The Brief

A nearly $400 million proposed cut to California State University is beginning to have a ripple effect on campuses, including some in Southern California.

An email sent Friday by California State University, Dominguez Hills, President Thomas Parham announced layoffs at his campus.

“While these layoffs will be disruptive to our operations, the vast majority of our staff will remain employed at CSUDH,” Parham wrote, “continuing to provide the high level of support to our community that we are known for.”

The email did not say how many people were laid off.

The California State University Employees Union confirmed to LAist that 32 of its members were laid off. A union spokesperson said they are mostly probationary or temporary employees and that the notices are effective within the next 45 to 60 days.

Trustees get an earful at Tuesday meeting

CSU trustees heard complaints from employees and supporters of campuses where layoffs have taken place for more than an hour during their scheduled meeting on Tuesday in Long Beach.

Students walk on campus at Cal State Long Beach.

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“I was just laid off from my position as a technical business analyst at CSU Dominguez Hills,” Ayumi Nakamoto told trustees via Zoom.

Her campus said the proposed cuts for next fiscal year translate to $12 million in reductions at Dominguez Hills.

“This decrease in funding will come on top of the $18.8 million that CSUDH has already reduced from its operating expenses over the past several years,” spokesperson Lilly McKibbin said via email.

Dropping enrollment, among other factors, led administrators to make the cuts, she said.

What about other local CSU campuses?

The Northridge and Long Beach Cal State campuses said they are not contemplating layoffs.

“While CSUN’s exact share of this reduction has not yet been determined, we roughly estimate this to be approximately $27 [million],” CSU Northridge spokesperson Carmen Chandler said in a statement.

Welcome sign for California State University Northridge.

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“At the current time, we do not anticipate any layoffs for the 2025-26 fiscal year,” she said.

Cal State L.A. and Cal State Fullerton are also facing cuts. They did not make statements ruling out layoffs.

“Cal State Fullerton is aware of the financial situation across the Cal State University system. CSUF is planning and prepared for the fiscal year 2025-26,” said spokesperson Cerise Valenzuela Metzger.

Cal State L.A. President Berenecea Johnson Eanes said last November that the campus is facing a nearly $20 million deficit for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Sonoma State was hit hard. Administrators there announced layoffs last week in an unsigned all-campus email. They said their projected deficit is nearly $24 million, about $3 million more than expected.

The email said 46 tenured and adjunct university professors, along with four management and a dozen staff positions would also be cut. The university also said several academic departments and programs will be combined, downsized or eliminated. (See the full list here.)

The deficit, the email said, was due to employee salaries, price increases for supplies and utilities and inflation — but the main reason is declining enrollment.

What is CSU saying?

Trustees are expecting an update on the proposed cuts Wednesday.

Carrying out cuts “undercuts CSU financial sustainability,” and that’s “unacceptable,” according to a staff document prepared for the session.

“Our leaders must know that the CSU is not an expense,” CSU Chancellor Mildred García told trustees on Tuesday.

“It is an investment not only to the students and their families, it is an investment to the vitality of California,” she said.

According to the report, 823 positions were cut between fall 2023 and fall 2024, but layoffs were higher on some campuses than others. While 17 universities reduced their workforce by 1,208 positions, the document said, six universities added 384 positions.

Next steps

The next stage of the budget process is the calculation of the state’s income tax revenue. That’ll be part of Gov. Gavin Newsom's revised version of his budget proposal in May. CSU is calling on its advocates to persuade lawmakers to reduce the cut to the university system before state legislators are required to approve a balanced budget on June 15.

García urged the public to listen to the Cal State board of trustees meeting on Wednesday for more information about the system's finances. You can watch the meeting here.

Midterms coverage: Live results | What to know | Stories around the country
All the signs were pointing in Democrats' direction heading into election night.

But nothing indicated quite this level of a romp.

Democrats won the House and the Senate, and while that outcome was always a possibility, the depth and breadth of the Democratic victories were jaw-dropping.

Tuesday night was a reminder that the pendulum of American politics continues to swing, and politics is never permanent.

Here are six takeaways about what happened, why it happened and what it all means going forward:

1. President Trump wanted this election to be about him. It was, and that hurt Republicans

President Trump leaves after speaking at a midterm election campaign rally at Sioux Gateway Airport in Sioux City, Iowa on Oct. 22.

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President Donald Trump's unpopularity has been a glaring warning sign for the Republican Party heading into election night. Since the Iran war, Trump's approval ratings slid from 48% to as low as 36% in an average of the polls.

A whopping 62% of voters in this election disapproved of his job as president, according to the voter poll commissioned by the broadcast networks and the Associated Press, which mixes pre-Election Day polling of early voters and Election Day exit polls.

Three-quarters of voters said they are either angry or dissatisfied with the direction of the country. A plurality said the economy was the most important issue, and two-thirds said Trump's policies have made economic conditions worse.

In addition to the economy, corruption rose as an issue in the last several months. The voter poll showed that 62% said Trump prioritizes his own interests more than the country's.

For all of the things that will be written about this election, the bottom line is that Trump waged the kind of war he said he wouldn't get into — one that is dragging on, raising gas prices and piling on people who were already feeling the pinch — and now he is paying the price.

If Trump was supposed to be the kingmaker in the 2028 Republican presidential primary, think again. These midterms will have heavy reverberations for the presidential election. It will likely mean more GOP candidates will enter the race, and they will be more likely to present a wider view of what the direction of the party could be — rather than simply trying to carry the Trump torch.

2. Republicans tried to insulate themselves with redistricting, but it didn't work

The fundamentals of this election seemed to mirror the 2006 midterms amid the Iraq War — the last time the Democrats won back both the House and Senate. Democratic gains in this election, though, were seen as possibly being limited by structural disadvantages — primarily through Republican efforts to tilt the playing by redistricting.

Trump strongly encouraged conservative-led states to redistrict over the last year, hoping to gain more Republican seats in the House — but that backfired, particularly in south Texas. There was always the possibility that incidentally weakening safe districts could make them competitive. Now that that's happened, it's a true cautionary tale of the "dummymander."

3. Latinos are a true swing group in America now

The reason Texas Republicans' efforts to gerrymander didn't pay off is because Latinos did not vote in this election the way they did in the 2024 presidential election.

In 2024, Trump only lost the group by 5 points. It moved toward Trump at the time, in large measure because they were upset with inflation and believed Trump would bring down prices.

Not only did that not happen over the last two years, Trump also angered many in the community because of aggressive deportation tactics that targeted more than just hardened criminals, as Trump promised.

In a real indictment of the Trump deportation policies, roughly 60% of respondents in the voter poll said they disapproved of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Sixty-eight percent of Hispanics disapproved of how ICE is handling its job.

To be clear, Latinos are not a monolith. Latinos in South Florida have different backgrounds and priorities than those in South Texas or those in California or New York. But the fact that the largest-growing group in the country swung strongly away from the president and Republicans makes them very important electorally — a true swing group in the country that is underrepresented at the polls and has a lot of power.

4. Are Texas and other red states in play for Democrats, or was this election a giant asterisk?

Texas Democratic Sen.-elect James Talarico speaks during a midterm election night event at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin on Tuesday.

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Democrats won in a lot of red states. That is important for the party heading into the 2028 presidential election. To have a real chance at expanding the presidential map, they need to figure out how to appeal to red-state and rural voters. They showed in this election they can do that, but they won't have Trump as their rocket fuel in this next presidential election.

The Lone Star State, for example, has been a majority-minority state for a while, and that demography had previously given Democrats false hope. So is Texas the new Georgia, or will it revert to its conservative roots?

The breadth of Democratic victories in Texas in this midterm is undeniable. They won up and down the ballot — Democrat James Talarico won by roughly 12 points, or 1.1 million votes, the first time Texas is sending a Democrat to the Senate since 1988; incoming Gov. Gina Hinojosa won by 7 percentage points, or almost 700,000 votes; they flipped two congressional districts, both of which were won by Trump in 2024 by at least 14 points; they won lieutenant governor; attorney general; railroad commissioner and more.

As they say in Texas, they beat 'em like a rented mule. But are Democrats renting power in the state or is it something bigger? There is going to be a lot of money spent in 2028 to see if the blue gains in Texas are more permanent. And a lot is on the line, because Texas has 40 electoral votes, and putting it in play legitimately for Democrats would reshape the electoral map in a way that would only be rivaled by the earthquake of a shift that was California going for Democrats starting in 1992. (Yes, California used to be a reliably Republican state, going for the GOP in all but one election between 1952 and 1988.)

By the way, a bonus lesson from this election is that money isn't everything. Republicans spent more than $413 million on the Texas Senate race — and lost.

5. The results of this year's elections don't mean the country is enamored with the Democratic Party

Voters cast their ballots in the Kern County Elections Office in Bakersfield, Calif., on Tuesday.

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Democrats have the opportunity to show they can authentically represent their states and try to hold onto these inroads they made in lots of red states and districts.

They were handed the keys to Congress, and people are going to expect results. New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer, the once majority leader who may want to be in the job again, victoriously promised overnight that "relief is on the way."

But how? Even if Democrats have serious policy ideas to help fix economic problems in the country, they can't wave a magic wand. They won't have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and they are unlikely to have an eager negotiating partner in congressional Republicans or Trump. Just before midnight on election night, Trump put out an image on his social media platform of a big red hat with the word "VETO" on it.

So Democrats are in danger of overpromising and underdelivering, which has become all too common in politics, and leads to voters becoming jaded. Democrats have to be careful with their messaging and how they govern. There will undoubtedly be more investigations and oversight of the Trump administration. But how far will they go? Another Trump impeachment attempt, for example, could be politically fraught.

No doubt, the GOP was soundly rejected Tuesday night, but Democrats aren't much better liked. The voter poll showed Republicans underwater with a 41% favorable and 59% unfavorable rating. Democrats were 47%-53%. Democrats had lower approval ratings earlier in Trump's second term, mostly because of disaffected Democrats. They rallied together to win in these midterms, but fissures on the left are simmering below the surface and are about to become far more apparent in the 2028 presidential Democratic primaries.

6. The polls got the direction right. If anything, they underestimated Democratic support

For a decade, polls have underestimated Republican support. In these elections, that was not the case. In fact, in some places they underestimated Democratic support.

For example, the national generic congressional ballot — the question of who people would vote for if the election was held the day of the poll — favored Democrats by about 8 percentage points. The voter poll looks like it turned out to be at least +18.

It's important to understand that it's hard to poll when the country has been going through as significant a political realignment as it has been in the Trump era.
Copyright 2026 NPR

The state of California has agreed to accept $1.4 billion in federal funding to bring broadband internet access to 270,000 people while simultaneously challenging conditions attached to the funding.

Those conditions would stop the state from enforcing broadband laws that reduce costs and guarantee equal access for internet destinations.

California is the last state to accept money from a broadband program created in 2021 as part of an infrastructure bill passed during the Biden administration.

Under terms updated by the Trump administration one year ago, states that accept funding from the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment program must stop enforcing net neutrality rules, which ensure equal connection speeds for every app and website, as well as any rules that influence broadband internet costs. California enjoys the strongest net neutrality laws in the nation.

In recent weeks, digital access advocates argued that if the state accepts the money without meaningfully challenging the terms, it could endanger communities reliant on internet access for emergency services and raise costs for low-income Californians who receive internet subsidies. Through 2040, accepting the terms could cost Californians up to $16 billion, according to an estimate from open internet advocacy group Public Knowledge.

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said it is both taking the federal money and maintaining its access rules. In a written statement shared with CalMatters, Anthony Martinez, a spokesperson for the governor, said that “Connecting these communities is the goal, and so is protecting them. California's laws, including our net neutrality protections, still stand."

The president of the California Public Utilities Commission, the agency chosen by Newsom to administer the program, provided the federal agency that administers the program with both a signed notice that California will accept the funding and a letter that calls the terms vague and outside of the commission’s legal authority. The letter sent Monday also acknowledges that the state will not distribute program funding to companies like Comcast, Pacific Bell, SpaceX, and Verizon until disagreements about the terms are resolved.

“The CPUC cannot be bound by any terms or conditions that are unconstitutional or not authorized by law and it expressly does not waive or concede any arguments or challenges concerning the legality, interpretation, or applicability of any term or condition,” wrote CPUC president John Reynolds in the letter.

Stephen Yusko, a spokesperson for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration within the Department of Commerce, responded to the letter today by saying that the terms and conditions of the award constitute the entire agreement between his agency and the utilities commission.

“No part of the letter outlining CPUC’s concerns is incorporated into or made part of the award,” he said in a statement provided to CalMatters.

Last month, a group of law professors who work on issues related to internet freedom and access urged the utilities commission and governor’s office not to accept the money without challenging the terms in court. Stanford University professor Barbara van Schewick told CalMatters that “only a court, or NTIA agreeing in writing, can take [the access terms] out of California’s award, and neither has happened.”

But she said she’s happy to see the letter makes clear that the state will not sign agreements with companies getting the federal broadband funding until the utilities commission and federal government resolve their disagreement over the terms. It also preserves a strong legal argument that the utilities commission lacks the authority to prevent other state entities from enforcing the law.

“The real test comes the first time a BEAD provider blocks a competitor’s app, throttles firefighters, or walks away from a price commitment,” she told CalMatters. “If the state enforces its laws when that happens, the letter will have protected Californians.”

She added: “If the state looks the other way, [the terms] will have worked exactly as the providers intended, without a single court ever ruling on it.”

Phil Grosse is a member of the California Democratic Party Rural Caucus. In recent weeks, Grosse and dozens of community leaders along the Russian River in Sonoma County urged the governor to challenge the broadband funding terms in court before accepting the money. He believes the terms would end phone service guarantees and backup battery power for cellular towers, endangering the lives of rural Californians.

“We can’t accept the money without all kinds of poisoned pills attached to it, and I’m glad the CPUC acknowledged that, and that they are bound to follow state laws and regulations,” he said, adding that he anticipates the whole ordeal will end up in court. “I’m hopeful the Trump administration will see the wisdom in the CPUC’s letter but I’m rather doubtful.”

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

Millions of dollars of settlement money from the largest known methane leak in the United States are now available to affected residents to replace gas-powered appliances with electric ones. Organizations involved in distributing the money say it will help create safer and cleaner homes.

The announcement makes available the first $20 million in incentive funding from the Aliso Canyon settlement to help home and building owners impacted by the 2015 Los Angeles-area blowout. In total, the program will make $40 million available to help people install heat pumps that cool and heat homes, electric stoves, water heaters and other appliances.

Evan Kamei is the director of TECH Clean California, a state program helping distribute the settlement money. He said the incentives “will help create healthier homes, lower energy costs, deliver cooling, and create local jobs by replacing aging gas appliances with efficient electric appliances.”

Anyone in the affected area with a single-family home will be eligible for the incentives, and certain income-qualifying residents will be eligible for extra funding. Access for multi-property owners will come later.

The Aliso Canyon gas leak took nearly four months to control, sickened thousands of families and forced them from their homes near the San Fernando Valley to escape a sulfurous stench and maladies including headaches, nausea and nose bleeds.

The natural gas storage well failed and uncontrollably released nearly 100,000 tons of methane and other substances into the atmosphere for more than 100 days. Methane is a potent, heat-trapping gas that contributes to extreme weather events worldwide through climate change. The natural gas facility involved in the blowout temporarily closed and later reopened at reduced capacity after being deemed safe to operate.

In 2021, thousands of families reached a settlement of up to $1.8 billion with the Southern California Gas Co. and its parent company, Sempra Energy. Some 35,000 plaintiffs were compensated after complaining of personal injury and property damage to their homes. SoCalGas spent more than $1 billion on the blowout, with most of the money going to temporarily relocate 8,000 families.

Weldon Kennedy is the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Copper, a California startup that sells electric induction stoves and ovens. He said his company got involved with the program to distribute settlement money after the group Energy Solutions highlighted how hard it would be to get people to switch their cooking appliances from gas to electric.

“People have a cultural attachment to gas when it comes to cooking,” Kennedy said. The kind of appliances Copper sells may help mitigate that attachment because they can be plugged into a regular outlet without the expense of rewiring that is usually associated with switching from gas-powered appliances to electric ones.

Cooking with electricity comes with health benefits. Gas stoves, which 47 million Americans use, release pollutants like nitrogen dioxide that’s been linked to asthma and cancer-causing benzene.

Products like electric appliances are one way to address the significant amount of pollution driving climate change that comes from cooking, heating and cooling living spaces and providing hot water in buildings.

Income-qualified residents affected by the Aliso leak are eligible for up to $31,800 worth of incentives to cover the cost of electric installations in their homes.

Switching from gas to electricity can save energy and lower bills.

Carol Kamei, Evan Kamei’s 72-year-old mother, has lived for 46 years near the Aliso Canyon Natural Gas Facility and was one of the plaintiffs in the case against SoCal Gas. She remembers smelling gas and getting nose bleeds. When she read in the news that the leak was also spewing cancer-causing benzene, she knew it was time to go.

Carol Kamei said her nose bleeds went away after moving in with her sister in Hollywood for three months. She recently participated in a health study by the University of California, Los Angeles and found out she has diminished lung capacity, one of the health impacts researchers look for, she said.

“I do know some people that have died from blood-borne illnesses, cancer since then,” Carol Kamei said.

Kamei hopes to use the incentive funding to replace her oven with an electric one. “I’d rather not use gas,” she said.

The days are getting shorter, so it’s important to keep your spirits up, whether that’s by already starting to decorate for Christmas (too soon, if you ask me! I was just in London and all the department stores were decked out even before Halloween!) or just putting some fun things on the calendar for the weeks ahead. Like some of the events listed here!

Elsewhere on LAist, you can follow ongoing election results, find out if Cal State will take your music memorabilia for their archives and get your tickets for the LAist Moth Storyslam on Nov. 10.

Music

If it’s music you’re looking for, Licorice Pizza has your picks, including:

Wednesday 

• Austin psych-rockers the Black Angels at the Fonda
• K-pop veteran Henry Lau at the Novo

Thursday

• Medium Build at the Bellwether
• Alvaro Diaz at the Wiltern

Friday 

• Carl Cox plays the Hollywood Palladium
• Armand Hammer plays the Lodge Room

Saturday 

• Moby and Underworld plus others at Brookside at the Rose Bowl
• Gnarls Barkley with Gallant at the Wiltern
• Latin music star Mon La-fer-tay at the Forum, also playing Sunday

Sunday 

• Celebrating 30 Years of The Score w/ Ms. Lauryn Hill and Wyclef Jean at the Hollywood Bowl
• Buena Vista Orchestra at the Wiltern

Monday 

• GROOP, Slow Heat + Ray Monde, DJ Boogie Boudreaux at Zebulon

Tuesday

• Sienna Spiro at the Wiltern

Events

Luminex: The Infinite Between

Saturday, Nov. 8, 5 p.m.
2100 Ocean Front Walk and 200 N. Venice Blvd., Venice Beach 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Luminex has lit up downtown with immersive projection work from a variety of artists, and now the innovative collective is heading to Venice, just in time to make the most of our shorter days.

Blading Cup USA

Friday and Saturday, Nov. 6-7
Yost Parking Lot
307 Spurgeon St., Santa Ana
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

Watch expert skaters show off their tricks, or register to compete yourself as the Blading Cup USA returns to downtown Santa Ana. Now an official World Skate Challenger competition — World Skate is the international governing body for roller sports recognized by the International Olympic Committee — the Blading Cup is a full weekend of ollies, flip tricks and more.

SKY: Jacob Jonas

Friday and Saturday, Nov. 6-7, 8 p.m.
Occidental Studios 
2821 Council St., Echo Park 
COST: $57.55; MORE INFO 

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Dance troupe Jacob Jonas the Company will be at Occidental Studios in Echo Park for a two-night-only run of their latest show, SKY. The performance is free-form, and attendees are encouraged to move around the sound stage space like an art gallery. Jacob Jonas is always trying something new!

LA Loft Movie Club: Foragisms

Sunday, Nov. 8, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.  
Philosophical Research Society 
3910 Los Feliz Blvd., Los Feliz
COST: $12.51; MORE INFO

This quirky one-minute film festival got its start back in 2021 and is a chance to see new work, plus test your own (entries are curated around a theme at each event). This one is the last of the year for the LA Loft crew, so don’t miss it. The cozy fall theme is "Foragisms," co-curated with animator and Loose Frames curator Kat Ball — more on the inspiration behind "Foragisms" here.

Adrianne Calvo: Maximum Flavor at Home

Friday, Nov. 6, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
The Last Bookstore 
453 S. Spring St., Downtown L.A.
COST: FROM $11:49; MORE INFO

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Award-winning chef and restaurateur Adrianne Calvo is bringing her latest cookbook — and some tasty treats — to one of my favorite places, the Last Bookstore. The new recipes are from Maximum Flavor at Home, which came out Nov. 3. Chef Adrianne will demonstrate some of her favorite crostini recipes.

L.A. Zine Fest

Saturday, Nov. 7, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 
Angel City Derby Warehouse
785 E. 15th Place, Downtown L.A. 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

The '90s are back, and if you ever doubted it, head to the 13th annual L.A. Zine Fest, a free all-ages event celebrating the best of the very much alive and well D.I.Y. publishing community. More than 350 vendors will be there, including a wide range of artists, small presses, independent booksellers and community organizers from across Southern California and zine creators from all over the country.

Piano Department Recital 

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m.
Pepperdine's Lisa Smith Wengler Center for the Arts
24255 Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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What a treat to head up to Malibu for a free piano recital at Pepperdine, led by director Barry Tan. The student piano performance showcases talent on a regular basis, but what they will be playing remains a surprise.

Alanis Morissette: Butterfly with a Machete

Thursday and Friday, Nov. 5-6; Tuesday and Wednesday, Nov. 10-11
YouTube Theater
1011 S. Stadium Drive, Inglewood
COST: FROM $49.50; MORE INFO 

Alanis Morissette will play four nights at YouTube Theater.

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You oughta know that Canadian rock icon Alanis Morissette will bring her Butterfly with a Machete residency to the YouTube Theater for four nights starting Thursday. I’ll be there, basking in teenage nostalgia.

Nat Geo Live: Discovering the Galapagos

Thursday, Nov. 5, 7:30 p.m.
Broad Stage
1310 11th St., Santa Monica 
COST: FROM $75; MORE INFO 

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The always-popular Nat Geo Live series returns to the Broad Stage in Santa Monica with a trip to the Galapagos. I was just there with my family a couple of years ago, and while the real thing is an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime trip, the Nat Geo immersive version and live discussion
with disease ecologist Sarah Knute about the islands that fascinated Charles Darwin won’t disappoint, either.

Heaux Church 

Thursday to Sunday, Nov. 5-8, 7:30 p.m. 
Elysian Theater
1944 Riverside Drive, Silver Lake
COST: FROM $42.53; MORE INFO

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Following a run off-Broadway, Brandon Kyle Goodman’s Heaux Church is "part sermon, part confession, part dance party." Celebration Theatre and The Elysian, in association with Lena Waithe, produced the L.A. stint, which features former pastor’s kid Goodman giving "the sex talk you never got, but always deserved." Each performance features a free talkback after the show.