Tuesday, July 14, 2026

CalPERS Just Had One of its Best Years in a Decade. Why it Matters to Taxpayers

By Adam Ashton, CALMATTERS

California’s largest public pension fund just had a banner year, riding a soaring stock market to record its second consecutive double-digit annual investment return.

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System announced Monday that it gained 14.8% on its investment portfolio in the 2025-26 financial year, more than doubling its target of 6.8%.

CalPERS Chief Executive Officer Marcie Frost in remarks to the board described the return as the fund’s best year since 2014, excluding 2021 when markets rebounded from a crash caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“Our team has maintained a disciplined approach to building the health of the pension system, and our improved funded status shows this effort is paying off for our 2.4 million members,” she said in a written statement.

CalPERS finished the budget year with a portfolio valued at $637.1 billion — about $80 billion more than a year ago.

The investment return is an important number to California government agencies because they have to cough up more money to cover losses when CalPERS comes up short.

Tuesday, July 14, 2026

A Performer Who Toured as ‘Agnetha’ Headlines a Free ABBA Night in San Gabriel

The Swedes, a Los Angeles–based group of Swedish musicians, play the Mission Playhouse’s outdoor summer series a short drive from Pasadena

Before she fronted an ABBA tribute band in Los Angeles, Linda Frithiof spent years on stage as “Agnetha,” touring alongside the musicians who once recorded and performed with the Swedish supergroup itself.

On Thursday, July 23, Frithiof and her band, The Swedes, bring that pedigree to Playhouse Plaza at the San Gabriel Mission Playhouse for a free outdoor concert of ABBA songs, from “Dancing Queen” to “Mamma Mia.”

The 7:00 p.m. show sits a short drive south of Pasadena, through neighboring San Marino, putting a widely recognized pop songbook within easy reach of Pasadena and Altadena audiences. Pasadena is the cultural center of the San Gabriel Valley, and San Gabriel is a neighboring Valley city just beyond San Marino.

The concert is one stop on the city’s Summer in San Gabriel series, a run of free outdoor concerts and movies staged across the city through the summer.

Tuesday, July 14, 2026

Tongva Artist’s Water-Themed Installation Runs Through 2029 at the Huntington

A site-specific work traces regional freshwater springs through photography, ceramics and Tongva poetry

A large-scale installation by Tongva artist Mercedes Dorame examining the region’s historic freshwater springs opened March 22, 2026, at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, where it will remain on view through March 2029.

“Deliquescence: Sites of Transformation” grew out of Dorame’s 2023-24 residency at the Huntington and combines her own photographs of the Southern California landscape with historical images of regional springs, alongside sculpture, painting, ceramics and a soundscape of Tongva poetry, according to the museum.

Dorame is a member of the Gabrielino Tongva Indians of California and served as the Huntington’s 2023-24 artist-in-residence. The installation’s title refers to a process in which a substance absorbs atmospheric moisture until it dissolves into a new solution, according to Huntington.

The work opened as part of a broader reinstallation of the museum’s Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art, alongside two other new presentations: Laura Aguilar’s “Body and Landscape”

Tuesday, July 14, 2026

LA County Officials Urge Mosquito Precautions After First Human West Nile Case

CITY NEWS SERVICE

Los Angeles County health officials were urging residents Tuesday to take precautions against mosquitoes after confirming the county’s first human case of West Nile virus this year.

The Antelope Valley resident was hospitalized after developing West Nile virus encephalitis following the onset of symptoms in late June, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

“The first human cases of West Nile virus are an important reminder that we all need to take steps to prevent mosquito bites and mosquito breeding,” Los Angeles County Health Officer Dr. Muntu Davis said in a statement. “Mosquitoes thrive in hot weather, increasing the risk of bites and mosquito-borne diseases.”

Davis urged residents to use insect repellent, eliminate standing water around homes where mosquitoes can breed and ensure window and door screens are properly installed and maintained.

Officials also encouraged residents to report neglected swimming pools that could serve as mosquito breeding grounds and to notify authorities when dead birds are found,

Monday, July 13, 2026

Langham to Pay $320,000 to the District Attorney’s Office, County Counsel to Settle Price Gouging Lawsuit

Langham Hotels Pacific Corporation must additionally pay at least $216,795 in restitution to eligible Pasadena hotel guests for illegal overcharges

Langham Hotels Pacific Corporation will pay $320,000 to settle a consumer protection civil lawsuit brought by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and Los Angeles County Counsel’s Office alleging the company price gouged wildfire victims and other guests who stayed at its Pasadena hotel during the January 2025 wildfires and resulting state of emergency.

“It is reprehensible to overcharge and take advantage of wildfire victims who were in desperate need of housing as they fled their homes from raging fires last year,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said.

“During a time when our community was meant to come together to help those in need, Langham Hotels Pacific Corporation profited from other people’s tragedies. Since the devastating fires, my office has been working closely with our law enforcement and consumer agency partners to combat price gouging, looting,

Monday, July 13, 2026

Brace for Triple-Digit Heat, Midweek Humidity

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

A dangerous heat wave will grip Pasadena beginning Tuesday, with temperatures climbing into the triple digits and humidity adding to the discomfort, forecasters said.

The National Weather Service in Los Angeles/Oxnard reported late Sunday that highs will rise each day through midweek, peaking Wednesday at 104 degrees. Officials warned of widespread Moderate to Major HeatRisk from Tuesday through Thursday.

On Sunday, Pasadena reached 92 degrees under partly sunny skies. Winds were light, shifting southwest at 5 mph. Overnight lows fell to 66 degrees.

Monday will bring highs near 97 degrees with light winds. Tuesday will be hotter, reaching 97 degrees, before Wednesday’s peak of 104 degrees. Lows will remain in the upper 60s to low 70s, offering little relief.

Forecasters said monsoonal moisture could trigger isolated showers or thunderstorms in nearby mountains Monday and Tuesday afternoons. Pasadena itself is expected to stay dry but muggy.

Winds will remain calm to light,

Monday, July 13, 2026

Freedom Set to a Loop Pedal

By EDDIE RIVERA | Photography by JEFF LORCH

A two-man band turns a forgotten migration south into a little-known history with ninety minutes of live-built sound

There is a moment early in “Mexodus” when Nygel D. Robinson pulls a live pattern from a double bass, then loops it into the foundation of a song, with Brian Quijada building on top of it. It happens again and again over the next ninety minutes, and it never stops working. This is a play that manufactures its own soundtrack onstage, without a break, without an orchestra pit, without a wasted second, and the mechanics of that feat turn out to be inseparable from the story it tells.

The show, which opened Sunday at Pasadena Playhouse, follows the roughly ten thousand enslaved people who fled not north but south in the mid-1800s, crossing Texas and the Rio Grande into a Mexico that had already abolished slavery. Quijada and Robinson wrote the piece together and perform it as a two-man company,

Monday, July 13, 2026

Mayor Says PUSD Tree Removals Damaged Public Trust Amid Growing Dispute

By ANDRÈ COLEMAN, Managing Editor

Mayor Victor Gordo Saturday sharply criticized the Pasadena Unified School District’s handling of its controversial tree removal program, saying the district’s actions have damaged both the environment and public confidence while forcing the city to seek a court order to carry out its oversight responsibilities.

Gordo’s comments come as the dispute between the city and the school district continues to escalate over the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD) removal of trees at campuses undergoing soil remediation following the Eaton Fire.

“Decisions like these erode our environment and equally important the public’s trust and confidence,” Gordo told Pasadena Now. “The fact our City Attorney had to ask a judge to issue an inspection warrant in order that the City can meet its responsibility to residents of Pasadena is outrageous, unacceptable and frankly should be embarrassing to all. We should be working together for the safety and benefit of all.”

The city recently sought an inspection warrant after officials said they were denied access to district campuses to determine whether protected trees were being removed in violation of Pasadena’s Tree Protection Ordinance.

Sunday, July 12, 2026

Senator Pérez Convenes an Altadena Town Hall on Closing the Recovery Gap

The Eaton Fire recovery discussion meets Wednesday evening at Altadena’s Collaboratory, with reservations required

Eighteen months after the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena, the work of rebuilding is far from finished — and the gaps in that recovery will be the subject of a community town hall Wednesday, July 15, from 6 to 8 p.m. Senator Sasha Renée Pérez will lead the session, titled “Closing the Recovery Gap,” at the Collaboratory, the Eaton Fire Collaborative’s recovery hub at 540 W. Woodbury Road in Altadena.

Pérez represents the 25th Senate District, which stretches across the San Gabriel Valley and includes both Altadena and Pasadena. Since the January 2025 fire, she has made recovery a central focus, hosting roundtables with fire survivors and authoring legislation aimed at protecting displaced homeowners — including Senate Bill 1090, the Keep Altadena Land in Altadena Hands Act, which seeks to shield burned neighborhoods from outside developers.

The venue itself reflects that mission. The Collaboratory opened last fall as the first permanent hub of the Eaton Fire Collaborative,

Sunday, July 12, 2026

Rally Set for Saturday as Part of Nationwide ‘Good Trouble’ Weekend

A local Indivisible chapter plans a demonstration at Fair Oaks and Colorado honoring Rep. John Lewis and centered on voting rights

San Gabriel Foothills Indivisible plans to hold a rally Saturday, July 18, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado Boulevard in Old Pasadena. The event is part of “Good Trouble Lives On,” a nationwide weekend of nonviolent action honoring the late Rep. John Lewis.

The national “Good Trouble Lives On” effort, which is organized separately from San Gabriel Foothills Indivisible, describes this year’s action as a weekend running July 17 through 19.

The weekend is tied to the legacy of Rep. John Lewis, who coined the phrase “good trouble” during the civil rights movement. Lewis died July 17, 2020.

A first nationwide “Good Trouble Lives On” protest was held July 17, 2025, with as many as 200,000 people participating nationwide, according to a summary of national and wire coverage of that earlier event.