The Brief

Tuesday is the final day for constituents of Santa Ana Councilmember Jessie Lopez to vote on whether she should remain in office. The outcome of the controversial recall — which is mired in legal dilemmas — could determine whether Orange County's second-largest city continues to lean in favor of policies like rent control and police oversight, or does an about-face.

Here's what you need to know:

Why is Jessie Lopez facing recall?

The recall is primarily backed by the Santa Ana Police Officers Association, which has spent more than $500,000 on the recall effort since January. Real estate groups have also kicked in at least $223,000 for the effort, including $100,000 from the National Association of Realtors.

Tim Rush, a real estate executive who chairs the recall campaign, cited Lopez's voting record in favor of rent control and cutting the police budget as primary reasons for the recall. Rush told LAist that Lopez's politics were "very, very liberal" and that she had an "anti-business sort of philosophy."

"[Lopez] wants to portray it that it's the corrupt police union [funding the recall effort]," Rush said. "But that isn't, by any means, all of it. … The money that's poured into this campaign has a lot to do with business owners and property owners who are upset over rent control."

Santa Ana is the only city in Orange County with a rent control ordinance. Its policy restricts rent increases to 2.54% through the end of August 2024. A handful of cities in L.A. County also cap rent increases under 3%.

You can read more from recall proponents here.

Santa Ana Councilmember Jessie Lopez was elected in 2020 to represent the city's Ward 3.

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City of Santa Ana

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What do her supporters say?

Lopez's supporters say her actions on the city council have led to greater police oversight and helped low-income residents fight unjust evictions and steep rent hikes. She has also noted that she voted in favor last year of increasing the number of police officers by 24 positions.

Lopez's effort to fight the recall is backed by community members, local Democratic leaders, including county Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, and several unions. These include the United Food and Commercial Workers, which has contributed close to $25,000.

In all, Lopez has raised around $200,000 to fight the recall.

Hairo Cortes, executive director of the Latinx youth advocacy group Chispa, said if Lopez loses her seat on the Santa Ana City Council, it could also mean the end of the council majority that championed policies like rent control, for which his group has advocated for years.

"It really is about losing the gains that the community has made if this recall were to be successful," Cortes told LAist.

You can hear more from Lopez and supporters here and here.

What are the legal issues with the recall?

A couple of weeks ago, the Orange County Registrar of Voters made a late discovery that the recall election was based on bad data.

Specifically, the city used population data and geographic boundaries from Lopez's current district when it should have used information from when voters first elected her in 2020, before redistricting took place.

Using the correct data, the registrar determined that the recall petitioners didn't actually collect enough signatures to trigger an election. And nearly 1,200 voters who should be able to vote didn't get ballots.

A Santa Ana voter who said they should have gotten a ballot filed a legal complaint asking for an injunction. But an O.C. Superior Court judge denied that request last week and said he won't make a ruling until after the election.

So, the election is going forward according to its original parameters.

Lopez told LAist she and her legal counsel are still considering options for challenging the election. And she noted that she and her supporters already have one previous legal claim pending in which a supporter alleged that recall proponents were lying to voters to get their signatures for the recall petition.

"This election is not about me anymore. The issues are so much bigger," Lopez told LAist last week. "The voters need to make a decision who they really want to represent them, special interests that push policies that harm working class people, or people who were born and raised in this city who are always willing to listen to their concerns."

Who gets to vote?

Lopez is encouraging constituents who didn't get a ballot to request a provisional ballot and vote.

It's unclear whether those ballots would be counted — O.C. Registrar Bob Page told LAist last week he intends to administer the election based on the current district boundaries and voter population initially approved by the city. That means voters who live in the city's current Ward 3.

You can look up your address on the city's interactive map.

How can I vote?

Mail-in ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 14.

Two vote centers are also open on Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the following addresses:

• O.C. Health Care Agency - Public Health Learning Center, 1729 W. 17th St., Building E, Santa Ana
• O.C. Registrar of Voters, 1300 S. Grand Ave., Building C, Santa Ana

Voters can also take ballots to one of three official drop boxes up until 8 p.m. Tuesday:

• O.C. Health Care Agency, 1725 W. 17th St., Santa Ana
• Orangewood Foundation, 1575 E. 17th St., Santa Ana
• O.C. Registrar of Voters, 1300 S. Grand Ave., Building C, Santa Ana

The Japanese American National Museum announced today it will reopen in January after a two-year, $25 million overhaul of the country’s largest museum dedicated to the Japanese American experience.

The museum in L.A.’s Little Tokyo is reshaping its galleries and expanding its signature exhibition to include more perspectives and connections between Japanese American history and current debates over race, immigration and democracy.

The new exhibition at JANM features A.I.-assisted avatars of Japanese American survivors of incarceration.

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Courtesy of Japanese American National Museum

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“We want to tell the story in a way that is more expansive and that other immigrants, communities can see their own story reflected,” said Ann Burroughs, the museum’s president and CEO.

That effort to tie history to the present comes as JANM itself has faced political pressure, with the museum losing federal funding amid Trump administration cuts.

From the outside, visitors returning to the museum, which has been closed since January 2024, will recognize its modern, minimalist exterior. Once they step through the doors, though, the experience will be vastly different.

The biggest change will be the installation of a 9,200-square-foot permanent exhibition occupying nearly all of the museum’s first floor — more than twice the space of the exhibition it replaces.

"Common Ground," which opened in 1999, covered Japanese American history from migration to the U.S. in the 1800s to the passage of a federal law — the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 — that formally apologized for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and provided $20,000 in reparations to surviving detainees.

The new exhibition, called "In the Future We Call Now: Realities of Racism, Forging Democracy," will include more recent history, such as Japanese American support for reparations for Black Americans and vocal opposition to the Islamophobia that swelled after 9/11. It will also cover the Japanese American response to ICE detention and incarceration of migrant children, drawing parallels to World War II camps.

Galleries have been reconfigured to include more recent history and more objects from the past, including kimonos owned by women from Japan, who immigrated to the U.S. in larger numbers starting in the turn of the 20th century.

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Courtesy of Japanese American National Museum

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It will also bring lesser-known perspectives to familiar history through telling the story of incarceration from “women and mothers” and those incarcerated at Tule Lake, the camp in Northern California where Japanese Americans labeled as disloyal by the U.S. government were isolated during World War II.

“JANM hadn’t told that story before,” Burroughs said. “You can’t draw those parallels of what’s happening now if you don’t talk about the camps and if you don’t talk about Tule Lake.”

The new exhibition will also lean more heavily into audiovisual storytelling, using technology and archival media to make the history feel more immediate.

The interactive “StoryFiles” incorporate AI so visitors can pose questions to digital avatars of incarceration survivors like the actor George Takei.

Burroughs stressed that the museum is not using generative AI, but drawing upon hours and hours of interviews in which subjects answered hundreds of questions.

The new exhibition will also draw deeply from JANM’s extensive collection of Japanese American home movies, including footage dating to the 1930s, and give visitors a window into everyday life before World War II.

Some of JANM’s best-known objects will be included in the new exhibition, like barracks from the Heart Mountain incarceration camp in Wyoming and a model of Manzanar in California’s remote Owens Valley, the first of the camps to be built.

The museum is also emphasizing everyday culture, with displays ranging from kimonos brought by Japanese immigrant women at the turn of the 20th century to rice cookers, and the worldwide reach of Hello Kitty.

The Hirasaki National Resource Center has been relocated to the second floor and will showcase work from artists like Ruth Asawa and Isamu Noguchi.

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Courtesy of Japanese American National Museum

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The larger new exhibition was created without growing the museum's footprint through reconfiguring the building. For example, the museum’s Aratani Central Hall will take on a new role as the museum’s main entrance, with visitors entering through its sweeping curved glass wall and moving directly into the exhibition galleries. But Burroughs said the redesign will not come at the expense of the hall’s longtime function as a community space available to local nonprofits.

Upstairs, visitors will find reconfigured spaces including a new reading room filled with works and furnishings by Ruth Asawa and Isamu Noguchi. Behind the scenes, JANM has upgraded decades-old building systems such as its HVAC and elevators.

The museum overhaul was funded as part of a much larger $135 million fundraising campaign, Burroughs said. The rest of the campaign supports JANM’s operations and long-term financial stability, including about $56 million in endowment and board-designated reserves.

"You know, life is never secure in the nonprofit world or in the museum world," Burroughs said. "We have to do a lot more to build up our endowments. We just will keep going."

Public health officials are urging people to be wary of flea-borne typhus after a recent outbreak of the illness.

The outbreak in late July was centered in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles. The L.A. County Department of Public Health said five people were hospitalized; all recovered.

The outbreak comes as typhus cases continue to tick up in L.A. County.

Cases have been increasing fairly steadily for more than a decade, but they nearly doubled over the last three years. The Public Health Department logged a record 220 cases in 2025, and officials say this year is on track to exceed that.

Public health officials say the increase is likely because human-animal interactions are also increasing. That could be due to human population expansions into areas with more animals, available food sources for wildlife in populated areas or more people owning pets.

The bacteria that causes typhus is transmitted from animals to humans through fleas.

Typhus can’t be passed from one human to another, and public health experts say the illness is completely treatable, especially if it’s caught early.

Outbreaks and how to prevent them

Most of the time, typhus cases are spread out across L.A. County. But sometimes, there’s a localized spread over a short period of time that turns into an outbreak.

Public health officials respond to a few of them in L.A. County each year.

Generally, outbreaks are triggered by high concentrations of host animals.

“Wherever these animals may be present or wherever they may be congregating, in those areas we can see an increase in the number of human infections,” said Dr. Aiman Halai with the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

The most common hosts for typhus are rats, opossums and free-roaming cats. When people or pets come in contact with host animals, they can pick up the infected fleas and bring them into homes, spreading them to other people and animals in the process.

Halai says a variety of factors can attract animals and lead to an outbreak, including overflowing dumpsters, overgrown vegetation or a well-meaning neighbor feeding local critters.

You can help prevent outbreaks by securing trash in bins, making sure food isn’t left outside, and ensuring pets are on up-to-date flea control medication. Cutting back overgrown vegetation and blocking off crawl spaces can eliminate places where animals can shelter in and around homes.

Halai also says it’s important not to feed wildlife.

Should you be worried?

Although public health experts are wary of the typhus uptick in L.A. County, the 220 cases recorded in 2025 in L.A. County are not overly concerning.

"That’s a very  low rate at the population level,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of infectious diseases at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

Typhus is an acute infection caused by bacteria known as Rickettsia typhi. Variations of the bacteria also cause other illnesses transmitted by fleas, ticks, lice and mites, including tick-borne Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Doctors can test for typhus fairly easily, and it is treatable with antibiotics. Symptoms are similar to the flu, and can include fever, headaches, muscle aches and nausea. It can also cause rashes in some cases.

Most infections are mild, but they can cause hospitalization and, in rare cases, can be fatal.

Klausner said the concern is that testing for typhus is not always routine.

“The most important thing is that when patients come in to their doctor — and they have fever, they may have a rash, they may have headache, may have muscle or joint aches — that the doctor's thinking about potentially flea-borne infectious diseases because the treatment can be different,” Klausner said.

The best treatment for typhus is the antibiotic doxycycline. If a patient with typhus gets another type of antibiotic like penicillin or amoxicillin, the treatment may not be as successful.

According to Klausner, when presented with flu-like symptoms, it’s also a good idea for patients to tell their doctors if they’ve been around animals, spent time in an encampment or even just gone on a hike.

Topline:

Why it matters: The small amphibian is found in the grasslands of Southern California and the Central Valley. But habitat loss, urban sprawl and longer droughts have been threatening the species’ population in recent decades.

What the protections do: Now that the Western spadefoot is a candidate for permanent protections, any development project planned for Western spadefoot habitats will have to take the amphibians into account.

Some exceptions may apply: The commission did carve out exceptions for solar projects in the Central Valley. To take advantage of federal tax credit deadlines, some projects can continue to be built, as long as they protect breeding pools and curtail construction during the season when spadefoots are most active.

What conservationists say: Brendan Cummings, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in Southern California the biggest threat to the Western spadefoot is not solar development: “It’s warehouses or data centers and road widenings and all manner of construction activities.”

What happens next: The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will conduct a year-long review to determine if the Western spadefoot should be permanently protected.