Caruso

It’s the 30-story elephant on the Los Angeles skyline — and seemingly no one, including Mayor Karen Bass, has decided what to do about it. The Oceanwide Plaza luxury development has stood next to Crypto.com Arena vacant and half-finished since 2019, when its Chinese developer, having already spent $1.1 billion on it, ran out of money.   In December, three L.A. taggers — Akua, Sour and Castle — broke into the highest of Oceanwide’s three towers and spray-painted their names across its floor-to-ceiling…

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our local elections newsletter. It’s Dakota Smith at the helm, with help from David Zahniser. We will be off next week for Thanksgiving, then back in your inboxes the week of Nov. 28 with the latest on transition planning and pre-swearing-in machinations.Following a whirlwind week of election news, Julia Wick and Ben Oreskes offer behind-the-scenes details about Rep. Karen Bass’ winning mayoral campaign. Some say it came down to Democratic party bigwigs, including…

Rep. Karen Bass has defeated businessman Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayor’s race, according to an Associated Press projection Wednesday, making her the first woman and second Black Angeleno elected to lead the city in its 241-year history.The 69-year-old congresswoman achieved victory despite Caruso spending more than $100 million of his own fortune on his mayoral bid, shattering local spending records and pumping previously unprecedented sums into field outreach and TV advertising. Caruso, 63, outspent Bass more than…

U.S. Rep. Karen Bass’ already substantial lead in the Los Angeles mayor’s race got even larger Tuesday, with the longtime Washington lawmaker pulling more than 5% ahead of businessman Rick Caruso, one week after election day.The results marked the fifth straight updated vote totals in which Bass has gained ground on Caruso, a trend that most election observers have said seems all but certain to make Bass the first woman elected mayor in Los Angeles.Bass now holds a 52.55%-47.45% lead — a 36,349-vote margin — according to…

Karen Bass has continued to build on her lead over Rick Caruso in the Los Angeles mayor’s race, according to an updated tally of results released Monday that showed the congresswoman leading the real estate developer 52.15% to 47.85% nearly a week after polls closed.Bass now holds a 29,271-vote lead, according to the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office. The latest update heavily favored Bass, with the congresswoman taking in 63% of the more than 76,100 newly counted ballots.Although Caruso held a slight…

U.S. Rep. Karen Bass expanded her lead on Saturday against businessman Rick Caruso in the race to be the next mayor of Los Angeles, with an updated tally putting her 9,463 votes ahead of the developer in a contest that will not be settled until next week at the earliest.The new totals from an additional 29,000 ballots had Bass at 50.78% to Caruso’s 49.22%, according to the latest tranche of results from the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office.Until Friday, Caruso had a tiny lead on the Congresswoman of…

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our local elections newsletter. It’s Ben Oreskes with tons and tons of help from a murderers’ row of colleagues including Jeong Park, Dakota Smith, Dave Zahniser and Jim Rainey. As Grove staffers popped balloons that had been dropped and the last of the dancers exited the L.A. County Democratic Party watch party, one of my colleagues remarked how anticlimatic this heavily anticipated election evening had been. The reason he said this was obvious — if only because we’d all…

U.S. Rep. Karen Bass overtook businessman Rick Caruso in the seesaw battle to be mayor of Los Angeles, with Friday’s vote tally showing the veteran lawmaker 4,384 votes ahead of the real estate developer in a contest that will not be settled until next week at the earliest.The new totals from county election officials put Bass ahead, with a margin of 50.38% to 49.62%, for the first time since Caruso took a slim advantage in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Bass has now bested Caruso in the last two updates from the…

Rick Caruso and Karen Bass both asserted their optimism Wednesday about an eventual victory in the Los Angeles mayor’s race, with both saying they would not let the slowly unfolding tabulation get in the way of their plans for a quick transition into the city’s top job.The lead in the contest changed hands several times after polls closed Tuesday, with Caruso narrowly ahead by Wednesday morning, the last update from election officials. But analysts said the race remained far too close to call, with as many as half the…

The 2022 midterm elections have arrived, and so have endorsements from some of the entertainment industry’s biggest names. Whether it’s on Twitter or Instagram, stars including Chris Pratt, Norman Lear, Katy Perry and Kerry Washington are touting support either for Rep. Karen Bass or billionaire Rick Caruso in the race for L.A.'s next mayor. Hours before Election Day on Tuesday, the “Guardians of the Galaxy” star Pratt revealed his pick in an Instagram story. “I don’t normally support political candidates. But in this…