The Brief

Looking for a couple of seeds to kickstart a garden? How about a play kit with books and toys to keep your kids occupied? Or a sewing machine to finally hem those pesky pairs of pants?

No need to go to the mall or a hardware store, you can find all of these things at your local Los Angeles library.

But perhaps the most unique offering on this eclectic menu is the ukulele. More than a dozen L.A. Public Library locations have ukulele kits available to take home for up to three weeks at a time if you’ve been meaning to learn a couple of chords.

About the kits 

All you need is a library card to check-out a ukulele, a tuner, a music dictionary, and a case. The kit also comes with a one-page sheet of instructions that goes over how to use the electronic tuner, including pictures to help you follow along.

Marc Horton is the children’s librarian for the Wilmington branch and one of the people behind the program. He told LAist the ukulele kits were originally intended for children, but they’ve quickly become an intergenerational learning experience for all ages.

“It's really an enabler of musical interest, and it's so forgiving and sort of easy for hands of all sizes and abilities of all sizes,” he said. “This is a gateway instrument for folks to pursue that love of music.”

He said he noticed that when schools go through budget cuts, arts programs are usually the first to go, and he wanted to try and fill that gap with library resources.

He was able to bring the kits to the Wilmington branch as a pilot program with a $5,000 grant in 2016, and in the years since, the program has spread to 16 other branches.

“If there's somebody out in the community who wants to teach a class, you can have these instruments to present,” Horton said.

The ukulele kits have been checked out more than 1,000 times now, he added.

How to take one home

When this musically-challenged reporter realized the Cypress Park library had both of their ukulele kits available, I had to go see it for myself.

You’re not allowed to put the kits on hold, and they’re usually pretty popular, so I rushed over to the branch with my recently renewed library card in hand.

A pair of ukulele kits ready to be checked out behind the counter at the Cypress Park branch.

(

Makenna Sievertson

/

LAist

)

The check-out process was simple. I signed a piece of paper, got a quick tour of the kit from the librarian, and was ready to start strumming in fewer than 10 minutes.

Actually playing something that wouldn’t hurt my ears or my ego didn’t sound so easy. I gave up my dream of being in a band after a particularly stressful guitar performance in 5th grade, and I’ve never been able to muster up the courage, or patience, to give music another shot.

But, for the sake of the story, I was willing to try.

After a quick search for “easiest songs to learn on ukulele,” I settled on “Riptide” by Vance Joy.

And after about an hour or two of trying to figure out how my fingers could fit for a G chord, I was able to successfully, albeit slowly, play some of the song.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel so hopeless with an instrument in my hand, and Horton said that’s exactly what he hoped would happen.

“It's about having access to it, and people having the freedom to learn at their own pace,” he said. “And to dive deeper into music if they choose to, but I just wanted to create a positive first step into learning music.”

The busiest year on record so far for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach could run aground if bargaining between a small security workers union and shipping companies isn’t resolved.

International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s Local 26, which represents about 250 watchmen who provide security at individual shipping terminals, has authorized a strike that could start at 5 p.m. Sunday.

The union represents about 2% of ILWU’s workforce, but their work is spread across six terminals — split between Long Beach and Los Angeles — that handle more than half of the complex’s cargo, including 85% at the Long Beach seaport.

If the strike is carried out, officials say thousands of other unionized dockworkers — the longshoremen, marine clerks and foremen — could honor the picket lines and not go to work.

That would halt much of the work at the ports — which handle more than 31% of the nation’s containerized cargo — just as the heavy shipping season for holiday merchandise begins to gather steam.

Negotiations have carried on since July 2025, after the contract expired between the union and Pacific Maritime Association, which represents the operators of all 12 terminals at the port complex.

PMA said in a statement it has “put a strong economic package on the table,” that includes wage increases and pension improvements. But no deal has been struck and “significant differences remain.”

“A timely agreement matters not only to the parties at the table, but to the entire Southern California supply chain and to the local, state and national economies that depend on it,” the statement read. “We urge Local 26 to work with us to reach an agreement that avoids a disruption at the nation’s two busiest ports.”

A spokesperson for the union did not immediately respond to requests for comment or say when members voted to authorize the strike.

In the meantime, the ports’ administrators said Wednesday they are closely watching negotiations and remain hopeful some resolution will come about ahead of the weekend.

“Although the Port of Long Beach is not a party to the negotiations, we want to assure our customers that we remain committed to moving cargo through our port safely and reliably,” said Long Beach Port CEO Noel Hacegaba.

Agreements for other unionized dockworkers expire in 2028.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are by far the nation’s largest container port complex, moving more than 20 million containers in 2025. That trade carried a value of more than $1.6 trillion last year.

In Long Beach last month, the seaport saw a record 997,177 containers — 25% more than last September — in a jump that included 509,390, more than 31% higher than the same month last year.

Hacegaba said that, “While the affected watchmen provide security within individual terminals, port-wide security provided by the Harbor Patrol and the Long Beach Police Department continues uninterrupted during negotiations.”

The CEO of California’s high-speed rail authority resigned late Wednesday, saying he needs to focus on “important personal and family priorities,” according to a copy of the emailed resignation obtained by CalMatters.

“This has not been an easy decision, as leading the Authority has been one of the most meaningful and rewarding chapters of my professional life,” wrote Chief Executive Ian Choudri.

The abrupt announcement comes in the midst of a two-day meeting of the board that oversees the project, which continues Thursday. It follows Choudri’s tumultuous two-year tenure, which has been troubled by budget woes, project delays, transparency concerns and various scandals including the misuse of nearly $600,000 in taxpayer money for questionable trips by rail authority consultants.

Under Choudri, the authority also lost $4 billion in federal funding under President Donald Trump’s administration, after the agency repeatedly missed deadlines required by the funding agreement to buy trains. The state initially sued Trump for the funding but abruptly dropped the lawsuit in December 2025, blaming Trump as “not a reliable partner” and turning to private investors instead.

Choudri did not respond to an email or text from CalMatters requesting comment Wednesday night. It is unclear when his last day will be.

State investigators last month found the rail agency’s consultants flew first class, hailed premium rides and traveled to a nightclub, cigar lounge and restaurants on taxpayers’ dime, sometimes at Choudri’s request. Many of the trips involved traveling to Folsom, the Sacramento suburb where Choudri has a home, sometimes after hours.

The board voted earlier this month to limit Choudri’s contracting authority following the probe, requiring the in-house legal counsel to sign off first on contracts under $25 million.

The board has been weighing additional disciplinary action against Choudri for weeks, including possible termination, according to a source with the authority who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

California voters in 2008 approved a $10 billion bond to build a bullet train connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2020, with a projected cost of $45 billion. But progress stalled amid rising costs, legal fights and funding uncertainties.

The authority’s latest business plan said the project could now cost between $126 billion and $231 billion, with the current 171-mile leg between Merced and Bakersfield under construction, and a full buildout expected by 2040.

The board was supposed to decide at the meeting this week if Choudri qualified for a potential $25,000 bonus based on his performance this year, agency spokesperson Micah Flores told CalMatters last month.

Choudri’s compensation this year is more than $534,000, according to agency spokesperson Annie Parker.

Cost overruns, project delays, legal challenges

Choudri was hired in August 2024 after spending decades in transportation engineering, with experience building high-speed rail in France and Spain. The board hired him in part due to his “strong understanding of complex transportation projects,” according to then-board chair Tom Richards.

Under Choudri, the agency has continued construction of the Central Valley segment and is on the cusp of getting environmental clearance from the state for all 500 miles of planned railway between San Francisco and Southern California. Newsom, a big supporter of the rail project, has committed $1 billion a year from the state’s climate fund toward the rail project until 2045.

Choudri has also led efforts to cut consultant contract costs, attract private investments and speed up contracting, rail authority chief of staff Mark Tollefson said during a Wednesday presentation touting Choudri’s achievements.

Ian Choudri, CEO of California High Speed Rail, speaks during a press conference on the high-speed rail project at the Wasco Rail Yard facility in Wasco on Feb. 3, 2026.

(

Larry Valenzuela

/

CalMatters

)

On Wednesday, the board unanimously approved a $772.1 million contract to Germany-based Siemens Mobility, Inc. to design, build and test three seven-car high-speed bullet trains by 2030. The authority will also pay up to $63.7 million in import duties and tariffs, because the trains will be designed and built in Germany.

The vote comes three years after the agency first opened bidding for six trainsets in August 2023 to qualify for more than $3 billion in federal grants, before ultimately losing the funding following missed deadlines.

In his resignation letter, Choudri said he was proud to have transformed the project.

“I took on a project facing significant challenges and serious questions about its prospects for success, and led its turnaround into a successful program,” he wrote.

But the project has continued to face significant cost overruns, schedule delays and lawsuits.

The train agency could run out of cash by December 2027, the office of inspector general warned in July. Meanwhile, the authority failed to make clear in its latest business plan that the Central Valley segment is now expected to be completed by 2034 at a cost likely exceeding $40 billion, the inspector general said.

The authority also based its project schedule on the assumption it would achieve legislative proposals it failed to push through this year.

To save money, the authority proposed shrinking the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment by 9 miles and moving the downtown Merced station to South Merced, in apparent violation of state law. It also requested an exemption from environmental regulations and solicited contractors for the new location, prompting a lawsuit this month from the Central Valley coalition Community Alliance for a Sustainable Economy.

“This challenge follows an unlawful pattern of behavior by the HSRA — proposing to relocate the downtown Merced station, then acting as if that move has been approved when it has not,” the complaint said.

Questionable trips plague the authority

Between 2024 and 2026, employees from four consulting firms working for Choudri's agency billed the state for questionable trips to locations including gyms, a nightclub, an escape room, a tiki bar and a cigar lounge, according to last month’s probe by the inspector general’s office overseeing the rail agency.

Many trips were poorly justified, yet the agency routinely reimbursed them without sufficient vetting, the inspector general said.

One legal consultant traveled between Denver and Sacramento 30 times in a year, charging the state $86,500 in “travel time” payments and an additional $40,800 in reimbursements.

In a testy meeting earlier this month, the board accused them of using the agency as a “piggy bank.”

On Wednesday, authority staff reported that the consulting firms have paid nearly $1.3 million in reimbursements to the agency.

CalMatters filed a public records request last month seeking the questionable travel invoices from the inspector general’s office. The agency provided records only from one firm, Nossaman, arguing that the records for other consultants are related to audits or investigations and therefore are not required to be publicly disclosed under a recent law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The records that were released were heavily redacted by both the inspector general’s office and the rail agency, which argued much of the information is protected by attorney-client privilege.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Land in the Portuguese Bend area of Rancho Palos Verdes is now moving more than an inch per week, city officials said in a statement Wednesday. That’s an increase from August, but it is still moving much less than it was last year at this time.

Officials said the increase in land movement is due to coastal erosion after tropical storm-fueled waves walloped the Southern California coastline in mid-October.

Why has RPV's landslide gotten worse?

The Portuguese Bend area in Rancho Palos Verdes once offered spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean and Catalina Island. Now, much of that land is riddled with chasms that run as much as 20 feet deep or span a dozen feet across.

For decades, land movement was minimal. But with above-average rainfall in recent years, that movement rapidly accelerated — up to 1 foot per week in some places. Land movement has since slowed, thanks in part to wells the city installed that suck water out of the ground. But damage to the area remains, and the underlying issue will likely never be stopped.

What happens now?

Rancho Palos Verdes is preparing for a very wet winter as a super El Niño is expected to drench Southern California in the coming weeks.

The city reported that the winterization measures, which include filling large fissures, “fared well” during recent rainfall. For instance, pump trucks were not needed on Palos Verdes Drive South, the road through the landslide area that typically floods during rainy weather.

More than 465 Orange County workers with the Teamsters Local 952 returned to the picket line Thursday after failing to reach a deal late Wednesday. Union officials say they once again expect delays in landfill operations and other county services.

The workers include heavy equipment operators, waste workers, custodial workers and more from county departments such as OC Public Works and OC Waste & Recycling.

Workers first went on strike on Oct. 13, but went back to work a week later when bargaining resumed.

“The County respects the rights of our dedicated employees to engage in lawful strike activity under California law,” a county spokesperson said in a statement. “The County will continue to execute contingency plans as needed to minimize any service disruptions.”

Union leaders said they initiated bargaining talks in 2025 — about six months before the active contract was set to expire. They also claim the county made no significant movement toward a deal until August.

How we got here

Eric Jimenez, secretary-treasurer for Teamsters Local 952, told LAist that members rejected two county offers, which included a 3% raise and another offer with a 4% raise. Both offers did not include retroactive pay.

“(Workers) didn't do anything to hold these negotiations up,” Jimenez said. “To receive no retroactive pay for something they didn't do … the members took it very offensively.”

What’s next? 

County and union officials are expected to meet Thursday for another round of bargaining.