When Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison started Stripe Inc. in 2010, there was little question about where they should put their headquarters. It had to be California.

Now, though, Stripe is leaving the tech mecca of San Francisco, awash in tech talent and investor cash, and is in the process of moving its main office about 10 miles to neighboring South San Francisco. What’s more, the company — whose $35-billion valuation makes it one of the world’s most valuable start-ups — is building up its staff in another state altogether: New York.

In September, Stripe opened an office near Wall Street, according to the company, and plans to add several hundred employees there in the coming years. The start-up’s planned New York growth is on track to outpace its headquarters’.

The city has long been a hub for finance, and more recently for tech. “New York is a global leader,” said David Singleton, Stripe’s chief technology officer. “It’s just an important market for entrepreneurialism and start-ups.”

Stripe is one of many Bay Area-based fintech companies now building up a New York presence:

• Plaid Technologies Inc., which connects various apps to customers’ bank accounts, has relocated or hired more than 100 people in the city over the last year, or about a quarter of its staff.

• Affirm Inc., the lending start-up founded by former PayPal Holdings Inc. co-founder Max Levchin, recently opened up a Manhattan office that has about 50 employees, the company said.

• Brex Inc., the business credit card start-up most recently valued at $2.6 billion, has permanently relocated its chief financial officer to Midtown, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing information that’s not yet public.

In some ways, the moves are natural for tech start-ups with financial ambitions. Despite the growing success of fintech upstarts hailing from San Francisco, Wall Street institutions remain on top of the financial world, and New York offers an appealing pool of potential hires.

Uber Technologies Inc., for example, announced the creation of a new unit called Uber Money in October, and will be shopping for fintech talent in and around Manhattan, according to a CNBC report. At Affirm, the company’s New York employees’ resumes are littered with names such as Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Often, financial technology companies that are just getting started set up shop in San Francisco to be close to tech workers with experience designing products at big companies, said Mark Goldberg, a partner at Index Ventures. San Francisco’s resident tech giants include Uber, Lyft Inc., Twitter Inc. and Airbnb Inc. But “what they don’t understand is the industry,” he said, adding that eventually, many fintech companies look eastward for hiring.

“What I think happens is that companies that start on the West Coast end up recognizing that they want to complement that DNA with capital market expertise, and with people that have been in and around banks,” Goldberg said.

Meanwhile, tech epicenter San Francisco has become less hospitable for some companies. Last year, voters passed a new tax on businesses that will be used to fund homelessness relief efforts, and financial services companies are taxed at a higher rate than other types of businesses. Stripe’s decision to leave the city was widely regarded by local officials as related to the passage of the new tax. The company, which strongly opposed the measure, denied that taxes were a major factor in the decision to move.

Stripe instead pointed to the limited office space in San Francisco. The city’s asking prices for commercial rent, which are the highest in the nation, climbed 7% over the last year to record levels in the third quarter, according to real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. And adding to the region’s woes: In recent months, fires caused widespread power outages in homes around the Bay Area.

Still, none of the fintech unicorns Bloomberg spoke to have plans to move their headquarters away from the West Coast. Stripe, while hiring a few hundred people in New York, has more than 1,000 employees in Silicon Valley. Affirm’s San Francisco office is many times larger than its Manhattan outpost. And New York-based financial services start-ups tend to have stubbornly lower valuations than their highflying West Coast counterparts.

For Plaid, New York is a homecoming of sorts. The start-up left the city in 2013 after winning TechCrunch’s Disrupt New York Hackathon, and, seeking proximity to engineers and investors, moved its headquarters to San Francisco.

“Us coming back and building a really big presence is a strong signal for NYC tech, which has made huge strides in terms of client base, talent and funding,” said Charley Ma, Plaid’s New York City growth manager, who moved from the West Coast for the job last fall. Plaid’s chief executive, however, will remain in San Francisco.

When I was a kid, my mom told me I was the original Gerber baby, and I believed it. Then my sister claimed to be the original Gerber baby, and by then our mom wasn’t around to straighten things out, the way moms do.

No one straightens things out like a mom.

We don’t have any moms in our house anymore, to straighten things out, to order the dog food, to remind us that it’s trash day or that the dentist expects us there Wednesday.

My mom’s gone. My wife is gone. Her mom is gone. But they all trained us well before they left. We know just how to decorate for the holidays, how the garland drapes across the mantel and where Posh hid our favorite Santa mugs.

Been a year now since Posh departed. On the sill in the kitchen is this lovely arrangement that our friends Jon and Lisa sent when she died. That plant has somehow survived the entire year — like us, in the afterglow of her ineffable spirit. In the memory of her dazzling smile.

On the one-year anniversary, I posted a little online tribute.

It was about her dimple. She had just one dimple. But it was a good dimple, on the right side. As if God and Monet teamed up.

Does heaven have a dimple section? Does it allow beefy beagles? May they all rest in perfect peace.

Thanksgiving was a milestone in our ludicrous run of sorry luck. Life’s funny, then it’s not, then it’s funny again — you can count on that, and only that.

The other day, the boy warned me he’d been hitting Wiffle balls in the garage.

“And?” I asked.

“I only broke one thing,” he said proudly.

“What?”

“The light,” he said.

As my buddy Daryl put it, I’m still the luckiest guy in Bedford Falls.

One light? That’s nothing. I complimented my son on his restraint, as I worried that maybe his swing was a little off (sometimes he drops his hands).

Yep, a year later life goes on. Last week at dinner, he and his sister Rapunzel, the one with too much hair, ran into Meryl Streep, an actress with too much talent.

“Her laugh is contagious,” my son reported later, then mimicked Streep’s trademark trill, which sounds like a piccolo tickling another piccolo.

Our neck of the woods is hardly a celebrity hot spot, but Vince Vaughn used to live nearby, and Miley Cyrus camped here awhile, before she shed her clothes and became a mega-star.

If there’s anything Hollywood rewards, it’s reckless nudity.

In our little town, Kevin Costner once came to back-to-school night. The other parents gave him props for that, as well as for sending his daughter to public school.

Good kid too. She and my older son were fifth-grade pals. To prove it, she once tied him to a basketball post with a jump-rope, which I think is where the term “dumb as a post” comes from — though it may have preceded that episode.

As a parent, you can’t overreact to antics like that. After a couple of weeks, Posh trudged up the hill to the little school and untied our son.

No angry note to the principal. We just assumed that’s what modern love had become.

Yet, spotting Streep at a sushi joint was something else entirely. The Actress of Our Time. Ethereal. If the sun shines right, it’s like she lets us see her soul.

“Her daughter’s someone too,” Rapunzel said of Streep’s dinner mate.

“Everybody’s someone,” I reminded her.

“Dad, we know that isn’t true,” she said.

You know, they call us boomers, because that’s the sound we make when we fall down, which we are increasingly prone to do. We may rant about younger generations, but they have nothing on boomer parents. When we were young, we bombed college labs and created free love. Before that, you had to pay for love, and no one had the money for it.

Much like the Greeks, boomers glorified love. Or at least made it more accessible.

Thing is, there seems to be less love than there used to be. Except right now, around Christmas, when we seem to grasp for the season more than ever, knowing it’s fleeting, knowing the holidays are when we’re at our most honorable and good. When, as a poet said, every kindness seems a hymn.

As with life, the Christmas clock ticks much too quickly. Good thing Starbucks started celebrating in July.

Whatever your beliefs, I think the best part of the holidays may be right now, in early December, when there is still so much that lies ahead — the hugs … the parties … the incandescent smiles.

Click Here: Christian Dior perfume

So spin the dreidel, raise a glass….

To all the loves we’ve lost, the moms, the children, the pals and the beefy beagles — wherever they may be.

The celebrities of the heart.

[email protected]

You could easily label this the decade of the influencer, those YouTube and Instagram stars who make money by selling FaceTuned versions of themselves while hawking face creams, fashion collaborations, protein powder and how-to-improve-your-life seminars. Through their social media posts, they convince thousands or millions of fans and admirers to like what they like and want what they want.

But is all that glitters on the ‘Gram and elsewhere really gold? For answers, I turn to the woman who will likely go down in history for putting the “i” in influencer, and that would be Paris Hilton, the eldest daughter of real-estate developer Richard Hilton, and his socialite wife, Kathy.

I visit Hilton at her Beverly Hills home on a quiet, unassuming street last month. Despite having been robbed by the Bling Ring thieves and enduring years of public scrutiny, Hilton, I notice, has left the modern home’s bronze wrought-iron gate wide open, welcoming a revolving door of guests that include a photographer, publicist and large film crew.

Although she was born into the wealthy family behind the Hilton Hotel empire, the 38-year-old became a household name about 15 years ago thanks to her role on one of TV’s first reality shows, “The Simple Life.”

Seated on a metallic couch in her home theater, Hilton is wearing her signature look — one fans have come to know well: a pink velour Juicy Couture jumpsuit with Nike sneakers. Inside the room, there’s a decorative pillow with the words “In Fashion We Trust” and another one that has cherubs covered in sunglasses and tattoos.

Otherwise, the space is barren. It has an emptiness to it. Perhaps that’s because Hilton only spends a handful of days per year in Los Angeles. Or maybe she’s more likely to entertain in her two-story home’s living room, which feels like the lobby of an upscale hotel complete with an image of Marilyn Monroe blowing a bubble by artist Michael Moebius; a Louis Vuitton steamer trunk; large-scale photographs of Hilton; a neon sign that reads: “Life is Beautiful”; and a lineup of colorful gnomes sticking up their middle fingers.

When she’s in town — “which is hardly ever,” she tells me — Hilton mostly stays indoors watching television with her five dogs and two cats. She cooks, paints and creates music in her home recording studio. “Being an Aquarius, I’m creative,” says Hilton, who became known in the 2000s for her sparkly, innately girly fashion — the result of retail therapy, not an image architect.

“I was my own stylist,” she says, explaining she was in the spotlight before the rise of the celebrity stylist and “The Rachel Zoe Project,” which debuted in 2008.

Although Hilton says her “favorite and most iconic pieces” were stolen by the Bling Ring, as depicted in director Sofia Coppola’s 2013 film, she keeps the remainder of her designer goods locked away in storage. “I save a lot of pieces for when I have daughters one day,” she says. “I know that they’ll love them. So I have this whole area for my daughters — where all of that is waiting.”

During our chat, her teacup Chihuahua, Diamond Baby, is perched on her lap. This pint-sized pup fills the void left after Hilton’s beloved dog, Tinkerbell, died in 2015. Tinkerbell was often seen with Hilton and appeared on “The Simple Life.” That show, which arrived long before “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” or any of the “Real Housewives” series, is how millions of viewers got to know Hilton — well, the version of herself that she says she created for the cameras.

Petting her fur baby, Hilton says, “I finally know who I am, and I’ve never been in a better place. I think there are a lot of misconceptions about me.” And now Hollywood’s original influencer wants to clear the air about a few things.

Click Here: Christian Dior perfume

The original

Hilton was an influencer before the occupation had a name. “All my friends who are YouTubers always say, ‘You were the reason why I do this. I learned so much from you,’ ” Hilton says. “Things like that make me feel happy.”

A provocative Vanity Fair article and pictorial by David LaChapelle announced the arrival of Hilton and her then-16-year-old sister, Nicky, in 2000.

“We were teenagers, completely clueless,” Nicky Hilton Rothschild, now 36, later tells me on the phone between appointments for her new capsule shoe collection with French Sole. “Back then, it was so authentic and organic. There were no agents. There were no managers. There was certainly no glam team or stylist. Today everything is so manufactured. Young girls are now running around getting styled head-to-toe to pick up Starbucks.”

At the time, there was also no social media and no opportunity for Hilton to tell her story on her own terms. She was dependent on more traditional means of making a name for herself — print, broadcast and gossip websites. Her reign was long before the #MeToo movement, and it was a time when the slightest misstep — or major blunder — created a headline that wasn’t easy to clear up. It was also an era that provided a blueprint for every aspiring modern-day influencer.

I later reach out to Brooke Erin Duffy, an associate professor at Cornell University who studies female entrepreneurship in the social-media age. Duffy calls Hilton a “paragon of self-branding.” “There’s a quote from the ’60s. Daniel Boorstin wrote a famous person is ‘known for his [or her] well-knowness,’ and that was Paris Hilton,” says Duffy, author of 2017’s “(Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love” (Yale University Press).

“We weren’t quite sure what her celebrity hinged upon, but it hinged upon her self-brand,” she says. “She was engaging in a model of strategic self-promotion before self-branding became something that everyone did. Now we take this for granted. … She was doing this a decade before the rest of us.”

After Hilton escaped the tabloid spotlight, it was her longtime friend Kim Kardashian West who filled the void as her family members became household names by opening up their lives to the world on TV and online. “Paris, in my eyes, has done a lot for me in my career,” Kardashian West tells me during a media day last month for her new Skims shapewear line. “A lot of people became aware of who I was through my friendship with her.”

Kardashian West says she and Hilton “lost contact for a little bit” after she began filming “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” but that they “would run into each other and reconnect.”

“She was always really supportive and really sweet about it,” Kardashian West says.

Earlier this year, Hilton released new music including the electronic-dance song “Best Friend’s Ass.” The music video for the song featured a cameo by Kardashian West. (Of course, the moment recently appeared on “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”)

“When she asked me to be in her video, I was super honored,” Kardashian West says. “I would do anything for her.”

Although “The Simple Life” was billed as reality television when it debuted in 2003, Hilton says she was playing the part of a spoiled New York socialite sent to live on a farm with costar Nicole Richie. It’s her party-girl persona that viewers and fans know well from the gossip pages and blogs.

During the series’ run, Hilton gave the public what she says she thought it wanted, including her catchphrases, “That’s hot” and “Loves it.” When she first signed on, she says she didn’t realize the show would be on the air for five seasons. For years, Hilton says she has felt trapped behind that TV persona.

“I’m a naturally shy person, so it made it easier to be that character because I could hide behind it,” Hilton says in a raspy voice, deeper than the one fans might expect. “I was stuck playing that character and talking in that baby voice and being that image.”

Hilton says there’s much more to her. “I want to inspire people in the right way and I think that certain things that have happened in my life …” Hilton trails off.

“I just want people to know the real me,” she says.

She’s all business

In an effort to be understood, Hilton participated in Netflix’s 2018 documentary “American Meme,” which was directed by her longtime childhood friend Bert Marcus. The social-media-focused film, which Hilton helped produce, addresses her infamous 2004 sex tape, which an ex-boyfriend released, without her consent, when she was 20.

“It’s not something that I would ever want to be known for,” she tells me.

A shaming public narrative followed, something that wouldn’t likely fly in today’s #MeToo era. “Thank God,” Hilton says. “Back then, people were acting like I was the bad person or the villain … Today, if that happened, whoever did that to the person would be [vilified].”

In the documentary, Hilton says the scandal led her to contemplate suicide and fear leaving her house. However, one of the most-striking moments is when she says, “I would never be who I could have been.”

I ask her about her words. “As a little girl, I always looked up to Princess Diana and women like that who I respected so much,” Hilton says. “And I felt that when that man put out that tape, it basically took that away from me because, for the rest of my life, people are going to judge me and think of me in a certain way just because of a private moment with someone that [I] trusted and loved.”

Since completing “American Meme,” Hilton has been filming her own untitled documentary, which will be released in early 2020 on YouTube as part of its new original-series slate.

“I now feel comfortable enough with myself to tell my story. I wasn’t really before,” says Hilton, adding that she tried taking the high road when it came to public narratives about her. “My mom and my dad always told me, ‘Never dignify something with a response.’ Back then, there was no social media. So I couldn’t just go on there [and set the record straight] … I never stuck up for myself or said anything because my parents said, ‘You’re just going to draw more attention to something. Even if it’s a lie, just don’t pay attention to it. Your family and your friends know the real you.’ ”

Although it appeared that she retreated from the public eye after “The Simple Life,” Hilton was focused on building her own brand and doing charity work. In addition to donating to the construction of the cancer wing at Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles in 2008, Hilton has also spent time volunteering at the hospital and with the Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. According to Vanity Fair, she donated $350,000 and merchandise and visited the victims of the 2017 earthquake in the San Gregorio section of Xochimilco, Mexico City. Also, Hilton says, she donates her time and resources to a homeless shelter on skid row in downtown L.A.

“During Christmas, I’ll wear a Santa outfit and bring toys and spend time with the kids,” she says. “One of the reasons that God sent me here is to make people smile and make people happy.”

While promoting her latest fragrance, Electrify, in October, Hilton visited terminally ill children at the Dr. Sonrisas Foundation in Mexico City. “There’s no feeling like the feeling of seeing someone light up,” she says. “Their parents will say, ‘She’s literally not gotten out of bed or not smiled this long. My kid is actually standing up and walking. You are an angel.’ To hear that and see that and have that effect on someone? It’s a magical feeling. You can’t buy that feeling.”

But she isn’t Mother Teresa. Hilton is as complicated as the rest of us. Although she grew up doing charity fashion shows with her mother, Hilton became more involved with nonprofit work as an adult after running into trouble with the law in her mid-20s. (Hilton notoriously did a quick stint in jail after violating her probation in an alcohol-related reckless driving incident in 2007.)

Hilton insists she’s evolved, but one thing that’s remained is her sense of optimism. According to her sister, Hilton Rothschild, “Paris is like a big kid … We always joked about how I’m the older sister because I was always the voice of reason and protective of her. We still have that relationship.”

When it comes to her brand, Hilton has been designing a fashion and beauty empire abroad during the last 20 years. She has 45 branded stores in the Middle East and Asia. Also, Hilton was among the first to sign a licensing deal with global agency Beanstalk. It began with one fragrance, Paris Hilton for Women. The perfume collection has swelled to 25 and is said to have grossed $2.5 billion, according to Hilton.

Hilton also has 19 product lines including clothing, handbags, shoes, sunglasses, lingerie, swimwear and watches. And she has a skincare line, ProD.N.A., with eye creams, cleansing gels and serums (ranging from $29 to $208) at ParisHiltonSkincare.com.

“I didn’t want to just be known as the Hilton Hotel granddaughter,” says Hilton, who also calls herself “a huge tech geek.” She’s an investor in Roxi, an app that can be used in lieu of a party planner. She discovered the company while planning her birthday party last year. She’s also an investor in the Glam App, which she calls “the Uber of beauty services.”

Hilton is also planning to open a slew of new boutiques hotels and clubs around the world. She licensed her name and is credited with the interior design of the Paris Beach Club at the Azure, a community of luxury-resort residences in the Philippines. She attended the official opening in 2014.

“I love following in my family’s footsteps in my own way,” Hilton says. “I’ve always looked up to my grandfather and my father as businessmen.”

Her grandfather, hotelier Barron Hilton, died of natural causes at 91 in September. “When I was with him, like two days before he passed,” she says, “I was talking with him about what an inspiration he’s been to me and that I wouldn’t be the businesswoman I am today if it hadn’t been for them instilling that work ethic in me.”

In addition to her fashion and tech ventures, Hilton is also a music artist and one of the highest-paid female DJs in the world. “I’ve parlayed my party image into a huge, lucrative business,” says Hilton, who commands upwards of $500,000 to $1,000,000 for a four-hour gig. (In 2014, she landed a five-year summer residency as a DJ at Amnesia in Ibiza.)

“She was pretty much the first celebrity to get paid to go to an event,” Hilton Rothschild says. “Once she saw that that trend was fading out and all of the venues were putting their budgets into DJs, then she became the DJ. It’s pretty smart if you ask me.”

Finding her groove

In the future, Hilton hopes to travel less. “It’s a lot,” she says, adding that she has spent the last 20 years flying around the world 250 days a year. Hilton laments the fact that she’s never had time to explore because her schedule is so packed. “I mostly just see hotel rooms,” she says. “Any time I’m somewhere it’s because I’m working.”

Hilton Rothschild says her sister is “allergic to relaxing,” but Hilton says she is taking time off to spend Christmas in Los Angeles. Then the whole Hilton family will meet in West Palm Beach, Fla. “I guess because everyone’s, like, grown up now,” Hilton says. “Nicky has her two daughters, and my brother’s wife is six months pregnant. So we’re going somewhere chill.”

After calling off an engagement to “The Leftovers” actor Chris Zylka last year, Hilton is single. “I’ve been spending time with my girlfriends,” she says. “I’ve never been single in my life. I’ve always been with my boyfriend and didn’t get to have girl time.”

She’s also spent the last year soul searching. “I’m getting to know myself better and am becoming more confident,” she tells me. “I’ve always been such a people pleaser — always saying ‘Yes’ to everything and I’ve [recently] learned the power of ‘No.’ When you let people in and you’re nice, you’re going to attract certain people who don’t have the right intentions or just want to use you. So I’ve learned to make my circle of people I trust smaller instead of trusting and letting everybody in. I just don’t let that type of negative energy around me anymore. It’s toxic. I only want good people around me who have big hearts who love me for me.”

The term “sustainable fashion” tends to conjure images of shapeless layers, washed-out hues and an overall aesthetic that could best be described as “crunchy.” Celebrity stylist-turned-retailer Dechel Mckillian is out to change that perception with her ethical concept store, Galerie.LA.

Click Here: thierry mugler angel

Located in emerging retail destination ROW DTLA, the 2-year-old women’s wear boutique stocks products that are eco-friendly, locally designed and produced, ethically made using fair trade practices, recycled and cruelty-free.

All those wordy, hyphenated descriptors aside, the key selling point is that they’re all chic.

As we head into the busiest shopping season of the year, Mckillian is part of a growing group of retailers promising a “guilt-free” experience, with opportunities to do good and look good at seemingly every turn. Each weekend this month, the store will host a holiday pop-up market featuring local designers who wave the “ethical” banner.

Perusing the airy, light-filled space, you can find flirty frocks, on-trend jumpsuits, high-waisted jeans and versatile intimates, all made from organic fabrics. There are gender-neutral garments by brands such as misterMrs and Faan. For shoe fanatics, there’s a small but stylish selection of ecologically responsible and cruelty-free shoes by Dopp and Taylor + Thomas. There’s minimalist, nature-inspired body-care products from the likes of Aenon’s and Earth Harbor.

Hozen’s canteen bags are made in fair-wage factories, and a percentage of the company’s profits goes to an animal charity. Rallier’s workplace-ready dresses help provide school uniforms to Kenyan schoolgirls. And Neococo, a line of hand-embroidered shirts, creates jobs for L.A.-area refugee women.

“I instantly felt Galerie.LA would be a good fit,” said Neococo founder Amrita Thadani. “Consumers today are conscious buyers. They want answers to ‘Who made my T-shirt? Is it fair trade? Is the labor safe?’ We’ve participated in pop-ups organized by Dechel where consumers were able to meet our team of women and learn about their transition from Syria, Iraq and other war-stricken countries.”

Mckillian’s road to purveyor of globally conscious tees, plant-dyed blouses and ethically sourced earrings was hardly a straight path. The native Angeleno attended UCLA, where she studied psychobiology. At the time, her only fashion experience was a college sales associate job at the now-shuttered Vanity Room in Venice.

“I never, ever considered [fashion] to be a career,” she said during a recent in-store interview. “I was on track to becoming a doctor.”

It took a single fashion merchandising course at El Camino College and a whirlwind European fashion tour through London, Milan and Paris to change her course permanently. By 2009, Mckillian was working with celebrity stylist Marco Morante, outfitting rappers such as Lil Wayne, Drake, Nicki Minaj and the Black Eyed Peas. She spent two hectic, eye-opening years on the road, surrounded by luxury logos, flashy frippery and massive amounts of consumption.

“Traveling, I was seeing waste everywhere,” Mckillian recalled. “We were on a bus going through Lima, Peru, and there were just miles and miles of beach covered with trash, a lot of which looked like clothing. I was also going through my own conscious journey of caring about what I was eating, what I was using for skin care and what was in my clothes. So it was this awakening moment.”

She switched gears and launched Galerie.LA as a sustainable fashion blog in early 2015, researching sustainable brands, decoding their mission statements and deciphering whether they were truly walking the walk.

“There was a lot of greenwashing going on,” she explained, referencing companies that exploit the concept of sustainable practices purely for marketing purposes.

The following year, Mckillian launched an e-commerce site with six brands and began to look around for retail pop-up opportunities. “I honestly did not have the intention of opening a physical store. My mindset was temporary. Being in the retail apocalypse, it was like, ‘You’re gonna open a store?! No way!’ ”

After a tour of ROW DTLA, she was smitten with the space; her bricks-and-mortar shop opened its doors in January 2018. The store’s aesthetic blend of modern, minimal and natural came from her love of artists Roy Lichtenstein and Georgia O’Keeffe. Mckillian also drew inspiration from highly curated boutiques like Opening Ceremony, Dover Street Market and Colette.

“I really wanted to make it a one-stop shop for the conscious consumer,” she said. “As we grow, I do see Galerie.LA as a department store where you can find kids’, men’s, women’s, body, home — all the sustainable products that are already edited for you. We’ve already done the research, which I think is the hardest part.”

Her research process includes verifying the Fair Trade and Global Organic Textile Standard certifications of her brands’ factories and fabrics. Mckillian said she prefers collaborations with emerging businesses over big corporations, claiming it’s easier to achieve transparency with smaller companies that don’t rely on outsourcing and middle men. “I take a personal approach,” she says, describing frequent exploratory phone calls with brand founders, as well as Skype tours of their facilities.

“Dechel was always someone with a clear-cut vision of what she did and didn’t like and was never afraid to let me know,” designer Morante said of his former protégé. “Sustainability is so important. I’m happy to see that she’s found a way to curate something that can be difficult to take to a wide audience, so that it feels fresh, exciting and relevant.”

As she broadens her inventory and boosts the store’s visibility, she’s also aiming to expand shoppers’ ideas of just who sustainable fashion is for.

“I’ve been told that the African American community does not care about sustainability or green products, and I’m like, ‘No, no, no!’ Let’s not limit this conversation to ‘Only white people care about green in L.A.,’” she said. “I really want to break down the idea that sustainability has to be for one group of people. It can seem like such an elitist conversation, and I really want to make it available to the masses.”

Galerie.LA at ROW DTLA

Where: 767 S Alameda St. Ste. 192, Los Angeles

Info: galerie.la

Hours: 11a.m. – 6 p.m. Monday through Sunday, with a special holiday pop-up each weekend through December.

You might have missed Lady Gaga’s two-day makeup pop-up. However, that doesn’t mean you’ve missed out on the entire beauty category this holiday season at the Grove shopping center in Los Angeles. Those who need to replenish their Dior fragrances will find the brand’s beloved scents J’Adore, Sauvage and Miss Dior at the Dior fragrance pop-up housed inside the Grove’s Glass Box space.

Also, Swarovski, the Austrian glass producer and maker of designer goods, has an on-site pop-up open through December. Keep an eye out for limited-time pieces including tree decorations from Swarovski and scented candles from Dior.

“The Grove sees guests from all around the world, and we want to ensure there is something for everyone,” said Julie Jauregui, senior vice president of retail operations and leasing for the Grove. “You’ll find everything from makeup to perfume, eyewear, jewelry and even seasonal holiday offerings like ornaments and home fragrances.”

Swarovski and Dior fragrance pop-ups, the Grove, 189 The Grove Drive, Los Angeles, thegrovela.com

Róen

Celebrity makeup artist Nikki DeRoest, who has worked on the faces of Bella Hadid and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, will have a beauty event that’s open to the public on Wednesday at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills. She’ll be on hand to demonstrate some of her most sought-after red-carpet secrets.

“I wanted to bring that accessibility to anyone,” said DeRoest, who launched her luxe clean and cruelty-free makeup brand Róen earlier this year. “They will walk away with some tips and tricks for a holiday look.”

DeRoest will use eye shadows from her own line as well as makeup from other prestige brands such as Giorgio Armani and Yves Saint Laurent. The Los Angeles-based makeup artist has eight products in her own line. The signature ones are the eye shadow palettes, which she describes as “not a cream, not powdery, but a texture you’ve never felt before and with a nice texture that catches the light.”

Róen Beauty Masterclass with Nikki DeRoest, 2 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Saks Fifth Avenue, 9600 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. For information and to RSVP, call (310) 887-5336; roenbeauty.com

Mutha

Mutha, a new prestige body-care line created by Los Angeles-based former aesthetician Hope Smith, began its life as something of an experiment in Smith’s kitchen.

“I started sending it to friends, who would come back and ask for it for their friends,” said Smith at a late October affair at her Malibu estate. “That’s when I thought I might be on to something.”

The fall event was to celebrate the debut of Mutha on the Violet Grey beauty e-commerce site. The product also is available at Violet Grey’s Los Angeles boutique. Cassandra Grey, Violet Grey’s founder, said beauty and skin-care products only make it onto her website if at least 70% of her testers give it the thumbs up. In Mutha’s case, “It came back unanimous,” Grey said. “Everyone loved it and wanted more. That doesn’t happen very often.”

Smith began developing the products five years ago while she was pregnant with her first son. She said she spent “10,000 hours researching products and looking at where I wanted to buy my ingredients from.”

The result is a body oil and a body butter that come in reflective purple containers. The ingredients in the body oil include oils from rosehip, apricot kernel, jojoba seed and grapefruit peel. Smith said the product is designed to help with hyperpigmentation and firming. The body butter was created from a mix of shea butter, coconut oil, mango seed and aloe leaf. It has a rich texture that is said to stay on the skin for hours.

Mutha products are priced at $95 and $104.

Mutha, violetgrey.com, mutha.com

Sagely Naturals

Los Angeles-based CBD brand Sagely Naturals recently added to its popular sleep-enhancing and pain-relief products with the Brightening skin-care trio, which rolled out in October.

Kaley Nichol, who co-founded Sagely Naturals four years ago with Kerrigan Behrens, said the idea behind the new line was to make it appear as if the user “actually got eight hours of sleep,” she said.

The launch event, which took place on the rooftop of co-working space and private club Spring Place in Beverly Hills, included actress-model Molly Sims, an investor in the brand. Products include a serum, eye cream and night cream containing between 150 milligrams and 250 milligrams of CBD as well as other ingredients such as vitamins A and C, amino acids and hyaluronic acid. Nichols said the inclusion of CBD in the skin-care line would add anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties.

The brand was developed in Nichol’s apartment four years ago. Her pain and sleep products are now in 10,000 stores nationwide, including CVS and Target. However, Sagely Naturals’ new skin-care offering is in prestige locations such as Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom, and prices are from $49 to $89.

Sagely Naturals, sagelynaturals.com

Johnny Was

Long Beach recently became the latest Southern California location for Johnny Was, the Los Angeles-based women’s fashion and accessories brand. The label, known for its boho-chic aesthetic (think velvet embroidered dresses and tunic tops), has 52 freestanding boutiques around the country — 18 of which are in California.

“Los Angeles is our largest market,” Rob Trauber, chief executive officer of the 32-year-old label, which was restructured four years ago after receiving venture capital investments. (Johnny Was is partly named after a Bob Marley song.) “And while we weren’t originally looking at Long Beach, we discovered that the number of households in a five-mile radius that fit our demographic was large,” he said.

The 2,000-square-foot store, which soft-opened in mid-October, has an exterior painted by artist Chris Lord around nature themes with motifs such as butterflies, florals and vines.

“It creates a nice, free-spirited and bohemian dreamscape that picks up the colors of the collections,” said Trauber, adding that shoppers “can expect optimism. … We are a very happy brand — colorful and distinctive. We’re told that somebody who wears Johnny Was gets the highest number of compliments per wear. These are pieces you don’t ever throw away.”

Prices range from $150 to $400.

Johnny Was, 6420 E. Pacific Coast Highway, Long Beach, johnnywas.com

Unique Markets

Finish up — or get started — with your holiday shopping during a two-day event on Dec. 14 and 15 at the Santa Monica Pier. Unique Markets is sticking to its “shop small” manifesto by bringing together 150 mostly Los Angeles-based designers, artists and makers to sell their wares.

“We’re taking over the parking lot next to the pier so people can look out onto the ocean while they shop,” said Sonja Rasula, founder of Unique Markets, which holds regular shopping events around the country. “We’re bringing in crowd favorites like fashion and jewelry, and some great candle and apothecary products, to show the diversity of what’s out there.”

In the mix will be Rewilder, which makes its bags from waste from other industries such as tossed airbags from automakers; Bandit Bandanas and its fashion-forward options; and Pilot and its cruelty-free men’s grooming products.

“We wanted to offer unique and meaningful ideas that are more heritage pieces that you will fall in love with and keep as opposed to mass-manufactured things,” said Rasula. “It’s all about supporting local indie brands.”

Also, shoppers can have holiday portraits taken, get their purchases gift-wrapped for free and enjoy complimentary beverages. There’s a $12 entrance fee; children 12 and under are free.

Unique Markets, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dec. 14 and 15, 200 Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, uniquemarkets.com

Sesame Street X Smash + Tess

Here’s a way to go to sleep with your favorite “Sesame Street” characters. Smash + Tess, maker of cozy rompers and loungewear, has launched a collaboration with the popular children’s TV franchise, which turned 50 in November.

“I was raised on ‘Sesame Street,’ and we wanted to create something that was comfortable and fashion forward,” said Ashley Freeborn, who with her mother, Teresa, founded Smash + Tess, which is run out of L.A. and Vancouver, British Columbia. “We wanted to focus on classic characters like Elmo and the Count and do an edgier all-over print.”

The new Sesame Street X S+T offerings include the printed “Monsters” romper (featuring Elmo, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch) and the “Street Smart” romper (with the Count, Big Bird, Grover). They come in heather gray and black and are for men, women and children. Prices are $129 for adult sizes and $53 for children’s sizes. The rompers are made from sustainably sourced bamboo and cotton blends. Freeborn said the rompers, like the others from her brand, are designed for transitional use.

“It’s a newer category of clothes that can go from sleep to the streets — a mix of loungewear and athleisure,” she said. “Wearing them will bring back all kinds of memories for our customers.”

Sesame Street X Smash + Tess, smashtess.com

Nickelodeon

Some of Nickelodeon’s fan-favorite characters are part of a Westfield Century City pop-up for the holiday season. The 1,000-square-foot space has an array of fashion and accessories in addition to toys and other collectibles inspired by Nickelodeon characters, among them SpongeBob SquarePants and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

“We wanted to bring items in that are unique and have a stylish edge,” said Andrea Fasulo, senior vice president of retail marketing at Viacom Nickelodeon Consumer Products. “The product assortment is a true mix. … These are characters that consumers have grown up on. If there’s an ability for them to take the brand they love and marry it with a collaboration that gives it a modern, contemporary take, that’s the best of both worlds.”

The offering includes collaborations with artists Romero Britto and Louis De Guzman as well as Colombian singer J Balvin on various contemporary pieces. (Look for a black sweatshirt featuring a Pop Art-esque rendition of SpongeBob.) In the mix are yoga pants, leather duffel bags and sparkly SpongeBob-inspired eye shadow palettes from HipDot, among the 250 different products in the space.

Prices go up to about $150. The pop-up is open through Dec. 31.

Nickelodeon holiday pop-up, Westfield Century City, 10250 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, nicktv.com, westfield.com/centurycity

MEXICO CITY — 

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Thursday said visiting U.S. Atty. Gen. William Barr understood the importance of nonintervention in foreign policy, but there was no public indication that the two nations had resolved deep differences about the Trump administration’s plans to classify Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

President Trump’s statement late last month that Washington planned to designate the cartels as foreign terrorist groups sparked profound opposition in Mexico, where many view the idea as opening the door to direct U.S. intervention — while sullying Mexico’s international image and possibly damaging trade and tourism.

In a Twitter message, Lopez Obrador described the session with Barr as a “good meeting” and signaled that the top U.S. law enforcement official was aware of domestic sensitivities on the issue.

“As a lawyer, [Barr] understands that our constitution mandates that we adhere to the principles of cooperation for development and nonintervention in foreign policy,” wrote Lopez Obrador, a leftist who has sought cordial relations with the Trump White House. “This way we will always be able to work together.”

In a statement, Mexico’s foreign secretariat said that officials from the two countries engaged in a “cordial and respectful” conversation about various security topics, including “arms trafficking, money laundering … and how to confront together transnational crime and the international trafficking of drugs.”

There was no immediate word from U.S. officials on the meeting, which reportedly lasted 45 minutes and also included other high-level U.S. and Mexican officials, including Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico’s foreign secretary, and Christopher Landau, Washington’s ambassador to Mexico City.

The planned designation that Trump disclosed in a radio interview is meant to disrupt financing and other aid for targeted groups through sanctions. His announcement came weeks after gunmen believed linked to traffickers killed six women and three children — dual citizens of the U.S. and Mexico — in an ambush in northern Mexico. Those killings and others have emphasized Mexico’s soaring homicide rate, much of it linked to organized crime, which controls the lucrative trafficking of drugs to the United States.

If designated, Mexican drug gangs would join dozens of other international organizations on similar blacklists, including Islamist, separatist and other factions with more overtly political goals than Mexican drug syndicates — which, while extremely violent, operate on a for-profit principle.

Trump’s comments immediately caused a furor in Mexico, where the history of past U.S. interventions— and of losing much of the country’s national territory in a disastrous 19th century war with the United States — are stressed in standard school texts.

“Cooperation yes, intervention no,” has been Lopez Obrador’s response to the Trump plan.

Lopez Obrador, who took office last year, has worked closely with the Trump administration on a number of thorny issues, notably trade and immigration. He has repeatedly praised Trump and veered away from direct confrontation with Mexico’s giant northern neighbor and key trade partner.

Many in Mexico fear that Trump’s move may have more to do with bolstering support among his domestic base in next year’s elections than with efforts to stem drug violence in Mexico. During his presidential campaign, Trump was widely assailed for perceived Mexico bashing as he promised to build a wall along the two nations’ border, assailed bilateral trade relations as unfair to the United States and categorized many Mexican immigrants in the United States as criminals.

It was also unclear how exactly Mexico would benefit from the designation of drug cartels as terrorist groups. Mexico already cooperates with the Drug Enforcement Administration and other U.S. law enforcement agencies in the anti-drug fight, and Mexican authorities point out that most illicit drugs are headed for the voracious U.S. market.

The United States is also the source of much of the weaponry used by Mexican drug gangs. Mexico’s former, heavily militarized war on drugs is widely regarded as a failure, and many experts say institutional reforms such as ending corruption among police forces, politicians and the judiciary are key to defeating cartels.

“I do not accept the terminology narco-terrorism,” Olga Sanchez Cordero, Mexico’s interior secretary, told reporters this week. “Yes, we have organized crime, we have drug cartels, but all in the category of criminality, not narco-terrorism.”

Many in Mexico also fear that the designation could harm international trade and tourism, linchpins of the Mexican economy.

“Many American businesses … won’t want to do business in Mexico for fear that there will be a declaration from the United States that they are doing business with people from the cartel,” Luis Ernesto Derbez, a former foreign secretary, told reporters last week. “That will reduce investment and the attraction of Mexico.”

Click Here: chanel perfume sale

Times staff writer Tracy Wilkinson in Washington and Cecilia Sanchez of The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

HOUSTON — 

A flu-ridden 16-year-old from Guatemala writhed in agony inside a U.S. Border Patrol cell and collapsed on the floor where he lay for several hours before he was found dead, according to video released Thursday that further calls into question the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrant families.

The footage published by ProPublica shows the final hours of Carlos Hernandez Vasquez, who was found dead May 20. He is one of at least six children to have died since December 2018 after being detained by border agents.

According to ProPublica, Hernandez staggered to the toilet in his cell in the middle of the night at the Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas, and collapsed nearby. He remained still for more than four hours until his cellmate awakened at 6:05 a.m. and discovered him on the floor.

The cellmate quickly got the attention of a Border Patrol agent, followed shortly by a physician’s assistant who attempted a single chest compression. Weslaco police reports obtained by ProPublica say the physician’s assistant quickly determined Hernandez was dead.

Already, President Trump has faced withering criticism for the thousands of family separations his administration conducted under a “zero tolerance” policy at the southern border and the squalid conditions under which it detained parents and children earlier this year.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a statement Thursday saying it could not discuss specifics of the teen’s death due to an ongoing investigation, but that the agency and the Department of Homeland Security “are looking into all aspects of this case to ensure all procedures were followed.”

But CBP’s former acting commissioner, John Sanders, told ProPublica he believed the U.S. government “could have done more” to prevent the deaths of Hernandez and at least five other children who died after being apprehended by border agents.

“I really think the American government failed these people. The government failed people like Carlos,” Sanders said. “I was part of that system at a very high level, and Carlos’ death will follow me for the rest of my life.”

The Guatemalan government on Thursday issued a statement saying Hernandez’s death remained under investigation and that a “legal process” is ongoing. The statement did not address the details of the video or the reports of how he was found dead.

The Border Patrol’s statement on the day of Hernandez’s death says the teenager was “found unresponsive this morning during a welfare check.”

The video shows Hernandez stopped moving at about 1:39 a.m. on May 20, 15 minutes after he toppled forward and landed face-first on the cell’s concrete floor. Border Patrol logs say an agent performed a welfare check at 2:02 a.m., 4:09 a.m., and 5:05 a.m.

Dr. Norma Jean Farley, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, told ProPublica that she was told the agent looked through the window but didn’t go inside.

Police photos show a large pool of blood around the teenager’s head.

Sanders resigned in June as the Border Patrol was detaining thousands of people at a time, many for longer than the agency’s own 72-hour deadline, sometimes for weeks on end. As border crossings surged this spring, Trump’s administration sought to hold people for longer to end what it derided as the “catch and release” of immigrant families.

But the Border Patrol was not equipped to detain people for that long. Reports of people jam-packed into cells without drinkable water or showers sparked national outrage. One group of lawyers that visited a Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, described seeing hungry children trying to care for each other and one 4-year-old with matted hair who had not been bathed for days.

The Border Patrol has since reduced the number of people in its custody — largely due to the rollout of policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” in which the U.S. government has sent more than 55,000 people back across the border to await their court cases. Thousands of those people are now waiting in squalid border camps.

In a statement, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, called the CBP’s behavior in the teen’s death “inexcusable.”

“Today’s report calls into serious question the steps U.S. Customs and Border Protection claims to have taken to care for a child in its custody. Not only did CBP hold Carlos longer than the legal limit and apparently fail to care for him while he was sick, the agency seems to have been untruthful with Congress and the public about the circumstances around his tragic death,” Thompson said.

Thompson called for the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general examine all video related to the teenager’s case and release the findings “as soon as possible.”

PARIS — 

Frustrated travelers are meeting transportation chaos around France for a second day on Friday, as unions dig in for what they hope is a protracted strike against President Emmanuel Macron’s plans to redesign the national retirement system.

Most French trains were at a halt, including Paris subways, and traffic jams multiplied around the country.

The Chateau of Versailles remained shut for a second day because of the nationwide strike, and the Louvre Museum warned visitors to expect delays and some closed galleries. The Eiffel Tower reopened Friday after an all-day closure Thursday, but tourists from around the world remained challenged by strike-related disruptions.

“I arrived in Paris today, but I have been stuck for around two hours just trying to find a bus or a train,” visitor Zaeen Shoii of Pakistan said at the Gare de l’Est train station. “But everything has been delayed, so I’m just waiting for fort next bus now.”

Emboldened by the biggest outpouring of public anger in years, unions are holding meetings Friday to plan their next steps over a reform they see as an attack on hard-won workers’ rights.

At least 800,000 people marched nationwide on Thursday, as strikes shuttered schools and some public services and disrupted hospitals and refineries. Police fired repeated volleys of tear gas and protesters set fires in Paris, but most demonstrators were peaceful.

Macron is determined to push through the changes to France’s convoluted and relatively generous retirement system, seeing them as central to his plans to transform the French economy.

Opponents fear the changes to how and when workers can retire will threaten the hard-fought French way of life, and worry that the plan will push them to work longer, for less retirement pay.

Macron’s government has been negotiating with unions and others for months about the plan but won’t release the details of the changes until next week. The government says it won’t change the official retirement age of 62, but the plan is expected to encourage people to work longer.

The uncertainty about what the plan will entail is feeding public worry. Polls suggest most French people support the strike and protest movement, at least for now, in hopes it pushes the government to pay more heed to workers’ worries.

Some seven in 10 French employees work in the private sector, and the strikes are primarily in the public sector. But the retirement changes will affect everyone, and Thursday’s demonstrations included private sector workers, too.

Commuters and parents struggling to get to work and school Friday had mixed feelings about the strikes and the reform.

“I understand, striking is a constitutional right but there should at least be a partial [subway] service,” said Mira Ghaleni as she tried to get her son to school in eastern Paris. “It’s really a disaster for the people, and the politicians should do something because we’ve really had enough. One day, it’s OK, but I think it will last longer.”

Unions declared an open-ended strike and hope to keep up pressure on the government through next week.

Click Here: creed perfume sale

Macron’s idea is to unify France’s 42 different pension schemes into a single one, giving all workers the same general rights. So-called special regimes, linked to certain professions like train drivers, allow workers to get early retirement or other benefits.

But the reform also is aimed at saving money, and teachers are among many who worry it will leave them less money at the end of their careers.

Here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:

TOP STORIES

‘No Choice but to Act’

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that she is asking House committees to move to impeach President Trump, taking a major step toward making him just the third president in American history to face that sanction.

“His wrongdoing strikes at the very heart of our Constitution,” Pelosi said of Trump. “Our democracy is what is at stake. The president leaves us no choice but to act.”

In a news conference, Pelosi would not discuss the potential contents of the articles of impeachment, saying that was a decision left to the chairmen of the relevant committees. But her statement has set off a whirlwind of activity that is expected to culminate in a full House vote on impeaching the president shortly before Christmas.

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy repeated his party’s charge that Democrats had entered the impeachment process with their minds already made up.

More From Washington

— The Supreme Court will meet today to consider for the first time whether the Constitution gives homeless people a right to sleep on the sidewalk. The justices will consider whether to take up an appeal of a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, and they’re unlikely to announce a decision for at least another week.

— Trump’s lawyers argued at the Supreme Court that the Constitution shields his tax returns from congressional subpoena.

— Former secretary of state and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry has endorsed Joe Biden for president, boosting the former vice president’s argument that his international experience makes him the best candidate.

‘It’s a War Zone’

It’s too early to tell how this week will be remembered in the annals of Marshall Islands history, but it is likely not to be forgotten — even for a place where the United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs during the Cold War. As votes were being counted in a historic election that will affect the nation’s relationships with the United States and China, its capital city was flooded, its two hospitals were packed with patients suffering from dengue fever or flu, and its president was pleading with the international community to act decisively on climate change.

Meet the Beetle Lovers

In September, the last Beetle rolled off the assembly line at a Volkswagen plant in Puebla, Mexico. But about 65 miles to the northwest, in Mexico City, one family of Beetle lovers, or vocheros, has taken on a special role in keeping the Bug’s legacy alive. It organizes a monthly drag race at a track, and the stars of the show are VW Beetles modified with huge engines and custom paint jobs.

Very Taxing

Here’s a friendly reminder: Homeowners in L.A. County have until Tuesday to pay their property taxes without a penalty. Whether you’re paying a lot or, thanks to Proposition 13, relatively little, chances are you aren’t paying as much as the bills on these 12 properties. Each of them is expected to top $1 million a year.

Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times.

Newsletter

Get our Today's Headlines newsletter

FROM THE ARCHIVES

On this date in 1964, the Music Center’s Memorial Pavilion held its first concert, with Zubin Mehta conducting the L.A. Philharmonic. The evening marked a high point for Dorothy Buffum Chandler, wife of L.A. Times publisher Norman Chandler, who had spent a decade raising money and rallying support for the creation of the Music Center in downtown L.A.

“My speech was after the opening piece,” Mehta would recall decades later. “I said: ‘Gentlemen, we love the acoustics! Egypt has its pharaohs, Florence has its princesses. Los Angeles has one simple lady, called Dorothy Chandler.’ ” The Memorial Pavilion would later be renamed as the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

CALIFORNIA

— A pistachio feud between two major industry players is embroiling the county of Fresno. At its heart is a struggle for the future of the state’s $2.6-billion business.

— L.A. County officials will study whether solo drivers who pay a toll should get to use the 405’s carpool lane through the Sepulveda Pass.

— Amid an exodus of some insurers from communities hit hard by wildfires, regulators have imposed a one-year moratorium banning insurers from dropping policies for homeowners in such areas.

— The Broad Center, which has drawn praise and suspicion for its training of school district leaders, will move from L.A. to Yale University, along with a $100-million gift from its founder.

— The behavior of a prominent UCLA Health gynecologist during an exam with a married mother of four amounted to sexual assault and harassment, an investigative report found.

YOUR WEEKEND

— Spiked eggnog spritz cookies. Rosy olive oil and date rugelach. Golden oat milk creme pies. These are our 12 Days of Holiday Cookies and the recipes for how to make them.

— At Pasadena’s Máquina Taco, our critic considers tacos made with rib-eye, lobster and “triparrón.”

— Tamales, train rides and tree lighting events are among this weekend’s events close to L.A.

— Your guide to Monterey: tide pools, tacos and more.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

— Here’s our hand-curated playlist of some of the year’s most notable original songs from movies, some of which seem destined for Oscar consideration.

— The soundscape of “Joker” came to life with the help of music, sirens and Gotham itself.

— Robin Thicke wanted a comeback. So naturally he turned to a weird TV singing competition involving elaborate, near-psychedelic masks.

— Justin Bieber wants his fans to help him fight racism. He was once accused of it.

NATION-WORLD

— Authorities in India say four men suspected of raping and killing a woman in the southern city of Hyderabad were fatally shot by police.

— Paris police fired tear gas at demonstrators as the Eiffel Tower shut down, high-speed trains stopped and tens of thousands marched nationwide in a strike over a pension overhaul.

— Police killings of unarmed black people may affect the health of black babies before they’re even born, a study of nearly 1,900 fatal police encounters and millions of birth records in California suggests.

— Democrats say a deal on a stalled NAFTA reboot is in reach and want Mexico to accept a compromise on labor-rights enforcement.

— But as the U.S. attorney general visited Mexico’s president, there was no public indication the nations had bridged their divide over Trump’s plans to classify drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

BUSINESS

— Uber has found more than 3,000 allegations of sexual assaults involving drivers or passengers in the U.S. last year.

— Rich Battista is out as CEO of Imagine Entertainment, the production company founded by Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. It’s a surprise move that caps an unusually short stint in the top job.

— Bill Nye, better known on TV as the Science Guy, got the green light to go to an L.A. jury trial with his $28-million case accusing Disney of improperly holding onto millions in profits from his popular syndicated show.

SPORTS

— Columnist Arash Markazi says USC athletic director Mike Bohn has doubled down on his predecessors’ mistakes by keeping Clay Helton as football coach, and the issues with Helton go beyond wins and losses.

— If it doesn’t pursue football excellence, USC just isn’t USC, columnist Dylan Hernandez writes.

— Jessie Fleming’s talent and leadership are helping fuel UCLA’s title aspirations in women’s soccer.

OPINION

— For more proof the death penalty is irredeemably flawed, consider that a serial jailhouse informant helped send a likely innocent man to death row, Scott Martelle writes.

— A new U.S. visa requirement is silencing foreign filmmakers, writes Simon Kilmurry, who heads the International Documentary Assn.

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

— How some women with power wield it to silence women with less. (Longreads)

— Distracted drivers refuse to put down their cellphones, as these graphics show. People keep dying as a result. (Bloomberg)

—The “Peloton husband” wonders “what repercussions will come back to me” for being in an ad that has received criticism. (Psychology Today)

ONLY IN L.A.

“Nothing stops a bullet like a job” has long been the mantra of Father Gregory Boyle, whose L.A. nonprofit Homeboy Industries serves ex-gang members and formerly incarcerated people, providing jobs through enterprises such as Homeboy Bakery, Homegirl Café, a silkscreen shop and a grocery division selling salsa and guacamole. It also offers education, counseling, access to temporary housing and more.

Now it’s moving forward on plans to offer transitional housing, with its own facility for about 100 program participants. “The number of homies who are living in their car or couch surfing is astounding,” Boyle told The Times during an interview about his book, “Barking to the Choir.” “Sixty percent of all gang members are essentially, effectively homeless.” (Boyle will discuss the book Dec. 16 with the Los Angeles Times Book Club. It’s sold out, but subscribe to the Book Club newsletter for the latest events and updates.)

If you like this newsletter, please share it with friends. Comments or ideas? Email us at [email protected].

Click Here: cheap rugby league jerseys