Nick Shirley Exposes California's Failed High Speed Rail Project

Nick Shirley premiered his latest exposé live at this week’s All-In Summit in Los Angeles. He focused on California’s high-speed rail, one of the most expensive and delayed public works projects in U.S. history. Watch the full video below.

“This is the California high-speed rail that goes to absolutely nowhere,” Nick said as he stood under an unfinished concrete guideway in the Central Valley.

In April, we covered California’s “train to nowhere.” Voters approved the project in 2008, expecting a high-speed link between Los Angeles and San Francisco, trips under three hours, a $33 billion price tag, and completion by 2020. Eighteen years later, the state has spent over $15 billion but hasn’t opened any high-speed passenger service.

According to California’s High Speed Rail Authority 2026 Business Plan, finishing the original Phase 1 system would cost about $231.3 billion. The authority now supports a $126.1 billion alternative that uses some existing infrastructure and likely won’t offer full service until 2040. That alternative is a smaller route from Merced to Bakersfield in the Central Valley.

The state highlights nearly 80 miles of finished guideway, almost 60 completed structures, and over 16,000 construction jobs as signs of progress. But Nick’s investigation reveals that on the ground, there’s only huge concrete structures, unfinished stretches, and not a single track has been laid. A Central Valley resident called one unfinished guideway a “modern-day Stonehenge.”

Nick also visited areas along the proposed route where new homes are still under construction. A local city manager explained that governments usually secure the route before development. Building houses first could mean the state has to buy the same land later for much more money. “We don’t really know,” the city manager said when Nick asked how construction could continue on land the rail line may eventually need. “Communication’s pretty sparse, so we’re left mostly in the dark.”

A farmer showed Nick how the proposed route could split up farmland that has stayed together for generations. Farmers might have to move workers, equipment, irrigation, and power lines between different parts of the same property.

Meanwhile, delay costs keep rising. In January, the High-Speed Rail Authority’s board approved a settlement of up to $537.3 million with a Central Valley contractor to resolve disputes and set a new schedule. The trains haven’t been bought yet. California missed train contract deadlines in both 2024 and 2025. The first order was reduced from six train sets to three, and the contract still hasn’t been awarded.

Nick wrapped up his investigation in Sacramento. He tried to visit the High-Speed Rail Authority’s public office, but found it empty. He then spoke with State Senator Dave Cortese, who chairs the Senate Transportation Committee, about California’s yearly commitment of about $1 billion to the project through 2045.

When Nick asked if the train would be finished in twenty years, Cortese answered, “It might be, might not.” Nick then asked what he could say to Californians who want to know if the project will be done in their lifetimes. “That’s not my commitment,” Cortese said. He called the rail line “the greatest economic development project in the country” and said the federal government should help California finish it.

Californians were promised a working train between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Almost twenty years later, taxpayers have concrete structures, ongoing delays, no trains bought, and another promise that the limited Merced-to-Bakersfield route could start carrying passengers in seven years. But we know that’s unlikely in Califraudia.

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California taxpayers expected their money to help move homeless people off the streets. But according to federal prosecutors, millions of dollars instead went to a nightclub, a bingo hall, luxury vacations, vintage-car restorations, video games, and unrelated real estate.

The Justice Department announced three criminal cases involving people linked to Los Angeles-area homelessness nonprofits. Two people were arrested yesterday, and authorities said a third was a fugitive when they announced the charges.

The biggest case centers on Michael Young, who helped start the Culver City nonprofit Home At Last. Since 2019, this group has received over $118 million from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, city and county governments, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. LAHSA alone paid the nonprofit more than $75 million for homeless housing services.

Prosecutors say Young used fake companies, false bids, forged signatures, and fraudulent invoices to take more than $7.5 million. These fake vendors had no employees, offices, or real business. Young reportedly controlled their bank accounts himself. More than $1 million allegedly went to open and run the Six Seven Five Lounge, a high-end restaurant and nightclub in Inglewood. Prosecutors say other money paid for a nearby bingo hall, commercial properties, luxury vacations, and vintage-car restorations, including about $140,000 to restore a Chevy Impala.

The second case is about Lakiya Malone, who was in charge of referring homeless people to taxpayer-funded housing. Prosecutors say Malone took over $180,000 in bribes and kickbacks from Alexander Soofer, who runs another homelessness nonprofit. In exchange, she allegedly gave priority referrals and helped create files for “ghost” participants who never lived at the housing sites. These files reportedly included fake sign-in sheets, made-up welcome letters, and false eligibility forms. Soofer’s nonprofit then billed the government for services that were never provided. He has agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud and money laundering and will give up his illegal earnings.

The third defendant, Donye Mitchell, is accused of lying about his nonprofit’s experience to get a $1.2 million grant for housing and mental-health services. Before the contract was canceled, about $315,000 had already been paid out. Prosecutors say Mitchell used the money for inflated salary payments, credit-card debt, rent, transfers to relatives, bail, and PlayStation purchases. Mitchell had already been convicted of defrauding California’s unemployment-benefits system and was ordered to pay $6 million in restitution. Even with that record, a county-funded nonprofit still approved his group for a major homelessness grant in 2024.

“Nobody was minding the shop,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said about Los Angeles’s homelessness spending.

Nick Shirley has documented this same basic failure in other taxpayer-funded programs: public money goes through private organizations, paperwork says services were delivered, but no one checks what is actually happening.

Federal prosecutors have charged twelve people in alleged home daycare fraud schemes that diverted more than $10 million intended to help low-income families pay for childcare. More than 250 federal, state, and local officers arrested the twelve defendants and searched twelve San Diego homes purportedly operating as daycare facilities.

Nick Shirley had raised questions about the same kind of facilities in San Diego earlier this year. His investigation showed licensed home daycares where state records listed enrolled children, but inspectors found none present.

Governor Gavin Newsom’s press office responded by mocking Nick with an AI-generated image depicting him as a heavily equipped cameraman asking, “Hey, can I see your kids?” After the federal charges were announced Tuesday, Nick reposted the image with a message for the governor:

The twelve federal complaints are separate, but prosecutors say the alleged method was essentially the same. Providers obtained California daycare licenses, registered for subsidized childcare programs, and submitted false attendance records for care they did not provide.

Prosecutors say Abdulrahman Alawad claimed to have cared for 23 children in March and 25 in April, billing for every day of both months. Surveillance covering 57 days allegedly showed children entering or leaving on only one day, the day a state inspector arrived. Other defendants allegedly billed for childcare while outside the United States. Each defendant allegedly collected between $538,000 and $1.2 million. All twelve face wire-fraud charges, while some also face money-laundering charges.

The alleged conduct closely resembles the warning at the center of Nick's investigation: taxpayers were funding childcare on paper, but the children were nowhere to be found. As U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon put it, today is a bad day for home daycare fraud.