Yusra Farzan
covers Orange County and its 34 cities, watching those long meetings — boards, councils and more — so you don’t have to.
Published November 27, 2023 7:08 AM
The 605 Freeway.
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Photo by @dougtone via the Creative Commons on Flickr
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Caltrans announced overnight closures on some lanes and ramps along the 605 Freeway starting Monday to install concrete barriers. The road closures are set to lift on Dec. 1.
I-605: Overnight lane & ramp closures scheduled for northbound & southbound I-605 from Katella Ave. to State Route 91 the nights of Monday 11/27 through Friday 12/1. Details below. Real-time closure updates at https://t.co/O37QesJHpw#Super605pic.twitter.com/0e1PgK0sFs
Alternate route: Caltrans said detour signs will be posted, with commuters advised to find alternate routes on 710 or 5 freeways.
Why the closures: Caltrans is currently engaged in a project worth close to $300 million to fix the pavement on the 610 from Long Beach to the San Gabriel Valley.
Caltrans announced overnight closures on some lanes and ramps along the 605 Freeway starting Monday to install concrete barriers.
The two right lanes of the northbound and southbound 605 Freeway from Katella Avenue to just before the 91 Freeway will be closed every night from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Three lanes on the northbound and southbound 605 Freeway south of the 91 will also be closed at the same time. The east and westbound connectors on the 91 Freeway to the north and southbound 605 Freeway connectors will also be closed from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., as will off and on ramps from Katella Avenue to South Street. However, no two consecutive ramps will close at the same time.
I-605: Overnight lane & ramp closures scheduled for northbound & southbound I-605 from Katella Ave. to State Route 91 the nights of Monday 11/27 through Friday 12/1. Details below. Real-time closure updates at https://t.co/O37QesJHpw#Super605pic.twitter.com/0e1PgK0sFs
Transitional kindergarten classrooms require a different infrastructure than most other grades.
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Mariana Dale
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LAist
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This school year, there are younger students in elementary school in California than ever before with the implementation of universal transitional kindergarten — and districts have a lot of changes to make.
The backstory: In 2021, California passed a law giving school districts until this school year to offer transitional kindergarten, or TK, to any child who turns 4 years old by September of the school year.
What’s TK? TK used to be for a subset of older 4-year-olds who missed the kindergarten cutoff age by a few months. “As we're seeing TK evolve and bring in younger students, it's looking more preschool-ish than it once did when it first started,” said Mary Edge-Guerra, who oversees TK at Downey Unified School District.
Why it matters: It means that kids with significantly different developmental needs are entering the public school system, said Laura Hill, senior fellow and policy director at the Public Policy Institute of California.
What schools have to do: The scale of implementing TK statewide is big. It requires things like new infrastructure and more teachers with the right credentials. And not all districts say they’ve been ready.
With a new grade called transitional kindergarten, there are younger kids in elementary school this year than ever before in California — and with that comes its own set of challenges for schools who are trying to implement it.
In 2021, California passed a law that gave districts four years to make TK universal for 4-year-olds. TK has been around since 2012, but only for a small subset of older 4-year-olds who just missed the kindergarten age cutoff by a few months.
“It was a big undertaking,” said Laura Hill, policy director and senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. “There are plenty of folks who might say that was not enough time, not enough resources, but it is the case that the state did try to be thoughtful about how to make it happen.”
The state doesn’t yet have data on total enrollment this school year — the first year that TK is universal — though district data, such as from Los Angeles Unified School District, shows enrollment has grown to the highest total yet.
Expanding access statewide has required new infrastructure — with money that some districts don’t have. It's required a new group of teachers with the right credentials. And while a year might not seem like much, 4-year-olds have different developmental needs than kindergartners.
“Many of them are still in need of naps,” said Hill, who co-authored a report on the rollout of TK last year.
And for some, it might be their first time in a big group setting.
In one school district, Hill and her colleagues interviewed educators who described the first week of school with younger 4-year-olds as “shark week” — because of the high number of biting incidents.
“Biting is just one of those things that a child who is frustrated and doesn't have the words and isn't feeling like they can cope right now might resort to,” Hill said. “What they were seeing was both the children not quite ready making this transition and the adults having less experience working with children this young and helping them kind of sort this all out.”
Mary Edge-Guerra, who oversees TK at Downey Unified School District, points out there are children who are only 3 years old at the start of the school year since they just have to be 4 by September.
“As TK evolved in bringing younger students, it’s looking more preschoolish than it once did than when it first started,” she said. “They need that developmental time to grow, and as their gross motor and just developmental milestones are being met, then the instruction needs to adjust.”
From lunch to naps, 4-year-olds need more care
During lunchtime at Smith Elementary in Lawndale, TK teacher Lauren Bush’s instruction goes beyond the classroom. As her students lined up in the cafeteria, she guided them through the menu options from the salad bar to the entree choice of a burrito or tamale.
Teachers help children eat their lunches at Marguerita Elementary School in Alhambra.
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Elly Yu
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LAist
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“ Wow, Jasmine! That's healthy,” Bush said to one student after she asked for carrots and cucumbers.
When the kids sat down at their tables, she also helped them open up their food packages, or instructed them to blow on their burritos to cool them down.
To help accommodate younger kids at lunchtime, Principal Cristal Moore said the school shifted their lunch schedules this year so that TK students are only with kindergartners in the cafeteria.
“We knew they were gonna need more help with, ‘Can you put a straw in my milk?’ — just really trying to make sure that we were there to support them,” Moore said.
Teachers must also decide whether to set aside time for a nap during the school day — TK does not require one.
When Bush started teaching TK a few years ago, she didn’t include a nap in the six-hour schedule and realized her students were more likely to whine, fight and cry at the end of the day without a break.
Nap time at Marguerita Elementary.
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Elly Yu
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LAist
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“The resting is good for them, even if they don't sleep,” Bush said. “It's just a total reset. It's a lot of stimulation for a lot of hours for their little bodies.”
Bathroom support
Four-year-olds may also still need help going to the bathroom, or have accidents at school. The state Department of Education requires districts to admit all eligible students, regardless if they’re potty-trained. And for many teachers, helping children with the bathroom or changing diapers isn’t part of their union-bargained duties.
Some districts have aides and health assistants who can help. Others call a students’ parents if they have an accident at school.
At Marguerita Elementary School in Alhambra, TK aide Veronica Gonzalez is trained to assist. She said while most students can go to the bathroom on their own, others still need help.
“Last year we dealt with one [student] and she was only afraid of going to the bathroom because she was afraid of flushing the toilet… and then for like two weeks, we’d flush the toilet together.”
Facility requirements
Instruction for TK is supposed to be based around play, versus academic.
In Claudia Ralston’s TK classroom in Alhambra, the room is set up so students can learn how to interact with their peers. There are play stations, including a pretend role-play area with a grocery checkout counter.
“Obviously they're only 4 years old, they need to move around while they're learning. So that, that in itself –the environment is different,” Ralston said. “We are setting up an environment so that they are learning as well at the same time.”
The state has different requirements for new TK classrooms than for upper grades. They have to be larger, so kids have room to play. They need to have bathrooms inside the classroom or close by, and they have to be close to parent drop-off areas. But not all schools have built out these spaces.
“We need to make sure that families have access to [TK] and that it's as good as it can be,” Hill said.
The plethora of bakery openings in recent years has some wondering — has LA hit peak pastry? We counter: can you ever have too many luscious butter croissants or icing-dripped cinnamon rolls? Come with us on an 8-mile pastry crawl, a trail of treats across Northeast L.A.
Why it matters: Because you need your high-quality baked goods fix and you need it now. And in a complex world, a bite of a lovingly prepared kouign amann can soothe the most stressed-out soul.
Why now: L.A.'s bakery scene continues to expand, with viral openings (we see you Salted Butter and Badash) and loong lines. Get there early.
Has Los Angeles reached peak pastry?
It feels like brand new sweets shops are opening every week across the city. At the end of last year, Filipino ice cream shop Eat Perlas began scooping flavors like calamansi creamsicle in Montrose, Altadena Cookie Co. debuted a storefront on the west side of the neighborhood, and French bakery The Little Cake started slinging croissants, eclairs and tarts in Commerce.
The dense concentration of internet-famous bakeries across Pasadena and Highland Park even inspired Koreatown resident and TikToker Irene Chang to coordinate a 13.1-mile walking route that crisscrossed town to sample half a dozen spots.
With over 1,000 sign-ups and only 50 entrants due to limited capacity, many sweets lovers were left disappointed. “Someone said, ‘I'm more nervous about getting a spot than getting into college,'" Chang said. "I was doing the math, and that's true.”
Eight bakeries in eight miles
As an avid walker and runner, I'd put together something similar in 2009, a 5-mile dumpling race across the San Gabriel Valley. After reading about Chang's venture, I felt compelled to curate my own pedestrian-friendly, pastry-centric crawl for the LAist reader.
The luscious chocolate croissant by Artisanal Goods by CAR
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Cathy Chaplin
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LAist
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In a city blessed with world-class pastries, the chocolate croissants at Artisanal Goods by CAR stand out for owner Haris Car’s meticulous attention to detail. While it is standard for many bakeries to laminate dough on site, Car goes the extra mile by making chocolate batons from scratch using ethically sourced cacao beans. The result is supremely flaky croissants laced with Normandy butter and oozing with chocolaty satisfaction.
Location: 1009 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Pastry chef Ashley Cunningham took her nearly 600,000 TikTok followers on the winding journey of opening a bakery in Pasadena months before the business officially launched. By the time doors opened in May 2025, crowds were queuing up and clamoring for a taste of the charismatic baker’s slate of cakes and cookies. While it’s hard to go wrong with any of Cunningham’s well-balanced sweets, the matcha cinnamon rolls are as fetching to behold as they are to taste, while the banana pudding comforts with layers of fruit, custard and vanilla wafer cookies.
Location: 247 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena Hours: Wednesday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Delight Pastry's take on spiral croissants, with a Persian bent
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Cathy Chaplin
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LAist
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Taking a cue from the viral success of The Suprême pastry from Lafayette Grand Cafe & Bakery in New York, Pasadena’s Delight Pastry introduced its take on spiral croissants in 2023. Inside the brightly lit cafe tucked into a quieter pocket of Old Pasadena, the tightly coiled laminated pastries — usually filled with cream, dipped in white or dark chocolate, and adorned with garnishes — take on a Persian bent as a nod to the shop’s owner and pastry chef Lily Azar’s heritage. The creation filled with pistachio cream is the one to get.
Location: 39 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena Hours: Daily, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sweet Red Peach opened in Inglewood in 2011 and has expanded to Pasadena, Carson and even Atlanta in recent years. While Karolyn Plummer’s Southern bakery has always attracted a steady crowd for its expertly constructed layer cakes, especially the red velvet, her cinnamon rolls are bringing in additional foot traffic after being declared L.A.’s very best by a popular food-rating website. Served in individual-sized aluminum tins, the cinnamon rolls are incredibly supple, saturated with cinnamon, and finished with a tangy cream cheese icing.
Location: 319 S. Arroyo Pkwy. #6, Pasadena Hours: Daily, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Salted Butter Company has been packed since it opened in August 2025
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Cathy Chaplin
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LAist
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Wife and husband team Haruna and Johnny Romo weren’t sure what to expect when they opened Salted Butter Company in August 2025. Seemingly from the start, crowds descended on the Nancy Meyers-coded bakery and bought out the whole lot of well-crafted sweet and savory pastries within its first hours of business. These days, dedicated folks are lining up before the shop’s posted 7 a.m. opening time for the choicest selection of classic croissants, laminated cinnamon rolls, and Earl Grey morning buns.
Location: 1 W. California Blvd., #412, Pasadena Hours: Wednesday through Monday, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Modu Cafe owner and pastry chef Jiyoon Jang knows the power of social media for small businesses. Before opening her bakery in Highland Park in 2024, the self-taught baker sold her Korean-inflected cookies, doughnuts and milk breads on Instagram, selling out with every drop. Now that Jang has settled into a smartly appointed home base, sweets seekers can dependably swing by for picture-perfect milk cream buns, perilla lime tarts, and black sesame mochi cake bars.
Location: 5805 York Blvd., Unit A, Los Angeles Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
L.A. shaped churros are served fresh out of the fryer at Santa Canela
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Cathy Chaplin
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LAist
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At Highland Park’s warm and welcoming panaderia Santa Canela, pastry chef Ellen Ramos is serving new-school takes on classic Mexican pan dulces. Find the bakery’s daily selection casually arranged and neatly labeled on butcher paper at the front counter. The conchas are memorable, served simply or piped with seasonal cream, as are the frosted long johns. Still, it's the L.A.-shaped churros served fresh out of the fryer and dusted in cinnamon and sugar that have captured the hearts and stomachs of Angelenos online and off.
Location: 5601 N. Figueroa St., Unit 120, Los Angeles Hours: Daily, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The opening of Fondry — a bakery founded by the owners of Kumquat and Loquat coffee shops, as well as the all-new Quat campus in Glassell Park — attracted eager crowds from day one, and it continues to be a pastry destination for many. The daily selection of flaky and rich viennoiserie flexes with the seasons and is overwhelming in the best way possible, offering a dozen different sweet and savory croissants, kouign amanns, Danishes and “croiffins” (a mash-up of croissant and muffin).
Location: 4703 York Blvd., Los Angeles Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
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Jill Replogle
covers public corruption, debates over our voting system, culture war battles — and more.
Published January 12, 2026 4:46 PM
Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana.
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Jill Replogle
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LAist
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Topline:
An Orange County judge pleaded guilty on Monday to one count of mail fraud for his role in a scheme to defraud California’s workers compensation fund.
Who’s the judge? Israel Claustro was a long-time prosecutor who won election to Orange County Superior Court in 2022.
What did he do? While working as an O.C. prosecutor, Claustro also owned a company that billed the state for medical evaluations of injured workers. That was illegal because, in California, you have to be licensed to practice medicine to own a medical corporation.
Anyone else involved? Claustro’s partner in the business was a doctor who had previously been suspended for healthcare fraud and therefore was prohibited from being involved in workers’ comp claims. Claustro knew this and paid him anyway, according to court filings from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Will he go to prison? Claustro could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office is recommending probation instead as part of the deal. In an email to LAist last week, Claustro’s lawyer, Paul Meyer, said his client “deeply regrets” his participation in the business venture and was resigning as judge “in good faith, with sadness.”
What’s next: Claustro is scheduled to be sentenced on June 26. California’s Constitution calls for the governor to appoint someone to temporarily replace Claustro on the bench for the next few years, followed by an election.
Making friends is tough, and only gets tougher as we age. Friendship expert Janice McCabe recently wrote a piece for the New York Times that dug into the way new connections can be forged through finding groups of people with similar lived experiences in the "friendship marketplace."
Why now:Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends author McCabe joined LAist’s AirTalk with Larry Mantle to share her friend-making advice with listeners, and we heard from listeners on how they make friends.
The local angle: With geography, jobs and traffic all making the act of “hanging out” a challenge, listeners shared their friend-catching tips.
Matt in Eagle Rock said, “It takes two people to make that friendship work; you have to put the effort into it. That is the harder part as you get older. I started in an adult dodgeball league, which I had never done in my life. Now I’ve been doing comedy, it's really about getting to know the people.”
Read on... to hear what other listeners had to say.
Topline:
Making friends is tough, and only gets tougher as we age. Friendship expert Janice McCabe recently wrote a piece for the New York Times that dug into the way new connections can be forged through finding groups of people with similar lived experiences in the "friendship marketplace."
Why now:Making, Keeping, and Losing Friends author McCabe joined LAist’s AirTalk with Larry Mantle to share her friend-making advice with listeners, and we heard from listeners on how they make friends.
The local angle: With geography, jobs and traffic all making the act of “hanging out” a challenge, listeners shared their friend-catching tips.
Matt in Eagle Rock said, “It takes two people to make that friendship work; you have to put the effort into it. That is the harder part as you get older. I started in an adult dodgeball league, which I had never done in my life. Now I’ve been doing comedy, it's really about getting to know the people.”
Priyanka in Orange chimed in, "As I have grown older and moved from college in training for so-called adult life, it’s become harder to find friends that you find relatable and who are as invested in the friendship as you yourself are. The new thing I have discovered is Bumble for friends… and so far it's been a good experience.”
Sydney in Koreatown said, “Transitioning from a gay male to a transwoman, I have lost some friends from transitioning, but I have also gained some deeper friendships. It has been a profound and absolutely amazing experience finding common ground, and finding other gay males that support my transition, and finding other trans women that I have a deepening relationship with too.”
Raul in Long Beach alsoweighed in, saying, “You don't need social media. No matter what anyone says, it really is not necessary to meet new people. When you’re not on it, it motivates you to talk to people in person, it commits your attention to them face to face.”
Listen to the full segment to hear McCabe’s advice on finding and maintaining friends.
Listen
17:39
What goes into finding the right friends at the right time?
