Saturday, August 15, 2026

Back-to-School Giveaway Returns Saturday to a Rebuilding Altadena

The Woodbury Road storefront that took on smoke and water when the Eaton Fire tore through Altadena will spend Saturday handing out free backpacks and school supplies instead. 

The distribution is the Altadena date of the sixth annual Back to School Giveaway, run by Darden Leadership & Career Academy and Simply Divine Academy. The academies held a first date in 

Monrovia on Aug. 8, at 301 West Huntington Drive, Monrovia, and set a second date on Aug. 15 at Simply Divine’s Altadena location at 421 East Woodbury Road.

Registration is required and limited to one day per family, and is available online, the city said. On their event flyer, the organizers name Altadena Rising as giving out free laptops, with students required to register and apply while supplies last, and say food will be provided. Which organization of that name is involved was not independently confirmed, and the laptop, hours and food details appear on the organizers’ promotional materials rather than the city’s.

Saturday, August 15, 2026

Los Angeles Children’s Chorus Receives $2.04 Million Grant, Largest in Its History

The Pasadena-based, GRAMMY-winning Los Angeles Children’s Chorus announced Friday it has received a 2026 General Operating Support Grant from the Perenchio Foundation. The $2,040,000 grant, which will be distributed over three years, is the largest in LACC’s history. It reflects the strength of LACC’s programs and governance practices, and the significant role the chorus plays in the community. LACC is currently celebrating its 40th Anniversary.

Perenchio Foundation’s General Operating Support Grants provide unrestricted, multi-year funding to arts organizations across Los Angeles County. These grants are designed to strengthen organizational infrastructure, support long-term planning, and build the financial resilience that allows arts organizations to grow with stability — and to endure.

“Los Angeles Children’s Chorus is deeply grateful to receive this extraordinary support from the Perenchio Foundation,” said Susan Miller Kotses, LACC Executive Director. “The fact that the Foundation expressed its confidence and trust in LACC through a gift of this size is monumental and a well-deserved honor for our LACC community, and especially for our Board of Directors and staff team.

Saturday, August 15, 2026

LA Sheriff’s Department Settles Justice Department Suit Over Concealed Weapon Permits

CITY NEWS SERVICE

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has settled a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice alleging the agency was deliberately delaying law-abiding Californians from exercising their constitutional right to carry concealed handguns in public for self-defense.

The DOJ sued the department last year, claiming eligible citizens were having extreme difficulty obtaining Concealed Carry Weapons permits from the sheriff’s department, not through outright refusal, “but through a deliberate pattern of unconscionable delay.”

Quoting data provided by the sheriff’s department about more than 8,000 concealed carry permit applications and renewal applications received between January 2024 and March 2025, the DOJ claimed in the lawsuit that it took an average of nearly a year for the LASD to schedule interviews to approve or advance the applications.

As a result, the department issued only two CCW permits during the period, according to the DOJ.

“The Justice Department supports our law enforcement partners,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K.

Friday, August 14, 2026

Sources: Recall Petitions Against Two Pasadena Unified Trustees Cleared for Signature Gathering

Los Angeles County election officials have cleared petitions seeking the recall of two Pasadena Unified School District board members, giving organizers until Dec. 11 to gather signatures that could force a special election, sources familiar with the situation said.

The Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk approved both petitions Aug. 13, the sources indicated. One targets Board of Education President Tina Fredericks, who represents Trustee Area 6. The other targets Trustee Scott Harden of Trustee Area 4. Proponents have 120 days to circulate them.

Approval clears the petitions to circulate. It does not place either recall on a ballot. Organizers must collect valid signatures from a share of the registered voters within each trustee area, and the county must verify them. If a petition falls short by Dec. 11, it expires and no election is held.

Neither trustee is up for re-election this year, so recall is the only way to remove either from office before their term ends, said G. Warren Bleeker, the Pasadena Unified parent whose public records requests produced the documents at the center of the recall campaigns.

Friday, August 14, 2026

California Wildfire Survivors Could See New Protections as Recovery Package Advances

Four bills, authored by Assemblymember John Harabedian, tackle the long-term realities of rebuilding after a wildfire, from safe return to mortgage payments and insurance coverage.

Assemblymember John Harabedian (D-Pasadena) announced Thursday that all four bills in his wildfire recovery package cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee’s suspense file, moving the legislation closer to final passage.

“Today’s vote is an important step forward for wildfire survivors and for California’s approach to disaster recovery,” Harabedian said. “These four bills confront the realities families face after a wildfire and give survivors stronger protections when they are rebuilding their homes, their finances, and their lives. In Altadena and Pasadena, we have clearly seen where the system falls short. We have a responsibility to fix those gaps and make sure survivors are not left to carry the burden alone.”

Families can spend years trying to rebuild while facing temporary housing costs, mortgage payments, insurance uncertainty, and questions about whether their homes are safe to return to.

Friday, August 14, 2026

Community Members Plan to Welcome John Muir Students on First Day of School

By THERESE EDU

Organizers expect as many as 100 volunteers, along with the Los Angeles Rams mascot, to greet students Monday morning as PUSD opens the 2026–27 school year

When students walk through the front entrance of John Muir High School on Monday morning, they will not be greeted quietly. A welcoming crowd of volunteers, city officials, educators, and the Los Angeles Rams mascot Rampage will be waiting for them, lining the walkway with handshakes, cheers, and encouragement.

The gathering is the Dena Community Welcome-Back Day, a tradition that organizers trace to 2013. It started with a small group of men organized by local Dr. William Syms greeting students into an annual first-day-of-school event that draws parents, mentors, nonprofit leaders, police officers, firefighters, and elected officials to the campus at 1905 North Lincoln Avenue.

Monday’s event, timed to the opening of the Pasadena Unified School District’s 2026–27 school year, begins at 8:30 a.m.

“This is not just for men,” said Brandon Lamar,

Friday, August 14, 2026

Pasadena School Board Trustees Table Nearly Everything at Six-Hour Special Meeting

Trustees approve only forming a committee of the whole — assigned solely to define what “transformation” means — and table the rest of the agenda four days before new school year classes begin

Pasadena Unified’s Board of Education convened Thursday night to set a deadline for voting on which schools to close or consolidate, and adjourned shortly before midnight without setting one.

The special meeting was structured around Resolution 2894, which directs the district to undertake a transformation process, and was run not by the board president but by an outside facilitator, Natalia Guerra, director of community partnerships and impact at Collaborate Pasadena.

But after nearly six hours, the board had approved just a single action item out of five: constituting itself as a committee of the whole, which — as amended from the dais — was given one job: to finish defining what “district transformation” means.

Trustees then voted to table the four remaining action items, including the closure-vote deadline,

Friday, August 14, 2026

Classes Resume Monday With Transitional Kindergarten Open to Every Four-Year-Old

The Pasadena Unified School District year begins Aug. 17, the second under California’s completed universal prekindergarten expansion

Pasadena Unified School District students return to class Monday, opening a school year in which transitional kindergarten is available to every four-year-old in California for the second year running.

“I want to welcome back all students at all levels to a new year,” Interim City Manager Matthew E. Hawkesworth said, wishing them new adventures and chances to make friends. He encouraged students to try their best and stay curious, telling them their impact starts on day one.

The first day of the 2026-2027 year is Monday, Aug. 17, and the first semester begins the same day, according to the district. Teachers were on duty for staff development Aug. 12 and 13, and Aug. 14 was a teacher-driven, pupil-free day. The district says it is “excited to welcome students and families” and has published a welcome kit carrying the year calendar, bell schedules, after-school programs and other resources.

Friday, August 14, 2026

LED Conversion Reaches Canyon Close Road, With 1,063 Streetlights Still to Go

The upgrade retires a high-voltage series system whose transformers are no longer made, part of a citywide conversion the city began in the 1990s

City crews finished converting the streetlights on Canyon Close Road, Fox Ridge Drive and Altadena Drive in July, retiring a high-voltage series circuit whose replacement transformers are no longer manufactured.

The old system had become increasingly unreliable and difficult to maintain, with aging wiring and transformer failures causing recurring electrical faults, according to the City of Pasadena. Crews installed new electrical feeds, underground conduits and wiring, access boxes and energy-efficient LED fixtures. Greg de Vinck, director of public works, reported the completion. The work was done jointly by Pasadena Water and Power and the Public Works Department, and the city said the replacement uses about one third of the energy of the system it replaced.

The three streets are one piece of a conversion that has been running for more than three decades. The city began replacing high-voltage post-top series circuits with low-voltage multiple circuits in the early 1990s,

Friday, August 14, 2026

Boston Court Sets Its Shipwrecked Prince in an Evacuation Center

A rarely staged Shakespeare arrives on North Mentor Avenue in Ellen McLaughlin’s modern verse translation

The prince at the center of Shakespeare’s Pericles loses nearly everything to storms and shipwreck. Boston Court Pasadena has set the play inside an emergency evacuation center.

Margaret Shigeko Starbuck directs, and Boston Court presents the production in partnership with Play On Shakespeare, describing the staging as a re-conceptualization that uses movement and music. Previews of what the company bills as the West Coast premiere begin Thursday, August 20, at 70 North Mentor Avenue. The performance on Friday, August 21, at 7:30 p.m. is the second of six previews, ahead of the August 29 opening, and the run continues through September 27, 2026.

Randolph Thompson plays Pericles. Joel Swetow, making his Boston Court debut, plays Gower; Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson plays Marina; and Nicole Javier, a faculty member at Pasadena City College, plays Thaisa. The ensemble also includes Julanne Chidi Hill, Desirée Mee Jung, Adam J.