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  • 4 California wolves were eliminated, but there’s a new pack in town

    California wildlife officials have confirmed there’s a new wolf pack in the northern part of the state, as the population of the endangered canids — and the number of livestock they have preyed on — continues to rise.

    The freshly minted Grizzly pack is roaming southern Plumas County and consists of at least two adults and a pup, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife reported this week.

    The pack consists of a male wolf that came over from Oregon and a female from the state’s Lassen pack. Recently, state wildlife officials also got photos of a wolf pup believed to be theirs.

    The news comes on the heels of the Beyem Seyo pack’s demise last month, when the Fish and Wildlife Department euthanized four wolves that had killed a large number of cattle in the Sierra Valley — marking the first time in about a century that state officials had taken lethal action against the animals.

    “As difficult of a decision as that was to make, from a conservation point of view, the population data that we’re getting does continue to suggest that the population is growing and is robust,” said Axel Hunnicutt, gray wolf coordinator for the agency. The action was taken after a months-long campaign of using nonlethal deterrents, he said.

    The Beyem Seyo pack shifted to a new area in October, and new wolves quickly moved into their old stomping ground, one sign that the population is strong, he said.

    With one pack gained and one pack lost, the state’s total remains at 10.

    It’s estimated that there are about 50 to 70 wolves in the Golden State. Although it’s a relatively small number, it represents a stunning recovery for the apex predators, which were hunted and trapped into extinction in the 1920s. Wolves began recolonizing California only 14 years ago.

    New reports from the Fish and Wildlife Department suggest more wolves are on the way.

    There are two areas where wolf activity indicates packs are likely to form, Hunnicutt said. There were also at least 31 pups born this year to packs in California, though some have died, and mortality in general is high during the first year of life. The Whaleback pack, in eastern Siskiyou County, had 10 pups this year — tying a record for the species, Hunnicutt said. Another breeding season will arrive in spring.

    Many of the current packs consist of just two wolves that are fairly young, which means they may not breed the first year. That creates “a lag,” he explained.

    “So what I suspect is that this year we might not see a massive amount of growth, or it might just be steady,” he said. But in a year or two, “probably the vast majority of these groups will be breeding and producing anywhere between six and 10 pups.”

    Wolves’ recovery is celebrated by conservationists who want to see the native animals thrive. The growing number of wolves, however, has rattled ranchers who lose cattle to them.

    The Beyem Seyo pack was responsible for 88 livestock kills or injuries, which Hunnicutt called an “unprecedented” number. Not all wolves in the state go after cows, though. There are several packs in the state that aren’t near livestock, he noted.

    “California wolf recovery is proceeding on a pretty good trajectory, population-wise,” Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, said.

    The fact that things get “shaken up,” with wolves dispersing and packs changing, is a good thing, she said.

    “You want to see that dynamism continuing in an evolving population,” she said.

    Weiss sees wolves’ recovery as a testament to their protection under both the California and federal Endangered Species acts.

    There are three bills pending in the U.S. Congress, however, that would claw back federal protections, including one that would delist wolves as endangered nationwide, she said.

    In 2021, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisted most wolves in the Lower 48. Weiss’ organization sued, and the following year a federal district court in California overturned the delisting. In September 2024, the federal wildlife agency appealed the decision.

    If wolves were to be federally delisted, they would retain their state protections.

    Lila Seidman

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  • Feeling lucky? Mega Millions jackpot jumps to $965 million for this Friday’s drawing

    The Mega Millions jackpot jumped to nearly a billion dollars for the eighth time in the game’s history after no one won the drawing on Tuesday night.

    The next drawing is scheduled for Friday, according to a Mega Millions news release. The estimated jackpot is $965 million, or $445.3 million if the winner takes a lump sum in cash.

    No ticket matched all six numbers from Tuesday night’s drawing — white balls 10, 13, 40, 42 and 46, and the gold Mega Ball 1.

    Friday’s drawing is the eighth-largest jackpot since the game began in 2002, according to the release. Seven billion-dollar jackpots have been awarded in the past; the most recent was the $1.269 billion prize won in California in Dec. 2024.

    In Tuesday’s drawing, there were 809,030 winning tickets across all prizes, for a total of more than $27.9 million in winnings nationwide. Three tickets matched the five white balls to win the second-highest prize of $1 million. One ticket sold in Arizona had the 5X multiplier for a $5-million prize. Two other tickets, sold in Iowa and New York, had the 3X multiplier for the $3-million prize.

    Twenty-seven tickets matched four white balls plus the Mega Ball to win the game’s third-highest prize.

    Four Mega Millions jackpots were won earlier this year, and Friday’s drawing will be the 40th since the last win in June.

    The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 290,472,336. The odds of winning any Mega Millions prize are 1 in 23.

    Summer Lin

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  • Voters in poll side with Newsom, Democrats on Prop. 50 — a potential blow to Trump and GOP

    A Nov. 4 statewide ballot measure pushed by California Democrats to help the party’s efforts to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives and stifle President Trump’s agenda has a substantial lead in a new poll released on Thursday.

    Six out of 10 likely voters support Proposition 50, the proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies to redraw the state’s congressional districts to try to increase the number of Democrats in Congress, according to a survey by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that was co-sponsored by The Times. About 38% of likely voters oppose the ballot measure.

    Notable in an off-year special election about the arcane and complicated process of redistricting, 71% of likely voters said they had heard a significant amount of information about the ballot measure, according to the poll.

    “That’s extraordinary,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll. “Even though it’s kind of an esoteric topic that doesn’t affect their daily lives, it’s something voters are paying attention to.”

    That may be because roughly $158 million has been donated in less than three months to the main campaign committees supporting and opposing the measure, according to campaign fundraising reports filed with the state last week. Voters in the state have been flooded with political ads.

    Californians watching Tuesday night’s World Series game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays saw that firsthand.

    In the first minutes of the game, former President Obama, Newsom, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other prominent Democrats spoke in favor of Proposition 50 in an ad that probably cost at least $250,000 to air, according to a Democratic media buyer who is not associated with the campaign.

    According to the survey, the breakdown among voters was highly partisan, with more than 9 out of 10 Democrats supporting Proposition 50 and a similar proportion of Republicans opposing it. Among voters who belong to other parties, or identify as “no party preference,” 57% favored the ballot measure, while 39% opposed it.

    Only 2% of the likely voters surveyed said they were undecided, which DiCamillo said was highly unusual.

    Historically, undecided voters, particularly independents, often end up opposing ballot measures they are uncertain about, preferring to stick with the status quo, he said.

    “Usually there was always a rule — look at the undecideds in late-breaking polls, and assume most would vote no,” he said. “But this poll shows there are very few of them out there. Voters have a bead on this one.”

    In the voter-rich urban areas of Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay area, Proposition 50 led by wide margins, the poll found. Voters in Orange County, the Inland Empire and the Central Valley were pretty evenly divided.

    Redistricting battles are underway in states across the nation, but California’s Proposition 50 has received a major share of national attention and donations. The Newsom committee supporting Proposition 50 has raised far more money than the two main committees opposing it, so much so that the governor this week told supporters to stop sending checks.

    The U.S. House of Representatives is controlled by the GOP but is narrowly divided. The party that wins control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections will determine whether Trump can continue enacting his agenda or whether he is the subject of investigations and possibly another impeachment effort.

    California’s 52 congressional districts — the most of any state — currently are drawn by a voter-approved independent commission once every decade following the U.S. census.

    But after Trump urged GOP leaders in Texas this summer to redraw their districts to bolster the number of Republicans in Congress, Newsom and other California Democrats decided in August to ask voters to allow a rare mid-decade partisan redrawing of the state’s district boundaries. If passed, Proposition 50 could potentially add five more Democrats to the state’s congressional delegation.

    Supporters of Proposition 50 have painted their effort as a proxy fight against Trump and his policies that have overwhelmingly affected Californians, such as immigration raids and the deployment of the National Guard on the streets of Los Angeles.

    Opponents of the proposition have focused on the mechanics of redistricting, arguing the ballot measure subverts the will of California voters who enacted the independent redistricting commission more than a decade ago.

    “The results suggest that Democrats have succeeded in framing the debate surrounding the proposition around support or opposition to President Trump and national Republicans, rather than about voters’ more general preference for nonpartisan redistricting,” Eric Schickler, co-director of IGS, said in a statement.

    Early voting data suggest the pro-Proposition 50 message has been successful.

    As of Tuesday, nearly 5 million Californians — about 21% of the state’s 23 million registered voters — had cast ballots, according to trackers run by Democratic and Republican strategists.

    Democrats greatly outnumber Republicans among the state’s registered voters, and they have outpaced them in returning ballots, 52% to 27%. Voters who do not have a party preference or who support other political parties have returned 21% of the ballots.

    The Berkeley/L.A. Times poll findings mirrored recent surveys by the Public Policy Institute of California, CBS News/YouGov and Emerson College.

    Among voters surveyed by the Berkeley/L.A. Times poll, 67% of Californians who had already voted supported Proposition 50, while 33% said they had weighed in against the ballot measure.

    The proposition also had an edge among those who planned to vote but had not yet cast their ballots, with 57% saying they planned to support the effort and 40% saying they planned to oppose it.

    However, 70% of voters who plan to cast ballots in person on Nov. 4, election day, said they would vote against Proposition 50, according to the poll. Less than 3 in 10 who said they would vote at their local polling place said they would support the rare mid-decade redistricting.

    These numbers highlight a recent shift in how Americans vote. Historically, Republicans voted by mail early, while Democrats cast ballots on election day. But this dynamic was upended in recent years after Trump questioned the security of early voting and mail voting, including just recently when he criticized Proposition 50.

    “No mail-in or ‘Early’ Voting, Yes to Voter ID! Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being ‘shipped,’” Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social. “GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”

    GOP leaders across the state have pushed back at such messaging without calling out the president. Urging Republicans to vote early, they argue that waiting to cast ballots only gives Democrats a greater advantage in California elections.

    Among the arguments promoted by the campaigns, likely voters agreed with every one posited by the supporters of Proposition 50, notably that the ballot measure would help Democrats win control of the House, while standing up to Trump and his attempts to rig the 2026 election, according to the poll. But they also agreed that the ballot measure would further diminish the power of the GOP in California, and that they didn’t trust partisan state lawmakers to draw congressional districts.

    The Berkeley IGS/Times poll surveyed 8,141 California registered voters online in English and Spanish from Oct. 20 to 27. The results are estimated to have a margin of error of 2 percentage points in either direction in the overall sample, and larger numbers for subgroups.

    Seema Mehta

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  • Suspects arrested over the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum

    Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the heist at the world’s most visited museum that stunned the world.The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Roissy Airport.French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether jewels had been recovered.Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) last Sunday morning. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. She rued in her statement the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”The Louvre reopened earlier this week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.The thieves slipped in and out, making off with parts of France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.

    PARIS —

    Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the heist at the world’s most visited museum that stunned the world.

    The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Roissy Airport.

    French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether jewels had been recovered.

    Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) last Sunday morning. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”

    Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. She rued in her statement the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.

    French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”

    The Louvre reopened earlier this week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.

    The thieves slipped in and out, making off with parts of France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.

    The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.

    They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.

    One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.

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  • Suspects arrested over the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum

    Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the heist at the world’s most visited museum that stunned the world.The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Roissy Airport.French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether jewels had been recovered.Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) last Sunday morning. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. She rued in her statement the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”The Louvre reopened earlier this week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.The thieves slipped in and out, making off with parts of France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.

    PARIS —

    Suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre museum, the Paris prosecutor said on Sunday, a week after the heist at the world’s most visited museum that stunned the world.

    The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests on Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Roissy Airport.

    French media BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether jewels had been recovered.

    Thieves took less than eight minutes to steal jewels valued at 88 million euros ($102 million) last Sunday morning. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s façade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”

    Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. She rued in her statement the premature leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of over 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.

    French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”

    The Louvre reopened earlier this week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.

    The thieves slipped in and out, making off with parts of France’s Crown Jewels — a cultural wound that some compared to the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.

    The thieves made away with a total of eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th-century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.

    They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.

    One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but recoverable.

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  • First West Nile virus death confirmed in L.A. County, as studies show that drought conditions may increase risk

    The first recorded death from West Nile virus this year in L.A. County was confirmed Friday by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

    The individual, whose details have been kept anonymous, was hospitalized in the San Fernando Valley for neurological illness caused by the mosquito-borne virus. In Southern California, October is the middle of mosquito season.

    Across Los Angeles County, 14 West Nile virus infections have been documented in 2025; half have been in the San Fernando Valley.

    L.A. has had an average of 58 West Nile infections per year since 2020, with an average of one death per year, according to data from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

    West Nile virus affects around 2,000 Americans a year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Viral infection can a number of symptoms, with mild illness symptoms consisting of fever, headache, body aches, vomiting, rash or diarrhea, the CDC says.

    A more severe and concerning case can cause neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness, or paralysis. Officials warn that the effects of severe illness could be permanent or result in death.

    In some cases, infection does not cause symptoms.

    The California Public Health Department notes that there are a number of species within the Culex mosquito genus, which is a primary carrier of the virus, found throughout Los Angeles County.

    The San Fernando Valley area recently suffered from water outages and has, over the last 12 months, consistently experienced below-average rainfall and drought conditions.

    In a 2025 study from the National Institutes of Health, research showed that droughts raised risk factors for West Nile virus. Data from more than 50,000 traps revealed that while drought conditions reduced overall mosquito populations and standing bodies of water, it consolidated the infected mosquitos and birds, which also carry the disease, around limited water sources. The result is faster transmission rate among the smaller populations, which go on to infect humans. In the San Fernando Valley, where drought conditions are expect to continue through a dry La Niña season, the reduced water sources may lead to higher infection rates.

    To avoid contracting West Nile virus, the CDC recommends reducing outside activities during the daytime, when mosquitos are most active. Officials also say that emptying or replacing containers of standing water (where mosquitos tend to breed), installing window screens, and wearing protective skin coverings or using insect repellent when outside can also reduce exposure.

    Katerina Portela

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  • The controversial solution Long Beach has picked to battle shoplifters

    Tired of rampant shoplifting scaring away citizens and shoppers, Long Beach is trying to force stores to add staff and reduce dependence on self-checkout.

    The beachfront city, with a population of around half a million, last month started requiring major food and pharmacy retailers to do more to stop theft. So far, the measures have led to a heated debate and longer lines.

    Employees like the new law. The retail chains warn that the restrictions could backfire. Shoppers are confused.

    The city’s “Safe Stores are Staffed Stores” ordinance is the first of its kind in the country. It requires large stores to increase the number of employees relative to self-checkout stands and also puts a limit on the number of items and types of goods that can be rung up at self-checkout.

    It is the latest flash point in a national debate about how to handle what some see as an epidemic of shoplifting. This issue is affecting the quality of life for consumers who are tired of witnessing theft or dealing with measures to stop it, such as locked-up shelves.

    The Long Beach ordinance will protect employees and shoppers from dangerous situations, said Matt Bell, the secretary-treasurer of UFCW 324, the union that represents grocery workers.

    “The checkers and the cashiers are on the front lines of this,” he said. “It really is necessary to provide them safety and security and better staffing.”

    The city said it passed the ordinance to “advance public safety and prevent retail theft,” citing “hostile and unsafe” conditions. Theft is common and underreported at self-checkout, according to the ordinance.

    Rampant shoplifting has been a growing issue across the country, forcing stores to beef up security and lock up often-stolen items.

    The National Retail Federation estimates that shoplifting incidents in the U.S. increased by 93% from 2019 to 2023. In 2023, retailers surveyed by the federation reported an average of 177 retail thefts per day.

    The Long Beach regulations require that a large store have at least one staff member for every three self-checkout stations it uses. It sets a limit of 15 items per customer for self-checkout. Meanwhile, any items locked inside a case in the store can no longer be bought through self-checkout, according to the ordinance.

    As the ordinance will force outlets to either hire more people or cut the number of self-checkout kiosks, the California Grocers Assn. warned that consumers could end up facing longer lines and higher grocery prices.

    In response to the requirements, some Albertsons and Vons in Long Beach have closed their self-checkout lanes.

    “We are currently unable to operate our self-checkout lanes … due to a new City of Long Beach ordinance,” said a sign for customers at a Vons in downtown Long Beach.

    At a Target in Long Beach, five self-checkout stations were open and staffed by one employee. The store would need to add another employee to monitor self-checkout if it wanted to open more stations, according to the ordinance.

    Francilla Isaac, a shopper who lives in the area, said she has seen closed self-checkout lanes and longer lines around the city.

    “I use it a lot when I’m just here to get a few items,” Isaac said of self-checkout. “But all the stores are the same now, they have it closed.”

    Groups representing grocers and retailers such as Target and Walmart said the ordinance will increase labor costs for employers, leading to higher price tags on the shelf. It will also reduce sales in stores where self-checkout has closed.

    “These efforts will ultimately damage self-checkout,” said Nate Rose, a vice president at the California Grocers Assn. “We’re seeing that worst-case scenario play out where a number of grocers have decided it’s not worth it to keep the self-checkout lanes open.”

    The California Retailers Assn. said retailers need freedom to decide on their own what is the most efficient way to deal with theft.

    “The problem with the Long Beach ordinance is that it’s so constricting,” said Rachel Michelin, president of the association. “I think we’re going to see unintended consequences.”

    Union leader Bell said grocery companies oppose the ordinance because they don’t want to hire more staff or increase their current staff’s hours. While stores may want to avoid hiring more people amid regular increases in minimum wage, they may find that being forced to hire more people actually boosts sales and efficiency.

    “This should be better for the customers,” he said. “And it should actually improve profitability for the companies.”

    Lisa Adams comes to Long Beach from Utah every month with her husband to sail on their boat. She misses easy access to self-checkout and hopes it will return soon, but they understand the need to tamp down on theft in the city.

    She’s witnessed the theft problem firsthand.

    “It was chaotic and loud,” she said. “This guy was pretending to ring his stuff up, and then he booked it for the door.”

    Caroline Petrow-Cohen

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  • Russia recruits Arab fighters with promises, then sends them to Ukraine frontlines

    BEIRUT — The ad was straightforward: Sign up for one year to fight on Russia’s side in “the special military operation zone” — i.e. the war in Ukraine — and get citizenship, free healthcare, money and land.

    It was one of many promotions cropping up on the messaging platform Telegram beginning in 2024, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed foreign nationals fighting in the army’s ranks would receive passports for themselves and their families. Since then, travel agencies and brokers have drawn people from all over the world to join what they call Russia’s “elite international battalion,” dangling a raft of benefits to attract would-be recruits.

    For Raed Hammad, a 54-year-old Jordanian man who worked as a cab driver until a herniated disk made sitting in a car seat all day untenable, it seemed like the opportunity he never found in his home country. He contacted a Russian businesswoman, Polina Alexandrovna, whose number was on the Telegram ad, and sent his passport information. In August, he received a visa and flight ticket and flew to Moscow.

    (Other media reports put Alexandrovna’s last name as Azarnykh. It’s unclear if her name is a pseudonym.)

    “As a 54-year-old who was sick, he had a hard time finding employment here in Jordan. When he found this job, and they accepted him with a very attractive salary and benefits, he didn’t think twice,” said Lamees Hammad, his wife, in a tearful video address she posted on social media in September. Because of his age, Lamees Hammad added, her husband assumed he would work as a driver or a cook; she insisted he repeatedly confirmed with Alexandrovna that he wouldn’t serve on the front line.

    “He wanted to provide for our kids, to give them what he couldn’t give them in the past,” Lamees Hammad said. Hammad is a father of four sons, the youngest of whom is 13.

    But days after signing a 17-page army contract that Hammad couldn’t read — he was denied a Russian translator and wasn’t given access to WiFi to translate using his phone, according to his wife — he found himself bunkered in a drone-stalked forward position somewhere in Russian-occupied southeastern Ukraine.

    “He’s facing all kinds of danger … If a rifle is raised in his face, he can’t even run. They’re being treated like livestock over there,” Lamees Hammad said in a recent interview with a Jordanian TV channel, adding that Hammad contacted Alexandrovna and begged to break his contract but was told he would have to pay 500,000 rubles — almost $6,000 — to do so.

    Russian military personnel, draped in Russian flags, appear after a prisoner swap with Ukraine on June 24.

    (Russian Defense Ministry/Anadolu via Getty Images)

    Accurate figures are hard to come by, but it’s clear that Hammad isn’t alone in fighting under Russia’s banner for benefits, with estimates putting the number of foreign fighters in Russian army ranks in the tens of thousands. Many come from disadvantaged countries in the Middle East, Africa and South and East Asia.

    Some 2,000 Iraqis are thought to have enlisted, but press reports indicate thousands joining from Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Jordan. Fighters from Nepal, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cuba and Syria, who in the past came in significant numbers, are no longer allowed to join, according to the Russian defense ministry.

    Foreigners have also served on the opposing side, with Ukrainian officials stating in the past that roughly 20,000 fighters from 50 countries joined Ukraine’s International Legion, including around 3,000 Iraqis.

    In the Russian military, many of the enlisted foreigners came to Russia first as students, but their visas lapsed and they do not want to return home. A significant number also travel to Moscow on tourist visas after they are approved by the military. Once in Russia, they visit offices of companies like Alexandrovna’s and sign a contract with the Russian ministry of defense; others are met by a broker and a Russian officer at the airport.

    Offers vary, but recruits can receive a signing bonus of 1.5 million rubles (around $17,000), and depending on where they fight, get a monthly salary ranging between $2,500 to $3,500 — a life-changing amount in countries like Egypt, where the average salary barely exceeds $300.

    Training lasts four to six weeks and includes language instruction so foreigners can follow basic commands in Russian. They receive citizenship soon after they join, and are given a two-week paid vacation six months into their one-year deployment. If they are killed or wounded, their families can claim the money and citizenship.

    Among the recruitment ads, which appear in Arabic and other languages, Alexandrovna’s channel keeps up a steady rhythm of posts extolling the Russian army’s victories in Ukraine.

    Alexandrovna herself appears in several photos taken with recruits when they first land in Russia; others depict foreign soldiers after they receive their citizenship, smiling to the camera and proudly showing off their passports. Her clients appear to be mostly from the Arab world and parts of Africa.

    “Each of my soldiers is a source of pride,” she writes in one post, saying that they add to the “victory against the neo-Nazis from Ukraine.”

    “Every soldier must proudly and steadfastly defend the new homeland of Russia, because Russia becomes a new homeland for each of them!” she writes.

    Despite the risks, there’s no lack of interest: A look on Alexandrovna’s Telegram channel, titled “Friend of Russia” and featuring a picture of Putin, shows more than 22,000 subscribers. Another channel, run by an Iraqi man who calls himself Bahjat, has almost 30,000.

    Members of a thousands-strong Telegram community group run by an Iraqi with the nickname Abbass the Supporter — who served in the Russian military for three years but now works as a broker and answers questions about deployments on his TikTok channel — participate in chats asking how quickly they can get their visa and travel.

    When contacted by The Times, Alexandrovna denied giving false information to would-be recruits but did not answer detailed questions about Hammad. Nevertheless, it’s unclear how Hammad concluded he would serve in rear positions: Most ads on Alexandrovna’s channel explicitly say foreigners must fight in Ukraine, with no mention of being able to join as a driver or cook, and in any case, those decisions are made by the defense ministry.

    The E-visa form inquires about military experience. Bahjat, who spoke on condition of only giving his first name, said those coming to the Russian army from abroad should expect to go into combat, and that breaking the contract risks imprisonment.

    “What, you think a country is going to give you money and citizenship so you come and cook?” he said in a WhatsApp chat.

    “I’ll give it to you straight. Everyone coming here is going to the frontline and to the war. Anyone saying otherwise is speaking nonsense.”

    The Jordanian ministry did not answer questions about Hammad, but legal experts say governments have little recourse to repatriate their citizens if they signed a contract, unless they can prove they did so under duress.

    Lamees Hammad has been pleading with Jordan’s King Abdullah and government officials to communicate with the Russian foreign ministry and to bring her husband home. But in the meantime, she said, she hoped the Jordanian government would at least block Telegram channels like Alexandrovna’s to prevent others from following in Hammad’s steps.

    “People should know if they do this,” she said, “they’re going to their death.”

    Nabih Bulos

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  • ‘We want our life back’: Tel Aviv protesters celebrate potential ceasefire with Hamas

    TEL AVIV — With a heart-shaped balloon in her hand, Gili Coheb-Taguri, a 49-year-old material scientist wearing a Trump mask and a suit matching the president’s sartorial tastes, posed for the array of cameras and smartphones.

    “This? It’s an origami mask,” she said to an inquiring passerby. “And yes, I made it myself.”

    Coheb-Taguri was one of the thousands who came out on Saturday evening to Hostage Square, the courtyard in Tel Aviv that has become the site of weekly protests demanding the Israeli government secure the return of hostages kidnapped by Hamas after Oct. 7, 2023.

    The rally, the first to be held after Hamas accepted President Trump’s ceasefire proposal on Friday, was just one of similar events taking place across Israel. Though the mood was somber, it nevertheless felt more hopeful than most other protests Coheb-Taguri had attended in the last two years.

    “The reason I wore this costume is to thank Trump for what he did. People have been so depressed and when they see Trump here, they smile, ” she said through the mask before she took it off.

    “The key point for us is the hostages,” she said. “It’s been two years and we want them back. We want our life back.”

    The U.S. 20-point plan, which was drafted by the Trump administration with input from Israel and a number of Arab and Muslim nations, would see the Palestinian militant group release all 48 hostages it still has in its custody and hand over the reins of Gaza to a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee overseen by a “Board of Peace” led by Trump.

    Israel, in turn, will return 1,700 detainees from Gaza and 250 prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails. It will also enter into a phased withdrawal of the Gaza Strip and will not occupy or annex the enclave. No Gaza resident will be forced to leave, and those who want to return are encouraged to do so.

    Like many in the crowd here Saturday night, Coheb-Taguri and her husband, 52-year-old Yossi Taguri, credited Trump for doing what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to do: broker a deal that would bring back the hostages.

    “We are not our government. Bibi’s interest and our interests are not aligned,” Taguri said, employing Netanyahu’s nickname.

    Critics accuse Netanyahu of extending the war and succumbing to the demands of extremist ministers in his government’s coalition so as to remain in power.

    A woman reacts while listening to speeches by family members of hostages still held by Hamas during a protest in Tel Aviv, Israel.

    (Chris McGrath / Getty Images)

    Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarized

    — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

    Taguri expected Netanyahu would find some way to sabotage the deal once more.

    “How many times have we been in this situation, where everyone agrees and then something happens?” he said. “He will find a way to blow it up.”

    In a video statement released Saturday evening, Netanyahu said that he hoped to announce the return of all hostages “in the coming days” and that the Israeli military would maintain ‘“control of all of the dominant areas deep inside the strip” during the first phase of the agreement.

    He insisted his scorched-earth strategy in Gaza — which has killed more than 67,000 people, health authorities in the enclave say, and left Gaza a lunar-esque landscape of rubble — brought about the change in Hamas’ position.

    Hamas had agreed to a number of previous proposals to end the war, including a ceasefire that took hold in January, but which Israel unilaterally broke in March.

    Netanyahu said he hoped negotiations to finalize the deal would be completed soon. After the hostage handover, he said, “Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarized.”

    “This will happen either through the diplomatic path by the Trump plan or through the military path — at our hands,” he added.

    People chant slogans and hold placards in support of hostages still held by Hamas during a solidarity protest

    People chant slogans and hold signs in support of hostages still held by Hamas.

    (Chris McGrath / Getty Images)

    Hamas has said it will only disarm in the context of handing over its weapons to a Palestinian state. It did not directly address the stipulation to disarm in Trump’s proposal.

    In a post to his social media site Saturday, Trump said, “Hamas must move quickly, or else all bets will be off” and he would “not tolerate delay.”

    He also thanked Israel for what he said was a temporary stoppage of its bombing campaign to give the deal a chance. Israel did not stop bombing: Palestinian health authorities said at least 67 people were killed in Israeli attacks since dawn Saturday. Israeli media reported the military had been told to shift to defensive operations.

    At the rally, thousands took part in call-and-response chants they have memorized over the last two years of the war.

    “Bring them back!” shouted Omer Shem Tov, a hostage freed in a previous prisoner exchange with Hamas. The crowd responded with a loud “Now!”

    Another speaker, actor Lior Ashkenazi, began by thanking Trump.

    Standing among the crowd, Dor Jaliff, a 35-year-old social worker, nodded at the mention of Trump. Though he didn’t count himself a Trump supporter (“I’m not going to run around with a U.S. flag or stuff like that,” he said), he said he nevertheless appreciated the U.S. president’s impact.

    “I wish our government would consider the hostages as the top priority like Trump does. Look, I’m not happy Trump is getting involved in Israel’s affairs, but at least someone is doing the job,” he said.

    As to whether the deal would go through, he said he was trying to remain hopeful.

    “It’s a need to be optimistic. I want to feel optimistic,” he said.

    Also in the crowd, with his wife and son in tow, was 57-year-old Mindy Rabinowitz. On his chest, he wore a sticker with the number 729 — the number of days since the war began.

    A head of a college, Rabinowitz had made it a ritual to come to Hostage Square at least once a month, but often more than that. Yet before the ceasefire announcement on Friday, he wasn’t sure he would come this week. But when he heard that Hamas accepted the deal late Friday night, he thought differently.

    “I turned to my wife and said, ‘Maybe we shouldn’t stay home and watch this on TV. We should go,’” he said.

    “Maybe it’s the last time we’ll be in that square.”

    Nabih Bulos

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  • This health study has been collecting research samples for 50 years — Trump cut their funding

    EXPLAINS. WE’VE COLLECTED BLOOD SAMPLES, URINE SAMPLES, TOENAIL SAMPLES, AND WE’VE COLLECTED MANY OF THESE SAMPLES REPEATEDLY OVER TIME. THE NUMBER CATALOGED HERE IS IN THE MILLIONS SINCE 1976, MORE THAN 280,000 NURSES OF DIFFERENT AGES AND BACKGROUNDS DONATING THEIR OWN BIOLOGICAL SPECIMENS. THEN RECORDING DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT THEIR HEALTH, LIFESTYLE AND MEDICATIONS FOR RESEARCHERS LIKE DOCTOR WALTER WILLETT. WE HAVE DOZENS OF BIG NITROGEN FREEZERS THAT ALMOST AS TALL AS I AM, LOADED WITH THOUSANDS OF SAMPLES, AND THAT TAKES ACTUALLY ABOUT $300,000 A YEAR JUST TO PROVIDE THE LIQUID NITROGEN TO KEEP THOSE SAMPLES COLD. BUT THEN LAST SPRING, THE FUNDING STOPPED. ESSENTIALLY, THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, TRUMP DECIDED TO ATTACK HARVARD BASICALLY ON THE BASIS OF BEING ANTI-SEMITIC, TERMINATED ALL RESEARCH, ALL FUNDING TO HARVARD. AND THAT INCLUDED OUR STUDIES. SINCE THEN, THIS SMALL TEAM HAS BEEN SCRAMBLING FOR NEW SOURCES OF SUPPORT JUST TO KEEP THESE FREEZERS FROZEN. REALLY? REMARKABLY, A NUMBER OF OUR PARTICIPANTS THEMSELVES HAVE SENT CHECKS. I THINK THEY UNDERSTAND THIS IS A GENERATIONAL TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION THAT CAN HELP THEIR KIDS, THEIR GRANDCHILDREN, AND EVERYBODY AROUND THE WORLD. IN THE PAST YEAR ALONE, RESEARCHERS HAVE USED THIS DATA TO TEST THEORIES ABOUT PARKINSON’S DISEASE, TYPE TWO DIABETES, BREAST CANCER, AND DEMENTIA. SOON, IT WILL BE HOW PEOPLE CAN LIVE TO 100 WITH GOOD PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH. PARTICIPANTS ARE REACHING THAT PERIOD OF THEIR LIFE AND WILL HAVE THE BEST INFORMATION ANYWHERE ON THAT, BECAUSE WE KNOW WHAT THEY’VE BEEN EATING, WHAT THEY’VE BEEN DOING AND WHAT MEDICINES THEY’VE BEEN TAKING OVER THE LAST 50 YEARS. REPORTER BUT FOR NOW, THE ONLY QUESTION THAT RESEARCHERS WANT ANSWERED CAN THIS COLLECTION STAY COLD AND ACCESSIBLE FOR ANOTHER 50 YEARS? I REGARD MYSELF AS SORT OF A CUSTODIAN. I THINK THE DATA THAT WE’RE PROVIDING REALLY DOES HELP EVERYBODY, WHETHER YOU’RE LIVING IN A RED STATE OR A BLUE STATE, BUT ALL OF A SUDDEN IT’S BECOME DIVISIVE. FOR NOW, THE LAB IS OPTIMISTIC IT CAN KEEP THE FREEZERS ON THROUGH THE END OF THE YEAR. IT’S ALSO CURRENTLY RECRUITING A THIRD COHORT OF NURSES TO JOIN THE STUDY. BUT IF FEDERAL FUNDING IS NOT RESTORED OR THERE’S NO NEW SOURCE OF MONEY, THE LAB AND ALL OF ITS DATA WILL LIKELY DISA

    After funding halt, Harvard nurses health study scrambles to save 50 years of samples

    Updated: 9:41 AM EDT Oct 4, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    The key to living a long and happy life hasn’t been found yet.But some researchers believe it could be hiding inside the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.See the story in the video aboveThat’s where nearly 50 years of data from the Nurses’ Health Study is stored.”We’ve collected blood samples, urine samples, toenail samples,” said Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition. “And we’ve collected many of these samples repeatedly over time.”The number catalogued at the school’s biorepository is in the millions.Since 1976, more than 280,000 nurses of different ages and backgrounds have donated their own biological specimens and provided detailed information about their health, lifestyle, and medications for researchers like Willett to study.”We have dozens of big nitrogen freezers that are almost as tall as I am,” Willett said. “It takes about $300,000 a year just to provide liquid nitrogen to keep those samples cold.”But then last spring, the funding stopped.”Essentially, the federal government — Trump — decided to attack Harvard,” Willett said. “And basically, on the basis of being antisemitic, (it) terminated all research, all funding to Harvard, and that included our studies.”Since then, a small team has been scrambling for new sources of support, just to keep these freezers frozen.”Really remarkably, a number of our participants themselves have sent checks,” Willett said. “I think they understand this is a generational transfer of knowledge and information that can help their kids, their grandchildren, and everybody around the world.”In the past year alone, researchers have used the collection to test theories about Parkinson’s disease, Type 2 diabetes, breast cancer and dementia.Soon, they hope to discover how to live to 100 with good physical and mental health.”We’re just at a point where some of our participants are reaching that period of their life,” Willett said. “We’ll have the best information anywhere on that because we know what they’ve been eating, what they’ve been doing, and what medicines they’ve been taking over the last 50 years.”But for now, the only question that researchers want answered is whether this collection can stay cold — and accessible — for another 50 years.”I regard myself as sort of a custodian,” Willett said. “The data that we’re providing really does help everybody, whether you’re living in a red state or a blue state, but all of a sudden, it’s become divisive.”

    The key to living a long and happy life hasn’t been found yet.

    But some researchers believe it could be hiding inside the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.

    See the story in the video above

    That’s where nearly 50 years of data from the Nurses’ Health Study is stored.

    “We’ve collected blood samples, urine samples, toenail samples,” said Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition. “And we’ve collected many of these samples repeatedly over time.”

    The number catalogued at the school’s biorepository is in the millions.

    Since 1976, more than 280,000 nurses of different ages and backgrounds have donated their own biological specimens and provided detailed information about their health, lifestyle, and medications for researchers like Willett to study.

    “We have dozens of big nitrogen freezers that are almost as tall as I am,” Willett said. “It takes about $300,000 a year just to provide liquid nitrogen to keep those samples cold.”
    But then last spring, the funding stopped.

    “Essentially, the federal government — Trump — decided to attack Harvard,” Willett said. “And basically, on the basis of being antisemitic, (it) terminated all research, all funding to Harvard, and that included our studies.”

    Since then, a small team has been scrambling for new sources of support, just to keep these freezers frozen.

    “Really remarkably, a number of our participants themselves have sent checks,” Willett said. “I think they understand this is a generational transfer of knowledge and information that can help their kids, their grandchildren, and everybody around the world.”

    In the past year alone, researchers have used the collection to test theories about Parkinson’s disease, Type 2 diabetes, breast cancer and dementia.

    Soon, they hope to discover how to live to 100 with good physical and mental health.

    “We’re just at a point where some of our participants are reaching that period of their life,” Willett said. “We’ll have the best information anywhere on that because we know what they’ve been eating, what they’ve been doing, and what medicines they’ve been taking over the last 50 years.”

    But for now, the only question that researchers want answered is whether this collection can stay cold — and accessible — for another 50 years.

    “I regard myself as sort of a custodian,” Willett said. “The data that we’re providing really does help everybody, whether you’re living in a red state or a blue state, but all of a sudden, it’s become divisive.”

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  • How bad is California’s housing shortage? It depends on who’s doing the counting

    Imagine you’ve finally taken your car to the mechanic to investigate that mysterious warning light that’s been flashing on your dashboard for the past week and a half.

    The mechanic informs you that your car’s brake fluid is too low. Dangerously low. Your brake fluid supply, he says, has reached “crisis” levels, which sounds both scary and very expensive.

    Naturally, you would prefer that your car have a noncritical amount of brake fluid. “How much more do I need?” you ask.

    “A quart,” the mechanic responds. “No, actually, three quarts. Or maybe seven gallons — but only routed to your rear brakes. Actually, let’s settle on half an ounce.”

    Such is the situation with California’s housing shortage.

    For nearly a decade now, the Legislature has been churning out bills, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has been filing lawsuits and Gov. Gavin Newsom has been revamping agencies, dashing off executive orders and quoting Ezra Klein with the explicit goal of easing the state’s chronic undersupply of places to live.

    California simply doesn’t have enough housing and this shortage is the leading cause of our housing affordability concerns — virtually everyone in and around the state government, along with the vast majority of academics who have studied the issue, seems now to agree on this point.

    This consensus was on display this year when lawmakers passed two sweeping changes to state housing law, one that shields apartment developments from environmental litigation and the other that would permit denser development near major public transit stops in big cities. Both were legislative nonstarters just a few years ago. These days, even the opponents of these bills have accepted the premise that the state faces a “housing shortage,” a term evoked at least 30 times in committee hearings and floor speeches this year.

    Now, if only anyone could agree on how big the housing shortage actually is.

    Plenty of people have tried to put a number on the problem.

    In 2015, the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which serves as a policy analysis shop and think tank for the Legislature, took an early crack at quantifying the state’s shortage by calculating how many additional units major metro areas would have had to build over the prior three decades to keep housing cost inflation on par with that of the rest of the country.

    It came up with 2.7 million missing units.

    A year later, consulting giant McKinsey one-upped the LAO, putting the state’s “housing shortfall” at 3.5 million houses, apartments and condos, a number Newsom campaigned on.

    Not all estimates hit seven digits. In 2024, the housing policy nonprofit Up For Growth published the more modest estimated shortfall of 840,000 units, which comes pretty close to the 820,000 Freddie Mac put forward a few years earlier.

    California Housing Partnership, a nonprofit that advocates for affordable housing, has counted the deficit at 1.3 million units — but not just any units. That’s how many homes the state needs to add that are affordable to people making under a certain income.

    Then, this summer, a group of housing analysts, including an economist at Moody’s Analytics, came up with the strikingly low figure of just 56,000 — though the authors acknowledged that it’s probably an underestimate.

    Estimates of the nation’s overall housing supply are similarly all over the place: from as high as 8.2 million to 1.5 million (and, in one controversial paper, zero).

    The concept of a “housing shortage” is, in theory, pretty simple, said Anjali Kolachalam, an analyst at Up For Growth.

    “It’s basically just the gap between the housing you have and the housing you need,” she said.

    In practice, defining and then setting out to quantify the “housing you need” is an exercise fraught with messy data, guesstimation and an inconvenient need for judgement calls.

    Most estimates begin with a target vacancy rate. In any reasonably well-functioning housing market, the logic goes, some houses and apartments sit empty, either because they’re between renters, they’ve just been built or sold, they’re being fixed or renovated or they’re someone’s second home. A modest vacancy rate is what allows you to pull up Zillow or Craigslist and not get a “no results found” error. A very low one suggests there aren’t enough homes to go around.

    But choosing a “healthy” vacancy rate — one that reflects a functional housing market — and then backing out the number of additional homes needed to hit it, is more art than science. Most estimates turn to historical data to find some level when supply and demand weren’t completely out of whack. Whether that halcyon period of relative affordability is 2015 or 2006 or 2000 or 1980 varies by researcher and, likely, by the region being considered.

    Beyond that, many researchers have tried to put a value on what is sometimes called “pent up” demand or “missing households.” Those are all the people who would have gone off and gotten their own apartment or bought their own place, but, because of the unavailability of affordable places to live, have opted to keep living with housemates, with parents or, in more extreme cases, without shelter of any kind.

    Absent a survey of every living person, there’s no way to precisely measure how many people fall into this camp.

    “This notion of ‘pent up demand’ is necessarily in an economist’s judgment call,” said Elena Patel, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who helped put together a nationwide shortage estimate last year (4.9 million).

    These variations in methods help explain some of the differences in the shortage estimates. Other differences pop up thanks to the vagaries of data.

    The Moody’s Analytics-led report, for example, calculated a national shortage of roughly 2 million units by adding together both the number of new units needed to raise the overall vacancy rate and the homes needed to backfill their measure of “pent up” demand. But for its California-specific estimate, the data wasn’t available to do the latter, potentially leaving out a big chunk of the statewide shortage.

    Then some estimates differ because the analysts are defining the shortage in a completely different way.

    The California Housing Partnership looks at the difference between the number of households deemed by federal housing guidelines to have “very” or “extremely” low incomes and the number of units that those households could conceivably rent with less than 30% of their incomes.

    That gap of 1.3 million gets at a problem totally distinct from an overall shortage of homes.

    Finally, there’s the question of scale. Housing markets are, on the whole, local. A national shortage is going to add together San Francisco and Detroit, masking the extremes of both. A shortage estimate for a state as large and diverse as California may have the same problem.

    “It is like looking for a weather forecast for a trip to the beach and being told that the average temperature nationwide is likely to be 67 degrees,” the authors of the Moody’s-led analysis wrote.

    What might be more valuable than fixating on any one shortage estimate, said Daniel McCue, a researcher at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, is to look at all the estimates together and appreciate that, by and large, they’re all huge.

    “Whether it’s 1.5 million or 5.5 million, these are big numbers,” he said. That leads to an inescapable takeaway, he said. “There’s so much to do. There’s so far to go.”

    Patel, from Brookings, said trying to put a precise tally on what is ultimately the somewhat nebulous concept of a “housing shortage” is still a worthwhile exercise because it gives lawmakers and planners a benchmark against which to measure progress.

    How much additional taxpayer money should a state throw at affordable housing development? How aggressive should a locality be in pursuing changes to local zoning? “The more concrete you can be in policymaking land, the better,” she said.

    The state of California does in fact have its own set of concrete numbers.

    Every eight years, the Department of Housing and Community Development issues planning goals to regions across the state — a number of additional homes, broken down by affordability level, that every municipality should plan for. These are, effectively, California government’s official estimates of the state shortage.

    To cobble together these numbers, state regulators look at projections of population growth to accommodate the need for future homes and then tack on adjustments to account for all the homes that weren’t built in prior periods, but perhaps ought to have been. If a region has an excess number of households deemed overcrowded, it gets more units. If vacancy rates are below a predetermined level, it gets more units. If there is a bevy of people spending more than 30% of their incomes on rent, more (affordable) units.

    It’s a process that the state regulators have come to take somewhat more seriously in recent years, engendering an ongoing political backlash from density-averse local governments and neighborhood activists.

    In the state’s last estimate, the topline total was 2.5 million units.

    This coming cycle, which has already begun in the rural north and will slowly roll out across the state in the coming years, will produce yet another number. That will be one more estimate for state lawmakers of how much brake fluid the car needs.

    Ben Christopher writes for CalMatters.

    Ben Christopher

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  • He’s back! Schwarzenegger aims to terminate gerrymandering once again in California

    Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who championed the creation of an independent commission to draw California’s congressional districts, returns to state voters’ TV sets on Tuesday in a new ad opposing a November ballot measure by state Democrats to boost their party’s ranks in Congress.

    A committee opposing Proposition 50, which would replace districts drawn by an independent commission with ones crafted by partisans, plans to spend $1 million per day airing the ad statewide. Schwarzenegger describes the ballot measure as one that does not favor voters but is in the interest of entrenched politicians.

    “That’s what they want to do is take us backwards. This is why it is important for you to vote no on Proposition 50,” the Hollywood celebrity and former governor says in the ad, which was filmed last week when he spoke to USC students. “The Constitution does not start with ‘We, the politicians.’ It starts with ‘We, the people.’ … Democracy — we’ve got to protect it, and we’ve got to go and fight for it.”

    Redistricting is the redrawing of congressional boundaries that typically occurs once a decade following the U.S. census to account for population shifts. The process rarely attracts the attention it has this year because of a heated battle to determine control of a closely divided Congress in the final two years of President Trump’s tenure.

    After Trump urged Texas and other GOP-led states to redraw their congressional districts earlier this year to boost the number of Republicans in the House, California Democrats, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, countered by putting a rare mid-decade redistricting on a special-election November ballot that would likely boost the number of Democrats in the body.

    Schwarzenegger, long a champion of political reform, is not part of any official Proposition 50 campaign. Since leaving office, he has prioritized good governance at his institute at USC and campaigned for independent redistricting across the nation.

    His remarks were filmed, and the ad is being aired by the most well-funded effort opposing Proposition 50, which is bankrolled by Charles Munger Jr., a major GOP donor who underwrote the ballot measures that created California’s independent commission.

    Munger has already donated $30 million to a campaign opposing the November ballot measure, according to fundraising disclosures filed with the secretary of state’s office. The other large opposition effort has raised more than $5 million. The main group supporting Proposition 50, led by Newsom, has raised more than $54 million.

    These fundraising figures are based on required disclosures of large contributions. More complete fundraising numbers must be filed with the state on Thursday.

    Seema Mehta

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  • Commentary: Here’s why the redistricting fight is raging. And why it may be moot

    A handful of seats are all that keep Republicans in control of the House, giving President Trump untrammeled sway over, well, pretty much everything, from the economy to the jokes on late-night TV to the design of the Cracker Barrel logo.

    It’s a number that’s both tantalizing and fraught, depending on your political perspective.

    For Democrats, that eyelash-thin margin means they’re thisclose to regaining power and a political toehold in next year’s midterm election. All they need is a gain of three House seats. For Trump and fellow Republicans, it means their hegemony over Washington and life as we know it dangles by a perilously thin thread.

    That tension explains the redistricting wars now blazing throughout our great land.

    It started in Texas, where Trump pressured Republicans to redraw congressional lines in hopes of handing the GOP as many as five additional seats. That led California Democrats to ask voters, in a Nov. 4 special election, to approve an eye-for-an-eye gerrymander that could yield their party five new lawmakers.

    Several other states have waded into the fight, assuming control of the House might be decided next year by just a few seats, one way or the other.

    Which could happen.

    Or not.

    Anyone claiming to know for sure is either lying, trying to frighten you into giving money, or both.

    “History is on Democrats’ side, but it’s too early to know what the national political environment is going to be like,” said Nathan Gonzales, one of the country’s top political handicappers and publisher of the nonpartisan campaign guide Inside Elections. “We don’t know the overall mood of the electorate, how satisfied voters [will be] with Republicans in power in Washington or how open to change they’ll be a year from now.”

    A look back offers some clues, though it should be said no two election cycles are alike and the past is only illuminating insofar as it casts light on certain patterns.

    (Take that as a caveat, weasel words or whatever you care to call it.)

    In the last half century, there have been 13 midterm elections. The out party — that is, the one that doesn’t hold the presidency — has won 13 or more House seats in eight of those elections. Going back even further, since World War II the out party has gained an average of more than two dozen House seats.

    In Trump’s last midterm election, in 2018, Democrats won 40 House seats — including seven in California — to seize control. (That was 17 more than they needed.) A Democratic gain of that magnitude seems unlikely next year, barring a complete and utter GOP collapse. That’s because there are fewer Republicans sitting in districts that Democrats carried in the most recent presidential election, which left them highly vulnerable.

    In 2018, 25 Republicans represented districts won by Hillary Clinton. In 2026, there are just three Republicans in districts Kamala Harris carried. (Thirteen Democrats represent districts that Trump won.)

    Let’s pause before diving into more numbers.

    OK. Ready?

    There are 435 House seats on the ballot next year. Most are a lock for one party or the other.

    Based on the current congressional map, Inside Elections rates 64 House seats nationwide as being at least somewhat competitive, with a dozen considered toss-ups. The Cook Political Report, another gold-plated handicapper, rates 72 seats competitive or having the potential to be so, with 18 toss-ups.

    Both agree that two of those coin-flip races are in California, where Democrats Adam Gray and Derek Tran are fighting to hang onto seats they narrowly won in, respectively, the Central Valley and Orange County. (The Democratic gerrymander seeks to shore up those incumbents.)

    You really can’t assess the 2026 odds without knowing how the redistricting fight comes out.

    Republicans could pick up as many as 16 seats through partisan map-making, Inside Elections forecasts, a number that would be reduced if California voters approve Proposition 50. Erin Covey, who analyzes House races for the Cook Report, puts GOP gains as high as 13, again depending on the November outcome in California.

    Obviously, that would boost the GOP’s chances of hanging onto the House, which is precisely why Trump pushed for the extraordinary mid-decade redistricting.

    But there are many other factors at play.

    One huge element is Trump’s approval rating. Simply put, the less popular a president, the more his party tends to suffer at the polls.

    Right now Trump’s approval rating is a dismal 43%, according to the Cook Report’s PollTracker. That could change, but it’s a danger sign for Republicans. Over the past three decades, every time the president’s net job approval was negative a year from the midterm election, his party lost House seats.

    Another thing Democats have going for them is the passion of their voters, who’ve been flocking to the polls in off-year and special elections. The Downballot, which tracks races nationwide, finds Democratic candidates have far surpassed Kamala Harris’ 2024 performance, a potential harbinger of strong turnout in 2026.

    Those advantages are somewhat offset by a GOP edge in two other measures. Republicans have significantly outraised Democrats and have limited the number of House members retiring. Generally speaking, it’s tougher for a party to defend a seat when it comes open.

    In short, for all the partisan passions, the redistricting wars aren’t likely to decide control of the House.

    “Opinions of the economy and Trump’s handling of it, the popularity (or lack thereof) of Republicans’ signature legislation” — the tax-cutting, Medicaid-slashing bill passed in July — as well as “partisan enthusiasm to vote are going to be more determinative to the 2026 outcome than redistricting alone,” Amy Walter, the Cook Report’s editor-in-chief, wrote in a recent analysis.

    In other words, control of the House will most likely rest in the hands of voters, not scheming politicians.

    Which is exactly where it belongs.

    Mark Z. Barabak

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  • Kentucky couple turns birthdays, anniversary dates into big lottery win

    A Louisville, Kentucky, couple’s dedication to playing a personal set of numbers in the Kentucky Lottery has netted them a major win.The couple, who asked to remain anonymous, recently matched all four white ball winning numbers and the Cash Ball from a ticket they purchased at B Quick Marathon in Louisville, according to the Kentucky Lottery.Video above: Why is Alabama one of only 5 U.S. states without a lottery?The couple has been playing the game for years and uses personal numbers for the first line, with the remaining two lines as quick picks.“What I loved about our win is the numbers that we won on were the numbers that I picked,” the wife said. “His birthday. My birthday and our anniversary date.” The couple, both retired, did not realize they had hit the top prize until three days after the Aug. 22 drawing.“We were just sitting around after the yard work, and I decided to get another cup of coffee and head up to my room, where I keep the tickets. I checked our tickets and there it was,” one of them said.After taxes, the couple walked away with $162,000 from Kentucky Lottery Headquarters.The couple plans to make some renovations to their home and potentially buy a new car.

    A Louisville, Kentucky, couple’s dedication to playing a personal set of numbers in the Kentucky Lottery has netted them a major win.

    The couple, who asked to remain anonymous, recently matched all four white ball winning numbers and the Cash Ball from a ticket they purchased at B Quick Marathon in Louisville, according to the Kentucky Lottery.

    Video above: Why is Alabama one of only 5 U.S. states without a lottery?

    The couple has been playing the game for years and uses personal numbers for the first line, with the remaining two lines as quick picks.

    “What I loved about our win is the numbers that we won on were the numbers that I picked,” the wife said. “His birthday. My birthday and our anniversary date.”

    The couple, both retired, did not realize they had hit the top prize until three days after the Aug. 22 drawing.

    “We were just sitting around after the yard work, and I decided to get another cup of coffee and head up to my room, where I keep the tickets. I checked our tickets and there it was,” one of them said.

    After taxes, the couple walked away with $162,000 from Kentucky Lottery Headquarters.

    The couple plans to make some renovations to their home and potentially buy a new car.

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  • Ocoee moves forward with large pickleball complex

    The City of Ocoee is moving forward with a pickleball facility a developer pitched to the city over a year ago.Originally pitched in April 2024, Vasant Sports LLC’s pickleball facility was given the thumbs up during Tuesday night’s city commissioners meeting. The preliminary site plan was approved, but it looks different than the original pitch from April 2024.”I think it’s a great idea, it sounds like a beautiful idea that they’ve come up with, and it sounds like they took the residents into consideration big-time,” said Debbie Gulley, an Ocoee resident.”Air conditioned, which makes it even nicer for the players, but I think the fact that the developers did keep in mind the sound and they’re respectful of those around them,” said Ocoee resident Jill Ogletree.The original pitch was for a 44-court complex, with roughly half of that number being outdoor courts. After listening to the city and residents, that number was culled to 25 indoor tournament-style courts and one outside court for championship play. The outside court will be flanked by bleacher-style seating.Sravan Tummala of Vasant Sports LLC said, “It’s going to bring in a lot of money and a lot of players, top pickleball players to play pickleball here in the city.”Alongside the pickleball courts are plans for entertainment, restaurants, and bars.”If you don’t play, it will appeal to you because there’s going to be a couple of great restaurants, a couple of bars, great entertainment,” said Todd Lucas of Lucas Development. Lucas is doing design work for the complex.The facility will be located on a six-acre site on the west side of Jacob Nathan Boulevard, near Matthew Paris Boulevard off West Colonial Drive.

    OCOEE, Fla. —

    The City of Ocoee is moving forward with a pickleball facility a developer pitched to the city over a year ago.

    Originally pitched in April 2024, Vasant Sports LLC’s pickleball facility was given the thumbs up during Tuesday night’s city commissioners meeting. The preliminary site plan was approved, but it looks different than the original pitch from April 2024.

    “I think it’s a great idea, it sounds like a beautiful idea that they’ve come up with, and it sounds like they took the residents into consideration big-time,” said Debbie Gulley, an Ocoee resident.

    “Air conditioned, which makes it even nicer for the players, but I think the fact that the developers did keep in mind the sound and they’re respectful of those around them,” said Ocoee resident Jill Ogletree.

    The original pitch was for a 44-court complex, with roughly half of that number being outdoor courts. After listening to the city and residents, that number was culled to 25 indoor tournament-style courts and one outside court for championship play. The outside court will be flanked by bleacher-style seating.

    Sravan Tummala of Vasant Sports LLC said, “It’s going to bring in a lot of money and a lot of players, top pickleball players to play pickleball here in the city.”

    Alongside the pickleball courts are plans for entertainment, restaurants, and bars.

    “If you don’t play, it will appeal to you because there’s going to be a couple of great restaurants, a couple of bars, great entertainment,” said Todd Lucas of Lucas Development. Lucas is doing design work for the complex.

    The facility will be located on a six-acre site on the west side of Jacob Nathan Boulevard, near Matthew Paris Boulevard off West Colonial Drive.

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  • Commentary: The immigration raids are crushing L.A.’s fire recovery and California’s economy

    The crew had just poured a concrete foundation on a vacant lot in Altadena when I pulled up the other day. Two workers were loading equipment onto trucks and a third was hosing the fresh cement that will sit under a new house.

    I asked how things were going, and if there were any problems finding enough workers because of ongoing immigration raids.

    “Oh, yeah,” said one worker, shaking his head. “Everybody’s worried.”

    The other said that when fresh concrete is poured on a job this big, you need a crew of 10 or more, but that’s been hard to come by.

    “We’re still working,” he said. “But as you can see, it’s just going very slowly.”

    Eight months after thousands of homes were destroyed by wildfires, Altadena is still a ways off from any major rebuilding, and so is Pacific Palisades. But immigration raids have hammered the California economy, including the construction industry. And the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling this week that green-lights racial profiling has raised new fears that “deportations will deplete the construction workforce,” as the UCLA Anderson Forecast warned us in March.

    There was already a labor shortage in the construction industry, in which 25% to 40% of workers are immigrants, by various estimates. As deportations slow construction, and tariffs and trade wars make supplies scarcer and more expensive, the housing shortage becomes an even deeper crisis.

    And it’s not just deportations that matter, but the threat of them, says Jerry Nickelsburg, senior economist at the Anderson Forecast. If undocumented people are afraid to show up to install drywall, Nickelsburg told me, it “means you finish homes much more slowly, and that means fewer people are employed.”

    Now look, I’m no economist, but it seems to me that after President Trump promised the entire country we were headed for a “golden age” of American prosperity, it might not have been in his best interest to stifle the state with the largest economy in the nation.

    Especially when many national economic indicators aren’t exactly rosy, when we have not seen the promised decrease in the price of groceries and consumer goods, and when the labor statistics were so embarrassing he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and replaced her with another one, only to see more grim jobs numbers a month later.

    I had just one economics class in college, but I don’t recall a section on the value of deporting construction workers, car washers, elder-care workers, housekeepers, nannies, gardeners and other people whose only crime — unlike the violent offenders we were allegedly going to round up — is a desire to show up for work.

    Now here, let me give you my email address. It’s steve.lopez@latimes.com.

    And why am I telling you that?

    Because I know from experience that some of you are frothing, foaming and itching to reach out and tell me that illegal means illegal.

    So go ahead and email me if you must, but here’s my response:

    We’ve been living a lie for decades.

    People come across the border because we want them to. We all but beg them to. And by we, I mean any number of industries — many of them led by conservatives and by Trump supporters — including agribusiness, and hospitality, and construction, and healthcare.

    Why do you think so many employers avoid using the federal E-Verify system to weed out undocumented workers? Because they don’t want to admit that many of their employees are undocumented.

    In Texas, Republican lawmakers can’t stop demonizing immigrants, and they can’t stop introducing bills by the dozens to mandate wider use of E-Verify. But the most recent one, like all the ones before it, just died.

    Why?

    Because the tough talk is a lie and there’s no longer any shame in hypocrisy. It’s a climate of corruption in which no one has the integrity to admit what’s clear — that the Texas economy is propped up in part by an undocumented workforce.

    At least in California, six Republican lawmakers all but begged Trump in June to ease up on the raids, which were affecting business on farms and construction sites and in restaurants and hotels. Please do some honest work on immigration reform instead, they pleaded, so we can fill our labor needs in a more practical and humane way.

    Makes sense, but politically, it doesn’t play as well as TV ads recruiting ICE commandos to storm the streets and arrest tamale vendors, even as the barbarians who ransacked the Capitol and beat up cops enjoy their time as presidentially pardoned patriots.

    Small businesses, restaurants and mom and pops are being particularly hard hit, says Maria Salinas, chief executive of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Those who survived the pandemic were then kneecapped again by the raids.

    With the Supreme Court ruling, Salinas told me, “I think there’s a lot of fear that this is going to come back harder than before.”

    From a broader economic perspective, the mass deportations make no sense, especially when it’s clear that the vast majority of people targeted are not the violent criminals Trump keeps talking about.

    Giovanni Peri, director of the UC Davis Global Migration Center, noted that we’re in the midst of a demographic transformation, much like that of Japan, which is dealing with the challenges of an aging population and restrictive immigration policies.

    “We’ll lose almost a million working-age Americans every year in the next decade just because of aging,” Peri told me. “We will have a very large elderly population and that will demand a lot of services in … home healthcare [and other industries], but there will be fewer and fewer workers to do these types of jobs.”

    Dowell Myers, a USC demographer, has been studying these trends for years.

    “The numbers are simple and easy to read,” Myers said. Each year, the worker-to-retiree ratio decreases, and it will continue to do so. This means we’re headed for a critical shortage of working people who pay into Social Security and Medicare even as the number of retirees balloons.

    If we truly wanted to stop immigration, Myers said, we should “send all ICE workers to the border. But if you take people who have been here 10 and 20 years and uproot them, there’s an extreme social cost and also an economic cost.”

    At the Pasadena Home Depot, where day laborers still gather despite the risk of raids, three men held out hope for work. Two of them told me they have legal status. “But there’s very little work,” said Gavino Dominguez.

    The third one, who said he’s undocumented, left to circle the parking lot and offer his services to contractors.

    Umberto Andrade, a general contractor, was loading concrete and other supplies into his truck. He told me he lost one fearful employee for a week, and another for two weeks. They came back because they’re desperate and need to pay their bills.

    “The housing shortage in California was already terrible before the fires, and now it’s 10 times worse,” said real estate agent Brock Harris, who represents a developer whose Altadena rebuilding project was temporarily slowed after a visit from ICE agents in June.

    With building permits beginning to flow, Harris said, “for these guys to slow down or shut down job sites is more than infuriating. You’re going to see fewer people willing to start a project.”

    Most people on a job site have legal status, Harris said, “but if shovels never hit the ground, the costs are being borne by everybody, and it’s slowing the rebuilding of L.A.”

    Lots of bumps on the road to the golden age of prosperity.

    steve.lopez@latimes.com

    Steve Lopez

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  • ‘We didn’t believe it’: Workers win big with $100,000 Powerball lottery pool win

    TRY TO SEE IF HE CAN RUN THE BALL. IT’S EMBARRASSING. ALL RIGHT. THAT’S IT. I’M SORRY TO TELL YOU THIS BECAUSE IT’S 1026 AT NIGHT. IT’S TOO LATE TO BUY THE WINNING POWERBALL TICKET. A WHOPPING $1.1 BILLION UP FOR GRABS TONIGHT. THE CASH VALUE, BY THE WAY, OF ALMOST $500 MILLION. AND OUR ASSIGNMENT EDITOR WENT TO GRAB A TICKET LATE TONIGHT AND THE 7-ELEVEN THAT HE WENT TO HAD ACTUALLY REACHED ITS DAILY SALES LIMIT, SO HE COULDN’T PRINT ANY MORE. SO IF YOU DID GET A TICKET, HAVE THOSE TICKETS HANDY AND TUNE

    ‘We didn’t believe it’: Workers win big with $100,000 Powerball lottery pool win

    Updated: 2:24 PM PDT Sep 7, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    While the Powerball jackpot continues to grow, six co-workers now have a nice payday payout after one lucky win of $100,000 playing Powerball in North Carolina. “We really won the lottery,” the co-workers said as they gathered to collect their win at the lottery headquarters. The group known as the “Money Team,” originally thought they’d only won $500, but were shocked to discover that it was a lot more than that. Dwane Heyward, of Georgetown, South Carolina; Keshia Gary, of Southern Pines; Thomasine Hairston, from Bennettsville, South Carolina; Saad Pressley, of Rockingham; Genesis McLaurin, of Hamlet; and Kaprise McLean, of Laurinburg, play the lottery games as a group and share the prize money.“We didn’t believe it until it happened,” Heyward said.They bought the winning ticket at Walmart on North Tryon Street in Charlotte. The ticket matched the numbers on four white balls and the red Powerball in the Aug. 23 drawing to win $50,000. Because they bought a Power Play ticket, the prize doubled to $100,000 when the 2X multiplier hit.The Money Team took home $71,751 after federal and state taxes.

    While the Powerball jackpot continues to grow, six co-workers now have a nice payday payout after one lucky win of $100,000 playing Powerball in North Carolina.

    “We really won the lottery,” the co-workers said as they gathered to collect their win at the lottery headquarters.

    The group known as the “Money Team,” originally thought they’d only won $500, but were shocked to discover that it was a lot more than that.

    Dwane Heyward, of Georgetown, South Carolina; Keshia Gary, of Southern Pines; Thomasine Hairston, from Bennettsville, South Carolina; Saad Pressley, of Rockingham; Genesis McLaurin, of Hamlet; and Kaprise McLean, of Laurinburg, play the lottery games as a group and share the prize money.

    money team wins nc powerball

    North Carolina Education Lottery

    “We didn’t believe it until it happened,” Heyward said.

    They bought the winning ticket at Walmart on North Tryon Street in Charlotte. The ticket matched the numbers on four white balls and the red Powerball in the Aug. 23 drawing to win $50,000. Because they bought a Power Play ticket, the prize doubled to $100,000 when the 2X multiplier hit.

    The Money Team took home $71,751 after federal and state taxes.

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  • 2 California Powerball winners each win more than $1.5 million

    LOT RICHER TONIGHT. THERE WERE TWO WINNING TICKETS IN TONIGHT’S $1.8 BILLION POWERBALL JACKPOT. ONE IN TEXAS AND THE OTHER IN MISSOURI. WINNING NUMBERS FOR TONIGHT’S POWERBALL DRAWING WERE 11 23, 44, 61, 62. POWERBALL WAS 17. THE WINNERS WILL SPLIT THE SECOND LARGEST PRIZE IN POWERBALL HISTORY. WELL, THERE WEREN’T ANY JACKPOT WINNERS IN CALIFORNIA. TWO TICKETS WERE SOLD IN THE STATE, MATCHING THE FIRST FIVE NUMBERS, EACH WORTH MORE THAN 1.5 MILLION. THOS

    2 California Powerball winners each win more than $1.5 million

    Updated: 7:08 AM PDT Sep 7, 2025

    Editorial Standards ⓘ

    California didn’t have a $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot winner after Saturday’s drawing, but two tickets worth more than $1.5 million each were sold in the Golden State.One of the tickets matching five numbers was sold at Love’s Travel Stop at 2000 East Tehachapi Boulevard in Tehachapi, the California Lottery said. The other was sold at a Circle K at 7850 Amador Valley Boulevard in Dublin. The tickets are each worth $1,564,348 before federal taxes. California does not have a state tax on lottery winnings. Here were the winning numbers in Saturday’s drawing: 11-23-44-61-62 Powerball 17.Jackpot-winning tickets were sold in Texas and Missouri. It was the second-largest prize in the game’s history. Those winners can split an annuitized prize estimated at $1.8 billion or a lump sum payment estimated at $826.4 million.Powerball tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    DUBLIN, Calif. —

    California didn’t have a $1.8 billion Powerball jackpot winner after Saturday’s drawing, but two tickets worth more than $1.5 million each were sold in the Golden State.

    One of the tickets matching five numbers was sold at Love’s Travel Stop at 2000 East Tehachapi Boulevard in Tehachapi, the California Lottery said. The other was sold at a Circle K at 7850 Amador Valley Boulevard in Dublin.

    The tickets are each worth $1,564,348 before federal taxes. California does not have a state tax on lottery winnings.

    Here were the winning numbers in Saturday’s drawing: 11-23-44-61-62 Powerball 17.

    Jackpot-winning tickets were sold in Texas and Missouri. It was the second-largest prize in the game’s history.

    Those winners can split an annuitized prize estimated at $1.8 billion or a lump sum payment estimated at $826.4 million.

    Powerball tickets are sold in 45 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

    See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

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  • Vaccine chaos: Even some vulnerable seniors can’t get COVID shots amid spiking cases

    Seniors in some parts of the country say they are being denied COVID-19 vaccinations amid an ongoing spike in cases, leading to rising frustration over new Trump administration policies that are making it harder to get the shots.

    Matthew D’Amico, 67, of New York City, said a Walgreens declined to administer COVID-19 vaccines to him and his 75-year-old wife on Friday because they didn’t have a prescription. They’re trying to get vaccinated ahead of a trip.

    “I can’t believe we can’t get” the vaccine, D’Amico said in an interview. “I’ve been inoculated a number of times and never had to get a prescription. And it’s just very frustrating that this is where we are.”

    He’s not alone in his exasperation. Under the leadership of the vaccine skeptic Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., federal agencies have effectively made it more difficult to get vaccinated against COVID-19 this year. The Food and Drug Administration has only “approved” COVID-19 vaccines for those age 65 and up, as well as younger people with underlying health conditions.

    That means across the country, people younger than 65 interested in getting the COVID-19 vaccine must now either consult with a healthcare provider or “attest” to a pharmacy that they have an underlying health condition. It’s a potential hurdle that can make getting the vaccine more difficult and, some health experts worry, prompt even more Americans to eschew getting vaccinated.

    As D’Amico can attest, though, being part of a group for whom the COVID vaccine is “approved” doesn’t necessarily guarantee easy access.

    “For me to go to my primary [healthcare provider] now and get a prescription, it’s just kind of ridiculous,” D’Amico said.

    At least some people younger than 65 are encountering pharmacy staff asking probing questions about their medical conditions.

    That happened Friday at a CVS in Orange County, according to 34-year-old Alex Benson, who takes medication that can suppress his immune system.

    Besides just protecting himself, he wanted to get vaccinated as he has family members who are at high risk should they get COVID — his mother is immunocompromised, and his mother-in-law had open-heart surgery on Thursday night.

    Benson said an employee asked why he thought he was eligible for the vaccine.

    “They asked me for either a prescription or they wanted to know … why I felt I needed the vaccination,” Benson said. At one point, a staffer offered to call his doctor to get an authorization for the vaccine.

    Benson said he was alarmed by the questions, and started to “feel kind of some desperation to plead my case to the pharmacist.” Another CVS staffer later came over and said further answers weren’t necessary and simply attesting he was eligible was good enough. He eventually got the vaccine.

    Still, he felt the experience was dismaying.

    “I think easy access should be the policy,” Benson said. “I tend not to get too political, but it seems just rather juxtaposed to me that an anti-regulation administration is using regulation in this way. They’re supposed to be removing barriers to healthcare.”

    The vaccine chaos comes as COVID-19 is either increasing or starting to hit its late summer peak. According to data released Friday, there are now 14 states with “very high” levels of coronavirus detected in their wastewater — California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Connecticut, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii and Alaska, as well as the District of Columbia.

    Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, the regional physician chief of infectious diseases for Kaiser Permanente Southern California, said data continue to show an increase in coronavirus cases.

    “Over this past week, we’ve seen an increase in the number of outpatient COVID cases, and even a smattering of inpatient cases,” Hudson said. “It appears that we may be nearing the top of the wave, but it may be another two weeks or so until we truly know if we’re there.”

    The rate at which coronavirus lab tests are confirming infection also continues to rise statewide and in the Los Angeles area. For the week ending Aug. 30, California’s COVID test positivity rate was 12.83%, up from 7.05% for the week ending Aug. 2. In L.A. County, the positive test rate was 14.83%, up from 9.33%.

    Other data, however, suggest some areas may have reached their summer COVID peak.

    In Orange County, the COVID positive test rate was 13.1%. That’s below the prior week’s rate of 18%, but still higher than the rate for the week that ended Aug. 2, which was 10.8%.

    In San Francisco, the test positivity rate has been hovering around 9% for the last week of reliable data available. It’s up from 7% a month earlier.

    In addition, wastewater data in L.A. County show coronavirus levels declined slightly from the prior week.

    “It’s too early to know if this decrease in wastewater viral concentrations is the first sign that COVID-19 activity is peaking or is regular variation typical of this data source,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said.

    COVID hospital admissions in California are increasing — with the latest rate of 3.93 admissions per 100,000 residents, up from 2.38.

    But they remain relatively low statewide and in L.A. County. The number of L.A. County residents seeking care for COVID-related illness, or who have been hospitalized, “is quite a bit lower than during summer surges in 2023 and 2024,” the public health department said.

    A relatively mild summer wave, however, could mean that the annual fall-and-winter COVID wave might be stronger. In July, the state Department of Public Health said that scientists anticipate California would see either a stronger summer COVID wave or a more significant winter wave.

    The current confusion over federal COVID vaccine policy has been exacerbated by the chaos at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where Kennedy earlier this year fired everyone on the influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and orchestrated the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez just 29 days after she was confirmed to the post by the Senate.

    Some of Kennedy’s handpicked replacements on the ACIP have criticized vaccines and spread misinformation, according to the Associated Press. And the new interim CDC director — Jim O’Neill, a Kennedy deputy — is a critic of health regulations and has no training in medicine or healthcare, the AP reported.

    The CDC hasn’t issued its own recommendations on who should get vaccinated, and that inaction has resulted in residents of a number of states needing to get prescriptions from a healthcare provider for at least the next couple of weeks. In some cases, that’s true even for seniors, as D’Amico found out.

    As of Friday, CVS said people need a prescription to get a COVID-19 vaccine, sometimes depending on their age, in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, North Carolina, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia.

    CVS couldn’t even offer the COVID-19 at its pharmacies in Nevada as of Friday; they were only available at the company’s MinuteClinic sites, according to spokesperson Amy Thibault.

    CVS said it expects to offer COVID-19 vaccines without prescriptions at its pharmacies in New Mexico, Nevada, New York and Pennsylvania “soon,” due to recent regulatory changes in each state.

    “Right now, all patients in all states need to attest to being eligible for the vaccine in order to schedule an appointment online,” Thibault said. If an adult says they have no underlying health conditions, but do have a prescription from a healthcare provider for “off-label” use of the vaccine, they can get the shot, Thibault confirmed.

    On Thursday, Hawaii joined California, Washington and Oregon in launching the West Coast Health Alliance: an interstate compact meant to provide science-based immunization guidance as an alternative to the CDC.

    “Together, these states will provide evidence-based immunization guidance rooted in safety, efficacy, and transparency — ensuring residents receive credible information free from political interference,” according to a statement from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.

    The statement suggested that the Trump administration was essentially “dismantling” the CDC.

    “The absence of consistent, science-based federal leadership poses a direct threat to our nation’s health security,” the statement said. “To protect the health of our communities, the West Coast Health Alliance will continue to ensure that our public health strategies are based on best available science.”

    It was not immediately clear, however, whether the formation of the West Coast Health Alliance would make it easier for people to get COVID-19 vaccines at the nation’s largest pharmacy retailers, where many people get their shots.

    Mainstream medical groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, are also offering their own recommendations to advise individuals and families on what vaccines they should get.

    Rong-Gong Lin II

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  • Powerball jackpot climbs again after no jackpot winners in Wednesday night’s drawing

    The Powerball jackpot has risen to $1.7 billion (estimated cash value of $770.3 million). That’s because there was no big winner after Wednesday night’s drawing, according to the Powerball website.Here are the numbers for the Wednesday, Sept. 3 drawing:3-16-29-61-69 Powerball 22The Powerplay Multiplier was 2x The estimated $1.4 billion jackpot from Wednesday night’s drawing would have been for a winner who had opted to receive 30 payments over 29 years through an annuity. Winners almost always choose the game’s cash option, which would have been an estimated $634.3 million.The overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 24.9. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, Powerball officials said Wednesday morning.The Sept. 4 drawing was the 41st drawing since the Powerball jackpot was previously won in California on May 31.Powerball tickets are sold in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and drawings are broadcast live every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET.__ The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    The Powerball jackpot has risen to $1.7 billion (estimated cash value of $770.3 million). That’s because there was no big winner after Wednesday night’s drawing, according to the Powerball website.

    Here are the numbers for the Wednesday, Sept. 3 drawing:

    3-16-29-61-69 Powerball 22

    The Powerplay Multiplier was 2x

    The estimated $1.4 billion jackpot from Wednesday night’s drawing would have been for a winner who had opted to receive 30 payments over 29 years through an annuity. Winners almost always choose the game’s cash option, which would have been an estimated $634.3 million.

    The overall odds of winning a prize are 1 in 24.9. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million, Powerball officials said Wednesday morning.

    The Sept. 4 drawing was the 41st drawing since the Powerball jackpot was previously won in California on May 31.

    Powerball tickets are sold in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and drawings are broadcast live every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday at 10:59 p.m. ET.

    __

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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