The Brief

Los Angeles County is making progress on bringing dozens of new mental health beds and supportive housing units to the expansive Metropolitan State Hospital campus in Norwalk.

Run by the state, the psychiatric hospital opened in 1916 and at its peak housed thousands of patients. These days there are only about 800 patients there. With its 162 acres, tree-lined pathways, and boarded up buildings, the place looks like an abandoned city.

An aerial view of Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk.

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Bryan Chan / L.A. County

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At a meeting last month, county supervisors voted to sign off on a lease with the state for a portion of the campus. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill last year that cleared the way for the lease.

Now the county plans to begin renovating two of the decaying buildings to make way for 32 treatment beds, thanks to $65 million in Proposition 1 funding from the state.

“We are facing a crisis," said Kyla Coates, senior justice and mental health deputy for Supervisor Janice Hahn’s office. "We cannot have unused empty buildings that are government-owned sitting around. We need to renovate them, reuse them and turn them into places where we can really provide care to those who need it.”

The Metropolitan State Hospital campus.

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Courtesy Supervisor Hahn's office

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Hahn’s office said the Prop 1 funding would allow for the renovation of two buildings on the campus, each housing 16 subacute beds in a locked setting, for a total of 32.

Why 16 beds each? That’s because of a federal law that dates back to the 1960s which had the intent of getting states to move away from the large asylums of the time, some of which had become notorious for inhumane treatment. Known as the Institutions for Mental Disease (IMD) exclusion, it bars any facility focused on treating adults with mental illness from receiving Medicaid dollars if it has more than 16 beds.

How severe is the need?

The so-called subacute beds the county plans to build out are the “most urgent resource need” for the county to address the ongoing behavioral health crisis, according to a February 2024 report from a consulting agency hired by the county.

Estimates vary, but many experts say L.A. County needs hundreds more beds at this treatment level to meet the needs of residents living with serious mental illness.

In all, the plan is to renovate six buildings on the Metropolitan State Hospital Campus, with 50 one-bedroom apartments for permanent supportive housing and 70 interim one-bedroom apartments for people who have mental health needs.

The concept, several years in the making, would allow for what Coates calls a “state of the art mental health community,” where people could move from more intensive treatment to housing all within the same campus.

“This courtyard space is beautiful. We have visions to have outside space where people can gather, watch outside movies, exercise, garden,” Coates told LAist.

Inside one of the buildings at Metro State Hospital.

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Courtesy Supervisor Hahn's office

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Coates said some of the buildings have large windows that she hopes will let a lot of light into large indoor communal spaces. She added that steps will also be taken to preserve the architectural features of the buildings, which have historical landmark status.

Concerns from mental health advocates

“I’m happy that the unused land is being put to use,” Vanessa Ramos of Disability Rights California told LAist.

But Ramos, who has a schizoaffective diagnosis, said she is concerned about transparency any time people are committed institutionally. And Ramos worries that people could languish in a hospitalized setting, so she would like to see the county prioritize the supportive housing on the campus.

“What I would like to see out of the unused land at Metro is for there to really be pairing of treatment beds one-to-one with step down supports, so that there isn’t an influx of these [locked] beds without a place for people to exit to,” Ramos said.

“The stigma is that people living with mental health disabilities don’t recover. And we know that we do recover. We know that people can manage life outside of hospitalization," Ramos added.

In an email, Eve Garrow, Senior Policy Analyst & Advocate with the ACLU of Southern California, said there are also concerns from disability rights advocates that settings like Metropolitan State Hospital could cordon people off from the surrounding community.

“Segregation separates people from their communities, creates an institutional environment that can quickly slip into a culture of discipline and control, and underscores the perceived ‘otherness’ of people with disabilities," Garrow said.

Responding to these concerns, Coates pointed out that the campus is walking distance from bus stops and restaurants and that its location in Norwalk would allow people to access the larger community when they want to.

The county plans to begin construction at the campus next year.

Something unusual is happening with only a few days remaining before the U.S. men's national team opens its World Cup campaign against Paraguay: Tickets for the match are not sold out.

Although numbers fluctuate regularly, FIFA's ticketing website still shows 132 tickets left to sell for a game that's set to take place in Los Angeles on Friday. Meanwhile, resale platforms such as StubHub and SeatGeek — and FIFA's own marketplace — also show thousands of tickets on sale.

The number is even higher for Canada's opening match against Bosnia Herzegovina in Toronto on the same day, with 226 tickets left in FIFA's website and a high number of tickets available in resale markets.

That's unusual for high-profile events such as the opening matches of the World Cup — traditionally among the hardest to get tickets in the tournament. This year will feature three hosts in the U.S., Canada and Mexico — but so far only Mexico's opening match against South Africa on Thursday looks to be virtually sold out.

Ticketing experts widely agree on the reason: the prices. FIFA dramatically jacked them up for the tournament — especially for high profile games. The most expensive regular seats for the U.S. opener against Paraguay are priced at $2,735 — more than the final cost for the 2022 World Cup final — while the cheapest are $1,120.

Even President Trump said he wouldn't pay those prices.

"I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn't pay it either, to be honest with you," Trump told the New York Post in a recent interview.

The other two remaining games for the U.S. national have far fewer tickets available, given that prices are well below the ones for the opening match.

Prices have also fallen sharply

There are not only plenty of tickets left to sell — a number of them are also available below FIFA's face value. According to Ticketdata, which tracks prices across the resale platforms, the cheapest pair of tickets for the opening match for the U.S. and Canada was $951 as of Monday morning, while in FIFA's resale platform, tickets were available for as low as $690.

Other games across the 104-match tournament also still have many tickets left to sell — despite FIFA President Gianni Infantino's claim that every match is "already sold out." That's especially the case for lesser well known teams such as the Jordan against Algeria match, which still had hundreds of unsold seats in the FIFA's web site.

Demand for high-profile tickets such as Argentina and Portugal was far higher, however, with many of those games looking largely sold out.

Will the opening matches sell out?

Whether eventually the U.S. and Canada opening matches will sell out is hard to answer. Throughout the sales process, FIFA has closely guarded how many tickets it has actually sold and how many are left to sell, making it virtually impossible to gauge.

In addition, like other teams, FIFA could also sell tickets in other platforms including third-party ones such as SeatGeek, which can further obscure how many tickets are left to sell.

FIFA and organizers, however, are hoping for a surge in excitement that leads to a last-minute rush of sales for the opening matches as well as for those such as Jordan against Algeria that look far from being sold out.

Ben Shields, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, says perceptions so far of the tournament have been shaped by how expensive tickets and travel has been for a tournament taking place across an entire continent.

That, he says, "does not seem to sit well with many."

But that could change.

"The hope or bet — for FIFA is that once the matches start — and the greatest players in the world compete for the most prestigious prize of them all, the sport as business lens will fade into the background and the World Cup will be seen and experienced as the enduring global institution that it is," Shields says. "We shall see."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Orange County’s top elected leaders on Tuesday are set to discuss what to do with $3.7 million recovered from the Andrew Do corruption scheme.

Do is now serving a five-year sentence in federal prison after he admitted to accepting bribes in exchange for awarding millions in tax dollars meant to feed needy seniors and people with disabilities in his district.

As part of the plea deal, Do acknowledged taking more than $800,000 in bribes through his two daughters, including a down payment on the house his youngest daughter Rhiannon Do later forfeited to resolve the criminal case. The scheme was first uncovered by LAist.

Federal officials recovered money from seized bank accounts and two properties connected to Do’s scheme — including the Tustin house his daughter bought.

The county Board of Supervisors is expected to publicly discuss plans for the recovered funds as they make decisions on the overall county budget at their meeting Tuesday. Public comment will also be taken.

What to do with the money?

Ahead of Tuesday’s discussion, Do’s successor said the funds should support residents of his former district who were deprived by Do and his alleged co-conspirators.

“For the past five years, every other district in Orange County has benefitted from the same community funds to support their cities, nonprofits, civic projects which strengthens their communities,” Supervisor Janet Nguyen wrote in a mass email to constituents last week. “However, our district went without because Do stole what belonged to our residents.”

“This money was stolen from the First District, and it must come back to the First District,” Nguyen added.

Nguyen was Do’s mentor and former boss more than a decade ago, before the two had a bitter falling out by 2016.

She encouraged residents of her district to send letters to the board and to speak during public comments.

Several county supervisors told LAist they supported a similar approach, one in which the recovered money goes to support the original intended recipients: seniors and people with disabilities in Do’s former district. Some supervisors have since advocated a broader view of how they’d want to use the money, noting that it was meant to address disruptions caused by the pandemic. Now that years have passed since the initial COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns, some supervisors argue community needs have changed.

“We are so many years on, and the problems that money originally was to address (mostly Covid impacts) are now behind us, that I think we should have a discussion about how and where to spend it,” Supervisor Don Wagner told LAist via text message in March. “The budget is so tight and the needs so great across the county.”

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said he’d work toward a fair distribution of the funds to best serve residents, with a focus on current needs.

“We will definitely consider what areas of the County were harmed by Do’s scheme, but we must also remember that the funds were intended for relief efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, a threat we are no longer facing,” he said in March. “We also need to consider addressing the current needs of residents with any dollars returned to the county.”

Millions more haven’t been recovered, at least yet

The amount of taxpayer money recovered so far is less than half of the $7.9 million Andrew Do admitted was diverted from specific meal contracts.

In a lawsuit seeking to recover funds, the county alleges the total amount lost in the scheme was even larger: $13.25 million. The county’s suit — scheduled for trial in November 2027 — covers all of the money Do gave to two nonprofits accused in the scheme, Viet America Society and Hand to Hand Relief Organization.

That leaves more than $4 million — and possibly much more — not yet recovered.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office noted they have an ongoing criminal case against Do’s alleged co-conspirator Peter Pham.

“Assuming we obtain a conviction in that matter, we would expect to seek restitution,” the spokesperson, Ciaran McEvoy, said.

Pham left the country on a flight to Taiwan in late 2024 and remains a fugitive, according to McEvoy. The case against him also includes charges against another alleged co-conspirator, Thanh Huong Nguyen, who led the Hand to Hand nonprofit.

Fans of the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team swelled the stadium at the Great Park in Irvine on Monday to watch players practice for the first time since arriving at the training facility they’ll call home for the first round of the 2026 World Cup.

“Seeing them play right now… it was really cool to see how they play and how they practice,” said Mila Ran, who came with her mother from nearby Mission Viejo.

“This whole time she’s saying, 'I want to go shoot, I want to go play,'” said Mila’s mother, Farah Ran.

They were among about 6,000 people who won free entry to the practice in a lottery that received more than 30,000 entries, according to Irvine officials.

Fans got to the venue early.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

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LAist

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The team’s biggest stars — Christian Pulisic, Antonee Robinson and others — showed off their ball handling skills, honed over years of play on U.S. youth fields and overseas in professional leagues. Fans yelled, waved U.S. flags, held up homemade signs, and did the wave several times.

The U.S. Men's National Team at their only open-to-the-public practice session in Irvine.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

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LAist

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After the roughly 45-minute practice, some players walked to the sidelines to take selfies with fans and sign autographs.

The players know it’s going to take more than this, however, to live up to expectations during the World Cup.

US men's national team player Tim Ream signs an autograph for a fan.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

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LAist

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“To be in a position to train in front of these people today… is such a unique opportunity and one that none of us take for granted,” said backup goalie Matt Freese before the practice. “We’re working as hard as we can, as focused as we can to leave the next generation inspired."

The U.S. men’s team and their training staff will use the Great Park facility over the next several weeks as the team plays Paraguay on Friday, Australia on June 19, and Turkey on June 25 in group play at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

Jury selection began Monday for the trial of the man accused of igniting a fire that led to the deadly and destructive Palisades Fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of structures.

Jonathan Rinderknecht is charged with one count of destruction of property by means of fire, one count of arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and one count of setting timber afire. He could face up to 45 years in federal prison.

How we got here

Prosecutors allege Rinderknecht set brush alight near a popular hiking trail in the Santa Monica Mountains on New Year’s Day, starting the Lachman Fire. Firefighters initially thought they put out the fire, but it remained smouldering underground for several days. High winds then brought the embers to the surface, sparking the Palisades Fire, which burned more than 23,000 acres.

What prosecutors say

In a court filing in April, prosecutors allege Rinderknecht displayed “extreme anger, indignation, and frustration” because he had to spend New Year's Eve alone. After driving around for Uber, Rinderknecht hiked up a popular trail and set chaparral alight in a clearing, according to prosecutors.

“He then started calling 911 multiple times, hiked down the hill, and fled the area in his car before firefighters arrived. Defendant returned to the area after he saw fire trucks arriving and then took videos of the firefighting efforts,” prosecutors wrote.

The filing also states that Rinderknecht threatened to burn down his sister’s home.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Rinderknecht started the smaller blaze knowing it could turn into a bigger inferno.

U.S. District Court Judge Anne Hwang has previously expressed the government’s position could confuse jurors.

What the defense says

Defense attorney Steve Haney previously told reporters that prosecutors were trying to blame Rinderknecht for a fire that started days before the Palisades Fire.

"Well what about what happened between Jan. 1 and Jan. 7?" he asked. "Jonathan wasn't out there with a fire hose putting that fire out at the Lachman location, the Fire Department was. So why are they blaming him for whatever the Fire Department didn't do?"