The Brief

Millions of Californians don't have internet at home because it’s either too expensive, unreliable or not available where they live. The state is working to change that by 2026.

Construction is underway on a new “middle-mile” network that would make it easier and less expensive for service providers to connect to disadvantaged rural, tribal and minority urban neighborhoods. In many cases, those companies have been reluctant to provide service because it’s not seen as profitable.

While 91% of households have internet service, an estimated 3.5 million Californians remain disconnected.

Officials say that by providing competition to commercial providers, the state's network could also help bring down internet prices for everyone.

The $5 billion project is the largest of its kind in the U.S. About 10,000 miles of fiber optic cable is being installed throughout California, including more than 500 miles in Los Angeles County.

You may see construction happening around the region, although existing networks are also being used to avoid disruption.

“2024 is a year many of us have been working towards — to move from planning and design into construction,” said Mark Monroe, deputy director of the middle-mile broadband initiative during a recent Middle-Mile Advisory Committee hearing.

The state is building a new backbone network made up of high-capacity fiber lines that carry large amounts of data at high speeds over long distances.

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California Department of Technology

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“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to really provide connectivity where there hasn't been,” said Liana Bailey-Crimmins, the state’s chief information officer and director of the California Department of Technology.

The middle-mile broadband initiative is part of the Broadband For All plan, a $6 billion state and federal investment to close the digital divide. In 2021, the state allocated $3.8 billion of those funds for the middle mile. In January, the project received a $1.5 billion boost in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal ($250 million in 2024-25 and $1.25 billion in 2025-26). A revised budget plan is due in May.

Advocates have raised questions about the state’s ability to fund the entire network, given the projected $73 billion budget deficit that was recently announced. They also sounded the alarm after low-income communities in South and Southeast L.A. were deprioritized last summer, while plans to build in wealthier areas like Beverly Hills moved forward.

But Bailey-Crimmins said the state had "always intended" to build the entire network by 2026, and that the governor is "very committed” to funding the project, even as rising inflation drove construction costs up by about 40%.

“Every budget process is unique, but we are hoping that things go the way they should," she said.

About 10,000 miles of fiber optic cable are being installed around the state.

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Courtesy of the California Department of Technology

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The middle-mile network does not reach individual homes and businesses, however. That will be done by a “last mile” connection, where internet companies, municipalities, nonprofits and others would pay the state to tap in and deliver broadband to residents who live within a certain distance.

The network will go online to the public in "phases or as they become available," according to Bailey-Crimmins.

Breaking ground

More than 80% of the middle mile is now under contract. Caltrans is building about 4,000 miles of new infrastructure throughout the state, but the remainder will be established through a mix of purchase and lease agreements.

About 10,000 miles of fiber optic cable are being installed throughout the state, including more than 500 miles in Los Angeles County.

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California Department of Technology

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The state estimates it will spend about $340 million to complete the network in L.A. County. Four companies were awarded contracts to build in the area:

• Lumen (lease)
• CVIN (lease)
• Arcadian Infracom (joint-build)
• HP Communications (standalone Caltrans construction)

Lumen won a $400 million contract to build network infrastructure throughout the state. The telecom company is set to begin construction on the project near Los Angeles International Airport later this spring.

"Digital inclusion is critical for the United States to maintain its leading position as a global economic and innovation powerhouse," said Lumen CEO Kate Johnson. "Bringing high-speed broadband to unserved and underserved locations will accelerate greater and more diverse participation in our education system, the world's digital economy and access to high-quality health care."

In December, Arcadian held a groundbreaking event in Boyle Heights for the California portion of its L.A. to Phoenix fiber route. The project will help serve residents in East L.A. and extend to communities in Barstow and Needles (the route totals 306 miles, but only 40 are within L.A. County limits).

Joint-build or construction projects require more time because workers have to dig into the ground and put fiber in. But areas with lease or purchase agreements could begin connecting people as early as summer 2025.

“You don't have to permit, you don't have to close down lanes of the freeway in L.A. And you can just get that into those communities as quickly as possible,” Bailey-Crimmins said.

All projects must be completed by December 2026.

A crew of four moon-bound astronauts will remain on the ground for at least a month after NASA delayed the launch of the Artemis II mission. During critical pre-launch testing Monday, mission managers uncovered a number of issues that prevented the completion of the test.

NASA is now planning a March launch date for the four astronauts — three from the U.S. and one from Canada — on a ten-day mission to circle the moon and return to Earth, traveling farther than any humans have ventured into deep space.

Issues leading to that delay began about an hour into Monday's test, known as the wet dress rehearsal. As the team began fueling the rocket at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sensors picked up a hydrogen leak. Super-chilled hydrogen is used as the fuel for the massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

Hydrogen is an efficient propellant for rockets — but its molecules are so tiny and light they can escape even the tightest of seals. Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson said they had troubleshooted the initial leak, but when they began to pressurize the tank, another leak surfaced.

"And so as we began that pressurization, we did see that the leak within the cavity came up pretty quick," said Blackwell-Thompson.

(L/R) NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya, NASA Associate Administrator Lori Glaze, launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, and manager of NASA's Space Launch System Program, John Honeycutt, hold a news conference on the Artemis II mission at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Tuesday.

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Miguel J. Rodriguez Carrillo

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AFP via Getty Images

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Hydrogen leaks plagued testing of NASA's Artemis I mission in 2022. Blackwell-Thompson said lessons learned from that uncrewed flight were utilized for Artemis II, but there's more investigation is needed.

The wet dress rehearsal uncovered other issues — including a problem with the Orion capsule, which will carry the crew to the moon. While no one was on board Monday, teams practiced preparing the spacecraft for its passengers. A valve that pressurizes the vehicle required additional attention and took more time to close the hatch than anticipated.

Teams also uncovered issues with cameras due to cold weather and audio dropouts across communication channels. "As always, safety remains our top priority, for our astronauts, our workforce, our systems and the public," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman in a post on X, and that NASA will only launch when the agency is ready.

Work now begins to fix the issues. NASA will require another wet dress rehearsal before giving the "GO" to put astronauts on board. "All in all, a very successful day for us on many fronts," said Blackwell-Thompson. "Then, on many others, we got some work we've got to go do."

The earliest launch window for another attempt is March 6. NASA has additional launch opportunities on March 7, 8, 9 and 11.

The crew of NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen were released from quarantine and will remain in Houston, Texas. They'll re-enter quarantine about 14 days ahead of the next launch attempt and make the trip to the Kennedy Space Center six days before liftoff.

Artemis II is testing key systems of the Orion spacecraft, like its maneuverability and life support systems, ahead of the planned Artemis III mission that will take humans to the lunar surface. The Artemis II will mark the first time humans have returned to the moon since the final Apollo lunar mission in 1972.
Copyright 2026 NPR

A trial got underway Tuesday in a case alleging that Huntington Beach illegally dilutes the power of Latino voters with its at-large election system.

Cities across Orange County and elsewhere in California have faced similar challenges over the past decade. Most have settled out of court by adopting by-district elections, where voters only vote on a city council representative from their area, rather than requiring candidates to run citywide. A notable exception is Santa Monica — the city has been fighting a challenge to its at-large election system in court for nearly 10 years.

Now, Huntington Beach is following suit.

The case was brought by the nonprofit group Southwest Voter Registration Education Project and Victor Valladares, a Huntington Beach resident and Democratic Party activist. It’s being heard by Orange County Superior Court Judge Craig L. Griffin.

The argument against at-large city elections

The plaintiffs allege Latino voters can’t elect a candidate of their choice under the current system, in violation of the California Voting Rights Act. This alleged dilution of Latino voting power, they say, leads to poor representation and negative consequences for the city’s majority-Latino Oak View neighborhood.

“Their needs get ignored,” Kevin Shenkman, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, said during his opening statement Tuesday. “It is a natural result of the at-large election system.”

Latinos make up about 20% of the population in Huntington Beach. Under a draft map of electoral districts drawn up by demographer David Ely, a witness for the plaintiffs, the district that includes the Oak View neighborhood would be 40% Latino. Plaintiffs argued this would give residents more power to elect a city councilmember who represents their interests.

The city’s defense of at-large elections

In their opening argument, lawyers representing Huntington Beach argued that Latinos in Huntington Beach are spread across the city and politically diverse.

The city’s lawyers also argued that recent elections of Latino city council members, including MMA star Tito Ortiz in 2020 and Gracey Van Der Mark in 2022, prove the city’s current at-large election system doesn’t impede Latino residents’ ability to participate in the local political process.

“The system works, it’s not broken, and the evidence will show that at trial,” said Anthony Taylor, one of the attorneys representing Huntington Beach.

The trial is expected to last into next week.

Go deeper

• Why were AI-equipped police cameras installed in this majority Latino Huntington Beach neighborhood?
• Huntington Beach's controversial voter ID law is illegal
• Voting by district gives Latino candidates a boost in Orange County
• District elections mean big governing changes for many California cities

In a week when temperatures are 20 degrees above average in parts of Southern California, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the county’s first heat action plan.

The plan lays out strategies to achieve three goals in coming decades: cooler outdoor spaces, cooler indoor spaces and better public education about the dangers of heat.

The blueprint, approved Tuesday, comes as L.A. County and the world are experiencing longer, hotter and deadlier heat waves as a result of pollution trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. It’s one of the only such plans in the region dedicated to extreme heat.

Why it matters

Already, heat is responsible for the deaths of more than 200 people each year in L.A. County, as well as thousands of emergency room visits. Since the 1980s, summer temperatures, particularly in the valleys and inland areas, have risen on average 3 degrees, with expected increases as high as 8 degrees on average in certain areas, such as the Antelope Valley, according to the plan.

A graph from the new L.A. County Heat Action Plan.

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Courtesy LA County Chief Sustainability Office

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Unless global pollution is dramatically reduced, by 2050, average temperatures in L.A. County are expected to rise nearly 4 degrees. The valleys and inland regions will see the highest heat: The San Gabriel Valley could see the number of extreme heat days above 95 degrees go from 32 a year to 74. But coastal areas won’t be spared: Long Beach could see extreme heat days quadruple, from just four days on average above 95 degrees to 16, according to local projections.

Nights are getting hotter even faster, disrupting sleep and impacting health in ways we don’t yet understand — 41% of L.A. County residents who responded to a survey for the heat action plan reported trouble sleeping on very hot nights.

“We needed to develop an all-of-government framework for dealing with rising temperatures,” said Ali Frazzini, policy director with the county’s sustainability office.

Nights are heating up faster than days as a result of climate change, affecting our sleep and health in ways we don't yet fully understand.

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Courtesy L.A. County CSO

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An invisible threat

The plan includes goals for strategies such as replacing blacktop at schools, installing shade structures, and enforcing renter protections for safe indoor temperatures.

“There wasn't the same level of centralization and systems for responding to and adapting to heat as we see with some of our other hazards,” Frazzini said.

Unlike earthquakes or wildfires, heat is something of an invisible threat, she said — it’s ubiquitous, though experienced in unequal ways, and it doesn’t cause extensive property damage. It’s not confined to certain regions.

Despite being the leading weather-related cause of death in the U.S. and here in Southern California, heat is not officially recognized as a disaster at a state or federal level, which limits funding support for public health interventions. The county hopes the plan will unify its efforts across departments and draw more state and federal funding to protect public health.

Strategies to live in a hotter LA 

The plan builds on four years of work since 2021, when the county released its first climate vulnerability assessment.

“That assessment told us where our problems were and what they were, and this plan now tells us how to address them,” said Rita Kampalath, the county’s chief sustainability officer.

Most of the strategies highlighted in the plan are in progress, though many have faced serious delays. For example, one goal includes adding shade structures to all L.A. County bus stops by 2045 — county leaders have attempted to do this for decades, and progress has been extremely slow. Other goals include greening schools and planting trees in neighborhoods with the least shade. Efforts to green schools have faced stops and starts due to funding challenges and lack of planning, though there is progress. And planting trees where they’re most needed has proved to be a lot more difficult than it may seem.

Despite the challenges of implementing the ideas, V. Kelly Turner, a heat researcher at UCLA who served on an advisory group for the plan, said "one thing the L.A. County heat action plan gets fundamentally right is that it centers people and the everyday ways that heat becomes a disruptor to daily life."

Another unique aspect of the plan, she said, is that it used shade data, not only temperature data, to inform its strategies.

"Few cities around the world are using shade maps to systematically inform heat resilience planning," she said. "So, in that respect, the county's heat action plan is truly a leader."

Below are some selected facts and figures from the plan.

Goals for 2045:

• Install functional shade structures at 100% of L.A. County bus stops. 
• Achieve 20% tree canopy in unincorporated areas. 
• Replace 1,600 acres of pavement at schools and public spaces.
• Enforce new rules that require landlords to keep units below 82 degrees.
• Reduce energy burden for low-income households to 4% of monthly budget.
• Create 30% more county cooling centers for 234 regionwide by 2045, as well as support solar and battery installation at trusted indoor community spaces.