The Brief

After earning a bachelor’s degree in art history five years ago, Erin Aguilar struggled to establish a career in the art world — or even secure an internship.

“Nothing was happening,” she said. “It was kind of disheartening.”

At a community arts center in Boyle Heights about two years ago, she spotted a pamphlet for a museum studies program at East Los Angeles College; she signed up. Now Aguilar is close to completing her coursework at ELAC, and she's an intern at the Getty, one of L.A.'s most prominent arts institutions.

ELAC’s Museum Studies Certificate Program consists of coursework in art history, library science, anthropology, and studio art. And, perhaps most importantly, the program guarantees an internship — a big deal in a competitive industry.

Exposure to new career options

Art history professor Surana Singh created the program with her colleagues at ELAC and at the Vincent Price Art Museum, which is housed on campus. They wanted to expose students to a broad range of career options.

ELAC launched the program during the pandemic. Some courses continue to be offered online, but about half of them are in person.

Dr. Surana Singh co-developed the museum studies program and teaches its capstone course.

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When they look to the future, Singh said, art history students often envision museum and gallery curators, who, among other duties, oversee how art and artifacts are selected and displayed. Curators are important, she added, but there are many other roles that might be a better fit.

“Our goal is for students to find what their interest is through the readings, through the lectures, and then through the internship experience,” she said. “Maybe someone interns in a curatorial practice, and then they realize: ‘Oh! curation’s not for me’ — but they learn that within this environment, and then they can take that with them.”

Such was the case for Aguilar. When she first enrolled in the program, she was set on becoming a curator. Now that she’s been exposed to other career options, Aguilar has found that she’s more interested in archival and conservation work. “We don’t all need to be curators,” she said.

A chance to explore

Many students in the program already have bachelor’s degrees, but not the career they envisioned.

ELAC student Jessica Ardon.

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ELAC student Erin Aguilar.

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Sara Castro, who earned her bachelor's in history at Grinnell College in Iowa, also applied to ELAC following a frustrating experience in the art world.

To get her foot in the door, Castro worked in visitor services at a mid-size museum for about two years. But when she was ready to move forward, she hit a wall.

“It's so hard [to move up] in museums, unless you have a master's or Ph.D. or, like, eight years of work experience,” she said.

For her internship, Sara Castro worked at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Come fall, she will begin a master’s program in cultural studies at Claremont Graduate University.

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But before investing in graduate school, Castro wanted more information. “I just wanted to have the space to explore and learn about the different areas in museums,” she said.

ELAC enabled her to do that. In January, Castro was an intern in the National Gallery of Art's interpretation department. The internship covered her airfare and lodging. She also received two stipends, one for daily expenses and another for winter clothes. To help her and her fellow interns get settled, two Vincent Price Art Museum staff members also went along.

Some of her classmates are skilled artists. Others are “more like me,” she said. “[We] were, like: ‘How do you make art? What is it?’ That was really fun. It kind of got me out of my comfort zone, [and it] gave me a good perspective.”

In depth with cultural studies

While students complete their internships, they’re also required to take a lab on campus. Singh’s capstone class meets every Friday on the third floor of the Vincent Price Art Museum. She and her students gather in the “Museum Learning Lab,” a room teeming with art books — everything from Kehinde Wiley to Richard Avedon to 1,000 Chairs. The course gives students time and space to reflect on their internships, and on how museums shape our views.

Singh and her students leave no issue unturned. Their conversations encompass everything from didactics (the labels that accompany art and artifacts) to museum hours.

Grounded in cultural studies — an interdisciplinary field that examines how culture is created, shared, and maintained — Singh’s capstone course pushes students to examine structures of power and how they’re reproduced. This includes conversations about who gets to be in museum leadership and how communities are represented. They also discuss the historical role of museums, how they can be problematic, and how they can be transformed.

Professor Singh with students in the capstone course. These students are currently interns at the Getty Villa, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, and other institutions.

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Located on campus, the Vincent Price Art Museum has permanent collection of fine art.

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When Jessica Ardon, a Cal State Northridge graduate, was comparing different museum studies programs, this perspective drew her in. ELAC’s program, she said, delves deep into questions like: “How do you make a museum more inclusive?” and, “How do we mend wounds with people who've been excluded from these spaces?”

“I wanted to be part of that,” she said.

Ardon is also an intern at the Getty Villa. On a Friday morning earlier this month, she paired up for class discussion with a student who interns at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown L.A. Their conversation was grounded in an assigned TED Talk titled “We Must Decolonize Our Museum,” which encourages museum professionals to craft exhibitions alongside the communities they aim to represent — instead of bringing them on as consultants just as an afterthought. From there, Ardon and her classmate went on to discuss the ethics of exhibiting human remains; the implications of having a 16th-century Aztec headdress on display at a museum in Austria; and a book called Whitewalling: Art, Race & Protest in 3 Acts.

Building an enduring network

Singh’s capstone course also coaches students, so they can get the most out of their internships. At their respective work sites, all students are assigned a mentor. They help students craft résumés and cover letters. They also provide job interview tips and advice on how to build a career in the art world.

For Ardon, this part of the program has been especially helpful. Looking back on another internship, she regrets not taking a more proactive role in her learning. But, she added, it also helps that the mentors she and her classmates have been assigned are wholly committed to the experience. “They’re very much on top of it,” she said.

On top of sharing practical skills, Ardon said her mentor is always checking in. And if there’s someone at the Getty she’s too shy to approach, her mentor is happy to make an introduction.

For alumna Cicely Beltran, the professional relationships cultivated at ELAC have been longlasting. The museum studies program helped draw her back to the college after she quit over a decade before to raise her family.

ELAC alumna Cicely Beltran.

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Growing up, Beltran walked past this David Botello mural almost every day. It's one of the many community art pieces that sparked her interest in art.

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She continues to be in conversation with her former professors as she pursues a bachelor’s degree in art education at Cal State Long Beach. She’s also developed a strong bond with her colleagues at the Vincent Price Art Museum, where she works part-time as a guide. When she goes in for work, she said, “it does not feel like I'm going to a workplace . . . I'm going to a place with a real sense of community.”

Perhaps most significantly, the museum studies program helped Beltran reshape her own narrative, after so many years away from the classroom.

In her professor’s view, there was no gap in Beltran’s educational journey. Singh helped her see that “the whole time I was at home, raising my son, I was still researching art, writing about art, thinking about art, making art.”

“It was super validating,” Beltran said. “It made me feel like I hadn’t wasted all those years.”

As the region’s lead homelessness agency, the main job of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority this year was to dole out nearly $700 million to contractors who operate shelters and other services for unhoused people.

But it turns out that more than halfway through the budget year, many of LAHSA’s 116 service providers are still waiting for LAHSA to pay them for those services. In all, the agency told LAist that it owes at least $69 million in outstanding invoices to providers. About 40% of those invoices are more than two months old.

Those delayed payments are causing cash flow problems for organizations large and small. Several providers told LAist that they've have had to dip into reserves or take on debt.

“These delays are one of the biggest issues for our organization because if we cannot pay our staff, we don't operate,” said Stephanie Klasky-Gamer, CEO of the nonprofit LA Family Housing. "That breaks the entire system and renders people homeless.”

Where things stand

LAHSA officials have said they're working to fix delays and make internal changes so that they don’t happen again.

And they offered details on how they got here:

• They said some payments were delayed because the agency is struggling to process an influx of recently submitted invoices.
• Other payments are delayed because the agency is still waiting for millions in payments, mostly from the city of L.A.

“While a combination of contracting delays, outdated internal policies, and a leadership vacuum caused by the historic funding shifts happening within the rehousing system all contributed to this bottleneck, we are already taking corrective action,” Ahmad Chapman, a LAHSA spokesperson, said in a statement.

At a LAHSA Finance Committee meeting Friday, Janine Lim, the agency's deputy chief financial office, broke down the issues based on agency.

• Under contracts funded by city, the agency doesn’t have some of the money it owes providers, Lim said.
• For county-funded contracts, LAHSA has the funds, but has failed to pass some of them to providers, she said.

Lim acknowledged her department failed to request certain county funds and told commissioners her team is overwhelmed by staff turnover and nonstop crisis management.

Lindsey Horvath's rebuke

The meeting prompted a harsh rebuke from L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath Friday night, who issued a statement demanding a public hearing about LAHSA’s late payments, a forensic audit and immediate payment of all outstanding invoices to county-funded contractors.

“If LAHSA were a publicly traded company, regulators would shut them down.” Horvath said, in a statement “LAHSA balance sheets don’t balance, and they fail to provide real-time financial information to their very own commissioners.”

LAHSA’s funding sources

LAHSA has an approved budget of about $828 million this fiscal year. Most of that money — $697 million — comes from a variety of government sources and passes along to contracted service providers.

This budget year it breaks down like this, according to LAHSA records:

• 46% from L.A. County
• 35% from the city of Los Angeles
• Nearly 11% from the federal government
• More than 8% from the state of California
• A small fraction from private philanthropy,

LAHSA representatives said the delayed payments stem partly from delays in finalizing contracts with homeless service providers this fiscal year, which started July 1.

By that time, the agency had only finalized about one third of its contracts with providers. Providers can’t file invoices until those contracts are final.

Now, eight months into the budget year, LAHSA said more than 99% of contracts are in place. But many weren’t finalized until December. Now that contracts are executed, there’s an “avalanche” of recent invoices from providers, covering the past six months, according to LAHSA officials.

Challenges for providers 

South L.A homeless services provider HOPICS said LAHSA owed it nearly $20 million as of last month, because of late contract executions and delayed payments across two budget years.

“Providers cannot continue operating on uncertainty and IOUs,” the Kelvin Driscoll, the nonprofit's director, told LAist. “To keep services operating, we, like other organizations, have had to exhaust reserves and take on debt.”

Some homeless services providers said late payments have been a problem, but not an insurmountable one.

“The issue of floating unpaid invoices is part of business, especially if we're working with bureaucracy and government.” said Rowan Vansleve, president of Hope The Mission. “Anybody who's taken a contract with the government is not expecting to be paid incredibly quickly.”

Still, as the size of L.A.’s homeless services sector has grown, some service providers say they are being asked to take on larger financial burdens. LA Family Housing is waiting on both reimbursement payments and advances for recent months, its CEO said.

“Our contract is with LAHSA,” said Klasky-Gamer. “We are delivering on our end of the contract by delivering the service. They're not able to deliver on their end of the contract because they don't have access to the money to pay us.”

At the Friday meeting, LAHSA Commissioner Amy Perkins said she had received “countless” calls from leaders of large providers who are considering closing down.

“They don’t want to say that publicly because they don’t want to scare their staff and they will do everything they can not to close,” Perkins said. “They have maxed out their lines of credit. There's no more rocks to turn over. Vendors are walking off jobs.”

Commissioners demands answers

Last year, L.A. County supervisors voted to strip LAHSA of about $300 million in county funding from LAHSA, beginning this July. Until then, county homelessness funding still goes through LAHSA.

Perkins, appointed to the LAHSA Commission by Horvath, told LAHSA officials on Friday that the payment crisis shows why the county's move was necessary.

"This is exactly why we have said for a long time that the structure of LAHSA doesn't work,” Perkins said. “How are you supposed to administer funding for people who won't pay you?”

Justin Szlasa, another LAHSA Commission member said he has frequently heard service providers complain that LAHSA pays them late.

Szlasa said he asked for an itemized summary of all of LAHSA’s unpaid bills. The report should have been easy to generate immediately, Szlasa said.

Months later, LAHSA still has not produced the document, he said. This month, he filed a public records request for that information, including which contractors LAHSA owes money to and how behind on payments it is.

“We as commissioners don’t have visibility into how we’re doing if we don’t know how much money we owe and how late we are with payments to these service providers on the front lines of our homelessness response,” Szlasa said.

LAHSA officials said the agency will work with outside consultants to update the agency’s finance operations to ensure providers are paid accurately and on time.

The Southern California Muslim community during the early to mid-20th century became more diverse, but the visibility of Muslims in SoCal didn’t significantly increase until the creation of new Islamic institutions and hubs like the Islamic Society of Orange County.

Community pillars like the Islamic Society of Orange County (ISOC), located in Garden Grove, allow Muslims in Southern Calfironia to connect with their faith and explore their religious identities in a rapidly changing society.

With the holy month of Ramadan underway, the Islamic Society of Orange County is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

Muzammil Sidiqqi, director and Islamic scholar for ISOC, who has served the community since 1981, recently joined LAist’s daily news program AirTalk with Larry Mantle, along with Deana Helmy, chair of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, to talk about the community center’s impact on the region over the past five decades.

How ISOC got its start

Muslims began arriving in Southern California as early as the 20th century, with roots primarily from South Asian Punjabi descent and the Middle East.

“It was a small number,” said Sidiqqi. “They started gathering at religious services and learning about the Quran within their families.”

As numbers continued to increase, particularly after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Muslims in Southern California formed the basis of the ISOC, and in 1976, it became the first mosque in Orange County.

The Islamic Society of Orange county serves thousands of Muslims with prayer, educational, and counseling services, including a youth group.

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“At the time, when the community bought this place, they thought it was too big for them,” said Sidiqqi, adding, “Soon a large number of people started coming, and we had to buy neighboring properties.”

Today, the SoCal muslim community is diverse, as people from the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Southeast Asia, Latin America and descendants from Europe attend ISOC and share it as a community space.

“The Mother Mosque”

The Islamic Society of Orange County has grown to become the largest Muslim community center in Southern California, serving more than 10,000 followers throughout the area.

“That’s why we call it the mother mosque,” Sidiqqi said.

The mosque is more than just a place for worship for Muslims in SoCal; it's a community center.

“I actually attended the elementary school at ISOC called Orange Crescent School,” Helmy said.

Orange Crescent School is located within the Islamic Society of Orange County Masjid premises in Garden Grove. It currently offers full-time schooling from preschool to 8th grade, and intends to expand its reach and become the first Islamic High School in Orange County.

Children's backpacks hang outside of a classroom at the Orange Crescent School located on the grounds of the Garden Grove mosque.

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“All subjects that are taught in other schools are taught here. Aside from that, they learn the Arabic language and Islamic studies,” Sidiqqi said. “We emphasize very much the moral character of our students, according to Islamic traditions.”

AirTalk listeners also weighed in and shared the role ISOC plays in their lives.

Adis in the city of Orange told Larry, “My dad was the first president of the youth group organized in the masjid, and my mom was very involved in organizing as well,” adding, “that was the first place where they met, and it was history from there.”

“I just go to hang out with my daughter sometimes over the weekend,” said LAist reporter Yusra Farzan, adding, “They have cool Friday night programs for kids.”

Equality, leadership, and interfaith outreach

In addition to making inroads with the Muslim society-at-large, ISOC has also played a crucial role in acknowledging the need for women's representation in its organization.

“Leadership at the masjid has always elevated and highlighted women,” said Helmy, adding that ISOC has “really ensured that women have the space and place to belong, to be able to speak up and to be encouraged to take on leadership roles.”

ISOC offers a variety of services and programs that aim to educate people about Islam and debunk misconceptions and myths about the faith. Sidiqqi recalled being in the nation’s capital the day of the 9/11 attacks, telling Mantle that he was actually invited by President George W. Bush to participate in the interfaith service that was held at the Washington National Cathedral.

“This has been our work at the ISOC. Bringing understanding, reconciliation, peace, and harmony,” he said. “These have been the teachings of Islam, and so we invite people to come learn about the faith.”

You can listen to the full AirTalk SoCal History segment here.

President Donald Trump called the Supreme Court's decision against his sweeping use of tariffs "deeply disappointing" and slammed the members of the court who ruled against him.

Trump called the justices who opposed his tariffs "fools" and "lapdogs," charging that they were acting because of liberal partisanship, though three of those ruling against him were appointed by Republican presidents and two were Trump appointees.

"I think it is deeply disappointing, and I'm ashamed of certain members of the court, absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what's right for our country," he said.

The court — in a 6 to 3 decision —found that a law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the president to impose tariffs.

The ruling was the president's most significant defeat at the Supreme Court since he returned to office, and threatens to upend one of Trump's favorite and most powerful tools of his economic and foreign policy agenda.

The decision injects even more uncertainty into the future of tariffs, but Trump made clear that he has no plans on giving up on his agenda.

Calling it his "favorite word in the dictionary," Trump has repeatedly credited his use of tariffs with helping him stop wars and pressure world leaders to bend to U.S. interests.

He boasted about the economic benefits. A recent Congressional Budget Office report found that tariffs were expected to help reduce the deficits by about $3 trillion over a decade. But that same report found that U.S. consumers - not foreign companies - were paying the vast majority of that money.

But while talking with reporters Friday, Trump sought to put a positive spin on the court decision. He said that it would provide certainty for the U.S. economy and that he plans to seek alternatives, which he laid out specifically.

"Their decision's incorrect. But it doesn't matter, because we have very powerful alternatives that have been approved by this decision," he said.

Trump cited a dissent written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh who listed laws that the administration could pursue, including "the Trade Act of 1974 sections 122, 201, 301, and the Tariff Act of 1930 section 338."

He acknowledged that those processes may be more cumbersome, but had stronger legal standing. He also cited Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, that allows the president to impose tariffs to address trade deficits. But those tariffs are limited to 15%, and only for 150 days, after which Congress would have to approve them.

"While I am sure that they did not mean to do so, the Supreme Court's decision today made the President's ability to both regulate trade and impose tariffs more powerful and more crystal clear, rather than less. I don't think they meant that. I'm sure they didn't," Trump said.

And he said he would sign an executive order today to continue certain tariffs under alternative authorities, including adding a "10% global tariff."

That rule would also eventually need approval from Congress, after 150 days, which could be difficult with an election approaching.

Republicans are facing pressure from constituents about high costs and the business community that is afraid to invest with all the economic uncertainty.

A recent NPR/Marist poll finds that a majority of Americans — 56% — feel tariffs or fees on imported products from other countries hurts the U.S. economy.

The former Senate majority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell praised the Supreme Court's decision.

"Congress' role in trade policy, as I have warned repeatedly, is not an inconvenience to avoid," the Kentucky Republican said. "If the executive would like to enact trade policies that impact American producers and consumers, its path forward is crystal clear: convince their representatives under Article 1" of the Constitution."

But Trump, who has expressed frustration with gridlock in Congress, expressed confidence that he would continue to be able to employ tariffs unilaterally.

"Foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years are ecstatic," Trump said. They are so happy and they're dancing in the streets. But they won't be dancing for long. That I can assure you."
Copyright 2026 NPR

A judge has ruled that the city of Los Angeles cannot move forward with a program that would allow local officials to remove and dismantle more recreational vehicles the city deems a nuisance.

The city planned to roll out a new state law that gives L.A. County authority to dispose of abandoned or inoperable RVs worth up to $4,000. The previous threshold was $500.

Some city officials who support the new law say L.A. must have the tools to get unsafe and unsanitary RVs off the streets for good.

But opponents argued the law does not apply to the city of L.A. — only the county — and that the city’s “illegal” actions would harm vulnerable Angelenos who live in RVs, according to court documents.

In a new ruling issued Thursday, Superior Court Judge Curtis A. Kin agreed with the opponents. The judge said the new law “provides no such authority to the City of Los Angeles.”

The backstory

The ruling stems from a legal challenge by a coalition of housed and unhoused residents in West L.A. around the city’s implementation of Assembly Bill 630, which became law Jan. 1.

The L.A. City Council voted in December to approve a motion instructing various city departments to “immediately implement” the law.

The CD11 Coalition for Human Rights then asked a judge to intervene, claiming L.A. is “recklessly charging ahead” with a program it’s not authorized to execute, according to court documents.

What the officials say

Councilmember Traci Park, who introduced the council motion in October, told LAist previously that nuisance RVs create health and safety issues that put entire neighborhoods at risk. Park said residents want solutions, not frivolous lawsuits.

Shayla Myers, an attorney with Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, told LAist after the ruling Thursday that the lawsuits aren’t frivolous when the petitioners keep winning.

“It is incredibly unclear why the city did not simply accept the plain language of AB 630 and instead forced our client to go to court, wasting court resources, city resources at a time when the city doesn't have resources to spare,” Myers said.

City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto’s office did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment on the city’s implementation of AB 630.

What’s next

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass proposed AB 630 in partnership with Assemblymember Mark González, who introduced the California assembly bill. González said in a statement to LAist last month that his office is “working with our partners to clarify the law to ensure the City can fully implement AB 630."

González has introduced another bill, AB 647, that would expand the language of the law to include “any public agency” within L.A. County.

Go deeper: West LA coalition challenges city's rollout of new RV law