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A news and politics podcast for people who live in Los Angeles.
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- 5 days ago58 min
Wet Hot LA Summer
Mike, Godfrey, and guest co-host Carla Hall discuss the Sunset Boulevard sinkhole in West Hollywood. Then, the results of the 2026 homeless count are in. And Mayor Karen Bass’s informal advisor steps back. On July 16th, an LADWP pipe burst on the corner of Sunset and Holloway in West Hollywood. It was about 110 years old, and created a giant sinkhole in the middle of the night This pipe was on track to be refurbished in 2031- about 30%,of the city's pipes are over 80 years old LADWP experiences a leak rate that is 36% below the national average More small leaks on Sunset For the LA Times, Hannah Fry reports that “there are about 547 miles of trunk line underground across the city. In 2019, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said roughly 29% of the city’s pipes were over 80 years old, approaching their typical lifespan of 100 years.” The LA Times has a map of locations where water main leaks have happened since 2010 West Hollywood mayor John Heilman was there, and so was Mayor Karen Bass Councilmember and mayoral candidate Nithya Raman was on the scene with Councilmember Chelsea Byers Officials said anyone with property or vehicle damage can file a claim through LADWP at ladwp.com/claims After two years of modest but promising decreases in homelessness, numbers are up in both the city of LA and the larger overall county of LA, LAHSA officially announces The overall homeless population in the city is up 3.5%, and the unsheltered population, which Mayor Bass focuses on through Inside Safe, is up 7.9% State funding for homelessness, which had been very healthy and robust, got cut in 2025 - a lot of that money was going to limited rental subsidies, which were hugely successful. This past year, there were 5,000 fewer people that the county was not able to put into housing because they didn't have enough subsidies The Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency, shorthanded as LACAHSA, is investing over $228 million this fiscal year to help communities build and preserve affordable homes and to help prevent homelessness Funding for support services and homelessness prevention is currently funded by Measure A dollars, and for LA city specific residents, some of this funding comes from Measure ULA Mayor Bass is running for reelection against Council Member Raman - the numbers in Council District 4 are very different from the citywide numbers. The unsheltered population citywide was up 7.8%, and in Council District 4 it's down 49% Yusef Robb, a close but informal advisor to the mayor, took on crisis comms work for Lineage after the warehouse fire in Boyle Heights thro
- 1 weeks ago1h 0m
All's Smell That Ends Smell
Alissa, Oscar, and guest co-host Rudy Espinoza discuss accelerating immigration enforcement activity in LA as ICE murders three people in one week nationwide. Then, how an unbearable stench, rats, flies, and extreme heat are impacting the Lineage fire aftermath. And as the 39-day tournament ends, reflections on what LA got wrong and right with the World Cup. Three ICE murders in one week across the country: Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine, and an unidentified man in Miami. The Maine murder, where a man ran into traffic to escape ICE, is similar to the killing of Roberto Carlos Montoya in Monrovia last year 14 ICE detainees have died so far in 2026. In 2025, ICE reported that 33 detainees died LA Taco reports that the San Fernando Valley has become a hotbed of ICE activity, with raids escalating. The DTLA ICE detainment facility is now being moved to Santa Ana, although perhaps temporarily As reported by LAist’s Libby Rainey, advocates are receiving upticks in calls for help with ICE raids. Attorney Sarah Houston, who oversees calls, says: "I'm so happy that ICE hasn't ruined the World Cup by doing these mass raids, but they are still doing them piecemeal and one by one...In the background, the administration is still there, and these things are still happening. They're just not happening at SoFi Stadium." ICE patrols shifted to fan zones and the areas surrounding SoFi Stadium Jets used to deport ICE detainees were also used to transport World Cup teams Sweeping changes are coming to the ICE detention center in Adelanto due to a federal ruling demanding the humane treatment of prisoners ICE promised to halt vehicle stops and increase the use of body cameras. Hmmm, where have we heard that before? CHIRLA, pro-immigrant leaders, and clergy members held a press conference to honor the people killed by ICE, and organize a day of action on July 25 85 million pounds of rotting food from the Lineage fire is now causing an overpowering smell that’s traveling far outside the neighborhood, contains odor-related toxins, and is creating a fly infestation. Extreme heat is also becoming an issue. AQMD has issued an odor violation for the smell from the Lineage fire, but residents continue to demand that the <a href="https://www.ins
- 2 weeks ago56 min
Town Hall Your Fault
Alissa, Mike, and guest co-host Adam Conover take a look at the ongoing repercussions from the Lineage Logistics fire, an explosive town hall in Boyle Heights, and how the thawing cold storage warehouse has snowballed into a political nightmare. Then, what’s changed in Karen Bass’s mayoral campaign. And some bad (and also some good?) LAPD updates. At a town hall in Boyle Heights for the community impacted by the Lineage fire, Mayor Karen Bass and other officials were booed by the crowd. Watch the entire thing here Both Bass and Lineage official Jeff Rivera issued multiple apologies, including admitting major communication issues around air quality Meanwhile, ER visits spiked during the fire, and Boyle Heights residents were exposed to air pollution that was worse than the Eaton Fire The Boyle Heights disaster once again raises jurisdictional issues about how residents of the adjacent unincorporated areas of LA County access services Bass recommended Airbnb to displaced residents looking for temporary housing, despite the ongoing lawsuits against Airbnb from the city of LA for price gouging after the 2025 fires. Plus Airbnb is heavily funding her campaign As reported by Julia Wick at L.A. Material Bass’ unpaid advisor Yusef Robb is also helping with crisis communications for Lineage, although he later said he would no longer advise Bass Boyle Heights residents staged a protest along with LAUSD board member Rocio Rivas to demand the removal of Lineage from the neighborhood Bass’ campaign is shifting leadership: Doug Herman is out and Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who worked on both Joe Biden’s and Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaigns, is in The LAPD officer who shot and killed a dog named Jameson during the Knicks victory last month will not be publicly named despite the fact that body cam footage and transcripts have been released, and the dog’s owner Marie Marseille has filed a lawsuit against the city LAPD has agreed to end their deal with Flock surveillance cameras Journalist Sean Beckner-Carmitchel has the LAPD-Flock MOU Become a paid subscriber to thinkforward.la This week’s episode was produced by Sophie Bridges Our digital producer is Victoria
- 3 weeks ago59 min
Mistrial By Fire
Alissa, Godfrey, and Kate examine why the Palisades arson case ended in a mistrial, and how the feds biffed the prosecution. What you won’t see on the November ballot after LA City Council charter reforms go down in flames. Then, LA finally has a city service agreement with LA28, but human rights advocates are sounding alarms. A mistrial has been declared against Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man accused of arson in the 2025 Palisades Fire after a deadlocked jury Juror #4 on the case spoke publicly about deliberations, and the potential confusion surrounding convictions for a holdover fire The jury voted 10-2 in favor of acquitting Rinderknecht, and some Palisades residents would rather the effort of a retrial go into the effort of rebuilding. Longtime resident and journalist Lisa Sweetingham says, “They really don’t have the evidence to bring it home” Unlike the Palisades fire, the Eaton fire in Altadena has confirmed evidence that a century-old idle transmission line that Southern California Edison failed to remove was the cause of the blaze. Affected residents have to do the calculus between a compensation fund and a lawsuit, though rebuilds from both fires have a long journey ahead Fireworks are still banned in the city of Los Angeles South LA families remain displaced by the LAPD’s 2021 botched fireworks detonation Seven workers were killed in Northern California last year due to an explosion at a ranch storing huge amounts of fireworks owned by the aptly named company Devastating Pyrotechnics LA Material’s Jessica Garrison reports on the massive black-market fireworks operation in Los Angeles, and how the illegal explosives are entering the city We talked about charter reform a few weeks ago, but there’s an update: the ballot proposals for noncitizen voting and LAPD measures have been pulled Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez suggests in a comment that punting the LAPD measure may have been intended to support Mayor Bass’ reelection. And Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez says that protecting the status quo means the “city will remain broken A charter allocation for parks did make it through and will be on the ballot in November: Listen to Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield and Monica Rodriguez discuss the allocation here Is LA’s mayor actually weak? Kate thinks the charter amendment process shows that might not be true! Read Robert Greene’s piece on power in LA for LA Reported LA28 presented its human rights plan and answered questions about a city service agreement at the city’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj9
- Jun 29, 20261h 0m
On Top of Cold Smoky
Alissa, Godfrey, and Loraine examine the public health impacts of the Lineage warehouse fire that burned in Boyle Heights for a week. LA’s council votes to end oil extraction (for the second time). LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho resigns amid a federal investigation into an AI chatbot deal as the board dramatically reduces screen time for students. And yet another ULA backroom deal turns into a win for Howard Jarvis. After one week of burning in Boyle Heights and decimating air quality throughout the region, the Lineage Logistics warehouse fire was finally out But the impact to the neighborhood won’t be known for some time, reports Capital and Main: “Short-term consequences for those nearest to the warehouse could be asthma and even heart attacks, but other effects will take time to surface. Much of it has to do with what’s in the smoke, which is hard to trace retroactively.” The smoke has dissipated but the neighborhood faces new challenges: “‘Like a dead body’: after warehouse fire, LA residents say air thick with smell of rotting food” LA Podcast founder Hayes Davenport reports for L.A. Material on a similar fire from the same company that burned for 63 days in Washington Karen Bass’s response has been heavily criticized. She was out of town (again), didn’t hold a press conference until Friday, and didn’t declare an emergency response until Saturday. Then she said the air was “not dangerous” and “There is not anything you need to do to protect yourself. You do not even need to wear a mask” but later walked back those comments Boyle Heights residents are reporting dizziness, eye irritation, headaches, nausea, and chest pain, the Boyle Heights Beat reports. “Smoke has seeped into their homes. It’s all over their clothes and couches. Air purifiers are in high demand. Meanwhile, a particle pollution advisory continues to be extended day after day.” Watch the AQI change throughout the region as winds shift Calls for accountability came from City Controller Kenneth Mejia and candidate for city attorney Marissa Roy Meanwhile the East LA oil spill last month a few miles away was actually 25,000 not 2,400 gallons? What?!? What better time to end oil extraction in LA City? The Stand LA coalition celebrates the first step towards victory after a similar 2022 ordinance was challenged by oil companies. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky made a great video showing how pervasive oil drilling still is in LA LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho resigned after being put on paid leave during a federal investigation related to the company AllHere, which made an AI chatbot product LAUSD used. Further reporting by the LA Times revealed potential ethics violations related to gifts and trips paid for by AllHere that Carvalho failed to disclose on his Form 700 LA Podcast listener
- Jun 22, 202656 min
What's Cup With You?
Scott, Alissa, and Mike look back at the first week of the World Cup as LA hosts its first of many major events. SoFi’s stadium workers won an unprecedented labor contract and a huge fire in Boyle Heights continues to burn. Then: what charter reforms are going to the ballot, and what decisions — like council expansion — are being punted back for more “study.” Alissa wrote about the opening weekend of the World Cup and how the city is doing one week later. She also has a daily guide to activities happening around LA So far the World Cup seems to be going pretty well in LA One watch party at Seoul International Park in Koreatown with a huge turnout became very overcrowded and families had to leave because it felt unsafe Metro shuttles to the games — only $1.75! — are seeing surging ridership, with CEO Stephanie Wiggins writing regular updates Unite Here’s SoFi workers voted to authorize a strike a week before the first game, then negotiated for an unprecedented contract — allowing them to strike whenever they feel they are threatened by ICE. As Mike notes, this strategy of using deadline leverage instead of normal bargaining paid off and this now becomes the template for negotiating with LA28 By the way, many local labor contracts are set to expire May 1, 2028 There hasn’t been any ICE spotted around the stadium but ICE raids regionally have not stopped We also don’t know how much this is costing us. The deal LA made with FIFA has not been made public — here’s an explanation for why — but other host city contracts don’t look great Meanwhile DEA agents are conducting sweeps in MacArthur Park, which is also hosting watch parties, and Karen Bass says she’s directing LAPD to support them LA District Attorney Nathan Hochman made a video saying MacArthur Park would be ready for picnics by Labor Day while Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez made her own video saying don’t wait until Labor Day A huge Boyle Heights cold storage warehouse fire forced local residents to shelter in place and is making air quality terrible as it continues to flare up. Since we recorded, Bass finally held a press conference and declared an emergency. Boyle Heights Beat has the best updates Listen to Mike summarize the conclusion of the charter reform process on KCRW’s Press Play LAist’s Frank Stolze explains <a href="https://laist.com/news/politics/la-city-council-non-citizen-voting-proposal-police-reform-november-ballot
- Jun 15, 202656 min
Bass Tacks
Mike, Godfrey, and guest co-host Jasmyne Cannick discuss the promise and perils of the LA mayoral runoff between Karen Bass and Nithya Raman. Plus, the fake controversy over California’s ballot counting process, and LA’s City Council is poised to ditch years of effort to reform the city’s charter. How bad will the mayoral runoff be? The LA Times reports on a likely “knife fight” between now and November 3. Jasmyne writes that the “Democratic group chat is about to get messy” Bass kicked off her general election campaign with a broadside at Raman, indicating she intends to hit Raman on police hiring and homeless encampments. Raman, meanwhile, held a press conference, outlining her vision and appealing to the frustrations of supporters of Spencer Pratt Pratt, who promised to leave LA if he lost the mayor’s race, has apparently changed his mind. Friday afternoon he dropped a 3-minute video attacking Bass and Raman in his typical over-the-top fashion, and claiming he has a private recording of one of them making remarks that will force them to resign in disgrace Mike, on his most recent episode of What’s Next, Los Angeles, talked about the way the candidates are framing the race, and what that could mean for their governing coalitions and their agenda in office The data analysts have been crunching numbers and creating all sorts of reports on how subsections of the electorate broke in the June primary. Raman carried renters, according to Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc. Bass dominated in Latino neighborhoods, according to the Los Angeles Times. The New York Times published an updated map of the city, showing which candidates prevailed in which neighborhoods If you want to go deep on the data, Mitchell has launched a fascinating experimental website that combines LA County 2026 primary election results with voter-file data to provide detailed analysis of nearly every race, including precinct maps, demographic correlations, ecological inference modeling, and candidate-to-candidate voting pattern comparisons. Mitchell also offers a quick look at which mayoral and gubernatorial candidates came in first and second in each LA City Council district Nationally, the pace of the vote count in California has spawned a bevy of conspiracies, voiced by Donald Trump and other administration figures — although disputed by GOP gubernatorial finalist Steve Hilton. The Atlantic has a good <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/06/california-e
- Jun 8, 20261h 14m
Prattfall
Alissa, Mike, and guest co-host Marco Santana recap the election results from a wild primary season. Who are the winners and losers? How did progressive incumbents and challengers fare? And the mayoral race numbers seem to show that Angelenos will never have to think about Spencer Pratt again. After we recorded, Nithya Raman surged ahead of Spencer Pratt and appears set to hold her #2 spot to make the runoff with LA Mayor Karen Bass. Decision Desk has already called the race Mike rejects the framing that mainstream Democrats “survived” the election When MAGA loses they say everyone else is “cheating,” but that’s not the case. California makes it very easy to vote and counts every ballot — and that takes time You can view LA County’s election results, new ballot drops are added every day from 4 to 5 p.m., but the absolute best way to track what’s happening in the mayoral race is to use Scott’s spreadsheet The biggest winner of this election cycle was Kenneth Mejia, dancing on election night “feeling like 10 million bucks,” a reference to his opponent’s mom spending $10 million — 10! MILLION! — dollars in a failed attempt to defeat him Hydee Feldstein Soto is also out, the first incumbent LA city attorney to lose in 100 years. Marissa Roy and John McKinney will advance The New York Times election tracker is the best place to track state elections with more coverage at CalMatters In the governor race, Xavier Becerra moved to first and will advance to the runoff. Tom Steyer has a very small and dwindling chance of bumping Republican Steve Hilton out of the second spot For insurance commissioner, progressive Jane Kim has a decisive lead over Ben Allen who is still wrestling for a runoff spot with Republican Stacy Korsgaden U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez’s re-election campaign received an election day bombshell as the House ethics committee opened an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations. He’s headed to the runoff with Justice Democrat Angela Gonzales-Torres Pratt told CNN’s Elex Michaelson he would win outright with 50 percent (HAHAHA) And MS Now’s Jacob Soboroff offered a very clear-eyed assessment of Pratt’s poisonous populism and connection to Trump</
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