It’s Wednesday, February 26, and the eggpocalypse has only just begun.
On today’s L.A. Local podcast: the EPA is done with phase one of the wildfire cleanup – what does that mean? The Santa Monica Sears building may be getting a 2nd life, and one of our crankiest colleagues was trapped in the traffic nightmare on the 101 this morning. We let him vent.
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1. The EPA completed Phase 1 of hazardous material removal from the Palisades and Eaton fires.
They hit the milestone within the 30-day timeline requested by local officials, clearing more than 9,000 properties. Another 4,400 that were deemed too dangerous to clear were deferred to Phase 2.
"Under the leadership of EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, crews cleaned hazardous waste from thousands of properties in less than 30 days, a record pace never seen before at this scale,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.
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2. Nearly 60,000 UC workers hit the picket lines this morning.
The service and health care workers are striking due to short staffing and unfair bargaining, one picketer told KNX News’ Jon Baird.
“Our members increasingly are commuting 2 and 3 hours each way to work. Some are having to sleep in their cars,” Todd Stenhouse with AFSCME 3299 said.
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3. Search warrants were served at Huntington Park City Hall as part of a corruption probe.
Warrants were also served at the homes of Mayor Karina Macias, Councilmember Eddie Martinez, and three former city officials. The investigation concerns potentially misused funds from a project to build an aquatic center at Salt Lake Park.
“My office is committed to ensuring that public officials uphold the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and transparency," D.A. Nathan Hochman said in a statement.
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4. A baby infected with measles landed at LAX earlier this month.
Health officials are tracking down passengers who might have been exposed. Dr. Nathan Newman, a family doctor in Long Beach, told us that measles is seriously dangerous, especially for people who aren’t up on their vaccinations.
“The real concern with measles is that it is a highly, highly, highly contagious virus which is almost impossible not to catch if you are susceptible,” he said.
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The nationwide egg shortage has people cracking up, with bodegas selling individual eggs like loose cigarettes, desperate city-dwellers renting chickens, and grocery stores rationing cartons to prevent hoarding.
It’s dire, folks, and it’s only getting worse, with prices forecasted to rise another 41% this year. By 2030, we might be waiting in egglines outside Ralphs with wheelbarrows full of cash, begging cashiers to unlock the bulletproof glass cases where those precious, precious white-shelled (or if you're a billionaire, brown-shelled) orbs are kept safe from smash-and-grab flash mobs.
