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.”

California’s battleground House districts might get the lion’s share of national attention for their role in deciding which party rules Congress’s lower chamber.

But in a handful of California’s deep blue districts, an intra-party battle over the future of the Democratic Party is brewing in the wake of grim losses during last year’s presidential race.

In Sacramento, Napa County and Los Angeles, three younger challengers are arguing that Democrats need to give voters fresh faces with bold new ideas to energize the party’s base, rather than aging incumbents who are entrenched more in Washington insider culture than in their districts.

“Status quo politics isn’t going to protect our communities,” said Sacramento City Councilmember Mai Vang, 40, who is running against 10-term Rep. Doris Matsui, 81. “We need leaders who can meet the moment. And that’s why I decided to step into the ring.”

Vang is the first formidable primary challenge that Matsui has faced in the two decades since the congresswoman won her late husband’s seat in 2005. Former Rep. Bob Matsui held that seat for 26 years prior.

Two other senior California congressional Democrats have also attracted primary challengers. Rep. Mike Thompson, 74, of Napa County, a Vietnam veteran vying for his 15th term, faces a challenge from Eric Jones, 34, a former San Francisco venture capitalist.

And farther south, former Obama and Biden White House climate aide Jake Levine, 41, is challenging Rep. Brad Sherman, 71, of Los Angeles, who is seeking his 16th term. All three challengers have vowed not to take corporate PAC money as their incumbent opponents do.

Around California and across the country, younger challengers argue that Democratic incumbents in safe districts take their seats for granted since they so rarely receive serious challenges. That false sense of security, Vang said, results in out-of-touch members who have fewer incentives to show up in their districts and talk to voters.

Part of meeting the current moment, Vang argues, means taking “bold and courageous” positions on important issues, such as speaking out forcefully against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Vang said she wants Matsui to more strongly condemn immigration raids that have torn Sacramento families apart and violated residents’ due process rights. She was disappointed that Matsui’s denunciations centered around the unsanitary conditions of the John E. Moss federal building, where advocates said detainees were being held without access to proper hygiene, rather than on the separation of families and indiscriminate detentions.

“For the past several months we’ve had neighbors, people in our community that have been kidnapped by ICE, taken by ICE, and Doris hasn’t spoken up against that at all,” Vang said. “And especially as someone who was born in the internment camps, I would think she would be on the front lines to speak out on the issues.”

Matsui was born in the Poston War Relocation Center internment camp in Arizona, where her parents were incarcerated during World War II.

“That’s nonsense,” said Roger Salazar, a campaign spokesperson for Matsui, noting local news coverage of Matsui’s statement against an immigration raid on a South Sacramento Home Depot and her attempt to access an ICE detention facility. “She needs to watch the news.”

Matsui in October hosted a rare in-person forum only after constituents spent months calling on her to meet with them. Angry Sacramentans also hosted an empty-chair town hall in March to highlight Matsui’s absence, not even two weeks after House Democrats did a nationwide blitz of showing up in Republican districts to prove a similar point.

Some senior leaders are sticking around

Calls for generational change within the Democratic Party, while not new, have increased significantly as the party works to find its footing after 2024. The dynamic played out first in internal House leadership races earlier this year, where younger members like Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach leapfrogged more senior colleagues to lead powerful committees.

Rep. Thompson, Matsui’s congressional counterpart in neighboring Napa County, said his constituents have stopped him in public and asked him to run again.

“I can’t tell you how many times I had people tell me, ‘I sure hope you’re gonna stick around. We need you more now than ever,’” Thompson told CalMatters. “No one’s asked me to retire. No one has suggested that I’ve been there too long. And everyone knows that not only am I capable, but I’m in good shape.”

In Sacramento, Vang, the eldest of 16 children whose Hmong parents came to the United States as refugees, said she has the utmost respect for the Matsuis and their long history of service.

Still, she has called on Matsui to follow the examples of House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi — who announced last month that she would retire next year and not seek reelection to a 21st term in Congress — and Rep. Nydia Velazquez of New York, who told The New York Times that “now is the right moment to step aside and allow a new generation of leaders to step forward.”

But Matsui remains steadfast that she has much more work to do in Congress, such as overseeing groundbreaking for Sacramento’s new I Street bridge and securing federal funds for flood prevention and wildfire recovery, and said she will stay in the race. She emphasized that the deep relationships she’s built over 20 years in Washington are critical to her ability to deliver on those projects.

“It’s important to not only have advocates, but have people who understand that once you’re in Congress, you have to learn how to govern, too,” Matsui said. “We cannot just throw everything out and start over again.”

As for Vang’s intra-party primary challenge, Matsui said anyone is “perfectly free” to run against her at any time. “I’m fine with that. This is our democracy. This is America.”

But she insisted that her record would reinforce to voters how hard she works.

“I show up every single day working for Sacramento,” Matsui said, “whether it’s in Sacramento or in D.C.”

The risk of Dem-on-Dem challenges 

One risk of primarying veteran members of Congress is the loss of institutional wisdom, said Gale Kaufman, a Sacramento-based Democratic strategist, particularly with the Trump administration testing the limits of the law and boundaries of power.

“Especially when you’re up against stuff like this, which we’re not familiar with, breaking every norm you could possibly imagine,” Kaufman said, “having some of those people around is not a bad thing.”

Even among younger Democrats, there’s not wide consensus that incumbents are out and young challengers are automatically in. Evan Cragin, president of the Sacramento County Young Democrats, echoed Kaufman’s point that a blanket policy of “vote out all incumbents over a certain age” could be counterproductive.

While the Young Democrats have yet to endorse anyone in the congressional races, Cragin said he is personally conflicted about who to support.

“I don’t know who I’m going to vote for,” Cragin said. “It’s nice to have a strong member at the moment, but also, there is part of me that wants to make sure we support our younger members. And Councilmember Mai Vang is a very strong challenger. She’s very community oriented.”

Those who support intra-Democratic challenges argue that they drive important dialogue and force candidates to clearly articulate their ideas and earn voters’ trust, rather than taking their support as a given. Incumbent Democrats across the country could benefit from primary challenges as the party soul searches, said Alex Niles, vice president of political affairs for the Sacramento County Young Democrats.

“We need to have a reckoning and figure out, ‘What does it mean to be a Democrat? What do we stand for? What do people want and who are we serving?’” Niles said.

Unsurprisingly, many incumbents and political strategists disagree, denouncing intra-party primaries as expensive distractions that deplete safe members’ fundraising that could otherwise support colleagues in more vulnerable districts.

“The circular firing squad in blue districts hurts our ability to win swing districts,” Rep. Sherman told CalMatters in an interview.

Candidates in safe districts often support their more vulnerable colleagues to gain clout within the party, whether through direct transfers of campaign cash or by urging their donors to channel their contributions to more contested races. Sherman argues that a competitive intra-Democratic primary forces a safe incumbent to invest more in their own reelection rather than helping flip battleground seats. He repeatedly mentioned tight races in Iowa and Ohio that he views as critical to Democrats reclaiming the House.

“What happens in swing seats may determine whether America’s a democracy,” Sherman said. “Democrats have got to win seats in Iowa, and we can’t do it unless the strong Democrats in Bel Air and Brentwood and Malibu are focused on Iowa.

“It’s hard to get people in Brentwood to focus on Iowa if there’s a real race in Brentwood.”

He added that while it matters which Democrat represents California’s 32nd Congressional District, the Los Angeles-area seat that he’s represented for almost 30 years, it’s “not life or death for our democracy.”

Sherman’s challenger Levine, who outraised the congressmember last quarter and appears to be the frontrunner in a crowded field, agrees that Democrats need to flip GOP-held seats to reclaim control of the House. But at the same time, if their party wants to retain the majority and win back disaffected voters, Democrats need to prove they’re focused on lowering the cost of living and improving their quality of life, in addition to preserving democracy.

After leaving Los Angeles to pursue a climate policy career in Washington, D.C., Levine moved back home earlier this year to help his mother after she lost her house — his childhood home — in the devastating Palisades Fire. He was frustrated by the disjointed local and state response to recovery, and he had hoped Sherman would step up and coordinate the response.

“The things that people want to hear about, and the things that I’m trying to talk about, are the issues in the district,” he said. “Those issues really are not about the composition of the House. They’re not about Washington inside-the-beltway questions of power.”

Instead, Levine wants to see his member of Congress answer the kinds of questions that families like his own think about every day — “Can I afford my rent? Can my kids stay in the same neighborhood where they grew up, and even in the same state, because it’s so prohibitively expensive?”

A quintessential piece of Los Angeles history — a jaw-dropping mid-century modern of glass, steel and seemingly all skies soaring high above the Hollywood Hills — is up for sale.

Asking price: $25 million.

The Stahl House, designed and built by Pierre Koenig, photographed by Julius Shulman.

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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The Stahl House, otherwise known as Case Study House #22, has stayed with the same family since it was built in 1960.

"After 65 years, our family has made the heartfelt and very difficult decision to place the Stahl House on the market," wrote the Stahl children, Bruce Stahl and Shari Stahl Gronwald.

The 2,200 square foot home at 1635 Woods Drive has been preserved meticulously, funded in part by proceeds from open house tours of the space.

"This home has been the center of our lives for decades, but as we’ve gotten older, it has become increasingly challenging to care for it with the attention and energy it so richly deserves," the Stahl children continued.

And they are not just looking for a buyer — but a steward.

The kitchen of the Stahl House, photographed by Julius Shulman.

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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"It is a passing of responsibility," the listing for the house reads. "A search for the next custodian who will honor the house's history, respect its architectural purity, and ensure its preservation for generations to come."

Post-war housing shortage

The Stahl House, or Case Study House #22, was designed and built by Pierre Koenig in the Hollywood Hills.

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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The futuristic house with its stunning panorama and a swimming pool perched at the edge of nothingness has become one of the most recognizable and prized expressions of mid-century modern architecture in L.A. — how it came to be built was fueled by a similar spirit of experimentation and audacity.

In 1945, the cutting edge Arts & Architecture magazine launched the "Case Study House" program to commission the era's biggest and most boundary pushing architects — Richard Neutra, Charles Eames and the like — to design and build within budget affordable, scalable homes for an exploding middle class after World World II.

"Each house must be capable of duplication and in no sense be an 'individual' performance," editor John Entenza wrote in the announcement-slashed-manifesto.

The Stahl House photographed by Julius Shulman.

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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By its terminus in 1966, the program gave rise to 36 designs, of which 25 prototypes were built — mostly in and around the city — forging L.A. into an epicenter of West Coast modernism.

Case Study Home #22

One of them was Case Study Home #22 by Pierre Koenig, who as an architecture student at USC in the early 1950s was already making a name for himself, particularly for his use of steel.

His student work caught the attention of Entenza, editor of Arts & Architecture, who later invited him to join the Case Study House program.

Architect Pierre Koenig was hired by former football player Buck Stahl and his wife Carlotta to build the Stahl House.

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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One of the bedrooms in the Stahl House looking out to the pool.

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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The Stahl family home

The Hollywood Hills home would be Koenig's second Case Study house — and his most well-known.

The story began with Hughes Aircraft purchasing agent and former football player Buck Stahl and his wife Carlotta, who bought a small hillside lot overlooking the city for $13,500.

The couple spent weekends putting up a wall around the property using broken concrete sourced from construction sites. Buck, the Stahl family said, had built a model of his dream house to take to architects — many of whom turned the job down because the lot was seen as undevelopable.

The Stahl House, part of the Case Study House program, was completed in 1960.

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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Enter Koenig, who signed on for the challenge in 1957. A month before construction began in 1959, the project was christened Case Study House #22. The Stahl house was completed a year later, according to the Los Angeles Times, at a cost of nearly $38,000.

The birth of cool

With its sleek lines and inviting airiness, Case Study House #22 has come to embody the good life in post-war Los Angeles, an idea reinforced by its countless appearances in movies, TV shows and magazine spreads over the decades.

But the photograph that started it all — elevating the home into the stuff of mythology — was taken by Julius Shulman, the man tapped to document the entire Arts & Architecture program, after charting an unlikely career photographing modernist architecture in L.A., starting with those designed by Neutra.

Julius Shulman was responsible for documenting houses in the Case Study House program. The Stahl House is among a number of houses he took photos of.

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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© J. Paul Getty Trust. Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2004.R.10)

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Shulman shot the Stahl House in May 1960 shortly after its completion. In the most iconic shot of the series, two young women in white party dresses are sitting in the glass living room, conversing leisurely as the house dissolves into the shimmering sprawl below.

"It was not an architectural quote-unquote 'photograph,'" said Shulman about the image in an interview for the Archives of American Art. "It is a picture of a mood.”

The World Cup is coming to Los Angeles in 2026. Could the Women's World Cup come here too?

On Friday, FIFA released the bid books for the 2031 Women’s World Cup.

The U.S. Soccer Federation submitted a joint bid with Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica. It was the only bid that made the deadline.

If approved, several cities across the four countries would host the global football tournament.

Forty venues have in the U.S. have been proposed as potential sites for 2031 games, with some right here in southern California.

Football’s coming back?

Four Los Angeles stadiums are part of the bid.

• Rose Bowl
• Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
• Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson
• SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

Show me the money

The bid projected that the 2031 tournament would bring in $4 billion in total revenue — four times more than $1 billion projected to be made from the upcoming 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil.

Organizers expect to generate revenue from across six main sources including: ticket revenues, hospitality, concessions, fan festivals, broadcast, and marketing opportunities.

Ticket prices are projected to start at $35 for the opening rounds seats, and between $120 and $600 for later matches

Wait and see

FIFA is expected to formally confirm the bid at their next congress on April 30th in Vancouver.

The evaluation process will focus on, according to FIFA, “the event vision and key metrics, infrastructure, services, commercial considerations, and sustainability and human rights.”

The venues where games will be held won't be decided for at least a few more years.

California ag giant the Wonderful Company suffered a setback on Tuesday in its bid to overturn a new farmworker unionization law when an appeals court tossed its lawsuit against state labor regulators.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno leaves in place a controversial new law backed by the United Farm Workers that was meant to boost organizing in a heavily immigrant workforce. The law allows farmworkers to signal their support for union representation using a signed card, bypassing the traditional in-person, secret-ballot election usually held on the employer’s property.

The Wonderful Company — owner of the Wonderful Pistachios brand and Fiji Water, Pom pomegranate juices and Halos oranges —filed suit against the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board last year trying to overturn the law, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in 2023.

The suit, alleging the law is unconstitutional, came after the United Farm Workers filed a petition with enough signatures to represent 600-odd workers at the company’s grape nursery in Wasco.

In a contentious public dispute, the company accused union organizers of tricking workers into signing cards supporting unionization and provided over 100 employees’ signatures attesting to being deceived; in turn, the union accused the company of illegally intimidating workers into withdrawing their support. Regulators at the agricultural labor board filed charges against Wonderful after investigating the claims.

All of those allegations were being heard before the labor board last spring when Wonderful took the matter to court, arguing the new law deprived the company of due process. A Kern County judge initially halted the board proceedings, but the appeals court allowed them to continue last fall. After weeks of hearings this year, the labor board has yet to issue a decision on whether UFW can represent Wonderful employees.

In the meantime, the company has shuttered the Wasco nursery and donated it to UC Davis, making the question of an actual union at the worksite moot.

In the new ruling, the appeals court judges issued a sharp rebuke of the company for suing over the unionization instead of waiting for the labor board decision.

“Wonderful filed this petition notwithstanding approximately 50 years of unbroken precedent finding an employer may not directly challenge a union certification decision in court except in extraordinarily and exceedingly rare circumstances, which Wonderful does not meaningfully attempt to show are present here,” wrote Justice Rosendo Peña.

Elizabeth Strater, a United Farm Workers vice president, said the decision affirms that “every farm worker in California has rights under the law, and those rights need to be protected.”

But Wonderful Company General Counsel Craig Cooper dismissed the ruling as only a matter of timing: “the decision explicitly does not address the merits of Wonderful Nurseries’ constitutional challenge.”