A view of mudslide damage in Los Angeles, California where nearly seven inches of rain had fallen by Monday.
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Mario Tama
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Getty Images
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Topline:
Los Angeles County appears hardest hit in the second of two big storms to hit California in a week. The storm has parked itself over the region, causing debris flows and widespread flooding.
Why it matters: Don't put away those sandbags just yet, because even after a day of record-breaking rainfall, heavy precipitation is expected to continue Monday into Tuesday.
What's next: Throughout the day, the storm should shift slightly to the west, affecting western L.A. and Ventura counties, which have already been getting walloped.
Keep reading... for more details and the latest conditions.
Where to find the latest information
Some resources to make sure you have the most up-to-date information:
Officials urged people in L.A. County to stay vigilant as the second of two atmospheric rivers continues to soak the region, causing floods, downed trees, debris flows and other hazards ahead of what is expected to be another full day of rain on Tuesday.
So far, Los Angeles County has been the hardest hit since the storm parked itself over the region, causing debris flows and widespread flooding.
The storm is expected to head southeast on Tuesday over Riverside and San Diego counties. L.A., meanwhile, will keep getting drenched. An additional 3 to 6 inches is possible before things start to dry out Wednesday.
Downtown L.A. saw 4.1 inches of rain, breaking the previous daily rainfall record of 2.55 inches set in 1927. Sunday was the 10th wettest day in L.A. history.
However, those rainfall totals are mild compared to what we've seen at other weather stations. More than 10 inches of precipitation has fallen on Topanga and Woodland Hills in the western San Fernando Valley.
"Stay safe and off the roads. Only leave your house if it is absolutely necessary," L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said at a news conference Monday.
As of noon Monday, the L.A. Fire Department had rescued trapped motorists, responded to 130 flooding incidents, and 49 reports involving mud and debris flows, officials said.
At around 9 p.m. Sunday, 16 residents were evacuated from nine Studio City homes after a mudslide damaged two structures on Lockridge road. And L.A. firefighters evacuated people from at least three homes affected by debris flows on West Boris Drive in Tarzana. A landslide on Beverly Crest damaged at least six homes, forcing the evacuation of 15 people.
More than 7,200 LADWP customers were without power as of midday.
Flood watches and warnings are in place from Santa Barbara to San Diego counties through Tuesday as the heavy rain is expected to continue.
These long, sustained periods of rain are characteristic of El Niño storms. Warmer than normal waters off the coast — often associated with the climate phenomenon — are juicing our recent storms by sending more heat and water into the atmosphere.
Keep scrolling to see more information on rainfalls, landslides and other critically important information about the storm.
A man walks his dog on the edge of the Los Angeles River, carrying stormwater downstream Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024.
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Damian Dovarganes
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AP
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Areas of high concern
The southbound 405 Freeway at Moraga Drive, where a rock slide is blocking an outside lane.
The 5 Freeway's southbound connector to the 110 Freeway is blocked by a rock slide.
San Bernardino County officials are concerned about the potential amounts of snow falling in the mountain communities from Arrowhead to Big Bear. You'll recall that last year, massive amounts of snow paralyzed the communities, stranding people in their homes, destroying a local grocery store and making it difficult for people to get food and services. They are expecting 2 to 4 feet of snow above 7,000 feet and up to 10 inches in the 5,000 to 6,000 foot level.
The Lost Hills Sheriff's Station says all roads going to and from Malibu are having rock and mud slides. Malibu Canyon Road is closed between Malibu Crest and Mulholland Highway.
Sheriff's officials advise against driving on Kanan Dume Road, Topanga Canyon and other area roads.
Caltrans has closed State Route 23, aka Westlake Boulevard south of East Potrero Road due to flooding.
Pacific Coast Highway between Warner and Seaport in Huntington Beach is closed due to flooding.
Video: High winds on State Route 2 at post mile 57.5 in Angeles Forest this afternoon. SR-2 was already closed from Mt. Wilson Red Box Rd. to Upper Big Tujunga Canyon Rd & Islip Saddle to Vincent Gulch before the storm. STAY OFF mountain routes during this storm. #ACH#stormpic.twitter.com/wBzoSglcTS
It's not uncommon for rocks and mud to flow off steep hillsides and onto roads during heavy rains, and debris flows were reported across the region overnight. Additional incidents are likely as the day progresses.
Studio City: Two homes damaged by mudflow, with a total of 16 residents evacuated from nine homes. Heavy equipment has been brought out to help clear the road.
Tarzana: Three homes damaged by a mudflow and two people evacuated from a home.
Beverly Crest: Seven homes have been damaged by debris flow and 15 people were evacuated.
Topanga Canyon: A mudflow has closed a portion of the canyon.
Southbound 5 Freeway to southbound 110 Freeway, and Riverside Drive on-ramp: Closed due to mudflow.
405 Freeway just before Sunset: Small debris flow has closed the offramp.
Agoura Hills: Small mudslides at Cornell road and Eagleton street.
Malibu: 10-foot boulder reported on northbound Malibu Canyon Road just north of Pacific Coast Highway.
Several homes on Lockridge Road in Studio City damaged after part of the hillside came down. Look at the boulders that made their way down the hill to Fryman. @foxlapic.twitter.com/PF92aG1mau
But Jon Sweeten, a reservoir regulation engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Los Angeles District, said videos of the Los Angeles River seemingly on the verge of overflowing shouldn't necessarily be cause for alarm.
“People see a lot of water in a channel that they see that's normally dry and they go, ‘Oh my goodness, there's a lot of water,’” he said. “That's just the channel operating in the way it was designed.”
The system, Sweeten added, “is designed to hold some of the water behind the dams and release it into concrete line channels that will convey the flow very effectively to the ocean.”
Since the 51 miles of river pass through different cities, at the time it was built, they were responsible for building bridges within their respective boundaries. Locals at the time asked for a narrow river so that it would be cheaper to build the bridges while also preserving more developable land.
“In order to make the system work well, they designed it so that it flowed very fast so — the system flows much faster than a natural stream would flow,” Sweeten said. “Which is why it's dangerous for people to stand on the concrete in the L.A. River, because water up to your ankle is capable of knocking you off your feet.”
Up in the mountains
So far, snow levels have been quite high, mostly above 7,000 feet. They'll fall to about 5,500 feet by Monday night, bringing snow to popular mountain areas.
Big Bear could see 6 to 8 inches, while Wrightwood could see 12 to 18 inches.
New Snow Alert: 2 more inches overnight reported on 2.4.24 bringing the 3-day total to 19". Snow expected through the week. Snow chains are in effect.
Higher mountain peaks like San Jacinto (10,834 feet) could get around 1 to 3 feet of snow, while Mt. San Antonio (10,064 feet) could get 4 to 6 feet.
The eastern San Gabriel mountains and the San Bernardino County mountains are under a winter storm warning until 10 p.m. Tuesday for areas above 6,000 feet.
Travel is expected to be difficult, if not impossible. Higher mountains could see winds up to 70 mph, which can damage trees and knock them onto roadways. If you must head in or around these areas, pack emergency supplies in your car just in case.
The Mount Wilson observatory closed Saturday until further notice because of the weather. Mountain High Resort was also closed Monday, but is expected to reopen on Tuesday.
The Angeles National Forest is urging people to stay away from the area at least for the next few days. Very hazardous conditions are expected, including heavy rain, fast-moving landslides, snow, and flooding.
Evacuations
Los Angeles County
An evacuation order is in effect for homes and businesses along La Tuna Canyon Road near the burn scars from the Land Fire in 2022. More info here.
Evacuation order was issued Saturday night through 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 6, for the area of Topanga Canyon along Santa Maria Road north of Topanga Canyon Boulevard in the Owen Fire burn scar. Officials said: "Immediate threat to life. This is a lawful order to leave now. The area is lawfully closed to public access."
Evacuation order for the Agua Fire Burn Area in Soledad Canyon, east of Acton.
Evacuation warnings are in effect Sunday morning through 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 6, for areas near the Bobcat Fire (north end) and Lake Fire burn scars.
An evacuation warningis in effect Sunday afternoon through 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 6 for the area in the Fish Fire burn scar in the city of Duarte.
Evacuation warnings are also in effect Monday afternoon through 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 6 for areas of Culver City’s Upper Crest area due to potential mud or debris flows. The city is asking people who live above, below, or adjacent to a hillside in or below the Upper Crest neighborhood to take extra precautions.
A voluntary evacuation warning was issued for Silverado Canyon, Williams Canyon and Trabuco Canyons due to heavy rains.
Canyon residents were strongly encouraged to prepare and voluntarily evacuate on Sunday, especially those with disabilities, access and/or functional needs, and canyon residents with large animals.
From the Yucaipa Police Department: Evacuation warning due to potential mud and debris flow for El Dorado and Apple fire burn scars.
Schools
Los Angeles Unified School District announced that all schools will be open on Monday with the exception of Topanga Elementary Charter and Vinedale College Preparatory Academy. Topanga students may report to Woodland Hills academy at 8001 Ledge Avenue in Sun Valley, while Vinedale students may report to Glenwood Elementary School.
Santa Monica and Malibu Unified schools are expected to open Tuesday.
Long Beach Unified released this statement on Sunday afternoon: "While there are currently no plans to close schools, in the event of any impacts or changes to scheduled plans, families from the affected schools will receive direct communication via text and email. Additionally, updates will be promptly posted on the school websites and social media platforms."
Santa Barbara Unified and Santa Maria Joint Union High School District have both preemptively cancelled classes and activities for Monday.
Universities
UCLA- Normal operations. Classes will occur as usual
USC- Normal operations. Classes will occur as usual
Cal State Fullerton is pivoting to remote classes on Monday. Staff are encouraged to work remotely. The faculty will have access to offices and facilities as the campus will remain open.
UC Santa Barbara has instructed faculty to move to remote instruction or reschedule classes. Any staff impacted by weather (including if a child’s school closes) should be allowed to work remotely or “request time off”
Cal State Long Beach said it expects normal operations and classes to resume on Tuesday.
Cal Poly Pomona is moving to remote classes and remote work for non-essential employees on Monday. The university says "The campus will remain open and minimally staffed, including University Housing, the Library, Centerpointe and student health services. We will provide an update via email and on the safety and emergency web page by the end of business on Monday regarding operating plans for Tuesday, February 6, 2024."
Cal State Northridge remains open, but on-campus in-person classes are cancelled. Course instructors will determine whether courses will shift to online instruction or alternative assignments.
The forecast for coming days, as of Sunday morning.
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Courtesy National Weather Service
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Here's what rainfall totals are forecast to be in coming days:
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Courtesy NWS San Diego
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High winds are also expected to be an issue:
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Courtesy NWS Los Angeles
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Emergency proclamations and preparation
The powerful storm moved L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath to sign an emergency proclamation Sunday night for the region. She said the move will align the county with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s emergency order and help the county act quickly to deploy resources.
“We had to proclaim a local emergency today following the governor’s statewide emergency declaration. We wouldn’t do that if this was something to ignore,” Horvath said.
San Bernardino County also declared a state of emergency Sunday night in anticipation of extreme rain and snow expected through Wednesday.
“This declaration puts the state and federal government on notice that our residents will need their help,” said San Bernadino County Supervisor Dawn Rowe.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said the city is prepared to weather the effects of a potentially catastrophic storm. Bass declared a local state of emergency on Monday.
“This has been a tough day for our city,” Bass said Monday evening.
A man and his dog were rescued from the Pacoima Wash near Foothill Boulevard via helicopter after he jumped into the water after his dog. LAFD Fire Chief Kristen Crowley said both the man and the dog are safe now.
Bass said more than 100 unhoused people had to be evacuated from a tiny home complex. She added that they’re being moved into a nearby shelter that wasn’t being used, but now will be “instantly” filled.
Bass also answered a call from President Joe Biden towards the end of Monday’s news conference and held the phone up to the microphone so he could speak to the people of Los Angeles.
“We’ll get any help on the way as soon as you guys request it, so just let me know,” Biden said.
Mandatory evacuations have been issued for certain areas of L.A. and Santa Barbara counties.
Why LAUSD plans to be open Monday
L.A. Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said based on Monday's forecast, schools will remain open tomorrow morning, unless weather conditions change. District officials said they issue an update at 6 a.m. Monday.
Carvalho said in a news conference Sunday that the schools will remain open because "they are the places where many of our kids receive their nutrition."
However, Vinedale Elementary School, which is in an area in Sun Valley that is under mandatory evacuation, will be shut down. Students will report to Glenwood Elementary School about a mile away.
Heavy rains are expected to continue through Monday morning, with some of the most intense downpours expected between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m.. The National Weather Service is warning of "life threatening flooding, damaging winds and heavy mountain snow," and has revised the expected rain totals to up to 8 inches across the greater L.A., and up to 14 inches in the mountains and foothills, through Tuesday.
"Los Angeles County now seems to be the area of most concern where the heaviest rain will last the longest," said Ryan Kittell at the National Weather Service.
Flooding and other dangers are expected for across the state. California officials warned that the Southern California coastline — including Los Angeles and San Diego metro areas — would likely see the most severe damage.
"These next storms are going to be impactful and dangerous, and most of the damaging impacts most likely to our coastal and southern regions," said Nancy Ward, director of the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services. "They're the most dangerous natural disasters that we have, killing more people from storm damages and flooding than wildfires every year."
More ahead
Residents in mountain, canyon and coastal areas should prepare for the risk of debris flows and flooding to remain at least through Tuesday.
Those in landslide prone areas like the Palos Verdes Peninsula should be on the lookout for indications of land movement, including the formation of new cracks, the fracturing of underground utilities, doors and windows falling out of plumb and sounds of creaks and groans coming from the ground.
Los Angeles County Fire Department locations also have sandbags and sand.
Sand and sandbags are available at these locations in Orange County.
Significant snowfall expected for #SoCal thru Tue.
- 2 to 4 feet above 7000 ft - 10-20 inches between 6000 and 7000 ft - Up to 10 inches between 5000 and 6000 ft - Wind gusts up to around 90 MPH -WINTER STORM WARNINGS in effect thru Tue#CAwxpic.twitter.com/iKjqJPN7Ss
Here’s an excerpt from our guide to understanding flood warnings, if any are issued:
Flood advisories are how the NWS begins to raise the alarm. The goal is to give people enough time to take action.
Flood watches are your indicators to get prepared to move.
Aflood warning is issued when a hazardous weather event is imminent or already happening. When one is issued for your area, you need to get to higher ground immediately.
A flash flood warning is issued when a flash flood is coming or in progress. Flash floods are sudden and violent floods that can start within minutes.
If you're in L.A. County and need sand bags you can find some at local fire houses.
Staying safe when the winds are high
Watch for traffic signals that may be out. Approach those intersections as four-way stops.
Make sure you have a battery-operated radio and flashlights. Check the batteries to make sure they are fresh. Use flashlights for lighting during a power outage; do not use candles because they may pose a significant fire hazard.
If you’re in a vehicle with a fallen power line on it, stay in the vehicle and remain calm until help arrives. It is OK to use your cellphone to call 911. If you must leave the vehicle, remember to exit away from downed power lines and exit by jumping from the vehicle and landing with both feet together. You must not touch the vehicle and the ground at the same time. Then proceed away from the vehicle by shuffling and not picking up your feet until you are several yards away.
Water and electricity don’t mix. Water is an excellent conductor of electricity. Do not step in or enter any water that a downed power line may be touching.
Do not use any equipment inside that is designed for outdoor heating or cooking. Such equipment can emit carbon monoxide and other toxic gases.
If you use a generator, place it outdoors and plug individual appliances directly into it, using a heavy-duty extension cord. Connecting generators directly to household circuits creates “backfeed,” which is dangerous to repair crews.
Leave the doors of your refrigerator and freezer closed to keep food as fresh as possible. Place blocks of ice inside to help keep food cold. Check food carefully for signs of spoilage.
Check on your neighbors to make sure everyone is safe.
Tips on staying warm
State law requires residential units to have heating systems that can keep indoor temperatures at a minimum of 70 degrees. That means every dwelling unit and guest room offered for rent or lease should offer heating equipment, usually central air conditioning (A/C) or a wall heater. — Caitlin Hernández
Use heat smartly to save money: Cranking things like the A/C and wall heaters can be expensive. If money is tight, be judicious about how and when you use your utilities. For example, only use heaters at night or only set the thermostat to around 70 degrees.
Open and close those vents: If you have central A/C, look at where the vents are around your home. Are any open in places where you don’t stay long? Practice opening and closing those so warm air only goes where you need it (most vents should have a small toggle lever). Humidifiers can also help you warm things up — and it’s useful to add moisture into our dry air.
Adjust your wall heaters: If you have a wall heater, you can change the output by adjusting the knob (usually at the bottom). Since wall heaters can only warm the areas where they’re placed, it’s essential to close doors to rooms you won’t be in so hot air doesn’t get wasted.
Turn on your ceiling fan (really): If you have a ceiling fan, try turning it on. This sounds counterintuitive, but there’s science behind it. The direction a fan turns can push air in different directions, and since hot air floats up, you’ll want to move that around. Your fan should spin clockwise to create an updraft to circulate. Not all fans will have this option, though.
George Kiriyama, a senior editor, is tracking the storm and adding updates along with Kevin Tidmarsh, a producer, and Fiona Ng, LAist's weekend editor. Other LAist staff members will be keeping a close eye on how the storm is affecting various parts of the region.
This is a developing story. We fact check everything and rely only on information from credible sources (think fire, police, government officials and reporters on the ground). Sometimes, however, we make mistakes and/or initial reports turn out to be wrong. In all cases, we strive to bring you the most accurate information in real time and will update this story as new information becomes available.
Several tons of sand eroded, exposing the wooden bulkhead along the Peninsula in Long Beach on Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026. Waves pounded the seawall for days, causing damage to nearby homes.
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Thomas R. Cordova
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Long Beach Post
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Topline:
After waves supercharged by Hurricane Marie battered a series of beachside homes, tore up a city boardwalk and ripped away enough sand to reveal a decades-old bulkhead, Long Beach is looking at spending roughly $3 million to stabilize the Peninsula, with a much larger price tag looming behind it.
The damage: In a memo released Friday, Public Works Director Joshua Hickman lays out the damage plainly: about 200 feet of boardwalk decking and support beams need to be replaced, roughly 1,000 feet of bulkhead needs new top caps, and another 450 feet of bulkhead planks have to be restored.
The cost: That repair work alone is expected to cost about $1.5 million with crews aiming to finish by November. With the city entering a super El Niño season, Hickman recommends the city spend another $230,000 moving 50,000 to 100,000 cubic yards of sand into place, ahead of an $11.4 million dredging project in the Alamitos Bay entrance channel that will potentially widen the beach by up to 250 feet. Coastal engineers hired after the storm evaluated five different versions of a rock or sheet-pile barrier, ranging from $1.5 million for a simple sheet-pile wall to nearly $9.5 million for a full engineered rock revetment built to withstand a 100-year storm. Eventually, officials say it may cost $150 million to $350 million for a full habitat and shoreline restoration of the Peninsula — funded partly by state mitigation credits — as the kind of project that would take massive amounts of approvals and planning and likely some delays. .
Let’s hope that by the time you’re reading this, the waters are calm as ever and the streets are bone dry.
If not, we might as well be called Short Beach.
After waves supercharged by Hurricane Marie battered a series of beachside homes, tore up a city boardwalk and ripped away enough sand to reveal a decades-old bulkhead, Long Beach is looking at spending roughly $3 million to stabilize the Peninsula, with a much larger price tag looming behind it.
In a memo released Friday, Public Works Director Joshua Hickman lays out the damage plainly: about 200 feet of boardwalk decking and support beams need to be replaced, roughly 1,000 feet of bulkhead needs new top caps, and another 450 feet of bulkhead planks have to be restored. That repair work alone is expected to cost about $1.5 million, funded through the city’s Tidelands Emergency Reserve, with crews aiming to finish by November.
With the city entering a super El Niño season, Hickman recommends the city spend another $230,000 moving 50,000 to 100,000 cubic yards of sand into place, ahead of an $11.4 million dredging project in the Alamitos Bay entrance channel that, starting next month, will pump about 415,000 cubic yards of sand onto the Peninsula, potentially widening the beach by up to 250 feet. Originally not expected to be done until early next year, the city is pushing to have it done by the end of November.
To get all of that moving at once, the city is asking the council to release $3 million from its $10.3 million emergency reserve, with more funding requests expected as the response continues.
But those repairs are dwarfed by what engineers say is needed to keep the Peninsula beach above water and habitable going forward. What gets approved, however, will depend on the damage done by storms.
From five plans optioned by the city’s contracted design firm, Moffatt & Nichol, the city wants to advance a $6.8 million plan for designing and permitting a rock revetment — a wall of boulders that would sit behind the beach as a backup, built only if the sand washes away again. Only $1 million in design money is currently covered.
Coastal engineers hired after the storm evaluated five different versions of a rock or sheet-pile barrier, ranging from $1.5 million for a simple sheet-pile wall to nearly $9.5 million for a full engineered rock revetment built to withstand a 100-year storm. Every option trades something away — beach space, permitting speed, or the boardwalk’s historic look — for protection, and the firm’s bottom-line advice was to move sand now while permitting the rock wall to sit ready.
That boardwalk being fought over is not easily replaceable, even setting aside the money. Built in the 1920s, at 9 feet wide and 3,600 feet long, it’s the last wooden boardwalk left in Los Angeles County.
When hurricane-charged waves hit, city crews responded with thousands of sandbags and 16-hour shifts of bulldozers building berms that washed away as they went up. The total cost of that emergency response is still being tallied, but officials expect it will easily clear $1 million.
It’s also important to remember that past efforts to combat sand loss have come and gone.
Three million cubic yards of sand brought in the 1940s were gone by the ’80s; 100,000 cubic yards added in 1979; a failed plan in 1980 to bring a mix of imported river sand and birdseye gravel; 145,000 cubic yards across dumpings from 1991 to 1993 between 55th Place and the Belmont Shore Pier; 200,000 cubic yards of sand from 55th to 72nd place in 1996; installation of artificial reef (made of polyester bags) in 1991 and separately, artificial kelp installed through the 1980s; emergency additions in 1992, 1993 and 1994. All of it either washed away or simply didn’t work, and the reef was eventually pulled out.
Today, the city’s baseline defense is a maintenance routine — bulldozers and dump trucks moving sand from the western side where it currently piles up back to the winnowing eastern flank, five days a week, at a cost of $1 million to $1.5 million a year — that adds no new sand to the system at all.
And the timing couldn’t be any more swell. Long Beach sits smack in the middle of the Eastern Pacific hurricane season, which runs from mid-May through November, when southerly swells charged by storms off Mexico and Baja California are most likely to find the one gap in the city’s usually sheltered coastline. Marie found it two weeks ago, sending waves 10 feet high that battered the Peninsula, toppling sand-berms and sending enough water ashore to force the evacuation of about 20 homes.
Now forecasters are warning of a strong El Niño winter, and both the city and state have declared emergencies that allowed them to open their pocketbooks much quicker and easier.
Eventually, officials say it may cost $150 million to $350 million for a full habitat and shoreline restoration of the Peninsula — funded partly by state mitigation credits — as the kind of project that would take massive amounts of approvals and planning and likely some delays. The city council for now has approved $30,000 to look into it further.
It’s a decision that might not sit well with many, at a time when gas is inching north of $6 a gallon, personal budgets must now accommodate rain gear and extra supplies and a time when the city’s own budget has gone belly up, forcing layoffs and ends to popular programs.
But the consequence of doing nothing, of relenting stretches of beach to the sea, attacks the city’s very name.
RAYE performs at a concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles on May 12, 2026.
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Andrew Park
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Invision via AP
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Topline:
A new California law prohibits people from selling concert and sports tickets that they don’t own. The measure pitted Live Nation against Stubhub as it moved through the Legislature.
More details: Gov. Gavin Newsom yesterday signed a bipartisan bill meant to rein in that market by banning the sale of tickets that are not yet owned by the people who advertise them and prohibiting the use of software to manipulate a venue’s purchasing restrictions. “Buying a ticket shouldn’t come with hidden risks or unfair practices,” he wrote on social media after signing the measure, Assembly Bill 1349.
Why it matters: The bill requires ticket resellers to “implement reasonable measures” to prevent speculative tickets. Sellers found in violation could face misdemeanor charges and penalties.
Read on... for more on the bill.
California lawmakers are cracking down on expensive concert experiences by targeting “ghost tickets” — so called because the person selling access to the show doesn’t actually own the ticket yet. It’s an issue that has stumped regulators who are combating deceptive e-commerce fueled by artificial intelligence.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sunday signed a bipartisan bill meant to rein in that market by banning the sale of tickets that are not yet owned by the people who advertise them and prohibiting the use of software to manipulate a venue’s purchasing restrictions.
“Buying a ticket shouldn’t come with hidden risks or unfair practices,” he wrote on social media after signing the measure, Assembly Bill 1349.
The bill requires ticket resellers to “implement reasonable measures” to prevent speculative tickets. Sellers found in violation could face misdemeanor charges and penalties.
The bill’s author, Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, cited an incident in which he and his friend searched for tickets for a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The tickets listed online were expensive and were posted before actual tickets went on sale.
“Many fans buy these tickets not knowing that they are listed at a price greater than they would actually be when they eventually go on sale,” said the Culver City Democrat during a June hearing. “In the worst instances, fans never actually acquire the ticket that they paid for, leaving our small venues in California ultimately on the hook.”
What the major vendors are saying
The measure changed dramatically in the final days of the legislative session and Newsom in a signing statement asked lawmakers to revisit it because it may exempt marketplaces that he suggested should be regulated. He did not name them, but critics of the law pointed to Stubhub as a platform that appeared to be exempt from the law.
Initially, the bill moved forward with support from Live Nation, the entertainment behemoth that owns Ticketmaster. In a January statement, the company argued “no one should be able to scam fans by listing tickets they don’t have”.
Live Nation’s backing of the bill fueled skepticism from critics, who feared it would ultimately help the company squash its competitors.
Ticket reseller Stubhub lobbied heavily against the bill, spending $4.4 million in the two-year legislative session to influence the measure and several others.
In a surprise, Stubhub supported the final version of the bill, which is less favorable to Live Nation. Live Nation has not yet responded to a request for comment about the law from CalMatters.
The National Independent Venue Association, which supported the original version of the bill, argues the version Newsom signed creates liabilities for music venues and festivals while exempting Stubhub. Its leaders worry that independent venues and event promoters will break the law if they sell presale, VIP or waitlisted tickets.
It opposed the final version of the bill and urged Newsom to veto it.
AB 1349 “puts the small businesses and nonprofits that put on shows every night at risk,” Stephen Parker, the association’s executive director, said in a written statement after lawmakers passed the bill.
The association also argued that the amendments protects ticket resellers, such as StubHub, by exempting resale marketplaces from being classified as speculative ticket sellers, “even though every speculative sale happens on their platforms.”
Where things stand now
Newsom in his signing statement wrote, “While there may be good reasons for exempting certain sellers from the bill’s provisions, such a carve-out deserves further discussion, and I encourage the author to work with stakeholders to refine this policy.”
The Legislature had also considered another related bill that would have put a 10% markup cap on resale tickets. But it stalled in August in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
CalMatters Deputy Editor Adam Ashton contributed to this story.
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Sunshine Skate Center is a tribute to bygone rinks
By By Jennifer Stavros | The LA Local
Published September 28, 2026 6:00 AM
Cory Joseph still remembers the last day he rolled across the rink at Word on Wheels.
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Courtesy Sunshine Skate Center
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Topline:
Cory Joseph built Sunshine Skate Center in Inglewood to fill a void left by the closure of a number of skate hubs, such as Skate Land in Northridge and Skate Depot in Cerritos.
Why it matters: The closing of these parks struck a nerve for Joseph, who grew up in San Diego and is the son of two professional skaters — Maureen Joseph and Timothy Carter — from the disco skating heyday in the 1970s and 1980s.
Why now: Sunshine Skate Center celebrated its one-year anniversary this month.
Cory Joseph still remembers the last day he rolled across the rink at Word on Wheels.
The beloved skating rink shuttered in 2021 as part of a downward trend in places where you can groove on four wheels under luminescent disco balls and hot tunes.
The closing of these skate hubs struck a nerve for Joseph, who grew up in San Diego and is the son of two professional skaters — Maureen Joseph and Timothy Carter — from the disco skating heyday in the 1970s and 1980s.
It’s no wonder he felt a desire to open the Sunshine Skate Center in Inglewood to fill this void. His journey to open Sunshine, named after his parents’ old skating team, took three long years of hurdles and obstacles until finally opened on Sept. 4, 2025.
A year of serving Inglewood
Cory Joseph still remembers the last day he rolled across the rink at Word on Wheels.
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Jennifer Stavros
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The LA Local
)
The rink celebrated its one-year anniversary this month.
“Skating for a lot of people is their therapy. It’s their way that they cope with things. It’s the way that they navigate through things,” Joseph said, adding that he understood how these places once served as third spaces for Black L.A.
“I think it’s more than just skating,” he said. “I really understand skating as a place for community.”
Cory Joseph still remembers the last day he rolled across the rink at Word on Wheels.
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On a Friday night this past summer, Joseph’s ethos was seen in action.
Looking around the rink, the range of skaters varied widely in ability — from folks dance-skating to rolling backward, along with beginners using tools to help them on their first journey on wheels. Some were there with their families. Others were there with their friends. Spectators were delighted as they watched from outside the rink and the surrounding seating.
The unapologetic free flow of joy was palpable. Joseph said that when he sees the impact on Inglewood’s youngest residents, the three years it took him to open the rink feels worth it.
“You have a lot of kids that are not physically active,” he explained. “We’re able to engage kids [to] have them off their phones for certain periods of time when they’re skating.”
The debate over the safety of AI and whether and how it should be regulated is not a simple clash between two opposing sides. There are multiple factions with a variety of goals and assessments about the technology's promise, dangers and how it should be governed. Here are the main arguments shaping that debate.
So: From Steve Bannon to cognitive psychologist Geoffrey Hinton, here is a guide to who's who in that debate.
The debate over the potential benefits and safety risks of accelerating artificial intelligence development reached a crescendo this month, as supporters and critics of the technology clashed over warnings that increasingly powerful AI could pose existential risks to humanity.
On September 8, Jacob Coxon, a researcher-turned-whistleblower, publicly resigned from major AI firm Anthropic after a previous stint at OpenAI, accusing the companies of "racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives."
Coxon's claims supercharged an ongoing debate over the potential damage AI could wreak on society and prompted Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and other AI CEOs to call for a slowdown in AI development.
Over the past two months, companies including OpenAI and Anthropic disclosed multiple incidents in which their AI agents accessed the internet when they weren't supposed to and carried out unapproved activities. In OpenAI's case, swarms of agents worked together to hack the open-source software platform Hugging Face and OpenAI itself, without alerting humans.
The debate over the safety of AI and whether and how it should be regulated is not a simple clash between two opposing sides. There are multiple factions with a variety of goals and assessments about the technology's promise, dangers and how it should be governed. Here are the main arguments shaping that debate.
Effective accelerationists and the tech right
Those who have an aggressively optimistic worldview of AI are often referred to as effective accelerationists (sometimes shortened to e/acc) — a term reflecting their belief that AI should be rapidly advanced.
People belonging to the faction are emphatically optimistic about AI and its future benefits to society. They believe that the technology can propel medical advancements, boost economic productivity, increase living standards and automate dangerous or undesirable work. To achieve this, they argue that AI development should be accelerated, not restricted.
Effective accelerationists' ideology overlaps with that of the "tech right" in that both camps wholeheartedly believe in accelerating AI development and deployment and minimize critics' concerns over safety and security.
However, the tech right takes a more nationalistic stance, championing U.S. dominance in the global AI race. Like effective accelerationists, they believe that AI research and deployment should be unencumbered by regulation, arguing that could slow innovation or allow adversarial governments such as China to overtake the U.S. in the AI race.
Venture capitalist David Sacks is one of the leading accelerationist voices in the AI safety debate and was President Trump's AI and cryptocurrency advisor.
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The tech right's philosophy is represented by figures such as former White House AI and cryptocurrency advisor David Sacks, whose views remain influential with the Trump administration. Other significant players include venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman. The three founded the Leading the Future super PAC to support pro-AI political candidates, and campaign against those who advocate for regulation.
Andreessen also penned a 2023 widely-read blog post titled "Why AI Will Save the World," in which he claimed that fears of AI triggering mass unemployment are overstated. He argued that previous waves of automation ultimately created more jobs and economic activity than they eliminated, and the fears of existential risk are overblown.
Recently, Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, whose chips are used by most AI companies, has emerged as one of the industry's leading voices pushing back against calls for a slowdown and urging a light regulatory approach.
Populist right
AI has exposed an ideological split within President Trump's political coalition. While Trump and his advisers overwhelmingly favor accelerating AI, parts of his MAGA base believe the powerful corporations he has aligned himself with could undermine the U.S. economy.
Figures including former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson have been vocal about potential job losses, the tech industry's political power, child safety and threats to traditional social and religious values.
This month, Bannon formed an unlikely partnership with independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a socialist, to call for significant restrictions on AI development, government oversight and corporate accountability at the Pro-Human Assembly conference in Washington, D.C.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has sharply broken with the Trump administration around AI policy.
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Still, the two have differing stances on what any of those measures should look like. Sanders called for an immediate pause on AI development until clear safety rules are established by scientists, a permanent ban on the development of artificial "superintelligence" (AI systems that are more intelligent than humans in all domains), and an international treaty with China in an effort to avoid an AI arms race. Bannon, meanwhile, argued for slowing the pace of AI development, the formation of a national regulatory organization and cutting off China from U.S. AI technology.
"So why are we letting the Chinese Communist Party drive us? Oh, we have to do this or China wins," said Bannon in his speech at the event in Washington. "We should quarantine now every aspect of the ecosystem of artificial intelligence away from the Chinese Communist Party today. We should cut them off."
Safetyists
Safetyists are primarily concerned with the potential risks of the rapid advancement of AI. Their worries center on the possibility of catastrophic or existential outcomes, such as the death of humanity at the hands of autonomous machines.
High-profile members of the safetyist community include Geoffrey Hinton, who is commonly referred to as the "Godfather of AI" because of his pioneering work in deep learning that helped launch the modern era of AI. In recent years, Hinton, who previously worked at Google, has issued a series of warnings about existential risks associated with AI, particularly if an AI model surpasses human intelligence and becomes autonomous.
Another vocal AI safetyist is Daniel Kokotajlo, a former researcher at OpenAI and co-author of AI 2027, a paper published last year that discusses how super-intelligent AI could lead to human extinction by the mid-2030s.
Effective altruists
Effective altruists (often shortened to "EA") generally believe in maximizing humanity's long-term welfare. The movement originally focused on material ways to reduce global poverty. But more recently, many EA thinkers have focused their concerns on the possibility of existential risks from advanced AI and other potential societal-scale disasters such as nuclear war, climate change and pandemics. They particularly worry about the consequences for future generations. People from the EA camp prioritize AI safety, alignment — which is the science of making sure AI systems behave in a way that is reflective of human values and in line with safety rules — and reducing the probability of catastrophic outcomes.
The key difference between EAs and safetyists is that EAs generally provide funding for AI safety research and risk mitigation, whereas safetyists are researchers and advocates undertaking AI safety work and publicly calling for regulation.
Other AI factions often derisively describe effective altruists as so-called "AI Doomers." EA has also become a focus of criticism from the Trump administration since Coxon's resignation from Anthropic.
"Americanism, not effective altruism. The United States will continue to be AI DOMINANT!" said one Defense Department post this month.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is associated with the effective altruists and argues for stronger regulations on AI.
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Well-known people in the EA movement include Eliezer Yudkowsky, co-founder of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI), which focuses on mathematical approaches to making advanced AI systems safe. He is also the author of Harry Potter fan fiction that helped popularize ideas associated with EA. Holden Karnofsky, an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, founded Coefficient Giving (formerly Open Philanthropy), an organization that funds causes central to the EA mission, including AI and biosecurity. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is considered to be aligned with effective altruism. Karnofsky also works at Anthropic and is married to Daniela Amodei, who is a co-founder of Anthropic and the sister of Dario Amodei, the CEO.
Another high-profile supporter of the EA movement is Sam Bankman-Fried, who founded major cryptocurrency exchange FTX. In 2023, he was convicted of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy related to the misuse of customer and investor funds and is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence.
AI ethics
The AI ethics camp argues that society should focus on the harms AI is already causing, rather than on hypothetical existential risks. Some proponents contend that emphasizing existential threats from a hypothetical future superintelligence can serve as a distraction from the more immediate harms and accountability issues surrounding AI today.
AI ethicists' concerns include how AI systems can be biased due to the content of their training data, for example, the ways in which AI facial recognition or job application systems might perpetuate existing societal biases. They are also concerned with how AI could be used to exploit workers and to enable mass surveillance, as well as about the environmental costs of data centers, autonomous weapons and the concentration of power among technology companies.
A notable voice of the AI ethics faction is Timnit Gebru, a computer scientist and former co-lead of Google's Ethical AI team. Gebru left the company in 2020 because of a dispute with the company over a research paper she wrote exposing problems with large language models (LLMs), including their tendency to generate harmful or misleading language.
AI as a normal technology
People belonging to the "AI as a Normal Technology" group reject both the utopian and dystopian narratives about AI. Instead, this faction sees AI as a powerful but ultimately normal technology, comparable to the internet or electricity. They believe the focus should be on understanding and regulating specific applications and harms instead of treating AI as an unprecedented threat or as a path to inevitable superintelligence.
Fei-Fei Li is a computer scientist and co-director of the Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute. She and others in her faction argue that AI is more like a typical technology than others in the field believe.
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Notable people associated with this worldview include Fei-Fei Li, a computer scientist and co-director of the Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute. Li is famous for creating ImageNet, a vastly large dataset of images which provided the training data for large neural networks, which led to several major developments in AI.
Katie McQue's reporting is supported by the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, which is a grantee of Coefficient Giving. Neither Tarbell nor Coefficient have any editorial input into her work. Copyright 2026 NPR
