Topline:
Journalist Hadley Meares had written about the extensive haunted history at the Biltmore Hotel, the famed DTLA spot which hosted the Oscars and is renowned for the Black Dahlia unsolved murder case. But then she stayed overnight — and experienced a spooky close encounter with a ghost herself.
Clutch the covers closer: It's Halloween time, and we love our L.A. ghost stories.
Convinced yet? Everyone's a skeptic ... until a strange spirit takes over their body at 3 a.m.
It was a dark and stormy night in downtown Los Angeles. Remember those rains which came down for months earlier this year, turning L.A. from the land of sunshine into a grey city of slippery sludge? Well, that’s when my parents came to visit me in Los Angeles from their home in North Carolina. They have visited me many times in the past 20 years, but this time was special — instead of renting an Airbnb, they were staying in a suite in downtown’s legendary Millennium Biltmore.
How lovely it was to find respite in the Biltmore, with its gilded, if slightly faded glamour, after another day of tourism ruined by the rain. We are a family of history buffs, so to know we were walking the halls of a century-old hotel which hosted the Oscars, political conventions, and — my personal favorite — the high society fashion shows produced by the eccentric Peggy Hamilton — what a thrill!
I have a long history with the Biltmore. As a historical journalist, I have written about it for years, and of course, I am fascinated by the legends of ghosts and ghouls that supposedly haunt its halls. A ghostly little boy has been seen on the 10th floor, while another boy, this one without a face, haunts the roof. There is a little girl on the ninth floor, and a nurse on the second. On a tour of the property, a hotel employee told me that his own beliefs had been shaken by the number of employees who had strange otherworldly encounters.
I know all about Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia, L.A.’s most infamous murder victim, who disappeared from the hotel lobby to her doom. On the night of Jan. 9, 1947, around 6:30 p.m., the immaculately dressed Short allegedly entered the Biltmore’s lobby, escorted by an anxious man with red hair. After he left, Short spent the next few hours restless and nervous, repeatedly asking the hotel clerk if she had any messages, and making calls in the phone booth.
Others in the lobby became fascinated with the striking woman in the pristine white gloves, who looked so desperate and alone. Short paced, made more phone calls. But the hours passed. Finally, she appeared to get in touch with someone on the phone. Suddenly her mood noticeably lifted.
Bell captain Harold Studholme reported that a little after 10 p.m., a person on Olive Street motioned to Short for her to follow them through the lobby windows. She walked confidently out the lobby doors and disappeared into the night.
The Black Dahlia: The Murder of Elizabeth Short pic.twitter.com/zVZ6wYcSD8
— spooky threadz (@threadsbymads) October 30, 2018
On Jan. 15, Short’s body was found in a vacant lot in Leimert Park. She had been bisected and drained of blood, a sinister smile carved into her face. To this day, her case remains unsolved.
For years, there have been reports that Short’s tortured spirit haunts the 10th and 11th floors and rides the elevators, staring straight ahead. According to historian Janice Oberding, Short’s ghost — as beautiful as ever, with luscious dark hair — never greets or even notices any mortal who crosses her path. She seems preoccupied, on edge, forever waiting for the mysterious person who perhaps caused her death.
So yes, I knew all the stories. But did I believe in this paranormal activity? Not really, but I would never be arrogant enough to claim I knew one way or another. I have made a career exploring mysterious, often creepy places, but it’s been more from an anthropological point of view. My true interest in ghost stories has always been what they tell us about the places, people, and times from which the legend sprang. Cold, hard history —- and facts — could explain it all away!
All that would change that night at the Biltmore. Exhausted after a day of driving with my parents in the rain, I was happy to spend a cozy night with them in their suite. The dated suite wasn’t exactly luxurious, but it was huge, with a sitting area, two beds, and large windows with views of a soggy Pershing Square. After a night of watching college basketball on the room’s TV while eating Subway sandwiches, we all turned in around eleven.
I went to sleep easily, my parents snoring lightly in the bed next to me. Then all of the sudden — I was awake. The room was dark and silent, save the rain pattering on the window. Yet I could barely hear the rain due to the thoughts that were loudly rushing through my head. But instead of my usual middle-of-the-night thoughts — about my schedule the next day, or the appointment I had forgotten to make — they were thoughts I had never had in my life.
To my horror I realized something was very wrong. The voice, cadence and vocabulary were not my own. It felt like I had been inhabited by an angry, vengeful, man from another time and place. When I think of the voice now, I see a sweating, haggard middle-aged man from the 1940s, hunched at a hotel bar spewing disgusting vulgarities, his humanity blotted out by his rage.
The thoughts came through me at a rapid pace. They were strange, hateful and violent thoughts. I tried to rouse myself, to “wake up.” I tried to sit up. But I couldn’t move. I felt as though two forearms were pressing against my chest, like a shiny face was breathing over me, dripping spit and sweat on my cheeks. It felt as if the entity was taking me over. I didn’t know what to do. I have experienced sleep paralysis before, but it wasn’t that. It was terrifying. I was out of control. I WASN’T ME.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the television in the hotel suite turned on, and instead of angry, incomprehensible words, a chatty, suave announcer was soothingly recapping basketball games on ESPN. The terror ended. I was myself again.
I opened my eyes, and saw both of my parents sitting straight up in their bed. “Did you turn on the TV?” we all asked each other.
No one had. It was 3a.m. “That’s so freaky!” my mother said. Then she chuckled — “Maybe it was a ghost!.” I was not laughing, and was now even more fearful — who the hell had turned the TV on? My dad got out of bed to turn off the TV, and then climbed back into bed. I wanted to say something more, but I resolved to attempt to forget it and go to sleep. I was exhausted, and felt as if I had just been engaged in a monumental fight.
I fell asleep quickly, but kept waking up periodically through the night, waiting for the TV to turn on again. In the morning I was shaken and confused. I remembered the violent rush of words, the terrifying feeling of pressure on my chest — but weirdly I could not recall anything specific the voice that inhabited me had said. To this day, I still can’t.
As I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, desperately trying to remember what the spirit had said, my mother hummed as she opened the heavy blackout curtains in the room. The sun was hazy and cloudy over Pershing Square, and the room felt once again like a normal hotel room. After a much needed cup of coffee and a day-old croissant, I told my parents what had happened. “I am never staying there again!” I said emphatically.
That next night, I stayed at my apartment in the Arts District, undisturbed by dreams or nightmares. I simply forced myself to put the night before out of my mind. I’ve always been a pro at conveniently forgetting things.
When I went to pick up my parents in the morning for another sodden museum day, they had news for me. The TV had turned on again at 3 a.m. It would turn on in the dead of night for the rest of their stay. They messed around with the TV, but could not discover any timer that had been set. Being the tight-lipped Southerners they are, they never complained to the Biltmore or told them what had happened. Neither did I.
After my parents went back to North Carolina, I decided to put my historical detective skill to good use. I pored over notes, books and blog posts, trying to figure out which of the alleged paranormal spirits of the Biltmore could have visited me. But none of the known ghosts of the Biltmore seem as malevolent, as evil, or as chaotic as what seemed to enter me that night.
Could it have been the spirit of the nervous red-headed man, who escorted Elizabeth Short into the lobby of the Biltmore that winter night of 1947? The unknown person who motioned her out of the lobby? A murderous traveling salesman, or a slighted mobster, a traitorous politician, who checked into the Biltmore many moons ago, and whose spirit never left?
I don’t think I will ever know. The Biltmore has given Los Angeles many gifts in the past century. To this cynical reporter, it’s given me a new perspective and a new healthy fear of things that go bump in the night. I now empathize more with those who say they have experienced the paranormal, and am not as quick to look to the logical to explain their experiences away. There are things all the research in the world can’t explain. And nowhere in L.A. is that truer than at the Biltmore Hotel.
Topline:
The Orange County Registrar of Voters, Bob Page, gave a tour of the offices on Wednesday to show the careful multi-step process each ballot goes through. He said they've received more than 380,000 ballots as of Oct. 27. That’s around 80,000 more ballots than was received around the same time in 2022.
Why it matters: Page said he's fielded more questions from the public this year about the potential for law enforcement to interfere with the election.
Legal challenges: On Wednesday, a federal judge denied an emergency request from the Department of Justice to segregate 20,000 ballots across California that the federal government said were sent to "likely" noncitizens.
On a tour of Orange County’s voting headquarters on Wednesday, Registrar Bob Page demonstrated the careful, multi-step process through which voters’ ballots are validated and counted.
As the federal government raises the specter of unsubstantiated voter fraud, Page’s message was clear: “ I want voters to know that we're doing everything we can to make sure they can vote safely and securely."
More than 380,000 Orange County ballots have been returned as of Oct. 27, Page said. That’s about 80,000 more ballots than was received around the same time in 2022, the last mid-term elections.
Collecting, and counting, all those ballots takes time. Page explained that two-person teams are dispatched to collect dropped-off ballots every day during election season.
The ballot drop-off boxes in Orange County are made of steel, weigh more than 1,000 pounds and are bolted to the concrete, Page said.
The ballot retrieval duos are required to follow a strict process to ensure the chain of custody remains secure, including taking photos showing they’ve picked up the ballots, properly locked the retrieval door and that the internal fire suppression canister is intact.
The locations of the two-person teams are GPS-tracked by separate teams, which also review the photo evidence before giving the ballot retrieval duos the green light to go to their next stops.
Once a ballot reaches the Registrar of Voters’ office, the next step is ensuring the signature on the envelope matches the voter's signatures in their registration file.
“If we do challenge [a signature], we’re required under state law to send a first-class letter notice to that voter,” Page said, adding that state statute affords voters until the day before Thanksgiving this year to correct errant signatures.
Page said three election workers must agree that enough of a discrepancy exists before the decision to challenge a signature is made.
Around 1.9% of the nearly 718,000 vote-by-mail ballots returned in the June primary election in Orange County were rejected, largely due to signature mismatch or because they weren’t received in time, according to the California Secretary of State.
Verified ballots are then separated from their envelopes and sorted before they’re prepared to be scanned and, finally, counted. The equipment used to tally votes isn’t connected to the internet, and access to the room the equipment is housed in is limited, according to Page.
On Wednesday evening, a federal judge denied an emergency request from the Department of Justice to segregate 20,000 ballots across California that the federal government said were sent to “likely” noncitizens.
More than 1,750 of those people identified were in Orange County, according to a letter Bill Essayli, top federal prosecutor for the Central District of California, delivered to the county registrar’s office Monday.
The Department of Justice said it will appeal the ruling from U.S. District Court Judge David Carter, who, in his decision, said the federal government’s attempted move could “wreak havoc and disrupt the election that is already underway.”
California Attorney Gen. Rob Bonta called the ruling an “important victory,” but warned “the fight is not over.”
On Wednesday, before the ruling came down, Bonta released resources about election integrity in the state, including guidance for local election officials if law enforcement attempts to “access election sites where ballots are cast, processed, or counted.”
Page said he’s fielded more questions from the public this year about the potential for law enforcement to interfere in the election. He said he will have open lines of communication with partners with the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services and Orange County Intelligence Assessment Center should the threat arise.
Our LAist Voter Game Plan is here to help guide you through the Nov. 3 election with guides to races across Los Angeles and Orange counties — and that long list of state propositions — to help you cast a ballot that’s in line with your own personal beliefs and values.
But the one thing we don’t do? We don’t tell you how to vote. That part is left up to you.
You can find it all at LAist.com/Vote.
If you have a tip, you can reach me on Signal. My username is kharjai.61.
Topline:
The California Public Utilities Commission pulled back a $37.5 million grant for a project that would have brought fast, reliable internet to Catalina Island. The commission voted unanimously at Thursday’s board meeting to terminate its contract with telecommunications company AVX Networks.
How did we get here? The CPUC awarded AVX the grant in December 2025. Months later, CPUC staff accused the company of breaking federal spending rules. Lance Ware, CEO of AVX Networks, has denied those allegations. In July, CPUC staff sent AVX Networks a termination letter.
Why it matters: The island is home to more than 4,000 residents, and it draws thousands of tourists each year. Its slow, unreliable internet connection affects everything from remote learning to emergency response.
Ware told LAist he’s disappointed by the commission’s vote and lack of public discussion, but it doesn’t necessarily mark the end of the project. “I'm certainly not the person to quit,” he added. “There's all these downstream effects of not having reliable connectivity that are unacceptable.”
More on the project: The proposed plan would build a fiber-optic network under the San Pedro Channel, running from two points on Catalina Island to landings near Huntington Beach. Those cables will then connect to the Middle Mile Broadband Network in Stanton.
What’s next? AVX Networks filed a federal lawsuit against the CPUC in July, arguing that CPUC staff terminated the deal without notice and without a formal CPUC vote, according to court documents. A hearing is scheduled for early December, according to Ware. Attorneys for CPUC did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment.
Topline:
The U.S. Justice Department has issued subpoenas to California officials in an escalation of its scrutiny of local election administration.
About the subpoenas: The Associated Press obtained copies of three subpoenas sent Oct. 21 to employees of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, ordering them to appear in court on Nov. 4, the day after the election. The documents request any records, documents and communications related to letters sent in July and October by federal officials to state election officials outlining allegations of noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls. The subpoenas also seek information relating to the office’s “methods for screening for unlawful voting by aliens” and anything about efforts to prevent noncitizen votes from being counted.
The backstory: The Trump administration has sued to force California to set aside up to 20,000 ballots it suspects went to noncitizens and not count them until citizenship can be verified. A district court judge on Tuesday rejected that request, then on Thursday appointed a special master to evaluate the administration’s claims. U.S. District Judge David O. Carter did not specify the exact scope of special master Daniel B. Garrie’s responsibilities, but said he would be tasked with “developing the factual record” for the court. In a Tuesday court hearing, Carter said he wanted to vet the federal government’s list of over 20,000 alleged noncitizen voters since there has been extensive debate over its reliability and both sides have agreed that it includes an unspecified number of citizens.
The U.S. Justice Department has issued subpoenas to California officials in an escalation of its scrutiny of local election administration.
The Associated Press obtained copies of three subpoenas sent Oct. 21 to employees of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder, ordering them to appear in court on Nov. 4, the day after the election. The documents request any records, documents and communications related to letters sent in July and October by federal officials to state election officials outlining allegations of noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls. The subpoenas also seek information relating to the office’s “methods for screening for unlawful voting by aliens” and anything about efforts to prevent noncitizen votes from being counted.
The subpoenas were being issued by all four U.S. attorneys in California, according to a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar, said, “threats and intimidated have no place in elections.”
The Trump administration has sued to force California to set aside up to 20,000 ballots it suspects went to noncitizens and not count them until citizenship can be verified. A district court judge on Tuesday rejected that request, then on Thursday appointed a special master to evaluate the administration’s claims.
U.S. District Judge David O. Carter did not specify the exact scope of special master Daniel B. Garrie’s responsibilities, but said he would be tasked with “developing the factual record” for the court.
In a Tuesday court hearing, Carter said he wanted to vet the federal government’s list of over 20,000 alleged noncitizen voters since there has been extensive debate over its reliability and both sides have agreed that it includes an unspecified number of citizens.
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Carter also said at the hearing that a special master could investigate California’s claims that it cannot logistically separate the ballots in time for the county election certification deadline on Dec. 3. The federal government has contested that assertion.
It is not clear what would happen if a special master did find a substantial number of noncitizen voters on the federal government’s list or whether it would affect the certification of California’s election results. The 20,000 people on the DOJ’s list constitute only a small fraction of California’s 23 million voters.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration asked a federal appeals court to quickly weigh in.
The Justice Department said in a late Wednesday filing that it’s essential the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issue a ruling as soon as possible due to “irreversible ballot processing occurring on an ongoing basis.”
Carter’s decision was the latest legal setback for President Donald Trump in his efforts to expand federal control over state-run elections in the midterms that will decide control of Congress for the rest of his term. The Justice Department has made similar demands in other states, including Washington. Noncitizen voting has been a central focus of Trump’s political messaging for years, although available data indicates it is exceedingly rare.
Trump blasted Carter’s ruling against the federal government on Thursday morning before heading to a campaign rally in South Carolina.
“California is very corrupt. The elections are extremely corrupt. The judge should not have done that but we’ll appeal that, of course,” he told reporters. Trump added without evidence that there are “hundreds of thousands” and then amended it to “millions, in my opinion” of “bad ballots” in California.
Carter, an appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton, argued that the Justice Department’s demands were a clear violation of the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits changes to voter rolls or election procedure within 90 days of an election.
Both sides agree that an unspecified number of citizens were inadvertently included. Carter argued that separating the ballots at this point would risk disenfranchising citizens and “wreak havoc” on the election certification process.
Over 500,000 votes have already been processed in Los Angeles County alone, according to court filings. The system also protects voter privacy: Once a vote is processed, it cannot be traced back to the person who cast it.
Carter is to rule on the government’s renewed request for a preliminary injunction, which would bar the state from counting the ballots until the litigation is resolved. He said he will do so after a Nov. 13 evidentiary hearing with input from the special master.
He said that if the federal government suspected noncitizens were voting, it could continue to prosecute those cases criminally. Federal authorities have charged over two dozen foreign nationals in California as part of a statewide sweep targeting people officials allege have illegally registered or voted in U.S. elections.
The appeal will be the second time that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals will consider the case.
The first time was just last week when the Justice Department argued before an appeals court panel that a fast ruling on its request was needed to stop any counting of the ballots.
Although the panel ruled it was premature for an appeals court to get involved before a lower-court ruling, two of the three judges wrote separate concurrences making it clear they wouldn’t support setting aside ballots at this late date. They questioned the accuracy of the federal government’s list of alleged noncitizen voters and argued that to set aside votes risks disenfranchising citizens.
One judge dissented, arguing that federal law bars noncitizens from voting and requires California to vet the potentially illegal ballots before counting them. The failure to do so, he wrote, would cause irreparable harm to the election.
Topline:
There’s a good chance of at least some light rain on Halloween this weekend, but forecasters aren’t sure how much.
The details: Scattered showers are possible across Southern California this weekend. Rain could start Friday, but the highest chance will be on Saturday night — Halloween — and Sunday morning. Totals will likely be between half an inch and 1.5 inches, with the most in L.A. County and in the region's hills and mountains. The last time it rained on Halloween in L.A. was 2014, according to the National Weather Service.
The uncertainty: Forecasters say there’s both a chance the region could get more rain than expected, or very little. Either way, they say Halloween weekend will be wet. The outcome depends on the path of a low-pressure system bringing the rain here from the north.
Tides and temperatures: Coastal flood advisories remain in place for the Southern California coastline through Friday afternoon. Temperatures will also drop this weekend, with highs on Saturday mostly in the upper 60s.
