Makenna Cramer
covers the daily drumbeat of Southern California — events, processes and nuances making it a unique place to call home.
Published January 26, 2024 5:00 AM
An aerial view of cars driving on the 110 Freeway approaching the downtown L.A. skyline.
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Patrick T. Fallon
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AFP via Getty Images
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Topline:
There will be major closures along the 110 freeway this weekend, including an overnight shutdown in both directions between the 10 interchange and Exposition Boulevard.
Why it matters: City and transportation officials are encouraging people to use public transit, plan ahead, or simply avoid the downtown L.A. area.
Why now: The closures will allow Caltrans crews to demolish a damaged pedestrian bridge.
The backstory: “We've proved previously that we can manage freeway closures effectively in Los Angeles County, and let's do it again this weekend,” said Jennifer Vides, the chief customer experience officer for LA Metro.
What's next: All lanes are expected to reopen by 8 a.m. Sunday.
Go deeper: ...to learn more about the closures and how to get around them.
There will be major closures along the 110 freeway this weekend, including an overnight shutdown in both directions between the 10 interchange and Exposition Boulevard.
Traffic will be impacted starting Friday night through Sunday. City and transportation officials are encouraging people to use public transit, plan ahead, or simply avoid the downtown L.A. area.
The closures will allow Caltrans crews to demolish a damaged pedestrian bridge.
Friday
The work begins Friday night to remove the portion of the bridge over Adams Boulevard.
Crews will start closing all of the on-ramps to the southbound 110 freeway, as well as the eastbound and westbound connectors from the 10 freeway, as early as 7 p.m., Yang said.
The southbound 110 freeway will be limited to one lane between the 10 freeway and Exposition Boulevard as of 11 p.m., and they will remain closed until around 7 or 8 a.m. Saturday morning.
Drivers will still be able to access the express lane during this time, which starts south of the closures.
Saturday
“Saturday night is when you should expect the most significant traffic impacts,” Yang said.
All southbound lanes between the 10 freeway and Exposition Boulevard will be fully closed, as will the northbound lanes between Washington Boulevard and Adams Boulevard.
Crews are expected to begin shutting down on-ramps and connectors as early as 9 p.m., with the full freeway closures starting at 11 p.m.
Sunday
All lanes are expected to reopen by 8 a.m. Sunday.
The southbound off-ramp to Adams Boulevard, which will be closed all weekend, is expected to reopen by 8 p.m. Sunday.
However, as with any construction project, the schedule could change.
Detours
If you are driving on the 110 freeway during these closures, you will be diverted onto local roads with posted detour signs.
Laura Rubio-Cornejo, the general manager of LADOT, said more than 100 traffic officers and supervisors will be out in the streets this weekend to assist with any congestion or safety concerns.
She said traffic engineers will also be continually monitoring the conditions and making adjustments as needed.
Northbound detour
Caltrans detour map for the northbound 110 freeway closures this weekend.
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Caltrans
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Southbound detour
Caltrans detour maps for the southbound 110 freeway closures this weekend.
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Caltrans
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If you are traveling from the 110 northbound to either the 10 east or the 10 west, you should exit at Adams Boulevard. You’ll then take Adams Boulevard to Hoover Street, and enter the 10 freeway from there.
If you’re traveling northbound on the 110 freeway and want to continue past the closure, you should also exit at Adams Boulevard. You’ll take that north to Figueroa Street, and head to Washington Boulevard. You’ll be able to reenter the 110 north at the interchange.
If you’re heading southbound on the 110 freeway, you’ll still be able to connect to the eastbound and westbound 10 freeway through the interchange.
If you need to continue southbound past the closure, you should transfer to the eastbound 10 freeway and exit on Hill Street. Head southbound on Hill Street until you reach Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard, you’ll be able to get back on the 110 freeway near the intersection with Flower Street.
If you’re heading from the westside of the city on the eastbound 10 freeway and need to get onto the southbound 110 freeway, exit at Hoover Street. Take Hoover Street south to Jefferson Boulevard, and then take Jefferson Boulevard east until you hit Flower Street. You’ll follow Flower Street to Exposition Boulevard and get on the southbound 110 freeway there.
Finally, if you’re traveling from the east side of the city on the westbound 10 freeway and need to transfer to the southbound 110 freeway, exit at the interchange to Pico Boulevard. Take Pico Boulevard east until Flower Street, and then head down to Exposition Boulevard to get on the southbound 110 freeway.
Randall Winston, the city’s deputy mayor of infrastructure, said Caltrans has already posted guidance signs that are visible from nearby major highways.
“Our message is clear — plan ahead, and follow the guidance on the electronic signs posted on the freeways,” said Randall Winston, the city’s deputy mayor of infrastructure.
Metro
Jennifer Vides, the chief customer experience officer for LA Metro, encouraged people to use public transit if they need to get in and around downtown this weekend.
The rail lines will run until around 12:30 a.m., and service starts back up again at 4 a.m.
The bus lines, including line 45 on Broadway and line two on Alvarado Street, operate 24 hours a day in the downtown and central parts of the city.
The J line, also known as the silver line, also operates around the clock and can connect you from the South Bay to downtown L.A. and El Monte.
However, some Metro bus services will also have to detour around the closures, including the J line, 910, and the Disneyland 460. Vides recommends giving yourself extra time if you need to take any of those lines.
You can also always check metro.net for the most up-to-date schedules.
“We've proved previously that we can manage freeway closures effectively in Los Angeles County, and let's do it again this weekend,” Vides said.
Why closures?
John Yang, the deputy district director for construction with Caltrans District 7, said that a pedestrian bridge at 21st Street needs to be demolished.
The bridge has been out of commission for a couple of decades, but Yang said it’s been damaged since it was hit by a crane in 2020.
Despite being safe to stand on, the bridge was marked for demolition since. Yang said that closing parts of the freeway is the only way to bring it down safely.
Crews will be covering lanes with about 2 to 4 feet of dirt to protect the lanes below, he said, and the bridge will be taken apart piece by piece.
Most of the closures will be contained to the overnight hours when there are fewer people on the road, but Yang added that this area of L.A. sees a lot of traffic all hours of the day.
Makenna Cramer
covers the daily drumbeat of Southern California — events, processes and nuances making it a unique place to call home.
Published April 29, 2026 5:01 PM
Workers repair potholes and skim a large portion of street in Los Angeles on Jan. 13.
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Genaro Molina
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Getty Images
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Topline:
MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, had a makeover last year, but since then, some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems. City officials say they're working to make fixes.
Why now: Councilmembers Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues concerning the system’s overall functionality and accountability. The City Council approved that motion Wednesday.
Why it matters: “Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during the council meeting.
The backstory: MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.
What's next: The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.
MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, got a makeover last year, but since then some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems.
The city has received “numerous complaints” about the updated website and app, including issues with GPS and logging work, according to officials.
MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.
Staffers within the city’s Department of Public Works have said they’ve been frustrated by the rollout, according to city officials. They say it now takes longer to add their responses to service requests, and the city can’t record completed work that doesn’t have a service request connected to it.
City Council members Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues, saying they’ve caused concerns about the system’s overall functionality and accountability.
“Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during Wednesday’s council meeting.
The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.
It was approved in a 12-0 vote Wednesday. Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield, Eunisses Hernandez and Adrin Nazarian were absent.
How we got here
Bass announced the launch of the new MyLA311 last year, saying the previous website and app were outdated and had lasted years past their lifecycle.
In a 2023 directive, she’d called for the system to be modernized with the goal of providing better customer service and communication about the status of residents’ requests.
“This new and improved way to request and receive city services is another example of how we are breaking away from the old way of doing things to make our neighborhoods cleaner and safer,” Bass said in a March 2025 statement.
But some people say the new system is falling short.
The Sylmar Neighborhood Council agreed the system needs improvements, writing in a community impact statement that MyLA311 fails to serve L.A. taxpayers effectively if it’s difficult to use or inaccurate.
In public comments, some residents cited “major issues” with the system, including GPS and location accuracy, invalid addresses and missing or incomplete service categories. One commenter wrote that addresses were being routed to other areas, some of them outside the city.
“As a result, they frequently lead to confusion in the field, delays in response and, in some cases, requests going unaddressed due to the difficulty in locating the reported issue or misdirection caused by inaccurate data,” the commenter said.
What’s ahead
The City Council approved several instructions aimed at improving MyLA311, including the following:
Public Works is expected to report back on its issues with the system.
The city’s Information Technology Agency is expected to report on system performance, including operational issues, and provide solutions as needed.
Public Works and IT are expected to provide quarterly reports on service request data, including backlogs, average response times and requests received and closed.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
How we got here: Until now these individuals have been accorded temporary legal status because their safety is imperiled by war or natural disasters in their home countries. Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Trump, however, is trying to end it. On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either.
Read on . . . for more on today's court proceedings.
The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.
Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Donald Trump, however, is trying to end it.
On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either. Pressed by the court's three liberal justices, Sauer insisted that the courts cannot review anything.
"None of those procedural steps required by the statue are reviewable. That's your position?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
"Correct," responded Sauer.
"What you're basically saying is that Congress wrote a statute for no purpose," Sotomayor said.
Justice Elena Kagan noted that under the statute the secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to consult with the U.S. State Department about what the conditions are in those countries that people have been forced to flee. What if she didn't do that at all, Kagan asked. Or what if she asked, but the response from the State Department came back: "Wasn't that baseball game last night great!"
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what would happen if the secretary used a Ouija board to make decisions?
To all these hypotheticals, Solicitor General Sauer stood firm. That prompted this from Sotomayor: "Now, we have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a 'filthy, dirty, and disgusting s--thole country.' I'm quoting him. He declared illegal immigrants, which he associated with TPS, as poisoning the blood of America. I don't see how that one statement is not a prime example … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision."
Sauer pushed back, noting that Kristi Noem, the then-DHS secretary, had not mentioned race at all. That prompted this response from Justice Jackson, the only Black woman on the court, "So the position of the United States is that we have an actual racial epithet that we aren't allowed to look at all the context."
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the mother of two adopted Haitian children, interjected at that point to clarify the administration's position. Are you conceding that individuals with TPS status could bring a challenge based on race discrimination? she asked.
Sauer appeared to concede the point.
Representing the Haitians, lawyer Geoffrey Pipoly described the administration's review as "a sham."
"The true reason for the termination [of TPS status] is the president's racial animus toward non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular," Pipoly said. "The secretary herself described people from Haiti" and from other non-white countries as "killers, leeches, saying, 'We don't want them, not one,'" while "simultaneously enacting another humanitarian form of relief for white and only white South Africans."
That was too much for Justice Samuel Alito who asked Pipoly, "Do you think that if you put Syrians, Turks, Greeks and other people who live around the Mediterranean in a line-up, do you think you could say those people are … non-white?"
An uncomfortable Pipoly resisted categorizing each group until Alito got to his own roots.
"How about southern Italians?" Alito inquired, prompting laughter in the courtroom.
Responded Pipoly: "Certainly 120 years ago when we had our last wave of European immigration, southern Italians were not considered white. … Our concept of these things evolves over time."
At the end of Wednesday's court session, one thing was clear: President Trump may be furious at some of the conservative justices he appointed for invalidating his tariffs, but for the most part, he is getting his way. Especially in light of the court's 6-to-3 decision, announced Wednesday, which effectively guts what remains of the landmark Voting Rights Act, once celebrated as a signature achievement of American Democracy.
Copyright 2026 NPR
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Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published April 29, 2026 4:14 PM
Artemis the German Shepherd is the last dog from Eaton Fire at Pasadena Humane to get adopted.
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Courtesy Pasadena Humane
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Topline:
The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.
Why it matters: The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the first broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.
The backstory: Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.
The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.
Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.
"The silver lining to all of that is — with all this tragedy — this incredible story of hope where we were able to help foster these animals we’re returning home," said Sarie Hooker, communications manager at Pasadena Humane.
During his stay at Pasadena Humane, the cream-color pup won over many hearts.
"He's just such a striking boy. He's got this really fun, loving personality. He's very regal," Hooker said.
Hooker said Artemis was adopted by a family through the shelter's foster-to-adopt program.
"He just did amazingly. And the next thing we knew, he was adopted," Hooker said. "So it's a happy story."
Artemis says hello to a new family.
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Courtesy Pasadena Humane
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The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the first broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.
By the second week of the fire, the shelter had taken in some 600 pets, Hooker said.
" In totality, we were able to help with thousands of animals specifically for emergency boarding," Hooker said, including every kind of pet you can think of, as well as wild animals.
" We were seeing skunks, squirrels, hawks, owls, peacocks, raccoons, possums," she said.
Artemis isn't just the last dog to find a home — or return home — from the Eaton Fire.
He is the last animal.
" Artemis was our final, final animal — like dog, cat, critter. Anything else under the sun. He was the last boy. So we're very happy," she said.
Mariana Dale
reports on K-12 education, including how students exercise their civic power.
Published April 29, 2026 2:31 PM
People gathered in downtown L.A. for May Day in 2025.
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Frank Stoltze
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LAist
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Topline:
Southern California and national organizers are calling on communities to abstain from work, school and shopping Friday in recognition of May Day.
The backstory: May Day started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.
What's new: This year’s “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens. “ Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.
Find a rally: What’s typically the region’s largest May Day gathering starts Friday morning at MacArthur Park, and events are planned throughout the region.
The “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens.
“Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.
The organization is one of more than 100 involved in planning a Los Angeles May Day rally with the theme, “solo el pueblo shuts it down: no school, no work, no shopping.”
“Starting there really sends a message that we're here,” said Kristal Romero, press secretary for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “We're standing with this community, and if you take on one of us, you take on all of us.”
May Day’s history in LA
May Day, sometimes called International Workers' Day, started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.
Romero said the Federation has offered training on de-escalation, conflict resolution and non-violent protests and that hundreds of people will act as “peacekeepers” during Friday’s rally and march.
“ A lot of times, folks can get caught in echo chambers and it may really feel hopeless,” Romero said. “The big point of these events is to inspire hope to show people we're all here, we're all fighting for the same thing.”
