The Brief

Summer is heating up. Need a way to quench your thirst?

Luckily, L.A. is at the center of a drinks revolution: Everywhere you look, someone is putting a fresh new spin on sips, from new school takes on coffee-based drinks to others that take cues from Indigenous roots. It's a perfect time for those looking to expand their horizons — without alcohol.

So grab your favorite reusable straw and join us!

Boba drinks (and more) at Hey Hey

At Hey Hey, Chris Kwok’s pan-Asian boba and coffee shop, the drinks are as gorgeous as their flavors, with a menu that reflects multiple influences. Starting with Hong Kong, where Kwok’s family is from, there’s the Union ($6.50), a mix of black tea and cold brew coffee. It’s inspired by a classic Hong Kong-style drink called Yuen Yeung and is added to salted black sesame cream and boba.

Then there's a Taiwanese influence, with drink toppings such as boba and other flavored jellies like lychee, and milk and fruit teas, where fresh fruit is mixed in. And Vietnam also gets a nod. Hey Hey was recommended by How To LA host Brian De Los Santos, and his favorite drink is the Cafe Seda ($6), inspired by the traditional Vietnamese iced coffee drink made with sweetened condensed milk.

At Hey Hey in Echo Park, cool off with an L.I.T., their version of the Arnold Palmer made with rose lemonade

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The Strike is a Nutella coffee frappe (ice blended) with boba, topped with chocolate drizzle, almonds, and house creme. It's so sweet and creamy that it might inspire you to break into song and dance.

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On the bolder side, we tried the Hey Hey ($7), made with black milk tea added to their house cream, warm boba, and… get ready for it… flan. The flan serves as the drink's base, which provides a layer of sweet texture, not to mention depth, making it a standout.

Looking for even more sweetness? Try the Strike ($7). Kwok modeled the drink after Starbucks’ Frappuccino. His version amps the sugar to the nth degree with a combination of a hazelnut cocoa spread (similar to Nutella) mixed with espresso.

After one sip of the thick, sweet drink, I felt I was reliving my version of that scene from The Simpsons where Bart and Milhouse overdose on sugar, prompting them to “Go crazy Broadway style.” While no musical numbers were performed on my day at Hey Hey, I was taken by the sheer creative effort of Strike and the rest of the drinks consumed that day.

Hey Hey in Cantonese means "double happiness," which is exactly what you'll experience at the cafe founded by Chris Kwok on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. The cafe specializes in cool and inventive beverages, not to mention exquisite vibes.

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Tepache and pulque at Mirate 

Tepache is a fermented beverage popular in Mexico. It is made with the rind of pineapple and piloncillo, an unrefined sugar cane. It's also become popular in the United States, where cans are sold in places like 7-11 and in restaurants such as Mirate.

Tepache’s origins go back to the pre-Columbian-era, during the time of the Aztecs. Its name comes from a word in Nahuatl (Mexico’s Aztec language), meaning “drink made from corn,” as that's what it was originally made from.

The beverage director at Mirate is Max Reis, whom I liken to the mad scientist of L.A.’s beverage world. (I covered Mirate earlier this year when I wrote about the release of their canned cocktail, Tu Compa, their take on the Paloma cocktail.)

The tepache ($6) at Mirate is a zero-waste product made from pineapple rinds fermented with piloncillo and toasted spices, including canela (Mexican cinnamon), star anise, and clove.

Enjoy a glass of pulque at Mirate this summer and toast to the gods.

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Mirate's house-made tepache, crafted from pineapple rinds, piloncillo, and an array of toasted spices

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The tepache-making process at Mirate differs from the way the beverage is typically made in Mexico. But, Ries and his team still aim to honor its traditions. The tepache does carry a trace amount of alcohol. However, it’s very low, around 0.5–2% percentage-wise, similar to another beverage Ries serves at Mirate, pulque ($8).

Pulque is made from the fermented agave plant (also known as a maguey in Mexico), similar to tequila and mezcal, whose roots also extend back to the Mesoamerican period. It's known for its cloudy milk-like color, and is a viscous liquid with a slight amount of foam on top, coming from the sap of the agave plant. Its taste contains notes of yeast and a sour flavoring. At Mirate, Reis started serving his pulque via a nitro draft, similar to cold brew coffee or some stout beers such as Guinness. Reis removes the oxygen via the nitro tap, which slows the shelf life, and accentuates the creaminess, removing some of the viscosity.

Mírate dining room creates the feeling of being inside and outside at the same time

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While customers can enjoy tepache and pulque alone, Reis mainly uses them as a base for various cocktails. He also recommends them to diners pre- and post-meal to cleanse the palette and for probiotic qualities to promote gut health and assist with digestion.

The tepache at Mirate offers a rich mouthfeel and almost briny flavoring, even with the toasted spice notes that bring a bright, fresh taste. The pulque has a smoother, lighter consistency with the slightest bit of acidity.

Kava drinks at Kavahana

Heading to the shores of Santa Monica, you’ll discover an oasis that’s a little different from most bars and coffee shops: Kavahana, Los Angeles's first kava nectar bar.

I only recently heard of kava, a beverage made from the kava plant's roots. (This is different from the Spanish sparkling wine known as cava.) The non-alcoholic beverage from the kava plant is only grown in the Pacific Islands, specifically from the volcanic island of Vanuatu. It is cold-pressed and then dried to make a powder, which is later mixed with water and turned into a beverage.

Kava nectar can be bitter in its original form, leaving a tingly taste on your tongue. But it’s known for its kavalactones, advertised to bring about euphoria and relaxation.

Hannah Wilen and partner Neil Bhatia started Kavahana to create an alternative social space that wasn’t dependent on alcohol or caffeine. Willen herself began drinking kava nectar years ago as a way to help her with anxiety and as an alternative to alcohol.

At Kavahana, the Golden Nectar drink is made with kava nectar, turmeric, fresh lemon, ginger, and sparkling water.

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Kavahana, L.A.'s first Kava nectar bar

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The Kavahana space features low lighting and a subdued island motif with a Gen Z aesthetic. Customers can also head to the adjoining patio space outback to play board games. Regular weekly programming consists of open mics, stand-up comedy, and karaoke.

The beverage menu is meant to demystify and entice anyone interested in trying kava nectar-based drinks for the first time. Wilen and Bhatia advise ordering a double or triple shot with all the drinks at Kavahana, to experience the full effect of the drinks' relaxing properties.

Patrons relax while sipping Kava nectar-based beverages at Kavahana Bar in Santa Monica.

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I tried the Beach Nectar ($13), made with kava nectar and blue spirulina (a dietary supplement from blue-green algae), mixed with house coconut foam and vanilla — think creamy cereal milk that leaves a tingle similar to a Sichuan peppercorn. I followed it with the Golden Lemon Nectar ($13), made with kava nectar, turmeric, fresh lemon juice, and sparkling water. It was effervescent and refreshing.

After a few sips, I felt a sense of calmness fall over me, almost as if I were being wrapped up tightly in my favorite blanket.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The worries before the World Cup were many. There were the visa wait times, the ticket prices, anxieties over hotel rooms and public transit, and countless battles between FIFA and local organizing committees.

Now, with the group stage done and the knockout round set to begin Sunday, it is time to declare: The North American World Cup has been a success.

No doubt there were visitors who were turned away, would-be attendees who could not afford tickets, and hotels and local businesses who feel the promised bump in tourism hasn't materialized.

But overall, the stadiums have been full, even for matchups that seemed lackluster on paper: nearly 70,000 people packed into stadiums to see games like Cape Verde-Saudi Arabia, Algeria-Jordan and Bosnia and Herzegovina-Qatar. And for headliner events, the environment has been top-tier, like at the U.S.-Australia game in Seattle and in Kansas City for Lionel Messi's historic hat trick for Argentina.

Visitors and hosts alike have been dazzled by the scenes. Kansas City was swarmed with tens of thousands of Dutch fans for a pre-game march. Boston was besieged by the Tartan Army. Australian fans seized their chance to come to the closer North American coast, where they packed the stands and belted "Waltzing Matilda."

And of course, the games have been terrific. Now, the knockout round is set, with some blockbusters shaping up for the Round of 16 and beyond.

Read on for more takeaways from the tournament so far:

France forward Kylian Mbappé (r) runs with the ball past Iraq's midfielder Zaid Ismael during a World Cup Group I match in Philadelphia on June 22.

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France is the best team in the tournament

Some pre-tournament favorites have looked good, like Argentina. Others have underwhelmed, like Portugal. Some have mixed their good and bad moments, like England, Germany and Brazil.

But one team has consistently looked a cut above the rest: France. Les Bleus had supposedly drawn one of the toughest groups at this World Cup, with dark horses Senegal and Norway competing with them for the top spot. After a sluggish first half to start their opener against Senegal, France turned on the gas and has cruised ever since. They've made their World Cup look downright easy, with at least three goals in each game.

No path to the World Cup Final is easy, and France would certainly arrive battle-tested if they get there, with a potential later matchups in the Round of 16 against Germany, in the quarterfinal against the Netherlands or Morocco and in a possible semifinal against Spain. But their group stage performance leaves no doubt that they should be the favorites to win all of them, and more.

The U.S. is better than expected, though its path to the quarterfinals isn't easy

Is this finally the World Cup run to remember for the USMNT? The American men were once the plucky underdogs of international soccer, always willing to run for 90 minutes and gut out a tough, gritty game. Those days seemed to fade for a decade or two after their 2002 quarterfinal run.

U.S. players celebrate during their World Cup group match against Paraguay.

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Suddenly, the results are good, the vibes are even better, and the expectations are growing by the minute. For the first time ever, the starting lineup mostly features players with key roles on teams in top European leagues. And these boys can score: The six goals they scored in their first two group stage games were twice as many as they netted across four games in the 2022 World Cup.

The third group stage match against Turkey, in which U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino gave most of his usual starters a rest and his backups a chance to play, cooled their momentum somewhat with a 3-2 loss.

Still, a Round of 32 matchup against Bosnia and Herzegovina should be winnable. That would be their third win of the tournament so far, the most ever by any U.S. men's team at a World Cup. And a potential Round of 16 matchup against Belgium (or Senegal) is tougher but should be competitive, too. A quarterfinal in Los Angeles, even if it's a loss against Spain, would be an epic and fitting result for this team on home soil.

This will be an epic Golden Boot race

The stars are delivering in this World Cup. Argentina's GOAT Lionel Messi has six goals. France's twin titans Kylian Mbappé and Ousmane Dembélé are hot on his heels with four goals apiece. The imposing 6-foot-5 Norwegian megastar Erling Haaland has four goals despite resting on the bench for Norway's third game. Brazil's Vinícius Júnior also has four.

Argentina forward Lionel Messi celebrates scoring his team's third goal during a group match against Jordan on Saturday. It was his sixth goal of the tournament, and record 19th overall World Cup goal.

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Messi should have plenty more opportunities as Argentina drew perhaps the easiest route to the quarterfinal, with a Round of 32 match against Cape Verde, followed by a possible Round of 16 game against the winner of Egypt versus Australia. Plenty of other stars have two or three goals and what could be a deep run ahead, like England's Harry Kane and Portugal's Cristiano Ronaldo. Watch this space.

The expansion to 48 was criticized, but it has been a lot of fun

The biggest criticism of expansion was that there would be no real peril for top-quality teams in the group stage, both because there would be more lopsided group stage matchups and because eight third-place teams advance. That has mostly borne out.

The highest-ranked World Cup team that failed to qualify for the knockout stage was Uruguay, which came in ranked No. 16. By contrast, the 2022 tournament had four teams ranked higher and were eliminated in the group stage — Belgium (No. 2), Denmark (No. 10), Germany (No. 11) and Mexico (No. 13). The new Round of 32 will have to do some of that work of adding surprise and peril to the big favorites.

The expanded format has also given us moments and teams to remember, like Cape Verde — which would probably not have reached the World Cup under the old format — taking the pre-tournament favorites Spain to a scoreless draw in their opening match. It's a thrill for fans of teams that rarely have a shot, like Scotland or Haiti or the Democratic Republic of Congo, to have a chance to see their nation on this kind of stage. In fact, nine (of 10) African countries advanced to the knockout round.

Plus, seven teams have reached the knockout stage for the first time in their country's history: Cape Verde, Egypt, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Congo, Canada and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Sure, they won't be favorites to make a deep run. But the games should be electric.
Copyright 2026 NPR

A supporter of Cape Verde's national football team reacts as she watches the 2026 World Cup group match against Saudi Arabia on Friday.

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The American Film Institute is out with this bold proclamation: Mel Brooks’ film Blazing Saddles is the funniest movie of all time.

The pick may be contentious for some, but the 1974 film has been widely acclaimed for its raunchy and subversive humor in service of skewering racial prejudices.

Younger viewers might be shocked at the number of racial slurs included in the film (by some counts there are dozens). According to NPR reporting, Brooks was concerned about the use of racial epithets in the film. But as NPR’s film critic Bob Mondello wrote in 2024, “... his co-screenwriter, Richard Pryor, insisted he use it — and use it often — consciously putting it [in] the mouths of evil or unthinking characters, so that star Cleavon Little could comically mock or demolish them.”

The American Film Institute says it’s bestowing this recognition in honor of Mel Brooks' birthday. The director of comedy classics, including Young Frankenstein, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, and Spaceballs turns 100 today.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula has received a lot of attention in recent years because of accelerated land movement, but one landslide in the area has been a draw for decades because of its dystopian state with fractured streets.

Nearly 100 years ago, residents of San Pedro’s Point Fermin neighborhood had a dream of living by the ocean, but the cliffs became their undoing. A landslide slowly ripped Point Fermin apart. This southernmost part of Los Angeles County was given a new nickname to fit its troubled state: Sunken City.

Today, it’s full of torn-up terrain, graffiti and remnants of old homes, rising out of the ground like fossils. It’s still considered dangerous, but its mysterious remnants make for a compelling backdrop — you may have seen it in movies like the ash-spreading scene in The Big Lebowski. But soon, you could visit it too. The city of L.A. is working on reopening a section — possibly in the next year.

How the landslide started

Point Fermin is where you can get a spectacular view of the water. On a clear day, you can see down the Pacific Ocean as far as Catalina Island.

That scenery is why people wanted to live on its bluff. In the 1920s, Los Angeles was on the cusp of a population boom, so naturally, building homes on the coastline made sense. Developer George Peck took that idea and built an upscale neighborhood with bungalows.

An Easter Sunday service on a Point Fermin hilltop, taken between 1920 and 1939.

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It lasted for a few years, but in the months leading up to January 1929, some strange coincidences began to happen. Pipes were breaking more than expected, but it wasn’t clear why.

Then, a waterline broke under an inn and a crack appeared. At first, it was brushed off as a “simple landslide” with minimal danger, but it eventually became known as an uncontrollable “act of God.”

The crack formed near the cliffside back around to Pacific Avenue and Paseo del Mar. Part of it even caved in, forming a deep, 10-foot-long hole in front of homes.

F.L. Ransome, a geology professor at Caltech, reportedly told L.A.’s city engineer that land had slid up to 8 inches, ripping open utility pipes and pulling apart building foundations.

He warned that the area was no longer suitable for large structures and that water in the area may accelerate the movement, producing “disastrous changes on the surface.”

A section of the Point Fermin landslide in 1932.

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At that point, the slide, which covered 5 acres, was mostly blamed on ground weakness and wave erosion. The city filled cracks as they happened and explored ways to protect the area, including with eminent domain. Property owners in 55 lots petitioned the city to buy them out.

But by September, the situation became so risky that geologists recommended the area be condemned. L.A. officials told residents to leave or risk “their own peril.”

A slow march to the sea

For the next several years, Point Fermin was in limbo. The ground still moved but mostly at a snail’s pace. The keyword is mostly. The area was plagued by huge cracks that tore apart the once-thriving community — some 40 feet wide.

Multiple incidents caused the landslide to move faster, including heavy rains. Numbers varied, but it was reported that the grounds shifted more than 30 feet seaward and 30 feet down by 1941.

Heavy rains loosened 200 tons of earth at Point Fermin in San Pedro, as shown Feb. 17, 1941.

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This destroyed the area. The city demolished homes that were too damaged to live in, and others were relocated to other parts of L.A. Officials eventually bought up nearly all of the impacted land to turn it into a park. But with the heightened risk, much of the area was blocked off to the public for years.

Around this period, landslides happened in other parts of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, like the Portuguese Bend. The issue became such a problem that insurance companies refused to insure L.A. homes for landslide damage.

Then came the big drop. After a 5.0 earthquake in 1969, a new “mammoth, crescent-shaped fissure” appeared that damaged three homes along Paseo del Mar and dropped another 200 feet down into the rocks. Still, some residents refused to leave.

“I’ve studied the trench and I’d be willing to bet the house never goes, even if the backyard did,” said resident Larry Penhall in 1970.

In total, the slip eventually grew to 10.5 acres, according to a geological study in 1987, with 40,000 feet of that ending up in the Pacific Ocean. It took down at least two homes and a lot of infrastructure, including roads, utility pipes and rail lines.

Sunken City today

The peninsula is generally still prone to landslides, but the ground is more stable in Point Fermin, or what’s now called Sunken City. It wasn’t the most dangerous landslide we’ve ever seen — no one died at the time, but visitors have in the years since, those who’ve wandered too far toward the cliff edge. It’s become a local legend because of how it looks today.

An aerial view of Sunken City on Oct. 12, 2025.

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If you venture to Sunken City, there’s still a neighborhood nearby, but the landslide area itself is closed off. For those bold enough to sneak in, you risk getting caught for trespassing. Visitors have even had to be rescued over the years.

The terrain resembles nothing of its affluent past, but that may change soon. Earlier this year, the City Council approved funding for environmental monitoring and safety upgrades for the upper area.

Sophie Gilchrist, communications director for Councilmember Tim McOsker, said part of the plan includes the design of a new fence that requires coastal development permits.

“While we don’t have a precise timeline for reopening, we have informed the local neighbors that it may take another full year,” she said. “The project is actively moving forward.”

Manuel Valle, 84, jumped on his bike and rode through his Boyle Heights neighborhood despite the protests from his worried children. The air was smoky, for the fifth day in a row; he pushed through fits of coughing to pass out 50 N95 masks to his neighbors.

The same day, officials told residents the air was not dangerous and the smoke was clearing out. Valle didn’t agree.

“This is a state emergency,” he said. “Treat it like a state emergency.”

Fire had ignited at a facility, operated by the company Lineage, which stores food before it’s shipped off to restaurants and grocery stores. Lineage uses the toxic refrigerant anhydrous ammonia, which posed a health risk in the early hours of the fire.

Weeks earlier and miles away, the Orange County Fire Authority issued an evacuation order affecting 50,000 Garden Grove residents when fire officials realized a tank at an aerospace manufacturing facility could either explode or leak large amounts of a toxic chemical into the air.

In both cases, records show state and local regulators knew the facilities; they had inspected them, approved plans and resolved violations. How they used their authority is now a central question for neighbors in the surrounding areas seeking accountability.

A lawmaker has proposed some reforms to chemical policy. But prosecuting companies for failing to follow environmental laws is difficult, and how far cities may go to protect residents isn’t clear.

“I don’t know what the local government is waiting for — for a tragedy to occur or something more serious or what … on top of what is already going on,” said Miguel Ocegueda Castillo, who lives near the Lineage warehouse.

A young boy watches firefighters battle a blaze at a cold storage facility in the Boyle Heights neighborhood June 22.

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Years of oversight, unresolved risks

Companies face layers of federal and state oversight designed to help prevent hazardous chemicals from escaping into surrounding neighborhoods. But records show that these two facilities, one in Orange County and one in Los Angeles County, had accumulated violations over years and continued operating.

In 2021 the South Coast Air Quality Management District issued GKN Aerospace multiple notices of violation, including for failing to maintain the required emissions records and operating some equipment without proper permits. The company later signed a settlement with air regulators and paid more than $900,000 — without admitting liability.

During the emergency, authorities gave residents conflicting information about whether the chemical methyl methacrylate had leaked.

“When you go home, you can feel safe. There was no contamination. … There was no leak,” Regina Chinsio-Kwong, Orange County Public Health Officer told residents during one press briefing, even though early reports characterized the incident as a leak.

Days later, Orange County health officials walked back that statement.

In Boyle Heights, the Lineage facility stores more than 12,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The chemical is a refrigerant that if inhaled, can cause severe eye and respiratory irritation, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting and, at high concentrations, death.

In the early hours of the fire June 17, the Los Angeles Fire Department told residents to shelter in place because of the risk of the chemical being released into the air. The order was lifted, and then imposed again.

Lineage said in a statement that it “proactively took steps to pump out the ammonia and transport it offsite” and that no measurable ammonia concentrations had been recorded in the community since the fire began.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass told residents the air was not dangerous. But on the sixth day of the fire, an air monitor detected a hazardous spike of air pollutants.

Federal records show that the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health inspected Lineage in Boyle Heights the day the fire started. It wasn’t their first visit.

In 2020, Cal OSHA opened an investigation into the facility for violations of multiple safety standards. After Lineage lodged an administrative appeal, regulators fined the company $2,250 for violations related to process safety and respiratory protection.

Rebecca Liu Morales, a spokesperson for Lineage, said the company stores food, not hazardous materials, and said it was not responsible for the fire. She said the fire started when a contractor was working on the rooftop solar array, which provided power to the city.

“The health and safety of our employees and the communities we serve is our top priority,” she added. “Our industry is heavily regulated and inspected, with over 200 routine regulatory inspections by various agencies conducted of our North American operations alone between 2024 and 2025.”

The Los Angeles Fire Department is investigating the cause of the June 17 fire. The city department of Building and Safety is also investigating, and the workplace safety investigation remains open.

Luck, rather than strong protections, has saved residents from catastrophe in both Orange and Los Angeles counties, said Jane Williams, executive director of California Communities Against Toxics.

Industrial infrastructure has grown near residential communities, Williams said. But state and local oversight of hazardous substances has not kept up.

“I don’t think anybody really thought: Wait, we have these warehouses, a warehouse here, a warehouse there, and what happens if there’s an earthquake and we lose containment at four anhydrous ammonia tanks in one square mile at the same time?” Williams said.

Filling in regulatory gaps 

Federal and California laws are designed to protect communities from accidental releases, when a spill or an explosion or a leak releases hazardous chemicals into air, soil or waterways.

The federal Clean Air Act’s Risk Management Program requires companies handling dangerous chemicals in significant amounts to develop preventive and emergency plans for just these situations — and file those plans with regulators. California goes even further: Its risk management program sets stricter thresholds and more demanding requirements than federal law — meaning California law holds facilities to a higher standard, and state regulators have more tools and more authority to act than their federal counterparts.

But critics say even California’s stronger standards have significant gaps that state officials have allowed to persist.

Reactive chemicals, such as the methyl methacrylate stored at GKN, often fall outside of both the federal and state accidental release programs. In Garden Grove, regulators required no risk management plan.

Anhydrous ammonia is a different story. It’s a listed chemical, one of the core hazards state and federal programs aim to regulate. Federal and state environmental protection officials confirmed Lineage in Boyle Heights is part of both programs.

Local agencies called Certified Unified Program Agencies are the layer of oversight closest to the ground. In California, they’re responsible for knowing what hazardous chemicals companies store where, and in what quantities. Local agencies must inspect those facilities regularly and keep emergency plans on file, so that a fire department showing up to a warehouse blaze should already know what’s inside.

Neither local agency has fully disclosed its oversight of these facilities. In Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Fire Department did not answer questions about its oversight of Lineage Logistics, despite repeated requests by CalMatters.

In Garden Grove, records obtained by CalMatters reveal that the Orange County Healthcare Agency has inspected GKN more than a dozen times over the last decade and issued violations related to hazardous waste regulations that were later corrected. The facility had emergency plans that were approved in May, weeks before the incident, records show.

State Sen. Tom Umberg, a Democrat whose district includes Garden Grove, introduced Senate Bill 883 in the weeks after the GKN episode. It would require the state Office of Emergency Services to maintain a statewide inventory of facilities storing reactive chemicals, add methyl methacrylate to the state’s risk management program, require CalEnviroScreen tool to track facilities that pose an explosion risk and update current environmental review law to ensure that storage sites that have a risk of explosion aren’t exempt from review.

“We must learn from this incident, address the gaps it exposed, and take steps to ensure it never happens again,” Umberg said, in a statement announcing the legislation.

The bill is moving through Assembly policy committees.

The GKN emergency prompted a federal response. The Federal Bureau of Investigation searched the facility on June 10 — but experts say determining whether anyone committed a crime is often difficult after an industrial accident.

An aerial view of downtown Los Angeles with smoke from the smoldering storage facility in Boyle Heights on June 22.

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Legal remedies are a challenge

Residents want accountability, but the legal bar to hold companies for environmental crimes is high.

Criminal prosecution requires more than proving a rule was broken. Prosecutors need evidence of deliberate deceptions — falsifying reports, hiding violations, deceiving regulators.

The federal government goes after “those that are lying, cheating and stealing,” said Ethan Ware, an attorney who represents companies investigated for environmental crimes. “There’s more to it than just the environmental violation. There’s some effort to deceive, or to hide, or to get enriched by lying on documents.”

That bar gets even higher when no specific rule is broken — when prosecutors argue a company has a general duty to keep people safe. “What the government is saying is you have complied with all of these hundreds and thousands of regulatory requirements, but we still think you pose a risk to the community,” Ware said. “That’s a hard sell to a jury, to a judge, to anybody.”

A federal criminal investigation into an industrial accident is unusual — and the Garden Grove investigation may not lead to charges. The broader federal enforcement landscape has also changed.

A 2026 report by the Environmental Integrity Project found that the number of civil lawsuits filed by the U.S. Department of Justice in cases referred by the EPA dropped to just 16 in President Donald Trump’s first year in office — 76% less than in the first year of the Biden administration. Only 12% of facilities with air pollution violations received any kind of enforcement action from EPA or state agencies in the last year.

That federal shift matters for Lineage, which has faced at least three civil enforcement actions in recent years, but none that resulted in criminal charges.

Last year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the company $37,500 for three violations at a Riverside facility, two related to its handling of hazardous materials and emergency plans.

Also last year, the company paid $3,420 to settle alleged violations at a Vernon facility, including that the company didn’t correct a critical safety system deficiency it identified during a 2021 audit.

In 2023, the EPA fined Lineage more than $172,000 for alleged violations of the federal Risk Management Program at an Iowa facility. The EPA said in a news release that the company “failed to correctly document the worst-case scenario in its risk analysis, failed to comply with accidental release prevention requirements, and failed to document emergency response coordination with local authorities.”

In 2024, a Lineage warehouse in Washington burned for 60 days. Hundreds of neighbors to the warehouse reported health problems, and some residents filed civil claims. But the company has not faced criminal charges.

The limits of local power  

Weeks after an evacuation sent tens of thousands of people from their homes in Garden Grove, GKN Aerospace came to a City Council meeting. The company had not spoken publicly since the evacuation.

Resident Rodrigo Garay held up a thin red cross blanket.

“This is what I used for the whole week to sleep on,” he said/ “And I’m sure that you slept on really nice beds with your $260,000-a-year salary.”

He and other residents wanted to know why the city wasn’t doing more to ban GKN and other facilities like it from their city.

Miles away in Boyle Heights, Lineage neighbors are also raising concerns about their schools, homes and playgrounds being so close to warehouses and other industrial facilities.

“We shouldn’t wait until after this disaster for Boyle Heights residents to know what was in the facility in their backyard,” said local City Council member Ysabel Jurado.

The frustration in both cities points to a hard truth. The people with the most immediate stake, both residents and city officials, may have the least power after a facility is already operating.

Water is sprayed on a tank that overheated at GKN Aerospace in Garden Grove on May 22.

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City officials can update their general plans and rezone property to keep facilities they consider a threat to public health and safety away from their residents.

But the Constitution limits how far that authority extends to facilities that are already there. Businesses have a general right to not be over-regulated out of existence, said David Waite, an attorney who specializes in local land use law.

“Where it gets tricky is we have existing uses — such as the GKN facility — that were duly permitted and duly authorized under the existing zoning on that property,” Waite said. “That rezoning effort cannot just simply bar that existing use without running afoul of constitutional takings arguments.”

Cities can try revoking a facility’s permit by proving it is a public nuisance. But that requires showing an ongoing threat, not a one-time event, Waite said.

Garden Grove and Boyle Heights are largely communities of color. Garden Grove ranks among the top 20% of the state’s most environmentally burdened communities, according to CalEnviroScreen; Boyle Heights is in the top 10%.

In Garden Grove, the city’s response has been cautious.

Garden Grove spokesperson Johnathan Garcia said the city is “exploring with its attorneys and engaging in the deliberative process regarding its options in consideration of its authority under the constitution, federal and state laws.”

“What is the point of bemoaning that you don’t have more local control if you don’t use the authority you do have in times like this?” Mai Nguyen Do, a research and policy manager for the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice, asked the council.

In Los Angeles, Jurado is calling for an investigation into what went wrong at the Lineage facility and introduced a package of motions, including calls for a public report on the cause of the fire and the facility’s compliance history, increased public transportation service in the area to reduce the amount of time residents are outdoors and funding for neighborhood councils to distribute air purifiers and other protective equipment.

“When a major industrial fire happens here, it’s not viewed as an isolated incident. Residents see it as part of a larger pattern,” Jurado said. “That’s why I have said from the beginning that this is not just a fire response issue. It’s a public health issue, it’s an accountability issue, and it’s an environmental justice issue.”

This story was produced in collaboration with Boyle Heights Beat, a founding community newsroom of The LA Local, a nonprofit covering Los Angeles communities.

Laura Anaya-Morga, Isaac Ceja, Claudia Koerner, Alejandra Molina, Isaiah Murtaugh, Jessica Perez, Steve Saldivar and Nathan Solis contributed to this story.

Alejandro Lazo contributed to this story.