The Brief

It’s finally summer! Well, only if you count the Dodgers' opening day as the start of summer, and who wouldn’t? Baseball aside, there’s tons to do this week, including the return of Alex Edelman’s thought-provoking one-man show Just for Us at the Taper, indie rock legends Sleater-Kinney hit the Wiltern, and we’re heading to Pershing Square for some great street eats.

Visit LAist.com for more things to explore, including a look at the newly opened Venice Heritage Museum, spring gardening tips, and more.

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As the race to represent L.A.’s Council District 9 remains too close to call, candidate Estuardo Mazariegos’ campaign has accused the campaign of Jose Ugarte, the front-runner, of potential ballot tampering.

The Mazariegos campaign made the accusations Monday, saying it had filed a complaint with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk. In a press release, the campaign alleged that representatives for the Ugarte campaign had collected voters’ ballots to drop off without signing the appropriate line identifying the individual who returned the ballot.

In one case, Mazariegos’ team accused Ugarte campaigners of filling out a ballot on a voter’s behalf without her knowledge of who she was voting for.

“Taking people’s ballots, filling them out, and not following legal voter assistance guidelines in a district that has faced so much disenfranchisement is disgusting,” Mazariegos said in a statement.

Mike Sanchez, a spokesperson for the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, said his office had forwarded the news release to the district attorney for review. He also pointed to the California Elections Code, which says that a “ballot shall not be disqualified solely because the person authorized to return it did not provide on the identification envelope their name or signature.”

Under California law, a voter can authorize another person to return their mail-in ballot — an approach also called ballot harvesting.

Justin Levitt, a  professor of constitutional law at Loyola Marymount University, told AirTalk Tuesday that there is no legal limit on the number of ballots an individual can turn in on others’ behalf, so long as they aren’t being compensated per ballot returned.

“Even if there were some sort of administrative wrongdoing, as long as there's no indication of fraud with the ballot itself, those ballots will all be counted,” he said.

Levitt said, however, that signing a ballot and then handing it to someone else to fill out would be illegal.

“ To the extent that there are allegations now that the DA may investigate, I suspect that's what they'll be focusing on,” Levitt continued.

The Mazariegos campaign also sent a collection of photos to the press, including one of a campaigner, USC student Amir King, returning a stack of ballots at a ballot drop box.

The Mazariegos campaign alleged that representatives for the Ugarte campaign had collected voters’ ballots to drop off without signing the appropriate line identifying the individual who returned the ballot.

(

Courtesy of Estuardo Mazariegos' Campaign

)

Ugarte’s campaign responded to the accusations by pointing to a post by King on Instagram in which he accused the Mazariegos campaign of bullying him and making false claims about him.

“Why is he attacking me? For participating in our democracy, as is my right under California state law and for helping others participate in democracy, as is their right under California state law,” King said in the post.

As of Tuesday morning, just under 300 ballots separate Ugarte and Mazariegos, with 44,000 ballots left to count in L.A. County. It’s not clear how many ballots in Council District 9 are left to count.

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

An off-duty Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy died in a motorcycle crash near Marina Pacifica on Friday.

The crash happened at about 11 p.m. at the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Second Street, according to Long Beach police.

Martin Maciel, 40, was heading south on PCH when he collided with a vehicle traveling east on Second Street, throwing the rider from the motorcycle, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The other vehicle’s driver remained at the scene and cooperated with investigators, who believe speed was a contributing factor in the crash. Police did not specify which driver they suspect was speeding.

The Sheriff’s Department said Maciel was a 10-year veteran of the force and an Army Reservist. He worked at the Norwalk Station as a motorcycle deputy after starting his career at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility and working patrol at the Transit Services Bureau.

“Throughout his years of service, Deputy Maciel was a valued member of the department, and his dedication will be remembered by those who had the privilege of serving alongside him,” the Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family, friends, and all who knew him.”

In recent years, Long Beach has been fighting a stubborn rise in traffic deaths. Last year, the city recorded 53 fatal crashes, its highest total in more than a decade.

Friday’s crash marked the city’s 41st fatal traffic collision this year. At this time last year, Long Beach had recorded 43 fatal crashes.

To fight speeding in particular, Long Beach recently installed automated speed cameras that are scheduled to start issuing tickets in December.

Inflation-scarred consumers are finding a bit of relief these days at an unlikely place: the gas pump.

The average price of gasoline dipped below $4 a gallon Tuesday for the first time in three months, according to AAA. The price of regular gas has fallen by 38 cents in the last month to a national average of $3.98.

The overall cost of living, however, remains stubbornly high. Consumer prices in October were up 0.4% from the previous month, according to a report Tuesday from the Labor Department. That's a bigger monthly increase than forecasters had expected.

Rising housing costs accounted for about a third of the monthly increase. Grocery prices were also up sharply during the month.

Why gas prices are falling

The drop in gasoline prices in recent weeks is thanks to a combination of falling crude oil prices, refineries' switch to a cheaper blend of winter fuel, and the typical seasonal drop in demand for gas.

"Temperatures are getting colder," says Patrick De Haan, petroleum analyst for GasBuddy. "People who have boats and RVs are probably done for the year. I would say, by Thanksgiving, so long as we don't get any wild cards geopolitically, the national average could be $3.75 a gallon."

Gas prices are still at a record high for this time of year, however — about a dollar a gallon higher than when the U.S. went to war with Iran. Even with the recent drop in prices, this year's drive to grandma's for Thanksgiving could be the most expensive ever.

Diesel prices have also fallen, but more slowly than gas prices. AAA says the average price of diesel fuel is $6.15 a gallon, down about 13 cents from a month ago.

The high cost of diesel fuel is another byproduct of the war — not only the U.S. war with Iran but also Russia's war with Ukraine. Russia is ordinarily a big exporter of diesel fuel, but that supply has largely dried up because of damage to Russia's refineries.

"When a country like Russia isn't exporting diesel, that is very impactful for the global market. So diesel prices – they will come down but they will still remain very elevated," De Haan says.

Heating oil prices are also high

Rising diesel prices are also driving up the cost of heating oil in the northeast, because heating oil is a close cousin of diesel.

Mild fall weather has kept heating costs in check so far, but De Haan says a blast of cold air could push heating oil prices even higher.

Higher diesel prices also affect the cost of other goods that have to be moved by truck or train or cargo ship.

"You're starting to see higher freight costs get passed through," says economist Mike Reid of RBC Capital Markets. "We've seen it show up notably in goods that are heavily imported — apparel, recreation goods, IT equipment."

In a speech Tuesday before the inflation release, Federal Reserve Chris Waller suggested that energy shocks could have more lasting effects on inflation that previously though. Waller suggested the central bank may need to raise interest rates more aggressively to curb price hikes than markets had previously expected.

No annual comparison for inflation this time

While Tuesday's inflation report shows how much prices rose in the last month, it does not include the typical reading on how prices have changed over the last year. That's a casualty of last year's government shutdown, which idled hundreds of government price-checkers so prices from October 2025 were never recorded for comparison.

The Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank estimated before Tuesday's release that consumer prices in October were up 3.7% from a year ago. That would outstrip average wage gains of just 3.1% during the year, so the typical worker is losing buying power. That's a big reason for the heavy turnout in last week's mid-term elections. 49.1% of eligible voters took part in the election, the second highest total for any midterm in more than a century.

Copyright 2026 NPR

California will not become the first state to levy a wealth tax on its richest residents — at least not this election.

Voters rejected Proposition 40, a proposal to tax billionaires based on their net worth and financial holdings, by 52.8% to 47.2%, according to The Associated Press Monday. The measure had trailed behind for days before The Associated Press confirmed results.

Leaders for Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the union pushing the measure, seemed to concede the race minutes before the polls closed but vowed to try again in 2028 if California’s Legislature “fails to deliver a real solution” to fund healthcare hammered by recent federal law.

“That’s not a hypothetical. That’s our plan,” said Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW.

Election Day was projected to be an all-around defeat for the union, known for aggressively pursuing ballot measures. Voters defeated union-backed Proposition 44, an effort to control how clinics spend money. Proposition 42, a billionaire tax countermeasure prohibiting future wealth taxes, was leading Monday evening by 51.6% to 48.4%. That measure could get in the way of SEIU-UHW’s future plans to try taxing wealth again.

The billionaire tax would have generated $100 billion for healthcare and education through a one-time, 5% tax on billionaires, according to SEIU-UHW. Opponents of the measure celebrated its defeat.

“Proposition 40 was a reckless experiment conducted on our state’s economy with little regard for the harms it would cause,” according to a statement from Evan Westrop, a campaign strategist for No on Prop. 40.

The opposition campaign, which was backed by wealthy tech investors and healthcare organizations, argued the measure had already driven billionaires from the state and permanently harmed income tax revenue. On Monday they said the state still faces “enormous pressure” to find other ways to fund healthcare hit by federal cuts.

Billionaire tax divided Democrats

From the outset, Prop. 40 revealed divisions among the Democratic Party and galvanized some of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest executives to spend hundreds of millions to defeat it.

Gov. Gavin Newsom became one of its earliest opponents, attempting through backroom negotiations to keep it off of the ballot altogether. He endorsed the billionaire-backed counter measure, Prop. 42, designed to ban all wealth taxes in California and kill Prop. 40. Newsom, along with Democratic allies such as Planned Parenthood of California and California Teachers Association, argued a one-time tax would not solve the state’s fiscal woes and would drive wealthy residents out of state.

The California Democratic Party and California Federation of Labor Unions supported the initiative and opposed its counter measures, arguing the state needed more revenue to shield workers and everyday Californians from the effects of dramatic federal healthcare cuts expected to kick 2 million residents off of health insurance.

Lorena Gonzalez, former Assemblymember and president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, said Prop. 40’s failure puts even more pressure on state and federal lawmakers to backfill federal Medicaid cuts.

Supporters of Prop. 40 blamed its loss on billionaires vastly outspending the Yes campaign, which raised $33.5 million.

“That is incredibly corrosive and corrupting to our democracy and our political system, and that's been dominating the discussion here in California,” Regan said.

Billionaires poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the campaign to stop Prop. 40. Google co-founder Sergey Brin led the charge, publicly moving out of state and donating $102 million to Building a Better California, a political committee he founded to oppose the tax. The group has served as a passthrough for other billionaire donors to oppose Prop. 40, including by funding the counterpropositions 41 and 42. Collectively, ultra-wealthy opponents donated $378.4 million to oppose the billionaire tax.

In a statement, Abby Lunardini, a spokesperson for Building a Better California, said the billionaire tax threatened to limit revenue for all services in California, including healthcare, by driving economic interests out of the state.

“It was a lose-lose for California, and voters clearly agreed,” Lunardini said.

Ultimately, opponents’ efforts succeeded.

Polling just ahead of the election indicated falling support for Prop. 40 despite growing sentiment for taxing billionaires more in general. According to a UC Berkeley Citrin-POLITICO poll, 45% of voters believed in taxing billionaires more to fund public services compared to 35% who believed the state should prioritize keeping billionaires in state because of the tax revenue and jobs they generate — but just 46% favored Prop. 40.

Infighting among Democrats could have also contributed to Prop. 40’s demise, said John Matsusaka, an economist and direct democracy expert at USC, ahead of the election. Research shows money doesn’t buy people’s votes or values on core issues like abortion, Matsusaka said, but it can exploit uncertainty.

“People these days are very tribal. When your tribe is arguing, people start to listen to the counterarguments,” Matsusaka said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.