Topline:
A tunnel under construction in Wilmington on Wednesday night temporarily trapped 31 workers who were successfully rescued, fire officials said.
The scene: The L.A. Fire Department said tunnel workers had been initially reported isolated by a "collapse" in an industrial tunnel. They were as many as 6 miles south from the only access point in the 1700 block of North Figueroa Street.
Read on ... for more updates.
A tunnel under construction in Wilmington on Wednesday night temporarily trapped 31 workers who were successfully rescued, fire officials said.
The L.A. Fire Department said the tunnel workers had been isolated by a "collapse" in an industrial tunnel for a wastewater treatment facility. The workers, fire officials said, were trapped as many as 6 miles south of the only access point located the 1700 block of North Figueroa Street in the Harbor-area L.A. neighborhood.
LAist media partner KCAL News reported that construction workers were being hoisted from a crane to the surface at roughly 8:55 p.m. before the collapse occurred. Shortly before 10 p.m., the LAFD said all the workers had been safely removed from the tunnel "alive without visible injury."
Fire officials said the workers in the 18-foot diameter tunnel were able to scramble onto a pile of loose soil on the other side of the collapse to be shuttled "several at a time by tunnel vehicle to the entry/access point."
The City of Los Angeles has mobilized resources to the tunnel collapse in Wilmington.
— Mayor Karen Bass (@MayorOfLA) July 10, 2025
More than 100 LAFD responders have been deployed, including Urban Search and Rescue teams.
Thank you to all of those who are acting immediately to respond to this emergency.
The $630.5 million Los Angeles Effluent Outfall Tunnel project was commissioned by the Los Angeles County Sanitation District. The sewage pipe being worked on will feed the Hyperion plant, which according to the sanitation district is the city's oldest and largest wastewater treatment facility, having operated since 1894.
According to Flatiron Dragados, the project's contractor, the 7-mile, 18-foot-diameter tunnel will "safely transport treated water from the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant to the Pacific Ocean."
The Hyperion plant is part of Los Angeles' ongoing plans to recycle more wastewater. A decades-long project is expected to eventually provide 50% of the city's drinking water.
Topline:
California voters under 34 are on track to make up a larger share of the electorate compared to the 2022 primary, according to an analysis of ballots counted so far by Political Data Intelligence.
The backstory: Young people vote, but at lower rates than older voters. Kamy Akhavan studies civic engagement at USC and says that the U.S.'s increasingly partisan political system may turn off youth voters. “They're looking for solutions. They're not seeing it come from politics,” Akhavan said. “So many of them are just tuning out from a system that is not serving them.”
The numbers (so far): As of Wednesday, voters 18-34 account for 13% of all ballots counted. That’s a 3% increase from the 2022 primary at this time. One factor is that there are nearly 2 million more people in this age group registered than in 2022. Paul Mitchell, a vice president at Political Data Intelligence, said this is due in part to a change in policy that automatically re-registers California voters when they move from county-to-county. “Young people have benefited from their registrations staying alive when they are constantly shuffling around the state,” Mitchell said.
What's next: There are still many ballots left to count. Mitchell said the share of ballots returned by young people increased closer to Election Day. ”Those late voters were very heavily young people,” Mitchell said. “That could mean…if this pattern continues, a higher final turnout for young people.”
Read on… to see what motivated high school students to vote for the first time in South L.A.
Young California voters are on track to make up a larger share of the 2026 primary electorate compared to the 2022 primary, according to an analysis of ballots counted so far by Political Data Intelligence.
As of Thursday, voters aged 18–34 accounted for 13% of all ballots counted. That’s a 4 percentage point increase from the 2022 primary at this time.
One factor is that there are nearly 2 million more people in this age group registered than in 2022.
Paul Mitchell, a vice president at PDI, said this is due in part to a change in policy that automatically re-registers California voters when they move from county-to-county.
“Young people have benefited from their registrations staying alive when they are constantly shuffling around the state,” Mitchell said.
Yet, the returns show that while more young people are voting, their turnout rate is still slightly lower than in 2022. (There’s a longstanding trend of young people voting at lower rates than older voters.)
Mitchell said that may change by the time all the ballots are counted.
”Those late voters were very heavily young people,” Mitchell said. “That could mean… if this pattern continues, a higher final turnout for young people.”
Among those late voters was a group of students at South L.A.’s Ánimo Pat Brown Charter High School. About 40 seniors walked with their teachers Tuesday afternoon to a Washington Park vote center to cast a ballot for the first time. Nearly two dozen additional students signed up as poll workers.
The school’s government and economics teacher, Joel Snyder, has made civic engagement a key part of the curriculum since the school opened in 2006.
“ I think about how to make the pitch to them that democracy is important in their lives and is a public good,” Snyder said.
Here’s what the students said motivated them to vote, edited for length and clarity. LAist is not publishing their last names because some discuss the immigration status of their family members.
I have immigrant parents, they aren't able to vote, but I see that my sister's able to vote since she is older, and also my older brother — and that motivated me to vote because I wanna do for what's right for our state and our country… I think sometimes it’s just hard having your own opinion on your own votes, and it is hard that people will have an opinion on whoever you vote [for], but at the end of the day, you're doing what's right for you, and that's all that matters. — Jose
I felt like me voting was helping my community in a way. Some issues that are really important to me is that of ICE. Honestly, when the ICE raids were happening, I was really afraid for a lot of people in my community because it would stop a lot of people from going outside and just traveling the world how they're supposed to. — Katherine
I t's really important that we have a representative who hears all our voices and our struggles and is able to implement them… People don't like to come to these areas because they consider it dangerous. But obviously we live here. We should look out for our community and try to make it safer for everyone, not just for the people who are passing by, but for us who are living here. — Natalia
I wanna make sure that I actually use, like, the power I [get] as a citizen, and I wanna make sure that others also feel influenced to actually use their power and vote… My message would just be you have a voice, make sure you use it, and that just know that other people are also counting on you, like your family and your friends. And it might be nerve-wracking, but after you do it for the first time, it's just go with the flow. — Martha
At first I was skeptical about it. I didn't wanna vote, because I was like ‘my voice doesn't really matter.’ But at the final moment, I decided to vote because I seen my friends vote, and I wanted to vote with them, and also because I wanted to change, like, the way my community and where I live works… One thing I wanna see change is the homelessness problem because it's gotten too crazy where I live. — Ivan
Topline:
California is notoriously slow at counting ballots, which means it may take a while before voters have results for some significant races. A big one is the L.A. mayor's race with Nithya Raman gaining some ground on Spencer Pratt in the race for second place. But there are five other races to pay close attention to.
What are the races?
Read on: For a breakdown on what's happening as more ballots get counted.
California is notoriously slow at counting ballots, which means it may take a while before voters have results for some significant races. A big one is the L.A. mayor's race with Nithya Raman gaining some ground on Spencer Pratt in the race for second place.
Here are five other races we're watching.
Complete results for L.A. County and Orange County >>
Jose Ugarte maintains his lead ahead of Estuardo Mazariegos as of Thursday night. The two leave four other Latino candidates far behind in this race.
For the first time since 1963, L.A.'s District 9 will not be represented by a Black councilmember.
Incumbent Robert Luna and former sheriff Alex Villanueva are holding on to their places in the two top spots. Luna maintains a significant lead — about 20 percentage points — over Villanueva.
If you're getting déjà vu, that's because the two went head-to-head once before in the 2022 General Election.
Voters are still on track to reject L.A. County's attempt to raise sales taxes by half a percent.
The increase was expected to have generated $1 billion to backfill funding gaps left by federal cuts to Medi-Cal.
Incumbent Katrina Foley is still falling just short of regaining her top spot from Diane Dixon. Unless Dixon receives more than 50% of the votes, the two will face off in the November election.
Incumbent Rep. Brad Sherman and Republican Larry Thompson are likely to square off in November for the race to represent District 32 in the U.S. House of Representatives. Sherman maintains a tight lead.
District 32 spans from the western San Fernando Valley to the coastal cities.
For LAist's charts showing vote counts, we get numbers directly from the L.A. County and Orange County registrars of voters for local races. Totals are updated on our site as soon as possible after the registrars provide new tallies. For statewide races, counts come from the California Secretary of State's Office.
Keep in mind that, in tight races particularly, the winner may not be determined for days or weeks after election day. That's because early voting and mail-in ballots have fundamentally reshaped how votes are counted and when election results are known. In L.A. County, for example, updates on the counting are expected to continue through June 26. After the polls closed on election night, we had updates to the official count regularly into the early hours Wednesday. After that, updates have been daily around 5 p.m. Expect updates on the following days: June 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 18, 24 and 26. Final results must be certified by July 10.
Our priority during the vote count will be sharing outcomes and election calls only when they have been thoroughly checked and vetted by journalists. To that end, we will report when candidates concede and otherwise rely on NPR and the Associated Press for race calls (before official results). We will not report the calls or projections of other news outlets. You can find more about NPR's and the AP's process for counting votes and calling races here, here and here.
You can track the status of your ballot through California's BallotTrax website.
If your mail-in ballot has any problems (like a missing or mismatched signature), your county registrar must contact you to give you a chance to fix it.
The California Secretary of State's Office is required to certify the final vote tallies by July 10, marking the official end of the 2026 primary election.
LAist's Voter Game Plan will be back in the fall to help you prepare for the Nov. 3 general election.
Topline:
A potent carcinogen may have spread to communities as far as nine miles downwind of the Eaton and Palisades fire burn zones during debris clean-up, according to a new peer-reviewed study in the journal Nature.
Why it matters: UCLA and UC Davis scientists measured nanoparticles of hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, during fire debris cleanup, and computer models show the carcinogen may have spread downwind.
Read on ... for more on why experts say the study is not reason to panic, and how it may inform protections for future fire survivors.
A potent carcinogen may have spread to communities as far as nine miles downwind of the Eaton and Palisades fire burn zones during debris clean-up, according to a new peer-reviewed study in the journal Nature.
A team of researchers has been studying the air pollution effects of clearing the remains of more than 16,000 homes and businesses destroyed in the 2025 fires.
Scientists with UCLA and UC Davis drove through Altadena and Pacific Palisades in an electric vehicle with mobile air monitors periodically over about seven months after the fires. They measured nanoparticles of hexavalent chromium, or chromium-6, within the cleanup areas. Paint, auto parts, electronics and fire retardant are possible sources, but more study is needed to understand where the chromium came from, the researchers said. They also detected other airborne metals, including lead and arsenic.
The researchers used computer modeling to understand how far those airborne particles may have spread beyond the immediate burn zones. About 3 million people live in the areas that could have been exposed, according to the scientists’ models.
The highest concentrations of nanoparticles — particles less than 1/1,000th the width of a human hair — were measured in March 2025, about two months into the debris removal effort in both burn zones. But the toxicity declined as time passed.
“ The good news is that some of those toxic metals, they were converted back to less toxic forms over time,” said Michael Kleeman, professor of civil and environmental engineering at UC Davis and lead author of the study. “So in the months after the wildfire, the threat from this sort of decayed away.”
In communities outside the burn zones, concentrations diluted further as the plume moved downwind, Kleeman said. By eight months after the fires, the researchers measured that heavy metal concentrations had fallen to background levels for the L.A. basin.
The research highlights how “even after the fire is over, the danger isn't gone,” Kleeman said.
The researchers and outside experts emphasized to LAist that the study’s findings do not prove widespread contamination of homes, businesses or the environment.
“ I hope we can get a message of caution out there, but not panic,” said Kleeman.
Andrew Whelton, a Purdue University post-disaster environmental risk researcher who was not involved in the study, said the research is far from proving what, if any, harm to human health could occur, especially because no indoor testing was carried out.
“Drawing a line from street-level detections to indoor exposure, without confirming that the [chromium-6] outdoors entered homes at levels posing health risks, is a significant leap,” he said.
Whelton, who carried out soil testing in the L.A. fire burn scars, said he worries the paper could needlessly sow fear because so many open questions remain. He has argued for funding and establishing more comprehensive contaminant testing at the individual household level in the wake of such destructive fires — the most definitive way to know your personal risk.
“The bottom line: detecting nanoparticles in outdoor air does not mean harm occurred to 3-plus million people living and working inside buildings,” Whelton told LAist.
The average levels of chromium-6 detected in the air during debris cleanup in March were well below limits set for workplaces by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, but above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency long-term screening levels for homes, according to the study.
Still, those comparisons are imperfect because the particles measured were far smaller than what’s used for current health standards — meaning they can more easily travel throughout the body, Kleeman said.
“We don't know for sure what the concerning level should be,” he said.
Workplace standards, for example, are set for healthy adults working eight-hour shifts, “rather than for sensitive populations such as young children, pregnant individuals, older adults, or people with chronic illness,” said Jun Wu, an environmental health scientist and professor at UC Irvine’s School of Public Health, who also was not involved with the study.
More comprehensive study is needed to get at what true exposures may, or may not, have occurred, the Kleeman and outside researchers emphasized.
“This is a single, novel finding based on limited sampling, with the downwind reach estimated by modeling,” Wu said, “so broader monitoring is the natural next step.”
The broadest potential plume was from the Palisades Fire, spreading as far as the southern San Fernando Valley to the north and Beverly Hills and West Hollywood to the east. Kleeman said computer modeling of prevailing winds show the plume being pushed toward central L.A.
“Santa Monica, Venice and moving toward central L.A. took the brunt of the plume,” Kleeman said.
Prevailing winds didn’t spread the plume quite as far in communities near the Eaton Fire, with modeling showing northeast Pasadena being the primary community affected.
Many unknowns remain about the public health effects of catastrophic fires in urban areas — and how far those risks may drift beyond the burn zone.
“More work is needed to understand how widespread and persistent these particles were, how exposure varied by location and cleanup activity, and what the health risks were for nearby residents,” said Sina Hasheminassab, an air quality researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who was not involved in the study.
Debris cleanup workers and residents in or within nine miles downwind of the burn zones in the year after the L.A. fires should be mindful of any new health symptoms and report them to a doctor. You can also find resources, report symptoms or ask questions via the ongoing LA Fire Health Study.
Steps to take to reduce contaminant exposure during or in the wake of an urban wildfire:
The surest way to understand your personal risk of exposure to toxins is to get your home’s air and soil tested. Here are some resources to learn more about that and what to test for:
Additionally, the study raises questions about how to better protect people’s health not only during, but also after destructive urban fires, said Wu.
“Much of our attention goes to the smoke during the active fire, but this study points to the cleanup and recovery phase,” she said. “This time window deserves just as much attention as the fire period itself.”
For example, some survivors whose homes survived never left during debris removal — some cited concerns about not being able to afford another place to stay without upfront insurance payouts, as well as worries about looting.
The study notes that workers in the burn zones faced the highest risk.
“Based on our field observations, many workers in the debris cleanup zone did not wear masks despite California requirements to provide approved air purifying respirators to workers,” the researchers wrote.
Nicole Maccalla’s home in Altadena was damaged but ultimately survived the Eaton Fire. She and her two teenagers moved back in nearly six months after the fire, while debris removal was ongoing. Her daughter’s school nearby was also reopened just a month after the fires.
“ I know I was exposed. I know my kids were exposed,” Maccalla told LAist. “I'm not really sure what to do with that, to be honest.”
“Our entire community is really now guinea pigs,” she added. “It’s deeply concerning.”
Maccalla, a data scientist and member of Eaton Fire Residents United, helped guide ongoing research by scientists like Kleeman to better understand the levels of contamination after the fires.
She said this study is a warning.
“ I think in the future, we need to move a little slower in fire recovery. The goal should not be speed. The goal should be health and safety,” Maccalla said. “We rushed it, and I hope that we learn from this mistake.”
She and fellow survivors see some hope in a new bill they helped inform. AB 1642, or the Wildfire Environmental Safety and Testing Act, is making its way through the California Legislature.
The bill, written by Assemblymember John Harabedian, would establish the first statewide health standards for testing and cleaning up debris in and outside standing homes, schools, businesses and other structures after a wildfire.
Maccalla urged fellow survivors worried about the results of this study to prioritize caring for their mental and physical wellbeing.
“The stress of all of this is just going to be an added component that will be another contributor to us getting sick long term,” she said. “So many of us are still in survival mode. It's time, I think, to start taking care of ourselves a little bit.”
Topline:
A year after the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort was unleashed in L.A. County, locals reflect on what they’ve endured — and what lies ahead.
Why it matters: The mass deportation effort, purportedly meant to remove criminals from the country, has left the following in its wake: Families, suddenly left without their breadwinners, struggle to pay their rent. Asylum seekers are detained at routine check-ins. A record number of immigrants have died in civil detention. Scores of U.S. citizens have been detained. And, to date, more than 200,000 children have been separated from their parents.
A date to remember: On June 6, 2025, federal immigration agents targeted a Home Depot in Westlake, where day laborers were gathered to solicit construction work. About three miles east, more agents descended on Ambiance Apparel, a fast-fashion warehouse in downtown Los Angeles. Angelenos witnessed workers getting handcuffed and hauled away.
The backstory: Trump’s mass deportation effort, first tested in Bakersfield, was brought to Los Angeles, then to other cities, including Chicago, where a federal agent killed a 38-year-old single father named Silverio Villegas-González, and Minneapolis, where federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
What's next: Over the next two months, nonprofits like the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights will host events to draw attention to the raids’ impact on local families. Detained immigrants themselves are engaging in activism. From Delaney Hall in New Jersey to Adelanto in California, people inside ICE detention centers have launched hunger strikes to expose conditions they describe as unsafe. The Department of Homeland Security says there are no hunger strikes at these facilities and that conditions there are optimal.
A year ago, the Trump administration launched a deportation campaign that would leave an indelible mark on L.A. County.
On the morning of June 6, masked federal immigration agents targeted a Home Depot in Westlake, where day laborers were gathered to solicit construction work. About 3 miles east, more masked agents descended on Ambiance Apparel, a fast-fashion warehouse in downtown Los Angeles.
At both locations, Angelenos witnessed workers getting handcuffed and hauled away. For some, those workers were friends, siblings, spouses or parents.
Purportedly meant to remove criminals from the country, federal immigration officials would go on to arrest more than 14,000 people in the greater Los Angeles area in 2025 — the majority of whom had no criminal record, according to an LAist analysis of recent data from the Deportation Data Project.
These detentions, and the ones that followed, ignited sweeping marches and community activism. Met with occasional violent resistance, the federal government deployed active-duty military personnel to the region.
So far, the mass deportation effort has left the following in its wake:
Families who were suddenly left without their breadwinners struggle to pay their rent. Asylum seekers are detained at routine check-ins. A record number of immigrants have died in civil detention. Many U.S. citizens of color now carry their passports to move about town. Federal agents have detained scores of citizens — sometimes for days. And, to date, more than 200,000 children have been separated from their parents.
Trump’s mass deportation effort, first tested in Bakersfield, has been escalated to other cities: This includes Chicago, where federal agents killed Silverio Villegas-González, a 38-year-old single father, and almost killed Marimar Martinez, a Montessori school teaching assistant. Then, in Minneapolis, federal agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti. The federal government branded Martinez, Good and Pretti — all U.S. citizens — as “domestic terrorists” and accused them of trying to harm officers.
In downtown L.A.’s once-bustling fashion district, business hasn't bounced back. LAist spoke with multiple workers in the area. They declined to share their names for fear of reprisal.
Since the raid at Ambiance, “it hasn’t been the same,” said a worker at a nearby shop. She works at a party supply store specializing in piñatas and embroidered graduation stoles. She’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop, she said.
“[One feels] insecure because you never know how the day is going to go,” the worker told LAist.
At Ambiance Apparel, around the block, an employee estimated a massive loss of income for the store, as much as 50%. (The store did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)
That same effect has played out at small businesses all over the county. Neighborhoods that were hit hard by immigration raids — including Boyle Heights, Echo Park and Westlake, along with southeast L.A. cities like Bell, Pico Rivera and South Gate — report less customer traffic and reduced daily sales.
Since last June, the Home Depot in Westlake has been targeted for raids at least four times. Even so, day laborers still mill about the home improvement megastore’s parking lot, soliciting construction work from homeowners and contractors.
One worker, a 39-year-old from Guatemala who declined to give his name, said he witnessed the raid last year but managed to get away. He was frightened, he told LAist, but he still came back to work the next day; he has five children to support, including one studying to become a nurse.
“Ni modo, hay que comer,” he said, noting that people need money to eat. “Siempre hay necesidad.”
The reality, he said, is that he’s defenseless if agents were to show up again. Despite his own situation, he feels for the other workers around him.
“Es muy triste,” he said. “Están luchando por sus hijos, para seguir adelante” — “It’s really sad. They’re fighting for their children, to get ahead.”
Beyond the marches last summer, Angelenos continue to find ways to support local immigrant communities. Some have offered to buy groceries for those who struggle to make ends meet or are simply scared to leave their homes. Others have volunteered to give their neighbors rides to school or work. Several regions have organized community patrols to warn about the presence of federal agents.
Activism has not eluded younger generations. At high schools and middle schools across the county, students have walked out of class in protest.
At Olive Vista Middle School in Sylmar, about 100 students left their science, English and math classes earlier this year. To critics who thought they should have stayed inside, 11-year-old Alejandro said: “They don't understand how much we love our parents.”
Across the U.S., detained immigrants themselves are engaging in activism. From Delaney Hall in New Jersey to Adelanto in California, people inside ICE detention centers have launched hunger strikes to expose conditions they describe as unsafe and inhumane. The Department of Homeland Security insists there are no hunger strikes at these facilities, and that detainees get “three meals a day, medical care, and receive full due process.”
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights has also planned a slew of L.A. events during the months of June and July to draw attention to the raids’ impact on local families — and to the unique challenges faced by certain workers, including car washers and custodians.
“A year after the cruel immigration surge that shook all Angelenos, our message is clear: Fear did not defeat us, cruelty did not divide us, and militarization did not silence us,” said executive director Angelica Salas in an email. “We remember, we resist, and we recommit ourselves to the struggle for justice, dignity and the humanity of every Angeleno.”
