The Brief

Nearly half a decade after public officials sued Uber and Lyft, alleging that the companies were withholding billions of dollars in wages and compensation from drivers, negotiations with the state are set to begin Monday and continue for two weeks.

Drivers are demanding that the state push for a settlement that adequately recoups what they say are years of lost wages, improves workplace conditions — such as protections against drivers being deactivated from the apps — and raises wages moving forward.

More than 250,000 drivers who worked with Uber and Lyft between 2016 and 2020 could be eligible for the settlement, according to Rideshare Drivers United, an organization based in California. Roughly 5,000 drivers filed claims with the state labor commissioner’s office in 2020, alleging that they were denied overtime, mileage reimbursement and other benefits employees are entitled to.

That same year, then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the city attorneys of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego sued Uber and Lyft for misclassifying drivers as independent contractors. The labor commissioner’s office also sued the companies, alleging wage theft.

The two actions, in addition to several others filed on behalf of individual drivers, were combined into a single joint case before the San Francisco Superior Court. A closed-door mediation session with Uber is scheduled for Monday, while separate talks with Lyft are set to take place on April 8.

Members of the Rideshare Drivers United organization protest against Uber and Lyft during a demonstration in Los Angeles, California, on Feb.14, 2024. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)The lawsuits and subsequent negotiations cover a period of time before California voters passed Proposition 22, a ballot initiative that allowed Uber, Lyft and other gig companies to classify their drivers as independent contractors.

The proposition, which received more than $200 million in backing from gig companies, including Uber and Lyft, promised that independent workers would receive better wages and treatment, a stipulation that some drivers allege was not met.

Uber and Lyft “have been doing what they want. They take more than half of our paycheck and then leave us in bad condition and deactivate us unfairly,” said Ibrahim Diallo, a San Francisco resident who started driving for Uber in 2015 before his account was deactivated in 2023. “More than half of the Uber drivers have to drive 12 hours six days a week, sometimes even seven days, to be able to meet the bills.”

Drivers don’t get paid enough to make ends meet, and they also have to deal with maintenance costs, registration fees and paying for gas, Diallo said, adding that the ride-hailing companies are paying their drivers less and less each year.

“Uber and Lyft are useful, but we can do better,” he said. “We have to treat people with dignity. They have to get good pay to allow them to take weekends, at least spend time with their wife, with their children, and be happy.”

According to Uber, drivers earn at least 120% of minimum wage during active hours. The company also said it has invested more than $1 billion into direct benefits, including health care plans and accident insurance for workers.

“Drivers come to Uber precisely because of the unique flexibility that it provides,” an Uber spokesperson said in an email. “Prop 22 safeguarded their choice to work independently while ensuring important new protections. The voters of California have spoken — overwhelmingly — and we look forward to putting these years-old matters behind us.”

According to Veena Dubal, a law professor at UC Irvine who researches the ride-hailing industry and has been critical of Uber and Lyft, studies show drivers are making less money than they did before Proposition 22. Researchers at the UC Berkeley Labor Center found last year that ride-hail drivers in the San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles and three other metro areas made an hourly average wage of $5.97 without tips and $7.63 with tips, after taking into account expenses and wait times.

However, Dubal said it’s unlikely that the companies will concede much in terms of future protections for workers because of how much they invested in Proposition 22.

Drivers “deserve every penny of the billions of dollars that are owed to them,” she said. “It’s tragic that this is primarily about getting workers what they were owed 10 years ago and not ensuring that workers today are at least protected by the minimum wage, at least protected by unemployment insurance. Proposition 22 really precluded all of that.”

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Immigration enforcement agents are inciting panic at California’s community colleges.

Santa Monica College said that one of its students was arrested and deported last May. Then in December, Santa Barbara City College said that federal immigration officers used their campus parking lot as a staging ground, prompting an uproar from community activists. 

Last month, the San Diego Community College District said ICE agents arrested a student on a public street that cuts through the urban campus and proceeded to chase another student up the steps of the school’s Arts and Humanities building.

Last Monday, federal agents arrested the father of a student in a campus parking lot at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, south of San Luis Obispo.

College presidents say they’re doing everything in their power to keep students safe and prevent federal immigration enforcement officers from coming on campus. But they admit that they have limited power in these situations.

“If ICE agents want to come and walk in the middle of campus, they can do that,” said Kevin Walthers, the president of Allan Hancock College.

State laws require colleges to notify students if immigration enforcement agents are on campus and agents must present a warrant before entering a "nonpublic” area in a school, such as a classroom or office building. But parking lots, quads and many other outdoor spaces are considered public.

By the time Walthers learned ICE agents had arrived at the campus parking lot, they were gone — the arrest happened in a matter of minutes. He said he never received a warrant and was only able to issue a notification to students and faculty after the arrest. The same was true in San Diego, said district Chancellor Gregory Smith.

President Donald Trump rescinded a longstanding policy that prevented immigration enforcement in “sensitive” locations, such as schools. The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, which oversees the state’s 116 colleges, has been outspoken about protecting students without legal status and offered guidance to schools on dealing with immigration agents. Attorney General Rob Bonta released his own, more detailed guide last month.

Chandler Rebel, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement, said “ICE does not target schools” and denied arresting anyone on the Allan Hancock campus, despite witness testimony and photographs. Rebel did not respond to questions about the officer who chased a San Diego City College student on campus.

After their interactions with immigration agents, Santa Barbara and San Diego city colleges put up or are in the process of installing signs in parking lots, sidewalks or at the entrances to classrooms and buildings, telling agents they need approval to enter.

In practice, these messages may not prevent immigration agents from coming onto their campuses, college presidents say. “It's kind of our district putting every effort that we can think of, and hopefully it is a deterrent,” Smith said.

A regular Monday 

Last Monday morning, Mayrin, 18, said she was sitting in the passenger seat while her father drove her to Allan Hancock College, where she had statistics class that day. As they drove by the Olive Garden just outside of campus, she said she saw a large black car follow them down the road.

Mayrin and her father parked in the campus lot, she said, where a masked man approached the window and asked for their identification. CalMatters agreed to withhold her full name because she fears drawing attention to her family’s legal status.

“I was calling people. I was crying. It was a mix of emotions, mostly just worried about my dad,” she said. Maryrin gave the officer her state ID and told him that she’s a U.S. citizen. Her father, who immigrated from Mexico and has lived in the U.S. for about two decades, did not have identification on him and the officer pulled him into his car, she said.

Mayrin spent the next 20 minutes alone in her father’s car, crying and calling family, before college staff, including campus police officers and the dean of counseling, brought her into a conference room to ask what happened and provide support.

Mayrin’s father was one of at least 17 people who were arrested last Monday by immigration enforcement agents in the Santa Maria area, said Assemblymember Gregg Hart, a Santa Barbara Democrat, in an emailed statement. “Mass enforcement sweeps like this are designed to send a message of fear and intimidation – one straight from President Trump.”

A student walks through San Diego City College in downtown San Diego on Oct. 9, 2026.

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Adriana Heldiz

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CalMatters

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The largely Latino towns in California's Central Coast region, which include Santa Maria, have experienced waves of immigration enforcement since Trump took office.

In April, Walthers said the college’s police chief had a meeting with other local police chiefs, the FBI and ICE officers who oversee the Central Coast. The college’s police chief asked immigration officials to provide advance notice before coming on campus. “The response was that ICE would not be coming to campus,” Walthers said. In retrospect, he said he wished the agreement was more formal.

After the arrest last week, Walthers said he got in touch with a federal immigration officer in Los Angeles and said he felt “optimistic” after the conversation that it wouldn’t happen again.

‘Without us knowing or without any previous approval’

In December, a local organization that advocates for immigrants, 805 UndocuFund, alerted Santa Barbara City College officials that ICE agents were at a campus parking lot and appeared to be using it as a staging area, according to Jordan Killebrew, the executive director of public affairs for the college.

Killebrew said agents were “occupying our parking lots without us knowing or without any previous approval.”

The college has since signed an agreement with 805 UndocuFund to help alert the college of the presence of federal law enforcement agents. The group will also provide college students and staff with resources and referrals including legal, financial, mental health and emergency support services for immigration-related matters.

Killebrew said the college spent about $1,200 on 12 signs, which say its campuses “may not be used for civil immigration enforcement staging areas, processing locations, or operations bases.”

The San Diego college district was already in the process of putting up similar signs when ICE appeared on campus last month. District spokesperson Jack Beresford said the four-college district spent $71,000 on 68 signs, including the cost of the labor to install them. The district also created a new policy requiring any entity, including law enforcement, to get prior approval before conducting “official business” on campus.

“We don't let a bank just come and set up a booth,” said Smith, the chancellor of the San Diego district. He said immigration enforcement agents would need approval before conducting their business, including arrests.

Whether the policy will actually work is less clear. “By the time I know that they're here and get down there to tell them they're not allowed to be here, they're going to be gone,” Smith said. “What I'm hoping that we have set up with this is a legal argument that it's an illegal seizure, the same as if they just broke into somebody's home.”

The policy has never been tested in court. He said he hopes it never gets there.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Tropical Storm Rachel brought dangerous surf to Long Beach’s oceanfront but little of the rain forecasters had warned about, as conditions are expected to gradually improve through Tuesday. While relieved, city officials reiterate that the Peninsula is far from in the clear, with major cleanup and emergency repairs underway as several seaside homes are still too dangerous to reenter.

The Peninsula was inundated with mud, sand and plenty of cameras, as onlookers and national news outlets clustered in tight side streets to get a good angle at the wave-damaged homes, as well as the splintered timber bulkhead and boardwalk. With waves and tides high but not quite at levels seen Saturday, crews pumped out excess water in the streets and shoveled sand and debris out of the storm drains.

Kristan Lund, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said Rachel moved through Southern California faster than anticipated, limiting the amount of time Long Beach and nearby cities were exposed to its rainfall.

The center of the storm moved onshore in northern Baja California on Saturday night, according to the National Hurricane Center. Forecast tracks shifted south in recent days, but the storm then veered north-northeast toward Las Vegas, widening the gap between Long Beach and its reach.

Expected to get up to half an inch of rain starting as early as Saturday, Lund said the city shouldn’t expect more than a tenth of an inch through Monday, though a weather pattern Sunday evening may bring drizzles through the night.

The worst-case scenario also failed to materialize. Lund said peak swell, high tide and wind direction never lined up. “The high surf, you know, we were expecting it to come up on the backside of the high tides,” she said. “And thankfully, it ended up being a little too late.”

Several homes were red-tagged as waves continue to slam the bulkhead along the Peninsula in Long Beach, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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Monday morning tides are expected near 7 to 7.5 feet, with surf of 4 to 6 feet. Water levels were still 1 to 1.8 feet above predicted tides, driven by El Niño-related thermal expansion, a Kelvin wave and elevated astronomical tides. Lund said a lingering southerly swell may shift westerly, putting west-facing beaches at some risk of coastal flooding.

The NWS said a coastal flood warning for Los Angeles and Catalina Island areas — which include Long Beach — was scheduled to drop to an advisory at 3 p.m. Sunday. Minor to moderate flooding is still possible through Tuesday afternoon, though it’s expected to be less severe than on Friday and Saturday.

Even so, the damage along the Peninsula’s Seaside Walk is extensive. Waves topped the boardwalk’s protective bulkhead and sent water into homes and streets. Inspectors have red-tagged nine buildings across 13 addresses, a designation meaning they are unsafe to enter. One building has a yellow tag, which restricts use.

A kayaker watches waves hit a walkway in front of homes in Long Beach, Calif., Saturday, Oct. 10, 2026, as Tropical Storm Rachel approaches.

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William Liang

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A mandatory evacuation order covering homes between 64th and 66th places runs through noon Tuesday, and 39 more residences are under an evacuation warning.

Residents are not being allowed back inside. Assistant Fire Chief Jake Heflin said many have asked to retrieve belongings. “That’s the emotional side of it,” he said, but firefighters cannot send anyone into a building that could be on the verge of collapse.

At a control post they set up in the Claremont parking lot, firefighters gathered in front of a screen reviewing drone footage from the day that looked at the cracking and shifting homes.

A Long Beach search and rescue team fills sandbags at the Claremont lot for Long Beach residents on Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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Several of them pointed while others took note, looking for signs to suggest which building is closest to collapse and comparing their worsening conditions over the past couple of days.

If one falls, Heflin said, responders have bullhorns to sound off, then seal the area and conduct searches.

Crews are reinforcing the bulkhead and boardwalk with lumber beams and plan to place about 30 heavy-duty sandbags, each about 3,000 pounds, with a crane on 65th Place. City Spokesman Laath Martin said life safety remains the city’s top priority.

In response to the storm, the city has spent more than $1 million on one-time costs from its Tidelands emergency reserves, which are set aside for only coastal uses. Long Beach has also fast-tracked a multimillion-dollar plan to rebuild the Peninsula’s beach.

Large sandbags are placed at the base of the seawall to absorb some of the force of the waves as ocean water slams into the wooden bulkhead along the Peninsula’s boardwalk in Long Beach, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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Over this week and the next, city officials say, they hope to start trucking in 50,000 to 100,000 cubic yards of sand, followed by a $11.4 million dredging project that could add another 415,000 cubic yards of sand — the most moved in decades.

Officials are pursuing outside funding aggressively and are in talks with the governor’s Office of Emergency Services for reimbursement to public projects, sand restoration, coastal work and emergency bulkhead repairs.

“We will be working with the state closely to identify any kind of reimbursement,” Martin said.

For private homes, the city is urging owners to contact their insurers right away. Long-term demolition and cleanup are the property owners’ responsibility, they say.

Native Americans celebrate their centuries-long history of resilience with ceremonies, dances and speeches.

Former President Joe Biden officially commemorated Indigenous Peoples Day in 2021. An increasing number of states and cities have also recognized it — pivoting from a day long rooted in the celebration of explorer Christopher Columbus to one focused on the people whose lives and culture were forever changed by colonialism.

Here is a look at why it’s called Indigenous Peoples Day and how people celebrate.

Why is it called Indigenous Peoples Day?

Indigenous Peoples Day has been recognized for decades in different forms and under a variety of names to celebrate Native Americans’ history and culture and to recognize the challenges they continue to face.

Biden had said in a statement that the day is meant to “honor America’s first inhabitants and the Tribal Nations that continue to thrive today.”

It is typically observed on the second Monday in October, the same day as Columbus Day, a federal holiday established decades ago to recognize Columbus’ sighting in 1492 of what came to be known as the Americas.

The day is often marked by protests against memorials to Christopher Columbus, for environmental justice, for the return of Indigenous lands and in honor of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

President Donald Trump has said he will not follow his predecessor’s practice of recognizing Indigenous Peoples Day alongside Columbus Day in October.

Is Indigenous Peoples Day a federal holiday?

Although it is not a federal holiday, some states, as well as Washington, D.C., have holidays honoring Native Americans, some of which are on the second Monday in October. Indigenous Peoples Day is typically paired with Columbus Day or replaces the federal holiday altogether. A number of cities and school systems observe Indigenous Peoples Day as well.

Native Americans have campaigned for years for recognition

“For generations, federal policies systematically sought to assimilate and displace Native people and eradicate Native cultures,” Biden wrote in the Indigenous Peoples’ Day proclamation.

“Today, we recognize Indigenous peoples’ resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society.”

In a separate proclamation on Columbus Day, Biden praised the role of Italian Americans in U.S. society, but also referenced the violence and harm Columbus and other explorers of the age brought about on the Americas.

Landing in what is now the Bahamas on Oct. 12, 1492, Columbus, an Italian, was the first of a wave of European explorers in the Americas pursuing quests for gold and other wealth, including people to enslave. In the course of that quest, Native populations were decimated.

“Today, we also acknowledge the painful history of wrongs and atrocities that many European explorers inflicted on Tribal Nations and Indigenous communities,” Biden wrote. “It is a measure of our greatness as a Nation that we do not seek to bury these shameful episodes of our past — that we face them honestly, we bring them to the light, and we do all we can to address them.”