The Brief

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Richard Choi spent much of the past nearly 37 years waking up at 3 a.m. to make it to Radio Korea in time to give the morning broadcast.

For years, Choi’s commute to the station on Wilshire Boulevard took only a few minutes from his home near Hancock Park, but when the station moved its main operations to La Palma in Orange County last December, he would have needed to wake up an hour earlier to make the drive.

“That just wasn’t realistic,” Choi said. “So I decided it was time to retire. If the office had stayed in Koreatown, I probably would have continued broadcasting.”

The move hasn’t sat well with some longtime listeners and former employees who saw the station as inseparable from Koreatown.

Choi, 78, added that several longtime employees left the news outlet rather than make the commute to Orange County.

By the time he retired last year, Choi was one of the station’s most recognizable voices, particularly during the 1992 L.A. civil unrest, when Korean immigrants across the city turned to Korean-language radio for updates and information.

When management first floated the idea of leaving Koreatown, Choi told them to reconsider. 

The station’s headquarters became such a fixture in the neighborhood that many in the Korean-speaking community referred to 3700 Wilshire Blvd as the “Radio Korea building,” and the area in front of it, the “Radio Korea lawn.”

Now, the large Radio Korea sign in big, white block letters are gone, with just a shadow of an imprint.

The company spent years searching for another space in Koreatown after landlord Jamison Properties notified tenants in the Wilshire building that they would eventually need to vacate, Radio Korea CEO Michael Kim said.

The developers plan to redevelop the commercial space into affordable housing.

Radio Korea looked at multiple sites, including one near Hancock Park, but repeatedly ran into issues involving parking and cost. 

“We wanted to stay in L.A. We really tried hard to stay, because of 1992 and all that,” Kim said. “If Jamison was going to renew our lease, we would’ve stayed.” 

He admitted, though, that he also believes the center of Southern California’s Korean community has been gradually shifting beyond L.A.

“I understand how people in L.A. might feel about this stuff,” Kim said. “But I noticed Koreatown was starting to become less and less Korean, and I started thinking, ‘Is Koreatown going to die?’ I certainly hope not, but what if it ends up like Chinatown, where all the Chinese people moved to the San Gabriel Valley?”

“We had to move. There is a good Korean community here,” he added.

Orange County now has two officially designated Koreatowns, one in Garden Grove that received city recognition in 2019, and another in Buena Park that was designated in 2023.

Radio Korea still operates a small satellite office in Koreatown, and Kim insists its reporting in L.A. remains the same.

“We’re not trying to abandon L.A.,” he said. “The only difference is that we are broadcasting from Orange County and not Los Angeles.”

The station’s role in 1992

For many Korean Americans, it is almost impossible to talk about Radio Korea without also talking about the 1992 unrest. The station became a critical source of information as chaos spread through Koreatown after the acquittal of the Los Angeles Police Department officers filmed beating Rodney King.

More than 2,000 Korean-owned businesses were damaged or destroyed during the unrest, according to some community estimates cited in the years since. 

Radio Korea executive director Richard Choi gestures at his Los Angeles studios in 1992.

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Nick Ut

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AP Photo

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“Radio Korea played a major role in helping the Korean community rebuild,” Choi said, “and the riots became the turning point that transformed the Korean community into true Korean Americans. Before that, people came here chasing the vague idea of the ‘American Dream.’ People suffered and worked endlessly, but after the riots, they realized that the lives they had been living in America were not truly immigrant lives in the full sense.”

At the time, many Korean immigrants spoke limited English and relied heavily on Korean-language media for information. The radio station became an emergency information network as Koreatown residents felt left without police protection during the unrest.

Choi and other broadcasters remained on air through the night taking calls from neighbors reporting everything unfolding across the city.

Younger staff members leaned on Choi, who had already spent nearly two decades living in L.A. by then. According to station accounts, Choi sometimes stayed on air for more than 20 hours a day during the height of the unrest.

Yong-ho Kim started working in Radio Korea’s advertising department a month after immigrating to the United States in February 1990, two years before the unrest. That time still remains vivid in his memory. 

“My oldest child was only two years old,” Kim said. “I heard helicopters overhead, saw fires everywhere, heard looting and gunshots through the night. I was terrified.” 

He remained hunkered down at the station for several days, which at the time operated out of a building near Alvarado Street and Olympic Boulevard. 

The advertising department was removed from the station’s editorial side, but he said everyone at Radio Korea pitched in during the unrest. He eventually left the station and went into the restaurant business, opening Arado Japanese Restaurant in 1995. 

“Radio Korea was my first real job in America. At the time, I didn’t speak English well, didn’t fully understand the culture, and they still gave me an opportunity,” he said. “That experience shaped my business career afterward. Even now, I feel like Radio Korea runs through my blood. I love that station deeply.” 

Kim admitted he misses the in-person interaction at the station.

“In the past, when I recorded radio ads for my restaurant, I would go directly into the studio,” he said. “Now everything gets sent by phone.”

He added L.A. remains the “emotional center” of Korean American life, even as more Korean families move to Orange County and other suburbs.

“That’s why there’s an attachment to keeping Korean-language media rooted in Koreatown,” he said.

Radio Korea leaves Koreatown

Jamison, the largest commercial office landlord in Koreatown and one of the neighborhood’s most prolific developers, declined to comment on several questions related to the future of the Wilshire building where Radio Korea called home. It’s unclear when the company notified tenants on when they would need to leave or the timeline for the planned residential conversion.

Radio Korea ultimately purchased a building in La Palma, where Kim said expenses were lower at a difficult moment for Korean-language media outlets already dealing with declining advertising revenue and lingering financial struggles following the pandemic. 

The move is a bittersweet moment for the Korean community.

Hyepin Im was a graduate student at the University of Southern California during the unrest in 1992. The destruction in Koreatown and the experience of watching Korean American business owners struggle in its aftermath helped shape her later work in community advocacy. 

Wilshire Park Place once played host to Radio Korea in Koreatown. The building’s owners plan to repurpose the site into housing.

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Brian Feinzimer

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The LA Local

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Ethnic media organizations depend heavily on physical relationships inside the communities they serve, Im said.

“The fact that they were here in 1992 made a difference,” Im said. “I think the lack of their presence here will be a loss to the community.” 

Im, whose nonprofit work with Faith and Community Empowerment has focused for decades on immigrant and underserved communities in LA, argued that L.A. still carries unique weight within Korean communities nationally, even as Korean populations continue growing in Orange County and elsewhere.

“I could recognize that perhaps in Orange County, some of the things that I could see why they may choose there is a lot more Korean leadership in politics,” she said. “And as such, just like the Chinese community moved to the San Gabriel Valley from Chinatown, perhaps there is going to be a shift that is happening.” 

“I think proximity is always important and I would say it’s still what happens in L.A. that impacts the rest of the country, especially the Korean community,” she added. 

For Choi, Koreatown is inseparable from Radio Korea and the station’s role during the unrest, which pushed many Korean immigrants to engage more deeply with American civic and political life.

“No matter how many Koreans move to Orange County,” Choi said, “the symbolic center of the Korean community is still Koreatown.” 

Local ice cream chain Wanderlust Creamery offers a sweet relief from this week’s sweltering temperatures. From ube to mango sticky rice, its unique signature and seasonal flavors can be found across Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Founder and chef Adrienne Borlongan sat down with Austin Cross, who hosts AirTalk every Friday, to discuss Wanderlust’s travel-inspired flavors.

About the owner

Borlongan initially thought that she would be a nurse. But after spending two years completing nursing prerequisites, she pivoted to a degree in food science and worked as a bartender for almost a decade.

Adrienne Borlongan, founder and chef of Wanderlust Creamery, is also a food scientist.

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Lindy Lin

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One day, her roommate brought home an ice cream maker.

“And that kind of just snowballed into this crazy ice cream obsession,” Borlongan recalled.

She founded Wanderlust with her partner Jon-Patrick Lopez in 2015.

What sets the store apart?

Wanderlust’s flavors come from places Borlongan has either traveled to or has on her travel bucket list.

Many of the flavors are inspired by Borlongan’s Filipino-American heritage, including a best-selling ube malted crunch. It also features flavors like Ashta, a clotted cream from the Middle East.

The ultimate Wanderlust experience, according to the chef

Wanderlust Creamery is known for flavors from all over the world.

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Courtesy Wanderlust Creamery

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You're encouraged to try as many samples as your heart desires. Wanderlust’s staff are trained to guide anyone through the flavors and talk you through options before you make a decision.

What’s next for Wanderlust? 

Borlongan is working on innovating new flavors for the summer, including an ice cream based on Swedish candies. She’s trying to whip up a mixture that’s able to keep the gummies chewy while frozen in ice cream.

Wanderlust is also opening a new location in San Diego.

Shop details

• Wanderlust’s ice cream has less air compared to traditional ice cream, making it rich and creamy. 
• Its seasonal menu items include Buontalenti, honey butter corn, Kaya toast, white peach verbena, Icelandic milk chocolate and Ashta. 
• The local ice cream shop has locations in Atwater Village, Fairfax, Pasadena, Sawtelle, Venice, Irvine, Costa Mesa and Torrance. 

Menu items we tried

• Ube malted crunch (malted milk, malted milkballs, and ube) 
• Stick rice and mango (rice milk, coconut cream, salt, Alphonso mangoes)
• White peach verbena (peach, lemon verbena)

What should we try next?

An Orange County Superior Court judge this week found that Orange County Board of Education member Marilyn “Mari” Barke failed to report millions of dollars in assets and income in her annual economic disclosure filings over multiple years.

Barke will have to pay nearly $82,000 in penalties, as well as attorneys’ fees, according to a proposed decision statement. The fees could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

What’s next? 

State court rules allow parties 15 days to file objections to the proposed decision. After that, the court will be able to enter a final judgment.

About the case

Barke was elected to the OC Board of Education in 2018, and she currently serves as a board trustee. She is also the director of coalitions at the California Policy Center, an educational non-profit.

Under the California Political Reform Act, local elected officials are required to disclose their income, investments and other assets.

Barke filed amended financial statements for 2018 through 2021, following a complaint by private citizen made in February 2023. The Fair Political Practices Commission in 2024 found Barke liable on 16 counts for failing to report that income. Barke agreed to a settlement and paid a $3,200 penalty.

The judge later found that the FPPC’s settlement did not fully address the “willfulness/recklessness” or “adequacy of corrective efforts,” according to the proposed decision statement from Orange County Superior Court Judge H. Shaina Colover.

According to the court records, Barke argued that the mistakes in her filings were because she was following the advice of her now ex-husband, Dr. Jeff Barke, who she says advised her that the filings only needed to list economic interests if they conflicted with her role on the board.

Colover's response was that Barke’s reliance on that alleged advice was objectively unreasonable and wrong.

The response

Lynne Riddle, a retired judge who filed the complaint, said in a statement that financial interest disclosures are critical to the public.

“When elected officials flout their disclosure obligations like this, it undermines the public's right to honest and ethical government,” stated Riddle, who has published op-eds about charter schools and the OC Board of Education. “The Court’s decision vindicates the public’s right to know what their elected officials are doing.”

Riddle said the ruling and penalties should send a clear message that elected officials cannot shirk their responsibilities to disclose their economic interests.

Barke’s lawyer, Mark Rosen, in a statement to LAist, said: "From the start, this case was a vendetta against Mrs. Barke because she supports charter schools."

“As a first-time candidate, she made some technical mistakes in her forms with the Fair Political Practices Commission, and she freely admitted and corrected those mistakes and paid a fine,” Rosen said. “The anti-charter schools gang then piled on with this frivolous lawsuit.”

There are mistakes in the court’s decision, and “we are exploring a further course of action,” Rosen added.

Thinking about buying or leasing an electric car in the near future? California will soon be making that cheaper.

On Monday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that sets aside millions of dollars in state funds to fund rebates for residents who buy or lease a zero-emission vehicle — a category that includes battery-electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles.

First-time EV buyers can qualify for a $3,500 discount when buying or leasing a new electric vehicle, as long as the retail price is under $50,000. If you’re looking for a used electric car, there’s still a price reduction available — a smaller one, however: $1,750 off for vehicles retailing for under $25,000.

The state’s program — called “MyFirstEV” — comes a year after President Donald Trump’s massive spending and tax plan known as the One Big Beautiful Bill ended federal tax credits for EVs nationwide. Previously, American consumers could claim a $7,500 tax credit after buying a new EV or $4,000 for used EVs.

Newsom said on Monday that as the federal government pulls back from supporting EVs, California would instead be “putting its foot on the accelerator” — and that the instant rebate program would “[make] it easier for families to drive clean, breathe clean, and keep more money in their pockets.”

The program has secured $270 million in funding — half of that from the state budget and the other from participating EV automakers.

One big thing to know: Despite the fanfare, the MyFirstEV program has not yet started — and we don’t have an official start date either. State officials will reveal next month which car brands are actually included, so don’t expect to receive this discount if you purchase an EV today.

Who qualifies for this program?

Only California residents who are buying or leasing an EV for the first time are eligible for this rebate.

And consumers will have to confirm that this is the first time they are buying or leasing an EV before taking their car home, said Lindsay Buckley, communications director of the California Air Resources Board, the agency tasked with managing the program.

“Participants will be required to sign a legal document declaring that this is in fact their first purchase or lease of an electric vehicle,” she said.

“So if you’ve already bought or leased an electric vehicle in the past, then you wouldn’t be eligible for this program.”

Limiting the program to first-time buyers could actually help boost the popularity of EVs among people who have never bought them, said Scott Moura, a UC Berkeley professor of civil engineering.

“Providing incentive to people who have bought EVs before isn’t really adding to the number of people who purchase EVs,” he said. “The funds can be used most effectively if they’re targeted towards first-time EV buyers.”

Do I need to apply ahead of time?

No — there’s no application to fill out ahead of time. Once state officials announce that the MyFirstEV program has officially begun, all you need to do is go to a dealership of a participating automaker.

This is different from other past state rebate programs — like the now-terminated Electric Bicycle Incentive Program — which have required participants to fill out an application before making a purchase.

If you move forward with making a purchase or lease, confirm two things with the salesperson and the financing team:

• That you qualify for the MyFirstEV discount
• That there are still state funds available for this specific car brand.

When federal EV rebates were available, buyers had to initially wait until they filed their taxes the year after buying their car to request this money back. But state officials say that folks interested in the FirstEV discount won’t have to wait so long.

“Once launched, Californians will be able to go down to participating automakers’ dealerships and access the rebates at the point of sale,” Buckley said. “They won’t have any delay in getting this discount.”

Can the program help me pay for any EV I want?

No — MyFirstEV discounts will only cover battery-electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles from automakers participating in the program. State officials will confirm next month which car companies are included.

But this means that if an EV brand you really want to purchase is not on the list, you won’t get the discount when buying or leasing the car.

Hybrid vehicles are also not included in MyFirstEV, state officials confirmed with KQED.

There’s also a price limit: The EV you choose must cost under $50,000 if it’s a new car, and $25,000 if it’s used. There is, however, a small exception to this price rule if the automaker is headquartered in California — in which case the discounts will apply regardless of the manufacturer’s retail price. More than a dozen electric car brands are based in the Golden State, with several selling models priced beyond the $50,000 limit.

I’m really interested in this program. What should I do while I wait for it to open?

While consumers wait for the program to begin, Buckley said they learn as much as they can about different EVs available on the market.

“Maybe head to a dealership and take a test drive of an electric vehicle that you’re eyeing,” she said. “We do expect this to be a popular program and for [funds] to get gobbled up pretty quickly” — so the more prepared you are when the program officially begins, the better.

A Polestar electric car prepares to park at an EV charging station on July 28, 2023, in Corte Madera. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Potential buyers can also learn about what it takes to care for an EV, like how to find charging stations and battery maintenance.

Buckley said the site ElectricForAll — created by the nonprofit Veloz — is a good source of information.

Will some carmakers have more rebates available than others?

No — funds will be divided equally among the participating automakers.

However, there may be greater demand for some brands, which could mean that rebates may run out faster at some dealerships.

This article includes reporting from KQED’s Laura Klivans.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration advise consumers to avoid eating shredded iceberg lettuce at Taco Bell locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.

Health officials analyzed 190 cases of cyclospora in Michigan where a person who fell ill reported eating at Taco Bell. Officials found that 90% of those people said they ate iceberg lettuce.

More than 1,644 sick people in this multi-state cyclospora outbreak reported eating at Taco Bell in those states starting May 13, according to the agencies. There have been 94 hospitalizations and no deaths reported.

The FDA traced this subset of cases identified nationwide to a single supplier of contaminated iceberg lettuce from Mexico, but did not name the supplier.

FDA says it's working with the supplier to identify other locations where the contaminated lettuce has been distributed. The agency notes this is one large cluster that is epidemiologically related. There are other clusters across the country that may or may not be associated. Cases have been identified in 34 states.

Taco Bell issued a statement July 16 that it took "immediate action to voluntarily remove potentially impacted lettuce from a supplier in select states." The statement also said the lettuce would be removed from the supply chain nationwide and replaced within 24 hours.

A wide reach for salad suppliers

The Associated Press, citing an unnamed federal official, has reported that Taylor Farms was the supplier of the lettuce. NPR has not independently confirmed that, and Taylor Farms has not responded to a request for comment.

A handful of big players with integrated supply chains and advanced processing infrastructure, including Taylor Farms, dominate the bagged lettuce and salad industry in the U.S.

With such a big reach, a single supplier can provide lettuce products to a number of retailers, so it's possible that additional clusters of cyclospora around the country could be linked to lettuce from the same supplier. It's also possible that there are multiple sources and suppliers linked to other cases around the country.

The FDA and CDC say the investigation is continuing.

How to protect yourself

The symptoms of the illness include watery diarrhea, loss of appetite and fatigue, and people contract it by eating or drinking contaminated food or water.

To protect yourself from the parasite, the CDC advises people to follow standard food safety handling protocols. "Wash your hands and any fresh produce thoroughly under running water before eating, cutting or cooking. This will reduce the risk of infection. Cooking kills the parasite, so heating food to 158 F or 70 C or higher is effective," said Dr. Gwen Biggerstaff with the CDC's Division of Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases.

If people do develop symptoms, health officials advise people to contact their healthcare providers to be tested specifically for cyclospora. Routine stool tests often don't include that test.

"People with symptoms should stay well-hydrated and avoid preparing food for others while acutely ill, out of general caution, even though person-to-person spread is very unlikely," Biggerstaff said.

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