A federal judge heard arguments Tuesday to decide whether maneuvers used by the Trump administration to install Bill Essayli as acting United States attorney in Los Angeles are improper — and, if so, what should be done about it.
During a Tuesday hearing in downtown L.A., Senior Judge J. Michael Seabright — who flew in from Hawaii for the proceeding — wondered how to proceed after defense attorneys sought to dismiss indictments against three clients and to disqualify Essayli “from participating in criminal prosecutions in this district.”
Essayli, a former Riverside County assemblyman, was appointed as the region’s interim top federal prosecutor by U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi in April.
His term was set to expire in late July unless he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate or a panel of federal judges. But the White House never moved to nominate him to a permanent role, instead opting to use an unprecedented legal maneuver to shift his title to “acting,” extending his term for an additional nine months without any confirmation process.
Seabright was selected from the District of Hawaii after L.A.’s federal judges recused themselves from the proceedings. He questioned the consequences of dismissing any charges over Essayli’s title.
“If I did this for your client, I’ll have to do it for every single defendant who was indicted when Mr. Essayli was acting under the rubric of acting U.S. attorney, correct?” Seabright said to a deputy federal public defender.
“I don’t think you will,” replied James A. Flynn. “This is a time-specific, case-specific analysis and the court doesn’t need to go so far as to decide that a dismissal would be appropriate in all cases.”
“Why not? You’re asking for a really draconian remedy here,” Seabright said, before questioning how many indictments had been made since Essayli was designated acting U.S. attorney at the end of July.
“203, your honor,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Alexander P. Robbins responded.
In a court filing ahead of the hearing Tuesday, lawyers bringing the challenge against Essayli called the government’s defense of his status a handbook for circumventing the protections that the Constitution and Congress built against the limitless, unaccountable handpicking of temporary officials.”
During the nearly two-hour hearing, Flynn cited similar legal challenges that have played out elsewhere. A federal judge ruled in August that Alina Habba has been illegally occupying the U.S. attorney post in New Jersey, although that order was put on hold pending appeal. Last month, a federal judge disqualified Nevada’s top federal prosecutor, Sigal Chattah, from several cases, concluding she “is not validly serving as acting U.S. attorney.”
The judges who ruled on the Nevada and New Jersey cases did not dismiss the charges against defendants, instead ordering that those cases not be supervised by Habba or Chattah.
Flynn argued that the remedies in other states “have not been effective to deter the conduct.”
“This court has the benefit of additional weeks and has seen the government’s response to that determination that their appointments were illegal and I submit the government hasn’t gotten the message,” Flynn said.
Flynn said another option could be a dismissal without prejudice, which means the government could bring the case against their clients again. He called it a “weaker medicine” than dismissal with prejudice, “but would be a stronger one than offered in New Jersey and Nevada.”
The hearing grew testy at times, with Seabright demanding that Assistant U.S. Atty. Robbins tell him when Essayli’s term will end. Robbins told the judge the government believes it will end on Feb. 24 and that afterward the role of acting U.S. attorney will remain vacant.
Robbins noted that Essayli has also been designated as first assistant U.S. attorney, essentially allowing him to remain in charge of the office if he loses the “acting” title.
Bondi in July also appointed him as a “special attorney.” Robbins told the judge that “there’s no developed challenge to Mr. Essayli’s appointment as a special attorney or his designation as a first assistant.”
“The defense challenge here, the stated interest that they have, is Bill Essayli cannot be acting,” Robbins said. “But they don’t have a compelling or strong response to Bill Essayli is legitimately in the office and he can be the first assistant … he can supervise other people in the office.”
Seabright asked both sides to brief him by Thursday on “whatever hats you believe [Essayli’s] wearing now” and “whether I were to say he wasn’t legitimately made acting U.S. attorney … what hats does he continue to wear.”
“If I understand the government’s proposed remedy correctly … it would essentially be no remedy at all, because they would be re-creating Mr. Essayli as the acting United States attorney, he’d just be wearing a first assistant hat,” Flynn said.
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
When asked by a Times reporter last month about the motion to disqualify him, Essayli said “the president won the election.”
“The American people provided him a mandate to run the executive branch, including the U.S. attorney’s office and I look forward to serving at the pleasure of the president,” he said during a news conference.
Since taking office, Essayli has doggedly pursued Trump’s agenda, championing hard-line immigration enforcement in Southern California, often using the president’s language verbatim at news conferences. His tenure has sparked discord in the office, with dozens of prosecutors quitting.
BALTIMORE — Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the home of the Baltimore Orioles, is located a short walk from M&T Bank Stadium, where the Rams began an extended road trip on Sunday with a 17-3 victory over the Baltimore Ravens.
For much of this week, the baseball stadium will serve as the Rams’ home away from home as they prepare for Sunday’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars at Wembley Stadium in London.
This is not the first time that the Rams have played an away game and then remained in the city before traveling abroad.
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Gary Klein breaks down what went right for the Rams in their 17-3 win over the Baltimore Ravens as they prepare to play the Jaguars in London on Sunday.
In 2017, coach Sean McVay’s first season, the Rams defeated the Jaguars in Jacksonville, Fla., and then stayed in town before traveling to defeat the Arizona Cardinals at Twickenham Stadium in London.
Two years later, the Rams beat the Falcons in Atlanta, and then remained there for a few days before traveling to London and defeating the Cincinnati Bengals at Wembley Stadium.
Several players said they would rely on the Rams’ training staff to help them modify weekly routines that include massage, acupuncture and other bodywork sessions with California providers outside of the organization.
Rams safety Quentin Lake noted that last season, the Rams stayed in Arizona for a few days before they played the Minnesota Vikings in an NFC wild-card game that was moved from SoFi Stadium because of wildfires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena.
“You’re in an unfamiliar environment and … it’s just the team and staff,” Lake said Sunday, adding, “Nothing truly is going to change in terms of our routine. … Honestly I love it because it’s fun.
“It’s fun for us to be in a different environment and really just lock in on football and focus on the task at hand.”
Last week, McVay and several players said that while adjustments were necessary for a long trip, none were too onerous.
The Rams are practicing this week at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore before heading to London.
(Terrance Williams / Associated Press)
During the Rams’ first two trips abroad, McVay was neither married nor a father. This time, McVay said that his wife, Veronika, who has roots in the region, and son, Jordan, would make the trip to Baltimore.
“I’ll keep it as normal as possible,” McVay said. “What I like about these things is you get a chance to be around the guys a little bit more because of the nature of what this trip entails. … I try to keep a normal rhythm and routine.
“You just might be in a different location, but we have the film, we have the field and most importantly, we have the players. We’ll be in good shape.”
For quarterback Matthew Stafford “the biggest thing is not being in your own house, not having your family around, all that kind of stuff,” he said.
“I won’t be sleeping in my own bed and I won’t be doing some of the things that I’m accustomed to doing,” he said. “I just change location, really. What I would do maybe at home I’ll do wherever our setup is when we stay there.”
Receiver Davante Adams, a 12th-year pro in his first season with the Rams, said that he once was part of an extended trip that included a game in New Orleans and then a stay in Sarasota, Fla., before playing in Jacksonville. But this will be the first time Adams will be on an extended trip that includes a game in London.
It will be different, Adams said, because he has “a lot of different checkpoints and things throughout the week that I do locally. It’s going to be different for me for sure.”
Especially being away from family.
“The main thing for me is just being away from my kids, honestly more than anything,” he said. “That’s a big part of my healing process and mentally throughout the week just resetting, going home, spending time with them and my wife. Not having that element. … I mean, we’ll get through it.”
This will be the first extended trip that will end in London for defensive lineman Kobie Turner and other young players. Turner said he and his wife grew up about an hour outside Baltimore, so they were looking forward to spending time this week with his wife’s family.
“It will be interesting to see how it all plays out,” he said.
Fesia Davenport, L.A. County’s chief executive officer, received a $2 million settlement this summer due to professional fallout from Measure G, a voter-approved ballot measure that will soon make her job obsolete, according to a letter she wrote to the county’s top lawyer.
Davenport wrote in the July 8 letter, which was released through a public record request Tuesday, that she had been seeking $2 million for “reputational harm, embarrassment, and physical, emotional and mental distress caused by the Measure G.”
“Measure G is an unprecedented event, and has had, and will continue to have, an unprecedented impact on my professional reputation, health, career, income, and retirement,” Davenport wrote to County Counsel Dawyn Harrison. “My hope is that after setting aside the amount of my ask, that there can be a true focus on what the real issues are here – measure G has irrevocably changed my life, my professional career, economic outlook, and plans for the future.”
The existence of the $2 million settlement, finalized in mid-August, was first reported Tuesday by the LAist. It was unclear what the settlement was for.
Davenport began a medical leave last week. She told staff she expects to be back early next year.
Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn first announced Measure G in July 2024, branding it as a long overdue overhaul to the county’s sluggish bureaucracy. Under the charter amendment, which voters approved this November, the number of supervisors increased to nine and the county chief executive, who manages the county government and oversees its budget, will be now be elected by voters instead of appointed by the board starting in 2028.
In August 2024, a few weeks after the announcement, Davenport wrote a letter to Horvath saying the measure had impugned her “professional reputation” and would end her career at least two years earlier than she expected, according to another letter released through a public records request.
“This has been a tough six weeks for me,” Davenport wrote in her letter. “It has created uncomfortable, awkward interactions between me and my CEO team (they are concerned), me and other departments heads (they are apologetic), and even County outsiders (they think I am being fired).”
Aspiration Partners made a splash when it entered the green investing space in 2013.
The Marina del Rey firm billed itself as a socially conscious online banking company, offering investments and focusing its finances on the climate crisis. It also generated and sold carbon credits meant to help offset greenhouse gas emissions.
Soon, it collected celebrity investors such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Robert Downey Jr., and Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft chief executive, philanthropist and owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.
But 12 years later, things have turned sour.
Earlier this year, the co-founder and another top company official agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud charges and scheming to bilk investors using falsified documents. Aspiration went bankrupt.
And now, the company is at the center of a NBA investigation into whether a $28-million deal the firm cut with Clippers star Kawhi Leonard was designed to help the team circumvent the league’s salary cap.
The Clippers have strongly denied that, and said neither the team nor Ballmer played any role in Leonard’s deal and that there was no intention to violate any NBA rules. Leonard has also denied any wrongdoing.
In a statement, the Clippers said Ballmer and his family are “focused on sustainability” and built the Clippers’ home arena at the leading edge of environmental design. Aspiration was part of that effort, the statement said, and Ballmer was “duped on the investment and on some parts of this agreement, as were many other investors and employees.”
A review of hundreds of pages of court records offers a window into how the once high-flying green company fell amid illegal dealings and multiple federal criminal investigations.
A company’s rise and fall
Founded by Joseph Sanberg and Andrei Cherny, Aspiration Partners reportedly raised $110 million from venture capital funds in just its first few years of existence.
It came at a moment of rising concern about climate change, and Aspiration seemed to capitalize. Sizable deals rolled in, including a $315-million pact with Oaktree Capital Management and Ballmer.
The firm even partnered with rapper Drake in 2021, using its reforestation program to offset the artist’s estimated climate impact. The company at the time claimed its business partners and customers had funded the planting of 15 million trees over the course of a year.
In September 2021, the Clippers announced a deal with the company as the first “Founding Partner” for its state-of-the-art arena in Inglewood. The idea was fans would be able to offset their carbon impact when buying a ticket to watch the team. Aspiration even bid unsuccessfully for the naming rights to the venue, now known as Intuit Dome.
The partnership, the news release announcing it declared, “set a new standard for social responsibility in sports.”
But behind the cadre of celebrity sponsors and investors, court documents reveal trouble was brewing inside Aspiration.
In 2020, the company explored a potential $55-million loan from an investor fund in exchange for 10.3 million shares of stock, according to federal court filings. But the investor fund wanted a “put option” — a sort of safety net guaranteeing it would be able to sell its stock if Aspiration defaulted on the loan, according to federal complaints.
Sanberg, according to federal prosecutors, turned to Ibrahim Ameen AlHusseini, a venture capitalist and then-board member of Aspiration Partners.
According to a federal criminal complaint, Sanberg was aware AlHusseini didn’t have the funds to cover the “put option.” So he allegedly coordinated with AlHusseini to falsify financial records and inflate AlHusseini’s worth by tens of millions of dollars.
Federal prosecutors allege AlHusseini sent Sanberg a spreadsheet showing his investment portfolio from several years back and told Sanberg the spreadsheet was not accurate but a “hypothetical.”
Sanberg, according to the federal complaint filed against him, revised the spreadsheet to read as if it were from Dec. 31, 2019, and sent it to an investment advisor.
AlHusseini also used a graphic designer from Lebanon to falsify financial documents at least 24 times between April 2020 and February 2023, according to the federal complaint filed against Sanberg. The records sent to the financial advisor made it appear that AlHusseini’s investments and assets were worth more than $200 million, the records show.
But in reality, federal prosecutors allege his Bank of America account balance in September 2021 was $11,556.89. His Fidelity investment accounts, according to court records from federal prosecutors, totaled $2,963.63 at the time.
According to a federal complaint, Sanberg then refinanced the loaned $55 million, securing $145 million from another investment firm, again using a “put option” from AlHusseini. This time, AlHusseini promised to buy the shares for $65 million from that firm if Sanberg defaulted, according to the federal complaint.
AlHusseini did not have the funds to back that deal, federal prosecutors alleged in court papers. But he still banked $6.3 million for his role in securing it, the complaint alleged.
There were other signs the company was in trouble.
Federal prosecutors allege Sanberg moved money from his personal checking account between Aspiration and another one of his companies in March 2022, making it appear on paper as if new investments were coming in.
On Nov. 2, 2022, Sanberg defaulted on the loan, and AlHusseini agreed the following month to boost the put option value to $75 million.
Some contractors began to complain that they were not being paid, according to court filings. Lawsuits followed.
In July 2022, Cherny also notified the company he would step down as chief executive. The day after he and the company signed a separation agreement in October, Sanberg threatened to sue him, according to a letter from Sanberg’s attorneys sent to Cherny.
Cherny would later file suit against Aspiration Partners, alleging the company didn’t pay him the entirety of his severance package agreed to in October 2022, according to a complaint filed in federal court. The suit was settled out of court earlier this year.
Federal prosecutors filed charges against AlHusseini in October 2024. He later agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire fraud, as well as to work with federal authorities in their investigation.
He is expected to appear in court for a sentencing hearing on Feb. 26, according to court filings.
Aspiration Partners filed for bankruptcy in March.
Sanberg originally entered a plea of not guilty to the charges, but in August he agreed to plead guilty to two felony counts of wire fraud, according to federal prosecutors.
Court filings show he is expected in court on Oct. 20 for a change of plea hearing.
An NBA star’s deal
Aspiration cut its deal with Leonard in 2022. Although players are allowed to have separate endorsement and other business deals, the NBA probe is trying to determine whether the Clippers participated in arranging the side deal beyond simply introducing Aspiration executives to Leonard.
The investigation follows information detailed in the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast, which reported that Leonard’s deal amounted to a no-work contract meant to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap rules.
The salary cap limits how much teams can spend on player payroll. It’s meant to ensure talent parity by preventing the league’s wealthiest teams from outspending smaller markets to acquire the best players.
Circumventing the cap by paying a player outside of his contract is strictly prohibited and can be severely punished.
Cherny, in a statement posted on X, disputed that the agreement with Leonard required no work from the basketball star.
“The contract contained three pages of extensive obligations that Leonard had to perform,” Cherny wrote in the Sept. 12 post. “And the contract clearly said that if Leonard did not meet those obligations, Aspiration could terminate the contract.”
In the statement, Cherny said he does not remember any conversations about the NBA’s salary cap when the contract between Leonard and Aspiration was signed.
“There were numerous internal conversations about the various things Aspiration was planning to do with Leonard once the 2022-23 season began, including emails from the marketing team about their plans,” he said.
Cherny declined to be interviewed for this article.
It was Aspiration’s collapse that shed light on the Leonard deal. According to bankruptcy filings, Leonard’s private company, KL2 Aspire, is listed as one of the company’s biggest creditors — being owed $7 million.
The Clippers are, by far, the biggest creditor listed for the company, with more than $30 million in outstanding debt.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Clippers said the team terminated its relationship with Aspiration during the 2022-23 season, when the company defaulted on the agreement.
Ballmer has said he was duped by Aspiration, and insisted the Clippers followed all NBA rules. He also said he welcomed the investigation.
The Clippers signed Leonard to a four-year, $176-million contract in August 2021. In an interview with ESPN last month, Ballmer said that the sponsorship deal with Aspiration was completed in September 2021 and that the Clippers introduced Leonard to Aspiration two months later.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Clippers said both the team and Ballmer were unaware of Aspiration’s suspicious dealings.
“Neither the Clippers nor Mr. Ballmer was aware of any improper activity by Aspiration or its co-founder until after the government instituted its investigation,” the statement read. “The team and Mr. Ballmer stand ready to assist law enforcement in any way they can.”
Looking for things to do in L.A.? Ask us your questions and our expert guides will share highly specific recommendations in our new series, L.A. Times Concierge.
My 73-year-old mother is coming to visit from the East Coast. She recently had hip surgery and it’s painful for her to walk too far. She likes quirky experiences like sushi on conveyor belts. I live in Sawtelle. Other times she has come we have gone to the Getty Villa, a couple studio tours, live taping of “Jeopardy!” and a local ramen place. She likes places with a backstory. For example in Boulder, she wanted to drive past the house where JonBenétRamsey had lived because she is obsessed with true crime. One thing she did say she wanted to do was try to see “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — CJ Schellack
Here’s what we suggest:
First off, your mom sounds like a good time. And I agree with her: The best places to visit often have an interesting backstory. Let’s start with the food. Given that your mom likes sushi experiences, make a stop at Yama Sushi Marketplace, conveniently located in your neighborhood. The family-owned Japanese seafood shop sells restaurant-quality sushi at takeout prices, writes Tiffany Tse in our guide to Sawtelle. “Just point to what catches your eye, and the staff will slice it fresh, sashimi-style, right in front of you,” she adds. Or if you’d prefer to check out another revolving sushi spot, check out Kura, which has a Sawtelle location.
To satisfy your mom’s appetite for one-of-a-kind, quirky experiences, head to Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Highland Park. Yes, it’s a bit of a push from your hood — don’t go during rush hour — but it’s worth the trek, especially if you have a sweet tooth. The 100-year-old family-owned shop is stacked with aisles of rare sodas from around the globe, nostalgic candies and retro toys that its 82-year-old owner John Nese tells me “you can’t find anywhere else.” In the back of the shop, next to the make-your-own-soda station, there’s a deli stand that sells “blockbuster” sandwiches — a name that was inspired by boxing legend Rocky Marciano who, after tasting one, declared “This is a real blockbuster!” (Pro tip: If Nese is there when you visit — and the likelihood is high because he “practically lives there,” he says — be sure to ask him for a rec.)
Once you’ve secured your snacks, grab a picnic blanket or low chair and head over to Hollywood Forever Cemetery to watch a movie — a favorite L.A. experience for many of my colleagues. Through Halloween, Cinespia is hosting movie nights at the cemetery where stars like Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney and Johnny Ramone are laid to rest. Films are projected onto a mausoleum wall and moviegoers sit on the lawn (an open area with no graves). There’s a designated wheelchair user and companion area with restrooms close by, and accessible parking is available with a placard (though you’ll still need to buy a parking pass in advance).
But if you think your mom would be more comfortable indoors, check out the Quentin Tarantino-owned New Beverly Cinema, known for screening double features of classic, indie, cult and foreign flicks the old-fashioned way — on 35mm film. As Michael Ordoña writes in our guide to the best movie theaters in Los Angeles, “the New Bev is just what a rep cinema should be. It’s cozy, with a mellow, enthusiastic vibe. Surprises sometimes occur.”
To tap into your mom’s inner true crime fascination, make a visit to some of L.A.’s darker landmarks. “I like to take friends visiting from the East Coast on a drive along the Sunset Strip to show them where famous people died, like Belushi at Chateau Marmont and River Phoenix outside the Viper Room,” senior audience editor Vanessa Franko tells me. (Bonus: You don’t even need to get out of your car.) But if you prefer an actual tour, visit the Greystone Mansion and Gardens, where oil heir and homeowner Ned Doheny and his secretary, Hugh Plunkett, were found dead in 1929. Times travel writer Christopher Reynolds recommends it, saying that at this destination, you get “a crime scene, filming location and L.A. oil history, all in one.” We’ve also curated a list of 12 iconic L.A. film and TV horror homes that’s worth checking out (the filming location for the WB series “Charmed” is featured in the photo illustration above). I hope that you and your very cool mom have the best time. Please send us pictures if you hit up any of these spots.
Former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner kicked off his campaign for mayor on Monday with a video launch that hits not just Mayor Karen Bass but President Trump and his immigration crackdown.
Beutner, a philanthropist and former investment banker, uses the four-minute campaign video to describe L.A. as a city that is “under attack” — a message punctuated by footage of U.S. Border Patrol agents.
“I’ll never accept the Trump administration’s assault on our values and our neighbors,” says Beutner, a Democrat, as he stands on a tree-lined residential street. “Targeting people solely based on the color of their skin is unacceptable and un-American.”
“I’ll counter these injustices and work to keep every person safe and build a better Los Angeles,” he adds.
The White House did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Times about Beutner’s video.
The video opens by describing a major biking accident that upended Beutner’s life about 17 years ago, leading him to enter public service and “take a different path.” Not long after, he became Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s “jobs czar,” taking on the elevated title of first deputy mayor and striking business deals on the mayor’s behalf.
The video casts Beutner, 65, as a pragmatic problem solver, focusing on his nonprofit Vision to Learn, which provides eye exams and glasses to children in low-income communities. It also highlights his work shepherding L.A. Unified through the COVID-19 pandemic and working to pass Proposition 28, the 2022 measure supporting arts education in California public schools.
Beutner, on his video, also turns his aim at City Hall, high housing costs, rising parking meter rates and a big increase in trash pickup fees for homeowners and smaller apartment buildings. Calling L.A. a city that is “adrift,” Beutner criticized the mayor’s push to reduce homelessness — one of her signature initiatives.
“The city spent billions to solve problems that have just become bigger problems,” Beutner says.
Bass campaign spokesperson Douglas Herman pushed back on the criticism, saying the city needs to “move past divisive attacks.” He said violent crime is down across the city, with homicides falling to their lowest levels in 60 years.
“When Karen Bass ran for mayor, homelessness and public safety were the top concerns of Angelenos. And she has delivered in a big way,” he said in a statement. “Today, homelessness has decreased two consecutive years for the first time in Los Angeles. Thousands of people have been moved off our streets and into housing.”
“There’s more work ahead, but this administration has proven it can deliver,” Herman added. “Mayor Bass is committed to building on this historic momentum in her second term.”
Beutner’s video posted two days after he confirmed that he’s planning to run for mayor, leveling blistering criticism at the city’s preparation for, and response to, the Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead.
Beutner’s criticism of Trump’s immigration crackdown in many ways echoes the messages delivered by Bass several months ago, when federal agents were seizing street vendors, day laborers and other workers in L.A.
In June, Bass said the Trump administration was waging an “all-out assault on Los Angeles,” with federal agents “randomly grabbing people” off the street, “chasing Angelenos through parking lots” and arresting immigrants who showed up at court for annual check-ins. Her approach to the issue helped her regain her political footing after she had faltered in the wake of the Palisades fire.
In early September, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration, agreeing that immigration agents can stop and detain individuals they suspect may be in the U.S. illegally merely for speaking Spanish or having brown skin.
The high court ruling set aside a Los Angeles judge’s temporary restraining order that barred agents from stopping people based in part on their race or apparent ethnicity.
To live in Los Angeles is to be a seeker. There are those who come to the city in search of the limelight and affluence. There are others who crave temperate weather and long for accessible beaches. The list goes on. Some of these desires are easily satisfied, while others are left unfulfilled or forgotten. But for those born and raised in this atypical metropolis, like Shirley Kurata, the search is never-ending.
The costume designer tells me the key to loving this city is to never stop venturing around. We sit in the shaded back patio of Virgil Normal, a 21st century lifestyle shop she owns with her husband, Charlie Staunton. She wears a vibrant pink getup — a vintage top and Issey Miyake pants — complete with small pleats and optimal for the unavoidable August heat wave. Her signature pair of black circular glasses sits perfectly on the bridge of her nose. It’s a style of eyewear she owns in several colors.
“I always tell people, L.A. is like going to a flea market. There’s some digging to do, but you’ll definitely find some gems,” says the stylist and costume designer, as she’s regularly on the lookout for up-and-coming creative hubs and eye-catching storefronts. “It won’t be handed to you. You have to dig.”
In one way or another, “digging” has marked Kurata’s creative livelihood. Whether she’s conjuring wardrobes for the big screen, like in the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” or styling musicians like Billie Eilish, Florence and the Machine and ASAP Rocky for photo shoots and music videos, the hunt for the perfect look keeps her on her toes.
Over the summer, Kurata spent a lot of time inside the Costco-size Western Costume Co., pulling looks for Vogue World, the magazine’s annual traveling runway extravaganza. This year, the fashion spectacle is centered around Hollywood and will take place at Paramount Pictures Studios in late October. She is one of the eight costume designers asked to present at the event — others include Colleen Atwood of “Edward Scissorhands,” Ruth E. Carter of “Black Panther” and Arianne Phillips of “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” Kurata will be styling background performers and taking inspiration from the invited costume designers.
Shirley wears vintage hat, Meals Clothing top, shirt and dress, We Love Colors tights, Opening Ceremony x Robert Clergerie shoes and l.a. Eyeworks sunglasses.
“[Vogue] wanted someone that is a stylist and costume designer who has worked both in fashion and film. Because a lot of costume designers work primarily in TV and film, they don’t do the fashion styling for editorial shoots,” says Kurata. “I’m coming on and working with what other costume designers have done.”
Since her start in the business, Kurata has gained acclaim for her ability to infuse daring prints and vibrant color into the narrative worlds she deals with. Her maximalist sense of experimentation took center stage in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and earned her an Academy Award nomination for costume design. From a bejeweled Elvis jumpsuit to a look made entirely of neon green tassels meant to resemble an amoeba, her vision was avant-garde, playful and undeniably multidimensional.
When Kurata isn’t on set or in the troves of a costume house, she’s likely tending to Virgil Normal. Housed in a former moped shop, the Virgil Village store offers a selection of novelty items and streetwear treasures, curated by both Kurata and Staunton. Though Staunton jokes that he’s constantly seeking her approval when sourcing inventory: “If it’s not cool enough for her, it doesn’t come in.”
The couple first met at the Rose Bowl Flea Market through mutual friends. At first sight, Staunton recalls being enthralled by her perpetually “cool” demeanor. Early in their relationship, he even floated the idea of starting a clothing line together, just to “knock off her closet.”
Shirley wears Leeann Huang t-shirt, skirt and shoes, We Love Colors tights and l.a. Eyeworks glasses here and in photos below.
“She’s like a peacock. It’s not like she’s trying to get attention. But she has her own vision and doesn’t really care what’s going on. She knows what’s cool,” says Staunton, who cites Kurata as the biggest “inspiration” for the store.
Inside the quaint red brick building, blue L.A. hats are embroidered to read “Larry David,” acrylic shelves are packed with Snoopy figurines (for display only), trays of l.a. Eyeworks frames fill the tables and each clothing tag is a different elaborate doodle illustrated by Staunton. He adds that everything in the store is meant to have a “rabbit hole” effect, where shoppers can give in to their curiosities.
“We wanted a place where like-minded people could come here and have it be a space to hang out. They don’t have to buy anything,” says Kurata. The attached patio is complete with a mural of a man floating in space, pipe in hand, and the coolers are still filled with chilled beers and sparkling waters from their most recent get-together. She tells me about how many times they’ve allowed musicians and artists to transform this peaceful outdoor space into a lively venue.
“Having that connection with a community of creatives in the city is essential. Having that sort of human interaction is really good for your soul, and for your creativity,” she shares. “Having this store has been one of the most fulfilling things that I’ve done, and it’s not like we’re not making a ton of money off it.”
From the cactus out front, which Kurata and Staunton planted themselves, to grabbing lunch at the taqueria down the street, she explains cultivating a space like this and being an active part of the neighborhood has made her into a more “enriched person.” Kurata, who is of Japanese descent, brings up the lesser known history of East Hollywood. In the early 1900s, the neighborhood, then called J-Flats, was where a sizable group of Japanese immigrants settled. It was once a bustling community with Japanese boarding houses that offered affordable rent and home-cooked meals. Today, only one of these properties is operating.
“Having that connection with a community of creatives in the city is essential. Having that sort of human interaction is really good for your soul, and for your creativity,”
For Kurata, being a part of this legacy means trimming the nearby overgrown vegetation to keep the sidewalks clear and running over to the locally owned convenience store when Virgil Normal needs supplies, instead of immediately turning to Amazon. She pours everything she learned from being raised in this city back into the store, and in turn, its surroundings.
Kurata was born and raised in Monterey Park, a region in the San Gabriel Valley with a primarily Asian population. The neighborhood is a small, homey stretch of land, known for its dining culture, hilly roads and suburban feeling (but not-so-suburban location). These days, she’ll often find herself in the area, as her mother and sister still live there. Together, they enjoy many of the surrounding dim sum-style restaurants.
Even from a young age, she was encouraged to treat the entire city as her stomping grounds. She attended elementary school in the Arts District, which she describes as quieter and “more industrial than it is today.” She also spent a lot of her childhood in Little Tokyo, shopping for Japanese magazines (where she found a lot of her early inspiration), playing in the arcade and grocery shopping with her family.
Shirley wears Leeann Huang lenticular dress and shoes, Mary Quant tights and l.a. Eyeworks sunglasses.
For high school, she decided to branch out even further, making the trek to an all-girls Catholic school in La Cañada Flintridge. “It was the first time where I felt like an outsider,” Kurata says, as she had only previously attended predominantly Asian schools. She laughs a little about being one of the rare “Japanese Catholics.”
“When you’re raised in something, you go along with it because your parents tell you, and it’s part of your education,” Kurata says. Her religious upbringing began to reach a point where she wasn’t connecting with it anymore. “Having that sort of awakening is good for you. I was able to look at myself, early in life, and realize that I don’t think this is for me.”
Her senior year, she discovered vintage stores. (She always knew that she had an affinity for clothing of the past, as she gravitated toward hand-me-down Barbies from the ’60s.) Her coming-of-age style consisted of layering skirts with other oversize pieces — and everything was baggy, “because it was the ’80s.” With this ignited passion for vintage and thrifting, Kurata began to mix items spanning across decades into one look.
“All the colors, the prints, the variety. It just seemed more fun. I would mix a ’60s dress with a jacket from the ’70s and maybe something from the ’40s,” says Kurata. It’s a practice that has remained a major part of her creative Rolodex.
Her lifelong interest in fashion led her to get a summer job at American Rag Cie on La Brea Avenue. At the time, the high-end store primarily sold a mix of well-curated timeless pieces, sourced from all over the world. It was the first time she encountered the full range of L.A.’s fashion scene. She worked alongside Christophe Loiron of Mister Freedom and other “rockabilly and edgier, slightly goth” kinds of people.
“Living abroad is such an important way of broadening your mind, being exposed to other cultures and even learning another language. It helps you grow as a person. It’s the best thing I ever did.”
“Time moved really slowly in that place. But just the creativity that I was around, from both the people who worked there and shopped there, was great exposure,” says Kurata, who recalls seeing faces like Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp browsing the selection and Naomi Campbell and Christy Turlington trying on jeans.
Kurata continued her L.A. expedition to Cal State Long Beach, where she began her art degree. It wasn’t long before Studio Berçot, a now-closed fashion school in Paris known for its avant-garde curriculum, started calling her name.
“Living abroad is such an important way of broadening your mind, being exposed to other cultures and even learning another language. It helps you grow as a person,” says Kurata. “It’s the best thing I ever did.”
Her Parisian studies lasted around three years and it was the closest she had ever gotten to high fashion. Sometimes, she would be able to see runway shows by selling magazines inside the venue or volunteering to work backstage. Other times, she relied on well-intentioned shenanigans. She used to pass around and reuse an invitation within her group of friends. She once snuck in through a large, unattended hole in a fence. In one instance, she simply charged at the entrance when it began to rain. All things she did in the name of fashion.
“I would just do what I could to see as many shows as possible. All of the excitement is hard to explain. When I worked backstage, there’s this labor of love that’s put towards the show. It’s this contagious energy that you could feel when the models start coming,” says Kurata, who saw everything from Jean Paul Gaultier to John Galliano and Yves Saint Laurent. When she was backstage for a Vivienne Westwood show, she recollects seeing this “shorter model, and thinking, ‘Oh, she’s so tiny,’ and then realizing that it was Kate Moss who was still fairly new at that point.”
“We wanted a place where like-minded people could come here and have it be a space to hang out. Having this store has been one of the most fulfilling things that I’ve done.”
Staying in France was intriguing to a young Kurata, but the struggles of visas and paperwork deterred her. She instead returned to L.A., freshly inspired, and completed her bachelor’s degree in art (to her parents’ satisfaction). She didn’t plan to get into costume design, Kurata explains. But when it became clear that designing her own line would require moving to somewhere like New York or back to Europe, she realized, “Maybe fashion is not the world I want to get into; maybe it’s costumes.”
“I felt comfortable with that decision,” shares Kurata. “I do love film, so it was just a transition I made. It was still connected [to everything that I wanted to do].”
Without the aid of social media, she sent letters to costume designers, hoping to get mentored, and started working on low-budget jobs. She quickly fell in love with how much the job changed day-to-day. On occasion, there are 12-hour days that can be “miserable,” but her next job might be entirely different. One day she’s styling the seasonal campaigns for her longtime friends Kate and Laura Mulleavy, owners of Rodarte, and the next she could be styling for the cover of W Magazine, where a larger-than-life Jennifer Coolidge stomps through a miniature city in a neon polka-dot coat.
Whenever Kurata takes on a project, Staunton says she “just doesn’t stop.” Sometimes, he’ll wake up at 3 in the morning and she’s emailing people in Europe, attempting to hunt down a rare vintage piece. Her passion is the kind that simultaneously consumes and fuels her.
“There’s a lot of times [with her work] where I’m like, ‘That’s just straight out of Shirley’s closet.’ It’s not like she has to compromise. It’s something she would wear herself. She doesn’t have to follow trends,” explains Staunton. “People seek her out, because she has such a unique vision.”
“I always tell people, L.A. is like going to a flea market. There’s some digging to do, but you’ll definitely find some gems.”
Kurata thinks of herself as “someone who gets bored easily.” It’s a quality that’s reflected in her eclectic style, busy travel schedule, Virgil Normal’s constantly changing selection and even the common feeling she gets when she’s sick of all of her clothes. It’s a good thing being bored and being in Los Angeles don’t go hand in hand.
I ask Kurata a somewhat daunting question for a born-and-bred Angeleno.
“Do you think you could ever see yourself calling another place home?”
She lets out a deep sigh and tells me it’s not something she’s closed off to. Though, she takes a moment to reflect on how everyone came together to provide support during the Palisades and Eaton fires earlier this year. Or how good it feels when they have events at Virgil Normal, to be surrounded by a diverse group of creative minds “who don’t judge.” She even thinks about how she currently lives in a Franklin Hills house, a neighborhood she never thought she would be able to afford.
Time and time again, Kurata and this sprawling city-state have looked out for each other. From the way she speaks of different areas with such an intrinsic care, to showcasing her unique creative eye in Tinseltown, L.A. has made her into a permanent seeker. Whether she chooses to stay in Franklin Hills for the rest of her life or packs up everything tomorrow, she’ll always keep an eye out for hidden gems — just like at the flea market.
SACRAMENTO — Sen. Alex Padilla apparently dreams of becoming California’s next governor. He’s thinking hard about entering the race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom. And Katie Porter may have just opened the starting gate for him.
We don’t know the extent of her injury. But it was certainly enough to make Padilla’s decision a lot easier. If he really deep down covets the job of governor, the time seems ripe to apply for it.
Padilla wouldn’t need to vacate the Senate merely to run. He’d have what’s called a “free ride”: He doesn’t face reelection next year because his Senate term runs through 2028.
But a Senate seat is gold plated. No term limits — a job often for life. It offers prestige and power, with sway over a global array of issues.
Why would Padilla trade that to become the governor whose state is plagued by homelessness, wildfires and unaffordable living for millions?
For starters, it’s not much fun these days to be in the toothless Senate minority as a Democrat.
The California governor has immense power over spending and taxes, the appointment of positions ranging from local fair board members to state Supreme Court justices and the fate of hundreds of bills passed each year by the Legislature.
You lead the most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest economy.
The office provides an automatic launching pad for anyone with presidential aspirations, such as the termed-out present occupant.
Anyway, Padilla, 52, is a proud native Californian, raised in the San Fernando Valley with strong ties to the state.
And he’s immensely qualified to be governor, having served well in local, state and federal branches of government: Los Angeles City Council, state Senate, California secretary of State and the U.S. Senate.
“Look, California is home,” he said. “I love California. I miss California when I’m in Washington. And there’s a lot of important work to do there. … I’m just trying to think through: Where can I be most impactful.”
How long will he think? “The race is not until next year,” he said. “So that decision will come.”
It should come much sooner than next year in order to be elected governor in this far-flung state with its vast socio-economic and geographic diversity.
Former Democratic Rep. Porter from Orange County has been beating him and every announced candidate in the polls — although not by enough to loudly boast about.
In a September poll by Emerson College, 36% of surveyed voters said they were undecided about whom to support. Of the rest, 16% favored Porter and just 7% Padilla.
In an August survey by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, 38% were undecided. Porter led with 17%. The nearest Democrat at 9% was Xavier Becerra, former secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services, state attorney general and 12-term congressman. Padilla wasn’t listed.
Why Porter? She gained renown during congressional hearings while grilling corporate executives and using a white board. But mainly, I suspect, voters got to know her when she ran statewide for the U.S. Senate last year. She didn’t survive the primary, but her name familiarity did.
By contrast, Padilla has never had a tough top-of-the-ticket statewide race. He was appointed by Newsom to the Senate in 2021 to fill the vacancy created by Kamala Harris’ election as vice president.
Democratic strategist Garry South says it would be “risky” for Padilla to announce his candidacy unless he immediately became the front-runner. That’s because he’d need that status to attract the hefty campaign donations required to introduce himself to voters.
“Unlike the governor, a California senator is not really that well known,” the strategist says. “And he hasn’t been a senator that long. I don’t think voters have a sense of him. In order to improve his [poll] numbers, he’s going to have to spend a lot of money. If he were an instant frontrunner, the money would flow. But if he jumps in with only half the votes [of
the frontrunner], there’s no reason for money to flow.
“And the longer he waits, the less time he has to raise the money.”
Porter may have eased the way for Padilla.
The UC Irvine law professor came unglued when CBS Sacramento reporter Julie Watts asked what she’d tell California’s 6 million Donald Trump voters in order to win their needed support for governor. Porter reacted like a normal irritated person rather than a seasoned politician.
She tersely dismissed the question’s premise and replied that the GOP votes wouldn’t be needed.
When the interviewer persisted, Porter lost her cool. “I don’t want to keep doing this. I’m going to call it,” she said, threatening to walk out. But she didn’t.
It was raw meat for her campaign opponents and they immediately pounced.
Former state Controller Betty Yee called on Porter to “leave this race” because she’s “a weak, self-destructive candidate unfit to lead California.”
Veteran Democratic consultant Gale Kaufman, who’s not involved in the contest, says the TV flub “hurts her a lot because it goes to likability.”
If Padilla really longs for the job, he can stop dreaming and take advantage of a golden opportunity.
As local and state leaders celebrate the fastest wildfire debris removal in modern American history, the Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Estates — a rent-controlled, 170-unit enclave off Pacific Coast Highway — remains largely untouched since it burned down in January.
Weeds grow through cracks in the broken pavement. A community pool is filled with a murky, green liquid. There’s row after row of mangled, rusting metal remains of former homes.
Yet just across a nearly 1,500-foot-long shared property line, the Tahitian Terrace mobile home park — like thousands of fire-destroyed properties cleared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over the last nine months — is now a field of cleaned, empty lots.
The difference in treatment is based on standards used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which directed the corps’ cleanup efforts. FEMA, which focused on providing assistance to local residents — and not properties owned by real estate companies — argued in letters to state officials that since it could rely on the Tahitian’s owners to rebuild the heart of Pacific Palisades’ affordable housing, it would make an exception and include the property. However, it said it could not trust the owners of the Palisades Bowl to do the same.
The Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Estates, right, and the Tahitian Terrace mobile home park, left, where fire debris has been removed.
(Eric Thayer/For The Times)
Both mobile home parks requested federal cleanup services, records obtained from the corps show. And both Los Angeles County and the city of Los Angeles lobbied the agency to include the properties in its mission.
In a May letter approving the corps’ cleanup of the Tahitian, FEMA noted that the property, riddled with asbestos and perched above the busy Pacific Coast Highway, was a public health hazard and that the owners, with limited insurance money, probably would struggle to pay for the cleanup. FEMA Regional Administrator Robert Fenton also wrote to the state Office of Emergency Services, saying that he was “confident” including Tahitian “will accelerate the reopening of the park for its displaced tenants and ensure the community retains this affordable residential enclave in an otherwise affluent area.”
When it came to the Bowl, FEMA took a different tone. The agency said in a July letter to the state agency that with flatter terrain, the Bowl did not pose the same health hazard as the Tahitian Terrace did, and with $1.2 million in insurance money already disbursed to the property owners, it had “no indication the owner lacks the financial means to remove the debris independently.”
FEMA’s letter also noted that unlike with the Tahitian property, “FEMA cannot conclude that Palisades Bowl represents a preserved or guaranteed source of long-term affordable housing,” based on the owners’ track record.
The Bowl’s former residents — artists, teachers, lifeguards, boat riggers, bookstore owners and chefs — are now scattered across Southern California and the globe. Speaking to The Times, many felt helpless, frustrated and unsure whether they’ll be able to return. Many, nine months after the fire, are running out of the insurance money and government aid they’ve relied on to pay rent for temporary housing.
“We’re the great underdogs of the greatest American disaster in history, apparently. This little community,” said Rashi Kaslow, a boat rigger who lived in the Bowl for more than 17 years. “The people of the only two trailer parks — the isolated, actual affordable housing communities … you would think that we would be the No. 1 priority.”
“You would think that we would be the number one priority.”
— Rashi Kaslow, Pacific Palisades Bowl resident
The Bowl began as a Methodist camp in the 1890s, and was developed into a mobile home park in the 1950s. For decades, the Bowl and the Tahitian remained among the only places along the California coast still under rent control, preserved by the Mello Act, and consequently, some of the only affordable housing in the Palisades.
“We’re all connected through this legacy of what we had,” said Travis Hayden, who moved into the Bowl in 2018, “and I think our greatest fear is that it goes away.”
Nine months after the fire, the Palisades Bowl’s community pool is filled with a murky, green liquid.
(Eric Thayer/For The Times)
Many longtime residents never planned to leave.
“I was going to have my bed put in the living room, with a large window wall, and lay and watch the sun set and the ocean. That was going to be the end of my life,” said Colleen Baker, an 82-year-old closet designer. “I don’t, of course, have it anymore. … It’s all gone.”
The Bowl was passed among a few families and local real estate moguls over the decades.
In 2005, Edward Biggs of Northern California bought the Bowl. When Biggs, who rarely appeared at the park, died in 2021, his real estate empire was fractured between his first wife, Charlotte, and his second wife, Loretta, further complicating the Bowl’s management.
Since the fire, residents have heard virtually nothing from ownership. Neither Colby Biggs — Charlotte and Edward Biggs’ grandson who began co-managing the park after Charlotte’s death — nor lawyers with Loretta Biggs’ real estate company, responded to a request for comment.
What Bowl residents have seen is the corps descend on other Palisades properties — clearing burned-out cars, piles of rubble and charred trees from single-family homes as well as the Tahitian — while leaving the Bowl untouched.
At the center of FEMA’s reasoning to refuse cleanup for the Bowl: “The prior actions of the owner demonstrate a lack of commitment to reopen the park for its displaced residents.”
“The prior actions of the owner demonstrate a lack of commitment to reopen the park for its displaced residents.”
— FEMA, regarding the owners of the Pacific Palisades Bowl
Over the two decades the Biggs family has owned the Bowl, residents have become painfully familiar with this “lack of commitment.”
In 2006, some residents sued Biggs and the previous owner, accusing them of failing to repair and stabilize the bluff behind the park that, the previous year, crumbled after heavy rain, leaving some units uninhabitable.
A year later, Biggs fell into a legal dispute with city of Los Angeles over a plan to split up the property that residents characterized as a move to circumvent rent control.
It prompted Biggs’ attorney to send residents a letter in 2009, stating that the inability to raise rent and the never-ending series of lawsuits made the park unprofitable and that he may file for bankruptcy. It also claimed that Biggs already had received a $40-million offer from an international hotel developer, the Palisadian-Post reported. No sale ever went through.
In 2013, Biggs decided to build an “upscale resort community” instead, by buying up resident’s homes, demolishing them, and building two-story, manufactured homes on the properties. To do so, he planned to target the homes of the residents suing him over a landslide on the property, the California 2nd District Court of Appeal found.
The residents ended up winning $8.9 million from Biggs. The case with the city eventually made it to the California Supreme Court, which sided with residents and the city.
While residents agonize over FEMA’s decision, the experiences have led many to ultimately agree with FEMA’s reasoning: They cannot trust that the owners intend to preserve their park as affordable housing.
Former Bowl residents met atop the Asilomar bluff overlooking their old community on Oct. 3 — the day after a city-imposed deadline for the owners to remove the debris — to call on local leaders to act.
Most skipped the formality of a handshake, going in for hugs. They reminisced. Many took a moment in silence to look down. Rows of empty dirt lots to the left — the Tahitian — and rows of rubble still sitting to the right — their homes.
Residents of the Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Estates meet on a hill above the park in Pacific Palisades.
(Eric Thayer/For The Times)
Nine months after the fire, many former Bowl residents are trying to figure out what to do when their temporary housing insurance money and aid runs dry. They still have little certainty when — or whether — they’ll ever be able to return.
Baker, the closet designer, found a 388-square-foot mobile home in Santa Monica to live in.
“I’m in the very sad stage, and I’m realizing my losses,” she said. “You go to look for something and you go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s gone.’ That’s an everyday occurrence.”
Tahitian’s residents are stuck in a different limbo: With cleared lots, they wait for the property owners to decide whether to rebuild — adding back the concrete slabs for homes and building back the common spaces — or whether to sell the park to its residents, Chase Holiday, a Tahitian resident, said.
“We’re pretty much ready,” Holiday said. Indeed, Tahitian’s homeowners’ association has been in talks with the owners. Barring the complicated paperwork, “we could buy the park tomorrow.”
Although the wait is excruciating, “I feel pretty confident that either we’ll buy it or they’ll rebuild,” she said. But with little clarity over when that would happen, “the bigger question is, will I want to?”
On Wednesday, a handful of Bowl residents — including Jon Brown, a real estate agent who has become one of the Bowl’s leaders in the fight to rebuild — packed a board of Building and Safety commissioners meeting, pushing for the board to finally declare the property a public nuisance, which would allow the city to do the cleanup work and send the owners the bill.
The L.A. County Department of Public Works estimated that, at the end of September, about 20 properties in each burn area, Palisades and Eaton, had failed to clear debris.
In a letter mailed and posted at the Bowl, dated Sept. 2, the department had given the owners 30 days to complete the work or risk being declared a public nuisance.
At the Wednesday meeting, Danielle Mayer, an attorney whose law firm represents Loretta Biggs’ company, asked the commission for more time.
“This community has seen these park owners act with such a lack of integrity for years and years.”
— Jon Brown, Pacific Palisades Bowl resident
“This community has seen these park owners act with such a lack of integrity for years and years,” Brown said to the board. “They never do anything unless they are absolutely forced to.”
The board ultimately declared the Bowl a public nuisance.
It’s a small but significant step, with a long road still ahead. The Department of Building and Safety has yet to provide any details for how and when it will remove the debris. And the Tahitian’s still-empty lots serve as a reminder that debris removal isn’t the end of the battle.
Yet, Bowl residents remain optimistic that, someday, they will be able to buy the park from the owners and finally serve as the caretakers of the eccentric and beloved affordable community.
To residents, the Bowl was something special. They cared for one another. They surfed together, let each other’s cats in and celebrated holidays on the small community lawn. They raised their kids in the Bowl and sometimes bickered over politics and annoyances, as any proper family does.
“If the people were permitted to go back,” saidresident John Evans, “that would just restart — probably with a vengeance.”
Times staff writer Tony Briscoe contributed to this report.
Former Los Angeles Unified schools Supt. Austin Beutner is planning to announce a challenge to Mayor Karen Bass in the 2026 election, arguing that the city has failed to properly respond to crime, rising housing costs and the devastating Palisades fire.
Beutner, a philanthropist and former investment banker who lives in L.A.’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood, would become the first serious challenger to Bass, who is running for her second and final term.
Beutner, whose announcement is planned Monday, said in an interview Saturday that city officials at all levels showed a “failure of leadership” on the fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead.
The inferno seriously damaged Beutner’s house, forcing him and his family to rent elsewhere in the neighborhood and destroyed his mother-in-law’s home.
“When you have broken hydrants, a reservoir that’s broken and is out of action, broken [fire] trucks that you can’t dispatch ahead of time, when you don’t pre-deploy at the adequate level, when you don’t choose to hold over the Monday firefighters to be there on Tuesday to help fight the fire — to me, it’s a failure of leadership,” Beutner said.
“At the end of the day,” he added, “the buck stops with the mayor.”
A representative for Bass’ campaign declined to comment.
Beutner’s attacks come days after federal prosecutors filed charges in the Palisades fire, accusing a 29-year-old of intentionally starting a New Year’s Day blaze that later rekindled into the deadly inferno.
With the federal investigation tied up, the city Fire Department released a long-awaited after-action report Wednesday. The 70-page report found that firefighters were hampered by poor communication, inexperienced leadership, a lack of resources and an ineffective process for recalling them back to work. Bass announced a number of changes in light of the report.
Beutner, a onetime advisor to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, could pose a serious political threat to Bass. He would come to the race with a wide range of experiences — finance, philanthropy, local government and even the struggling journalism industry.
Although seven other people have filed paperwork to run for her seat, none have the fundraising muscle or name recognition to mount a major campaign. Rick Caruso, the real estate developer whom Bass defeated in 2022, has publicly flirted with the idea of another run but has stopped short of announcing a decision.
Bass beat Caruso by a wide margin in 2022 even though the shopping mall mogul outspent her by an enormous margin. Caruso has been an outspoken critic of her mayorship, particularly on her response to the Palisades fire.
Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said he believes that Beutner would face an uphill climb in attempting to unseat Bass — even with the criticism surrounding the handling of the Palisades fire. However, his entry into the race could inspire other big names to launch their own mayoral campaigns, shattering the “wall of invincibility” that Bass has tried to create, he said.
“If Beutner jumps in and starts to get some traction, it makes it easier for Caruso to jump in,” Guerra said. “Because all you’ve got to do is come in second in the primary [election], and then see what happens in the general.”
Earlier Saturday, The Times reported that Beutner’s longtime X account had featured — then quickly removed — the banner image “AUSTIN for LA MAYOR,” along with the words: “This account is being used for campaign purposes by Austin Beutner for LA Mayor 2026.” That logo was also added and then removed from other Beutner social media accounts.
Beutner’s announcement comes in a year of crises for the mayor and her city. She was out of the country in January, taking part in a diplomatic mission to Ghana, when the ferocious Palisades fire broke out.
Upon her return, she faced withering criticism over the city’s preparation for the high winds, as well as Fire Department operations and the overall emergency response.
In the months that followed, the city was faced with a $1-billion budget shortfall, triggered in part by pay raises for city workers that were approved by Bass. To close the gap, the City Council eliminated about 1,600 vacant positions, slowed down hiring at the Los Angeles Police Department and rejected Bass’ proposal for dozens of additional firefighters.
By June, Bass faced a different emergency: waves of masked and heavily armed federal agents apprehending immigrants at car washes, Home Depots and elsewhere, sparking furious street protests.
Bass’ standing with voters was badly damaged in the wake of the Palisades fire, with polling in March showing that fewer than 20% of L.A. residents gave her fire response high marks.
But after President Trump put the city in his crosshairs, the mayor regained her political footing, responding swiftly and sharply. She mobilized her allies against the immigration crackdown and railed against the president’s deployment of the National Guard, arguing that the soldiers were “used as props.”
Beutner — who, like Bass, is a Democrat — said he voted for Bass four years ago and had come to regret his choice.
He described Los Angeles as a city “adrift,” with unsolved property crimes, rising trash fees and housing that is unaffordable to many.
Beutner said that he supports “in concept” Senate Bill 79, the law that will force the city to allow taller, denser buildings near rail stations.
“I just wish that we had leadership in Los Angeles that had been ahead of this, so we would have had a greater say in some of the rules,” he said. “But conceptually, yes, we’ve got to build more housing.”
Bass had urged Gov. Gavin Newsom not to sign the bill into law, which he did Friday.
Beutner is a co-founder and former president of Evercore Partners, a financial services company that advises its clients on mergers, acquisitions and other transactions. In 2008, he retired from that firm — now called Evercore Inc. — after he was seriously injured in a bicycling accident.
In 2010, he became Villaraigosa’s “jobs czar,” taking on the elevated title of first deputy mayor and receiving wide latitude to strike business deals on the mayor’s behalf, just as the city was struggling to emerge from its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Slightly more than a year into his job, Beutner filed paperwork to begin exploring a run for mayor. He secured the backing of former Mayor Richard Riordan and many in the business community but pulled the plug in 2012.
In 2014, Beutner became publisher of The Times, where he focused on digital experimentation and reader engagement. He lasted roughly a year in that job before Tribune Publishing Co., then the parent company of The Times, ousted him.
Three years later, Beutner was hired as the superintendent of the L.A. Unified School District, which serves schoolchildren in Los Angeles and more than two dozen other cities and unincorporated areas. He quickly found himself at odds with the teachers union, which staged a six-day strike.
The union settled for a two-year package of raises totaling 6%. Beutner, for his part, signed off on a parcel tax to generate additional education funding, but voters rejected the proposal.
In 2022, after leaving the district, Beutner led the successful campaign for Proposition 28, which requires that a portion of California’s general fund go toward visual and performing arts instruction.
Earlier this year, Beutner and several others sued L.A. Unified, accusing the district of violating Proposition 28 by misusing state arts funding and failing to provide legally required arts instruction to students.
He also is involved in philanthropy, having founded the nonprofit Vision to Learn, which provides vision screenings, eye exams and glasses to children in low-income communities.
There’s something about Thai cuisine that is warm and welcoming.
Perhaps it’s the fire that bird’s eye chili brings to a dish, or maybe the bold punchiness of tom yum soup.
My colleague and food critic Bill Addison referred to Thai as “a pillar cuisine of Los Angeles.”
And why not?
The city boasts the world’s largest Thai population outside of Thailand. Those who open restaurants open our palates to a diverse range of flavors and sensations from their micro-regional cooking styles.
Addison is wary of using the term “best.” Instead, he crafted a list of his 15 favorite Thai restaurants in Los Angeles. Here, we’ll highlight a handful of those choices, in Addison’s own words.
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If you’ve had any passing interest in Los Angeles dining culture this decade, you probably know the story: Anajak Thai was founded in 1981 by chef Ricky Pichetrungsi, whose recipes merge his Thai upbringing and Cantonese heritage, and his wife Rattikorn.
In 2019, when Pichetrungsi suffered a stroke, the couple’s son Justin left a thriving career as an art director at Walt Disney Imagineering to take over the restaurant.
It changed his life, and it changed Los Angeles, with Justin’s creative individualism — specifically his Thai Taco Tuesday phenomenon.
That’s when the menu crisscrosses fish tacos lit up by chili crisp and limey nam jim with wok-fragrant drunken noodles and Dungeness crab fried rice. Add what has become one of L.A.’s great wine lists, and the restaurant has catapulted into one of the city’s great dining sensations.
The restaurant closed for a couple of months over the summer for a renovation, revealing a brighter, significantly resituated interior — and introducing an open kitchen and a second dining room — in August.
The menu didn’t radically alter: It’s the same multi-generational cooking, tracing the family heritage, leaning ever-further into freshness, perfecting the details in familiar dishes.
Fried chicken sheathed in rice flour batter and scattered with fried shallots, the star of the Justin-era menu, remains, as does the sublime mango sticky rice that Rattikorn makes when she can find fragrant fruit in season and at its ripest.
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Ayara Thai (Westchester)
Owner Andy Asapahu grew up in a Thai-Chinese community in Bangkok.
Anna Asapahu, his wife, was raised in Lampang, a small city in the verdant center of northern Thailand.
They melded their backgrounds into a sprawling multi-regional menu of soups, salads, noodles and curries when they opened Ayara in Westchester in 2004.
Their daughters Vanda and Cathy oversee the restaurant these days, but Anna’s recipe for khao soi endures as the marquee dish.
Khao soi seems to have become nearly as popular in Los Angeles as pad Thai. This one is quintessential: chicken drumsticks braised in silky coconut milk infused with lemongrass and other piercing aromatics, poured over egg noodles, sharpened with shallots and pickled mustard greens and garnished with lime and a thatch of fried noodles.
The counterpoints are all in play: a little sweetness from palm sugar and a lot of complexity from fish sauce, a bump of chile heat to offset the richness.
Pair it with a standout dish that reflects Andy’s upbringing, like pad pong kari, a stir-fry of curried shrimp and egg with Chinese celery and other vegetables, smoothed with a splash of cream and served over rice. The restaurant has a spacious dining room.
Note that lunch is technically carry-out only, though the family sets up the patio space outside the restaurant for those who want to stick around.
(Silvia Razgova / For The Times)
Holy Basil (Atwater Village)
Wedchayan “Deau” Arpapornnopparat and Tongkamal “Joy” Yuon run two wholly different Holy Basils.
Downtown’s Santee Passage food hall houses the original, a window that does a brisk takeout business cranking out Arpapornnopparat’s visceral, full-throttle interpretations of Bangkok street food.
His pad see ew huffs with smokiness from the wok. The fluffy-crackly skin of moo krob pops and gives way to satiny pork belly underneath. Douse “grandma’s fry fish and rice” with chile vinegar, and in its sudden brightness you’ll understand why the dish was his childhood favorite.
Their sit-down restaurant in Atwater Village is a culmination of their ambitions. The space might be small, with much of the seating against a wall between two buildings, but the cooking is tremendous.
Arpapornnopparat leaps ahead, rendering a short, revolving menu of noodles, curries, chicken wings, fried rice and vegetable dishes that is more experimental, weaving in elements of his father’s Chinese heritage, his time growing up in India and the Mexican and Japanese flavors he loves in Los Angeles.
One creation that shows up in spring but I wait for all year: fried soft-shell crab and shrimp set in a thrilling, confounding sauce centered around salted egg yolk, browned butter, shrimp paste and scallion oil. In its sharp left turns of salt and acid and sultry funk, the brain longs to consult a GPS. But no map exists. These flavor combinations are from an interior land.
(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Kevin Winter / Getty Images)
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Former investment banker Austin Beutner, an advocate for arts education who spent three years at the helm of the Los Angeles Unified School District, appears to be laying the groundwork for a run against Mayor Karen Bass in next year’s election, according to his social media accounts.
At one point Saturday, Beutner’s longtime account on X featured the banner image “AUSTIN for LA MAYOR,” along with the words: “This account is being used for campaign purposes by Austin Beutner for LA Mayor 2026.”
Both the text and the banner image, which resembled a campaign logo, were removed shortly before 1 p.m. Saturday. Beutner did not immediately provide comment after being contacted by The Times.
New “AustinforLA” accounts also appeared on Instagram and Bluesky on Saturday, displaying the same campaign text and logo. Those messages were also quickly removed and converted to generic accounts for Beutner.
It’s still unclear when Beutner, 65, plans to launch a campaign, or if he will do so. Rumors about his intentions have circulated widely in political circles in recent weeks.
Beutner, who worked at one point as a high-level aide to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, would instantly become the most significant candidate to run against Bass, who is seeking a second four-year term in June.
Although seven other people have filed paperwork to run for her seat, none has the fundraising muscle or name recognition to pose a threat. Rick Caruso, the real estate developer whom Bass defeated in 2022, has publicly flirted with another run for the city’s top office but has yet to announce a decision.
A representative for Bass’ campaign did not immediately comment.
Beutner’s announcement comes in a year of crises for the mayor and her city. Bass was out of the country in January, taking part in a diplomatic mission to Ghana, when the ferocious Palisades fire destroyed thousands of homes and killed 12 people.
When she returned, Bass faced withering criticism over the city’s preparation for the high winds, as well as fire department operations and the overall emergency response.
In the months that followed, the city was faced with a $1-billion budget shortfall, triggered in part by pay raises for city workers that were approved by Bass. To close the gap, the City Council eliminated about 1,600 vacant positions, slowed down hiring at the Los Angeles Police Department and rejected Bass’ proposal for dozens of additional firefighters.
By June, Bass faced a different emergency: waves of masked and heavily armed federal agents apprehending immigrants at car washes, Home Depots and elsewhere, sparking furious street protests.
Bass had been politically weakened in the wake of the Palisades fire. But after President Trump put the city in his crosshairs, the mayor regained her political footing, responding swiftly and sharply. She mobilized her allies against the immigration crackdown and railed against the president’s deployment of the National Guard, arguing that the soldiers were “used as props.”
Beutner would come to the race with a wide range of job experiences — the dog-eat-dog world of finance, the struggling journalism industry and the messy world of local government. He also is immersed in philanthropy, having founded the nonprofit Vision to Learn, which provides vision screenings, eye exams and glasses to children in low-income communities.
He is a co-founder and former president of Evercore Partners, a financial services company that advises its clients on mergers, acquisitions and other transactions. In 2008, he retired from that firm — now simply called Evercore Inc. — after he was seriously injured in a bicycling accident.
In 2010, he became Villaraigosa’s jobs advisor, taking on the elevated title of first deputy mayor and receiving wide latitude to strike business deals on Villaraigosa’s behalf, just as the city was struggling to emerge from its worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
Beutner worked closely with Chinese electric car company BYD to make L.A. its North American headquarters, while also overseeing decisions at the Department of Water and Power and other agencies.
Slightly more than a year into his job, Beutner filed paperwork to begin exploring a run for mayor. He secured the backing of former Mayor Richard Riordan and many in the business community but pulled the plug in 2012.
In 2014, Beutner became publisher of the Los Angeles Times, where he focused on digital experimentation and forging deeper ties with readers. He lasted roughly a year in that job before Tribune Publishing Co., the parent company of The Times, ousted him.
Three years later, Beutner was hired as the superintendent of L.A. Unified, which serves schoolchildren in Los Angeles and more than two dozen other cities and unincorporated areas. He quickly found himself at odds with the teachers’ union, which staged a six-day strike.
The union settled for a two-year package of raises totaling 6%. Beutner, for his part, signed off on a parcel tax to generate additional education funding, but voters rejected the proposal.
Beutner’s biggest impact may have been his leadership during COVID-19. The school district distributed millions of meals to needy families and then, as campuses reopened, worked to upgrade air filtration systems inside schools.
In 2022, after leaving the district, Beutner led the successful campaign for Proposition 28, which requires that a portion of California’s general fund go toward visual and performing arts instruction.
Earlier this year, Beutner and several others sued L.A. Unified, accusing the district of violating Proposition 28 by misusing state arts funding and denying legally required arts instruction to students.
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Rebecca Ellis with an assist from Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.
Los Angeles County’s Board of Supervisors met for hours in closed session with attorneys Tuesday to ponder a legal quandary about as thorny as they come.
What do you do with a $4-billion sex abuse settlement when some plaintiffs say they were paid to sue?
On one hand, the supervisors emphasized, they want victims to get the compensation they’re owed for abuse they suffered at the hands of county employees. That’s why they green-lighted the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history this April.
But the allegations of paid plaintiffs, surfaced by The Times last week, have also raised concerns about potential misconduct. The supervisors stated the obvious Tuesday: They do not want taxpayer money set aside for victims going to people who were never in county facilities.
“The entire process angers and sickens me,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who first called for the investigation into the payout, at the meeting Tuesday. “We must ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.”
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A Times investigation last week found seven people who said they were paid by recruiters to sue L.A. County for sex abuse. Two of them said they were explicitly told to fabricate claims. All the people who said they were paid had lawsuits filed by Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA, which has about 2,700 clients in the settlement.
DTLA has denied paying anyone to file a lawsuit and said no representative of the firm had been authorized to make payments. The Times could not reach any of the representatives who allegedly made the payments for comment.
“We have always worked hard to present only meritorious claims and have systems in place to help weed out false or exaggerated allegations,” the firm said in a statement.
The allegations dropped a bomb on the nearly finalized legal settlement, leaving county attorneys and plaintiffs lawyers scrambling to figure out the best path forward.
Some have called for the county to get out of the settlement half a year after announcing it. Technically, it can. The settlement agreement, reviewed by The Times, has a clause that allows the county to pull out unless all but 120 of the plaintiffs agree to the terms — a number attorneys could almost certainly surpass with more than 11,000 plaintiffs.
But the county does not appear to be relishing the thought of blowing up a settlement that took months of negotiations, countless hours in a courtroom and one can only guess how much in billable attorney hours. Many of these cases, attorneys for the county warn, could cost tens of millions in a trial. Clearing them all at once for $4 billion could, believe it or not, end up sounding like a bargain.
No decision was made Tuesday after hours in closed session. The only news out of it was the announcement that Fesia Davenport, the chief executive, would be going on medical leave for the next few months. She will be temporarily replaced by Joe Nicchitta, the office’s second-in-command.
Davenport emphasized the reasons for her absence were personal and had nothing to do with the settlement after rumors immediately swirled connecting the two.
“I am deeply disappointed that I have to address baseless allegations that my leave is somehow related to the County’s AB 218 settlement — which it is not,” she said in a statement. “I am on medical leave and expect to return to work in early 2026.”
Next Tuesday, the supervisors plan to meet again in closed session to grapple with the settlement, according to the board agenda.
In the aftermath of the investigation, some county watchdogs have called for the government to better screen the claims it’s poised to pay out.
“There was a lack of the basics,” said Eric Preven, a local government observer, who said he’s worried about the effect of unvetted lawsuits on the government. “What have we done?”
“We’re glad the supervisors are finally doing their jobs, but what took them so long?” said the Daily News editorial board.
County counsel says they’re working on it. They’ve demanded “evidentiary statements” for each victim and search for whatever documentation exists, the office said in a statement.
“But the simple truth is this: Los Angeles County is facing more than 11,000 claims, most of which are decades old, where evidence is scarce or nonexistent,” the statement read. “Survivors and taxpayers deserve a process with integrity, not one that rewards coercion, shortcuts, or abuse of the system.”
Some victims say they’re concerned the allegations of paid plaintiffs will taint the settlement and delay justice for legitimate survivors.
Tanina Evans, 47, said she spent her childhood bouncing around county-run juvenile halls and group homes. She sued the county after she said she was sexually abused multiple times, including once at Eastlake Juvenile Hall, where she says she was forced to give a staff member oral sex in the shower. When she refused, she said, the staff member had the teenagers she was incarcerated with beat her up.
She said she worries experiences like hers will now be looked at with new skepticism.
“People are so quick to justify not penalizing anyone. Are they looking for a loophole?” Evans said. “And it’s like, no, you guys know it’s real.”
State of play
— PALISADES ARREST AND FALLOUT: Federal prosecutors filed charges Wednesday in the Palisades fire, accusing Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, of starting the initial fire on New Year’s Day that rekindled to become the devastating blaze days later. This latest revelation is fueling debate over whether the city of L.A. or the state of California can be found civilly liable for its role in the fire, our colleague Jenny Jarvie reports.
—NEW FINDINGS: With the federal investigation tied up, Mayor Karen Bass’ office released a long-awaited after-action report finding that firefighters were hampered by an ineffective process for recalling them back to work, as well as poor communication, inexperienced leadership and a lack of resources.
—2022 NEVER ENDS, SCREENTIME EDITION: Speaking at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference Wednesday, Bass characterized her former mayoral opponent and frequent critic Rick Caruso as “sad and bitter.” Earlier in the day, Caruso had put out a statement in response to the charges filed against Rinderknecht that called the Palisades fire “a failure of government on an epic level, starting with Mayor Bass.” During a separate appearance at the Screentime conference, Caruso shot back at Bass, saying anger was an appropriate response to the contents of the report. Caruso still hasn’t said whether he plans to run for mayor or governor next year, or sit out the 2026 election.
—BUT THEY WEREN’T JUST FIGHTING! A day later, Bass called on the City Council to adopt an ordinance that would help establish a one-time exemption to Measure ULA, the city’s so-called “mansion tax,” for Palisades fire-affected properties, to speed up sales and spur rebuilding and rehabilitation of the area. Bass’ office said her letter to the council followed a meeting with Caruso, who had “proposed ideas to help address this issue.”
—FAREWELL, FORKISH: LAPD public information director Jennifer Forkish resigned Thursday at the request of Chief Jim McDonnell, amid accusations from the region’s top federal prosecutor that her office was leaking information. But Forkish vehemently denied the “baseless allegation” that she had leaked anything.
—GARBAGE MONEY: City Council voted Tuesday to finalize a dramatic fee increase for residential trash collection, after giving the fee hike preliminary approval back in April. This is the first time the fees have been raised in 17 years and the city was heavily subsidizing the program, at the cost of roughly $500,000 a day.
—PAYOUT IN SPOTLIGHT: The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to launch an investigation into possible misconduct by “legal representatives” involved in sex abuse litigation. The county auditor’s office also will set up a hotline dedicated to tips from the public related to the lawsuits.
— MUSICAL CHAIRS: Former FBI agent Erroll Southers plans to step down from the L.A. Police Commission, my colleague Libor Jany reported Friday. Southers has been a member of the panel since 2023, when Bass picked him to serve out the term of a departing commissioner. His appointment to a full five-year term was supposed to come before the City Council a few weeks ago, but instead the council continued the matter — setting off a bizarre bureaucratic chain of events that led to Southers essentially being confirmed by default due to city rules and the council’s inaction (too complicated to fully summarize here, but Libor explained it all in his story at the time).
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? Bass’ initiative addressed an encampment on Lincoln Boulevard in Westchester, in partnership with Councilmember Traci Park’s office.
On the docket next week: The board will vote on a state of emergency over recent federal immigration actions to provide the supervisors with more power to assist those affected by the flood of deportations. And, over in City Hall, the council’s public safety committee will consider the mayor’s appointment of Jeffrey Skobin to the police commission on Wednesday.
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.
The cantina on Tatooine in the first “Star Wars” film. A Greek taverna on a layover in Miami. A mermaid’s womb. Every friend I take to, or even ask about, Cento Raw Bar and its fantastical design has a knee-jerk one-liner at the ready.
The wildest new bar in Los Angeles
Walk into the West Adams space adjoined by an awning to Cento Pasta Bar — both conceived by chef Avner Levi — and the first sight of the curving walls will spin anyone’s mind. They look plastered with a mixture of stucco and meringue, smeared like a frosted cake in progress, that’s meant to evoke the shimmer and shifting light of a Mediterranean cave. A three-sided seafoam-green bar anchors the room, girded by tall white chairs with metal backs patterned in a snail’s spiral. Details fill every corner: rounded, sculptural pillars and pedestals; a blue-tile floor mosaic resembling a pond; pendant sconces in shapes that remind me of the “energy dome” hats worn by the band Devo in the 1980s.
A mosaic moment in the dining room of Cento Raw Bar.
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
The effect leans more toward trippy than transportive. As one stop during a night out for a drink and a stopgap plate of seafood or two, I’m into it.
Idiosyncrasy is welcome right now
Maybe in another era I would gawk once and move on. But in times like Los Angeles is living through, in a half-decade that has begat one trial and horror after another, the operators of new restaurants, particularly those in the highest-rent districts, tend to default to conservative choices. Menus full of comforts familiar to whatever cuisine is being served. Atmospheres easily described as “pleasant.” The decisions are so understandable, and given a particular neighborhood or desired audience perhaps it pays off economically. Familiarity is a priority to many diners. Hospitality workers deserve stable incomes.
Culturally, though? The restaurant pros who can’t stomach the status quo, who go regionally specific or deeply personal or brazenly imaginative, are the forces who inspire cities toward creative rebellion. Thinking about this, I found an article from 2011 by former Times critic S. Irene Virbila about the year’s restaurant openings. The nation was burrowing out of the Great Recession at the time, but the roster of emerging talents mentioned by Virbila would wind up shaping the 2010s as the decade that landed Los Angeles on the global culinary map: names like Bryant Ng, Josef Centeno, Nyesha Arrington, Michael Voltaggio, Steve Samson and Zach Pollack.
She also pointed out Ludo Lefebvre, who in 2011 was still in pop-up mode before launching his defining restaurants Trois Mec (felled by the pandemic) and Petit Trois. Maybe it’s a sign that this week Lefebvre came full-circle with a new occasional pop-up series he’s calling Éphémère.
Point is, we could use more extreme individualism in restaurants right now. I appreciate the obsessiveness from designer Brandon Miradi, who has the title of “creative director” at Cento Raw Bar and who counts Vespertine, Somni, the Bazaar at SLS Beverly Hills and Frieze Art Fair as previous projects. Note the spiraling ends of the silverware, matching the chairs, and the ways napkins too are rolled into a tight coil. He managed to find colored glassware in geometries that register at once as retro and postmodern.
Cento Raw Bar, the sibling cocktail and seafood bar to chef Avner Levi’s pasta restaurant, features an all-white interior.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Maybe no surprise, but the TikTok-magnetic vibes keep the bar full of young, beautiful groups — Angelenos or visitors modeling their best L.A. looks, who can say. In June, about a month after the place opened, a friend and I were sitting at one of the low tables and she pointed over to the bar: The women seated in the high stools all came in wearing stilettos that were now dangling half off their feet. Panning this shoe moment could have been a montage sequence during a Carrie Bradshaw voiceover in an early season of “Sex and the City.”
What to eat and drink
Perhaps to fully center or to balance Miradi’s visual extravaganza, the food and drink options are quite straightforward. A few cocktails do wink right into the camera, among them a play on a Screwdriver made with SunnyD (which the menu calls “Sunny Delight,” the branding name I also remember from my Gen-X childhood). Most are mainstays: a classic escapist piña colada, a spicy margarita, an Aperol situation spiked with mezcal. The bartenders listen kindly when I request they stir my dry gin martini well.
A martini at the bar of Cento Raw Bar.
(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)
Seafood towers, served on undulating green-glass plates designed by Miradi, are stylish and modest in size and arrive as two levels for $83 or three levels for $97.
A buddy and I recently split the smaller one, neatly polishing off a handful of tiny, briny oysters along with scallops served in their shells, some bouncy shrimp and a couple meaty lobster claws. We had shown up to Pizzeria Sei without a reservation — because scoring one at a prime hour is maddening, and so I take my chances as a walk-in — and were told the wait was an hour and 15 minutes. Cento Raw Bar was a 12-minute drive away, ideal for one round of drinks and pre-dinner shellfish.
On another occasion, I might skip the pricey tower and order a plate of hamachi crudo (dotted with stone fruit during the summer season) and a dip of smoked cod with bagel chips. I’ve found more substantial plates, such as ridged mafaldine tangled in lobster sauce, in need of spice and acid.
Fish dip topped with trout roe at Cento Raw Bar in West Adams.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Desserts riffing on a Hostess cake or an ube cheesecake spangled with prismatic bits of flavored gelatins? Fun, but I’ve had my share of outlandish décor and cocktail nibbles — exactly what I came for.
4919 W. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 795-0330, cento.group
Also …
Food editor Daniel Hernandez writes about Mexico City, the food lovers flocking to its energized restaurant scene … and the digital nomads who are also settling in, pricing out locals in some areas. As tensions boil, he asks, is it possible to still visit and be a mindful tourist?
Speaking of Bryant Ng mentioned above, Jenn Harris checks out his new project, Jade Rabbit, a new fast-casual restaurant in Santa Monica where Ng re-imagines Chinese American food.
Stephanie Breijo reports from West Hollywood on Darling, the new restaurant from legendary Southern chef Sean Brock, who is determined not to lean on his heritage in California. “In order to fully understand the taste of this place [L.A.], and that’s my goal, I can’t cook Southern,” Brock shares.
A member of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners who led a nationwide search to hire a new LAPD chief and sparked condemnation from activists for his previous counterterrorism research is stepping down.
Erroll Southers confirmed his plans to resign through a spokesperson on Friday, ending a stormy two-year tenure on the influential civilian panel that watches over the LAPD.
The spokesperson said that Southers, 68, wanted to spend more time with his family and pursue other professional opportunities — something that wasn’t always allowed by the demands of serving as a commissioner. The officials often spend time outside their weekly meetings attending community events.
According to the spokesperson, Southers was not asked to submit his resignation, but she declined to say more about the timing of his departure.
Southers has been a member of the panel since 2023, when Mayor Karen Bass picked him to serve out the term of a departing commissioner.
Southers remained after serving out that term because of a bureaucratic loophole that allows new members to join any city commission if the City Council fails to vote on their appointment within 45 days. When the council members took no action on Southers earlier this month after his re-nomination by the mayor, a seat on the commission remained his by default.
His last commission meeting is expected to be Oct. 21 and he will step down at the end of that week. A replacement has not been announced by the mayor.
Southers had a long career in law enforcement before switching to academia and earning his doctorate in public policy. He worked as police officer in Santa Monica and later joined the FBI. He is currently a top security official in the administration at USC.
During this time on the commission, Southers pushed for changes to the way that the department hires and recruits new officers.
But more than any other commissioner, Southers has accumulated a loud chorus of detractors who point to his work on counterterrorism in the mid-2000s in Israel — which has especially become a lightning rod because of the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
Southers’ abrupt departure underscores the increasing difficulty in filling out one of the city’s most influential commissions. The panel was down a member for months after a former commissioner, Maria “Lou” Calanche, resigned so she could run for a City Council seat on the Eastside.
One previous candidate dropped out of the running after a disastrous hearing before the council, and another would-be commissioner quietly withdrew from running earlier this year.
Next Wednesday, a council committee will consider the nomination of Jeff Skobin, a San Fernando Valley car dealership executive and son of a former commissioner. Skobin’s move to the commission would still need approval from the full council.
On the campaign trail eight years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom famously promised to support the construction of 3.5 million new homes in California by the end of this year. He’ll probably fall short by millions, but his latest move reaffirms the effort.
Newsom signed Senate Bill 79 into law Friday. The historic bill, which looks to add density to transit hubs across California, is one of the most ambitious state-imposed housing efforts in recent memory.
“All Californians deserve an affordable place to live — close to jobs, schools, and opportunity. Housing near transit means shorter commutes, lower costs, and more time with family. When we invest in housing, we’re investing in people — their chance to build a future, raise a family, and be part of a community,” Newsom said in a statement.
The sweeping bill — which takes effect July 1, 2026 — upzones areas across California, overriding local zoning laws to allow taller, denser projects near transit hubs such as subway stops, light rail stops and bus stops with dedicated lanes.
Developers will be permitted to build up to nine-story residential buildings adjacent to subway stops, seven stories within a quarter-mile of them and six stories within a half-mile. The bill will also allow residential buildings that reach five to eight stories near light rail and dedicated bus lanes, depending on how close a piece of property is to a particular station or bus stop.
It’s the second major housing reform Newsom has greenlighted this year. In June, he signed a landmark bill that streamlines housing construction and cuts through the regulatory red tape brought by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Newsom’s decision caps months of debate and weeks of pleas from residents, advocacy groups and cities imploring him to either sign or veto.
It’s a huge win for YIMBY groups and developers, who claim the quickest way to address California’s housing crisis is to build housing — especially near transit stops to encourage public transportation and cut down on car pollution.
“With his signature on SB 79, Governor Newsom cements his legacy as one of the most transformative pro-housing leaders in California history,” California YIMBY Chief Executive Brian Hanlon said in a statement. “Now we begin the work of making sure its provisions are fully and fairly implemented.”
It’s a blow for some cities, including Los Angeles, which claim that the bill brings a one-size-fits-all approach to a problem that needs local control. Mayor Karen Bass asked Newsom to veto the bill, and the L.A. City Council passed a motion opposing it.
Now, the chaotic scramble begins as cities, developers and residents try to figure out who is affected by the bill — and who is exempted.
Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced the legislation in January, emphasizing the need for immediate action to address the housing crisis. But as the bill wound its way through the Legislature, a host of amendments, exemptions and carve-outs were added in order to secure enough votes to pass through the Assembly and Senate.
What was left was a wordy, at-times confusing bill. Wiener’s spokesperson Erik Mebust acknowledged that it’s “incredibly challenging to visualize.”
First, the bill’s scope was narrowed from all of California to only counties with at least 15 passenger rail stations, leaving only eight: Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Alameda, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Sacramento.
The biggest impact will probably be felt in Los Angeles, which has an estimated 150 transit stops covered by the bill, according to the city’s preliminary assessment.
Transit hubs are being targeted for taller, denser housing
Senate Bill 79 would override local zoning laws, allowing buildings of five to nine stories in areas close to many public transit stops in Los Angeles, according to the city’s preliminary analysis. Still, some properties would be eligible for exemptions or a multi-year delay.
Distance from transit hub
Los Angeles Dept. of City Planning
Sean Greene LOS ANGELES TIMES
Next, lawmakers added several deferral options, allowing cities to postpone implementation in selected areas until approximately 2030 — one year after they must submit their latest plan for spurring new housing construction and accommodating growth.
For the next five years, cities can exempt properties in high-risk fire areas, historic preservation zones and low-resource areas — an attempt to mitigate the bill’s effect on gentrification in low-income neighborhoods.
Transit stops and fire zones
Under Senate Bill 79, cities can seek a delay in upzoning for areas located in very high fire hazard severity zones. In northeast Los Angeles, these zones overlap with transit stops in multiple places.
Distance from transit hub
Los Angeles Dept. of City Planning, California Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection
Sean Greene LOS ANGELES TIMES
In addition, to eke out votes from lawmakers representing smaller cities, SB 79 zones shrank to a quarter-mile in cities with fewer than 35,000 residents, compared with a half-mile everywhere else.
Known as the “Beverly Hills carve-out,” the amendment shrinks the upzoning responsibility for certain small, affluent cities around Southern California including Beverly Hills and South Pasadena. As a result, the eligibility map gets weird.
For example, the law will only affect a quarter-mile area surrounding South Pasadena’s Metro A Line station, but a half-mile in its adjacent communities — Pasadena and L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood. In L.A.’s Beverly Grove neighborhood, the law covers properties within a half-mile of the Metro D Line subway, but in Beverly Hills right next door, it only affects areas within a quarter-mile.
Before Newsom signed it into law, Los Angeles City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky called it unfair.
“Beverly Hills gets off the hook, and Los Angeles is left holding the bag,” she said in a statement.
Other oddities abound. For example, a city can exempt a particular property that is half a mile from a transit station as the crow flies but has physical barriers — railroad tracks, freeways — that make it more than a mile away on foot.
Several online maps attempted to show which areas would be upzoned under SB 79, but no one has produced a parcel-specific overview. L.A. planning officials recently published a draft map showing the places that they believe would be upzoned under SB 79. But they cautioned that the online tool is for “exploratory purposes only” — and that a binding eligibility map will eventually be published by the Southern California Assn. of Governments.
Cities, developers and homeowners will have to wait for clarity until that map is published. In the meantime, YIMBY groups are hoping the bill spurs multi-family development in L.A., which has waned in recent years due to unprofitable economics and regulatory uncertainty.
“A lot of people don’t want California to change, but California is changing whether they want it to or not,” said Matt Lewis, spokesperson for California YIMBY, one of the bill’s sponsors. “The question is whether we allow those changes to be sustainable and affordable, or chaotic and costly.”
A judge temporarily blocked California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s attempt to take over Los Angeles County’s beleaguered juvenile halls on Friday, finding that despite evidence of a “systemic failure” to improve poor conditions, Bonta had not met the legal grounds necessary to strip away local control.
After years of scandals — including frequent drug overdoses and incidents of staff violence against youths — Bonta filed a motion in July to place the county’s juvenile halls in “receivership,” meaning a court-appointed monitor would manage the facilities, set their budgets and oversee the hiring and firing of staff. An ongoing staffing crisis previously led a state oversight body to deem two of L.A. County’s halls unfit to house children.
L.A. County entered into a settlement with the California Department of Justice in 2021 to mandate improvements, but oversight bodies and a Times investigation earlier this year found the Probation Department was falling far short of fixing many issues, as required by the agreement.
On Friday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Peter A. Hernandez chastised Bonta for failing to clearly lay out tasks for the Probation Department to abide by in the 2021 settlement. Hernandez said the attorney general’s office’s filings failed to show that a state takeover would lead to “a transformation of the juvenile halls.”
The steps the Probation Department needs to take to meet the terms of the settlement have been articulated in court filings and reports published by the L.A. County Office of the Inspector General for several years. Hernandez was only assigned to oversee the settlement in recent months and spent much of Friday’s hearing complaining about a lack of “clarity” in the case.
Hernandez wrote that Bonta’s motion had set off alarm bells about the Probation Department’s management of the halls.
“Going forward, the court expects all parties to have an ‘all-hands’ mentality,” the judge wrote in a tentative ruling earlier this week, which he adopted Friday morning.
Hernandez said he would not rule out the possibility of a receivership in the future, but wanted more direct testimony from parties, including Probation Department Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa and the court-appointed monitor over the settlement, Michael Dempsey. A hearing was set for Oct. 24.
The attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The Department remains fully committed to making the necessary changes to bring our juvenile institutions to where they need to be,” Vicky Waters, the Probation Department’s chief spokesperson, said in a statement. “However, to achieve that goal, we must have both the authority and support to remove barriers that hinder progress rather than perpetuate no-win situations.”
The California attorney general’s office began investigating L.A. County’s juvenile halls in 2018 and found probation officers were using pepper spray excessively, failing to provide proper educational and therapeutic programming and detaining youths in solitary confinement for far too long.
Bonta said in July that the county has failed to improve “75%” of what they were mandated to change in the 2021 settlement.
A 2022 Times investigation revealed a massive staffing shortage was leading to significant injuries for both youths and probation officers. By May of 2023, the California Board of State and Community Corrections ordered Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar shuttered due to unsafe conditions. That same month, an 18-year-old died of an overdose while in custody.
The county soon reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey, but the facility quickly became the site of a riot, an escape attempt and more drug overdoses. Last year, the California attorney general’s office won indictments against 30 officers who either orchestrated or allowed youths to engage in “gladiator fights.” That investigation was sparked by video of officers allowing eight youths to pummel another teen inside Los Padrinos, which has also been deemed unfit to house youths by a state commission.
In court Friday, Laura Fair, an attorney from the attorney general’s office, said that while she understood Hernandez’s position, she expressed concern that teens are still in danger while in the Probation Department’s custody.
“The youth in the halls continue to be in grave danger and continue to suffer irreparable harm every day,” she said.
She declined to comment further outside the courtroom. Waters, the Probation Department’s spokesperson, said she was unaware of the situation Fair was describing but would look into it.
Despite the litany of fiascoes over the last few years, probation leaders still argued in court filings that Bonta had gone too far.
“The County remains open to exploring any path that will lead to better outcomes. But it strongly opposes the DOJ’s ill-conceived proposal, which will only harm the youth in the County’s care by sowing chaos and inconsistency,” county lawyers wrote in an opposition motion submitted last month. “The DOJ’s request is almost literally without precedent. No state judge in California history has ever placed a correctional institution into receivership.”
Under the leadership of Viera Rosa, who took office in 2023, the Probation Department has made improvements to its efforts to keep drugs out of the hall, rectify staffing issues and hold its own officers accountable for misconduct, the county argued.
The department has placed “airport-grade” body scanners and drug-sniffing dogs at the entrances to both Nidorf and Los Padrinos in order to stymie the influx of narcotics into the halls, according to Robert Dugdale, an attorney representing the county.
Dugdale also touted the department’s hiring of Robert Arcos, a former high-ranking member of the Los Angeles Police Department and L.A. County district attorney’s office, to oversee security in the facilities.
The motion claimed it was the Probation Department that first uncovered the evidence that led to the gladiator fight prosecutions. Bonta said in March that his office launched its investigation after it reviewed leaked footage of one of the incidents.
Starting Sunday, actor Jason Ritter will be back onscreen as attorney Julian Markston in Season 2 of the CBS legal drama “Matlock,” loosely inspired by the 1980s and ’90s Andy Griffith show of the same name. He still gets a thrill when he thinks about the cast he gets to work with, which includes Skye P. Marshall, Beau Bridges and Oscar winner Kathy Bates.
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 almost, but not quite ever, forget that you’re working with an absolute acting legend,” Ritter says. “Kathy is so sweet and so kind and such a team player and collaborator that it helps to sort of stop that voice in your head from going like ‘It’s Kathy Bates!’ every time it’s a scene with her.”
The 45-year-old L.A. native, part of an entertainment family that includes his late father, sitcom legend John Ritter, didn’t offer up many details about the new season but did say viewers can expect more on-the-edge-of-your-seat episodes. (If you need a refresher of last season, episodes of “Matlock” are available on Paramount+.)
“It has the same pace and fun mystery as the first season, but now my character’s secrets have been revealed,” says Ritter, who regularly posts about the show and his fellow actors on Instagram along with humorous bits.
At home with actor-wife Melanie Lynskey, whom he married in 2020, and their 6-year-old daughter, there aren’t any great mysteries that need to be solved, but there is work to do before bed.
“When midnight starts,” Ritter says, “we’re probably finishing up the jobs, as we call them — you know, the dishes and the chores and cleaning everything up, which is a lovely habit that I’ve gotten into from [my wife]. I always used to just wake up to the nightmare from the night before and I’ve learned to really appreciate waking up to a clean area.”
After lights out and some sleep, his ideal Sunday picks up hours later and is filled with plenty of coffee, some miniature golf or a nature walk and more.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
7 a.m.: A different kind of call time I will wake up usually at 7. If our daughter is going to school, then I have to wake up at 7 so I can start making her lunch and getting stuff ready. But if she’s having a bit of a sleep-in [on the weekend], then I still have to wake up at 7 to make sure everything times out. And then I’ll make her little lunch and her breakfast. While she’s eating breakfast, she usually gets to watch an episode of something. That’s my prime scrolling through social media time.
9:30 a.m.: Time for more coffee We would all pile in the car, and our first stop would probably be a coffee stop. We are a big coffee family — not our daughter. We always make a pot of coffee in the morning. And even though we’ve had several cups already, we’ll stop at Go Get Em Tiger, one of our favorite coffee places in L.A. We’ve come to know a lot of the baristas there, so we get to chat about life and everything. And then we’ll be back on the road.
10 a.m.: Miniature golf or a ‘beauty’ walk Our daughter and I will go to Castle Park, which is the miniature golf place in Sherman Oaks. My daughter and I have really bonded over miniature golf, and that’s sort of our little thing. Any miniature golf course has a real special place in my heart, but Castle Park is the place that I went to as a kid. The course is basically the same. It’s just so fun to watch [our daughter] get better and better at golf; even though, recently she’s become obsessed with par.
If mini golf didn’t take up so much time, my daughter and I like to go on these little beauty walks where she gets on her scooter and puts her helmet on. We just walk around the neighborhood, and she can’t pick any flowers. But we can pick up little flowers or leaves off the ground. So anything that she sees that’s beautiful, she picks up, and we make a little bouquet. And what’s so amazing about it for me is to see what she finds beautiful on those walks.
1 p.m.: A chopped salad and fries for lunch There’s a place called Angelini Osteria that has a salad that I really enjoy. It’s called the Alimentari Chopped Salad. It’s got avocado and chicken and bacon and currants and almonds. It comes with two dressings, but I usually just do the sort of lemony kind of oily dressing. And it is just so delicious. I am the only meat eater in my family. At some point, maybe my conscience will get the better of me, and I’ll switch over to their diet. Angelini also has very good french fries. When we’re on the road and the lunch that I’ve packed hasn’t been enough for [my daughter], french fries is one of those safe things that if we’re in a bind, we can pick them up from almost anywhere.
2 p.m.: Time for the Museum of Jurassic Technology Another favorite thing that I would do is go to the Museum of Jurassic Technology. I just love that place. It’s so fascinating. It’s one of those places that if someone’s coming in from out of town, I love showing them. I love taking them there without telling them anything about it and just watch them kind of explore. And it’s just such a mysterious, magical place.
5 p.m.: Fresh escape room fun Then I would see if I could get a bunch of my friends together, and we would go do an escape room somewhere in town. It’s just one of my favorite things to do, and they’re all over the place in Los Angeles. I would go to maybe 60out or Maze Rooms or one that I had never heard of. There’s an app called Morty that helps find escape rooms and keep track of the ones you did if your memory is poor like mine. If I can’t convince my friends to do another one right after in the same location, then we would be done by 6. It would be time to go back home and make our daughter’s dinner and get her through the entire dinner-bath time-bedtime phase.
9 p.m.: Dinner and “The Bachelor” before bed My favorite thing is when Melanie and I order in from a place called Bulan Thai Vegetarian Kitchen. It has these incredibly delicious hot wings. Our daughter will be asleep in the other room. And we get to eat some delicious Thai food and watch some silly show or some serious show.
If our daughter has gone to sleep around 8, this will usually be maybe 9, 9:30 depending on if I’ve fallen asleep in the bed next door. This is also why sometimes it gets so late and bleeds into the next day. Because by the time we get to have our alone fun, dinner and watching time, it’s 9:30, 10, and some of those “Bachelor” episodes are two hours long.
And yes, I promise that somewhere in this day, I have showered. [Laughs] That is another very important element of our day. It’s the one that can go by the wayside. But we always try to check in with each other. Like, “Have you showered today? Have you showered? OK, you go and then I’ll go.”
Thirty paintings by the late artist — and PBS staple — Bob Ross are heading for auction beginning Nov. 11. American Public Television, which syndicates programming to public stations across the country, is staging the auction in Los Angeles through Bonhams. APT has pledged to donate 100% of the profits to beleaguered public television stations nationwide.
“Bonhams holds the world record for Bob Ross, and with his market continuing to climb, proceeds benefiting American Public Television, and many of the paintings created live on air — a major draw for collectors — we expect spirited bidding and results that could surpass previous records,” said Robin Starr, general manager, Bonhams Skinner, in a statement.
The auction house established its record in August when it sold two of Ross’ mountain-and-lake scenes from the early 1990s for $114,800 and $95,750, respectively. Bonhams said it could not yet provide an estimate on the worth of the 30 works coming up for auction.
The first three paintings will go on the block at Bonhams in Los Angeles as part of its California & Western Art auction. The remaining 27 will be sold throughout 2026 at Bonhams salesrooms in New York, Boston and L.A.
The news comes as public broadcasting faces unprecedented challenges to its survival. In July, Congress voted to cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which was founded in 1968 and helps fund PBS, NPR, as well as 1,500 local radio and television stations. The cuts were encouraged by President Trump, who derided the organization for spreading “woke” propaganda.
The private, nonprofit corporation soon after announced that it would close. The majority of its staff was dismissed at the end of last month, and a bare-bones transition team remains through January to wrap up unfinished work.
Without CPB, educational programming like “The Joy of Painting” with Bob Ross will have an uphill battle finding the support it needs.
Known for his cloudlike halo of curly brown hair, soothing voice and infectious love of the art form as shown on his signature show, the artist became a mainstay in American households across 400-plus episodes and more than a decade on the air.
With its wholesome content and relaxed pace, his was the kind of show that defined PBS. Hopefully, his work can help keep the lights on at the stations that helped gain him a cultlike following.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, and I’m the proud owner of a Bob Ross Chia Pet head. Here’s your arts and culture news for the week.
On our radar
Kai A. Ealy stars in “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at A Noise Within
(Daniel Reichert)
Joe Turner’s Come And Gone Gregg T. Daniel continues his reinvestigation of August Wilson’s American Century Cycle with a production of what is arguably the finest work in the playwright’s 10-play series. Set in a Pittsburgh boardinghouse in 1911 during the Great Migration, “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” focuses on the spiritual crossroads of Black Americans who are being reminded at every turn that their freedom comes with a prohibitive cost. The sixth Wilson production at A Noise Within in this seasons-long retrospective should be a standout: It’s one of the great American plays of the 20th century. — Charles McNulty Previews, 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Oct. 17; opening night, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18; through Nov. 9. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. anoisewithin.org
Tavares Strachan, “Six Thousand Years,” and “The Encyclopedia of Invisibility,” 2018, mixed media
Tavares Strachan: The Day Tomorrow Began Bahamian-born New York artist, whose immersive solo exhibition “Magnificent Darkness” filled the Hollywood branch of Marian Goodman Gallery last year, makes multidisciplinary art that seeks to amplify notable events and people — especially related to exploration, from deep-sea diving to outer space — that are often sidelined in standard cultural histories. Strachan, a 2022 MacArthur Foundation fellow, once shipped a 4.5-ton block of ice from the Arctic to the Bahamas via FedEx. We’ll see what might arrive at Wilshire Boulevard. — Christopher Knight 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday; closed Wednesday; through March 29, 2026. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, BCAM Level 2, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
Alexander Shelley conducts the Pacific Symphony Friday-Sunday in Costa Mesa.
(Curtis Perry)
Alexander Shelley conducts the Pacific Symphony At 45, the British conductor has a seemingly full and far-fledged plate: music director of the National Arts Center Orchestra in Ottawa; principal associate conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London; and artistic and music director of Artis-Naples and the Naples Philharmonic in Florida. Next year, the plate becomes fuller and further-fledged when he becomes music director of the Pacific Symphony. This fall, however, Shelley makes his debut as music director designate by showcasing works bursting with color — Mongomery’s “Starburst”; Arturo Márquez’s “Concert for Guitar Mystical and Profane” with Pablo Sáinz-Villegas as soloist; and Rimsky Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.” Shelley returns in November with Ravel’s glorious ballet score “Daphnis and Chloe,” the perfect enchanting complement to San Diego Symphony’s “L’Enfant,” for wrapping up the Ravel year, the 150th anniversary of the French composer’s birth having been in March. — Mark Swed 8 p.m. Thursday-Oct. 18. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. pacificsymphony.org
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
The American Contemporary Ballet dances to Shubert’s score for “Death & the Maiden.”
(Victor Demarchelier)
Death and the Maiden American Contemporary Ballet, under the direction of Lincoln Jones, dances to a live performance of Schubert’s score, complete with opera singers; plus “Burlesque: Variation IX.” 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; Thursday performances Oct. 23 and 30; through Nov. 1. ACB, Bank of America Plaza, 330 S. Hope St. #150, downtown L.A. acbdances.com
Nightsong Times video intern Quincy Bowie Jr. recently visited artist Derek Fordjour’s sensorial experience at Mid-City’s David Kordansky Gallery. “In a time where many feel silenced, and afraid to speak up, Fordjour creates a space of darkness where truth can be revealed, heard and felt,” wrote Bowie. “‘Nightsong’ creates a unique space where the Black voice and its many songs are centered.” The free exhibit closes tonight. 6-10 p.m. David Kordansky Gallery, 5130 W. Edgewood Place. davidkordanskygallery.com
Mexican singer Lucía performs Friday at the Nimoy.
(Shervin Lainez)
Lucía The enchanting Mexican singer mixes traditional American jazz and Latin folk in her eponymous debut album, released earlier this year. 8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Mascogos Jose Luis Valenzuela directs the world premiere of playwright Miranda González’s drama revealing the untold stories of Mexico’s Underground Railroad. Final preview, 8 p.m. Friday; opening night, 8 p.m. Saturday; 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 4 p.m. Sunday, through Nov. 9. Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., downtown L.A. latinotheaterco.org
People in the Dark: An Immersive Ghost Story A Lost Legends Ghost Tour goes frighteningly awry, placing the audience face-to-face with Hollywood’s haunted past in this enveloping theatrical experience from Drowned Out Productions. 7-11:40 p.m., with start times every 20 mins. Friday; 6-10:40 p.m., with start times every 20 mins. Saturday and Sunday (also Thursday, Oct. 16), through Oct. 31. 1035 S. Olive St., downtown L.A. tickettailor.com
Grand Kyiv Ballet performs “Swan Lake” Friday at the Ebell Wilshire.
Grand Kyiv Ballet This touring company of Ukrainian dancers is temporarily based out of the International Ballet Academy in Bellevue, Wash., while Russia continues its war with Ukraine. The troupe brings Tchaikovsky’s timeless ballet “Swan Lake” to Mid-City in a graceful performance sure to soothe even the most restless soul. (Jessica Gelt) 7 p.m. Wilshire Ebell Theatre, 4401 W 8th St, Los Angeles. ebellofla.org
SATURDAY Corey Helford Gallery A trio of strikingly distinct shows with a global sweep opens Friday. In the main gallery, “The Weight of Us,” a duo exhibition featuring solo works from Nigerian artists Arinze Stanley and Oscar Ukonu explores interconnectedness, and the complex interplay of individual and collective narratives. “Where Petals Dance,” features the work of Japanese artist aica in Gallery 2. The major exhibition featuring Latvian-born contemporary surrealist painter Jana Brike, “When I Was a River,” debuts in Gallery 3. Noon-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Nov. 15. Corey Helford Gallery, 571 S. Anderson St. #1, Los Angeles. https://coreyhelfordgallery.com/
Vicky Chow CAP UCLA and Piano Spheres present new music pianist Vicky Chow performing the West Coast premiere of Tristan Perich’s “Surface Image.” 8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Gracias Gustavo Community Block Party Hosted by Aundrae Russell of KJLH, this outdoor celebration features performances by DJ Aye Jaye, live art by Hannah Edmonds and Israel “Seaweed” Batiz, Mariachi Tierra Mia, poet Aletha Metcalf-Evans, Versa-Style Street Dance Company, YOLA at Inglewood Jazz Ensemble, Sherie, muralist ShowzArt — “The Art Jedi,” D Smoke and the Inglewood High School Marching Band, plus activities, food trucks and more. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center, 101 S. La Brea Ave., Inglewood. laphil.com
Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles An open house kicks off four new exhibitions: Sandra Vásquez de la Horra, “The Awake Volcanoes”; Samar Al Summary, “Excavating the Sky”; Liz Hernández, “Donde piso, crecen cosas (Where I step, things grow)”; and AoA x IAO, “I Smell LA.”
4-8 p.m. Friday. Noon-6 p.m. Wednesday; Noon-7 p.m. Thursday; Noon-6 p.m. Friday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; closed Mondays, Tuesdays and public holidays. Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1717 E. 7th St., Arts District, downtown L.A. theicala.org
Sleep Token performs at the Reading Music Festival, England, in 2023.
(Scott Garfitt / Invision / Associated Press)
Sleep Token Sleep Token is by some measures the biggest heavy-rock band in the world right now. Its 2025 LP, “Even in Arcadia,” demolished streaming records for a metal act, reaching well beyond the genre’s cantankerous core fan base, which has mixed feelings about Sleep Token’s pop chart success, to say the least. (No one is more skeptical about the band’s new fame than its cryptically anonymous front person Vessel: “Right foot in the roses, left foot on a landmine,” he sings in “Caramel,” “They can sing the words while I cry into the bass line.”) The band’s high-drama live shows are where Sleep Token really shines, though, as in this return to L.A. for a set that finally provides the scale its runic masks, robes and necrotic body paint have always called for. (August Brown) 8 p.m. Crypto.com Arena, 1111 S. Figueroa St., downtown L.A. cryptoarena.com
SUNDAY Paul Jacobs The Grammy-winning organist performs Bach’s “The Art of Fugue.” 7:30 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer and the Von Trapp family in a scene from the 1965 film “The Sound of Music.”
(20th Century Fox)
The Sound of Music A 70mm screening of the 1965 Robert Wise-directed movie musical starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer that won five Oscars, including best picture. 3 p.m. Sunday. Academy Museum, David Geffen Theater, 6067 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. academymuseum.org
TUESDAY L.A. Phil Gala: Gustavo’s Fiesta Gustavo Dudamel conducts the orchestra in a few of his favorite things: De Falla’s “Three-Cornered Hat,” selections from Dvořák’s “New World” Symphony (featuring musicians from YOLA, Youth Orchestra Los Angeles), Beethoven’s Seventh, “Fairy Garden” from Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite and Revueltas’ “Night of Enchantment.” 7 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
THURSDAY Draw Them In, Paint Them Out Trenton Doyle Hancock confronts the work of painter Philip Guston in this dual exhibition that examines the role the artist plays in the pursuit of social justice. Noon-5 p.m. Tuesday–Friday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday–Sunday. Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. skirball.org
Yunchan Lim For his Disney Hall debut, the youngest-ever winner of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition performs Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” alongside “…Round and velvety-smooth blend…,” a new piece, written especially for the pianist, by Korean composer Hanurij Lee. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
San Cha, photographed in 2020, performs Thursday-Saturday at REDCAT.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
San Cha The L.A.-based composer, musician and performance artist presents “Inebria Me,” a new experimental opera that reimagines the melodrama of telenovelas through a queer, genre-bending lens as adapted from her 2019 album, “La Luz de la Esperanza.” In Spanish with English supertitles. Postshow Q&A with San Cha on Oct 17. 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct.18. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Bisserat Tseggai, Claudia Logan, Victoire Charles and Jordan Rice, clockwise from top left, of “Jaja’s African Hair Braiding.”
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Jaja’s African Hair Braiding Currently staging its L.A. premiere at Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum, “Jaja’s” is an uproarious workplace comedy that packs a serious political punch. I had the pleasure of interviewing four of the lead actors during a roundtable at a downtown rehearsal room a few days before the run started. The women talked about their love of the show and of the playwright, Jocelyn Bioh. They also discussed the country’s fraught political climate and how it’s laying waste to the idea of the American Dream — the one that has attracted immigrants seeking a better life for their families for hundreds of years. Their thoughts have a direct throughline to the show, which takes place on a single hot day at a West African salon in Harlem.
Times theater critic Charles McNulty caught the opening Sunday night and wrote a glowing review of the touring production, which he noted was “bursting with gossip, petty fights, audacious fashion, dazzling hair styles, full-body dancing and uncensored truth about the vulnerable lives of immigrant workers.”
Hammer biennial Made in L.A. 2025 has officially opened at UCLA’s Hammer Museum and I recently toured the highly anticipated seventh edition of the biennial exhibition in the company of curators Essence Harden and Paulina Pobocha. The pair told me interesting backstories about the 28 participating artists, including that the four large sculptures of doors made by Amanda Ross-Ho represent a door at the nursing home where her father lived.
Artist Alake Shilling stands in front of a 25-foot inflatable psychedelic bear driving a convertible titled “Buggy Bear Crashes Made in L.A,” at the Hammer Museum in Westwood.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
I also ate lunch with the charming and kind artist Alake Shilling, whose adorable sculptures of cuddly animals featuring melancholy faces are part of the show. I trailed Shilling as she watched a test inflation of a 25-foot sculpture titled “Buggy Bear Crashes Made in L.A.,” which will be on display on an outdoor pedestal on Wilshire Boulevard through March. I made this fun video with the help of video editor Mark Potts.
LACMA Gifts Big news keeps coming out of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which announced Wednesday that it had been gifted more than 100 works of Austrian Expressionism worth “well over” $60 million by the family of Otto Kallir, a renowned art dealer who immigrated to America in 1938 after the German Reich annexed Austria. The art will be transferred to the museum over the next several years and includes the museum’s first paintings by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Richard Gerstl. The exciting news comes two months after LACMA was gifted its first paintings by Vincent van Gogh and Édouard Manet by the Pearlman Foundation.
Best Friends Forever Finally, I got an update from the “satirical activist” artists with the Secret Handshake. They told me they had once again received a permit to reinstall their controversial Trump-Epstein statue (dubbed “Best Friends Forever”) on the National Mall. “Just like a toppled Confederate general forced back onto a public square, the Donald Trump Jeffrey Epstein statue has risen from the rubble to stand gloriously on the National Mall once again,” a rep for the Secret Handshake wrote in an email.
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“Arabesque over the Right Leg,Left Arm in Front,” by Edgar Degas
(Norton Simon Museum)
Norton Simon acquires sculpture The Pasadena museum announced the acquisition of a bronze sculpture by Edgar Degas titled “Arabesque over the Right Leg, Left Arm in Front.” The museum already holds more than 100 pieces by Degas in its collection, which is known as one of the largest public collection’s of the artist’s work in the world. “This significant acquisition, long sought after, completes a critical gap in the Museum’s renowned Degas collection,” a rep for the museum wrote in an email. The sculpture went on view in the museum’s 19th century wing late last week.
Mushroom Boat Ever heard of a boat made out of mushrooms? Neither had I until someone told me about an exhibition at Fulcrum Arts in Pasadena called, “Sam Shoemaker: Mushroom Boat.” As the title implies, the artist built a kayak out of mushroom mycelium. He then proceeded to use the unusual vessel to cross the Catalina Channel — a total of 26 nautical miles. He chronicled his journey the whole way, and the results of that work are on display alongside the boat. It includes large-scale projections, time-lapse videos, and soundscapes from his sometimes wild and turbulent journey.
Los Angeles Ballet dancers in pointe shoes stretch before beginning rehearsals in 2015.
(Los Angeles Times)
An anniversary for Los Angeles Ballet Los Angeles Ballet announced its 2025-26 season, which also happens to mark the company’s 20th anniversary, and its Music Center debut — “Giselle” at the Ahmanson Theatre in the spring. The season launches in December with LAB’s acclaimed annual presentation of “The Nutcracker” at Royce Hall and the Dolby Theatre. This season the company continues its residency at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, and is set to stage a triple-bill anniversary production, “20 Years of Los Angeles Ballet,” featuring George Balanchine’s “Rubies,” Hans van Manen’s “Frank Bridge Variations,” and a third new work by Artistic Director Melissa Barak, who assumed her position in 2022.
K.A.M.P. fundraiser The Hammer Museum is back this Sunday with its annual fundraiser — Kids Art Museum Project, better known as K.A.M.P. Tickets support the Hammer’s free year-round family programming. Each year, the museum shuts down on a Sunday and presents an art-filled wonderland for children and families, with interactive art stations created and helmed by participating L.A. artists, as well as a special reading room featuring well-known actors. This year’s readers will be actor Justine Lupe and baseball star Chris Taylor. Artists include Daniel Gibson, Sharon Johnston & Mark Lee, Annie Lapin, Ryan Preciado, Rob Reynolds, Jennifer Rochlin, Mindy Shapero, Brooklin A. Soumahoro and Christopher Suarez.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
Everybody, it seems, loves Cyndi Lauper. Readers have been going absolutely bananas for Times pop music critic Mikael Wood’s engaging profile on the iconic, red-haired pop star in advance of her induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
