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After delays due to the wildfires in L.A., nominations for the 2025 Academy Awards were announced this morning in Hollywood.
What's next: The Oscars will be broadcast live on March 2 on ABC and Hulu.
Keep reading... for the full list of nominees in 23 categories.
Emilia Pérez, Netflix's musical about a trans drug lord in Mexico, leads with 13 nominations – including nods for star Karla Sofía Gascón and Zoe Saldaña for their acting, Jacques Audiard for directing, and a nomination for Best Picture.
Wicked and The Brutalist follow with 10 nominations each, including Best Picture. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande were both nominated for their acting in Wicked, for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. Adrien Brody, who plays a Jewish architect who immigrates to the U.S. after World War II in The Brutalist, also got an acting nod.
The 2025 Academy Awards ceremony will be held Sunday, March 2, hosted by comedian Conan O'Brien at the Dolby Theater and comes in the wake of devastating fires in L.A. that twice delayed the announcement of nominees.
Academy leaders say the ceremony "will celebrate the work that unites us as a global film community and acknowledge those who fought so bravely against the wildfires."
Here are the nominees:
Best Picture
Directing
Actor in a Leading Role
Actor in a Supporting Role
Actress in a Leading Role
Actress in a Supporting Role
Animated Feature Film
Animated Short Film
Cinematography
Costume Design
Documentary Feature
Documentary Short
Film Editing
International Feature
Makeup and Hairstyling
Music (Original Score)
Music (Original Song)
Production Design
Live Action Short
Sound
Visual Effects
Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
Writing (Original Screenplay)
Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do has been disbarred, stemming from his conviction last year on a federal bribery charge. The disbarment was expected. It stems from a state Supreme Court order that came down Dec. 1 and is now recorded as such on the state bar's website.
Do is currently serving a five-year prison sentence in Arizona after admitting to directing money to several nonprofit groups and businesses that then funneled some of that money back to himself and family members for personal gain. LAist has been investigating the alleged corruption since 2023. Do was also ordered to pay $878,230.80 in restitution for his role in the bribery scheme that saw millions in taxpayer dollars diverted from feeding needy seniors, leading authorities to label him a “Robin Hood in reverse.”
The official disbarment means Do is prohibited from practicing law in California. He was also ordered to pay $5,000 to the State Bar.
Here's a look at some of LAist's coverage of one of the biggest corruption scandals in Orange County history:
LAist investigates: Andrew Do corruption scandal
Ex-Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do is ordered to pay $878,230.80 in restitution
'Robin Hood in reverse.' O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do resigns and will plead guilty to bribery conspiracy charge
Former OC Supervisor Andrew Do turns himself in, begins 5-year federal prison term
6 questions we still have after disgraced former OC Supervisor Andrew Do’s sentencing
A quiet retreat for the judge married to disgraced OC politician Andrew Do
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California now has it's first fully accredited tribal college in almost 30 years.
California Indian Nations College in Palm Desert recently received an eight-year accreditation from the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges.
Why it matters: The accreditation grants the college access to state and federal funding for higher education. Assemblymember James C. Ramos of San Bernardino calls the milestone historic, saying California has the highest number of Native Americans in the U.S.
How we got here: There aren't any fully accredited tribal colleges in California. But a Palm Desert school might change that.
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In six months, the FIFA World Cup arrives at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood and winners of the latest phase of the FIFA World Cup ticket draw were notified today. But if you missed it, there is another opportunity to snag tickets.
Why now? The third phase of ticketing began today, according to tournament officials.
How it works: Ticketing for all games — including those at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood — happens in phases through a lottery draw system. You must register a profile through FIFA’s site in order to enter. Today, those registered will find out if they were picked via email.
If I get picked, what’s next? Successful applicants will receive a notice in their emails and be automatically charged for the tickets they picked in the draw. A partially successful applicant means that you will receive the number of tickets requested, but not for all the requested matches.
Do I have another chance? The next opportunity is called the Last-Minute Sales phase, which FIFA has said will open in early April. FIFA is also running its own Resale/Exchange Marketplace, which will close Feb. 22 and reopen April 2.
The complete L.A. schedule:
On the secondary market: Prices for a single ticket to watch USA vs. Paraguay on June 12 at SoFi Stadium are slightly higher than what’s listed on FIFA’s ticketing portal. As of Wednesday, the lowest price for a single ticket to that game on StubHub is around $1,490, including fees, and $45,000 on the high end.
Read on… for your essential LAist guide on the 2026 World Cup in Los Angeles here.
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In early January, the Department of Health and Human Services and the USDA unveiled new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, along with a new food pyramid. The USDA sets school nutrition standards based on those dietary guidelines. Here's what to know about how the new food pyramid could impact schools.
More meals from scratch: The new pyramid places an emphasis on protein and encourage Americans to consume full-fat dairy products and limit highly processed foods. Bringing sugar and salt levels down further would likely require that food companies adapt their recipes and that schools prepare more meals from scratch. A recent survey of school nutrition directors by the School Nutrition Association found that most programs would need better equipment and infrastructure as well as more trained staff — and nearly all respondents said they would also need more money.
Higher costs: At the top of the new food pyramid are animal products such as meat and cheese. The new guidelines prioritize consuming protein as a part of every meal and incorporating healthy fats. A typical school breakfast today might include fruit, milk and a cereal cup or muffin; some schools may serve breakfast burritos or sandwiches. Current standards allow for schools to serve either grains or meats/meat alternates for breakfast. Protein options are costlier than grain options.
Putting together a school meal isn't easy.
"It is a puzzle essentially," said Lori Nelson of the Chef Ann Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes scratch cooking in schools.
"When you think about the guidelines, there's so many different pieces that you have to meet. You have to meet calorie minimums and maximums for the day and for the week. You have to meet vegetable subgroup categories."
Districts that receive federal funding for school meals — through, for example, the National School Lunch Program — must follow rules set by the Department of Agriculture (USDA).
And those rules may be changing soon.
In early January, the Department of Health and Human Services and the USDA unveiled new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, along with a new food pyramid.
The USDA sets school nutrition standards based on those dietary guidelines, which now place an emphasis on protein and encourage Americans to consume full-fat dairy products and limit highly processed foods.
Here's what to know about how the new food pyramid could impact schools:
Highly processed and ready-to-eat foods often contain added sugars and salt. Think mac and cheese, pizza, french fries and individually packaged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
These foods are also a big part of many school meals, said Nelson. That's because schools often lack adequate kitchen infrastructure to prepare meals from scratch.
"Many schools were built 40-plus years ago, and they were built to reheat food. So they weren't built as commercial cooking kitchens," said Nelson.
Even so, schools have been able to bring sodium and sugar levels down in recent years.
"They've been working with food companies to find a middle ground, to find recipes that meet [the current] standards and appeal to students and that schools can serve given the equipment that they have," said Diane Pratt-Heavner, a spokesperson for the School Nutrition Association.
Bringing sugar and salt levels down further would likely require that food companies adapt their recipes and that schools prepare more meals from scratch, Pratt-Heavner said.
But leaning into scratch cooking won't be easy. A recent survey of school nutrition directors by the School Nutrition Association found that most programs would need better equipment and infrastructure as well as more trained staff — and nearly all respondents said they would also need more money. "You cannot go from serving heavily processed, heat-and-serve items to scratch cooking immediately," said Nelson. "It is a transition."
At the top of the new food pyramid are animal products such as meat and cheese. The new guidelines prioritize consuming protein as a part of every meal and incorporating healthy fats.
"That could cause a change in school breakfast standards," said Pratt-Heavner. "Right now, there's no mandate that breakfasts include a protein."
A typical school breakfast today might include fruit, milk and a cereal cup or muffin; some schools may serve breakfast burritos or sandwiches.
She said schools would "absolutely need more funding," should they be required to provide protein under the USDA's School Breakfast Program.
Current standards allow for schools to serve either grains or meats/meat alternates for breakfast, and Pratt-Heavner said, "Protein options … are more expensive than grain options."
She said it's unclear whether the USDA would require protein under its own category or whether the agency would consider milk to be sufficient to meet any new protein requirements.
Schools that participate in federal school meal programs are required to offer milk with every meal, though students don't have to take it. Up until recently, an Obama-era rule allowed for only low-fat and nonfat milk in schools.
But the new food pyramid emphasizes whole fat dairy, like whole milk. At the same time, recent federal legislation reversed that Obama-era rule and now allows schools to serve reduced-fat and full-fat milk.
One more thing to know about milk: Federal law also limits saturated fats in school meals — and whole milk has more of those than low-fat and nonfat varieties. But the recent federal legislation now exempts milk fat from those limits.
What does all this mean for schools? They're now able to start serving whole milk, and they won't have to worry about whole milk pushing them past the limits on saturated fats.
While the USDA sets regulations for schools based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, it takes time to draft and implement new rules after new guidelines are released.
"The current school nutrition standards that we're operating under were proposed in February 2023, finalized in April 2024," said Pratt-Heavner. "The first menu changes in school cafeterias were not required until July 2025." Other changes are still rolling out.
Which is to say: The new dietary guidelines won't bring immediate changes to school cafeterias. They're only the first step in a regulatory process that will take time.
"We're going to have to see what USDA proposes," said Pratt-Heavner.
Then, she said, "the public will comment on those regulations, and then final rules will be drafted and issued."
The USDA then gives schools and school food companies time to update recipes and implement the new nutrition standards.
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