| Commission questions fairness of security requirements at a Costa Mesa cannabis dispensary - Los Angeles Times |
| The Costa Mesa Planning Commission eased safety requirements and limits on hours of operation for one retail cannabis business, and raised questions during their meeting last week about the fairness of enforcing such conditions on similar establishments.
The business , 420 Native Garden at 167 Cabrillo Street, had won a permit to operate as a recreational marijuana dispensary in a split vote by the commission on Feb. 27, 2023. At the time, those opposed to the business raised concerns about the possibility of increased crime, noise and parking congestion.
To address these before approving the permit, the commission added conditions requiring Native Garden to have security on site 24/7 and limited their business hours to between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. Every other dispensary in the city is allowed to be open longer hours, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-03-02 |
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| Pasadenans Among Hundreds of Thousands Affected as Decades of Unreported LA County Convictions Come to Light – Pasadena Now |
| Many Pasadena- and Altadena-area residents are among nearly 330,000 people in Los Angeles County now facing potential job loss, licensing consequences, and firearm prohibitions after the LA County Superior Court revealed that criminal convictions dating back more than 40 years inadvertently were never reported to the state. [Article] |
| by , . 2026-03-02 |
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| Who’s Paying for OC Supervisors’ Campaigns? |
| Less than 100 days out from Election Day, Orange County’s current and possibly future supervisors are bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on their campaigns. [Article] |
| by , Voice of OC. 2026-03-02 |
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| Federal funds for World Cup security are late. What does this mean for LA? | LAist |
| The federal government hasn't yet awarded hundreds of millions of dollars that it promised for security for the World Cup, less than four months before the tournament kicks off in cities across the U.S. including Los Angeles.
Officials in some host cities warned at a Congressional hearing last week that if those funds aren't released soon it could lead them to massively scale back or cancel their events for fans this summer – but what the delay means for L.A. is less clear. [Article] |
| by , . 2026-03-02 |
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| Column: There are two Americas. Falling mortgage rates matter only to the wealthy one - Los Angeles Times |
| There was a McDonald’s in my neighborhood that we would drive by often when I was growing up. Each time, I would read about the weekly sale advertised on the marquee underneath the golden arches. Occasionally, I would ask my folks if we could stop at that McDonald’s on the corner. And each time their answer was: “Do you have McDonald’s money?”
There’s a grown-up version of that conversation as well. For the first time in nearly four years, mortgage rates have dropped below 6%. But just how many Americans have home-buying money right now?
Half of us struggle to pay our monthly mortgage or rent, according to a recent survey. More than 80% of prospective buyers said last year that difficulty coming up with a down payment plus closing costs was holding them back.
For folks who can buy a home, the falling mortgage rates are great news: Even just one percentage point can represent tens of thousands of dollars over the life of a mortgage.
However, when nearly a quarter of Americans report living paycheck to paycheck, the recent mortgage rate news only highlights the growing disconnect between America’s economy and its people. It’s like hearing the Dow Jones industrial average has crossed the 50,000-point threshold when the wealthiest 10% of Americans own more than 90% of the stock and nearly half of all private-sector workers don’t have access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan.
Democrats are right to point out the shortcomings of President Trump’s economic policies. But what are the policies they are pushing to address the expanding chasm between the haves and the have-nots? Campaigning on the principles of democracy — free speech, peaceful transfer of power, due process — is a response to what Republicans are doing wrong. But those aren’t the issues that motivated voters and brought Trump back to power. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-03-02 |
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| State board wants judge in receivership case to ‘intervene’ in LA County juvenile halls – Daily News |
| A state regulatory board is wading into the California Department of Justice’s effort to have Los Angeles County’s juvenile halls placed under a receivership, with the board’s attorney arguing in a new court filing that judicial intervention is necessary due to the county’s failure to right its own ship.
The Board of State and Community Corrections, which oversees California’s jails and juvenile halls, filed a motion this week asking a judge to allow it to enter the fray as a “friend of the court,” so it can file briefs challenging witness testimony and provide direct information about its inspections of L.A. County’s facilities. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Daily News. 2026-03-02 |
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| Amid ‘crisis’ at homelessness agency, LA city leaders to discuss pulling funding | LAist |
| L.A. city leaders will discuss on Wednesday whether to pull hundreds of millions of dollars out of the regional homelessness agency and assign different oversight.
L.A. County supervisors voted to withdraw funding for the L.A. Homeless Services Authority last April, citing ongoing problems with the agency's oversight of homelessness funds. [Article] |
| by , . 2026-03-02 |
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| Humboldt County courthouse security plan raises ‘challenging legal issues’ |
| The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors is set to discuss the county’s exposure to potential litigation over changes to courthouse security on Tuesday in closed session.
The Judicial Council of California and the Superior Court of Humboldt County, through a San Francisco-based law firm, are seeking “mandatory pre-lawsuit mediation procedures” under a 2012 agreement on weapons screening services, as soon as possible to discuss concerns about shifting weapons screening to the second floor.
On Jan. 6, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors moved to end courthouse screening services, citing funding gaps. A few weeks later, the county was approved for stopgap funding, the Lost Coast Outpost reported.
The letter from the law firm is dated Jan. 14, prior to the stopgap funding being secured, but after the announcement of moving services.
“We understand that all parties to the MOU are under financial constraints at this time, and are trying their best to work together to ensure the public has safe access to justice at the courthouse,” the letter states. “The purpose of this letter is to initiate, as soon as possible, the process of mandatory mediation under the MOU.”
The letter outlines the concerns that “raise challenging legal issues” on two points: first, the relocation of weapons screening services to the second floor; and second, the removal of bailiffs from certain courtrooms to conduct weapons screening.
The letter points out that security screening at the entrances of buildings is ideal, such as the entrances on 4th and 5th streets that long have housed security screening locations. [Article] |
| by , Eureka Times-Standard. 2026-03-02 |
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| Thousands brace for fallout from unreported LA County criminal convictions – Daily News |
| Nearly 330,000 people whose convictions in Los Angeles County went unreported for decades will soon have their rap sheets updated and, potentially, their employers notified for the first time.
Some could lose their jobs if the conviction would have disqualified them from the position they have, while others may have professional licenses revoked or firearms confiscated, experts say. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Daily News. 2026-03-02 |
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| California homebuying falls below Great Recession lows – Orange County Register |
| California’s homebuying collapse is far different than the nation’s sales dip.
My trusty spreadsheet looked for clues in 21 years of sales stats from Attom, tracking closed deals for houses and condos, existing and newly constructed. The deep reluctance of house hunters to buy in 2023 and 2025 was compared with the ugliness of the 2007-2009 debacle.
Consider how far statewide sales have fallen recently. [Article] |
| by , Orange County Register. 2026-03-02 |
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| Los Angeles Unified school board places Carvalho on administrative leave, names acting superintendent | EdSource |
| The Los Angeles Unified School District board has voted to place Superintendent Alberto Carvalho on paid administrative leave, two days after the FBI raided his San Pedro home and district headquarters and searched a residence in Florida. [Article] |
| by , Edsource. 2026-03-02 |
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| How Border Patrol ALPRs are changing life on California border- CalMatters |
| On a cracked two-lane road on the eastern edge of San Diego County, James Cordero eased his Jeep onto the shoulder after something caught his eye. It looked like an abandoned trailer. Inside he found a hidden camera feeding a vast surveillance network that logs the license plate of every driver passing through this stretch of remote backcountry between San Diego and the Arizona state line.
Cordero, 44, has found dozens of these cameras hidden in trailers and construction barrels on border roads around San Diego and Imperial counties: one on Old Highway 80 near Jacumba Hot Springs; another outside the Golden Acorn Casino in Campo; another along Interstate 8 toward In-Ko-Pah Gorge. [Article] |
| by , CalMatters. 2026-03-02 |
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| California legislators, on both sides of the aisle, call for federal wildfire disaster aid for Southern California – Daily News |
| The California Assembly this week called on President Donald Trump and Congress to send $34 billion in supplemental disaster aid to help Southern California wildfire victims more than a year after the catastrophic Palisades and Eaton fires.
Gov. Gavin Newsom first requested tens of billions of dollars in disaster aid from the federal government in February 2025 and is still waiting for Trump to give the signal to the Republican-led Congress to approve the supplemental funding.
The bipartisan resolution the Assembly passed on Thursday, Feb. 26, called on the president to “immediately submit a supplemental disaster declaration” for Congress to “unlock funding.” At the same time, it urged Congress to approve the aid “regardless of whether it receives a request” from Trump. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Daily News. 2026-03-02 |
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| DHS Clears Billions To FEMA For Disaster Aid, But California Is Excluded – Pasadena Now |
| The Trump administration released more than $5 billion in FEMA Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation funding during the week of Feb. 24–28, according to The Hill and CNN. The release occurred while the Department of Homeland Security remained in a partial shutdown that began Feb. 14. FEMA said the money covers recovery projects nationwide, some dating back more than 15 years, with five jurisdictions excluded.
California — along with Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, and the U.S. Virgin Islands — did not receive any Public Assistance awards in this round. [Article] |
| by , . 2026-03-02 |
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| Surveillance company Flock generates controversy, and L.A. customers - Los Angeles Times |
| Santa Cruz tried out the surveillance company Flock Safety for a little over a year before deciding it was time to move on.
Cambridge, Mass., also had enough and tore up its contract in December. Now, some officials in San Diego have begun to have second thoughts of their own.
In recent months, dozens of cities have cut ties with Flock — the nation’s largest provider of automated digital license plate readers — over fears that data the company captures is helping power President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
The same can’t be said in one particularly surprising place: Los Angeles. Here, Flock still has an eager customer base of local elected officials, police officers, homeowners associations and businesses.
Unlike some of its competitors, the Atlanta-based company has not only marketed its plate readers to law enforcement as a vital crime-fighting tool, but also aggressively pitched its product to private citizens, experts say.
“They are tremendous investigative tools,” LAPD spokesman Capt. Michael Bland said.
But for critics, there’s an obvious downside: the potential tracking of law-abiding citizens without a warrant on a scale once thought unimaginable.
“These can be really powerful tools to find someone, and identity them. But when you don’t have a suspect, everyone can be a suspect,” said Hannah Bloch-Wehba, a professor of law at Texas A&M University.
A Flock spokesperson did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.
Typically mounted on street poles or atop police cars, plate readers continuously monitor passing vehicles, recording their location at a specific date and time. But Flock’s AI-powered cameras go even further by also documenting other identifying vehicle details, such as make, model and color, as well as any distinctive markings, such as scratches or dents on a bumper.
From there, police can easily search for the location of specific vehicles in the company’s vast national database, allowing them not only to potentially retrace the whereabouts of someone suspected of a crime, but also to receive predictions about future movements.
In a presentation to the Picfair Village Neighborhood Assn., Flock boasted that its plate readers had helped solve “10% of reported crime in the U.S.” In L.A., the company said, its technology had been deployed to nab porch pirates and car thieves, not to mention played a role in solving a “high-profile crime involving stolen weapons from a politician’s home.” [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-03-02 |
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| Supreme Court: California parents may be told about their transgender child at school - Los Angeles Times |
| WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court revived a San Diego judge’s order Monday and said parents have a right to know about their child’s gender identity at school.
The decision came in a 6-3 order granting an emergency appeal from lawyers for Chicago-based Thomas More Society.
They said the student privacy policy enforced in California infringes on parents’ rights and the free exercise of religion.
“The parents object that these policies prevent schools from telling them about their children’s efforts to engage in gender transitioning at school unless the children consent to parental notification,” the court said. “The parents also take issue with California’s requirement that schools use children’s preferred names and pronouns regardless of their parents’ wishes.”
The judge’s injunction “does not provide relief for all the parents of California public school students, but only for those parents who object to the challenged policies or seek religious exemptions,” the justices added.
The six conservatives were in the majority, while the three liberals dissented.
Religious liberty advocates hailed the decision.
“Parents’ fundamental right to raise their children according to their faith doesn’t stop at the schoolhouse door,” said Mark Rienzi, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. “California tried cutting parents out of their children’s lives while forcing teachers to hide the school’s behavior from parents. We’re glad the Court stepped in to block this anti-family, anti-American policy.”
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had put on hold a late December ruling by U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, who held that the student privacy rules enforced by California school officials were unconstitutional. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-03-02 |
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| Clean Power Alliance Reports Record Growth in LA County |
| lean Power Alliance (CPA), the nation's number one green power provider and California's largest community choice energy aggregator, has released its 2025 Impact Report, highlighting a year of strategic investments, community-centered growth and expanded clean energy solutions across Los Angeles and Ventura counties. [Article] |
| by , . 2026-03-02 |
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| California wants millions of heat pumps. High power bills might get in the way - Los Angeles Times |
| If you’re a California homeowner and you’ve been feeling chilly this winter, there are plenty of reasons to go get a heat pump.
An all-electric, energy-efficient alternative to gas-burning furnaces, heat pumps are widely seen as the climate-friendly home heater of choice.
They can do double-duty as both home heaters and AC units and are pretty good at maintaining a constant temperature inside a home without the blast-then-cool-off cycle typical of a furnace.
What about a guaranteed lower monthly utility bill? Not in California.
Call it California’s heat pump conundrum.
On the one hand, California has hyperambitious goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to curb the worst effects of a changing climate. Most experts see the electrification of buildings — swapping furnaces, water heaters, stoves and ovens that run on burning fossil fuel with appliances plugged into California’s increasingly green electrical grid — as a necessary step toward meeting those goals.
California has built one of the most aggressive heat pump strategies in the country. The state aims to install 6 million heat pumps in homes by 2030. Lawmakers are also moving this year to boost heat pump adoption — proposing to streamline permitting, and make it easier to electrify homes. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-03-02 |
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| Andres Chait pledges continuity as he takes LAUSD helm after FBI raids - Los Angeles Times |
| The investigation that led to last week’s FBI raid at the home and office of schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho stemmed from a referral more than a year ago from New York prosecutors working a criminal fraud case involving a technology company with a Los Angeles Unified School District contract that went bust, according to sources familiar with the inquiry.
It was not until last week that the extent of the inquiry became public. The sources said grand jury subpoenas have been issued to individuals in Miami-Dade County Public Schools, where Carvalho served as superintendent before coming to L.A. in 2022. The subpoenas seek records from the district’s inspector general and the former Foundation for New Education Initiatives, according to a source familiar with the case.
The foundation was a nonprofit organization overseen by Carvalho while serving in Miami. It is now called the Miami-Dade County Public Schools Foundation. In 2020 the Miami-Dade schools inspector general concluded a $1.57-million donation Carvalho helped secure for the foundation — by a firm with a pending district contract — did not violate state or district ethics policies, but created an appearance of impropriety.
Neither the Miami-Dade County School District nor foundation leadership immediately responded to requests for comment. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-03-02 |
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| Voter ID appears headed for California's November ballot. What you should know - Los Angeles Times |
| SACRAMENTO — A proposed initiative to require Californians to show identification every time they vote, and election officials to verify registered voters are U.S. citizens, appears to have enough support to qualify for the November ballot.
Proponents say they have collected more than 1.3 million voter signatures on petitions supporting the ballot measure, far more than required under California law, and plan to submit them to county elections officials Monday for verification.
The Republican-led push for the voter ID initiative comes at a time of growing distrust in the integrity of the electoral process nationwide, a wariness intensified by President Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him and false assertions that droves of undocumented immigrants are swaying elections with illegal votes.
Proponents of voter ID contend that such laws prevent election fraud and, along with proof of citizenship mandates, prevent noncitizens from voting. Opponents say ID mandates threaten the fundamental constitutional rights of Americans who do not have the mandated documentation readily available, and that the restrictions are unnecessary given that voting by noncitizens is rare and already outlawed in the U.S.
The partisan divide over whether voters must provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote, one of Trump’s top priorities, continues to consume Washington. House Republicans passed the mandate in early February but the legislation — known as the SAVE Act — has bogged down in the Senate.
Democrats say that under the SAVE Act, many state driver’s licenses would not be adequate documentation to prove U.S. citizenship, forcing people to produce a passport or birth certificate — which many voters do not have. According to a 2023 survey by the Brennan Center for Justice and others, 9% of U.S. adult citizens do not have proof of their citizenship that’s readily available. The survey found that 11% of adult citizens of color were unable to readily access those documents, compared with 8% for white American adults. They accused Republicans of trying to prevent millions of Americans from voting in the next election in order to keep Congress under GOP control. [Article] |
| by , Los Angeles Times. 2026-03-02 |
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