Sanrio opens its first Gudetama Cafe in Southern California

Jireh Deng (they/them) was a 2023-24 fellow at the Los Angeles Times. Deng, a queer Asian American writer and filmmaker, was born and raised in the San Gabriel Valley. Their freelance reporting and writing have been published in the Guardian, the Washington Post, Teen Vogue, NPR, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, PopSugar, LAist and more. In prior positions, they were a fact-checker at the labor magazine In These Times, managed NPR’s Diverse Sources Database as an intern and worked as an associate producer on CapRadio’s limited podcast series on Asian American identity, “Mid Pacific.” Deng currently co-directs the Asian American Journalists Assn. LGBTQIA+ affinity group.

Stephanie Breijo is a reporter for the Food section and the author of its weekly news column. Previously, she served as the restaurants and bars editor for Time Out Los Angeles, and prior to that, the award-winning food editor of Richmond magazine in Richmond, Va. Born and primarily raised in Los Angeles, she believes L.A. to be the finest food city in the country and might be biased on that count but doesn’t believe she’s wrong.