sunday, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Unhealthy air quality is also expected in northern Los Angeles County and southern Orange County.
Pollution levels are expected to build from dusk onward Saturday, as light winds and increased firework activity lead to an increase in smoke, a South Coast AQMD advisory said. Soot and particulates will likely linger through Sunday afternoon before being dispersed by the wind.
Firework-related pollution can trigger coughs, breathing problems, asthma flares and heart attacks, according to Los Angeles County Public Health, and anyone experiencing severe or worsening cardiovascular symptoms like chest pain or difficulty breathing should seek medical attention immediately.
Pyrotechnics set off at home are even more likely to trigger cardiovascular problems, the American Lung Assn. says, as the burst of pollutants takes place closer to the ground.
July 4 and 5 are traditionally two of the worst days of the year for the region’s air quality, according to South Coast AQMD. This year’s celebration comes on the heels of a late June warehouse fire in Boyle Heights that released extraordinary amounts of soot and smoke across the county, on par with pollution generated by the previous year’s wildfires.
To limit negative health effects, the L.A. County public health department recommends avoiding strenuous physical activity and keeping doors and windows closed. As whole house fans and swamp coolers can suck additional pollutants inside, the department recommends using air purifiers or air conditioners as alternatives when possible.
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