Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published June 20, 2024 12:00 PM
Arturo Magaña is a senior at Cabrillo High School in Long Beach. He plans to major in criminal justice at Cal State Dominguez Hills.
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Topline:
California’s colleges and universities have struggled to keep men of color enrolled, especially young Black and Latino men. USC's College Advising Corps, which has advisors in about 50 Los Angeles-area schools, says their focus on turning perceived deficits of young men of color into strengths helps with college enrollment.
Enrollment is lopsided: Male-female enrollments among Black and Hispanic students is lopsided, as much as a 60-40 split of women to men.
What's the philosophy: Group leaders say they want to change a deficit approach many adults use to talk to the young men, approaches that send the message that, “I need to fix you, this is how you're wrong, this is the problem in you, this is how you're being the wrong way,” said director Ara Arzumanian. They also train advisors to listen intently to young men of color to hear their aspirations.
What’s the approach: The corps says its advisors use various means to meet with students, including classroom presentations, and issuing call slips to excuse a student from a class to talk to an advisor. Advisors persist even if a student says they’re not interested in hearing about post-secondary education.
During a recent lunch, seniors at Cabrillo High School in Long Beach streamed into a grassy area on the north side of campus. A DJ played grupera songs on one end of this quad, a few students tossed bean bags playing cornhole nearby, while others stamped their hand prints in various colors on a large sheet of paper with the words “Class of 2024.”
“I’m going to [Cal State] Dominguez Hills, my major is going to be criminal justice,” said Arturo Magaña.
He’s one of a couple hundred seniors here today to celebrate their education plans after high school, feasting on pizza, chips, and snow cones.
The celebration was organized and paid for by the USC College Advising Corps. The organization trains and assigns at least one recent college graduate to work with all seniors at dozens of L.A. County high schools, with the goal of making college a reality for more students.
Where some students run into problems
Magaña is a member of a key demographic for USC CAC — he's a young man of color, who California’s colleges and universities have struggled to keep enrolled, especially young Black and Latino men. Male-female enrollments among Black and Latino students is lopsided, as much as a 60-40 split of women to men.
How To Get To College In California
Higher education promises a lot of things: jobs, better pay, fantastic opportunities, lifelong success. But trying to make it all happen is, uh, not so straightforward. LAist can't make decisions for you, but our guide to navigating college in California can sketch out the landscape — tell you the basics of what’s out there, highlight helpful resources, discuss pros and cons of different options, get honest about financial aid, and point you to real humans who can talk you through it.
When Magaña thinks of the future, he thinks about his older brother, he said, because their family struggled financially when they were younger.
"We took care of my little sister when she was little, me and my brother, so my mom and dad stepped up and worked,” he said.
The older brother, Magaña said, enrolled at Cerritos College to fulfill his goal to become an engineer, but dropped out after one year because of financial problems.
“He told me, don’t make the same mistake I did, to leave college,” Magaña said.
What's an approach that might work?
USC College Advising Corps leaders say they’re making inroads by turning perceived deficits into strengths.
Of California’s nearly 6 million public school students, 56% are Hispanic/Latino and nearly 5% are Black. At Cabrillo High the proportions are much higher: 76% are Latino and nearly 10% are Black.
Cabrillo High School seniors celebrated their post secondary education plans on campus.
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The corps sends advisors to nearly 50 other high schools with similar demographics. The group trains its advisors on strategies to change what the group’s leaders say is a deficit approach most adults use to talk to the young men, approaches that send the message that, “I need to fix you, this is how you're wrong, this is the problem in you, this is how you're being the wrong way,” said director Ara Arzumanian.
One of the hurdles is the belief by high school males that college will be a lot like high school.
“If they didn't enjoy that experience, they're not going to be as interested in engaging with it at all,” said Benjamin Robles, assistant program director of USC’s College Advising Corps. “One of the things that we actually focus on is helping students understand that higher education can look like a classroom, can look like a lecture hall, but it could also be a mechanic shop, it could also be learning to be a machinist."
What does it look like on the ground?
There are over 400 seniors at Cabrillo High School this year. The corps says its advisors use various means to meet with students, including classroom presentations, and issuing call slips to excuse a student from a class to talk to an advisor. Advisors persist even if a student says they’re not interested in hearing about post-secondary education.
“Most of my friends, they were drawn into the military… I feel like they were distracted with video games,” said Sebastian Ramirez, one of the two advisors at Cabrillo High School and a recent graduate from California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Monique Bravo (right) and Sebastian Ramirez are college advisors at Cabrillo High School in Long Beach.
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He graduated from nearby Lawndale High School, a school with demographics similar to those at Cabrillo High. Those friends, he said, didn’t think going to college was “cool” and tuned out when counselors and teachers talked about college.
One of his strategies, he said, is to turn some of the students’ ideas to work in a trade and help them understand how college can help with that goal.
That’s why Cabrillo High senior Richard Mendoza is going to Long Beach City College for auto-tech.
“As a kid, I would really enjoy cars and I really thought it was like something I would enjoy doing and my dad also works in that similar kind of area,” he said.
But is it working?
The corps says it collects a lot of data about how often advisors talk to students and what those students end up doing after their senior year.
According to a 2021 report, the latest available, the program helped over 55,000 students enroll in college in the program’s first eight years. The report says an independent analysis conducted in 2018 found that students who met with program advisors were 18% more likely to apply to college. Program officials say their approach is helping more young men of color with post-secondary education but the report did not speak to that.
Cabrillo HS graduates celebrated the end of the year by printing their hands on a sheet of paper.
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Administrators said female students turn out in higher proportions to college advising programs in public schools.
Arzumanian shared data that suggests that of the total one-on-one interactions between advisors and students at all the program schools, 45% of the turnout was male students. And 43% of the male students who met with an advisor filled out at least one college application, just two percentage points below female students — meaning the gap between male and female students seeking college help is narrow, Arzumanian said.
A ripple effect
The benefits of the college advising appear to be having a ripple effect within these students’ families.
Advisors at Cabrillo High School helped convince Arturo Magaña to enroll in college on his way to a career in law enforcement. He holds his older brother’s advice to stick with his college goals as he’s shared the college advisor’s tips with his 16-year-old sister, who’s attending another high school in Long Beach.
“She wants to be like my brother, she wants to be an engineer,” he said.
A man casts his ballot during early voting in Waukesha, Wis., on March 18.
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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.
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AFP via Getty Images
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Topline:
More than 4 in 10 names flagged as possible noncitizen voters in California by the Trump administration cannot be found on the state’s voter rolls, according to a legal filing Saturday by an immigrant-rights group.
Why it matters: It’s the first outside analysis of a list that the Department of Justice has used to threaten prosecution of election officials. The analysis also found that thousands of U.S. citizens appear to be flagged as ineligible to vote on the government’s list.
Why now: The contention was made in a filing by two data analysts at the University of California, Los Angeles. The breadth of the problems with the list was outlined in Saturday’s filing. It describes an analysis by two members of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, who filed a lawsuit challenging it with the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 4 in 10 names flagged as possible noncitizen voters in California by the Trump administration cannot be found on the state’s voter rolls, according to a legal filing Saturday by an immigrant-rights group.
It’s the first outside analysis of a list that the Department of Justice has used to threaten prosecution of election officials. The analysis also found that thousands of U.S. citizens appear to be flagged as ineligible to vote on the government’s list.
The contention was made in a filing by two data analysts at the University of California, Los Angeles. They analyzed the 20,930 names that the department demanded that California election officials treat as possible illegal voters by separating their ballots during the vote count on Election Day.
Multiple judges have rejected the demand as unconstitutional and a threat to democracy, and local and state officials have said the list appears riddled with errors.
Court filing outlines problems with government list
The breadth of the problems with the list was outlined in Saturday’s filing. It describes an analysis by two members of UCLA’s Voting Rights Project, who filed a lawsuit challenging it with the Los Angeles-based Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA.
The research found that 8,880 of the names, representing 42% of the entire list, do not correspond to anyone in California’s current voter file. It also found at least 22 are U.S. citizens, and many more may correspond to those of confirmed citizens.
“The expert analysis further makes clear that the mandated voter list endangers a significant number of eligible California voters,” said the filing, which was cosigned by Xavier Becerra, the Democratic candidate for California governor and an adviser to the UCLA Voting Rights Project. null
The Trump administration had objected to sharing the list, calling it a “fishing expedition” and noting that it included sensitive information. On Saturday, the federal prosecutor who spearheaded the Trump case in California called the analysis “bogus.”
“This is a bogus report by the activist illegal immigrant rights group CHIRLA,” Bill Essayli, who runs the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles, posted on X.
Also on Saturday, President Donald Trump bemoaned the legal rulings against his effort to force California to separate votes from the individuals his administration labels suspected noncitizens, even though one came from a judge he himself nominated.
In a social media post, Trump claimed his Justice Department found “20,000, but potentially Hundreds of Thousands, and maybe even Millions,” of fraudulent votes, “and the Court has just ruled against it. Why would they reject fixing Election Fraud?”
The Trump administration has also urged Washington state to remove what it says were 400 possible noncitizens on its rolls, though state election officials there say that list is also unreliable and includes one voter who cast ballots in the 1990s.
The Justice Department has warned California election officials they could face criminal liability if they let noncitizens vote and issued subpoenas to election officials there.
Election officials say they have no time to investigate
Election officials have complained that the Trump administration has confronted them with lists of possible illegal voters at the last minute before Election Day, with no time to conduct the painstaking investigation required by law before removing someone from the rolls.
Multiple lawsuits have been filed to stop the administration from continuing to threaten local election officials.
On Friday, a federal judge in California ordered the Justice Department to stop sending demands to state officials, a decision the Trump administration appealed Saturday. Several counties in the state had run quick checks of the Trump list and found numerous errors.
Saturday’s broader analysis was possible because a federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to share the list with the plaintiffs in the case.
CHIRLA and the UCLA project sued the Homeland Security Department in early October to prevent it from using federal immigration data to challenge state voter rolls. The lawsuit cited examples in other states where the federal government’s data has been proven to mistakenly include thousands of citizens.
Case argues that government’s methods pose risk to voting
The case argued that the data-matching methods risk disenfranchising or deterring citizens from voting. On top of that, plaintiffs argued, the lists could disproportionately target naturalized citizens who are legally entitled to vote.
Applying the government’s methodology, the UCLA researchers found that nearly 7,500 naturalized citizens in the state were “highly likely” to be incorrectly flagged as ineligible.
The researchers noted that the administration apparently removed the voter identification number from the names, making it harder for election officials to determine whether the flagged individuals were already on their rolls or were duplicates in the Justice Department list. They described the voter ID number as the most crucial data point.
The Justice Department argues that there is just as much to lose if the ballots aren’t separated.
“Every ballot cast by an ineligible voter cancels out the vote of an American citizen,” Kiersten V. Pels, a spokesperson for the department, wrote in an email. “The Department makes no apology for protecting those votes.”
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published November 1, 2026 5:00 AM
Jordan Delgado picked Lady Gaga's 'You and I' as her debut song with the L.A. Karaoke league.
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Josie Huang
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Topline:
The LA Karaoke league turns singing into a team sport, where costumes, props and creativity matter more than hitting the right notes. For performers craving a creative outlet when auditions are harder to come by, the league offers a community to cheer them on.
The backstory: The L.A. league is part of United Karaoke, a national network of chapters that share a competition format, voting app and pledge to always keep the vibe friendly.
What's next: Teams compete for a spot in the finals. The public is welcome to watch and vote for their favorite performances.
For many of us, karaoke is a chance to sing our favorite shower song in public.
But at a North Hollywood bar every Wednesday night, it’s a team sport. And competitors in the L.A. Karaoke league are more serious about putting on an over-the-top production than hitting all the right notes.
At a social in late September, league manager Michelle Goff kicked off a new season of weekly themed showdowns, from dance-floor favorites to internet memes to songs inspired by birds.
Brittany Gates, the CEO of United Karaoke, who was visiting from D.C., did her rendition of 'Let's Hear It For The Boy' by Deniece Williams.
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"You are going to see numbers that people came up with in their crazy dreams maybe three years ago, and it's going to be amazing,” Goff told performers at the social. “And then they’re never going to be done again.”
Michelle Goff unveils the different themed weeks, from dance-floor favorites to internet memes to songs inspired by birds.
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Performances range from solos to group numbers, and the crowd votes for its favorites. Props and costumes are highly encouraged.
Here, dark wizards from Harry Potter duet to Taylor Swift. A singer tosses flowers to the crowd while belting Seal's “Kiss From a Rose.” Once, Goff danced around as an erupting Mount Vesuvius as her teammates sang Bastille's "Pompeii."
Like intramural sports but with microphones, teams compete over six weeks, followed by two weeks of playoffs, then the finals.
It all happens at the Good Nite bar, on a darkened stretch of Burbank Boulevard. Inside, there’s an inviting purple glow and warm conversation that can be hard to come by in a city as big as L.A.
“You know, the city, exciting as it is, still has so many strangers,” said Carlos Mulia.
A newcomer to the league, the chef-turned-actor already feels like he belongs.
Want to join the L.A. Karaoke league?
Where: The Good Nite, 10721 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood.
When: Wednesday nights during the season.
How: Check the chapter’s website or @WeSingLA on Instagram for season announcements. Fall season registration is closed. The next season will start in late January or early February.
Cost: Registration costs $65 to $80, depending on when you sign up and whether you use a discount code.
Can I go watch: Yes! League nights are open to the public, with no cover charge, and anyone can vote for their favorite performances.
“Sometimes you can go to a karaoke bar and everyone’s talking and no one’s paying attention to you — that can be a downer,” he said. “But here, everyone’s contributing, everyone’s cheering for each other.”
For Mulia, the league also offers a creative outlet during Hollywood’s production slowdown, when he says opportunities to perform are scarce.
Actor Carlos Mulia said competitive karaoke gives him a creative outlet and a place to find community in a big city.
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“There’s not that many auditions," he said. "They’re far and few between, and it can really affect your psyche. So this allows you to just let it all out.”
The L.A. league started in Santa Monica in 2014 before moving among venues around the region and finding its current home at the Good Nite in 2021.
It’s part of United Karaoke, a loose national network with chapters in Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Chicago. The local leagues share a competition format, voting app and a pledge to keep the vibe welcoming.
In the league, friendships spark right away. Mulia hit it off with another actor, Jordan Delgado, who teaches children art at a studio.
They quickly figured out they’re both half-Filipino and grew up with karaoke, a fixture of Filipino social life.
“It is in our blood to do karaoke,” Delgado said. “So yeah, I’m honoring my ancestors in a way by being here tonight.”
Anybody is welcome on karaoke competition nights and invited to vote for their favorite performances.
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Delgado loves to perform but says the karaoke league promises more than that.
“It’s something to look forward to in the downtime of the part-time jobs,” Delgado said. “A reason to regularly meet up with people, where we could just be silly, without any judgment.”
For her league debut, Delgado is going with a tried and true crowd-pleaser.
“My go-to song that my friends and family have heard me sing a billion times is ‘You and I’ by Lady Gaga," Delgado said. "It really gets the crowd going.”
When it’s her turn, Delgado bounds onto the tiny stage up front with a big confident smile that matches a powerful voice.
“We got a whole lot of money, but still pay rent,” Delgado sings, striding across the tiny stage to whoops and cheers.
Several weeks after her league debut, Delgado would go on to win best performer during Graveyard Week, when the league revives songs so overdone they’re normally off-limits.
Her winning number? “Shallow,” with Delgado singing both the Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper parts.
And she brought the theatrical flair. Dressed as Gaga on one side of her body and Cooper on the other, she was her own duet partner.
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By Jeremiah Dobruck | Long Beach Post, Dañiel Andres Martinez
Published October 31, 2026 1:34 PM
A sign a Rosies Dog Beach in Long Beach warn visitors of the contaminated water. Photographed at Rosie's Dog Beach on Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022 in Long Beach, CA.
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Myung J. Chun
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
All coastal waters in Long Beach — including beaches, lagoons and bays — remain closed Sunday, after health officials say 29,000 gallons of sewage spilled out of a mainline pipe in Belmont Shore on Friday evening.
What happened: The spill happened around 6:30 p.m. near Livingston Drive and Second Street, according to a statement from the city’s Health Department.
The latest update: City crews tried to catch as much sewage as possible before it reached drainage systems that led to the ocean, but about 14,000 gallons ultimately reached the sea, forcing Long Beach to close its coastal waters.
All coastal waters in Long Beach — including beaches, lagoons and bays — remain closed Sunday after health officials say 29,000 gallons of sewage spilled out of a mainline pipe in Belmont Shore on Friday evening.
Joy Contreras, a public information officer with Long Beach Utilities, told LAist that emergency repairs to the sewer main were completed Saturday night.
"The Utilities Department will investigate the cause of the force main break, as a break of this magnitude is extremely rare," Contreras said Sunday.
Water quality testing, Contreras said, will resume on Monday. The Long Beach Health Department, she said, will determine when swimming areas will reopen once samples meet State water quality standards.
What happened
The spill happened around 6:30 p.m. on Friday near Livingston Drive and Second Street, according to a statement from the city’s health department.
“The spill was associated with a force main break, a pressurized pipe to convey wastewater,” according to the statement. There was no word on what caused the break.
Long Beach Utilities stopped the spill by rerouting sewage to bypass the line.
City crews tried to catch as much of the sewage as possible before it reached drainage systems that led to the ocean, but about 14,000 gallons ultimately reached the sea, forcing Long Beach to close its coastal waters.
History of sewage spills
Long Beach is no stranger to beach closures because of sewage spills, but it most commonly happens when sewage flows down the Los Angeles or San Gabriel rivers from upstream cities. Over one recent five-year span, local beaches were closed for 63 days because of upstream spills.
State law requires the closures any time sewage makes its way to the coast until testing shows the water meets quality standards. These rigorous rules don’t hold true for all types of spills.
