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The Brief

The most important stories for you to know today
  • How the community is helping its own
    Three medium brown skinned men are standing in a bookstore. Two are wearing baseball caps; one is wearing a leather jacket, the other two red and orange tops. They are standing listening to someone talking on the other side of the room
    Attendees at the Now Serving cookbook store event

    Topline:

    After the recent deaths of prominent figures in the local Los Angeles food scene, two savvy millennial veterans are organizing semi-regular meetups to bring awareness about mental health resources available specifically to food and beverage workers.

    Why it matters: The hospitality industry habitually ranks among the worst for mental health and substance abuse issues. Inevitably, and tragically, this leads to casualties. Workers and insiders are realizing they can’t wait around for anyone else to save them — they have to do it themselves.

    Why now: In February, the L.A. food world was upended by the back-to-back deaths of two important fixtures, Jonathan Whitener and Jared Standing. Fortunately, thanks to the work of Houston’s Southern Smoke Foundation, there are now resources available which can help potentially save lives.

    The backstory: Alyssa Noui and Kristel Arabian had both known Whitener and Standing, and they’d seen enough after having been through this unforgiving industry themselves. The two friends decided to go straight to the heart of their tight-knit Westside food community to offer help and solidarity.

    Insane hours, the toxic work environments, low pay and stringent standards — plenty of ink and film have been spent lately rehashing the stressors that come with working in the culinary industry.

    Yet, for the most part, the culture has dictated that workers suffer silently, placing their well-being — and their mental health especially — on the backburner.

    But after the back-to-back deaths of two prominent figures in the local L.A food scene, a couple of seasoned food pros have decided that this status-quo doesn’t cut it. They’re determined to get food-and-beverage workers into the therapy chair.

    For Alyssa Noui, 38, a leading L.A. food stylist, and Kristel Arabian, 41, a food and beverage recruiter and former chef at a Michelin Star restaurant, the last straw came in February. First it was Jonathan Whitener, the celebrated chef and partner at Here’s Looking at You and All Day Baby restaurants. Whitener died at home from a drug overdose.

    A couple of weeks later, Jered Standing, the popular butcher and founder of animal-conscious Standing’s Butchery, killed himself.

    Noui and Arabian both had known Whitener and Standing. Their deaths, at 36 and 44, respectively, hit hard with “my elder millennial generation of people in the food space,” said Noui, a veteran of shows like Master Chef, Guy’s Grocery Games, etc.

    Whitener was a “big loss to the food world,” she noted, adding how his menu items altered the foodscape. “Like, we're seeing things on that page, which were familiar but were never put together, like the chicken-fried rabbit,” a favorite from his days at another restaurant, Animal.

    Meanwhile Standing’s Butchery was a once-a-week stop for Arabian, either to pick up something to cook for dinner or for a Sunday social burger. Noui called him a “dear friend.” By all accounts, Standing, a former vegetarian, was changing how chefs and insiders went about animal sourcing. He was readying a second location in Venice.

    Noui said it was one of those friendships where 10 years later you laugh trying to place how you knew each other. Was it Lindy and Grundy or Salt's Cure?

    Help for Food and Beverage workers

    • Check out Southern Smoke Foundation’s mental health resources
    • Attend the next F+B Community Check-In on Monday August 12 at File Systems of Coffee, 6051 Melrose Ave, from 7:30-9pm. RSVP via DM to Kristel Arabian @kriskracks.

    “He checked all the boxes you’re supposed to, to be successful,” Noui said, adding “he was a good-looking dude with great people around him.”

    “But if you're not right in your mind, you’re not right in your spirit—what do you really have?”

    Channeling grief into gathering

    When news broke about Standing’s death, weeks after Whitener’s, “It’s almost, you know, when someone tells a bad joke or something and the room gets quiet, and you're like, ‘Oh my God, who's going to say the next thing?’”

    She made a passive comment about ‘everyone needing a hug', Arabian said. 'I'm like, yeah, how do we do that?'
    — Kristel Arabian

    Arabian had met Noui through the Santa Monica farmers’ market network some years back. She remembers speaking to Noui about how their grieving community needed support.

    She made a passive comment about 'everyone needing a hug', Arabian said. "'I'm like, yeah, how do we do that?"

    The two organized an event which they’ve since dubbed the “F+B Community Check-In” and took over the back patio at Tabula Rasa, the Hollywood wine bar and industry hangout whose name translates to a “blank slate.”

    Rather than just creating another customary eulogic Instagram post, “I channeled my grief into gathering,” Noui said. Tabula Rasa, which has a “dark, grown and sexy feeling,” is responsible for putting a lot of first-rate L.A. pop-ups on the map, including Burgers by Standing and Broad Street Oyster, according to Noui.

    It was a nice place to bring out “our people” who spend most of their time in the back of those type of places, she said.

    The next event was held at the quaint and cozy Now Serving, the Chinatown cookbook store run by Ken Concepcion, a former Wolfgang Puck chef at Cut. The store, which “gives cottage vibes with a sick library,” is also a haven for public discussions and meeting places for local makers and creatives.

    Two women, light and medium skinned, stand in bookstore surrounded by books. One has long brown hair; the other shoulder length hair. One is speaking, the other is standing looking at her
    Alyssa Noui and Kristel Arabian
    (
    Sam Gezari
    /
    LAist
    )

    For that first event, Arabian created a flier in Canva and went through her contacts looking for sponsors willing to donate food. But they didn’t want it to be just a grieving party, so Noui and Arabian sought another angle.

    They found the Southern Smoke Foundation, a Houston-based nonprofit offering free “Behind You” therapy sessions specifically for food and beverage workers. Currently operating their mental health program in ten states, the foundation's sessions are administered locally by grad students at California Lutheran University, seeking to fulfill their curriculum hours. The non-profit also offers emergency relief grants for industry workers. The only conditions are that they work a minimum of 30 hours a week — across multiple jobs, if necessary — and that they’ve worked in the industry for at least six months.

    After Noui and Arabian went through the Southern Smoke Foundation offerings at the first meeting, a fishbowl was put out where attendees could share anonymously anything they felt compelled to bare, Arabian said. One person wrote, "I know that the food matters, but when will I start mattering?"

    "It f—ing crushed me," Arabian recalled. Others used the opportunity to bounce around career concerns: questions related to pricing, tipping, and other ways they could come together to improve the industry or support one another.

    One person wrote, 'I know that the food matters, but when will I start mattering?'
    — Attendee at the F+B Community Check-in event

    Noui doesn’t need the Southern Smoke offerings herself. She has motion picture insurance as part of a local craftsperson union and has just a $5 copay for counseling. She couldn’t afford it otherwise, she said. Now the question is, “how do I hold the door open for more people to have access to it?”

    If You Need Immediate Help

    If you or someone you know is in crisis and need immediate help, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or go here for online chat.

    Find 5 Action Steps for helping someone who may be suicidal, from the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

    Six questions to ask to help assess the severity of someone's suicide risk, from the Columbia Lighthouse Project.

    To prevent a future crisis, here's how to help someone make a safety plan.

    Cutting through the stigma

    Southern Smoke founder, the Houston-based, James Beard Award-winning chef Chris Shepherd, 51, says if you talk to any cook they’ll tell you the same thing: “I still hear the ticket machine in my head at night. You know, you can hear that, geeegeee, geeegeee sound. It doesn't stop.”

    The foundation was originally conceived through a Houston festival intended to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. Shepherd was trying to help a sommelier friend battling the disease. The participating chefs and organizers started speaking about opening up the mental health dimension before the 2018 festival, right after the suicide of superstar TV chef Anthony Bourdain.

    Within a few days of the celebrity chef’s death, a friend of one of the festival chefs also had taken his own life. So, “with twenty-something of the best chefs in the country coming in,” Shepherd said, there was a special opportunity to have that conversation.

    The profession will always be a high-pressure one, but that doesn’t mean we can’t mitigate harm where possible, he said. Beyond the obvious barriers of accessibility and affordability, there’s also the built-in cultural stigma around asking for help. Since the Southern Smoke therapy sessions are conducted via telehealth, “nobody needs to know,” he said.

    Kait Leonard, 28, a freelance chef, producer and co-owner of BOH Creative, a marketing agency that works with restaurants and their staffs, decided to attend the second Check-In event at Now Serving, although she wasn’t sure if she was in the right headspace beforehand.

    In 2023, a couple of months after cofounding her company, Leonard fell into a deep depression and admitted herself to the ER with suicidal ideation. She wasn’t sure if she was up for attending the meetup, but decided her presence could help someone else.

    “Like 'I went to the ER for, you know, I really didn't want to be here. And that's okay'.” Ultimately, her hope most importantly was that these meetups would be a positive outlet and tool for her clients, to help create a healthier workplace. “I wish something like this existed when I was first starting to work in kitchens,” she said.

    Brandon Gray, 38, chef and founder of Brandoni Pepperoni, the Los Angeles inspired pizza pop-up, has attended multiple Check-In events thus far. “A lot of trauma bonding,” took place at said events, he said, adding “everyone there has their own story, there’s a lot of overlap”.

    “It’s about just figuring out how to be better,” he said. “Because it needs to be better—the people who have been cooking as long as I have, it's not fun anymore.”

    Checking in about mental health

    The “hospitality industry is excessive,” says Noui. But it’s important to remember that those who are drawn to it, either back-of-house or front, are those who naturally, or are conditioned to, put themselves second. It’s those inherent “masochistic qualities that everyone has,” the same ones we see “romanticized in shows like the Bear” that come “out of service — out of wanting to serve."

    At Kitchen Culture Recruiting, the company she started, Arabian says she makes it a point to check in with potential hospitality candidates about their mental health, “but it’s not something you can hit chefs over the head with,” she said. “It takes trust,” from someone who’s been through it. But there are limits, she says. “I’m not a psychologist.”

    Arabian remembers her first time working in the kitchen as a cook, after feeling pushed by her family to become a pharmacist. For the first time, it felt like she was doing what she was supposed to be doing. She’d go on to work back-of-house for approximately ten years reaching the level of executive chef. In her last chef role she was working as executive sous chef at a bakery and pizzeria. But after working in front of a wood-burning stove for as much as 110 hours a week, 14-16 hours a day, seven days a week, she developed a chronic illness and had to leave. The safety net just wasn’t there.

    While any job can be anxiety-producing, “cooking is one job that has so much “machismo and bravado” around it that physically, “when you become ill, it is life-changing,” she said. Rather than seek out another chef job, she became a front-of-house and back-of-house recruiter. She remembers saying, “Until I find a really great job for myself, in the meanwhile, I'm going to make sure that chefs are taken care of.” Fourteen years later, she says, "I’m still trying.”

    Noui has been workshopping her own community resource tool. She bought a phone number that she’s calling the “My Chef” line, 855-My-Chef-8, which she also had printed on pens. This hotline can be used for everything from finding someone to fill a job, like a chef, stylist, or dishwasher or for accountability checks.

    Ultimately, Shepherd says it's important for people to know there is help. He's not a fan of all the emerging depictions of extreme kitchen conditions put out there today. “There's these new TV shows that glorify this [toxic workplace elements] when an industry is trying to get away from it…I think it’s wrong. Unless at the end of it you say, ‘hey, you know what? Therapy is available.’”

  • Netflix jilted, paving way for Paramount takeover

    Topline:

    The Warner Bros. Discovery board announced late Thursday afternoon that Paramount's sweetened bid to buy the entire company is "superior" to an $83 billion deal it had struck with Netflix for the purchase of its streaming services, studios, and intellectual property.

    What's next: Netflix says it is pulling out of the contest rather than try to top Paramount's offer. "We've always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance's latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid," the streaming giant said in a statement.

    The context: Warner had rejected so many offers from Paramount that it seemed as though it would be a fruitless endeavor. Speaking on the red carpet for the BAFTA film awards last weekend, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dared Paramount to stop making its case publicly and start ponying up cash.

    The background: Paramount previously bid for all of Warner — including its cable channels such as CNN, TBS, and Discovery — in a deal valued at $108 billion. Earlier this week, Paramount unveiled a fresh proposal increasing its bid by a dollar a share.

    Read on... for more on what to expect.

    The Warner Bros. Discovery board announced late Thursday afternoon that Paramount's sweetened bid to buy the entire company is "superior" to an $83 billion deal it had struck with Netflix for the purchase of its streaming services, studios, and intellectual property.

    Netflix says it is pulling out of the contest rather than try to top Paramount's offer.

    "We've always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance's latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid," the streaming giant said in a statement.

    Warner had rejected so many offers from Paramount that it seemed as though it would be a fruitless endeavor. Speaking on the red carpet for the BAFTA film awards last weekend, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dared Paramount to stop making its case publicly and start ponying up cash.

    'If you wanna try and outbid our deal … just make a better deal. Just put a better deal on the table," Sarandos told the trade publication Deadline Hollywood.

    Netflix promised that Warner Bros. would operate as an independent studio and keep showing its movies in theaters.

    But the political realities, combined with Paramount's owners' relentless drive to expand their entertainment holdings, seem to have prevailed.

    Paramount previously bid for all of Warner — including its cable channels such as CNN, TBS, and Discovery — in a deal valued at $108 billion. Earlier this week, Paramount unveiled a fresh proposal increasing its bid by a dollar a share.

    On Thursday, hours before the Warner announcement, Sarandos headed to the White House to meet Trump administration officials to make his case for the deal.

    The meetings, leaked Wednesday to political and entertainment media outlets, were confirmed by a White House official who spoke on condition he not be named, as he was not authorized to speak about them publicly.

    President Trump was not among those who met with Sarandos, the official said.

    While Netflix's courtship of Warner stirred antitrust concerns, the Paramount deal is likely to face a significant antitrust review from the U.S. Justice Department, given the combination of major entertainment assets. Paramount owns CBS and the streamer Paramount Plus, in addition to Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other cable channels.

    The offer from Paramount CEO David Ellison relies on the fortune of his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. And David Ellison has argued to shareholders that his company would have a smoother path to regulatory approval.

    Not unnoticed: the Ellisons' warm ties to Trump world.

    Larry Ellison is a financial backer of the president.

    David Ellison was photographed offering a MAGA-friendly thumbs-up before the State of the Union address with one of the president's key Congressional allies: U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican.

    Trump has praised changes to CBS News made under David Ellison's pick for editor in chief, Bari Weiss.

    The chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, told Semafor Wednesday that he was pleased by the news division's direction under Weiss. She has criticized much of the mainstream media as being too reflexively liberal and anti-Trump.

    "I think they're doing a great job," Carr said at a Semafor conference on trust and the media Wednesday. As Semafor noted, Carr previously lauded CBS by saying it "agreed to return to more fact-based, unbiased reporting."
    Copyright 2026 NPR

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  • How to see a gorgeous vista in Riverside County
    A close up of a dense outdoor area with orange and purple native flowers. In the background is the lake water.
    California poppies and other wildflowers blanket the hills surrounding Diamond Valley Lake in 2019.

    Topline:

    Calling all people who love to snap pictures of nature: this year’s wildflower bloom at Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County is starting a little early.

    What’s there? The ecological reserve around the lake grows a lot of colorful native flowers, like California poppies and red bush monkeyflowers. The 1.3-mile trail loop takes you through the wildflower bloom and gives you a peek at the drinking water reservoir.

    How can I see it? The wildflower trail at the lake reopens Friday, Feb. 27. You can visit it Wednesdays through Sundays, from 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Hours will be extended in about a week.

    Know before you go: You will have to pay to use the wildflower trail. Access is $4 per person. If you drive, parking costs $11 (or $5 if you meet certain requirements).

    Read on…. to learn about etiquette practices to keep the flowers safe.

    Each spring, the land around Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County bursts into a vibrant array of native wildflowers. This year, it’s happening earlier than expected because of the recent rains.

    The lake’s wildflower trail is scheduled to reopen this Friday, Feb. 27. Here’s what you should know before you go.

    What the trail has to offer

    The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which manages the body of water in Hemet, says wildflower blooms are already dotting the hillsides around the ecological reserve at Diamond Valley Lake.

    Think of a bright color wheel — that’s the kind of colorful blooms you’ll see. The hills grow orange California poppies, baby blue eyes, red bush monkeyflower and yellow tidy tips, to name a few. You’ll also get a peek at SoCal’s largest drinking water reservoir.

    Known as the Judy Abdo Wildflower Trail, the 1.3 mile loop extends from the Lakeview Trail, close to the trail head and parking area. You can see a map here. The hike has some rugged terrain, but it’s rated as easy-to-moderate.

    • Address: 2615 Angler Ave., Hemet
    • Hours: Wednesdays through Sundays, 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

    When you visit, don’t go too late! No entry is allowed after 3:30 p.m. Starting March 8, it’ll be open until 5:30 p.m. (with no entry after 4:30 p.m.).

    You’ll have to pay $4 per person to use the wildflower trail. Parking costs $11 (or $5 if you’re: 62 years and older, a military member or a veteran).

    Observe safely

    Wildflower blooms are very popular in Southern California because of how beautiful (and Instaworthy) the scenery is, but you should tread cautiously.

    About 10 years ago, Diamond Valley Lake’s trail had to be closed because crowds of visitors trampled the wildflowers. So when you visit, make sure to follow these etiquette tips so the bloom can be enjoyed by everyone.

    Best practices

    Here's guidance from the California Botanic Garden on how to responsibly view the state's spectacular flower blooms:

    • Stay on designated trails: real trails — not those newly blazed by the person before you.
    • Take photos only; leave wildflowers where they are.
    • Plant your own super bloom by sowing seeds from reputable nurseries such as the Grow Native Nursery at CalBG or Theodore Payne Foundation.
    • Volunteer with organizations to help maintain native ecosystems.
    • Avoid visiting the most vulnerable parks with high visitation (i.e., those that you may be hearing about on the news or social media). Instead, spread out to other areas. There is a lot to see in California!
    • Share these guidelines with others: your friends, family, people you see violating them.

  • Farmers back major project in central CA

    Topline:

    A mammoth solar farm is moving forward in the heart of California. If built, which seems increasingly likely, it would cover 200 square miles of land and generate 21,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power entire cities.

    Farmers back the project: Farmers don't have enough water to grow crops on big chunks of their land, and they're looking for new uses for it. Westlands Water District, a farmer-run organization, is a key player in this effort, negotiating with solar companies and government regulators on behalf of its members.

    About the solar farm: A solar developer called Golden State Clean Energy presented Westlands Water District with a master plan for a collection of vast solar projects. Patrick Mealoy, a partner at Golden State Clean Energy, says they had to propose a solar farm that would generate an enormous amount of power to make the case for new multibillion-dollar power lines to carry electricity from the San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Mealoy says smaller proposed projects have stalled because they weren't big enough to justify building those power lines.

    What's next: Getting the managers of California's electrical grid to approve construction of those transmission lines could be the project's biggest remaining hurdle. If built, the cost of those power lines, along with the benefits of greater electricity supply, eventually will show up in consumers' electricity bills.

    A mammoth solar farm is moving forward in the heart of California. If built, which seems increasingly likely, it would cover 200 square miles of land and generate 21,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power entire cities. Huge batteries will store some of that power until it's needed most.

    Farmers are among the project's backers. They don't have enough water to grow crops on big chunks of their land, and they're looking for new uses for it.

    "We're farmers, and we would rather farm the ground," says Ross Franson, president of Woolf Farming and Processing, his family's business. "If we had the water to do it, we would farm it. But the reality is, you don't. You have to deal with the cards you're dealt."

    Franson is on the board of the Westlands Water District, a farmer-run organization that's a key player in this effort, negotiating with solar companies and government regulators on behalf of its members. Westlands is an agricultural power and has long represented the interests of farmers in a large swath of land on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley, between the towns of Firebaugh and Huron. Decades ago, it helped persuade the federal government to build a giant canal to deliver irrigation water to this area from rivers far away in Northern California.

    A man with a beard wearing eyeglasses, a white baseball cap and a dark vest and shirt underneath stands in the middle of a green field
    Jose Gutierrez, assistant general manager of Westlands Water District, on land that could become a solar farm.
    (
    Dan Charles
    )

    Yet these farmers are now facing a new water crisis. The canal has been delivering less water in recent years because of droughts and competing claims on that water. Until recently, the farmers had a backup water supply: They could pump water from aquifers a thousand feet underground. Now, though, a new state law is coming into force that bans overpumping from the aquifer.

    So farmers in Westlands have been leaving large chunks of land unplanted. Another large piece of land, now owned by the Westlands Water District itself, has been fallowed because irrigating it could release high levels of a mineral called selenium that can poison wildlife or people. The farmers, and the district, have been looking for new ways to put that land to use.

    A solar developer called Golden State Clean Energy seized the opportunity. Several years ago, it presented Westlands Water District with a master plan for a collection of vast solar projects.

    Developers say scale will justify new power lines 

    Patrick Mealoy, a partner at Golden State Clean Energy, says they had to propose a solar farm that would generate an enormous amount of power to make the case for new multibillion-dollar power lines to carry electricity from the San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Mealoy says smaller proposed projects have stalled because they weren't big enough to justify building those power lines.

    "In order to actually have solar be productive, you need size and scale, a mass of projects that support the necessary investment in high voltage transmission lines to collect the electrons and move them," Mealoy says.

    Getting the managers of California's electrical grid to approve construction of those transmission lines could be the project's biggest remaining hurdle. If built, the cost of those power lines, along with the benefits of greater electricity supply, eventually will show up in consumers' electricity bills.

    Franson says his immediate reaction to the proposal was "Yes, we need to do this." Negotiating the details and completing an environmental review took several years, but in December, the Westlands Water District's board voted to move ahead.

    Golden State is the plan's architect, but other solar developers will build sections of it. Construction could take a decade. Even though the Trump administration has abolished some financial incentives for solar projects, Mealoy says it's still a solid business opportunity.

    "The state needs it. It's permitted. It's the right place for it. I'm excited about this," he says.

    Grace Wu, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says "this is a fantastic place for solar" because the fallowed farmland isn't high-value habitat for wildlife.

    Farmworkers wonder if they will also benefit

    About 150 farmers within the Westlands Water District, including Jeremy Hughes, have signed up to put solar on some of their land. "We look at it as a new crop. We're harvesting electricity," Hughes says. The guaranteed income from those acres makes it possible to keep farming the rest of his land.

    "Because of solar, we can continue farming in Westlands. It'll keep the farming community alive," says Jose Gutierrez, assistant general manager of Westlands Water District.

    In the small towns nearby where many farmworkers live, however, there are worries that local residents won't see many benefits from the project. Among those towns is Huron, home to about 6,000 people. Rey León grew up here, working in his family's restaurant. Now he's the town's mayor.

    A man wearing a beige fedora hat and black long sleeved shirt stands in front of a car with the driver's side door opened.
    Rey León is the mayor of Huron, Calif., home to many farmworkers who aren't yet sure what they will get out of solar coming to the region.
    (
    Dan Charles
    )

    "I'm worried about Huron," he says. This solar deal may be great for the landowners of Westlands, he says, but less farming means fewer jobs for people who worked in the fields and orchards. León wants some of the solar revenue to flow to this community for education and training, to help people find jobs in this new solar industry.

    "We are shareholders," he says. "We kept these communities alive, these economies robust. There's no excuse to leave us out."

    Westlands and Golden State Clean Energy have been discussing what they call a community benefits package, but officials haven't released any details.

    A possible model for other parts of California

    Caity Peterson, at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), says other farming communities in California may try to imitate what Westlands is doing. Because they, too, will have to stop pumping so much water from the ground as the new state law comes into force. "There's going to be some kind of right-sizing of agricultural land in the San Joaquin Valley," she says.

    According to a study that PPIC carried out, farmers in the valley will have to stop growing crops on between 500,000 and 1 million acres. There will be a lot of dry, sunny land in California, just waiting for a solar developer.

    Copyright 2026 NPR

  • How you can help decide in a March Madness twist
    An intersection in Hollywood, California packed with cars at various stop lights. A man wearing a light blue baseball cap and t-shirt is walking through the cars to cross the street.
    A pedestrian is surrounded by traffic at Sunset Blvd and Highland Avenue in Hollywood on February 24, 2026.

    Topline:

    A truly Los Angeles twist on March Madness is back, but this year, Angelenos are invited to weigh in on the worst intersections in greater L.A.

    Why it matters: Whether you feel personally victimized by the Virgil Avenue, Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards intersection by the Los Feliz border, which a city official called a “‘nightmare,” or break into anxious sweats every time you get in line for the Burbank Boulevard Costco — you can soon channel some of that frustration into a social media match-up.

    The backstory: After Koreatown was voted as having the city’s worst parking last year, the latest competition run by Americana at Brand Memes on Instagram is upping the stakes with infamous intersections.

    Why now: The anonymous account holder, who goes by Mr. Glen Dale, told LAist that the “One Bad Intersection After Another” bracket is designed to be a democratic process for people to collectively crown the worst in L.A. once and for all.

    What's next: “No matter who wins, it's all bad,” Mr. Glen Dale said.

    Read on ... for more on the March Madness-style bracket.

    A truly Los Angeles twist on March Madness is back, but this year, Angelenos are invited to weigh in on the worst intersections in greater L.A.

    Whether you feel personally victimized by the Virgil Avenue, Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards intersection by the Los Feliz border, which a city official called a “‘nightmare,” or break into anxious sweats every time you get in line for the Burbank Boulevard Costco — you can soon channel some of that frustration into a social media match-up.

    After Koreatown was voted as having the city’s worst parking last year, the latest competition run by Americana at Brand Memes on Instagram is upping the stakes with infamous intersections.

    The anonymous account holder, who goes by Mr. Glen Dale, told LAist the “One Bad Intersection After Another” bracket is designed to be a democratic process for people to collectively crown the worst in L.A. once and for all.

    “No matter who wins, it's all bad,” Mr. Glen Dale said.

    Voting kicks off this weekend, and the winner will be crowned by April.

    How it works

    The competition is divided into four rounds based on the general geographic area, with nine intersections in each round.

    Starting Sunday, @americanaatbrandmemes will post the competitors on Instagram with a poll attached around 11 a.m. each day throughout March.

    The polls will be open for 24 hours, and the intersection with the most votes will move on to the next round to face off against the others.

    To complete this year’s lineup, Mr. Glen Dale again started with a list of his personal worst before turning to his followers for some suggestions.

    The intersection of Harvey Drive and East Broadway toward the Glendale In-N-Out was a popular proposal, for example, but Mr. Glen Dale said he felt that may be too niche for the bracket.

    “I tried not to narrow in too much on one area,” he said. “And then tried to use my own experience to be like, ‘Oh yes, these ones feel like hallmarks.’”

    If your personal worst isn’t in the competition, you can also suggest an intersection in the comments by writing “WILDCARD: (your suggestion).” The suggestions with the most likes will be added to the competition, with a wildcard slot in each of the four rounds.

    Some popular wildcard suggestions include the Cypress Park roundabout at Riverside Drive and San Fernando Road, the Glendale Boulevard and Riverside Drive intersection with the wonky left-turn lanes in Silver Lake, and for another year in a row — all of Koreatown.

    “I always put [wildcards] in there because I'm always like there's something I'm not thinking of that someone's going to suggest,” Mr. Glen Dale said. “This is a fluid list, we could change it.”

    The intersection voted as L.A.’s worst of the worst will be crowned on Americana At Brand Meme’s account by April 1.

    The East Side-ish Round

    The first round focuses on the “East Side-ish” of L.A., including Silver Lake, Highland Park, East L.A., Echo Park and Eagle Rock.

    The rounds are broken up by “side-ish” so people can focus their debates on the intersections, not the geographic boundaries of the bracket, according to Mr. Glen Dale.

    The options include:

    • Virgil Avenue / Sunset Boulevard / Hollywood Boulevard vs Sunset Boulevard / Sanborn Avenue / Santa Monica Boulevard
    • Stadium Way / Academy Road vs Glendale Boulevard / Fletcher Drive / Silver Ridge Avenue
    • Telegraph Road / Atlantic Boulevard / Triggs Street / Ferguson Drive vs wildcard vs Huntington Drive / Garfield Avenue / Atlantic Boulevard
    • York Boulevard / N Avenue 50 vs Glendale Boulevard / Alvarado Street vs Avenue 42 / Eagle Rock Boulevard

    Mr. Glen Dale said Avenue 50, which came up often in followers’ suggestions, could get its own bracket because the intersections in the area don’t seem to communicate with each other.

    “You'll be sitting at a red light and seeing a green in front of you and being like, oh, when I get to that one it's going to be red,” he said. “But, you know, I ended up with York and 50 … [it] felt like a good representation of that street as a whole.”

    The West Side-ish Round

    The competition heads to Beverly Hills, Culver City, Westchester, Venice, Westwood Village and Brentwood for the second, “West Side-ish” round.

    The options include:

    • Beverly Hills 6 way stop vs Pacific Coast Highway / Chautauqua Boulevard / West Channel Road
    • Washington Boulevard / Culver Boulevard vs Exposition / Robertson / Venice Boulevards
    • Sunset Boulevard / Bellagio Drive / Bellagio Road / Bellagio Way vs wildcard vs Abbot Kinney Boulevard / California Avenue
    • La Cienega Boulevard / Centinela Avenue / La Tijera Boulevard vs Wilshire / Westwood Boulevards vs San Vicente Boulevard / Montana Avenue

    “It will be the Beverly Hills 6 stop,” one Instagram commenter wrote. “It is known.”

    The Central LA-ish Round 

    The third, “Central LA-ish” round takes us into the heart of Hollywood, West Hollywood, the border of Miracle Mile and Carthay Circle as well as the border of Wilshire Center and the Dayton Heights neighborhood.

    The options include:

    • Hollywood Boulevard / Highland Avenue vs Highland / Franklin Avenues
    • Fairfax Avenue / La Cienega Boulevard vs Fairfax Avenue / Olympic / San Vincente Boulevards
    • Jefferson Boulevard / La Brea Avenue vs wildcard vs La Cienega / Sunset Boulevards
    • Franklin Avenue / Vine Street / 101 Freeway vs Virgil Avenue / Beverly Boulevard / Temple Street vs Santa Monica Boulevard / Western Avenue

    The Los Angeles Times released a report this week ranking L.A.’s worst intersections based on traffic data, with the troublesome top spot going to Highland and Sunset in Hollywood.

    The Valley-ish Round

    Last but not least, the “Valley-ish,” which includes intersections in North Hollywood, Burbank, Studio City and Sherman Oaks.

    This round also features my personal nemesis — Barham and Cahuenga boulevards.

    I take this route relatively often to get from Burbank to West Hollywood and have to give myself a pep talk every time. The seemingly-constant congestion over the hill, driver confusion about what lanes lead where and people cutting into lines of cars just before a turn makes the experience feel like it takes years off my life.

    The options include:

    • Lankershim Boulevard / Vineland Avenue / Camarillo Street vs Burbank / Lankershim Boulevards / Tujunga Avenue
    • Victory / Burbank Boulevards / Victory Place / 5 Freeway / Costco vs Ventura Place / Radford Avenue / Trader Joe’s / Sephora parking lots
    • Harvey / W Broadway vs wildcard vs Sepulveda / Burbank Boulevards
    • Mulholland Drive / Coldwater Canyon Avenue vs Barham / Cahuenga Boulevards vs Vineland Avenue / Magnolia Boulevard

    Mr. Glen Dale agreed with my assessment, describing the Barham Boulevard intersection as his “white whale.”

    “I hate going through that intersection, and it's not even that it's scary like other ones where you don't know what's happening,” Mr. Glen Dale said. “No matter which way you're going, everyone is converging onto Barham, and it just creates this madness.”

    But Lankershim / Vineland / Camarillo appears to be an early follower favorite, as one commenter wrote, it “takes 2-3 business days to get through” and another added, “I’m rioting if [the intersection] doesn’t win.”