To make the budget work, California's bullet train would skip downtown Bakersfield, skip downtown Merced, and run on a single track 89% of the way. The rail authority's own inspector general says that's illegal.

In August 2021, Karen Bass was in Mozambique when she got the news that pulled her into the L.A. mayor's race. Four years later, she'd be in Ghana when L.A. caught fire. Robert Greene on a mayoralty defined by where Bass was — and wasn't. lareported.substack.com/p/karen-bass...

"We definitely don't have the resources to make a dent in making the city safer." — a sobering quote from an LAPD traffic sergeant. Citations are down 63%. Fatal crashes are up 55%. Our investigation into why the city's streets are getting deadlier: lareported.substack.com/p/los-angele...

California voted for L.A. to San Francisco in 2 hours and 40 minutes. The new plan: Gilroy to Palmdale. Possibly six hours total. Six hours is driving time.

"Had it happened at night, we'd have all died." Juan Galicia lost nearly everything when a fire spread from a house next door — one his neighbors had begged the city to address for a year. Sam Quinones for L.A. Reported: lareported.substack.com/p/hollywood-...

A record 33,458 animals were killed on the streets of Los Angeles last year — up 35% since 2020. Human traffic deaths dipped slightly but remain near record highs. For every species, L.A.'s streets are getting deadlier. Our latest story: lareported.substack.com/p/unsafe-for...

Reports of illegal dumping in L.A. jumped to 91K last year. The sanitation dept. went 18 years without a fee increase. Now residents are spending their own time and money to clean up what the city can't. lareported.substack.com/p/las-trash-...

You sort your trash. You rinse the bottles. You put them in the blue bin. And then most of it never gets recycled. Our latest story investigates where L.A.'s plastic waste actually ends up.

Thanks to @lareported.bsky.social for giving me the space to think through @metrolosangeles.bsky.social's D Line Extension, due to open in the next few months. lareported.substack.com/p/metro-d-li...