The Brief

A woman wearing what can only be described as rags struggles to push something large, round, and yellow up a mountain. She lets out a primal scream. A female comedian’s face appears overhead, shimmering through ominous clouds. This is not the cold open for a wacky alt-comedy web series — it’s an ad for a plant-based cheese company.

The company in question is called Plonts, and the large yellow thing is, of course, a humongous wheel of (plant-based) cheese. From here, things get weirder: The comedian whose face looms large in the sky is Kate Berlant, a performer known for her screwball and self-referential work. As Berlant quibbles with the woman on the mountain, her wry and goofy presence instantly sets the ad’s tone. With this tongue-in-cheek approach, Plonts seems to be saying that this is not a regular plant-based cheese brand — this is a cool plant-based cheese brand, one that doesn’t take itself too seriously and doesn’t want you, the consumer, to either. This ethos is aptly summarized by the ad’s tagline: Buying Plonts “won’t save the planet,” it reads. “But it probably won’t hurt.”

In the plant-based protein space, Plonts is zigging where other brands are zagging. Many plant-based brands — whether it’s oat milk or fake-beef burgers that really bleed — introduced themselves to consumers by hyping up the environmental benefits of a plant-based diet. But as they’ve learned that sustainability isn’t a deciding factor for most customers, alternative protein brands have pivoted in recent years, putting more emphasis on things like taste and nutritional benefits. 

Using humor in climate messaging

Rather than relying too heavily on any of these messages, Plonts’ new ad makes a show of playfully shrugging off its climate advantages — and calling into question whether consumerism can really get us out of the climate crisis.

If nothing else, this tactic makes the company stand out. “The category of plant-based foods, I would say, has had a pretty uniform ethics or party line,” says Jason Moran, creative director on the marketing team at Red Antler, a branding agency.

That line has traditionally been hyper-focused on the environmental benefits of eating more plants and less meat. A vegan diet results in 75 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions than a diet high in meat. Because animal agriculture tends to require both land for grazing and cropland to grow inputs for animal feed, livestock also uses a disproportionate amount of the Earth’s agricultural land — about 80 percent.

These statistics once seemed like the key to swaying consumers to eat less meat. A decade ago, plant-based protein companies made an earnest case for the environmental benefits of fake meat. When Beyond Meat launched its “beef-free crumbles” in 2014, CEO Ethan Brown told reporters that addressing “all this doom and gloom about climate change” is “as simple as changing what’s at the center of your plate.” At times, plant-based companies doubled down on that rhetoric, practically pleading with audiences to see the writing on the wall. In a 2016 TED Talk introducing the world to Impossible Foods’ hyper-realistic veggie burgers, company founder Pat Brown (no relation) said that the global appetite for meat “is the main reason behind an ongoing wildlife holocaust.” Eliminating animal agriculture might sound like a tall order, Brown said, but it “has to be done.” The oat milk brand Oatly once took out a full-page newspaper ad on “how the pursuit of profit without consideration for the planet should be considered a crime,” according to the company’s creative director.

Now, the same companies are trying different approaches. Market research has shown that consumers are motivated by factors like taste, familiarity, price, and nutrition more than plant-based foods’ “altruistic attributes,” like sustainability. Earlier this year, Impossible Foods announced “a new brand identity inspired by the craveability of meat.” This kind of brand positioning alludes to meat’s climate impact without saying the word “climate” directly — and instead by repeating the word “meat.” (“[W]hy not solve the meat problem with MORE meat?” reads one page on the Impossible Foods website.) Oatly, meanwhile, has continued to highlight the environmental benefits of a plant-based diet, but in surprising, off-the-wall ways. The brand’s cheeky “Help Dad” campaign is aimed at convincing reluctant fathers to make the switch to oat milk, while its recent mock-exposé attacks “the dairy industry’s lack of transparency about the climate impact of its products.”

Rarely, though, has a plant-based protein brand knowingly leaned into the ambiguity around consumerism as a meaningful lever for climate action, as Plonts is doing. In the ad, Berlant suggests that the woman on the mountain needn’t huff and puff on that ragged path upwards — an act meant to symbolize eating a plant-based diet to save the planet. Instead, the woman can buy Plonts. “Fighting climate change is too hard,” the company declares on its website. “Just eat some plant-based cheese instead.”

Here, Plonts takes an honest stab at having it both ways: The company acknowledges the environmental impact of eschewing dairy without overstating the power of individual choice. “It’s really frustrating to be up against this massive problem where, you know, realistically, our individual sacrifices aren’t going to move the needle on climate change,” said Sophie Moscovici-Troyka, brand manager at Plonts, who previously worked at Impossible Foods. “At the same time, you see a lot of mission-driven companies putting the pressure on consumerism as the answer to climate change, which has all sorts of paradoxes within it. We wanted to poke fun at that tension.”

To sidestep the guilt that can come with eating meat or dairy on a warming planet, “We definitely took inspiration from different comedians and brands,” said Moscovici-Troyka. On the comedy side, that includes comic and actor Julio Torres, who has joked that the hardest part of being vegan is all of the apologizing. (“People ask me if I miss meat or dairy,” the joke goes. “I mean, I miss being liked.”) On the brand side, Moscovici-Troyka cites Oatly and the canned water company Liquid Death for their arch, irreverent approaches to marketing.

Making food choices

Plonts also seems to be part of a new wave of plant-based cheese companies promising to compete with dairy milk on taste. Its cheese is made by adding cultures, enzymes, and salt to plant-based milk, in a process similar to making dairy cheese; the resulting product is then aged to enhance its flavor, and additives are introduced to give it the ability to melt. Currently, the vegan cheese is only available to order at restaurants in New York and San Francisco, but the company hopes to break into retail in the future. It may be too soon to tell whether the brand’s messaging is resonating with consumers; just a few weeks out from its launch, the company declined to share sales numbers. Right now, the Plonts ad is appearing on social media and video sharing platforms.

A view of the exterior as Carl's Jr. & Beyond Meat Partner For First-Ever Plant-Based Meat Menu Takeover in Glendale

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Jesse Grant

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One of the best things any brand can do when establishing itself, says Moran, is picking an audience: knowing both who you’re trying to sell to, and who you’re OK not reaching. He suggests that even if Plonts’ approach doesn’t resonate with everyone, it’s on the right track.

If Plonts is speaking “directly” to the people who are “unsure or who are not actively making food choices to save the environment,” said Moran, that may be good business. While only about 4 percent of Americans identify as vegetarian (and even fewer as vegan), a 2020 report found that more than half of Americans would be willing to eat more vegetables and less red meat. A slightly smaller percentage, 46 percent, said they’d be willing to try nondairy alternatives to products like milk and cheese. For many, making environmentally-friendly dietary choices just isn’t top of mind: Two-thirds of survey respondents said no one has ever asked them to eat more plant-based foods. Courting those eaters, said Moran, “I think is powerful.”

MyLA311, the system designed to help residents access city services for graffiti removal or streetlight outages, got a makeover last year, but since then some Angelenos and Los Angeles city staff have reported it has been plagued by problems.

The city has received “numerous complaints” about the updated website and app, including issues with GPS and logging work, according to officials.

MyLA311 is set up so residents can report non-emergency issues and track requests for tree inspections, homeless encampment services and illegal dumping, to name a few. There are 86 options in neighborhoods, according to Mayor Karen Bass’ office, which helped launch the new system.

Staffers within the city’s Department of Public Works have said they’ve been frustrated by the rollout, according to city officials. They say it now takes longer to add their responses to service requests, and the city can’t record completed work that doesn’t have a service request connected to it.

City Council members Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez led a motion aimed at addressing the issues, saying they’ve caused concerns about the system’s overall functionality and accountability.

“Reports and individuals are telling us that because of this broken 311 app, folks are once again going back to using Excel sheets, phone calls, paper and pen in order to engage in service delivery, and I think that that's a problem,” Padilla said during Wednesday’s council meeting.

The motion instructs Public Works to make a formal report of any problems with the system, including how they may be affecting service timelines and completion rates, and asks the city’s IT agency to come up with potential solutions.

It was approved in a 12-0 vote Wednesday. Councilmembers Bob Blumenfield, Eunisses Hernandez and Adrin Nazarian were absent.

How we got here

Bass announced the launch of the new MyLA311 last year, saying the previous website and app were outdated and had lasted years past their lifecycle.

In a 2023 directive, she’d called for the system to be modernized with the goal of providing better customer service and communication about the status of residents’ requests.

“This new and improved way to request and receive city services is another example of how we are breaking away from the old way of doing things to make our neighborhoods cleaner and safer,” Bass said in a March 2025 statement.

But some people say the new system is falling short.

According to the North Hollywood Northeast Neighborhood Council, the new app has “actually made it harder for Angelenos to request services.”

The Sylmar Neighborhood Council agreed the system needs improvements, writing in a community impact statement that MyLA311 fails to serve L.A. taxpayers effectively if it’s difficult to use or inaccurate.

In public comments, some residents cited “major issues” with the system, including GPS and location accuracy, invalid addresses and missing or incomplete service categories. One commenter wrote that addresses were being routed to other areas, some of them outside the city.

“As a result, they frequently lead to confusion in the field, delays in response and, in some cases, requests going unaddressed due to the difficulty in locating the reported issue or misdirection caused by inaccurate data,” the commenter said.

What’s ahead

The City Council approved several instructions aimed at improving MyLA311, including the following:

• Public Works is expected to report back on its issues with the system.
• The city’s Information Technology Agency is expected to report on system performance, including operational issues, and provide solutions as needed.
• Public Works and IT are expected to provide quarterly reports on service request data, including backlogs, average response times and requests received and closed.

The Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed ready Wednesday to allow the Trump administration to potentially proceed with mass deportations of more than a million foreign nationals, including those from Haiti and Syria, who live and work legally in the United States.

Until now these individuals have been accorded temporary legal status because their safety is imperiled by war or natural disasters in their home countries.

Congress enacted the Temporary Protected Status program in 1990, and every president since then — Republican and Democrat — has embraced TPS. President Donald Trump, however, is trying to end it.

On Wednesday his solicitor general, D. John Sauer, told the justices that the statute clearly bars any court review of the administration's decisions. And he dismissed the idea that a separate law established to provide procedural fairness does not allow the courts to review the Homeland Security agency's decision-making either. Pressed by the court's three liberal justices, Sauer insisted that the courts cannot review anything.

"None of those procedural steps required by the statue are reviewable. That's your position?" asked Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

"Correct," responded Sauer.

"What you're basically saying is that Congress wrote a statute for no purpose," Sotomayor said.

Justice Elena Kagan noted that under the statute the secretary of Homeland Security is supposed to consult with the U.S. State Department about what the conditions are in those countries that people have been forced to flee. What if she didn't do that at all, Kagan asked. Or what if she asked, but the response from the State Department came back: "Wasn't that baseball game last night great!"

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked what would happen if the secretary used a Ouija board to make decisions?

To all these hypotheticals, Solicitor General Sauer stood firm. That prompted this from Sotomayor: "Now, we have a president saying at one point that Haiti is a 'filthy, dirty, and disgusting s--thole country.' I'm quoting him. He declared illegal immigrants, which he associated with TPS, as poisoning the blood of America. I don't see how that one statement is not a prime example … showing that a discriminatory purpose may have played a part in this decision."

Sauer pushed back, noting that Kristi Noem, the then-DHS secretary, had not mentioned race at all. That prompted this response from Justice Jackson, the only Black woman on the court, "So the position of the United States is that we have an actual racial epithet that we aren't allowed to look at all the context."

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the mother of two adopted Haitian children, interjected at that point to clarify the administration's position. Are you conceding that individuals with TPS status could bring a challenge based on race discrimination? she asked.

Sauer appeared to concede the point.

Representing the Haitians, lawyer Geoffrey Pipoly described the administration's review as "a sham."

"The true reason for the termination [of TPS status] is the president's racial animus toward non-white immigrants and bare dislike of Haitians in particular," Pipoly said. "The secretary herself described people from Haiti" and from other non-white countries as "killers, leeches, saying, 'We don't want them, not one,'" while "simultaneously enacting another humanitarian form of relief for white and only white South Africans."

That was too much for Justice Samuel Alito who asked Pipoly, "Do you think that if you put Syrians, Turks, Greeks and other people who live around the Mediterranean in a line-up, do you think you could say those people are … non-white?"

An uncomfortable Pipoly resisted categorizing each group until Alito got to his own roots.

"How about southern Italians?" Alito inquired, prompting laughter in the courtroom.

Responded Pipoly: "Certainly 120 years ago when we had our last wave of European immigration, southern Italians were not considered white. … Our concept of these things evolves over time."

At the end of Wednesday's court session, one thing was clear: President Trump may be furious at some of the conservative justices he appointed for invalidating his tariffs, but for the most part, he is getting his way. Especially in light of the court's 6-to-3 decision, announced Wednesday, which effectively guts what remains of the landmark Voting Rights Act, once celebrated as a signature achievement of American Democracy.

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The last dog from the Eaton Fire taken in by Pasadena Humane has now been adopted.

Artemis the German shepherd was originally taken to the Pasadena animal shelter for emergency boarding. His family, which lost its home in the January fire, ultimately decided to put him up for adoption.

"The silver lining to all of that is — with all this tragedy — this incredible story of hope where we were able to help foster these animals we’re returning home," said Sarie Hooker,  communications manager at Pasadena Humane.

During his stay at Pasadena Humane, the cream-color pup won over many hearts.

"He's just such a striking boy. He's got this really fun, loving personality. He's very regal," Hooker said.

Hooker said Artemis was adopted by a family through the shelter's foster-to-adopt program.

"He just did amazingly. And the next thing we knew, he was adopted," Hooker said. "So it's a happy story."

Artemis says hello to a new family.

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Courtesy Pasadena Humane

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The Eaton Fire destroyed nearly 9,500 structures, including about 6,000 homes. Two days after the fire broke out, Pasadena Humane reported receiving more than 350 pets from displaced residents.

By the second week of the fire, the shelter had taken in some 600 pets, Hooker said.

" In totality, we were able to help with thousands of animals specifically for emergency boarding," Hooker said, including every kind of pet you can think of, as well as wild animals.

" We were seeing skunks, squirrels, hawks, owls, peacocks, raccoons, possums," she said.

Artemis isn't just the last dog to find a home — or return home — from the Eaton Fire.

He is the last animal.

" Artemis was our final, final animal — like dog, cat, critter. Anything else under the sun.  He was the last boy. So we're very happy," she said.

National and local organizers are calling on communities to abstain from work, school and shopping Friday in recognition of May Day.

The “economic blackout” is modeled after January protests in Minnesota following the surge of immigration enforcement and shooting deaths of two U.S. citizens.

“Our vision includes an economy that works for everyone with a living wage, strong labor protections and programs that keep families housed, fed, educated and healthy,” said Francisco Moreno, executive director of the Council of Mexican Federations in North America, in a Tuesday press conference.

The organization is one of more than 100 involved in planning a Los Angeles May Day rally with the theme, “solo el pueblo shuts it down:  no school, no work, no shopping.”

This year’s largest planned gathering starts at MacArthur Park, a longtime hub for day laborers and street vendors. Last July, immigration agents in armored vehicles descended on the park. The ongoing immigration raids and city policies have contributed to the challenges street vendors face.

“Starting there really sends a message that we're here,” said Kristal Romero, press secretary for the  Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. “We're standing with this community, and if you take on one of us, you take on all of us.”

May Day’s history in LA

May Day, sometimes called International Workers' Day, started after an 1886 strike tied to the fight for an eight-hour work day. The protest turned violent after police attacked workers. In the 1990s, L.A. organizers started to connect the labor movement with advocacy for immigrant rights.

This year’s event also marks the 20th anniversary of 2006’s massive rallies in support of immigration reform.

Romero said the Federation has offered training on de-escalation, conflict resolution and non-violent protests and that hundreds of people will act as “peacekeepers” during Friday’s rally and march.

“ A lot of times, folks can get caught in echo chambers and it may really feel hopeless,” Romero said. “The big point of these events is to inspire hope to show people we're all here, we're all fighting for the same thing.”

Los Angeles County

MacArthur Park

Time: 10 a.m.
Location: March begins at the corner of South Park View Street and Wilshire Boulevard and heads toward downtown L.A.
Organizers: Los Angeles May Day Coalition

L.A. City Hall

Time: Noon
Location: City Hall, 200 N. Spring St., downtown L.A.
Organizers: Union del Barrio and the Community Self-Defense Coalition

Boyle Heights

Time: 3 p.m.
Location: Mariachi Plaza, 1831 First St.
Organizers: Centro CSO

Long Beach

Time: 10 a.m.
Location: March starts at The Marketplace, 6501 Pacific Coast Highway, and ends at Mother’s Beach.
Organizers: Long Beach Indivisible, more details here.

San Fernando Valley

Time: 10 a.m.
Location: Northeast corner of Topanga Canyon and Victory Boulevard, Woodland Hills
Organizers: Indivisible Woodland Hills, SF Valley Brigade, others

Santa Clarita

Time: 10 a.m.
Location: 24292 Valencia Blvd.
Organizers: Indivisible CA27

Orange County 

Orange

Time: 3 p.m. rally
Location: City Hall, 300 E. Chapman Ave.

Time: 5 p.m.
Location: Orange Plaza Circle, Chapman Avenue and Glassell Street
Organizers: OC Indivisible Coalition

Santa Ana

Time: 3:30 p.m.
Location: Sasscer Park, 600 W. Santa Ana Blvd., Santa Ana
Organizers: OC May Day Coalition