Gas prices continue climbing in Southern California
The Brief
Gas prices continue climbing across California.
The average price is 16 cents more than it was one week ago in LA County.
The Orange County average price is 18.7 cents more than one week ago.
LOS ANGELES - Once again, Angelenos are burdened with pain at the pump.
A new report found that gas prices rose for the ninth time in ten days.
By the numbers
The average price has risen 16 cents over the past 10 days, including 5.3 cents Saturday, its largest increase since April 5, according to figures from the AAA and the Oil Price Information Service. It rose three consecutive days, increasing 1 cent, dropped four-tenths of a cent Tuesday and resumed increasing Wednesday.
The average price is 16 cents more than it was one week ago and 6.2 cents higher than one month ago but 32.5 cents less than one year ago. It has dropped $1.675 since rising to a record $6.494 on Oct. 5, 2022.
The Orange County average price rose for the sixth consecutive day, increasing 1.7 cents to $4.793, a day after rising 3.9 cents. It has risen 19 cents over the past six days, including 6.4 cents Saturday, its largest increase since Sept. 28, 2023.
The Orange County average price is 18.7 cents more than one week ago and 7.4 cents higher than one month ago but 31.3 cents less than one year ago. It has dropped $1.666 since rising to a record $6.459 on Oct. 5, 2022.
The national average price of a gallon of gas rose nine-tenths of a cent to $3.168, a day after it was unchanged. It has increased seven of the past eight days. It is 4 cents more than one week ago and 5.4 cents higher than one month ago but 36.7 cents less than one year ago.
The national average price has dropped $1.848 since rising to a record $5.016 on June 14, 2022.
What's next
Gas prices typically start going up this time of year and peak during the summer. The sharply lower price from one year ago is "due to tepid gasoline demand and weak crude oil prices," according to the AAA.
SUGGESTED COVERAGE:
Gas is under $3 in 31 states amid spring break travel, AAA says: What to know
Why are gas prices going up in California?
USC professor 'estimates' Californians will need to make $1,000 more next year to keep up with 2025 gas prices
The Source
Information provided by AAA and City News Service.

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


San Francisco Chronicle
7 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Prices of eggs and gas are down. Does Trump deserve credit, or is something else going on?
President Donald Trump ran on promises to bring down prices for Americans. Today, prices of eggs and gas are down from their peaks of the past few years. Can he take credit? Nope, experts say. In both cases, prices were expected to come down as external factors abated. There's no compelling, recently implemented federal policy that had much impact on either commodity. First, let's look at the numbers. A year ago, the average national price of a gallon of unleaded gas was $3.47, according to AAA, and $4.88 a gallon in California. So far this month, the average price is $3.14 a gallon nationally and $4.77 in California. (Gas prices are higher in California for a combination of reasons, including regulatory issues, the special type of gas required to be sold here, and the highest gasoline taxes in the country.) • Got money questions? Here's how to send them to our California budgeting advice columnist. Doug Johnson, a spokesperson for AAA Northern California, said gas industry experts predicted prices were going to come down this year 'no matter who would've won the 2024 election.' Egg prices have fluctuated a lot since the most recent bird flu outbreak began in 2022. A year ago, the average price of a dozen eggs was $2.35. Prices skyrocketed from $2.11 in October to an all-time high of $8.17 a dozen in March. As of this week, the average price has dropped to $2.54 a dozen — only 8% higher than a year ago — and is likely to continue dropping as bird flu detections decline. 'Eggs have come down 400%,' Trump declared, wrongly, in a White House interview on Fox News. Going from $8.17 to $2.54 would work out to a 68.9% decrease. 'Price of eggs has dropped 61% since Trump took office,' declared Fox Business in a piece comparing January and June egg prices. A headline on the right-wing news and opinion site Daily Caller said, 'Grocery Prices See Biggest Drop In 5 Years As Trump's Policies Take Effect.' But, again, experts say Trump's policies aren't driving the price decreases. So what actually is behind them? Why gas prices have come down in California Gas is down 13 cents a gallon just from last week in the Bay Area, said Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis for cost comparison website GasBuddy. That's more than the drop we've seen at the national level — only 2 cents compared with the previous week. Most of the recent drop here is because refinery issues in California have begun to resolve, De Haan said. However, refinery repairs are ongoing, so the decline may be only temporary, he added. Though Trump ran on 'drill, baby, drill' and his administration has discussed opening public lands for oil and gas drilling, federal policy takes a long time to work its way to the price at the pump, De Haan said. 'It really takes years for those types of policies to have a broad significant impact,' he said. Both California and national gas prices are up from January, when Trump took office. Why eggs are getting cheaper again Though the current bird flu outbreak, now in its third year, is not over, it's not as bad as it was at the start of 2025. Detections of bird flu in commercial and backyard flocks have decreased by a lot, which is part of the reason egg prices have dropped, said Daniel Sumner, a professor of agricultural economics at UC Davis. This isn't the first time bird flu has hit chicken farms in the United States. The most recent outbreak was in 2015. Like ebola, bird flu is endemic, Sumner said: Somewhere in the world, there's always a wild bird that is carrying the virus. What's different about this outbreak is how long it's lasted. Often, like many pandemics humans have faced before, an outbreak hits and then fades away. That hasn't been the case yet with this incidence of bird flu. Bird flu was first detected in a flock in Dubois, Ind., in February 2022. A year ago, when eggs were $2.35 a dozen, there were 12 confirmed bird flu detections in the U.S. The virus was detected more frequently in commercial and backyard flocks throughout late 2024 and early 2025: 16 in October, 62 detections in November, 122 in December, a peak of 133 in January. When bird flu is detected in a flock, even if it's found in only one chicken, industry practice dictates that the entire flock should be culled — agriculture-speak for killed. Some of those flocks consist of thousands, even millions, of birds. That has translated into a grim toll: More than 174 million poultry, including commercially farmed chicken and backyard flocks, have died or been killed because of bird flu, according to a CDC estimate. The abrupt drop in supply contributes to price increases. However, only 12 instances of bird flu were detected in May 2025, according to the USDA, and the agency said it hasn't been detected in any flock in California since February. Members of the Trump administration laid out a number of potential policy changes to tackle the bird flu epidemic: increasing imports, boosting biosecurity and exploring vaccination. Sumner dismissed the foreign imports as 'publicity' and said the other suggestions haven't been put into effect at a broad scale since Trump took office. 'There have been no significant changes to egg policy,' he said. The other two pieces of the pricing puzzle relate to how grocery stores get eggs to put on the shelves and how egg demand works compared with other products. Grocery stores typically have contracts with specific farms to get their eggs, Sumner said. If the egg farmer can't perform — in other words, if they have no eggs to sell because they've culled their herd because of an outbreak — the contract usually lets the retailer find another source for eggs. So grocery store chains have been able to use alternative providers. At the same time, farmers that did have to cull their herds have now had enough time to restart their flocks: Chickens can begin laying eggs when they're around 4 months old. Egg demand is typically known as inelastic — it doesn't change much. That's because there aren't a ton of good substitutes for eggs, Sumner said. Though bird flu can hit a flock of chickens being raised for meat as easily as it can hit a flock of egg-layers, we haven't seen the same price surge in chicken breasts and thighs as we have for eggs. Sumner said to think of the difference like this: If chicken meat goes up in price, grocery shoppers will swap in pork, beef, beans, tofu or other protein sources. But it's tricky to find a suitable one-to-one substitute for eggs in a baking recipe or an omelette. That's part of why shoppers have been so sensitive to the price of eggs. That said, persistent high prices have curbed some of America's appetite for eggs. A recent report on the egg market from the USDA described consumer demand as 'lackluster' and 'sluggish.' People have found alternatives. This year, Sumner said, his grandchildren's Easter eggs were the plastic variety.


Los Angeles Times
9 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Tennis great Stan Smith on life lessons, Arthur Ashe's legacy and his namesake shoes
Fancy footwork won him Wimbledon. Simple footwear won him everything since. 'The shoe has had a life of its own,' said Stan Smith, 78, whose eponymous Adidas kicks, with their timeless lines and leather uppers, are the king of all tennis sneakers with more than 100 million sold. 'People from all walks of life have embraced them.' Not surprisingly, Smith has a head for business to match his feet for tennis. With that in mind, he and longtime business partner Gary Niebur wrote the just-released 'Winning Trust: How to Create Moments that Matter,' aimed at helping businesses develop stronger relationships with their clients, with tips that readers can apply to their personal relationships and to sports. 'The book is about developing relationships that can elevate the element of trust, which is a depreciating asset in today's world,' Smith said this week in a call from the French Open. When it comes to building and maintaining high-stakes relationships, Smith and Niebur have distilled their process into five key elements they call SERVE, a recurring theme throughout the book. That's an acronym for Strategize, Engage, Recreate, Volley and Elevate. For instance, recreate — as in recreation — means to build bonds through fun shared experiences, and volley means to trade ideas back and forth to find solutions. 'When people realize that you care more about the relationship than the transaction,' Niebur said, 'trust follows.' A onetime standout at Pasadena High and USC, Smith was a close friend of the late Arthur Ashe, the UCLA legend whose name graces the main stadium court at Flushing Meadows, N.Y., home of the U.S. Open. This year marks the 50th anniversary of Ashe's victory at Wimbledon, when he beat the heavily favored Jimmy Connors in the 1975 final. Ashe remains the only Black man to win the singles title at that storied tournament. 'Arthur was a good friend,' Smith said. 'He made a huge impact, and much more of an impact in the last few years of his life when he was fighting AIDS and the heart fund, and obviously for equal rights.' Ashe, who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion he received during heart-bypass surgery, died in 1993. Although he was four years older than Smith, the two developed a close friendship when they traveled the globe as Davis Cup teammates and rising professionals. Smith has vivid memories of traveling with him, Ashe in his 'Citizen of the World' T-shirt with his nose forever buried in a newspaper or magazine. Smith was ranked No. 1 in the U.S. at the time, two spots ahead of his pal, yet the wildly popular Ashe always got top billing. 'When we went to Africa, I was the other guy who played against him in all these exhibitions,' Smith told The Times in 2018. 'They would introduce him as Arthur Ashe, No. 1 player in the U.S., No. 1 in the world, one of the greatest players to ever play the game … and Stan Smith, his opponent.' Smith laughs about that now, but it used to chafe him. Finally, he raised the issue with his buddy. Recalled Smith in that 2018 interview: 'Arthur came up to me and said, 'I'm sorry about that. If we do a tour of Alabama, I'll carry your rackets for you.' He was in tune with everything. 'Arthur was a quiet leader walking a tightrope between a traditionally white sport and the black community.' Smith will be at Wimbledon next month, where his UCLA friend will be honored. As for his shoes, they're everywhere, and have been since the 1970s. Adidas originally developed the shoe for French player Robert Haillet in the mid-1960s, and the sneakers were known as the 'Haillet.' In 1972, the company switched to Smith, naming the shoes in his honor and printing a tiny picture of his mustachioed face on them. There were subtle changes to the Haillet, including a notch in the tongue for laces to pass through and a heel better shaped to protect the Achilles tendon. They sold like crazy. In 1988, Stan Smiths made the 'Guinness Book of World Records' for the most pairs sold at 22 million. Yet that was only the beginning as sales surged with the release of the Stan Smith II and retro Stan Smith 80s. The most common ones were solid white with touch of green on the back. 'Hugh Grant turned around last year in the [Wimbledon] royal box and said, `First girl I ever kissed, I was wearing your shoes,'' Smith told The Times in 2022. 'Another guy said he met this girl when he was wearing my shoes. It was so meaningful that they both wore the shoes for their wedding seven years later. 'It started off as a tennis shoe. Now it's a fashion shoe.' Smith's personal collection has climbed to more than 100 size 13s in all sorts of colors, including his favorite pair in cardinal and black, an homage to his USC roots. In 2022, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Smith's Wimbledon singles title, Adidas gave all of its sponsored players a pair of shoes with SW19 on the tongue — Wimbledon's postcode — with the date of that match against Ilie Nastase inside the right shoe and the score of the match inside the left. At Wimbledon this year, the spotlight swings to the other side of Los Angeles, to an unforgettable Bruin, a sports hero who impacted so many lives. For Smith, his friendship with Ashe was an early example in his career of a relationship forged with trust. The book, incidentally, is affixed with a unique and fitting page marker. A shoelace.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Hella construction on Sacramento's Hwy. 50 promises little long-term relief
The perpetual roadwork on Sacramento's highways is a never-ending story of surprise detours, dangerous lane splits, metal-smeared K-rails and tragic fatal accidents — all in the futile pursuit of a solution to relieve congestive traffic. A 'solution' that will be obsolete in less than a decade. Caltrans announced this week that the 'Fix50' project will go until at least 2026 and will cost $529 million — a year later than the original completion date of the summer of 2025 and nearly $50 million over the estimated budget of $483 million. For a mere 7-and-a-half miles of road, that's a cost of more than $70 million per mile. The project will add new carpool lanes in each direction from Watt Ave. in Rosemont to the intersection with I-5 downtown; replace crumbling pavement with reinforced concrete; add retaining walls and widen the highway between 39th and 65th street undercrossings; build new sound walls along the south side of the highway from Stockton Blvd. to 65th St.; upgrade and widen several on and off ramps; improve signs, drainage, guardrails and utilities; and widen 12 bridges overall — among numerous other, smaller improvements. But at what cost? We don't mean the more than half a billion dollar price tag — Californians are well-accustomed by now to that level of spending. The bigger issue is that the Fix50 project is notoriously dangerous for drivers, and statistically, will be out-of-date by 2035. So why are we investing more than half a billion dollars when Sacramento could be putting that money toward a project that improves mass transportation? Such forward thinking would not only alleviate traffic, it could save lives and assist Californians in our climate-neutral goals overall. Why do we insist on repairing and widening when we could be innovating? The construction on Hwy. 50 has already resulted in multiple fatalities, and is statistically likely to only cause more before its completion. According to data from the California Highway Patrol, the number of wrecks from March 2021 and December 2021 doubled from that same period in 2020 on westbound Highway 50. Ronald Fitzgerald, a local man, died on Hwy. 50 in 2021 after he crashed his motorcycle into a car stalled on the road's non-existent shoulder, leaving behind a loving wife and family — and all for what? This boondoggle project is funded through multiple sources in the state, with Caltrans subsidizing nearly $90 million of the construction costs under California's Senate Bill 1 — also known as the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017. Caltrans has also relied on $52.2 million from Sacramento's Measure A Transportation Sales Tax to support the project, and the State Highway Operation and Protection Program is funding an additional $387 million. But all of the extra money and construction delays are unlikely to relieve Sacramento's notorious congestion issues in the long run. It begs the question: What's the point? UC Davis Professor Susan Handy, who specializes in transportation, explained that adding lanes to a roadway only relieves traffic in the short term. The new lanes actually encourage more drivers to use the road which simply leads to more traffic. 'We don't adequately account for the pain that we all experience during construction,' Handy said about the Fix50 project in 2023. She cited the increase in crashes, deaths and severe congestion as the cost of that hubris: 'The analysis that Caltrans and others are doing overstates the benefit of widening the freeway. And data analysis is also understating the environmental impacts of widening the freeway.' In a state like California, where driving is as second-nature as breathing and many commute on the highway to work, construction projects like 'Fix50' do more harm than good. With thousands of federal workers returning to the office on July 1, piling more cars on the road, the situation will only worsen. Caltrans, hell-bent on highway construction, is a lost cause. It's going to take leadership by a governor and a legislature to start investing in transit that can attract commuters and truly reduce congestion.