A residential skyscraper has been approved in the South Park neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles, though it’s unclear how soon construction will begin.
The City Council last week signed off on a proposed 51-story apartment tower at 11th and Olive streets, a few blocks east of Crypto.com Arena and the L.A. Live entertainment district.
New York developer Mack Real Estate Development declined to talk about the planned tower, but documents filed with the city show a tall tower with 536 rental units and ground floor spaces for bars, restaurants and other retail uses. It would have parking for 581 vehicles both underground and above ground.
The site at 1105 S. Olive St. is now a surface parking lot.
When asked when construction of the project might begin, a representative for Mack Real Estate said the company had no comment.
Even though demand for housing is high in Los Angeles, it’s challenging to construct ground-up multi-unit housing in the current financial climate, urban development consultant Hamid Behdad said.
Costs have risen and grown more unpredictable on multiple fronts, Behdad said, raising uncertainty for developers about whether they will be able to rent or sell new units profitably after completing them.
Labor costs have also been increasing in recent years, Behdad said, and the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids have added a destabilizing effect on the construction labor pool.
Some developers who have downtown projects approved but not built are trying to sell them to other developers or investors, he said.
“Nothing is easy,” Behdad said.
South Park, though, is one of downtown’s most vibrant neighborhoods where thousands of new residences have been built in recent years, said Nick Griffin, executive director of the privately funded Downtown Center Business Improvement District, a nonprofit coalition of more than 2,000 property owners.
There is “a demonstrable underlying demand for housing more across the city and region, but specifically in downtown with the occupancy rate at a pretty steady 90% or so,” he said.
The location of Mack Real Estate’s planned project has already proved desirable to developers, Griffin said.
“There have already been several significant projects built along that stretch and there are another four large-scale projects within a couple of blocks, so you’re you’re talking about a significant residential hub” that stands to attract new residents and more development, he said.
Griffin said he hopes developers like Mack Real Estate are getting their projects ready for market conditions to change in the next six months to two years.
“Financial conditions are going to align themselves at some point in the not too distant future,” he said, “and they want to have their projects teed up and ready to go.”
To hear President Trump tell it, Washington, D.C., has become a barbarous hellhole — worse even than Springfield, Ohio, it would seem, where he accused Black immigrants, many from Somalia, of barbecuing pets last year during the campaign.
Back then, Trump was just a candidate. Now, he’s the commander in chief of the U.S. military with a clear desire to use troops of war on American streets, whether it’s for a fancy birthday parade, to enforce his immigration agenda in Los Angeles or to stop car thefts in the nation’s capital.
“It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness,” Trump said during a Monday news conference, announcing that he was calling up National Guard troops to help with domestic policing in D.C.
“We’ll get rid of the slums, too. We have slums here. We’ll get rid of them,” he said. “I know it’s not politically correct. You’ll say, ‘Oh, so terrible.’ No, we’re getting rid of the slums where they live.”
Where “they” live.
While the use of the military on American streets is alarming, it should be just as scary how blatantly this president is tying race not just to crime, but to violence so uncontrollable it requires military troops to stop it. Tying race to criminality is nothing new, of course. It’s a big part of American history and our justice system has unfortunately been steeped in it, from the Jim Crow era to the 1990s war on drugs, which targeted inner cities with the same rhetoric that Trump is recycling now.
The difference between that last attack on minorities — started by President Nixon and lasting through Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, also under the guise of law and order — and our current circumstances is that in this instance, the notion of war isn’t just hyperbole. We are literally talking about soldiers in the streets, targeting Black and brown people. Whether they are car wash employees in California or teenagers on school break in D.C., actual crimes don’t seem to matter. Skin color is enough for law enforcement scrutiny, a sad and dangerous return to an era before civil rights.
“Certainly the language that President Trump is using with regard to D.C. has a message that’s racially based,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law.
Chemerinsky pointed out that just a few days ago, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals called out the Trump administration for immigration raids that were unconstitutional because they were basically racial sweeps. But he is unabashed. His calls for violence against people of color are escalating. It increasingly appears that bringing troops to Los Angeles was a test case for a larger use of the military in civilian settings.
President Trump holds up a chart in front of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during Monday’s news conference announcing the deployment of troops in Washington, D.C.
(Alex Brandon / Associated Press)
“This will go further,” Trump ominously said, making it clear he’d like to see soldiers policing across America.
“We have other cities also that are bad, very bad. You look at Chicago, how bad it is,” he went on. “We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that anymore, they’re so, they’re so far gone.”
In reality, crime is dropping across the United States, including in Washington. As the Washington Post pointed out, violent crime rates, including murders, have for the most part been on a downward trend since 2023. But all it takes is a few explosive examples to banish truth from conscientiousness. Trump pointed out some tragic and horrific examples — including the beating of Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, a former employee of the president’s Department of Government Efficiency who was attacked after attempting to defend a woman during a carjacking recently, not far from the White House.
These are crimes that should be punished, and certainly not tolerated. But the exploitation we are seeing from Trump is a dangerous precedent to justify military force for domestic law enforcement, which until now has been forbidden — or at least assumed forbidden — by the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.
This week, just how strong that prohibition is will be debated in a San Francisco courtroom, during the three-day trial over the deployment of troops in Los Angeles. While it’s uncertain how that case will resolve, “Los Angeles could provide a bit of a road map for any jurisdiction seeking to push back against the Trump administration when there’s a potential threat of sending in federal troops,” Jessica Levinson, a constitutional legal scholar at Loyola Law School, told me.
Again, California coming out as the biggest foil to a Trump autocracy.
But while we wait in the hopes that the courts will catch up to Trump, we can’t be blind to what is happening on our streets. Race and crime are not linked by anything other than racism.
Allowing our military to terrorize Black and brown people under the guise of law and order is nothing more than a power grab based on the exploitation of our darkest natures.
It’s a tactic Trump has perfected, but one which will fundamentally change, and weaken, American justice if we do not stop it.
WASHINGTON — In an expansion of tactics started in June during immigration raids in Los Angeles, President Trump on Monday announced he would take federal control of Washington’s police department and activate 800 National Guard troops in the nation’s capital to help “reestablish law and order.”
“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people,” Trump said at the White House.
“This is liberation day in D.C.,” he declared.
Trump, who sent roughly 5,000 Marines and National Guard troops to L.A. in June in a move that was opposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, issued an executive order declaring a public safety emergency in D.C. The order invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act that places the Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control.
The California governor decried Trump’s move in D.C., warning that what happened in L.A. was now taking place across the country.
“He was just getting warmed up in Los Angeles,” Newsom said on X. “He will gaslight his way into militarizing any city he wants in America. This is what dictators do.”
In his briefing, Trump painted D.C. in dark, apocalyptic terms as a grimy hellhole “of crime, bloodshed, bedlam, squalor and worse.” He said he planned to get tough, citing his administration’s stringent enforcement on the nation’s southern border.
Already, Trump said, his administration has begun to remove homeless people from encampments across the city, and he said he planned to target undocumented immigrants, too. He vowed to “restore the city back to the gleaming capital that everybody wants it to be.”
As the White House noted in a fact sheet Monday, D.C. had a 2024 homicide rate of 27 per 100,000 residents, the nation’s fourth-highest homicide rate. By comparison, Los Angeles’ homicide rate is 7.1 per 100,000 residents.
Just a few weeks before Trump took office, the Justice Department announced that violent crime in the city was at a 30-year low. Homicides were down 32%, robberies down 39% and armed carjackings down 53% when compared with 2023 levels, according to data collected by the Metropolitan Police Department.
In a press conference Monday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called Trump’s deployment of troops “unsettling and unprecedented.” But she also tried to strike a conciliatory tone with the president, acknowledging he was operating within the letter of the law in her district.
“We’re not a state. We don’t control the D.C. National Guard,” she told reporters. “… Limited home rule gives the federal government the ability to intrude on our autonomy in many ways.”
Bowser suggested the president was misinformed about crime in the district, advancing the idea that his views of D.C. were largely shaped by his COVID-era experience.
“It is true that those were more challenging times,” Bowser told reporters. “It is also true that we experienced a crime spike post-COVID. But we worked quickly to put laws in place and tactics that got violent offenders off our streets and gave our police officers more tools, which is why we have seen a huge decrease in crime.”
Accountability for gun-related crimes in the district remains an issue of concern, Bowser said, again offering an olive branch to Trump. But she noted that crime in the capital is down to pre-pandemic levels and that violent crime statistics are at 30-year lows.
Brian Schwalb, the elected attorney general of the District of Columbia, said in a statement that “there is no crime emergency” in D.C. and the administration’s deployment of troops was “unprecedented, unnecessary and unlawful.”
His office refuted the claims of Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, who said juveniles, or as she put it, “young punks,” were too often granted probation or other lenient sentences
In D.C., the U.S. attorney’s office handles all adult felonies and the majority of adult misdemeanors, while Schwalb’s office exercises jurisdiction over crimes committed by juveniles and some adult misdemeanors.
Since Schwalb took office in January 2023, the office has prosecuted so many juveniles at higher rates that the mayor has had to issue an emergency order creating more space at juvenile detention facilities, according to his office. Last year, the office prosecuted over 90% of homicide and attempted homicide cases, 88% of violent assault cases and 87% of carjacking cases, according to the statement.
Ken Lang, a veteran of the Baltimore Police Department and an expert on law enforcement, said that Trump’s actions in D.C. could be an effort “to model a new national law enforcement strategy by having federal, state and local agencies better partner together.”
But because it is a federal district and not a state, he said, D.C. occupies a “unique legal position” under the Home Rule Act.
Oklahoma Mayor David Holt, who is also president of the United States Conference of Mayors, condemned Trump’s move as a “takeover,” and said “local control is always best.”
Holt noted that the Trump administration’s data — specifically, the FBI’s national crime rate report released last week — shows crime rates dropping in cities across the nation.
Trump said the deployment of troops in D.C. should serve as a warning to cities across the nation — including Los Angeles.
“Hopefully L.A.’s watching,” Trump said as he berated Bass and Newsom for their handling of the firestorm that swept through the region in January, destroying thousands of homes.
“The mayor’s incompetent and so is Gov. Newscum,” Trump said. “He’s got a good line of bull—, but that’s about it.”
Trump’s announcement that he was deploying troops to D.C. comes more than two months after he sparked a major legal battle with California when he sent thousands of troops to Los Angeles. He argued they were necessary to combat what he described as “violent, insurrectionist mobs” as protests broke out in the city against federal immigration raids.
But the protests calmed relatively quickly and local officials said they were primarily kept in check by police. The National Guard troops and Marines wound up sparsely deployed in Los Angeles, with some protecting federal buildings and some assisting federal agents as they conducted immigration enforcement operations. Military officials said the troops were restricted to security and crowd control and had no law enforcement authority.
Trump’s deployment of troops to D.C. immediately found its way into the pitched court battle in California over whether his administration violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars federalized military from civilian law enforcement.
As top U.S. military officials testified before Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer in federal court in San Francisco on Monday, California lawyers quickly maneuvered to get Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s statement into evidence, hoping to bolster their argument that the government had not only knowingly violated the law, but was likely to do so again.
“That’s one of the tests for injunctive relief, right?” Breyer said. “Present conduct may be relevant on that issue.”
In June, Breyer ruled that Trump broke the law when he mobilized thousands of California National Guard members against the state’s wishes.
In a 36-page decision, Breyer wrote that Trump’s actions “were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals paused that court order, allowing the troops to remain in Los Angeles while the case plays out in federal court. The appellate court found the president had broad, though not “unreviewable,” authority to deploy the military in American cities.
That decision is set to be reviewed by a larger “en banc” panel of the appellate court. Meanwhile, California continues to fight what it says are illegal uses of the military for civilian law enforcement in Judge Breyer’s court in San Francisco.
When presented with the problem in the past, builders and developers were able to turn lima bean fields and orange groves into row after row of homes. But the vast swaths of open land on the city’s fringes vanished decades ago.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development has said that Los Angeles should add 456,643 new units by 2029 — a number that has generated controversy. To meet those demands, the city will have to create new ways of growing its inventory — strategies that will allow the city’s established communities to welcome many more residents than they are able to accommodate now.
The big questions are, as always: where, how and how much new housing should be built.
Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.
The Times reached out to two sources with scenarios that challenge conventional thinking — two plans for the San Fernando Valley, which, half a century ago, provided the space for much of the city’s growth.
The first scenario proposes awakening a sleepy commercial corridor with low- and mid-rise apartments. The other focuses on 20 miles of vacant land — below electrical transmission lines that snake through the Valley.
Reseda reimagined
Like many L.A. suburbs, Reseda began as a small town center surrounded by fields.
As the West San Fernando Valley developed after World War II, those fields filled with an expansive grid of single-family homes.
Vestiges of Reseda’s small-town beginning still survive in block after block of single-story businesses like the Traders pawnbroker and jewelry store at the intersection of Reseda Boulevard and Sherman Way.
But snapshots of the future have begun to appear. A few blocks to the north, a five-story apartment building rises between a Thai restaurant and a used car lot.
How many more of those would be needed for Reseda, or any similar community, to contribute its fair share of the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation for the city of Los Angeles?
The Times posed that question to Los Angeles-based policy think tank Center for Pacific Urbanism, which has spent years examining the causes of and solutions for L.A.’s housing shortage.
Its recent research created an equity scale to calculate targets for individual communities based on five factors: affordability, environmental quality, transit availability, past down-zoning and socioeconomics.
In the modern era, housing construction across Los Angeles peaked twice, once before the Great Depression and then in a postwar boom.
Reseda was a part of the postwar boom. Initially dominated by single-family homes, growth then shifted to medium-size apartment buildings. Construction of both types fell off precipitously by 1990, as anti-development sentiments gained ascendance. A tiny sliver representing accessory dwelling units has appeared in the last decade, part of a shift in housing topology that is just beginning.
The Reseda-West Van Nuys community falls near the middle of the city’s 34 community planning areas and will need 13,885 new housing units to meet its target. At one extreme, 14,000 single-family homes would meet the need. At the other it would take 1,400 10-unit buildings. The first is unfeasible — there isn’t that much land — and the other, a new high-rise canyon, would be unpalatable.
The Pacific Urbanism staff imagined a hybrid model that, they believe, would allow Reseda to achieve its goal with the least amount of community angst.
The plan looks a lot like a return to the building patterns of the 1970s but with a few significant differences. Like then, more than half of the new units would be provided in large and medium-size apartment buildings. But in place of single-family home construction that was already dwindling, almost a quarter of the new units would come from new housing types that did not exist then — accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and the conversion of existing commercial space into housing.
Above all, the pace of development would have to increase precipitously to reach the state’s 2029 goal.
The reimagined Reseda includes 37 buildings of 100 or more units, 73 medium-size buildings of 25 to 99 units and 484 duplex and small apartment buildings of up to 24 units. There would be 1,854 ADUs, including more than 1,000 that have already been built or permitted since 2020 and more than a thousand units in commercial conversions.
Here’s how the Pacific Urbanism hybrid model could work
The reimagined Reseda includes 37 buildings of 100 or more units, 73 medium-size buildings of 25 to 99 units and 484 duplex and small apartment buildings of up to 24 units. There would be 1,854 ADUs, including more than 1,000 that have already been built or permitted since 2020 and more than a thousand units in commercial conversions.
Existing
Permitted
Projected
The low-density area could see a variety of new building sizes with the largest added along the main corridors
At the moment the majority of the structures are one to four unit properties.
Single-family
2-24 units
25-99
100+
City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Assessor and Pacific Urbanism
A similar result could be achieved with a different mix of housing types. But Dario Alvarez, Pacific Urbanism president, says that his organization’s hybrid scenario, based on building trends across the city, is the most feasible, if those trends persist.
Some progress has been made. Since 2019, city law has given single-family homeowners a right to build second units on their property. A raft of recent state laws provides incentives to builders and homeowners such as increased density for affordable housing and up to four units on single-family lots. And Mayor Karen Bass’ Executive Order 1 streamlined the approval of affordable projects.
Those changes have helped, but don’t “get us anywhere close to what’s needed to meet the target, much less in an equitable way where all communities contribute a fair share,” Alvarez said. According to his calculations, the current rate of construction in Reseda would have to increase 16-fold to meet the target by 2029.
Pacific Urbanism proposes upgrading the zoning from medium- to high-density near the intersection of Reseda Boulevard and Sherman Way and creating medium-density zones to replace much of what is now single-family residences and small businesses.
A review of the Reseda-West Van Nuys community plan, including the zoning, is underway and is in the consulting phase. It’s expected to be complete in a year or two.
Considering the fight that single-family communities generally put up to preserve the character of what has come to represent the “American Dream” — and the single family home and yard —there’s no guarantee those changes will be made. The state housing mandate requires the city only to create a pathway to the housing targets by adjusting zoning that is currently too restrictive.
Bury the transmission lines; build on top
If you’ve spent time in the San Fernando Valley, it would be easy to view the overhead electrical transmission lines that stretch for more than 20 miles simply as essential wallpaper of modern living. The lines help ensure that 1.6 million households and businesses across the city can turn on the lights through a mostly uninterrupted band of 100- to 200-foot tall towers on a 150-foot wide strip of land.
This 20.5-mile path of electrical transmission lines in the Valley could fit 23,000 housing units
California Energy Commission, City of Los Angeles
But what if that land, which travels through the heart of Northridge, Granada Hills, Mission Hills, Arleta and North Hollywood, could continue to power Los Angeles while also meeting the housing needs of tens of thousands of people? The idea is almost too simple: Put the transmission lines underground and homes on top.
We wish such an innovative concept was ours. But it comes from Jingyi “Jessy” Qiu, a Boston-based landscape designer who conceived of the idea while studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Design a few years ago. In Qiu’s vision, the project reclaims dead space in the middle of bustling neighborhoods for the public good.
Qiu calls the right of way beneath the power lines “a land of opportunity to solve the housing problem in L.A.”
The project ticks many of the boxes for what large, sustainable development in Los Angeles can be.
It’s climate-friendly. As the region becomes hotter and drier, taking down overhead power lines lowers the risk of sparking wildfires. And by building in established communities, new residents will be able to reduce their commutes for work and shopping, while existing residents will have new offices and stores nearby.
There’s a way to pay for it. At one point, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which owns the lines and the land underneath, told us it would cost roughly $100 million to put the lines underground. More recently, the public utility said it couldn’t provide a price tag, and that, although possible, undergrounding transmission lines is rare, complex and expensive. An optimist would respond that revenue from the new development could cover much of, if not all, the cost, especially since the land itself would be free.
It’s a lot of housing. By Qiu’s calculations, 23,000 homes could be built along the 20 miles.
Qiu modeled the project through designing superblocks that could be repeated end to end throughout each community.
Courtesy Jingyi “Jessy” Qiu
Neighborhoods and topography along the route differ and so does the planned development. In North Hollywood, a denser mix of small apartments, mixed-use complexes and single-family homes with casitas fills the flatlands. In Granada Hills, lower densities fit in the highlands. In Northridge, student housing is prioritized near the state university.
Today, people who live near the power lines complain of dust, litter and loitering, and worry about wires falling in high winds and storms.
It’s not that the right of way under the power lines now is unkempt. Many nursery businesses fill the land underneath. Landscaping is maintained. It’s just that, as one neighbor put it, barren land attracts negative activity. Of all things, the right of way is dark at night.
Besides housing, the development opens up space to the broader community. There’s room for continued nursery operations while adding parks, courtyards and shared gardens. Qiu even proposes repurposing some existing transmission towers, especially in the hills, into platforms for bird-watching.
How one Granada Hills block might look
Courtesy Jingyi “Jessy” Qiu
One fear, of course, is adding this many new homes to an existing area could cause congestion. But the 20-mile stretch of homes ensures that traffic would be spread out. Superblocks could tie into the current road network and add parking while also providing long and unified bike and pedestrian infrastructure — not to mention the centralized open and community space — to neighborhoods lacking it now.
A future Los Angeles that takes its housing and climate challenges seriously will have to look for opportunities to make better use of space. Fitting 23,000 new homes into the Valley by redeveloping a land now used for a relic hits that mark.
Hours after the Trump administration demanded that the University of California pay a $1-billion fine to settle federal accusations of antisemitism in exchange for restoring frozen grant funding to UCLA, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the proposal “extortion” and said the state will go to court to protect the nation’s premier university system.
“We’ll sue,” Newsom said during a news conference with Texas legislators over California’s effort to counter a contentious Republican redistricting plan in that state.
President Trump is “trying to silence academic freedom” by “attacking one of the most important public institutions in the United States of America,” Newsom said, adding that he would “stand tall and push back against that, and I believe every member of California Legislature feels the same way.”
The federal government on Friday said UC should pay the billion-dollar fine in installments and contribute $172 million to a fund for Jewish students and other individuals affected by alleged violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The statute covers illegal discrimination related to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, including Jewish and Israeli identity.
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In addition, the Trump administration demanded sweeping campus changes encompassing protests, admissions, gender identity in sports and housing, the abolition of scholarships for racial or ethnic groups, and submission to an outside monitor over the agreement, according to four UC senior officials who have reviewed the proposal.
“He has threatened us through extortion with a billion-dollar fine, unless we do his bidding,” Newsom said.
“We will not be complicit in this kind of attack on academic freedom on this extraordinary public institution. We are not like some of those other institutions,” he said.
The governor appeared to be referring to controversial and costly deals the Trump administration secured from Columbia and Brown universities over charges similar to those facing UCLA, deals Newsom criticized a day earlier in public remarks.
In a statement Friday that UC was “reviewing” the terms, UC President James B. Milliken, who oversees the 10-campus system that includes UCLA, also seemed to rebuff the demand.
“As a public university, we are stewards of taxpayer resources and a payment of this scale would completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system as well as inflict great harm on our students and all Californians,” Milliken said. “Americans across this great nation rely on the vital work of UCLA and the UC system for technologies and medical therapies that save lives, grow the U.S. economy, and protect our national security.”
UC Regents Chair Janet Reilly told The Times the university was still willing to negotiate with the Trump administration but not on “unacceptable” terms.
“Demand for a $1 billion payment from UCLA, coupled with conditions that contradict the university’s values, is unacceptable,” Reilly said, describing it as a “financial burden” that would be “catastrophic for our students, research, our patients and the people of California.
“The university remains willing to engage in a constructive and good faith dialogue with the federal government but the University of California will always stand firm in protecting the integrity and values of our institution,” Reilly said.
A spokesperson for UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk referred The Times to Milliken’s statement. Federal negotiations are being handled on a UC-wide level.
UC is grappling with how to restore $584 million in frozen medical and science grant funds to UCLA. If the deal was accepted, it would be the largest settlement between a university and the Trump administration, far surpassing a $221-million agreement that Columbia University announced last month. Harvard is also reportedly considering a settlement involving a hefty fine.
“We would never agree to this,” said one of the UC officials who is involved in the deliberations with the Trump administration. “It is more money than was frozen at UCLA. So how does that make sense?”
But another senior UC official said the figure was understandable if it resolved all federal investigations across the system, even if UC may not ultimately agree to it. The federal proposal focuses on UCLA only, not all campuses.
Any payment would be a political liability for the university and state leaders in deep-blue California, where Trump’s policies are highly unpopular. A billion dollars would be a financial burden for a university system that is already facing a hiring freeze, budget squeezes, deferred state funding and scattered layoffs.
UCLA has faced the most charges from the government of any UC or public university, many of them tied to a 2024 pro-Palestinian encampment.
The encampment, which unsuccessfully demanded the university divest from weapons companies tied to Israel’s war in Gaza, was targeted in a violent overnight attack last spring and was later the subject of federal lawsuit by pro-Israel Jewish students. The students, along with a professor, accused UCLA of enabling antisemitism by not shutting down the encampment, which plaintiffs said blocked pro-Israel Jews from campus pathways. UCLA settled the suit for $6.45 million, including more than $2 million in donations to Jewish nonprofits.
The Trump administration’s Friday offer follows a similar playbook to agreements it reached with Columbia and Brown universities to restore federal funding and resolve allegations of civil rights violations against Jewish and Israeli students.
Trump wants to remake universities, which he has called “Marxist” hotbeds of liberalism and anti-Israel sentiment. During his second term, federal agencies have suspended or canceled billions in federal medical and science grants related to gender, LGBTQ+ issues or in response to campuses it accuses of being antisemitic. The White House has also attacked campus diversity programs and admissions practices as being illegal discrimination against white and Asian Americans.
University leaders have challenged the notion that cutting medical research helps protect Jewish people. “This far-reaching penalty of defunding life-saving research does nothing to address any alleged discrimination,” Frenk, the UCLA chancellor, said in a campus letter this week.
At UCLA, Trump’s demands include an end to scholarships that focus on race or ethnicity, the sharing of admissions data with the government and changes to campus protest rules. The Trump administration is also proposing that UCLA Health and the medical school cease gender-affirming care for transgender people.
The Trump administration is also saying it wants an outside monitor to oversee the agreement.
The proposal came one day after Newsom said UC should not bend “on their knees” to Trump. Newsom, a Democrat, has fashioned himself as a national anti-Trump figure and is considering a presidential run in 2028.
The university system, run by Milliken — who assumed his role only last week — and the Board of Regents, is independent under the state Constitution. But the governor can exercise political sway over the regents, whose members he appoints. Newsom also holds an ex-officio seat on the board.
Kaleem reported from Los Angeles and Wilner from Washington. Times staff Writer Taryn Luna in Sacramento and Seema Mehta in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
The Trump administration on Thursday petitioned the Supreme Court to free up its mass deportation efforts across Southern California, seeking to lift a ban on “roving patrols” implemented after a lower court found such tactics likely violate the 4th Amendment.
The restrictions, initially handed down in a July 11 order, bar masked and heavily armed agents from snatching people off the streets of Los Angeles and cities in seven other counties without first establishing reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.
Under the 4th Amendment, reasonable suspicion cannot be based solely on race, ethnicity, language, location or employment, either alone or in combination, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of Los Angeles found in her original decision.
The Trump administration said in its appeal to the high court that Frimpong’s ruling, upheld last week by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California by hanging the prospect of contempt over every investigative stop.”
Lawyers behind the lawsuits challenging the immigration tactics immediately questioned the Trump administration’s arguments.
“This is unprecedented,” said Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel, part of the coalition of civil rights groups and individual attorneys challenging cases of three immigrants and two U.S. citizens swept up in chaotic arrests. “The brief is asking the Supreme Court to bless open season on anybody on Los Angeles who happens to be Latino.”
The move comes barely 24 hours after heavily armed Border Patrol agents snared workers outside a Westlake Home Depot after popping out of the back of a Penske moving truck — actions some experts said appeared to violate the court’s order.
If the Supreme Court takes up the case, many now think similar aggressive and seemingly indiscriminate enforcement actions could once again become the norm.
“Anything having to do with law enforcement and immigration, the Supreme Court seems to be giving the president free rein,” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law and a prominent scholar of the country’s highest court. “I think the court is going to side with the Trump administration.”
The Department of Justice has repeatedly argued that the temporary restraining order causes “manifest irreparable harm” to the government. Officials are especially eager to see it overturned because California’s Central District is the single most populous in the country, and home to a plurality of undocumented immigrants.
In its Supreme Court petition, the Justice Department alleged that roughly 10% of the region’s residents are in the U.S. illegally.
“According to estimates from Department of Homeland Security data, nearly 4 million illegal aliens are in California, and nearly 2 million are in the Central District of California. Los Angeles County alone had an estimated 951,000 illegal aliens as of 2019 — by far the most of any county in the United States,” the petition said.
President Trump made mass deportations a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, and has poured billions in federal funding and untold political capital into the arrest, incarceration and removal of immigrants. Though Justice Department lawyers told the appellate court there was no policy or quota, administration officials and those involved in planning its deportation operations have repeatedly cited 3,000 arrests a day and a million deportations a year as objectives.
District and appellate courts have stalled, blocked and sometimes reversed many of those efforts in recent weeks, forcing the return of a Maryland father mistakenly deported to Salvadoran prison, compelling the release of student protesters from ICE detention, preserving birthright citizenship for children of immigrant parents and stopping construction of “Alligator Alcatraz.”
But little of the president’s immigration agenda has so far been tested in the Supreme Court.
If the outcome is unfavorable for Trump, some observers wonder whether he will let the justices limit his agenda.
“Even if they were to lose in the Supreme Court, I have serious doubts they will stop,” Segall said.
Arrests of undocumented immigrants have dropped significantly across the Los Angeles region two months after the Trump administration launched its aggressive mass deportation operation, according to new figures released Wednesday by Homeland Security.
Federal authorities told The Times on July 8 that federal agents had arrested 2,792 undocumented immigrants in the seven counties in and around L.A. since June 6. Homeland Security updated that number Wednesday, indicating that fewer than 1,400 immigrants have been arrested in the region in the last month.
“Since June 6, 2025, ICE and CBP have made a total of 4,163 arrests in the Los Angeles area,” Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement provided to The Times.
While 1,371 arrests across the L.A. region since July 8 is still a much higher figure than any recent month before June, it represents a notable drop from the 2,792 arrests during the previous month.
The new figures confirm what many immigration experts suspected: The Trump administration’s immigration agenda in L.A. has faltered since federal courts blocked federal agents from arresting people without probable cause to believe they are in the U.S. illegally.
McLaughlin said Wednesday that Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s agenda remained the same.
“Secretary Noem unleashed ICE and CBP to arrest criminal illegal aliens including terrorists, gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and sexual predators,” McLaughlin said in a statement Wednesday. “We will continue to enforce the law and remove the worst of the worst.”
Trump administration officials have long maintained they are focused on criminals. But a few days after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller announced in late May he had set a new goal of arresting 3,000 undocumented migrants across the country a day, federal agents fanned out across L.A. to snatch people off the streets and from their workplaces.
White House top border policy advisor Tom Homan suggested federal officials adopted the strategy of raiding streets and workplaces to get around “sanctuary” jurisdictions, such as Los Angeles, that bar municipal resources and personnel from being used for immigration enforcement.
“If we can’t arrest them in jail, we’ll go out to the communities,” Homan told CBS News.
But after local protesters rallied to resist and Trump deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines to the city, the administration’s ability to ramp up deportations across L.A. was dealt a blow in the federal courts.
On July 11, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of President Biden, issued a temporary restraining order that blocks federal agents in southern and central California from targeting people based on their race, language, vocation or location without reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.
That decision was upheld last Friday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. It is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court.
“If, as Defendants suggest, they are not conducting stops that lack reasonable suspicion,” the panel wrote, “they can hardly claim to be irreparably harmed by an injunction aimed at preventing a subset of stops not supported by reasonable suspicion.”
It’s hard to know whether July numbers signal a permanent change in tactics.
On Tuesday, Border Patrol agent carried out a raid at the Home Depot in Westlake, arresting 16 people.
“For those who thought Immigration enforcement had stopped in Southern California, think again,” acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli posted on X shortly after the raid. “The enforcement of federal law is not negotiable and there are no sanctuaries from the reach of the federal government.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said her office was looking into the matter but added: “From the video and from the stills, it looks like the exact same thing that we were seeing before.”
When Natalie Babcock and Samuel Gibson found a listing for a sunny apartment in Beachwood Canyon five years ago, they immediately fell for the two bedroom’s charming built-in bookshelves, faux fireplace, hardwood floors and formal dining room. Practical amenities such as an in-unit laundry and a garage, which are often elusive in Los Angeles rentals, didn’t hurt.
In this series, we spotlight L.A. rentals with style. From perfect gallery walls to temporary decor hacks, these renters get creative, even in small spaces. And Angelenos need the inspiration: Most are renters.
Today, however, the couple says they are most impressed by the sense of belonging they have found in the community just outside their 1928 Spanish fourplex. Here, where tourists and brides in wedding gowns often pose for photographs in the middle of the street in an effort to capture the Hollywood sign in the background, Babcock and Gibson have become part of a larger family. “Everyone knows our dogs’ names,” says Babcock, a 35-year-old educator working in the adolescent mental health field. “There is a true community vibe in this neighborhood.”
Adds Gibson, a 38-year-old screenwriter and Spanish professor and tutor from London: “I’ve never lived in a place that felt like a neighborhood. We’re in a message group with our neighbors. Sometimes our dog walks take forever because we stop every few minutes to say hello to someone.”
The couple was living in a charming apartment in Los Feliz when Gibson had to return to England to care for his mother, who had pancreatic cancer. Compounding their distress, Babcock’s father suffered a stroke, and Babcock moved in with her parents to help her sister, Eve, care for their father.
“It was the worst year of our lives,” Babcock recalls of that period. “Sam’s mother died, and my father had a catastrophic stroke.”
Their Los Feliz apartment was filled with bad memories, and they were excited by the prospect of creating happier memories in a new apartment.
Gibson’s office is decorated with artworks by local artists including his sister and one found on the street.
After scouring countless rentals online, the couple found a listing for the Hollywood apartment on Zillow, only to encounter what they now describe as “a feeding frenzy” when they arrived at the open house. The apartment, they say, was priced too low at $2,995 compared with similar units, and they were faced with fierce competition.
So they decided to do what many people do when trying to persuade sellers to choose them to buy their house. They wrote a letter about themselves, included photos and sent it to their potential new landlord.
“Eve and I were in a panic because the apartment was so beautiful and we really wanted to live there,” says Babcock. “The three of us were an unconventional group, though, and we hoped they might choose us.”
The couple enjoys having dinner parties in their dining room, which has a mix of chairs and benches.
When they moved into the apartment in February 2020, they were thrilled, not realizing they would end up isolating there together during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The apartment was a welcome reset,” Babcock says, “It gave us plenty of time to nest and decorate.”
A year later, Eve moved out, and Gibson converted her bedroom into an art-filled office that now doubles as a guest room when family and friends visit. The key to a comfortable — and flexible — guest bed, they say, is a durable mattress topper from IKEA, which they store in the garage and carry into the apartment when they have overnight guests. “Blow-up mattresses always deflate,” Babcock says of their choice. “This is a better option.”
The couple’s taste is vibrant, and the colorful interiors reflect their sense of fun and love of design. They painted one wall in Samuel’s office a dramatic Kelly green, which makes the white-trimmed windows and his extensive art collection pop. Behind their bed in their bedroom, they painted an accent wall a charcoal hue, which gives the bedroom a peaceful feel.
Pictures of family and friends decorate the refrigerator.
Decorative tiles and sunshine illuminate the kitchen.
“Paint is your friend,” Babcock says. “Be bold in your color choices, and when it comes to DIY and landlords, ask for forgiveness, not permission.”
A glance around the apartment confirms not just their love of art but also the personal stories behind each piece: framed prints in the kitchen, black-and-white photographs in the dining room, large-scale oil paintings in the living room and hallway, and mixed-media pieces in the office, including works from local artists, EBay, Gibson’s sister and even one found on the street.
Mixed in with the artwork is an abundance of lush houseplants, including Monstera deliciosa, a rubber tree and a ponytail palm, that is thriving thanks to the surplus of bright, indirect light that filters in through the large picture windows overlooking bustling Beachwood Drive.
“Art is one thing that I am always happy to spend money on,” Gibson says.
In the bedroom, a charcoal-colored accent wall, vintage furnishings and art help to create an inviting retreat.
A painting by Alexander Mayet hangs in the hallway.
Last year, Gibson painted the kitchen walls blue and installed peel-and-stick floor tiles from WallPops over the dated yellow linoleum flooring, providing an inexpensive, albeit temporary, update. (One package of a dozen 6.2 x 6.2-inch sheets costs $17.99.)
“It wasn’t the hardest project,” Gibson says, “but you do have to measure each tile to the centimeter because the apartment has moved slightly over the years, presumably from earthquakes.”
Throughout the 1,200-square-foot apartment, the couple has decorated with vintage Midcentury furniture and thrifted furnishings and accessories sourced from Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist.
“There’s something nice about scraping together designs,” says Gibson. “It’s like a puzzle where you have to patch different styles together.”
Peaches lounges on the sofa in the living room.
In the living room, the couple has furnished the space with an L-shaped Bensen sofa, which they purchased at a warehouse sale mentioned on Craigslist, comfortable yellow swivel chairs they picked up from the back of someone’s car in downtown L.A. and a pair of leather loungers they found on Facebook Marketplace.
To accommodate their love of hosting formal dinner parties, they purchased a table that seats eight, which they found on Craigslist. “We found it in a grungy flat in Hollywood,” Gibson says.
Admitting her husband “has become the primary household chef,” Babcock takes the lead when it comes to dinner parties and “goes all out.”
“Sometimes our dog walks take forever because we stop every few minutes to say hello to someone,” says Gibson.
“I grew up around the dining-room table,” says Babcock, a Los Angeles native who was raised in West Los Angeles.
In the corner of their dining room, across from a thrifted wooden bar cart, they installed a stone cigar table inspired by their trip to Casa Luis Barragán in Mexico City. They purchased it from a designer who was living in a loft in downtown Los Angeles.
Ultimately, some of their rental’s decor, such as having washable sofa covers, is influenced by their dogs Chili, whom they rescued as a puppy in 2020, and Peaches, their “foster fail,” whom they adopted in 2023 after a neighbor pulled her from a shelter the day she was scheduled to be euthanized.
“We’ve made great friends here,” says Gibson. “From our apartment, we can walk the dogs in every direction. We can walk to the Hollywood Reservoir in the Hollywood Hills, to the caves in Bronson Canyon, to the Sunset Ranch stables at the top of Beachwood Drive, or to Griffith Park, which is a two-hour loop.”
Chili gives Babcock a kiss in the living room.
Do they ever dream of owning a home like other couples their age? “Yes, of course,” Gibson says. “But I think we would truly never leave this apartment unless we could buy a house with a yard. It’s like London, in that, having a yard is a luxury.”
Babcock agrees, admitting that small things such as an outdoor space for the dogs or a second bathroom would be nice.
But it would be a shame “to buy a house that’s not as nice as this,” Gibson says.
In the meantime, they are happy in their Hollywood Hills home, which reflects their love of art and their deep affection for their sweet-natured four-legged friends and their neighborhood.
“We joke that we will die here,” Babcock adds, laughing.
MOJAVE, Calif. — One of the largest solar and battery power plants in the United States is now supplying Los Angeles and Glendale from Kern County.
Local leaders and clean energy experts gathered Tuesday beneath a blazing desert sun to mark the initiation of full production from 1.36 million solar panels and 172 lithium iron phosphate batteries that make up the Eland solar-plus-storage electricity project. It’s as large as 13 Dodger stadiums, parking lots included, and will generate 7% of the electricity for all of the city of Los Angeles, much of it at a record-low price.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s biggest solar and battery storage plant, the Eland Solar and Storage Center in the Mojave Desert of Kern County on Nov. 25, 2024, near California City, Calif.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
“This is the largest project for LADWP when it comes to solar and battery, and that is a huge accomplishment for us because it takes away the fear of doing more of these — and we need about 10 more of these to hit our goals,” said Janisse Quiñones, chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The city has committed to 100% clean energy by 2035.
With Eland’s power now flowing through its grid, L.A. is nearly two-thirds of the way there: The project has pushed the city’s total supply to 64% clean energy, Quiñones said. Other sources of power in L.A.’s portfolio include hydrogen, natural gas, biomass, geothermal, nuclear and coal, which the city aims to decommission by the end of this year.
The $2-billion Eland project was developed by Arizona-based Arevon Energy and will also supply solar electricity to Glendale Water and Power.
While Eland’s sprawling solar panels are eye-catching, it’s the unassuming batteries — which look like rows of large white shipping containers — that are the real crux of the project.
Battery energy storage units at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s biggest solar and battery storage plant, the Eland Solar and Storage Center in the Mojave Desert of Kern County.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Locating batteries together with solar power or wind allows them to charge up on the clean energy, then feed it back to people’s homes after the sun goes down or the wind stops blowing. At the end of 2023, there were close to 469 such “hybrid” clean power plants in the U.S., according to a recent report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
In California, nearly every new solar project waiting to be connected to the electrical grid included batteries.
All scenarios for effectively addressing climate change call for using storage.
The Eland project is also coming online as the Trump administration is slowing the transition to clean energy with dozens of measures that favor electricity made from coal and natural gas. The president’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill ends federal tax credits for wind and solar within the next two years.
But in California and a number of other states where addressing climate change is mandated, the transition is likely to continue.
“I spent 12 years in D.C., and to be home, where this is not a controversy — there’s no controversy about climate goals and solar and renewables — it’s an exciting day,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told The Times.
Eland “represents a significant milestone toward reaching our climate goals, and it also just reinforces our stature of leading the country in terms of renewables and moving toward clean energy goals,” Bass said.
Kevin Smith, chief executive officer of Arevon, said solar paired with battery storage is currently the cheapest source of energy “with or without tax credits,” and the fastest to deliver to market. The Eland project took about two years to complete once the first shovel was in the ground, compared with nuclear or natural gas projects that can take several years longer, he said.
Smith also cited the sudden increase in forecast need for electricity for data centers. “If we don’t meet that demand, that means the AI future is going to be won by the Chinese, because they’re building more solar in a month than we build in a couple of years.”
Two-thirds of all the renewable energy installed globally in 2024 was in China, which strongly encourages the buildout.
In the U.S. now, such projects must either begin construction by next July or be placed into service by the end of 2027 in order to receive a federal tax credit.
But much of Eland’s success will depend on DWP, which has committed to a 25-year, $1.5-billion contract for its power, with options to buy the facility outright as soon as Year 10, according to company officials.
Eland marks DWP’s first utility-scale integrated solar and battery project. Its two facilities combined — the first phase opened last year — will generate 758 megawatts of solar power and store up to 1,200 megawatt-hours of energy, all of which can be dispatched during peak demand in the evening or nighttime.
DWP officials said Eland is the lowest-cost project in their portfolio, with the cost of generation and storage averaging about 4 cents per kilowatt hour. The energy is expected to be neutral or even a cost savings for ratepayers, company officials said.
Workers install solar panels for the Eland Solar and Storage Center in the Mojave Desert of Kern County.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
That’s partly because DWP was able to contract for the power prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing supply chain issues, and well before new market uncertainties related to tariffs, according to Quiñones.
Experts say such projects can’t come soon enough. Last year was Earth’s hottest on record, with rising global temperatures driven primarily by fossil fuel emissions. The Eland project alone is expected to avoid emissions equivalent to about 120,000 cars, according to company officials.
“When the City of Los Angeles first pursued renewable power some twenty years ago, it did so on moral grounds. It was ‘the right thing to do’ to reduce the City’s greenhouse gas emissions,” Jonathan Parfrey, executive director of the nonprofit Climate Resolve, said in a statement. “Flash forward to today — and solar power is now the right thing to do economically, producing electricity at a cost lower than that of coal, natural gas and nuclear power.”
About 75% of the state’s energy on Tuesday came from renewables, according to the California Independent System Operator.
With Eland, DWP is well on track to meet its 100% clean energy goal by 2035, although Quiñones said the last 3% to 4% will be the most challenging.
But a project like Eland — the largest DWP has ever done — “demonstrates our commitment toward our renewable and clean energy transition,” Quiñones said. “We’re not backing down from that.”
WASHINGTON — In past Olympic Games held on American soil, sitting presidents have served in passive, ceremonial roles. President Trump may have other plans.
An executive order signed by Trump on Tuesday names him chair of a White House task force on the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, viewed by the president as “a premier opportunity to showcase American exceptionalism,” according to a White House statement. Trump, the administration said, “is taking every opportunity to showcase American greatness on the world stage.”
At the White House, speaking in front of banners adding the presidential seal to the logo for LA28, Trump said he would send the military back to Los Angeles if he so chose in order to protect the Games. In June, Trump sent the National Guard and U.S. Marines to the city amid widespread immigration enforcement actions, despite widespread condemnation from Mayor Karen Bass and other local officials.
“We’ll do anything necessary to keep the Olympics safe, including using our National Guard or military, OK?” he said. “I will use the National Guard or the military. This is going to be so safe. If we have to.”
Trump’s executive order establishes a task force led by him and Vice President JD Vance to steer federal coordination for the Games. The task force will work with federal, state and local partners on security and transportation, according to the White House.
Those roles have been fairly standard for the federal government in past U.S.-hosted Olympic Games. But Trump’s news conference could present questions about whether a president with a penchant for showmanship might assume an unusually active role in planning the Olympics, set to take place in the twilight of his final term.
There is ample precedent for military and National Guard forces providing security support during U.S.-hosted Olympic Games. But coming on the heels of the recent military deployment to Los Angeles, Trump’s comments may prove contentious.
French President Emmanuel Macron was a key figure in preparations for last year’s Paris Games, including expressing his vocal support for the ambitious Olympic opening ceremony plan to parade athletes down the Seine River on boats. Many officials were concerned about potential threats along the 3.7-mile stretch, but authorities responded by increasing security measures that included up to 45,000 police officers and 10,000 soldiers.
The task force, to be housed within the Department of Homeland Security, will “assist in the planning and implementation of visa processing and credentialing programs for foreign athletes, coaches, officials, and media personnel,” the executive order said. City officials have expressed concern that the president’s border policies could deter international visitors and complicate visa processing for Olympic teams.
Tensions with L.A.
More concentrated involvement from Trump could spell further strain with Los Angeles city officials, who sought to make nice in the wake of devastating January fires, but have fiercely bucked Trump’s recent immigration offensive. Trump swiped at Bass during his remarks on Tuesday, calling her “not very competent” and criticizing the pace of city permitting for fire rebuilding.
“We’ve had a productive working relationship with the federal government since Los Angeles was awarded the Games in 2017 and we will continue preparing with all partners to host the best Games in history – Games that will benefit the entire nation for decades to come,” Bass spokesperson Zach Seidl said.
Known for her coalition-building skills, Bass is not, by nature, a public brawler. In the aftermath of the Palisades fire, she appeared determined to preserve her fragile relationship with the president — and the billions of dollars of federal aid her city was depending on — responding diplomatically even as he publicly attacked her.
But that determined cordiality crumbled when masked immigration agents and military personnel descended on the city. With troops stationed in the city and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal authorities arresting undocumented immigrants at courthouses, car washes and Home Depot parking lots, Bass took on Trump forcefully.
At news conferences and in interviews, she accused the president of waging “an all-out assault on Los Angeles,” inciting chaos and fear and using the city as “a test case for an extremist agenda.”
Casey Wasserman, chairman of LA28, attended the White House event, thanking Trump for “leaning in” to planning for an Olympics that was awarded to Los Angeles during his first term.
“You’ve been supportive and helpful every step of the way,” Wasserman said, noting that the Games would amount to hosting seven Super Bowls a day for 30 days. “With the creation of this task force, we’ve unlocked the opportunity to level up our planning and deliver the largest, and yes, greatest Games for our nation, ever.”
Wasserman will also have a delicate political balancing act, managing a Games in a deep-blue city with a famously mercurial Republican president in office.
President Trump holds a full set of medals from the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles during Tuesday’s event at which he announced an executive order regarding federal involvement in the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)
A Hollywood scion and sports and entertainment mogul, Wasserman has long been a prominent Democratic donor known for his close relationship with the Clintons.
But in recent months he has diversified his giving, with hefty donations to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and House Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership fund. Wasserman has publicly praised Trump’s commitment to the Games and traveled to Mar-a-Lago in January to meet with the incoming president.
Presidents have long played a role in the Games. In 1984, Ronald Reagan formally opened the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, becoming the first American president to do so. Reagan attended several Olympic events, but repeatedly emphasized the federal government’s role was focused on security, according to the White House Historical Assn.
The Olympic Charter requires the host country’s head of state to officially open the Games, but before Reagan, the duty had been fulfilled by local political leaders or vice presidents representing the president.
Ever-tightening security
The federal government has historically provided significant funding when the Games are hosted on U.S. soil, with financial support going toward both security and infrastructure.
Leading up to the 1996 Games in Atlanta, the federal government spent $227 million on security and transportation, playing “very much a junior partner” to the Olympic Committee, then-Vice President Al Gore said at the time. Still, a bombing at the Centennial Olympic Park during the Games that summer shook the security establishment.
The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City were the first Games to be classified as a “National Special Security Event,” the government’s highest security rating for any event that designates the U.S. Secret Service as the lead agency for implementing security. That standard has remained in place for U.S.-held Olympic Games ever since. The Secret Service will also lead security coordination for the 2028 Games.
The federal government was particularly involved in the Salt Lake City Games, which were held just months after the 9/11 attacks.
Los Angeles leaders are actively involved in the security planning, and are currently in negotiations with LA28 for the use of the city’s police, traffic officers, and other employees during the Olympics and Paralympics.
Security, trash removal, traffic control, paramedics and more will be needed during the 17-day Olympics and the two-week Paralympics the following month.
Under the2021 Games agreement between LA28 and the city, LA28 must reimburse Los Angeles for any services that go beyond what the city would provide on a normal day. The two parties must agree by Oct. 1, 2025, on “enhanced services” — additional city services needed for the Games, beyond that normal level — and determine rates, repayment timelines, audit rights and other processes.
Overtime for Los Angeles police officers, and any other major expenses, would be acutely felt by a city government that recentlyclosed a nearly $1-billion budget deficit, in part by slowing police hiring.
Wilner reported from Washington, Wick and Nguyen from Los Angeles. Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.
The Department of Justice published a new list Tuesday of “sanctuary” jurisdictions that it claims have policies, laws or regulations that obstruct enforcement of federal immigration laws.
Although the list includes the Trump administration’s typical targets — the city of Los Angeles and the state of California — it is much shorter than a previous list issued by the Department of Homeland Security. And at least one local area that has become a major battleground over immigration is not on it: L.A. County.
In a news release, the Department of Justice said Tuesday that the new federal list of 35 cities, counties and states — a much lower figure than the hundreds of jurisdictions that appeared on the previous Homeland Security list — is “not exhaustive” and “will be updated as federal authorities gather further information.”
A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not answer specific questions from The Times about why L.A. County was not on the list.
“These designations were made after a thorough review of documented laws, ordinances, and executive directives by the listed jurisdictions,” the agency states on its website. “This initial list of designated Sanctuary Jurisdictions will be reviewed regularly, to include additional jurisdictions and remove jurisdictions that have remediated their policies, practices, and laws. Each state, county, and city will have an opportunity to respond to its placement on the list.”
The new Justice Department list is just the latest effort by the Trump administration to ramp up pressure on cities, counties and states that have policies or laws that restrict collaboration with federal immigration authorities.
But it also represents a more targeted focus. The previous Homeland Security list, which included most of California’s 58 counties, sparked ridicule for its errors. It even included the conservative city of Huntington Beach, which declared itself a nonsanctuary city a few days after Trump took office and sued the state of California over its sanctuary policies.
Gov. Gavin’s Newsom office dismissed the new Department of Justice list Tuesday as “another PR stunt by the federal government to scare people.”
“Like their last failed attempt at this ridiculous and meaningless list, which they were forced to pull down within days because of the backlash, this was created without any input or criteria,” Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokesperson for the governor, said Tuesday in a statement. “California is confident in the balance of our law.”
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass also seemed committed to her city’s sanctuary status.
“Los Angeles’ law is legally sound and we will always stand with the people of Los Angeles, especially in the face of continued assaults on our city,” Bass told The Times.
Now that the Department of Justice has winnowed down its inventory of offenders, California is one of 13 states, mostly on the West Coast and in the Northeast, that the Trump administration has identified as having policies or laws that impede federal immigration agents.
Only four county jurisdictions across the country are included in the Department of Justice list: Baltimore County, Md.; Cook County, Ill.; San Diego County and San Francisco County. Three of the 18 cities on the list — Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Francisco — are in California.
“Sanctuary policies impede law enforcement and put American citizens at risk by design,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement Tuesday. “The Department of Justice will continue bringing litigation against sanctuary jurisdictions and work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to eradicate these harmful policies around the country.”
In April, Trump signed an executive order, “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens,” directing the Justice Department to work with Homeland Security to publish a list of jurisdictions that “continue to use their authority to violate, obstruct, and defy the enforcement of Federal immigration laws.”
The Justice Department has since taken legal action against a number of sanctuary jurisdictions — including L.A., where the City Council voted unanimously in November to declare the city a sanctuary jurisdiction and block any city resources from being used for immigration enforcement.
In June, the Justice Department filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and the L.A. City Council that described L.A.’s sanctuary law as “illegal.” Officials, the lawsuit said, “refuse to cooperate or share information, even when requested, with federal immigration authorities.”
“Jurisdictions like Los Angeles that flout federal law by prioritizing illegal aliens over American citizens are undermining law enforcement at every level,” Bondi said in a June statement. “It ends under President Trump.”
Last month, Bondi announced a “major victory” for the Department of Justice: the city of Louisville, Ky., she said, was ditching its sanctuary policies after receiving a letter from her office.
“This should set an example to other cities,” Bondi said on X. “Instead of forcing us to sue you — which we will, without hesitation — follow the law, get rid of sanctuary policies, and work with us to fix the illegal immigration crisis.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department said in a news release that “the federal government will assist any jurisdiction that desires to be taken off this list to identify and eliminate their sanctuary policies.”
L.A. County leaders have at times taken steps to oppose Trump’s aggressive clampdown on immigrants. Last week, for example, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors voted 4 to 0 to direct county lawyers to draft an ordinance that prohibits officers, including federal agents, from concealing their identities with masks, except for medical reasons or when working in an undercover operation.
But county officials have stopped short of declaring the county a sanctuary jurisdiction. And on Tuesday few L.A. County leaders responded publicly to the news that the county was no longer on the federal government’s official list of sanctuary jurisdictions.
In a statement to The Times after the Justice Department released its list, L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who abstained from last week’s vote on masked law enforcement, said she had “worked hard to advance a thoughtful approach to governance — one that upholds the law while respecting the dignity of all individuals.”
“I remain committed to leading with transparency, accountability, and a balanced perspective that prioritizes both public safety and community trust,” Barger said.
Sports and music fans, flocking to a once-questionable corner of downtown, were the springboard for an L.A.-born multibillion-dollar empire of venues and events for screaming enthusiasts around the globe.
AEG, the company behind Crypto.com Arena and the L.A. Live district, has turned its know-how about hosting and promoting big shows into a formula it has rolled out on five continents. It is literally setting the stages for the world’s biggest pop stars, sports teams and even — most recently — sumo wrestlers.
It is one of the city’s lesser-known global success stories. With more than 20,000 employees and billions of dollars of projects running at any one time, AEG is one of the planet’s biggest venue and event companies. L.A.’s high concentration of sports teams and musical talent forced it to develop a system that uses its spaces for up to five different events in a day.
“We learned how to be nimble in moving from one to the other to really maximize,” AEG Chief Executive Dan Beckerman told The Los Angeles Times.
AEG is prospering by executing a fairly simple business plan, said Andrew Zimbalist, professor emeritus of economics at Smith College. Its industry is fairly straightforward — and more use of each seat gives the company more capital to build more venues.
“You have to pick your niche, have capital, have tenacity,” he said. “And stick with it.”
Sumo wrestlers bashed bellies this month in AEG’s newest venue on the grounds of a legendary castle. The recently opened IG Arena stands in the outer citadel of Nagoya Castle in Nagoya, Japan, which was built in the early 1600s, when samurai battles raged in the region.
While the summer sumo tournament required a traditional ring of sand, clay and rice straw bales, the arena will be soon be transformed to host such diverse events as a basketball clinic hosted by the L.A. Lakers’ Rui Hachimura, a professional boxing match and a concert by English musician Sting.
The new IG Arena in Nagoya, Japan stands in the outer citadel of Nagoya Castle.
(AEG)
In Nagoya and increasingly across East and Southeast Asia, AEG is doing what it does better than most — build arenas that can host pro sports and shows by big-name artists, with the venues often built within an ecosystem of bars, restaurants and hotels also built by the company and its partners.
The company was founded in 1995 when Denver billionaire investor Philip Anschutz bought the Los Angeles Kings and in 1999 opened the downtown arena then known as the Staples Center, which was built by Anschutz and Kings co-owner Ed Roski.
It was considered a risky project at the time, when the gritty blocks near the Los Angeles Convention Center were deemed undesirable by most real estate developers. AEG added the $3 billion L.A. Live complex in 2007, and other developers also moved into the South Park district, building hotels, restaurants and thousands of residential units.
The popular venues have now hosted 22 Grammy Awards shows, a Democratic National Convention, two Stanley Cup championships, six NBA championships and All-Star hockey and basketball weekends.
That high-profile success gave it an edge when competing to build or buy around the world. AEG has expanded to own and operate more than 100 venues serving 100 million guests annually. Among its holdings are the Los Angeles Galaxy soccer team and German pro ice hockey team Eisbären Berlin. As the second biggest event promoter in the world, it puts on large festivals including the annual Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival and American Express Presents BST Hyde Park music festival in London.
It has faced slowdowns and other tough periods as well.
Its London arena was the site of Michael Jackson’s planned comeback announced in 2009. During a period when he was rehearsing for the physically demanding shows, Jackson died.
His mother and three children sued AEG Live in 2010. The lawsuit alleged that AEG was negligent in its hiring of the physician who administered the fatal dose of propofol that led to Jackson’s death. A Los Angeles jury unanimously decided that the concert promoter wasn’t liable in the singer’s death.
“People heard of AEG because of Michael Jackson and the subsequent lawsuit from the family,” said Randy Phillips, former manager of music promotions at AEG. “They would never have even known what it is.”
The company was laid low during the pandemic, when live events were canceled starting in March 2020. Venues stayed dark until well into 2021, when AEG started putting on sports events with no audiences and later with limited seating. Times changed in 2022 when revenues reached new records as fans stormed back, Beckerman said.
“We were all very pleasantly surprised,” he said. “I think people learned during the pandemic that there really is no substitute for live events.”
AEG also lost a longtime arena tenant when the Los Angeles Clippers moved to a new arena in Inglewood after the team’s lease at Crypto.com Arena expired in 2024. Owner Steve Ballmer said he wanted the Clippers to have their own home that they didn’t share with other teams.
AEG’s touring business lifted off with a 2001 concert with Britney Spears at Staples Center.
“The Britney Spears tour is what broke the company wide open,” said Phillips, who became head of music promotions for AEG after landing Spears. “That’s when we became players.”
Big acts followed including Tom Petty, Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and Pink.
AEG expanded its U.S. concert touring empire by building large multipurpose arenas in Las Vegas and Kansas City. It also is establishing a network of smaller venues such as the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles and the Showbox in Seattle. It recently opened the Pinnacle at Nashville Yards, a concert hall that is part of a mixed-use district including housing and offices that AEG and a local partner are developing in downtown Nashville.
Its highest-profile property outside of Los Angeles is in London, where the company resurrected a large dome-shaped building built to house an exhibition celebrating the turn of the millennium in 2000. After AEG’s redevelopment of the site, the O2 Arena became one of the world’s busiest venues for entertainment and sports with 10 million visitors a year.
In Berlin, the company built the Uber Arena, one of the highest-grossing arenas in the world and part of an entertainment district with restaurants and theaters.
The Nagoya project is part of the company’s pan-Asian strategy to grow its real estate empire and create more venues for artists like Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran.
The United States and Europe, where AEG has long been active, are largely built-out with modern arenas for sports and entertainment, but many Asian countries are ready to upgrade their old facilities.
“Japan is at the top of the list” for AEG, said Ted Fikre, head of development at the company.
The country’s venues are typically decades old and pale in comparison to modern multi-use arenas typically found in the U.S. and Europe.
The IG Arena in Nagoya, with a capacity of 17,000, is expected to annually host 150 events for 1.4 million attendees at concerts, basketball games and other live entertainment.
AEG has an even larger development in the works in Osaka. Plans call for an 18,000-seat arena that will anchor an entertainment district with hotels, offices, shops and restaurants along with housing. Valued at more than $1 billion, Fikre compared the Osaka project to its largest mixed-use districts — L.A. Live in Los Angeles and the O2 in London. The project is set to break ground in 2027.
In partnership with the NBA, the company built Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai in 2010. It is also involved in plans for South Korea, Singapore and Thailand.
“The ambition for us is to establish a strong presence throughout the Asia region, and we’ve got a good head start,” Fikre said.
A panoramic view of L.A. Live in Los Angeles, CA on Friday, July 18, 2025.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
AEG opened a 4,500-capacity venue in Bangkok last year with a concert by Ed Sheeran. The company is also working with one of Thailand’s largest mall operators to build an 18,000-seat arena in a sprawling regional mall just east of Bangkok, set to open in 2028.
AEG’s network of venues throughout Asia makes it easier to book big-name artists.
“It’s a bit tricky to tour in Asia because of the expense of traveling around the region,” Fikre said. “It’s not like you’re in the U.S., where you just take a bunch of trucks” from city to city.
Aerial view of Crypto.com Arena and the L.A. Live sports and entertainment district of Los Angeles.
(AEG)
Swift completed the international leg of her most recent tour last year that included six nights in Singapore and four nights in Tokyo to sold-out audiences booked by AEG Presents as her international promoter. Sheeran played in Bhutan, India and other Asian countries he hadn’t previously visited in venues booked by AEG.
The international trend now works in both directions for AEG, with K-pop acts such as BTS, Blackpink and other global stars packing AEG venues in the West.
Almost since the first suburbs were built in Los Angeles, there have been worries that adding density would “Manhattanize” L.A., rendering it so crowded with new vertical development as to be unrecognizable to longtime residents. In the 1980s, as battles over growth heated up, one local slow-growth group dubbed itself Not Yet New York.
But Los Angeles has always been a city with a knack for reshaping itself by looking to its own architectural past. In particular, medium-density designs such as bungalow courts and dingbat apartments have welcomed waves of newcomers for more than a century while becoming architectural emblems of upward mobility and a particularly Southern Californian design sensibility — informal and optimistic.
We have never needed a return to that kind of development more than now, in the wake of the Eaton and Palisades fires, even as public discussion has focused mostly on rebuilding exactly what was lost. With affordability pressures as intense as ever, now is the time not to Manhattanize but, once again, to Los Angelize L.A.
As longtime advocates for design excellence and policies to boost housing production, we believe there is nothing more Angeleno than the reinvention of the so-called R1 neighborhood, the single-family zone that first emerged in L.A. with the Residential District Ordinance of 1908. R1 zoning shifted into overdrive in 1941 when tract houses emerged to replace the bean fields of Westchester, near what is now Los Angeles International Airport.
It wasn’t until 2016, with the appearance of a new state law allowing accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, that the R1 neighborhood evolved in any meaningful way. Even the most ardent champions of ADUs — aka granny flats or casitas — couldn’t have foreseen how widely popular they’d become. Today, about one-fifth of new housing permits in California and a whopping one-third in the city of L.A. are ADUs.
Still, the granny flat is no silver bullet. The housing affordability crisis in Los Angeles demands a more ambitious approach than adding new residential development one small unit at a time. State laws allowing as many as 10 apartments on a single-family lot have been on the books for several years now. But homeowners and developers have been slow to take advantage of them, and many California cities have dragged their feet in making them truly usable.
The result has been a stalemate, with Los Angeles among the cities struggling to take the important step past the ADU to begin producing additional missing-middle housing in real volume, even as rents and home prices continue to climb. The city‘s Low-Rise LA design challenge was organized in 2020 to help break this logjam. Many of the winners incorporated design lessons clarified by the COVID-19 pandemic, when we learned that second, third and fourth units in R1 zones might offer not just rental income or an extra bedroom but the flexibility to quarantine or work from home while building stronger ties with extended family and neighbors.
A new initiative — Small Lots, Big Impacts — organized by cityLAB-UCLA, the Los Angeles Housing Department and the office of Mayor Karen Bass builds on Low-Rise LA with a focus on developing small, often overlooked vacant lots, of which there are more than 25,000 across the city, according to cityLAB’s research. The goal is straightforward: to demonstrate a range of ways that Los Angeles can grow not by aping the urbanism of other cities but by producing more of itself.
Different views of the “Mini Towers Collective” and the “Shared Steps” proposals. Both favor shared outdoor space balanced with individual architectural identity.(courtesy of cityLAB UCLA)
Winners of this design competition, announced at the end of May, placed six or more housing units on a single site, sometimes dividing it into separate lots. One proposal created rowhouses, slightly cracked apart to identify individual homes and entrances as they cascade along an irregular site. A communal yard opens to the street in another project, with roof gardens between separated, two-story homes atop ADUs that can be rented or joined back to each of several main houses on the site. Other designs show that vertical architecture, in the form of handsome new residential towers from three to seven stories, can comfortably coexist with L.A.’s low-rise housing stock when the design is thoughtful enough.
A key goal of the competition was to produce new models for homeownership. When land costs are subdivided and parcels built out with a collection of compact homes, including units that can produce rental income or be sold off as condos, a different approach to housing affordability comes into focus. Those who have been shut out of the housing market can begin to build wealth and contribute to neighborhood stability.
The traditional R1 paradigm, in addition to limiting housing volume, suffers from a rigid, gate-keeping sort of logic: If you can’t afford to buy or rent an entire single-family home in an R-1 L.A. neighborhood, that part of town is inaccessible to you. Many of the winning designs, by contrast, create compounds flexible enough to accommodate a range of phases in a resident’s life. In one development, there may be units perfect for single occupants (a junior ADU), young families (a ground-level unit with a private yard), and empty-nesters (a home with a rooftop garden). As with the granny flat model, construction can proceed in phases, with units added over time as circumstances dictate.
Having served on the Small Lots, Big Impacts jury, we see signs of hope in its rendering of L.A.’s future. The real proof lies in the initiative’s second phase, set for later this year, when the city’s Housing Department will issue an open call, based on the design competition, to developer-architect teams who will build housing on a dozen small, city-owned vacant parcels, with tens of thousands of privately owned infill lots ready to follow suit. If the winning schemes are built, Los Angeles will once again demonstrate the appeal and resiliency of its architectural DNA. Manhattan: Eat your heart out.
Dana Cuff is a professor of architecture, director of cityLAB-UCLA and co-author of the 2016 California law that launched ADU construction. Christopher Hawthorne, former architecture critic for The Times, is senior critic at the Yale School of Architecture. He served under Mayor Eric Garcetti as the first chief design officer for Los Angeles.
WASHINGTON — With two conservatives in dissent, the Supreme Court on Monday turned down a property-rights claim from Los Angeles landlords who say they lost millions from unpaid rent during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.
Without comment, the justices said they would not hear an appeal from a coalition of apartment owners who said they rent “over 4,800 units” in “luxury apartment communities” to “predominantly high-income tenants.”
They sued the city seeking $20 million in damages from tenants who did not pay their rent during the pandemic emergency.
They contended that the city’s strict limits on evictions during that time had the effect of taking their private property in violation of the Constitution.
In the past, the court has repeatedly turned down claims that rent control laws are unconstitutional, even though they limit how much landlords can collect in rent.
But the L.A. landlords said their claim was different because the city had in effect taken use of their property, at least for a time. They cited the 5th Amendment’s clause that says “private property [shall not] be taken for public use without just compensation.”
“In March 2020, the city of Los Angeles adopted one of the most onerous eviction moratoria in the country, stripping property owners … of their right to exclude nonpaying tenants,” they told the court in GHP Management Corporation vs. City of Los Angeles. “The city pressed private property into public service, foisting the cost of its coronavirus response onto housing providers.”
“By August 2021, when [they] sued the City seeking just compensation for that physical taking, back rents owed by their unremovable tenants had ballooned to over $20 million,” they wrote.
A federal judge in Los Angeles and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a 3-0 decision dismissed the landlords’ suit. Those judges cited the decades of precedent that allowed the regulation of property.
The court had considered the appeal since February, but only Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch voted to hear the case.
“I would grant review of the question whether a policy barring landlords from evicting tenants for the nonpayment of rent effects a physical taking under the Taking Clause,” Thomas said. “This case meets all of our usual criteria. … The Court nevertheless denies certiorari, leaving in place confusion on a significant issue, and leaving petitioners without a chance to obtain the relief to which they are likely entitled.”
The Los Angeles landlords asked the court to decide “whether an eviction moratorium depriving property owners of the fundamental right to exclude nonpaying tenants effects a physical taking.”
In February, the city attorney’s office urged the court to turn down the appeal.
“As a once-in-a-century pandemic shuttered its businesses and schools, the city of Los Angeles employed temporary, emergency measures to protect residential renters against eviction,” they wrote. The measure protected only those who could “prove COVID-19 related economic hardship,” and it “did not excuse any rent debt that an affected tenant accrued.”
The city argued that the landlords are seeking a “radical departure from precedent” in the area of property regulation.
“If a government takes property, it must pay for it,” the city attorneys said. “For more than a century, though, this court has recognized that governments do not appropriate property rights solely by virtue of regulating them.”
The city said the COVID emergency and the restriction on evictions ended in January 2023.
In reply, lawyers for the landlords said bans on evictions are becoming the “new normal.” They cited a Los Angeles County measure they said would “preclude evictions for non-paying tenants purportedly affected by the recent wildfires.”
Tinder co-founder Justin Mateen has invested in Hollywood with the $69-million purchase of retail property near the legendary TCL Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.
In a bet on the future value of local real estate, Mateen and his brother Tyler bought the Hollywood Galaxy shopping center and the historic Petersen Building next door.
The purchase comes at a time when most institutional investors such as pension funds have stopped acquiring property in Los Angeles. Values of many buildings in the region, including office skyscrapers, have fallen in recent years as the loss of tenants that started during the pandemic and other factors have driven down sale prices.
The Mateens, however, see this as an opportunity. They bought prominent properties in Beverly Hills and Westchester last year and are now stakeholders in Hollywood.
Justin Mateen is known for being a co-founder of popular dating app Tinder but is also a solo venture capitalist through his JAM Fund. He and his brother have a strategy to invest in their hometown of Los Angeles during a cooling commercial real estate market because they expect the region to bounce back in the years ahead.
“I’ve always been a contrarian investor,” he said. “Whether it’s startups, public markets or real estate, I take the long view and hold through cycles for forever. While others are pulling back from cities like L.A., we’re doubling down. Its resurgence feels inevitable.”
The Mateens plan to spruce up the Hollywood property sold by Federal Realty Investment Trust and seek tenants who want to interact with the millions of tourists who visit the blocks around the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue annually.
The three-story Hollywood Galaxy shopping center, which was completed in 1990, is nearly 80% leased to tenants including Target and LA Fitness. The remaining space could go to a high-profile business such as Nintendo or Lego that wants to create an interactive, immersive attraction for Hollywood visitors, Tyler Mateen said.
The brothers are looking for tenants “who benefit off heavy foot traffic and value a large format with visibility,” he said. That might also be a flagship store for a big brand such as Nike, Adidas or Sephora.
Rendering of the historic Petersen Building, which was once a Cadillac dealership.
(It-makes-Architects)
The Petersen Building at Hollywood Boulevard and Orange Drive, which is also part of the deal, was built in 1929 as the home of a Cadillac dealership. It’s now occupied by a Marshalls department store and La La Land souvenir shop.
Last year the Mateens and their partner Pouya Abdi bought Wilshire Rodeo Plaza, a five-story office building at Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. They are in the process of signing new retail tenants for the building and planning a rooftop restaurant.
The Mateens also bought the HHLA entertainment center in Westchester near Playa Vista last year and are in the process of refurbishing it. Among its new tenants will be Meow Wolf, an immersive entertainment firm.
All three properties are in high-profile locations where it is difficult to develop new projects, Tyler Mateen said. “We want to own assets that you can’t build again and that the market can’t ignore.”
Southern California home prices declined slightly in May compared to a year earlier, the first annual drop since 2023.
In May, the average home price across the six-county Southern California region fell 0.07% from April to $876,044, according to data from Zillow. Prices were down 0.2% from May 2024.
Economists and real estate agents say a variety of factors have slowed the market, including high mortgage rates, rising inventory levels and economic uncertainty stemming from tariffs.
The year-over-year price decline last month marked the first since July 2023. At the time, home prices had been falling because rising mortgage rates knocked many buyers out of the market. Values started increasing again when the numbers of homes for sale plunged as sellers also backed away, not willing to give up mortgages they took out during the pandemic with rates of 3% and below.
The inventory picture, however, is changing.
In May, there were 38% more homes for sale than a year earlier in Los Angeles County, with similar increases seen elsewhere in Southern California.
Real estate agents say existing homeowners increasingly want to move rather than hold onto their ultra-low mortgage rates. But many first-time buyers, without access to equity, remain locked out.
Add economic uncertainty and you get a market that’s noticeably downshifted.
If the Trump administration’s policies end up pushing the economy into a recession, some economists say home prices could drop much more.
For now, Zillow is forecasting the economy avoids a recession and for home prices to decline only slightly. By May 2026, the real estate firm expects home prices in the Los Angeles-Orange County metro region to be 1.1% lower than they are today.
Zillow Research, Times analysis
Note to readers
Welcome to the Los Angeles Times’ Real Estate Tracker. Every month we will publish a report with data on housing prices, mortgage rates and rental prices. Our reporters will explain what the new data mean for Los Angeles and surrounding areas and help you understand what you can expect to pay for an apartment or house. You can read last month’s real estate breakdown here.
Explore home prices and rents for May
Use the tables below to search for home sale prices and apartment rental prices by city, neighborhood and county.
Rental prices in Southern California
In 2024, asking rents for apartments in many parts of Southern California also ticked down, but the January fires in L.A. County could be upending the downward trend in some locations.
Housing analysts have said that rising vacancy levels since 2022 had forced landlords to accept less in rent. But the fires destroyed thousands of homes, suddenly thrusting many people into the rental market.
Most homes destroyed were single-family houses, and some housing and disaster recovery experts say they expect the largest increases in rent to be in larger units adjacent to burn areas in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, with upward pressure on rents diminishing for units that are smaller and farther away from the disaster zone.
A recent L.A. Times analysis of Zillow data found that in ZIP Codes closest to the fires rent rose more than the rest of the county between December and April.
Other data sources show similar trends.
In Santa Monica, which borders the hard-hit Pacific Palisades neighborhood, the median rent rose 5.1% in May from a year earlier, according to data from ApartmentList.
Across the entire city of Los Angeles, which includes the Palisades and many neighborhoods not adjacent to any fire, rents dropped 0.33% last month.
ApartmentList does not have data for Altadena, but it does for the adjacent city of Pasadena. Rents there rose 6.2% in May from a year earlier.
One of the oldest movie studios in Los Angeles is up for sale, perhaps to the newest generation of content creators.
The potential sale of Occidental Studios comes amid a drop in filming in Los Angeles as the local entertainment industry faces such headwinds as rising competition from studios in other cities and countries, as well as the aftermath of filming slowdowns during the pandemic and industry strikes of 2023.
Occidental Studios, which dates back to 1913, was once used by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to make silent films. It is a small version of a traditional Hollywood studio with soundstages, offices and writers’ bungalows in a 3-acre gated campus near Echo Park in Historic Filipinotown.
Kermit the Frog above the Jim Henson Company studio lot in Hollywood.
(AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images)
The seller hopes its boutique reputation will garner $45 million, which would rank it one of the most valuable studios in Southern California at $651 per square foot. A legendary Hollywood studio founded by Charlie Chaplin in 1917 sold last year for $489 per foot, according to real estate data provider CoStar.
The Chaplin studio, known until recently as the Jim Henson Company Lot, was purchased by singer-songwriter John Mayer and movie director McG from the family of Muppets creator Jim Henson.
Occidental Studios may sell to one of today’s modern content creators in search of a flagship location, said real estate broker Nicole Mihalka of CBRE, who represents the seller.
She declined to name potential buyers but said she is showing the property to new-media businesses who don’t present themselves through traditional channels such as television shows and instead rely on social media and the internet to reach younger audiences.
Occidental Studios, which dates back to 1913, was once used by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks to make silent films.
(CBRE)
New media entrepreneurs may not often need soundstages, “but they like the idea of having the history, the legacy” of a studio linked to the early days of cinema, she said. It might lend credibility to a brand and become a destination for promotional activities as well as being a place to create content, she said. Mihalka envisions the space being used for events for partners, sponsors and advertisers as well as press junkets for new product launches.
Entertainment businesses located nearby include filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s Array Now, independent film and production company Blumhouse Productions and film and production company Rideback Ranch.
Neighborhoods east of Hollywood such as Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Echo Park and Highland Park have become home to many people in the entertainment industry, which Mihalka hopes will elevate the appeal of Occidental Studios.
“We’ve been seeing film and TV talent heading this way for a while,” she said, including executives who also live in those neighborhoods.
The owner of of Occidental Studios said it’s gotten harder for smaller studios to operate in the current economic climate that includes competition from major independent studio operators that have emerged in recent decades.
“Once upon a time, you did not have multibillion-dollar global portfolio companies swimming in the waters of Hollywood,” said Craig Darian, chief executive of Occidental Entertainment Group Holdings Inc., citing Hudson Pacific Properties, Hackman Capital Partners and CIM Group. “They are not content producers, but have a long history of providing services for multiple television shows and features.”
Competition now includes overseas studios in such countries as Canada, Ireland and Australia, he said. “When production was really robust and domiciled in Los Angeles, it was much easier to remain very competitive.”
Another factor threatening the bottom line for conventional studios is rapidly changing technology used to create entertainment including tools as simple as lighting.
“You used to know that equipment would last for decades,” Darian said. “The new tools for production are becoming obsolete in far shorter order.”
Writers’ bungalows at Occidental Studios.
(CBRE)
Nevertheless, Darian said, the potential sale “is not motivated by distress or urgency. Nothing is driving the decision other than the timing of whether or not this remains to be a relevant asset to keep within our portfolio. If we get an offer at or above the asking price, then we’re a seller.”
Darian said he may also seek a long-term tenant to take over the studio.
Occidental Studios at 201 N. Occidental Blvd. comprises over 69,000 square feet of buildings including four soundstages and support space such as offices and dressing rooms.
It’s among the oldest continually operating studios in Hollywood, used by pioneering filmmakers Cecil B. DeMille, D.W. Griffith and Pickford, who worked there as an actor and filmmaker in its early years. She reportedly kept an apartment on the lot for years.
More recently it has been used for television production for shows including “Tales of the City,” “New Girl” and HBO’s thriller “Sharp Objects.”
Local television production area declined by 30.5% in the first quarter compared with the previous year, according to he nonprofit organization FilmLA, which tracks shoot days in the Greater Los Angeles region. All categories of TV production were down, including dramas (-38.9%), comedies (-29.9%), reality shows -(26.4%) and pilots (-80.3%).
Feature film production decreased by 28.9%, while commercials were down by 2.1%, FilmLA said.
For nearly a quarter-century, voters in Clallam County, Wash. — a lush green dot in the far corner of the country — have gone with the winner in 11 straight presidential elections. That’s an unmatched level of precision among more than 3,000 counties nationwide.
But the streak, dating to 1980, ended on Tuesday as voters favored Vice President Kamala Harris over former President Trump, by a decisive 53% to 44% margin. While there are still votes to be counted, Harris’ lead appears certain to hold.
That means there are no bellwether counties left in America; heading into the 2020 election there were nearly 20. After that, Clallam County — roughly balanced politically between its three small population centers and sparsely populated rural reaches — stood alone.
(Yours truly visited the county and took the measure of voter sentiments in September, just after the Trump-Harris debate: At the time, neither candidate was running away with the contest and virtually everyone was firmly dug into their positions.)
Marc Abshire, director of the Port Angeles Chamber of Commerce and a Harris supporter, said he was proud the county went for the Democratic ticket “but also disappointed we’re losing our bellwether status because of it.”
“Out here, we just didn’t have the grievance vote that most of the rest of the country seemed to have,” Abshire said.
Setting aside any bruised pride, he said there are plenty of reasons to visit the region, beyond its former political prescience.
“We’re lucky to live in one of the most beautiful places in the nation, if not the world,” Abshire said. “We have the sea and mile-high mountains all in our front and backyards. Our weather is always temperate.”
People will just have to start looking elsewhere for a political barometer.
A woman who was allegedly kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend in El Monte was released after a 21-mile freeway pursuit through Los Angeles and Orange counties that at one point slowed to a crawl.
According to the El Monte Police Department, the man showed up at the woman’s place of work in the 10300 block of Lower Azusa Road just before 6 p.m. Saturday. The two argued before the man allegedly forced the woman into her car, police said, and drove off without allowing her to exit. The woman called a friend, who tracked the car via the Find My iPhone app and contacted law enforcement.
A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department helicopter located the car on the 5 Freeway in the area of Commerce and notified California Highway Patrol.
CHP attempted a traffic stop, but the man continued to drive, leading law enforcement on a chase for more than 20 miles.
“Spike strips were utilized to puncture the vehicle’s tires which caused it to become inoperable and yield” near the 405 Freeway and Westminster Avenue, police said in a statement.
But first, multiple law enforcement vehicles slowly tailed the vehicle as it inched onward in a slow-speed pursuit, KCAL News footage showed, until the car finally came to a stop.
The suspect and a woman in the passenger’s seat got out of the car, video showed. The man walked over to the woman and hugged her while she spoke into her phone. He then slowly walked backward toward law enforcement with raised arms and surrendered. The woman was not injured, police said.
The suspect is at a processing facility on $100,000 bail, according to the Sheriff’s Department.
El Monte police said that charges of kidnapping and felony evading would be submitted to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Police Department at (626) 580-2100.
With election day right around the corner, Los Angeles County officials opened hundreds of additional vote centers Saturday where voters can go to cast early ballots in person.
The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk opened an additional 526 centers, according to a post on its X account. This is on top of the 122 centers already open across the county, where people can go to vote in person or drop off their ballot for the Nov. 5 election.
The centers are open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Most wait times were under 15 minutes, according to officials.
The county’s mobile voting centers will also travel across the region until election day.
Voters also have the option of submitting completed ballots through the mail, so long as they were postmarked before or on Nov. 5 and received by Nov. 12. Mail-in ballots can also be returned at voter centers or vote-by-mail drop boxes.
Eligible voters who aren’t registered can complete a conditional voter registration at a center and cast a ballot in the election.
The ballot includes a long slate of statewide and local candidates and ballot measures, as well as the U.S. presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
On Saturday, the mobile centers will be at the L.A. Hompa Hongwanji Buddhist Temple and L.A. Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown Los Angeles; Henry Acuna Park in Montebello; Wat Thai of Los Angeles in North Hollywood; and the Paving the Way Foundation in Lancaster.
On Sunday, the centers will be stationed at Dodger Stadium, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood and again at L.A. Plaza de Cultura y Artes.
