The Brief

A sensory garden where you can sniff a plant that smells like maple syrup. Hammocks to enjoy the shade of the live coastal oak trees. Sanded chunks of wood to build forts.

The new Children’s Woodland at the California Botanic Garden in Claremont is an interactive playspace for children to connect with native landscapes and habitats. The garden, nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, is home to more than 22,000 native plants.

“ We decided that we wanted the installations to be more sort of freeform and open-ended,” said Lauren Weintraub Stoebel, assistant director of visitor engagement at the California Botanic Garden. “We want kids to find creative ways to be in nature, to discover connections on their own without being too guided.”

The Children's Woodland is an interactive play space using natural materials at the California Botanic Garden.

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Elly Yu

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LAist

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The children’s space has jumping logs, bubbling rock water fountains, and natural building materials so children can create their own structures. Unlike the rest of the garden, which features some rare and valuable native plants, kids can get hands-on with the plants and landscape here.

 ”It was really inspiring and fascinating to watch the different ways that the kids found to be in this space,” Stoebel said.

The freeform space allows children to be creative in the way they interact with nature.

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Courtesy Andy Torres from Ragano Photo & Video

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The horticulture team at the garden built the space using logs and other natural materials from the rest of the 86-acre garden. They dug a log tunnel for kids to climb through out of an old oak that blew down in a windstorm.

Stoebel said the space was designed to also evolve with the seasons. The next installation will include a “living structure” — a dome that will have plants growing all around it.

There are a lot of things to step over ...

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Courtesy Andy Torres from Ragano Photo & Video

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... and sit on.

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Courtesy Andy Torres from Ragano Photo & Video

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Ashlee Armstrong, director of horticulture, said she hopes the new space allows children to learn to be curious about the nature around them, “inspiring kids to want to be in nature and make a connection with nature, so that we do have stewards for our natural environment in the future.”

How to visit the California Botanic Garden

Address: 1500 N. College Avenue, Claremont

Current garden hours: Tuesday to Sunday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. (Varies throughout the year)

Tickets: $15 adults, $11 seniors and students, $5 children 3-12, free for children under 3

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Last year, Long Beach made a deal with an oil-drilling company. The company would convert some of its land into public wetlands in exchange for the right to drill somewhere else. Then a state law meant to keep wells away from homes and schools thwarted the company’s plan for more drilling. Now that pact has become fodder for the Trump administration’s war against California Democratic energy policies.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright traveled to the property, owned by Synergy Oil & Gas, on Wednesday with a message to Gov. Gavin Newsom: state policies are increasing costs for Californians, and the Trump administration will be challenging them.

Wright’s visit to the Synergy site comes just a week after a U.S. district court denied the U.S. Department of Interior’s request to stop enforcement of California’s setback law while a broader legal challenge is pending.

“When you make energy expensive by importing it and putting ridiculous regulations on it, you not only make it more expensive to pay your bills, but you make it so businesses that consume energy aren't going to locate (in) your state,” Wright said, standing between lines of Synergy-owned oil jack pumps near coastal wetlands.

Wright’s visit points up the active fight on multiple fronts between California and the White House over energy prices, especially gasoline. The state’s gas prices are the highest in the nation, a gap that has widened in the wake of global oil market disruptions following U.S. military strikes on Iran.

“California’s gas prices were stable – and below $5 a gallon – for about two years before Trump launched his reckless war on Iran that closed the Strait of Hormuz and sent crude oil prices through the roof in red and blue states,” said Anthony Martinez, a spokesperson for the governor. “Today, (Wright is) in California pointing the finger to distract from the fact that Americans have paid $10 billion more on gasoline since the start of this war.”

California’s setback law 

Announced nearly a year ago, Long Beach and Synergy intended a deal to be mutually beneficial. Synergy would be able to drill new wells nearby and the city would gain public space and a cut from Synergy’s new revenue.

But a recent setback law – which bans new oil wells within six-tenths of a mile of homes, schools and other populated areas – has made it nearly impossible to get permits, said Synergy owner John McKeown. The site where Wright spoke should be capable of extracting 6,000 oil barrels daily. It is only producing 100 barrels because of state limits, he said.

“What I'm trying to do is save 35 employees, and I'm trying to produce (the oil) we own,” he said on Wednesday.

The Synergy Oil and Gas production site in Long Beach on April 8, 2026.

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Ariana Drehsler

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CalMatters

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Long Beach Councilmember Kristina Duggan, who helped reach the agreement with Synergy, said the setback law harms city finances. The city gets 8.5% of local revenue from oil production, funds designated for coastal infrastructure.

“We have wells off of the coast of Long Beach on our oil island where we can't drill new wells, and it is so far from sensitive areas,” Duggan said. “It really makes a difference. We rely on oil production for revenue in Long Beach.”

Earlier this year, the Trump administration sued California over the setback law, arguing it illegally blocks business that the federal government oversees. The administration cited two land management laws, the Mineral Leasing Act and the Federal Land and Policy Management Act, that authorize public lands for oil, gas and coal development.

While the lawsuit is pending, the U.S. Department of Interior requested a preliminary injunction that would bar the state from enforcing the setback law. A U.S. district court judge denied that request, and called California’s setback law “reasonable environmental regulation” that doesn’t bar alternative methods of accessing oil in the state.

The U.S. district court judge said the U.S. Department of Interior has so far not demonstrated it’s likely to succeed in proving the law conflicts with federal law.

The judge is also weighing whether to let community groups, represented by Earthjustice, and the Center for Biological Diversity to intervene in the case.

Synergy Oil and Gas production site in Seal Beach on April 8, 2026.

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Ariana Drehsler

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CalMatters

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The setback law's reach extends beyond private landowners like Synergy. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, it would make invalid about a third of federally authorized oil and gas leases in California.

The setback in California “has absolutely nothing to do with public health,” Wright said on Wednesday. “These setbacks get set at the number that will kill the industry.”

Newsom caught in the middle

The setback law is just one front in a wider political battle that has put Newsom in an increasingly difficult position.

Newsom has sought to blame the White House for gas price increases, arguing that Trump’s actions are responsible. At the same time, he has pushed back against growing criticism that California’s own environmental regulations are contributing to the cost of fuel. But his administration’s actions tell a more complicated story.

Oil companies have shut refineries in recent months, causing the state to lose nearly 20% of its refining capacity. In response, California has increasingly relied on importing more crude oil and gasoline. The governor last year orchestrated a deal to boost production in California’s oil-drilling hub of Kern County. The California Energy Commission also quietly set aside a law that gave state regulators the power to cap refinery profits and penalize oil companies for price gouging.

Newsom in 2024 pushed to delay parts of the oil well setback law, arguing regulators needed more time to implement it. Lawmakers approved a compromise extending the deadline to monitor wells near homes and schools for leaks by three and a half years, to July 2030, while keeping the core buffer-zone restrictions in place. Newsom signed the measure, delaying leak detection at oil wells.

Rising federal pressure

The Trump administration has shown no interest in giving Newsom room to maneuver. It’s pushing to expand oil production in California, including plans to revive offshore drilling along the coast at the site of the 2015 Refugio oil spill, where a pipeline, now owned by Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp., ruptured.

Secretary for the U.S. Department of Energy Chris Wright speaks to Synergy employees at the Synergy Oil and Gas production site in Long Beach on April 8, 2026.

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Ariana Drehsler

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CalMatters

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Wright invoked the Defense Production Act to order the restart of operations — overriding local courts — arguing the oil was 'vital to our national security and defense. Attorney General Rob Bonta has sued Wright arguing he overstepped his authority.

Wright said he hopes to meet Gov. Newsom in the next few weeks to make his plea for more oil production in the state.

A blueprint for wider battles

The stakes of that legal confrontation extend well beyond a single pipeline.

Even if the Sable project itself wouldn’t meaningfully change California’s oil supply, legal experts say the bigger story is what precedents the fights establish. The case could open a window on how far federal officials can go in using national security or emergency powers to override state authority — not just for pipelines, but for new oil development more broadly.

“I have no doubt they're going to now extend it to try to apply the same theory about a national emergency, about national security, to leasing everywhere,” said Deborah Sivas, a Stanford environmental law expert. “They're going to use that same rationale.”

But Ethan Elkind, a climate law expert at UC Berkeley, said that strategy faces long odds in California, where the politics of oil and gas have shifted sharply against new development.

“California has really been going in the opposite direction,” said Elkind. “The idea of trying to really expand oil and gas production in the state, is really at odds with where the politics are and the economic realities are in the state at this moment.”

In Long Beach, work to remove old wells on Synergy Oil & Gas property continues. For Kristina Duggan, the city councilmember, the larger battles are secondary. She's still watching the city's bottom line.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Southern California skies will be filled with clouds and pockets of sunshine today before rain moves into the region this weekend.

Temperatures at the beaches are going to stick around the upper 60s, up to around 70 degrees in Long Beach.

In the valleys, we're looking at high temperatures in the mid-70s, up to 78 degrees over in the Inland Empire.

Meanwhile, warm weather will embrace festival-goers for the first day of Coachella. Temperatures there are expected to reach 87 to 92 degrees.

Looking ahead to the weekend, the rain starts coming in late Friday night. SoCal could get between a half-inch to an inch of rain tonight through Sunday. There will be some brief pockets of sunshine in between showers and there's a 15% to 30% chance of thunderstorms — that means look out for short, heavy downpours.

It's possible the mountains could get up to 6 inches of snow at elevations 6,000 feet or higher.

Los Angeles Unified teachers, support staff and principals are days away from a strike that would likely shut down schools starting Tuesday.

The unions, who represent about 68,000 employees collectively, say the walkout is a last resort after more than a year of negotiations over pay, benefits and school conditions. The strike would mark the first time three of the district’s most powerful unions— United Teachers Los Angeles, Service Employees International Union Local 99 and the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles — collaborate on a strike.

LAUSD is the country’s second-largest school district and provides education, meals and child care for about 400,000 students daily.

Acting Superintendent Andres Chait said in March that LAUSD will continue to negotiate with the unions in hopes of reaching a deal. The unions say their demands will help members better afford the region’s high cost of living and provide a better experience for students.

“ We have a responsibility to our community to provide a quality education to our students and to make sure our employees are compensated fairly and equitably,” Chait said in a press conference last month following the strike announcement. “But we also have a responsibility to be careful stewards of the financial resources that our taxpayers entrust to us.”

This is a guide to some of the most pressing questions related to the strike. Have others? Email me: mdale@laist.com.

Will my child’s school be open?

Most likely, no.

“When you have three unions… who have all indicated that they would strike together it is exceedingly difficult, if not nearly impossible to [keep] schools open during that scenario,” Chait said in March.

The striking unions represent the majority of the district’s 83,000 employees. UTLA has said the strike would be open ended, so it’s unclear how long the strike— if it happens— will last.

The Los Angeles Times has reported that the strike would also shut down the district’s spring sports program because bus drivers won’t be available to provide transportation.

What resources are available for families?

The district said in a statement Tuesday that it plans to distribute food, tech support and refer families to community organizations for child care. Updates about resources and labor negotiations will be posted to a dedicated website in English and Spanish.

However, during a three-day 2023 strike, families struggled to find care and access their child’s education.

How do parents feel?

Parents and caregivers representing more than a half-dozen community organizing and advocacy groups held a press conference Thursday morning to express their support for the strike and urge the district to reach a deal with the unions.

“When they advocate for better pay, staffing and resources, they are advocating for our children's future,” said Esmeralda Rangel, whose younger siblings attend LAUSD schools. “When educators and staff are supported, our schools are stronger and our classrooms are better.”

The Facebook group Parents Supporting Teachers started in the run-up to the 2019 UTLA strike and now has more than 30,000 members.

Carmel Levitan is a group moderator, and the parent of LAUSD students in Eagle Rock. She said there have been a lot of questions about whether there will be remote learning, food or child care available during the strike.

“I do think there's a lot of anxiety,” Levitan said. “So we all just take a few days off work? Can we afford that? Do our jobs allow that? And so I do think the uncertainty is stressful and really harming a lot of families.”

Other parents said their children would join their teachers on the picket line.

Elizabeth Hernandez plans to open her home, near a South L.A. middle school, to striking teachers, and said she'll provide snacks and bathroom access.

“It's important for us as parents to support our teachers because at the end of the day, they are the ones that spend most of the days with our kids,” Hernandez said.

What would it take to reach a deal? 

United Teachers Los Angeles, SEIU Local 99 and Associated Administrators of Los Angeles have been negotiating with the district over pay, benefits and additional support for students for more than a year.

The members of each union voted overwhelmingly to give their leaders the power to call a strike.

Here’s a summary of the current status of negotiations with each union:

United Teachers Los Angeles

35,000 members include: teachers, psychologists and counselors
Contract expired: June 30, 2025
Most recent meeting with LAUSD: Wed., April 8, 2026

UTLA’s bargaining team has met with the district more than a dozen times since negotiations began last February. The union declared an impasse in December, a legal step that triggers a “fact finding” intervention from a neutral mediator appointed by the state’s labor relations board.

The union’s most recent bargaining session ended Wednesday night and another meeting is scheduled for Saturday.

“While there was some constructive engagement, the district must do more to address critical issues like staffing, student mental health, and livable wages for educators,” the union wrote in a statement.

The union’s proposals include: 

• A 17% raise over two years.
• A minimum starting teacher salary of nearly $78,000 — a 13% increase.
• Changes to the salary schedule so that newer teachers who complete professional development can earn increases more quickly.
• Reducing class sizes and adding more mental health support for students. 
• Learn more. 

LAUSD’s most recent offer includes: 

• A 10% salary increase over three years and an agreement to “collaboratively adjust” the salary schedule.
• A 6% one-time bonus over two years.
• Learn more.

The fact finder has proposed:

• A one-time 3% payment. 
• An 11% raise over two years.
• 4 weeks of paid parental leave.
• An agreement not to replace union jobs with Artificial Intelligence or use the technology to surveil students and employees. 
• Read the full report.

What kind of money does the district have to work with?

The fact-finding chair, Donald Raczka, was unable to determine whether the district could afford UTLA's proposal.

“Due to the complexity of LAUSD’s budget, thoroughly examining these claims would be time-consuming and labor-intensive—tasks that go beyond the Chair’s current capacity given the available information,” Raczka wrote.

The union contended that such an analysis was the fact finder’s key responsibility.

“The failure of the Fact Finder to even attempt to figure out the finances is a disservice to the educators and students of LAUSD and to the fact-finding process itself,” wrote Brian McNamara, a UTLA director and fact finding panelist in a lengthy dissent.

In a statement, the district said it “appreciates the report’s balanced, fiscally responsible framework.”

SEIU Local 99

30,000 members include: bus drivers, cafeteria workers, classroom and campus aides
Contract expired: June 30, 2024
Most recent meeting with LAUSD: Thurs., April 9, 2026

The union’s proposals include: 

• A 30% wage increase over three years. 
• More hours for workers who don’t have enough to qualify for benefits.

LAUSD’s most recent offer includes: 

• A 13% wage increase over three years.
• A task force to advice the district on Artificial Intelligence use that includes SEIU Local 99 members.
• Learn more.

SEIU Local 99 also declared an impasse in December, but is at a different stage in the bargaining process than UTLA.

The state has appointed a mediator to try and help the two sides meet an agreement.

The basis for SEIU’s strike vote is what the union says are more than a dozen unfair practice charges where members have been disciplined or lost hours as a result of participating in union activities.

SEIU Local 99 reports its members make an average of $35,000 a year.

Maria Avalos is a supervision aide at Fernangeles Elementary School in Sun Valley. Avalos said she’s only assigned four hours of work a day and also cleans houses and sells tamales to support her daughter.

“We need more hours,” Avalos said. “I live in an apartment that has one bedroom for 10 of us.”

Associated Administrators of Los Angeles

3,000 members include: principals, directors and other administrators
Contract expired: June 30, 2025
Most recent meeting with LAUSD: Monday, April 6, 2026

The union’s proposals include: 

• A 12% raise over two years.
• The ability to use flex time more easily.

LAUSD’s most recent offer includes: 

• A 10% wage increase over three years.
• Additional stipends for administrators in specific positions.
• Learn more.

AALA announced its members would join the April 14 walkout — a first for the union, which affiliated with the Teamsters in 2024.

The union declared an impasse in February, an assessment the district disagreed with, but it agreed to continue negotiating.

“We don't have the necessary resources to really say we have safe schools, to really say that we're servicing students,” said Maria Nichols, president of AALA, during a pre-strike rally.

L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned this week that Los Angeles could face bankruptcy if it doesn't make an airtight deal with Olympics organizers over how it will be reimbursed for its expenses during the coming 2028 Summer Games.

The Olympics have long been promoted as a "no cost" deal for taxpayers that will be hosted by the city, but funded and orchestrated by private organizing committee LA28.

But a key agreement outlining what city services Los Angeles will provide for the Games – like policing and traffic control – and how the cash-strapped city will be reimbursed for its extra work is now more than six months late.

In a letter to LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover sent Tuesday, Rodriguez warned that if it isn't changed, the current draft agreement could leave L.A. vulnerable to spending hundreds of millions even if LA28 turns a profit.

"Every dollar owed to the City must be reconciled and paid before any surplus is retained or repurposed," Rodriguez wrote. "Bankruptcy cannot be the legacy of these Games."

The major concern is who will pay security costs for the Olympics, including LAPD overtime. The federal government has allocated one billion dollars to security costs for the mega-event, and has put the Secret Service in charge of security planning.

Despite those plans, city officials are concerned about who will be left with the bag if the federal funding doesn't come through, or if it doesn't cover all of the city's security costs.

LA28 has not included security spending in its $7.1 billion budget – a point that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto raised in a March report sent to the city council. The billion dollars in federal funding will also be allocated across all the law enforcement agencies that police the Games – meaning the actual amount the city of L.A. will receive is unclear.

"What happens if the City's actual extraordinary expenses exceed $1 billion?" Feldstein Soto wrote in her report.

The city made a gamble when it agreed to host the Olympics. To score the host bid, L.A. agreed to be the financial backstop for the Olympic Games, meaning if the organizing committee runs into the red, L.A. will pick up the bill, along with the state of California.

In their missives over Olympic expenses, both the city attorney and Councilmember Rodriguez raised a new potential nightmare scenario for the city: that the Olympics could make a surplus, and L.A. could still be left in debt.

"The City requires unambiguous language in the [agreement] to foreclose any scenario in which funds might go back to the wealthy backers and investors of the LA28 organization without reimbursing taxpayer-funded extraordinary costs," the city attorney wrote.

LA28 did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Next Tuesday, the city council's ad-hoc committee on the Olympic Games will meet for the first time since January.