The Brief

The Los Angeles Metro Board unanimously voted Thursday to proceed with developing a 14-mile-long subway under the Santa Monica Mountains. It’s one of the first significant steps in what city and county leaders are describing as the region's most consequential transit project and perhaps one of the most important in the country.

Metro staff said in a report to its board that it has secured funding through county tax measures for about 14% of the $24.2 billion it’s preliminarily estimated to cost to build the route, which will involve extensive tunneling. They added the cost estimate would be updated as further refinements are made, but having this amount of funding secured is “not uncommon” for projects early on in development.

Still, leaders underscored that while the need for a rail link between the Valley and Westside couldn’t be overstated, staff for the countywide transportation agency should remain mindful of financial constraints and push for cost reductions through the next several years before shovels hit the ground.

“Ambition matters, dreaming big matters, but honesty matters too,” L.A. City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who also is a member of the Metro Board, said during Thursday’s meeting. “We can't afford to approve transformative projects without being clear about the path to funding and delivery.”

The price tag certainly is “eye-popping” and Metro’s “largest project to date,” as Ray Sosa, the chief planning officer for the agency, recently wrote in an op-ed about the project.

With today’s vote progressing the project, the Metro Board enthusiastically endorsed the investment, for now, in theory.

The project and selected route 

The Sepulveda Transit Corridor, as the project is known, was conceived to relieve Angelenos of the sometimes 90-minute drive between the Valley and Westside via the 405 Freeway, provide a crucial artery to connect with other regional rail and bus routes and link residential areas to job centers.

In June 2025, Metro released its draft environmental review of five different subway and monorail options. Of the more than 8,000 public comments Metro received, fewer than 70 expressed opposition to the project as a whole, according to agency staff.

Metro staff in January published its recommendation to move forward with further study of a modified version of one of the subway options.

That’s what the transportation agency’s board approved Thursday.

The route is projected to see as many as 124,000 rides per day and reduce the total amount people would otherwise travel by car by nearly 800,000 miles a day.

An end-to-end trip on the proposed route between Valley and the Westside is slated to take 20 minutes, with trains arriving every 2.5 minutes at peak times.

The 405 Freeway during rush hour March 10, 2022, in Los Angeles.

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Station locations for the proposed train would connect to the Metro D, E and East San Fernando Valley rail lines, the Metrolink stop in Van Nuys and also the G bus rapid-transit line. Crucially, the route also will stop at UCLA, which over the years had become a non-negotiable necessity among students and other advocates of the train.

“Higher education deserves to be easily accessible for everyone,” Mariela Diaz, a UCLA commuter student who described herself as low income, said at the meeting Thursday. “Future UCLA students deserve to have their first on-campus station.”

As it’s currently planned, there wouldn’t be a stop providing direct access to the Getty Center, for which the museum had been publicly campaigning.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who has a seat on the Metro Board, asked Thursday that agency staff report back on “transportation alternatives to address fast and last-minute connections to the Getty Center.”

The proposed route would run from Van Nuys to the Westside.

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Report details economic benefits 

A report from the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation details how construction would generate as much as $40 billion in economic output and spur more than $16 billion in labor income countywide.

You can read the full report, commissioned by L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman’s office, here. 

Leaders urge continued engagement and not to compromise on vision 

Today’s vote directed Metro staff to focus on the proposed route for forthcoming technical and environmental analyses and clearances, as well as to further refine design and cost estimates.

There also will be continued community engagement.

Yaroslavsky amended the item the board approved Thursday to include language asking Metro staff to, among other tasks, report back on a community engagement plan focused on the communities that might be impacted by tunneling or construction and to maintain a publicly accessible outreach calendar.

Metro’s final environmental documents, which will be the culmination of the continued engagement and study, will be subject to future approval from the board.

Los Angeles City Councilmember and Metro Board member Katy Yaroslavsky advocated for continued community engagement as the countywide transportation agency pursues the Sepulveda Transit Corridor project.

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When construction starts, the focus will first be on the middle segment of the train running from the G-line stop in Van Nuys to the future D-line stop in Westwood.

The additional segments on the north and south sides of the route would be built afterward.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who also is on the Metro Board, urged that the full route be built as envisioned.

“Phasing is a given, but the true value of this line will not be realized until it is fully built out,” Padilla said.

The Port of Los Angeles reported another standout year in 2025, handling 10.2 million container units and being the busiest port in the country for the 26th year in a row, despite industry challenges.

“2025 was a year like no other, from accelerated dips in volume to record highs,” Gene Seroka, executive director at the Port of Los Angeles, said. “It truly was a roller coaster.”

The highlights came at the annual State of the Port in San Pedro on Thursday. It was also the first State of the Port since the Trump administration adopted its tariff and trade policies.

Seroka laid out a vision for the upcoming year that included expanding the port and reaffirming its environmental commitments

“We are moving more cargo than ever before with the lowest pollution footprint on record for every container shipped,” Seroka said.

The Port of L.A. is in an agreement with the South Coast Air Quality Management District and the Port of Long Beach to achieve zero-emission operations at both ports. The ports also adopted the Clean Air Action Plan in 2006, which has since cut overall emissions of diesel particulate matter by 90% and nitrogen oxides by 73%, according to the Port of L.A.

The past 12 months marked a volatile year for the port amid changing tariffs, according to Seroka.

“The global trade map is being redrawn," he said. "Shifting trade policies are creating uncertainty and volatility, and the maritime supply chain is at the center of it all. But here's what hasn't changed: Cargo remains the lifeblood of the US economy.”

In July, Port of L.A. officials reported import traffic jumping to 32% in June compared to the month prior. The yo-yoing volume came as many customers tried to get in as much as they could in response to the tariffs.

Seroka said to meet the demands of tomorrow, the Port of L.A. needs to build bigger, smarter and more sustainably.

Pier 500 and the Maritime Support Facility are part of the port’s plan to boost capacity and improve efficiency.

Another essential part of building smarter, Seroka added, is the Vincent Thomas Bridge.

“The bridge needs redecking to make it safer for the 50,000 vehicles that cross it daily, but here's the bigger issue,” Seroka said. “We also need to raise it or replace it to unlock our full capacity north of the bridge.”

Plans to raise the bridge during the redecking project, however, were nixed last November by the state’s transportation agency, according to the L.A. Times.

Seroka said the port was working with the governor's office and California Transportation officials to establish a formal partnership exploring all options, which could include building a new crossing.

Among other future projects, the port is looking to break ground on the Avalon Pedestrian Bridge next month to connect visitors to the new Wilmington Waterfront Promenade.

Before it passed last year, a major new California housing law that allows more apartments near public transit stops faced stiff opposition from Los Angeles politicians.

L.A. elected leaders are continuing to fight it, arguing the law jeopardizes efforts to expand local transportation infrastructure.

The latest round of resistance comes from the L.A. Metro Board of Directors, which voted Thursday to formally oppose local implementation of the law, SB 79. The only members who declined to join in opposition were L.A. County Supervisors Janice Hahn and Lindsey Horvath.

The transit agency recently published a staff report that recommended the board stand against a bill that seeks to clarify certain points on how SB 79 will be implemented.

The Metro staff report went beyond asking for technical tweaks to the legislation. One of its suggestions called for “exempting Los Angeles County from SB 79.” Another recommendation suggested “limiting the bill’s applicability to the Bay Area as a pilot project.”

‘Absolutely ridiculous’ say housing proponents

Advocates for more housing development said that seeking to override the law, which takes effect July 1, would be counterproductive for L.A.’s troubled transit agency. They said resisting new housing will reduce the number of riders living within walking distance of a Metro stop.

Azeen Khanmalek — executive director of Abundant Housing L.A., a co-sponsor of SB 79 — called the report’s recommendations “absolutely ridiculous.”

“We can't just continue this recalcitrant opposition in perpetuity,” Khanmalek said. “We really hope Metro is on board and wants more riders near their transit stations.”

But Metro’s Board of Directors is made up of elected leaders who have, in some cases, already made their positions on SB 79 clear.

Before Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law in October, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass asked him to veto it.

Two other board members, L.A. City Councilmembers Katy Yaroslavsky and Imelda Padilla, voted with a slim majority of the council last year to oppose SB 79.

Metro says law will boost transit opposition

About three-quarters of all residential land in incorporated L.A. County is zoned for single-family homes. But under SB 79, some of those neighborhoods could now be eligible for dense apartment buildings, as long as they lie within a half-mile of a major transit stop.

The Metro staff report said SB 79 could harm the transit agency’s expansion goals by galvanizing housing opponents against new light rail stations and dedicated bus lanes.

“SB 79 has become a catalyst for local opposition to Metro’s transit projects,” the report said. “By linking increased housing density to both existing and future transit investments, the law has intensified resistance from some cities and community groups that now view new transit projects as a trigger for state-mandated upzoning.”

Asking for tweaks, or total exemption?

The report also called on state lawmakers to clarify the term “light rail transit,” which could affect how SB 79 will apply to neighborhoods around Metro’s A, C, E and K rail lines.

At an earlier Metro meeting, Board Vice Chair Jacquelyn Dupont-Walker supported calls to carve L.A. County out of the law.

“We’ve found that the effort to have one-size-fits all planning didn’t work,” she said. “It is ingenious to suggest that any modifications be tested in the Bay Area first.”

Hahn said she supported asking for more moderate amendments to the SB 79 clean-up bill, SB 677, but she did not think lawmakers would take seriously calls for a countywide exemption.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re willing to dialogue,” Hahn said. “I would just like to see some amendments that feel a little bit more realistic.”

Every Sunday, crispy waffles, breakfast “stanwiches” and a wagyu pastrami brisket on rye await you at Stanley's, a to-go window on Fountain Avenue in Hollywood.

Michelin-starred chef Michael Tang has worked in renowned kitchens like Leopardo in Los Angeles and Quince and Saison in the Bay Area. But now he’s bringing fine-dining technique to nostalgic diner fare at his new pop-up, creating food that's, as he puts it, "approachable instead of esoteric."

The self-funded operation, which is named after his father, is all about embracing constraints: a to-go format, less expensive equipment, and tighter margins. For Tang, those limitations became creative fuel.

"I'm figuring out my voice and developing a style," he said.

The food: technique meets nostalgia

Tang has been obsessed with creating the perfect waffle for two years, aiming for something "fully crispy outside, moist inside, not overly dense." The result is a hybrid that borrows from Belgian Liège-style waffles, studded with pearl sugar that caramelizes on the hot iron, while using an American-style batter rather than dough, resulting in a lighter texture.

When I tried it recently, it was sweet and eggy, with the caramelized sugar creating pockets of crunch along crispy edges. It costs $5, yet comes with French Bordier maple butter. "Why serve something that doesn't taste special?" he said.

Meanwhile, for his $13 pastrami sandwich, he makes the pastrami himself, taking on a challenge others avoid. "The fridge space is insane for pastrami production," he said — one reason most restaurants outsource to specialty purveyors.

Stanley's pastrami sandwich: eight-day Tajima Wagyu brisket on Bub and Grandma's sourdough.

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His eight-day process starts with Tajima Wagyu brisket, brined to season the meat evenly without over-curing. After brining, he applies a custom spice blend, then smokes it over California red oak and almond wood.

The effort shows. Served on Bub and Grandma's sourdough, Tang offers fatty or lean slices — I asked for both. I'm picky about pastrami in Los Angeles (it's hard to nail unless you're Langer's), but Stanley's version delivers: meaty, flavorful, with a proper fat ratio that doesn't turn greasy.

Tang also offers a vegan pastrami made from celery root, which takes four days instead of eight because vegetables are more porous. The choice wasn't random: celery root, apple, and horseradish, topped with a miso mustard that adds brightness, pairing well with the pastrami spices. I sampled it alongside the Wagyu version — it was delicious and substantial enough to satisfy anyone, vegan or not.

The sleeper hit

But the revelation came from an item Tang recommended I try: the Shumai Slam, also $13. The shrimp-and-pork croquette on a Martin's potato roll didn't initially catch my eye — until I noticed the steamed egg.

The Shumai Slam didn't initially catch my eye until Tang insisted I try it.

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As the name suggests, the shrimp-and-pork filling is an ode to Cantonese dim sum, with familiar notes of Shaoxing rice wine, soy sauce and sesame oil. That alone would be impressive, but the steamed egg elevates it entirely.

Tang steams eggs in a hotel pan until they look almost like cheese slices, then lays them across the sandwich. The result is velvety smooth and intensely eggy, elevating the entire sandwich beyond its humble components. I haven't stopped thinking about it and now I want steamed eggs on all my breakfast sandwiches.

Sourcing with purpose

Stanley's breakfast beverages.

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The housemade sodas, sourced through farmers' markets, use "seconds" — bruised peaches and imperfect fruit still good for juicing. The coffee soda, made from a local roaster, tastes more like an espresso tonic: robust, cool, refreshing. I'd order it again, despite not being a regular cold brew drinker.

On good days, Tang and business partner Ivana Ruslie pay themselves minimum wage if they hit about 55 customers per pop-up. The rest of the week, they hustle through consulting work, private dinners, and R&D projects.

It's the new chef playbook: multiple income streams instead of single paychecks, community over prestige, sustainability over stars. Tang's redefining success on his own terms — though he admits he wouldn't say no to an angel investor with brick-and-mortar dreams.

California is among several dozen states that have thus far resisted the Trump administration’s demands for access to sensitive information, including driver’s license and Social Security numbers, about tens of millions of voters. Earlier this month, a federal judge in L.A. dismissed the administration’s lawsuit against California, saying the federal government doesn’t have a right to the personal information of the state’s 23 million voters.

But that’s unlikely to be the end of the battle: the Trump administration has nearly identical lawsuits pending against 22 other states and the District of Columbia.

In the most recent episode of the LAist podcast Imperfect Paradise, we examined what’s behind the Trump administration's quest to collect voter data. What could be done with that information? And why are election officials in California and around the country resisting the federal government's demands?

Here are some highlights of that conversation, edited and expanded for clarity, between Imperfect Paradise host Nereida Moreno and LAist correspondent Jill Replogle.

Before we dive in, what’s the topline here? 

The U.S. Department of Justice says it needs states’ complete voter files to make sure states are preventing voter fraud. But critics worry the government has other motives, including trying to amass a national voter file that could be used to attack political opponents, and cancel the registrations of legitimate voters.

Jill, you've reported on local politics in Southern California for years. How and when did this battle between California and the federal government over sensitive voter data begin? 

I'm based in Orange County and I've covered quite a few elections there. Orange County's election system and the Registrar of Voters is really top-notch and super well-respected around the state.

But recently a couple of very big things happened in Orange County that election integrity skeptics would say confirmed their suspicions that our election systems are not as secure as officials make them out to be.

Let's talk about those. What happened?

Well, the most scandalous one was the voting dog. A woman in Costa Mesa named Laura Yourex registered her dog Maya to vote and then actually voted for the dog in the 2021 recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom and the 2022 presidential primary.

Just to be clear, did the dog walk into a polling place or, like, how did they vote?

No, but fair question. Yourex just registered the dog to vote and then she turned in the ballots that were sent out in the dog’s name.

Yourex essentially turned herself in last year. She was ultimately charged with five felonies and she could face six years in state prison. She said she did it to expose flaws in the election system.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer talks about election security at the county registrar's office on Feb. 26, 2024.

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And what was the second thing that happened that fueled these concerns about voter fraud? 

We have to back up a little for this one. Michael Gates, the former city attorney of Huntington Beach, was contacted by a resident in October 2024 who said that their father-in-law, who was not a U.S. citizen, had received a ballot.

A few months later, Gates gets a job in the Trump administration's Department of Justice, and one of the first things he does is request records from the Orange County Registrar of people removed from the list of registered voters because they weren’t citizens.

Page, the Registrar, gives him 17 records of people removed since 2020 because they didn't meet the citizenship requirement. But he redacts sensitive information, including their driver’s license and Social Security numbers, per state law on elections and privacy.

And then the DOJ sues the Registrar to get access to that redacted, sensitive information. Soon after, the DOJ sues California for its entire, unredacted database of registered voters, about 23 million people. To date, the federal government has sued 24 states and the District of Columbia for their voter data. The Brennan Center for Justice is tracking the issue.

In California, federal Judge David O. Carter recently ruled that the federal government is not entitled to that data. A judge in Oregon made a similar, tentative ruling. But all the other cases are still pending.

Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page outside of the main office in Santa Ana.

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Why are states pushing so hard against this request for their voter data?

I think, in part, it speaks to the increasing partisan divide in everything, including how we run our elections. There are some states that have handed all of this data over willingly to the federal government. They're all red states.

Most, but definitely not all, of the states that have resisted handing over the data are blue states.

The states that are resisting have several main reasons. For one thing, the Constitution grants states the responsibility to determine how they run elections, not the federal government. Elections are very clearly a state power.

Another thing is that California law and similar laws in many other states prohibit those states from sharing private information about their voters.

Also, these states say federal election law, and the federal Privacy Act, prohibit the federal government from collecting this kind of data without providing a very specific reason. Under the Privacy Act, the government also has to give public notice before they collect data, they have to say how they're going to use it, and they have to provide an opportunity for public comment.

Elections experts and voting rights advocates have also weighed in on the debate. What have they told you about the federal government’s push to collect this data?

One of their major questions is, what does the federal government plan to do with the data? The Trump administration hasn't clearly answered that question. According to critics, a big suspicion is that they want to use it for immigration enforcement.

Bob Page, the Orange County Registrar of Voters, explains election operations to a group of reporters on Feb. 26, 2024.

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Officials have gone back and forth when asked if they plan to share this data with the Department of Homeland Security. But here's how that could work. There's a database run by the Department of Homeland Security called SAVE that's essentially a citizenship check. They could run all this voter data through that system to try to crosscheck whether there are non-citizens voting.

But there are questions about the accuracy of SAVE. In fact, one of our NPR colleagues recently reported on naturalized citizens who have been improperly flagged in this system as not being eligible to vote and have had their registrations canceled.

So there's a concern about voter suppression, and about people who actually are eligible to vote being removed from voter rolls improperly.

It’s important to note that state election officials and county election officials are constantly removing people from registration rolls who died or moved out of state. They're adding people who are registering to vote. They're changing people's addresses. It's a super dynamic system. And some experts, including Eileen O’Connor with the Brennan Center, expressed doubt that the federal government could do that better than individual states:

O’Connor and others also told me they worry that the federal government could use the data to promote false claims about election fraud, and to target political opponents.

A glimpse at part of the ballot counting process at the Orange County Registrar of Voters

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There’s also a big concern about amassing that much data, right?

Yes, from states and from privacy experts. If the federal government is, indeed, trying to compile a national voter file, that's something like 75% of Americans (of voting age). Just imagine what a gold mine that would be for a hacker.

And there have been some questions about how seriously the Trump administration takes data security. The Washington Post recently reported that a DOGE employee improperly shared Americans’ private social security data with an outside political group, with the aim of overturning election results in some states. The Justice Department admitted to this in a court filing in a whistleblower case.

Earlier this month, Judge Carter agreed with California in his ruling dismissing the government's demand for voter data. What did he say in his ruling? 

Judge Carter essentially scolded the Justice Department for trying to use legislation intended to prevent voter suppression during the civil rights era to try to “amass and retain an unprecedented amount of confidential voter data.” He largely agreed with many of the concerns laid out by California and other states, and voting rights advocates. And he said further:

Carter also echoed some of the deeper concerns expressed by critics of this effort by the Trump administration, including that the government could use the data to spy on everyday Americans. The Privacy Act was actually put in place in response to Watergate and counterintelligence programs, where the government was spying on folks like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., on the Black Panthers, on anti-war protestors, on Black Americans, in general.

Carter said the Trump administration’s demand for California voters' data violates the Privacy Act.

What is likely to come next in this battle? How does this get resolved?

Judge Carter said from the beginning that he wanted to make a ruling quickly under the assumption that the case would be appealed and could eventually make it to the Supreme Court. If that happens, the Supreme Court could have the final decision on whether the federal government gets access to voter data from California and all the other states it has sued.

Can we go back to those 17 people in Orange County who were removed from the voter rolls. That incident kinda kicked off this whole battle for voter data, at least in California. How did those people get registered to vote in the first place if they weren’t citizens? 

Most people in California register to vote through the DMV. In fact, you are automatically registered to vote when you get a license or change your address unless you opt out, or indicate that you are not eligible to vote.

Basically, you have to check a box saying that you are a citizen. You attest, under penalty of perjury, to being a citizen. That’s required under federal election law. But you don’t have to prove it.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon has vowed to root out voter fraud and "make our elections great again."

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These 17 people removed from the rolls, all but one self-reported that they were ineligible to vote. So it’s possible they made a mistake at the DMV. (The one who didn’t self-report, a Canadian citizen, was charged with four felonies for casting ballots in the primary and general election in 2016.)

Still, some people argue that checking a box attesting to citizenship is not a serious enough safeguard against people who are not eligible to vote actually registering to vote, and perhaps voting. And President Trump has put some of the most vocal critics in positions of power.

Well, how big of a problem are incidents like the 17 non-citizens registered in O.C. and the voting dog? 

On the one hand, 17 people out of about two million registered voters in the county is not a lot. On the other, some elections are won by very slim margins.

Still, many well-respected experts on elections, including Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor, say there’s no indication of widespread election fraud. Yes, we could put in more requirements to guard against fraud, but it would likely come at the expense of shutting out, and at the least, making it more difficult for eligible people to register and vote. Levitt has this analogy he likes to make to put it in perspective:

If we do decide we want more safeguards, Congress could pass a law. In fact, there’s a bill in Congress right now that would amend the National Voter Registration Act to require proof of citizenship to register to vote in a federal election.

But there's still a really big debate about how expansive, how easy versus how hard we want to make it for people to vote. There's a history in this country of making it very difficult for certain people to vote, especially Black Americans.

After the civil rights era, federal rules were put into place to try to encourage participation, to make it easier to vote. And so there's a big question of whether we want to go backwards.

California voters might get a chance to weigh in on this debate in the fall, when we're likely to have a voter ID measure on the ballot. That measure is asking people whether we want to require people to show a photo ID when they vote, or to include the last four digits of a government issued ID on their mail-in ballot.

It also would require the state to try to verify people's citizenship. So that'll be a real test of how Californians feel about this issue.