The Brief

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco in Congress for 38 years, announced Thursday morning that she will not seek reelection. Pelosi delivered the news in a video message framed as a “Dear San Francisco” letter, reflecting on the city’s progress and challenges.

“San Francisco — know your power,” she said. “We have made history. We have always led the way. And now we must continue to do so. By remaining full participants in our democracy and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.”

First elected in 1987 to fill a seat left vacant by the death of Rep. Sala Burton, Pelosi, 85, leaves a voluminous legacy of accomplishment highlighted by the 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act, which continues to provide health care to tens of millions of Americans who otherwise could not afford it.

In Washington, Pelosi successfully fought for vastly more federal funding for HIV/AIDS and oversaw the bipartisan transformation of the shuttered Presidio Army base into a vibrant public park with housing, restaurants and nonprofit organizations — a financially self-sufficient operation managed by the Presidio Trust in partnership with the National Park Service.

“No one — period, full stop — delivered more for San Francisco and the state of California than Nancy Pelosi, by factors of almost infinity in terms of actually delivering real results for real people,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom recently on KQED’s Political Breakdown.

In her first campaign, Pelosi was known mostly to political insiders, heavyweights like Phil Burton, who, along with his brother, John, masterminded a campaign operation that helped push Pelosi to victory. Fourteen candidates entered the race, including four San Francisco supervisors.

Some disparaged Pelosi as a political dilettante, a white, wealthy woman who could not possibly relate to the average person.

“She’s never met a payroll. She’s never had to worry about child care,” Supervisor Carol Ruth Silver said during a heated debate televised by KQED in 1987. “She’s never worried about the things that worry most of the people in San Francisco.”

Pelosi held her ground and dismissed the criticism as a bump along the way.

“My attitude is, they’ll take the low road, and I’ll take the high road, and I will get the Congress before them,” Pelosi said at the time.

And she did. Years later, her reputation as a street fighter in designer clothing and heels was well established.

“You have to know how to take a punch and throw a punch,” she said on KQED’s Political Breakdown in 2018.

Then-President Bill Clinton signs the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act Amendments in 1996 at the White House. Standing behind Clinton are (L-R) Jeanne White, mother of Ryan, White House Aide Patsy Fleming, Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN), Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

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Pelosi’s career in Washington began in the depths of despair for San Francisco — the early years of the AIDS epidemic, when HIV infection was essentially a death sentence. She made increased AIDS funding and improving the social safety net a top priority. And she delivered.

Ernest Hopkins of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation said Pelosi’s fingerprints are on all of the major federal initiatives helping to fight the epidemic, including “being one of the principle supporters of the Ryan White Care Act, initiation of Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS, the Americans with Disabilities Act — I mean critical components of what we would call the health safety net that have been used over the years to support probably millions of people living with HIV,” Hopkins said, adding that her advocacy went far beyond her own district.

“She understood that we could not end the HIV epidemic without addressing the epidemic in Black and Latino communities. And so she was all in,” Hopkins said.

Pelosi’s rise to power within the Democratic Party did not come easily.

“Other people came to me and said, ‘You must run for leadership.’ And when I did run for a high office and leadership, some of the men said, ‘Who said she could run?’ Well, that just lit my fire, really. Who said she can run? We don’t need permission,” she recalled in 2018.

U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-California, delivers remarks from the House Chambers of the U.S. Capitol Building on November 17, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

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Pelosi disrupted the traditional pecking order of power in Washington.

After the 2006 midterm elections, when Pelosi led her caucus to a resounding victory — reclaiming a majority in the House for the first time in 12 years — her selection as the next speaker was sealed.

“She didn’t do that by being shy or deferential,” said journalist Susan Page, author of Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. “She did that by being tough and direct and fearless. And those are characteristics she brought to the job.”

Despite her image as a partisan warrior, Pelosi often set aside party affiliation to do what she thought was right.

She derailed efforts in her caucus to impeach President George W. Bush over the Iraq War. And in 2008, when the economy was cratering due to the subprime mortgage crisis, she rounded up enough Democratic votes to pass the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which Democratic critics described as a Wall Street bailout, to help shore up financial institutions crippled by “toxic assets.”

That willingness to set aside party differences was noted by former Republican Speaker John Boehner at the unveiling of Pelosi’s official portrait in 2022.

“You’ve been a fierce warrior for your party, but when the stakes were highest, you were willing to put the interests of the nation first and take the heat for it. Now that’s leadership,” Boehner said, adding, “No other speaker of the House in the modern era, Republican or Democrat, has wielded the gavel with such authority or with such consistent results.”

In some ways, the things Pelosi did worst — like media interviews — were the things most people saw, while her strengths were seen by few: cultivating relationships and understanding how to win enough votes to pass legislation. It’s what made her, in her own words, a “master legislator.”

“You have to understand people’s motivation, their district, their priorities,” Pelosi said.

After Democrats retook the House in 2018, Pelosi was again elected speaker. She guided investigations into President Donald Trump, including two successful impeachments in the House that ultimately failed in the Senate.

During Joe Biden’s administration, Pelosi again wielded enormous power, helping the House pass landmark legislation, including COVID-19 funding, climate change initiatives and the CHIPS Act, which provided incentives for domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors — essential computer components made mostly overseas.

Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) introduces President Joe Biden during the 2022 House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference in Philadelphia.

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Pelosi and Biden were close political allies for decades. But in 2024, after the president’s disastrous debate performance against Trump, it was Pelosi who opened the door to Biden dropping out during an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” saying “time is running short” for the president to decide whether he would run again — even though he had already said he would. Pelosi’s subtle yet unmistakable nudge for Biden to step aside succeeded.

“She tried to get others to go raise this issue with President Biden, saying that he shouldn’t run again, and no one would make it as directly as she would,” Page said. “So she finally did it herself, not just in private, but in public.”

To this day, Biden is reportedly angry with Pelosi over her role in pushing him aside. “In retrospect, turns out she was right. He shouldn’t have run again,” Page said.

In 2022, the speaker’s family paid the price of rising political violence when David DePape broke into the Pelosi home in San Francisco and attacked her husband, Paul, with a hammer, fracturing his skull. DePape said he was looking for Nancy Pelosi, who was out of town at the time, and wanted to “break her kneecaps.” DePape was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison and life in state prison without the possibility of parole.

Ultimately, Pelosi made history as the first woman and the first Californian to become Speaker of the House. But it’s what she did with that power — for her district, her state and her nation — that mattered most.

“You can never take that for granted,” Newsom said in assessing Pelosi’s impact. “It will take 40, 50 years for someone to build the kind of credibility that she’s built and the influence and the capacity to deliver that as Nancy Pelosi.”

The Los Angeles region’s homelessness agency will miss a Tuesday deadline for submitting its federally required annual audit of the agency’s financial records, which could jeopardize its federal funding.

LAHSA executives blamed the delay on a “perfect storm” of leadership changes and competing priorities within LAHSA’s finance department, including an L.A. County review of LAHSA’s delayed payments to contractors.

“Our staff made a good-faith effort to meet the deadline,” interim CEO Gita O’Neill said at a LAHSA Commission meeting Tuesday. “However, over the past year, we've experienced several transitions. As a result, we could not get all the required materials to the auditors as quickly as needed.”

Each year, LAHSA, like all non-federal agencies and organizations that get substantial federal dollars, is required to hire an outside auditor to determine whether it’s properly tracking and reporting the taxpayer funds it manages.

LAHSA’s single audit report for last fiscal year was due March 31, nine months after fiscal year 2024-2025 ended. Earlier this month, LAHSA officials said they were on track to meet the March 31 deadline.

Justin Measley, lead auditor for the firm CliftonLarsonAllen, had warned that LAHSA was months behind schedule turning over records.

At a meeting Tuesday, Measley explained that because of LAHSA’s earlier delays, the firm would need at least an additional week to complete a quality-control review process.

“We’re moving at the fastest pace we possibly can,” Measley said.

On Tuesday, LAHSA officials said the single audit will be filed “at the earliest possible opportunity,” within the next few weeks.

Federal funds at risk

LAHSA manages hundreds of millions of federal dollars each year, through grants from the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

O’Neill said the agency has been communicating with HUD officials regularly about the missed audit deadline and is “hoping for understanding.”

Janine Lim, LAHSA’s deputy chief financial officer, said she’s also been talking with HUD.

“They seem amenable to our situation and to our stated timelines,” Lim said. “So, we are hopeful that this will be a good outcome, despite having missed the deadline.”

HUD did not immediately respond to LAist’s request for comment Tuesday.

What went wrong 

Measley said LAHSA’s financial statements should have been turned over around last December, but LAHSA only submitted them this month, after blowing through multiple extended deadlines.

Measley said he contacted LAHSA’s governing commission about the overdue documents March 3.

He said he also previewed his firm’s findings, noting one “significant deficiency” in its draft report, related to LAHSA’s timeliness in detecting accounting errors.

LAHSA could contest those findings, officials said. That would add additional back-and-forth between the homelessness agency and accounting firm before the audit report is ready to file.

Justin Szlasa, a LAHSA commissioner who chairs the audit subcommittee, told LAHSA’s CEO he’s concerned that there was no time provided for LAHSA’s governing body to review the audit report.

“Next year, we will absolutely do that,” O’Neill responded. “I think this year, we were under the gun, and so we felt it was the most important thing was to get it uploaded on time.”

O’Neill said the agency hired accounting firm KPMG to help modernize LAHSA’s financial systems, with a focus on its contractor payments.

“We have an outside, trusted voice to help us create a system that works going forward because the system we have is not working at all, in finance,” O’Neill said.

Updated March 31, 2026 at 20:44 PM ET

President Trump on Tuesday escalated his efforts to reshape American elections, signing an executive order that seeks to create lists of U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote in each state, and instructing the U.S. Postal Service to send mail ballots only to verified voters.

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he believes the order is legally "foolproof." But election experts said the order was unconstitutional, and voting rights advocates and Democratic state officials quickly pledged to sue to block the order from going into effect.

A previous executive order on elections, signed about a year ago, has been blocked by federal judges who said the president lacked the constitutional authority to set voting policy.

The Constitution says the "Times, Places and Manner" of federal elections are determined by individual states, with Congress able to enact changes.

"This Executive Order is a disgusting overreach from the federal government and shows how little the Trump Administration understands about election administration," Adrian Fontes, the Democratic secretary of state of Arizona, said in a statement Tuesday. "We will not let this order stand without a fight and will meet the federal government in court," he added.

Arizona is among more than two dozen states Trump's Department of Justice has sued over access to sensitive voter data.

The Trump administration claims it needs the data to enforce states' voter list maintenance. Federal judges in three states have dismissed the Justice Department's lawsuits in those states.

In another case, a DOJ official admitted in court last week that the department plans to share that voter data with the Department of Homeland Security, to run it through the so-called SAVE system to search for noncitizens.

NPR has reported that some U.S. citizens have also been inaccurately flagged by SAVE.

How the executive order seeks to change voting

Trump has long railed — baselessly — about widespread illegal voting by noncitizens and fraud associated with mail ballots.

The new executive order — which was first reported by The Daily Caller — takes aim at both.

It instructs the Department of Homeland Security, working in conjunction with the Social Security Administration, to "compile and transmit to the chief election official of each State a list of individuals confirmed to be United States citizens who will be above the age of 18 at the time of an upcoming Federal election and who maintain a residence in the subject State."

The order then "requires the USPS to transmit ballots only to individuals enrolled on a State-specific Mail-in and Absentee Participation List, ensuring that only eligible absentee or mail-in voters receive absentee or mail-in ballots," according to a White House fact sheet.

Trump's executive order claims that "additional measures are necessary" to secure voting by mail, a form of voting he has used himself — including last week — but also falsely maligned for years. In the 2024 general election, nearly a third of all voters cast mail ballots.

The Postal Service should also review the design of mail ballot envelopes to protect "the integrity of Federal elections," the order says.

Collectively, the provisions would be a significant change to how mail ballot programs are currently administered in American elections, which are largely carried out by state and local officials.

"Our government's citizenship lists are incomplete and inaccurate. The United States Postal Service is overburdened and inadequate. This combines a car crash with a train wreck," the Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for expanded voting access and sued to block Trump's 2025 election executive order, said in a statement.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert at UCLA, wrote on his blog that the order is likely unconstitutional. And regardless, he added, "the timing here makes this virtually impossible to implement in time for November's elections. … It seems highly unlikely any of this could be implemented for 2026, even if it were not blocked by courts."

The order comes as Trump pressures Republicans in Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election overhaul that would impose new voter identification and documentation requirements.

That bill is stalled in the Senate due to Democratic opposition and the legislative filibuster.

The Supreme Court is also expected to rule this year on whether Mississippi should be allowed to count mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received by election officials after Election Day.

The legal challenge, which could have sweeping implications for mail voting nationwide, was filed by the Republican National Committee and Trump's 2024 presidential campaign.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Federal immigration officials arrested more than 14,000 people in the greater Los Angeles area in 2025 — the majority of whom had no criminal record, according to an LAist analysis of new data from the Deportation Data Project.

The data project, an initiative between UCLA and UC Berkeley, publishes federal data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

In 2025, federal officials arrested 14,394 people, up from 4,681 the year prior. Forty-six percent of people arrested had criminal convictions, 15% had pending charges, and 39% had no criminal charges or convictions.

In a December news release, the Department of Homeland Security said it had arrested more than 10,000 people in the L.A. area since immigration raids began in June of last year, including "murderers, kidnappers, sexual predators and armed carjackers,” but did not publish details of the number of people who had criminal records.

The data from the Deportation Data Project shows that arrests in L.A. spiked in June, and about two-thirds of people arrested that month had no criminal convictions.

More than 313,000 people were arrested by ICE nationwide in 2025, according to an LAist analysis.

In a statement, a DHS spokesperson said the agency has not “verified the accuracy, methodology or analysis of the project and its results” and said “this only reveals how data is manipulated to peddle the false narrative that DHS is not targeting the worst of the worst.” The spokesperson said 61% of people ICE arrested across the country either had criminal convictions or pending charges.

The agency has regularly published press releases identifying people they have arrested and who they have called “the worst of the worst,” including from the raids in L.A. in June. But an LAist investigation and reporting from other outlets has found that some of the people on those lists already has been in custody and were serving lengthy sentences.

Small businesses struggling financially have another program they could qualify for to help pay the bills.

The program is for businesses in Council District 1, which includes the neighborhoods of Koreatown, Pico Union, Westlake, MacArthur Park and Highland Park.

Individual brick-and-mortar businesses can qualify for grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000, while street vendors can receive about $3,000, according to city officials. A total of $400,000 is available through the program, and applications are now open. 

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez announced the program’s goal, describing it as a way to support locally owned businesses navigating rising operating costs, shifting customer patterns, and the impacts of recent wide-scale events, like the ongoing immigration raids, along with wildfires, and broader economic uncertainty.

Small businesses struggling financially have another program they could qualify for to help pay the bills.

Who is eligible?

The program is open to independently owned businesses and street vendors located within District 1.

To qualify, businesses must have a valid Los Angeles business license and have been operating in Council District 1 since December 2020, with some flexibility for street vendors. They also need to show they’ve been financially impacted by any largescale events, like the COVID pandemic, immigration enforcement, or the broader economy. Businesses that changed owners can also apply if they’re essentially running the same operation.

How can the money be used?

Grants can be used for daily operational expenses, including rent, payroll, utilities, overhead and other business costs. Roochnik said the funding could also help businesses cover missed rent payments.

Who is running the program?

The grants will be distributed in partnership with the PACE Business Development Center and New Economics for Women. The two organizations provide support to small and immigrant-owned businesses across Los Angeles.

How will recipients be selected?

Funding will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis, with applications remaining open until funds run out, Roochnik said. 

What’s the goal?

Hernandez said the program is meant to help stabilize neighborhoods that have been affected by immigration enforcement and economic hardships.

“These small businesses are the backbone of our neighborhoods,” she said, adding the funding is meant to help them “stay open, keep workers employed, and continue serving our communities.”

Naomi Villagomez Roochnik, CD1 communications director, said the announcement was made during a press conference at Delicias Bakery and Some, a longtime Latina-owned business in Highland Park. The neighborhood has experienced significant rising rents due to gentrification and the location was meant to highlight the kinds of businesses the program is meant to support.

How to apply:

To apply, small businesses and vendors can complete the application at bit.ly/cd1smallbizsupport.

Is this a one-time program or part of a larger effort?

The grant is part of a pilot program, with the possibility of it expanding depending on demand and outcomes. The council office has launched similar aid efforts in the past, Roochnik said, such as food distribution and rental assistance. 

Businesses that may not qualify for this specific grant can be connected to other resources, according to Roochnik, including the city’s legacy business program, which is for businesses operating for at least 20 years. 

The post Small businesses, vendors struggling against ICE raids, economic uncertainty eligible for up to $10,000 in grants appeared first on LA Local.