The Brief

Tucked away in the Central Valley, Central California Women's Facility sits off Highway 99 between Fresno and Merced. Farmland surrounds much of the prison, and visitors are rare.

The 640-acre facility is the largest women’s prison in California, and holds more than 2,000 women, nonbinary and transgender people. In total, women make up just 4% of the state's prison population.

For these reasons and more, the prison in Chowchilla seems an unlikely place to have its own newspaper. But last year, an organization for prison journalism helped open up a media center and started training journalists there.

Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla is California's largest prison. More than 2,000 women, nonbinary and transgender people are incarcerated there.

In September, they put out their first issue of The Paper Trail, an in-house newspaper written and edited by incarcerated people. Its supporters say it's the first effort of its kind at a women's prison in the U.S.

" It's been amazing to be a part of something starting here for women that inspired a lot of women," said Megan Hogg, a writer for the paper who has been incarcerated at CCWF for 12 years. "The first issue that came out, people were like 'Oh, wow, we have a newspaper.' You cannot find a copy now. People are like, 'Can I look at yours?'"

I visited the prison in December. It was so huge that my escort told me corrections officers use tricycles to get around. It took us more than a half hour to walk from the prison's front gates into the media center. Along the route were long, sparse yards, check points and a cafeteria.

The prison grounds were mostly quiet on the Friday morning of my visit, but the newsroom was abuzz. A handful of staff members sat in front of desktop computers while others gathered around a table to discuss story ideas and works-in-progress.

Behind them, writing on a whiteboard declared: "Journalism: providing information to people so they can make informed decisions in their lives."

Leaders of The Paper Trail talk about editorial goals with advisor Jesse Vasquez.

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Libby Rainey

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Ice, lizards & unexpected stories

The Paper Trail has the look of a local paper, and in some ways its content mirrors that style, with coverage of community events like an in-prison farmer's market and pickleball games.

Other stories illustrate the oddities and surprises of prison life. A recent piece by Hogg compared lizards to Fendi bags — because it's become popular to capture and keep them as pets. Another incarcerated reporter, Brenda Bowers, wrote a story about ice and how most people can't get ahold of it at the prison.

"It's something that people probably wouldn't think about, because they get it so freely out there, but in here, you gotta pay for it, or bargain and wheel and deal," she said.

The paper also includes tips and guides to life inside. A recent issue featured two pieces on experiencing menopause behind bars.

"Although CCWF is a women’s facility, there is a never-ending need for sanitary products," Delina Williams wrote in one of them. "It adds an extra layer of stress for women trying to care for their very private needs, not to mention the overall difficulty of striving for 'normalcy' within the razor wires."

The paper is distributed in print, on tablets available inside the facility, and online. It's funded by the nonprofit The Pollen Initiative. That group's executive director Jesse Vasquez drives from Oakland twice a week to work with the paper’s staff.

Vasquez was himself formerly incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, where he served as the editor of a newspaper there called The San Quentin News. (Full disclosure: I volunteered for that paper several years ago.)

"The men have always gotten the majority of attention by the fact that there are far more men. Most of the programming, most of the services revolve around the majority of people they're going to serve," Vasquez said. "So in this endeavor with The Paper Trail, I've noticed that they have a sense of empowerment."

The Paper Trail is the first newspaper out of women's prison in the country.

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Libby Rainey

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Reporting from the inside

The Paper Trail launched during a time of change for women's prisons in California. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of women in California prisons fell 31%, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. CCWF also began housing transgender women in recent years. One of The Paper Trail's earliest articles was about the facility's first ever LGBTQIA+ Pride Walk.

It also started during a period of scandals at CCWF. In July, a woman died at the prison during a heatwave. In January, a former correctional officer, Gregory Rodriguez, was found guilty of 64 counts of sexual abuse and battery against multiple incarcerated women, including rape.

Editor-in-chief Amber Bray said in December that she’s interviewing people about their experiences with Rodriguez for the paper’s first story looking into the abuse.

" What I would like for us to do is use the opportunity to say, 'Yeah, this is what happened to some people here, and it's sad, and it's unfortunate. But we're not defined by it,'" she said.

Bray has access that would be impossible for an outside journalist to get.

In journalism classes, she said, they were told “don't limit your thinking on what you can cover. If you see that there's a problem, well then go and learn about the problem, pitch the story, and, you know, see where it goes."

Bray will face a different dynamic when the story is ready to publish: The Paper Trail is subject to review by officials with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

" They're not able to do hard-hitting, investigative journalism from within a prison. I mean, it's just common sense,” said William Drummond, a journalism professor at UC Berkeley and an advisor to the San Quentin News, which goes through the same review process. “If you do that, and embarrass the warden and the staff, you aren't going to be in business long."

Prison newspapers in California are growing

Prison newspapers are rare, but not new, in California. The San Quentin News dates back to at least 1940, and was re-launched in 2008. That project has since won awards and been the subject of news coverage itself. Mule Creek State Prison near Sacramento has a newspaper, as does Pelican Bay State Prison in Northern California. The Paper Trail at CCWF is the fourth, and latest, prison newspaper in the state.

There are also a handful of newsletters produced and distributed at state prisons including at California Institution for Women in Southern California, according to Vasquez. The advocacy organization California Coalition for Women Prisoners has a long-running newsletter called The Fire Inside.

Coverage in collaboration with news organizations outside prison walls have grown in recent years, too, with podcasts such as Ear Hustle out of San Quentin and Bay Area radio station KALW's show Uncuffed. Those programs work with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people to tell their stories, and both recently expanded to California Institution for Women in Chino.

Drummond said the reason prison media projects are expanding is simple: it's an opportunity for incarcerated people to tell their own stories.

" When they get involved in a newspaper, they discover something. And that is, in a very basic sense, you get a following. You get to say stuff people then react to," he said. "It means you're affirming yourself and your identity. And I've seen this happen dozens of times."

For Megan Hogg at CCWF, this meant being seen as someone who’s more than the crime that landed her in prison.

"We're still mothers, we're still sisters, we're still daughters," Hogg said. "We will never deny, yes, I did something horrible, and yes, someone was harmed by it in unimaginable ways. However…we don't want to be defined only by that."

For Delina Williams, the newspaper represents a step forward for all women who are affected by the criminal justice system.

" The opening of this media center starts a whole new era of women being able to speak their truths," she said.

More writers being trained

A new cohort of incarcerated people at CCWF are now training to join and contribute to The Paper Trail, Vasquez said. As the paper grows, he said its challenge is two-fold: writing "news you can use" for people inside California's prisons, and getting their voices heard by those on the outside.

While chasing those bigger goals, the new journalists are in a day-to-day grind that is all too familiar to any working writer: pitching stories, getting edited and trying their best to reflect and communicate the world around them.

"Writing is not easy," said the paper's features editor Sagal Sadiq. "But when the perfect sentence is down on paper, it's like, yes, it's beautiful. [There's] nothing like it."

A new free record shop for survivors of last year’s Eaton and Palisades fires is celebrating with a grand opening party Saturday night.

After losing his home in the Eaton Fire, Brandon Jay founded Altadena Musicians to get instruments back into the hands of musicians who lost their gear in fires.

Now he’s doing that with vinyl records, too.

“We want to be here to help replace those items and support music in people’s lives that can’t necessarily afford it right now because they’re saving all their pennies just to live and also just to rebuild their homes,” Jay told LAist.

Jay says they’ve seen roughly 3,000 records donated so far. Now they have a dedicated space on Lincoln Avenue where fire survivors can sign up for time slots and shop for up to 10 records a month.

“It’s a really lovely distraction but it kind of keeps me going as well just to know that we’re trying to build something great for the community and keep us all moving forward,” Jay said.

The store will carry copies of the benefit album, Gimme Shelter: Songs for LA Fire Relief. The compilation features cover art by Shepard Fairey and L.A. specific tracks from artists like Elliott Smith ("Angeles" of course), Norah Jones, The Flaming Lips, as well as a cover of "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads performed by Jay and about 50 other fire-impacted musicians.

Reggae star Ziggy Marley has spent decades carrying one of music’s most celebrated legacies. But until now, he had never written a song directly about his father, Bob Marley.

That’s changed with “Many Mourn for Bob,” a track on Marley’s ninth solo album Brightside, his first release recorded in his new studio in North Hollywood.

Marley was just 12 when his father died of cancer in 1981. Now 57, Marley says the song instinctually emerged after years of life experience and producing the biopic One Love, which revisited his father’s struggles like an assassination attempt amid political violence in Jamaica.

“He went through some things that was really tough on a human being – and just understanding him in that light is to have a little bit more emotional, deeper connection to his experience,” Marley said in an interview at his studio.

Searching for the bright side

The deeply personal track is part of a splashy return for Marley, who's touring behind Brightside and will perform at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21.

The new album blends political themes, optimism and musical experimentation.

Its lead single, “Racism Is a Killa,” featuring Big Boi, pairs the heavy topic with an upbeat groove that he hopes will make the song more accessible to young people.

“We just wanna come out straightforward, like I never want to come out tiptoeing,” Marley said. “I want to say something that can catch your ears or catch your thoughts.”

That tension between darkness and hope runs throughout Brightside. Marley described the album as a reflection on enduring difficult periods – from the pandemic to the Los Angeles wildfires – without losing sight of optimism.

“Sometimes we get lost in that so much that we don't realize that there is always a bright side,” Marley said.

The 432 Hz experiment

The album also experiments sonically: Marley recorded Brightside using 432 hertz tuning instead of the standard 440 hertz in most mainstream music. Advocates of 432 hertz believe it produces a warmer, more meditative sound better synced to the natural world. (You can hear the difference for yourself here.)

“It's a lower musical frequency, but it's a higher frequency in a next sense of your spirituality and emotion,” he said. “So even though the numbers go down, the frequency actually go up.”

Marley sees the move as part of a larger search for new creative approaches.

“I'm very open-minded and always trying to evolve and just experiment with life and music,” Marley said.

The Grammy winner, who joins James Blake and Ed O’Brien of Radiohead as the most high-profile artists to record at the lower frequency, floated the idea of a larger movement among artists.

“Let's just have a revolution in the music industry,” he said. “Let's change the frequency.”

Building a dream

Marley works out of his Rebel Lion Studio in North Hollywood, its name a nod to his 2018 album Rebellion Rises while also a play on the word “rebellion.”

He described the studio as an extension of the independent spirit his father built with Tuff Gong Studio in Jamaica.

Musicians set up for rehearsal ahead of the next leg of Ziggy Marley's tour.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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“My father had a dream, and I had a dream too,” Marley said.

Like with Tuff Gong, Marley also plans to expand the studio operation to include vinyl pressing as records continue their resurgence in the streaming era.

“There’s always gonna be a vinyl present going on,” Marley said. “A thousand years from now, people that we're still gonna need vinyl records to listen to music.”

Ziggy Marley in the hallway of his new studio in North Hollywood.

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Josie Huang

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LAist

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For years, Marley said, he worked out of smaller home setups and rented facilities before deciding to build a larger permanent space in L.A.

Marley said the city has become central to his own creative evolution over the last two decades of living and working here.

Drawn initially by music, friends and the city's small but tight-knit Jamaican community, he says being surrounded by creatives from different backgrounds helped push his artistry in new directions.

“I left my safety and my community, my tribe, and come out by myself to L.A.,” he said. “But it's a great experience. It really helped my growth as a human being being here.”

What’s next

Fresh off the release of Brightside, Marley says he’s already working on another album – a notably quicker turnaround since his last album, the family-music release More Family Time in 2020,

“We're doing back to back,” he said.

Ziggy Marley will be performing at the Hollywood Bowl on June 21 as part of a tour supporting his new album Brightside.

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Astrida Valigorsky

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Getty Images

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He’s also busy writing a children’s book based on his feel-good hit anthem “True to Myself” and eyeing opportunities in front – or behind the camera – inspired by his time working on One Love and making the video for “Racism Is A Killa.”

“Same philosophy, same message, but within visuals, you know?” Marley said excitedly. “I want to create some stories and try out. I feel it coming. I can feel it.”

A City Council committee voted Friday to shelve a proposed ballot measure aimed at cutting L.A.'s “mansion tax” nearly in half.

The ad hoc committee on Measure ULA voted 2-1 to set aside a proposal by Councilmembers John Lee and Marqueece Harris-Dawson that would have asked voters in November to reduce the ULA transfer tax rate for multifamily and mixed-use properties to somewhere between 2% and 3.5%, down from the current rate of up to 5.5%.

However, the ballot measure proposal was also referred to the City Council’s rules, elections, and intergovernmental relations committee, which could still choose to move it forward.

Instead, the ad hoc committee advanced a narrower pilot program that would reduce the property transfer tax only for newly built affordable housing projects.

The pilot program won't need voter approval in the form of a ballot measure. Committee Chair Ysabel Jurado, who introduced the substitute language, said she believes the city should avoid a ULA ballot measure because it’s still too early to evaluate the measure’s long-term effects.

“ I'm against going to the ballot, but I'm for making fixes that make this better,” Jurado said.

Voters will see a separate proposal on their ballots by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association to effectively repeal Measure ULA.

If the L.A. City Council does not approve reforming the measure, the only decision on the ballot in November may be whether to keep the mansion tax in its current form or end it.

About the mansion tax

L.A. voters approved Measure ULA in 2022 to fund affordable housing and homelessness prevention. The measure taxes real estate sales over about $5 million. Since taking effect in April 2023, ULA has raised just over $1.1 billion from 1,633 real estate transactions, according to the city’s housing department.

The city projects it will generate about $500 million in the coming fiscal year — about half of what proponents initially promised. It has funded about 800 new affordable units and helped stabilize thousands of renters facing eviction, according to the housing department.

But critics say the tax has suppressed housing development. Several studies link the tax to a slowdown in apartment construction in Los Angeles, but ULA supporters say high interest rates and broader economic conditions are to blame.

The City Council's ad hoc committee on Measure ULA was formed earlier this year to study how the measure is working and develop potential reforms. That work took on more urgency inside L.A. city hall after the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association qualified a statewide ballot measure for November that would effectively repeal Measure ULA entirely.

Joe Donlin, director of the United to House LA coalition, which campaigned for the original measure, said the City Council committee made the right call by rejecting broader exemptions.

“By not taking up the extreme calls for broad, 15-year waivers that could cost the program about a third of its revenue, the committee acknowledged that ULA is working,” Donlin said in a statement.

A separate group of housing developers, union workers and advocacy groups calling itself the “Mend It, Don’t End It” coalition has been urging city hall to make changes to ULA. On Friday, the group said it supports the measure, but believes targeted reforms are still needed.

“Independent research shows that Measure ULA has slowed housing production in Los Angeles at a time when we need more housing, not less,” said Melanie Mendoza, a coalition spokesperson.

What the data show

The debate over ULA's impact played out in the committee room Friday morning. The city's chief legislative analyst reviewed seven independent studies on ULA’s impact. Three of those studies concluded ULA had suppressed housing production and reduced property tax revenues, while four found no meaningful negative impact.

Before ULA took effect, Los Angeles collected about $22 million a month in transfer tax. After that, it dropped to about $13 million. But city legislative analyst Henry Flatt told the committee a similar decline happened in cities without the tax, including Glendale, Long Beach, Pasadena and Santa Clarita.

“We are not currently convinced that Measure ULA has had an extremely negative impact on general fund revenues,” Flatt told the committee.

The county assessor's office read the same period differently. Scott Thornberry, an assistant assessor with L.A. County, told the committee that commercial and industrial property sales are falling in the city but not elsewhere in the county.

“We are seeing, we believe, a trend line of impact to property tax revenue growth in the city of L.A. specifically," Thornberry said.

What the committee did

Instead of the ballot measure, the committee voted to develop a five-year pilot program cutting the ULA tax to 1.5% for newly constructed affordable housing projects that meet specific requirements.

Lee, whose ballot measure was replaced with language advancing the pilot program, said he hadn't seen the substitute prior to Friday’s meeting and voted against it.

“This was just placed in front of me,” he said. Lee objected to a provision in the substitute recommendations calling for $30 million in new spending on homelessness support.

“Without knowing where this money's coming from, I'm going to have to vote no,” he said.

Lee told LAist he supports stronger oversight and technical improvements to Measure ULA, but believes a ballot measure is the right approach.

“Voters deserve the opportunity to consider targeted changes that would preserve the intent of the measure while addressing its unintended impacts on housing production and real estate activity in Los Angeles,” the councilmember said, in a statement.

Friday's meeting was the committee's final scheduled hearing. The committee, which is set to dissolve June 1, also voted to advance a narrower nonprofit tax refund limited to organizations that can prove all sale proceeds went directly to affordable housing.

The committee continued a separate motion on fire exemptions for Palisades fire victims, which will be heard by another council committee. A motion to loosen eligibility rules for the ULA Citizens Oversight Committee was noted and filed.

Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who introduced several of the committee's motions, said the process had been guided by a commitment to protect the measure.

"My goal has always been to listen carefully, bring people into the conversation, and protect ULA while honoring the voters' intent," she said at Friday’s meeting.

In her closing remarks, Jurado reflected on the three-member committee’s past work.

“We released $14 million in rental assistance to the most vulnerable Angelenos and $300 million for affordable housing,” she said. “We did in six or seven meetings what others couldn't do in five years.”

The ad hoc committee's recommendations now move to the full City Council.

Harris-Dawson and Lee’s ballot measure motion will be considered by the City Council’s rules committee at a later date, officials said.

Monsterpalooza, the annual movie-monster bash for horror fans, returns to the Pasadena Convention Center this weekend, starting Friday night (May 29) and lasting through Sunday.

What to expect

Now in its 18th year, devotees can rub elbows with legendary beastie creators, browse hundreds of vendors who traffic in the weird and unsettling, and marvel at practical effects that’ll make your flesh creep.

Dozens of panels and presentations are scheduled, including a deep-dive into the 95th anniversary of the Dracula and Frankenstein movies by writer Julian David Stone.

Writer Julian David Stone gives a presentation at a past Monsterpalooza event.

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Perry Shields

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Courtesy Julian David Stone

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Stone said that the two classic movies have left a lasting impact.

“Dracula is a movie about supernatural horror..... and Frankenstein is about technological or man-made horror," he said. "You can just trace those two themes all the way forward to this past year with Sinners and Megan 2.0."

Richard Redlefsen's Armageddon Rat at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Steve Jennings Photography

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Courtesy Visit Pasadena

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Stone first attended the convention in 2008, returning over the years as a fan, spectator and presenter.

“It’s just a terrific convention that celebrates all things horror,” Stone said. “There’s a lot of celebrities you can meet who were in these horror films and you can get pictures with them." He added that he’ll never forget when he met Carla Laemmle in 2010 — the last living cast member of the original 1931 Dracula.

Mike Mekash and Chris Nelson re-created Twisty the Clown on Dan Gilbert at the PPI Booth at a past Monsterpalooza.

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Steve Jennings

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Courtesy Visit Pasadena

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Who's attending

If you’re jonesing to be photographed with high-profile entertainers (expect a fee for many), this year's event has a line-up that includes musician Alice Cooper, actress Lin Shaye from the Insidious movie franchise and David Howard Thornton, who plays Art the Clown in the popular Terrifier movie series.

Cosplay and crazy costumes are encouraged, although a T-shirt celebrating a classic horror movie will also do. Just come ready to adore all things that gnaw and gash.