The Brief

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has renewed her administration’s emergency declaration on homelessness, saying the worsening problem involving more than 46,000 city residents living without housing shows no signs of resolving anytime soon.

“We really need to normalize the fact, unfortunately, that we're living in a crisis,” Bass said in a press conference Monday. “This is a crisis that we know is going to be ongoing. And it requires us to have sustained focus and effort.”

Bass signed a state of emergency on homelessness during her first day in office, Dec. 12, 2022. But that declaration was scheduled to expire on July 9.

Late Friday afternoon, Bass signed a new declaration that her office says largely extends the previous order, and includes new commitments to regularly report to the city council on key homelessness indicators.

The details 

This latest declaration stems from an ordinance passed last week by the L.A. City Council. That ordinance created a new section of the city’s administrative code outlining the conditions under which a mayor can declare a housing or homelessness emergency.

It allows mayors to declare a housing or homelessness emergency when L.A.’s housing supply falls 40% below the city’s state-mandated housing production goals, when the city has twice as many unhoused people as interim shelter beds, or when homelessness increases by 20% in a single year. The city is currently falling short of its housing production goals by about 60%, and only has one shelter bed for every three unhoused people.

“We can't treat this the same way we would an earthquake or a tsunami,” said Paul Krekorian, L.A. city council president. “We know that we're going to have to continue to bring this urgency over the course of a very long period of time in order to effectively address this challenge.”

Under the council’s new ordinance, city agencies including the housing and planning departments will be required to report to the council every three months on progress tackling the homelessness emergency.

The declaration gives the mayor the power to suspend competitive bidding requirements for contracts of up to one year related to the homelessness crisis. The city council can override those contracts if they see fit. The mayor will also have the power to redirect city employees from any department toward work on the crisis.

A new focus on data

Bass said her administration will monitor indicators such as the number of encampments, the number of people placed into housing, new development of affordable housing, the number of mental health and substance use treatment beds and the number of people being evicted from their homes. With the city’s COVID-19 eviction protections now expired, she said thousands of evictions have already been filed this year.

“I am extremely concerned about the inflow people who are falling into homelessness,” Bass said. “We're going to do everything we can to reduce the numbers.”

In February, L.A. city councilmembers proposed a “right to counsel” program that would provide free attorneys to low-income tenants in eviction court, but that ordinance has not come up for a final vote.

L.A. homelessness officials recently reported a 10% annual increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness within the city of L.A., with much of the increase coming from people living in vehicles. Bass said her first priority on addressing vehicular homelessness will be to find safe parking sites for those living in RVs.

So far, about $40 million has been spent on Bass’ signature homelessness initiative Inside Safe. That program has brought about 1,400 people out of tents and into temporary motel rooms, but as of last week, only about 77 Inside Safe participants had moved into long-term permanent housing.

Netflix plans to lay off about 6% of its workforce, amounting to nearly 1,000 positions, as the streaming giant makes wider “organizational changes.”

Co-CEOs Greg Peters and Ted Sarandos announced the job cuts in a memo to employees Wednesday. They said the company’s product, tech, legal and human resources teams would be the most impacted.

“Decisions like these are never easy, and we don’t take them lightly,” Peters and Sarandos wrote in the memo, which was obtained by The Associated Press. They maintained business was strong — but that Netflix needed to be “disciplined about where we prioritize our people and resources” as it invests in future growth and “high impact areas to improve our service.”

Beyond the memo from its chief executives, Netflix declined to comment further about Wednesday’s cuts.

Between membership signups and price increases, Netflix’s profit has grown this year. In its second financial quarter, the company earned $3.4 billion and racked up revenue of $12.56 billion — up 9% and 13%, respectively, from the same period last year.

Still, Netflix’s forecast for the third quarter fell below Wall Street’s expectations. The company plans to report those earnings next week.

Competition in the streaming space is growing more crowded overall. Netflix continues to be a dominant player (accounting for 19% of the market per the latest data from streaming guide JustWatch), but rivals like Amazon’s Prime Video and Disney+ are close behind.

HBO Max and Paramount+ are also now under the same roof — Skydance — after Paramount’s $81 billion buyout of Warner Bros. Discovery closed last week. The new Hollywood giant plans to unify its streaming products “into a single service over time.” Netflix initially inked a deal to buy Warner’s studio and streaming business late last year, but walked away from that offer back in February.

At the end of 2025, per regulatory filings, Netflix had about 16,000 full-time employees worldwide. The layoffs announced Wednesday mark the biggest round of cuts the California-based company has rolled out in years.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Wednesday’s news of the layoffs.

A craving for dumplings can hit at any moment. If you live near a dumpling stronghold like the San Gabriel Valley, satisfying that urge is pretty easy. But what if that hankering for steamy, soupy goodness strikes miles away from Valley Boulevard?

The answer may surprise you: Torrance.

Sure, the offerings aren’t as deep as the SGV’s. But within a few miles, you’ll find great options at every price point, from an outdoor market stand to a sit-down dining room.

Buckle up. We’re heading out on an old-fashioned dumpling crawl, South Bay style.

Bun Boss

An $8 order of pork dumplings from Bun Boss at the Torrance Farmers Market topped with chili crisp.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Let’s ease into things at the Torrance Farmers Market, held every Tuesday and Saturday. If you love some of the freshest, hard-to-find seasonal produce in the L.A. area, you probably already know about it.

Enter Bun Boss, the locally beloved small stand near the market’s Oak Street entrance. The tiny stand might not look like much, but it serves a range of dumplings, bao and even a few dim sum items.

Keeping things light, I went with the pork dumplings (small, $8). They’re steamed half-moons, with the wrappers expertly folded around the filling. They’re great on their own, but a small spoonful of chili crisp over each one adds a savory, spicy kick to every bite.

Bafang Dumpling

Bafang's Taiwanese dumplings — the combos offer the most value.

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Gab Chabran

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LAist

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Moving from ultra-casual to fast-casual, less than 10 minutes away is Bafang Dumpling, a Taiwanese chain founded in Taipei in 1998. It opened its first U.S. location in 2022 and has since spread across SoCal, with 14 locations from L.A. to San Diego.

It sits in a newly remodeled strip mall not far from the Del Amo Fashion Center. The space is bright, and you order at the counter. With plenty of options, the combos offer the best value. I went with the 12 signature potstickers and a mini wonton soup ($14.95).

The potstickers alone are enough to fill you up. They’re slender, with crispy bottoms made for dipping in the sauces on hand, from black vinegar to chili sauce. I kept going back to the garlic sauce, upping the savory factor, just how I like it. My few slurps of the mini wonton soup hit just as hard, with a full-bodied broth and plump wontons.

Din Tai Fung

Crab and pork xiao long bao ($19.50 for 10) at the Din Tai Fung in Del Amo Fashion Center.

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Gab Chabrán

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LAist

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Is it an obvious choice? Sure. But despite its omnipresence on the SoCal dumpling scene, Din Tai Fung still holds its own as the sit-down dumpling experience. Being a five-minute drive from Bafang makes it a no-brainer for our crawl.

The always-busy location is on the second floor of the Del Amo Fashion Center, and you’ll usually need a reservation at peak lunch and dinner hours. That’s no surprise: DTF built its reputation on a lineup of dumplings you can turn into a meal at any time of day.

Once you’ve nabbed a table and gotten the rundown from your headset-wearing server, order the dish that gave the place its name: xiao long bao, or soup dumplings. Start with the crab and pork ($19.50 for 10 pieces), which gets a hint of sweetness from the crab and richness from the pork. To make the most of the broth inside, bite a small hole near the twisted tip and sip some. Then douse the rest with black vinegar and chili oil, and pop the whole thing into your mouth.

Save room for the potstickers, another fan favorite ($13). They’re fried together into a single rectangular sheet, adding another hands-on element to an already fun meal.

The U.S. Department of Justice has threatened California with possible legal action over what it says are noncitizens believed to have received mail ballots for next month’s midterm elections.

A letter sent Tuesday to Secretary of State Shirley Weber from Trent McCotter, the acting deputy U.S. attorney general, says the department has provided officials in Los Angeles County with a password-protected thumb drive with a list of names the federal government believes are likely noncitizens who were sent ballots to participate in the Nov. 3 election.

California mails ballots to all registered voters.

The letter obtained by The Associated Press gives the state 48 hours to determine whether any citizens are included on the list. For individuals whose citizenship cannot be independently verified, the state is to instruct local election officials to segregate their mail-in ballots until their status can be determined, and to not provide a ballot to anyone who has not yet received it. The letters warns that legal action may follow if the state does not meet the 48-hour deadline to review the list.

“If you cannot implement this process by then, given the ongoing federal election, the United States will have no choice but to seek emergency relief,” the letter states.

A separate, similar letter was sent to the registrar’s office in Los Angeles County, which the U.S. attorney’s office had investigated during the state’s June primary.

Neither the California secretary of state nor the Los Angeles County registrar immediately responded to requests seeking comment.

The Trump administration has made the hunt for noncitizen voters a priority this year, even though the problem is exceptionally rare. The Justice Department has charged about 90 people for various types of election misconduct so far this year, including 50 who are alleged to have voted as noncitizens. There were more than 227 million registered voters in the United States during the 2024 presidential election.

In July, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin sent letters to California, Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, alleging that as many as 250,000 noncitizens were registered in those states. Election officials there were skeptical of the claim, including Weber, the California secretary of state.

“I have serious doubts about the reliability of your data and accuracy of your claims, since my office has not shared our statewide voter registration list with DHS or any other federal agency or official,” Weber said in response.

That same month, the Republican administration claimed Nevada had 1,500 noncitizen voters on its voter rolls. But after the federal government identified them to the state, the number of actual registered noncitizens turned out to be zero.

As part of its project to find noncitizens on the voter rolls, the Justice Department has been seeking detailed voter information — including dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers — from the states. Some Republican-led states have turned over the information, which has been run through a U.S. Department of Homeland Security database that has been criticized as inaccurately flagging U.S. citizens.

The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for that information, but so far has lost those cases in court. California is among the states that successfully sued, in part by arguing that turning over the data would violate state privacy laws.

Santa Cruz County Clerk Tricia Webber, who is president of the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials, said she had not seen the letters but said the 48-hour deadline to vet voters flagged by the federal government was “completely unreasonable.”

She said when there is a report of an ineligible voter incorrectly on the rolls, her office does due diligence to investigate. That involves looking at the voter’s registration history, identifying whether that person had voted before and, most importantly, reaching out to the voter, she said.

“It would take more than 48 hours to even begin to get the full picture,” Webber said. She also questioned how the federal government came up with a list of alleged noncitizen voters since it doesn’t have access to the state’s detailed voter information.

Webber added that throughout the course of her decades-long career working for local election agencies, she has “never seen anything that would make me believe that our voter records are filled with fraudulent voters.”