State Launches Civil Rights Investigation into Eaton Fire Response

Here are the morning’s top stories on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026

• California’s Department of Justice is opening a civil rights investigation in connection with last year’s deadly Eaton Fire. Attorney General Rob Bonta said they want to find out if race, age or disability discrimination were factors during the emergency response in the historically Black community of west Altadena.
• The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and environmental groups are celebrating the purchase of Sargent Ranch by the Peninsula Open Space Trust.
• Valentine’s Day for many means heart shaped candies and chocolates. But if romance is not your thing, visitors to San Francisco’s Exploratorium can interact with the actual organ. 
• An environmental advocate who helped build the community of fans around Big Bear’s bald eagles has died.

California launches civil rights investigation into Eaton Fire response in Altadena

The state of California is launching an investigation stemming from the Eaton Fire to determine whether race, age or disability discrimination were factors during the emergency response in the historically Black community of west Altadena.

“We’ll be looking at whether the systems and structures at play contributed to a delay in the County’s evacuation notice and possible disparities in emergency response,” state Attorney General Rob Bonta said Thursday.

The investigation follows reporting by the Los Angeles Times that found west Altadena received late evacuation alerts when compared to east Altadena. Eighteen of the 19 people who died in the fire lived in west Altadena, and nearly half of all black households in Altadena were lost, according to a fire survivors group. The investigation is “a trailblazing move for civil rights and environmental justice,” the group Altadena for Accountability said in a statement.

The civil rights investigation is expected to assess Los Angeles County’s emergency response through a disparate impact analysis — meaning it does not have to find discriminatory intent in order to prove violations of civil rights protections occurred. “There is a long history of marginalized communities receiving less support during times of crisis,” said fire survivor Shimica Gaskins. “This may be the most consequential act taken by any official in California for accountability since the fires ravaged Los Angeles.”

Land trust buys 2,300 acres near Gilroy, ending controversial mining proposal

The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band and environmental groups are celebrating the purchase of Sargent Ranch by the Peninsula Open Space Trust.

A sand and gravel quarry had been proposed for the 2,300 acres southwest of Gilroy. POST’s acquisition will instead protect the space as a wildlife corridor and cultural site. The land trust’s president Gordon Clark said buying the property had been a goal for twenty years because of its ecological importance. “It connects the Santa Cruz mountains and the San Francisco Peninsula to really the rest of California,” he said.

POST now owns over 6,000 acres of the 6,500-acre property. It plans to buy the rest this year and work with partners on a vision for the land, known to the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band as Juristac. Chairman Ed Ketchum said it has spiritual significance and is a place where his ancestors collected medicine. “The area hasn’t been open to us for 200 years, so we look forward in the near future to exploring and finding more about the lands and why our ancestors consider this such a important spot,” Ketchum said.

Exploratorium exhibit gives heart cells a beat 

On this Valentine’s weekend, many people will be receiving heart-shaped candies and chocolates. But if romance is not your thing, visitors to San Francisco’s Exploratorium can interact with the actual organ.

On a television screen above the floor of the Exploratorium, visitors can watch a live human heart cell as it beats under a microscope. These are real human cells. Amanda Marywhether is a senior researcher at the museum. She said the exhibit lets visitors dive into an exploration of how the heart works. “Nowhere else can a visitor see stem cells that have been differentiated into heart cells and actually do something to them,” Marywhether said.

The exhibit is one of several designed by the Exploratorium’s Biolab team to give audiences a rare view of the circulatory system in action. The displays are featured by the museum year round.

Sandy Steers, the Big Bear Valley advocate who fostered community of bald eagle fans, has died

Sandy Steers, an environmental advocate and head of the nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley who helped build a legion of fans for the area’s bald eagles, has died. She was 73.

The nonprofit announced on social media “with heavy hearts and great sadness” that Steers, the organization’s executive director, died Wednesday evening. More than a decade ago, Steers’ fascination with the first recently recorded bald eagle chick hatched in Big Bear Valley led to years of planning and fundraising to install a camera in the eagles’ nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.

The cameras are now part of a popular YouTube livestream run by Friends of Big Bear Valley and followed by tens of thousands of fans around the world who watch eagles Jackie and Shadow each season, particularly when they lay eggs and care for their offspring. “Something about Jackie and Shadow, or the view, or the whole thing — it just kind of took on a life of its own,” Steers told LAist in 2024. Friends of Big Bear Valley told LAist Thursday that Steers had an enormous heart, loved nature and wanted to help connect people with it. “She was fiercely protective of all wildlife in Big Bear Valley and everywhere,” Jenny Voisard, the organization’s media manager, said in an email. “She was an amazing leader. She was a calming, healing and creative soul.”