The Brief

For decades, the Miller sign greeted drivers on the 210 freeway passing through Irwindale.

But, a year ago, during January’s wind storms, the crimson red and white “Miller” logo was damaged.

Then in December, a new sign — "City Brewing & Beverage” — went up, leading many commuters to wonder what happened.

To answer that question, let's go back to Irwindale's history.

An aerial view of the wind-damaged "Miller" sign at the Irwindale brewery in September 2025.

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Iris Espino

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City of Irwindale

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More than a brewery

Irwindale was once best known for its mining quarries, which were older than the city itself and were integral to the construction of L.A’.s freeway system.

Most of the quarries ceased operations in the 1970s, and with them, so went much of Irwindale’s industry.

Around that same time, the site of the old Irwindale Raceway, which used to be one of the few racetracks in the San Gabriel Valley, went up for sale.

And here came Miller beer.

“So Miller, according to legend, bought the property for a dollar and then they built the brewery,” said Anita Hernandez, communications manager for City Brewing who used to work for Miller.

As it turns out, the $1 land acquisition isn’t just a legend.

“No, that's actually true," said Iris Espino, assistant to Irwindale’s city manager. "So while it was just a dollar, the city thought it would build wealth over the next 30, 40, 50 years. And essentially, it did."

The Irwindale brewery under construction.

The Irwindale brewery under construction.

The Irwindale brewery at the beginning of construction in 1977.

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Iris Espino

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Irwindale Public Library

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The Irwindale brewery in the middle of construction in 1978.

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Iris Espino

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Irwindale Public Library

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The Irwindale brewery under construction.

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Iris Espino

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City of Irwindale

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Miller purchased the lot in 1977. The deal included 230 acres of land to build the brewery, which opened in 1980.

Three years later, the sign overlooking the 210 went up. The 48-by-34-foot structure rolled into Irwindale on three separate rail cars.

It rotated until the late 1990s, but faulty gears led the company to make it stationary. It's been facing both sides of the 210 Freeway ever since.

A sign of identity

Ownership of the brewery — which locals just called Irwindale brewery for convenience — changed hands over the years.

In 2021, City Brewing & Beverage moved in.

They decided to keep the “Miller” sign for all that it had brought to Irwindale.

“Over the last few decades, we have seen the jobs, the infrastructure and this economic identity that Irwindale is now this large industrial hub. And it started with Miller Brewery,” Espino said.

Other big manufacturers came in following Miller. Q & B Foods, which distributes Kewpie mayo in the U.S., moved there in 1986. Huy Fong Foods, the maker of
sriracha, broke ground on a new factory in 2010.

Ready Pac Foods moved there in 1993 and has become one of Irwindale's largest employers.

But Miller started it all.

“The sign, definitely iconic to residents, to just people that drive that 210 freeway every single day,” Espino said. “And we hear it. I can't tell you the amount of times we hear about that sign.”

The old "Miller" sign along the 210 Freeway.

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Iris Espino

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City of Irwindale

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For people in Irwindale, it’s still a point of pride to have worked at the business that started the economic boom.

Ben Maillete is plant manager for City Brewing. He started working at the brewery in 2014, back when it was owned by Miller. He said there was one easy way to explain to people where he was employed.

“I was like, ‘Well, you know that sign on the highway?’ " he said.

Three construction workers inside the Irwindale brewery sign work on replacing the old "Miller" sign with the new "City Brewing & Beverage Irwindale" sign, December 2025.

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Anita Hernandez

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City Brewing & Beverage

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A sign for a new era

Employees at the Irwindale brewery debated on whether to restore the sign or make a brand new one when it was damaged during last year’s January wind and fire storms.

A third of the City Brewery's current employees worked for Miller and felt a connection to the original sign, so the company decided update the sign but keep the iconic structure and shape as a tribute.

The new Irwindale brewery sign near the 210 Freeway January 2026.

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Anita Hernandez

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City Brewing & Beverage

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“I don't think anybody knew that City Brewery and Beverage was operating here, and now they do,” Maillete said.

He said it’s their way of giving a nod to the past while also looking toward the future.

The Los Angeles World Cup host committee has quietly posted its guidance on human rights after months of speculation over where the plan was and when it would be published.

Advocates had pushed the committee, an arm of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, to produce its plan. But now that it's out, they're not satisfied with what they're seeing.

The human rights guidance is required by FIFA and outlined on the host committee's website. It includes a list of online resources including where to file complaints with various local and state level agencies and a summary of local, state and federal laws protecting human and civil rights. The committee is also touting a partnership with L.A. County in which people can call 211 to report a concern during the tournament.

"Los Angeles is weeks away from hosting one of the largest sporting events in the world, and yet what has been posted is not a plan,” Stephanie Richard, director of the Sunita Jain Anti‑Trafficking Initiative at Loyola Law School, said in a statement. “It is a list of laws and hotline numbers."

The human rights document also skirts fears around ICE and its potential presence at the tournament and surrounding celebrations. Todd Lyons, the agency's head, said earlier this year that ICE's investigatory branch will play a key role in security for the tournament.

But ICE and immigration enforcement aren't mentioned on the host committee's web page on human rights or in its outline of its approach to human rights. "Immigration status" only gets a mention in the list of existing anti-discrimination laws.

"It certainly could have been much stronger," Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles, said of the plan. She added that her organization participated in a roundtable on the plan, and she was disappointed ICE and recent immigration sweeps weren't mentioned in the resulting document.

"In order for all of this to happen, immigrant workers are part of it," she said of the World Cup. "Your hotel workers, your service workers, stadium workers, drivers." 

LAist reached out to spokespeople for the host committee for comment via email, phone and text, but did not hear back in time for publication. FIFA's press team also did not respond to an email from LAist.

According to the host committee's website, the human rights plan is the result of coordination with the city and county of Los Angeles, the city of Inglewood, and 14 roundtable discussions held in the fall of 2025.

"As a non-profit organization, the Host Committee’s role is primarily and necessarily focused on aligning and collaborating with governmental and non-governmental organizations," the document sums up the committee's approach.

The plan also promises more actions, including "Know Your Rights" training for L.A. residents and visitors and "Know Your Responsibilities" training for businesses and vendors. The committee also says it will develop a "rapid response" strategy to respond to potential problems at the tournament.

Available details on those plans were scant. And with the tournament just 30 days away, labor unions and community groups are continuing to voice concerns about potential ICE presence at SoFi Stadium and other potential consequences of the tournament coming to town.

The mayor of Arcadia has agreed to plead guilty to a charge she acted as an agent for China, federal prosecutors announced Monday. She has resigned from her position with the city.

Eileen Wang, 58, faces one count of acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The charge carries a potential sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison.

What we know about the criminal case

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun of Chino Hills worked at the direction of the Chinese government and with individuals based in the U.S. to promote pro-People’s Republic of China propaganda in the United States. Those actions occurred between 2020 and 2022, prosecutors said.

According to federal prosecutors, Wang and Sun operated a website — known as U.S. News Center — billed as a news source for the local Chinese American community in Los Angeles County. They posted content on the site, described as "pre-written articles," based on directives from Chinese government officials.

Sun, 65, pleaded guilty in October 2025 in federal court to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. He is serving a four-year federal prison sentence.

Prosecutors also said Wang communicated with John Chen, whom they described as “a high-level member of the [Chinese government] intelligence apparatus,” in November 2021, and asked him to post an article from her website.

In a group chat, Wang referenced the article and wrote: “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Chen pleaded guilty in New York to acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China and conspiracy to bribe a public official. In 2024, he was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison.

What's next

Wang, who was elected to the City Council in November 2022, was expected to make her first appearance in U.S. District Court Monday afternoon.

Citing a plea agreement, prosecutors said she's expected to enter the guilty plea within the next few weeks.

Arcadia's mayor is selected from the elected council members. A post on the city's website announced that Wang had resigned her position as of Monday and that a new mayor would be picked from the remaining council members at the next meeting.

The Supreme Court on Monday gave itself more time to consider a national ban on telemedicine access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

Justice Samuel Alito extended an earlier order he issued by three more days, so rules for prescribing mifepristone online or through the mail remain in effect through Thursday at a minimum.

The case at issue

The tumult over the future of telemedicine access to mifipristone started on May 1 with a ruling from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling re-instituted prescribing rules from before the pandemic that required patients to receive mifepristone in person in a doctor's office or clinic.

The Food and Drug Administration determined that the rule was medically unnecessary in 2021. The state of Louisiana sued last fall, arguing that telemedicine access undermines the state's abortion ban.

What is telemedicine abortion?

The telemedicine abortion process starts with a patient connecting with a healthcare provider on the phone or online. If the patient is eligible, that provider can prescribe two medications — mifepristone and another pill called misoprostol. Patients can pick up the medicine at a local pharmacy, or providers can mail the drugs to a patient's home.

That access is a big part of the reason why the number of abortions nationally has actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Now, most abortions in the U.S. use this combination of medications, and one quarter happen via telemedicine.

After the 5th Circuit ruling, some providers said they would continue offering telemedicine access to abortion medication using a different protocol that involves higher doses of misoprostol and no mifepristone.

Researchers say that method is just as safe and effective, but tends to cause more pain for patients and more side effects, like nausea and diarrhea. Misoprostol has other medical uses, such as treating gastric ulcers and hemorrhage, and has been on the market longer than mifepristone. It is likely to remain fully accessible, even if mifepristone is restricted.

Since the FDA's prescribing rules for medications apply to the whole country, a change to the rules about how mifepristone can be accessed has national impact. That means it affects states with constitutionally-protected access to abortion, states with criminal bans, like Louisiana, and all states in between.

States' rights

Nearly two dozen Democratic-led states submitted an amicus brief in this case, writing that the appeals court decision put the policy choices of states with bans above the choices of states "that have made the different but equally sovereign determinations to promote access to abortion care."

There are also stakes related to the power of FDA and other expert agencies to set rules. While the Trump administration's FDA did not respond to the Supreme Court's request for briefs, a group of former leaders of the agency, who served under mainly Democratic and some Republican presidents, wrote about this in an amicus brief.

They defended the FDA's process in approving the medication and modifying the rules for prescribing it, and say the appeals court decision "would upend FDA's gold-standard, science-based drug approval system."

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