Today's headlines:
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Topline:
An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.1 struck near Compton Thursday afternoon and was felt in Downey, Long Beach and surrounding areas.
The context: No damage would be expected from a quake with that level of shaking, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. A number of small earthquakes northeast of today's were felt earlier this month.
Read on ... for earthquake resources.
An earthquake with a magnitude of 3.1 struck near Compton Thursday afternoon and was felt in Downey, Long Beach and surrounding areas.
No damage would be expected from a quake with that level of shaking, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
A number of small earthquakes northeast of today's were felt earlier this month.
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:
Topline:
The Los Angeles Dodgers clinched their fifth consecutive NL West division title and 13th in the 14 seasons, sparked by four hits from Kyle Tucker that included a first-inning home run in an 8-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday.
The backstory: The two-time World Series champions already were assured of their 14th straight postseason appearance, trying the record Atlanta set from 1991 to 2005. Los Angeles (93-60) had clinched no worse than a wild-card berth on Monday. Los Angeles opened a 9 1/2-game lead over second-place San Diego and has the second-best record in the NL as they try to overtake Milwaukee (95-57 entering Thursday) for the top NL seed. The division clinching was the fourth earliest for the Dodgers after Sept. 10 in 2019, Sept. 13 in 2022 and Sept. 16 in 2023.
What's next: With nine games to go in the regular season, the Dodgers return home to host a series against the San Francisco Giants on Friday at 7:10 p.m.
The Los Angeles Dodgers clinched their fifth consecutive NL West division title and 13th in the 14 seasons, sparked by four hits from Kyle Tucker that included a first-inning home run in an 8-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday.
The two-time World Series champions already were assured of their 14th straight postseason appearance, trying the record Atlanta set from 1991 to 2005. Los Angeles (93-60) had clinched no worse than a wild-card berth on Monday.
Los Angeles opened a 9 1/2-game lead over second-place San Diego and has the second-best record in the NL as they try to overtake Milwaukee (95-57 entering Thursday) for the top NL seed. The division clinching was the fourth earliest for the Dodgers after Sept. 10 in 2019, Sept. 13 in 2022 and Sept. 16 in 2023.
Tucker fell a triple short of the cycle and had three RBIs, hitting a single and a pair of doubles. He hit his 16th homer, a two-run drive in the first off Brady Singer, who allowed seven runs, nine hits and four walks in 3 1/3 innings.
Freddie Freeman’s sacrifice fly and Tucker’s RBI double boosted the lead in the second, and the Dodgers opened a 7-0 lead in the fourth on Max Muncy’s two-run double and Josue De Paula’s RBI single.
Dodger left-hander Justin Wrobleski, making his 22nd start this season and first since Sept. 6, did not allow a baserunner in three innings while striking out three.
Wrobleski and Blake Treinen combined to retire their first 11 batters before Sal Stewart’s 32nd homer.
Landon Knack (1-0) allowed four hits over four scoreless innings for his first big league win since May 31 last year.
Miguel Rojas homered off Brandon Williamson in the ninth.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said reliever Edwin Díaz (neck inflammation) finished his minor league injury rehabilitation assignment and will be activated this weekend.
Topline:
Keizo Shimamoto, creator of the viral 2013 ramen burger, is quietly serving ramen out of a shared ghost kitchen in Irvine — no sign, no fanfare, just a phone number and an online order form.
More noodles please: The compact five-bowl menu ranges from a two-week-rested Signature Shoyu to the 13-ingredient Quiet Storm, alongside two versions of his famous burger. Business built organically through word of mouth before exploding after an L.A. Times feature — Shimamoto now moves close to 50 bowls of ramen and up to 25 burgers a day.
Why is it important? After a corporate layoff pushed him back into food full-time, Shimamoto is rebuilding on his own terms this time — deliberately low-key, close to home, and shaped by hard lessons from a shuttered Queens restaurant and a failed Orange County shop. It's less a comeback story than a craftsman finally in full control of the dish that made him famous.
While the name Keizo Shimamoto may not ring a bell, his most famous creation likely does — the ramen burger. In 2013, while slinging bowls at Smorgasburg in Brooklyn, Shimamoto swapped a bun for two ramen cakes, added a beef patty — and, almost overnight, became a viral sensation.
Now, more than a decade later, shaped by hard lessons from a shuttered Queens restaurant, a failed Orange County shop and a stint in the fintech industry, Shimamoto is back, quietly running a ramen operation out of a shared ghost kitchen in Irvine. It's deliberately low-key: there's barely a sign to let you know he's there, just the occasional social media post directing customers to an online order form.
Shimamoto Noodle opened in early August, and word of his return spread through word of mouth and social media before Los Angeles Times restaurant critic Bill Addison covered him in his Tasting Notes newsletter a few weeks later. Since then, business has kicked into a higher gear — Shimamoto said he's now averaging close to 50 bowls of ramen a day, plus another 20 to 25 burgers.
"I definitely wanted to do it at my own pace," said Shimamoto, who grew up in Orange County. "I knew eventually I would be found."
His offerings are compact by design: five bowls of ramen and two versions of his famous burger, ranging from $16 to $20. You can choose from the Signature Shoyu, the spiced Negi Shoyu, the Quiet Storm (a 13-ingredient gyokai-tonkotsu broth), Ganja-style tsukemen and a Taishoken-style dipping ramen called Shoyu Tsukesoba.
"I'm not so obsessed with making the best ramen in the world," Shimamoto said. "I'm just obsessed with being able to eat a great bowl every single day."
The signature shoyu is a clear, savory broth built on chintan, a light chicken stock blended with traditional dashi, niboshi-aroma oil infused with dried sardines, and a soy-based tare — the seasoning base that gives the broth its flavor. It arrives with thin house-made noodles, pork belly chashu, marinated bamboo shoots, spinach and scallions.
It looks simple. But the fat bubbles pooled on top of that first slurp say otherwise — the tare sits for days before a bowl is even assembled.
"I let it rest for two weeks to mature," Shimamoto said.
Sitting on the opposite end of the spectrum is the Quiet Storm, a thicker, more opaque 13-ingredient gyokai-tonkotsu broth. Shimamoto builds much of his ramen from memory, drawing on a 2009 research trip through 21 Japanese cities, where he ate 55 bowls of ramen in 28 days — a journey he documented on his blog, discovering how much the dish varies by region.
The Quiet Storm itself came from tweaking a tonkotsu-gyokai dipping soup he'd made in New York until it triggered a memory of a bowl he'd once had in Tokyo. "I just ran with that," he said.
He named it during his years running the original Ramen Shack in Queensbridge — home turf of the '90s hip-hop duo Mobb Deep, whose 1999 song "Quiet Storm" lent the bowl its name.
The dish that put Shimamoto on the map was entirely his own: a beef patty in shoyu glaze, sandwiched between two house-made, seared noodle buns engineered to hold together when you bite in.
Its 2013 virality overshadowed Shimamoto's actual training as a ramen chef, and being known as "the ramen burger guy" used to bother him. He's since made peace with it — and used his added years of experience to improve the dish itself.
"I think right now the ramen burger is probably the best ramen burger that I've ever made, only because everything is controlled by me," he said. "I made the sauce from scratch, I make the noodles from scratch, I form the buns from scratch."
The sense of control and peace of mind Shimamoto describes extends beyond the food itself.
Eight minutes from his house, close to his parents and brothers, Shimamoto said it simply feels right.
"It feels good," he said. "It feels pretty right, right now."
Topline:
In 2022, the state Legislature created the HOPE program to give thousands of dollars in seed money to eligible foster and COVID-bereaved youth to help with the transition to adulthood.
Why now: In May, four years after the state Legislature created the program, California finally launched it.
The backstory: The state Legislature created the accounts in 2022, during a budget-surplus year amid the pandemic. At the time, thousands of children were losing their parents to COVID-19, while California was also seeing high rates of foster youth aging out of the system and facing homelessness, advocates say.
What's next: So far, just over 650 young people have been approved for the accounts. They can use it for anything they want, giving them a sense of choice and freedom.
Unlike her friends, when Izel Casillas, 19, a sophomore at the University of California, Davis, moved into her first apartment, she did it without the support of her immediate family. She and her older sister had been in the foster care system since being removed from their home at ages 14 and 15.
This summer, however, Casillas learned she had been awarded $3,000 as part of a recently launched state program that provides money for longtime foster youth and low-income children who lost a parent due to the coronavirus.
For Casillas, the money came at a time when she needed it, she said, giving her a sense of control and financial support she hadn’t quite experienced before. “It does make you feel seen — makes you not feel as alone,” she said.
In May, four years after the program was first created by the state Legislature, California launched the Hope, Opportunity, Perseverance and Empowerment, or HOPE, for Children program. More than 56,000 young Californians are eligible for $3,000 in a trust account to use however they choose. The program was created to provide a safety net for two groups of young people who may enter adulthood without parental support.
For young people without parents or financial support, the first steps into adulthood often look different than they do for their peers, said AJ Johnson with the John Burton Advocates for Youth, an advocacy organization for foster and homeless youth.
“It looks like debt. It looks like homelessness,” Johnson said. “It looks like pausing school to take on work to get by. It looks like living in unsafe situations. And what this money means is that you can use it to get to safety [and] use it to be relieved of the burden of debt.”
The state Legislature created the accounts in 2022, during a budget-surplus year amid the pandemic. At the time, thousands of children were losing their parents to COVID-19, while California was also seeing high rates of foster youth aging out of the system and facing homelessness, advocates say.
Run by the state treasurer’s office, the program provides $3,000 in interest-bearing accounts to eligible young people. Foster youth qualify if they spend over 1 1/2 years in foster care, whether consecutive or not, or if their family reunification services are terminated. Low-income youth who lost a parent to COVID-19 contracted during the pandemic also qualify. They can access the funds between ages 18 and 26.
“So, the idea behind the HOPE account was to create a way for these youth, who are some of our most vulnerable in society, to be able to have some seed funding to start their life,” said Cassandra DiBenedetto, the acting executive director for HOPE.
HOPE recipients also have access to financial education and free confidential financial planning services with the accounts.
Youth under 18 on Sept. 27, 2022, when the law was enacted, who are longtime foster youth or low-income, COVID-19-bereaved youth are eligible.
Those not yet 18 who already qualify can apply for and open the account.
Click here to find out if you’re eligible.
The money is not restricted to spending on college, career training, starting a business or buying a house, said Shimica Gaskins, president and CEO of the policy advocacy organization End Child Poverty California, which worked with the Legislature on creating the program. Young people can decide for themselves how to use the money based on what they most need, she said.
“There’s something very powerful about telling a child that this money is set aside for your future, and it belongs to you,” Gaskins said. “That’s more than money. It’s a message about their potential, about their opportunity. And that future doesn’t have to be tied to just four things.”
Although the program was signed into law in 2022, it took four years to launch. Some of that time was spent working to set up the program, since data on foster youth is private. Advocates and state officials also consulted national experts and young people about how the program should work. There were unforeseen delays as well.
Last year, the governor reallocated $40 million of $100 million originally designated for the program to help close the state’s budget gap, for example.
The money is not automatically distributed to those who are eligible, and getting the word out is one of the program’s greatest challenges. Members of the HOPE team have promoted the accounts at foster youth resource fairs, through webinars with trained volunteers and court-appointed advocates and in conversations with dependency attorneys and probation officers.
HOPE has also partnered with community groups and schools, including the Youth Law Center, John Burton Advocates for Youth, organizations that conduct outreach to families affected by COVID-19, and youth programs at colleges and universities. The state Department of Social Services sent out an informational notice to counties so social workers and others would know about the program and how it works.
That’s how 20-year-old Nevaeh Williams, who recently aged out of foster care, learned of HOPE. Entering the foster care system at age 10, Williams was eligible because she remained in foster care, living with family members, until age 18.
For Williams, the application process was straightforward. She applied in June and got her approval email in August, within the 90-day window. She requested her disbursement in early September and is now waiting for the money to arrive, which should take about 30 days.
She’s had her own apartment since shortly after turning 18. By that time, she’d become a teen parent of two. She works as a certified nursing assistant in Los Angeles County while participating in a bridge program to become a registered nurse.
She plans to use the HOPE money to redecorate her 4-year-old daughter’s room and buy her 2-year-old son toys, blocks and flash cards.
“It’s like a relief because, day to day, for most people, it doesn’t just happen in a lump sum like that,” she said. “I pay basically $2,000 in rent, and I still have all these other side bills. I don’t just have a big lump sum at once to do stuff like that.”
Similar to other programs that provide free money to help young people, HOPE can be underutilized if there’s a lack of awareness or a new process to navigate.
So far, 2,243 applications have been submitted, and there have been over 650 approvals with more than $200,000 distributed. One young woman used the money as a down payment on a car, said HOPE’s DiBenedetto. Another used it to put a security deposit on an apartment.
Casillas at UC Davis plans to leave her $3,000 untouched and let it grow in the trust account — until she needs it.
“I’m not going to touch that money,” she said.
“It feels like a lot of freedom, but also with that, it helps you so much, especially with emergencies and anything you need — an apartment, rent, transportation, all of that. I think it’s an amazing feeling to know that I’m supported in that way.”
This story was originally published by EdSource. Sign up for their daily newsletter.
