The Brief

NEW YORK (AP) — Skydance-owned Paramount on Friday agreed to delay closing its $81 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery well into next year, as a judge continues to consider a challenge from 12 states seeking to block the deal altogether.

In a court filing, Paramount said it wouldn’t close the merger until five days “after the merits determination in these matters” or June 1, 2027. The move arrives just days after U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted a temporary restraining order requested by the states to freeze the transaction for several weeks.

Twelve states, led by California, sued to block Paramount’s pending buyout of Warner last month — alleging that such a combination would “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly moviegoers and cable customers. Paramount has called the states’ claims meritless and vowed to “vigorously defend” its merger.

Homelessness went up in Los Angeles this year following two previous years of declines, according to official homeless count findings released Friday.

The population of people living outdoors in the city of L.A. grew by 7.9% between early 2025 and 2026, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA. The agency considers the increase statistically significant.

When including people in shelters, a total of 45,194 people were living either outside, in vehicles and tents, or in homeless shelters.

The increase was even higher in the central Metro region of the city that includes Skid Row. There, the unsheltered count was up 21% year over year, per LAHSA, which considers it statistically significant.

Meanwhile, the count of people living outdoors in the rest of L.A. County — outside the city of L.A. — dropped by about 3%, based on the official count data.

The findings are a setback for the region — especially for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who is campaigning for reelection against City Councilmember Nithya Raman and frequently touts prior declines in the homeless counts as evidence her approach is working.

Bass, who took office at the end of 2022 and set addressing homelessness as her top priority, was not at the homeless count news conference Friday — a departure from the previous three years.

When including sheltered and unsheltered people, total homelessness count was up 3.4% in the city of L.A. That includes the 7.9% increase in unsheltered people (up by 2,143 people) and a 3.9% decrease in sheltered people (down by 644 people). LAHSA does not consider the change in sheltered and total numbers to be statistically significant, but says the unsheltered increase is.

The latest count took place in January of this year. The prior count was in February of last year, following a delay due to the January 2025 wildfires.The city’s unsheltered population grew to about 29,000, after previously dropping a total of 17.5% across the first two years of counts in Bass’ mayoral term.

Meanwhile, the city’s sheltered population — people living in group shelters, hotel rooms and tiny homes — declined to around 16,000 at the time of the count.

Local officials expressed frustration over the results.

“It felt like we had turned a corner these past few years and this latest count feels like a setback,” said L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn.

“This year’s numbers are disappointing, but not surprising,” said a statement from Councilmember Nithya Raman, who has chaired the city council’s homelessness committee for the last several years and is running for mayor against Bass.

“Leadership at City Hall has not shown the willingness to shift toward an approach that actually moves people into permanent housing,” she added. “These results make clear that the Mayor’s approach is not working well enough.”

A dramatic lead-up to the count’s release

In an unusual move, Bass acknowledged that L.A.’s numbers had gone up before the count’s official release. She responded to a report late Wednesday by Fox 11 citing anonymous sources who had been briefed on the findings.

In statements earlier this week, Bass blamed the local increase in homelessness on a range of factors, primarily state funding cuts she said led to fewer permanent housing placements and some federal policy changes she said worsened the affordability crisis and caused instability.

“For two years straight, we drove down homelessness by historic margins — but as expected, last year our efforts ultimately couldn’t keep up with policies and funding cuts at the federal and state levels that pushed more people onto the streets,” Bass said in a statement.

Last year, the city and county’s homeless populations dropped by 3.4% and 4%, respectively. The 2024 count also showed a decline — those numbers were smaller and within the count’s margin of error.

L.A.’s homeless count doesn’t provide a complete picture of homelessness year-round. It doesn’t include people who are couch surfing or living doubled up with others, people staying in motels on their own dime, or those inside hospitals and jails.

The point-in-time census — conducted by LAHSA across a few nights in January — provides a data snapshot. Local officials use it to gauge year-to-year fluctuations and it also helps the federal government determine how millions of dollars in federal homelessness grants flow.

That could be especially important this year, after the Trump administration suspended LAHSA from federal homelessness funding while it investigates alleged mismanagement by the agency. LAHSA sued to undo that federal freeze, with a hearing scheduled in U.S. District Court on Aug. 6.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass waits to speak during a news conference in Los Angeles.

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Mario Tama

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Getty Images

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How we got here

Los Angeles has long been the epicenter of U.S. homelessness. The city’s unhoused population began surging about a decade ago — years before the national count did, and is now up 59% since 2016.

The crisis also peaked in L.A. before the rest of the country. L.A.’s unhoused population crested in 2023. At a single point in time that year, 1 in 83 city residents were experiencing homelessness — 1.2% of the city's population or roughly six times the national rate, according to LAHSA and U.S. Census data.

Nationwide, the unhoused population count continued climbing for another year, reaching a record high in 2024 of 1 in 435 U.S. residents, or roughly 0.23% of the population, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

That year, the city was home to just over 1% of the nation’s total population, but nearly 6% of its unhoused population.

As L.A.’s unhoused population multiplied, so did the taxpayer spending.

Voters in the city and county have repeatedly approved tax measures related to homelessness, adding billions of public dollars aimed at the crisis.

Together, Measure H, passed in 2017, Measure ULA, passed in 2022, and Measure A, passed in 2024, have increased city and county resources by about $6 billion. That's on top of Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond voters approved in 2016 to build supportive housing.

In 2016, the city of Los Angeles budgeted about $139 million a year to address homelessness. By 2026, the city's annual homelessness budget has grown to nearly $1 billion, alongside growing L.A. County homelessness dollars.

Funding for LAHSA, a joint city-county homelessness agency, grew ten-fold since 2016 to more than $800 million.

While funding sources fluctuated, LAHSA revenues increased in the budget years preceding this year’s homeless count, according to LAHSA’s audited financial statements.

Between 2016 and 2025, the L.A. region’s homeless services system roughly doubled in size from about 34,500 beds to about 69,600, according to HUD's housing inventory reports for the region.

Officials and experts have attributed much of L.A.’s homelessness to a housing affordability crisis in which rent has become more unaffordable to people making very low incomes. L.A.’s expanded shelter system has not kept pace with the number of people falling into homelessness.

LAHSA says the number of newly unhoused people seeking services each year has grown 30% between 2022 and 2025.

For every person housed by the homeless services system over the past year, about 2.3 newly unhoused people sought out services, LASHA said.

While in office, Bass has pursued a “housing first” strategy focused on relocating unhoused people from tent and RV encampments into hotel rooms and other shelter settings.

That approach, which includes Bass’ signature Inside Safe program, helped move thousands of tents and people off the street and in hotel rooms, but costs three times as much as other shelter options, according to a city analysis.

About 41% of the people who’ve participated in the program since it began have returned to homelessness, according to LAHSA’s Inside Safe data dashboard. Bass defends the program, but has said it needs to reduce costs.

L.A. City and county leaders expanded the L.A. homelessness response system primarily by adding fast, short-term solutions like emergency shelter beds and temporary rental subsidies. They lagged behind, in comparison, on permanent supportive housing, service providers said.

The number of people permanently housed by the system declined from about 28,600 in 2024 to 25,532 last year, according to data provided by LAHSA Friday.

Placements into shelter and permanent supportive housing went down this year, while the number of people returning to the streets after being in shelter went up.

Family homelessness decreased by 14%, according to LAHSA’s data, but the agency said that likely reflects a recent decline in the supply of family resources, not demand.

LAHSA also broke findings down by region. The Metro LA and East L.A. areas each saw their unsheltered populations rise by about 20%, the agency found. In the Antelope Valley, unsheltered homelessness dropped 37%.

Tents for unhoused people are seen on a Skid Row sidewalk.

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Frederic J. Brown

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AFP via Getty Images

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Follow the money 

Los Angeles homelessness officials said even with increased local spending, much of the current system has relied on state and federal dollars, including one-time pandemic dollars. Dips and changes in those funding sources had consequences for this year’s count, they said.

Bass said reductions last year to the state of California’s Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention grant program, known as HHAP, “severely impacted our work to keep people housed and get more Angelenos off the streets.”

Bass did not respond to multiple interview requests by LAist seeking comment on the latest homeless count results.

In the 2024-25 budget year, state funding made up just under $115 million, or 13% of LAHSA's overall budget. Then, in 2025-26, those sources of state funding dropped 26% to about $85 million, or 9% of the agency's budget, according to LAHSA reports.

But LAHSA's overall budget held roughly flat. Decreases in state funding were largely made up for by year-over-year increases in city and federal dollars.

LAHSA officials said during Friday’s presentation that this year’s increase in homelessness reflects major cuts to a rental-subsidy program it administers known as Time Limited Subsidies, or TLS. The agency also cited drops in state revenue.

The program provides up to two years of rental assistance to formerly unhoused people in private-market apartments, relying on a mix of county, city, federal and state dollars. Funding for L.A.’s time-limited subsidies declined by nearly half before this year's homeless count — from $240 million in 2024-25 to $123 million in 2025-26, according to LAHSA figures presented to the L.A. City Council.

More than 3,000 households housed through the program about a year ago were slated to lose those subsidies by the end of last month.

Local service providers told LAist they saw deep cuts to their time-limited subsidy programs.

“Without these subsidies, people are staying in shelters longer because they cannot secure housing, reducing available shelter capacity and leaving more individuals with nowhere to go but the streets,” said Jennifer Hark Dietz, CEO of PATH.

John Maceri, CEO of The People Concern, said a freeze on federal rental vouchers is adding pressure.

“The entire system is being slowed down, and we’ll continue to see less throughput as permanent housing options aren’t available,” Maceri told LAist.

Trump administration pressure

Regional officials and service providers also say federal policies, funding cuts and proposed cuts are also driving L.A.’s homelessness crisis — and could make it worse.

“The Trump administration's reckless policies threaten to deepen the homelessness crisis by prioritizing tax breaks and benefits for the wealthiest Americans and corporations while cutting programs that working families and vulnerable residents rely on,” L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis said.

A Bass spokesperson echoed the sentiment in a statement to LAist: “Rising gas prices, healthcare costs, tariffs, and grocery bills — that puts more people at risk of homelessness.”

Local officials also point out the federal government is actively trying to reduce the level of funding that can go toward permanent housing in L.A. and nationwide.

Meanwhile, the full effects of many of the federal policy changes local officials are worried about have yet to kick in, experts said.

“We could start seeing homelessness increase again in the near future primarily because of harmful federal changes to basic need programs like Medi-Cal, CalFresh, and changes in HUD programs — all which will make it even more difficult for individuals and families to afford their homes,” said Monica Davalos, an analyst with the California Budget & Policy Center.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath said the homeless count results are just one data point, not the whole picture.

“People experiencing homelessness — and the communities impacted by this crisis — care less about esoteric debates over the numbers,” Horvath said.

“They care more about what they see on our streets.“Housing production, affordability, and supportive services are the biggest drivers of lasting change, and getting people housed permanently is the change L.A. needs," she added.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nearly 150,000 California voters had their mail-in ballots rejected for the state’s June primary, a spike from recent elections even as the state attempts to make voting easier with the goal of boosting participation and counting every ballot.

California has become notorious for its ponderously slow vote counts that can drag on for weeks and sometimes longer, largely the result of multiple changes over the years that were intended to increase turnout but have done little to achieve that. Among the changes: Every voter receives a mail-in ballot that can arrive at an election office seven days late and still be counted, provided the envelope is postmarked by Election Day.

Yet even with that generous weeklong window, the primary driver of the higher rejection numbers is late-arriving ballots, according to data compiled by the secretary of state’s office. Voting experts suspect the main problem is postmarks on ballots that came after Election Day, making them ineligible to be counted. The culprit could be U.S. Postal Service changes that might affect the timing of when postmarks are applied.

Late-arriving ballots drove the rejections

According to state data, 148,241 mail ballots were rejected in the June election, or a rate of 1.73% of all mail ballots.

In raw numbers, that’s up from the 2024 primary, when 108,982 mail ballots were rejected, or a 1.56% rate. In 2022, 105,818 mail ballots were voided during the primary, or a rate similar to 2024.

Lateness accounted for 93,479 rejected ballots in June, by far the largest category for disqualifying a ballot. That was up from about 70,000 in the 2022 primary and about 76,000 in the 2024 primary, though turnout in those elections was smaller compared to last June.

Kim Alexander, president of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, said the jump in rejected ballots because of lateness is a major concern that — along with postal procedures — might also be connected to a late surge in ballots in June. Many voters waited until the final days to make a decision in a wide-open and chaotic race for governor.

“Ballots rejected due to lateness are caused primarily to being postmarked too late to count, not because they arrived too late to count,” Alexander wrote in an email.

Rejection rates have fluctuated over time, but the growing number of those set aside for lateness compared to recent elections “does really demand the question why this is happening,” said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, a nonpartisan research group.

Lawmakers concerned about USPS postmark changes

In January, a group of mostly Democratic U.S. senators sent a letter to the U.S. Postal Service, alarmed that mail-processing changes might affect postmark dates for mail-in ballots during an election year that will determine control of Congress.

Updated agency policy says postmarks might not indicate the first day the Postal Service received the mail, but rather the day it was handled in one of its processing centers. Those centers are increasingly likely to be further away from certain communities because of recent consolidations within the Postal Service, which could further delay postmarks.

On Thursday, two Wisconsin Democrats, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Gov. Tony Evers, called on the Postal Service to address delays that caused hundreds of ballots to arrive after Election Day in the state in April. In June, a federal judge halted President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot.

Earlier this year, California election officials urged voters to send their mail ballots early, warning that Postal Service changes could lead to slower mail service.

In California, the highest mail ballot rejection rate in June — 3.52% — was in Tulare County, in the agriculture-heavy Central Valley. It was followed by Alpine County, south of Lake Tahoe, and Merced County, also in the Central Valley, which both notched a 3.36% rejection rate.

Mismatched signatures and multiple ballots in an envelope

Nearly 44,000 ballots were set aside because the voter’s signature didn’t match the one on record with county officials. Over 8,300 ballots were rejected because there was no signature on the returned ballot envelope.

In 743 cases, the voter had already cast a ballot, so the mail ballot was voided. Other reasons for rejection included a ballot being missing from the return envelope, or multiple ballots were sent back in a single envelope.

The data didn’t break down the uncounted ballots by party registration.

Florida, Texas and other large population states quickly wrap up vote counting, while California is a national laggard.

After the June primary, President Donald Trump seized on California’s reputation as the national slowpoke in vote counting to renew his long-standing criticism of the state’s elections, while the Republican’s Department of Justice launched an investigation into Los Angeles County’s elections.

There is no indication of any widespread problems with mail voting, which has gained in popularity among Democrats and Republicans alike. A report by the Brookings Institution published in 2025 found that the number of cases of mail voting fraud was minuscule — about four cases per 10 million mail ballots.