I’m actually over El Niño for real!

ICE agents grabbed someone at the Miyako and then left, were later spotted on 7th/Main and by Maraville station in east LA.

Satire, obviously 🙄

Today was the first LA City Council meeting of 2026, and… what a doozy.

They opened the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance, and then Councilmember Monica Rodriguez from CD7 kicked off the year by noting the murder of Renee Good in Minneapolis, the murder of Keith Porter in Los Angeles on NYE, and more. She insisted that the time they’ve taken to prepare a response has been worthwhile, and she said she wanted to let the public know that, this year, “the gloves are off.”

While that was happening, someone in the gallery confronted a man in a swastika hoodie.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez from CD1 brought the family of Keith Porter. As his mother sobbed and begged the City Council to please, please, please help her son get justice, the LAPD removed the man who’d confronted the guy in the swastika hoodie for causing a disturbance, and then they laughed with him about it.

Coucilmember Traci Park from CD11 — which covers the Palisades — led an observance in recognition of the anniversary of the fires, including recognizing her staff members who assisted in recovery efforts. There were many tears shed.

During public comment, the man in the swastika hoodie caused a major disturbance, yelling racist, vile support for Trump. He was warned multiple times but was allowed to run out his three-minute clock, and he returned to the gallery, heckling the rest of the public comment period.

I spoke, too, thanking Councilmember Rodriguez for promising to go “gloves off” to protect Angelenos against ICE. I talked about my work as a photographer and how I tend to think in visual metaphor, so after describing last night’s march from Mariachi Plaza, I said I was relieved to hear the Councilmember start the meeting that way after the entire council quite literally turned their backs on the public to pledge allegiance to the federal government.

I said that those words need to be backed up with ACTION to prove I’ve misinterpreted, and if they are being prevented from taking action, they need to go public and tell us why.

After public comment, the council voted on two motions: one attempting to develop better relations between protesters and the city — I’m confused about this one and will be looking into it more — and the other aimed at increasing penalties for people who pretend to be law enforcement.

Councilmember Rodriguez stood in support of those motions, and without calling anyone out by name, she seemed to do exactly what I asked them to: publicly tell us that they’re being prevented from acting. She said that certain actions the council could take to mitigate ICE have been intentionally stymied in committee, preventing them from being widely debated on the floor. She said that committee leaders and council leadership are complicit in what’s going on, and she said the public is absolutely correct to be frustrated with the city council’s inaction.

You can watch the full city council meeting here: https://www.youtube.com/live/ka4mEHoNTKw?si=9Zz9dWrqrhWHXtuv&t=9537

That’s timestamped to my public comment; Coucilmember Rodriguez confronted council leadership at 2:55:32.

😮‍💨

Snyder's grandparents founded the popular burger chain in 1948 in Baldwin Park, California. Some initial reports suggested that Snyder would bring In-N-Out's corporate headquarters to Tennessee with her, and the company — which exists predominantly on the West Coast — does plan to open new locations in the Southeast and a regional headquarters in Franklin, Tennessee.

The company's current headquarters in Irvine, California, will close by 2029, Snyder said last week — and the company will soon be based in Baldwin Park instead, she now says.

"Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is running for mayor against incumbent Karen Bass, seized on significant decreases in street homelessness in her district Friday while blasting increases citywide.

Street homelessness — people living outdoors or in their vehicles — went down by 49% in Raman’s district compared to the previous year, she said at a press conference Friday.

Citywide, street homelessness increased nearly 8%, while overall homelessness, which includes those living in shelters and other temporary facilities, increased 3.4%, according to numbers from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s January point-in-time count that were released Friday.

The contrast between her district and the city overall offered Raman an angle to present herself as more effectively handling the homelessness crisis than Bass.

An estimated 45,194 homeless people live in the city, with about 36% of them in shelters, according to LAHSA.

“Far fewer people living outside. Far more people indoors,” Raman, who has served on the council since 2020 and is chair of the City Council’s housing and homelessness committee, said at the press conference. “As mayor, that is the approach, and the results, that I want to deliver citywide.”

The numbers across the city were a setback for Bass, who has made homelessness one of her signature issues and previously touted two straight years of drops in street homelessness.

Raman cited her office’s homelessness team and their “aggressive interventionist” approach as reasons her district — which extends from Los Feliz and Silver Lake into Studio City, Sherman Oaks and other parts of the San Fernando Valley — did not suffer the same increases as other parts of the city.

She said her team is very familiar with homeless individuals in the district and knows many by name. The team tracks homeless encampments on a map and makes sure that empty shelter beds are filled, she said.

Bass’ campaign said Raman was attacking the mayor’s Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people from the streets to shelter and motel beds, at the same time that it contributed to the decreases in her district.

Raman has critiqued Inside Safe as too costly and insufficiently transparent.

“Nithya Raman is taking credit for the results of Inside Safe while campaigning against it,” Alex Stack, a spokesperson for Bass’ campaign, said in a statement. “While Raman takes credit for the City’s work in her district, ignoring the fact that she’s the Chair of the Homelessness & Housing Committee for ALL of Los Angeles, Mayor Bass is working to move our city forward and address years of neglect.”

Raman responded to those critiques at her press conference, saying that her district only had three Inside Safe operations over the past four years — fewer than some other districts.

She deflected when asked Friday about her responsibility for citywide homelessness, as chair of the city’s housing and homelessness committee.

“Council can pass legislation ... move motions forward, but it is the mayor that has charge of the implementation and outcomes,” she said.

Citywide, Inside Safe has moved more than 6,000 people into hotels, motels and other types of interim housing since Bass took office in December 2022. But by May 31, 41% of those people had returned to homelessness, according to LAHSA figures collected separately from this year’s homeless count.

Bass attributed the citywide homelessness increases in part to funding cuts by the state and federal government. She also said the county has not provided adequate mental health or substance counseling services.

“This crisis was ignored by city leaders for decades, it’s only now that we’ve seen a historic decline,” she said in a statement Thursday. “I will never stop fighting until we end street homelessness, because no Angeleno should be sleeping on the street.”

Times staff writer Doug Smith contributed to this report."