The Brief

In folding chairs with books in hand, Iciar Rivera and her three young children sat in the shade of the ficus trees outside the recently shuttered Benjamin Franklin Library bungalow.

A handmade sign affixed to the nearby wall read: ¡Abran Franklin Ya! — Open Franklin Now.

For Rivera, 40, this wasn’t just an act of protest — it was a call to action. Her local library has been in limbo since 2020, when its main building shut down during the pandemic and remained closed for renovations. A temporary bungalow served the community for three years, until it too closed on Aug. 1, leaving residents with no immediate library access. Now, the library isn’t expected to open until 2027.

“This branch was a lifesaver,” Rivera said. “I didn’t have a lot of support through college, so it felt personal when they closed it.”

To Rivera, the Benjamin Franklin Library acted as an anchor. Raised between Orange County, Los Angeles and Mexico, her parents brought her to the branch when she was a child and it became a safe haven for her while she attended East L.A. College.

Now, a stay-at-home mother, Rivera is turning her frustration into action by forming a new Friends of the Library group in Boyle Heights, an effort to advocate for the unique needs of three public library branches serving the neighborhood: Benjamin Franklin, Malabar and Stevenson.

“This is a group actually born out of anger and frustration… We’re building one out of how neglected we are as a neighborhood,” Rivera said.

A library in need

Friends of Library groups are nonprofit organizations that work to increase community engagement with library services, provide volunteer support and advocate for the financial support of the branches they represent. According to the Los Angeles Public Library, there are more than 60 active Friends of the Library groups across the city that each raise funds through book sales to raise money for the branches.

While many of these groups are sometimes focused on fundraising through book sales, Rivera says she feels there is much more at stake for libraries throughout Boyle Heights.

“I would like to concentrate less on book sales and maybe more on like grant writing, because I think that yields the bigger game,” she said.

About a dozen members, including three board members, are now behind the group. Next, Rivera is working to formalize the Friends of the Boyle Heights Libraries’ status as a nonprofit organization and recruit more members.

Rivera often sets up outside the closed library to talk to passersby, many of whom are unaware of the library’s closure. She carries a volunteer sign-up sheet and answers questions about the library’s ongoing delays.

“A lot of them were like, ‘Of course, this happens to us all the time in many different ways.’ It always feels like we’re last to know and the first to be forgotten,” Rivera said.

Residents attempt to access the now-closed temporary bungalow at the Benjamin Franklin Library on Monday, Aug. 4, 2025.

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Boyle Heights Beat

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Elected officials step in

Since the 2020 closure, the library has faced delays tied to staffing shortages, environmental and historical assessments and a disruption in funding, according to the Bureau of Engineering, which oversees the planning and design of city infrastructure projects.

L.A. City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado is pushing for accountability. In one of her first motions, she requested a report detailing setbacks and project updates.

“This is a key city service that is a lifeline for Angelenos, especially working-class folks of color and Boyle Heights deserves it just as much as anybody else,” Jurado said in an interview with Boyle Heights Beat.

To fill the service gap during renovations, L.A. Public Library and branch staff, with support from Jurado’s office, began to offer weekly library services from the Boyle Heights City Hall. Last week, a bright magenta Street Fleet van rolled onto the Boyle Heights City Hall parking lot to offer book lending services, electronic resources, WiFi and limited printing services.

But Rivera doesn’t see it as an adequate substitute. She said one of her group’s first plans of action is to urge the L.A. Public Library to increase Street Fleet van frequency in her neighborhood.

“Once a week? I mean, it’s cute. But it sounds like something that would happen in a natural disaster,” she said. “That is an appeasement, and that is not nearly enough.”

Iciar Rivera (right) stands with LAPL staff during a library Street Fleet visit at Boyle Heights City Hall on Aug. 19, 2025.

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Fighting for a future generation

Rivera has long advocated for the spaces public libraries provide, especially to her children, calling them “touchstones for every kind of person.”

When the security guard stationed at the library first saw Rivera and her kids setting up a table and chairs outside of the branch, he jokingly suggested she take the kids to the beach, instead.

“He wasn’t wrong,” Rivera said through laughter. But the mother of three said she considers it a valuable lesson to be outspoken about the issues in their community, even if it can be physically uncomfortable at times.

“My parents were activists, but I didn’t have that in me when I was little,” Rivera said. “So, I’m glad we’re building and we’re progressing as a family line here, of people that are more informed earlier, better and more holistically.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

For a lot of the runners who showed up to this year’s MacArthur Park summer kickoff 5k, the race itself was only part of the reason they went.

Student Angel Tapia, 17, from Miguel Contreras Learning Complex in Westlake, participated to help spur a different future for the park. 

“The more attention we give this park as a community, the more likely it is to get fixed by the city,” he said. “This park does mean a lot to the community. I invited all my friends to the 5k, and most of them did come.”

Hundreds of runners gathered close to the MacArthur Park Community Center for the free event Saturday, which included race bibs, T-shirts and medals for the first 400 participants.

But beyond getting some exercise, many participants said the event represented an effort to reclaim a park that has become a symbol of challenges such as homelessness and public drug use. For them, the race was a chance to show what the park can be like, when it is actively used by the community.

Edwin Gomez, 17,from Belmont High School in Westlake, said the park is tied to his upbringing with his brother.

“I used to come here and play soccer. I had a team here,” he said. “This park holds a lot of childhood memories for the community.”

Like many residents, Gomez said concerns about homelessness and safety have made it harder to enjoy the park in recent years. Still, he believes community events can help restore what the park once meant.

“I hope it can give those memories back again, especially to the younger generations,” he said. “I don’t want people to be afraid of coming here.”

Westlake resident Natally Barajas, 20, hesitated at first when a friend invited her to participate in the race.

“My mom thought it was crazy considering everything that goes on here,” Barajas said.

But after arriving and seeing families, runners and volunteers filling the park, she said the atmosphere felt different.

“They did a pretty good job cleaning the place,” she said. “It made it safer with the runners here. If you bring people together, especially in a place like this, it makes people feel more supported in whatever they want to do,” she said.

Chelsea Lucktenberg, a spokesperson for Council District 1 who also ran the race, said the event is part of a larger effort from the city to activate public spaces through community programming.

“We want to create more opportunities for families to connect and enjoy moments of joy in their community,” Lucktenberg said. “That’s why we’ll continue organizing events like this one, along with summer movie nights and World Cup watch parties.”

Even participants from out of town said they could see the significance of the event.

Kendrick Rong, 15, of West Covina, heard about some of the park’s challenges but felt encouraged by what he saw that morning.

“I heard that this place is not great to play sometimes, but I think Los Angeles is turning it into a better place, making it cleaner and more accessible for everyone,” he said. “I wanted to participate in this race because getting good exercise is always good for you.”

SoFi Stadium workers who had threatened to walk off the job during the World Cup have reached a tentative labor deal, averting a strike.

Their union, Unite Here Local 11, announced the deal Tuesday morning. The workers were pushing for better pay and protections against ICE, which is part of security plans for the World Cup.

" We won everything we asked for," said union spokesperson Maria Hernandez.

That includes premium pay for workers staffing the World Cup and similar events, and a pay bump across the board, although Hernandez declined to say how much.

Under the new agreement, workers will also maintain the right to strike over safety concerns, including the presence of immigration agents at the workplace. Hernandez called that "unprecedented" for a union contract.

" Usually when you win a contract, workers give up the right to strike," she said. "But that did not happen in this case, which is pretty huge."

Around 2,000 food and beverage workers at SoFi Stadium are covered by the contract. They still need to vote to finalize the deal.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with Unite Here Local 11 and look forward to delivering an outstanding hospitality experience for fans at the FIFA World Cup matches," wrote Legends Global, the the company that operates food and beverages at the stadium, in a statement to LAist.

SoFi Stadium will host eight World Cup matches starting Friday, when the U.S. plays Paraguay.

As vote tallies in the Los Angeles mayoral election trickled in slowly over the last week, unsubstantiated claims exploded on X that a fraudulent plot was underway to deprive the MAGA-backed former reality TV star Spencer Pratt the second-place slot to advance to the November runoff against incumbent Democrat Karen Bass.

A portion of these unfounded conspiracy theories pointed to changing betting odds for the three top candidates on prediction market sites Kalshi and Polymarket to suggest something sinister is afoot with the vote count. Some influencers supercharging such fraud claims online did so in posts sponsored by the companies themselves.

"They are actually doing it. They are counting votes until SPENCER LOSES. Someone DO SOMETHING," Trump-aligned influencer Mila Joy wrote to her half a million followers a day after the election as she reshared a Polymarket post with a graph showing that Pratt's betting odds were falling on the site.

"Is CA cheating to get Spencer Pratt out?" questioned commentator David Freeman, who posts under the handle Gunther Eagleman on X, as he shared a Kalshi post showing the odds between Pratt and progressive Democrat Nithya Raman. The Associated Press called the second-place spot for Raman on Monday afternoon after her vote share overtook Pratt's on Sunday.

At the bottom of both X posts, the words "paid partnership" appear in tiny font, a subtle reference to the millions of dollars Kalshi and Polymarket have pumped into programs that pay influencers to reshare corporate posts as a way to boost engagement.

The Los Angeles mayoral race is the clearest example yet of how prediction market posts about changing betting odds for candidates are being weaponized on X to sow doubt about the integrity of elections.

It's likely a preview of what's to come this year ahead of the midterm election. Kalshi and Polymarket are increasingly pervading ever more corners of daily life. Their rise has set off dozens of legal battles and raised novel questions about the ways betting on just about anything can have real-world consequences. Now it appears they are driving the latest battlefield in political misinformation wars on X.

"From the perspective of the influencer looking to get rich, their only job is to attract attention," Emerson Brooking, a disinformation expert at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, wrote in an email. "They will do this by sharing markets that align with what their audiences want to see. And if the betting markets are wrong, it is much wiser for them to allege fraud (and keep the lucrative promotions contract) rather than acknowledge that the gambling sites got it wrong."

In recent days, Kalshi and Polymarket have attempted to rein in some of their paid influencers. After NPR asked Kalshi about several partnership posts on Friday, the company said it told the influencers to take the posts down. Some of the posts, including Freeman's post questioning "CA cheating," have been deleted. Semafor first reported on Kalshi's crackdown.

On Monday, Polymarket told NPR it, too, is pulling back its sponsorship of some creators who were spreading election falsehoods. Joy's post is still live on X with the "paid partnership" tag, but the tag has been removed from posts by two other influencers paid by Polymarket.

"Companies shouldn't be paying people to spread misinformation," said Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College, who has reviewed the sponsored posts that flew across X. "In the Trump Republican Party, fraud allegations are going to be often received with a lot of enthusiasm, especially when people often get confused about the difference between the odds of someone winning and vote share."

Inside Kalshi and Polymarket paid partnerships 

Paying influencers as social media promoters is a type of "growth hacking" tech startups often deploy to maximize the reach of their brand in an attempt to drive more users to the services.

"It's a high-risk, high-reward situation," said Seton Hall University's Jess Rauchberg, who studies digital media culture. "But it's a strategy that gets people talking about the brand."

Polymarket and its rival, Kalshi, are both reining in paid posts from influencers after they spread falsehoods about the Los Angeles mayoral race.

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Kalshi and Polymarket have offered creators as much as $500 per post, according to two people who formerly worked on partnerships at Kalshi and Polymarket and who were not authorized to speak publicly about the programs.

Inside Kalshi, the approach has sparked debate over what responsibility the company has when creators promote its site by spreading misinformation and other harmful content across X, according to the former Kalshi employee.

A Kalshi spokesperson confirmed on Monday that the company now prohibits anyone in its affiliate program from questioning the integrity of an election or undermining a legal ruling or official determination about an election.

Previously, the company took a mostly hands-off approach to what its affiliate creators posted to boost one of Kalshi's markets, according to the former Kalshi employee.

Before the recent controversy, one of the only times Kalshi cut ties with a paid creator over a post promoting the company was when one of their contributors posted to X celebrating the death of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, the former Kalshi employee said.

Similarly at Polymarket, affiliate posts were given wide latitude, as long as the person posting plugged the company's markets, according to the former Polymarket employee. And there appeared to be little vetting of creators, with Polymarket tapping former Rep. Matt Gaetz as one of its paid contributors. The U.S. House Ethics Committee found Gaetz paid an underage girl for sex.

On Monday, Polymarket said that while it does not have language specifically banning creators from posting election-related disinformation, any post denying the result of an election would violate its rules against spreading false and misleading information.

Polymarket told NPR posts from two of the creators it works with have lost the "paid partnership" tag. It has not asked creators to delete any posts, but told them about the company's content guidelines.

While the company would not specify which creators, NPR confirmed "paid partnership" tags have been removed from Jun. 4 posts by right-wing influencers Benny Johnson and Kangmin Lee sharing the same Polymarket post about Raman's rising odds on the betting site.

Seton Hall University's Rauchberg said the crackdowns are just the latest example of how the rival companies are constantly trying to one-up each other.

"They want to spread this rhetoric that 'Kalshi is for everyone, Polymarket is for everyone,'" she said. "They want to give the impression that they don't have a political affiliation, but consumers are becoming more savvy that both companies are engaging in a type of 'purity politics,' each trying to outdo the other over which is the best app to use."

Not disclosing whether a social media post was sponsored is illegal under rules the Federal Trade Commission adopted in 2024. The Trump administration has not rolled back these rules, but it has also not announced any enforcement actions.

Why California vote counting attracts fraud claims

The Los Angeles mayor race was particularly vulnerable to becoming the focus of election conspiracy theories for a number of reasons. Prediction market data may have been one of them.

Pratt, an outsider candidate who received outsized attention and engagement on X, was favored for second place on betting markets on both Kalshi and Polymarket's sites in the days before the election — even when the largest polls of likely voters showed him in third place.

Election workers process ballots for the California state primary election at the Los Angeles County Ballot Processing Center on June 5, 2026 in City of Industry, California.

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Justin Sullivan

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While the city's mayor is a nonpartisan office, a registered Republican like Pratt faced a challenge in heavily Democratic Los Angeles. But some social media commentators cited his favorable betting odds as evidence he could reach the November runoff.

Posts about what betting markets are saying about a candidate can confuse voters who may not understand the difference between betting behavior and a poll, said Zarine Kharazian, a Ph.D candidate at the University of Washington's Center for an Informed Public, who studies online rumors related to elections.

"It runs the risk of confusing people into thinking that, 'Okay, these markets have the pulse on public sentiment about the election and who's going to win,' when that's not necessarily the case," Kharazian said.

Heading into the Jun. 2 primary, election experts were already worried that California's notoriously slow ballot count would provide the opportunity for baseless fraud allegations to blossom.

A large portion of voters in the state use mail-in ballots, a form of voting President Trump has tried to associate with fraud. Election officials must verify mailed-in and dropped off ballots, making them slower to count. The state accepts ballots that are postmarked on the day of the election that arrive within seven days.

Ballots that are counted later in the process typically skew Democratic since more voters from that party embrace voting by mail. This phenomenon has been the basis for unfounded allegations of fraud in recent years, including by Trump.

The challenge has been particularly stark this year because so many Californians waited until Election Day to drop off their ballots, said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

State officials are "doing what they've always done — counting all the ballots, under transparent observation from the candidates and parties, and reporting each batch as soon as they can," Becker said, "yet the profiteers and grifters are loudly echoing our foreign adversaries in spreading lies designed to delegitimize our transparent election process."

President Trump himself has claimed without evidence that there was fraud in the Los Angeles mayoral's race. He called the election race "rigged" in a Truth Social post early Monday, and wrote it was "not possible" for Pratt to lose to Raman after his initial lead when vote counting began. The first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Los Angeles area, Bill Essayli, announced on X days earlier that his office had multiple election fraud investigations underway.

Over the weekend, Essayli debunked one popular conspiracy theory circulating on X — that Pratt had received zero votes in a ballot count update — as false.

Election experts say the baseless fraud allegations in California do not bode well for the upcoming November midterm season.

"I think we're going to get punched in the face so badly on election denialism in November," said Stephen Richer, the former Republican recorder for Maricopa County, Arizona, who dealt with baseless fraud allegations in the aftermath of the 2020 election. He is now a legal fellow at the Cato Institute and a senior fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Richer recalled that during the 2020 election, people trying to undermine the election results latched on to graphs that showed a blue line representing former President Joe Biden's totals suddenly jump higher as ballots were counted.

"And so now it seems that they're using these prediction market graphs to tell a similar story," Richer said.
Copyright 2026 NPR

For 39 straight days — the entire World Cup competition from start to finish — Chef Diego Argoti of Estrano, the viral street pasta pop-up, and formerly Poltergeist, will be cooking over a live, open fire in a loading dock. There's freshly brewed beer made just steps away. No reservation, no dress code. Just cold beer, good food, and every World Cup match on.

Estrano Verano is the World Cup viewing destination you haven't heard of yet — but will.

What is it?

The gathering is a collaboration between Argoti and the founders of Skyduster Beer, Johnny Marler and Nick Smith.

Running from this Thursday, June 11, to the World Cup final on Sunday, July 19, it will be open every day one hour before the first kickoff for the 104 matches. Located inside City Market South — a century-old former produce market near the Fashion District in Downtown L.A.— neighbors include Rossoblu, chef Steve Samson's Bologna-inspired Italian restaurant, and Dama, chef Antonia Lofaso's Latin-inspired restaurant and lounge.

Who's behind it

Argoti, who has cultivated a reputation as the enfant terrible of the L.A. food world, cut his teeth at Bestia and Bavel, later earning a James Beard semifinalist nod, StarChefs Rising Star 2024 and other accolades — all out of his barcade Poltergeist in Echo Park which closed the same year. Dishes there included a crispy Thai Caesar salad with a towering rice puff crouton that defied gravity, and a butterflied masa-fried dorade — head still on — bathed in Hachiya gazpacho, pink lady aguachile, and mussels escabeche, best enjoyed against the blue hue of classic '80s and '90s arcade games.

Guests toast at the Estrano Verano preview at Skyduster Brewery Sports Bar, City Market South, Downtown LA.

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Phoebe Joaquin

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Marler and Smith, two veterans of the beverage industry, founded Skyduster in 2021. The L.A.-only brewery has since landed its beer at the Greek Theatre and Dodger Stadium. The City Market location marks Skyduster's first physical space — with a Silver Lake beer garden already in the works for 2027.

The two met in 2024 at the premiere of the PBS SoCal documentary series Rebel Kitchens Southern California, where Argoti spoke openly about losing his father. Afterward, Marler approached him and shared that he had just lost his own father as well. The two bonded over their shared grief, and their partnership soon took shape.

"We're here because both our parents died within a month of each other," Marler said. "If it wasn't for that, none of this happens."

The food and beer

At first glance, the permanent bar menu reads like standard sports bar or pub fare — but with Argoti in the kitchen, there's always more to the story. Marler had two non-negotiables: a burger and a hot dog. Everything else was Argoti's call. That means a Pad Krapow Chicken Sandwich built on masa-fried chicken thighs, holy basil, Thai chilies, papaya salad, and lime leaf aioli — and a Yuba Cheesesteak that swaps the beef for marinated tofu skin on a seeded semolina roll with celery root cheez whiz and enoki shoestrings. Starters include Jidori party wings (Szechuan Buffalo or Tamarind Sticky) and a blue corn tostada with Hokkaido scallops. That menu is available every day the doors are open.

A spread of Jidori party wings, pub burger patties, and fresh herbs from the Estrano Verano menu at Skyduster Brewery Sports Bar.

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Phoebe Joaquin

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Friday through Sunday, Argoti, alongside chefs Alan Rudoy and Sebastian Salazar, takes it a step further: a separate live-fire menu is posted day-of and available from 4 p.m. until sold out. Think of it as the bar menu's wilder, more unpredictable cousin — subject to whims. The custom-built open fire rig is the heart of the operation. "I want to get some octopus — when there is Morocco against Japan," Argoti said. "That was one of my biggest things for this, to cook something that most people don't think about here in the U.S." A Morocco-Japan matchup is projected as a likely Round of 32 fixture, which means that octopus could be coming sooner than you think.

All of it bears the fingerprints of Argoti's full body of work — from his time at Bestia and Bavel, to the street pasta chaos of Estrano and the barcade-on-acid menu of Poltergeist.

Washing it all down is Skyduster's intentionally simple four-beer lineup — a Japanese rice lager, Italian Pilsner, West Coast IPA, and Citrus Wit — all brewed on site and built to pair with food, not fight it.

Why this, why now

When I asked Argoti and Marler why the city needs a spot like this right now, Marler was direct. "I think L.A. is missing a lot of fun right now," he said. "I just don't know what happened." Estrano Verano is betting that people are ready for a place with fewer rules and more community.

The World Cup serves as the perfect unifier — every country represented in the tournament, every walk of life, welcome to catch a match or just hang. And with the historic City Market South complex as the backdrop, a century-old former produce market that's seen the city change around it, the setting feels less like a pop-up and more like exactly where you're supposed to be this summer.

Just show up: Skyduster Brewery Sports Bar, 1124 San Julian St., City Market South, downtown LA.

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Phoebe Joaquin

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"This reminds me of jumping out of an airplane and knowing everything is gonna be okay — and afterward it's just gonna be some of the most fun you've ever had in your life," Argoti said.