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The “No Kings” protest movement is planning a third national day of action this Saturday in response to the war in Iran and continued immigration enforcement.More than 50 events are taking place in the L.
A. metro area alone, with the largest planned in downtown Los Angeles, where over 100,000 people are expected to attend, according to organizers.The “No Kings” protest movement is planning a third national day of action this Saturday in response to the war in Iran and continued immigration enforcement. More than 50 events are taking place in the L.A. metro area alone, with the largest planned in downtown Los Angeles, where over 100,000 people are expected to attend, according to organizers. “Many of the organizations that have coordinated with us are sending feeder marches or caravans to attend the rally in downtown L.A.,” said Nick Miller, a press coordinator for 50501 SoCal, which is part of the No Kings coalition. During the first No Kings protest in June, thousands in downtown Los Angeles marched in the largely peaceful protest before theFor this Saturday, an LAPD spokesperson told LAist the department is prepared for the event and"have sufficient resources to respond.”“If you are participating in a demonstration, please abide by all traffic laws. Criminal activity and violence will not be tolerated,” said Jordan McGinleywith the Long Beach Police Department.Santa Clarita:California lawmakers voted Thursday to rename César Chavez Day as Farmworkers Day in an effort to reconcile the Latino labor icon’s legacy with explosive sexual abuse allegations before the state holiday on March 31.The change comes after allegations became public last week that Chavez had sexually abused girls and women during his days building a major farmworker labor rights movement in the 1960s in California. California was the first state to designate Chavez’s birthday, March 31, as a holiday to honor the civil rights leader nearly 30 years ago. The Legislature then, in 2000, passed a bill to make it an official paid day off for state employees and require that students learn about his legacy and his role in the labor movement in California.The California bill passed in the Assembly with bipartisan support on Monday and is now before the Senate. Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to quickly sign the bill. Day as Farmworkers Day in an effort to reconcile the Latino labor icon’s legacy with explosive sexual abuse allegations before the state holiday on March 31. during his days building a major farmworker labor rights movement in the 1960s in California’s agricultural heartland. Among those who accused him was . The swift and sweeping effort to erase Chavez’s name from public life was previously unthinkable, as his status had only grown more iconic since his death in 1993. California was the first state to designate Chavez’s birthday, March 31, as a holiday to honor the civil rights leader nearly 30 years ago. The Legislature then, in 2000, passed a bill to make it an official paid day off for state employees and require that students learn about his legacy and his role in the labor movement in California. The California bill passed in the Assembly with bipartisan support on Monday and is now before the Senate. “We cannot ignore wrongdoing and we should not continue to celebrate a single person when the movement itself is so much bigger,” Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry said before the vote Monday. Republican Assemblymember Alexandra Macedo said the change is about honoring workers and their families. “This isn’t just about a date on a calendar or a name on a building,” Macedo said. “It is about the hands that feed this nation. It is about the men and women who are in the orchards, in the fields, before the sun even touches the horizon, and who are still there long after it sets.” Since the allegations came to light, California State University, Fresno, has covered up Chavez’s statue on campus, while cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Sacramento have taken steps to erase his name from public landmarks. Some advocated for Huerta’s name to replace Chavez’s, and several states already said they won’t observe the day. Senate Pro Tempore President Monique Limon said honoring farmworkers is especially important in the face of a series of federal raids across the state last year. A worker in her district “His death is a reminder of how much farmworkers risk every day to put food on our table,” she said before the vote. “Our farmworkers remind us that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect.” Republican Sen. Suzette Valladares said her family built a life in California by working the fields and that the movement brought immigrants from different backgrounds together. “This is not about one person. This is not about one narrative,” she said. “It’s about honoring generations of sacrifice, of resilience and hope.”The Chocolate Dispensary in Echo Park — part chocolate bar seller, part tasting room, part cafe, stocks more than 1,000 chocolate products — making it, according to co-owner Kala Maxym, the only store of its type in the U.S.Because the chocolate market has exploded over the past few decades, with more and more makers cropping up in the U.S. and across the world. If you're chocolate-curious, this is the place to go.In a world that's increasingly complex and concerning, wandering into a store with a single focus — like chocolate — acts as a precious oasis.Is it a dream? You walk into a store and are greeted with hundreds and hundreds of gorgeously designed high end chocolate bars and other offerings. Shelf after shelf, row after row. And yet, astonishingly, it is real. The Chocolate Dispensary in Echo Park — part craft chocolate bar seller, part tasting room, part café — stocks over 1,000 chocolate products, from more than 100 chocolate makers across the world. That variety, according to co-owner Kala Maxym, makes it not only unique in L.A., but also, one of a precious few in the U.S. .On a recent visit to the store, which opened in December 2024, my husband and I quickly found our senses overloaded. Where to turn first? Rather than just organized by traditional"dark" or"milk" chocolate sections, the store uses quirkier categories:"hard core" , '"vegan," ,"$12 and under," and"weird," among others. But the key, Maxym says, is to actually taste the chocolate, not just peruse the labels. She says she conceived of the store from the beginning as akin to a tasting room in a winery, "a place that you could come in, and you didn't just buy it off a shelf and walk out, you could actually engage with it."The genesis of the place came when Maxym, who had previously been an opera singer but had pivoted into wine and cheese tastings, was working at Silverlake Wine. And she thought “why isn’t there anything like this for chocolate?” That idea grew until one night she and her husband Dale Roy Robinson felt the entire project download on high from some creative cosmos when out to dinner.She still has the original notes on her phone, she says."We wrote a business plan in about two weeks, and we opened nine months later," offering their vast selection of craft chocolate that's also ethically made and sustainably sourced.Maxym says the store has been successful from the beginning, and that it goes deeper than simply stocking excellent chocolate. The store seems to be a respite. Customers tell her"as horrible things in the world ebb and flow, we're an oasis for when they can't handle life right now." She's developed strong relationships with chocolate makers around the world, speaking with as many as possible to ensure transparent sourcing. Not to mention trips to countries like France and Italy where she and Robinson spend much of their days tasting top-of-the-line chocolate to bring home. To help us through our paralyzing indecision, she proffered us a tasting flight: $10 for 10 bites. Genius. We carefully split each square in half, oohing and aahing as we found our favorites , and stared at each other quizzically as we found a few which weren’t quite to our taste . To end our visit, she suggested we try one of the many options of hot chocolate. I took it, I sipped, I moaned with pleasure. It was French-style, unctuous and thick, and not too sweet. She said she makes it with a 100 percent cocoa powder, salt, vanilla, and dark chocolate disks, which gives it the richness.If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.Californians have a constitutional right to government records, but a lawmaker’s plan would allow higher fees to get them. She says it aims to discourage filers who abuse the system., a Downey Democrat, would also allow the charge if government workers spend more than 10 hours within a month looking for documents requested by the same person. The proposal would apply to most people, with exemptions for journalists and educational or scientific institutions.that fulfilling extensive, sometimes duplicative records requests can be so time-consuming that it distracts government staff from other vital tasks, such as performing health insurance eligibility checks, responding to homeless encampments or conducting elections.A California state lawmaker wants to let public agencies charge an unspecified, uncapped fee if it takes their workers more than two hours to search for records to fulfill a public records request. The proposal is raising concerns among transparency advocates that the fees could deter Californians from accessing records they are constitutionally entitled to., a Downey Democrat, would also allow the charge if government workers spend more than 10 hours within a month looking for documents requested by the same person. The proposal would apply to most people, with exemptions for journalists and educational or scientific institutions. In a statement responding to CalMatters’ questions, Pacheco said public agencies have had to spend substantial time responding to a spike in the volume and scope of records requests. “This bill is intended to address a narrow set of high-cost, resource-intensive requests that can delay agencies’ ability to respond to other records requests,” she said. “The goal is to ensure that agencies can continue to respond to all requests in a timely manner.”that fulfilling extensive, sometimes duplicative records requests can be so time-consuming that it distracts government staff from other vital tasks, such as performing health insurance eligibility checks, responding to homeless encampments or conducting elections. “The growing volume and complexity of requests creates real challenges for local governments — straining limited public resources,” said Ben Adler, spokesperson for the California State Association of Counties, which has not taken an official stance on the bill.Pacheco said in her statement that one person submitted more than 100 records requests in the city of Fontana and stated that their goal was to disrupt city operations, resulting in more than $300,000 in legal and staffing costs. Another request received in Chula Vista, she said, could require 150 to 300 staff hours to fulfill. “Requests of this size consume a disproportionate share of public resources and delay agencies’ ability to respond to other requests.”But agencies already try to charge astronomical fees for public records, which has a chilling effect on the public’s right to know because “for most people … $100 is going to be too much,” said David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition. Applying the charge to most Californians threatens their constitutional right to government information, Snyder said. “The California Constitution says that it’s a fundamental … right of everybody in this state to obtain records from their public agencies,” he said. “The underlying principle is that the government’s records are the people’s records. The government serves the people; not the other way around.” State law allows public agencies to charge fees for making copies of public records but not for the time spent searching, reviewing or redacting them., the California Supreme Court concluded that governments cannot charge for search and redaction and said such costs would undermine Californians’ right to access. “Just as agencies cannot recover the costs of searching through a filing cabinet for paper records, they cannot recover comparable costs for electronic records,” the ruling said. “Even if higher costs to the agency mean slower disclosure rates or greater inconvenience to the requester, these burdens on access are insignificant if the alternative is no access at all.”, for example, adopted an ordinance in January 2021 to charge $25 an hour for staff to find, review and redact records. A year later,bill. Both counties only repealed their ordinances after drawing widespread criticism and litigation threats from journalists and First Amendment advocates.The measure would require the rates agencies charge for records searches to be “reasonable.” But without a dollar amount cap, that guardrail is meaningless, Snyder said. “If it’s a large volume of body cam footage, that could be many, many, many hours of review time,” he said. “And if agencies are charging hourly, let’s say $100 an hour, you can see how those numbers can go up really fast.” The proposal also doesn’t say who would determine what is a reasonable amount of time necessary to search and review records, which could further empower public agencies to justify expensive fees, Snyder said. “It leaves an enormous range of variables up to agency discretion,” he said. “Many agencies unfortunately behave in a way that suggests that their goal is to not produce the records asked for.” The measure would additionally give agencies more time to respond to and fulfill requests: While state law requires agencies to tell the requestor what’s disclosable within 10 calendar days and allows them to extend that deadline by no more than 14 calendar days, Pacheco’s measure would prolong those periods to 10 and 14 business days, respectively. Pacheco said she will amend the bill to ensure it is “narrowly tailored” to establish “appropriate thresholds” for charging for public records, although she did not elaborate on what those thresholds would be. Pacheco has pushed for several measures to limit disclosure requirements in recent years, including a law last year that made it easier forCouncilmember Ysabel Jurado has launched a cash assistance program for small businesses in Council District 14 to help cover up to $3,000 in expenses, including employee payroll, rent and utilities.To qualify for Jurado’s Microenterprise Grant Program, businesses must demonstrate financial need, be located in CD14, have five or fewer employees and generate $1 million or less in annual revenue.Grants will be awarded to eligible businesses that create or retain jobs in the city and priority will be given to those that have not received financial assistance through city, state, or federal programs.Councilmember Ysabel Jurado has launched a cash assistance program for small businesses in Council District 14 to help cover up to $3,000 in expenses, including employee payroll, rent and utilities. To qualify for Jurado’s Microenterprise Grant Program, businesses must demonstrate financial need, be located in CD14, have five or fewer employees and generate $1 million or less in annual revenue. Grants will be awarded to eligible businesses that create or retain jobs in the city and priority will be given to those that have not received financial assistance through city, state, or federal programs. The program will also prioritize businesses located inThe program is funded by the Community Development Block Grant Program administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development . The program provides grants to states, cities, and counties to “develop viable urban communities by providing decent housing and a suitable living environment, and by expanding economic opportunities, principally for low- and moderate-income persons,” according to the
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