The Brief

Pedro Jauregui, with the organization U.S. Vets in Long Beach, Calif., once spent a whole year getting one unhoused veteran to come in from the cold.

"The first time I met him, I had to walk away 'cause he gave me some choice words, waved a one finger at me and said he was gonna kill me," Jauregui said.

But a year of regular visits, including plenty of hot coffee and doughnuts, and Jauregui convinced the vet to come indoors. After that, he sobered up and started using his VA benefits for college.

"We build relationships and then we use whatever we can to get the veteran the help he needs," Jauregui said.

More than 30,000 U.S. military veterans are unhoused, according to the latest government data from an annual one-night "point in time count." That number is down significantly in the past decade, which most experts credit to a straightforward combination of robust funding and a philosophy focused on offering housing without prerequisites, called housing first.

While the Trump administration has promised new housing for vets, President Trump also signed an executive order last year titled "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets," which leans heavily toward institutionalizing unhoused people against their will. This winter, NPR obtained slides describing a proposed VA plan called "Safe Harbor," which would include veterans in that shift to involuntary treatment. Then, in March, the VA put out a memorandum of understanding with the Justice Department about state court guardianship for veterans.

But VA Secretary Doug Collins says the memorandum has nothing to do with the Safe Harbor proposal.

"We have veterans — not homeless, just veterans — who are in our facilities," he said at the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans annual conference last month. "They have no family, they have no representation, and they really are not in a position to actually make competent choices for their own healthcare."

Collins said the memorandum will help those veterans get important medical decisions made.

"The court will find somebody in the community, not a VA employee, not a VA attorney, [who] will then represent that veteran with the respect to their medical well-being, moving them along, getting them the healthcare that they need," he said.

Collins says the leaked slide deck describing project Safe Harbor was still just a proposal, and he accused the lead Democrat on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Mark Takano, of distorting it.

"Somebody in our building leaked it to the Hill. And guess what? Rep. Takano happily put out information that wasn't correct," Collins said. "I've got veterans who are sitting in hospitals who can't make competent choices for themselves to get better … next-level care. We're helping them do that. … When it came out that we were attacking homeless and going after homeless, I wanted to puke," he said.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins in the Oval Office at the White House on Jan. 29 in Washington, D.C.

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Samuel Corum

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Takano claimed in a statement to NPR that the VA is withholding information about the program from the public.

"I've given VA multiple opportunities at public hearings and in congressional requests to clarify its intent, and it refuses to do so," Takano said. "Doug Collins repeatedly fails to recognize or plan for the risks associated with guardianship, an industry rife with fraud and exploitation."

Takano said his staff will continue to collect information from whistleblowers about courts putting veterans under guardianship.

A VA spokesman reiterated to NPR that the guardianship memorandum is not connected to the leaked "Safe Harbor" plan, which echoed President Trump's executive order about institutionalizing unhoused people. Several veterans advocacy groups have expressed skepticism.

"I like to think that it's altruistic, like they really wanna help veterans in hospital situations have the decision-making skills that they need. But the fact that it also applies to homeless veterans and those veterans at risk of homelessness, I think, is really a slippery slope," said Jess Finucan, director of policy and advocacy at Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, says the veterans service community is worried.

"What the administration has said publicly on this proposal is at odds with the documentation on the project and its pilot program. That original documentation was directly linked to the president's executive order, calling for involuntary commitment of people experiencing homelessness. I think it's disingenuous for anybody from the VA to say that this was meant for a completely different population," she said.

What proud vet wants to be a burden?

Back in Long Beach, NPR recently rode along with Pedro Jauregui and Veronica Hood, from the group U.S. Vets, as they did street outreach. They both served in the military, but at this point they've spent nearly as many years serving unhoused vets.

"Rather than make it something traumatic where we're forcing you into it, let outreach workers like us build the relationship," Jauregui said.

Their aim was to track down an 87-year-old Navy veteran named Curtis Ervin who has been sleeping in his truck. Even though he's probably been uhoused for decades, Ervin is reluctant to accept offers of housing, Hood said.

"He might think he'd be a burden on people. So he really just wants to do it on his own," she said.

U.S. Navy veteran Curtis Ervin, 87, was homeless for decades before being moved into housing this year.

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"And what proud man or vet wants to be a burden on anybody?" Jauregui added from the passenger seat.

After driving to a few different places where unhoused vets camp out, Hood spots Ervin's maroon pickup parked near a Jack in the Box. She hands him a warm packed meal and some water through the driver's side window.

Ervin said he joined the Navy in 1956.

"I was a diesel engine mechanic. And on the ship, that means you're everything," Ervin said.

His last ship was the USS Bainbridge, a nuclear-powered destroyer.

 "I was aboard when they brought the nuclear fleet to Vietnam, when they brought the [USS aircraft carrier] Enterprise, my ship escorted her. We went around Africa," he recalls.

Ervin said he's been bouncing between hospitals for years, and he can't remember the last time he had a home. Sleeping in a seat has made his legs swell up.

"Right now I'm in the truck. For the last two, three years, I've been dancing from hospital to hospital. … I finally got out because they tried to keep me," Ervin said.

He doesn't like being ordered around.

"I got enough of that in the Navy," he said, even though he's been out for 60 years.

But Veronica Hood seems to have built a rapport, and Ervin said he'll be here tomorrow to go with her to the hospital, and then get a roof over his head.

" I have never used the VA, but I am scheduled to go to the VA tomorrow," he said, "and I hope they don't keep me there."

Driving back, Hood and Jauregui said they know some unhoused people are a danger to themselves and maybe others, but for the most part, they wouldn't want to see vets forced into treatment.

"As you saw with Ervin, it could be both beneficial or it could be extremely traumatic," said Hood.

"My husband is also a veteran. He just retired, and I would be worried for him, too, if I wasn't around, if someone would show him the same compassion. It's how I would want Pedro to be treated. I'm sure how he would want me to be treated," she said

By phone after the visit, Hood told NPR that Curtis Ervin came in the next day, and he's now in housing for the first time in more years than he can remember.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Inglewood city officials are launching an audit of their financial relationship with SoFi Stadium and claiming the stadium could owe years of ticket taxes, one month after a judge voided the 2015 contract that brought the stadium to Inglewood. 

The Inglewood City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to commission the audit. Mayor James Butts said the move is a necessary next step after the court ruling, which threw the terms of the financial relationship between the city and Hollywood Park stadium development into question. 

Millions of dollars are at stake for both the city and the stadium businesses. City officials say that the ruling means a cap that limited the amount of admissions tax that Inglewood could collect no longer applies. They also plan to investigate the authenticity of $376 million worth of infrastructure bills Hollywood Park claims the city owes. The findings of the audit could also factor into discussions of how the city will address its current $30.8 million deficit.

The City Council motion — put forward by Butts and co-sponsored by Councilmember Dionne Faulk — requires the city attorney to retain an accounting firm to conduct the audit and report back to the public on its findings within 30 days. It set aside $325,000 from the city’s General Fund to pay for the audit. You can read the city’s full explanation of the audit here.

Butts, who was at the city’s helm a decade ago when developer Stan Kroenke brought his Hollywood Park pitch to Inglewood, said city officials built what they thought was a partnership with their stadium counterparts.

But that partnership has crumbled. Since last summer, the city and stadiums have been slugging it out in a complex series of court cases over the stadium’s contract and Inglewood’s network of video billboards. The conflict has spilled over into the Nov. 3 election via ballot measures that would change the city’s commercial advertising and ticket tax rules. 

The audit approved by the City Council on Tuesday will dig into the entire financial relationship between the stadium and city since 2015, unpacking what is owed and what was received from taxes on everything from tickets to parking. City officials plan to continue auditing the taxes on a quarterly basis into the future.

Still, it’s not guaranteed the city would be able to force the stadium development to pay any debt the audit does claim. Hollywood Park could still appeal the court ruling that voided its contract with Inglewood, while Butts said the city wants to negotiate a new contract to replace it. 

A Hollywood Park spokesperson said the stadium development has lived up to its financial obligations, including paying all of its taxes.

“This is yet another thinly veiled attempt to distract from scrutiny surrounding the City’s own fiscal mismanagement and the questionable actions of its Mayor,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement.

Some locals at Tuesday’s meeting said during public comments they were baffled why the city hadn’t set up an audit process earlier.

“We have needed an audit from day one. We can’t sit here and claim we didn’t know or have an inkling what we were doing with Hollywood Park,” Diane Sambrano said. 

Exterior of Sofi Stadium in Inglewood

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Speaking during the meeting, Butts said the audit was triggered because of the void left by the development agreement and because major events including the 2027 Super Bowl and 2028 Olympics are about to hit Inglewood.

The mayor first claimed the development agreement was illegal in a letter written directly to Stan Kroenke last year, saying the city’s lawyers made the determination while researching billboard litigation.

Millions in tax revenue at stake

After the judge ruled in agreement with the city, Butts told The LA Local that city officials were still researching the specific implications of the court’s ruling. In Tuesday’s council motion, city staff highlighted what they say is one major change they’ve discovered: There’s no longer a limit on how much admissions tax the city can collect.  

Inglewood collects a 10% tax on tickets sold at SoFi Stadium, but the 2015 initiative that brought the stadium to the city put a cap on that revenue, starting at $15 million a year and increasing annually with inflation. 

The admissions tax cap also happens to be the subject of the current ballot Measure AT. WOW Media, the billboard operator allied with the city in its dispute with the stadium, is funding a campaign in favor of the initiative.

Admissions tax has been a sizable revenue stream for the city — bringing in an average $20 million a year since SoFi Stadium opened — but city officials have said it could be significantly bigger. A city analysis of Measure AT estimated that getting rid of the cap could bring in as much as an extra $50 million in future years. The city did not estimate how much admissions tax revenue it has missed out on while the development agreement was in effect.

The Inglewood audit seeks to clarify basic questions about how taxes are assessed on ticket sales and whether those taxes are actually forwarded to the city. Officials say it will provide transparency about ticket sales, pricing and fees, which have been heavily scrutinized in recent years across the state. 

Gray gets support on proposal for future billboard revenue audit

Councilmember Gloria Gray attempted to amend the audit motion Tuesday, asking the city manager to also audit the revenue the city gets from billboard fees.

“I believe the same standard of financial transparency should apply to every city agreement,” Gray said.

Though her motion didn’t receive a second, Councilmember Eloy Morales said he’d support putting a billboard revenue audit on the council’s agenda in the future. 

“I think we all support all those audits,” Morales said. 

Gray’s move was a rarity for a council that seldom debates motions during public meetings and almost always votes unanimously. The councilmember is currently running for mayor against Butts.

Inglewood pulls in as much as $8 million a year from billboards, according to budget records. Much of that comes from a series of deals the city cut with WOW Media, allowing the billboard company to construct and operate the billboards on public medians and sidewalks. In return, WOW gives the city a cut of ad revenue along with other concessions.

The post Inglewood is investigating if SoFi Stadium owes years’ worth of ticket taxes appeared first on LA Local.

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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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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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.