The Brief

On a sunny, early summer morning, Matthew Milner waited in his driveway in the Berkeley hills. It was his solar install day, and he was excited. He greeted the installers and walked them around to the back of his house. But instead of pointing to his roof, he pointed to his wooden backyard fence. That is where these solar panels would go, tilted, with their bottom edge on the ground, and top leaning against the fence’s wooden planks.

The installation wrapped up in two hours, demanded minimal paperwork, and damaged Milner’s wallet only marginally, as far as solar installations go. By noon, he plugged in an electrical cord that snaked from the panels into an outlet on the outside of his house. Immediately, solar power coursed toward his electrical panel and then flowed back through his home.

With that, he was offsetting his home’s energy use.

Milner is one of the solar-curious, who are testing the waters by purchasing a small, portable, plug-in display.

“We’d wanted to get rooftop solar, but it’s so expensive,” said Milner, a scientist. The price of rooftop solar in California ranges widely and can cost tens of thousands of dollars. “This allows us to dip our toe in a little bit without having a huge financial cost and see how it works for us.”

Plug-in solar, also called balcony solar, is a new take on an old technology. For years, panels that turn sunshine into electricity have been bolted onto rooftops and limited to people who own homes, have well-maintained roofs in prime positions, and a decent amount of cash or good credit.

Rupert Mayer walks Matthew Milner through using an app that monitors the power produced by the newly installed solar panels at Milner’s home.

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But plug-and-play solar can hang from an apartment balcony, out a window, or be tented in the backyard — the smaller, more affordable displays offer an attractive alternative for renters and people with no roof at all. They may even appeal to Californians who would have bought rooftop solar but are hesitant after state regulators reduced how much someone can earn by selling excess power back to the grid.

For a long time, the economics of rooftop solar penciled out, said Bernadette del Chiaro, senior vice president for California at Environmental Working Group, who headed California’s trade association for rooftop solar for years. “I think it’s very different now for a consumer.”

On top of this, Congress’s recent budget bill reduced or eliminated solar tax credits.

Now, del Chiaro said, consumers are more likely to say: “‘I’m just going to install my own system, hang it on my own balcony and PG&E never needs to know.’”

Californians, struggling with soaring electricity bills, are eager to adopt the technology.

Advocates believe the state’s market has massive potential. They’re motivated by two examples: Utah, which recently passed legislation allowing the technology to take off once additional safety measures are implemented, and Germany, where millions of solar panels dot balconies across the country.

But there are clear hurdles, and fuzzy ones too. Utility PG&E said its customers must register the technology before they plug it in. But small solar advocates argue the registration process should be faster for these systems than it is for rooftop solar. It’s time-consuming, costly, and exactly the type of bureaucracy they’re trying to cut out.

A nonprofit called Bright Saver installed Milner’s system — it’s one of the many start-ups championing the small arrays. The organization is hoping to create a movement and plays an umbrella role for companies, policymakers and safety certification organizations.

Bright Saver’s first product is two solar panels and accessories, which can power about a fifth of the average Californian’s energy needs: covering lights and small electronics, maybe even an efficient refrigerator. It can produce 800 watts and costs $2,100, but the founders think the costs will drop in the coming years.

Rupert Mayer tests the newly installed solar panels at Matthew Milner's home.

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The organization estimates it will take Milner, who purchased his system at a discounted rate of $1,700, four to five years to make back the upfront investment in the panels through bill savings. That’s about three times faster than how long it takes to recoup the investment from rooftop solar.

Milner was motivated to try out solar because, as a father of two young kids, he wants to take action on climate change. And like most Californians, his energy bills are high, about $75 to $80 per month.

“It fixes our energy cost a little bit, because rates keep rising,” Milner said.

As easy as buying an IKEA-style table

Pranav Myana, 21-year-old founder of Zoltux, an energy company based in San Francisco, is working on his own version of this technology: a shippable set of two lightweight panels, just millimeters thick, together about the size of a medium dining room table top. Myana said you can assemble it in five minutes.

He calls it an “instant solar pod” and is pricing it at $1,199, which he estimates will pay for itself in three to four years. The company is taking pre-orders now and plans to ship the product in early fall.

Myana was inspired to build Zoltux after visiting his family’s homeland in India, a town called Sircilla, where the main industry is weaving with electric looms. When power became expensive and inconsistent, mounting debts led to many suicides that, Myana said, included some of his family members.

Rupert Mayer installs power inverters on the solar panels at Matthew Milner’s home.

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“It showed me just how fundamental energy was to everything we do,” he said.

Some companies like Bright Saver employ staff to install their panels, but a goal is to cut out professionals altogether. That’s because roughly half the price of getting solar is in labor and “soft costs” like permitting.

The dream is for plug-in solar to be purchased off the shelf and set up by the customer, IKEA-style.

Already, plug-in solar companies are working to add a small battery to their setups to gather extra power, store it and deploy it when the sun goes down.

But plug-in solar has risks, like most appliances. Without safety measures or proper equipment, wires could overheat and ignite a fire, or the systems could send power back to the grid when there’s a power outage, endangering a line worker sent out to make repairs.

Start-ups address these by plugging into a dedicated circuit, using a “smart plug” that can shut the solar panels off if there’s excessive current on the system, or a sensor to shut it off when the larger grid goes down.

Why isn’t plug-in solar already everywhere?

For one thing, there’s no safety standard for a complete plug-in solar system. Safety standards are typically shown by a “UL” stamp, or similar marking, on the back of products, indicating they’ve met requirements set by Underwriters Laboratories, an independent testing organization.

These exist for individual parts of the system only, which some companies assemble and view as sufficiently safe. UL said they are working on a safety standard for a full system.

Rupert Mayer installs power inverters on the solar panels at Matthew Milner’s home.

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Plug-in solar does not fit easily into layers of national, state and local electric code and operates in a regulatory gray area in California, where utilities want customers to register the product as they would a rooftop system.

“There’s these big gaps where it’s certainly not that you can’t do this, but it’s also not clear that you can absolutely do this,” without registering the system, said Kevin Chou, a co-founder of Bright Saver.

To stay within California rules and skirt filling out an interconnection agreement with utilities, Bright Saver’s technology prevents excess power from feeding back into the grid.

PG&E representatives said registration costs roughly $100 to $800 and shouldn’t take much time at all: just an hour if you have all your documents ready to go, with a standard approval time of three days.

Spokesperson Paul Doherty said the utility “supports new technology to make interconnecting [distributed energy resources like plug-in solar] to the utility grid as easy as possible,” but added that “it is essential” for customers to apply for an interconnection agreement, citing safety and reliability.

“They tell you you should, but they do not provide a practical means for it,” said Rupert Mayer, another Bright Saver co-founder. In Germany, customers register their name, address, system size and meter number, he added. It allows a utility to plan its electric load for a neighborhood.

“That is legitimate for the power company to want to know. But if you require someone who plugs in a single solar panel to go through the whole very bureaucratic interconnection process that they would need to go with rooftop solar,” Mayer said, as is the current case in California, “you basically make it prohibitive and put up an unnecessary hurdle.”

As his organization has grown more aware of PG&E’s interpretation of state rules, Mayer said Bright Saver has paused installations like Milner’s, at least in California, and is focused on education instead.

A breakthrough in Utah, inspired by Germany

One way to cut through the gray areas surrounding rooftop solar is to allow it, very clearly, in writing.

That’s what Utah state Rep. Raymond Ward did.

Ward wrote legislation to allow balcony solar after reading an article about its ubiquity abroad.

“I’m interested in anything that helps move towards more abundant energy,” said Ward, a Republican. “Anything that moves towards more clean power, with how that relates to the climate, is important to me.”

He championed legislation allowing people to plug in small solar arrays without a permit or utility fee, so long as they comply with the national electric code and third-party product safety standards. Products with certified components are already on the market.

Matthew Milner in his backyard.

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The bill passed Utah’s state legislature with unanimous, bipartisan support in March. It was quickly signed into law by Republican Gov. Spencer Cox.

“It has turned out to be pretty important, right? A lot of people were watching,” Ward said.

Christian Ofenheusle is one of the architects of Germany’s plug-in solar movement. When he started in 2017, he estimated there were around 40,000 plug-in solar installations. He struggled with many of the problems facing plug-in solar in the U.S. now.

But movement leaders have made the process of getting plug-in solar straightforward through concerted effort. The product is even on sale at IKEA. Now, there are one million documented, and several million more running without formally registering with the government, Ofenheusle said.

Collectively, those panels generate the same amount of electricity as a small power plant that did not have to be built.

But even if there is widespread adoption of this technology, in terms of overall power needs, “balcony solar is a small, small piece” of overall demand, cautioned Dan Kammen, an energy professor at UC Berkeley.

Still, Kammen said plug-in solar matters, in part because “every bit helps.” And also, because panels hanging off your balcony are a talking point.

“A lot of what we do is not just signaling to others, but it’s signaling to ourselves,” he said. And it’s a way to take tangible action.

“The more you learn about solar panels for your home purchases, the more that you can translate that into the business world. And that education is invaluable,” Kammen said.

Something unusual is happening with only a few days remaining before the U.S. men's national team opens its World Cup campaign against Paraguay: Tickets for the match are not sold out.

Although numbers fluctuate regularly, FIFA's ticketing website still shows 132 tickets left to sell for a game that's set to take place in Los Angeles on Friday. Meanwhile, resale platforms such as StubHub and SeatGeek — and FIFA's own marketplace — also show thousands of tickets on sale.

The number is even higher for Canada's opening match against Bosnia Herzegovina in Toronto on the same day, with 226 tickets left in FIFA's website and a high number of tickets available in resale markets.

That's unusual for high-profile events such as the opening matches of the World Cup — traditionally among the hardest to get tickets in the tournament. This year will feature three hosts in the U.S., Canada and Mexico — but so far only Mexico's opening match against South Africa on Thursday looks to be virtually sold out.

Ticketing experts widely agree on the reason: the prices. FIFA dramatically jacked them up for the tournament — especially for high profile games. The most expensive regular seats for the U.S. opener against Paraguay are priced at $2,735 — more than the final cost for the 2022 World Cup final — while the cheapest are $1,120.

Even President Trump said he wouldn't pay those prices.

"I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn't pay it either, to be honest with you," Trump told the New York Post in a recent interview.

The other two remaining games for the U.S. national have far fewer tickets available, given that prices are well below the ones for the opening match.

Prices have also fallen sharply

There are not only plenty of tickets left to sell — a number of them are also available below FIFA's face value. According to Ticketdata, which tracks prices across the resale platforms, the cheapest pair of tickets for the opening match for the U.S. and Canada was $951 as of Monday morning, while in FIFA's resale platform, tickets were available for as low as $690.

Other games across the 104-match tournament also still have many tickets left to sell — despite FIFA President Gianni Infantino's claim that every match is "already sold out." That's especially the case for lesser well known teams such as the Jordan against Algeria match, which still had hundreds of unsold seats in the FIFA's web site.

Demand for high-profile tickets such as Argentina and Portugal was far higher, however, with many of those games looking largely sold out.

Will the opening matches sell out?

Whether eventually the U.S. and Canada opening matches will sell out is hard to answer. Throughout the sales process, FIFA has closely guarded how many tickets it has actually sold and how many are left to sell, making it virtually impossible to gauge.

In addition, like other teams, FIFA could also sell tickets in other platforms including third-party ones such as SeatGeek, which can further obscure how many tickets are left to sell.

FIFA and organizers, however, are hoping for a surge in excitement that leads to a last-minute rush of sales for the opening matches as well as for those such as Jordan against Algeria that look far from being sold out.

Ben Shields, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, says perceptions so far of the tournament have been shaped by how expensive tickets and travel has been for a tournament taking place across an entire continent.

That, he says, "does not seem to sit well with many."

But that could change.

"The hope or bet — for FIFA is that once the matches start — and the greatest players in the world compete for the most prestigious prize of them all, the sport as business lens will fade into the background and the World Cup will be seen and experienced as the enduring global institution that it is," Shields says. "We shall see."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Orange County’s top elected leaders on Tuesday are set to discuss what to do with $3.7 million recovered from the Andrew Do corruption scheme.

Do is now serving a five-year sentence in federal prison after he admitted to accepting bribes in exchange for awarding millions in tax dollars meant to feed needy seniors and people with disabilities in his district.

As part of the plea deal, Do acknowledged taking more than $800,000 in bribes through his two daughters, including a down payment on the house his youngest daughter Rhiannon Do later forfeited to resolve the criminal case. The scheme was first uncovered by LAist.

Federal officials recovered money from seized bank accounts and two properties connected to Do’s scheme — including the Tustin house his daughter bought.

The county Board of Supervisors is expected to publicly discuss plans for the recovered funds as they make decisions on the overall county budget at their meeting Tuesday. Public comment will also be taken.

What to do with the money?

Ahead of Tuesday’s discussion, Do’s successor said the funds should support residents of his former district who were deprived by Do and his alleged co-conspirators.

“For the past five years, every other district in Orange County has benefitted from the same community funds to support their cities, nonprofits, civic projects which strengthens their communities,” Supervisor Janet Nguyen wrote in a mass email to constituents last week. “However, our district went without because Do stole what belonged to our residents.”

“This money was stolen from the First District, and it must come back to the First District,” Nguyen added.

Nguyen was Do’s mentor and former boss more than a decade ago, before the two had a bitter falling out by 2016.

She encouraged residents of her district to send letters to the board and to speak during public comments.

Several county supervisors told LAist they supported a similar approach, one in which the recovered money goes to support the original intended recipients: seniors and people with disabilities in Do’s former district. Some supervisors have since advocated a broader view of how they’d want to use the money, noting that it was meant to address disruptions caused by the pandemic. Now that years have passed since the initial COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns, some supervisors argue community needs have changed.

“We are so many years on, and the problems that money originally was to address (mostly Covid impacts) are now behind us, that I think we should have a discussion about how and where to spend it,” Supervisor Don Wagner told LAist via text message in March. “The budget is so tight and the needs so great across the county.”

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said he’d work toward a fair distribution of the funds to best serve residents, with a focus on current needs.

“We will definitely consider what areas of the County were harmed by Do’s scheme, but we must also remember that the funds were intended for relief efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, a threat we are no longer facing,” he said in March. “We also need to consider addressing the current needs of residents with any dollars returned to the county.”

Millions more haven’t been recovered, at least yet

The amount of taxpayer money recovered so far is less than half of the $7.9 million Andrew Do admitted was diverted from specific meal contracts.

In a lawsuit seeking to recover funds, the county alleges the total amount lost in the scheme was even larger: $13.25 million. The county’s suit — scheduled for trial in November 2027 — covers all of the money Do gave to two nonprofits accused in the scheme, Viet America Society and Hand to Hand Relief Organization.

That leaves more than $4 million — and possibly much more — not yet recovered.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office noted they have an ongoing criminal case against Do’s alleged co-conspirator Peter Pham.

“Assuming we obtain a conviction in that matter, we would expect to seek restitution,” the spokesperson, Ciaran McEvoy, said.

Pham left the country on a flight to Taiwan in late 2024 and remains a fugitive, according to McEvoy. The case against him also includes charges against another alleged co-conspirator, Thanh Huong Nguyen, who led the Hand to Hand nonprofit.

Fans of the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team swelled the stadium at the Great Park in Irvine on Monday to watch players practice for the first time since arriving at the training facility they’ll call home for the first round of the 2026 World Cup.

“Seeing them play right now… it was really cool to see how they play and how they practice,” said Mila Ran, who came with her mother from nearby Mission Viejo.

“This whole time she’s saying, 'I want to go shoot, I want to go play,'” said Mila’s mother, Farah Ran.

They were among about 6,000 people who won free entry to the practice in a lottery that received more than 30,000 entries, according to Irvine officials.

Fans got to the venue early.

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The team’s biggest stars — Christian Pulisic, Antonee Robinson and others — showed off their ball handling skills, honed over years of play on U.S. youth fields and overseas in professional leagues. Fans yelled, waved U.S. flags, held up homemade signs, and did the wave several times.

The U.S. Men's National Team at their only open-to-the-public practice session in Irvine.

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After the roughly 45-minute practice, some players walked to the sidelines to take selfies with fans and sign autographs.

The players know it’s going to take more than this, however, to live up to expectations during the World Cup.

US men's national team player Tim Ream signs an autograph for a fan.

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“To be in a position to train in front of these people today… is such a unique opportunity and one that none of us take for granted,” said backup goalie Matt Freese before the practice. “We’re working as hard as we can, as focused as we can to leave the next generation inspired."

The U.S. men’s team and their training staff will use the Great Park facility over the next several weeks as the team plays Paraguay on Friday, Australia on June 19, and Turkey on June 25 in group play at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

Jury selection began Monday for the trial of the man accused of igniting a fire that led to the deadly and destructive Palisades Fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of structures.

Jonathan Rinderknecht is charged with one count of destruction of property by means of fire, one count of arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and one count of setting timber afire. He could face up to 45 years in federal prison.

How we got here

Prosecutors allege Rinderknecht set brush alight near a popular hiking trail in the Santa Monica Mountains on New Year’s Day, starting the Lachman Fire. Firefighters initially thought they put out the fire, but it remained smouldering underground for several days. High winds then brought the embers to the surface, sparking the Palisades Fire, which burned more than 23,000 acres.

What prosecutors say

In a court filing in April, prosecutors allege Rinderknecht displayed “extreme anger, indignation, and frustration” because he had to spend New Year's Eve alone. After driving around for Uber, Rinderknecht hiked up a popular trail and set chaparral alight in a clearing, according to prosecutors.

“He then started calling 911 multiple times, hiked down the hill, and fled the area in his car before firefighters arrived. Defendant returned to the area after he saw fire trucks arriving and then took videos of the firefighting efforts,” prosecutors wrote.

The filing also states that Rinderknecht threatened to burn down his sister’s home.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Rinderknecht started the smaller blaze knowing it could turn into a bigger inferno.

U.S. District Court Judge Anne Hwang has previously expressed the government’s position could confuse jurors.

What the defense says

Defense attorney Steve Haney previously told reporters that prosecutors were trying to blame Rinderknecht for a fire that started days before the Palisades Fire.

"Well what about what happened between Jan. 1 and Jan. 7?" he asked. "Jonathan wasn't out there with a fire hose putting that fire out at the Lachman location, the Fire Department was. So why are they blaming him for whatever the Fire Department didn't do?"