Topline:
A ping pong hustler for the ages, a Neil Diamond interpreter for the '80s, choral music both comic and spiritual, plus tormented teens, twisted families, and a giant snake on the loose. It's quite the jolly holiday at your local cineplex.
What else: They join a new Avatar sequel, a Bradley Cooper-directed drama, and more in theaters.
Keep reading... for more on the choices and some trailers.
A ping pong hustler for the ages, a Neil Diamond interpreter for the '80s, choral music both comic and spiritual, plus tormented teens, twisted families, and a giant snake on the loose. It's quite the jolly holiday at your local cineplex.
They join a new Avatar sequel, a Bradley Cooper-directed drama, and more in theaters.
In theaters Thursday
I feel as if I should tell you to speed-read this review, preferably with Fats Domino's "The Fat Man" blaring in your ear. Josh Safdie's adrenaline-fueled, screwball comedy about a table tennis hustler who dreams of world domination — in a sport that hasn't registered yet with the American public — is a mesmerizing cinematic tour de force. Timothée Chalamet plays Marty Mauser (loosely based on real-life 1940s and '50s U.S. ping pong champ and petty criminal Marty Reisman), graduating from determined kid-with-a-passion to aggrieved also-ran-in-full-melt-down mode, attracting and then alienating everyone he comes across. We meet him as a New York shoe salesman having storeroom trysts with his married childhood sweetheart (Odessa A'zion) and prepping for a bout in England for which he can't even afford plane fare.
Marty establishes with a series of heists and scams that he's got no problem cheating or stealing to get there, then regales the press with a pugnacious racist routine that lands him on front pages before his first serve. Chalamet's live-wire approach is neatly countered by a serenely sensual turn by Gwyneth Paltrow as an aging movie star who finds Marty amusing and alarming in about equal measure. And the film's just getting started at that point, careening towards a championship in Japan with the propulsive, harrowing, rush-to-judgment feel of Safdie's Uncut Gems mixed up with dizzying comedy. It's a thrill ride, pure and simple. — Bob Mondello
In theaters Thursday
Mike and Claire Sardina, the real-life, blue-collar Milwaukee couple who formed a Neil Diamond tribute act in the 1980s, get the sequin-and-spangle treatment in this Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson love-fest. Writer and director Craig Brewer keeps the music central and the sentiment tolerable as the couple meets cute, bonds quick, and forms a musical act known professionally as Lightning and Thunder. The stars are well-matched and appealing — Hudson does a winning Patsy Cline impersonation, and Jackman completely nails Neil Diamond's sound and bearing. The couple's story, which has more downs than ups, doesn't quite match the mood of a movie determined to be ever-and-always-up. Still, the stars are engaging, the supporting cast great fun, and the music rousing. — Bob Mondello
In theaters Thursday
The original Anaconda movie came out almost 30 years ago, sending an assortment of '90s movie stars down the Amazon, where they were menaced and occasionally crushed and/or devoured by giant deadly snakes. That film, starring Jennifer Lopez and Ice Cube, was a hit that spawned a handful of lightly regarded sequels.
Heavy on meta references to the original film, the new Anaconda is not quite a reboot, it's not quite a sequel, and it's played for laughs. Jack Black and Paul Rudd star as lifelong friends who grew up wanting to be filmmakers. But they've followed different career paths — Paul Rudd's character is a struggling actor whose biggest role was a bit part on the TV show S.W.A.T., while Jack Black's character makes wedding videos while yearning to shoot something more creative. They gather their old friends and collaborators — played by Thandiwe Newton and Steve Zahn — and head to the Amazon to shoot a meta reimagining of Anaconda. As you can imagine, this proves harder than it sounds. — Stephen Thompson
In limited theaters Wednesday
The first image is an eerie, underwater shot — sun-dappled blues, greens, and greys — its peace suddenly exploded as bodies plunge into the pool. Middle school boys, limbs all akimbo, almost literally at sea, as they struggle for equilibrium. It's an apt beginning for the story of a youngster trying to figure out where he fits in among the cliques at a summer water polo camp. Ben (Everett Blunck) is the camp newbie, Jake (Kayo Martin) its smirking cool kid who picks up on his fellow campers' idiosyncrasies and exploits them.
He tells Ben that Eli (Kenny Rasmussen), a withdrawn boy with a rash, has the "plague" and must be avoided. Ben, seeing the obvious pain the outcast is in, can't square that with his own sense of decency, but also doesn't want to be ostracized, and his attempt to split the difference leads the film into Lord of the Flies territory. Charlie Polinger's directorial debut looks breathtaking, feels unnerving, and traffics cleverly in body-horror tropes as it basically establishes that 12-year-old boys are savages who should never be without adult supervision. — Bob Mondello
In limited theaters Wednesday
You might expect Jim Jarmusch to look at family relationships with a certain eccentricity, but not necessarily in the elegantly framed way he does in this triptych about adult children and the parents they don't begin to understand. The Father segment casts Adam Driver and Mayim Bialik as siblings who are stiff with each other, and even less comfortable with their garrulous con man of a dad (Tom Waits). Driver's come with provisions and cash, Bialik's come armed with an arched eyebrow, and Waits is ready for them both.
The second part, Mother, finds a sublimely chilly Charlotte Rampling hosting an awkward once-a-year tea for her daughters, one primly nervous (Cate Blanchett), the other pink-haired and boisterous (Vicky Krieps). And the final third, Sister Brother, finds Indya Moore and Luka Sabbat bonding in their recently deceased parents' now-empty Paris apartment. This segment seems less about estrangement, until you realize how little they actually know about their dear departed folks. There are running jokes about Rolexes, the expression "Bob's your uncle," and toasts to tie things together, along with a sweet, reflective tone that makes this one of the year's most compassionate films. — Bob Mondello
In limited theaters Thursday
Director Nicholas Hytner and screenwriter Alan Bennett, who previously teamed up on The Madness of King George, The History Boys, and The Lady in the Van, are plumbing shallower depths in this gentle dramedy about an amateur chorus in 1916. When their choirmaster leaves to fight in World War I, grieving mill owner Roger Allam, who funds the chorus, reluctantly hires Dr. Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes), a gifted choirmaster but a divisive choice in this intensely nationalistic moment — because he's spent the last few years in Germany. He also exhibits "peculiarities" (code for being gay) but this seems less important to the locals.
Fiennes is briskly dismissive of local traditions, snippy about English appreciation for the arts, and celebrated enough in music circles to persuade composer Edward Elgar (Simon Russell Beale) to let them perform his oratorio "The Dream of Gerontius." Elgar is less thrilled when he discovers the chorus is turning the oratorio into a story about the war, casting its elderly hero as a young soldier and generally making it what later generations would call "relevant." It's all sweet and sentimental, and though it's being released during awards seasons, feels as if it really wants to be considered for best picture of 1933. — Bob Mondello
In select theaters Thursday
"I've got it all," says paper factory supervisor Man-su as he hugs his family at a barbecue in the backyard of his elegant Korean home. He's grilling some eels given to him by the paper company's new American owners, secure in the knowledge that this must mean they value him. This being a social satire by director Park Chan-wook, it's reasonable to expect he will shortly be dealt a blow, and one day later, he's been axed. (The film is based on Donald E. Westlake's 1997 horror-thriller novel The Ax). He's distraught but can't express, or even really understand, that he feels he has lost his manhood, his mojo, and his reason for being.
On top of that, his industry is consolidating, so finding another job before his severance pay runs out and he loses his house (his childhood home) will be tricky. Asked if he'd consider a job outside the paper industry, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) says that for him there is "no other choice," echoing the words his American bosses uttered about bringing down costs as they did layoffs. But with the end of severance payments looming, he hatches a plan to knock off his job market competition one by one. Isn't this mass murder? Well, he has "no other choice."
At first it seems as if we're in serial-killer comedy territory, but the filmmaker widens the frame to include narrative side trips — a stepson who's stealing cellphones, a daughter who's a cello prodigy, a wife who's working for a dentist that Man-su suspects has designs on her. Oh, and pig-farm trauma from his youth, and a passion for greenhouse gardening. Director Park has a lot going on, and a final paper-plant-mechanization sequence suggests that all these stabs at human agency may just have been humanity's last gasp. — Bob Mondello
In limited theaters Thursday
Ambitious, stylized, intense, and thoroughly unorthodox, Mona Fastvold's religious biopic tells the story of Shakers founder Ann Lee (a wild-eyed, fiercely committed Amanda Seyfried) as a full-scale musical drama. That's not to say there are finger-snapping tunes. The score adapts 18th century Shaker spirituals, and the choreography involves the thrusting limbs and clawing fingers of the seizure-like dancing that earned this puritan sect of "Shaking" Quakers their nickname.
We meet Ann as a pious youngster more interested in spiritual matters than matters of the flesh. Marriage to a man who enjoys inflicting pain during sex, and the deaths of her four children in infancy lead Ann to the conclusion that lifelong celibacy is among the keys to salvation. With the help of her younger brother (Lewis Pullman), she finds adherents to a religious philosophy that also emphasizes gender equality and simple living, and leads them to found a utopian, crafts-based community in America. Director Fastvold and her co-writer Brady Corbet (the couple flipped roles from last year's The Brutalist) serve up Ann's spiritual journey in ecstatically musical terms, which is at once distancing and … well, ecstatic, though it pales a bit over the course of two-and-a-quarter hours. — Bob Mondello
Copyright 2025 NPR
Topline:
Diablo Canyon is California’s last operating nuclear power plant. Just years ago, the plant was slated to close, and employees worked to decommission it, until a 2022 about-face by Gov. Gavin Newsom led the state to extend its operations to 2030. Now lawmakers in Sacramento are talking about allowing it to operate even longer, potentially to 2045.
What do those who oppose the plant say? Local groups, some of whom have protested the plant since its construction, are banging the drum ever louder about their concerns for safety or a catastrophic meltdown, as well as the danger posed by spent nuclear waste at a site near several seismic fault lines.
What about academics? Academics are furiously analyzing how much keeping Diablo Canyon open would cost and if it would support or hinder the state’s clean energy transition. And business groups are lining up in support.
Read on ... for a rare look inside the last operating nuclear power plant in the state.
The most striking view off one of San Luis Obispo County’s winding coastal roads is not the lashing ocean waves of the Pacific Ocean or cows plodding out from the shade of a California live oak tree.
It is two enormous concrete domes that come into focus along a final climb that began 7 miles back at Avila Beach. The land sinks away, and what looks like a small town emerges, showcased in a palette of grays, whites and terracotta.
This is Diablo Canyon, California’s last operating nuclear power plant.
Just years ago, the plant was slated to close, and employees worked to decommission it, until a 2022 about-face by Gov. Gavin Newsom led the state to extend its operations to 2030. Now lawmakers in Sacramento are talking about allowing it to operate even longer, potentially to 2045.
But local groups, some of whom have protested the plant since its construction, are banging the drum ever louder about their concerns for safety or a catastrophic meltdown, as well as the danger posed by spent nuclear waste at a site near several seismic fault lines.
Meanwhile, academics are furiously analyzing how much keeping Diablo Canyon open would cost and if it would support or hinder the state’s clean energy transition. And business groups are lining up in support.
So when PG&E offered press tours earlier this year, KQED accepted. The nuclear power plant has not garnered this much attention in years, but now, once again, all eyes are on Diablo Canyon. What does it look like inside?
PG&E’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant tour started on a boat in a protected marina just south of the reactors. This, and another cove just outside the breakwaters, are the site of a key piece of the plant’s cooling system — and a major concern for environmentalists, who argue it hoovers up and kills marine life and have called it “the most destructive facility” along California’s coast.
Dipping a hand in Diablo Cove, the water is lukewarm, not the frosty standard for the ocean in these parts.
That’s because Diablo Canyon draws 2 billion3-2.5 billion gallons of ocean water daily — enough to fill more than 3,000 Olympic-size swimming pools — into the plant to cool equipment, and discharges the water back into the ocean typically 16 to 17 degrees hotter.
The warmer water makes it feel as if a chunk of Southern California’s coast has been lobbed off and transferred north.
Out on the water, there was a hotbed of animal activity: a floating sea otter and chubby seals sunning themselves on rocks.
There were other species too — sea bass, stingrays, and California’s state fish, the garibaldi, which typically live farther south along California’s coast, but have moved here.
Diablo Canyon staff said the warm water leads to essentially no change to the environment. Because fishing and other activities are not allowed within 2,000 yards of the plant, it’s a “de facto marine sanctuary,” said Tom Jones, a senior director in charge of future planning for Diablo Canyon.
But the California Coastal Commission, the state agency tasked with protecting the coastline and its natural resources, reported in 2025 that the plant’s cooling system kills almost two billion larval fish annually, plus other organisms that aren’t measured.
While adult populations may be abundant in Diablo Cove, the commission wrote that adults often appear far from where they spawn, and their presence here may be the result of productive marine habitats nearby.
The commission also warned that removing eggs and larvae near Diablo Canyon leads to “a significant reduction” of species dozens of miles from the plant.
“These planktonic organisms,” wrote the commission, “constitute the base of the food web in California’s coastal waters.”
We donned hard hats and safety equipment and passed through heavy security to enter the “protected area,” which consists of spaces closer to the nuclear reactors.
We entered the turbine deck, an industrial building the size of two-and-a-half football fields. It was hot and loud on the deck, with a slight vibration underfoot.
The steam-driven turbine inside is an enormous semi-cylinder that looks like a horizontal steel pipe cut in half, and spins a generator to produce electricity.
The PG&E guide pointed out the window at a containment dome, where uranium atoms are split apart, releasing huge amounts of heat.
A cascade of effects follows: the heat warms water and creates steam, the steam travels through pipes to turn the turbine, the turbine connects to a generator, which makes electricity that’s then sent across the grid and delivered to about three million Californians.
Nuclear generates nearly 9% of the state’s energy supply, part of an energy mix that includes gas, hydroelectric, solar, wind, geothermal and even small amounts of coal.
While California’s demand for electricity has been flat for years, it’s now growing with the adoption of electric vehicles, people swapping gas appliances for electric ones, and data centers.
The debate to keep Diablo Canyon open is spurred, in part, by this uptick in demand. Maureen Zawalick, senior vice president and chief risk officer at PG&E, said stepping into the turbine deck reminds her of the end uses of all this power: “safety in hospitals, kidney dialysis, stop lights and everything else.”
California is walking its economy across a tightrope.
The state’s growth in the 20th century was built on a foundation of fossil fuels, but leaders see its future as being powered by the buildout of renewables like solar and wind, along with batteries to store excess power.
When heat waves strained California’s power grid and caused rolling blackouts in 2020, state lawmakers and Newsom voted to extend Diablo Canyon’s operation.
Now, as electricity bills continue to rise and demand is forecast to grow, proponents argue that keeping the plant open even longer can help California wobble across the precarious middle of the tightrope.
We shed our safety gear and headed to the training building, with classrooms and an exact replica of the control room, called the simulator.
It was cool and quiet again as employees completed a training exercise, manipulating switches, lights and screens on a semicircle of vertical boards. Zawalick said the simulator’s seafoam green walls are meant to inspire calm, but its very existence is due to nuclear disasters that have occurred elsewhere in the U.S.
Simulators became a requirement for all nuclear power plants in 1979 after the Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania. The partial meltdown was the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history and was caused by both human and equipment failure.
Practicing in a replica of Diablo Canyon’s actual control room is meant to train workers with the muscle memory to handle a variety of emergencies.
Employees spend 20% of their time in the Diablo Canyon simulator training for everything from planned refueling to routine maintenance to major emergencies.
To finish the tour, we drove uphill and farther from the ocean to find dozens of hulking concrete cylinders that contain spent fuel, called “dry casks.”
The nuclear material is the concern of resident groups who fear an earthquake or terrorist attack could destabilize the storage and spew radioactive waste into the ocean or nearby communities. People living nearby are mailed annual emergency preparedness documents and have access to a free dose of potassium iodide, which protects the thyroid gland against radiation.
Linda Seeley has rallied against Diablo Canyon for decades as a member of the anti-nuclear nonprofit Mothers for Peace.
“As much as I would love it if nuclear waste were not toxic and lethal to a thousand generations in the future, that’s not the fact. The fact is that it is toxic,” she said.
Once fuel has been used inside the plant, radiation levels are dangerously high and have the potential to kill an exposed person in minutes.
The spent fuel spends 7 to 10 years next to the reactors in “wet storage,” a large pool of water treated with chemicals. The liquid absorbs heat and decays of the uranium, which has high levels of radiation.
The nuclear material is then packed into the double-lined, stainless steel and reinforced dry casks, roughly 20 feet tall. Each is bolted to a 7.5-foot-thick, steel-reinforced concrete pad designed to withstand earthquakes. The fuel requires special handling for tens of thousands of years.
Diablo Canyon is located roughly 3.5 miles from the Hosgri fault, which presents the main seismic risk to the plant. Another fault, the Shoreline, is closer to the plant, but smaller. Some seismologists are concerned that a quake along the faults could cause a meltdown.
The U.S. government is legally obligated to take ownership of all commercially spent nuclear fuel, but because the government has not yet built a permanent place to put it, the fuel is stored at the power plant.
Current solutions like Diablo Canyon’s dry storage casks, while they may be thorough, are only licensed until 2064 by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Zawalick said PG&E is confident in the storage of Diablo Canyon’s spent fuel, though. She pointed out that nuclear power is “the only energy source that knows exactly where every ounce of our waste is.” The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and PG&E monitor the spent fuel on a daily and annual basis. “It’s secured, it’s inspected, it’s audited, it’s sampled. I’m a fan of all energy sources, but I don’t know where solar panels are sent when they’re done, and batteries, and all of that.”
Zawalick pointed to the powerful transmission lines carrying energy created here out to millions of Californians: to illuminate rooms for special and mundane occasions, preserve food in refrigerators, run air conditioners, and warm their shower water.
Order and safety come up frequently on the Diablo Canyon Power Plant tour: background checks, armed guards, seismic protective measures, reminders to hold on to handrails when on steps. The result is a calm and kempt environment, situated on a hillside overlooking the Pacific.
But underneath the serenity lie the inherent risks of nuclear power, especially when sited near seismic fault lines. Diablo Canyon has been the source of passionate debate as long as the idea of it has existed. And any effort to keep it operating longer will be no different.
And with that, the tour was over, and the guides returned to their work. A cow made its way slowly across the access road, with no idea of its contentious neighbor.
In this edition:
Spaceballs at Griffith Observatory, Netflix is a Joke kicks off, Trolls take over South Coast Botanical Garden, and more of the best things to do this week.
Highlights:
We all need a good story to start the week, and this one is the best. Pasadena Humane has rehomed its last dog rescued from the Eaton Fire. Artemis, a German shepherd, is happily in his forever home, and now we can all sleep a little easier. What a good boy!
Music this week includes the last of the free spring lunchtime concerts at the Colburn on Tuesday, May 5. Licorice Pizza has more picks, including Meshell Ndegeocello at Blue Note on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday, Sports are at the Roxy, Saults are at the Teragram, Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman play Disney Hall, and over at the Grammy Museum, there’s a screening of the Ann Wilson documentary In My Voice, followed by a conversation with the Heart legend herself. Thursday, The Dear Hunter will be at the Glass House.
And, happy Cinco de Mayo! Food and drink specials and community celebrations abound on Tuesday.
Elsewhere on LAist.com, you can catch up on Larry Mantle’s recent interview with Mayor Karen Bass, create a route to see the best street murals around L.A., and grab a ticket to see a live taping of NPR’s Wild Card with Rachel Martin and Tracee Ellis Ross at the Crawford on Thursday, May 7.
Tuesday, May 4, 6 to 10 p.m.
Griffith Observatory
2800 E. Observatory Road, Griffith Park
COST: MEMBER ADMISSION, $45, MEMBER ADMISSION, $50 WAITLIST; MORE INFO
I don’t even really have to say it, do I? Griffith Observatory is hosting a very special screening of the best spoof of all time ever (don’t @ me), Spaceballs. In celebration of the upcoming sequel, Spaceballs: The New One (tbd if that was necessary), star Josh Gad will be on hand and the evening includes parking, drinks and snacks, and photo ops. It’s currently waitlist-only … may the Schwartz be with you.
Through Thursday, May 7
Laemmle Royal
11523 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A.
COST: FROM $11.50; MORE INFO
Just in time to kick off Asian American Pacific Islander Month, director Quentin Lee has put together an exciting screening series at the Laemmle Royal, featuring 30 years of Lee’s work. The Cinemasianamerica series runs through May 7 and includes screenings of Ethan Mao, The People I’ve Slept With, The Unbidden, Rez Comedy, and Last Summer of Nathan Lee. The series will wrap with Comedy InvAsian III, a sneak preview of Lee’s stand-up showcase. Most screenings include a Q&A with Lee and fellow cast members.
Through Tuesday, June 30, by appointment
UCLA Architecture and Urban Design
1317 Portola Plaza, Perloff Hall 1118, Westwood
COST: FREE; MORE INFO
L.A. has a wealth of architectural and modern building feats, many of which we have more access to than any other city, given our (relative!) youth. UCLA’s School of Architecture has some of this history on display, including posters from talks by Frank Gehry and John Julius Norwich and archival materials, including VHS tapes, faculty portraits, 35mm slides of student work, travel photographs, office drawings, and posters. It uses a classroom space to allow visitors to explore, so since the exhibit is also a working teaching archive, you do have to make an appointment.
Through Sunday, May 10
Netflix Is a Joke Festival
Multiple locations
COST: VARIES; MORE INFO
Where to even begin with all the incredible comedy listings for this year’s Netflix Is a Joke Festival? Whether you’re a theater person (see: Rachel Bloom guesting with Theater Adult on May 7), a fan of roasts (head to the Forum for the Roast of Kevin Hart on May 10), an SNL superfan (Pete Davidson at the Wiltern on May 9) or a podcast junkie (Girls Gotta Eat at the Palace Theatre on May 7), there’s a show for you. I didn’t even mention the 40th Anniversary of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse with the B-52s and Danny Elfman (May 4) or the Lizzo show at the Greek (May 7)! Pretty much every venue in L.A. has a comedy show this week – it might be harder not to see comedy. So find your favorite (or someone you’ve never heard of!) and get a taste of the L.A. and international comedy scene right here.
Monday, May 4, 7 to 8 p.m.
727 N. Broadway #133, Chinatown
COST: FROM $11.49; MORE INFO
L.A. Times restaurant critic Bill Addison hosts this conversation with James Beard-winning cookbook author Anissa Helou at cookbook store Now Serving in Chinatown. Helou’s latest is Lebanon: Cooking the Foods of My Homeland, celebrating the diversity of dishes from the Mediterranean country.
Through Sunday, October 4
South Coast Botanic Garden
26300 Crenshaw Blvd., Palos Verdes Peninsula
COST: FREE WITH GENERAL ADMISSION ($18); MORE INFO
Thomas Dambo’s oversized trolls are as cute as they are creepy. Twelve of those giants made entirely of reclaimed wood have made their way across the pond to guard the South Coast Botanic Garden until October. Walk through this fairytale land with admission to the gardens or plan a special guided weekend Troll Trek.
Topline:
A bill in the state legislature would require evaluations of statewide education programs, like transitional kindergarten. LAist reported in February that the state had no plans to evaluate the new grade for four-year-olds, despite billions of dollars being spent.
What’s new: The proposed legislation would require independent evaluations of any new education initiative that costs at least $500 a million a year, or $1 billion in one-time funding. In February, reporting by LAist found the state had no formal plans to evaluate transitional kindergarten — a new grade for 4-year-olds in the public school system that was fully implemented this year.
The backstory: The requirement is an amendment to a larger bill that would restructure the role of the state superintendent, an elected position that currently oversees the state Department of Education. In addition to LAist's reporting, the bill also follow reports from the research group Policy Analysis for California Education, as well as the Legislative Analyst’s Office, that recommend such changes.
Why it matters: The bill’s author, state Assemblymember David Alvarez, said he was shocked to find out how much the state has spent on initiatives without a plan for evaluation. “I really see this as the opportunity to really cement what I think is a good governance practice, long-term,” he said.
A bill moving through the state legislature would require independent evaluations of any new education initiative that costs at least $500 million a year or $1 billion in one-time spending.
The proposed requirement is part of a larger bill that would restructure the role of the state superintendent, an elected position that currently oversees the California Department of Education.
“That means that as we make massive investments, as have occurred in the last several years, like universal transitional kindergarten, that there is a built-in independent check to tell us what is actually working,” Assemblymember David Alvarez, the bill’s author and chair of the assembly subcommittee on education, said at a hearing a few weeks ago.
While research shows a child’s early years are critical for learning, in February, reporting by LAist found the state had no formal plans to evaluate transitional kindergarten — a new grade for 4-year-olds in the public school system that was fully implemented this year.
”For TK, as you've covered well, you know, it's nonexistent,” Alvarez told LAist.
The state has spent billions on the program, including $3.9 billion to administer it this fiscal year.
The amendments to the bill also follow reports from the research group Policy Analysis for California Education, as well as the Legislative Analyst’s Office, that recommend reshaping the role of an elected state superintendent to include evaluation duties. But Alvarez said he thought it was crucial to take the legislation a step further and include a fiscal trigger to make evaluations mandatory, and envisions the requirement to apply to new state spending.
The bill as currently written only applies to new initiatives, but the superintendent would have authority to order reviews of existing programs like transitional kindergarten.
"I'm hopeful that as we engage more with the administration on this issue, that there's an interest in evaluating a program like this one of this magnitude and others,” Alvarez said. Other existing programs include the Community Schools Partnership Program, a wrap-around services initiative, and the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program.
The bill would allow for the independent evaluations to be done by outside research organizations.
“I really see this as the opportunity to really cement what I think is a good governance practice, long-term,” he said. “ Resources are limited, and we don't have an infinite number of dollars to do all the work we want to do, so we’ve got to make sure that dollars are being used in the best way that serves the most number of students.”
The California State Assembly's Subcommittee on Education Finance and the State Senate's Education Committee are the points of contact for proposals and oversight of public education funding, including:
Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Contact members of the state assembly or the state senate.
Topline:
A subcontractor on the LAX Automated People Mover project owes a group of workers unpaid wages and benefits, according to a grievance filed by the union representing the workers. An arbitrator in March sided with the union in its case against the subcontractor, Alstom Transport USA.
What does this mean: The arbitrator’s decision calls on Alstom to pay the workers back wages and benefits. The International Union of Elevator Constructors, Local 18, who brought the grievance forward, said Alstom has “already shown that they don’t intend to comply with the arbitrator’s award.” In that case, the general contractor, LINXS, would be liable to remedy the pay issue, according to a copy of the arbitrator’s decision shared with LAist by the union.
The broader context: Disputes in large-scale capital projects are not uncommon. This is one of many surrounding the Automated People Mover and not the only one to involve subcontractors. Earlier this year, LAist reported about how the main contractor, a group of companies called LINXS, is engaged in legal battles with two of its other subcontractors.
Read on … for more details about the arbitration.
A subcontractor on the LAX Automated People Mover project owes a group of workers unpaid wages and benefits, according to a grievance filed by the union representing the workers.
An arbitrator held a hearing on the matter last December and formally sided with the union in his decision, which was released in March.
The International Union of Elevator Constructors, Local 18, had argued in a grievance filed in May 2025 that subcontractor Alstom Transport USA has been paying people who have been preparing train vehicles for passenger service and testing parts at a lower rate than what’s outlined in a labor agreement governing the project.
The union said in a statement to LAist that it is “satisfied” its claims were backed by the arbitrator and that the decision reflects the power of collective action.
The union added that this isn’t the end of the fight since Alstom has “already shown that they don’t intend to comply with the arbitrator’s award.”
The arbitrator noted in his decision there is some uncertainty as to how many workers would be affected since some of them were hired directly by Alstom and others through third-party firms. The union says there are 28 total workers who, regardless of how they were hired, should be compensated for their work and estimates Alstom owes them millions in wages and benefits.
A spokesperson for Alstom said it is “reviewing the arbitrator’s recommendations.”
“Alstom remains committed to reaching a fair and competitive wage and benefit package that recognizes the valuable contributions of our employees,” the spokesperson said.
LINXS did not respond to a request for comment.
Disputes in large-scale capital projects are not uncommon. This is one of many surrounding the Automated People Mover and not the only one to involve subcontractors working on the project. Earlier this year, LAist reported about how the main contractor, a group of companies called LINXS, is engaged in legal battles with two of its other subcontractors.
Another dispute between the city and LINXS has recently intensified and could also lead to litigation.
At the heart of this dispute is the collective bargaining agreement that sets wages for on-site construction work, establishes dispute procedures and ensures there won’t be work stoppages over labor issues on capital projects owned by Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that oversees LAX. The project labor agreement was first forged in 1999 and, in 2020, the airport’s board renewed it for an additional decade.
LINXS agreed that it would be bound to the agreement and “shall require all of its subcontractors … to be similarly bound,” according to a copy of the arbitrator’s decision the union shared with LAist.
The union has claimed that the Alstom employees were doing work that is covered by the agreement and that they should be paid accordingly.
Alstom, according to communications cited in the arbitrator’s decision, said it never signed a document called a Letter of Assent, which formalizes a company’s obligation to follow the project labor agreement, and that, even if it did, its employees’ work isn’t covered.
David Weinberg, the arbitrator, said the testing and commissioning work Alstom employees did is covered by the project labor agreement. Weinberg added that Alstom consented to abide by the agreement when it signed a contract to work with LINXS.
“Not signing the Letter of Assent does not absolve Alstom of its contractual obligations to LINXS or to the Union under the [Project Labor Agreement] due to the pass-through provision,” Weinberg wrote in his decision.
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Weinberg said that the Alstom employees should get paid the national wage and benefits rate for the International Union of Elevator Constructors for any hours of work completed starting 60 days before the union filed its grievance. Weinberg also ordered Alstom to provide the hours of work completed on-site.
Weinberg said in his decision that if Alstom does not comply, LINXS would be on the hook, though for a smaller amount. LINXS would be liable to pay for any hours of work starting 60 days before Nov. 4, when it became a formal party to the grievance.
