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Travelers are accustomed to seeing an all-inclusive price for airfare when browsing flights online, but they may soon need to read the fine print before purchasing as Washington is trying to change disclosure requirements.

The Department of Transportation proposed new regulations last month that would allow airlines to highlight fares without individual components such as taxes.

The change could mislead consumers, marketing and aviation experts said. The existing guidelines were established by the Obama administration to protect consumers from deception.

Read more at the link.

The Trump administration has quietly let lapse a program for young leaders at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, The Times has learned. In its place, California will launch its own council for young people looking to get involved with environmental issues at the state level. 

The California EPA’s Environmental Youth Advisory Council is doing a callout for people ages 14 to 20 years old who want to build leadership skills, learn from environmental decision-makers and make recommendations on state environmental policy, officials said.

The move comes after a similar group within the federal EPA, the Biden-era National Environmental Youth Advisory Council, appears to have expired under the Trump administration. California’s program hopes to fill the gap by “giving young people a seat at the table,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

Learn more at the link.

For nearly three decades, a onetime Compton gang leader named Duane “Keffe D” Davis has been one of the most vocal theorists about the death of Tupac Shakur. The rapper was fatally shot at the height of his fame on Sept. 7, 1996, while riding to a Las Vegas nightclub in a BMW driven by Death Row Records boss Marion “Suge” Knight.

The events surrounding that night have been exhaustively investigated and recounted in numerous stories, documentaries and police investigations. But the mystery about exactly what happened has endured.

This week, Davis is on trial in Las Vegas, accused of orchestrating the murder. And prosecutors believe Davis himself will be the star witness who proves their case.

Find out more at the link.

A federal judge issued a scathing order blocking a gambit by the Trump administration to take control of federal funding for homelessness programs in Los Angeles County.

In issuing a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter found that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it suspended the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority from managing federal homelessness funds. He set a trial date in February.

The June 11 suspension disqualified LAHSA from submitting an application, due August 26, for about $240 million on behalf of 140 providers of homeless services. HUD said the suspension was necessary, citing negative audits and news reports going back more than a decade. LAHSA filed suit, alleging the abrupt action was a pretext for the Trump administration’s intention to impose its own policy short-term housing with an emphasis substance abuse and mental health treatment over the local priority of support for permanent housing.

Learn more at the link.

The fight over a proposal to tax the assets of California billionaires to fund healthcare is getting more expensive.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin has poured $102 million this year into Building a Better California, a group that’s funding two ballot measures that could block a billionaire tax, data from the California Secretary of State show. Brin’s latest donation totaled $20 million. It highlights how California’s ultra-wealthy are battling a proposal to tax their net worth.

The November showdown over taxing the ultra-rich has drawn national figures, powerful unions and major business allies, reflecting deep anxiety about billionaires fleeing California and the future of its social safety net.

Learn more at the link.

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Kristen Kish, host of “Top Chef” and a past winner who admits she did not watch much reality competition before taking the helm of Bravo’s cooking contest in 2024, may have diplomatically skirted any attempt at comparison with Project Runway’s Tim Gunn, “Top Chef” predecessor Padma Lakshmi or “The Traitors” emcee Alan Cumming. But she acknowledges that her distinct approach — kinder, gentler, more tearful — is rooted in her particular skill set: “It’s similar to how I responded to being led in kitchens,” she says. “You don’t lead with fear. You lead with compassion and empathy and encouragement and confidence. And two things can be true at the same time ... I can require more from them, and I can also cry because I’m filled with joy for their progress.”

Emmy-nominated for reality competition series and reality host, “Top Chef: Carolinas” epitomizes Kish’s swift remaking of the role in her own image. The season, which concluded in June, finds Kish comforting a distraught chef, Nana Araba Wilmot, who fails to plate her dish in the allotted time; navigating thorny questions of fairness and wellness with an injured contestant, Jennifer Lee Jackson, and her fellow-contestant partner, Justin Tootla; even facing acrimonious “feedback about [her] feedback” when chef Sieger Bayer is eliminated from the competition.

The Times’ Matt Brennan recently caught up with Kish as she prepared for an Envelope photo shoot to ask her about the season’s most talked-about moments, recent criticism of the format and the hard work of being a good host.

Someday, you might be able to ride a bike from the western San Fernando Valley to Long Beach along the Los Angeles River. But not yet.

The longest unfinished stretch is the eight miles from Elysian Park through downtown to Maywood. For decades, advocates of the path have tried to complete those eight miles along the concretized river.

Yet a decade later, the unrideable gap remains. The ambitious project remains mired in planning and bureaucratic complications, with groundbreaking still two years off and the cost nearly tripling to more than $1 billion — almost $24,000 per foot — documents reviewed by The Times show.

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A strengthening El Niño could bring the highest sea levels ever recorded to the California coast this year, raising the risk of widespread and damaging flooding.

It’s the latest effect forecast for what’s expected to be an historically strong event, one forecasters warn could also lash Southern California with powerful rain and broil both land and sea with punishing heat waves.

Here’s what you should know at the link.

Reselling sneakers has become a multibillion-dollar industry, with the most sought-after pairs selling for three or four times their retail value on the secondhand market.

Fashionistas known as sneakerheads scramble to buy and trade the latest styles, paying a premium for the rarest pairs. Some treat them as investments, never wearing their purchases in order to keep them in mint condition. Like a sports car or a fine wine, they say, the value of shoes can increase as they get older. 

Last week, federal authorities charged several major shoe resellers in Los Angeles, Chicago and Indiana with paying Nike employees to help steal hundreds of hard-to-find styles that they in turn flipped. Defendants in a federal case are charged with conspiring to steal at least $2 million in Nike products between 2021 and 2024.

Sky-high earnings for oil companies and California refiners in the second quarter are renewing calls from state legislators to crack down on industry profits.

Marathon Petroleum, the second-largest refiner in the state, reported $5.1 billion in profit Tuesday, more than four times the same quarter last year, after fuel supplies tightened during the Iran war and prices for oil and gas soared.

From April through June, Chevron, the biggest refiner and second-biggest oil producer in California, made $12.1 billion in profit, nearly five times the same quarter last year, and its highest earnings in at least six years. Refiners PBF Energy and Valero also reported windfalls, with the latter earning $3.7 billion, another fivefold increase from the year before.

Learn more at the link.

Despite homelessness rising in Los Angeles and throughout L.A. County since 2025, the count on Metro’s buses and rail found a 31% drop over that year. Taken the evening of January 20, the estimate found 395 to 517 unhoused individuals on the system compared to 631 to 684 in 2025 and over 1,000 in 2024.

“This continued decline reflects the dedication of Metro employees and our many partners who work every day to address homelessness with compassion, accountability and coordination,” Metro chief executive Stephanie Wiggins said in a statement. “Creating the Care-Based Services Division reinforced our belief that public safety is strongest when care-based services and enforcement work together.”

Read more at the link.