The Brief

The benefits of reading to (human) kids are well documented — not just for learning, but for strengthening emotional connections and improving mental health.

But could there be benefits for other species too? Specifically, for dogs in shelters?

At least anecdotally, staffers and volunteers at Pasadena Humane — an L.A.-area shelter that’s been around since 1903 — say they’re seeing real benefits to pairing volunteer readers with dogs.

Molly Litteken, a volunteer with the "Reading Rovers" program at Pasadena Humane, reads to a shelter dog.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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When LAist’s How To LA podcast team visited recently, there was music playing over loudspeakers for the dogs in their kennels. They sometimes play audiobooks too, and each week a handful of volunteers also reads to the dogs in person.

The idea, spokesperson Kevin McManus says, is that it’s inherently stressful for the dogs to be in a shelter, so playing music or reading to them one-on-one helps create a “calming, more serene environment.”

Volunteers with the “Reading Rovers” program read all different kinds of books — or sometimes the newspaper — to the dogs.

“We have a lot of kids who do it after school,” McManus says. “It’s great for the kids, [and] it’s great for the dogs cause it’s a nice calm environment and a soothing voice. And for a shy dog, it really helps them come out of their shell a little bit. It helps them get adopted.”

Elizabeth, a volunteer with the "Reading Rovers" program, reads to Terry, a 1-year-old Akita mix available for adoption.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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On a recent Friday, third-grader Mirabel and her mom Elizabeth were at the shelter for their one-hour shift. Sitting next to each other on beach chairs, they took turns reading Mrs. Smith’s Spy School for Girls and Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul to two dogs — Terry, a 1-year-old Akita mix, and Logan, a Siberian Husky mix, also about a year old.

“Reading is a little therapeutic and I think it's beyond species,” Elizabeth says. “They come up and they listen and they hear the kind of slow pulse of your voice and it calms them down. And consequently I calm down and [Mirabel] calms down and we kind of cuddle up to a good book.”

After spending some time with Terry and Logan, Elizabeth asked Kevin: “Do you know anybody who's sad back there that needs a little reading?” The answer was Bandit, and she and Mirabel headed there next.

A few rows over, volunteer Stefan Bucher was seated near a 2-year-old black and white pitbull named Twizzler, a “real sweetheart” whom he checks in with every week.

Pasadena Humane volunteer Stefan Bucher reads to Twizzler, a pitbull available for adoption.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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As for what he reads to the dogs, Bucher says it’s a wide variety. “They seem to like British society mysteries.” But his book that day was a bit more on the serious side — “Right now I'm reading to them about inclusive language. You know, because they’ve got to be ready for the world.”

Bucher says he starts his weekly volunteer shift with a walkthrough.

“Usually I pick a dog that seems to be kind of sad or agitated,” he said.

After he sits with them, “they take a minute to settle in. But then it's really nice when they just kind of chill out. And that's the best, when they kind of splay out and go like, 'Ah, OK,  this is nice.' So you can kind of tell when they're responding to it.”

Volunteer Molly Litteken reads to a dog at Pasadena Humane.

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Brian Feinzimer

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Volunteer Molly Litteken was making her rounds too, and had stopped to read to a dachshund (one of her favorite breeds) for a bit. Litteken has Down Syndrome and found out about “Reading Rovers” while looking online for volunteer opportunities with her mom, Nancy Litteken, who heads up the Club 21 Learning and Resource Center for Individuals With Down Syndrome.

“I love dogs so much,” Litteken says. “They make me happy, they need me.”

Angie Aguirre is Molly’s aide who comes to volunteer sessions with her and works with her to help her gain life skills and become more independent. She says the “Reading Rovers” program even helped Molly get her first job, handing out dog food samples at local pet stores, because of the experience and confidence she’s gained while volunteering.

“It's a way for her to connect with the dogs, and it's also a way to connect with herself — her more mature self,” Aguirre says. “I kind of walk away and she doesn't need any guidance when it comes to animals. She just seems to know what to do. And she's great at sensing the dogs that maybe need a little extra attention.”

Find out more about the “Reading Rovers” program here. (For cat lovers out there, we hear a reading program is in the works for feline friends too.)

Editor's note: This article has been updated with a clarification about how Molly Litteken began volunteering with Pasadena Humane.

Tommy Lefroy is the brainchild of singer-songwriters Tessa Mouzourakis and Wynter Bethel, who are putting a literary spin on soft rock. They’re getting ready to release their first album, The Precariat, this month and have been teasing fans along the way, with their latest single, “Vacuum” out Friday.

The name Tommy Lefroy is a reference to the man who is often said to have inspired Jane Austen’s character Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. Bethel said they wanted to “subvert and embody the muse or the 'heartbreaker.'”

Their first album, The Precariat, draws inspiration from the works of economists and social activists. Mouzourakis cites Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism as inspiration for the album because the book talks about people in power capitalizing on disaster.

“We’re seeing that now, although we’re kind of in a state of constant crisis,” Mouzourakis said. (Fun fact, the band even hosts book swaps at their shows.)

Then there’s British economist Guy Standing, who wrote The Precariat in 2011, about a new socioeconomic class facing financial insecurity and instability. Their new album focuses on that feeling of instability they experienced firsthand, such as when Mouzourakis moved to L.A. around the time of the January 2025 fires, which also delayed recording their album.

Bethel is originally from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Mouzourakis hails from Vancouver, British Columbia. The two met in Nashville in 2017 in songwriting circles and started creating music together during the pandemic.

The time they spent together writing their first EP Flightrisk in London inspired their latest single, “Vacuum.” Bethel said when she moved to London, she didn’t know anyone except for Mouzourakis.

“We were kind of referencing this sense of us having no community besides each other, the band becoming this focus and this thing that was tying us together,” said Mouzourakis. Bethel adds, "It was a gut feeling that led me to ask Tessa to start a band, and in this song, we're kind of equating that to sort of blind faith of following someone into the dark."

Songs like “Slush Puppy,” the first single off The Precariat, reference the book The Coming Insurrection written by The Invisible Committee and touch on the surveillance state.

“Things feel sometimes futureless, or it feels so heavy, it feels unbearable,” Mouzourakis said. “We tried to offer sort of glimmers of hope in community and friendship and the people around you and talking to each other, sharing in this experience, because it is incredibly isolating.”

The Precariat comes out Oct. 23, and they play at El Cid, 4212 W Sunset Blvd, on Nov. 4. Tickets are around $27.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law that requires large companies to disclose if they or their predecessors profited from chattel slavery.

The Truth in Disclosure Act will require major companies operating in the state to disclose these historical and financial ties to enslavement-related transactions. 2

The bill was a top priority for the California Legislative Black Caucus this year. No other state requires corporations to account for their historical role in the slave economy, according to advocates.

Authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, a Democrat from Culver City, the law applies to companies with annual worldwide gross receipts over $100 million. Assembly Bill 2599 also requires relevant records and disclosures to be made publicly available through a searchable digital to be established by the state’s Civil Rights Department.

The sworn filings will be subject to the penalty of perjury. The first affidavits are due by Jan. 15, 2029.

Supporters say the database could be a useful tool for academics, journalists and advocates to examine the connections between current corporate wealth and historical participation in the slave economy.

An example of a type of company that would likely have to make such disclosures in California is JP Morgan Chase. According to the California Reparations Task Force report, in 2005, the banking giant wrote a formal apology because two banks that it had taken ownership of had taken 13,000 enslaved people as security for loans in Louisiana. When enslavers could not pay back the loans, the banks took ownership of 1,200 people.

The law only applies to companies that existed or whose predecessor company existed on or before December 1964.

“I’m thinking agriculture. I’m thinking banking, insurance. I’m thinking anything in the financial sector,” Bryan said about the types of companies he expects may have to file disclosures.

“Once the public has this disclosure and we have a full accounting of the impact, then it’s up to us to decide what that means and what we’re going to do about it,” he added.

Several insurance companies opposed the measure as it moved through the Legislature. They said they already disclosed their connections to slavery through a 2000 California law that resulted in a publicly available report.

The newest law is the latest in a slow, uneven effort to act on the findings of the state’s reparations task force.

Newsom created the task force in 2020. After two years of study, it released a 2023 report detailing California's history of enslavement and discriminatory policies and made more than 100 recommendations. Economists estimated the state owes Black residents at least $800 billion for harms in policing, housing, and health.

Lawmakers have since taken small steps. In 2024, Newsom signed six of the Legislative Black Caucus' 14 priority bills that drew from the task force report, including a formal state apology. That year, the caucus declined to advance two ambitious reparations bills, opening a painful split with grassroots advocates.

The California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation and Truth applauded Newsom and Bryan for the new law.

“California has long been a state that prides itself on justice and equity and AB 2599 moves the needle closer to the transparency that is necessary to recognize and rectify these historical injustices and understand the roots of modern economic disparities,” said CAIR-CA Chief Executive Hussam Ayloush in a written statement.

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

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office has been investigating the Lineage warehouse fire since the first week of July, contradicting Mayor Karen Bass’ recent statement that the elected attorney had chosen not to.

City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto had not publicly disclosed the investigation, and it’s unclear whether Bass knew about it when she told student journalists at The LA Local that she had asked Feldstein Soto and state officials to investigate the fire but was met with inaction.

The rare public admission of the nearly three-month old investigation came a week after The LA Local reported that the two candidates vying to replace Feldstein Soto said her office could do more to help Angelenos in the wake of the fire. The City Council asked the city attorney to report in closed session on what legal options are available to them. But that report has not yet been completed and may not reach the public when it is.

Bass had previously declined to comment on possible legal action related to the fire despite residents’ demand for help. On Wednesday, student journalist Edgar Vasquez asked if she would request the city attorney open a corporate accountability investigation.

“I asked [Feldstein Soto] to open one quite a while ago,” Bass responded. “I also asked Attorney General Bonta to open one. I am not in charge of them. They are independent elected officials. They can choose to do it or not. So far, they have not chosen to do it.”

Karen Richardson, the city attorney’s communications director, told The LA Local that Bass may have “misspoke” and defended Feldstein Soto’s decision to keep the investigation from the public and presumably from other elected officials in the city.

“We do not comment on pending investigations or litigations but in this instance our office will confirm that we have had an open investigation since the first week of July and that investigation is ongoing and active,” Richardson said by email. “The City Attorney, in her capacity as Chief Prosecutor for the City, investigates and brings actions without prompting or reporting to City Officials or the press. As a prosecutor, the client of the Office is the People of the State of California, not the City of Los Angeles.”

Richardson did not immediately respond to a follow-up inquiry about the nature and scope of the investigation or if those impacted by the fire will be told of its findings.

Bass’ office also did not immediately respond to questions after the city attorney’s team told The LA Local about the months-old investigation.

The Attorney General’s Office declined to comment for this story.

Marissa Roy and John McKinney, one of whom will become the next city attorney, previously told The LA Local that the city attorney’s office should have acted publicly sooner. Both said they would be more transparent and would launch a corporate accountability investigation of the fire if elected. Depending on how long the current investigation takes to complete, the next city attorney could inherit it.

Past L.A. city attorneys have pursued such investigations and won settlements for people harmed by corporate misconduct. Roy has worked on similar lawsuits for the California Department of Justice, contributing to a landmark settlement against the tech company Meta. 

Community advocacy groups, meanwhile, have asked the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to open a criminal investigation of the fire. That agency declined to comment for this story. 

McKinney, who currently is a deputy district attorney, said if the investigation found criminal activity, he would pursue filing charges. 

Bass told the student journalists that the fire department’s investigation “was a preliminary one” and that more can be expected. 

“There’s other investigations coming, and by the way, I really want those investigations because you know I’m blocking them from rebuilding,” Bass said Wednesday.

Bass and the City Council established a temporary suspension of the permit to rebuild Lineage’s damaged facility. 

Lineage’s CEO has said that the company has not decided yet if it will rebuild the damaged facility. Bass conceded that the company has a legal path to rebuild if it chooses to. But after several public disputes about blown cleanup deadlines and other matters, Bass said she does not support the company rebuilding.

“I know it’s your right, but you lost your right by the harm you inflicted on this community,” Bass said. “Then if they don’t rebuild. Then the community has to ask itself: then what?”