The Brief

Most of the United States' fruits and nuts, like avocados and almonds, come from California. But scientists say human-caused climate change means more extreme heat and intensifying periods of drought for the state. That has led some farmers to seek out less-thirsty crops — like agave.

The succulent has long been grown in Mexico and is the key ingredient in making tequila and mezcal. Agave, though, as a crop is a new idea for the United States. In California, it's more often seen as part of decorative landscaping.

That's changing. Juan Rodriguez is among dozens of farmers who see the potential in the resilient plant.

During the day he works as a roofer, something he has done most of his life. But in the evenings and on weekends, he works with his wife, Cecilia Rodriguez, and cousin Orlando Flores on cultivating the 2-acre field on his Vacaville property, near Sacramento.

Raul Chavez tends to rows of Agave tequilana and Agave americana plants at Muller Ag in Woodland, California.

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That's where he planted his agave in neat rows a couple of years ago. While the plants are not mature yet, they've grown enough that their pointed, outstretched leaves can brush his hip when he walks between the rows to check on them.

It's a familiar plant for Rodriguez. He grew up in a small town in the Mexican state of Jalisco, where agave is everywhere. Generations of his family have cultivated the crop. He'd imagined working with it himself one day, but after he moved to the U.S. at 16, he thought that the opportunity was behind him.

"We came here, and there wasn't any of this," Rodriguez says of growing agave, in Spanish. "We didn't think that would work here."

But a trip to Mexico with his wife a couple of years ago to visit family inspired the couple.

"When he came back and started to want more information, that's when I started to look around," says Cecilia Rodriguez in Spanish. "I told him, 'OK, it's possible.' And then we started."

Rodriguez's two acres of agave are possible in part because of California's climate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture calls California the most agriculturally productive state in the country. In past years, though, the state has seen some of its mainstay crops struggle amid historic drought conditions. Agave, however, can withstand hotter and drier conditions.

Before 2023, fewer than 50 acres of agave were growing in California, according to a University of California, Davis report. That number has increased to over 200. Interest also led to the formation of the California Agave Council in 2022. The nonprofit supports growers, and it now includes 80 growers and eight distillers.

When Flores heard his cousin Rodriguez's plan to plant agave, Flores says in Spanish, he began to feel an itch: "Like a thorn of 'I want to do this, and we want to do this.' And we got to work."

Raul Chavez, field manager at Muller Ag, harvests Agave tequilana using a coa on June 10. Mexican agave farmers, also called jimadores, have long used the tool to slice off the plant's leaves. This leaves behind the plant's core, which is key to making agave spirits.

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Growing agave in California's weather extremes

Flores knows how agave is grown in Mexico, but he says California's climate is a different story.

"We're learning," he says in Spanish. "Why? Because it's very different — the cycles, the climate, the type of soil." But Flores says that little by little, they're gaining a better understanding of how to grow the crop.

Dry periods are normal in California, as are periods of relief. But experts say droughts will likely persist and even intensify with climate change. When drought strikes, water gets affected. And in California, farmers have struggled to keep crops like almonds, that require a lot of water, healthy.

Agaves, however, can take the heat. They're easy to maintain and don't need a lot of water. Craig Reynolds, founder of the California Agave Council, compares the plant with almonds: While almonds need about 48 inches of water per acre per year, agaves need only 3 inches. Reynolds says this is why he sees great potential in the plant.

"For me, it's all about climate change and how can California farmers adapt and not have to fallow thousands of acres that are predicted to be fallowed in the next 20 years," Reynolds says.

Already, Reynolds has seen California officials incentivize farmers to fallow their land — that is, leave it unplanted to preserve water resources. Agave could allow farmers to use lands they'd otherwise leave alone, because the plant doesn't require as much water as other crops.

"It's not going to replace any entire crop, but it's already proving to be a viable alternative," Reynolds says. "And as it grows, I think it's going to prove even more so."

But growing the crop in California still comes with challenges.

"In light of the climate change, we don't know what is going to happen for sure," says Paula Guzmán-Delgado, a plant physiologist with UC Davis. "For sure, there is going to be less water and it's going to be warmer, so agave is a good candidate."

Guzmán-Delgado is a researcher with the recently formed UC Davis Agave Center. She is looking specifically at how different species of agave grow throughout California. The goal, she says, is to identify best practices for growing the plant in a place where temperatures can swing from intense heat to extreme cold.

Guzmán-Delgado says the climate is more consistent in agave-growing regions in Mexico. Now, California farmers have to learn what kinds of agave grow best in different parts of the state — like Agave tequilana, often called blue agave, or Agave americana.

"We have a huge climatic variability and soil variability," Guzmán-Delgado says. "Even if we get information from Mexico, we have to adapt to the conditions of California."

Craig Reynolds, president of the California Agave Council, drives a load of freshly harvested agave piñas. These will be cooked down in a pit for a week before being used to make agave spirits.

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It takes patience to grow agave

Raul Chavez started growing agave years before Guzmán-Delgado's research began. He's the field manager at Muller Ag in Woodland, near Sacramento.

He met Reynolds, another early enthusiast, about a decade ago. Alongside cultivating their own crop, the two have connected new growers — like Rodriguez — with plant starts and information they need to start growing their own.

It's work Chavez loves. He grew up in Tonaya, a town in Jalisco that calls itself the Land of Mezcal. Many of the family members he knew growing up were agave farmers, or jimadores, and still are today.

Chavez feels most at peace when he's tending to the agave, he says in Spanish: "That's when you calm down, see the plants, see what needs to be done, and I have a lot of fun with that."

It's also hard work. Chavez mostly grows Agave tequilana on the approximately 8 acres he leases from Muller Ag. It takes around seven years before the crop is ready to be harvested. Once the plant matures, its thick leaves are sliced off with a coa — a sharp metal disc attached to a wooden pole.

All that remains afterward is the core, the piña. For Agave tequilana, each piña weighs about 200 pounds. The jimador will usually cut it in half to make it easier to haul to an earthen pit where it'll be cooked down. Later, the cooked agave gets turned into an agave spirit.

Chavez learned to harvest agave from his brother, an experienced jimador who now lives in San Francisco. Guzmán-Delgado says she has noticed that many people who harvest agave by hand in California have similar backgrounds.

"It [agave harvesting] needs skilled workers," she says. "In this case, Mexican people know how to do it — they are the ones teaching others." Guzmán-Delgado says there aren't enough of those skilled workers in California. She says farmers will have to figure out a way to mechanize the process for the agave industry to really flourish.

"It is impossible to harvest all the agave that [is] going to be in California," she says. "They will have to build a machine for harvesting."

David Ortega (left) and Gian Pablo Nelson unload Agave americana piñas from their truck on Aug. 3.

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A growing market for California agave spirits

Rodriguez's agave crop won't be ready to harvest for a few more years. If it's a success, he hopes one day to leave his job as a roofer and grow agave full time.

"The plan is to see what happens next and, if we see there's a future, dedicate ourselves completely to the agave," says Rodriguez in Spanish.

Growing agave is only one-half of the equation. The other is distilling it to make agave spirits.

"Agave spirits" differentiates California's product from mezcal or tequila, both monikers that are attached to the regions in Mexico where they're produced (just like Champagne, which can get that title only if it's a sparkling wine made in the Champagne region of France).

In 2022, California solidified the use of the term "agave spirit" into law. It stated that anything labeled as a "California agave spirit" must be made from 100% California-grown agave without any additives or coloring.

Sean Venus, who owns Venus Spirits in Santa Cruz, started distilling agave in 2014. He initially relied entirely on agave syrup from Mexico to make the spirit.

But after partnering with Reynolds, he started using California-grown agave. Venus says there isn't enough of it for all the agave spirits he makes, so he still relies on syrup from Mexico — but he expects that to change.

"I would say four to five years," Venus says. "There's going to be a lot of it available as the farmers that are just getting into it right now are getting mature plants."

Until then, Venus and other distillers are planning to make sure the operations and the distribution system are in place.

Gian Pablo Nelson, a Napa-based distiller and the owner of Jano Spirits, says this preparation requires some innovation. He started distilling agave a couple of years ago and says, unlike Venus, he decided to use only agaves that are native to the U.S., like Agave americana.

As he waits for more growers' crops to mature, he and his business partner have had to get creative in how they source that agave.

"We have to find those agaves out in the wild," Nelson says. "If we see a bunch of wild agave on the side of the highway, we'll pin them [on our map]."

After that, he says he'll find the plant's owner and ask whether he can harvest it.

"We're doing this in a kind of organic — not grassroots, but almost agave roots movement," Nelson says.

For now, Nelson says, this work is mostly a labor of love rather than a lucrative one.

Agave piñas are loaded into an earthen pit, where they will be steamed for about a week over hot stones. Then they will be used to make agave spirits.

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More agave, more growers

At the farm where Chavez grows agave, the voice of Colombian singer Carlos Vives blares through speakers. Reynolds says the music is a good way to get people in the mood to cook the piñas.

Distillers and growers take shots of agave spirit made by a California distiller alongside mounds of piñas laid out on blue tarps by a stone-lined earthen pit.

They toss pencas — the agave leaves — over heated stones to protect the piñas from burning and to help steam them. Next, they haul the heavy piñas into the pit under Chavez's direction, each one landing with a satisfying thud. 

"Put it right there," Chavez says, switching between Spanish and English and nodding to a spot among the growing pile of agave cores. "That one on the top, right?"

Chavez and others stamp the piñas with their feet to pack them in tight. The pit is covered with a tarp, and dirt gets shoveled on top to trap the heat. The piñas will steam here for a week before being processed into agave spirits.

Chavez has done this many times and enjoys explaining the process to newer growers — like Abraham Granados, who grew up in a town in Jalisco. His family grew corn instead of agave. Even so, Granados says that he, like others, was intrigued by the broad-leafed plant and wondered what it would be like to grow it.

It would be some years before he'd find out. He followed his father's footsteps after moving to the U.S. and worked in construction, later starting his own company in San Francisco. But Granados says in Spanish, "In reality, everything I like to do has to do with being out in the fields."

He planted his agave in Tracy, a town south of Sacramento, last October.

"I feel a little like I'm inside the dream I had as a child," Granados, now 50, says in Spanish.

While he waits for the agave to mature, Granados says, he's making plans to launch his own distillery. That requires some patience.

"As I've just barely planted, I have six years to plan what I'm going to do for my distillery," he says.

Granados says he doesn't have enough water to grow most other crops on his land — but agave's sturdiness and adaptability make it the exception.

These qualities are exactly why agave has gained so much traction in California that this year, state lawmakers passed a bill that would establish an agave commission. Reynolds says he expects Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign the bill, especially because Newsom has shown support for climate-resilient agriculture.

"If you look at it [agave] as an infant industry, this is kind of — OK, we've been crawling for two years and now we're toddlers," Reynolds says. "We're on our own two feet walking."

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced several significant rule changes for the 99th Oscars, including AI protections for actors and writers as well as expanded eligibility for international films.

In a statement to NPR, the Academy on Saturday said the changes are in response to listening to the global filmmaking community and addressing barriers to entry in its eligibility process.

The Academy added that its rules and eligibility standards have always evolved alongside technologies such as sound, color, and CGI, and that AI is no different. Awards rules and guidelines are reviewed and refined each year.

A blow for Tilly Norwood 

Among the most noteworthy changes, the Academy now explicitly states that only roles, "demonstrably performed by humans with their consent" are eligible for Acting awards. In other words, AI creations like the much-hyped Tilly Norwood cannot hope to win a Best Actress Oscar anytime soon.

Particle6, the production company behind Norwood, did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment on Saturday about its creations' ban from consideration. In March, Norwood commented, "Can't wait to go to the Oscars!" in an Instagram post announcing its newly released music video.

The Academy also requires screenplays to be "human-authored" and said it reserved the right to investigate the use of generative AI in any submission.

Meanwhile, qualifying flesh-and-blood human actors can now be nominated for multiple performances in the same category if those performances get enough votes to land in the top five. So, someone like Anne Hathaway, who has five major movies scheduled for release in 2026, could now theoretically sweep the nominations – though that outcome seems extremely unlikely.

"If an actor has an extremely prolific year, might we even see someone swallow up three of the five nominations?," wrote Deadline's awards columnist and chief film critic Pete Hammond about the changes. "Probably won't happen, but it's now possible."

Under previous rules, an actor could only receive one nomination per category. If they had two high-ranking performances in Best Actor, for example, only the one with the most votes would move forward.

International films prioritizes filmmakers over countries

While international films can still be the official selection of their countries, now they can qualify by winning the top prize at a major international festival such as the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the Golden Lion at Venice, or the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Historically, countries "owned" the nomination, and only one film per country was allowed. The new rules allow multiple films from the same country to compete if they are critically acclaimed, and it shifts the honor from a geopolitical entity to the filmmakers themselves.

Largely positive response

The changes have prompted a largely positive reaction from the film community on social media, such as on the popular The Shade Room entertainment and celebrity-focused Instagram feed, where commenters widely praised the "human-only" move to protect creative jobs.

The Academy's Awards Committee oversees the rules in tandem with branch executive committees, the International Feature Film Executive Committee and the Scientific and Technical Awards Executive Committee.

The rules are scheduled to go into effect next year, covering films released in 2026.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Los Angeles changes fast, and oftentimes that means some of the architectural relics of our shared past get swept up and paved over in all the "progress." (RIP Garden of Allah.)

But there are still places where you can find ruins that tell a tale, like a long-forgotten speakeasy reputedly for old Hollywood near La Crescenta.

The ruins are still there 

On a recent afternoon, author and local historian Mike Lawler led me just beyond the boundary of Crescenta Valley Park. Joggers like me might have seen an old, towering stone arch shrouded by bushes there — and wondered what lies beyond.

Turns out there was once a place called the Verdugo Lodge back there and Lawler has spent years excavating its history.

A car speeds away from the lodge onto New York Avenue. The stone archway that still stands can be seen in the background.

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“It was a very high-end speakeasy for a time,” Lawler, who also helps run the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley, said. “An amazing thing. And all the ruins are still here, just like this arch.”

Lawler said we don’t know exactly when the lodge was built, but we do have some of the picture starting in the late 1920s. The place was set up kind of like a timeshare where people bought 10 x 10 foot ‘tent lots’ that gave them access to on-site amenities. There was a golf course, stables, trout stream, a swimming pool — and a lodge with gambling and alcohol.

“The Crescenta Valley in the teens and '20s was a hotbed of moonshine, prostitution, all that stuff," Lawler said. "It was a quiet little community. But in all these canyons up here, stuff was going on. Illegal stuff!”

We don’t have a full guest list, but Lawler said it’s likely at least a few Hollywood types had gone up to the lodge to circumvent Prohibition era laws.

In some ways, it was kind of like the original glamping. Lawler said patrons probably weren’t doing much sleeping, though.

“They might have been unconscious!” he said with a chuckle.

Lawler led me to a road that swooped around a meadow. We passed by a massive swimming pool nestled into the hillside.

Once known as the “Crystal Pool,” it’s now empty and fenced off, with pitch black locker rooms below.

The exterior of the locker rooms for the old Crystal Pool.

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We continued our journey up the hill and eventually arrived at a cascading stone stairway.

And at the top, the big show: overgrown with orange monkey flowers and goliath agaves lies the foundation of the old Verdugo Lodge, with lofty stone fireplaces the only guardians keeping the surrounding oak trees at bay.

Lawler takes out a floorplan that one of the former owners drew up for him.

“This is what it was laid out like on the inside. So a dancehall, and band stand on that side... And then upstairs was the gambling,” Lawler said.

Lawler had in hand a copy of a Los Angeles Times article from 1933 he found. The headline reads: “Revelers Flee in Lodge Raid.”

“The police that raided it were here at 3 o'clock in the morning. And there were still 500 people here. And they said it was the classiest joint they had ever raided... Anyway, people were diving out of windows and everything,” Lawler explained.

In a ruin like this, covered with moss and overgrowth, the imagination can run wild, too.

The archway that still stands outside of what's now known as Mountain Oaks.

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Lawler pointed out a questionable door jam below the old dancefloor that’s been cemented over.

“That is a door. So what is behind there? So there’s a room in there that got walled in for some reason,” he said.

What we do know is that, sometime after the raid, the tawdry Verdugo Lodge and the surrounding land were purchased and then renamed Mountain Oaks by the Kadletzes — an entrepreneurial family who had run everything from a Turkish bath to a mini golf course. Over the next few decades, the family would rent the place out to local groups for recreational retreats.

The future of Mountain Oaks 

After they sold it in the ‘60s, Lawler said Mountain Oaks faced a “nightmare” of development threats. Over the years, some of the subdivided "tent lots" had been combined and sold off, Lawler said. A dozen private homes now stand on these pieces of land, next to the ruins of the Verdugo Lodge.

A map showing the Mountain Oaks public property acquired by The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA).

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Last year, with help from the City of Glendale, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant among other funding sources, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) put up $6.1 million to acquire 33-acres of the land — not including the private lots where the homes stand — so the public can continue to roam the meadow and ruins.

Paul Edelman, MRCA's director of natural resources and planning, said his group will continue to manage the land, doing things like brush clearance, trash pickup and sign maintenance. And he said there are no current plans to remove the ruins or make any major changes to the property.

“If somebody comes up with a grand idea where they can find some funding for us to do something to enhance it, we’re always open to it,” Edelman said.

The purchase was good news for local preservationist Joanna Linkchorst.

“I grew up directly up the hill. But I always saw the sign that said ‘private property’ and didn’t really think about it until several years ago when I finally asked Mike. And he said, ‘Oh yeah, we got a resort speakeasy down the street,’” Linkchorst said standing among the oaks and overgrowth.

Linkchorst, who founded the group Friends of Rockhaven to preserve another nearby historic site, said it’s been amazing to see all of the decaying structures that were still hiding out at Mountain Oaks.

“There’s almost like these little ghosts in your head as you imagine what it was like when there was a beautiful wood floor and there was a second floor that people came jumping out of,” Linkchorst said.

Now, let’s check in to the Overlook Hotel.

That’s the fictional place Stanley Kubrick brought to life in his 1980 film The Shining, loosely based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name.

A local architect who hails from South Pasadena meticulously crafted a 3D model of the iconic space so Shining fans everywhere never have to check out.

‘I just couldn’t stop’ 

At his day job, architect Anthony Chieh mainly works on residential and boutique commercial spaces. But over the course of five months, he spent his nights meticulously recreating a virtual replica of the Overlook Hotel from the film that first scared him when he was 12.

Of course he started with the deeply haunted Room 237. That’s where Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, has a terrifying encounter with a ghostly woman.

Chieh's 3D rendering of Room 237

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“But once I started, I just couldn’t stop,” Chieh told LAist.

“I ended up modeling the Colorado Lounge, and then after that I was thinking maybe I should make the lobby and then arriving to the Gold Room, and then Grady’s bathroom.”

“It’s like a rabbit hole,” he said.

Users who download Chieh’s free 3D model can fly through all of those spaces, immersed in atmospheric sounds and music from the film.

“It’s interesting to dive into these kind of fictional environments and try to make sense of it,” Chieh said. “And the hope is people will get a different perspective once they’re in there.”

Kubrick’s take on the Overlook was famously inspired by real hotels like the Timberline Lodge in Oregon and the Ahwahnee in Yosemite. But the interiors you see in the film were created on sound stages in England.

“Real architecture, physical buildings, are built for people to live. And for movies, these are more meant to express the emotional aspect of things. It’s a psychological construct,” Chieh said.

In a recently published video essay on YouTube, Chieh dives deep into those psychological constructs and how, as he puts it, “Kubrick designed the Overlook Hotel not as a backdrop, but as the film's true villain.”

How spaces scare 

Chieh said during the monthslong process he was reminded of the power of architecture and design in the real world too – whether it’s an uncomfortably repetitive carpet design or a claustrophobic hallway.

“A physical construct can affect your emotion,” Chieh said.

“You can use it in a way to make people feel comfortable and you can also use it in a way to create fear.”

Chieh's 3D rendering of the Torrance's apartment in 'The Shining'

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What’s next for this architect moonlighting as a 3D modeler?

Chieh says he’s thinking about giving the spaceship from “2001: A Space Odyssey" the virtual treatment next. Or maybe turning to a local non-fictional space, like the Stahl House.

That is, of course, if he can ever escape the Overlook.