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| As County Leaders Tout Transparency, They Fight Public Records Releases | Voice of San Diego | | Voice of San Diego is suing the county to try to force the release of whistleblower complaints against a former county contractor that could shed light on what the county knew long before the nonprofit was embroiled in a criminal misappropriation case involving public money. [Article] | | by , . 2026-04-06 | | | | Dine Local: New program supports small businesses in region | Business | ladowntownnews.com | | This National Nutrition Month, the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity (DEO), in partnership with the Department of Public Social Services (DPSS), the County Sustainability Office (CSO) and the Department of Public Works (DPW), is launching “Dine Local,” a new campaign and resource program designed to help more than 26,000 food businesses increase revenue and modernize operations as well as strengthen long-term sustainability across the region. [Article] | | by , . 2026-04-06 | | | | Rare relief: San Diego rents show slight decline as apartment listings increase – NBC 7 San Diego | | In a rare shift for the local rental market, apartment rent prices across San Diego County have declined over the last year, according to new data [Article] | | by , KNSD NBC San Diego. 2026-04-06 | | | | Under L.A. mayor's $300-million homeless program, 40% have returned to the street | | It was a risky move and Jonathan Torres knew it, but he did it anyway. He let an out-of-town guest stay with him in his room.
Torres, 40, had been living at the Highland Park Motel as part of Inside Safe, Mayor Karen Bass’ flagship program to combat homelessness. He and his neighbors, many of them from a downtown encampment, were told that visitors were not allowed.
Still, Torres kept having people over. After the third violation, he said, the facility kicked him out.
“It’s nobody’s fault but my own, but I just feel it’s unfair,” said Torres, who now lives in a tent in Chinatown. “In the real world, you’re allowed to have people come over. You have visitors. That’s part of keeping your sanity, you know?”
The Times’ reporting on Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program was undertaken as part of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2025 Data Fellowship.
Los Angeles has spent more than $300 million on Inside Safe since Bass launched the program in December 2022, clearing scores of homeless encampments and moving about 5,800 people into interim housing — mostly hotels and motels. The goal was to get each of those people into permanent housing, typically taxpayer-funded apartments.
But even as the mayor’s initiative brings more people indoors, a growing number are winding up back on the street.
The longer the program exists, the greater the share of participants who have returned to “unsheltered” homelessness, according to monthly dashboards which were posted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, and analyzed by The Times. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-06 | | | | Costs soar for troubled California program that pays workers up to $1,700 weekly for various ailments – Orange County Register | | A state workers’ compensation fund created after World War II primarily to help injured veterans get jobs has morphed into a program that pays up to $1,700 weekly to workers claiming disability for such conditions as diabetes, asthma and allergies.
Some receiving payments also have claimed erectile dysfunction, toenail fungus, urinary tract infections and acid reflux in their medical evaluations. [Article] | | by , Orange County Register. 2026-04-06 | | | | Do Palisades mobile home residents have a right to return after fire? The tale of two sites – Daily News | | Former residents of the fire-ravaged Tahitian Terrace mobile home park in Pacific Palisades are no longer waiting to see what happens to the land where their homes once stood.
Instead, they’re organizing—reviving a residents’ association, working with a statewide advocacy group and exploring a plan to collectively buy the property, which was home to about 150 units before the fire, so they can rebuild and return. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Daily News. 2026-04-06 | | | | House Democrats to hold California 'shadow hearings' on midterm election security - Los Angeles Times | | House Democrats will hold a pair of “shadow hearings” in California next week on the upcoming midterm elections — part of a broader party effort to defend state voting systems against mounting critiques and threats of intervention from the Trump administration.
Such hearings, similar to those recently held in Los Angeles on President Trump’s immigration raids, provide Democrats an opportunity to highlight issues their majority Republican counterparts won’t schedule for more formal hearings in Washington.
The hearings — scheduled for Los Angeles on Tuesday and San Francisco on Thursday — will feature testimony from voting and elections experts, and will be led by Rep. Joseph Morelle of New York, ranking Democrat on the House Administration Committee with oversight of elections, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), the former House speaker.
Morelle, in a statement to The Times, said, “Democracy’s defenses are under attack” and must be defended.
“We will not let President Trump and House Republicans’ efforts to take over our elections prevail. We’re going to use every tool in our toolbox and that includes working with pro-democracy allies in communities across the country,” he said. “I look forward to hearing about the work being done in California to protect democracy as we fight on the ground and in Congress.”
Pelosi, in her own statement to The Times, said protecting democracy “demands vigilance, transparency, and action,” and the shadow hearings “will bring together voices on the front lines of election security, voting rights, and accountability to ensure that every American’s vote is protected and every institution earns the public’s trust.” [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-06 | | | | ‘We clearly are in decline’: Humboldt County’s jobless rate climbs in January | | Humboldt County’s unemployment rate jumped to 5.6% in January, up from a revised 5.1% in December, according to data released Friday by the state’s Employment Development Department.
Humboldt County lost 1,000 jobs between December and January. Additionally, the labor force dropped to 59,500, the lowest level since January 2024 (though it came close in July 2025).
“If you look at the long-term trend since, let’s say, our peak in 2010, and labor force, we clearly are in decline,” said Gregg Foster, the executive director of the Redwood Region Economic Development Center. “You could use a longer moving average, like three years or five years, and you’ll see that going down … So in terms of labor force, yeah, we’re definitely in decline, and we have not reached the levels even before the pandemic.”
The labor force in January, before the pandemic (from 2016-2020), hovered between 60,000 and 61,000. In January 2010, it was 66,000. [Article] | | by , Eureka Times-Standard. 2026-04-06 | | | | Nearly $3 Million Secured for Housing and Transportation Improvements in Los Angeles – Los Angeles Sentinel | | Federal funding targets affordable housing expansion, transit upgrades, and climate relief in South L.A. [Article] | | by , . 2026-04-06 | | | | Escondido controversial Battery Storage project withdrawn – NBC 7 San Diego | | A lithium-ion battery storage project that stirred controversy among a community in North County is no longer moving forward. [Article] | | by , KNSD NBC San Diego. 2026-04-06 | | | | California election experts sound alarm as rate of rejected ballots quadruples - Los Angeles Times | | SACRAMENTO — As Democratic leaders in California challenge President Trump’s latest effort to restrict the use of mail-in ballots, they also must grapple with a troubling development in the last election.
A significant number of mail-in ballots arrived too late to be counted in the Nov. 4 special election for Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s successful measure to reconfigure the state’s congressional districts, according to state data.
Ballots came in late at an average rate four times higher than that of the 2024 election, with rural counties seeing some of the biggest increases, according to a Times review.
“Something changed,” said Melvin E. Levey, who heads the Merced County Registrar of Voters. “We don’t like seeing late ballots and if someone has made the effort to vote, we want to count it.”
Merced saw almost a sevenfold increase in late-arriving mail ballots in the November election compared with the year before.
Vote-by-mail ballots are considered late if they are not postmarked on or ahead of election day or do not arrive within seven days of election day.
The issue appears to be linked to the U.S. Postal Service, which last year reduced the number of trips to pick up mail at post offices in mostly rural areas. Election officials warned before Nov. 4 that the Postal Service changes could delay the postmarking of ballots and lead to votes not being counted. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-06 | | | | UCLA, CSUs receive $110-million donation for mental health - Los Angeles Times | | UCLA, Cal State L.A. and Cal State Dominguez Hills will receive $110 million to bolster their mental health programs, providing financial assistance and clinical resources to students seeking to fill the gaps of a major statewide shortage in the field of social work.
On Monday, the universities announced that the Ballmer Group — an investment group owned by Connie and Steve Ballmer, owner of the Clippers and former Microsoft chief executive — would support an effort to expand social work, youth counseling and mental health programs in underserved neighborhoods, including South and East L.A.
The funding will “will change lives across Los Angeles by preparing a new generation of counselors and social workers who reflect and understand the communities they serve,” Cal State L.A. President Berenecea Johnson Eanes said in a prepared statement. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-06 | | | | These maps show exactly where the West might burn this summer. | Grist | | Every state in the West is expected to face an above-normal threat of wildfire this summer, according to the latest projections, released Wednesday by the National Interagency Coordination Center. [Article] | | by , . 2026-04-06 | | | | LA County universities get $110 million to shore up mental health workforce | LAist | | UCLA, Cal State University Los Angeles and Cal State Dominguez Hills on Monday announced a collective $110 million investment from the Ballmer Group to support the training of new mental health workers. [Article] | | by , . 2026-04-06 | | | | He was willing to testify against the cartel. ICE got to him first - Los Angeles Times | | For Javier Hernandez, cooperating with federal prosecutors felt like the only option.
Hernandez, 48, faced up to life in prison after U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Fontana police arrested him and seized nearly 22 pounds of meth during a 2015 operation targeting cross-border drug smuggling. Recovering from drug addiction and desperate to avoid being separated from his family, he would do whatever it took to minimize his sentence — even testifying against people he feared were connected to the cartels.
Then, a year before Hernandez was set to testify, he received an email with a list of his loved ones, according to a copy of the message reviewed by The Times. At the bottom of the message was a picture of a dead man, his body covered in bandages and stained with blood.
Hernandez said he and his wife were terrified. But fear of retribution wasn’t what kept him from taking the witness stand last year. It was Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Six months before trial, ICE agents detained Hernandez in San Bernardino, court records show. In March 2025, he was deported to Tijuana. ICE did not consult with federal prosecutors in Los Angeles before moving to deport their witness, U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder said during a hearing last year.
Without Hernandez’s testimony to bolster the prosecution’s case, his co-defendants were acquitted of all charges.
Former ICE officials and ex-federal prosecutors say the case highlights how the Trump administration has prioritized deportation efforts over other forms of law enforcement, even serious drug cases.
Hernandez was warned he could still be deported under the terms of his deal with prosecutors, but John Sandweg, who served as ICE’s acting director under President Obama, said past administrations coordinated in similar circumstances to ensure informants remained safely in the country.
“Anytime someone was a federal defendant or critical witness in a federal case, it would be shocking if we executed a removal of that individual,” he said. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-06 | | | | Anaheim Leads the Way on ICE Raids Response | | Shortly after the ICE raids kicked off last June, Anaheim City Council members created a relief fund for impacted residents, which also saw a daily update on deportation efforts in the city – the only program like it in Orange County. [Article] | | by , Voice of OC. 2026-04-06 | | | | A foul problem: Fire survivors with cesspools and septic tanks face unique rebuilding challenges | LAist | | Morgan Whirledge, a musician and recently minted Altadena Town Council member, lived with his wife and two small children on a culdesac at the top of Lake Avenue, nestled at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains. [Article] | | by , . 2026-04-06 | | | | An uninsurance bomb is about to go off, and it will touch Orange County – Orange County Register | | As many as 16 million lower-income Americans are projected to lose their federally financed health insurance over the next two years, mostly as a result of work-requirement and immigrant-focused rule changes coming to Medicaid, the program that in California is known as Medi-Cal.
Even if that forecast (from the Congressional Budget Office, among others) turns out to be low, it’ll be the biggest rise in uninsurance in the United States since the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) fully took effect a dozen years ago. Pre-ACA, about 18.2% of all Americans lacked health insurance; at the end of last year, that figure was down to about 8.5%.
Now, that trajectory is expected to change. And experts say the coming burst of uninsurance will have ripple effects, touching those who are directly impacted because they lose coverage and, indirectly, nearly everybody else.
The first of these will be a noticeable decline in public health. People without health insurance tend to seek less preventative treatment, become sick more frequently, and die younger than do people with insurance.
But another result, according to experts and projections from government officials, figures to touch wallets.
Even though a smaller Medicaid program is the planned outcome of last year’s “Big, Beautiful” tax and spending bill (House Resolution 1) – and the smaller version of that program is projected to nearly $1 trillion in federal spending by 2034 – the broad economic effect isn’t yet clear. [Article] | | by , Orange County Register. 2026-04-06 | | | | L.A.'s history-making wolf lands in Eastern Sierra, seeks forever home | | A wolf that seized national attention when she ventured into Los Angeles County earlier this year continues to make history.
The 3-year-old female with black fur entered Inyo County around 7 a.m. Sunday about 20 miles south of Mt. Whitney. She became the first documented wolf to set paws in the Eastern Sierra county in more than a century, according to state wildlife officials.
By early Monday afternoon, she had pushed deeper into the county to west of the community of Bartlett, said Axel Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Her movements are tracked with a GPS collar. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-04-06 | | | | To keep kids out of the grip of gangs, OC law enforcement connect early – Orange County Register | | Under bright, sunny skies that felt more like summer than spring break, dozens of Garden Grove Unified School District students gathered around SWAT team members from Garden Grove and Santa Ana as officers introduced themselves and described their roles.
Moments earlier, the students and officers had been on the field together, playing soccer side by side as part of a three-day event with Orange County’s Gang Reduction Intervention Program, or GRIP, an initiative run through the Orange County District Attorney’s Office aimed at connecting at-risk youth with mentors in law enforcement. [Article] | | by , Orange County Register. 2026-04-06 | | |
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