The Brief

After two reparations bills stalled in the final day of session last year, reparation advocates are campaigning Tuesday at the state Capitol to drum up support for the same measures.

In partnership with the Coalition for a Just and Equitable California, the advocates are calling the rally “the first reparations advocacy day” in state history. The event’s lead organizer, Chris Lodgson, said they want lawmakers to introduce, support and adopt “bold” reparation bills — including the ones the coalition are prioritizing.

“People are still mad about the bills that did not get to the governor’s desk last year, ... and we’re looking forward to success in 2025,” he said.

The two stalled bills weren’t part of the 14-bill reparations package championed by the California Legislative Black Caucus last year: One would have created a new state agency, while the other would have created a fund for reparations policies.

But the caucus, which sought a less sweeping approach in the face of public backlash, prevented the proposals from coming to a vote in the Assembly — a move that upset advocates. Gov. Gavin Newsom ultimately signed five of the 14 bills.

The coalition is also pushing for proposals to allocate $30 million in the 2025-26 state budget to fund the state agency; create a guaranteed income program for senior residents who are descendants of slaves; and compensate Black families who had their property seized through “racially motivated” eminent domain (a proposal Newsom vetoed last year).

But similar to 2024, advocates have a tough road ahead. Reparations in the form of cash payments are politically unpopular, and the Legislature has been warned against new spending amid a budget crunch.

Still, supporters are hopeful. Lodgson said last year’s defeats convinced advocates to take “bigger” actions and reach out to other potential allies.

“The Black Caucus should not ‘own’ all the reparations activity legislatively," he said. "We’re looking to work outside the Democratic Party quite frankly. Folks in both parties need to take the lead on this, and we’ve been talking to the Republican Party too.”

The city of Los Angeles will establish a fund to clean the 6th Street Bridge, where trash and other waste often pile up on pedestrian walkways. 

In a unanimous vote on Tuesday, the City Council approved the establishment of the fund, which will allow the city to accept and retain donations from private entities “to preserve this iconic landmark,” Councilmember Ysabel Jurado said. “Our commitment to this bridge has to ensure its longevity.”

Funds will go toward trash and bulky item pickup, graffiti abatement and other beautification services for the bridge. 

The dedicated fund follows the city’s hiring of Pasadena-based engineering firm Tetra Tech to restore the lighting of the bridge, which has been plagued by copper wire theft since its opening in 2022. 

The outages have frustrated residents and commuters who use the bridge to walk, run, bike and drive between downtown L.A. and the Eastside. 

This move also comes as residents in Boyle Heights and the Arts District grapple with how the 12-acre park beneath the bridge will be maintained once it opens in 2027. 

Community members have raised concerns about the possibility of homeless encampments forming at the park, as well as graffiti and whether copper wire theft from the bridge could affect the park’s safety.

Meanwhile, groups like the Arts District Little Tokyo Neighborhood Council, Arts District Los Angeles and the Boyle Heights 5K Run/Walk are filling gaps with an upcoming bridge cleanup in collaboration with Jurado’s office. 

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This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

After weeks of stifling heat, Long Beach is preparing for a different kind of weather: powerful southerly swells, followed by rain showers as early as Saturday, all courtesy of a hurricane expected to make landfall in California this weekend.

Waves arrived along the Peninsula on Wednesday — sending water onto the boardwalk and side streets — and returned Thursday, slapping against the already weakened bulkhead that serves as the last line of defense for a number of beach homes.

With a coastal advisory in effect through Friday, experts say 3-to-6-foot waves are being carried to shore by tides reaching 7 feet high and leaving behind dangerous rip currents.

City crews were busy the past several days stowing hundreds of sandbags beneath the boardwalk as a second barrier, with emergency pumps ready. The work is complicated by the short window between recurring high tides and a limited supply of sand.

“We’re just basically trying to create a buffer between that impact zone, the energy of the impact, and that wall,” said Marine Safety Chief Gonzalo Medina. “I do expect that we will see some activity and some water intrusion out onto the streets, certainly the boardwalk.”

Marine and fire crews are expected to stand by overnight to monitor water levels and assist residents.

The area has already been tested this year, taking damage from Hurricane Marie over Labor Day weekend, followed by Hurricane Polo in late September. The National Weather Service says this week’s flooding will probably exceed Polo’s but fall short of Marie’s.

Kristan Lund, a meteorologist with the NWS office in Oxnard, said swells are forecast to peak Thursday through Saturday during the morning and evening tides.

It’s another example of an abnormal season, Lund said, where tides are running 1 to 2 feet higher than usual, well “above the astronomical tide charts.”

Waves are being charged north by Hurricane Rachel, which is expected to weaken considerably before it makes landfall 100 miles south of San Diego early Sunday and reaches the California-New Mexico border by Monday.

In comparison to the 2023 tropical storm Hillary, which wrought widespread flooding that necessitated rescues in desert towns, Lund said this storm is farther south and entering at a more horizontal angle toward New Mexico.

But it’s still “hard to tell for right now” how the storm will progress, Lund said, saying higher-resolution models should be released Friday or Saturday that more accurately predict its path.

Forecasters say the system should still deliver heavy rain, gusty winds, dangerous surf and localized flooding, with hazardous zones stretching as far north as Orange County.

In Long Beach, rain could start as early as Saturday morning and linger through Tuesday night, with the best chance from Sunday morning through Monday evening.

Totals are expected to be modest, roughly a quarter to three-quarters of an inch, with a small chance of thunderstorms. South-to-west gusts of 20 to 35 mph are likely from Saturday through Monday, adding the risk of fallen trees and power lines.

“The wind would actually be a lot more problematic than the rain,” Medina said. “You have a lot of trees already that we’re seeing, just from this heat, that have fallen. This heat has weakened the structure of a lot of these trees. And now you bring wind into the equation. The trees bring down power lines, and it gets complicated after that.”

Why is this happening?

The storm arrives at the tail end of a weekslong heat wave that experts say is a consequence of climate change compounded by El Niño, which has kept nights unusually warm and humid.

“At night it’s not cooling off as much, and that ends up being pretty consequential,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UC Agriculture and Natural Resources. “Because obviously the night is when people would usually cool down.”

El Niño also helps explain the high number of hurricanes and storm systems like Rachel and its predecessors, Swain said. “El Niño also increases hurricane activity in the eastern Pacific Ocean,” Swain said, describing a season that ranks as either the most or second most active on record depending on the metric.

The result has been repeated surges of tropical moisture toward Southern California, leaving humidity high.

Ocean temperatures off the coast are now about 7 to 8 degrees above average, and the Pacific from central Baja California to Southern California is at record warmth in data going back to 1982. Warm water expands, and a Kelvin wave, an underwater ripple that becomes “coastally trapped” as it reaches the Americas, can add 6 to 12 inches to background sea levels, potentially for months.

Swain said harbor masters and fire departments in coastal Los Angeles County have been calling him. “They’re like, ‘I’ve never seen water this high,'” he said, adding one told him it was the highest in 30 years, on a day that wasn’t supposed to be a particularly high tide.

And he expects it to get worse. “That’s something that’s actually going to get worse as we go into November and December.”

More Kelvin waves are expected this season, and scientists worry about one coinciding with a king tide, a major storm or both. The Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a wetter-than-average winter for Southern California, and Swain sees little doubt.

“All signs continue to point toward a very wet winter in coastal Southern California,” he said. “I would be very surprised if we did not have that.”

For now, the city is focused on the week ahead. Sandbag distribution sites open Thursday at 10 a.m. at Fire Stations 7, 12, 13 and 14, and at the Claremont Beach parking lot, through Tuesday.

Empty sandbags are available at all LBFD neighborhood Fire Stations. While the Claremont Beach Parking Lot (5400 E. Ocean Blvd.) site is offering sand and sandbags through Tuesday. Sand and sandbags are also available at the locations listed below starting Thursday, Oct. 8, at 10 a.m.:

• Fire Station 7 – 2295 Elm St.
• Fire Station 12 – 1199 E. Artesia Blvd.
• Fire Station 13 – 2475 Adriatic Ave.
• Fire Station 14 – 5200 E. Eliot St.

Find more ways to be prepared at LBPost.com/elnino

The first bite at n/naka, the acclaimed Westside Japanese restaurant, asks you to slow down. The meal opens with an oyster dressed with asparagus, elderflower, dill and horseradish, served beside caviar on a puffed-rice crisp over a bed of juniper sprigs.

The oyster's briny, meaty texture meets earthy, herbal notes and a touch of sweetness from the produce. It's a bite with weight, enough to carry you somewhere else entirely: a forest at the edge of a rugged coastal range, waves crashing at your feet.

It’s the kind of moment that chefs Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama have been building for 15 years.

Understanding kaiseki

Kaiseki is a traditional multicourse Japanese meal built from a series of small, seasonal dishes. Its roots are often traced to both the quiet meals served before a tea ceremony and the more elaborate banquets paired with sake. Today, the style is defined less by a single origin than by its emphasis on seasonality, balance and presentation.

The zensai course arrives as a bamboo basket of small bites, including shrimp, chawanmushi and a beef taquito, a nod to Nakayama’s L.A. upbringing.

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The tiny, unassuming Michelin-starred restaurant — which seats only 26 people at a time — is located on a quiet corner in the Palms neighborhood. n/naka was one of the first restaurants in America to serve modern kaiseki; Nakayama, who was born and raised in Los Angeles, helped introduce kaiseki to the city when n/naka opened in 2011. She describes the restaurant’s style of cuisine as “a modern California Japanese kaiseki," and her skills have been repeatedly recognized; she's been nominated as an outstanding chef by the James Beard Foundation twice, most recently in 2026.

In a city where restaurants regularly close after a few years, still being in existence — and thriving — after 15 years deserves its own acknowledgment.

Celebrating with friends

Instead of throwing a party for their 15th anniversary, the two chefs, who are partners both in business and in life, invited like-minded chefs from New York to Lima to cook with them in a series of one-night-only dinners.

n/naka chefs Carole Iida-Nakayama (left) and Niki Nakayama (right), with Micha Tsumura of Maido, one of the guest chefs in the restaurant’s anniversary dinner series.

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“I really wanted to not just collab for the sake of doing collabs,” she said. She wanted the chefs “that had the same angle and story as ours, where they’re coming from somewhere else, and they’re recreating the food from their personal perspective.”

Each dinner has its own theme, Nakayama said. A collaboration with Emma Bengtsson of the two-Michelin-star restaurant Aquavit in New York honored women in the industry. A partnership with Micha Tsumura of Maido in Lima, Peru — named the World's Best Restaurant in 2025 by World's 50 Best — explored diaspora. There’s one dinner left — on December 15, with Shinichi Aoki of Hashiri Bettei Kaiseki in the Bay Area. Aoki’s will bring together traditional kaiseki and n/naka’s modern version.

The menu

If you're lucky enough to get a reservation for their regular menu, however, you can still expect a spectacular meal. (I grabbed the chance to attend a rare media tasting). 12 vibrant courses for $395 per person, with a wine pairing of $195.

The meal weaves together a range of influences, beginning with the oyster. From there, it moves to the zensai, a bamboo basket of delicately crafted bites that looks like a bejeweled version of Thanos' Infinity Gauntlet. It holds a tiny beef taquito, California blue shrimp, chawanmushi topped with a single slice of mushroom, and corn tempura.

California seems top of mind in every morsel, starting with the taquito. Nakayama says tacos appeared on past menus throughout the years. "Those are experiences that I've had growing up," she said. "They deserve to be celebrated within this context."

A steamed course of a crab-and-shrimp dumpling, floating in tomato dashi, finished with lemongrass and basil oil.

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Another course crosses cultures: a steamed crab-and-shrimp dumpling in tomato dashi, finished with lemongrass and basil oil. Lemongrass is a staple of Southeast Asian cooking, and Nakayama said she has never seen it used in Japanese food. "I think we can put it all together and still make it work and ultimately still have it feel very Japanese," she said.

As the meal progresses, the dishes grow richer. One is spaghetti studded with fish roe and topped with abalone and shaved truffle. Another is A5 wagyu served alongside a hollowed-out squash packed with sweet corn, finished with a crisp, butterfly-shaped cracker. The beef's melt-in-your-mouth richness plays against the vegetables' delicacy, and the plate feels whole.

‘One time, one meeting’

The back of the menu carries an old Japanese proverb, ichi-go, ichi-e, which means "one time, one meeting." It embodies the idea that every encounter should be treasured because it will never happen again. Below it, the menu calls California n/naka's "living landscape" and kaiseki its "culinary medium," setting the tone for the evening.

Nakayama said the idea guides her kitchen. "You will never have this day, this hour, this minute back," she said. "So be in the moment."

Looking ahead, she hopes the restaurant can be a refuge. "I think there's so much stress in the world that if there's a place you can step into that's a reprieve from that, I would hope that a place like ours fills that space," she said.