The Brief

Last week, the students of a small South Bay elementary school ate blue Takis, stamped blue handprints onto a giant tree mural and colored blue ribbons to celebrate a historic achievement.

Lucille J. Smith Elementary was nominated as a National Blue Ribbon School for closing achievement gaps on state standardized tests. The school was one of 31 in the state this year and the first in the Lawndale Elementary School District to be nominated for the award — arguably the highest honor an individual school can get from the federal government.

For more than 40 years, the federal Department of Education has presented the award at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., but in late August, the department ended the program.

The cancelation is one of many changes to U.S. education policy since President Donald Trump started his second term and eliminated a rare opportunity for a small school that serves largely low-income children of color to be recognized for excellence on a national stage.

Cristal Moore (left) has been principal at Smith Elementary for almost eight years and an educator in Lawndale for 30. The school's mascot, Charlie the Cheetah, is a more recent addition to campus.

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“We're not gonna let the administration and the current political climate [put a damper on] the great gains that this community [achieved], that the teachers and the staff, and your principal, and the parents and the kids earned with your very hard work,” Superintendent Virginia Castro said.

What it takes to become a Blue Ribbon School

In April, Principal Cristal Moore learned Smith Elementary was nominated to become a National Blue Ribbon school.

The program began in 1982 during President Ronald Reagan’s first term to recognize the nation’s top performing schools.

Specifically, Smith was highlighted for being in the top 15% of the state in its efforts to close achievement gaps.

Moore spent her spring break filling out the 25-page application. The document creates a detailed picture of the school.

• The majority of its 331 students are Latino (71%), but the school also serves one of the district’s highest concentrations of Black students (16%).  
• About a third of students are English language learners and also speak Arabic, Filipino, French, Pashto, Spanish, Thai, Urdu, Vietnamese and Amharic, a major Ethiopian language. 
• Most students qualify for free and reduced-price meals, a proxy for counting those from low-income families. 

In California and across the country, Black, Latino and low-income students, score lower than their peers on standardized tests and have yet to catch up to their pre-pandemic peers.

Statewide, California test scores for reading and math increased 1.8 percentage points last school year, but at Smith, there were double-digit increases (32.5 points in math and 27.4 points in reading and writing) schoolwide.

Moore said that no racial group, nor students from low-income families, scored more than 10 percentage points below the school’s average.

“I think a lot of times when you're involved in the day to day, you forget about really the big picture and how much you really are doing,” Moore said. “It was nice to be able to pull back and go, ‘You know, we're doing great stuff.’”

With 331 students, Smith Elementary is the smallest school in the Lawndale Elementary School District.

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Among the school’s strategies for supporting students are: small group instruction at least twice a week and meeting with students before and after school.

And there’s ongoing teacher development in the school’s “learning lab.” On the walls of the once-empty classroom, there is a card for each student with their photo, recent test scores and whether they are an English learner, have a disability or other unique need. The room is only accessible to educators.

“Historically, student data was treated as private, often eliciting anxiety or fear of judgment,” Moore wrote. “At Smith, we have worked to dismantle that mindset, reinforcing that data is a snapshot, not a final destination.”

Moore said the visualization helps educators identify struggling students and celebrate their process. A banner in the room reads: “Learning is a fiesta waiting to happen.”

The end of the Blue Ribbon program

An Alabama news outlet first reported the end of the Blue Ribbon program Aug. 29. Moore said the Department of Education confirmed the cancelation the same week she expected to learn whether the school had won.

LAist asked the department about the decision but has not received a response. A spokesperson told the education news site Chalkbeat in September that the change was “in the spirit of returning education to the states” and that local leaders were best positioned to recognize school excellence.

Yet a past winner told LAist that the award’s prestige and impact was linked to national recognition.

“It almost makes any school, including my school, feel that … now we're in the finals,” said Hing Chow, principal at Monterey Vista Elementary, which won the Blue Ribbon award in 2004 and 2020.

Like Smith, the Monterey Park elementary is a Title I school that receives additional money to support students who live in poverty.

“When we got this award, our community and staff, they were extremely proud because it really affirmed … that there were results,” Chow said. “It also gave us momentum to aspire to better results.”

The art teacher at a Lawndale middle school made hundreds of custom blue ribbons for Smith students, teachers and the community.

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Winning schools often incorporate Blue Ribbon into their marquees and marketing materials. The accolade is one of the first things Chow mentions in his message to families on the school’s website.

More than 9,000 schools have received the award since it began, but now, the national record of that achievement is gone along with the program’s website.

The Trump administration has worked to shut down the nation’s education department entirely, including firing hundreds of people who manage programs and funding for students with disabilities and using federal civil rights law and the upcoming budget to try to end supports for students of color and other groups.

‘Our kids deserve this’

Smith parent and PTA treasurer Sunny Tamrakar was one of few people who knew the school had been nominated and was one of the first at the school to find out about the cancelation.

“I'm not gonna lie, I was pissed. Really just furious,” Tamrakar said. “For me personally, it was just unnecessary, painful and disheartening.”

He contacted the district’s superintendent, emailed and called local and national elected officials and members of the media, including LAist.

“Let's fight for this,” Tamrakar remembered telling them. “Our kids deserve this. [The principal] deserves this. The staff deserves this. The parents deserve this. The kids deserve this.”

Smith parent and PTA treasurer Sunny Tamrakar (left) and his family. Tamrakar is the PTA treasurer and helped organize the school's Blue Ribbon celebration. “In the larger world of things that are happening, changes, good things, bad things — mostly bad things — this is an easy win,” Tamrakar said of the recognition. “This is an easy thing that makes a difference.”

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Tamrakar spearheaded the planning of a local celebration. Smith’s PTA agreed to spend about $1,000 on food, decorations and matching blue ribbon shirts with the school’s cheetah mascot for staff, which a local vendor agreed to provide at cost.

(After planning began, the California Department of Education announced it would also recognize the 2025 National Blue Ribbon Schools.)

School board members and members of the Lawndale City Council were there to congratulate the school in person, and local politicians sent honorary certificates too.

More than a hundred people gathered in the school’s courtyard, including families.

“It gives me a sense of pride knowing that my daughter goes here,” parent Monique Landrum said of the award. She’d already shared the news on a work call earlier in the day.

Landrum considered other schools before enrolling her daughter in transitional kindergarten at Smith last year.

“From the principal to the teachers to the staff, everyone here is amazing,” Landrum said. “They actually care about the children and their success. And I feel so secure and relieved that my daughter's here.”

Jada, who's in kindergarten, said she's learned her ABCs and numbers at Smith and likes to do art. "As a parent, I feel like I'm doing a good job having her in a school that is prioritizing her education and just her overall wellbeing," said her mom, Monique.

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Parents who spoke to LAist said relationships with the people working at the school were what made it special.

Melissa Villaluz’s son Kingston attended Smith; she remembered Principal Moore’s check-in calls during the pandemic.

“It's been such a journey, and I wouldn't have had it any other way,” Villaluz said.

Tania Larios’ daughters started attending the school last fall. Larios, who is currently unhoused, said the school helped provide food, clothes and gifts at Christmas. Throughout the year, the school’s social worker has helped her connect to resources, like the food bank.

“They've made my hard times a little bit easier,” Larios said. “So I'm very grateful, very grateful for them.”

Larios also joined the school’s PTA.

“I want to be part of the community,” she said. “I wanna be involved in my daughter's everything. My parents were not like that, but if I'm here for them.”

Smith parent Tania Larios and her daughters. Valerie (left) is in fourth grade and can rattle off everything she’s learned this year from division and multiplication to idioms. Her favorite part of Smith is the school’s big playground and the friends she’s made.

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Jessica Schilling has been a special education teacher for nearly three decades with the last six years at Smith.

“I was thrilled because I see the work that my colleagues and I put in every day,” Schilling said. “I have seen such growth in students every single year I've been here.”

At Smith, students with disabilities attend classes alongside their peers and also get additional support tailored to their needs.

“None of the teachers are in the mindset of like, these are your kids,” Schilling said. “Those are their kids.”

But Schilling said the celebration was also bittersweet.

“It's disappointing to hear that what's happening at the federal level is not supportive of what we're doing here,” Schilling said in response to the national award’s cancelation. “That said, to me, the honor remains. … I see that what we're doing here is valuable and important.”

How Smith Elementary is moving forward

After the celebration ended, a kindergartner named Jada walked into Principal Moore’s office to give her a package of Oreos from her stash of celebration snacks and promised to bring more for her teachers tomorrow.

“You're so generous,” Moore told Jada, giving her a hug. “Thank you, sweetie.”

Moore said this kind of interaction is common at Smith, where every student is greeted by name in the morning.

“When you can show kids that you see them, you know them and you care about them, you are increasing the likelihood of them wanting to be at school,” Moore said. “You are instilling in them a sense of confidence, self-worth, and I think that has a lingering impact.”

Moore also acknowledged that there still is more work needed to support all Smith students. For example, the largest test score disparities remain between English language learners, students with disabilities and their peers.

One of her next priorities is to double the amount of small group instruction for English and math.

“We know that progress is sometimes slow, but it requires consistency,” Moore said. “We're gonna celebrate. I'm gonna try to frame a lot of these [awards], but we're just gonna keep doing what we are doing because I think this is evidence that we're doing great things.”

Two of the nation's latest food recalls concern cheese — and lots of it.

The recalls are distinct, citing different food safety concerns: One involves hundreds of thousands of containers of shredded mozzarella and multi-cheese blends, while the other affects several brands of grated Pecorino Romano.

But both target products that have sell-by dates in 2026 and are sold in major retailers in more than a dozen states.

Here's what to know:

The shredded cheese recall

Great Lakes Cheese, an Ohio-based company that calls itself "the nation's leading natural cheese packager," initiated a recall of half a dozen kinds of shredded cheese products — from mozzarella to pizza-style — in early October because they may contain fragments of metal.

This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) upgraded its risk classification to Class II, the second-highest, meaning consumption of the product could cause "temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences."

The affected cheeses are sold under dozens of brand names at nationwide retailers including Target, Walmart, Publix and Aldi.

The FDA says they were distributed to 31 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, as well as Puerto Rico.

The recalled bags, with varying sell-by dates in February and March 2026, include:

• Low-moisture part-skim shredded mozzarella from the following brands: Always Save, Borden, Brookshire's, Cache Valley Creamery, Chestnut Hill, Coburn Farms, Econo, Food Club, Food Lion, Gold Rush Creamery, Good & Gather, Great Lakes Cheese, Happy Farms by Aldi, H-E-B, Hill Country Fare, Know & Love, Laura Lynn, Lucerne Dairy Farms, Nu Farm, Publix, Schnuck's, Simply Go, Sprouts Farmers Market, Stater Bros. Markets and Sunnyside Farms.
• Italian style shredded cheese blend under the brand names: Brookshire's, Cache Valley Creamery, Coburn Farms, Great Value, Know & Love, Laura Lynn, Publix, Simply Go and Happy Farms by Aldi.
• Shredded pizza-style cheese blend from Food Club, Econo, Gold Rush Creamery, Great Value, Laura Lynn and Simply Go.
• Mozzarella and provolone shredded cheese blend from Freedom's Choice, Good & Gather, Great Lakes Cheese and Great Value, as well as a mozzarella and parmesan blend from Good & Gather. 
  

The full list of products is on the FDA's website. The FDA has not published a press release or responded to NPR's request for comment about the recall. NPR reached out to Great Lakes Cheese but did not hear back by publication time.

The Pecorino Romano recall

One of several brands of grated Pecorino Romano being recalled over listeria concerns.

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The Ambriola Company, a New Jersey-based cheese distributor, announced last week that it was recalling some of its products after routine testing confirmed the presence of listeria, which can cause potentially life-threatening infections.

It said while no illnesses had been reported, it was recalling products processed at that same facility "out of an abundance of caution." Those products were distributed to retail stores — and other distributors — between Nov. 3 and Nov. 20, the FDA says.

"We take food safety very seriously and immediately alerted stores and distributors to remove the affected products from shelves," Ambriola CEO Phil Marfuggi said in a statement. "We are working closely with the FDA and continuing to test our products and facilities to fully understand the situation."

The recalled products are sold — both in plastic containers and pound-sized plastic bags — under the brand names Ambriola, Locatelli, Pinna, Boar's Head and Member's Mark.

They have expiration dates ranging from February to May 2026. It's not clear exactly where the cheeses ended up, though Walmart says some are sold at Walmart locations in 14 states and Sam's Club locations in 27 states.

Wegman's has also issued a recall of Locatelli-brand Pecorino Romano — over the same listeria concerns — that it says was sold in stores in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C. between Nov. 14 and Nov. 24.

The FDA urges customers to toss or return the cheese for a refund, and contact their doctor if they develop symptoms of a listeria infection, which usually start within two weeks of eating contaminated food and can include fever, headache, stiff neck and muscle aches.

In the meantime, Ambriola says it has suspended production and distribution of affected products as it conducts a "thorough review of all sanitation and food safety procedures."
Copyright 2025 NPR

How far would you travel for a good steak?

For actor and director Eric Wareheim, best known as half of the pioneering duo Tim & Eric, the answer turned into a three-year journey across the United States, a sprawling tour of iconic dining rooms, veteran servers and the rituals that define America’s most enduring steakhouses.

The result is his new book, Steakhouse: The People, the Places, the Recipes.

Wareheim joined LAist 89.3’s AirTalk recently, talking to host Larry Mantle about how the project grew from a simple “best of” list into a full cultural record.

“Every city has five more, not on anyone’s list,” he said, describing the scale of the country’s steakhouse universe.

Understanding the appeal

For Wareheim, a great steakhouse is built on atmosphere as much as what’s on the plate. Newer restaurants may source fancier meat, he said, but the old-school places offer a different kind of comfort — a sense of continuity that’s increasingly rare.

A suited-up Wareheim sampling prime cuts as he documents America’s great steakhouses.

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What became clear in reporting the book, he said, is that steakhouses serve as more than dining rooms. They’re gathering places for birthdays, anniversaries and decades-long family traditions. They’re neighborhood anchors. And they’re deeply specific to their cities, each one carrying its own rituals, quirks and regulars.

An archival look at the people who built the classic American steakhouse, one dining room meeting at a time.

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The local perspective

It didn’t take long for AirTalk listeners to jump in with their own L.A. favorites.

• George Petrelli’s Steakhouse in Culver City: “They bring the meat in and butcher everything right there in the shop — cutting, dressing, even grinding the beef on the premises,” said Douglas in Long Beach.
  
• 555 East in Long Beach, which recently marked its 40th anniversary: “It was a grand celebration for the regulars — incredible prime rib, as much as you wanted, plus all sorts of other good things. Their steaks were terrific, and for dessert, they served a molten, individually baked pudding in its own little casserole dish," raved Harriet in Seal Beach.
  
• Dear John’s in Culver City: “So dark you can’t see for the first five minutes,” joked Michael in Sherman Oaks.
   
• Magic Lamp in Rancho Cucamonga: Its classic neon signage was singled out by Eric via email.
  
• Dan Tana’s in West Hollywood: "The best New York strip in town," said Jennifer in Silver Lake.

• Valley Inn Restaurant and Martini Bar in Sherman Oaks: Rose emailed that it was once the favorite steakhouse of legendary UCLA coach John Wooden. 
  
• Betsy in Altadena: Praised by local resident Peggy as her new go-to, calling its real-wood, fire-seared steaks “a bright spot amongst the ashes” — a nod to the community recovering from the Eaton Fire.
  
• Wareheim himself shouted out Taylor’s in Koreatown, the first steakhouse he and his comedy partner Tim Heidecker visited years ago. This formative experience planted the seed for the book.

From neon signs to prime rib rituals, Wareheim’s book captures the soul of the American steakhouse.

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In addition, Steakhouse also makes mention of plenty of other L.A.–based restaurants that make beef their specialty, including:

Clearman’s Steak ’n Stein (Pico Rivera — classic mid-century steakhouse known for prime rib).
Soot Bull Jip (Koreatown — Korean barbecue)
Langer’s Delicatessen (MacArthur Park — famed pastrami)
Thien An Bo 7 Mon (Rosemead — Vietnamese seven-courses-of-beef restaurant)
Niku X (Downtown L.A. — high-end dry-aged/robot-assisted steakhouse)
Musso & Frank Grill (Hollywood — iconic old-school chophouse)
Majordomo (Chinatown — modern Korean-American takes on large-format beef)

Veteran servers

Wareheim argued that the heart of any steakhouse isn’t the cut of meat — it’s the staff. Many of the places he visited have servers who’ve been there 30 or 40 years, passing down the rhythms of the room like a craft.

“You want to go to a serious server, a lifer who knows exactly what the best thing is,” he said. “You can let go and just let these veterans guide you. And that’s a good feeling.”

The Trump administration has started the process of dramatically easing fuel economy requirements for new vehicles, part of the administration's broader pivot away from cleaner cars.

At the White House on Wednesday, surrounded by the executives from several major car companies, President Donald Trump said the move would save consumers money by making cars cheaper.

"We're officially terminating Joe Biden's ridiculously burdensome — horrible, actually — CAFE standards that impose expensive restrictions," Trump said, referring to the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules, often called CAFE standards. "And all sorts of problems, all sorts of problems for automakers."

Previous research from Consumer Reports has challenged the argument that regulations make cars more expensive. Stringent fuel economy standards also carry an economic benefit in the form of lower fuel costs over time.

CAFE standards require that the entire fleet of vehicles sold by a given automaker, on average, get more fuel-efficient over time. Automakers who fall short have previously needed to either pay hefty fines, or buy credits from a company that over-performs on efficiency, like Tesla and other all-electric automakers.

The Trump administration has already defanged the existing CAFE standards by eliminating the fines associated with them, as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Under Former President Joe Biden, the rules called for vehicles to get 2% more efficient every year; the Trump administration is now proposing to revert to the 2022 baseline and increase by .5% annually.

The proposed change now enters a period of public comment; the Department of Transportation will collect input from companies and citizens before finalizing the rule.

The administration has already been working to roll back tailpipe standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency, which are designed to cut pollution from vehicles. The two sets of rules have overlapping effects, with both of them pushing automakers toward cleaner vehicles.

Meanwhile, during the second Trump presidency Congress has also eliminated the consumer tax credit for purchasing electric vehicles, decided to end a tax credit for installing an EV charger in June 2026, earlier than planned, and voted to strike down federal waivers that let California require automakers to build zero-emission vehicles. The Trump administration also temporarily delayed a program to use federal money to build a high-speed EV charger network.

The policy shift was no surprise. Trump campaigned against what he called the "electric vehicle mandate," and promised to rescind policies — including fuel economy standards — that encouraged or incentivized EVs.

Trump has framed the policy rollback as a gift to the auto industry. And that's partially true: Large trucks and SUVs may be inefficient, but they're popular and profitable, and selling more of them without any penalty is a financial boon to automakers. In earnings calls this fall, multiple executives noted that the regulatory rollback will boost earnings and help offset the cost of tariffs.

Electric vehicle adoption in the U.S. has moved slower than automakers had expected. Some automakers have said made some of the Biden-era policies not just challenging but unworkable.

In a statement provided by the White House, Ford CEO Jim Farley praised "President Trump's leadership in aligning fuel economy standards with market realities."

But automakers are also navigating a changing global market, with many countries continuing to prioritize climate action. The popularity of high-quality, affordable Chinese EVs has raised questions about whether legacy automakers can compete. So Farley's statement also promised that "We can make real progress on carbon emissions and energy efficiency while still giving customers choice and affordability."

For companies, which need to plan their future vehicle lineups years in advance, it's challenging when rules whipsaw back and forth with each change in administration. That's been the reality for years now: The Obama administration set ambitious fuel economy rules, which Trump 1.0 reversed, Biden reinstated, and now Trump 2.0 is seeking to "reset."

Farley obliquely noted that risk in a conversation with investors in October. He explained why Ford was continuing to move ahead with plans for an affordable electric pickup, despite regulations shifting to no longer support EVs. "We expect adoption will increase over time and the market continue to evolve," Farley said. "And maybe the regulations evolve."

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