Adolfo Guzman-Lopez
is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.
Published December 19, 2025 2:56 PM
"Tarascon Stagecoach" by Vincent van Gogh, 1888.
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Courtesy Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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Topline:
LACMA’s newly acquired Van Gogh will go on display starting Sunday, making L.A. a rising place to see his work.
Why it matters: Van Gogh was part of the Impressionist movement that revolutionized Western art and continues to influence art and artists.
Why now: LACMA’s exhibit includes 100 other Impressionist works, giving the audience a chance to see Van Gogh in context with his contemporaries.
The backstory: In L.A. County, you also can see Van Gogh paintings at the Hammer Museum, the Getty and the Norton Simon Museum.
Read on ... for more on the newly acquired Van Gogh and Monet works.
LACMA’s first Van Gogh isn’t a painting of blue flowers, golden wheat fields or aged faces. It’s of a parked stagecoach, and it’s considered a good example of what made the Dutch painter, and the Impressionist movement he was a part of, so revolutionary.
The painting is called “Tarascon Stagecoach.” It was painted in 1888 and was donated to LACMA earlier this year by the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation.
It’s LACMA’s first Van Gogh painting, and the encyclopedic museum will be showing it off starting Sunday in a show called “Collecting Impressionism at LACMA” that focuses on 100 works from LACMA’s collection. The works are arranged chronologically to show the evolving tastes that have shaped the museum's collection of Impressionist art.
The museum’s acquisition isn’t just a win for the museum. The museum-going public and the region’s teenage and college-age students also will benefit.
“I very much remember seeing Van Gogh in a rotunda space in the [Philadelphia Museum of Art] and finding it to be just so striking because of these luscious, bright colors,” said Summer Sloane-Britt, who saw her first Van Goh during a middle school visit to the museum.
Sloane-Britt now is a professor of art and art history at Occidental College.
“Visual analysis and seeing objects in person is always so core to historical learning and for studio artists as well,” Sloane-Britt said.
I very much remember seeing Van Gogh in a rotunda space in the [Philadelphia Museum of Art] and finding it to be just so striking because of these luscious, bright colors.
— Summer Sloane-Britt, professor of art and art history, Occidental College
And seeing a Van Gogh in person, Sloane-Britt said, and saying you don’t like it is also OK because that signals the work has led you to identify and assert your own aesthetic tastes in art.
Van Gogh road trip in LA. Shotgun!
The LACMA exhibit presents a good opportunity to get on the road for a four-stop Van Gogh road trip without leaving L.A. County.
Van Gogh's "Irises"
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Courtesy Getty Museum
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You can start at LACMA and see “Tarascon Stagecoach,” benefiting from the context of seeing other impressionist works by Van Gogh’s contemporaries.
"The Mulberry Tree," a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, on display at the Norton Simon Museum
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Courtesy Norton Simon Museum
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End your Van Gogh road trip by heading east to Pasadena to the Norton Simon Museum. The museum’s smaller, more intimate setting is a good place to see the museum’s six, yes six, Van Gogh paintings.
The exhibit also will feature the newly acquired work "The Artist’s Garden, Vétheuil" by Claude Monet.
Gab Chabrán
covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.
Published September 17, 2026 4:18 PM
The Darkroom burger, dry-aged beef, and swimming in a light au poivre bath.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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Topline:
Chef-owner Zach Scherer's Darkroom sits in an unmarked business park on the Costa Mesa/Santa Ana border — a deliberate choice that's turned the restaurant into a word-of-mouth destination rather than a drive-by discovery.
Tell me more: The menu changes constantly, tracking real-time seasonal shifts — this visit caught the tail end of summer's Jimmy Nardello peppers giving way to fall's first honeynut squash. Scherer runs the kitchen with longtime partner Drew Adams, and the two also operate Chrysalis, a tasting-menu concept sharing the same space some nights.
Why is it important? Most diners expect flashy fine dining to come with flashy real estate. Scherer, aiming to make Orange County "nationally competitive" with cities like San Francisco and Chicago, is proving serious technique doesn't need a serious address — or a serious attitude.
Step into the darkness: Scherer's next concept, Three Eyed Tiger, is currently in development nearby.
Just off the 405 freeway at the border of Costa Mesa and Santa Ana, a block down from IKEA and a couple of business parks over, you'll find Darkroom.
It's the kind of address where you'd expect to find a dentist's office or a logistics company — instead, it's home to some of the most inventive food in Orange County, and arguably beyond, anchored by a formidable wine program featuring small producers.
The location is a deliberate choice by Zach Scherer, Darkroom’s chef-owner, that has turned the restaurant into a growing word-of-mouth destination. For Scherer, hiding in plain sight was never a compromise. It was the plan.
Inside Darkroom
The interior of the restaurant is a completely different story. Its decor matches that of an angsty teenager who shops at Hot Topic, with an affinity for industrial and goth music, and a bit of new wave mixed in.
Darkroom's interior leans into its irreverent, gallery-meets-Hot Topic aesthetic.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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Your eyes might take a minute to adjust to the low light before a friendly server wearing a tattered band T-shirt greets you and escorts you to your table.
Scherer wears his nonconformist attitude with pride — and intention. "If you're a little too serious, Orange County won't love it," he said, and it shows: the room is built to feel like the opposite of a hushed tasting menu.
Chef Zach Scherer (right) and Drew Adams work the pass together — the same partnership they describe as "like a band."
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy DARKROOM
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Scherer runs the kitchen with longtime partner Drew Adams — a lifelong Orange County resident — who also oversees the pastry program. The two think of Darkroom's identity "like a band," Scherer said: a shared core sound, no matter who's guesting on a given dish. (Their tasting-menu concept, Chrysalis, runs out of the same kitchen some nights — a five-course tasting menu happening in parallel.)
The menu
Start off with the Scotch olives, fried Castelvetrano olives with anchovy and lamb merguez, served over spiced sumac yogurt. Meanwhile, a couple of slices of their zucchini bread with koji butter, topped with silky jamón serrano, provide some comforting bites.
Grilled and marinated Jimmy Nardello peppers — a short-season ingredient the kitchen deliberately doesn't overwork.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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From there, seasonal produce takes center stage, with grilled, marinated Jimmy Nardello peppers served with fennel-pollen labneh and sprinkled with walnut dukkah, hitting equal notes of sweet, spicy, nutty, and fresh. Followed by honeynut squash from Weiser Farms — poached in a light broth known as nage, made with bits of country ham and horseradish, topped with rainbow chard, a dish that reads Southern-meets-European.
The Darkroom burger, cut in two — only 10 are made a night.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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Cap things off with The Darkroom burger, cut in half, made with dry-aged beef, molten Comté cheese, and gooey caramelized onions, served between soft, glossy brioche-style buns, swimming in a light au poivre bath. It's a dish that, like the others, exhibits strong technique but still wears its fun on its sleeve — all the makings of a truly memorable meal.
The philosophy
Scherer's goal is to make the Orange County food scene nationally competitive with San Francisco, New York, and Chicago — and the seasonal fluency on display that night, from summer's last Jimmy Nardellos to fall's first honeynut squash, is the technical proof behind that claim.
The fried Scotch olives — Castelvetranos stuffed with anchovy and lamb merguez, set over sumac yogurt.
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Wales Communications
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Courtesy Darkroom
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The menu's dynamic approach — its ability to oscillate between cuisines — reflects that same nonconformist identity, reinforcing the idea that the food doesn't take itself too seriously, just like the space around it.
Scherer's ambitions don't stop at Darkroom's walls; he's also developing Three Eyed Tiger, a cocktail-forward concept nearby.
"The food we're making now is the food that I'm the most proud of, because it really shows our identity," said Scherer.
Driver who rammed into bus was under the influence
Destiny Torres
covers all things SoCal, from breaking news to local government.
Published September 17, 2026 3:46 PM
Police and LA Metro investigate the scene of a crash between an SUV and an LA Metro Bus that left two people dead on Tuesday in Chatsworth.
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Ronaldo Bolanos
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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Topline:
The driver connected to the tragic bus crash in Chatsworth on Tuesday night is facing two second-degree murder charges, as well as charges for driving under the influence and reckless driving. Bailee Lynn Rios is expected to be arraigned Friday, according to L.A. District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
What possible punishment is she facing? Hochman announced Thursday that his office was seeking the maximum sentence of life in prison for the 36-year-old driver.
What else is there? Drugs were found in her system at the time of the crash, Hochman said. His office did not share what kind of drugs.
Adding to the tragedy, an NBC4 helicopter covering the incident also crashed nearby, killing pilot George Marciniw and reporter Eliana Moreno, as well as a pedestrian, Edy Gutierrez Mejia.
Rios, who is in custody, could not be immediately reached for comment.
Background: Rios sped through a red light and plowed her SUV into a Metro bus, killing two passengers, Daniel Castillo and Gage Weida. Five other passengers were injured, according to prosecutors.
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Exterior of Chino Valley Unified School District building
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Chino Valley Unified
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Facebook
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Topline:
A San Bernardino County Superior Court judge on Tuesday rejected Chino Valley Unified School District’s request to dissolve an injunction blocking its policy requiring employees to notify parents when students identify as transgender or use different names or pronouns at school.
More details: Judge Michael Sachs upheld his 2024 injunction blocking Chino Valley Unified from enforcing a policy the school board adopted in 2023. The policy required district employees to notify parents within three days if their student asked to go by a name or pronoun different from official school records or join a sex-segregated program, such as athletics, that did not correspond to those records.
Why now: The school district had asked Sachs to overturn a permanent injunction after the U.S. Supreme Court issued an emergency docket ruling in a separate case, Mirabelli v. Bonta. The district argued that the ruling affirmed parents’ constitutional right to be informed about information critical to their children’s health and well-being.
A San Bernardino County Superior Court judge on Tuesday rejected Chino Valley Unified School District’s request to dissolve an injunction blocking its policy requiring employees to notify parents when students identify as transgender or use different names or pronouns at school.
Judge Michael Sachs upheld his 2024 injunction blocking Chino Valley Unified from enforcing a policy the school board adopted in 2023. The policy required district employees to notify parents within three days if their student asked to go by a name or pronoun different from official school records or join a sex-segregated program, such as athletics, that did not correspond to those records.
The school district had asked Sachs to overturn a permanent injunction after the U.S. Supreme Court issued an emergency docket ruling in a separate case, Mirabelli v. Bonta. The district argued that the ruling affirmed parents’ constitutional right to be informed about information critical to their children’s health and well-being.
Sachs rejected the request, saying his injunction does not conflict with the Supreme Court’s ruling. During Tuesday’s hearing, he distinguished between the two cases, saying the school policy at issue in the Mirabelli case required school employees to withhold information from parents when asked.
“The school’s policy essentially mandated that staff lie to the parent about their child, and the court did not accept that,” Sachs said of Mirabelli v. Bonta.
The Chino case involves a different question: whether school employees can be required to disclose a child’s gender identity to their parents.
“There is no mandatory duty for the school district to voluntarily release information about the student,” Sachs said in court.
Chino Valley Unified was disappointed by the ruling, said Emily Rae, the district’s attorney and president of the California Justice Center, a conservative legal nonprofit focused on protecting individual liberty.
“The main problem is that it puts the burden on parents to know whether they’re having a secret kept from them,” Rae said.
Rae said Sachs’ ruling misinterpreted the Mirabelli opinion, which she said made clear that schools should not withhold information from parents. She said it was too soon to say whether the district would appeal the ruling or make changes to any of its policies.
Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified school board and a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, also criticized the ruling. In an interview with EdSource, she called the proceedings a “kangaroo court” that has caused “so much confusion.”
Shaw said she planned to ask the superintendent whether the district could ask all parents to check a box: “Do you want secrets to be held from you?”
“They shouldn’t have to do that,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s insane we have to go through all these hoops to uphold a parent’s right to know.”
Christine Parker, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said the ruling was consistent with the Supreme Court’s order in Mirabelli v. Bonta and other applicable law.
“The court got it right: Blanket policies like Chino Valley USD’s, in which school employees must — in all circumstances — disclose a student’s gender identity to their parents, remain unlawful in California,” Parker said in a statement to EdSource.
Another pending case referenced in Tuesday’s proceedings was the City of Huntington Beach v. Newsom, which hinged on a dispute over AB 1955, known as the SAFETY Act. The law, signed by Newsom in 2024, bars school districts from requiring staff to disclose a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to parents. It went into effect before the injunction in the Chino Valley Unified case.
In the wake of the Mirabelli v. Bonta case, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a preliminary injunction for parents in the City of Huntington Beach v. Newsom who sued to block enforcement of the SAFETY Act.
We don't want to scare you, but the Big One is coming. We don't know when, but we know it'll be at least 44 times stronger than Northridge and 11 times stronger than the Ridgecrest quakes in 2019. To help you get prepared, we've compiled a handy reading list:
