In 2022, while watching her mother practice tai chi, filmmaker Dorothy Xiao was inspired to start a new short film project. At a local park in the San Gabriel Valley, she observed her mother interact with a diverse group of elderly residents and liked the idea of different groups blending, building connections over language barriers.

“I think this idea of friendship in older adulthood, especially with people who are not the same ethnicity or race as you, is really lovely,” Xiao, who grew up in Alhambra, said. “I just really liked this idea of intersectionality.”

Xiao’s short, “Only In This World,” is one of many premiering at this week’s Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, which began Thursday and runs through May 7.

Film festival programs and events, including screenings, will take place at select cinemas and venues around Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Little Tokyo and Monterey Park.

The L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival’s (LAAPFF) 41st celebration includes over 27 features and 100 shorts, curated from nearly 900 submissions. Among the categories are animated films, documentaries, narrative features and short films from Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander creatives.

The festival is produced by Visual Communications, a nonprofit whose mission is to develop and uplift AAPI filmmakers’ voices and empower communities.

Xiao, who directs and writes, described her latest short film as a “love letter to the layered city” she grew up in. It will debut at the AMC Atlantic Times Square 14 in Monterey Park on Saturday, May 3, at 4 p.m.

The 11-minute short touches on themes of grief and loss, friendship and aging, and parent-child dynamics within families of color. It tells the story of a Chinese immigrant mother’s quiet grief over the loss of her daughter, following the journey of two older women who become unlikely friends after going through tragedy. Through magic, Feifei — an elderly Chinese immigrant played by Lee Chen — is briefly…

Property crimes have spiked around 450% in Altadena in the months since the Eaton fire ripped through the community in January, killing at least 18 people and destroying thousands of homes and businesses, according to law enforcement officials.

On average, there have been more than 40 home burglaries reported each month since the fire in Altadena, according to Lt. Ethan Marquez with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Before the Eaton fire, the department responded to an average of six burglaries a month, Marquez said Monday.

Thieves have targeted burned lots to find anything of value that may have survived the fire and are also breaking into unoccupied homes that survived to steal what they can find, Marquez said.

“The problem with the thieves is they just do not realize that the community here has lost just about everything,” Marquez said. “They’re missing the opportunity to be a good human being and to not put pour salt in somebody’s wound.”

Crimes against another person, like assaults, murders and rapes, have decreased about 50% in the months since the Eaton fire, Marquez said.

To try to mitigate burglaries, the Sheriff’s Department has assigned 19 additional deputies to patrol the community, nearly tripling its presence, and perform periodic home checks for around 600 homeowners who requested the free service by emailing [email protected]

Officials are also installing license plate reading cameras throughout the city and talking with community members to reinstate a neighborhood watch program. Marquez believes both efforts will help reduce crime in the community.

The National Guard also remains deployed in the area to help with security.

The Sheriff’s Department has seen arrest rates about 250% higher than normal since the fire, Marquez said. Some of the arrestees, he said, have traveled from other counties and states to try to steal from community members impacted by the fire.

In one of the department’s undercover…

A new video analysis by a coalition of attorneys investigating the Eaton fire appears to show molten material falling from an idle tower conductor into dry brush below — more evidence that Southern California Edison equipment sparked the monstrous blaze in January.

The new evidence, presented by LA Fire Justice at a town hall meeting Thursday, April 17, bolstered the theory that a tower — deenergized more than 50 years ago — became active in the hurricane-force winds and triggered the fire that destroyed nearly 7,000 structures in Altadena and killed 18 people.

Edison International Chief Executive Pedro Pizarro recently told the Los Angeles Times that the tower may have become reenergized through a phenomenon called “induction,” in which the electromagnetic field of a nearby active line reenergizes an idle line. That has become a leading theory in SCE’s investigation into the cause of the fire, Pizarro said.

At Thursday’s town hall, attorney Mikal Watts said there can be no doubt the idle line, built 102 years ago, was the culprit and should have been better maintained or removed.

“If you’re not going to take it away, at least don’t leave it as an electrical pile of junk that causes hazards,” Watts said. “Full stop. Southern California Edison burned your house down. Full stop. Southern California Edison burned your town down.”

SCE spokesman David Eisenhauer responded Friday that any video or information related to the cause of the Eaton fire must be carefully analyzed, and it would be premature to comment until that is done.

The analyzed video came from a camera system at a nearby Arco station the night the fire began. The idle line in question is the Mesa-Sylmar line, which was taken out of commission after it was damaged in an earthquake in 1971. Most of the towers on the circuit were disassembled by Southern California Edison, but the 19 towers known as towers 208-227 were left standing for no reason, said a news release from LA Fire…

The Pasadena Public Health Department this week issued a set of recommendations for schools to follow after a county study found higher levels of lead in soil samples.

A Los Angeles County Department of Public Health study found a higher percentage of parcels that exceeded the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) screening levels for lead in two Pasadena communities, according to the city.

The first community is bounded by Lincoln Avenue on the west, Washington Boulevard on the south, North Altadena Drive on the east and the city limit on the north. The second area is bounded by North Altadena Drive on the west, Orange Grove Boulevard on the south, Washington Boulevard/Eaton Drive on the east and Washington Boulevard to the north.

“Soil testing at sensitive sites is a practical next step following the County soil study results,” Pasadena Director of Public Health Manuel Carmona said in a statement. “We continue to meet with the school district, private schools, and early childhood education centers to review our guidance and ensure they have the information needed to help protect youth in the Pasadena community.”

The city said those screening levels used in the study are stricter that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency screening level. DTSC soil lead screening levels, according to the city, are not intended to imply a need for clean up or remediation but indicate a need for additional evaluation.

Children can be exposed to lead by swallowing, having skin contact or breathing in lead-contaminated soil. Contaminated soil particles can get inside through lead dust on shoes and clothing. Pasadena Public Health said until soil testing can be completed at sensitive sites where children are more likely to play in exposed soil the department is closing access on the sites to areas with exposed soil, taking measures to prevent tracking of soil and dust in buildings and implementing lead-safe cleaning practices.

“Our highest priority…

As museum acquisitions go, this one was bittersweet.

More than 11,000 bunny items of every shape and size boosted the decimated collection of Altadena’s iconic The Bunny Museum Tuesday, when the museum, which lost its building in the Eaton fire, acquired the treasure trove of bunny miscellanea from the estate of Faye Clair Minaker Curtis.

Curtis was 92 when she died on Dec. 7, 2024. She had earmarked her cherished collection of bunny-themed things to The Bunny Museum in Altadena, which she visited when the museum in the late 1990s or early 2000s, when it was still housed in founders’ Steve Lubanski and Candace Frazee’s Pasadena home.

That visit sparked a collecting mania in Curtis, who began her bunny obsession in the 1970s, her family said. A pet rabbit’s unfortunate demise when it was chased with a vacuum wielded by her children so saddened Curtis her friends gave her bunny figurines to cheer her up. In the tradition of real rabbits, the collection multiplied through the decades. To her family, which in 2024 included 10 children, 28 grandchildren, 37 great-grandchildren, and 9 great-great-grandchildren, Curtis was “Grandma Bunny.”

In informing The Bunny Museum of Curtis’ bequest, her sister Marie Head told Frazee she is grateful the museum exists.

“We feel deeply that this is where her collection belongs,” Head, of Inman, South Carolina, said.

The bunny collection, in several black and yellow bins, was scheduled to be delivered to The Bunny Museum the first week of January. The Eaton Fire burned it to the ground on Jan. 7, along with more than 9000 structures. The blaze killed 18 people and caused damage estimated at $7 to $10 billion.

This week, Curtis’ treasures were finally delivered to the museum by her niece, Hannah Romeri-Head and her boyfriend, Sam Salameh.

Steve Lubanski, Frazee’s husband, stored the donations in a rented storage container, to wait for the museum reopening, “who knows how many years from now,” Frazee…