LA County to establish gender affirming resources program for foster youth
Parade, Kylie Minogue highlight final day of WeHo Pride fest
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Divided LA County board agrees to extend rent hike cap through end of year By Anusha Shankar, City News Service
| Photo by Elxeneize/Envato Elements
O
n a split 3-2 vote Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to extend through December a 4% cap on rent increases for rent-controlled apartments in unincorporated areas. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the county enacted a freeze on rent hikes for rent-controlled units in March 2020. The freeze was extended multiple times, but in November 2022, the board agreed to resume allowing increases, capped at 3% for rent-controlled units during 2023. Last November, the board voted to extend the rent-increase cap until June 30, 2024, but supervisors increased the allowable increase from 3% to 4%. The cap applies to rentcontrolled units subject to the county's Rent Stabilization and Tenant Protections Ordinance. In a motion that went before the board Tuesday, Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell
noted that since the pandemic, Angelenos have continued to face significant economic hardships, inflation and a rise in housing costs. "Rent stabilization ordinances provide moderate annual increases to support maintaining housing stability and overall property maintenance," the motion stated. Mitchell told her colleagues, "This option provides much needed stability for tenants, while providing additional allowance for small property owners and luxury apartment owners." Mitchell's motion contended that "low-income Black and Brown residents, who disproportionately are renters, experienced immense public health impacts, loss of employment, and increased healthcare expenses during the pandemic. Consequently, many are still facing signifiSee Rent cap Page 32
cant rental debt." Speaking at the board meeting, LA County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs Director Rafael Carbajal said the majority of the calls the county receives on its Tenant Protections Hotline and from partners at a Stay Housed Program are from tenants who can no longer afford rent. He said allowing higher percentage rent increases "would increase calls and it would definitely have an impact knowing and realizing the actual costs — we've seen inflation, we've seen the true cost of everything going up." The motion also included measures aimed at identifying corporate owners of rental buildings in unincorporated areas, and also defining small property owners who would be eligible to increase rent on a unit by an additional 1% above the allowable annual rental
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Showcasing the perennial relationship between humans and plants at the Huntington’s Chinese Medicinal Garden By Brianna Chu
T
he final piece of the Huntington’s popular Chinese Garden — the culmination of years of work, interrupted by the pandemic — the Chinese Medicinal Garden (Cǎi Yào Pǔ) is, as the Chinese Garden’s curator Philip Bloom says, truly a milestone worth celebrating. The team has been working on many types of interpretive programming for the Chinese Garden, including an art gallery scholar studio and the celebration court for performance space. “But it is, I think, the Chinese Medicinal Garden that most powerfully connects the Chinese Garden to the rest of the Huntington as a whole," Bloom reflected in his remarks to the press the day before the garden's official May 22 opening. "The Cǎi Yào Pǔ is a place for learning about the relationships between plants and
The Cǎi Yào Pǔ buzzes with interest at its press opening. | Photo by Brianna Chu/Hey SoCal.com
people," Bloom said. "Indeed, in historical China, medicinal gardens were always a primary site where people went to learn about and think with plants.” Michelle Bailey, the garden’s assistant curator, concurred: “The deepest purpose for us at The Huntington is to show the long relationship between
humans and plants.” The plants featured in the garden were chosen partially based on those included in seminal medical texts of Chinese traditional medicine, such as "Shennong’s Classic of Medicine" (Shénnóng Běncǎo Jīng) — one of the world's oldest pharmaceutical texts, written in the first or second century C.E. The garden’s
See Chinese Garden Page 32
Deadly shooting in Monrovia under investigation By HeyWire AI
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omicide detectives with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department are investigating the death of a man on the 700 block of West Duarte Road in Monrovia. The incident was reported at approxiSee Shooting Page 15
mately 9:22 p.m. on Sunday, according to a news release from the Sheriff's Information Bureau. Officers from the Monrovia Police Department responded to the scene after receiving a report of
the shooting. The male adult victim was transported to a local hospital and pronounced dead, according to LASD. According to Fox 11, video from shortly after officers arrived shows first