Topline:
Route 66 is celebrating 100 years of being the country's most famous highway, an icon of American culture.
Why it matters: It passes through eight states — from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif. — its charm is all about driving on the open road. It has shown up for decades in movies, books, music and art.
Read on for a cultural journey down the Mother Road.
Route 66 is celebrating 100 years of being the country's most famous highway, an icon of American culture.
As it passes through eight states — from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif. — its charm is all about driving on the open road, through the plains and prairies, canyons and deserts. Past big cities, cow towns and ghost towns, stopping at roadside motels, retro diners and kitschy tourist traps.
Like every good road trip, Route 66 has a soundtrack — starting with the famous anthem sung by Nat King Cole (and later, his daughter Natalie).
If you ever plan to motor West/
travel my way, take the highway that's the best/
Get your kicks on Route 66…
Bobby Troup, then an aspiring songwriter and jazz pianist, wrote that 1946 song during a road trip he took to California. Over the years, many others have recorded their own versions, including Bing Crosby and the Andrew Sisters.
It winds from Chicago to L.A/
More than 2,000 miles all the way/
Get your kicks on Route 66…
The famous thoroughfare was created in 1926, and three years later, the Depression hit, followed by the Dust Bowl — when drought and dust storms devastated farmland.
"The Dust Bowl drove thousands of families away from their farms in the Midwest and southwest states," said Jim Ross, who has written nine books about Route 66. He lives on an original section of the highway. "Most of them headed for California, because that's where the jobs were, or so they thought."
For the Farm Security Administration Project, Dorothea Lange photographed displaced families as they traveled West. The migrants drove in covered jalopies, hitchhiked and walked barefoot with their belongings along the highways.
Route 66 expert Michael Wallis says their trek was heartbreaking — "Following the scent of citrus out to California to rebuild their lives, they were hooked into that old dream, the land of milk and honey, which let them down.
Writer John Steinbeck chronicle the migration along Route 66 - which he named "The Mother Road" — in The Grapes of Wrath.
Steinbeck's 1939 novel won a Pulitzer Prize and was made into a now classic film. It starred Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, an ex-con traveling from Oklahoma with his sharecropper family.
"Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can't eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad," he said in a monologue that would later inspire songwriters Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen.
And legends of Route 66 shifted gears with the times.
After World War II, cars and Route 66 tourism were heavily marketed. Families began taking road trips around the country. And by the early 1960s, their spirit of adventure was captured by rock and rollers Chuck Berry and The Rolling Stones.
It goes from St. Louis, Joplin, Missouri/
and Oklahoma City looks so pretty./
You'll see Amarillo, Gallup, New Mexico/
Flagstaff, Arizona, don't forget Winona/
Kingsman, Barstow, San Bernardino…
Route 66 was also celebrated by a TV series with the same name, with a theme song by composer and arranger Nelson Riddle. It features two young adventurers who hit the transAmerican highways in a Corvette convertible.
Route 66 was also the scenic road in the 1969 film Easy Rider. It starred Henry Fonda's son Peter, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson as counterculture wanderers who traveled by motorcycle.
"All we represent to them, man, is somebody who needs a haircut," Hopper's character says in one scene, referring to some haters.
"Oh no," Nicholson's character responds. "What you represent is Freedom.
In 1985, Route 66 was officially decommissioned as a federal highway. But its lure endured. Two years later, the English electronic band Depeche Mode made a music video about it.
Won't you get hip to this timely tip?/
And you'll you make that California trip/
Get your kicks on Route 66
The documentary Depeche Mode:101 followed a group of fans traveling across the country on a tour bus. It was an inspiration for reality TV shows in the 1990s: The Real World and Road Rules.
Route 66 was also celebrated in Pixar's 2006 animated movie Cars. With John Meyer's version of the old classic as its theme song, Cars was set in a fictional town along Route 66: Radiator Springs. The popularity of the movie and a sequel led to a theme park attraction, at Disneyland's California Adventure.
Author Michael Wallis consulted for the Disney Imagineers and the Pixar filmmakers. And he was the voice of the animated sheriff in the movie — a 1949 Mercury Club Coupe police car.
Wallis co-founded the Route 66 Alliance, and is on the highway's Congressional Centennial Commission. The 81-year-old says the road has stirred his imagination ever since he was a child.
"There's a sense of adventure," he said. "If you've not been in a pie palace or greasy spoon on the Mother Road, you don't know what to expect."
Wallis' bestselling 1990 book The Mother Road is credited with sparking a revival of interest in Route 66.
"It's the path connecting two big cities across two thirds of the continent," he said. "People renting you a room, selling you a cheeseburger, a peek at the snake pit. A dream. An illusion. That's what it's all about."
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
California voters faced big questions about money in this election, and the results sent mixed signals about how the electorate feels about taxation.
Why now: On Election Day, voters:
Read on for in-depth analysis.
California voters faced big questions about money in this election, and the results sent mixed signals about how the electorate feels about taxation.
They want to tax the rich — but only sometimes. They want the money counters at the Franchise Tax Board to stay far away from personal assets, but are leaving the door open for future taxes or taxes on other people.
On Election Day, voters:
Voters also approved several high-profile local taxes, including two measures to fund the Bay Area’s regional transit systems, including Muni and BART, and a half-cent sales tax to fund firefighting in the city of Los Angeles.
The mixed outcome, experts say, shows that California voters are embracing tax hikes — but only when they can ensure the money is funding tangible services they support.
“Voters are willing to open up their wallet if they believe it’s for a good cause … and that it’s actually going to that place,” said Brandon Castillo, a prominent ballot measure strategist in California.
It also demonstrates voters’ willingness to support taxes that likely won’t affect their own pocketbook, said Mark Baldassare, survey director of the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.
“We are a very progressive state where voters, particularly today when affordability weighs on them, have a tendency to say somebody else will be paying taxes, not me.”
Still, that “not me” attitude didn’t stretch as far as the state’s contentious billionaire tax, which faced opposition from business interests, Democrats and deep-pocketed Silicon Valley executives alike.
The failure of the billionaire tax represents the most stunning defeat of Election Day for progressive Democrats who tried unsuccessfully to capitalize on souring sentiment toward the ultra-wealthy amid high gas prices and worsening inflation for average Californians. How could the most progressive measure in the most progressive state fail during a “blue wave” election?
“California voters are sometimes more conservative on ballot propositions than they are on voting for candidates,” said Christian Grose, a political science and public policy professor at USC.
In recent years, voters through ballot measures got tougher on crime, shot down a minimum wage increase and rejected efforts to make it easier to pass local bonds. In fact, voters upheld the death penalty the last time it appeared on the ballot even though the state has not executed anyone since 2006. In a historic decision, Gov. Gavin Newsom also earlier this month commuted all death row sentences to life without parole.
Rob Stutzman, a Republican political consultant, said this trend likely holds true because ballot initiatives — including taxation questions — generally ask voters to consider one issue at a time and are presented in a nonpartisan manner. In contrast, voting for a liberal or conservative candidate requires voters to weigh multiple aspects of a person’s record, character or values.
“They just have the policy question, and voters sort it out for themselves,” Stutzman said.
Those centrist tendencies helped push Prop. 42, one of two measures put on the ballot by billionaires trying to protect their wealth, across the finish line. That measure bans taxes on personal property, business interests and financial investments. The Associated Press confirmed its passage by 51.3% Friday.
Anti-tax and union supporters touted it as a way to protect retirement savings and pensions potentially targeted by the billionaire tax, though billionaire tax proponents countered that their measure never targeted ordinary retirement accounts in the first place.
Experts say voter confusion and a $378 million opposition warchest donated primarily by Silicon Valley tech billionaires doomed the billionaire tax.
Props. 41 and 42 were designed specifically to kill Prop. 40 if it had passed, creating a chaotic array of choices. The billionaire tax also amassed a coalition of diverse and vocal opponents, including Gov. Gavin Newsom, Planned Parenthood, medical clinics and the state’s largest teachers union, despite the California Democratic Party and California Labor Federation supporting it.
Polling showed support for the measure dropped 6 points in the last two months before the election, taking it from a narrow lead to a crushing defeat.
“The campaign against the billionaire tax was a success,” Grose said.
But few view the results on Prop. 40 as a referendum on the state’s progressive tax system. Instead, many analysts said it was simply bad policy that splintered California’s Democratic base.
Prop. 40 aimed to focus almost all the revenue in healthcare while cutting out other areas of state spending, which would lose funding if billionaires left the state and stopped paying income taxes, said Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego. That, he said, was “an unforced error.”
“It made it a David and Goliath fight, but it didn’t need to be,” he said. “You don’t pass a landmark progressive tax increase that is sort of a change to how America has historically done anything by dividing up the progressive coalition.”
At the same time, Prop. 42’s anti-taxation sentiment was also somewhat tempered by the defeat of Prop. 43, which would have made increasing taxes for local public services more difficult, and the success of Prop. 3, which sticks a higher tax bracket on high-income earners to help fund schools.
Prop. 43 would have required a two-thirds vote to pass any local tax dedicated to specific services. Kousser said voters are concerned the measure would allow for “minority rule,” where just a third of voters would be able to block essential funding for local services.
“Voters don’t like to put in place these rules that seem to be tilted in one direction,” he said.
David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, said Prop. 3’s passage sent a “resounding message of support for taxing the wealthy.” That measure passed with nearly 59% of the vote and sets a higher tax bracket on individually earned income above $360,000.
People in that income bracket have been paying that extra tax since 2012 as a temporary state budget fix; Prop. 3 made it permanent.
Why could voters distinguish between the income tax Prop. 3 and the wealth tax in Prop. 40? Partly because Prop. 3 had no opposition among Democrats, Kousser noted. It also extended an existing tax, whereas Prop. 40 opponents ran ads claiming that state lawmakers could come after average Californians’ personal savings.
Dustin Corcoran, chief executive of the California Medical Association, which opposed the billionaire tax, said he also does not view its defeat “as an endorsement of wealth inequality or the status quo.”
The state still needs to find a way to securely finance healthcare, education and other core services, Corcoran said, and the medical association is exploring future ballot initiative options to generate revenue.
Not even Prop. 40’s supporters view its defeat as a reason to stop trying to tax the ultra-wealthy in California. Dave Regan, president of Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the primary proponents of the billionaire tax, vowed to come back in 2028 with another billionaire tax initiative.
Regan also pushed back on the notion that Democrats were divided on wealth taxes, arguing that polling showed between 60% to 70% of Democrats supported the measure and only Democratic leaders such as Newsom and Gov.-elect Xavier Becerra opposed it.
“At the very highest levels of state officials there’s actually, you know, a different point of view, but that’s out of step with where regular people are at,” Regan said.
Still, fiscal conservatives, the state’s non-partisan budget analyst, and even some moderate Democrats say taxation cannot be the only solution to California’s budget woes. The state has faced four consecutive deficit years and spending that outpaces revenue despite the budget as a whole growing. The current state budget calls for $351.7 billion in total spending — a 64% increase over the $214.8 billion Newsom signed in his first year as governor seven years ago.
“California’s budget is structurally overextended despite booming and near-record revenues,” the Legislative Analyst’s Office wrote in a new budget assessment. “This overextended budget reflects a higher ongoing spending base; diminished reserves; an already accumulated wall of debt; and annual, out-year operating deficits of $8 billion to $10 billion.”
Friday's nationwide ground stop started when a contractor updated old Federal Aviation Administration telecommunication lines, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday.
What happened: L3Harris, a long time contractor for the FAA, was doing routine maintenance in at least one remote location changing copper wire to fiber optics, Duffy said. "When I tell you that we're using old equipment, we're using old equipment," he said. He said the FAA is still investigating the exact error that started flooding other routers in the air traffic control system, and if L3Harris was at all responsible.
Updated November 14, 2026 at 13:52 PM ET
WASHINGTON— Friday's nationwide ground stop started when a contractor updated old Federal Aviation Administration telecommunication lines, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Saturday.
Tens of thousands of passengers across the U.S. are still stranded Saturday after the rare ground stop. Bryan Bedford, the FAA administrator who joined Duffy at Saturday's media briefing, said schedule problems should be resolved by Sunday evening.
Nearly 25,000 flights were delayed, and over 9,000 were cancelled on Friday, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking site. The disruption seeped into Saturday morning with more than 4,000 cancellations recorded, which is 18% of flights departing the U.S., according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company.
L3Harris, a long time contractor for the FAA, was doing routine maintenance in at least one remote location changing copper wire to fiber optics, Duffy said. "When I tell you that we're using old equipment, we're using old equipment," he said.
He said the FAA is still investigating the exact error that started flooding other routers in the air traffic control system, and if L3Harris was at all responsible.
"It's pretty straightforward work that we were doing yesterday at, again, a very remote location. So what we're working to determine was whether we had incompetence, meaning was it user error, installator error from L3Harris, or did they install a faulty router?"
L3Harris did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.
These updates have been happening in American institutions for decades, Duffy said.
"Virtually every single institution in America has gone from copper to fiber, from analog to digital," Duffy said. "Just maybe the FAA is the last one to be doing this work because the investments haven't been made, but this is not complicated."
Bedford said there was no evidence of anything nefarious happening or any AI-related issues.
Since his time in office, Duffy said he's been asking Congress for money to make more upgrades. In July 2025, Congress approved $12.5 billion to modernize the nation's aging air traffic control system.
With that money, 70% of copper communications have been replaced to high-speed fiber, Bedford said. Duffy called the innovations and the need for more a "bipartisan moment."
"This is the moment, if we don't start to switch out our systems, when, how long are we going to wait, America, and Congress?" Duffy asked.
For about four hours on Friday, thousands of flights at U.S. airports were grounded in one of the biggest disruptions of the nation's air travel system since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
The aviation system is back online and slowly returning to normal Saturday morning, but delays and cancellations will continue, Duffy said. Bedford said all passengers will be put on new flights or they'll get a full refund, but that people should reach out to their airlines directly.
Flight boards at airports across the country Saturday morning continued to be riddled with red cancelled marks. At Tampa International Airport in Florida, people in the main terminal area before security curled up in chairs to grab a wink of sleep.
On Friday night, a flight board at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in D.C. showed dozens of flights delayed into the early morning hours or cancelled.
Passengers Erin and Jake Britt spent half the day at the airport in D.C. on Friday. Their plane to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. boarded at 3 p.m. By 5:30 p.m., they were getting off the plane — but they were still in D.C.
"Overall, our plane was definitely annoyed, but reasonable," Erin Britt said, as the couple left the airport at 8 p.m. "People being upset and asking like, 'Well, how are you not prepared for this?' And it was like, 'Well, no one was prepared.'"
She said neither the pilot nor flight attendants had any more information than passengers."They seem just as in the dark," she said.
The pair decided to cancel their weekend trip, but the night didn't end there. They spent over nine hours overnight waiting on the JetBlue customer service call line to be reimbursed. "I was setting alarms in 20 minute intervals in case I fell asleep," Erin Britt said.
For people who had events or plans over the weekend – the delay added an extra layer of stress. Joe Romano and Maddie Cabana had a cruise leaving Orlando, Fla. Saturday afternoon.
"It was a big eye roll. I mean, I travel a lot for work already, so I'm constantly dealing with flight delays," Romano said. "When this happened, I was just like, 'Of course, it always happens to me.'"
"Just rather inconvenient and frustrating," Cabana added, as the pair contemplated checking their bags or going home. They even thought about driving to Florida. "Hopefully, everything will be fine. It'll all work out. It always does."
And it did— eventually. After their JetBlue flight was ultimately cancelled, they quickly booked another one on Southwest Airlines and made it early Saturday morning.
Others, like Suze DiPietro decided flying wasn't worth it anymore. Her husband drove about four hours down from Ocean City, New Jersey to pick her up in D.C. Luckily, they had friends in the area where they spent the night.
"My husband, my hero, is driving down from New Jersey to come get me," DiPietro said.
Other alternatives included people switching to Amtrak trains as they struggled to get to their destination. Although, even Amtrak's system had a brief outage Friday night.
This was only the second nationwide ground stop since September 11, 2001. The U.S. last issued a ground stop of this scale in 2023, when all U.S. airports were shut down due to an outage in the NOTAM (Notice to Air Missions) system, which alerts pilots and airports of real-time hazards.
That outage prompted fears of a cyberattack, but the FAA later determined the issue was caused when contract workers inadvertently deleted critical files.
The FAA has recently begun rolling out an AI-enhanced software tool known as the SMART system as part of its ambitious overhaul of the nation's air traffic control system. But Air Space Intelligence, the company that makes the tool, quickly dismissed speculation that its product could be connected to the flight disruptions.
"The current ground stop is not based on or a result of the SMART system, any product of ASI or our integration with FAA and ATC," the company said on social media.
Ava Pukatch contributed to reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
Eggs from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast have hatched.
Why it matters: The Long Beach-based aquarium has been keeping watch over 204 Olive Ridley Sea Turtle eggs, laid on Seal Beach and Huntington Beach in September.
Why now: The aquarium said the hatchlings were released early this morning in a coastal area with little light and human disturbances.
Read on to check out a video of the baby turtles.
Eggs from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast have hatched.
"We are excited to share that some of the olive ridley sea turtle eggs from Seal Beach successfully hatched after a 58-day incubation period," said the Aquarium of the Pacific in a social media post.
The Long Beach-based aquarium has been keeping watch over 204 olive ridley sea turtle eggs, laid on Seal Beach and Huntington Beach in September. A second set of eggs found on Huntington Beach is still incubating
The aquarium said the hatchlings were released early Saturday morning in a coastal area with little light and human disturbances.
Baby turtles, the aquarium said, go through a “frenzy period” after hatching, where they swim nonstop for up to two days
The eggs came from the first confirmed sea turtle nests found on the U.S. West Coast. Scientists say unusually warming water tied to El Niño likely drew the rare turtles to the Southern California coast.
If you see a stranded sea turtle, immediately notify a local lifeguard. If a lifeguard is unavailable, contact the NOAA California Sea Turtle Stranding Line at (562) 506-4315.
Topline:
LAist Senior Editor Suzanne Levy had held a dream for years to go on stage at The Moth, but fears had always fearheld herself back. But when she heard about an event in Los Angeles, she had to decide whether to let her fear stop her — or to feel the fear and do it anyway.
Why it matters: The Moth (of which LAist is a media sponsor) holds open mic story StorySLAMs in Los Angeles throughout the year. If you've thought about doing it, but have held back, Levy wants her experience to motivate you to fulfil your dream. "Life's too short," she says. "If you want to do something you just have to do it."
Why now: The next StorySlam is on Wednesday, Nov. 18, in Culver City and Tuesday, Dec. 1, in Silver Lake.
A couple of decades ago, a friend in New York told me about something happening that was kinda underground and just getting traction. It was called “The Moth.” People took turns telling a true, personal story, with no notes, named after the Southern tradition of sitting on front porches and sharing spellbinding tales — with moths flying mesmerized around the porchlight.
It sounded amazing. And terrifying. I filed it under the same list as bungee jumping — no doubt exhilarating but something I’d never do — and got on with my life. Over the years, as it grew bigger and bigger, I went to several Moth events in different cities, and was always so impressed with the storytellers — and equally adamant I’d never do it.
Cut to this September, when a message went out to all the staff at LAist. We’re a media sponsor of The Moth, and an event, a open mike StorySLAM, was coming up in Silver Lake. There were a few tickets available. Did anyone want one? The theme was "Divas." Sure, I thought. I’d go watch. It's always fun.
As the days went by, the same thought kept nagging at me. How about getting on stage yourself? No, I thought. Too risky. But this time there was another thought, even more vehement. Why are you being held hostage by fear? Life is too short. If you want to do something, you just have to do it. And this opportunity has just fallen into your lap.
So when the day came, I went to the event, and put my name in the hat. Would I be picked? I sat there with sweaty palms as the show started and people came up tell their own funny, moving, poignant stories.
Finally, near the end of the show, my name was called out. Gulp. I walked on stage to the mic, and began telling my story.
“Some years ago I was a BBC radio producer. A show host and I were at Albuquerque airport, on our way to Los Alamos to do interviews about the Manhattan project. But when we got to the gate, it was closed. They’d boarded the plane 15 minutes early. We couldn't believe it. There was only one plane per day and we'd flown in from London and were on a tight schedule. What should we do?”
It was a strange experience, simultaneously storytelling while looking at the audience and scanning for their reactions. They seemed to be enjoying themselves.... and were holding their breath, waiting to see what came next.
“I could see the plane on the tarmac, one of those regional planes with propellers, on the other side of an alarmed emergency exit door. So I decided, in the heat of the moment, to push it open, and started dashing across the tarmac, yelling for the host to follow me. Security men began running towards me from every direction as the alarm blared loudly.”
The audience was laughing with delight and disbelief, and I was laughing, too, at the recollection. What on earth had made me do that? Ah, my young, impulsive, determined self. Just as well it wasn’t today, post 9/11. I’d be dead.
“As I reached the plane, the security men were shouting 'What are you doing? You can’t run onto the tarmac!' That’s when the diva part came in. I drew myself up to my full 5’ 2” and said, determinedly, 'No, YOU were the ones who boarded the plane early. We did everything right! We have our tickets, we have interviews to do and we are going to get on this plane.'"
The security men looked at each other, unsure what to do. Maybe it was the British accent, or not being used to a woman giving them a dressing down. But one of them shrugged, moved out of the way, and they let us get on the plane. "Hurray! And we made it to Los Alamos, in time to do our interviews. Thank you.”
The audience went crazy, clapping and whooping. I was standing there grinning stupidly. I couldn’t believe I’d done it.
Yes, the story went down well. And the audience hadn't eaten me alive. But there was something bigger, something even more satisfying in my reaction. I’d had made myself do something I was scared of. I'd faced my demons.... and survived.
A lesson for us all.
Next StorySLAMs:
Culver City: Wednesday Nov. 18
Silver Lake: Tuesday Dec. 1
More details: here.
