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The Santa Ana City Council unanimously approved an ordinance last night requiring retail stores to staff self-checkout lanes in efforts to improve public safety and address theft.
: The approved ordinance requires that retail stores staff at least one employee to monitor self-checkout lanes. Shoppers will be limited to 15 items or fewer, and they would not be able to purchase items that require I.D. , like alcohol. : Mayor Valerie Amezcua said the ordinance is an attempt at protecting shoppers and employees, not at driving businesses out of Santa Ana.
“Similar to Costa Mesa and Long Beach, where we look at the employees and what benefits them,” Amezcua said, “I want to make sure our Santa Ana residents go home safely, and they don’t put themselves in danger because, again, the quality of their lives matter to me. ”“Unfortunately, we would be forced to consider passage of this ordinance at this time a dismissal of the importance of grocery and a denial of policy consideration in a fair and open manner,” Tim James, director of local government relations for the California Grocers Association, wrote.explores the weird and secret bits of SoCal that would excite even the most jaded Angelenos.
He also covers mental health. A new art exhibition from L.A.
's own Gary Baseman is breathing life into the mid-century, Googie architecture of Johnie’s Coffee Shop at the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax. “Off the Menu: Dining and Drawing in LA” features work drawn directly on menus from 40 different local staples, including Musso and Frank’s and Genghis Cohen, and of course, Canter's.his iconic cat illustrations and whimsical characters that have shown up in the New York Times, Disney animation and plenty of toys.
His L.A. food institution roots go deep: He grew up in the Fairfax district and his mom worked in the bakery at the legendary Canter’s Deli for 35 years.
“There’s a sense of community and comfort by being in these places,” Baseman told LAist. “This show is all about my love and celebration of L.A. dining culture. ”A new art exhibition is breathing life into the mid-century, Googie architecture of Johnie’s Coffee Shop at the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue.his iconic cat illustrations and whimsical characters that have shown up in the New York Times, Disney animation and plenty of toys.
His L.A. food institution roots go deep: he grew up in the Fairfax district and his mom worked in the bakery at the legendary Canter’s Deli for 35 years.
“Off the Menu: Dining and Drawing in LA” features work drawn directly on menus from 40 different local staples, including Musso and Frank’s and Genghis Cohen, and of course, Canter's. “There’s a sense of community and comfort by being in these places,” Baseman told LAist. “This show is all about my love and celebration of L.A. dining culture. ” Baseman said the idea for the exhibition can be traced back to his time traveling around the world.
At many of his dining stops around the globe, he would... borrow... menus and begin sketching scenes in his cartoon-like style.
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t give them back to the waiter and I would actually start drawing on the menu itself... It was a way of giving them immortality through the body of work,” Baseman said. Baseman said he loved the idea of opening Johnie’s up again for people to see. He called the location the perfect place for a show like this, which takes visitors on what he calls a “dream reality” tour of L.A.
’s food institutions through sketches and drawings. Designed by the firm Armet and Davis, Johnie’s Coffee Shop occupied the building from 1966 to 2000, when it closed down,Johnie’s hasn’t been completely dormant over the past decade though . Under the guidance of the Community Solidarity Project, a mutual aid nonprofit with a longstanding footprint in Mid-Wilshire, the building served as a campaign center for Bernie Sanders, a mutual aid distribution hub, a filming location with student filmmakers and more.
Now it’ll house Baseman’s first solo show in L.A. since 2013’s “The Door is Always Open” at the Skirball Center. The launch of “Off the Menu” was purposefully timed to coincide with the “Off the Menu” kicks off at Johnie’s on Friday, May 8, with a Metro D Line celebration from 3 to 6 p.m.Published May 6, 2026 12:30 PM Boyle Heights is turning the World Cup into a neighborhood celebration with a free block party next month aimed at supporting local businesses and bringing residents together along the 1st Street corridor.
Boyle Heights is turning the World Cup into a neighborhood celebration with a free block party next month aimed at supporting local businesses and bringing residents together along the 1st Street corridor. The celebration will take place from 5 to 10 p.m. June 18 to mark the Mexico vs. South Korea match. The block party is expected to close 1st Street between Vicente Fernandez and State streets. A large LED screen will be set up near Eastside Luv.
Metro, along with Angel City Football Club, will activate the Mariachi Plaza station as a “welcoming platform” with screens showing highlights of the match. Miriam Rodriguez, president of the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce said the event aims to boost local businesses facing economic strain tied to the recent federal immigration raids. Many of the businesses along the corridor will be participating, including Espacio 1839, Street Tacos and Grill, Tenampal, Casa Fina, Birrieria Don Boni, SuperNova Thrift and Distrito Catorce.
Some may offer food and merchandise outdoors or host DJs similar to past CicLAvia events in Boyle Heights. Boyle Heights is turning the World Cup into a neighborhood celebration with a free block party next month aimed at supporting local businesses and bringing residents together along the 1st Street corridor.
“There’s a lot of focus on tourism and trying to make LA suitable for people to visit us, but at the end of the day, it’s our business members, our community members, who are here day to day, and they deserve to have a safe space to watch the game,” said Miriam Rodriguez, president of the Boyle Heights Chamber of Commerce. The block party is expected to close 1st Street between Vicente Fernandez and State streets.
A large LED screen will be set up near Eastside Luv. Metro, along with Angel City Football Club, will activate the Mariachi Plaza station as a “welcoming platform” with screens showing highlights of the match, Rodriguez said. A music lineup is in the works and other details are still being finalized, Rodriguez said. Las Fotos Project, JD Sports, Neighborhood Music Schools, and the Angel City Football Club supporter group, known as PodeRosas, are among the participating organizations.
Rodriguez said the event aims to boost local businesses facing economic strain tied to the recent federal immigration raids.
“Soccer brings unity,” Rodriguez said. “We want to … let our community know that even in hard times we’re still here for our businesses. ”LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown L.A. will host Casa Mexico Los Angeles 2026, a five-week community-centered celebration of soccer and culture. The event will feature free public programs, including live match viewing parties, music, gastronomy, exhibitions and more.
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. A normally sleepy school board race in northeast Long Beach has gotten an unexpected injection of partisan politics and campaign spending this year. , she has often won re-election without facing a challenger.
This year, though, it’s a three-way race among Craighead, grassroots organizer Sara Pol-Lim and charter school teacher Maureen Flaherty. Flaherty’s presence in particular, and her association with a national conservative group Moms for Liberty, has raised the stakes and spurred powerful players in Long Beach education to try to influence the outcome.
The Teachers Association of Long Beach, the union that represents thousands of certificated employees in the district, has thrown its weight behind Craighead — some members motivated less by Craighead’s platform than by fear of a win for Flaherty. A normally sleepy school board race in northeast Long Beach has gotten an unexpected injection of partisan politics and campaign spending this year. , she has often won re-election without facing a challenger.
This year, though, it’s a three-way race among Craighead, grassroots organizer Sara Pol-Lim and charter school teacher Maureen Flaherty. Flaherty’s presence in particular, and her association with a national conservative group Moms for Liberty, has raised the stakes and spurred powerful players in Long Beach education to try to influence the outcome. Flaherty has advocated for vaccine choice rather than mandates, barring trans girls from girls’ sports and curriculum that “educate, not indoctrinate.
” She also wants parents to have more control over the types of books students have access to in school. She has collected endorsements from a litany of conservative politicians, including gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco, the current sheriff of Riverside County. Her ties with Moms for Liberty, an organization that has advocated for book censorship and against curriculum on critical race theory and LGBTQ rights, have spurred LBUSD teachers to organize against her.
The Teachers Association of Long Beach, the union that represents thousands of certificated employees in the district, has thrown its weight behind Craighead — some members motivated less by Craighead’s platform than by fear of a win for Flaherty. Chris Callopy, executive director of TALB, lived and taught in Orange Unified in the 1990s and 2000s when voters elected andAt a union meeting last month, Callopy warned his membership that a similar school board takeover in Long Beach could threaten their civil rights and protections as teachers — especially for members of the LGBTQ community.
“This is crisis mode,” Callopy said, “Pay attention and get involved. ” In response, TALB has endorsed Craighead and so far used about $45,000 in political action committee funding to support her campaign — including through mailers, opposition research, door-knocking and even an attack ad against Flaherty that claims she is “Too MAGA for school board” and “Wrong for our kids. ”“They’re attacking me without knowing my real positions,” she said, adding, “I’m not one thing. I have multiple beliefs.
” She clarified that she wants all students to thrive and feel they belong in school and that she voted for gay rights in the past. She’s been critical of teachers unions, saying they protect lazy educators. Flaherty said TALB’s campaign against her shows they’re afraid she has a real shot, even with Long Beach’s.
“They’re obviously worried that I have a chance of winning or they wouldn’t be doing that,” she said. Craighead has championed a model of governance that aims to boost student performance and close equity gaps — focusing on the performance of Black students in particular. Though outcomes have lagged, Craighead has vowed to “stay the course” in the hopes that more significant improvements are on the horizon.
She supports, and voted for, the district’s equity policy and inclusion of the district’s immigrant community. Pol-Lim, who arrived in California as a Cambodian refugee in 1983, said she jumped into the race relatively late for pragmatic reasons. She decided she couldn’t “afford to just be a bystander anymore” when she learned about the district’sand declining enrollment. She has advocated for a proactive approach to balancing the district’s budget by seeking alternative funding sources.
And she says promoting student and teacher belonging could be keys to boosting both retention and outcomes, she said. Pol-Lim has raised more than $19,000 for her campaign, primarily small monetary donations from individuals and organizations across the city, she said, as well as a loan to herself and about $3,000 in in-kind donations. Flaherty has raised less than $2,000 in total.
And Craighead’s campaign has amassed more than $50,000, mostly in donations and in-kind support from TALB as well as some direct donations. She’s also accumulated endorsements from Long Beach’s largely liberal political establishment, including Mayor Rex Richardson, Rep. Robert Garcia, State Sen. Lena Gonzalez and Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Wednesday said safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz would be provided, under unspecified procedures, after President Trumpthat the war would end once an agreement was reached with Iran, but he warned that U.S. bombing would resume if not. The Strait of Hormuz — an important passageway for oil, fertilizer and other goods — has been effectively closed since the U.S. and Israel launched their attack on Iran on Feb. 28, disrupting global energy supplies and pushing up fuel prices.
Iran has attacked commercial ships that want to transit the strait without its approval. The U.S. has imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports since mid-April.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Wednesday said safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz would be provided, under unspecified procedures, after President Trump"With the end of the aggressors' threats and in light of new procedures, safe and sustainable transit through the strait will be facilitated," the Revolutionary Guard's navy commandThe Strait of Hormuz — an important passageway for oil, fertilizer and other goods — has been effectively closed since the U.S. and Israel launched their attack on Iran on Feb. 28, disrupting global energy supplies and pushing up fuel prices. Iran has attacked commercial ships that want to transit the strait without its approval.
The U.S. has imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports since mid-April.that the war would end once an agreement was reached with Iran, but he warned that U.S. bombing would resume if not.
"Assuming Iran agrees to give what has been agreed to, which is, perhaps, a big assumption, the already legendary Epic Fury will be at an end, and the highly effective Blockade will allow the Hormuz Strait to be OPEN TO ALL, including Iran," Trump said. "If they don't agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before.
""The American plan and proposal is still being reviewed by Iran, and after summing up its points of view, Iran will convey its views to the Pakistani side," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaeion Wednesday, referring to mediating country Pakistan that has relayed messages and hosted talks between Iran and the U.S. NPR has not confirmed the details of the proposal.
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