Naples Boat Parade canceled as El Niño season threatens dangerously high tides over Christmas week
The homes along the Naples canals are shine bright Thursday, Dec. 22, 2022. The canal homes are a popular holiday destination, with most elaborately decorated for most of December each year. (Cheantay Jensen / Long Beach Post)Expect silent nights in Naples’ channels this holiday season.The Naples Improvement Association announced Saturday that this year’s Naples Island Holiday Boat Parade, a Long Beach tradition since 1946, has been canceled because of expected high tides and heavy surf that organizers said would make the event too unsafe for visitors and participants.It’s the first time in six years — since the onset of the COVID pandemic — that the parade has been canceled. What began as a small procession of decorated barges filled with singing church choirs has grown into an institution in Long Beach with more than 100 entries, from Duffys to dragon boats, and 60,000 spectators.Ben Fisher, the association president, said the decision came after weeks of deliberations and a 600-resp
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Community, LA leaders denounce ICE activity at White Memorial
Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, left, and Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, center, march to Adventist Health White Memorial on Saturday, Nov. 7, 2026 to demand that the hospital not cooperate with federal immigration agents.(Video screenshot courtesy of Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network / The LA Local)Crowds gathered at Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights on Saturday for a rally and march to Adventist Health White Memorial after federal immigration agents mounted a blockade at the emergency room entrance and detained at least two people outside the hospital.Community organizers and elected officials on Saturday handed off a letter to the hospital’s administrators, calling for an end to any collaboration between the hospital and federal immigration agents.Sen. Maria Elena Durazo said that it appears the hospital is earning a reputation for being an “ICE-friendly hospital.”“What happened last night was unacceptable,” Durazo told the hospital’s administrators in the same parking lot where the bloc
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The Vincent Thomas Bridge closes for 16 months on Saturday. They’re calling it ‘Harborgeddon’
The USS Iowa approaches the Vincent Thomas Bridge.(CindiK. / via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr)Starting Saturday, Nov. 7, the 63-year-old Vincent Thomas Bridge will shut down until at least March 2028 for major construction. Workers will replace its deck, which has become “severely deteriorated” from thousands of vehicles driving across it daily.The Vincent Thomas, which connects San Pedro to Terminal Island, is the state’s fourth-longest suspension bridge. It handles an estimated 53,000 vehicles — including 4,600 heavy trucks — each day.The bridge is often the quickest route between San Pedro and Long Beach. Detours along Anaheim Street or Pacific Coast Highway could double many people’s commute times.Tate Allen and his San Pedro neighbors have begun referring to the closure as “Harborgeddon.”The Vincent Thomas Bridge will close to traffic starting Saturday, Nov. 7 in San Pedro, Monday, Nov. 2, 2026. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.Allen, with help from Claude AI, even put toget
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ICE detains two US citizens protesting outside White Memorial Hospital, rapid response groups say
Federal immigration agents detained at least two people late Friday outside Adventist White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights, where protesters had gathered after reports of immigration enforcement activity, according to rapid response groups. Protesters remained at the hospital into the early hours of Saturday, where immigration agents maintained a large presence.(Video screenshot courtesy of Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network)Federal immigration agents detained at least two people late Friday outside Adventist White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights, where protesters had gathered after reports of immigration enforcement activity, according to rapid response groups. Protesters remained at the hospital into the early hours of Saturday, where immigration agents maintained a large presence.It appears the incident began after people witnessed someone being detained and taken into the hospital, according to Raquel Roman, executive director of Proyecto Pastoral and member of the Boyle
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How LAUSD’s famed coffee cake became this Valley bride’s wedding cake
LAUSD's beloved coffee cake.(Photo collage by Elina Shatkin / LAist)Micki Boden wanted a wedding cake that checked off a couple of big boxes — personalized and tasty. Instead of a traditional tiered cake, the San Fernando Valley native went with a favorite from her school days.“My favorite cake of all time is the coffee cake that I ate through my entire K-12 education going to LAUSD public school,” Boden said.Boden attended elementary school in Studio City and middle school in Sherman Oaks before graduating from a Reseda high school.Boden and her husband, Matt Stollman, met in 2016 while working on the reality television show Big Brother and eventually started dating. The two got engaged in 2025.With the groom’s family traveling from the East Coast for their wedding in October, the couple wanted to provide a uniquely L.A. experience. Micki Boden and Matt Stollman cut into their LAUSD coffee cake wedding cake.“We wanted something that was gonna be fun, that was gonna be memorable for pe
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From Eastside beer to artist lofts: The Brewery Artwalk returns to Lincoln Heights
The Brewery in Lincoln Heights.An artist live-work colony in Lincoln Heights is opening its 17-acre campus this weekend, where a beer named Eastside was once brewed.More than 100 artists are participating in the Brewery Artwalk, an event that started in 1983, according to Kristen Carlson. She is president and CEO of Carlson Industries, which operates the Brewery.“It was an idea with the artists that were there at that time to have open studios,” Carlson said.A year earlier, in 1982, Carlson’s family founded the artist colony after Los Angeles passed the landmark Artist-in-Residence ordinance, which permitted the conversion of unused industrial buildings into artist live-work space.The complex started its life in 1897 as Los Angeles Brewing Company, which sourced water from the adjacent L.A. River, according to the L.A. Times. It was purchased in 1907 by George Zobelein, an immigrant from Bavaria who would become a kind of brewing titan in the city. Zobelein christened his beer Eastside
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Jane Kim declares victory in commissioner race. CA insurance could be in for big changes
From left, insurance commissioner candidates Ben Allen and Jane Kim.(Fred Greaves / CalMatters)Jane Kim declared victory in the California insurance commissioner race on Friday, capping off what she called “the first unabashed and unapologetic populist progressive campaign.”The former San Francisco supervisor is ahead of fellow Democrat state Sen. Ben Allen with 65% of ballots counted as of midday Friday, 53% to 47%.“Everything in this campaign was about the ideas that we were putting forward, and whether you agree with them or not, the point is that we have ideas… and we’re going to explore all of them,” Kim said at a press conference in San Francisco, where she was joined by a fire survivor, labor leaders and others. “We plan to make insurance work for all of us,” she said.A win by Kim, whose proposal to create a public wildfire insurance program resonated with voters around the state despite its many naysayers, would be the latest triumph in the progressive wave that’s sweeping the
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None of Nithya Raman’s council colleagues backed her bid for mayor. Will they work with her?
City Council members from left, Tim McOsker, Eunisses Hernandez, Nithya Raman and Marqueece Harris-Dawson at an L.A. City Council meeting.(Brian van der Brug / Getty Images)Nithya Raman won the race for Los Angeles mayor this week and unseated incumbent Karen Bass without a single endorsement from her colleagues on the City Council.She won without them, but she’ll have to govern with them.Raman, a two-term councilmember and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, entered the race in February just hours before the filing deadline and shortly after endorsing Bass. The move caught some colleagues off guard and angered Bass allies, who noted the mayor had helped Raman win reelection two years ago.After Bass conceded Thursday, nearly every councilmember said they were ready to work with Mayor-elect Raman, who takes office on Dec. 14. In a video message Thursday, she spoke to Angelenos who voted for Bass or skipped the election altogether.“I am going to City Hall to work every single
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Voters have chosen to increase LA's sales tax — here’s how it compares to other cities
Watch for an increase in sales tax coming next year.(Matt Slocum / Getty Images)The city of L.A.'s current sales tax is 10.25%. But after the region’s stretched firefighting services became visible during the devastating 2025 fires, voters solidly approved Measure FD this week, increasing the rate to 10.75%.It’s expected to raise nearly $350 million yearly for the L.A. Fire Department to hire more firefighters, purchase vehicles and upgrade fire stations.How and when the increase will trickle down to youIt’s likely you won’t start paying the additional sales tax until spring. The exact date is difficult to predict: The measure says the tax will be collected on “the first day of the first calendar quarter commencing more than one hundred ten (110) days after the adoption of this Ordinance” by the L.A. City Council. The L.A. County Registrar-Recorder has until Dec. 3 to certify county elections.Until then, the City of L.A.’s 10.25% sales tax won’t change. Then it will go up to 10.75%.L.A
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At a Boyle Heights hospital, ICE agents call the shots, doctors say
The exterior of Adventist Health White Memorial Medical Center located in Boyle Heights. (Courtesy MVE + Partners / The Los Angeles Local News Initiative)Doctors at Adventist Health White Memorial hospital in Boyle Heights told LAist that hospital administrators are allowing federal immigration agents to interfere in medical decisions and block doctors from properly treating detainees who need emergency care.Administrators at White Memorial have told doctors not to call a detained patient’s family members, even to find out what type of medication they’re on or what conditions they have, doctors told LAist. Hospital leaders also have told doctors to allow immigration agents to remain by a detained patient’s side, even during consultations, inhibiting frank discussions between doctors and their patients and potentially violating patient privacy laws. Doctors say this is not typical protocol for any patients, including those brought in by local police or sheriff’s deputies.These doctors a
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