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How can you move beyond the standard beefsteak tomato? Scott Daigre, who has run Tomatomania for 25 years, told us about some of his favorite varieties, including Starfighter Prime, Midnight Snack and Persuasion.
Growing tips: Shoot for eight hours of sun, a consistent watering schedule and regular fertilizer. If you're growing in a pot, make sure that it's at least 15 gallons.
Read on ... for more tomato recommendations, pictures and descriptions.
Spring's here, which means if you're a gardener, it's time to plant some tomatoes.
And for many Southern Californians on the hunt for unique varieties, that means a trip to Tomatomania, a popup nursery that shows up across the region. On Friday, they kicked off their largest event of the year at Tapia Bros in Encino.
Tomatomania began in Pasadena 25 years ago and now features more than 180 varieties. The search for the ideal tomato is "like racehorse breeding," said Scott Daigre, the owner of Tomatomania. He sources his starts from nearly a dozen growers, who might grow tomatoes like Brandy Boys, a cross between Brandywine and Better Boy.
LAist asked Daigre for some tomato-growing tips and recommendations for those looking to plant interesting varieties.
Find Tomatomania in Encino, Moorpark, Ojai, Santa Monica, Hollywood and more locations in the coming weeks.
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The Walt Disney Company has invested $1 billion in OpenAI’s Sora video-generation tool, making it the first major media company to license its intellectual property to an AI system.
What it means: Household names like Mickey Mouse, Darth Vader, Iron Man and Cinderella are just some of the several hundred characters that are included as part of this three-year licensing deal that allows fans to generate and share videos with these characters, using Sora.
Content regulation: Currently, vague limitations have been outlined by Disney CEO Robert Iger in the deal, including a ban on the use of character voices and on how long a video’s duration can be.
What’s next: Disney also will become a “major customer” of OpenAI and use its technology to build new products, tools and services.
Read on ... for more details on what this deal means.
The Walt Disney Company has invested $1 billion in OpenAI’s Sora video-generation tool, making it the first major media company to license its intellectual property to an AI system.
Household names like Mickey Mouse, Darth Vader, Iron Man and Cinderella are just some of the several hundred characters that are included as part of this three-year licensing deal that allows fans to generate and share videos with these characters, using Sora.
“This is very much a situation of if you can't beat them, join them,” said Erik Barmack, AI columnist for The Ankler. He added that the media conglomerate’s characters were being generated in videos by Sora users already, and the company wants to engage those users while also having its own guardrails in place.
Currently, vague limitations have been outlined by Disney CEO Robert Iger in the deal, including a ban on the use of character voices and on how long a video’s duration can be. Barmack said there will be blocking that Disney will likely define what is or isn’t appropriate for a Disney character.
“They are not going to put Lilo and Stitch into adult situations. But those guardrails have not been published as part of this deal yet," he said.
Disney also will become a “major customer” of OpenAI and use its technology to build new products, tools and services. It also will roll out ChatGPT for employee use. Both companies said they are committed to responsible use of AI that protects the safety of users and the rights of creators. As part of the deal, some user-generated Sora videos will be made available on the Disney+ streaming service.
Listen to our interview with Erik Barmack, AI columnist for The Ankler on AirTalk with Larry Mantle.
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Irvine city leaders approved a land swap with property developer FivePoint in a 4-3 vote this week, greenlighting the development of 1,300 market-rate units that won’t have to comply with affordable housing requirements.
About the land swap: The city will give FivePoint 26.4 acres of land within Great Park in exchange for 35 acres bordering the Irvine Spectrum, dubbed the Crescent site.
More about the deal: The development of 1,300 market-rate housing units by FivePoint will generate more than $200 million in special taxes Great Park residents pay to fund school expansions and public infrastructure development. The Crescent site will be used for transit-oriented development connecting Great Park and Irvine Spectrum.
Reaction: Elizabeth Hansburg, co-founder of People for Housing OC, called the land swap an opportunity for the city to have greater say in the kind of development bordering a transit center.
Irvine city leaders approved a land swap with property developer FivePoint in a 4-3 vote Tuesday, greenlighting the development of 1,300 market-rate units that won’t have to comply with affordable housing requirements.
As part of the deal, the city will give FivePoint 26.4 acres of land within Great Park in exchange for 35 acres bordering the Irvine Spectrum, dubbed the Crescent site.
The development of 1,300 market-rate housing units, said Stephanie Frady, director of community development at the city, will generate more than $200 million in special taxes Great Park residents pay to fund school expansions and public infrastructure development.
The Crescent site “ creates an exciting opportunity for transit-oriented development and an important linkage between the Great Park and the greater Spectrum area,” said Pete Carmichael, assistant city manager.
The Irvine Spectrum attracts 17 million visitors each year, while Great Park sees around six million, with many more expected as the park builds out.
Because of the unequal acreage in the land swap, city officials also voted to waive state affordable housing requirements for the developer. The staff report for Tuesday’s meeting did not include a financial analysis of the land swap or the effects of waiving affordable housing requirements for FivePoint. LAist has requested those documents. But during the meeting, Carmichael said the 8.6 incremental acres are valued at around $66 million and that the deal benefits the city by about $37 million.
Elizabeth Hansburg, co-founder of People for Housing OC, called the land swap an opportunity for the city to have greater say in the kind of development bordering a transit center.
”When the city becomes the owner of the land adjacent to the transit center, then the city will be held to a higher percentage of affordable [housing] than a private entity would be,” she said.
Housing close to a transit center, Hansburg said, opens up “the region of where you can go for jobs.”
“For households that are low income and maybe aren't a two-car family, or maybe there isn't a car for every driver, having proximity to transit does increase your mobility in terms of areas where you're able to go to work,” she said.
In the land swap, FivePoint also will give the city $15 million. During Tuesday’s meeting, Mayor Larry Agran pushed for the city to consider using that money toward a final resting place for veterans.
But residents spoke out overwhelmingly against the idea during the public comment portion of the meeting, calling for the money instead to go toward a library.
In the end, Councilmember Melinda Liu introduced a motion to approve the land swap and to prohibit expenditure of any portion of the $15 million on the design or development of a columbarium for cremated remains. That motion passed 4-3.
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Federal health officials on Wednesday expanded an outbreak of infant botulism tied to recalled ByHeart baby formula to include all illnesses reported since the company began production in March 2022.
Possible contamination for years: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said investigators "cannot rule out the possibility that contamination might have affected all ByHeart formula products" ever made. ByHeart, a New York-based manufacturer of organic infant formula founded in 2016, recalled all its products sold in the U.S. on Nov. 11. The company, which accounts for about 1% of the U.S. infant formula market, had been selling about 200,000 cans of the product each month.
How many cases: The outbreak now includes at least 51 infants in 19 states. The new case definition includes "any infant with botulism who was exposed to ByHeart formula at any time since the product's release," according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most recent illness was reported on Dec. 1.
Federal health officials on Wednesday expanded an outbreak of infant botulism tied to recalled ByHeart baby formula to include all illnesses reported since the company began production in March 2022.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said investigators "cannot rule out the possibility that contamination might have affected all ByHeart formula products" ever made.
The outbreak now includes at least 51 infants in 19 states. The new case definition includes "any infant with botulism who was exposed to ByHeart formula at any time since the product's release," according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most recent illness was reported on Dec. 1.
No deaths have been reported in the outbreak, which was announced Nov. 8.
Previously, health officials had said the outbreak included 39 suspected or confirmed cases of infant botulism reported in 18 states since August. That's when officials at California's Infant Botulism Treatment and Prevention Program reported a rise in treatment of infants who had consumed ByHeart formula. Another 12 cases were identified with the expanded definition, including two that occurred in the original timeline and 10 that occurred from December 2023 through July 2025.
ByHeart, a New York-based manufacturer of organic infant formula founded in 2016, recalled all its products sold in the U.S. on Nov. 11. The company, which accounts for about 1% of the U.S. infant formula market, had been selling about 200,000 cans of the product each month.
News that ByHeart products could have been contaminated for years was distressing to Andi Galindo, whose 5-week-old daughter, Rowan, was hospitalized in December 2023 with infant botulism after drinking the formula. Galindo, 36, of Redondo Beach, California, said she insisted on using ByHeart formula to supplement a low supply of breast milk because it was recommended by a lactation consultant as "very natural, very gentle, very good for the babies."
"That's a hard one," Galindo said. "If there is proof that there were issues with their manufacturing and their plant all the way back from the beginning, that is a problem and they really need to be held accountable."
Amy Mazziotti, 43, of Burbank, California, said her then-5-month-old son, Hank, fell ill and was treated for botulism in March, weeks after he began drinking ByHeart. Being included in the investigation of the outbreak "feels like a win for all of us," she said Wednesday.
"I've known in my gut from the beginning that ByHeart was the reason Hank got sick, and to see that these cases are now part of the investigation brings me to tears — a mix of relief, gratitude and hope that the truth is finally being recognized," she said.
In a statement late Wednesday, ByHeart officials said the company is cooperating with federal officials "to understand the full scope of related cases."
"The new cases reported by CDC and FDA will help inform ByHeart's investigation as we continue to seek the root cause of the contamination," the statement said.
The FDA sent inspectors last month to ByHeart plants in Allerton, Iowa, and Portland, Oregon, where the formula is produced and packaged. The agency has released no results from those inspections.
The company previously reported that tests by an independent laboratory showed that 36 samples from three different lots contained the type of bacteria that can cause infant botulism.
"We cannot rule out the risk that all ByHeart formula across all product lots may have been contaminated," the company wrote on its website last month.
Those results and discussions with the FDA led CDC officials to expand the outbreak, according to Dr. Jennifer Cope, a CDC scientist leading the investigation.
"It looks like the contamination appeared to persist across all production runs, different lots, different raw material lots," Cope said. "They couldn't isolate it to specific lots from a certain time period."
Inspection documents showed that ByHeart had a history of problems with contamination.
In 2022, the year ByHeart started making formula, the company recalled five batches of infant formula after a sample at a packaging plant tested positive for a different germ, cronobacter sakazakii. In 2023, the FDA sent a warning letter to the company detailing "areas that still require corrective actions."
A ByHeart plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, was shut down in 2023 just before FDA inspectors found problems with mold, water leaks and insects, documents show.
Infant botulism is a rare disease that affects fewer than 200 babies in the U.S. each year. It's caused when infants ingest botulism bacteria that produce spores that germinate in the intestines, creating a toxin that affects the nervous system. Babies are vulnerable until about age 1 because their gut microbiomes are not mature enough to fight the toxin.
Baby formula has previously been linked to sporadic cases of illness, but no known outbreaks of infant botulism tied to powdered formula have previously been confirmed, according to research studies.
Symptoms can take up to 30 days to develop and can include constipation, poor feeding, loss of head control, drooping eyelids and a flat facial expression. Babies may feel "floppy" and can have problems swallowing or breathing.
The sole treatment for infant botulism is known as BabyBIG, an IV medication made from the pooled blood plasma of adults immunized against botulism. California's infant botulism program developed the product and is the sole source worldwide.
The antibodies provided by BabyBIG are likely most effective for about a month, although they may continue circulating in the child's system for several months, said Dr. Sharon Nachman, an expert in pediatric infectious disease at Stony Brook Children's Hospital.
"The risk to the infant is ongoing and the family should not be using this formula after it was recalled," Nachman said in an email.
Families of several babies treated for botulism after drinking ByHeart formula have sued the company. Lawsuits filed in federal courts allege that the formula they fed their children was defective and ByHeart was negligent in selling it. They seek financial payment for medical bills, emotional distress and other harm.
Copyright 2025 NPR
Topline:
Over the past decade, nearly 40,000 people have died and more than 2 million have been injured on California roads.
Why it matters: As an ongoing CalMatters investigation has shown this year, time and again those crashes were caused by repeat drunk drivers, chronic speeders and motorists with well-documented histories of recklessness behind the wheel. Year after year, officials with the power to do something about it — the governor, legislators, the courts, the Department of Motor Vehicles — have failed to act.
Lawmakers say next session could bring change: A number of lawmakers said they are aware of the carnage on our roadways and plan to do something about it this coming legislative session, maybe.
Read on... for how a bill to fight DUIs failed.
At a California State Senate committee hearing this year, the director of Caltrans, Tony Tavares, showed a simple chart that might have caused the assembled lawmakers some alarm.
It was a series of black bars representing the death toll on California's roads in each of the past 20 years.
Fatalities had been falling until 2010, when the bars started getting longer and longer. A blood-red arrow shot up over the growing lines, charting their rise, as if to make sure nobody could miss the more than 60% increase in deaths.
“We are working to reverse the overall trend,” Tavares said.
No legislators asked about the chart. No one asked the director what, exactly, his agency was doing about it.
Over the next three hours, the Senate Transportation Committee members asked instead about homeless encampments along roads, gas tax revenue, gender identity on ID’s and planning for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
The committee chair said it was the legislature’s first informational hearing on the state’s transportation system in more than a decade. Yet only two senators — both Republicans with little legislative power in a state controlled by Democrats — even asked about dangerous driving, one following up with questions about a deadly stretch of road in her district and the other about a small California Highway Patrol program to target egregious behavior behind the wheel.
Over the past decade, nearly 40,000 people have died and more than 2 million have been injured on California roads. As an ongoing CalMatters investigation has shown this year, time and again those crashes were caused by repeat drunk drivers, chronic speeders and motorists with well-documented histories of recklessness behind the wheel. Year after year, officials with the power to do something about it — the governor, legislators, the courts, the Department of Motor Vehicles — have failed to act.
The silence, in the face of a threat that endangers nearly every Californian, is damning.
California has some of the weakest DUI laws in the nation. Here, DUI-related deaths have been rising more than twice as fast as the rest of the country. But this fall, a state bill to strengthen DUI penalties was gutted at the last minute.
When it comes to speeding — one of the biggest causes of fatal crashes — again the legislature has done little. For two years in a row, bills that would have required the use of speed-limiting technology on vehicles have failed.
Lawmakers did pass legislation a couple years ago that allows the use of speed cameras. But it’s just a pilot project in a handful of jurisdictions.
Marc T. Vukcevich, director of state policy for advocacy group Streets For All, considers it a win — but a modest one.
“This shit is not enough to deal with the size and severity and the complexity of the problem we have when it comes to violence on our roadways,” Vukcevich said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom declined an interview request. Last year, he vetoed a bill that would have required technology that alerts drivers when they’re speeding.
The state DMV, which is under his authority, has wide latitude to take dangerous drivers off the road. But it routinely allows drivers with extreme histories of dangerous driving to continue to operate on our roadways, where many go on to kill.
Steve Gordon, whom Newsom chose to run the agency in 2019, won’t talk about it. He has declined or ignored CalMatters requests for an interview.
The agency simply released a statement from him in March, after our first interview request, touting modernization efforts that reflect an “ongoing commitment to enhancing accountability and transparency while continually refining our processes to ensure California’s roads are safer for everyone.”
Neither Newsom nor Gordon has announced any major changes since then.
For a brief moment earlier this year, Colin Campbell thought the state might finally do something about the scourge that changed his life one night in 2019.
A repeat drunk driver slammed into his Prius on the way to the family’s new home in Joshua Tree, killing his 17-year-old daughter, Ruby, and 14-year-old son, Hart.
Campbell, a writer and director from Los Angeles, began advocating for California to join most other states and create a law requiring in-car breathalyzers for anyone convicted of a DUI.
At first he was encouraged when the bill coasted through two legislative committees. But then came the roadblocks.
The ACLU opposed the measure, calling it “a form of racialized wealth extraction,” according to a Senate Public Safety Committee report from July. In California, people forced to use the devices have to pay about $100 a month to a private company to rent them, though there’s supposed to be a sliding fee scale based on income.
Then the DMV told lawmakers that it could not “complete the necessary programming” for the law, citing possible technology delays and costs of $15 million or more.
The bill was gutted. California couldn’t do something that nearly three dozen other states could.
Campbell called the sudden reversal a shameful example of forsaking public safety for bureaucracy.
“Our lives were destroyed that night,” he said. “If these people's children had been killed by a drunk driver, there is no way they would be objecting to this.”
Even if the law had passed, DMV data suggests that California judges would have mostly ignored it.
State law says judges have to require in-car breathalyzers for people convicted of repeat DUIs. Last month, the DMV issued a report reinforcing what a similar report laid out two years earlier. Judges across the state ordered the devices just one-third of the time for repeat offenders. In 14 counties, they ordered the devices less than 10% of the time for second-time DUI offenders. The counties are: Alameda, Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Los Angeles, Madera, Mono, Plumas, Sacramento, San Luis Obispo, Santa Cruz, Sierra, Tulare and Yuba.
DMV officials did not answer questions about what, if anything, the agency was doing about it.
We reached out to all 14 counties’ courts. Only eight responded to questions.
Chris Ruhl, executive officer for the Glenn County Superior Court, said the court is looking at local changes.
“Given the light CalMatters is bringing to this issue … the Glenn Court will review its current DUI sentencing practices,” according to a statement.
Glenn was one of a number of counties — including LA, Alameda and San Luis Obispo — that also suggested it wasn’t their judges’ responsibility to issue a court order. They said they only needed to notify the DMV of the convictions.
However, the law is clear: It’s the judge’s job to order the offender to use the device, said Jerry Hill, the retired Bay Area Democrat who wrote the bill.
When he worked in the Capitol, Hill said he also saw little urgency to rein in intoxicated driving.
“If you ask any legislator, they are going to say it’s a terrible, terrible thing,” he said.
But he said committee chairs and staff members who set the tone and write analyses often shied away from increasing criminal penalties.
“That’s where we see a lack of understanding, in my view, of the devastating effect of drunk driving in California,” he said.
A number of lawmakers said they are aware of the carnage on our roadways and plan to do something about it this coming legislative session, maybe.
Sen. Bob Archuleta, a Democrat from Norwalk who sits on the Transportation Committee, lost his granddaughter to a drunk driver just before Christmas last year. He said he recently met with representatives from Mothers Against Drunk Driving and is considering possible bills.
“This is not a Republican issue, a Democrat issue, an independent issue — or political issue. This is a life-saving issue,” he said. “We should all take it as seriously as the family that lost a loved one.”
Democratic Assemblymember Nick Schultz of Burbank said he is considering introducing at least one measure next year to address loopholes and weaknesses in state law.
Schultz, who started his career prosecuting DUI cases in Oregon and now chairs the Assembly’s Public Safety Committee, said he is weighing several potential measures that would address issues CalMatters highlighted in its reporting this year, including lengthening license suspensions after fatal crashes, lowering the bar to charge repeat drunk drivers with a felony, strengthening breathalyzer requirements and making sure vehicular manslaughter convictions get reported to the DMV.
“People are tired of seeing the needless loss of life on our roadways,” Schultz said. “There’s no way to legislatively make someone make the right choice. But what we can do is create an incentive structure where there are consequences for bad decisions.”
In the absence of more leadership at the state level, road safety advocates — many of whom joined the cause after losing a loved one to a preventable car crash — are taking it on themselves to try to force change. They’re meeting with lawmakers and officials, holding public events, telling their stories.
Jennifer Levi started working with MADD after her son, Braun, was killed in May while he was out walking with friends in Manhattan Beach. She said they’d only recently relocated to the area after the family home burned down in the Palisades fire, destroying “all of Braun’s pictures, videos from when he was born.”
The driver who killed her son was allegedly intoxicated and had a prior DUI arrest.
“The worst day of my life is now my life’s work. I will not stop until California changes,” Levi said.
In the months since her son’s death, Levi said, she’s met with any officials or influential people she could — current and former lawmakers, district attorneys, local council members, a lobbyist, and members of the media. Among the changes she wants: to make it easier to charge repeat DUI offenders with murder when they kill someone, to make fatal DUIs a violent felony and to increase penalties for hit-and-run fatalities. As CalMatters reported in October, California law often treats drunken vehicular manslaughter as a nonviolent crime with minimal time behind bars.
Levi calls her push to reform the system “Braun’s Bill.”
Many grieving families share a similar goal: for those they lost to be remembered by a state and society that seem indifferent. That desire was on display last month during an event in Sacramento to mark the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims.
On a cold Sunday evening in mid-November, after a break in the rain, dozens of relatives of people killed in car crashes gathered on the dark steps of the state Capitol for a candlelight vigil. They fought to keep photos on posterboards upright in the gale-force winds. Family by family, they ascended the steps, stood above a display of orange cones lit with strands of white lights and addressed the onlookers, talking about their loved ones and what was lost — children left without their mother, mothers without their children, a wife left without the love of her life.
“Every day I live and I wake up and I pretend like I’m happy. Every day I wish my stairs would make noise. I miss being called mom,” said Angel Dela Cruz, whose 17-year-old son Edward Alvidrez Jr. was hit by a truck while riding a dirt bike in Madera County in 2022.
“I hope we all get justice,” she said.
The event ended with a moment of quiet reflection and a prayer before the families put away their pictures and walked off, the Capitol behind them locked, silent.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
