Science

LAUSD says Pali High is safe for students to return to after fire. Some parents and experts have concerns

Published

2 weeks ago

January 23, 2026

LAUSD says Pali High is safe for students to return to after fire. Some parents and experts have concerns

The Los Angeles Unified School District released a litany of test results for the fire-damaged Palisades Charter High School ahead of the planned return of students next week, showing the district’s remediation efforts have removed much of the post-fire contamination.

However, some parents remain concerned with a perceived rush to repopulate the campus. And while experts commended the efforts as one of the most comprehensive post-fire school remediations in modern history, they warned the district failed to test for a key family of air contaminants that can increase cancer risk and cause illness.

“I think they jumped the gun,” said a parent of one Pali High sophomore, who asked not to be named because she feared backlash for her child. “I’m quite angry, and I’m very scared. My kid wants to go back. … I don’t want to give him too much information because he has a lot of anxiety around all of these changes.”

Nevertheless, she still plans to send her child back to school on Tuesday, because she doesn’t want to create yet another disruption to the student’s life. “These are kids that also lived through COVID,” she said.

The 2025 Palisades fire destroyed multiple buildings on Pali High’s campus and deposited soot and ash in others. Following the fire, the school operated virtually for several months and, in mid-April of 2025, moved into a former Sears department store in Santa Monica.

Meanwhile, on campus, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cleared debris from the destroyed structures, and LAUSD hired certified environmental remediation and testing companies to restore the still-standing buildings to a safe condition.

LAUSD serves as the charter school’s landlord and took on post-fire remediation and testing for the school. The decision to move back to the campus was ultimately up to the charter school’s independent leadership.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power tested the drinking water for a slew of contaminants, and environmental consultants tested the soil, HVAC systems, indoor air and surfaces including floors, desks and lockers.

They tested for asbestos, toxic metals such as lead and potentially hazardous organic compounds often unleashed through combustion, called volatile organic compounds, or VOCs.

“The school is ready to occupy,” said Carlos Torres, director of LAUSD’s office of environmental health and safety. “This is really the most thorough testing that’s ever been done that I can recall — definitely after a fire.”

Construction workers rebuild the Palisades Charter High School swimming pool.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

A handful of soil samples had metal concentrations slightly above typical post-fire cleanup standards, which are designed to protect at-risk individuals over many years of direct exposure to the soil — such as through yard work or playing sports. An analysis by the environmental consultants found the metals did not pose a health risk to students or staff.

On indoor surfaces, the consultants found two areas with lead and one with arsenic, spaces they recleaned and retested to make sure those metals were no longer present.

The testing for contamination in the air, however, has become a matter of debate.

Some experts cautioned that LAUSD’s consultants tested the air for only a handful of mostly non-hazardous VOCs that are typically used to detect smoke from a wildfire that primarily burned plants. While those tests found no contamination, the consultants did not test for a more comprehensive panel of VOCs, including many hazardous contaminants commonly found in the smoke of urban fires that consume homes, cars, paints, detergents and plastics.

The most notorious of the group is benzene, a known carcinogen.

At a Wednesday webinar for parents and students, LAUSD’s consultants defended the decision, arguing their goal was only to determine whether smoke lingered in the air after remediation, not to complete more open-ended testing of hazardous chemicals that may or may not have come from the fire.

Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University professor who researches environmental disasters, didn’t find the explanation sufficient.

“Benzene is known to be released from fire. It is known to be present in air. It is known to be released from ceilings and furniture and other things over time, after the fire is out,” Whelton said. “So, I do not understand why testing for benzene and some of the other fire-related chemicals was not done.”

For Whelton, it’s representative of a larger problem in the burn areas: With no decisive guidance on how to remediate indoor spaces after wildland-urban fires, different consultants are making significantly different decisions about what to test for.

LAUSD released the testing results and remediation reports in lengthy PDFs less than two weeks before students plan to return to campus, while the charter school’s leadership decided on a Jan. 27 return date before testing was completed.

At the webinar, school officials said two buildings near the outdoor pool have not yet been cleared through environmental testing and will remain closed. Four water fixtures are also awaiting final clearance from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and the school’s food services are still awaiting certification from the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

For some parents — even those who are eager to ditch the department store campus — it amounts to a flurried rush to repopulate Pali High’s campus that is straining their decisions about how to keep their kids safe.

Torres stressed that his team acted cautiously in the decision to authorize the school for occupancy, and that promising preliminary testing helped school administrators plan ahead. He also noted that the slow, cautious approach was a point of contention for other parents who hoped their students could return to the campus as quickly as possible.

Experts largely praised LAUSD’s efforts as thorough and comprehensive — with the exception of the VOC air testing.

Remediation personnel power washed the exterior of buildings, wiped down all surfaces and completed thorough vacuuming with filters to remove dangerous substances. Any soft objects such as carpet or clothing that could absorb and hold onto contamination were discarded. The school’s labyrinth of ducts and pipes making up the HVAC system was also thoroughly cleaned.

Crews tested throughout the process to confirm their remediation work was successful and isolated sections of buildings once the work was complete. They then completed another full round of testing to ensure isolated areas were not recontaminated by other work.

Environmental consultants even determined a few smaller buildings could not be effectively decontaminated and consequently had them demolished.

Torres said LAUSD plans to conduct periodic testing to monitor air in the school, and that the district is open to parents’ suggestions.

For Whelton, the good news is that the school could easily complete comprehensive VOC testing within a week, if it wanted to.

“They are very close at giving the school a clean bill of health,” he said. “Going back and conducting this thorough VOC testing … would be the last action that they would need to take to determine whether or not health risks remain for the students, faculty and visitors.”

Science

Video: Why Mountain Lions in California Are Threatened

Published

11 hours ago

February 9, 2026

Press Room

Video: Why Mountain Lions in California Are Threatened

new video loaded: Why Mountain Lions in California Are Threatened

Six subpopulations of mountain lions in California face mounting threats, including habitat fragmentation from highways, urban sprawl, and wildfires, as well as widespread rodenticide poisoning. Loren Elliott, a photojournalist for The New York Times, shows how he documents these elusive animals.

By Loren Elliott, Gabriel Blanco and Rebecca Suner

February 9, 2026

Science

Torrance residents call for the ban of ‘flesh-eating’ chemical used at refinery

Published

2 days ago

February 8, 2026

Press Room

Torrance residents call for the ban of ‘flesh-eating’ chemical used at refinery

Residents and advocates gathered Saturday to demand the ban of a chemical that’s used at a Torrance oil refinery and that they say has the potential to cause a mass casualty disaster.

Hydrofluoric acid is used in about 40 gasoline refineries across the United States, according to the National Resources Defense Council. The defense council states that “exposing as little as 1% of a person’s skin to HF (about the size of one’s hand) can lead to death. When inhaled, HF can fatally damage lungs, disrupt heart rhythms, and cause other serious health effects.”

The Torrance Refinery uses modified hydrofluoric acid, or MHF, which the refinery considers to be a safer alternative to HF, though the claim is disputed by advocates. Steve Goldsmith, president of the Torrance Refinery Action Alliance, which hosted the Saturday event, said that if MHF were to be been released into the air, it would create irreversible health effects within 6.2 miles of the refinery, trickling into other parts of Los Angeles County.

And in 2015, he said, this almost happened.

On Feb. 18, 2015, there was an explosion at the refinery, then operated by ExxonMobil, caused by the rupture of an eroded valve. The incident, which released flammable hydrocarbons, injured four workers and forced 14 schools into lockdown.

The Saturday event, held at North High School’s Performing Arts Center in Torrance, marked the 11th anniversary of the explosion.

Goldsmith described the chemical as “murderous.”

Audience members participate in a “peace clap” at North Torrance High as they listen to speakers against the use of hydrofluoric acid in the Los Angeles region and across the country.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“Torrance Refinery had an enormous explosion, and a piece of equipment the size of a bus came within five feet of the hydrofluoric acid, causing a near miss,” Goldsmith said. “We’ve been working to get rid of it.”

Residents like Christopher Truman say replacing MHF with an alternative option is the least that can be done. His parents live near the refinery.

“I’m born and raised in the South Bay, and my family lives in, effectively, what would be the blast radius if another accident happened,” Truman said. “So just in that aspect, I’m very worried about it.”

MHF is also used to clean semiconductor surfaces and produce pesticides and herbicides in the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries, according to the Torrance Refinery.

County Supervisor Janice Hahn said residents should not assume “they will be lucky” if another refinery accident were to occur.

“Only two refineries in California use MHF, Torrance Refinery and the Valero Refinery in Wilmington,” Hahn said. “MHF is simply too dangerous to use. It is a flesh-eating, low-crawling, toxic vapor cloud. Our communities will not be safe until this chemical is gone.”

Goldsmith said a Chevron refinery in Salt Lake City found an ionic-liquid alkylation process as an alternative to MHF. He added that the 2025 Chevron refinery explosion in El Segundo “would have been different if they had been using MHF.”

“They used another chemical that did not endanger the community,” Goldsmith said. “And that’s the thing about refineries, they have explosions. But that’s why you can’t have [MHF] around things that can blow up.”

U.S. Representative

Congressmember Maxine Waters appears on a video message explaining her legislation

U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, (D-Los Angeles), who represents the city of Torrance, greeted attendees in a prerecorded message, in which she reintroduced her bill, the “Preventing Mass Casualties from Release of Hydrofluoric Acid at Refineries Act,” which targets plants using MHF.

“I originally introduced this bill in December of 2024,” Waters said in the video. “I faced considerable opposition, especially from the United Steel Workers Union, [who were] concerned that if refineries converted to safer technologies, some of the refineries might close, leaving workers without jobs. They agreed with me that hydrofluoric acid is dangerous. But they still would not support my bill. So I decided to go ahead and reintroduce this bill, [without] union support.”

The bill would give refineries five years to find an alternative to the dangerous chemical. Violators may be subject to fines up to $37,000 per infraction.

Supervisor Janice Hahn speaks out against the use of hydrofluoric acid in the Los Angeles region and across the country

Some residents stressed the need for transparency from local officials.

Ian Patton, a Long Beach resident, said most parts of the investigation into the 2015 explosion were withheld.

“Why can’t they not make this report public? The [Torrance Refinery Action Alliance] has been asking for it for years,” Patton said. “The next step was to look at litigation under the California Public Records Act. It’s not something that we want to do, but the public deserves to know whether these plants are safe.”

Science

TrumpRx is launched: How it works and what Democrats say about it

Published

2 days ago

February 7, 2026

Press Room

TrumpRx is launched: How it works and what Democrats say about it

WASHINGTON — The White House’s TrumpRx website went live Thursday with a promise to instantly deliver prescription drugs at “the lowest price anywhere in the world.”

“This launch represents the largest reduction in prescription drug prices in history by many, many times, and it’s not even close,” President Trump said at a news conference announcing the launch of the platform.

Drug policy experts say the jury is still out on whether the platform will provide the significant savings Trump promises, though it will probably help people who need drugs not commonly covered by insurance.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, called the site a “vanity project” and questioned whether the program presents a possible conflict of interest involving the pharmaceutical industry and the Trump family.

What is TrumpRx, really?

The new platform, trumprx.gov, is designed to help uninsured Americans find discounted prices for high-cost, brand-name prescriptions, including fertility, obesity and diabetes treatments.

The site does not directly sell drugs. Instead, consumers browse a list of discounted medicines, and select one for purchase. From there, they either receive a coupon accepted at certain pharmacies or are routed directly to a drug manufacturer’s website to purchase the prescription.

The White House said the reduced prices are possible after the administration negotiated voluntary “most favored nation” agreements with 16 major drugmakers including Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk.

Under these deals, manufacturers have agreed to set certain U.S. drug prices no higher than those paid in other wealthy nations in exchange for three-year tariff exemptions. However, the full legal and financial details of the deals have not been made public, leaving lawmakers to speculate how TrumpRx’s pricing model works.

What does it accomplish?

Though the White House has framed TrumpRx as a historic reset for prescription drug costs, economists said the platform offers limited new savings.

But it does move the needle on the issue of drug pricing transparency, away from the hidden mechanisms behind how prescription drugs are priced, rebated and distributed, according to Geoffrey Joyce, director of health policy at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.

“This has been a murky world, a terrible, obscure, opaque marketplace where drug prices have been inconsistently priced to different consumers,” Joyce said, “So this is a little step in the right direction, but it’s mostly performative from my perspective, which is kind of Trump in a nutshell.”

Still, for the uninsured or people seeking “lifestyle drugs” — like those for fertility or weight loss that insurers have historically declined to cover — TrumpRx could become a useful option, Joyce said.

“It’s kind of a win for Trump and a win for Pfizer,” Joyce said. “They get to say, ‘Look what we’re doing. We’re lowering prices. We’re keeping Trump happy, but it’s on our low-volume drugs, and drugs that we were discounting big time anyway.’”

Where does it fall short?

Early analyses by drug policy experts suggest many of the discounted medications listed on the TrumpRx site were already on offer through other drug databases before the platform launched.

For example, Pfizer’s Duavee menopause treatment is listed at $30.30 on TrumpRx, but it is also available for the same price at some pharmacies via GoodRx.

Weight management drug Wegovy starts at $199 on TrumpRx. Manufacturers were already selling the same discounted rates through its NovoCare Pharmacy program before the portal’s launch.

“[TrumpRx] uses data from GoodRx, an existing price-search database for prescription drugs,” said Darius N. Lakdawalla, a senior health policy researcher at USC. “It seems to provide prices that are essentially the same as the lowest price GoodRx reports on its website.”

Compared to GoodRx, TrumpRx covers a modest subset of drugs: 43 in all.

“Uninsured consumers, who do not use or know about GoodRx and need one of the specific drugs covered by the site, might benefit from TrumpRx. That seems like a very specific set of people,” Lakdawalla said.

Where do Democrats stand?

Democrats slammed the program this week, saying it would not provide substantial discounts for patients, and called for greater transparency around the administration’s dealings with drugmakers. To date, the administration has not disclosed the terms of the pricing agreements with manufacturers such as Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

In the lead-up to the TrumpRx launch, Democratic members of Congress questioned its usefulness and urged federal health regulators to delay its debut.

“This is just another Donald Trump pet project to rebrand something that already exists, take credit for it, and do nothing to actually lower healthcare prices,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said Friday. “Democrats will continue fighting to lower healthcare costs and push Republicans to stop giving handouts to billionaires at the expense of working-class Americans.”

Three other Democratic senators — Dick Durbin, Elizabeth Warren and Peter Welch — raised another concern in a Jan. 29 letter to Thomas March Bell, inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services.

The three senators pointed to potential conflicts of interest between TrumpRx and an online dispensing company, BlinkRx.

One of Trump’s sons, Donald Trump Jr., joined the BlinkRx Board of Directors in February 2025.

Months before, he became a partner at 1789 Capital, a venture capital firm that holds a significant stake in BlinkRx and led the startup’s $140-million funding round in 2024. After his appointment, BlinkRx launched a service to help pharmaceutical companies build direct-to-patient sales platforms quickly.

“The timing of the BlinkRx announcement so closely following the administration’s outreach to the largest drug companies, and the involvement of President Trump’s immediate family, raises questions about potential coordination, influence and self-dealing,” according to an October 2025 statement by Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Both BlinkRx and Donald Trump Jr. have denied any coordination.

What’s next?

The rollout of TrumpRx fits into a suite of White House programs designed to address rising costs, an area of vulnerability for Republicans ahead of the November midterms.

The White House issued a statement Friday urging support for the president’s healthcare initiative, dubbed “the great healthcare plan,” which it said will further reduce drug prices and lower insurance premiums.

For the roughly 8% of Americans without health insurance, TrumpRx’s website promises that more high-cost, brand-name drugs will be discounted on the platform in the future.

“It’s possible the benefits will become broader in the future,” Lakdawalla said. “I would say that the jury remains out on its long-run structure and its long-run pricing effects.”