Topline:
LAX will shut down Terminal 5 in preparation for a complete demolition and overhaul of the space ahead of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Why? The construction project is being done as part of a $30 billion overhaul to modernize one of the world’s busiest airports.
Read on ... to find changes on check-in and ticketing for travelers.
Terminal 5 at Los Angeles International Airport will be torn down Tuesday for an overhaul ahead of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Yes, that will likely make things at an already notorious airport harder. Here's what we know:
Passengers and flights using T5 will be rerouted through other terminals and the newly opened Midfield Satellite Concourse South (MSC South) — a 150,000-square-foot extension of the West Gates at Tom Bradley International Terminal equipped with eight new gates.
American Airlines passengers
On Tuesday, American Airlines check-in and ticketing activities formerly conducted in LAX Terminal 5 will be relocated to Terminal 4.
JetBlue passengers
Services relocated to Terminal 1 this past week.
Spirit Airlines
Spirit Airlines relocated operations to Terminal 2 this past week.
"Our goal is to minimize disruption during this transition, and we are working closely with our airline partners to ensure continued operations and smooth travel for our passengers," Doug Webster, chief airport operations and maintenance officer with Los Angeles World Airports, said in a news statement.
The changes are parts of Los Angeles World Airports' initiative to modernize LAX through a $30 billion plan.
The terminal is expected to reopen in 2028.
Topline:
Jon Alan Hale of Brea marked his 15,000th ride on Radiator Springs Racers at Disneyland California Adventure on Monday. He's been going since the ride opened in 2012.
By the numbers: Hale, who has been tracking his rides in a notebook since he started going on it, told the Associated Press he's visited the park more than 1,100 times and averaged 13 trips on the ride per visit. He takes the single-rider line to get on quicker.
The backstory: Hale said he was intrigued by the ride, inspired by Disney Pixar's 2006 movie Cars, after having gastric bypass and knee replacement surgeries in 2010 and 2011. He said on social media he was hooked after his first go and started keeping track of how many times he rode, which color car he was in and which car won.
What's next: That's not exactly clear. According to Hale, there's no formal record for riding the attraction, and Guinness World Records have said they don't track it either. But Hale said he doesn't tire of the ride because you never know who's going to win, so it feels like a good bet that what's next for Hale is the start of a journey to 30,000 rides...and beyond.
Topline:
L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who himself previously voted to raise airport and hotel worker hourly pay to $30 by 2028, has moved to delay that wage increase to 2030.
Why it matters: A drawn out battle over a city law boosting the minimum wage for tourism workers in Los Angeles seemed like it was finally over this fall, when a referendum to overturn it failed to gather enough signatures. The motion now throws another twist in the road for wage increases.
What happened: Harris-Dawson filed the motion Friday, sparking outcry from hotel workers union Unite Here Local 11 and other labor advocates.
What are advocates saying: “These workers fought for more than two years to improve their working conditions, only to have the very people who should defend them try to take it all away," Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said in a statement. "It’s heartless, it’s callous, and it deepens the crisis of working poverty that is gripping our city.”
Read on... for what happens next to the motion.
A drawn out battle over a city law boosting the minimum wage for tourism workers in Los Angeles seemed like it was finally over this fall when a referendum to overturn it failed to gather enough signatures.
Now there's another twist in the road. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson previously voted to raise airport and hotel worker pay from $22.50 to $30 an hour by 2028, when L.A. will host the Olympics. But in a motion filed Friday, he's proposing that the increase take effect more slowly, instead reaching $30 an hour in 2030.
Harris-Dawson's proposal sparked outcry from hotel workers union Unite Here Local 11 and other labor advocates.
“These workers fought for more than two years to improve their working conditions, only to have the very people who should defend them try to take it all away," Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said in a statement. "It’s heartless, it’s callous, and it deepens the crisis of working poverty that is gripping our city.”
Labor advocates say Harris-Dawson is succumbing to pressure from corporate interests.
Over the summer, a coalition of business leaders filed a ballot proposition to repeal the city business tax, which brings in hundreds of millions of dollars to the city. The L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce told LAist the proposition was partly in response to the City Council boosting the minimum wage for tourism workers.
Unite Here Local 11 filed its own raft of proposals, including raising the minimum wage citywide and requiring Angelenos to vote on building new hotels and event center developments. This war via ballot proposition led city leaders to encourage both sides to come to a compromise.
A spokesperson for Harris-Dawson said the city is currently in talks with business and labor interests, and declined to comment further on his recent motion. Mayor Karen Bass's office did not respond to a request for comment.
The motion now goes to council committees on tourism and jobs.
Topline:
A Scout camp and training facility that has operated for decades at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro is being evicted at the end of this month, according to Greater Los Angeles Scouting, the umbrella organization for local troops and Cub Scout packs.
About the camp: For nearly 80 years, Greater Los Angeles Scouting has provided training and programming to hundreds of thousands of youth on Cabrillo Beach, initially operating out of tents and military huts and trailers, the organization said.
Why now: The Port is required to establish an operational training facility as part of its venue responsibilities in hosting the Olympic Games, as six sailing events will be staged in the Port’s Outer Harbor, port officials said.
A Scout camp and training facility that has operated for decades at Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro is being evicted at the end of this month, according to Greater Los Angeles Scouting, the umbrella organization for local troops and Cub Scout packs.
The Port of Los Angeles is terminating Scouting’s lease at the beachfront complex so that the site can be repurposed as a training center for national and international sailing teams in the 2028 Olympics, the Port said.
Tim Lebetsamer, who leads a Cub Scout pack in San Pedro, learned of the news on Wednesday night via email. “It came out of the blue,” he said.
For nearly 80 years, Greater Los Angeles Scouting has provided training and programming to hundreds of thousands of youth on Cabrillo Beach, initially operating out of tents and military huts and trailers, the organization said.
In 1982, the Scouts entered into a 30-year lease with the Port to construct and manage a youth camp facility, said Robert Scoular, a member of the board of directors and vice president of Greater LA Scouting. Scoular said the Scouts raised more than $3.6 million, including from filmmaker Steven Spielberg, to construct the Cabrillo Beach Youth Center, which spans over 12 acres and includes waterfront access, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, campgrounds, an archery range, a crafts center, an amphitheater and a kitchen.
Once the lease expired, the Scouts remained on a month-to-month agreement for more than a decade, Phillip Sanfield, a spokesperson for the Port, said. The terms of the lease said that if occupancy ended, the Scouts forfeited ownership to the Port, Scoular said.
Losing access to that “leaves a hole,” Lebetsamer said. He oversees a pack of about 30 boys, from kindergarten to fifth grade, and they use the facilities at the Cabrillo Beach Youth Center at least monthly for everything from award ceremonies to potlucks to camping. “It’s in our backyard,” he said. Many more regularly come from across the region — 17,000 youth in just the last year, according to Greater LA Scouting.
Lebetsamer met with his Cub Scouts on Wednesday — a standing den meeting — and hadn’t planned to discuss the news that they might not be able to use the facility. But “that’s all they want to talk about,” he said of his Scouts.
The Port is required to establish an operational training facility as part of its venue responsibilities in hosting the Olympic Games, as six sailing events will be staged in the Port’s Outer Harbor, Sanfield said. The Port will invest $5 million through the Public Access Investment Plan for repairs and improvements “that will revitalize this important waterfront asset” in preparation, Sanfield said.
A newly formed nonprofit, Pathway to Podium LLC, with involvement from the Los Angeles and Cabrillo Beach Yacht Clubs, will operate the training facility under a new lease that will continue until sometime after the 2028 Olympics, according to the email sent by Greater LA Scouting.
During this interim Olympic training period, Sanfield said the Port is committed to ensuring community groups continue to have access to the waterfront and facility on Cabrillo Beach.
Indeed, more than half the youth who use the facility are non-Scouts, including 4-H members, Girl Scouts and students from Mary Star of the Sea High School, Scoular said. He said he hopes that can continue during the interim period and indicated discussions with the Port are ongoing.
After the Olympics are over, “we hope to be able to reestablish at that site and move forward using the building that we paid for,” he said. The Port said it will issue a request for proposals to identify a long-term operator for the site after the Games.
“This is a beautiful, prime, picturesque beachfront and I think it is important that as many groups as possible can access and enjoy it,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said in a statement. A spokesperson for Hahn’s office said the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors was not involved in this decision to end Scouting’s lease.
Benjie Spolarich, a lifeguard and camp staff member at Cabrillo Beach, said he felt “overlooked” and “baffled” by this development: If the space is taken over by the Port, he is out of a job. He said he is skeptical Scouts and the community will be able to share the space during the Olympic training period because, during past sailing events, the Port “took over the whole camp, and we only had a small portion left,” he said.
Lebetsamer had planned to take his Cub Scout pack to the Pinewood Derby, where Scouts build and race unpowered miniature cars in “one of the biggest events in Cub Scouting for the year,” he said. The derby was scheduled for early 2026; now Lebetsamer is worried it won’t take place at all.
“My program is going to continue,” he said. “But Cabrillo has been a big part of us making it happen.”
Topline:
After the Supreme Court's conservative majority ruled in favor of Texas lawmakers last week, Republicans head into the 2026 election year with an edge in the redistricting fight kicked off by President Trump.
More details: The court Thursday allowed Republicans' new congressional map to move ahead — despite a lower court finding that the Texas legislature had likely conducted a racial gerrymander. The map could yield five more seats for the GOP.
Why it matters: It is the latest major turn in the nationwide redistricting race, from California to Florida, that Trump started to help maintain Republican control of the House of Representatives.
Read on... for how we got to this moment and a look at the nationwide redistricting race for the House.
After the Supreme Court's conservative majority ruled in favor of Texas lawmakers last week, Republicans head into the 2026 election year with an edge in the redistricting fight kicked off by President Trump.
The court Thursday allowed Republicans' new congressional map to move ahead — despite a lower court finding that the Texas legislature had likely conducted a racial gerrymander.
The map could yield five more seats for the GOP.
It is the latest major turn in the nationwide redistricting race, from California to Florida, that Trump started to help maintain Republican control of the House of Representatives.
If Democrats take control of the chamber, they could stymie the president's legislative agenda and launch investigations of his administration.
Loading...
Loading...
The House is currently closely divided, with 220 seats held by Republicans and 213 held by Democrats. The sitting president's party tends to lose seats in midterm elections.
At this point, it appears the redistricting battle could tilt about 12 or 14 seats toward Republicans and Democrats could counter with around nine seats pushed their way — but that all depends on the outcome of pending court challenges and state legislative votes. So a lot is still in play.
This week, Indiana lawmakers are meeting on redistricting. And in Missouri, petitioners face a deadline on signature collections that could block the redistricting until a public vote is held.
It won't be clear if this all makes the difference in the House until votes are counted in the election on Nov. 3, 2026.
States usually redistrict early in the decade after the decennial census determines how many seats each state gets based on their population. While states used to redistrict frequently in the 1800s and early 1900s, Trump's push has set off a redistricting race not seen since the 1960s.
Last week's Texas ruling followed a drama that played out this summer after Trump called on the state to tilt five seats toward the GOP. Democrats walked out for over two weeks to delay the passage of maps they said diluted the voting power of Black and Latino communities.
Democrats in California countered Texas by approving, with a special election, a map that could flip five seats held by Republicans there.
Republicans in Missouri and North Carolina voted to target a Democratic-held seat in each of those states. On Friday, the Indiana state House passed a new map that could help the GOP win two Hoosier seats. It goes to the Senate next, where Republicans are divided on the issue.
Some Indiana Republicans have been hesitant to follow Trump's call, though he and Republican Gov. Mike Braun threatened to support primary challenges against those who don't get on board. Several lawmakers have also faced anonymous threats to their families over the last few weeks.
Republicans have more options for redistricting than Democrats. For starters, redistricting is done by state legislatures and Republicans control more legislatures around the country than Democrats. Also, some of the states that Democrats control have legal barriers to partisan gerrymandering — that is, drawing lines to benefit a party — or they have laws requiring that special commissions draw the lines.
Virginia's Democratic-led legislature has voted to hold a special election that could amend the state constitution to allow redistricting. Another vote is required in January to hold the election in time. If it passes, the redistricting could tilt two or three seats toward Democrats.
The Democratic governor of Maryland has formed a commission to make redistricting recommendations. But that state already only has one Republican-held House seat to target.
Meanwhile, Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is urging Republicans in control of the legislature to redistrict this spring and turn as many as five seats toward their party. A Florida House committee held its first meeting on redistricting last week.
But Florida has laws against partisan gerrymandering and could be limited by bans on racial gerrymandering in the federal Voting Rights Act. On the other hand, the Supreme Court is currently considering the VRA and could weaken it, allowing more redistricting that would likely work in the Republicans' favor.
The VRA outlaws intentional attempts to weaken the voting power of minority communities by "cracking" them apart into new districts or "packing" them into one district.
Copyright 2025 NPR
