The Brief

A divided Los Angeles Unified School District Board voted 4-3 Tuesday to issue preliminary layoff notices to 657 employees, as part of a plan to reduce the budget after several years of the district spending more money than it brings in.

Even as California is poised to fund schools at record high levels, Los Angeles Unified and other districts have grappled with increased costs. For example, LAUSD hired more staff to support students during the pandemic, and now the federal relief dollars that initially funded those positions are gone. For the last two years, the district has relied on reserves to backfill a multi-billion-dollar deficit.

The “reduction in force” vote is the first step in a monthslong process that could result in layoffs for a still-to-be determined number of positions.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the focus on cutting jobs at the district’s central office was intended to protect schools.

“Does it do it at 100%? No,” Carvalho said. “But this approach reflects the deliberate effort to shield students and frontline educators and support staff from the most severe impacts of this fiscal downturn.”

What positions will be affected? 

LAUSD staff estimate the proposed cuts include less than 1% of its more than 83,000 member workforce.

Notices will go out to 657 positions concentrated in the district’s central office, but which also work at local schools. More than a third of these are IT technicians, by far the largest group.

The plan also calls for reduced hours and pay for several dozen positions.

The board also voted to issue layoff notices to an additional 2,600 contract management employees and certificated administrators as part of a “routine action that’s been taken annually,” said Saman Bravo-Karimi, the district's chief financial officer

What about teachers? 

LAUSD said it expects to need 350 fewer elementary and 400 fewer high school teachers next year because of declining enrollment and the closure of some non-classroom positions.

While some educators may be moved from one school to another, the district said it does not plan to issue layoff notices to teachers for the 2026-2027 school year.

The district's decision is based on attrition and the assumption that a new labor agreement will lower high school junior and senior class sizes, requiring more educators.

“This is a calculated risk that the district is taking on in order to maintain the stability at the schools throughout the spring semester,” said Kristen Murphy, associate superintendent of talent and labor relations.

Were deeper cuts considered? 

Yes.

Murphy said schools also identified about 800 additional certificated position closures, but that the people in those positions would be moved to different jobs as they became available.

The district is also paying $50-60 million to restore planned cuts to classified positions at school sites.

“We have worked with every possible solution we can think of to reduce that number of initial [layoff] notices and keep as many of our employees as possible,” Murphy said.

How did the board vote? 

Yes:

• Board Member Sherlett Hendy Newbill (BD-1)
• Board President Scott Schmerelson (BD-3)
• Board Member Nick Melvoin (BD-4)
• Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin (BD-7)

“Every person in our LAUSD community contributed to the academic gains last year,” Schmerelson said. “So whether these RIFs are approved or not we will continue to fight until the very last minute for funding.”

No:

• Board Member Rocío Rivas (BD-2)
• Board Member Karla Griego (BD-5)
• Board Member Kelly Gonez (BD-6)

“I will not accept reductions in force as a default response without a clear discipline showing that this is the most responsible and strategic course available to us,” Rivas said.

Rivas, Gonez and Melvoin are on the ballot in this year’s election.

What do employees say?

Representatives from the unions that represent LAUSD school support staff, teachers and principals asked the board to reconsider the proposed cuts at the start of the meeting and to seek additional funding from the state amid growing revenues from the artificial intelligence industry.

“You can decide to be brave and lead in the state by example and show what a fully functioning school system is,” said SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Max Arias.

SEIU Local 99 members, which include classroom aides, IT technicians and gardeners, are currently weighing whether to give their leaders the authority to call a strike. Members of the union that represents LAUSD teachers, psychologists, counselors and nurses voted to authorize a strike last month.

The unions, as well as several board members, called on the district to share more information about contracts with third-party companies before making cuts to staffing.

“This framing is not an honest engagement around budget priorities,” said Cecily Myart-Cruz, president of United Teachers Los Angeles. “It is a tactic used to scare workers and scare our school communities.”

What happens next? 

By March 15, layoff notices will go out to the 657 impacted employees as well as employees with less seniority in positions that could be “bumped,” to accommodate the employees in the impacted positions.

The district plans to freeze hiring until it can evaluate whether an employee included in the reduction in force can fill any vacant position.

“The district can’t issue these notices and then hire new people if vacancies come up,” Murphy said.

Staff said the board would vote to finalize any un-rescinded layoff notices in May or June.

What else has the district done to save money?

Tuesday’s vote is part of a $1.4 billion fiscal stabilization plan first approved last June.

Bravo Karimi said additional money-saving strategies included transferring $496 million in reserved funding to the district’s general fund and using $796 million to fund future labor agreements.

LAUSD staff’s report to the board said that even if the board approved the reduction in force notices, more cuts will be necessary to balance the budget in future years.

FIFA is once again raising prices for a substantial number of games in the upcoming World Cup tournament that will be held in the United States, Canada and Mexico in June and July.

The price increases took place in FIFA's latest sales window that kicked off on Wednesday, with 40 out of 104 games now costing more than in the last sales window, according to an NPR examination of prices.

The hikes can be stark. The most expensive "Category 1" tickets for the final will now cost $10,990, a broad area that covers most of the lower two bowls of MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where the last game of the tournament will be held in July.

That's significantly more than the nearly $8,700 at which these tickets were priced in FIFA's previous sales window earlier this year — and much higher than the $6,370 at which they were priced when sales kicked off last year.

The increases come even after FIFA has faced heavy criticism about the record prices being charged and its adoption of dynamic pricing for the first time. A group representing European fans and consumers called FIFA's prices "exorbitant" and filed a formal complaint this month with the European Commission in a bid to get the soccer body to lower prices.

Meanwhile, a group of Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter to FIFA accusing the organization of "price gouging at the expense of the people who make the World Cup the most-watched sporting event in the world."

FIFA has not replied to NPR's queries. But previously FIFA has justified its prices citing strong demand for tickets as well as noting it's adapting its pricing to the North American market. FIFA has also repeatedly said it's a non-profit that steers the vast majority of revenue from the World Cup to grow soccer around the world.

Price increases cover a wide range of games

Most of the price increases in the initial stage of the tournament were for teams that tend to draw more fans such as Brazil, Argentina, England and Germany — as well as co-host Mexico.

Although price hikes tended to be of less than $100, they still mark a substantial escalation from the initial prices at which FIFA started selling those tickets. Some increases were quite big though. Mexico's opening game against Saudi Arabia now costs as much as $2,985, up from $2,355 in FIFA's last sales window and up from its initial price of $1,825.

Most of the knockout games also increased in price, including the one being held in Philadelphia on July 4th — and the hikes tend to get more substantial for match-ups later in the tournament.

For example, the two semi-finals of the tournament also saw hefty price hikes. The game that will be held in Dallas in July will now cost as much as $3,710, up substantially from $3,295 in the last sales window.

The current sales window will last all the way through the tournament. FIFA has not said how many tickets are left to sell, only that it will continue to drop tickets periodically, including potentially for games that appear to be sold out.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Topline:

Why now: HMC StratCap notified the city on Tuesday that it was pulling its proposal to build a data center in a local business park after months of pressure from residents and advocates who raised concerns about pollution, energy use and health risks. The parent company of the developer — DigiCo Infrastructure REIT — said that HMC sought to "work with the City to establish productive land uses" for its Saturn Street property "that are supported by the broader community." Representatives for HMC StratCap have not responded to requests for comment.

Why it matters: For people pushing back on data centers in the region, Monterey Park is shaping up as a test case for how local organizing can stop them. The developer’s decision to withdraw its application comes ahead of a June 2 special election on Measure NDC. If approved at the ballot box, Monterey Park would be the first to ban data centers by public vote. The developer, which had threatened legal action against the city for data center restrictions, now says it will not contest the proposition.

The backstory: The data center proposal had been moving through the city's planning pipeline for two years before it started showing up on the City Council's agendas and coming to the attention of residents, who were outraged the plans had not been well-publicized by the city. Hundreds of people flooded City Hall during council meetings over the last several months, demanding the city heed their concerns. In response, the council approved a temporary moratorium on data center development, put the issue on the ballot and will consider a separate ordinance banning data center development altogether.

What’s next: Members of groups like No Data Center MPK and San Gabriel Valley Progressive Action are celebrating the application's withdrawal, but say they will continue to advocate for Measure NDC and the data center ordinance, which the City Council is expected to vote on in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, organizers are joining the effort to stop a proposal to build a battery energy storage system in the City of Industry, which they see as laying the groundwork for a data center.

Go deeper: How Monterey Park residents pushed back on a data center — and changed the course

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Attorney General Pam Bondi is out from the top job at the Justice Department. Her departure comes amid simmering frustration over her leadership and her handling of the Epstein files.

In social media post, Trump called Bondi "a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year."

"Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1900," Trump said. "We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future."

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is Trump's former personal attorney, will step in to serve as acting attorney general, the president said.

Bondi, a longtime Trump loyalist, is the second member of the president's Cabinet to be forced out. Her departure comes almost one month after Trump fired Kristi Noem as secretary of Homeland Security.

Bondi leaves after a tumultuous 14 months in charge that critics say damaged the Justice Department's credibility, hollowed out the career ranks and undermined the rule of law.

Under Bondi, the department jettisoned its decades-old tradition of maintaining independence from the White House, particularly in investigations and prosecutions, to insulate them from partisan politics.

Instead, she used the department's vast powers to go after the president's perceived foes. That includes the high-profile cases against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, which were brought after Trump publicly called on Bondi to prosecute them.

A federal judge later tossed both cases after finding the acting U.S. attorney who secured the indictments was unlawfully appointed.

Other political opponents of the president or individuals standing in the way of his agenda also have found themselves under DOJ investigation, including Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, California Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, and former Obama-era intelligence officials James Clapper and John Brennan.

Bondi also oversaw sweeping changes to the career workforce at the department. The agency fired prosecutors and FBI officials who worked on Capitol riot cases or the Trump investigations.

The elite section that prosecutes public corruption was gutted; the Civil Rights Division, which protects the Constitutional rights of all Americans, experienced a mass exodus of career attorneys who say the division is being turned into an enforcement arm of the White House.

Political firestorm over Epstein files

Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, has defended her actions. She has portrayed the firings as a necessary house cleaning of politicized career officials. She's also tried to focus on what she views as major accomplishments during her tenure: targeting drug cartels, cracking down on violent crime, and helping in immigration enforcement.

But ultimately, the department's handling of the files related to the investigations of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein played a large role in her downfall.

Early in her tenure, Bondi told Fox News that she had Epstein's client list "sitting on my desk right now to review." A few months later, the Justice Department and the FBI said there was no client list and that no additional files from the Epstein investigation would be made public.

That touched off a political firestorm and ultimately led Congress to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the Justice Department to make public all of the Epstein files in its possession.

The department failed to meet the Act's 30-day deadline to release the materials, fueling frustrations on Capitol Hill, before eventually releasing millions of pages of files. Democratic and Republican lawmakers also expressed concerns about heavy redactions that were made to many of the documents.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Long Beach has fired the contractor that operated almost all of its homeless shelters following an audit of the $69 million the city has spent on homeless services over the last five years.

The nonprofit First to Serve ran 423 of the city’s 500 shelter beds until yesterday, but after a closed-door City Council meeting last month, Long Beach cut ties and quickly swapped in the L.A.-based nonprofit People Assisting The Homeless (PATH).

Long Beach is now investigating First to Serve, according to Deputy City Attorney Nicholas Masero. It’s unclear if that investigation could result in the city pursuing criminal or civil charges. Masero said that “we’ll make that determination as the investigations progress.”

The investigation stemmed from a broader review of Long Beach’s homelessness programs launched by City Auditor Laura Doud in 2023.

The audit, Masero said, looked into documents submitted by vendors like First to Serve “seeking reimbursement or payment on contracts.”

“During our audit, we identified information that requires further review,” Doud wrote in a recent memo to the city manager. “To protect the integrity of our ongoing investigation, we cannot provide additional details regarding the matter at this time, nor can we discuss our audit in greater detail.”

What she discovered, though, was enough to compel Long Beach to cut ties with First to Serve.

By November, the city began to withhold payments and started the search for a new provider after finding enough instances of “contractual concerns that we were confident we needed to switch providers,” Masero said.

Doud has not yet released the full results of her audit, but she said contractors like First to Serve must do a better job showing they’ve performed the work they were hired to do before they’re paid, and the city needs to verify the services were actually provided before paying.

According to Homeless Services Bureau Manager Paul Duncan, Long Beach has paid First to Serve $13 to $14 million annually to operate four shelters, as well as for rapid rehousing and prevention programs.

Paul Duncan, Long Beach’s homeless services bureau manager, informed the city’s Homeless Services Advisory Committee on Wednesday, April 1, that the city had terminated contracts with its largest homeless shelter provider.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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The organization oversaw the shelter at 702 West Anaheim St., the Atlantic Farms Bridge Housing Community at 6841 Atlantic Ave., the Project Homekey site at 1725 Long Beach Blvd., and the former Luxury Inn at 5950 Long Beach Blvd.

As of Wednesday, the sites were being operated by PATH. The city plans to release bids in the next month or two to evaluate new operators for each of the four shelters, Duncan said.

In response to the audit, the city said it’s already tightening up its processes, including the launch of a new tracking system and stricter oversight standards.

There’s been no official accounting of exactly what alleged wrongdoing is being investigated. According to their agendas, the City Council met in private on March 3 to discuss the situation, and then, on March 10, approved new contracts for PATH to operate the shelters without any public discussion.

On Wednesday, Long Beach officials also appeared to try to tamp down the idea that the move to fire First to Serve was related to accusations raised last week by mayoral candidate Chris Sweeney.

In a video posted to Instagram, Sweeney toured the shelter at 5950 Long Beach Blvd. and alleged there was fraud at the nearly empty shelter, where only 12 of its 78 rooms were being used.

First to Serve’s other three shelters were 78% to 88% occupied, according to city data, though about one-third of the rooms at the 1725 Long Beach Blvd. site were under construction and are not being used.

Officials say the city and First to Serve met weekly to review inventory at each shelter, transfer existing case files, and do walkthroughs of each site to make sure everything was accounted for.

Mayor Rex Richardson, Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, and other city officials celebrated the completion of the shelter at 5950 Long Beach Blvd. on Wednesday, Oct 29, 2025. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova. In a memo, the Long Beach health director Alison King said the decision to cut ties with First to Serve was related to the city auditor’s review of “prior administrative documentation” that “is not related to shelter operations.”

Nevertheless, she wrote, “Based on the findings of that review, the City determined it is in the best interest of the community to move forward with a new service provider for shelter operations.”

The city’s investigation has been ongoing since October, according to Masero.

Nobody from First to Serve was immediately available to answer questions late Wednesday night.