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The most important stories for you to know today
  • A story of love, sweat and repertory films.
    REVIVAL-HOUSES-GARDENA-CINEMA
    Inside the letter room of the theater, Kim searches for the letters she needs to complete the updates for the marquee.

    Topline:

    The single-screen Gardena Cinema has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and has always figured out ways to serve its community — even through some very difficult financial times.

    Why it matters: This isn’t a story of stylish renovations, or of celebrity filmmaker intervention. This is the story of one family who fell in love with a movie theater and did (and even lost) everything to keep it up and running. Gardena Cinema is one of the last family-run movie theaters in L.A. Gardena Cinema is one of the last family-run movie theaters in L.A.

    Why now: After struggling through a pandemic and ill-fated efforts to bring people back through its doors, Gardena Cinema finally hit some recent success after it stopped dealing with first-run releases and pivoted to repertory films. Many nights at this South Bay theater, you can catch a newish — or oldish — classic, from La La Land to Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

    Listen:

    How To LA logo (graphical text) with LAist Studios logo (graphical text) with 6th street bridge in the background; with red to orange vertical gradient as background color
    Listen 22:39
    #250: As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA. We're checking out the Gardena Cinema, which pivoted to revival screenings relatively recently. The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim's saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has also built up an incredible community of folks dedicated to keeping the cinema running.
    Revival House: The Gardena Cinema's Fight to Stay Open
    #250: As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA. We're checking out the Gardena Cinema, which pivoted to revival screenings relatively recently. The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim's saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has also built up an incredible community of folks dedicated to keeping the cinema running.

    Go deeper:

    This isn’t a story of stylish renovations, or of celebrity filmmaker intervention. This is the story of one family who fell in love with a movie theater and did (and even lost) everything to keep it up and running.

    The single-screen Gardena Cinema has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and has always figured out ways to serve its community — even through some very difficult financial times.

    After struggling through a pandemic and ill-fated efforts to bring people back through its doors, Gardena Cinema finally hit some success after it stopped dealing with first-run releases and pivoted to repertory films. Many nights at this South Bay theater, you can catch a newish — or oldish — classics like La La Land and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

    The Kim family

    The Gardena Cinema has always been a movie theater. It opened in 1946 as the Park Theatre, and operated consistently through the years showing first and second run feature films until it went up for sale in the 1970s.

    That’s where the Kim family comes in. John and Nancy Kim immigrated from South Korea and had the goal of operating their own business. They dabbled in a few different industries when Nancy found the theater.

    “My mom fell in love with it as soon as she came and saw it,” says current Gardena Cinema owner Judy Kim.

    It's an incredible space, tucked between a gym and a Superior Grocers on Crenshaw Boulevard. It’s way bigger inside than it looks — at 800 seats, it’s easily one of the biggest theaters in the city. For comparison, The Chinese in Hollywood seats 932.

    How To LA logo (graphical text) with LAist Studios logo (graphical text) with 6th street bridge in the background; with red to orange vertical gradient as background color
    Listen 22:39
    #250: As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA and the Gardena Cinema. The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim has saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has recently pivoted to showing repertory films at the theater.
    Listen to the How to LA episode
    #250: As we continue our series "Revival House," How To LA producer Victoria Alejandro is taking us to the South Bay of LA and the Gardena Cinema. The theater has been owned by the Kim family since 1976, and is now a non-profit run by Judy Kim and a team of 40 volunteers. Kim has saved the cinema from closures a handful of times now, and has recently pivoted to showing repertory films at the theater.

    There are still fireproof window covers in the projection room, a holdover from old film screening safety practices. And there are “cry rooms” upstairs from the 1940s, balcony seating with speakers and a glass window where patrons could sit with a crying baby and not interrupt their viewing experience.

    People always comment on how nicely preserved the theater is as it was from 1946, and I tell people it's only preserved because my parents never had enough money to upgrade it.
    — Judy Kim, owner of Gardena Cinema

    Now it's got that vintage hue.

    “Now it's cool! It's really cool!,” says Kim. “Now that I have dreams of trying to raise money to make changes, people are like, don't change anything!”

    The early days

    When the Kims bought the theater, they saw an underserved audience in Gardena. There was a drive-in theater nearby in Torrance called the Roadium that played Spanish-language movies every Wednesday, and the place would be packed.

    One day, Judy Kim says, her parents decided to change the format of the theater from English speaking second-run movies from Hollywood to second-run Spanish language movies. In the 1970s and the 80s, the Kims named the theater Teatro Variedades — “variety theater” in Spanish — and focused on Spanish-language films and live events with Latino filmmakers and actors. If the Torrance drive-in was ever rained out, or if folks wanted to catch a movie in Spanish on another day of the week, they’d head to the Gardena.

    “It was meant to be like a neighborhood theater that was typical in the post-war era,” says Kim. “There was always a neighborhood movie theater that you could walk to from your home, just a few blocks away … all of those theaters are now gone.”

    The Kims held on to their theater and in 1995 renamed it the Gardena Cinema. Judy Kim and her brother helped run the theater and neighborhood kids showed up too, offering to clean or help out in other ways in exchange for a movie ticket.

    It served as a community hub.

    We were almost kind of like a Boys and Girls Club,” recalls Kim. After the movie, kids “would hang out in the lobby, and we would play video games, or talk about what was cool and what was not and, as an adult at that time, I made sure that all the kids that were here did their homework.”

    “I tutored them,” she adds. “I made sure that they were doing OK in school.”

    Kim always expected them to go to college.

    Trouble sets in

    Despite the joy found in the theater, like most teens, Judy Kim wanted to get away from her parents and spread her wings, so to speak. She left for college out east and had dreams of moving to New York and becoming a Broadway producer.

    Then the calls started coming — a lot of calls from her parents. Sometimes twice a day, begging her to return to L.A. She didn’t really understand what the urgency was all about, but she came home and found her parents — and the theater’s — finances in disarray.

    “I realized that they were under extreme financial hardship, and they were embroiled in lots of legal problems,” she says.

    Kim explains that her parents had been defrauded multiple times. The Kims lost their house, their car. To help, Judy Kim went to law school, became a lawyer and dug in to help untangle them. It took almost 15 years to get everything sorted. “We were basically surviving off of, like, 99 cent hamburgers,” she says.

    The upside in all of this — and the part of this story that might be the reason Gardena Cinema is still around — is that about five years ago, Kim negotiated the purchase of a parking lot.

    It was a big-time play. Gardena is one of very few independent theaters in L.A. with its own parking and, says Kim, “it saved our butt when the pandemic came.”

    “Nobody was open and I had this big parking lot that I could show movies outdoors where people could sit in their car, safely, away from other people and watch a movie,” she says. “All they had to do was tune into the FM station that I told them to tune into.”

    A bumpy road to recovery

    As theaters in the city started welcoming folks back inside, the Kim family then had to navigate another major loss. “That time period is when my mom was fighting cancer,” says Kim. Nancy Kim died in 2022.

    A photo of an older Asian woman with gray hair is surrounded by flowers and trinkets as part of a shrine.
    An altar of Kim's mother, Nancy Soo Myoung Kim, is placed in the lobby of the theater in remembrance of her beloved mother.
    (
    Zaydee Sanchez
    /
    LAist
    )

    John and Judy Kim closed the theater and took a few months to grieve. Judy Kim sold her condo and moved in with her father, putting that money towards the cinema.

    “And then I said to my dad, we’re running out of money.”

    The Gardena Cinema reopened with Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, expecting it to be a huge hit. But only 10 people showed up to the first screening. Reopening the cinema with first-run movies meant that Kim was actually losing money.

    New releases are “loss leaders” for movie theaters. Most of the ticket price is going straight back to the film’s distributor, and contracts mean that new films have to be shown for a certain number of weeks. If a theater isn’t bringing in enough audience members to turn a profit on concessions, theater owners are spending more than they’re making by running a first run film.

    “So 2023, I’m running out of money,” says Kim. She says her father was ready to retire and use his “senior citizen card for all the national parks.” Why not sell the theater? Neither Kim nor her brother have children, so “there’s nobody to leave the theater to,” she says.

    The theater hit the market, but didn’t sell.

    Judy Kim made another last ditch pivot and came up with another plan: “I’m going to set up a nonprofit organization.”

    With her father’s blessing, Kim began the process in April of 2023. The theater got official recognition as a nonprofit in July. Between that and the success of summer films like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Barbie, the Gardena Cinema had a future.

    Volunteer 'grandchildren'

    Judy Kim was now running a theater and a nonprofit entirely on her own. But, as she learned years earlier, you can’t underestimate the number of people willing to trade work for a free movie. It took months, but Kim now has a team of 40 volunteers who help her run the theater.

    “I’ve got a really good core group of people that are very supportive.”

    It’s those volunteers who convinced Kim to move away from first-run movies and start programming repertory screenings. Without the strict scheduling and tiny profit margins of a first-run movie, Kim suddenly had a lot more flexibility. If she needed to step away and take care of her father, or just close the theater on a slow night, those options were now on the table.

    A collage of vintage movie posters cover a wall that is set against an unlit background.
    Movie posters adorn the lobby walls of the Gardena Cinema.
    (
    Zaydee Sanchez
    /
    LAist
    )

    The Gardena Cinema volunteers are invaluable to the space. They run concessions, clean the theater, sell tickets, run the projector — and this past November, Kim left the theater in their hands entirely to take a trip with her father. “They did a fantastic job … it’s still standing,” she says.

    If you care about something, you gotta go the extra mile.
    — Conor Holt, a volunteer at the Gardena Theater

    Cifen, a local filmmaker, helps organize events in the theater. He put together a singles’ night and a screening of his independent film, Age of Embellished Relic, this past February. He calls the theater a “safe haven.”

    Conor Holt makes the drive to Gardena from East Hollywood. A former ArcLight Cinemas employee, he says he cares about making sure cinemas stay open. “If you care about something, you gotta go the extra mile.”

    Adela Tobon used to manage a single-screen movie theater in Northern California. A friend told her about the Gardena Cinema and she says, “I just lost it. I’m like, this is exactly where I belong.”

    And Bill DeFrance has taken over a lot of John Kim’s duties in the cinema — cutting trailers, ripping tickets at the box office, building the show in the projector.

    It’s a family affair for DeFrance too. On Valentine’s Day, he programmed Wild at Heart — his and his wife’s favorite movie. “I programmed it for Valentine’s Day so I could be at the theater and on a date at the same time.”

    A sign his daughter made hangs on the side of the ticket booth, and boldly states in red crayon: “NO PRANK CALLS!”

    “For a long time, my dad was like, well, we don’t need to leave a legacy. There’s no grandkids,” says Kim. But the volunteers pipe up with a chorus: “We can be your grandchildren!”

    An Asian woman with her hair pulled back and wearing a black t-shirt sits alone in a theater auditorium with hundreds of empty seats. She leans forward with a slight smile and rests her arm on the seat in front of her.
    Gardena Cinema owner Judy Kim.
    (
    Zaydee Sanchez
    /
    LAist
    )

    Judy Kim is now planning on leaving an endowment for the theater, so it can continue after she and her family have moved on. And intentional or not, the Gardena Cinema now has a legacy of community building and a fighting spirit.

    Keep an eye on the Gardena Cinema’s calendar. You can catch anything from a karaoke party screening of La La Land to Dawn of the Dead in 3D to film festivals featuring shorts from local filmmakers.

  • A nation remembers the terrifying attacks
    A child walks through the Empty Sky 9/11 Memorial with One World Trade Center and Lower Manhattan in the distance on August 23, 2026 in Jersey City, New Jersey.

    Topline:

    A quarter century after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a politically and culturally divided United States is commemorating a day of violence, loss and heroism that altered the trajectory of the nation, sending people's lives spiraling in directions they could never have expected.

    What happened that day: On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists affiliated with al-Qaida, an Islamic extremist group, hijacked four commercial airliners. Two planes were flown deliberately into the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan. A third jetliner slammed into its target, the Pentagon, in Arlington, Va. A fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pa.

    Why it matters: The toll from 9/11 and the events that followed has been devastating.

    When the 9/11 terrorist attacks began on a blue-sky morning 25 years ago, the Rev. Eric Olsen was working in upstate New York. The National Guard unit where Olsen served as chaplain scrambled to deploy and served for months on a security detail around the massive pile of wreckage at ground zero, site of the World Trade Center's fallen twin towers in New York City.

    "There was all this uncertainty," Olsen recalls. "Are there going to be more attacks? Is this just the forerunner?"

    A quarter century later, a politically and culturally divided United States is commemorating a day of violence, loss and heroism that altered the trajectory of the nation, sending people's lives spiraling in directions they could never have expected.

    "I intend to take some time to myself to pray, contemplate and grieve," says Olsen, who served a harrowing tour in Iraq and spent more than a decade of active Guard service counseling military personnel caught up in ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    "I did a lot of death notifications for families who lost sons and daughters. It was just a very sad time," he says, now 68 and retired.

    A person in U.S. Army camouflage uniform with a name tag reading 'Olsen' gestures while speaking in front of bookshelves.
    The Rev. Eric Olsen, who lives in Saranac Lake, N.Y., served as a chaplain in New York's National Guard, deploying to support a security detail at ground zero in Manhattan after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and later serving a tour in Iraq.
    (
    Courtesy Eric Olsen
    )

    The toll from 9/11 and the events that followed has been devastating. On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists affiliated with al-Qaida, an Islamic extremist group, hijacked four commercial airliners. Two planes were flown deliberately into the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan. A third jetliner slammed into its target, the Pentagon, in Arlington, Va. A fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pa.

    Historians say at least 2,977 people died in the initial attack. A study by Brown University found that an additional 7,000 U.S. service members died in post-9/11 wars. Tens of thousands more fell ill, and many died from illnesses linked to toxic debris that spread after the planes crashed.

    A call to Americans, especially the young, to remember 

    To mark the first quarter-century after 9/11, ceremonies are being held around the United States. In New York City, officials including Vice President Vance and former President Joe Biden will gather at the 9/11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan. There will also be vigils at New York City Fire Department stations and a special baseball game between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets that will include tributes to first responders and those who lost their lives.

    "I encourage every American, particularly people who are young enough to not remember that day, just to tune in for a couple of hours and see what it meant," Vance said during a press conference last week. "I think that sense of commonality and common purpose that we all had on 9/11, that's something we really try every single day to get back to."

    President Trump will commemorate the anniversary at an event held at the Pentagon, where he is expected to give a speech. A memorial service will also be held at the site in rural Pennsylvania where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after passengers disrupted the terrorists' plan to use the plane in an attack on Washington, D.C.

    One treatment of the aftermath of the attacks is a new exhibition at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City called "In Their Honor: 25 Years of 9/11-Inspired Service." It recognizes people who committed their lives to public service after experiencing the trauma of that day.

    A person stands on an overlook platform beneath tall concrete panels forming a memorial wall, set on a grassy hillside at dusk.
    A visitor stands at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2025.
    (
    Jeff Swensen
    /
    Getty Images
    )
    Two people stand solemnly near memorial benches at the Pentagon Memorial, with a white flower resting on the ground nearby.
    A couple pauses to read the nameplate on a memorial bench at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va., on Sept. 10, 2025.
    (
    Jim Watson
    /
    AFP via Getty Images
    )

    "That we can come together with compassion, with courage to serve after suffering an incredible set of losses, on 9/11 and after, is a really powerful message," says museum director Elizabeth Hillman, a historian and U.S. Air Force veteran.

    Questioning 9/11's impact on a divided America

    Hillman says that like many, she is taking stock, on this milestone anniversary, of how 9/11 reshaped American society. "It changed the [nation's] foreign policy, the shape of the armed forces and the ways we understood what a threat was and what constitutes being safe," she told NPR.

    Questions about the impact and legacy of 9/11 remain fraught for many. On Tuesday, New York City officials unveiled a repository for air quality documents linked to 9/11 that had been withheld from the public by past administrations. During a press conference, Jon Stewart, the comedian who has emerged as an activist supporting 9/11 survivors, voiced anger over a disclosure that he described as long overdue.

    "They didn't recognize that the air everybody was breathing in downtown Manhattan was toxic until October of 2001," Stewart said. "So to be fair to them, they only buried that information for 25 years."

    Former New York Gov. George Pataki, who was in office when the attacks happened, told NPR that he's proud of how New York City recovered from the disaster. But Pataki voiced concern about fault lines in American society that he believes grew after 9/11.

    "We are just in so many ways unable to work politically toward finding common ground," Pataki said. "The biggest disappointment to me since Sept. 11 is that polarization. It's the opposite of the sense of unity — that we were all Americans — that we felt on Sept. 12."

    People wearing respirator masks around their neck stand before a damaged building, one pointing upward, an NYPD jacket visible.
    On Sept. 18, 2001, New York Gov. George Pataki (left) stands with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (center) and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the World Trade Center attack site in New York.
    (
    Timothy A. Clary
    /
    AFP via Getty Images
    )

    Olsen, the former National Guard chaplain, says he also feels alarm about the nation's direction in the decades after the attack.

    "I don't like the way it's gone. I love this country, but we're more disjointed and un-unified than we've ever been in my lifetime. Everybody's afraid of everything. And now we're back in the Middle East bombing again," Olsen says.

    Water cascades into a square reflecting pool at night, with a city skyline glowing in the background.
    One of the twin reflecting pools at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City on Sept. 2. The two pools sit in the footprints of the original twin towers at the World Trade Center.
    (
    Spencer Platt
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    Political and cultural divisions surfaced again ahead of Friday's commemoration, when two prominent Republicans who led New York on 9/11, Pataki and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, suggested in interviews, including with NPR, that the city's current Democratic leader, Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim, should stay away from memorial ceremonies.

    Speaking with NPR, Pataki criticized Mamdani for failing to break all ties with controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who in 2019 said that America "deserved" 9/11. Piker later distanced himself from his remarks and apologized. During a mayoral debate in 2025, Mamdani described Piker's statement as "objectionable and reprehensible." 

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other Democrats condemned efforts to dissuade Mamdani from attending Friday's ceremonies. Mamdani, who has taken part in numerous 9/11-related events honoring families and first responders over the last week, told reporters that he will be present at Friday's ceremony in Lower Manhattan.

    "I love this city — I love this country," Mamdani said. "What I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them."
    Copyright 2026 NPR

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  • Jewish bakery braids food and addiction treatment
    A man with medium skin tone — wearing a black t-shirt, a hat, glasses and purple latex gloves — carries a tray full of baked goods in an industrial kitchen.
    Michael Sonekh unloads a tray of baked goods at Baked T'Shuvah, which gets hundreds of orders ahead of the Jewish high holidays.

    Topline:

    At Beit T’Shuvah, a unique Jewish institution on the border of L.A. and Culver City that provides treatment to people recovering from addiction, residents also help with a bakery operation that churns out delicious challah and babka. With the arrival of the Jewish High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, they're now entering their busiest time of year.

    Learning to bake on the path to 'return': Beit T’Shuvah's Hebrew name can be translated as "House of Return." According to Head Community Rabbi Igael Gurin-Malous, who leads weekly services, the concept of “return” informs the process of addiction recovery. “When someone is interested in changing, and becoming better, and growing, and contributing to society — there's no greater force,” Gurin-Malous said.

    Fueling the High Holidays and addiction treatment: The treatment center's baked goods spinoff is called Baked T’Shuvah. The bakery's website says, “Our challah is addictive. Trust us, we understand addiction.” The bakery receives hundreds of orders in anticipation of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year that starts on Friday evening. The profits go right back into the addiction treatment program, leaders said.

    Read on... to learn what else participants have discovered through the program.

    About a week before Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish New Year, which starts Friday evening — a group of youngish, hairnet-wearing adults were hunched over metal tables, spreading Nutella, sprinkling chocolate chips and slathering other gooey yumminess onto long, glistening slabs of dough.

    “I’ve tried some of the best babka,” said baking instructor Jackie Elkins, referring to the Ashkenazi dessert bread. “From New York, everywhere — I’ve tried it.”

    But Elkins, 64, stopped before finishing the thought. Someone completed it for her: “Not as good [as ours].”

    Elkins nodded.

    This babka filling was taking place at Beit T’Shuvah, a unique Jewish institution on the border of L.A. and Culver City that provides substance and addiction recovery, while also running a bakery operation that helps fund treatment.

    ‘We understand addiction’

    The nonprofit’s Hebrew name can be translated as “House of Return.” Other than one Chabad outpatient facility, also in L.A., Jewish-based recovery institutions aren’t really a thing, said Zac Jones, Beit T’Shuvah’s executive director.

    “It’s like part Jewish summer camp, part residential treatment center, part school for living,” said Jones, himself a former resident. He noted that being Jewish isn’t required to get one of the approximately 140 beds in the facility.

    Beit T’Shuvah’s baked goods spinoff is called Baked T’Shuvah. The bakery’s website says, “Our challah is addictive. Trust us, we understand addiction.”

    A bearded man with medium-light skin tone and glasses stands with his tattooed arms folded in an office lined with bookshelves.
    Rabbi Igael Gurin-Malous leads weekly services at Beit T'Shuvah's addiction recovery center.
    (
    Ezra Salkin
    /
    LAist
    )

    According to Head Community Rabbi Igael Gurin-Malous, who leads weekly services, the concept of “return” embedded in the word t’shuvah informs the process of addiction recovery.

    “When someone is interested in changing, and becoming better, and growing, and contributing to society — there's no greater force,” Gurin-Malous said.

    Braiding challah and creating community

    As the bakers filled in their babka or braided their challah (a traditional Jewish Shabbat and holiday bread), a large TV fixed to the wall flashed statements such as “You Matter!” before changing to display a weekly schedule of liturgical events and daily to-dos.

    Program staff said these tasks ensure everyone stays on top of their communal responsibilities, an important part of recovery.

    Elkins, the baking instructor, started the program in 2017. On the surface, it’s a vocational training program. Residents in the addiction recovery program can join the bakery as interns. They learn professional baking and business skills designed to help them land on their feet upon release.

    Jones, the recovery center’s director, said the baking classes also teach “life building” and help patients learn to “master your environment.”

    For Elkins, who grew up in L.A., this endeavor has become a lifeline for family members. Her son Bradley went through Beit T’Shuva and recently celebrated 10 years of sobriety. He’s now the facility’s director of community care. Elkins’ brother and nephew were also residents. Three of her five siblings have struggled with addiction.

    The bakery’s busiest time of year

    Elkins currently works with three interns and one employee. Interns must commit to six months to ensure they can turn out a consistently dependable product.

    During the High Holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the bakery receives hundreds of orders. Elkins said that after paying her employees and covering expenses, the profits go right back into the addiction treatment program.

    Their challah comes in many varieties, including churro, za’atar (a Middle Eastern spice blend), everything (like the bagel), jalapeño cheddar, chocolate, raisin and salted caramel. Their babka comes in chocolate hazelnut and bear claw flavors.

    A woman with light skin tone — wearing a striped coat, a hat and purple latex gloves — looks at a table where baked goods are being prepared.
    Jackie Elkins oversees bakery operations at Baked T'Shuvah. She initially got involved when her son entered the center's addiction treatment program.
    (
    Ezra Salkin
    /
    LAist
    )

    Elkins didn’t start out as a professional baker. But she said she has always loved to cook. When her son Bradley was a resident, she approached facility founder Harriet Rossetto and said she wanted to give back.

    Elkins noticed the facility imported all its challah. She said maybe she could bring in some mixers and teach residents how to make it. She got the go-ahead and the group grew quickly. After six months, Elkins said, they no longer needed to buy outside challah.

    How the bakery’s leader leveled up her challah game

    Like many Angelenos stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, Elkins spent lockdown improving her baking skills. That’s when she first connected with Mahsa Golabi, a veteran baker who was in the process of leaving Bub & Grandma’s, the famed restaurant and bakery whose breads permeate the L.A. restaurant scene.

    “I had her over my house for like three months,” Elkins said. “We got everything down to the science, all the proportions, butter versus dairy versus nondairy, how to set everything up, how to make sure everything was exactly the same every time.”

    “It was Bashert,” Elkins said, using the Yiddish word for “meant to be.”  

    Getting sober and reconnecting with Judaism 

    Michael Sonekh, 29, is Elkins’ newest intern. He was a biology major at UC Berkeley before he first fell into addiction. The son of Iranian Jewish refugees, Sonekh grew up attending  an Orthodox Jewish day school in L.A. But it was “pretty rough,” he said, due to “being queer,” among other things.

    In adulthood, Sonekh decided it was time to seek professional help for his addiction issues. He said choosing to enter Beit T’Shuvah helped him not only with his substance use problems but also with the lingering resentment he felt toward Judaism.

    “I was like, ‘This is something I'm probably gonna have to deal with,’” Sonekh said.

    He gave Baked T’Shuvah a shot after the facility’s leaders suggested he “try new things.” He said the precision he learned in undergraduate lab work has come in handy.

    “The vast majority of days here, it almost never feels like work,” Sonekh said.

    Bakers look forward to ‘kadima’

    When he gets kadima’ed, the facility’s Hebrew term for being released, Sonekh said he plans to continue studying at USC for a master’s degree in stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. He said he’s still considering whether to continue with more schooling after that.

    Sonekh said his experience at Beit T’Shuvah made him believe he could one day start a business of some kind.

     A woman's arms are seen with gloved hands holding a braided piece of dough ready to be baked.
    A baker presents a braided challah ready to be baked.
    (
    Ezra Salkin
    /
    LAist
    )

    Elkins, the bakery director, said participants discover many things through the program. Some end up “even finding a spouse here,” Elkins said. Her son Bradley did.

    She pulled out her phone to show off a picture of a blond toddler: “Our first grandson.”

  • High temps to drop into 70s and 80s later on
    A view from a high position into a valley with a long freeway running through populated areas.
    A view of the San Gabriel Mountains.

    Topline:

    Believe it or not, cooler temperatures are on the horizon as the tropical moisture brought on by Torpical Storm Marie exits the region.

    Why now: According to the National Weather Service, a trough pattern is coming in to push away the upper level ridge that’s been creating warmer temperatures and trapping tropical moisture (hence the muggy feeling). NWS says the new system will allow for more onshore air flow and even the return of the marine layer tonight through the weekend for most coastal areas.

    The forecast: Today, we’re looking at highs from 79 to 84 degrees at L.A. County beaches and 89 to 94 degrees for the inland coast. In the valleys, temperatures will reach 92 to 99 degrees. Ventura County areas will see highs from 89 to 98 degrees inland and 83 to 88 degrees closer to the coast.

    In Orange County, temperatures along the coast will range from 80 to 90 degrees and 87 to 94 degrees more inland. The Inland Empire is still going to be pretty warm, with highs from 93 to 101 degrees.

    Looking ahead: Come Saturday, temperatures will continue to drop another 4 to 8 degrees. By Sunday, we’re looking at highs in the 70s along the coast, and mid 80s for the inland areas and valleys. That trend should continue until at least Tuesday.

  • Lineage sues solar power provider for $1B
    Aerial view of a sprawling commercial building with solar arrays installed on it's roof.
    The Lineage warehouse in Boyle Heights on August 31, 2026.

    Topline:

    Lineage Logistics sued a solar power provider and its contractor Thursday, blaming them for the fire that destroyed its cold storage facility and plagued Boyle Heights and surrounding communities with polluted, foul-smelling air for months.

    The lawsuit: The company accuses Altus Power, Inc., Los Palos Street Operating, LLC, and Pearce Services of failing to address faults in the massive solar array installed on the 500,000-square-foot facility’s roof. Lineage is seeking more than $1 billion in damages, alleging negligence and breach of contract caused the fire, forced the warehouse to shut down and led to a cleanup effort that has cost more than $100 million. 
    Los Palos, an Altus subsidiary, disputed Lineage’s claims and said that since the cold storage company was the tenant of the building they were responsible for cleanup and debris removal.

    The investigation: The fire remains under investigation by the Los Angeles Fire Department, and its cause has not yet been determined.  But because both the June and 2024 fires appear to have started around the facility’s roof, the solar array has been long suspected of playing a role in the blaze.

    Lineage Logistics sued a solar power provider and its contractor Thursday, blaming them for the fire that destroyed its cold storage facility and plagued Boyle Heights and surrounding communities with polluted, foul-smelling air for months.

    The company accuses Altus Power, Inc., Los Palos Street Operating, LLC, and Pearce Services of failing to address faults in the massive solar array installed on the 500,000-square-foot facility’s roof. Faulty electrical in that array led to a fire in 2024, and the same problems sparked the fire on June 17, Lineage claims in the suit.

    “This lawsuit is about Altus and Pearce starting this fire and then being nowhere to be found when the community needed help,” said Greg Lehmkuhl, president & CEO of Lineage, in a prepared statement.

    The fire remains under investigation by the Los Angeles Fire Department, and its cause has not yet been determined. 

    But because both the June and 2024 fires appear to have started around the facility’s roof, the solar array has been long suspected of playing a role in the blaze.

    Lineage is seeking more than $1 billion in damages, alleging negligence and breach of contract caused the fire, forced the warehouse to shut down and led to a cleanup effort that has cost more than $100 million. 

    Los Palos, an Altus subsidiary, disputed Lineage’s claims and said that since the cold storage company was the tenant of the building, they were responsible for cleanup and debris removal.

    “Lineage’s statement is riddled with misinformation in a blatant attempt to deflect blame for their role in this matter, including any damage caused by the release of substances from the warehouse, not the solar panel,” a Los Palos spokesperson said by email.

    A spokesperson for Pearce also disputed Lineage’s claims and said the company would be fighting the suit in court, adding they have been cooperating with the fire department’s investigation.

    “Investigation into the fire’s cause, origin, and reasons for its spread remains ongoing, and it is premature for anyone to draw conclusions,” a spokesperson for the company said by email.

    The company alleges in the suit that the solar provider used substandard equipment to connect electrical lines and that equipment started the Aug. 14, 2024 fire. The company told Altus, Los Palos, and Pearce, a subsidiary of real estate giant CBRE, to fix the faulty equipment before turning the solar array back on.

    Altus and Pearce knew that about 200 faulty electrical connections had been identified by May 2026, including about 10 near the area where the June fire eventually broke out, the suit claims. Lineage says it told the contractors to delay turning the system back on until they provided proof the faults were fixed, but the contractors did so anyway.

    “Altus and Pearce deliberately ignored Lineage’s request, prematurely re-energized the solar array, and negligently and recklessly caused this devastating fire,” the suit reads.

    Mayor Karen Bass and other elected officials have said publicly that Lineage should not rebuild its facility and continue operating in Boyle Heights. The company missed a 45-day deadline to clean up the facility imposed by Bass in August. 

    Lineage has since announced it had completed cleanup of the remnants of the facility on Sept. 5. The suit also suggests the company could be planning to stay in Boyle Heights, rather than simply seeking reimbursement for the fire. 

    The city’s Department of Building and Safety has put its plans to rebuild on hold, and South Coast Air Quality Management District has also issued multiple notices of violation over pollution from food that rotted inside the facility for months.

    “This was a solar fire, not a warehouse fire,” reads a press release announcing the suit had been filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court Thursday. “Cold storage is not a risk to communities — it is an essential service that lowers food costs, expands food access and creates jobs,” it added.

    The post Lineage sues solar company and contractor, blames it for warehouse fire in Boyle Heights appeared first on LA Local.