The Brief

Dozens of volunteers spent Sunday creating Elysian Park’s first monarch butterfly habitat, planting some 200 milkweed plants.

Western monarch populations in California have been dwindling for decades in part because there are fewer milkweed plants. And monarchs will only lay their eggs on milkweed, since that’s what their caterpillars like to eat.

Laura Velkei, founder of Project Monarch L.A., said volunteers planted the habitat in the Victory Memorial Grove area of Elysian Park in order to support the black and orange butterflies.

“The more people that are putting their hands in the ground ... getting a crush on a caterpillar or a butterfly, all those things connect us more deeply to nature than any other conversation could possibly do,” Velkei said. “How do you not love a monarch butterfly? They’re just amazing."

Volunteers gather for a group photo at Elysian Park in Los Angeles.

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The planting event was co-organized by Friends of Elysian Park, which has worked for the past few years to beautify this portion of the park, planting oak trees, agaves and more.

“We’ve really kind of brought it back to a beautiful natural state, and I think the community ends up taking better care of it because of that,” Sakae Koyama, co-president of Friends of Elysian Park, told LAist.

Philip Murphy, co-president of Friends of Elysian Park, said he tried to propagate dozens of milkweed plants for the park a couple years back but they didn’t take. So he was happy to work with Velkei and Project Monarch L.A. to try again.

The monarch habitat even got its own art installation in the form of local artist Katrina Alexy’s orange totems. They’re meant to draw attention to the need for more milkweed in our region.

If you’d like to sign up for future Project Monarch L.A. volunteer events, head over to their website. You can also visit Santa Monica Mountains Fund for tips on how to grow milkweed at home.

And the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has some pointers on how you can help support monarchs.

Stephen Richer no longer runs elections in the fourth-largest county in the country.

But for the rest of his life, he'll remember the feeling when polls closed on an election night.

More than a million ballots staring at him and his staff. Every moment that passes without them fully counted means another conspiracy theory sprouting online.

"Those days, those were hell for me," said Richer, a Republican who served as the clerk and recorder for Arizona's Maricopa County. "You'd have a limited number of workers, and you'd have a limited amount of space, and you'd be doing everything that you possibly could. … And yet you have everyone blowing up your phone, everyone saying that you're incompetent or corrupt or worse."

This midterm year, election officials in competitive congressional districts will face that same pressure.

But they will also face a hard reality: that those races might not be called until days after Election Day.

Here's an FAQ on why that is, and what it could mean this year.

Why do we know the results immediately in some places, and in others it takes days or weeks?

It comes down to the margin of victory.

Which sounds strange, since who wins an election and by how much shouldn't impact how long it takes election officials to count ballots.

But the reality is what most Americans think of as "election results" — the winners announced on election nights across TV networks and social media — are not the result of all ballots being counted, but rather, races being called by news organizations that determine the winners based on a state or district's demographics and initial returns. (NPR relies on The Associated Press for its race calls.)

Those determinations come a lot faster when races aren't close.

"Margins matter," said Richer, who noted that in recent elections, there has been a lot less scrutiny on Utah than there has been on his home state of Arizona, or certain contests in California, despite the states counting votes at similar speeds.

"In Utah you can call all the races very quickly because the Republicans there have high margins," Richer said.

That gives the illusion of elections there being complete, but no state is done counting ballots on election night, even if it seems that way because notable races are called early.

So you're saying the timing of results isn't at all tied to vote-counting speed?

Not exactly.

The closer the race, the more election analysts need to see before they can make a call. So the faster states count ballots, the faster those determinations can be made.

This is why the longest wait times every election usually come from places that have competitive races and which also count slowly.

Like, California?

Exactly. California has become the poster child for long results times because of both those factors: a bevy of competitive congressional districts, which help determine the balance of power in the U.S. House, and a vote count that's been among the slowest in the nation.

Add in that President Trump, the most prominent purveyor of election misinformation in the country, has long targeted the liberal California, and experts see a perfect storm for false voting narratives.

"It's progressive, it likes mail ballots, it gets [postmarked] mail ballots after Election Day," Richer said. "It just all adds up to a fairly incendiary situation."

Charles Stewart, an elections expert at MIT, put it more simply.

"California just has a big target on its back," said Stewart.

California's slow vote counting caused a lot of conspiracy theorizing during the state's June primary. Is this fall going to be a rerun?

Kim Alexander is cautiously optimistic that won't be the case.

She runs the California Voter Foundation, which has been advocating for ways to speed up California's vote tally without giving up the state's generous voting access policies, like mailing every active registered voter a ballot.

"We have all these amazing rights and opportunities that we give to our voters, and the price we're paying is a longer vote count," Alexander told NPR. "But that doesn't mean that it has to be this long."

An election worker processes ballots for the California state primary at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on June 5.

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Justin Sullivan

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The single biggest cause for California's slow count comes from a phenomenon Alexander calls "the pig in the python" problem: a logjam of millions of vote-by-mail ballots getting returned on Election Day that need to be processed.

Those ballots take longer to count than in-person votes, as officials need to deal with envelopes and verify signatures to make sure mail ballots are cast by the people they're supposed to be cast by.

Some counties see up to 50% of their vote-by-mail ballots turned in on Election Day, Alexander said, which means processing work doesn't even begin until later in the week.

"I can't tell you how many people who are informed and engaged and … when I tell them that the cause for the long vote count is voters holding on to their ballots to Election Day and turning them in, they look at me and they're like, 'That's what I do,'" Alexander said. "And I'm like, 'I know! You're part of the problem!'"

The state allocated $40 million to speeding up its counting this year, and part of that money is going to voter education.

Alexander is optimistic that once voters learn they can play a role in speeding up the process by voting earlier, or by utilizing other voting methods that allow for quicker counting, they will respond.

"California has been beaten up by this president for over a decade over our election process, and it's gotten pretty worrisome," Alexander said. "I think that California voters, if they feel they can do something to respond to that, many will take action."

To that point, research conducted earlier this year found that when voters in California's San Joaquin County received postcards urging them to vote earlier, they were more likely to meet the recommended deadline that allowed for election-night counting.

Alexander noted one more change that could mean less spotlight on California this year: fewer competitive House districts.

Ahead of the 2022 elections, the state had nine districts that the Cook Political Report considered competitive. But this year, in part because voters approved a mid-cycle gerrymander to respond to gerrymanders in Republican-controlled states, the state has just three.

That makes it less likely the entire country will be waiting on California to know who controls the House.

OK, anywhere else we should be watching when it comes to results speed?

Using the formula discussed earlier (competitive races + slow vote counting), it's impossible not to look at Alaska.

According to data from the MIT Election Lab, Alaska was the last state in 2024 to reach 95% of its ballots counted.

Election Day was Nov. 5 that year, but the state's lone House race — which Republican Nicholas Begich won by fewer than 10,000 votes — wasn't called by the AP until Nov. 20.

This year, polling shows a tight Alaska Senate race. That means, if results fall a certain way in other states, the entire country could be waiting weeks to know which party will control the U.S. Senate next year.
Copyright 2026 NPR

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Neighbors in North Long Beach rushed out of their homes on Saturday and blocked federal immigration agents from detaining a man they had just violently knocked to the ground, according to first-hand accounts from four residents who spoke to the Long Beach Post.

The man is a U.S. citizen named Ricardo Gonzalez who lives near where he was detained, according to neighbors and an online fundraiser started by his family. He was riding an e-bike near Elm Avenue and 56th Street on Saturday afternoon when an agent jumped out of an unmarked car and tackled him, according to a neighbor who asked to be identified only by his first name, Joe. (Other accounts online said agents rammed Gonzalez with their car. The Post could not locate any video of this or anyone who said they witnessed it first-hand.)

The agent then accused Gonzalez of throwing something at their car, Joe said.

Agents tased Gonzalez twice while he was on the ground, and one agent knelt on his back while Gonzalez yelled in pain and said his arm was broken, according to two neighbors who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal.

As residents came outside to see what was going on, they started yelling and honking, alerting more neighbors.

The area was already on edge, Joe said, because eight or so unmarked law enforcement vehicles had been parked in the neighborhood since early that morning. He said his wife at one point had even called 911 to report the vehicles and ask if they could move because they were blocking multiple one-way streets.

Volunteers with anti-ICE rapid response groups had also brought loudspeakers to warn about the vehicles and urge everyone to stay inside. Instead, when neighbors heard the growing confrontation with agents, many intervened.

“If they try to take one of us, they’re going to have to take all of Long Beach,” said Patricia Velazquez, who has lived in the area for more than three decades.

Cellphone video shows roughly 50 people yelling expletives at masked agents who were carrying handguns and wearing vests that said “ICE.” Neighbors demanded to see a warrant, dragged trash cans behind the agents’ vehicles or stood in front of them, blocking them from driving off.

One agent made racist comments to the mostly Latino crowd, saying they didn’t “look legal,”  according to Joe. They also used pepper spray on the crowd, neighbors said.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about the confrontation.

At one point during the roughly hour-long standoff, agents grabbed two women — both U.S. citizens — and put them in the backs of different vehicles, according to two neighbors. They were soon freed, according to Joe. He described the crowd distracting agents while people sneaked behind their vehicles to open their doors.

Long Beach police soon showed up. In a statement, they said federal agents had called for help providing medical aid to someone and dealing with a crowd that had vandalized vehicles.

One officer attempted to step in immediately but was held back by his partner, one neighbor said. Video shows federal agents then allowed Gonzalez to leave with the Long Beach officers after agents searched his wallet and looked at his identification.

An LBPD officer uncuffed Gonzalez and took him to a nearby fire station. Paramedics then took him to a hospital. 

Gonzalez is a Long Beach resident who, until recently, worked for the city, Long Beach City Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk said in a statement. He was riding through his own neighborhood, she said, “when he was racially profiled and violently assaulted by ICE agents—leaving him with broken bones and crushing medical bills.”

In their online fundraiser, Gonzalez’s family says he is a hardworking man who supports his family. He is still recovering, they said, and asked for help spreading the word about what agents did to him.

Long Beach Congressman Robert Garcia said he was “proud of the neighbors who documented and stood up for the family being terrorized by ICE.”

“ICE agents brutally attacked and broke the arm of a North Long Beach resident and U.S. citizen,” he said in a statement. “The videos are horrific and should concern not just our community but the country.”

Mayor Rex Richardson said he is outraged by agents’ actions and is demanding answers from the Department of Homeland Security.

One of the first major signs of this year's "Super El Niño" has reached the U.S. It's called a Kelvin wave – a deep ocean wave that's currently raising sea levels along the West Coast.

Scientists have long known about Kelvin waves, but this year, the phenomena grabbed the public's attention with video explanations receiving thousands of views across TikTok and X.

"It does surprise me – I mean, here it's been around all this time," says Mark Cane, who created one of the first models to forecast and predict El Niño. "I'm sure Lord Kelvin is happy in his grave."

(Lord Kelvin, the British physicist who also developed the Kelvin temperature scale, first described the wave back in the late 1800s.)

Kelvin waves can develop along the equator during El Niño years, when a vast region of water in the Pacific Ocean becomes much warmer than usual.

Some of this warm water, in the form of a Kelvin wave that stretches thousands of miles, moves slowly east beneath the ocean's surface until it reaches South America. Then it splits, traveling north along the West Coast and as far south as Chile.

"It's like an enormous bathtub sloshing around," Cane says, professor emeritus of earth and climate sciences at Columbia University. "But the slosh is very peculiar, because it only goes west to east along the equator in a Kelvin wave."

These are not the massive, highly visible waves that crash into shorelines during major storms and hurricanes.

"It's not a wall of water, it's not a tsunami, it's not a wave you can surf," says Dillon Amaya, an assistant professor of atmospheric sciences at North Carolina State University. "It's a planetary-scale wave."

A Kelvin wave's impact is gradual, raising sea levels as it moves up the coast, and bringing with it an elevated risk of floods and warmer water temperatures.

What's the impact? 

Kelvin waves can increase the risk of flooding and coastal erosion.

By themselves, Kelvin waves don't cause flooding, Amaya says. Instead, they load the dice, making flooding more likely by raising sea levels.

"It makes the background conditions more favorable towards coastal flooding, but what you need are triggering factors," Amaya said, such as a major storm or very high tides.

Josh Willis, a climate scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, says Kelvin waves raise the chances of a "triple whammy" along the California coast: "El Nino, the high tide and the storm surge all coming at once."

That's exactly what some Southern California communities experienced in early October. Sea levels were already higher than normal because of the Kelvin wave – about six to eight inches, Amaya says. Then, when Tropical Storm Rachel hit, a storm surge flooded neighborhoods and left oceanfront homes partially submerged.

"That storm surge was almost certainly made more devastating because of the Kelvin wave," Amaya says.

Warmer water temperatures

Kelvin waves move slowly east beneath the ocean's surface until they reach South America. Then they split, traveling north along the West Coast and south as far as Chile. The dark red represents higher than normal sea levels.<br>

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Dillon J. Amaya

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North Carolina State University

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Kelvin waves also bring warmer water up the coast, which can be disruptive and put stress on marine life.

"We've seen tropical fishes in places that we don't normally see them," Amaya says. "Like a whale shark was spotted off the coast of San Diego."

The Kelvin wave can push down nutrient-dense cold waters that support productive marine ecosystems. Amaya says researchers have already seen evidence of sea birds dying in response to warmer water temperatures along the coast.

When is the next Kelvin wave? 

There are usually five to six Kelvin waves during a strong El Niño year, Amaya says.

Amaya predicts the next Kelvin wave will reach San Diego in late October or early November. Several more waves are expected through the fall and early winter, he says. Kelvin waves usually subside before the peak of El Niño.

The El Niño pattern typically peaks late in the year or early January. This year, NOAA researchers predict the El Niño will remain strong through early 2027.
Copyright 2026 NPR

When California voters open their ballots this November, they will find 14 statewide measures on issues such as immunology research funding, voter ID requirements and billionaire taxes. Add in various city and county propositions, and it’s — a lot.

How do Californians feel about all these propositions padding out the ballot? When pollsters ask, they tend to get mixed signals. People say the measures are too complicated. There are too many. And they can’t get enough of them.

The state’s love-hate relationship with direct democracy is on full display in surveys by the Public Policy Institute of California. Seventy-seven percent of respondents said recently there are too many ballot measures, and 89% said the wording of propositions is too confusing.

But two years ago, 79% of those surveyed also said propositions are a “good thing,” and 87% agreed that they “bring up important public policy issues that the governor and legislature have not adequately addressed.”

Feeling both overwhelmed and empowered by all this decision-making is a byproduct of deeply rooted California political traditions.

Other states ask voters to weigh in on far fewer contests. About half have no initiative process. Even those that do tend to use it far less often than California does.

Between 1904 and 2024, California put 396 initiatives before voters, more than any other state.

“We set up a system where we wanted to vote on things,” said John Matsusaka, executive director of the Initiative and Referendum Institute at the University of Southern California.

“People just believe that if they think there's something wrong with what the government's doing, they have a right to bring it before their fellow citizens and get an opinion on that,” he said. “It's just in the DNA of the state.”

Where did all these propositions come from? 

Ballot initiatives have become a big business in California. Collecting signatures, producing ads, paying political consultants — an entire industry depends on this system. Between 2020 and 2024, nearly $1.9 billion was spent on California ballot measure campaigns.

But the system was initially supposed to be a check on monied interests.

California’s adoption of citizen initiatives, referendums and recalls dates back to the early 20th-century Progressive Era. At the time, states across the Western U.S. expanded direct democracy in the hopes of countering dominant political machines and corporate monopolies.

Ed Lascher, a public policy professor emeritus at Cal State University, Sacramento, said he believes Progressive Era reformers probably would not recognize their vision in today’s initiative system.

“It’s doubtful to me that they would, because of the amount of money involved, the fact that decisions are made basically through advertising and the sort of overwhelming nature of things,” he said.

Then there’s the question of whether asking voters to decide complex issues makes for good policy. Over the years, Californians have approved some dubious, regrettable and ultimately illegal initiatives. Some have a whiff of absurdity, such as 1964’s Proposition 15, which sought to ban cable television. The California Supreme Court overturned it on First Amendment grounds.

Others reveal a darker side of the Golden State. Now a hotbed of resistance to federal ICE raids and deportation efforts, California passed Prop. 187 in 1994. Though it was quickly ruled unconstitutional, the law sought to ban undocumented immigrants from receiving public education, healthcare and other social services.

Less than two decades ago, Californians voted to outlaw same-sex marriage through Prop. 8, an outcome many would find unthinkable just a few years later. And in 1964, nearly two-thirds of Californian voters opted to allow racial discrimination in housing sales and rentals through Prop. 14.

“Most initiatives fail,” Lascher said. “But most initiatives that have targeted minorities in the state have passed. … If you look at things like gay rights, if you look at civil rights in the early '60s, these have been, generally, better protected by the Legislature than by the ballot initiative.”

Should California have fewer ballot measures? 

There have been various attempts to rein in the initiative process. Lascher himself supported making it harder to amend the California Constitution by initiative. That proposal sought to raise the voter approval threshold from a simple majority to two-thirds support. Such a reform would’ve doomed Prop. 8.

But there hasn’t been a groundswell of support for chipping away at the power held by voters.

“Most Californians — and we know this from polls — value having this opportunity,” Matsusaka said.

Though many say the number of ballot measures is too high, research shows it’s not driving Californians away from the polls. Political scientists say initiatives typically have the opposite effect, increasing turnout by about 3% to 8% compared with states that lack initiatives.

Matsusaka said this slight boost could be the result of certain measures turning out voters who care deeply about a particular topic. “When there's an issue they care about, I think it is valuable for them to have the opportunity to vote on it,” he said.

Voters may turn out more in initiative states, but Lascher said research suggests they often feel conflicted. He co-wrote a 2019 book on this topic called Initiatives Without Engagement.

“The bottom line is, voters aren't feeling more efficacious or more ability to control things in states that make heavy use of initiatives,” he said. “They're actually somewhat less trusting.”

Critics argue that today, rather than empowering citizens to directly enact popular political changes, California’s initiative process has evolved into an expensive tool for deep-pocketed interest groups to carry out their agendas.

In some cases, interest groups don’t intend to get their initiatives on the ballot, instead using the process as leverage to get what they want from elected leaders. They’re essentially saying: Cut a deal with us, or we’ll drag you into a costly ballot measure fight.

Other measures end up on the ballot because legislators are required to put them there. Lawmakers cannot pass bonds without approval by a majority of voters. They also cannot amend the state constitution or alter previous voter initiatives without a new ballot measure.

Could technology change how Californians handle confusion?

Matsusaka said despite feeling overwhelmed, most Californians are able to cut through the confusion and make up their minds.

Voters may lack the time or expertise needed to fully research every ballot measure, but they know how to turn to ideological groups for cues on how to vote. Others consult non-partisan guides written by fact-based journalists, such as the LAist Voter Game Plan (shameless plug).

Matsusaka said he believes busy Californians could increasingly offload their decision-making to another time-saving resource: AI chatbots.

“You have an app on your phone, and it reads the text for you, and it also knows your party, and it knows your political affiliations and your issue positions, and it says, here's how you should vote,” he said. “We're not quite there yet, but I don't actually think we're very far.”