Topline:
A 100-year-old pipline ruptured in West Hollywood early Thursday, causing flooding and a massive sinkhole.
Why it matters: The force of the flooding sent cars slamming into each other, and triggered widespread road closures and the Metro bus system detours and delays.
Read on ... to learn more about what areas are affected (and to see some dramatic video).
A water main break near Palm Avenue and Harratt Street sent waters flooding through West Hollywood early Thursday, causing a massive sink hole.
Roads have been closed off and residents warned to stay out of the area, with dramatic footage posted online of water rushing down streets and cars slamming into each other:
Because of the highly pressurized water system, emergency crews said Thursday they must work slowly and carefully to avoid causing more damage. Several roads were closed and Metro system buses detoured — see details below.
A leak from an over 100-year-old trunk line caused the rupture, authorities said. The line has been shut down, as well as two large valves to the east and west. Anselmo Collins, chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, assured residents that drinking water is not affected and remains safe to drink.
“We are also coordinating on the ground with law enforcement and will be working with traffic control as we make progress and assess and begin repairs,” wrote LADWP in a statement.
Residents are encouraged to take pictures of any damage from the flooding in case a claim needs to be filed later, and keep any receipts or other documentation.
Here's what we learned about this process, starting with the most important tip — act as soon as possible:
Avoid the area if at all possible. But if you need to venture in, here’s what you need to know:
The following bus routes have been delayed or detoured.
LAist will continue to update this story as we learn more.
Topline:
Don’t be fooled by early election returns. It can take California weeks to tally votes, leading to “red mirages” and “blue shifts.”
The backstory: It happens in close races in almost every major election. Early California returns show Republicans winning or at least faring better than expected. Then, as votes are counted over the following days, the tallies shift in Democrats’ favor. This “blue shift” or “red mirage” isn’t a result of California Democrats “finding votes” or rigging elections, as President Donald Trump and his supporters have repeatedly claimed.
Why it matters: Trump and his allies in the federal government are already laying the groundwork for questioning the election results as they embark on an unprecedented attack on California’s elections, setting up what could be a showdown over the fundamentals of American democracy. Experts urge you not to be fooled by their claims of “rigged” elections based on early returns.
Read on... for more on what to know about "blue shift" and "red mirage."
It happens in close races in almost every major election. Early California returns show Republicans winning or at least faring better than expected. Then, as votes are counted over the following days, the tallies shift in Democrats’ favor.
This “blue shift” or “red mirage” isn’t a result of California Democrats “finding votes” or rigging elections, as President Donald Trump and his supporters have repeatedly claimed.
Trump and his allies in the federal government are already laying the groundwork for questioning the election results as they embark on an unprecedented attack on California’s elections, setting up what could be a showdown over the fundamentals of American democracy.
Experts urge you not to be fooled by their claims of “rigged” elections based on early returns.
The shifts in early tallies, experts say, are merely the result of when and how Democrats and Republicans tend to vote and the length of time it takes California election officials to count millions of ballots.
The phenomenon has been described since at least 2013, but the terms gained traction around the contentious 2020 elections.
Six years ago, election night returns showed Trump leading Joe Biden in several key states, but as counties nationwide counted ballots over the coming days, Biden ended up winning in the states that put him over the top in the Electoral College.
In the final weeks of his first term, Trump made claims, which have been repeatedly debunked, that the race was stolen from him. Thousands of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in the deadly riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
California has seen its own red mirages in congressional and local races over the years. In 2018, for instance, four Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives appeared to be ahead on election night, but ended up losing to their Democratic opponents by the time all votes were counted.
In the primary this June, Spencer Pratt, a Republican former reality TV star, appeared to be beating progressive Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman in early returns in the race for LA mayor. Raman ended up pulling ahead and advanced to the general election to face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass.
The shift led Trump to call the results “rigged” and others on the MAGA right to declare Democratic shenanigans were at work.
Experts and elections officials say you shouldn’t believe such claims.
First, let’s state the obvious: California is the most populous state. There are 23 million registered voters in California; that’s more voters than the entire populations of the 16 least-populated states combined.
Los Angeles County — the most populated in the country — alone has nearly 6 million registered voters.
There are also lots of Republicans in California, even though Democrats greatly outnumber them.
Want to blow some minds at your next cocktail party? Ask your friends to name which county in the U.S. had the most Trump voters, by raw numbers, in the 2020 election. The answer: deep-blue Los Angeles County, where Biden overwhelmingly won.
So how does that translate into a red mirage?
In the June LA mayor’s race, the city’s Republicans turned their ballots in earlier than Democrats did.
There was so much last-minute uncertainty over the crowded field of Democratic gubernatorial candidates who appeared on the same ballot that many liberal voters waited an especially long time to return them.
That meant more Republican votes were reported in the first wave of election returns, a red mirage that disappeared as Democratic votes were fully tabulated.
That could very well happen in the various partisan races on the ballot in California, including those that could determine which party controls Congress.
And, as usual, the rest of the country may end up waiting weeks for California’s results to get an answer.
There’s no getting around it: California’s vote counting process is slow, and that gives more time for doubts about the election results to fester.
“It is undermining voter confidence. It’s opening the door to election mis- and disinformation,” Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, said in a briefing last week. “It’s leading to threats and criticism of our election staff. …. And it shortens the time required for an orderly transition of power.”
But there are reasons why California counts so slowly.
During the pandemic, California began mailing every registered voter a ballot. Mail-in ballots require far more time to process than in-person ballots. Many voters also hang on to their ballots until Election Day.
Adding to the counting delays, California gives voters a seven-day grace period for ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive and get counted.
California also has the longest period in the country to “cure” ballots that come in with problems such as mismatched signatures that require election officials to contact voters to fix them. This year, voters have until the day before Thanksgiving to cure their ballots, Alexander said.
The state only requires counties to count ballots for at least six hours a day, and they’re not required to count on weekends or holidays.
Alexander said many counties go beyond that, but it’s up to each election office. The decision is often dependent on whether the county has enough election workers, can pay them over time and has space for them to work, all of which depend on local budgets.
Recent changes to California law aim to speed up the count, and lawmakers this year provided $29 million for counties to buy more ballot-counting machines or hire more workers. Still, Alexander said some close races could remain undecided for weeks. Counties have 30 days to officially certify the results.
Ben Gips of Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to fighting authoritarianism, urged California voters not to be misled by those who would use such delays to sow doubt about an election that is working as intended, if slowly.
“These delays really can add fuel to that strategy, and it can make it much easier to do that deception,” Gips said.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
Palmer Luckey, a 34-year-old tech entrepreneur and billionaire, has pumped more than $350,000 into over 70 campaigns across the country this cycle, and all but two of those campaigns were for Republicans, according to an analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission, or FEC, campaign records.
The details: Anduril Industries, a military defense-tech company based in Costa Mesa where Luckey is an executive, has more-than-doubled its revenue since President Donald Trump came into his second term, and is projected to double its gains again this year, according to the private markets research company Sacra. The FEC analysis includes processed FEC contributions through June 30 and the most recent filings available through Oct. 14 that the FEC has yet to review. The totals can marginally shift based on amendments or refunds and other reconciliations of the filings.
A split at Anduril: The records show the company CEO Brian Schimpf and COO Matt Grimm, have donated exclusively to Democrats running for Congress during that time period, following similar donation patterns from previous cycles. Luckey, Schimpf, Grimm, and a spokesperson for Anduril did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Anduril Industries, a military defense-tech company based in Costa Mesa, has more than doubled its revenue since President Donald Trump came into his second term, and is projected to double its gains again this year, according to the private markets research company Sacra.
Its most visible political figure is founder Palmer Luckey, a 34-year-old tech entrepreneur and billionaire who’s been called the “godfather of Republican fundraising on the West Coast.”
Luckey has pumped more than $350,000 into over 70 campaigns across the country this cycle, and all but two of those campaigns were for Republicans, according to an analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission, or FEC, campaign records.
The analysis includes processed FEC contributions through June 30 and the most recent filings available through Oct. 14 that the FEC has yet to review. The totals can marginally shift based on amendments or refunds and other reconciliations of the filings.
The records show the company CEO and COO have donated exclusively to Democrats running for Congress during that time period, following similar donation patterns from previous cycles.
Luckey, CEO Brian Schimpf, COO Matt Grimm, and a spokesperson for Anduril did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The records show that while Luckey donated over $350,000 to federal candidates for this election cycle, Schimpf and Grimm have donated about that same amount to Democratic candidates.
This divide is just business as usual, said Mike Madrid, a California-based GOP consultant.
“There’s nothing more nefarious than what it presents itself as,” Madrid said. “Which is a multi-billion-dollar defense company [that] wants to make sure that it has relationships regardless of who is in control of which branch of government.”
Others say the routine nature of this type of giving is itself the problem. Brendan Fischer, director of strategic investigations at Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C., said those with the deepest pockets often have the loudest voice in Washington.
“With fewer limits on money in politics, a small number of corporations and executives can have an even greater influence in our elections and over our elected officials,” he said.
Luckey founded Anduril alongside Schimpf and Grimm. He grew up in Long Beach, homeschooled by his mother. Luckey began attending Golden West College and Long Beach City College at the age of 14, and studied at California State University, Long Beach, before dropping out to build Oculus VR. He amassed his wealth when Facebook bought the startup for $2 billion in 2014.
In addition to campaign donations, Luckey hosted fundraisers this summer for Republicans including Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rick Scott of Florida, and Rep. Ken Calvert of California, according to The Guardian. FEC records show Luckey’s cumulative federal election contributions to GOP-affiliated committees total above $1 million in this election cycle.
“He’s clearly a very influential bundler and fundraiser,” Madrid said.
Luckey started Anduril in 2017 with four others: Grimm, Schimpf, Trae Stephens and Joe Chen. That June, executives pitched low-cost border surveillance to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection paid the company to test it.
Anduril now employs about 8,000 people and generated $2.2 billion in revenue last year. Forbes reported that the Pentagon had more than 120 separate deals with the company before a March software deal with the U.S. Army worth up to $20 billion. That contract allows the military to speed up the purchase and deployment of AI-powered software and hardware, primarily for anti-drone defense.
Luckey's giving tells only half the story of Anduril's politics. Grimm and Schimpf, who run the company day-to-day, have given only to Democrats running for Congress this cycle, the FEC records show.
And their resources are vast. After a $5 billion funding round in May valued Anduril at $61 billion, Forbes estimated Schimpf, the 42-year-old CEO, a veteran of the defense company Palantir, was worth $1.5 billion, making him the company's third billionaire.
Schimpf and Grimm have together given at least $360,000 to Democratic candidates’ campaigns this cycle, according to the FEC records. Schimpf gave $218,000 and Grimm $142,000. Federal law caps how much one person can give to each candidate’s committee, but not how much a person can give in total, meaning the two can spread their donations across dozens of campaigns. If additional committees — joint fundraising and party committees — are included, that total from the two executives is nearly $1 million.
Anduril's own political action committee, Anduril PAC, gave $94,000 to Republicans’ and $84,000 to Democrats’ campaigns this cycle, according to the FEC records.
Thaddeus Kousser, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, said the PAC is following a typical strategy of giving, and "retaining access to both sides to make their case in a capitol," rather than spending only on the political party who holds the majority.
Kousser added that the split among the Anduril executives is less common — with Luckey largely backing Republicans, and Schimpf and Grimm backing Democrats.
Anduril’s business relationship with the federal government began during Trump’s first term.
Since Trump returned to office, the size of its deals has grown sharply. The company’s first defense contract win, a $12.5 million Marine Corps deal, dates back to 2018, about a year after the company got its start, according to Sacra. Then in 2020, Anduril won border surveillance tower deals with CBP worth $25 million to $36 million, according to Anduril’s newsletter. Anduril also won a nearly $1 billion contract from the U.S. Special Operations Command in January 2022 during President Joe Biden’s administration.
In March, Anduril was awarded a 10-year, sole-source Army contract with a ceiling allowing them to spend up to $20 billion, about 20 times the 2022 award.
The deals have kept coming. In June, CBP awarded Anduril a $363 million contract to supply over 200 80-foot surveillance towers across the U.S.-Mexico border in the Southwest. On Oct. 6, Trump visited Sparrows Point, Maryland to announce a $6.6 billion public-private investment anchored by a $2.9 billion Navy contract for Anduril to build a “software-defined shipyard” at Sparrows Point.
Luckey and Anduril’s executives aren’t just spending on federal candidates across the aisle — they’ve also backed opposite sides of California’s governor’s race. A review of state campaign spending records shows the same split that appears in their individual giving at the federal level. The governor's race is the clearest example, where leaders of the company gave the legal maximums to rival campaigns.
The records show no contributions from the three Anduril executives to state ballot measure committees.
Schimpf focused his contributions toward California candidates: 11, who received a cumulative total of at least $50,500. Grimm gave Rep. Dave Min (D-Calif.) the maximum, $7,000, one of nine candidates he gave the maximum amount allowed. Min, who represents coastal Orange County, has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration, and joined Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) in an oversight push on Trump's pardons.
Most of Schimpf's total donations, nearly three quarters of $1 million dollars, did not go to individual candidates. FEC records show more than two-thirds of it, over $520,000, went to the Democrats' House and Senate campaign committees and to joint fundraising committees, which take one large check and split it among several campaigns and party committees.
At least an additional $218,000 went to candidates, many of whom have committee seat oversight roles for the defense industry or ties through their own backgrounds, the records show. He gave to 15 of the 27 Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee. Grimm gave to six of those members, according to the records.
Luckey's giving points the other way. Of the more than 70 federal campaigns he supported in U.S House or Senate races, only two were Democrats: Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas and Rep. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, the records show.
The practice of strategic donations to both sides of the aisle isn’t new, but the scale has changed, said Madrid, the GOP consultant.
"I don't believe for a moment that there's anything more nefarious going on here than what has been going on for the entirety of the existence of the republic," he said. However, there are "a lot more billionaires than there used to be."
Fischer, with the Campaign Legal Center, said campaign donations can have significant consequences for taxpayers.
“There's a well-documented record of federal contractors using their corporate resources to support lawmakers, and those lawmakers then channeling rewards in the form of taxpayer-funded contracts,” he said. “Taxpayer dollars are being used to reward political donors rather than to advance the public's interest.”
Gerald Rich and Maloy Moore contributed to this story.
To examine the giving, reporters at Stanford University used DataTalk, a research assistant built by Big Local News and the Stanford Open Virtual Assistant Lab that answers campaign-finance questions using official FEC data.
The reporters reviewed FEC records for the 2025-26 election cycle, covering processed contributions received through June 30, 2026, and the most recent filings available through Oct. 14 that the FEC has yet to review. Because the FEC itemizes only donors whose cumulative giving to a committee exceeds $200, the figures are a floor.
Reporters asked the tool for the itemized contributions of Palmer Luckey and the company's two top executives, CEO Brian Schimpf and COO Matt Grimm, as well as for donations from Anduril's political action committee. Additional FEC analysis examined other committee contributions.
California state filings were reviewed manually by LAist via the California Secretary of State's website.
Topline:
L.A. plans to add 65 public trash cans in Koreatown after tenants raised concerns about a shortage of places to throw away trash.
Why it matters: The new trash cans aim to address one of three demands from the Koreatown chapter of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, which launched its Barrio Limpio campaign in September. The group is also calling for dumpsters at all apartment buildings and businesses, as well as more reliable bulky-item pickup.
The backstory: Martin Mendoza, a member of the Koreatown Tenants Union who lives near Olympic Boulevard and Normandie Avenue, said the campaign grew out of years of complaints from residents. The union has organized monthly cleanups along the 8th Street corridor between Normandie and Vermont avenues for about two years.
Read on... for more on the new publish trash cans and calls for better trash collection.
This story first appeared on The LA Local.
L.A. plans to add 65 public trash cans in Koreatown after tenants raised concerns about a shortage of places to throw away trash.
The new trash cans aim to address one of three demands from the Koreatown chapter of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, which launched its Barrio Limpio campaign in September. The group is also calling for dumpsters at all apartment buildings and businesses, as well as more reliable bulky-item pickup.
Martin Mendoza, a member of the Koreatown Tenants Union who lives near Olympic Boulevard and Normandie Avenue, said the campaign grew out of years of complaints from residents.
The union has organized monthly cleanups along the 8th Street corridor between Normandie and Vermont avenues for about two years.
“We knew for a long time that that wasn’t enough,” Mendoza said. “There are practically no trash cans along 8th Street itself for quite a stretch.”
The problems go beyond a shortage of public trash cans, Mendoza said. Some apartment buildings do not have enough dumpster space, he said, while others are not emptied regularly. Illegal dumping and infrequent street sweeping also contribute to the problem.
“This is just a basic service. It’s like having a home without a trash can. Where are you going to put the trash?” Mendoza said. “A lot of our members feel the neglect … probably the biggest thing is sanitation fears, especially public health crises.”
The Los Angeles Sanitation Bureau operates 2,472 public trash bins citywide, according to spokesperson Heather Johnson. In Koreatown, the department has 17 automated litter bins and 19 metal slatted bins.
Johnson said LASAN places public trash receptacles along major commercial corridors and at designated bus stops, using data analytics and working with council offices to determine locations. Depending on how heavily a bin is used, the department says it empties receptacles three to seven days a week.
Data from Crosstown shows Koreatown had 435 reports involving public trash receptacles from October 1, 2025 through October 29, 2026, nearly double the 219 reports in Highland Park, the next-highest neighborhood in the data.
MyLA311 defines these as public trash cans located in the public right-of-way, typically near street corners with red curbs or at bus stops. The category includes cans reported as overflowing, damaged, missing or in need of maintenance.
The union also used Crosstown data and a story published by The LA Local earlier this year about illegal dumping in Koreatown in its campaign launch video.
For volunteers with No Harm KTLA, a group that holds trash cleanups in Koreatown twice a month, overflowing bins are a regular sight. During a recent cleanup around Western Avenue and Third Street, volunteers passed at least three overflowing cans with litter piled around them, said volunteer Tam Phan.
“I don’t know what the schedule is for Koreatown and how often they pick it up there, but if we’re doing the 1st and 3rd weekends of every month and they’re always overfilled, that’s really not a good look,” Phan said.
She said volunteers sometimes walk two or three blocks without seeing a trash can. Finding somewhere to dispose of the trash they collect can also be difficult. Near Vermont and Wilshire boulevards, the closest open dumpster the group found was about a mile away, she said.
“It’s just the quality of life,” Phan said. “There’s just so many little pieces of trash everywhere and it starts to compound.”
Nicole Arbusto, who lives on Second Street between Normandie and Vermont avenues, said cleanliness varies from block to block. She said the neighborhood has too few public trash cans, and the ones that are there are not emptied regularly.
“When people see a lot of just litter on the ground, they litter,” she said. “I think if there’s a trash can, people will be more apt to put it in the trash can.”
The city has several programs to clean up trash in Koreatown. Steve Kang, president of the Board of Public Works, said the city recently launched a rapid-response team dedicated to Koreatown to pick up bulky items and address other forms of blight.
“There isn’t a one-size-fits-all criteria. We really work with the community and the council district in identifying the locations for the trash cans,” Kang said.
In the future, Kang said, the current plastic bins would be replaced with more durable cans bolted into the sidewalk and designed to be harder to tamper with.
The 65 new cans would address one of the union’s demands, but Mendoza said residents and community groups should not have to take on the work of keeping their own blocks clean.
“The voice of our members and a lot of the general public just indicates how widespread this problem is,” Mendoza said.
Topline:
President Donald Trump’s administration appealed to the Supreme Court on Monday in its push to sideline 20,000 disputed California mail ballots the day before the pivotal midterm elections.
Why now: The emergency appeal came after an appeals court rejected the request to set aside some 20,000 ballots from people the federal government suspects may not be citizens. The federal government says those ballots should not be counted until the voters’ status can be verified. California officials say the list is highly unreliable and likely includes many people who are U.S. citizens.
The backstory: The Republican Trump administration has prioritized identifying noncitizen voters this year, despite them being rare. Lower courts have sided with California, with a district judge warning that segregating ballots would “wreak havoc” on the midterm elections and erode trust in the democratic process.
President Donald Trump’s administration appealed to the Supreme Court on Monday in its push to sideline thousands of disputed California mail ballots the day before the pivotal midterm elections.
The emergency appeal came after an appeals court rejected the request to set aside some 20,000 ballots from people the federal government suspects may not be citizens.
The federal government says those ballots should not be counted until the voters’ status can be verified. California officials say the list is highly unreliable and likely includes many people who are U.S. citizens.
The Republican Trump administration has prioritized identifying noncitizen voters this year, despite them being rare.
A district court judge forcefully denied the Justice Department’s request and warned that the demand could disenfranchise citizens in the Nov. 3 midterm elections to determine control of Congress.
The Justice Department asked the high court for a “limited injunction” that would direct California to “stop commingling suspected illegal ballots with legal ones” while the case continues to play out.
Voting has been underway in California, a largely Democratic state, since early October. All of the state’s roughly 23 million registered voters are mailed a ballot. Hundreds of thousands of ballots have already been processed.
Lower courts have sided with the state, with a district judge warning that segregating ballots would “wreak havoc” on the midterm elections and erode trust in the democratic process.
“If the Executive can discount votes and threaten an ongoing election due to unproven allegations, then our democracy is in danger,” U.S. District Judge David O. Carter wrote.
The Justice Department has sought to move the case along quickly, unsuccessfully asking an appeals court to intervene early.
The Trump administration has racked up a series of wins in emergency appeals before the Supreme Court, but the justices previously rejected the president’s push to restrict mail ballots ahead of the midterms.
