Topline:
Firefighters appeared to make quick progress against a brush fire the broke out Wednesday near the Getty Center.
What we know so far: As of 5 p.m., evacuation warnings had been issued for zones LFD-0895 and LF-0967, although the LAFD said no structures were immediately threatened as the water-dropping helicopters attacked the fire from above.
Read on ... for more on evacuations and weather conditions.
This story is no longer being actively updated. For the most up-to-date information about the fire you can check:
Firefighters appeared to make quick progress against a brush fire the broke out Wednesday near the Getty Center.
As of 5 p.m., evacuation warnings had been issued for zones LFD-0895 and LF-0967, although the LAFD said no structures were immediately threatened as the water-dropping helicopters attacked the fire from above. Forward progress of the fire was reported stopped shortly after 6 p.m. at a little over 20 acres.
The fire broke out as Southern California endures high heat and record-breaking humidity.
Check out LAist's wildfire recovery guide
If you have to evacuate:
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Topline:
Billy Idol, Oasis, Wu-Tang Clan, Phil Collins, Sade, Queen Latifah, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order and the late Luther Vandross will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday. But the list of who will show up and perform is getting shorter daily and looking awfully thin.
Who won't be attending: Sade’s representative told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she won’t attend, a day after fans learned that Oasis will be a no-show. Iron Maiden and key members of New Order previously revealed they aren’t coming. And Phil Collins is likely to appear but not play. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame may make a few announcements later this week about who is inducting the new members and who may perform their songs in their place, although organizers like to keep much of the show a surprise.
How to watch: For the second straight year, the ceremony that moves between Cleveland, New York and Los Angeles will be held at the Peacock Theater in downtown L.A. After two years of streaming it live, the Rock Hall is returning to its previous model, where the public won’t see it until an edited version airs on ABC and Disney+ in December.
Read on... for a complete list of this year's honorees.
Billy Idol, Oasis, Wu-Tang Clan, Phil Collins, Sade, Queen Latifah, Iron Maiden, Joy Division/New Order and the late Luther Vandross will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday.
But the list of who will show up and perform is getting shorter daily and looking awfully thin, and it’s difficult to know what the ceremony will look like with so many artists not playing the sets that define the show.
Sade’s representative told The Associated Press on Tuesday that she won’t attend, a day after fans learned that Oasis will be a no-show. Iron Maiden and key members of New Order previously revealed they aren’t coming. And Phil Collins is likely to appear but not play.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame may make a few announcements later this week about who is inducting the new members and who may perform their songs in their place, although organizers like to keep much of the show a surprise.
For the second straight year, the ceremony that moves between Cleveland, New York and Los Angeles will be held at the Peacock Theater in downtown L.A. After two years of streaming it live, the Rock Hall is returning to its previous model, where the public won’t see it until an edited version airs on ABC and Disney+ in December.
The list of 2026 honorees also includes MC Lyte, Celia Cruz, Fela Kuti and Gram Parsons, along with music producers Rick Rubin, Linda Creed, Arif Mardin and Jimmy Miller and variety show host Ed Sullivan.
Here’s a closer look at the nominees and what we know about the show.
Eight of this year’s inductees came in through the main entrance — the performer category. A nominating committee put them up for a vote from more than 1,200 people, including music industry figures and historians. Artists become eligible for the hall 25 years after their first music release, but it can take much longer for them to be nominated.
The 75-year-old English singer, songwriter and drummer is already in the hall as a member of Genesis and now gets in again for a solo career that brought some of the biggest hits of the 1980s.
The eight-time Grammy winner got in with his first solo nomination and had been eligible since 2006.
Will he perform? No. Collins has said the health problems that have kept him off the stage since 2022 will keep him from performing Saturday. But he is likely to appear to accept the honor.
Key songs: “In the Air Tonight,” “Against All Odds,” “One More Night,” “You’ll Be in My Heart.”
First, a head-scratching fact that even big fans may not know. Sade is the name of the band. For real. It is also the first name of its Nigeria-born, England-raised lead singer Sade Adu, making many think she’s a solo act.
But she’ll be inducted along with the members of her band, who entranced audiences with their blend of jazz, smooth-and-sultry R&B and sophisti-pop when they launched in Britain in the mid-1980s.
Will they perform? No. Many fans had hoped they would take the stage together for the first time since 2011, but Adu’s representative says she won’t be attending the ceremony.
Key songs: “Smooth Operator,” “No Ordinary Love,” “Like a Tattoo,” “Kiss of Life”
The 70-year-old punk-coded English rock singer had also been eligible for the hall since 2006, and voters put him in after his second nomination.
Will he perform? Yes. Idol, who toured the US in summer and had a residency in Las Vegas, plans to play and says he’s going to “bring it” when he does.
Key songs: “Dancing With Myself,” “White Wedding,” “Rebel Yell,” “Eyes Without a Face.”
The epic hip-hop coalition from Staten Island — made up of RZA, GZA, Method Man, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Masta Killa and previously, the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard — got into the hall with their first nomination. They had been eligible since 2017.
They’ve been hip-hop innovators since their 1993 debut album, “Enter the Wu-Tang.”
Will they perform? Maybe. They toured together just last year on what was billed as a farewell tour.
Key songs: “C.R.E.A.M.,” “Protect Ya Neck,” “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing Ta F’ Wit,” “Gravel Pit.”
The famously feuding brothers of Brit pop, Noel and Liam Gallagher, enter the hall with their second nomination. They’ve been eligible since 2019. At 54, Liam Gallagher is the youngest inductee of the class of 2026. They enter the hall a year after a reunion tour that brought them back together for the first time in 16 years, and they’ve announced they’ll do it again next year.
Will they perform? No. Noel Gallagher has announced a solo set at a London jazz festival on Saturday. And Rolling Stone reports that his little brother, who has sneered at the idea of the hall since becoming eligible for it, won’t be there either.
Key Songs: “Wonderwall,” “Live Forever,” “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” “Champagne Supernova.”
The two British rock bands will get a rare joint nomination that makes sense given their members and circumstances.
Joy Division was a dark and seminal post-punk band formed in 1976. When their charismatic lead singer, Ian Curtis, died in 1980, the remaining members formed New Order, which went in the direction of electronic and dance music.
Will they perform? Maybe in some form. Key New Order members Gillian Gilbert and Stephen Morris, who are married, told Vulture in September that neither will make the trip because Gilbert is being treated for cancer. The bassist for both bands, Peter Hook, has been estranged from his mates for many years, and has long performed the two groups’ songs with his own band, Peter Hook and the Light. His representative declined to say whether he’ll attend.
Joy Division had been eligible since 2003 and got in with their third nomination.
Key songs: “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” “Disorder,” “Blue Monday,” “Bizarre Love Triangle.”
The scorching rock band who led the new wave of British heavy metal starting in the late 1970s got an induction that many thought was long overdue.
Will they perform? No. Iron Maiden are together and thriving, but so much so that they’re on tour in Australia and won’t be appearing to accept or to play.
Voters installed them on their third nomination. They’d been eligible since 2005.
Key songs: “The Trooper,” “Fear of the Dark,” “Run to the Hills,” “Aces High.”
The love songs of Luther Vandross, delivered with a voice of velvet, made him one of the definitive R&B singers of his era.
The solo career of the New Jersey-born Vandross began in the early 1980s, and he went on to win eight Grammys and have 11 consecutive platinum albums.
He was also a songwriter, producer and one of pop music’s great collaborators with artists including Rock Hall members David Bowie and Aretha Franklin.
Vandross was 54 when he died in 2005.
He’s been eligible since the year after his death, but did not get a nomination until this year, and was voted in on the first ballot.
Key songs: “Never Too Much,” “Dance With My Father,” “I’d Rather,” “Here and Now.”
Some inductees are brought in through a sort of side door, getting awards handed out by committees. But they’re still considered full-fledged hall members. Rubin and the other three producer-inductees are all recipients of the Musical Excellence Award. Sullivan is getting the Ahmet Ertegun Award for non-musicians.
And the following five artists are getting in by receiving the Early Influence Award.
The 56-year-old New Jersey-born Queen Latifah achieved unprecedented success for a female rapper, becoming a star at age 19 with the release of her 1989 album “All Hail the Queen” and the single “Ladies First.”
She later became known more for her acting in film and television, including a role in “Chicago” that got her an Oscar nomination.
Will she perform? Probably. It hasn’t been made official, but all signs point to yes.
Key songs: “U.N.I.T.Y.,” “Ladies First,” “When You’re Good to Mama.”
About two years before Latifah in nearby Brooklyn, MC Lyte did her own trailblazing, becoming the first female rapper to release a full solo album, “Lyte as a Rock.”
Her hard-edged rhymes brought a political consciousness that was growing in hip-hop at the time.
Will she perform? Almost certainly. The 56-year-old has been doing a “Road to the Hall” concert tour in the run-up to the ceremony.
Key songs: “Keep on Keepin’ On,” “Cold Rock a Party,” “Ruffneck.”
The queen of salsa and innovator and spreader of Afro-Cuban sounds and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century, the Havana-born singer Cruz becomes the first member of the Hall of Fame who sang primarily in Spanish.
She was 77 when she died in 2003.
Key songs: “Vasos Vacíos,” “La Vida Es Un Carnaval,” “El Último Adiós.”
The Nigerian saxophonist, bandleader, progenitor and activist who died in 1997 at age 58 becomes the first African-born artist to enter the Hall of Fame in the same year he became the first African artist to receive the Grammys’ Lifetime Achievement Award.
He was born in 1938 in colonial Nigeria. His music career, which spanned the late 1950s up to the 1990s, is a signature blend of high-octane horn, jazz, and funk with Yoruba rhythms.
Key songs: “Water No Get Enemy,” “Zombie,” “Let’s Start.”
Arguably the most important figure in rock’s turn toward country in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, Parsons joined the Byrds for their very country “Sweetheart of the Rodeo,” was a founding member of the Flying Burrito Brothers, and made a pair of solo records where he duetted with a folk singer he discovered named Emmylou Harris, launching her storied country career.
He was 26 when he died in 1973.
Key songs: “Hickory Wind,” “Love Hurts,” “Return of the Grievous Angel.”
Topline:
When Nithya Raman becomes mayor of Los Angeles next month, she’ll have just a year and a half to deliver on a huge promise she made with a summer 2028 deadline: cutting street homelessness by 50%.
The background: Raman's plan may have some Angelenos feeling déjà vu. Soon after then-Mayor Eric Garcetti made the deal for the city to host the 2028 Games in 2018, he promised to all but eliminate street homelessness before the Summer Games. More than eight years later, homelessness remains the city’s most visible crisis, with more than 29,000 unsheltered people in Los Angeles, according to the latest point-in-time count.
Raman's plan: The mayor-elect says she can drastically reduce street homelessness by moving away from Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe model, which focuses on getting people out of encampments and into motels, and prioritizing getting people quickly onto rental subsidies and into more long-term housing.
Read on... for comment from experts on homelessness and concerns about encampment sweeps ahead of 2028.
When Nithya Raman becomes mayor of Los Angeles next month, she’ll have just a year and a half to deliver on a huge promise she made with a summer 2028 deadline.
Raman has laid out a plan for moving people off the streets that she says will cut street homelessness by 50% in time for the Olympics and eliminate long-term encampments by the end of her first term.
That may have some Angelenos feeling déjà vu. Soon after then-Mayor Eric Garcetti made the deal for the city to host the Games, in 2018 he promised to all but eliminate street homelessness before the Olympics.
More than eight years later, homelessness remains the city’s most visible crisis, with more than 29,000 unsheltered people in Los Angeles, according to the latest point-in-time count. Under Mayor Karen Bass, unsheltered homelessness in L.A. has dropped by around 11% overall since its 2023 peak, but rose this year, per the homeless count.
Now, Mayor-elect Raman says she can drastically reduce street homelessness by moving away from Bass’ Inside Safe model, which focuses on getting people out of encampments and into motels. Instead, Raman says she will prioritize getting people quickly onto rental subsidies and into more long-term housing.
Success would mean bucking a long-standing tradition of city leaders pledging to slash homelessness and underdelivering.
“I've been hearing those promises for a very long time, but they were always dramatically over-promised,” said Gary Blasi, a UCLA professor of law emeritus, who has followed homelessness policy in Los Angeles for 40 years.
Raman campaigned criticizing the Inside Safe program that Bass staked her first term on as too slow and too costly, saying the city needed to invest in other solutions. Since late 2022, the city has placed 5,800 people into interim housing through Inside Safe, but 40% have returned to homelessness, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
“Motel rooms are our most expensive intervention — they should be used like emergency rooms to help people stabilize quickly and then move onto their next step,” Raman wrote in a document released during her campaign laying out her homelessness strategy.
Raman's plan for addressing encampments is to move people out of motel rooms within four months and expand a program that provides unhoused individuals with rental subsidies and case management for up to two years to move people into housing more quickly. On the campaign trail, Bass’s team criticized Raman’s strategy as “unrealistic,” saying it relied on private landlords renting to people who had been living on the street.
Experts on homelessness told LAist that Raman’s promise to halve street homelessness in a year and a half was a stretch — but if the mayor-elect could make a significant reduction by 2028, that would be a victory.
“The plan is ambitious, it's bold, and I think that's a good thing,” said Alex Visotzky, senior California policy fellow at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “When you set an ambitious and bold goal, you tend to get farther than you might have without the goal.”
Steve Lopez, the longtime L.A. Times columnist who has covered homelessness in the city for decades, had a harsher take.
“I cringe when I hear such grandiose proclamations,” Lopez wrote after Raman declared victory last week, citing a laundry list of societal issues outside of mayoral control: income inequality, mental health problems and the high cost of building new housing.
Raman's 2028 goal comes with additional challenges. The Olympics and Paralympics are expected to displace potentially thousands of unhoused people living near venues, if they are within security perimeters determined by the U.S. Secret Service. There’s still no plan from local officials on how they'll address encampments ahead of the Olympics or where people will go. There’s also no additional funding.
Just last week, the L.A. City Council passed a motion asking staff to report back on how the city will respond to homeless encampments near venues during the Games.
Blasi, the emeritus UCLA professor, said the urgency of 2028 could be an opportunity for the Raman administration to lay the groundwork for longer-term solutions that keep people from returning to homelessness, like establishing more options for permanent housing.
"It's not impossible to come up with a plan that's motivated in part and at least time limited by the Olympics, but doing that in a way that's replicable and solves some of the problems that have bedeviled politicians in L.A. for a long, long time," he said.
Advocates say they’re worried that without advance planning, unhoused people could be swept with nowhere to go, or the federal government could intervene.
“It makes sense to think about the Olympics as a really key kind of deadline where we have to get moving and have to make sure we've gotten people into safer situations,” Visotzky said.
Aaron Schrank contributed to this reporting.
Topline:
The midterm elections saw a “blue tsunami” nationwide with a wave of wins for Democrats — but there’s been a deeper undercurrent locally with candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.
Why now: The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, endorsed nine candidates this past election. Seven of those candidates are winning their races, including in Los Angeles, Burbank, West Hollywood and Inglewood.
Why it matters: “I think we've entered a new era in L.A. politics where owners of single-family properties — these high propensity voters — are no longer calling the shots anymore,” Tom Hogen-Esch, a professor of political science at California State University, Northridge, told LAist.
Read on ...to see where the candidates land.
The midterm elections saw a “blue tsunami” nationwide with a wave of wins for Democrats — but there’s been a deeper undercurrent locally with candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America.
The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, or DSA-LA, endorsed nine candidates this past election.
Seven of those candidates are winning their races, including in Los Angeles, Burbank, West Hollywood and Inglewood. Another candidate secured an appointment on a South Bay school district board and the last race in L.A. City Council District 9 is still too close to call.
Tom Hogen-Esch, a professor of political science at California State University, Northridge, told LAist that with more people entering the bloodstream of local politics in L.A., the region is going to get a more representative electorate that includes a lot of younger voters and renters, for example, which he expects to have had a big impact on election night.
“I think we've entered a new era in L.A. politics where owners of single-family properties — these high propensity voters — are no longer calling the shots anymore,” he said.
However, he said he thinks it’s way too soon to expect any kind of radical populist and socialist-leaning policies in the city.
“I wouldn't expect a revolution from [Raman’s] time as mayor.”
Here’s what we know about how DSA’s influence is shaking out in L.A. and Orange counties.
It was basically a DSA sweep for the biggest Los Angeles city contests.
Nithya Raman will be the next mayor, and Marissa Roy won her city attorney race by a landslide. City Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez in District 1 and Hugo Soto-Martínez in District 13 also won their races outright in the primary.
Burbank is about to have a DSA-majority City Council, which the local chapter said is the “first one ever on the West Coast.”
The DSA members up for election, Mike Van Gorder and Nolan Southerland, are in second and third out of 13 candidates. Van Gorder and Southerland will join current Councilmember Konstantine Anthony to make up the DSA majority on the five-member council.
Angela Gonzales-Torres unseated incumbent Jimmy Gomez in the race for the 34th Congressional District, which includes downtown L.A., Boyle Heights, Eagle Rock and Koreatown. The Highland Park local will be a newcomer to Capitol Hill.
In West Hollywood, public safety commissioner Stephen Post is landing in third out of 14 candidates running for City Council, on track to secure his seat in the chamber.
In the race for Inglewood Unified School District Board of Education, Trustee Area 3, Yaritza González, a policy manager at the Central American Resource Center, has earned more than double the number of votes of her challenger. For the Centinela Valley Union High School District Board, current school board member Estefany Castañeda was the only candidate on the ballot, earning an appointment to Trustee Area 5.
The Orange County chapter made four endorsements in the general election for races in Santa Ana and Irvine.
Councilmember Benjamin Vazquez was running for reelection in Santa Ana City Council Ward 2. He’s winning with more than 74% as of Wednesday, ahead of his challenger by about 4,000 votes.
In Ward 4, DSA-OC endorsed immigrant rights advocate Sandra De Anda. She’s also winning her race at the time of publication, ahead of incumbent Phil Bacerra with 57.5% of the vote.
In Ward 6, Isuri S. Ramos, chair of the Santa Ana Planning Commission, earned the chapter’s endorsement. She was winning with more than 59% of the vote.
Last but not least, it endorsed Measure D in Irvine, which would introduce ranked-choice voting for City Council and mayoral races starting in 2028. As of Wednesday evening, it was passing with a little over 53% of the vote, a margin of about 5,000 vote
Topline:
The Eaton Fire destroyed thousands of homes, including that of a prominent Black artist named John Outterbridge, who died in 2020. Now his daughter, Tami, is asking the arts community for help to recreate his archive as part of "Digging Bridge."
Who was John Outterbridge? A key figure in L.A.’s Black Arts Movement, John was the Watts Towers Art Center’s first director. He lived in Altadena and specialized in assemblage, a style that turns everyday objects into art.
What’s the ask? Tami’s family lost his entire personal archive in the fire. She’s asking the arts community to share their mementos of him for her new project. That community-sourced archive will be turned into exhibits, a documentary and more in honor of John.
How’s it going? So far, she’s collected more than 1,000 submissions just by word of mouth.
Read on... to see LAist’s inside look at some of the donations.
For more than a year, Tami Outterbridge has been spreading the word. If you have a piece of artwork from her father, John Outterbridge, let her know.
Her father was a prominent artist in California’s Black Arts Movement, rooted in civil rights. While John’s work is in places like LACMA in L.A. and MoMA in New York, the Eaton Fire burned down his Altadena home, destroying what remained of his private work and collections.
That’s why Tami is on this mission. She wants anything and everything, from old cellphone pictures to works of art people are willing to part with. Her goal is vast. It includes plans for an exhibit called "Digging Bridge," a community-sourced archive, a documentary and even a book about her father.
“I wish I still had my home,” Tami said. “I wish I still had everything in it, all of my father’s artwork, all of the artwork of his colleagues … but this is redemptive.”
So far, Tami has collected more than 1,000 submissions just by word of mouth.
The name “Digging Bridge” is an ode to her father’s nickname and the effort to salvage belongings from his home’s ashes.
John Outterbridge was a groundbreaking assemblage artist in Southern California. His work was heavily influenced by his military service and his father’s junk-hauling job.
His career started in the 1960s. He used everyday objects — even what some would consider junk — to create three-dimensional works of art that explored themes of Black identity and racism in America. Rags were one of his favorite materials.
Some of John’s earliest works used debris from the Watts uprising in 1965. Among his accomplishments, he spent more than 17 years as the Watts Towers Art Center’s first director. He died at 87 years old in 2020.
Last year, the fire destroyed decades of materials, including slides, photos and artwork.
“That loss in particular spoke to an erasure of legacy, an erasure of history that I didn’t feel like our family or my father deserved,” Tami said. “So it felt very personal.”
Dominique Moody, a highly respected assemblage artist, is one of the people who have responded to Tami’s call from her studio in Historic South Central. John was a mentor to her.
Among other things, Moody is donating part of a shoe installation given to her by John. It was inspired by the time a journalist threw a shoe at President George W. Bush in 2008. The piece consisted of shoes suspended from the ceiling with rags.
“It came after that moment in the nation’s political history and how an ordinary person with a shoe could then spark a conversation around the world,” Moody said.
She’s also creating new pieces for "Digging Bridge," alongside many others from L.A.’s Black Arts Movement, including the Brockman Gallery co-founder Dale Brockman Davis, Charles Dickson, LaMonte Westmoreland and Stanley C. Wilson.
One of Moody’s new artworks uses a charred tree branch and iridescent glass bottles from John’s destroyed home. She said it has “extraordinary sculptural bones.”
“The blackening of it, with assemblage, every material you can imagine can be used,” she said. “Which is why I love it. It is always different.”
Another artist who’s donating to "Digging Bridge" is Emily Hopkins, a teaching artist and former executive director of Side Street Projects, a mobile arts nonprofit based in Zorthian Ranch in Altadena.
Hopkins is also an assemblage artist. She remembers John’s love of stories and keen eye for people. “He was very intuitive. A little bit magical,” she said.
She gave Tami an old photo from around the 1940s that John shared in 2012. It shows him as a young child surrounded by his siblings on a small porch at his childhood home in Greenville, North Carolina. Hopkins recalled that John gave her the photo at a time when she was questioning her life decisions. He picked up on that.
“He said, you know, ‘I’m gonna tell you something. You are an artist, and you do not have a choice,’” Hopkins said. “Then he pulled out this picture and said, ‘In this picture, this is me. I’m an artist.’”
That’s the kind of personal experience Tami is looking for. She wants "Digging Bridge" to go beyond what you would normally see in a museum or read online about John. “You will know him through the stories that we can tell about him,” she said.
