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."

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Just inches away from where workers warm up handmade tortillas at Guisados in Pasadena, Pablomanuel Maldonado puts the finishing touches on different drinks before calling out to his customers.

“Provecho,” Maldonado, owner of coffee pop-up the Caffeinated Cart, says to each customer before quickly redirecting his attention to the next, treating each one like he’s known them for years.

Local taco chain Guisados partnered with the Caffeinated Cart to bring its coffee to the people of Pasadena in a space where Maldonado can chat up his customers and serve his Latino-inspired signature coffees. 

Nearly all of his drinks have names in Spanish, a nod to his Mexican roots. By far his best seller is the “Cereal Killer,” a cinnamon brown sugar latte with a cereal garnish, where customers can choose between Cocoa Puffs or Cap’N Crunch Crunch Berries. 

Pablomanuel Maldonado, owner of the Caffeinated Cart, prepares a Cereal Killer at Guisados in Pasadena, Calif. on Mar. 4, 2026.

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Isaac Ceja

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The LA Local

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Though he’s only been operating at this location for the past three weeks, small touches — like Virgen de Guadalupe candles, a new coffee blend from local roaster Picaresca and a shiny new drink menu on the wall — make his corner of the restaurant feel welcoming.

“For the first time, I don’t feel tired. I feel mentally at peace, and it’s like, ‘Damn, this is what I love doing,’ you know?” Maldonado told The LA Local. “I get excited to come here. I get excited to get out of bed.” 

Maldonado recently transitioned from working full-time at Bristol Farms during the week and doing coffee pop-ups on weekends to serving coffee full-time at Guisados.

The Caffeinated Cart began in 2020 when Maldonado started selling bottled lattes in his hometown of Compton before eventually popping up at local markets like Angel City Market and the Beach Flea. 

Only a couple of years after he started, Maldonado was selling out at the pop-ups.  Today, he has over 23,000 followers on Instagram.

Maldonado’s partnership with Guisados began in 2025 via an Instagram story when owner Armando De La Torre Jr. put out a call for coffee pop-ups at his Guisados location in Long Beach. 

A photo illustration of the Caffeinated Cart’s most popular drink the Cereal Killer, a cinnamon brown sugar latte with a cereal garnish, at Guisados in Pasadena, Calif. on Mar. 4, 2026.

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Isaac Ceja

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The LA Local

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After connecting with De La Torre, Maldonado began popping up outside the Long Beach location for six months. But Maldonado said permitting issues with the city’s Health Department forced him to stop. 

Nearly a year after their initial collaboration, De La Torre invited Maldonado to Pasadena to show off the space he had in mind for him, but the Caffeinated Cart owner had mixed emotions. 

Maldonado was concerned about going to Pasadena and leaving behind the community and regular customers he had in Long Beach, but he was excited by the idea of finally having a physical space, even if it wasn’t completely his own.

Pablomanuel Maldonado, owner of the Caffeinated Cart, hugs his former boss who visited him at his new coffee residency at Guisados in Pasadena, Calif. on Mar. 4, 2026.

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Isaac Ceja

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The LA Local

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“We’re in a world where… everybody gatekeeps and then everybody stops each other from growing, and coffee’s been so welcoming, man,” Maldonado said. “The community I’ve built around me has just been so welcoming, and a lot of people just truly do trust us.”

Leo Abularach, co-owner of Picaresca in Boyle Heights, has been a longtime supporter of the Caffeinated Cart. He told The LA Local that he loaned Maldonado over $3,000 worth of equipment to help him get started. Abularach even let him use his business delivery service, so Maldonado would no longer have to run to the store for things like extra milk.

“He has always been there for Picaresca. He is part of our family,” Abularach said of Maldonado. “He is one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, and I think his personality is one of the reasons why people love the Caffeinated Cart.”

Pablomanuel Maldonado, owner of the Caffeinated Cart, pours coffee beans into a grinder at Guisados in Pasadena, Calif. on Mar. 4, 2026.

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Isaac Ceja

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The LA Local

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Customers Adriana Acevedo and Eilene Gonzalez saw the Caffeinated Cart on TikTok. When they realized it was around the corner from their workplace, they decided to give it a try.

“It’s amazing. It tastes really good. Like, no notes. Amazing,” Acevedo said after finally trying the coffee in real life on a recent Wednesday morning. 

“Yeah, for first timers, now I think we’re going to be returners,” Gonzalez added with a laugh. 

Pablomanuel Maldonado, right, talks with customers Adriana Acevedo, left, and Eilene Gonzalez, centert, at the Caffeinated Cart inside of Guisados in Pasadena, Calif. on Mar. 4, 2026.

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Isaac Ceja

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The LA Local

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The two praised the welcoming service offered by Maldonado, and after Acevedo mentioned she loves caffeine, Maldonado even gave her an additional shot.

“I’m all about making it affordable. I don’t charge extra for alternative milks. You want extra shots? Bro, get extra shots. I’m not going to charge you extra,” Maldonado said. 

“We’re all for the people,” he said. “We want to make sure people can still come back and not have to feel like ‘Was the $7 coffee worth it?’”

Though it was only a Wednesday, customers kept trickling in, keeping him busy throughout his shift, and even Maldonado’s old boss from Bristol Farms, Dina Urquilla, came to support. 

Maldonado said he’s still saving to open up his own shop in the future, but for now, he says he looks forward to making coffee every day in his corner of Pasadena.

A view of some of the trinkets at the Caffeinated Cart inside of Guisados in Pasadena, Calif. on Mar. 4, 2026.

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Isaac Ceja

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The LA Local

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Warm temperatures are on tap again today as we head into a toasty weekend with temps set to reach the triple digits in desert communities.

L.A. County beaches will see daytime highs from 67 to 72 degrees. It'll be between 69 and 76 degrees along the Orange County coast. More inland areas like downtown L.A., Hollywood and Anaheim will see temperatures from 75 to 81 degrees.

Meanwhile, the valleys will see varying temperatures. Areas closer to the coast will see highs from 78 to 83 degrees, and further inland, temps will stay in the upper 80s, up to 89 degrees.

Meanwhile in Coachella Valley, temperatures will rise to 101 to 106 degrees.

Looking ahead to the weekend, the valleys will reach the 90s for Mother's Day, up to 100 degrees in the Antelope Valley too. Come Sunday, an Extreme Heat Warning kicks in for the Coachella Valley, where temperatures will stay in the low 100s, with up to 109 degrees possible. Make sure to stay hydrated!

Jessica Wang has experienced delay after delay for nearly two years as she tried to open Gu Grocery in Chinatown. Her father, a contractor, had told her it would take nine months.

Instead, she says, there have been issues with city permits, inspectors, inaccurate information, illness and wayward appliance installers which have pushed things back.

The community didn't take nearly as long. In two weeks, 134 donors contributed nearly $12,000 to keep Wang afloat. But money can't solve her problem — she still needs the city's approval to open the doors.

Wang signed the lease at the end of 2023, envisioning a Chinese-Taiwanese grocery store and community hub where seniors could use EBT to buy fresh tofu, where kids from nearby elementary schools could stop by after class, and where her mother, Peggy, could teach neighbors how to make their grandmother's pickles.

Now, more than two years into a five-year lease, and nearly out of money after paying for permits, buildout, and rent on a space she can't operate, Wang launched a GoFundMe campaign a few weeks ago. The response showed the community believes in Gu Grocery and wants to see it succeed. But she's still waiting for at least seven final inspections by the city before she can open.

The story of Gu

The name "Gu" carries layered meaning: the character 菇 means "mushroom" in Chinese, a traditional symbol of prosperity, while the sound "gu" also means "auntie" in Mandarin — honoring intergenerational caretakers. Wang's mission for the space is to provide a place to purchase Chinese-Taiwanese pantry staples and prepared foods, and to host community workshops.

The communal aspect is central to Wang's vision of social entrepreneurship, not solely focused on profit. In addition to workshops, Gu Grocery plans to accept EBT and offer senior discounts for those on fixed incomes.

"I wanted a space where I could share knowledge and share culture and also just learn from the community," Wang said.

Ultimately, she hopes to convert the store into a worker-owned co-op.

Wang grew up in the San Gabriel Valley and worked as a pastry chef at San Francisco's State Bird Provisions before a pre-diabetic diagnosis at age 29 prompted her return to L.A. She began volunteering with API Forward Movement, a local nonprofit focused on health equity and food access in AAPI communities, and saw firsthand the need during COVID food distributions at L.A. State Historic Park.

Chinatown had lost its last two full-service grocery stores in 2019. Last fall, the neighborhood lost another: Yue Wa Market, a small produce shop that had served residents for 18 years before rising rent and pandemic losses forced it to shut its doors. The closures hit especially hard in a neighborhood where, according to American Community Survey data, half of the residents are low-income and one in five are seniors 65 and older — many of whom rely on walking to shop.

Jessica Wang (center, in black) and her mother Peggy (left, in white and red) smile while serving customers at a farmer's market pop-up for Gu Grocery.

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Daniel Nguyen

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Courtesy Gu Grocery

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Permitting woes

Much of bringing Gu Grocery to reality has been made possible by support from Wang's friends and family. Her father, Willie Wang, serves as her general contractor. When plans were submitted to the city in March 2024, he told her the buildout would take nine months if everything went smoothly.

Instead, she’s experienced delays from all directions, from slow bureaucracy, to issues with contractors. A hood installation contractor rescheduled multiple times, she said, then doubled his price the day before a rescheduled appointment. Drywall contractors said their workers had been detained by ICE and never returned.

The process hasn't just taken time — it's been expensive. One inspector approved a makeup air unit for the kitchen hood system, she said, only to have a senior inspector overturn the decision and order a complete replacement at nearly $6,000. Her father paid out of pocket — even as he was recovering from March surgery to remove a cancerous lung growth.

"Who would have thought that something an inspector asked us to do would be completely overturned by another inspector?" Wang said. "That's just so wild."

LAist has reached out to the city's Department of Building Services for comment but has not heard back.

The financial toll

Wang estimates she's spent more than $200,000 so far — more than $100,000 on buildout and permits alone, plus a full year of rent on a space she can't operate, equipment, insurance and taxes.

She draws no income from Gu Grocery. To cover personal expenses, she teaches fermentation workshops through her other business, Picklepickle, though that work has been inconsistent lately. Her health insurance doubled this year. The GoFundMe money, she said, is a "rainy day fund" in case she needs it to pay future bills.

The financial strain has touched her entire family. Her mother, who received a small inheritance when Wang's grandparents died, got scammed late last year trying to grow that money to help with the store. Targeted through online ads, she was convinced by an "investment tutor" based in Taiwan to hand over cash to a stranger in a parking lot.

"I didn't realize this would become part of what it's like to have aging parents in the age of technology," Wang said. "But it's scary how they get targeted."

Black sesame noodles from Gu Grocery's popup menu. Wang uses black sesame for higher nutritional value and plans to offer the dish as one of the prepared foods when the store opens.

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Aunty J

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Courtesy Gu Grocery

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Rice balls with house pickles from a Gu Grocery pop-up. Wang has been teaching fermentation and pickling workshops for 15 years and plans to serve pickles alongside all meals when the store opens.

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Aunty J.

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Courtesy Gu Grocery

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Addressing Chinatown's needs

Once Gu Grocery opens, it won't operate as a full-service market — there won't be a meat counter. Instead, it will function like a corner store with a focus on healthy prepared foods: butter mochi, sesame noodles and daily congee.

"Something that Chinatown has never had was prepared food that is EBT eligible," Wang said.

In 2020, Wang surveyed seniors through API Forward Movement's Tai Chi fitness program to understand their shopping habits following the closure of local grocery stores. Many told her they now ride the bus to Super King on San Fernando Road in Glendale, nearly 5 miles away, for produce deals, or rely on family members to drive them to 99 Ranch in Alhambra. Some grow their own food in gardening plots, Wang said, "but they can't produce everything they need."

Willie Wang (left), Jessica Wang (center), and Peggy Wang (right) pose inside Gu Grocery. The signs display the store's values in both English and Chinese — Willie's reads "body health" and Peggy's reads "mushroom auntie," playing on the dual meaning of "gu."

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Daniel Nguyen

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Courtesy Gu Grocery

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The community response

When she launched her Go FundMe in mid-April, she was overwhelmed by the response. "I have a hard time asking for help," said Wang. "So actually receiving help, it's very moving."

The donors range from former pop-up customers and friends to a range of assorted well-wishers — a musician who had her food once at an event, fellow food business owners, farmer's market regulars and even her insurance agent.

"The generosity is beyond my expectations," Wang said. "Some of these people only had my food once. People are showing their support truly in a personal way and really believing in the vision."

The GoFundMe money helps Wang stay "afloat for now," but she's had to rethink her opening strategy. She won't be able to afford full inventory when she opens. Instead, she plans a phased opening: prepared foods only, served through a takeout window, then using revenue to slowly stock shelves with the retail items she originally envisioned.

The community raised more than $14,000 in three weeks. After nearly two years of delays, Wang is still waiting for permits. She hopes to open by Father's Day — her general contractor dad's birthday. But she's learned to expect the unexpected.

Many donors sent her direct messages saying simply: "We got this, Jess, we got you."