Red carpet standouts

Arts & Entertainment

We have some of the best looks from the Oscars

By Meredith Nierman | NPR

Published March 16, 2026 7:13 AM

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Kevork Djansezian

WWD

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Topline:

The Academy Awards were last night in Hollywood, hosted by Conan O'Brien. The stars walked the red carpet in a wide range of styles.

Keep reading... to check out the gowns, suits and jewels chosen by stars.

The Academy Awards were Sunday night in Hollywood, hosted by Conan O'Brien.

One Battle After Another took home best picture, in addition to awards for Paul Thomas Anderson for best director and best adapted screenplay. Sinners star Michael B. Jordan won best actor, and Hamnet's Jessie Buckley won best actress.

Michael B. Jordan stands on red carpet wearing black suit with silver chain and watch, posing in front of white 'Oscars' backdrop.

Amy Madigan wears a black and gold sequined jacket and black pants stands on the red carpet in front of a white 'Oscars' backdrop.

Kate Hudson

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Angela Weiss

AFP via Getty Images

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Wunmi Mosaku wears a long, teal, sequined gown poses with hands on hips on the red carpet at the Oscars.

Ethan Hawke wears a black tuxedo coat with satin lapels and points with both hands on the red carpet at the Oscars.

Chloé Zhao wears a dramatic black gown with layered ruffles and a sheer veil covering her face, standing on the red carpet at the Oscars.

Food

Pizza City Fest

40 SoCal pizzerias gather at LA Live this weekend

Gab Chabrán covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.

Published April 22, 2026 5:00 AM

A hand with a light skin tone drizzles chili oil from a spoon over a Neapolitan-style pizza topped with wilted greens and dollops of fresh ricotta, resting on a metal mesh rack

A pizzaiolo finishing a Neapolitan-style pie at last year's Pizza City Fest. The fourth annual event returns to L.A. LIVE April 25-26.

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Susana Capra

Courtesy Pizza City Fest

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Topline:

Pizza City Fest returns to L.A. LIVE this weekend with 40 SoCal pizzerias, including 11 first-timers, and a lineup that doubles as a snapshot of where Southern California pizza stands right now.

Why it matters: The fest is one of the few events that brings the full geographic and stylistic range of SoCal's pizza scene under one roof — making the case that L.A. isn't just a pizza city, it's a pizza region. Expect Detroit, NY, Neapolitan, tavern-style, grandma pie and more. No dominant identity, and that's kind of the point.

Why now: The event runs April 25–26, and the scene it's showcasing is as strong as it's ever been — more artisan bakers, more diverse styles, and more pizzerias pushing past city limits into the IE, OC, and beyond.

The backstory: Founded in 2022 by food reporter and James Beard Award winner Steve Dolinsky, Pizza City Fest has grown into a three-city operation. The L.A. edition is now in its fourth year and continues to expand its footprint both geographically and stylistically.

What's next: Tickets are still available at lalive.com/pizzacityfest. GA is $99/day, VIP is $199.

For anyone who doesn't think Los Angeles is serious about pizza, they've never been to Pizza City Fest.

Now in its fourth year, the festival returns to L.A. LIVE's Event Deck this weekend — from 1-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday — showcasing the full range of styles that define SoCal's pizza scene. The event was founded by three-time Emmy and 13-time James Beard Award-winning food reporter Steve Dolinsky, who has built Pizza City Fest into a three-city operation spanning Chicago, Nashville and Los Angeles. This year, 40 pizzerias will be offering unlimited tastings — general admission runs $99 a day, VIP $199. (Drinks, both alcoholic and NA, are also included in the price).

Who's going to be there?

SoCal pizza isn't specific to L.A. What's most exciting about this year's lineup is how far it stretches — from Orange County and the Inland Empire to the San Fernando Valley and Santa Barbara. It’s a testament to the fact that good pizza is everywhere in the region; you just need to know where to find it.

As Dolinsky puts it: "You don't have to get in your car and drive all over Southern California to try all these great pizzas because they're all going to be made fresh, right there in one place."

Eleven out of the 40 pizzerias are making their Pizza City Fest debuts this year (marked with an asterisk).

Saturday

Angel City Pizza (Venice)
Anna Pizza (Valley Village)*
Bianca Sicilian Trattoria (mobile truck — Arts District)*
Bub & Grandma's Pizza (Highland Park)*
Colossus (Long Beach, San Pedro)*
Emmy Squared (DTLA)
Esco's New York Style Pizza (Mid-City)
Fat Lip Pizza & Beer (Corona)
Fat Nattys (Los Angeles)*
Joe's Pizza (Southern California)
Mievè (Miracle Mile)*
Mike's Firestone Pizza (Fullerton)*
Old Gold Tomato Pies (Los Feliz)*
Riip Beer & Pizzeria (Huntington Beach)
Slice House by Tony Gemignani (Southern California)
Thunderbolt Pizza (Long Beach)*
Tribute Pizza (San Diego)
Triple Beam Pizza (Southern California)
Truly Pizza (Dana Point)
Woodstock Farina (mobile truck — Oxnard)

Dessert: Lei'd Cookies (Culver City) and Uli's Gelato (Los Angeles)

Sunday

Apollonia's Pizzeria (Mid-Wilshire)
Bettina (Santa Barbara)
Chi-Pie (Reseda)
Detroit Pizza Depot (Hollywood)
Due Fiori (Long Beach)*
Little Dynamite (Mar Vista)
LaSorted's (Silver Lake; Chinatown)
Nonna Mercato (Long Beach)
Ospi (Venice; Brentwood; Costa Mesa)
Ozzy's Apizza (North Hollywood; Glendale)
Naughty Pie Nature (Echo Park)
Petramale Pizza (mobile truck — Venice)
Pie Trap Pizza (Covina)
PiiZaa (Mobile Truck- Torrance)*
Pizzana (Southern California)
Prime Pizza (Southern California)
Prince St. Pizza (Southern California)
Secret Pizza (El Sereno)
Speak Cheezy (Long Beach)
Two Doughs (Agoura Hills)

Dessert: Wanderlust Creamery (Los Angeles) and Levain Bakery (Los Angeles, Venice, Beverly Hills)

Styles upon styles

A man with a medium dark skin tone serves a slice at his booth inside the Pizza City Fest tent, with a large topped pizza on the table and stacked New York-style pizza boxes visible behind him.

Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of Pizza City Fest is the sheer range of styles on offer. Detroit, NY, Neapolitan, tavern-style, grandma pie — all under one roof. No dominant identity, and that's kind of the point. Unlike New York or Chicago, where pizza culture rallies around a single style, SoCal's scene is pluralist by nature. You've got Ozzy's Apizza repping New Haven-style, Esco's flying the New York flag, Detroit Pizza Depot doing what it says on the tin, and Bub & Grandma's doing their own artisan thing that defies easy categorization.

Keep an eye on Colossus, based in Long Beach and San Pedro, who earned a glowing review from the LA Times and is bringing a 100% sourdough crust to the fest — the kind of artisan approach Dolinsky says has defined the scene's evolution over the past four years.

And then there's PiiZaa — a mobile operation out of the Torrance Farmers Market whose name is apparently how the Vietnamese community pronounces the word. They'll be making a bánh xèo-inspired dish (a traditional stuffed crepe in pizza form) with turmeric, shrimp and pork.

As Dolinsky puts it, "That to me is very LA. Vietnamese culture meets Neapolitan pizza. That doesn't happen really anywhere else in the country." The fest isn't an argument for one style over another — it's an argument that SoCal can do all of them and do them well.

A rectangular Detroit-style pizza topped with cupped pepperoni, dollops of ricotta, and fresh basil, served in a black pan with a Slice House by Tony Gemignani wrapper in the foreground.

Beyond the slices

When you get tired — or full — of stuffing your face with delicious slices, Pizza City Fest has you covered there too.

Saturday's programming kicks off with "The Dough Whisperers" at 2 p.m., featuring Nancy Silverton and Aaron Lindell of Quarter Sheets in conversation about the craft of dough, followed at 3 p.m. by a home baker's masterclass demo from Thomas McNaughton and Ryan Pollnow of SF's Flour + Water — plus a Silverton book signing after.

Sunday brings a backyard pizza oven demo at 2 p.m. from Daniele Uditi of Pizzana. At 3 p.m., Esteban Gutierrez, Sean Lango, and Vito DeCandia make the case that great New York-style pizza doesn't require a New York zip code — moderated by Noah Galuten.

The details

Pizza City Fest runs Saturday and Sunday at the Event Deck at L.A. LIVE in downtown Los Angeles, 1–5 p.m. both days.
General admission is $99 per day; VIP tickets are $199 and include one-hour early entry, access to an exclusive lounge, preferred panel seating and a swag bag.
All tickets include unlimited pizza tastings, beverages, desserts and admission to all panels and demos — yes, that means drinks, both alcoholic and NA.

First-timer? Dolinsky's advice: "Go to the places that are furthest from your home ... go to the places from Corona, the IE and Covina. Who knows when you'll go there?"

Tickets at lalive.com/pizzacityfest.

How have Olympics tickets been re-sold in the past?

The International Olympic Committee told LAist that host committees and host country's laws dictate rules around ticket re-sale — and in the U.S., major hikes in ticket prices on secondary markets are the norm.

The two most recent Olympic Games did not allow tickets to be re-sold for a profit on official platforms, in compliance with Italian and French local laws, according to the I.O.C. Instead, Olympics organizers in Milano Cortina in 2026 and Paris in 2024 provided a re-sale market where fans could put up their tickets at face value.

In Paris and Milan, ticket re-sellers came out in the red after being charged a 5% service fee to re-sell the ticket. LAist reviewed one person's receipt from the Paris Games who re-sold two 100 euro tickets to an archery event for €200, and got back €190. A number of fans struggled to re-sell their tickets, according to news reports.

"A lack of demand in the secondary market has left many holding tickets they cannot sell, while organisers have continued to release more tickets," the Financial Times reported just before the 2024 Olympics began.

Tickets that were re-sold included a fee for 10% of the ticket value for the new purchaser.

Olympics tickets have been re-sold for higher prices when the host country allows it, though.

At the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, Canadians could re-sell their tickets at any price, according to the New York Times. An article from the time declared, "Olympic Ticket Business Gets a Taste of Internet Capitalism." The Vancouver organizing committee also charged a fee on each transaction.

The L.A. Games seem poised to look more like Vancouver than Paris, since the L.A. lacks the ticket regulations of recent European hosts. In all recent cases, organizers charged fees on resold tickets, indicating the 24% service fee on 2028 tickets could be on secondary markets, too.

At a Los Angeles City Council meeting last week, LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover said he didn't know how much of that fee would be going back to LA28. Hoover has repeatedly pointed out to critics that LA28 needs to deliver the Olympic Games under budget, otherwise taxpayers in L.A. and California will end up paying for cost overruns.

Will LA28 go the way of the World Cup?

Ticket sales for this summer's World Cup provide another window into where Olympics ticket prices could go.

FIFA decided not to cap re-sale prices in the U.S. and Canada for 2026 — a change in policy compared to past World Cup tournaments, according to The Athletic. (In Mexico, ticket re-sales are limited at their face value). That led tickets to be listed for way higher than their original price on the resale market, with FIFA making 30% in fees on each ticket that was re-sold.

The price tag for tickets to this summer's tournament has stoked indignation in fans and local officials alike. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani even launched an effort during his campaign asking FIFA to cap resale prices.

FIFA has also caught flak for increasing ticket prices using dynamic pricing, adjusting ticket prices based on demand. A Congressional coalition led by L.A. Democrat Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove wrote FIFA President Gianni Infantino a letter in March asking him to change course on ticket prices.

"The extreme high demand for World Cup tickets should not be a green light for price gouging at the expense of the people who make the World Cup the most-watched sporting event in the world," the coalition asserted.

Infantino has defended the prices, calling the U.S. market "very special."

Ticket prices under scrutiny

The spotlight on Olympics tickets comes as ticket sales and the companies that control them in the U.S. face growing scrutiny.

Just this month, a jury found that Live Nation and Ticketmaster, which merged in 2010, overcharged customers and acted as a monopoly. California was one of dozens of states that sued the company.

" What we've seen is the public reaching their own breaking point," said Morgan Harper, with the American Economic Liberties Project, a progressive group that has pushed to break up Ticketmaster and Live Nation. "The prices were getting so high that people were like, 'Wait a second. Is it now also gonna be unaffordable to even go to a concert?'"

In California, lawmakers are considering legislation to limit ticket prices, including one bill to cap re-sale at just 10% above face value. Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-SF) introduced the bill, which is aimed at preventing price gouging. In an interesting twist, Live Nation has backed the bill, and critics say it will ratchet up prices by limiting competition.

Even if that bill passes, it won't apply to L.A. in 2028. The legislation specifically excludes sports and the Olympic Games.

Food

King Taco recognition

First location now a Historic-Cultural Monument

Suzanne Levy is a senior editor on the Explore LA team, where she oversees food, LA Explained and other feature stories.

Published April 21, 2026 5:31 PM

The iconic King Taco sign at the original Cypress Park location, which opened in 1974 and is now being considered for Historic-Cultural Monument designation.

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Suzanne Levy

LAist

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Topline:

The original King Taco restaurant in Cypress Park will become a Historic-Cultural Monument after the L.A. City Council voted 10-0 on Tuesday. Raul Martinez launched the business in 1974, when it started out as a food truck.

Why it matters: King Taco helped establish the template for the modern L.A. taqueria — shifting the city's understanding of tacos from the hard-shell, Americanized version to soft tortillas filled with carne asada, carnitas and tacos al pastor. It's now one of the few designated restaurant landmarks recognizing Latino culinary contributions.

The backstory: Founder Raul Martinez launched King Taco from a converted ice cream truck in 1974, eventually opening the Cypress Park brick-and-mortar location that became the chain's flagship. The business grew to 24 locations across Southern California.

Explore LA

Delivery bots

Cities moving to charge fees for delivery devices

Adolfo Guzman-Lopez is an arts and general assignment reporter on LAist's Explore LA team.

Published April 21, 2026 4:49 PM

A boxy device with wheels on a walkway. It's painted white and lime green.

One of the many "personal delivery devices" bots in cities across the U.S.

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Courtesy Serve Robotics

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Topline:

They may be cute, but cities are now deciding how to regulate them — and charge them for their use of public infrastructure. Glendale and Long Beach are in the process of creating new rules and fees for personal delivery devices, as they're called, while L.A. is looking at overhauling existing regulations to increase city revenue.

Why it matters: There’s significant growth projected for companies that create and run delivery bots. City officials see that as a source of revenue and are thinking about how to increase it as the bots become more prevalent, potentially charging a fee per trip rather than a flat fee as is current practice.

Why now: Delivery bots perform an essential service delivering products from Domino’s pizza to Walmart purchases. Companies that create the bots say their tech cuts down on the number of car trips making such deliveries.

What's next: Officials in the cities of L.A., Long Beach and Glendale say staff will submit their recommendations for delivery bot regulations in the next several months.

Go deeper: Delivery bots colonizing sidewalks and raising concerns.

Companies that create and manufacture personal delivery devices, those cute bots you see on public sidewalks, have been working on growth plans for years.

Cities, on whose public sidewalks the delivery bots travel, are only now catching up to regulating them and charging the companies fees.

That's what's happening in Glendale, where, City Councilman Dan Brotman says, “[The delivery bots] just appeared out of nowhere. The company that operates [them] never reached out and talked to us."

He and other council members, he said, want to know if the delivery devices make it harder for Glendale residents using wheelchairs to use public sidewalks.

“I also am curious who is getting the financial benefit from these,” he said.

Glendale’s City Council asked city staff last month to draft two proposals, one with regulations and fees and the other pausing the operation of delivery bots while the council studies their impact. Brotman said staff may deliver those proposals to him and his colleagues in the months to come.

The two largest cities in LA County, at two different stages

The City of Los Angeles approved rules for personal delivery devices a few years ago, including flat permit fees. The City Council has since asked staff in the Department of Transportation to revaluate those rules and make suggestions.

One idea being considered — charging companies for every bot trip instead of the flat fee.

a black, box-shaped robot with four wheels and a pink and purple sign on the side that reads, "coco, made for delivery," sits outside a restaurant.

L.A. City Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez successfully introduced the motion last year to have the regulations revisited.

“[The companies are] starting to put movie ads or show ads, and if they're generating revenue off that, we want to know what that looks like but also be able to have a fee for them,” Hernandez said.

That report should be presented to the City Council later this year, she said.

She’s also keen to hear from the public about their views on delivery bots.

Tell city officials what you think about delivery bots

L.A. residents can give the city their opinion at this link.

Glendale residents can email: CityCouncil@GlendaleCA.gov

Companies that make the devices argue they’re providing an essential delivery service to residents while cutting down on the number of vehicles on the road making the deliveries.

“We currently pay fees in Los Angeles, Chicago and West Hollywood as part of their permit programs and are open to similar models in other cities,” said Vignesh Ram, vice president of policy at Serve Robotics, by email.

Starship Technologies' delivery robot exits the elevator in the company's office.

The company is now operating in Long Beach; Ram says it notified the city before beginning to operate there.

A City of Long Beach spokesperson told LAist its business licensing, planning and public works teams are currently working on recommendations for regulations. Those should be presented to the City Council early this summer.

Hey, LA listener!

The Brief

Who's going to be there?

Styles upon styles

Beyond the slices

The details

How have Olympics tickets been re-sold in the past?

Will LA28 go the way of the World Cup?

Ticket prices under scrutiny

Keep up with LAist.

The two largest cities in LA County, at two different stages

Tell city officials what you think about delivery bots