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By BILL HETHERMAN | City News Service The lead plaintiff in a consolidated lawsuit brought by six Los Angeles police officers who allege they experienced retaliation after they spoke out about commanders’ allegedly enforcing illegal quotas for gang contact and gun-related arrests and seizures is challenging the city’s efforts to dismiss their case. Officer Samantha Fiedler and the other officers contend in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that management imposed career-impairing actions against them, including taking their guns and badges away and assigning them to home duty. Fiedler was the first to sue when she brought her complaint in August 2020 before all the suits were combined into one. Fiedler, who was a member of the LAPD Metropolitan Division, contended that management for years enforced an unofficial quota system that rewarded officers who identified and arrested a lot of alleged gang members and punished those who failed to do so. “The primary focus of my position in Metro was to acquire recap via crime suppression,” Fiedler says in a sworn declaration filed in opposition to the city’s dismissal motion. “The specific recap requested was any sort of documentation, arrest, ticket or encounter with a gang member. And the crown jewel of recap was a gang-related gun arrest.” Fiedler says that taking an alleged gang member into custody who had a weapon was the “most favored arrest, not only because it was talked about in every roll call, but if you made that arrest, you would get emails from command staff all the way up the chain congratulating you on the arrest.” Fiedler further says that a lieutenant told her that her promotions were heavily dependent on recap numbers. “From that point on, it was readily apparent that promotions were largely dependent on higher recap, but not necessarily the motivation for officers to be high recappers,” Fiedler says. “Conversely, it was also readily apparent that negative employment action was enacted if you were considered a low-producing officer.” The derisive term “coffee drinkers” or “cafecitos” was given to those officers considered by supervisors to be the low-recapping officers, according to Fiedler, who added that high-producing officers were dubbed “hard workers” or “pistoleros.” Fiedler says she heard multiple conversations on speaker phone and in person of a Metro sergeant’s disgust with the “coffee drinkers.” Fiedler says she recalls multiple roll call briefings throughout her time in Metro where officers were scolded for low performance and pressured to increase recap. Fiedler further says that one time when two officers spoke out about the recap pressure, she “chimed in and said that it was wrong and dangerous to push recap …” Fiedler says that after two years in Metro she was “harvested,” or reassigned, to be a firearms instructor in 2019 and that in January 2020 she was suddenly assigned home and stripped of her police powers, including being told to turn in her guns and badge. She also says she was downgraded. Fiedler says she later met with the sergeant who had mocked officers he considered low producers and that he told her she would lose her job and get little money from her lawsuit because she had “snitched.” Some of Fiedler’s fellow plaintiffs were charged with deliberately misidentifying people as gang members, but a judge later dismissed the case against them. Fiedler, the daughter and sister of LAPD officers, subsequently obtained a law degree and moved out of state in order to “stay afloat financially and to find a new identity outside of the stress, retaliation and things that kick the LAPD dust back up in my life,” she says. The other plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Officers Mario Fernandez, Julio Garcia, Rene Braga, Raul Uribe and John Walker. In their motions to dismiss the lawsuit, lawyers for the City Attorney’s Office contend there are no triable issues. Related Articles Judge refuses to dismiss restrictions on LAPD use of ‘less lethal’…

By Alan Greenblatt, KFF Health News When one of Adam Burkhammer’s foster children struggled with hyperactivity, the West Virginia legislator and his wife decided to alter their diet and remove any foods that contained synthetic dyes. “We saw a turnaround in his behavior, and our other children,” said Burkhammer, who has adopted or fostered 10 kids with his wife. “There are real impacts on real kids.” The Republican turned his experience into legislation, sponsoring a bill to ban seven dyes from food sold in the state. It became law in March, making West Virginia the first state to institute such a ban from all food products. The bill was among a slew of state efforts to regulate synthetic dyes. In 2025, roughly 75 bills aimed at food dyes were introduced in 37 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Related Articles Vance and Rubio set to attend Winter Olympics opening ceremony in Italy. Trump isn’t on the list US Catholic cardinals urge Trump administration to embrace a moral compass in foreign policy Hawaii’s strict gun law faces Supreme Court scrutiny in landmark case AP Source: Fed Chair Powell to attend Supreme Court argument on Cook case As faith in the US fades a year into Trump 2.0, Europe tries to end a reliance on American security Chemical dyes and nutrition are just part of the broader “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Promoted by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., MAHA ideas have made their deepest inroads at the state level, with strong support from Republicans — and in some places, from Democrats. The $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program — created last year as part of the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act to expand health care access in rural areas — offers incentives to states that implement MAHA policies. Federal and state officials are seeking a broad swath of health policy changes, including rolling back routine vaccinations and expanding the use of drugs such as ivermectin for treatments beyond their approved use. State lawmakers have introduced dozens of bills targeting vaccines, fluoridated water, and PFAS, a group of compounds known as “forever chemicals” that have been linked to cancer and other health problems. In addition to West Virginia, six other states have targeted food dyes with new laws or executive orders, requiring warning labels on food with certain dyes or banning the sale of such products in schools. California has had a law regulating food dyes since 2023. Most synthetic dyes used to color food have been around for decades. Some clinical studies have found a link between their use and hyperactivity in children. And in early 2025, in the last days of President Joe Biden’s term, the Food and Drug Administration outlawed the use of a dye known as Red No. 3. Major food companies including Nestle, Hershey, and PepsiCo have gotten on board, pledging to eliminate at least some color additives from food products over the next year or two. “We anticipate that the momentum we saw in 2025 will continue into 2026, with a particular focus on ingredient safety and transparency,” said John Hewitt, the senior vice president of state affairs for the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group for food manufacturers. This past summer, the group called on its members to voluntarily eliminate federally certified artificial dyes from their products by the end of 2027. “The state laws are really what’s motivating companies to get rid of dyes,” said Jensen Jose, regulatory counsel for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health advocacy group. Andy Baker-White, the senior director of state health policy for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said the bipartisan support for bills targeting food dyes and ultraprocessed food struck him as unusual. Several red states have proposed legislation modeled on California’s 2023 law, which bans four food additives. “It’s not very often you see states like…

By Paula Span, KFF Health News Let’s be clear: The primary reason to be vaccinated against shingles is that two shots provide at least 90% protection against a painful, blistering disease that a third of Americans will suffer in their lifetimes, one that can cause lingering nerve pain and other nasty long-term consequences. Related Articles RFK Jr.’s MAHA movement has picked up steam in statehouses. Here’s what to expect in 2026 Oregon baby is still battling infant botulism after ByHeart formula exposure Solving the home care quandary Skipped preventatives, now dog has worms Tylenol pregnancy study contradicts Trump claims on autism link The most important reason for older adults to be vaccinated against the respiratory infection RSV is that their risk of being hospitalized with it declines by almost 70% in the year they get the shot, and by nearly 60% over two years. And the main reason to roll up a sleeve for an annual flu shot is that when people do get infected, it also reliably reduces the severity of illness, though its effectiveness varies by how well scientists have predicted which strain of influenza shows up. But other reasons for older people to be vaccinated are emerging. They are known, in doctor-speak, as off-target benefits, meaning that the shots do good things beyond preventing the diseases they were designed to avert. The list of off-target benefits is lengthening as “the research has accumulated and accelerated over the last 10 years,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Some of these protections have been established by years of data; others are the subjects of more recent research, and the payoff is not yet as clear. The first RSV vaccines, for example, became available only in 2023. Still, the findings “are really very consistent,” said Stefania Maggi, a geriatrician and senior fellow at the Institute of Neuroscience at the National Research Council in Padua, Italy. She is the lead author of a recent meta-analysis, published in the British journal Age and Ageing, that found reduced risks of dementia after vaccination for an array of diseases. Given those “downstream effects,” she said, vaccines “are key tools to promote healthy aging and prevent physical and cognitive decline.” Yet too many older adults, whose weakening immune systems and high rates of chronic illness put them at higher risk of infectious diseases, have not taken advantage of vaccination. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last week that about 31% of older adults had not yet received a flu shot. Only about 41% of adults 75 and older had ever been vaccinated against RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, and about a third of seniors had received the most recent COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC recommends the one-and-done pneumococcal vaccine for adults 50 and older. An analysis in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, however, estimated that from 2022, when new guidelines were issued, through 2024, only about 12% of those 67 to 74 received it, and about 8% of those 75 and older. The strongest evidence for off-target benefits, dating back 25 years, shows reduced cardiovascular risk following flu shots. Healthy older adults vaccinated against flu have substantially lower risks of hospitalization for heart failure, as well as for pneumonia and other respiratory infections. Vaccination against influenza has also been associated with lower risks of heart attack and stroke. Moreover, many of these studies predate the more potent flu vaccines now recommended for older adults. Could the RSV vaccine, protective against another respiratory illness, have similar cardiovascular effects? A recent large Danish study of older adults found a nearly 10% decline in cardiorespiratory hospitalizations — involving the heart and lungs — among the vaccinated versus a control group, a significant decrease. Lowered rates of cardiovascular hospitalizations and…

By Christine Benz of Morningstar If you’d like to do a thorough review of your portfolio and plan, here are the key steps to take. I recommend doing them over a series of sessions, not all at once. Step 1: Gather your documentation This could be your current investment statements, plus Social Security and pension. Pro tip: Set up a My Social Security account to get an overview of your benefits and earnings history. Step 2: Ask and answer: How am I doing? To find out if you’re on track to reach your financial goals, review your current portfolio balance, combined with your savings rate. Tally your contributions across all accounts. A decent baseline savings rate is 15%, but higher-income folks will want to aim for 20% or more. Also factor in other goals you’d like to achieve, such as college funding or a home down payment. Are they realistic? Make sure you’re not giving short shrift to retirement. If you’re retired or about to be, the key gauge of the viability of your total plan is your withdrawal rate—your planned portfolio withdrawals divided by your total portfolio balance. The 4% guideline is a good starting point, but aim for less if you can. Related Articles Inequality and unease are rising as elite Davos event opens with pro-business Trump set to attend What to know about the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos What’s open and closed on Martin Luther King Jr. Day US futures sink after Trump warns of higher tariffs for 8 countries over Greenland issue IMF upgrades outlook for surprisingly resilient world economy to 3.3% growth this year Step 3: Check up on your long-term asset allocation Does your total portfolio’s mix of stocks, bonds, and cash match your targets? High-quality target-date series such as those from Vanguard and BlackRock’s LifePath Index Series can help benchmark asset allocation. My model portfolios can also help. A portfolio that tilts mostly or even entirely toward stocks makes sense for younger investors. If your portfolio is notably equity-heavy and you’re within 10 years of retirement, shifting to bonds and cash is more urgent. Just mind the tax consequences when you rebalance. Step 4: Assess liquid reserves Holding some cash is crucial to ensure you don’t have to tap your investments or resort to credit cards in a financial crunch. For retired people, I recommend holding six months to two years worth of portfolio withdrawals in cash investments. For those still working, holding three to six months’ worth of living expenses in cash is a good starting point. Step 5: Assess suballocations, sector positioning, and holdings Your broad asset-class exposure largely determines how your portfolio behaves. But your positioning within each asset class also deserves a look. Market strength has recently broadened, but growth stocks and funds that own them have outpaced value by a wide margin over the past decade. Finally, check up on your sector positioning, allocation to foreign stocks, and actual holdings. Step 6: Identify opportunities to streamline Why have scores of accounts and holdings if a more compact portfolio could do the job just as well? If you’ve changed jobs, you may have multiple 401(k)s and rollover IRAs. Consider consolidating into a single IRA. If you have several small cash accounts, you may be losing out on a (slightly) higher yield. Could you reduce the number of holdings in your portfolios? Index funds and ETFs provide pure asset-class exposure and a lot of diversification in a single package. I also like target-date funds for smaller accounts to provide diversification without any maintenance obligations. Step 7: Manage for tax efficiency At this point, if you think changes are in order, be sure to take tax and transaction costs into account. Focus any selling in your tax-sheltered accounts, where you won’t incur tax costs and you can usually avoid transaction costs, too. Within your taxable accounts, review the tax implications and/or get tax advice before executing trades.…

ROMA (AP) — Fundación Valentino anuncia que el diseñador fundador, Valentino Garavani, ha muerto en Roma a los 93 años.