The Brief

I wasn’t expecting the internet’s biggest Chinese rapper to make his Southern California debut (we are not counting the earlier San Diego show) at a sprawling, sterile business park in Santa Ana.

But there I was Wednesday night along with hundreds of people at the Observatory to watch the viral sensation perform his brand of hip-hop blending Memphis trap with lyrics rooted in Cantonese folk and everyday culture across southeastern China.

You may not know the name, SKAI Isyourgod, but if you have been on Instagram or TikTok in the last couple years, you can’t escape the sound — or the memes.

" He's really famous on Instagram," said Julie Sun, who came to the gig from Irvine. " He popped up a lot throughout all different kinds of video content."

That’s how I learned of his music — through a reel that had nothing to do with his music. But it was grabby from the first note, opening as it did by sampling a vintage Cantonese opera. That inventive touch sent me searching for the whole song, “Blueprint Supreme,” which turned out to be a kind of tongue-in-cheek send up on the nouveau riche.

It’s a theme the 27-year-old from Guangdong Province goes back to with humor and deft wordplay in the track “Stacked On All Sides.”

Throughout the night, the crowd yelled out the name of that tune. When it was finally performed, all the phones were raised.

“His lyrics [are] mostly very positive and kind of give the good fortune to people,” Sun said.

Like Sun, the vast majority of the audience were Chinese.

"Where’s everyone from?" SKAI asked during one of his interludes, and the crowd shouted back: "Dongbei…. Fushan…."

But there were also plenty of non-Chinese speaking fans at the club, a testament to the rapper’s global virility.

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SKAI Isyourgod performs in Santa Ana in 2025.

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Noah Rosen lives in Santa Ana, but he first learned about SKAI two years ago through friends and people he worked with at the company he cofounded, which has a satellite office in China.

"We blasted [it] in carpool karaoke and stuff like that," said Rosen, who doesn’t speak Chinese.

"There's something so catchy and so inventive, and it's a fantastic melody," he continued. "Which is why they're so good on TikTok and Instagram and everything. Doesn't matter if you understand the lyrics or not."

Bob Weir, the guitarist and songwriter who was a founding member of the popular and massively influential American rock band the Grateful Dead, has died. According to a statement from his family posted on his website and social media pages, Weir died from underlying lung issues after recently beating cancer. He was 78.

A member of the Dead for its first three decades, and a keeper of the flame of the band's legacy for three more, Weir helped to write a new chapter of American popular music that influenced countless other musicians and brought together an enormous and loyal audience. The Grateful Dead's touring, bootlegging and merchandising set an example that helped initiate the jam-band scene. Its concerts created a community that brought together generations of followers.

Known to fans as "Bobby," he was born in San Francisco as Robert Hall Parber, but was given up for adoption and raised by Frederick and Eleanor Weir. In 1964, when he was still a teenager, Weir joined guitarist Jerry Garcia in a folk music band, Mother Mcree's Uptown Jug Band. In May of 1965 Weir and Garcia were joined by bassist Phil Lesh, keyboard player Ron "Pigpen" McKernan and drummer Bill Kreutzmann to form an electric, blues-based rock and roll band that was briefly named The Warlocks. After discovering that there was another band using that name, Jerry Garcia found a phrase that caught his eye in a dictionary and in December of that year they became the Grateful Dead, launching a 30-year run over which time they grew into a cultural institution.

Weir was a singular rhythm guitarist who rarely played solos, choosing instead to create his own particular style of chording and strumming that gracefully supported Garcia's distinctive guitar explorations especially during the extended jams which were the heart of the band's popularity.

Lyrics were largely a product of a communal effort between Weir and Garcia, as well as lyricists John Perry Barlow, Robert Hunter, that often blurred the lines between who wrote what. The opening lines to "Cassidy," which first appeared on Weir's 1972 solo album Ace and was played by the Dead on live recordings including the 1981 double album Reckoning, reflect the combination of metaphor, rhyme and storytelling set to memorable melodies that the band's audiences could memorize, analyze and sing along to:

I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream
I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream
Ah, child of countless trees
Ah, child of boundless seas
What you are, what you're meant to be
Speaks his name, though you were born to me
Born to me, Cassidy

Weir's emotive singing, on "Cassidy" and other songs like "Sugar Magnolia," "One More Saturday Night" and the band's unofficial theme, "Truckin', " often included whoops and yells, in contrast to Garcia's calm and steady approach. His occasional tendency to forget lyrics was usually greeted by thunderous applause from fans.

After Garcia's death in 1995, at age 53, the surviving members of the band carried on in various forms and arrangements, the longest running of which was Weir's Dead & Company, which also featured Grateful Dead drummers Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart. Weir and the band concluded their "final tour" in July of 2023, but then returned to the stage for two extended residencies at the Sphere in Las Vegas, in 2024 and 2025.

A self-described "compulsive music maker," in 2018 Weir formed yet another band to mine the depths of the Grateful Dead catalog. It was a stripped-down guitar, acoustic bass and drums outfit that he called Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros. Its members included renowned bassist and producer Don Was.In October of 2022, Weir & Wolf Bros worked with a classical music arranger to present yet another iteration of the Dead's catalog, notable for never being played the same way twice, with a group that largely only plays what's written on the paper in front of them, the 80-piece National Symphony Orchestra.

In a 2022 interview with NPR, Weir explained the reason for that collaboration, and in doing so, seemed to offer a possible explanation for why the band's music stayed so popular for so long: "These songs are … living critters and they're visitors from another world — another dimension or whatever you want to call it — that come through the artists to visit this world, have a look around, tell their stories. I don't know exactly how that works, but I do know that it's real."

After Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, Weir kept the legacy of the Grateful Dead alive, touring with bands that came to include generations of musicians influenced by the group. Here, Weir performs with The Dead at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 2009.

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Weir's work to shepherd and sustain the Dead's legacy was rewarded by ever younger generations of Deadheads, the band's loyal following, who attended tour after tour, often following the band from city to city as their parents and grandparents did during in the 1960's, '70s, '80s and '90s.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in March 2025, Weir shared his thoughts on his legacy, as well as on death and dying, that had a hint of the Eastern philosophies that were popular when the Grateful Dead emerged from the peace and love hippie movement of San Francisco. "I'll say this: I look forward to dying. I tend to think of death as a reward for a life well-lived," he said.

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Planet Books, a long-running outpost known for its boundless collection of used books, toys, posters and other antiquities, must move — once again — by March or risk closure.

After 27 years in business, owner James Rappaport said the news came last fall from the proprietors of the neighboring Antique Mall II, which, since 2020, has sublet to him a 4,000-square-foot warehouse now cramped with rare tomes and second-hand memorabilia.

Andrew Jurkiewicz, who owns Antique Mall II alongside his partner, Linda, confirmed the move in a phone call Monday. They’re selling their own store, a decision that ran simultaneously to their landlord’s decision to sell the property altogether.

One person familiar with the sale said the listing — which opened in October — has drawn several interested buyers and is expected to enter escrow in the next week. A public record search found the properties, at 1851 to 1855 Freeman Ave., are owned by DPV Properties LLC, which recently moved its address from Seal Beach to out of state.

When reached by phone, one of the owners declined to comment on their reason for the sale.

After their leases end in March, the businesses are expected to vacate. The antique shop, Jurkiewicz said, will relocate to a space at 3588 Palo Verde Ave. — formerly a Joann Fabric and Crafts — under new ownership.

“We’re both tired,” he said of running the 37-year business that he moved into a former plywood business on Freeman Avenue in 2010.

The future of Planet Books, meanwhile, is far more uncertain. Rappaport has been quiet about his plight until now, insisting he didn’t want to “sound any alarms” that might disrupt the flow of business or scare his regulars.

“I don’t want to panic anybody, especially myself. Not really sure what to do, actually,” Rappaport said.

This marks the second time the bookstore has needed to vacate its location since it opened in 1998.

Its first incarnation on East Anaheim Street was a combination of a couple of hundred book crates left behind by San Pedro bookseller Vinegar Hill Books and collectible toys acquired by the store’s former owner, Michael Munns.

Monthly rent at that time was about $2,000 for 1,500-square feet. Today, Rappaport said, the building costs $5,200 a month to rent, with half of it currently vacant.

His search for a new space has spanned the city, even traveling into neighboring Seal Beach, each time running into the same story.

“Twice the money and one third the size,” he said.

It’s also difficult to find something to fit their needs. The current store has a bookstock of easily more than 100,000 titles.

There’s also the trove of toys, postcards, movie posters and other antiquities that line the walls, counters and shelves throughout. In the back area — the workers call it the “nether world” — towering stacks of books form trench lines leading to an aging work computer, limited-edition prints and a bathroom which hasn’t worked properly since they moved there.

Any storefront they find will likely require a “major purge” of inventory, Rappaport said. Planet Books has two music sections and three sections for both science fiction and mystery. He plans to downsize through donations to nearby schools, shelters and prisons.

If the store cannot find a new home, Rappaport said he’ll have to move his inventory into storage, likely at a facility in Stanton.

There’s also the definite possibility the store closes, he said, though workers are more optimistic.

For many, Planet Books has become the bookstore’s bookstore — the book hog’s mud puddle — where the clerks know the difference between Tom Wolfe and Thomas Wolfe and where patrons might lose themselves for the day among cheap out-of-print treasures on Zen and macrobiotics, Armenian dictionaries, Cantonese cookbooks and volumes on Lydia Maria Child, a 19th century abolitionist.

Wherever the store lands, Rappaport said it will be his last move.

“I’m 68, getting old, you know, I don’t need this,” he said. “I can’t retire because I don’t make anything in Social Security. I just want to have a little bit of fun.”

There are very few options to grab a cup of coffee and sit for a bit in downtown L.A.’s Skid Row. That’s in stark contrast to some of the bougie areas of downtown, where you can throw a rock and hit a four-dollar-a-cup coffee place.

But there’s one cafe that’s steadily served the Skid Row community for over a decade.

Walking into Made by Downtown Women’s Center Cafe and Boutique feels like walking into any non-chain coffee shop you might have come across downtown. There are smiling baristas, tables to work at and a glass case filled with pastries from Homeboy Industries.

But this coffee shop is different: it’s staffed and run by women who are transitioning from homelessness

Women like LaShornda. She’s worked here for about four years after the Downtown Women’s Center provided her with supportive housing. Now she lives independently with her kids. We’re not using LaShornda’s full name because she has concerns about her safety.

“We always get second chances. And it was a struggle,” she said, recalling her journey from being unhoused, to getting full-time work and housing and, recently, a promotion.

Now LaShornda works to train other women at the cafe, providing many with their first job after fighting to survive on the streets for years.

“I love it here... I love to see some of the women that come in here every day and I know [their] drinks,” LaShornda said.

The Downtown Women’s Center serves about 5,000 people annually with things like permanent supportive housing and job training at their cafe. The center started the cafe about 15 years ago.

“It’s not your normal image of providing services for people experiencing homelessness,” Amy Turk, Downtown Women’s Center’s CEO, said during a visit to the cafe. “Twenty-three thousand women are experiencing homelessness on any given night in Los Angeles. And primarily the reasons stem from gender-based violence, domestic violence and incomes that have never been on par with men."

Aprons hang on the wall at the Made by DWC candle-making studio.

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About five years ago — after moving from Texas and getting stranded without work during the height of the pandemic — Alexandria Piñeda found herself unhoused on Skid Row. That was before she got linked up with DWC.

“The Skid Row community was so good to me,” Piñeda said. “You know, they really looked out for me. And it’s nice for them to have something nice. For them to be able to escape the madness on the street.”

The cafe typically trains dozens of workers a year. And while you’re grabbing a cup of coffee, you might notice some handmade candles on the shelves, with scents like Halfmoon BAE and Joshua TEA. Under the brand Made by DWC, Piñeda and her team of trainees make those just a few blocks away, along with bath salts and other scented goods.

Alexandria Piñeda in her office at the Made by DWC studio in Downtown L.A.

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“A lot of them are stuck in survival mode because they’re straight off the street when they come to us,” she said. “But they’re with me for four months. So I kind of have the opportunity to train them out of that... It completely changes their life and I get to witness that. All the time.”

She said that’s the best part of the job.

How to visit:

MADE by DWC Cafe
438 S. San Pedro St., Los Angeles
Hours: Mon - Fri, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The monthly Sip & Shop takes place on the last Friday of each month. This month’s event will be held on Jan. 30 at the resale boutique:

Made by DWC Resale Boutique
325 S. Los Angeles St, Los Angeles
Hours: Mon - Fri, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

The federal government has drastically scaled back the number of recommended childhood immunizations, sidelining six routine vaccines that have safeguarded millions from serious diseases, long-term disability and death.

Just three of the six immunizations the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it will no longer routinely recommend — against hepatitis A, hepatitis B and rotavirus — have prevented nearly 2 million hospitalizations and more than 90,000 deaths in the past 30 years, according to the CDC's own publications.

Vaccines against the three diseases, as well as those against respiratory syncytial virus, meningococcal disease, flu, and COVID, are now recommended only for children at high risk of serious illness or after "shared clinical decision-making," or consultation between doctors and parents.

The CDC maintained its recommendations for 11 childhood vaccines: measles, mumps, and rubella; whooping cough, tetanus, and diphtheria; the bacterial disease known as Hib; pneumonia; polio; chickenpox; and human papillomavirus, or HPV.

Federal and private insurance will still cover vaccines for the diseases the CDC no longer recommends universally, according to a Department of Health and Human Services fact sheet; parents who want to vaccinate their children against those diseases will not have to pay out-of-pocket.

Experts on childhood disease were baffled by the change in guidance. HHS said the changes followed "a scientific review of the underlying science" and were in line with vaccination programs in other developed nations.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist, pointed to Denmark as a model. But the schedules of most European countries are closer to the U.S. standard upended by the new guidance.

For example, Denmark, which does not vaccinate against rotavirus, registers around 1,200 infant and toddler rotavirus hospitalizations a year. That rate, in a country of 6 million, is about the same as it was in the United States before vaccination.

"They're OK with having 1,200 or 1,300 hospitalized kids, which is the tip of the iceberg in terms of childhood suffering," said Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a co-inventor of a licensed rotavirus vaccine. "We weren't. They should be trying to emulate us, not the other way around."

Public health officials say the new guidance puts the onus on parents to research and understand each childhood vaccine and why it is important.

Here's a rundown of the diseases the sidelined vaccines prevent:

RSV. Respiratory syncytial virus is the most common cause of hospitalization for infants in the U.S.

The respiratory virus usually spreads in fall and winter and produces cold-like symptoms, though it can be deadly for young children, causing tens of thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths a year. According to the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, roughly 80% of children younger than 2 who are hospitalized with RSV have no identifiable risk factors. Long-awaited vaccines against the disease were introduced in 2023.

Hepatitis A. Hepatitis A vaccination, which was phased in beginning in the late 1990s and recommended for all toddlers starting in 2006, has led to a more than 90% drop in the disease since 1996. The foodborne virus, which causes a wretched illness, continues to plague adults, particularly people who are homeless or who abuse drugs or alcohol, with a total of 1,648 cases and 85 deaths reported in 2023.

Hepatitis B. The disease causes liver cancer, cirrhosis, and other serious illnesses and is particularly dangerous when contracted by babies and young children. The hepatitis B virus is transmitted through blood and other bodily fluids, even in microscopic amounts, and can survive on surfaces for a week. From 1990 to 2019, vaccination resulted in a 99% decline in reported cases of acute hepatitis B among children and teens. Liver cancer among American children has also plummeted as a result of universal childhood vaccination. But the hepatitis B virus is still around, with 2,000-3,000 acute cases reported annually among unvaccinated adults. More than 17,000 chronic hepatitis B diagnoses were reported in 2023. The CDC estimates about half of people infected don't know they have it.

Rotavirus. Before routine administration of the current rotavirus vaccines began in 2006, about 70,000 young children were hospitalized and 50 died every year from the virus. It was known as "winter vomiting syndrome," said Sean O'Leary, a pediatrician at the University of Colorado. "It was a miserable disease that we hardly see anymore."

The virus is still common on surfaces that babies touch, however, and "if you lower immunization rates it will once again hospitalize children," Offit said.

Meningococcal vaccines. These have been required mainly for teenagers and college students, who are notably vulnerable to critical illness caused by the bacteria. About 600 to 1,000 cases of meningococcal disease are reported in the U.S. each year, but it kills more than 10% of those it sickens, and 1 in 5 survivors have permanent disabilities.

Flu and covid. The two respiratory viruses have each killed hundreds of children in recent years — though both tend to be much more severe in older adults. Flu is currently on the upswing in the United States, and last flu season the virus killed 289 children.

What is shared clinical decision-making?

Under the changes, decisions about vaccinating children against influenza, covid, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, and hepatitis A and B will now rely on what officials call "shared clinical decision-making," meaning families will have to consult with a health care provider to determine whether a vaccine is appropriate.

"It means a provider should have a conversation with the patient to lay out the risks and the benefits and make a decision for that individual person," said Lori Handy, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

In the past, the CDC used that term only in reference to narrow circumstances, like whether a person in a monogamous relationship needed the HPV vaccine, which prevents a sexually transmitted infection and certain cancers.

The CDC's new approach doesn't line up with the science because of the proven protective benefit the vaccines have for the vast majority of the population, Handy said.

In their report justifying the changes, HHS officials Tracy Beth Høeg and Martin Kulldorff said the U.S. vaccination system requires more safety research and more parental choice. Eroding trust in public health caused in part by an overly large vaccine schedule had led more parents to shun vaccination against major threats like measles, they said.

The vaccines on the schedule that the CDC has altered were backed up by extensive safety research when they were evaluated and approved by the FDA.

"They're held to a safety standard higher than any other medical intervention that we have," Handy said. "The value of routine recommendations is that it really helps the public understand that this has been vetted upside down and backwards in every which way."

Eric Ball, a pediatrician in Orange County, Calif., said the change in guidance will cause more confusion among parents who think it means a vaccine's safety is in question.

"It is critical for public health that recommendations for vaccines are very clear and concise," Ball said. "Anything to muddy the water is just going to lead to more children getting sick."

Ball said that instead of focusing on a child's individual health needs, he often has to spend limited clinic time reassuring parents that vaccines are safe. A "shared clinical decision-making" status for a vaccine has no relationship to safety concerns, but parents may think it does.

HHS' changes do not affect state vaccination laws and therefore should allow prudent medical practitioners to carry on as before, said Richard Hughes IV, an attorney and a George Washington University lecturer who is leading litigation against Kennedy over vaccine changes.

"You could expect that any pediatrician is going to follow sound evidence and recommend that their patients be vaccinated," he said. The law protects providers who follow professional care guidelines, he said, and "RSV, meningococcal, and hepatitis remain serious health threats for children in this country."

This story comes from NPR's health reporting partnership with KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. KFF Health News is one of the core operating programs at KFF, the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.