L.A

Teahouses built for spending extended time in, open until the wee hours of the night, are popping up all over the city. Some are elusive, hidden in plain sight or only accessible via a mysterious membership. Others have gone viral on TikTok and have cover charges and waitlists to attend. Some reference East Asian tea ceremony culture, others lean California cool and bohemian.

Jai Tea Loft owner Salanya Angel Inm prepares tea at her recently opened social gathering space in Koreatown.

(Dante Velasquez Jr. / For The Times)

Why the surge in places to drink tea? It might be because young people are consuming less alcohol (a 2023 study from Gallup found the number of people under 35 who drink has dropped 10% over the last two decades). Or maybe it’s due to the fact that the city has lost a sizable chunk of restaurants open past 10 p.m. — LAist reports nearly 100 since 2019 — leaving fewer places to sit and chat that aren’t bars or clubs. At the same time, activities centered on wellness and reflection, like gratitude groups, journaling or even reading silently in public, are being embraced by people of all ages looking for third spaces and activities outside of the standard dinner-and-a-movie.

Salanya Angel Inm was inspired to open Jai in Koreatown after years of feeling that Los Angeles lacked late-night spaces not oriented around alcohol. She wanted to create an alternative for her community of creatives, a place they could spend long hours loosening up outside of a bar environment. Lydia Lin, co-founder of Steep in Chinatown, which does serve alcohol along with plenty of tea, wanted a place that was open late but was peaceful enough that she could hear her friends while having a conversation.

Enter the rise of the teahouse. Despite their design and menu differences — some have a dozen herbal blends, others opt for dealer’s choice with a rotating set of three bespoke infusions; some are places to debut a trendy outfit, a few ask visitors to remove their shoes — they each come from a desire to challenge a typical consumer experience. These are spaces meant for lingering long after tea has been purchased, or even finished.

Below are four teahouses in different neighborhoods of Los Angeles.

Jai

Scenes from a Saturday night in May at Jai Tea Loft. (Dante Velasquez Jr. / For The Times)

Located above Thai Angel, known for its DJ sets and late-night noodles, newly minted teahouse Jai offers a quieter, more intimate space to spend weekend nights. The spot is owned and operated by Thai Chinese American model and breathwork and reiki practitioner Salanya Angel Inm, who co-owns Thai Angel with her mom and brother. She began tinkering with the idea of opening a teahouse in May 2022. In January 2024, construction began, with a soft opening following in March 2025.

Jai is housed in a one-room attic on top of Thai Angel. It’s cozy, with space for two dozen people at most. The room glows in yellow-orange light from a neon art piece fixed to the ceiling and is lined with brightly colored custom floor cushions made of fabric from Thailand. On a Saturday night in March, seven guests removed their shoes and sat for a storytelling event, ticketed at $10. This was the second installment of the event; Inm had selected the theme “Lucky to be alive.” Some guests recited poetry, while others freestyled between sips of tea. The group exchanged stories and lounged until 3 a.m.

Guests socialize on a Saturday night at Jai Tea Loft in Koreatown.

(Dante Velasquez Jr. / For The Times)

Jordan Collins bought a ticket for storytelling at Jai after hearing about it on Inm’s social media. Upon arrival, he ordered a herbal elixir featuring Asian botanicals from the brand Melati. It’s one of three premade nonalcoholic tonics (the other two are “Awake” and “Calm” by California-based brand Dromme) that Jai serves room temperature for $9. A fan of art shows and experimental music performances, Collins described himself as always on the lookout for new community spaces. “I think that was the first time I pulled up to anything completely solo with no expectations, with the full intention to yap for however long to a room with complete strangers,” he said, likening his experience to a night spent chatting with friends into the morning.

The tea selection at Jai Tea Loft.

(Dante Velasquez Jr. / For The Times)

The current menu at Jai consists of hot tea, sold by the glass or pot, along with the herbal elixirs — one invigorating, one calming and one berry. Tea drinkers can choose between more than a dozen herbs, from butterfly pea to white chrysanthemum, to create a custom blend prepared by Inm, starting at $15 per 25-ounce pot or $6 for a single serving. Behind the tea bar, she offers customers guidance based on their mood and needs.

She may expand the menu going forward but plans to keep costs low. “I really don’t like the idea that people can only access things that are good for them if they have a large amount of money to invest in themselves. I want people to feel like, ‘Yeah, I can swing that for this experience’ and it not be this obstacle,” said Inm.

Koreatown
149 N. Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA (upstairs)
Soft opening, see Instagram for hours

Tea at Shiloh

Patrons at Tea at Shiloh on a recent Saturday. (Yasara Gunawardena / For The Times)

Only 45 customers can enter Tea at Shiloh per evening, and those hoping to visit should plan ahead: Reservations, which are required, can be made through the website, and Tea at Shiloh fully books nearly every night.

As each attendee enters and takes off their shoes and adds them to the disorganized pile near the front of the door, a host asks them their intention for the evening. Patrons of the Arts District teahouse know what they’re getting into and answer the question with ease. The space attracts a metaphysically minded, wellness-oriented community. Some are there to journal, others to spend time with old friends. A few want to get out of their comfort zone; they come on dates, join with friends and arrive alone.

Guests socialize at Tea at Shiloh: A Teahouse.

(Yasara Gunawardena / For The Times)

The concept for Tea at Shiloh came to owner Shiloh Enoki (who goes by the mononym Shiloh) in 2019. Shiloh, who was born in Utah and is of South American descent, found herself unfulfilled working for a record label in Hollywood. She underwent a personal transformation that led to her quitting her job and legally changing her name. After a visit to a teahouse in San Francisco that closed in the afternoon, she couldn’t stop thinking how nice the experience would have been at night. She found herself looking for late-night teahouses back home in Los Angeles on Google Maps. To her surprise, she couldn’t find any. “I couldn’t believe that something that was in my brain didn’t exist on Google. I was like, ‘It has to be somewhere. It has to be somewhere in L.A.’ I live in one of the biggest cities in the world and nothing … I became obsessed,” she said. Shiloh began exploring herbalism and hosting friends and strangers at her home for tea, then decided to create a business that would provide what she’d been searching for. She opened the space in 2022.

Faith Bakar, Alexsys Hornsby and Rachel Angelica painting at Tea at Shiloh.

(Yasara Gunawardena / For The Times)

Tea at Shiloh is inside an industrial loft. Brick walls and exposed piping contrast with wooden furniture, white couches and floor cushions and the warm glow of Noguchi lampshades. Surfaces are covered in books, tarot cards, clay and other art supplies to make use of. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., laptops are welcome. For the evening shift, which goes from 7 to 10 or 11 p.m., the lights go down and laptops are banned (with an exception for Monday’s piano lounge events). Both time slots require prepaid reservations, which, day or night, start at $37 and include unlimited access to the only thing on the menu, a rotating selection of three custom tea blends by Shiloh’s herbalists.

On some nights, there’s live music; others feature workshops in journaling, ceramics and other mind-body activities and performances. “It’s not a singular experience. There’s something for everyone,” Enoki said. After discovering the space on TikTok, Cooper Andrews took his partner to “cosmic jazz” (an eclectic mix of saxophone, keys, and abstract vocal looping) night at Shiloh to celebrate her birthday. He was looking for something other than just another fancy dinner, and for him, the $47-per-person cover charge was well worth it. “I see the fee as a cover charge. It’s like going to a museum,” he said.

Arts District
2035 Bay St., Los Angeles, CA 90021
Reservation only

Steep LA

Steep LA in Chinatown.

(Solomon O. Smith / For The Times)

Friends Samuel Wang and Lydia Lin come from cultures that take tea seriously. Wang, an industrial designer, is Taiwanese, while Lin, a marketing MBA working in the legal field, is Cantonese. In 2019, they separately went on trips to Asia to visit their families and discovered how modernized traditional teahouses had become. “[In China] people our age were going to teahouses instead of bars or clubs. It was somewhere that wasn’t home to just hang out and be able to have a conversation,” said Lin. “Why didn’t this exist in L.A.?” the friends asked themselves.

Within six months, thanks to the help of their Chinatown community, Lin and Wang — who didn’t quit their day jobs — opened Steep in the fall of 2019. Opening night was the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, Lin remembers, an important and auspicious day.

The minimalist tea lounge hides in the back of a plaza in Chinatown. There’s space inside for a few dozen guests and a handful of outdoor tables for when weather permits. Inside, there’s a beautiful marble bar, wood tables, a cozy couch and long tables with tea leaves in jars to smell and discover.

By day, Steep serves 10 rotating teas, all sourced from China and Taiwan. Customers can order a glass of cold-brewed tea or fresh-brewed tea, but Lin encourages a tea ceremony, which comes with a pot and up to four cups. Baristas walk guests through the steps of brewing and pouring the tea, providing a timer for the perfect steep.

By night, Steep is the only business open in its plaza. Inside, soothing R&B plays. And, unlike the other teahouses that have popped up recently in Los Angeles, Steep serves alcohol. After 5 p.m., the space shifts from cozy teahouse to experimental mixology bar, serving boozy concoctions that all feature tea as an ingredient. Take the Yuanyang Martini, an espresso martini with black sesame and black tea or Red Robe, featuring cognac, bourbon, oolong tea and white miso. At 9 p.m. on a Thursday in March, nearly every seat was filled. Half of the guests enjoyed cocktails, while the rest shared pots of tea.

Chinatown
970 N. Broadway #112, Los Angeles, CA 90012
11 a.m.-11 p.m. daily; closed Tuesday

NEHIMA

There’s no information about NEHIMA online except for an email address. The invite-only, membership-based Japanese teahouse opened in Los Feliz in 2022. It’s more exclusive than any Soho House, San Vicente Bungalows or Bird Streets Club. So much so that its founders, Miho Ikeda and Richard Brewer, also co-owners of New High Mart, an equally exclusive Japanese home goods boutique, agreed only to speak about their latest venture via email.

“Serving tea to-go is to miss the entire point of tea. Tea is time. An excuse to enjoy a moment, a pause, a rest — either with oneself or the company of others,” said Brewer. The space has a strict no-technology policy. Even smartwatches are required to be checked in lockers along with phones.

At NEHIMA, all tea is served made-to-order, tableside, in pieces from the owner’s collection of Japanese ceramics. There are no matcha, lattes or novelty drinks on the menu, only loose-leaf tea sourced from Japan. NEHIMA is careful to distinguish that while the space and experience recall Japanese tradition, the club does not offer an official tea ceremony. “That term is thrown around too easily these days and should be reserved for describing the very specific event, ‘Cha-No-Yu,’” said Brewer.

The founders said the average visit is between three and six hours. Where most members clubs try to offer a luxurious experience for the wealthy through elevated design, upscale food and posh clientele, taking time to relax and enjoy a pot of tea is what NEHIMA sees as the ultimate luxury. “In this busy demanding world, time is the new flex, and real wealth is taking time to stare into a bowl of tea,” said Brewer.

Los Feliz
4650 Kingswell Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Members only

NFL team owners approved the participation of NFL players in the 2028 L.A. Olympic flag football competition at the league’s owners meetings on Tuesday.

The resolution permits NFL players currently under contract to try out for flag football, but limits only one player per NFL team to play for each national team participating in the Olympics. An exception was made for each NFL team’s designated international player, who is allowed to play for his home country.

Injury protections and salary cap credit will cover any players injured during flag football activities, and Olympic flag football teams must implement minimum standards for medical staff and field surfaces to be eligible to have NFL players on their rosters.

Flag football is one of five new sports in the 2028 Olympics and will make its Olympic debut, along with squash. There are five players per team on the field and each team builds a 10-person roster. The U.S. men’s national team has won five consecutive world championships.

This is a developing story. The Times will have more soon on the NFL’s vote.

Carol Parks, the chief of Los Angeles’ Emergency Management Department, sat before a budget committee last year and painted a dire picture.

Although tasked with responding to crises in the nation’s most disaster-prone region, her department had received just a tiny fraction of the city’s budget and was getting by with a staff of roughly 30.

There was no staffer devoted full-time to disaster recovery, which meant that if an earthquake or major wildfire struck, the city would have to scramble.

But the City Council and Mayor Karen Bass balked at devoting more money to the department.

Seven months later, flames tore through Pacific Palisades and nearby communities, destroying more than 6,000 structures and displacing tens of thousands.

Now, the Emergency Management Department is in charge of coordinating the monumental task of recovery — but with a budget smaller than what the city’s Police Department uses in roughly two days.

To supplement the bare-bones emergency management team, Bass turned to an Illinois-based disaster recovery firm, Hagerty Consulting, inking a yearlong contract for up to $10 million. She also brought a former EMD general manager, Jim Featherstone, back from retirement to serve as the de facto recovery chief.

More than four months after the fire, Palisades residents and some of their elected officials are increasingly frustrated, asking: Who is in charge? What have they been doing? How is Hagerty spending its time? And what is the plan to restore the Palisades?

L.A. brings on Hagerty

As flames chewed through the Palisades on Jan. 7, EMD assigned a mid-level staffer to take on the recovery. Soon, Featherstone — a former firefighter who once served as interim LAFD chief — arrived at the emergency operations center.

In public, Bass touted civic leader Steve Soboroff as the city’s recovery czar, with a controversy over his salary taking center stage for a period.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, left, and her disaster recovery czar Steve Soboroff, right, at Palisades Recreation Center in January.

(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Times)

In practice, Featherstone — a self-described “operator” and “tactical person” — assumed the recovery director role, helping to choreograph a massive, multiagency response.

Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass, disputed that characterization and said the two men had different roles. Featherstone’s “role is largely internal to the City,” while Soboroff, whose term ended last month, “worked externally with the community along with other engagement teams within the Mayor’s Office,” Seidl said in an email.

While the city code puts EMD in charge of coordinating disaster recovery, it operates with fewer resources than similar departments in other large California cities. A 2022 audit found that L.A. spent $1.56 per resident on emergency management — far less than Long Beach at $2.26 and San Francisco at $7.59.

With such a small team for a 469-square-mile city, EMD has struggled to staff its emergency operations center in crises, prepare for events like the 2028 Olympics and help residents recover from smaller-scale calamities like building fires, storms and mudslides.

Parks told the City Council in a 2024 memo that her department “lacks the experience and dedicated staff to oversee long-term recovery projects.” After recent emergencies, EMD handled recovery duties “on an ad hoc basis,” yielding “delays, postponements and possible denial of disaster relief funds,” she wrote.

To boost EMD, Bass in early February tapped Hagerty after hearing proposals from firms including AECOM and IEM. Her reasons for choosing Hagerty were unclear, although the firm had already signed a wildfire recovery contract with L.A. County’s emergency management office and had long worked with the state Office of Emergency Services.

It’s not unusual for a state or local government to retain a recovery consultant after a disaster, even if it has a recovery arm of its own. Hagerty has routinely been hired to help with hurricane recovery, including managing billions of dollars in funding after Superstorm Sandy in New York in 2012.

Because Bass hired Hagerty under her emergency authority, the city has also solicited bids for a longer-term recovery contract worth $30 million over three years, with Hagerty among the companies vying for it.

Initially, Hagerty spent “a significant amount” of time compensating for the lack of a city recovery team, said Featherstone, who supervises Hagerty’s work, at a budget hearing last month.

By contrast, L.A. County had a dedicated recovery operation that consultants could plug into — and the muscle memory from recent disasters like the Woolsey fire.

“The structure had to be built out,” Featherstone told council members at the budget hearing. “Folks were pulled out of their regular day-to-day functions … to start to build out a recovery capability.”

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks with Pacific Palisades residents at a debris removal town hall on Jan. 26 in Santa Monica.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

That structure is a series of tactical teams focused on issues including infrastructure, economics, health and housing. Under each umbrella are multiple working groups composed of several city departments working with federal and regional agencies.

Under the infrastructure team, for example, is a debris removal group, a utilities team and a group for hazards such as mudslides, according to a recording of a recovery meeting reviewed by The Times. The housing team, meanwhile, brings together the Department of Building and Safety and the city Planning Department to streamline the permitting process.

Debris removal was one of the first orders of business — so that group was among the first to be organized and has been the “busiest,” as one EMD staffer said in a recording of an internal March meeting.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has the primary responsibility for clearing debris from lots, with most expected to be done by Memorial Day and the rest largely due to be finished this summer. The city, with Hagerty, helped explain the debris removal process to residents, including the decision to opt in to the Army Corps cleanup or do it on their own.

With Hagerty’s guidance, the Emergency Management Department also created a dashboard showing the progress of debris removal, with real-time maps tracking the status of each lot.

Tracey Phillips, a Hagerty executive, told City Council members in March that her firm was organizing these tactical teams and holding weekly meetings so that “we can develop a short-term and mid-term operational framework.”

“This is the first step to that: [determining] who the players are, getting them in the room, getting them trained up and developing that operational cadence,” Phillips explained. “It’s already happening — it’s just not being reported and it’s not kind of coalesced yet.”

As of mid-March, Hagerty had about 22 employees working on Palisades fire recovery, billing the city at hourly rates ranging from $80 to nearly $400 per employee.

City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez is among those who say that some of the money used for Hagerty would have been better spent bolstering the Emergency Management Department’s rank and file — as Parks had requested last year.

“I don’t understand their purpose. I don’t need another contractor,” Rodriguez said in an interview. “What my city staff needs is staff to do the work.”

Asked whether funding for Hagerty would be better spent on EMD, Seidl, the spokesperson for Bass, said most of the firm’s work is reimbursable by the federal government, a point that Featherstone made at a March budget hearing. Featherstone also suggested that Hagerty’s guidance could yield more funding in the long run because of the firm’s expertise with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Hagerty and Featherstone declined interview requests from The Times. Joseph Riser, a spokesperson for EMD, provided written responses to questions.

EMD was “very pleased” with Hagerty for building out recovery teams “where they did not previously exist,” Riser said, noting that the firm has improved coordination and provided “high-level briefings” to City Hall and department general managers, among other duties.

Seidl emphasized that the mayor has taken steps to preserve EMD’s budget, “even in difficult budget times like this year.” He also touted steps the city has taken to hasten the recovery, like a one-stop permitting and rebuilding center, measures to allow for the re-issuance of permits for homes built in recent years, and restoring water and power in two months compared to the 18 months it took in Paradise after the 2018 Camp fire.

“Despite one of the worst natural disasters in recent history, L.A.’s recovery effort is on track to be the fastest in modern California history,” Seidl said.

Palisades residents strike back

Some Palisades residents say that Hagerty and EMD — and ultimately, Bass and her team — have done a poor job of communicating what their plan is going forward.

Citing the cornucopia of government agencies involved in the rebuild, City Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes the Palisades, said, “Sometimes it feels like there are so many people in charge that no one is in charge.”

Maryam Zar, who runs the Palisades Recovery Coalition, said that at times, “we feel like we are doing this ourselves.”

Pacific Palisades residents attend a town hall on the L.A. Fire Health Study featuring leading scientists on post-fire health in the backyard of a private residence on Tuesday in Los Angeles. The study is a 10-year effort to study the exposures to dangerous substances and consequent health effects.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Zar and her group have been among the most vocal advocates for a logistics plan governing how thousands of homes will be rebuilt in a community with narrow streets and already-snarled traffic.

The group has circulated ideas that include a concrete plant in the Palisades, short-term housing for construction crews and one-way roads to ease congestion.

Zar said that Hagerty has “shown up to community meetings, and they have been so unable to deliver any kind of information.”

In an interview, Park said that “for weeks and weeks now,” she also has been asking Hagerty and city departments for “a logistics and operations plan” for moving people, vehicles and materials in and out of the Palisades.

Park has visited Lahaina, Hawaii, which was devastated by a wildfire in 2023, and studied other communities rebuilding from fires. She said those areas had consultants who were “very, very engaged” with communities in identifying priorities and solving problems. She wants the city and Hagerty to push forward on a longer-term recovery plan that establishes criteria for fire-safe rebuilding and a timeline for restoring parks, schools, libraries and businesses.

“I know that those things can take significant time to develop. But this is Los Angeles, and this is the Pacific Palisades, and we are not waiting around,” she said, adding that she and her constituents were “moving at warp speed.”

Riser, the EMD spokesperson, said that traffic and logistics were not handled in a “single, static, formal plan,” but that problems were being addressed in coordination with city and state agencies. He also said EMD has brought in traffic experts to “structure this work more effectively.”

“Recovery is dynamic and complex and changes daily as debris is cleared, infrastructure is repaired, and reentry phases evolve,” Riser said.

Frustration with Hagerty boiled over at an April 10 meeting of the Palisades community council, where Hagerty representative Harrison Newton touted recovery as “a chance to become more resilient to the next disaster.”

Residents could barely contain their fury, criticizing Newton for an abstract presentation that seemed divorced from their real needs around rebuilding, permitting and traffic control.

“It feels extremely generic,” said Lee Ann Daly, who then turned her ire toward City Hall. “You need to know that we have a trust issue with the people who are paying you. … We have a trust issue, and it’s huge.”

Palisades resident Kimberly Bloom, whose home burned in the fire, pressed Newton to provide a “concrete example” of Hagerty’s work in a prior disaster “that is not just another layer of bureaucracy, because that’s what it feels like at the moment.”

Newton referred residents to Hagerty’s website and spoke of how his firm provides “augmentation support,” prompting residents to interrupt and criticize his use of jargon.

After some back and forth, Newton emphasized that he and his team were trying to accelerate the city’s response to the issues raised by residents. Hagerty, he said, was “bringing more people to bear so they’re less thinly stretched, and you’re achieving work faster.”

What lies ahead

So far, more than 1,500 parcels in the Palisades have received a final sign-off from L.A. County that they are cleared of debris, paving the way to begin rebuilding.

As of this week, 54 construction permits for 40 addresses have been issued in the Palisades, said Seidl, who noted that hundreds of permit applications are now under review.

The burden will increasingly shift onto city agencies like the Department of Building and Safety to serve thousands of homeowners and businesses seeking plan checks, permits, inspections and certificates of occupancy.

The logistics of whole neighborhoods undertaking simultaneous construction projects on hillside streets, with only a few major arteries in and out, will test the recovery framework that EMD and Hagerty have been working to erect.

In the coming weeks, Bass is expected to name a new chief recovery officer, and her team is “currently interviewing … qualified candidates,” Seidl said. Featherstone, who was initially hired on a 120-day appointment, is now serving as an assistant general manager at EMD, and Parks, the EMD chief, has asked for funding in the coming fiscal year’s budget to keep him.

Hagerty could be replaced by a different firm if it loses the competitive bidding process for the multi-year recovery contract. One of the many “deliverables” for that contract is developing a long-term recovery plan.

That type of overarching plan governing the rebuilding — and direct communication about the plan — is what residents and local officials say they have been pleading for.

“We have more debris clearing to do, but we are also breaking ground on new buildings,” said Councilmember Park. “If we don’t get those plans under control and in place, this is going to turn into ‘The Hunger Games’ very quickly.”

After one of her first visits to L.A. County’s juvenile hall in Sylmar, Efty Sharony filed a report that said she witnessed conditions worse than anything she’d seen in “over 20 years of experience visiting every level of carceral facility in California.”

Teens housed in the county’s Secure Youth Treatment Facility could be heard screaming throughout the building, slamming their bodies against doors, crying and howling, she wrote in a 2023 report to the state’s Health and Human Services secretary at the time, Dr. Mark Ghaly.

Urine flowed from beneath cell doors housing youths who had been held in isolation for more than 18 hours during a lockdown, according to Sharony’s report. The unit, at the time, held dozens of youths who had been convicted of serious and violent crimes.

The conditions at Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall were exactly the kind of problems Sharony hoped to help solve as part of a broader effort led by Gov. Gavin Newsom to ensure humane treatment amid a remaking of the state’s youth prison system. In her role as the ombudswoman for the state’s Office of Youth and Community Restoration, Sharony said supervisors told her she was supposed to be “the only teeth” the agency had.

Weeks after Sharony sounded the alarm bells about Nidorf, an 18-year-old housed there died of a drug overdose. The California Board of State and Community Corrections ordered the hall closed the same day.

But instead of encouraging her to keep digging, Sharony alleges her bosses soon told her to stop investigating juvenile halls.

Three months later, she was fired and replaced by an attorney who had previously worked for the Newsom administration but had no prior experience with juvenile justice, according to a whistleblower complaint Sharony filed last year.

“It became clear that Efrat’s superiors were more interested in creating the illusion of addressing the many crises in the state’s juvenile facilities rather than doing anything about it,” the complaint read.

A spokeswoman for the state department of Health and Human Services declined to comment on confidential personnel matters, but said the agency remains committed to promoting “trauma responsive, culturally informed, gender honoring, and developmentally appropriate services for youth involved in the juvenile justice system.”

That approach, the statement said, includes giving the ombudsperson “full authority” and “sole direction” to investigate complaints from detained youths.

“Ensuring every complaint is thoroughly investigated is critical to protecting youth across the state and a primary goal of OYCR,” the spokeswoman said.

Sharony’s attorney, Matthew Umhofer, said he has not received any response to the whistleblower complaint, which is a precursor to a lawsuit.

“Efty was fired in retaliation for doing her job. She was fired because her findings about the deplorable conditions in juvenile facilities didn’t align with the state’s political narrative. That’s illegal,” he said. “We’ve given the state every opportunity to right the wrong here, but if they don’t, we’re prepared to fight for Efty in court.”

Sharony’s allegations that state officials have little appetite to fix chronic issues in L.A.’s juvenile halls echo other recent concerns about flagging efforts to improve the county’s crumbling youth facilities.

Faced with questions about his office’s failure to enforce a four-year-old court settlement mandating reforms in the halls, Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said earlier this month that he is considering placing them in “receivership,” essentially wresting local control of the facilities away from the L.A. County Probation Department.

The California Board of State and Community Corrections also ordered another L.A. facility, Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, shut down last year, but the Probation Department ignored the order for months without consequence. A judge finally intervened last month, and roughly 100 youths will be relocated from Los Padrinos to other facilities under a plan made public by the Probation Department earlier this month.

Sharony’s firing infuriated local officials who have watched the situation at the halls deteriorate for years.

Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-Panorama City), who authored a bill to revoke probation departments from overseeing how juveniles are housed, said Sharony’s firing was a colossal mistake.

“I was livid that they fired someone that was passionate, who had experience in this space, and they brought in somebody from the inside,” Menjivar said. “How are you going to have accountability when you hire somebody who is already on the team?”

Efty Sharony, the former ombudswoman for the state Office of Youth and Community Restoration, a role in which she investigated conditions at L.A. juvenile halls.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Sharony — who previously worked as an adjunct professor at Loyola Law School’s Juvenile Innocence & Fair Sentencing Clinic and oversaw prisoner reentry programs under former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti — said she believed the ombudswoman’s post would allow her to be part of the state’s reimagining of the juvenile justice system.

Newsom announced his intentions in 2019 to shut down the state’s youth prison system, which formerly housed juveniles convicted of serious crimes such as murder until they turned 25. The Office of Youth and Community Restoration was created by the Legislature in 2021 in part to oversee conditions at the local juvenile halls that would receive the state’s youngest prisoners.

Sharony said her oversight role allowed her to drop in on juvenile facilities with just 48 hours notice to conduct spot checks and review conditions identified in a complaint. It didn’t take long, she claims, for those visits to ruffle feathers.

When she left business cards with youths at a Contra Costa facility while investigating concerns about access to mental health services, Sharony said the department chief called her supervisors within the Office of Youth and Community Restoration to complain.

After she documented the squalid conditions at Nidorf, local officials again allegedly tried to go over her head and voice frustrations, said Sharony. In the whistleblower complaint, Sharony said “her colleagues vocally prioritized political relationships over the timeliness of their investigations.”

The HHS spokeswoman declined to comment on Sharony’s specific allegations.

A spokesperson for the Contra Costa County Probation Department said they had “never filed a complaint with OYCR and would not characterize any of our conversations with OYCR as a complaint.”

“Our relationship and interactions with OYCR are consistent with how we engage with any state agency or oversight body,” the department said in a statement. “We work within the processes and policies established to maintain a constructive and professional relationship.”

Sharony said in her whistleblower complaint that her reports out of Los Angeles went ignored by state officials.

“She was left in the dark, confused about why she was suddenly removed from conversations regarding the serious findings of her initial investigation,” the complaint read.

An HHS spokeswoman said the Office of Youth and Community Restoration did not have the authority to investigate whether a Secure Youth Treatment Facility complex was in compliance with state regulations. Sharony said in an interview that didn’t preclude them from acknowledging concerns about conditions there.

In an email attached to the whistleblower complaint, Sharony’s bosses said they were pausing her in-person visits “as we make final adjustments to our Policies & Procedures and continue to hire and onboard new staff. It’s expected that field visits will resume in the next few weeks.”

But then, in June 2023, Sharony was fired. She said she was never given a reason for her termination.

She was replaced by Alisa Hart, a former deputy legal secretary in Newsom’s office who helped work on the state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and had previously worked with the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. She also previously worked as a staff attorney with the pro bono civil rights firm Public Counsel. Sharony contends Hart’s lack of experience working in the juvenile justice system made her less qualified for the ombudswoman’s post.

A spokeswoman for the Office of Youth and Community Restoration said the agency “hires the most qualified candidate when filling a vacant position,” but declined to answer specific questions about Hart other than to point to her biography on a state website. A spokeswoman for Newsom said the governor had no hand in her hiring.

Kate Lamb, the HHS spokeswoman, said the ombudswoman’s office received 49 complaints from Nidorf and Los Padrinos juvenile halls last year. Investigations into 22 of those complaints have not been completed, Lamb said.

An aerial view of Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

In 2023, when Sharony worked in the ombudswoman role for half of the year, the office received twice as many complaints and all have since been closed out, according to Lamb. Some of those complaints were handled after Sharony had exited the agency.

Those who frequent L.A.’s juvenile halls said Sharony’s removal is just one indication that state officials are not taking the county’s youth justice crisis seriously.

“The first ombudsperson was someone who was widely known and respected as a veteran stakeholder in the juvenile system here in L.A.,” said Jerod Gunsberg, a veteran criminal defense attorney who represents juveniles. “Then after that, the ombudsperson is removed from her position, and we’ve never heard anything again here in L.A.”

For anybody confused about whether Gov. Gavin Newsom planned to come to Los Angeles’ rescue Wednesday when he announced his May revision to the state budget, a clue could be found on the front page of his spending plan.

In an AI-generated image, the budget cover page featured the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco skyline, along with office workers who appear to be chatting it up in a forest glade next to an electric vehicle charging station. Not a hint of Los Angeles was anywhere to be seen.

Deeper in the budget proposal, no salvation was found for L.A. And at a news conference Wednesday, Newsom said flatly that he did not plan to provide cash to help dig the city out of its budget hole. The city is facing a $1-billion shortfall due to inflated personnel costs, higher than ever liability lawsuit payouts and below-expected revenues.

“The state’s not in a position to write a check,” Newsom said. “When you’re requesting things that have nothing to do with disaster recovery, that’s a nonstarter … I don’t need to highlight examples of requests from the city and county that were not related to disaster recovery and this state is not in a position, never have been, even in other times, to address those requests, particularly at this time.”

The governor’s rejection of Mayor Karen Bass’ pleas for state aid came as he discussed the state’s own economic woes. The state is confronting a $12-billion budget deficit in part due to a “Trump Slump,” Newsom said. The governor had to make cuts to his own signature program offering healthcare to immigrants without proper documentation.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass delivers her State of the City address at L.A. City Hall on April 21.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

The governor made sure to remind reporters Wednesday that the state had been more than willing to help with fire recovery efforts, but said that was the limit of its generosity. Newsom said that of the $2.5 billion offered to Los Angeles after the fires, more than $1 billion remained unused. That funding helped with emergency response and initial recovery from the January wildfires.

Despite Newsom’s edict, Bass didn’t appear ready to throw in the towel. She said she and the governor were “in sync” and in regular contact about the situation. State money to help with the budget crisis would be fire-recovery-related, Bass insisted.

“We had to spend a great deal of money of our general fund related to the wildfires. If we are able to get that reimbursed that relieves some of the pressure from the general fund,” Bass said in an interview with The Times. “We submitted a document to him where we are asking him if the state would be willing to give us the money up front that FEMA will reimburse — so we are requesting 100% fire-related.”

Bass visited Sacramento in March and April. She and L.A. legislators first requested $1.893 billion in state aid to help with the budget crisis and disaster recovery. The mayor has since pared down the request, but the amount she is now requesting is not public.

In the initial request, they asked for $638 million for “protecting city services under budgetary strain.” That request is likely dead. But the $301-million request for “a loan to support disaster recovery expenses pending FEMA reimbursement” still stands.

Bass said she most recently met with the governor two weeks ago, and he informed the mayor that the state’s financial situation was not looking good.

The revision is just a starting point for final budgetary negotiations between the governor and the Legislature, and the state budget won’t be completed until at least mid-June, weeks after the deadline for the City Council to approve its own budget.

“We have 36 members of the L.A. delegation fighting for the city and we’ll just have to wait and see what happens in June,” said Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, who chairs the Los Angeles County Legislative Delegation.

McKinnor said she is confident that the state budget will have money not just for fire recovery, but also to help the city manage its broader financial woes.

“We will not fail L.A.,” McKinnor said.

With the state lifeline in serious doubt, the cuts the city will have to make to balance its budget took another step toward reality.

While Bass is still hopeful for state aid, the council seemed less hopeful.

“We expected and planned for this outcome, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating. The governor’s decision to withhold support from California’s largest city after we experienced the most devastating natural disaster in the state’s history is a serious mistake, with consequences for both our long-term recovery and the strength of the state’s economy,” said Katy Yaroslavsky, who chairs the council’s budget committee.

“This will not be a ‘no-layoff’ budget,” Yaroslavsky said on May 8 at a budget hearing.

Bass stressed that she is still trying to avoid any layoffs. The city plans to avert further layoffs by transferring employees to the proprietary departments, like the harbor, the airport and perhaps the Department of Water & Power.

“We’re all working very, very hard with the same goal in mind and that is having a balanced, responsible budget that avoids laying off city workers,” she said Thursday.

State of play

— MOURNING ONE OF CITY HALL’S OWN: Former chief of staff to Councilmember Kevin de León and longtime L.A. politico Jennifer Barraza Mendoza died Tuesday at 37 following a long battle with cancer. Barraza Mendoza began her career organizing with SEIU Local 99, helped lead De León’s Senate campaign and also served as a principal at Hilltop Public Solutions, among other roles. “In a political world of shapeshifters, she stood out as fiercely loyal and guided by principle,” De León said in a statement. “She never sought the spotlight — but when tested, she rose with unmatched strength to protect her team, her community, and what she knew was right.”

— MINIMUM WAGE WAR: The City Council voted Wednesday for a sweeping package of minimum wage increases for hotel workers and employees of companies at Los Angeles International Airport. One hotel executive said the proposal, which would take the wage to $30 in July 2028, would kill his company’s plan for a new 395-room hotel tower in Universal City. Other hotel companies predicted they would scale back or shutter their restaurant operations. The hotel workers’ union countered by saying business groups have made similar warnings in the past, only to be proved wrong.

— SECOND TIME’S A CHARM: Surprise! On Friday, the City Council had to schedule a do-over vote on its tourism wage proposal. That vote, called as part of a special noon meeting, came two days after City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office warned that Wednesday’s vote had the potential to violate the city’s public meeting law.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez in December in Los Angeles.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

— READY TO RELAUNCH: Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez plans to host her campaign kickoff event for her reelection bid Saturday in Highland Park, where she was born and raised. She already has a few competitors in the race, including Raul Claros, who used to serve on the Affordable Housing Commission, and Sylvia Robledo, a former council aide.

The left-wing councilmember has already won the endorsements of Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and from colleagues Heather Hutt, Ysabel Jurado, Hugo Soto-Martinez and Nithya Raman. Controller Kenneth Mejia also endorsed her.

— PHOTO BOMB: Recently pictured with Eunisses Hernandez: Political consultant Rick Jacobs — the former senior aide to then-Mayor Eric Garcetti who was accused of sexual harassment. Jacobs now works as a consultant for the politically powerful Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters. Per a post on Jacobs’ LinkedIn, Hernandez posed for a photo this week with Jacobs and several union members while presenting the group with a city certificate of recognition.

Jacobs has denied the harassment allegations, but the scandal bedeviled Garcetti in his final years in office and nearly derailed his ambassadorship to India. Jacobs has remained in the political mix — some may remember his controversial appearance at Bass’ exclusive 2022 post-inauguration Getty House afterparty. Also worth noting: The Carpenters are major players in local elections, and their PAC spent nearly $150,000 supporting Hernandez’s then-opponent Gil Cedillo in the 2022 election.

“Councilmember Hernandez was proud to stand with the carpenters who built the little library at North East New Beginnings, the first-of-its-kind interim housing site she opened in 2024. She was there to honor their craftsmanship and community contribution — nothing more. She did not choose who else appeared in the photo,” said Naomi Villagomez Roochnik, a spokesperson for Hernandez.

— PARK GETS AN OPPONENT: Public Counsel attorney Faizah Malik is challenging Councilmember Traci Park from the left, the tenants rights lawyer announced Thursday. Malik is styling her campaign in the mold of prior progressive incumbent ousters, she said, though she has yet to garner any of their endorsements. But she did get an Instagram signal boost from former CD 11 Councilmember Mike Bonin, who characterized her as “A Westside leader who will fight for YOU and your family.” Meanwhile, centrist group Thrive LA had a fundraiser for Park this week, and declared her its first endorsement of the 2026 cycle.

— FIREFIGHT: Active and retired firefighters blasted the council’s recommendation to nix 42 “Emergency Incident Technicians,” who help develop firefighting strategy and account for firefighters during blazes. In a letter to the council, the firefighters said the 1998 death of firefighter Joseph Dupee was linked to removal of EITs during a previous budget crisis.

“Please do not repeat the same mistake that was made in 1998 when EITs were removed and said removal was found to be a contributing factor in the death of LAFD Captain Joseph Dupee,” the firefighters wrote.

— EMPLOYMENT LAW AND ORDER: Some LAPD officers are hitting the jackpot on what are known as “LAPD lottery” cases. The city has paid out nearly $70 million over the last three years to officers who have sued the department after alleging they were the victims of sexual harassment, racial discrimination or retaliation against whistleblowers.

The massive payouts are not helping the city’s coffers. One of the leading causes of the current fiscal crisis is the ballooning liability payments that the city makes in settlements and jury verdicts.

— WATER OLYMPICS: L.A. County’s plan to run a water taxi between Long Beach and San Pedro during the Olympics paddled forward this week. Supervisor Janice Hahn introduced a motion, with co-author Mayor Bass, to launch a feasibility study assessing ridership demand, cost and possible routes.

“[The water taxi] would give residents, workers and tourists an affordable alternative to driving and parking at these Games venues,” Hahn said.

— ROBO-PERMIT: City and county residents submitting plans to rebuild their burned down properties could have their first interaction with an AI bot who would inspect their plans before a human. Wildfire recovery foundations purchased the AI permitting software, developed by Australian tech firm Archistar, and donated it to the city and county. The tech was largely paid for by Steadfast L.A., Rick Caruso’s nonprofit.

— TRUMP’S VETS MOVE: President Trump signed an executive order calling on the Department of Veterans Affairs to house up to 6,000 homeless veterans on its West Los Angeles campus, but even promoters of the idea are skeptical of the commander in chief’s follow-through.

“If this had come from any other president, I’d pop the Champagne,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), whose district includes the West Los Angeles campus. Trump, he said, follows up on “like one out of 10 things that he announces. You just never know which one. You never know to what extent.”

— ADDRESSING THE ELEPHANTS IN THE ROOM: A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge denied a motion for a temporary restraining order Thursday that sought to stop the L.A. Zoo from transferring elephants Tina and Billy to the Tulsa Zoo. The judge said the decision was out of the court’s purview. The zoo said Thursday that the “difficult decision” to relocate the pachyderms was made with the “care and well being” of the animals at top of mind.

“Activist agendas and protests are rightfully not a consideration in decisions that impact animal care,” the statement said.

— CHARTER SQUABBLE: Bass made her four appointments to the Charter Reform Commission this week. She selected Raymond Meza, Melinda Murray, Christina Sanchez and Robert Lewis to serve as commissioners. She also named Justin Ramirez as the executive director of the commission. Bass’s appointments came on the heels of reform advocate Rob Quan sending out mailers about the mayor’s delay in making appointments, which left the commission unable to get to work.

“Karen Bass wasted eight months. That was when her appointments were due. Eight months ago,” Quan said in an interview.

— WORKDAY TROUBLE: The Department of Water and Power is slated to adopt a new human resources software, Workday, in mid-June. But Gus Corona, business manager of IBEW Local 18, warned of “serious concerns” and the potential for “widespread problems and administrative chaos.” In a letter this week to DWP CEO Janisse Quiñones, which The Times obtained, Corona said there was a “consistent lack of clarity” about the new system, especially around union dues and benefit deductions, retroactive pay and cost of living adjustments. “The level of uncertainty so close to a planned launch date is deeply troubling,” Corona wrote.

Quick Hits

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature homelessness program went to Councilmember Curren Price’s district: 37th Street and Flower Street, according to the mayor’s office.
• On the docket for next week: The full City Council is scheduled to take up the proposed city budget for 2025-26 — and the mayor’s proposal for city employee layoffs — on Thursday.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Chefs who behave badly get their own show. Also, pink Champagne cake at Madonna Inn plus more road food favorites. And can fish be too fresh? I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.

Too hot in the kitchen

Some of the contestants in the NBC competition show “Yes, Chef!” From left, Michelle Francis, Katsuji Tanabe, Jake Lawler, Peter Richardson, Christopher Morales and Julia Chebotar. Martha Stewart and chef José Andrés host.

(Pief Weyman / NBC via Getty Images)

“For far too long,” Martha Stewart says into the camera during the opening moments of NBC’s new “Yes, Chef!” cooking competition show, “the pressure of the kitchen has been an excuse for out-of-control behavior.”

“That kind of behavior doesn’t make a great chef,” adds her co-host, chef José Andrés. “It holds them back.”

Stewart and Andrés are correct. And yet, that kind of behavior — yelling at fellow chefs, throwing pans in frustration, undermining colleagues and sometimes inflicting more harmful abuse — has been the roiling soup that has fed reality TV cooking competitions for more than 25 years. It’s also been the kind of behavior that restaurant workers have tried, with varying degrees of success, to root out as cheffing became an aspirational profession instead of disrespected grunt work.

You can read about the pain as well as the allure of working in and around restaurant kitchens in several recent memoirs, including Laurie Woolever’s “Care and Feeding,” which restaurant critic Bill Addison praised in this newsletter last month, Hannah Selinger’s “Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly” and books by two chefs and reality TV cooking show insiders, Tom Colicchio’s “Why I Cook” and Kristen Kish’s “Accidentally on Purpose,” which I wrote about last week.

If you’ve watched even a few minutes of a reality TV cooking competition — from “Hell’s Kitchen’s” Gordon Ramsay angrily dumping out a contestant’s overcooked steak to even the sweet contestants on “The Great British Baking Show” expressing frustration — chances are good that you’ve seen how the kitchen pressure Stewart talks about often does lead to bad behavior.

So can a reality TV cooking competition really help chefs become better people — and better bosses?

Possibly. But three episodes into the inaugural season of “Yes, Chef!” — a show cast with “12 professional chefs, each with one thing standing in their way: themselves,” Stewart says — it looks as though the cards are stacked against redemption.

“In our kitchen,” Stewart tells viewers about the chefs, “it takes a lot more than good food to win. They’ll need to figure out how to work together.”

Andrés and Stewart have a lot of life experience and advice to offer, with Stewart admitting, “I have been known to be a perfectionist. And that kind of holds you back sometimes.”

But when it comes down to which team wins and which team loses, it turns out that good food does matter more than bad behavior. (Note that there are spoilers ahead if you haven’t watched the show yet.)

After TV competition show veteran and designated villain Katsuji Tanabe (“Top Chef,” “Chopped”) takes all the eggs in the kitchen so that the opposing team has none to work with, he and his teammates are rewarded with a win. The reasoning: The losing chefs struggled to, in the language of the show, “pivot.”

Even worse for the development of the chefs, the decision of who stays and who goes at the end of each episode is not made by Andrés or Stewart. Instead, a one-on-one cook-off is set up between the contestant deemed to be the Most Valuable Chef (MVC) and another contestant that the MVC strategically chooses to go up against. If the MVC wins, the challenger chef goes home. But if the challenger chef beats the MVC, the challenger becomes the decider. So far, this has led to one of the better chefs, Torrece “Chef T” Gregoire, being booted largely to reduce the competition, followed by the executioner of that decision, Michelle Francis, getting axed in the next episode, possibly comeuppance for sending home a popular player the week before and partly because of her dish — even though she was handicapped by the egg theft.

The sharp edges and head games almost feel retro, closer to the template set 25 years ago this month when “Survivor” first aired and popularized the whole “I’m not here to make friends” trope that was common in sports and then became emblematic of reality TV posturing.

We’ll see as the season progresses whether the chefs can turn around the bad attitudes and insecurities that led to them being cast on the show. I certainly hope Andrés and Stewart are given more time to guide the chefs toward their better selves in future episodes.

But if you want to watch a show where the chefs are modeling kitchen behavior we’d like to see more of in our star chefs, may I suggest the current season of Bravo’s “Top Chef.”

Both “Yes, Chef!” and “Top Chef” are made by the production company Magical Elves, but “Top Chef,” now in its 22nd season, is showcasing a group of chefs who actually seem to care about each other. Yes, there are big personalities on the show, notably Massimo Piedimonte, who often generates eye rolls by the other chefs when his bravado goes overboard. But he is seen in quieter moments trying to tame his impulses and become a better person. And there is genuine emotion displayed when chef Tristen Epps gets word right before a big challenge that his father-in-law has died and his mother encourages him to continue competing. The entire show, from the production staffer who takes him off the set to his fellow competitors seem to support him.

There is even camaraderie among the losing contestants who try to work their way back into the competition through the spin-off “Last Chance Kitchen,” judged solo by Colicchio showing his mentoring skills. When Chicago’s North Pond chef César Murillo is pitted against three-time “Last Chance” winner Katianna Hong, co-owner of the recently closed Arts District restaurant Yangban, there is support and respect shown for both talented competitors by the eliminated chefs watching the proceedings, including chef Kat Turner of L.A.’s Highly Likely.

“Top Chef” contestants Katianna Hong, left, and Cesar Murillo before the judges.

(David Moir / Bravo via Getty Images)

“Top Chef” used to have a lot more hotheads. “I’m not your bitch, bitch,” was a catchphrase in the show’s early years when one chef pushed another too far. But the new season, which has just a few more episodes to go, is proving that you can cool down the temperature in the kitchen and still entertain.

Think pink

The very pink dining room at San Luis Obispo’s Madonna Inn; inset, the Inn’s pink Champagne cake.

(Nic Coury and David Fotus / For The Times)

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the motel — the first use of the word is credited to the 1925 opening of the Milestone Mo-Tel in San Luis Obispo — Food’s writers and editors joined our colleagues in Features to put together Motel California, a story series that includes a guide to the state’s “34 coolest, kitschiest, most fascinating motels” and our team’s picks for the best roadside diners and restaurants. Also in the package: Christopher Reynolds’ account of his 2,500-mile search for California’s greatest motels, a roadside attractions guide and Marah Eakin’s profile of Barkev Msrlyan, creator of the Merch Motel brand of retro souvenirs.

Food’s Stephanie Breijo spent time at the very pink San Luis Obispo landmark, the Madonna Inn, and says that the “maze-like, kaleidoscopic lair of chroma and whimsy is home to some of the most iconic food on the Central Coast.” She came away with insider knowledge of the red oak grills at Alex Madonna’s Gold Rush Steak House and of the Inn’s famed pink Champagne cakes — made in the hundreds each week. But the pink cake recipe remains a secret. Breijo did, however, get the recipe for the Inn’s Pink Cloud cocktail — topped with whipped cream and a cherry.

Plus: Julie Wolfson guides us to some great coffee shops along the Santa Barbara coast.

L.A. Timeless

(Samantha Hahn / For The Times)

This week, the paper introduced a new feature, L.A. Timeless, which highlights stories from our archives. The first two stories this week come from former L.A. Times restaurant critic Ruth Reichl, who wrote about learning to shop for fish at L.A. supermarkets with Jon Rowley, the man Julia Child once called “the fish missionary.” I got to go along on that reporting trip all those years ago and I’ll never forget the lessons Rowley taught us. Her companion story on Rowley went into one of his obsessions: “[T]hat fish can be too fresh … a fish coming out of rigor mortis five or six days after harvest (in ice, of course) can be far better eating than a fish less than one day out of the water.”

Great Australian Bite

Chef Curtis Stone poses at his Four Stones Farm in Agoura Hills.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Tickets are on sale for our second-annual Great Australian Bite. Last year, we were on the Malibu Pier. This year, chef Curtis Stone is hosting the event with Tourism Australia on his Four Stones Farm. He’s partnering with chef Clare Falzon of the restaurant Staġuni in South Australia’s Barossa. Read more about the event and how to get tickets here.

Also …

On Pasjoli’s bar menu, the dry-aged beef burger is topped with white cheddar, red onion “au poivre” and a marrow aioli on a brioche bun.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

• Jenn Harris reports on the reasons behind the upcoming two-week closure (starting May 31) of Dave Beran’s Pasjoli, the Santa Monica restaurant that, she writes, “has undergone a series of changes to its menu and format, ever striving to embody the spirit of the neighborhood French bistro.” Now that Beran has Seline as an outlet for his fine-dining tendencies, he can relax more at Pasjoli. When it reopens June 12, the restaurant should be, Harris writes, “more approachable, more interactive and a lot more fun.”
• Stephanie Breijo reports that after a health department shutdown, AC Barbeque restaurant, owned by comedians Anthony Anderson and Cedric the Entertainer, has reopened in Century City.
• Breijo also reports that Michelin is adding three L.A. restaurants to its 2025 California guide with a full new list to be revealed June 25.
• And, for good measure, Breijo also has restaurant opening news on Anthony Wang’s recently opened Firstborn, “one of L.A.’s most exciting new Chinese restaurants,” a Brentwood outpost of Beverly Hills’ steak-focused Matu called Matu Kai, sandwich shop All Too Well, the Pasadena branch of Sarah Hymanson and Sara Kramer’s Kismet Rotisserie, Kristin Colazas Rodriguez’s Colossus in San Pedro and details of Dine Latino Restaurant Week.

A key committee of the Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to cut the number of employees targeted for layoff by Mayor Karen Bass by more than half, bringing the total down to an estimated 650.

The council’s budget committee took steps to save more than 1,000 jobs by pursuing an array of cost-cutting measures, such as hiring fewer police officers and scaling back funding for Bass’ Inside Safe program, which moves homeless people into temporary or permanent housing.

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who chairs the committee, said those and many other moves would help the city protect core services, including tree trimming, street resurfacing, street light repair and sanitation teams that address illegal dumping.

“We looked for ways to save positions — not for the sake of job counts only, but to make sure the departments can still do the work our constituents need them to do for their quality of life,” said Yaroslavsky, who represents part of the Westside.

The committee’s recommendations for the proposed 2025-26 budget now head to the full council, which is scheduled to take them up on Thursday.

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who sits on the committee, expressed some optimism after the vote.

“We were in very rough waters, and a very different landscape, when we started this process,” said Hernandez, who represents part of the Eastside. “And now there seems to be some light between the clouds.”

As part of Friday’s deliberations, the budget committee voted to recommend a slowdown in sworn hiring at the LAPD, which would leave the agency with 8,400 officers by June 30, 2026. That represents a reduction of about 300 from the current fiscal year and 1,600 compared with 2020.

The budget committee also agreed to eliminate 42 emergency incident technicians at the fire department, a move opposed by interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva, while also canceling Bass’ plan for a new homelessness unit within that agency.

In addition, the five-member panel recommended a hike in parking meter fees, which is expected to generate $14 million in the upcoming fiscal year.

Yaroslavsky said the changes endorsed by the budget committee on Friday would save about 150 civilian workers in the police department.

Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, who advises the council, said she believes that city officials will keep finding ways to reduce the number of layoffs, by transferring workers to vacant city positions or to agencies that are unaffected by the budget crisis, such as Los Angeles World Airports and the Port of Los Angeles.

“I think we’re going to be able to truly get that number down to less than 500,” she told the committee.

Bass, faced with a nearly $1-billion shortfall, released a proposed budget last month that called for the layoff of about 1,600 employees, a fourth of them civilian workers at the LAPD. Some of the largest reductions were planned at agencies that handle sanitation, street repairs and maintenance of city facilities.

Friday’s deliberations set the stage for many positions to remain intact, particularly at the Department of City Planning, which had been facing 115 layoffs. Kevin Keller, executive officer with that agency, said the committee found the funding to restore more than 100 of those positions.

“I know there’s a lot of city workers that are breathing a big sigh of relief tonight,” said Roy Samaan, president of the Engineers and Architects Assn., whose union represents planning department employees.

L.A.’s budget crisis has been attributed to a number of factors, including rapidly rising legal payouts, lower-than-expected tax revenue and a package of raises for the city workforce that is expected to add $250 million to the upcoming budget, which goes into effect on July 1.

Bass and the council have been hoping to persuade city labor unions to provide financial concessions that would help avoid more cuts. So far, no deals have been struck.

On Friday, before the committee began its deliberations, Bass said she is optimistic about avoiding layoffs entirely. At the same time, she spoke against a budget strategy that pits the hiring of police officers against the preservation of other jobs, calling it “a Sophie’s Choice.”

If the LAPD slows down hiring, it will have fewer officers in the run-up to next year’s hosting of the World Cup, she said.

“I’m not going accept that as my choice,” she said.

During the final minutes of Friday’s five-hour meeting, council members made some last-minute restorations, identifying additional funds for youth programs, tree trimming and fire department mechanics. Hernandez pushed for the committee to restore $1 million for Represent LA, which provides legal defense of immigrants facing deportation or other enforcement actions, and $500,000 for graffiti paint-out crews.

Hernandez said the city needs to stand by immigrants amid a harsh federal crackdown. And she described graffiti removal as crucial for public safety in her district.

“Getting graffiti down quickly prevents a lot more people from getting shot, prevents them from getting killed,” she said.

When Los Angeles City Council members took up a plan to hike the wages of tourism workers this week, they received some carefully worded advice from city lawyers: Don’t vote on this yet.

Senior Assistant City Atty. Michael J. Dundas advised them on Wednesday — deep into their meeting — that his office had not yet conducted a final legal review of the flurry of last-minute changes they requested earlier in the day.

Dundas recommended that the council delay its vote for two days to comply with the Ralph M. Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law.

“We advise that the posted agenda for today’s meeting provides insufficient notice under the Brown Act for first consideration and adoption of an ordinance to increase the wages and health benefits for hotel and airport workers,” Dundas wrote.

The council pressed ahead anyway, voting 12-3 to increase the minimum wage of those workers to $30 per hour by 2028, despite objections from business groups, hotel owners and airport businesses.

Then, on Friday, the council conducted a do-over vote, taking up the rewritten wage measure at a special noon meeting — one called only the day before. The result was the same, with the measure passing again, 12-3.

Some in the hotel industry questioned why Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who runs the meetings, insisted on moving forward Wednesday, even after the lawyers’ warning.

Jackie Filla, president and chief executive of the Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles, said the decision to proceed Wednesday gave a political boost to Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel workers. The union had already scheduled an election for Thursday for its members to vote on whether to increase their dues.

By approving the $30 per hour minimum wage on Wednesday, the council gave the union a potent selling point for the proposed dues increase, Filla said.

“It looks like it was in Unite Here’s financial interest to have that timing,” she said.

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who opposed the wage increases, was more blunt.

“It was clear that Marqueece intended to be as helpful as possible” to Unite Here Local 11, “even if it meant violating the Brown Act,” she said.

Harris-Dawson spokesperson Rhonda Mitchell declined to say why her boss pushed for a wage vote on Wednesday after receiving the legal advice about the Brown Act. That law requires local governments to take additional public comment if a legislative proposal has changed substantially during a meeting.

Mitchell, in a text message, said Harris-Dawson scheduled the new wage vote for Friday because of a mistake by city lawyers.

“The item was re-agendized because of a clerical error on the City Attorney’s part — and this is the correction,” she said.

Mitchell did not provide details on the error. However, the wording on the two meeting agendas is indeed different.

Wednesday’s agenda called for the council to ask city lawyers to “prepare and present” amendments to the wage laws. Friday’s agenda called for the council to “present and adopt” the proposed changes.

Maria Hernandez, a spokesperson for Unite Here Local 11, said in an email that her union does not control the City Council’s schedule. The union’s vote on higher dues involved not just its L.A. members but also thousands of workers in Orange County and Arizona, Hernandez said.

“The timing of LA City Council votes is not up to us (sadly!) — in fact we were expecting a vote more than a year ago — nor would the precise timing be salient to our members,” she said.

Hernandez said Unite Here Local 11 members voted “overwhelmingly” on Thursday to increase their dues, allowing the union to double the size of its strike fund and pay for “an army of organizers” for the next round of labor talks. She did not disclose the size of the dues increase.

Dundas’ memo, written on behalf of City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, was submitted late in Wednesday’s deliberations, after council members requested a number of changes to the minimum wage ordinance. At one point, they took a recess so their lawyers could work on the changes.

By the time the lawyers emerged with the new language, Dundas’ memo was pinned to the public bulletin board in the council chamber, where spectators quickly snapped screenshots.

A judge approved a plan Friday to move more than 100 youths out of a troubled Los Angeles juvenile hall that has been the site of riots, drug overdoses and so-called “gladiator fights” in recent years.

Los Angeles County Superior Judge Miguel Espinoza signed off on the L.A. County Probation Department’s plan to relocate dozens of detainees from Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, months after a state oversight body ordered the hall to be shut down.

The Downey facility, home to approximately 270 youths, most of whom are between the ages of 15 and 18, has been under fire since last December, when the Board of State and Community Corrections ordered it closed because of repeated failures to meet minimum staffing requirements. The probation department has faced a years-long struggle to get officers to show up to work in the chaotic halls.

But the probation department ignored the state board’s order to shut down. Since the body has no power to enforce its own orders and the California Attorney General’s Office declined to step in, Los Padrinos continued to operate in defiance for months. In that time frame, several youths suffered drug overdoses, a teen was stabbed in the eye and 30 probation officers were indicted for allegedly organizing or allowing brawls between youths.

Acting on a legal challenge brought by the L.A. County Public Defender’s Office, Espinoza last month ordered probation officials to begin shrinking the number of youths held at Los Padrinos so it could comply with state regulations.

Roughly three-quarters of the youths at Los Padrinos are awaiting court hearings connected to violent offenses including murder, attempted murder, assault, robbery, kidnapping and gang crimes, according to the probation department.

The probation department made its plan to de-populate Los Padrinos public earlier this month, promising to remove 103 detainees from the facility by June.

Under the department’s plan, youth who are awaiting trial on cases that could land them in the county’s Secure Youth Treatment Facility will be moved to Barry J. Nidorf Hall in Sylmar. Others will be moved out of Los Padrinos and into the lower-security camps, where some juvenile justice advocates say teens perform much better and are far less likely to act violent.

“This plan reflects our continued commitment to balancing public safety, legal compliance, and the rehabilitative needs of the young people in our care,” the department said in a statement. “It is key to note that the court denied an indiscriminate mass release of youth, and that Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall will not be fully depopulated or closed.”

Espinoza originally weighed shutting down the facility last year when the public defender’s office questioned the legality of its continued operation in defiance of the BSCC. On Friday, he declined to adopt a plan from the Probation Oversight Commission that could have resulted in the release of some youths through a review process.

Some members of the oversight body expressed frustration that Espinoza’s order won’t solve the larger issues that have plagued the probation department for years. Milinda Kakani, a POC board member and the director of youth justice for the Children’s Defense Fund, also noted the moves might cause some youths to backslide by returning them to Nidorf Hall after they had already graduated from the prison-like SYTF, which some derisively refer to as “The Compound.”

“I imagine it’s deeply damaging to a young person to go back to the facility they had worked so hard to get out of,” Kakani said.

Espinoza warned he could take further action if the department’s plan does not bring it into compliance with state regulations. It was not clear when the next BSCC inspection of Los Padrinos would take place and a spokeswoman for the oversight body did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The probation department must provide Espinoza with an update on conditions at Los Padrinos by July.

I’m not much of a fair guy — I never win at carnival games, I get dizzy as a passenger in a car, and fair food is as overrated as In-N-Out. But last week, I attended the Los Angeles County Fair for the first time ever because why not?

Besides, if Miguel Santana can be a Fairhead, so can I.

He’s one of the most influential people in Southern California: longtime confidante of the late Gloria Molina, former chief administrative officer for Los Angeles and current president of the California Community Foundation. But I think he had the most fun as head of the L.A. County Fair from 2017 to 2020, a stint immortalized by his appearance on the cover of the 2022 book “100 Years of the Los Angeles County Fair” riding a gondola lift alongside the book’s author, legendary Inland Valley Daily Bulletin columnist David Allen.

“Who’s there says a lot about us as Southern California,” Santana said of the L.A. County Fair’s audience as I exited the 10 Freeway toward the Fairplex. “It’s a sense of Americana and proof we can be diverse and American at the same time.”

I asked if this fair was as big as the Orange County Fair. He laughed the way all Angelenos do when presented with a comparison to Orange County.

“It’s enormous. You’re gonna get your 10,000 steps.”

Behold, then, this newbie’s L.A. County Fair tips:

Times columnist Gustavo Arellano at the 2025 L.A. County Fair.

(Gustavo Arellano / Los Angeles Times)

Have a Pomona homie drop you off

Fair parking is an ungodly $22.50, and don’t you dare try to leave your jalopy at nearby Ganesha Park unless you want to spend a couple hundred dollars fishing it out of some random tow truck yard. My Pomona parking hookup was faithful reader Fernando Iniguez — gracias, Fern Iggy! I owe you a Jerez sweatshirt.

Buy your tickets online

$21.50 on the internet. At the gate? $32. Um, yeah. But one big complaint, Fair lords: It took me three attempts to buy my tickets online. Ever heard of Zelle?

Feel the music

“There’s going to be so much music,” Santana told me, and he was right. Between live bands, Spotify playlists, DJs and radio stations, it was like walking through a wholesome Coachella. Bachata smoothly transitioned to Go Country went to KCRW became Taylor Swift switched over to a super-chirpy cover of the O’Jays’ “Love Train” at the Disco Chicken stand. And though Pharell Williams’ “Happy” played at least five times while I visited, the atmosphere was so cheerful that I didn’t have to scream to drown out his ode to optimism.

Hang out at the petting zoo for the best people watching

There’s nothing like seeing suburbanites who probably think meat comes from Erewhon fairies stand with terror in their eyes as bleating sheep and goats swarm them asking for pellets.

Lose yourself in the fair

How much did fairgoers live in the moment? I saw next to no one use their smartphone other than for photos. And I also noticed a middle-age white guy in a MAGA cap standing a few feet away from a Muslim family with nary a negative look at each other. They were too busy staring ahead like the rest of us at an octet of magnificent Clydesdale horses ready to pull a Budweiser wagon.

Head to the coolest section of the fair

I loved all the vegetables and livestock at the Farm & Gardens, enjoyed the trippy art at the Flower & Garden Pavilion and appreciated the juxtaposition of a lowrider show next to the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsports Museum near the Millard Sheets Art Center. But the best part of the fair was the area labeled “America’s Great Outdoors” — and I say this as someone who thinks camping and hiking are for the (literal) birds! Volunteers sawed logs with kids, taught them how to pan for gold, showed off desert reptiles and even hosted an environmental magic show. Throw in a replica of a Tongva hut and a U.S. Forest Service fire lookout tower and the nearby sound of the RailGiants Train Museum, and this is what Knott’s Berry Farm used to be before it became whatever the hell it is now.

Block off at least three hours to fully enjoy

I had to rush back to Orange County for a columna the day I visited, so I only spent an hour and a half at the fair. I had to skip the tablescape competition, didn’t go through the exhibit halls and was only able to eat at Hot Dog on a Stick because they make the best lemonade on Earth. But it was wonderful to leave the problems of the world mostly at bay for a few hours to enjoy the living, breathing Wikipedia that is a county fair at its finest — and the L.A. County Fair is definitely that.

Huge Snorlax plush toy: Next year, you’re mine.

Today’s top stories

Wildlife biologist Carl Lackey, with the aid of a dog, chases off a California black bear that was captured and relocated to the Carson Range.

(John Axtell / Nevada Department of Wildlife)

A woman’s grisly death inflames debate over how California manages problem black bears

• An autopsy determined that 71-year-old Patrice Miller had probably been killed by a black bear after it broke into her home, marking the first known instance in California history of a fatal bear attack on a human.
• The story of Miller’s grisly end have come roaring into the state Capitol this spring.
• Wildlife officials estimate there are now 60,000 black bears in California, roughly triple the figure from 1998.

An epic guide to the best motels in California

UC and CSU get some relief in Newsom’s budget plan

• Proposed funding cuts for UC and CSU are not as bad as they were in January, under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised state budget.
• The proposed cut to UC dropped from $397 million in January to $130 million four months later, representing a 3% year-to-year budget cut.
• For CSU, Newsom’s budget cut went from $375 million in January to $144 million, also a 3% budget reduction.

Riverside wants to become ‘the new Detroit’

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

This morning’s must reads

Other must reads

For your downtime

(Peter DaSilva / For The Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What is your go-to karaoke song?

Alan says: “Your Man by Josh Turner.”
C Price says: “The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell.”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

Kaj Betts, son of Dodgers infielder Mookie Betts, runs away with the ceremonial first pitch ball as they celebrate Mookie Betts’ Bobble Head night at Dodger Stadium.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Robert Gauthier at Dodger Stadium where the 2-year-old son of Dodgers infielder Mookie Betts runs away with the ceremonial first pitch ball.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

L.A. has long been a beacon for the arts. So it’s only fitting that “Forever,” the Netflix series that showrunner Mara Brock Akil envisioned as “a love story within a love letter to Los Angeles,” celebrates local artists.

The Midcentury Modern home of Justin Edwards, one half of the couple whose love story informs the show — an adaptation of Judy Blume’s 1975 novel — is flooded with work from Black Angelenos.

“Local Los Angeles artists were important for me to put into the sets, and the Edwards family home, specifically, being collectors of Los Angeles art,” Akil, an L.A. native, told The Times.

Production designer Suzuki Ingerslev and set decorator Ron Franco are also Angelenos, which they said contributed to the cultural competency of their work on “Forever.” Although the writers’ strike made elements of their jobs difficult, both agreed that their experience on “Forever” was uniquely positive, in large part because of their curation of the art in the Edwards’ home.

“Sometimes art can really make a space and it makes a statement and it tells you who the character is,” said Ingerslev. “In this case, you really knew who the Edwards were — they curated art and they cared about where they live — and I thought that really made a big difference through the art and through the furnishings as well.”

Franco agreed, saying he had fun sourcing artwork from Black artists that matched Ingerslev’s color palette and also contained themes pertinent to the show.

“A lot of times the shows that you see now are just headshots and everything that we put up becomes a background piece that’s kind of blurred,” he said. “We are very lucky in that this camera really opened up, and you follow everybody through both of the [permanent] sets and you really feel a lot.”

Audiences noticed their effort, said Ingerslev, who’s been bombarded with questions about the artworks in “Forever,” which was just renewed for a second season.

Here are five local Black artists whose work are featured in the show.

Noah Humes, 31

Humes cites a book about artist and writer Romare Bearden that he received from Akil when he was 6 years old as the foundation for his worldview as an artist. (Humes’ mother was a casting director on “Girlfriends,” the 2000s TV series created by Akil, whom Humes calls “Auntie Mara.”)

“I look back [and] that’s what helped form and shape my energy with how I approach the canvas, wanting to tell the story of my community and different things that I see — social moments, political moments, historical remnants,” said the figurative painter.

Humes is drawn to bright colors that capture the vibrancy of his hometown of L.A. “Her” and “Mid City,” which feature prominently in the Edwards family’s media room in “Forever,” depict solitary figures against yellow backgrounds. The foliage in “Her” grows in Humes’ mother’s frontyard. “Mid City,” the neighborhood where Humes was raised, features the red-crowned parrots that wake him up every morning.

1

2

1. “Her” (Noah Humes) 2. “Mid City” (Noah Humes)

“I felt inclined to represent and show a certain subtlety of ‘We’re here, we’re centered, we’re always a focal point of unfortunate times, but also we can overcome things and become stronger than we have been,’” Humes said of the twin paintings, which he completed in 2020 after George Floyd’s murder and the national racial reckoning that followed.

Humes also credits his neighbors in L.A., a “system of Black excellence,” for positively influencing his artistry. Animator Lyndon Barrois (“Happy Feet,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks”) is his mentor, and members of the hip-hop collective Odd Future, including siblings Syd and Travis “Taco” Bennett, as well as Thebe Kgositsile — who uses the stage name Earl Sweatshirt — are his childhood friends.

Francis ‘Tommy’ Mitchell, 41

(Francis “Tommy” Mitchell)

Mitchell has been drawing for as long as he can remember, but it was a high school classmate pointing out the permanent nature of a ballpoint pen that led to his aha moment.

“You can erase graphite, you can paint over acrylic and oil,” said the Baltimore- and L.A.-based artist. “Ink is one of those things that I just think of, no pun intended here, it’s forever.”

Mitchell’s portraits feature individuals shaded with ink set against monochromatic acyrlic background. Because it is extremely time-consuming, most artists working in ink compose smaller, more intimate images, said Mitchell. In contrast, his portraits are huge. If the work were hung on the walls of a museum, the viewer may never notice the figure’s skin was drawn in ink and not paint.

“Going to museums or galleries as a kid, I would see these amazing European paintings, and I’m like, ‘Wow, these are amazing,’ but there’s no one that looks like me,” he said, of his desire to focus on portraiture.

“Francis R. of City College”

(Francis “Tommy” Mitchell)

The subject of “Francis R. of City College,” Mitchell’s painting featured in the Edwards’ dining room in “Forever,” is modeled after his father. For Mitchell, the work represents a young man with his whole life ahead of him. Making the painting in his Baltimore studio less than a mile away from City College, where his father attended high school, felt like a full-circle moment.

Seeing the work on television only adds to the significance.

“One of my goals is to always promote those who work in ink because it’s not a traditional medium,” he said, pointing to tattoo artists Jun Cha and Mister Cartoon as inspirations. “So for it to be seen on television, it lends credence to, ‘Hey, we’re doing something special as well.’”

Edwin Marcelin, 50

Marcelin’s first job as a teenager was at Stüssy, a Laguna Beach streetwear brand founded in the early 1980s. Minimalist graphic design, a trademark of Stüssy as well as brands Supreme and Undefeated, has always informed his art.

“Everything usually is about engagement, confrontation or affection,” said Marcelin. “Those are things that I tend to generate towards by using very minimal strokes.”

During his time at the California College of the Arts — then called the California College of Arts and Crafts — Marcelin was drawn to Bauhaus, a German school of art that melds functionality and design. Marcelin applies those abstract Bauhaus fundamentals and adds the element of movement.

“If it ain’t moving, it ain’t me,” said the L.A.-born-and-raised artist.

Marcelin said his emphasis on motion lends itself well to the screen — his piece “Clarity,” a dynamic painting of Michael Jordan taking flight, hangs in basketball-loving Justin’s bedroom in “Forever.”

“I think Black folks in Los Angeles are dynamic, so I try to keep dynamic images, people doing things, not standing there, and I think that translates to film very well,” said Marcelin.

“Clarity” is part of a 23-painting series titled “Black Jesus.” Each image in the series, which took Marcelin about five months to complete in its entirety, references Jordan, who Marcelin said is disappearing visually from pop culture. Case in point: He said his 19- and 16-year-old sons may recognize the Jumpman logo, but they wouldn’t instantly recognize an image of Jordan himself.

“There’ll be more basketball players, but I wanted to do something that was completely abstract representing him because he has so many moments that are fantastically beautiful,” said Marcelin.

Corey Pemberton, 34

With a background in collage, glassblowing and painting, Pemberton’s large mixed-media works — of a man singing into his toothbrush in the bathroom, a naked woman smoking marijuana in bed, a man devouring a plate of his mother’s food — are both intimate and mundane.

“At a certain point, I turned an interest to those who had been marginalized by society in some way, whether it was because of the color of their skin or their gender expression or their socioeconomic status, and developed an interest in depicting those people in a way that both celebrated them but also gave them some space to just exist,” he said.

Such themes of ownership and viewership are etched into Pemberton’s work. For example, he depicts the space and objects around his figures in vivid detail. Objects are important, he said, because they carry memories of “the people who created them or gave them to us or lived with them before us.”

Similarly, his painting “The Collector” celebrates “a young black person who’s making a concerted effort to own and conserve our culture, which is so often falling into the hands of people who don’t care about us on a deeper level.” And in many of Pemberton’s pieces, miniature renderings of his previous works can be found on the walls of his subjects’ homes.

“I think when you see a work presented that way, it sort of brings a heightened level of importance,” said Pemberton.

“I Used to Cook More”

(Corey Pemberton)

So it’s doubly significant that Pemberton’s work is on display in the wealthy Edwards’ home in “Forever.” The art in question, “I Used to Cook More,” can be found in the family’s kitchen and depicts Pemberton’s friend and fellow collector Jared Culp eating out of a white takeout container.

“We were talking about all of the takeout that we now consume as busy young Black creatives in L.A. trying to claw our way to the top of something,” said Pemberton.

But success in the art world has been easier to come by in L.A., where he relocated to after six years in rural North Carolina, said Pemberton.

“When I moved to Los Angeles, not only was I selling work but I was selling work to people with shared experience,” he said. “I was getting feedback that not only were these works that people wanted to live with, but they were works that people saw themselves reflected in, and that I was doing something important or meaningful to more people than just myself.”

Charles A. Bibbs, 77

Bibbs worked in corporate America for 25 years before becoming an artist full time. For Bibbs, art — in a crosshatching style, in his case — is all about communicating universal ideas.

“I mix that crosshatching with different colors and paint, and it’s just one layer on top of another until you get your desired effect,” Bibbs said of his “spontaneous” way of creating that’s “almost like magic sometimes.”

Like many Black artists, Bibbs chose his subject matter out of necessity. As a young man, he encountered few Black artists, yet innately understood the power of positive images of the Black experience, especially in the home.

“It’s a very honorable occupation because you’re giving people a part of you that is changing their lives in an aesthetic way,” he said. “All of those things play into people proud to be who they are.”

“Daddy’s Love”

(Charles A. Bibbs)

In “Forever,” viewers may catch a glimpse of “Daddy’s Love,” a drawing of Bibbs’ father and Bibbs and his sister as children, on the wall outside Justin’s bedroom. But this isn’t the first time his work has made it to the screen. Bibbs is credited with the Black Madonna artwork on the honey jar central to the plot of the 2008 film “The Secret Life of Bees.” He said the experience underscored the importance of art, which he said touches the “subconscious mind.”

“[My work] was part of the presentation of the movie and in some way or another may have helped them understand what that movie was really all about.”

Spiritually, Gabby Windey is all about Sundays in a hardcore, no-exceptions, day-of-rest sort of way. The “Long Winded” podcast host became the breakout star of “The Traitors” this year after winning the reality TV competition with a series of bold outfits and stereotype-smashing strategic moves. Her stream-of-consciousness podcast monologues continue to boost her star, frequently going viral on Instagram and TikTok for their vocal fry realness. Now she’s booked and busy beyond belief, a mixed bag for Windey.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

“You know I’m always begging for a break,” Windey says. “It’s things that I want to be busy with, so I can’t really complain. But yeah, I’m always looking for my next nap.”

That makes Sundays feel like a “special occasion” for her, especially since it’s when she gets slow, quality time with her wife, comedian Robby Hoffman. Together, Windey and Hoffman spend their Sundays in the most relatable way possible: scrolling the internet, watching TV and movies, getting high with friends and snacking.

Sundays are also the ultimate example of Windey’s famous “business hours,” the time after 3 p.m. in which Windey’s confidence plummets and she’d rather “gouge my eyes out with a dull chopstick” than FaceTime for work. Woe to anyone who would bother Windey on a Sunday.

“God forbid, if anyone emails you on a Sunday, block and delete, fire them all,” Windey says. “On Sunday I am closed for business. You will not hear a peep from me.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.

9 a.m.: Get out of bed, get back into bed

We’ll sleep in until, like, hopefully 9 or something. Robby works nights, you know, she’s a stand-up comedian. I’m like blaming [sleeping in] on her, but I can easily get 10 hours of sleep a night. So yeah, we like a lazy morning.

We’ll go get coffee. We’re right next to Lamill now. Then we’ll come back home and do the New York Times crossword, Connections, Wordle in bed.

Normally, when Robby’s had her fair share of like showing me YouTube clips or Reels, then I’ll start to get antsy. I’m like, “Enough of this. Let’s go.”

11 a.m.: Groceries and tamales

We’ll walk to the Silver Lake Farmers Market. Robby does a lot of the grocery shopping, and I’ll just, like, get a tamale. They’re $5, and they’re huge. I like a red sauce and a green sauce, so it’s like beef with the red sauce and chicken with the green sauce, but I also like a dessert tamale, a sweet tamale. I’m half Mexican, and my mom did not cook except for tamales. So it’s a very comforting food.

Robby’s really good at grocery shopping, so I just kind of let her go. But we get fresh berries. We’ll make veggie sandwiches throughout the week, which is like romaine lettuce, mushrooms, tomatoes and cucumber. We’ll get those ingredients and whatever weird food there is, you know, there’s always like some hippie fermented thing that’s supposed to be good for you.

Noon: Back to bed.

I have to take a break.

1 p.m.: Prerolls in the park

For [the weed holiday] 4/20, we met up with friends in Silver Lake Meadow. First I went to Botanica to get some snacks. They have good snacks, so I got this really good carrot hummus. It’s like sweet. I got some good crackers, some goat cheese wrapped in tea leaves. It sounds better than it actually was. And I’m exploring NA [nonalcoholic] options. So I got some Ghia. People die for it. But I’m like, I don’t know. I wasn’t quite sold. It’s not giving me a buzz. Surprisingly — there’s nothing in it! But I still want a buzz of some sort, which in comes the weed. So then we went to the park to just like get high on Edie Parker prerolls, talk s— with some friends for like three hours and eat good snacks. (Note: Windey has a partnership with fashion and cannabis brand Edie Parker).

4:30 p.m.: Catch a movie

Then we’ll go see a movie. We’ll f— with the Americana [at Brand] hard. We love the popcorn, love the ease. We’ll like sneak food in and out, you know, I don’t even think you need to sneak it in anymore. We haven’t gotten caught, but we always have the backstory of like that we’re gluten-free, or that we’re kosher, because Robby grew up Hasidic. So she knows what it’s like to be kosher, and I guess it’d be a good excuse for sneaking in food to the movie theater.

7:30 p.m.: Eat special-occasion sushi

After the movies, we’ll probably go out, like on a date night. I love sushi, obviously, who doesn’t? So we’ll either go to Sugarfish, because it’s like you get the same thing every time. You know, it’s so reliable. Or Kombu Sushi in Silver Lake. They have a great baked crab roll that I literally crave. But I like to save it for a special occasion, for Sunday.

9:30 p.m.: Call it a night

Back home, I’ll maybe do some skincare if I have any energy left, which after this Sunday it sounds like I won’t. Other than that, we might just watch a show, or I’ll do like a face mask. I’ll read on the Kindle — I’m reading “Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents.” I can’t wait to be done with it. I’m like, “OK, I just need to get through this. And then I can start fun reading again.” I didn’t get much of the American lit category in school. So I’m trying to kind of move my way through that. I just read Joan Didion’s “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.” I might go to the other book that people think is her best one next.

A Los Angeles construction worker from Vietnam was among 13 immigrants roused by guards in full combat gear around 2:30 a.m. one day last week in a Texas detention facility, shackled, forced onto a bus and told they would be deported to Libya, two of the detainees’ lawyers said.

“It was very aggressive. They weren’t allowed to do anything,” said Tin Thanh Nguyen, an attorney for the Los Angeles man, whom he did not identify for fear of retaliation.

Libya, the politically unstable country in North Africa, is beset by “terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict,” according to the U.S. State Department. Human rights groups have documented inhumane conditions at detention facilities and migrant camps, including torture, forced labor and rape.

The construction worker, who has a criminal conviction on his record, had lived in the U.S. for decades and has a wife and teenage daughter. He was arrested after appearing at an annual immigration check-in at a Los Angeles office two months ago and then shuffled around to various detention facilities before arriving at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall.

In the early morning hours of May 7, he was placed on the bus from the detention facility south to what was likely Lackland Air Force Base. From there, he and the rest of the group sat for hours on the tarmac in front of a military plane in the predawn dark, unsure what was going to happen. The men hailed from Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Mali, Burundi, Cuba, Bolivia, Mexico and the Philippines, the attorneys said. None were from Libya.

“My client and the other men on the bus were silent,” Nguyen said in court files. “My client was extremely scared.”

The plane hatch was open. Military personnel bustled in and out, appearing to bring in supplies and fuel the plane. Photographers positioned themselves in front of the military aircraft.

“Suddenly the bus starts moving and heading back to the detention facility,” said Johnny Sinodis, an attorney for another detainee, a Filipino who grew up and went to college in the United States and also had a criminal conviction.

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Massachusetts had issued a warning to the administration to halt any immediate removal to Libya or any other third country, as it would violate a previous court order that officials must provide detainees with due process and notice in their own language. Lawyers had scrambled to get the order after media reports confirmed what their clients had told them: Removals to Libya appeared imminent.

Sinodis said his client and others were returned to the detention unit and placed in solitary confinement for 24 hours.

In his declaration, he said his client spoke to a Mexican and a Bolivian national who were in the group. Each had been told that their home countries would accept them, but the officials still said they were going to send them to Libya.

It’s been a week since the incident, and the lawyers said they are still fighting to stop their clients deportations to a third country.

The Trump administration deported hundreds of mostly Venezuelan men to a prison in El Salvador, invoking a wartime law to speedily remove accused gang members. Their deportation drew immediate challenges and became the most contentious piece of the immigration crackdown. Officials have also sent people to Panama who were not from that country.

This month, the foreign minister of Rwanda said in a televison interview it was in talks with U.S. officials to take in deported migrants.

It’s unclear how Libya came to be a possible destination for the immigrants. Two governments claim power in the nation. The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity has denied any deal with the Trump administration. The Government of National Stability, based in Benghazi, also rejected reports that it would take deportees.

The U.N. Human Rights Office said on Tuesday that it had information that at least 100 Venezuelans held in the Salvadoran megaprison weren’t told they were going to be deported to a third country, had no access to a lawyer and were unable to challenge the removal.

“This situation raises serious concerns regarding a wide array of rights that are fundamental to both U.S. and international law,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in a statement. “The manner in which some of the individuals were detained and deported — including the use of shackles on them — as well as the demeaning rhetoric used against migrants, has also been profoundly disturbing.”

Sinodis said his client had already been in custody for months and been told that he would be deported to the Philippines in late April. But that month, he was transferred from the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Wash., to Texas. An officer in Tacoma told him the decision to move him there came from “headquarters,” according to court documents.

On May 5, he was scheduled to be interviewed by two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Texas. He expected to learn of his deportation date. Instead, they handed him a one-page document that said he would be deported to Libya. He was shocked, Sinodis said.

The man asked the officers whether there was anything he or his attorney could do to avoid this. They said no.

Nguyen said his client, who doesn’t speak English fluently, had a similar experience on the same day. The officers handed him a document in English that they said would allow him to be free in Libya. He doesn’t even know where Libya is and refused to sign the document. The officers told him he would be deported no matter what he did.

The next day, Sinodis said, his client’s commissary and phone accounts were zeroed out.

Sinodis finally reached an officer at the detention center who told him, “That’s crazy,” when asked about Libya. His client must have misheard, he said. But his client, who grew up on the West Coast, speaks fluent English.

Then on May 7, as things unfolded, the attorney reached another officer at the facility, who said he had no information that the man was going to Libya, and referred him back to an officer in Tacoma. A supervisor downplayed the situation.

“I can assure you this is not an emergency because the emergency does not exist,” the supervisor told him, according to court documents.

Shortly after noon that day, a detention center officer who identified himself as Garza called and told him he was looking into it, but so far had “no explanation” for why his client was told this, but he also couldn’t guarantee it didn’t happen.

Less than an hour later, his client called to tell him that he had been taken to an air base. He said when he was pulled out of his cell in the early morning, he saw the same two officers that interviewed him and asked him to sign the removal papers.

“He asks the officers, ‘Are we still going to Libya?” Sinodis said. “They said yes.”

Whenever friends or family visiting L.A. ask to go spend a day swimming in the ocean, I always take them to Leo Carrillo State Beach.

Unlike Santa Monica or Venice beaches, Leo Carrillo is not crowded. Parking is usually easy. And it’s a great place to swim and explore, with its tide pools where you can spot a starfish and scramble on its huge rocks (I may have had a goofy photo shoot or two with my friends there).

But until recently, I did not know that the adjoining Leo Carrillo State Park was home to a magnificent series of hiking trails where, when connected, provide you with a seven-mile trek with striking ocean views, wildflowers and birdsong. The halfway point is a pond and wetlands area where you can spot waterfowl and, if you’re lucky, listen to frogs! This is now the hike I take friends on when they want to both hike and have a beach day. I recommend you do the same.

Along with striking views of the Pacific Ocean, the Nicholas Flat Trail includes great vantage points of local peaks.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

The hike that I took through Leo Carrillo State Park — which I would gauge as mostly moderate with a few short but hard stretches — connects a few different trails, and I will explain how you can even just do portions of it and still have a great time before heading over to the beach.

To begin, you’ll park at Leo Carrillo State Park. An all-day pass is $12, payable to the ranger at the gate or via the machine in the parking lot. Once parked, you’ll head northeast to the trailhead. You’ll quickly come to a crossroads. Take the Willow Creek Trail east to officially start your hike.

A western fence lizard perches on a hillside.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

You’ll gain about 575 feet in a mile as you traverse the Willow Creek Trail. I took breaks along the way to gaze at the ocean, watching surfers bobbing on their boards and a kite surfer trying to gain traction. I spotted coast paintbrush and California brittlebush, a flowering shrub that features yellow daisy-like flowers, on the path, along with several lizards.

A mile in, you’ll come to a junction in the trail where you have three-ish options. You can continue west to a branch of the Nicholas Flat Trail that will take you a mile back down to the parking lot. You can head south onto ocean vista lookout point (which, though steep, I highly recommend). Or you can turn north onto another branch of the Nicholas Flat Trail.

Leo Carrillo State Beach is easy to spot from high points along the Nicholas Flat Trail.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

I did a combination, hiking 235 feet up the lookout path, where I had one of those “Wow, I get to live here” moments. The ocean was varying shades of blue, from turquoise to cerulean to cobalt. I could clearly see in all directions, including about eight miles to the east to Point Dume. I was, once again, amazed to be alone in a beautiful place in a county of 10 million people.

Once I finished at this awe-inspiring point, I headed north onto the Nicholas Flat Trail, taking it about 2.3 miles — and about 1,100 feet up 🥵 — through laurel sumac and other coast sage scrub vegetation into the Nicholas Flat Natural Preserve. Along the way, I observed loads of deerweed covered in its orange and yellow flowers along with scarlet bugler (which I spotted hummingbirds feeding on during my way back), Coulter’s lupine and small patches of California poppies.

California poppies growing amid invasive weeds, Coulter’s lupine and Longleaf bush lupine in Leo Carrillo State Park.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

If you need to catch your breath but don’t want to share that fact with your friends, just yell “Look at that view!” which is relevant for the hardest parts of the first stretch of this path, as the ocean grows only more beautiful and expansive as you climb.

About 2.5 miles in, you will see a path on your right that heads south. I’d skip this. It is a lookout point, but is washed out and looked sketchy to me. Instead, continue east-ish for another mile, and you’ll reach the charming little Nicholas Pond.

This is a great spot to sit, have a snack and observe the waterfowl and other birds, like red-winged blackbirds, song sparrows and lesser goldfinches (which are only lesser in their names). As I sat there eating my Trader Joe’s veggie sushi, I imagined decades ago when cattle probably drank from the pond, given a portion of the preserve resembles pasture and not native coastal sage scrub, and thus appears to have been used for ranching.

The Nicholas Pond in Nicholas Flat Natural Preserve near western Malibu.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

I continued north and then west on the Nicholas Flat Trail through the preserve. You could also turn around at the pond and head back the way you came.

The walk through the preserve featured views of the pasture and some shade from large oak trees, but it didn’t delight me the same as the rest of the hike. Additionally, just before finishing this leg of my hike, I noticed a steep, washed out hill and thought, “Please don’t let that be the trail.” Dear Wilder, it was. There was a nice view once I cursed my way up, but I give you permission to, again, just turn around at the pond.

The Nicholas Flat Trail is steep in spots but worth it for the views.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

At six miles in, or when you have only a mile left, you’ll return to the junction with the ocean vista lookout point. Instead of taking the Willow Creek Trail back the way I came, I took a right (northwest-ish) onto the last bit of the Nicholas Flat Trail. This trail also offered tremendous views and had patches covered in brittlebush with its yellow blooms.

I hiked this trail on a Thursday and did not see another human for the first six miles. It was just me, the western fence lizards, California quail and one very shy skinny silver striped snake who, upon hearing my footsteps, bolted into the bushes.

If you start this hike early enough in the day, you can simply trek back to your car and change into your swimsuit for an afternoon at the beach. And if the tide is out, you might also be able to walk around the tide pools. In the same day, you can hang out with both lizards and starfish, and when lucky, even spy an endangered bumblebee on the trail and an octopus on the beach. Please, go have yourself a remarkable Southern California day!

As the sun sets, golden light blankets the hillsides in Leo Carrillo State Park.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

3 things to do

1. Pedal your heart out in Pico Union
CicLAvia will host its 60th open streets event, CicLAmini—Pico Union, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday in Pico Union along Pico Boulevard between Normandie and Union Avenues. Guests are invited to travel the 1.4-mile pop-up park through their favorite people-powered mode of transport, whether that’s walking, jogging, biking, skating or shimmying. The route will feature booths from nonprofit organizations and photo opportunities and food. CicLAvia, a nonprofit whose events are always free, invites participants to show up anywhere along the route during the event to take the time to explore one of L.A.’s most historic neighborhoods. Learn more at ciclavia.org.

2. Observe waterfowl and more in Castaic
An instructor-led bird walk and talk will be hosted from 8 to 10 a.m. Sunday at Castaic Lake. Guests should bring binoculars, sun protection and water, and wear comfy shoes for this relaxing stroll along paved pathways, sand and grass. Participants should meet at parking lot No. 4 and check in at the office. Register for free to this L.A. County site.

3. Fly a kite at Los Angeles State Historic Park
Clockshop, an L.A. arts and culture nonprofit, will host its fifth Community & Unity People’s Kite Festival from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday at Los Angeles State Historic Park. This free event will feature free arts workshops, live music and booths from local community organizations. There will be a kite competition where contestants will fly their handmade kite, to be judged by kite masters. A $5 donation to Clockshop is requested but not required. Register at clockshop.org.

The must-read

A western fence lizard, also known as a blue belly.

(James Maughn)

Anyone who has hiked for three minutes in L.A. has spotted a western fence lizard. They’re seemingly everywhere, scampering up a hillside, along the trail or on a rock. Turns out, Californians love documenting these little guys. Sean Greene, an assistant data and graphics editor at The Times, analyzed data from the citizen science app iNaturalist and found more than 130,000 verified identifications of the fence lizard in California. That’s way more than the number of poppies observed (almost 47,000) and red-tailed hawk (almost 76,500), two common and beloved things found in Southern California. “Outside California, iNaturalist users focus on other things,” Sean wrote. “Oregonians enjoy snapping pictures of ponderosa pines. In Washington, it’s mallards — the most commonly observed species worldwide. Nevadans have a thing for creosote bushes.” Biologist Giovanni Rapacciuolo told Sean that the fence lizard’s population on iNaturalist almost certainly comes down to “what human beings think is cool.” Like a large sunbathing lizard. As an added bonus, the piece features a video of a lizard doing push-ups, one of my favorite natural phenomenons to observe while hiking. So swole!

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

As we head into summer, the kind folks at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park remind us to check the ground temperature when hiking with pets. I often bring my dog, Maggie May, with me on trails. In the summer, I take the back of my hand and leave it on the ground for five seconds. If it’s too hot for me, it’s too hot for Maggie. If so, we just go find a swimming hole in the shade that we can both enjoy!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

Super Bowl champion and Olympic gold medalist? Some NFL players could be at the center of the venn diagram in 2028.

NFL team owners could vote next week at the league’s meetings on whether to allow NFL players to participate in Olympic flag football in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. A resolution, announced Thursday, included several possible guidelines as further negotiations continue between the NFL Players Assn., the league, national governing bodies and Olympic authorities.

The proposed resolution would permit players under an NFL contract to try out for a 2028 Olympic flag football team, but limit NFL player participation to no more than one from each NFL team for each national team. In addition, each NFL team’s designated international player can play for his home country.

With injuries a primary concern for the crossover, the proposal adds that any NFL player would have injury protection and salary-cap credit if they are injured while playing Olympic flag football. Olympic flag football teams would have to implement certain minimum standards for medical staff and field surfaces for eligible NFL players to participate.

The resolution also calls for a flag football schedule that does not unreasonably conflict with a player’s NFL commitments. The 2028 Olympics are scheduled for July 14, 2028-July 30, 2028. The timing could potentially conflict with the beginning of some training camps, but the flag football competition, which is scheduled to take place at BMO Stadium, will only span about a week of the Games.

Flag football is one of five new sports in the 2028 Olympic program and one of two sports, along with squash, making its Olympic debut. The U.S. men’s flag football team is five-time defending flag football world champions.

NFL owners are “committed to supporting the growth of flag football,” the resolution states.

“The membership believes that participation by NFL players in flag football during the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California will support such growth and advance several league interests,” the resolution continues, “including increasing fan and public interest in flag football, expanding the global reach of the NFL, and providing greater opportunities for fan engagement and for our league partners.”

You might stay at the legendary pink palace that is the Madonna Inn. Or Surfrider Malibu, where you can borrow a Mini Cooper and cruise along PCH. There’s Sea & Sand Inn, which clings to a breathtaking Santa Cruz clifftop. And Pioneertown Motel, a charming desert outpost with Old West vibes.

In this guide, we jangle our room keys to explore the greatest motels across the state. Along the way, we stop to discover cool vintage history, iconic restaurants and essential roadside attractions.

Ready to hit the road?

The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to approve a sweeping package of minimum wage increases for workers in the tourism industry, despite objections from business leaders who warned that the region is already facing a slowdown in international travel.

The proposal, billed by labor leaders as the highest minimum wage in the country, would require hotels with more than 60 rooms, as well as companies doing business at Los Angeles International Airport, to pay their workers $30 per hour by 2028.

That translates to a 48% hike in the minimum wage for hotel employees over three years. Airport workers would see a 56% increase.

On top of that, hotels and airport businesses would be required to provide $8.35 per hour for their workers’ health care by July 2026.

The package of increases was approved on a 12-3 vote, with Councilmembers John Lee, Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez opposed. Because the tally was not unanimous, a second vote will be required next week.

Rodriguez, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley, told her colleagues that the proposal would cause hotels and airport businesses to cut back on staffing, resulting in job losses. The same thing is happening at City Hall, with elected officials considering staff cuts to cover the cost of employee raises, she said.

“We are right now facing 1,600 imminent layoffs because the revenue is just not matching our expenditures,” Rodriguez said. “The same will happen in the private sector.”

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, standing before a crowded of unionized workers after the vote, celebrated their victory.

“It’s been way too long, but finally, today, this building is working for the people, not the corporations,” said Soto-Martínez, a former organizer with the hotel and restaurant union Unite Here Local 11.

Hotel owners, business groups and airport concession companies predicted the wage increases will deal a fresh blow to an industry that never fully recovered from the COVID pandemic. They pointed to the recent drop-off in tourism from Canada and elsewhere that followed President Trump’s trade war and tightening of the U.S. border.

Adam Burke, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board, said Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom — nations that send a large number of visitors to Los Angeles — have issued formal advisories about visiting the U.S.

“The 2025 outlook is not encouraging,” Burke said.

Several hotel owners have warned that the higher wage will spur them to scale back their restaurant operations. A few flatly stated that hotel companies would steer clear of future investments in the city, which has long served as a global tourism destination.

Jackie Filla, president and chief executive of the Hotel Association of Los Angeles, said she believes that hotels will close restaurants or other small businesses on their premises — and in some cases, shut down entirely.

In the short term, she said, some will tear up their “room block” agreements, which set aside rooms for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

“I don’t think anybody wants to do this,” Filla said. “Hotels are excited to host guests. They’re excited to be participating in the Olympics. But they can’t go into it losing money.”

Jessica Durrum, a policy director with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a pro-union advocacy group, said business leaders also issued dire warnings about the economy when previous wage increases were approved — only to be proven wrong. Durrum, who is in charge of her group’s Tourism Workers Rising campaign, told the council that a higher wage would only benefit the region.

“People with more money in their pockets — they spend it,” she said.

Wednesday’s vote delivered a huge victory to Unite Here Local 11, a potent political force at City Hall. The union is known for knocking on doors for favored candidates, spending six figures in some cases to get them elected.

Unite Here Local 11 had billed the proposal as an “Olympic wage,” one that would ensure that its members have enough money to keep up with inflation. The union, working with airport workers represented by Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, also said that corporations should not be the only ones to benefit from the Olympic Games in 2028.

Workers from both of those unions testified about their struggles to pay for rising household costs, including rent, food and fuel. Some pleaded for better health care, while others spoke about having to work multiple jobs to support their families.

“We need these wages. Please do what’s right,” said Jovan Houston, a customer service agent at LAX. “Do this for workers. Do this for single families. Do this for parents like myself.”

Sonia Ceron, 38, a dishwasher at airline catering company Flying Food Group, said she has a second job cleaning houses in Beverly Hills for about 32 hours a week. Ceron lives in a small studio apartment in Inglewood, which has been difficult for her 12-year-old daughter.

“My daughter, like every kid, wants to have her own room, to be able to call her friends and have her privacy. Right now, that’s impossible,” Ceron said.

L.A.’s political leaders have enacted a number of wage laws over the last few decades. The hotel minimum wage, approved by the council in 2014, currently stands at $20.32 per hour. The minimum wage for private-sector employees at LAX is $25.23 per hour, once the required $5.95 hourly healthcare payment is included.

For nearly everyone else in L.A., the hourly minimum wage is $17.28, 78 cents higher than the state’s.

When I think about the gleeful cruelty the Trump administration is showing toward illegal immigrants — including unlawfully deporting planeloads of them, seeking to suspend habeas corpus in order to kick out folks faster and wearing fancy Rolex watches while visiting a Salvadoran super prison — I think of Jose Toscano.

The Mexico City native came to Los Angeles as a 13-year-old and enrolled at St. Turibius School near the Fashion District, working at Magee’s Kitchen in the Farmers Market to pay his tuition, room and board. “I had this dream to come to the United States for education,” Toscano told The Times in May 1953. “Not for the dollars, not to work in the camps for 65 cents an hour.”

Why was The Times profiling a 16-year-old Mexican immigrant? Because he was about to get deported. Politicians, the press and private citizens had been railing against “illegal immigration” and pushing President Eisenhower for mass deportations. Officers received a tip that Toscano was in the country illegally.

This young migrant’s story struck a chord in Southern California in a way that’s unimaginable today

Newspaper accounts noted that immigration authorities — struck by Toscano’s pluck and drive — made sure that his deportation didn’t go on his record so he could legally return one day. A Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet columnist wrote, “We must have immigration laws — but they’re not designed for folks like Joe.”

Meanwhile, The Times’ editorial board — not exactly known back then for its kind attitude toward Mexican Americans — argued that Toscano shouldn’t be deported, making the case that laws “should perhaps be tempered a trifle in the face of principles and actions which are of such sterling worth as to be beyond the object of the law itself.”

Toscano legally returned to Los Angeles three months later, living with a white family in Whittier that sponsored him and enrolling at Cathedral High. “As I continue to study the history of your country in school,” he wrote to The Times that September, “I shall remember that what you did for me is one of the things that makes this country of yours so great.”

His story was such a feel-good tale that it appeared in Reader’s Digest and the local press checked in on Toscano for years. The Mirror, The Times’ afternoon sister paper, reported on his 1954 wedding, the same year that immigration officials deported over a million Mexican nationals under Operation Wetback, a program that President Trump and his supporters say they want to emulate today.

Two years later, The Times covered Toscano’s graduation from Fairfax High, where he told the crowd as the commencement speaker that he wanted to become an American citizen “so that I, too, can help build a greater America.”

After a three-year stint in the Marines, Toscano did just that in 1959, changing his legal name from Jose to Joseph because he felt “it’s more American that way,” he told the Mirror. He told the paper he had dreams of attending UCLA Law School, but life didn’t work out that way.

Lessons for today

The last clipping I found of Toscano in The Times is a 1980 Farmers Market ad, which noted that he was a widower with two daughters still working at Magee’s but had advanced from washing dishes to chief carver.

“He’s a happy man who likes his work,” the ad said, “and it shows.”

Rereading the clips about Toscano, I’m reminded of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national who established a life for himself in this country before he was deported in March despite a judge’s order that he be allowed to remain in the United States.

This time around, immigration officials and the Trump White House have insisted Abrego Garcia deserved his fate, sliming him as a terrorist and MS-13 member despite no evidence to back up their assertions.

Toscano’s story shows that the story can have a different ending — if only immigration officials have a heart.

Today’s top stories

People enjoy pleasant spring weather while sailing in Newport Harbor. Orange County is one of three SoCal counties where single earners with six-figure salaries could soon be considered “low income.”

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

‘Low income’ but making $100,000 per year

Newsom walks back free healthcare for eligible undocumented immigrants

• The governor’s office said his spending plan, which will be released later this morning, calls for requiring all undocumented adults to pay $100 monthly premiums to receive Medi-Cal coverage and for blocking all new adult applications to the program as of Jan. 1.
• The cost of coverage for immigrants has exceeded state estimates by billions of dollars.

California joins another lawsuit against Trump

• California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed two lawsuits Tuesday challenging a Trump administration policy that would deny the state billions of dollars in transportation grants unless it follows the administration’s lead on immigration enforcement.
• California sued Trump 15 times in his first 100 days in office. Here’s where those cases stand.

California’s ethnic studies mandate is at risk

• California became a national pioneer four years ago by passing a law to make ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement.
• But only months before the policy is to take effect, Gov. Gavin Newsom is withholding state funding — delaying the mandate as the course comes under renewed fire.

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

• Four months into insurance claim delays and disputes, a new blow to fire victims: A rate hike, writes columnist Steve Lopez.
• My neighborhood, Skid Row, is not exactly what you think it is, argues guest columnist Amelia Rayno.
• The Endangered Species Act is facing its own existential threat, contributor Marcy Houle says.

This morning’s must reads

Other must reads

For your downtime

(Marie Doazan for The Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What is your go-to karaoke song?

Stephen says: “Anything by Jim Croce.”
Alan says: “‘In My Life’ by The Beatles.”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

Alice Weddle, 88, poses for a portrait before the Queens Tour at Kia Forum on Sunday in Inglewood.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Juliana Yamada at the Kia Forum where fans flocked to see legendary singers Chaka Khan, Patti LaBelle, Stephanie Mills and Gladys Knight perform their greatest hits.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Gustavo Arellano, California columnist
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].

The resentencing hearing for brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez kicked off Tuesday morning with emotional testimony from family members, one of whom testified in court that they should be freed from prison for the shotgun killing of their parents more than 30 years ago.

Annmaria Baralt, often wiping away her tears, testified that the relatives of victims Jose and Kitty Menendez want a judge to give the brothers a lesser sentence than life without parole for the 1989 murders inside their Beverly Hills mansion.

“Yes, we all on both sides of the family say 35 years is enough,” she told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic in a Van Nuys courtroom. “They are universally forgiven by both sides of their families.”

Baralt, whose mother was Jose Menendez’s older sister, said the family had endured decades of pain from the scrutiny of the murders.

“From the day it happened… it has been a relentless examination of our family in the public eye,” she said, beginning to cry. “It has been torture for decades.” She said the family was the butt of repeated jokes on “Saturday Night Live” and lived like outcasts who wore a “scarlet M.”

The Menendez brothers have been in prison for more than 35 years after being sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in the gruesome 1989 murders. The brothers bought shotguns with cash and opened fire as their mother and father watched a movie. Jose Menendez was shot five times, including in the kneecaps and the back of the head. Kitty Menendez crawled on the floor, wounded, before one of the brothers reloaded and fired a fatal blast, jurors heard at their two trials.

On the stand Tuesday, Baralt echoed the brothers’ justification for killing their parents — saying it was out of fear their father was going to kill them to cover up his past sexual abuse of the boys.

She told the judge that she believes they have changed and are “very aware of the consequences of their actions.”

“I don’t think they are the same people they were 30 years ago,” she said.

If Jesic agrees to resentence them, the brothers would become eligible for parole under California’s youthful offender law, since the murders happened when they were under 26. If the judge sides with Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, they would still have a path to freedom through Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is weighing a clemency petition. Regardless, Erik and Lyle would still have to appear before the state parole board before they could walk free. Jesic on Tuesday emphasized that the bar to keep them from being resentenced is high, and that they would have to still pose a serious danger to the public.

Prosecutor Habib Balian spent the morning trying to punch holes in the brothers’ relatively clean reputations they’ve gotten behind bars.

Under cross-examination, Baralt admitted that she never thought her cousins were capable of killing their parents until they’d done it, and that prior to their criminal trial decades ago, Lyle Menendez had asked a witness to lie for him on the stand.

Nearly two dozen of the brothers’ relatives, including several who testified Tuesday, formed the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition to advocate for their release as interest in the case reignited in recent years. The release of a popular Netflix documentary on the murder, which included the unearthing of additional documentation of Jose Menendez’s alleged sexual abuse, helped fuel a motion for a new trial.

The family has become increasingly public in its fight for Erik and Lyle’s release after Hochman opposed his predecessor’s recommendation to re-sentence them. They have repeatedly accused Hochman of bias against the brothers, called for him to be disqualified from the case and alleged he intimidated and bullied them during a private meeting. Hochman has denied all accusations of bias and wrongdoing, and says he simply disagrees with their position.

Kitty Menendez’s brother, Milton, was the only member of the family opposed to Erik and Lyle’s release, but he died earlier this year. Kathy Cady, who served as his victims’ rights attorney, is now the head of Hochman’s Bureau of Victims’ Services, another point of aggravation for the relatives fighting for the brothers release.

Good morning. I’m Gustavo Arellano, columnista, writing from Orange County and watching my tomato seedlings grow. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

Montebello’s ex-mayor turns to Orange County

Frank Gomez was born to be an L.A. County politician.

His grandfather attended Roosevelt High with pioneering Eastside congressmember Ed Roybal and helped to fight off a proposed veteran’s hospital in Hazard Park. His mother went to Belvedere Middle School with longtime L.A. councilmember Richard Alatorre. His father taught Chicano political titans Gil Cedillo and Vickie Castro in high school. When Gomez won a seat on the Montebello Unified School District board of trustees in 1997, Richard Polanco — the Johnny Appleseed-meets-Scrooge McDuck of Latino politics in California — helped out his campaign.

That’s why people were surprised in 2013 when Gomez — by then a Montebello council member who had served a year as mayor — announced he was leaving L.A. County altogether to marry his current wife.

“I had the choice between politics and love,” said the 61-year-old during a recent breakfast in Santa Ana. “It was an easy choice.”

Gomez couldn’t stay away from politics for long

Today, Gomez leads STEM initiatives for the Cal State system and is also the chair of the Central Orange County Democratic Club, which covers Orange, Tustin, parts of unincorporated Orange County “and a few voters in Villa Park,” Gomez told me with a chuckle.

He’s headed the Central O.C. Dems since last year, and has grown them from about 60 members to over 300. Soft-spoken but forceful, Gomez likes to apply his background as a chemistry professor — “We need to be strategic and analytical” — in helping to build a Democratic bench of elected officials in a region that was a long a GOP stronghold before becoming as purple as Barney the Dinosaur.

I knew Gomez’s name but didn’t realize his L.A. political background until we met last month. That makes him a rare one: someone who has dabbled in both L.A. and Orange county politics, two worlds that rarely collide because each considers the other a wasteland.

As someone who has covered O.C. politics for a quarter century but has only paid attention to L.A. politics in earnest since I started with The Times in 2019, I have my thoughts about each scene’s differences and similarities. But what about Gomez?

From one cutthroat political scene to another

“In L.A., it’s Democrats against Democrats,” he replied. “It’s not like I didn’t know” what to expect when moving to O.C., he said. “But it’s the difference between Fashion Island and the Citadel.”

He thought his days in politics were over until 2022, when his stepson — who had interned with longtime Irvine politico Larry Agran — urged him to run for a seat on the Tustin City Council.

Commence Gomez’s true “Welcome to the O.C., bitch” moment.

Opponents sent out mailers with photos of garbage cans and graffiti and the message, “Do not bring L.A. to Tustin,” a political insult introduced to Orange County politics that year by Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer.

“Those gated communities still try to keep their unsaid redlining,” Gomez said. “It wasn’t like that in L.A. politics because there was no place for it.”

Racist L.A. City Hall audio leak notwithstanding, of course.

Trying to topple O.C.’s last remaining GOP congressmember

Gomez unsuccessfully ran last year for a seat on the Municipal Water District of Orange County. He now plans to focus his political energies on growing the Central O.C. Dems and figuring out how to topple Rep. Young Kim, O.C.’s last remaining GOP congressmember. In the meanwhile, he will continue his political salons at the Central O.C. Dems’ monthly meetings at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Tustin — I was on the hot seat in April, and upcoming guests include coastal O.C. Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, O.C. supervisorial candidate Connor Traut and former congressmember and current California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter.

“It’s like being in the classroom,” Gomez said as he packed up his leftovers. “All I do is ask the questions and keep it flowing.”

He smiled. “Johnny Carson on intellectual steroids.”

Today’s top stories

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrives for a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security oversight hearing on Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

The Trump administration will investigate L.A. County

• The administration announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants.
• The state program provides monthly cash benefits to elderly, blind and disabled noncitizens who are ineligible for Social Security benefits because of their immigration status.

Newsom urges cities to ban homeless camps

• The governor’s plan asks localities to prohibit persistent camping and encampments that block sidewalks.
• This is an escalation from last year, when Newsom ordered California agencies to clear homeless camps from state lands.

How to understand the recent trade deals

Inside the investigation into faulty evacuation alerts during the wildfires in January

• Software glitches, cellphone provider mixups and poor wording on the alert itself compounded to stoke confusion.
• On Jan. 9, residents across the region received a wireless emergency alert urging them to prepare to evacuate.
• Meanwhile, western Altadena, where 17 people died, got its evacuation order many hours after the Eaton fire exploded.

What else is going on

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This morning’s must reads

Black nationalist leader Malcolm X, left, and Louis Farrakhan, chief minister of the Nation of Islam’s Boston mosque, right, attend a rally at Lennox Avenue and 115th Street in the Harlem section of New York in 1963.

(Robert Haggins / Associated Press)

Ibram X. Kendi is ready to introduce kids to Malcolm X: ‘Racism is worse in times of tragedy’ Ibram X. Kendi discusses introducing Malcolm X to today’s young readers and the timing of his new book in light of President Trump’s anti-DEI actions.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].

For your downtime

The Pasadena Playhouse

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What’s your favorite karaoke song?

Peg says: “David Bowie’s Life on Mars!”
Paul says “My Way.” (We’re assuming he means by Frank Sinatra)

Keep the suggestions coming. Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

Wet Magazine Issue 3 from October/November 1976

(Photography and design by Leonard Koren)

Today’s great photo is from the archives: Leonard Koren began documenting L.A. bathing culture back in 1976 with Wet magazine, which featured contributions from David Lynch, Debbie Harry and Ed Ruscha.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Gustavo Arellano, California columnist
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

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