The Brief

In the coming weeks, you might see an experimental aircraft that looks like a cross between a small plane and a helicopter flying above Los Angeles.

It’s an air taxi.

Archer Aviation, one of the companies jockeying to capture its place in the emerging electric air taxi industry, announced Monday it will soon begin flying its aircraft, initially without passengers, in L.A.

The company’s leadership says the flights are the most significant step yet in a race to introduce electric flying taxis to Southern California skies in time for the 2028 Olympics.

"Los Angeles is where we are writing the blueprint for every city that follows," said Adam Goldstein, the founder and CEO of Archer Aviation, on a call with investors Nov. 9. 

LA28 has named Archer the “official air taxi provider” for the Olympics.

Archer Aviation's upcoming activity in L.A., which will be anchored out of Hawthorne Airport, is meant to showcase its aircraft, known as Midnight, ahead of the Games and give the company an opportunity to learn about the region’s airspace. The company is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to determine where and under what conditions its aircraft can fly. In 2027, Goldstein said the company plans to include non-paying passengers on its flights.

But whether air taxis will be ready for 2028 is still to be determined. There are several steps for Archer before its aircraft can begin commercially carrying people around L.A.

Chief among those hurdles is approval from the FAA that the design of its aircraft, known as Midnight, meets safety and regulatory standards.

Archer's founder Adam Goldstein speaks during the International Paris Air Show at the Paris-Le Bourget Airport in 2023.

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LA was always the goal

Archer’s air taxis are a new form of aircraft that operate on electric power and have multiple rotors, unlike a traditional helicopter, and are designed to eventually takeoff vertically, rather than on a runway like a typical plane.

The potential for this type of aircraft flying in Los Angeles has been years in the making.

Last year, Archer Aviation acquired the master lease for Hawthorne Airport, and it has begun construction on 11 new hangars there.

Before that, LA28 announced its partnership with Archer, painting a vision of air taxis taking off and landing near Olympic venues including SoFi Stadium and the L.A. Memorial Coliseum. That plan would require installing “vertiports” in key locations. Vertiports are landing sites that allow electric vehicles to take off vertically rather than on a runway.

In August, Archer said it was advancing that vision, announcing plans to build its first vertiport in downtown Los Angeles at L.A. Live, the site of a number of Olympic and Paralympic competitions.

The LA28 Olympic cauldron is lit during a ceremonial lighting at the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles on Jan. 13, ahead of the launch of ticket registration.

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That plan, too, still has a number of steps left to become a reality. According to a press release, Archer and AEG, which owns and operates L.A. Live, are now reviewing “operational approach and guest experience” for the project. It’s also not clear what zoning permits the companies might need to secure. LAist asked L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ office about land use rules for vertiports in the city of Los Angeles but did not receive a response.

In a sign of all the work still left to do, an Archer air taxi shown off at the L.A. Live news conference this summer didn’t fly in: It was delivered via truck.

Big hurdles ahead

As Archer moves forward with conducting flights and investing in air taxi infrastructure, its key challenge before introducing air taxis commercially remains securing “type certification” from the FAA.

“This is a rigorous, aircraft-specific process involving engineering analysis, testing, and FAA findings of compliance,” Susan Shaheen, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Berkeley, told LAist in an email.

When Goldstein, Archer’s CEO, announced Monday that the company would launch flights in L.A., he signaled that it was a sign that Archer was close to that goal.

“This is undoubtedly our most important commercialization milestone to date,” he said.

Some observers were more tepid about the significance of the announcement.

Adrian Norris, who has an independent aerospace consultancy, said that the kind of certificate Archer Aviation received to start flying its aircraft in L.A. is used to demonstrate experimental aircraft to investors, press and potential customers.

“For a company which has got as much money as Archer, I don’t see it as a big milestone,” Norris said. “In fact, I don’t see it as a milestone.”

According to its latest earnings report, Archer Aviation has nearly $1.4 billion in cash and cash equivalents on hand.

Norris also pointed to how Archer’s flights in the coming weeks won’t demonstrate the vertical take off and landing configuration of Midnight. Rather, the plane will take off more traditionally, using a runway at the Hawthorne Airport.

“They haven't yet demonstrated, publicly at least, that the aircraft can take off vertically and then transition into horizontal flight with a pilot on board,” Norris said.

Public perception

If Archer can secure FAA type certification ahead of the Olympics, it won’t mean L.A. has the equivalent of Ubers in the sky in less than two years' time. Instead, aviation experts told LAist that the Games present an opportunity to showcase this new mode of potentially controversial transportation to the public, likely by offering actual rides to a select few.

“It’s a big stage, it’s an international stage,” said Josh Metz, executive director of DART, a nonprofit working on workforce preparation for this new aviation industry, about the Games. “Will your everyday Joe be riding in the air taxi to the Olympics? You know, I think that's probably unlikely.”

The question is if Angelenos will welcome air taxis or push back against them.

The company has positioned its aircraft as a game-changing fix to L.A.’s omnipresent congestion.

“Within the next couple of weeks, people will start to see Midnight flying overhead in L.A. as they’re stuck in traffic,” Goldstein said on Monday.

The electric aircraft are also expected to be much quieter than the helicopters that L.A. residents are accustomed to hearing droning overhead.

“Compared to helicopters, it's very obvious that this type of new aircraft generates much less noise,” said Seongkyu Lee, a professor in UC Davis’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, who has studied the noise output of these aircraft. “So that's very important in terms of public acceptance.”

Darlene Yaplee, co-founder of a group called the Aviation-Impacted Communities Alliance, told LAist that how people react to air taxis will depend on how the aircraft change their experience of their communities. She named a number of potential problems, like noise, the location of vertiports and even the look of the air taxis in what would otherwise be an open sky.

“So all of a sudden everyone's gonna be experiencing these impacts, and you're not gonna be necessarily living [near] an airport,” she said.

Yaplee said people will be able to turn to local governments to resist air taxis in their communities.

How Archer’s flying taxi is received may also depend on who can actually ride in it.

Jaafar El-Awady, professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University, said an air taxi ride could cost anywhere from $150 to $500 or more per person for a one-way ride.

“My skepticism concerns the expectation that these services will become routine transportation for the broader public,” El-Awady wrote in an email. “A successful premium air taxi business would not, by itself, demonstrate that we have created an affordable alternative for most commuters or a meaningful substitute for mass transportation.”

Tyler's opioid addiction began in his early 20s, and when he decided he wanted to quit, he used kratom leaf powders to help ease withdrawal symptoms.

Tyler, now 38, told NPR he thinks kratom helped him stop using opioids for a decade.

Tyler asked NPR to use only his first name because of the stigma attached to his history with drug use and addiction.

In early 2025, he saw a new product at a gas station called 7-OH. He hadn't heard of 7-OH, but said the tablets were advertised as "kratom products." He decided to try them, since the kratom powders he'd taken in the past "can be hard on your stomach," he said.

At first, 7-OH gave him a feeling of euphoria he described as similar to opioids, which "felt like a kind of a miracle," he said.

Nearly a year and a half later, he was in a rapid detox program in Michigan, where he was sedated to sleep through the withdrawals he experienced when he tried to stop taking it.

In the past few years, highly concentrated products with 7-OH — sometimes alongside other semi-synthetic opioids — have popped up online, and at many smoke shops, liquor stores and gas stations. They can come in the form of tablets, gummies, tonics and chocolate.

7-OH, or 7-hydroxymitragynine, is one of the major psychoactive ingredients in kratom, which comes from a tree in the coffee family. It's naturally found in kratom in very small amounts, and seems to act more like an opioid in the human brain than kratom leaf products. Kratom is used by some people with opioid addiction to maintain long-term recovery. Some people say it makes them feel energized or focused. Others describe the effects of kratom like those of opioids, and say it can relieve pain, feel calming or even create euphoria.

'More potent than I imagined'

Some users of 7-OH and kratom show classic signs of addiction, researchers and policy officials say. But the products are not always clearly labeled, so it's difficult or impossible for users to know what quantity of the substances they are consuming.

"I did not know at all what I was in for. It was much more potent than I had imagined," Tyler said.

Estimates of how many people use kratom and 7-OH in the U.S. are wide-ranging. Some suggest over 5 million people have used kratom in their lifetime. David Epstein, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Intramural Research Program, says he's seen estimates of kratom use as high as 15 million. Those estimates don't usually distinguish between whole leaf kratom, 7-OH or other related products.

In the last decade, the U.S. government has attempted to restrict both kratom and 7-OH products, but strong opposition to those moves by the public and powerful advocacy groups backing the substances have kept them federally legal.

That's started to change in the last few months.

A federal crackdown is likely on the way

No federal actions have been taken against "traditional botanical kratom," but a new federal restriction on some 7-OH products could go into place as early as Friday, Nov. 13, 2026.

The path there has not been straightforward. In August, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) restricted the making and sale of three semi-synthetic opioids derived from 7-OH and other related compounds: MGM-15, MGM-16 and mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (MGPI). Those compounds were listed under the Controlled Substances Act alongside the most highly restricted drugs, like heroin and LSD.

That caused backlash from kratom advocates who worried the rule would affect products with "trace amounts" of the semi-synthetic opioid, MGPI. One kratom advocacy organization, the American Kratom Association, filed a federal lawsuit on Aug. 26 against the DEA. It asked the DEA to ensure natural kratom products with traces of MGPI would remain legal.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) then issued a new recommendation on 7-OH and MGPI on Oct. 9, and the DEA changed its course. They now plan to restrict a narrower range of 7-OH and MGPI products: ones that contain higher concentrations of 7-OH and/or MGPI.

HHS and the DEA say they are not focusing on natural kratom products.

Kratom is derived from a tree in the coffee family. So-called "natural kratom," which can be taken as a powder, a capsule or a pill, among other forms, is not expected to be part of a likely federal crackdown.

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The research on kratom and 7-OH

Many people who oppose the restriction say kratom and 7-OH products have kept them away from traditional opioids, and helped them manage chronic pain, mood and mental health. Some also point to the fact that opioid deaths in the U.S. are decreasing. In 2023 alone, a KFF report found there were over 79,000 opioid deaths, and in 2024 there were 54,000.

A recent report of data from 53 U.S. poison control centers shows reports of calls related to kratom increased about 1,200% between 2015 and 2025. Chris Holstege, a physician and a professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at the University of Virginia's School of Medicine, is one of the authors of that report. He said he and the other authors "were a bit stunned" by those findings, which do not distinguish between kratom or products like 7-OH.

The report included 233 deaths associated with kratom during 2015–2025, with 79% of those deaths involving multiple substances. The most severe outcomes were linked to people using multiple substances alongside kratom products, like opioids, stimulants and benzodiazepines.

But Holstege points out over half the reports of calls, 62%, involved people using kratom without other drugs.

The authors used data on kratom from the National Poison Data System (NPDS), which includes calls from the public, healthcare professionals or medical examiners, and medical records.

For some, a 'life-changin' dose

Still, there are people who report benefits of using kratom or 7-OH, said Epstein, the NIDA investigator.

NPR spoke to one mom in Delaware, Angela Wilson, 44, who said 7-OH has helped her manage excruciating chronic pain related to endometriosis, and symptoms of depression she's had since she was a teenager.

She said she's been taking 32 to 40 milligrams of 7-OH a day, split into three doses, for the last year and a half.

Wilson said kratom powders made her feel anxious and shaky, and 7-OH seems to work for her without those side effects.

"It's been truly life-changing for my family situation, my personal life," she said.

Wilson doesn't have health insurance, and said losing access to 7-OH under new restrictions would be "devastating" for her and her family.

"We're not really sure, you know, what I'm gonna do when it's not available," she said.

'It was game over.' Dangers of addiction

Epstein has also heard stories like Tyler's. He said people can become addicted or dependent — and some of his ongoing research suggests that risk is higher with 7-OH products than with whole leaf kratom.

He said for some people, their 7-OH use "seemed to go nicely for the first couple of days, but then they found that they had to keep using to avoid withdrawal," Epstein said. "And some of them, not all of them, but some of them, even said they had to, you know, they couldn't make it through the night. They had to get up in the middle of the night to take more."

He said other people were happy with the effects they got from taking 7-OH and didn't feel like it caused problems for them.

Tyler told NPR that 7-OH tablets gave him more energy at first. He works a job where he's on his feet a lot, and with 7-OH, he said, " I can go, go, go, go, go, you know?"

He began taking around 300 to 400 mg of 7-OH a day, about ten times the dose Angela Wilson takes. In the next year, he said he made a few attempts to stop, but the withdrawals were debilitating.

"The best way to put it, I think, is to imagine having the flu, the worst flu you've had, you know, multiply that by at least three times," he said. "And then just know that all you gotta do is take one pill, and it's gone in seconds."

Another former kratom and 7-OH consumer, Brian, 41, told NPR at the height of his use, he was using much more 7-OH than both Angela Wilson and Tyler. Brian also asked NPR to use only his first name because of the stigma associated with drug use.

Brian used 1,200 mg of 7-OH — and estimates he spent around $150 each day — on the substance. He'd quit using opioids in 2016, but found kratom at a gas station in 2022. He said it claimed to help with energy.

"And 'cause literally right next to the register, nothing taboo about it, looks like those 5-Hour Energy shot type things," he said.

Brian said within minutes of taking it, he realized he felt "exactly" like he did when he'd been taking opioids.

"I was like, 'What is this?,'" he said. "'Like, are you telling me I found a legal, you know, healthy opiate that f***s you up and, you know, you feel great and no consequences, like the legality of it and everything?"

"I was like, 'This is it,'" he said.

Brian tried to stop taking kratom multiple times, but couldn't. One day at a smoke shop, he said the clerk offered him a sample of 7-OH. The clerk described it as a "version of kratom" that Brian could take in lower doses to get the same effects.

 "Once I found these little tiny tablets — that I had to take one and it felt like I had taken an Oxycontin — you know, that was it," Brian said. "It was game over."

An uncertain future

Researchers say more research should be done to understand the potential benefits of kratom and 7-OH products, including whether they can help treat addiction. On their website, NIDA says, "early studies suggest kratom and kratom compounds warrant further study as experimental treatments for substance use disorders, specifically opioid use disorder."

In the meantime, Holstege, at the University of Virginia's School of Medicine, says current marketing around kratom products seems to attract users for other reasons.

"I find it a little hard to believe that all the shops that are popping up around my campus right now are trying to advertise to people who are addicted to opioids," he said. "So the question is, what else are they advertising this product for?"

" I certainly have a growing list of patients in addiction clinics who are addicted to this, and in withdrawal, that we're having to manage," Holstege added.

Brian stopped taking 7-OH in April 2026, when he said he decided to "quit cold turkey." He said he experienced more debilitating withdrawals from 7-OH than he had from quitting opioids. He noted, though, he'd had a much easier time accessing 7-OH, and took it more frequently than he'd taken opioids.

When stopping 7-OH, he said he felt fearful, anxious, and had gastrointestinal issues. He lost the desire to leave his house.

"It was a nightmare," Brian said.

Tyler told NPR he hasn't used 7-OH or kratom since he traveled to the Michigan detox program in March. He said he doesn't think he would have been able to stop using 7-OH without that program.

"There's no chance," he said. "It's just too addictive and too accessible."

He said the road to feeling like himself again has been even longer than when he stopped using opioids. With opioids, he said, it took a few weeks to feel like he had energy again.

With 7-OH, he said the process has taken months.

"Kind of just this week I'm starting to feel kinda great," he said in October. "But it's been a long journey of getting my energy back."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Previous efforts by the federal government to restrict kratom use and availability were met with enormous pushback from people who use it and from the industry that distributes it.

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This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Plans to install automated license plate readers along Western Avenue to target suspected sex trafficking is no longer moving forward after Council District 13 declined a donation of cameras from weapons and technology developer Axon Enterprise.

The district is now considering cameras that would not use license plate reader technology, according to a spokesperson for Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez.

The cameras would be maintained by the Bureau of Street Lighting, and the councilmember is expected to bring a proposal to the City Council before the end of the year. 

LAPD had previously said it planned to install 18 cameras along Western Avenue between Olympic and Santa Monica boulevards, a corridor the department has targeted for sex trafficking. The department said the cameras would include live-feed monitoring and license plate recognition technology and could be operating by July.

LAPD declined to provide updates over the summer. 

Axon Enterprise, which supplies the LAPD with body-worn cameras, stun guns and other equipment, offered to donate the cameras to the department’s Olympic Station, according to CD13 spokesperson Andoni Elias Nava.

“We are against ALPRs. We don’t want to see them in our district,” he said. “So once we realized what that was, we said we don’t really want them in our district.” 

A spokesperson for Axon did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

On Monday, Senior Lead Officer Harry Cho said the cameras had been expected to be funded by CD13 and CD10 but that CD13 had pulled its funding.

“Right now, there’s no cameras that are city-operated on Western,” Cho said at the Wilshire Center-Koreatown Neighborhood Council meeting. 

Senior Lead Officer Lucy Bermudez confirmed Thursday that the cameras have not been installed along the Western corridor and that the project is on hold.

Nava disputed Cho’s account that the district had pulled funding for the cameras.

“We never committed any kind of funding. The cameras from Axon were supposed to be fully funded by Axon. They were a donation to PD,” he said. “There was no funding that was given to be pulled in the first place.”

He said the district plans to install a different type of camera, but that the details are still being worked out over the next few months, including how many cameras would be installed. 

The section of Western Avenue between Olympic and Santa Monica boulevards runs through both CD13 and CD10. A spokesperson for CD10 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

LAPD initially described the cameras as part of a broader effort to combat human trafficking along Western Avenue ahead of the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics. The department said the cameras would help identify people involved in human trafficking and people targeting minors.

Advocates of sex workers have raised concerns that the cameras would increase police surveillance along the corridor and further criminalize people who work there.

Jayme Kusyk, a Koreatown resident and member of the abolitionist group Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, said replacing ALPRs with conventional surveillance cameras would not eliminate the concerns raised by sex workers.

“Certainly we definitely want less cameras up, so to any extent they’re fighting that, that’s great,” she said. “But a camera is a camera is a camera. It doesn’t have to be enabled with ALPR technology to still be really harmful.”

She said even conventional CCTV cameras could increase criminalization of sex workers.

“It still increases criminalization. It won’t decrease demand,” she said, adding that clients could become more volatile if they believe they are being watched.

At an Olympic Division Community Police Advisory Board meeting on Nov. 4, LAPD Officer Dan Chavez said officers conducted an operation that morning that resulted in multiple arrests related to sex work, including one person arrested on suspicion of pimping.

One of the sex workers “provided our officers with information saying that she was being pimped by this person and they were able to arrest that individual,” he said. 

The city also recently debated the use of Axon’s license plate reader technology.

On Oct. 6, the City Council voted 10-4 to assert jurisdiction over the Police Commission’s approval of an Axon pilot program that would install automated license plate readers on city streetlights. Soto-Martínez, who represents CD13, and Heather Hutt, who represents CD 10, both voted in favor.

The council later voted to veto the pilot, but the measure failed because it needed 10 votes to overturn the Police Commission’s approval. The veto received nine votes on Oct. 27. Hutt and Soto-Martínez both voted in favor of the veto.

Los Angeles Documenter, Ashley Bolter, contributed reporting for this story from the Nov. 4 Olympic Area Community Police Advisory Board meeting. The L.A. Documenters program trains and pays community members to document proceedings at public meetings. Learn more about the program here.

This is the Nov. 13 issue of Make It Make Sense, LAist's elections newsletter, also published on LAist, breaking down the results of the 2026 general election. Sign up here to receive issues in your inbox through the end of November.

We’ve made it through yet another week! Election Day may feel worlds away now, but plenty of races are still being sorted out. Here’s what you need to know before we all unplug for the weekend.

What happened in the election in your neighborhood?

With more than 100 cities in our region, it’s impossible to keep track of every local race. But we’re featuring a few hyperlocal highlights here that caught our eye this week, including suggestions that readers flagged for us:

• Data centers in Alhambra: Alhambra voters are resoundingly rejecting data centers. Measure DB, which would effectively ban the centers in all areas of the city, is passing with nearly 84% of the vote so far. The Alhambra City Council voted unanimously this summer to put the measure before voters on the November ballot. Alhambra becomes the second city in the state to pass a ban on data centers by public vote, after Monterey Park voters overwhelmingly passed a ban in the June primary.
• Close contests in Diamond Bar: Two of the council races in this L.A. County city are incredibly close — separated by less than 1 point. Ruben Torres is leading Steve Tye in District 1 by just 14 votes. District 4 is even tighter, with Lee Mao ahead of Chia-Yu Teng by 12 votes! Remember this whenever you feel like your voice may not matter at the ballot box.
• Neck and neck in Costa Mesa: We’re also on the edge of our seats for Orange County’s Costa Mesa race for City Council District 3, where Democrat Cara Stewart leads Republican Daniel Morgan by 327 votes. Earlier this week, only one vote separated the two.
• Fontana’s next mayor: This Inland Empire city may be in for a new mayor. Over the weekend, Jocelyn “Joz” Sida, another democratic socialist backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, took the lead by 14 votes in a packed field against four-term Republican Mayor Acquanetta Warren. That gap has since grown to over 1,600 votes. 
• Sales tax whiplash: With the rising costs of well … everything … some voters are being asked to raise their city’s sales tax. We mentioned in an earlier issue that L.A. city voters raised their combined sales tax rate to 10.75% to fund the fire department, but elsewhere in the county, Hermosa Beach residents are rejecting Measure HB (57.11%), which would add a half-percent sales tax on local purchases. It was expected to raise roughly $2 million each year for the beachfront community to keep up with public safety services and infrastructure. Meanwhile, San Gabriel residents took a different approach, so far voting to approve Measure PS (59.41%). This would increase the sales tax by 1% to support emergency response, infrastructure and schools, among others. That means San Gabriel’s sales tax is on track to rise to 12%, which would be the highest in the county.
• Schrödinger's charter city: Voters in the city of Orange are rejecting Measure K (65% “no”). In a nutshell, it would switch the city’s governing structure from a general law city to a charter city, which gives it authority to build a local constitution instead of being bound by every state rule. Opponents of the measure framed it as a way for City Council members to skirt around term limits. Meanwhile, in Rosemead in L.A. County, over 71% of voters are giving the green light to becoming a charter city under Measure RC.
• Inglewood measures still too close to call: Both of the city’s measures would have major implications for its budget (currently facing a $30 million deficit), but the outcomes aren’t quite set yet. Measure AT, which removes a cap on tax revenue to the city from SoFi Stadium and adds a new tax on tickets to Intuit Dome events, leads “yes” by only 147 votes. Measure BB, which would ban most commercial advertising on billboards and city streets, is trending toward “no” at 51.7%.

Where did the winning candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America end up?

• What's happening: The midterm elections saw a “blue tsunami” nationwide with a wave of wins for Democrats — but there’s been a deeper undercurrent locally with candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed nine candidates this past election. Seven of those candidates are winning their races, including in Los Angeles, Burbank, West Hollywood and Inglewood. Another candidate secured an appointment on a South Bay school district board, and the last race in L.A. City Council District 9 is still too close to call.
• Looking at L.A.: It was basically a DSA sweep for the biggest Los Angeles city contests. Nithya Raman will be the next mayor, and Marissa Roy won her city attorney race by a landslide. You can read more about how it’s shaking out in O.C. here, too.
• Backing in Burbank: Burbank is about to have a DSA-majority City Council, which the local chapter says is the “first one ever on the West Coast.” The DSA members up for election, Mike Van Gorder and Nolan Southerland, came in second and third out of 13 candidates. Van Gorder and Southerland will join current Councilmember Konstantine Anthony to make up the DSA majority on the five-member council.
• Moving into the House: Angela Gonzales-Torres unseated incumbent Jimmy Gomez in the race for House District 34, which includes downtown L.A., Boyle Heights, Eagle Rock and Koreatown. The Highland Park local will be a newcomer to Capitol Hill.
• Other DSA races: In West Hollywood, Stephen Post came in third out of 14 candidates running for city council, securing his seat in the chamber. In the race for Inglewood Unified School District Board of Education, Trustee Area 3, Yaritza González has earned more than double her challenger's votes. And for the Centinela Valley Union High School District Board, Estefany Castañeda was the only candidate on the ballot, earning an appointment to Trustee Area 5.
• What experts tell us: Tom Hogen-Esch, a professor of political science at California State University, Northridge, said that with more people entering the bloodstream of local politics in L.A., the region is going to get a more representative electorate that includes a lot of younger voters and renters, for example, which he expects to have had a big impact on election night. “I think we've entered a new era in L.A. politics where owners of single-family properties — these high propensity voters — are no longer calling the shots anymore.” However, he said it’s way too soon to expect any kind of radical populist and socialist-leaning policies in the city. “I wouldn't expect a revolution from [Raman’s] time as mayor.”

School repair bonds are passing in SoCal — but not statewide

• What’s happening: The election results so far show that dozens of school bonds on state ballots are failing, as reported by our newsroom partner CalMatters. Just over 85 California school districts put bonds on the ballot, totaling $12.4 billion, with 50 on track to pass as of earlier this week. But voters in L.A. and O.C. seem more receptive to the idea, passing bonds across the board for a dozen school districts.
  
  • L.A.: Ten school districts are asking for about $1.2 billion. That includes Bellflower, Glendora, Hawthorne and Temple City. All of the proposals are passing by decently wide margins, except for Glendora, which is sitting a hair above the threshold at 56.4%.
  • O.C.: A pair of school districts, Laguna Beach and Westminster, are asking for $211 million for their campuses. Both are passing with more than 68% of the vote.
• What are bonds, anyway? School districts will often ask voters to approve bonds to pay for repairs, renovations and construction. A bond is like a loan the school districts take out, with property owners in each area paying it back through a bump in property taxes. You can learn more in our newsroom’s thorough guide here.
• What’s next: Bonds need 55% of votes to pass. LAist surveyed local districts with bonds ahead of the election, and their priorities include fixing deteriorating roofs, plumbing, updating classrooms and school security systems, among others.

Voters rule on the judiciary

• L.A. County judges: All but one of our local races for the L.A. County Superior Court are settled — Office No. 131 between Donna Tryfman and David Ross, who are separated by around 5,000 votes, with Tryfman in the lead. This race has narrowed drastically since Election Day, which makes sense because the candidates were very similar on paper as career public defenders. The other seats were won by deputy district attorney Maria Ghobadi in seat 64, deputy public defender Justin Allen Clayton in seat 65 and deputy public defender Anthony "A.J." Bayne in seat 87.
• Statewide justices: California voters also had two retention elections for the state Supreme Court and a long lineup of appellate justices to decide. (Reminder: These courts are about settling novel issues in law and checking cases for mistakes, respectively. We vote on justices through “yes/no” retention elections every four years.) All justices facing voters are on track to keep their jobs by decent margins. That’s not a shocker — sitting justices regularly win retention with around two-thirds of the vote, according to our analysis, and that’s where the vast majority are headed. However, for the state’s highest court, more than 2 million voters skipped these races so far compared to the way more known governor’s race.
• What’s next: For the Superior Court, new judges will start in January. They must attend a judge orientation within six months and judicial college within two years. New judges don’t get to decide what courtroom they’re assigned to — they go where the needs are. Retired L.A. County judge Stuart Rice previously explained at an LAist event, “You’re most likely going to be assigned to either a traffic court [or] a low-level criminal court, such as misdemeanors, no felonies. You may be doing eviction cases.”
• How you can follow their work: Once an elected judge starts the job, it’s a bit harder to keep track of their performance unless it’s egregious or otherwise newsworthy. That being said, you can attend their public courtroom proceedings and read up on them through outlets like the Metropolitan News-Enterprise or Daily Journal.
  
  • Speaking of following judges … The primary had a highly unusual judicial race with an L.A. County judge, Robert Draper, facing misconduct proceedings. He ended up losing reelection then to a deputy district attorney. Well, the state’s judicial watchdog has finally handed down a decision: Draper has been removed from the bench for “severe misconduct.”

Is it over yet?

These results are based on about 12.9 million votes that have been counted so far statewide — more than 3.1 million in L.A. County and more than 1.1 million in Orange County.

L.A. County estimates just 37,500 ballots left to count, and Orange County estimates 18,080. Statewide, there are about 900,000 ballots left to count.

We mentioned previously that this year's count was definitely faster in L.A. County, but it's looking like the same is true statewide, too. An analysis from the California Voter Foundation found that counties across the state counted 89% of ballots seven days after Election Day, compared to 84% in the same time frame in the 2024 election and 72% in 2022.

The next local ballot count drop will start around 4 p.m. this afternoon. We’ll be back in your inbox next week to round up the last of the race calls and then say goodbye when it’s over.

— Cato and Makenna

📰 Catch up quick

You can get caught up on our past issues here:

• Nov. 12: A shakeup in Santa Ana
• Nov. 10: The billionaire tax fails
• Nov. 9: An L.A. City Council shakeup, plus lots of failed props
• Nov. 7: A progressive becomes CA’s insurance head
• Nov. 6: The L.A. city attorney race comes to a close
• Nov. 5: Nithya Raman wins the L.A. mayor’s race
• Nov. 5: All 8 L.A. city measures could pass
• Nov. 4: We’ve got a new governor, plus voter ID fails

Otherwise, you can keep up with the results here:

• L.A. County
• Orange County