The Brief

The experience starts outside, with diners queued up behind the velvet rope as if they're headed into an exclusive movie premiere or a buzzy nightclub.

Instead, people like Justin Bernal are waiting to enter Netflix Bites, the streaming service's pop-up restaurant in Los Angeles' Mid-City neighborhood.

Bernal booked a table two months in advance for a date night with his wife, to see some of their favorite Netflix shows come to life. "We watch Iron Chef, a lot of these other shows, Nailed It — great shows," he said.

That's the idea behind Netflix Bites, to give fans a "screen-to-table" experience where they can try dishes and drinks crafted by chefs and mixologists featured on unscripted Netflix culinary shows.

But sometimes, it's reality that bites.

The splashy marketing expenditure behind Netflix Bites coincides with Hollywood's biggest labor fight in decades, and the timing and opulence of the promotional campaign couldn't be more surreal.

This month, after contract negotiations between the actors' union and major studios including Netflix collapsed, actors joined writers on strike, forcing a pause on production of most scripted films and TV series. That reality provides a jarring contrast to the escapism of the Netflix Bites experience.

It's not the company's first marketing event adapted from its streaming content. There's an annual Netflix Is A Joke comedy festival in Los Angeles and, previously, Stranger Things-themed pop-up stores in a handful of major U.S. cities.

The interior of the Netflix Bites pop-up restaurant, at Short Stories hotel in Los Angeles, is a riot of color and Netflix branding.

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But the thought of dining at a Netflix event while many of the company's own employees are fighting for better pay and protections has left fans like Bernal conflicted.

"I support the actors, I have a lot of friends that are in the unions, especially in SAG-AFTRA, and seeing what they're going through sucks," he said.

At the same time, he had already paid a $50 deposit for the reservation that he didn't think he could get back. That was before SAG-AFTRA, a union representing about 160,000 TV and film actors, joined the Writers Guild of America, who have been on strike since May.

"I feel terrible," he said. "It's just having money invested in something, when money is tight for me already — it's hard to make those choices."

Inside the flashy Netflix Bites bubble

Once inside, the immersiveness of the experience might make the contentious backdrop easy to forget for some. The temporary restaurant exists in its own bubble — outside of protests, password crackdowns and negative publicity.

The event space, which occupies the bar and courtyard of a hotel, looks like a theatrical set: Floor lamps flank dining booths; there's a barbeque pit and pizza oven; Netflix-branded pillows, walls and plates make for instant photo-ops.

The dinner menu includes dishes from a who's who of the celebrity chef firmament: Andrew Zimmern's grandmother's meatloaf, Ming Tsai's truffle and mushroom-stuffed "MingBings," and Rodney Scott's pulled whole hog.

American chef Andrew Zimmern's grandmother's meatloaf sits atop mashed potatoes and gravy.

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On a recent visit, the restaurant's wait staff exuded the poise of actors (and in some cases, actually are — don't be surprised if you recognize a face or two); they were hired through Australian celebrity chef Curtis Stone's events company, which is running the operation.

As a diner, it's easy to feel like you are the star of this quasi-reality production, like food judges on a competitive cooking show.

That excitement ended for some once the food arrived. Ivan Kim had been looking forward to trying dishes from Michelin-starred French chef Dominique Crenn after seeing her on Chef's Table.

"Atmosphere is good, pretty fast service," he said. "But the quality is not good because the chef is not there."

Lady Zaza pizza from Minneapolis-based pizza maker Ann Kim features kimchi, pork and scallions.

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Of the dishes he tried, Kim gave his highest rating to the kimchi-topped Lady Zaza pizza from Ann Kim. For dessert, Nadiya Hussain's light and layered honey cake was a hit, according to online reviewers on Yelp.

Since the restaurant launched at the end of June, many of the chefs featured on the menu have stopped in to tweak their recipes and greet fans. But Ann Klein, a general manager with Curtis Stone Events, says, "We're not trying to be a three-star Michelin restaurant."

"That's not what this is," she said. "You're doing a pop-up. It's a casual summer residence."

Netflix Bites may be casual, but it isn't cheap. With appetizers priced as high as $65 (Curtis Stone's crab legs in curry), there's a distinct feeling of exclusivity. As you dig into the almost-too-rich "Millionaire's Shortbread," you might wonder whether Netflix executives will see any profits from this culinary production.

Dungeness crab legs in curry, a dish crafted by Michelin-starred Australian chef Curtis Stone, was featured on <em>Iron Chef.</em>

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Let them eat cake, while actors and writers seek better pay

The extravagant salaries paid to streaming service CEOs have been a central point of contention in the strikes, in which actors and writers are demanding better wages, increased residual payments and protections from the use of artificial intelligence.

A Netflix spokesperson told NPR that this pop-up, as with the others, is a marketing initiative that's not intended to turn a profit.

Netflix spent about 8% of its roughly $32 billion revenue on marketing events in 2022, a slight decrease in its marketing expenses from the previous year, according to data from Statista. That's a relatively small sum compared to traditional major studios.

British chef Nadiya Hussain's honey cake with salted hazelnuts rates highly with diners.

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Striking writers have been able to pierce the restaurant's bubble, if only temporarily. On Netflix Bites' opening night, striking WGA members picketed in front with a pop-up of their own, within feet of diners lined up to go in.

"Instead of negotiating with us, Netflix decided to open an overpriced restaurant," wrote Adam Conover, a comedy writer and TV host who helped organize the picket line at Netflix Bites, which is just a block away from the WGA building.

Actor Adam Lustick played a fictitious BBQ chef of "CEO Fridays," serving "exclusively billionaires and media CEOs," he quipped during the improvised parody. Picketers returned again in July to pass out leaflets.

The bill arrives in a red-and-white envelope — soon to be a relic of the days when Netflix customers rented movies delivered by mail. The streaming giant is ending its once-revolutionary DVD-by-mail service in September.

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Netflix and its temporary restaurant, meanwhile, aren't ruffled. Asked about the criticism it's received about the timing of the pop-up during the strikes, Netflix declined to comment. Klein, the restaurant manager, says the strike has not affected staff turnover.

After months of weathering inflation and a subscriber slump, Netflix reported steady growth in its most recent quarterly earnings. The pop-up, which runs into fall with no official end date, currently shows only a handful of open tables for the next 30 days. More reservations will open up on a rolling basis.

"We've been sold out, and have a waitlist anywhere from 300 to 500 every day," Klein said.

As this year’s legislative session speeds to a close, a handful of bills focused on the state’s homelessness crisis have made the cut so far.

Though homelessness improved slightly last year, there are still an estimated 182,000 Californians with nowhere to call home. The issue is top of mind for many lawmakers in Sacramento, who are pushing a range of laws that would do everything from free up state funds for sober housing, dispose of RVs on city streets and create a plan for homelessness prevention.

Here are a few of the bills to watch as they approach their final votes and await a potential signature from the governor:

State-funded sober homeless housing

Gov. Gavin Newsom hit Assemblymember Matt Haney with a surprise veto last year, blocking his bill that would have allowed state funding to pay for sober homeless housing.

Haney is back with a similar bill, which he says will give people recovering from drug and alcohol addiction the choice to live in an environment free from dangerous temptations.

“A lot of people who are on the street right now or exiting shelter programs would prefer drug-free housing options,” the San Francisco Democrat said. “And right now there are few options, if any, for them.”

Last year, Assembly Bill 255 would have allowed cities and counties to spend up to 10% of their state funding on “recovery housing” where people are required to stay sober. That was a tweak to California’s “housing first” strategy, which emphasizes a no-strings-attached approach to housing and generally frowns on barriers that require people to stay clean or participate in treatment.

In his veto message, Newsom said the state already allows the state to fund sober housing. His office pointed to a new set of guidelines on the subject, published online the day after Newsom’s veto.

But Haney says that guidance is unclear, and housing providers still believe state funds are off-limits for sober housing. The proof: Haney said that as far as he knows, no one has used state funds to pay for sober housing since the governor’s veto last year.

His new bill, Assembly bill 1556, lays out the rules a sober housing provider must follow to be eligible for state funding. Each provider must have a policy to handle relapses, which is supposed to help the resident get sober again, but also can include evicting them if they continue to use alcohol or drugs and do not follow the policy. That worries critics, including Sharon Rapport, director of California state policy for the Corporation for Supportive Housing, who fears it could put people back on the streets.

Unlike last year’s bill, AB 1556 doesn’t limit the amount of state money that could go to sober housing. The bill comes with no additional funding, meaning the more money that goes to sober housing, the less will be left for the low-barrier housing needed for people who aren’t ready to overcome their addiction, Rapport said. That’s even more worrying because the Trump administration also is prioritizing sober housing for federal funds – creating an even bigger gap in low-barrier housing, she said.

“We don’t really want to see Trump policy implemented in California at the state level,” she said.

This year, Haney is expecting a more positive reaction from Newsom.

“The governor’s office has been very collaborative and responsive from the beginning this time around,” he said.

Solutions to homelessness

Most people in California agree that homelessness is a problem. But exactly how much would it cost to solve it? And how could California get there?

It turns out, the state has never actually done that math publicly. Assembly Bill 1165 would force the state to do just that. The bill by Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Gardena Democrat, would require the California Department of Housing and Community Development to create a financial plan to solve homelessness, as well as performance metrics for success, by January 2028. That would include determining how much money the state would need to meet the housing needs of everyone who is homeless now or expected to become homeless in the future, and how the state could achieve that goal.

The state has estimated California must plan for 2.5 million homes over the next eight years to meet demand and ease the state’s affordable housing shortage. AB 1165 would require the state to go into more detail about what resources are needed, and lay out a plan to meet that goal.

The Corporation for Supportive Housing estimates it would take $8.1 billion a year for 12 years to solve homelessness. The budget the legislature proposed this month includes $900 million for Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention funds – the state’s main source of homeless funding.

If it passes, AB 1165 could help hold legislators and the next governor accountable and push the state to spend its homelessness funds more wisely, Rapport said. A 2024 audit found the state failed to track its homelessness spending or measure results.

The bill doesn’t come with new resources to fight homelessness, meaning implementing a plan to end homelessness could be tough in the current tight budget environment.

Another measure, Assembly Bill 1924, would require the California Interagency Council on Homelessness to establish a statewide strategy to prevent homelessness before it happens. If passed, the plan would need to be in place by July 2027.

Prevention has become an increasingly popular way to tackle homelessness, as it’s much easier and cheaper to help someone hold onto their housing than it is to re-house them once they wind up on the streets. Organizations already using this strategy have found that giving someone several thousand dollars can allow them to avoid homelessness.

Like AB 1165, the prevention bill also comes with no new funding.

Forcing cities to report homelessness and housing data

How much data on homelessness should California cities that aren’t getting state funds be required to report to the state? That’s the question behind a bill by Senator Catherine Blakespear, which has received pushback from some of her colleagues.

Counties, continuums of care (regional groups that coordinate homelessness services) and the 14 largest cities are eligible for money from the state’s Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention program. In exchange for the funds, those entities must report certain data about their homeless populations, the services they offer, and the progress they’ve made getting people off the streets.

Blakespear, a Democrat from Encinitas, wants the rest of California’s cities, even if they get no funding, to report that data, too.

“Homelessness is a regional problem that does not stop at city or county boundaries,” she said during a recent Senate floor hearing.

Senate Bill 866 alarmed some city leaders, who complained they don’t have the staff or money to compile that extensive amount of data. Dozens of cities oppose the bill, as does the League of California Cities.

As a concession, Blakespear agreed to exempt all cities with 50,000 or fewer people – eliminating about half of California’s cities.

But that wasn’t enough to appease some of her colleagues, including Republican Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil from Modesto, who called the bill an un-funded mandate for cities.

“I have to ask,” she said, “if we have this level of opposition, not just from rural communities, not just from Republican-represented communities, but from cities across the state, why do we have a half-cooked bill on this Legislature's floor?”

No arrest warrants for people who miss court dates

Assembly Bill 2122 doesn’t specifically mention unhoused Californians, but advocates say it would have big implications for people who sleep outside.

Cities around California are cracking down on street homelessness, leading to increasing numbers of arrests and citations in some places. People are ticketed for unauthorized camping, but they can also be cited for other offenses such as loitering, trespassing, public urination, violating park rules, and more. Typically, the police hand them a paper citation that says when they are supposed to show up in court.

It’s common for unhoused people to miss those court dates – they may lack transportation, be unable to leave their belongings or pets unattended, or simply lose track of the date amid the unpredictability of life on the street. When that happens, the court issues a bench warrant for their arrest. The next time they encounter the police, they could go to jail.

Not only does that cost the city money, but it also could make it harder for the person to get housing, Rapport said.

Assembly Bill 2122, by Assemblymembers Ash Kalra and Josh Lowenthal, would change that. If someone is cited for an infraction (which could include loitering or other minor offenses) and then misses their court date, they could not be jailed as a result. It would also prohibit courts from issuing arrest warrants for people who fail to pay traffic tickets.

The bill applies only to infractions. Different cities classify crimes differently – in some places, an offense such as loitering might be an infraction, while in other places it could be a misdemeanor.

The California State Sheriffs’ Association is opposed to the bill, and says it sends the message that it’s acceptable to fail to appear in court.

RVs on city streets

As unhoused Californians increasingly turn to vehicles for shelter, multiple legislators have turned their attention to addressing the resulting rows of RVs, trailers and lived-in cars lining streets up and down the state.

Last year, Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez, a Los Angeles Democrat, pushed through a bill intended to make it easier for local governments to dispose of inoperable RVs parked on their streets. The goal was to address vehicles that create blight in neighborhoods and are breeding grounds for bad behavior, he said.

He ended up amending the bill to apply only in Los Angeles and Alameda counties. But by making that change, Gonzalez inadvertently made the law basically unusable. While the counties of Alameda and Los Angeles themselves could use the law to dispose of RVs, the cities within them could not. The Los Angeles City Council found that out the hard way, when it voted to establish an RV disposal program, only to have it shot down in court.

Assembly Bill 647 fixes that oversight by allowing cities within those two counties to destroy RVs valued at $4,000 or less. Opponents worry the bill will lead local governments to seize more lived-in RVs, forcing people out of the relative safety of a vehicle and onto the street.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

President Donald Trump blew up what could have been a win for his party — and he did it to force lawmakers to pass an elections overhaul bill that has been all but doomed in the Senate.
On Wednesday, Trump abruptly canceled a scheduled signing of bipartisan legislation aimed at bringing down housing costs, saying he would only sign it after Congress approved the SAVE America Act.
This move wasn't entirely surprising because Trump has been saying for months that he won't sign any bill until the SAVE America Act is passed.
His obsession with the SAVE America Act has already scuttled the reauthorization of a surveillance tool and nearly ruined GOP efforts to increase immigration enforcement spending.
The SAVE America Act currently doesn't have the needed 60 votes in the Senate to overcome a filibuster – and Republican leaders are reluctant to get rid of the filibuster to pass the bill, as Trump has suggested.

A big reason Trump has been obsessed with getting the SAVE America Act sent to his desk for signature ahead of what could be a pretty bruising midterms for the GOP, is that he believes it would ensure that Republicans never lose another election for at least 50 years.
Much of this belief is based on false claims that Democrats only win elections because of noncitizen participation in elections, which according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, and many experts, is extremely rare.
But the president's case for the SAVE America Act is rooted in this misinformation. Here's what's in it:

1. It requires proof of citizenship to register to vote

The SAVE America Act specifically prohibits states from accepting and processing voter registration applications in a federal election "unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship."

Citizenship is already required to register to vote in the U.S. and states have a system to make sure that noncitizens do not make it on to the voter rolls. And when the system fails, it fails in a very limited number of cases.
And the list of what is acceptable to prove citizenship under the SAVE America Act is fairly limited. It includes U.S. passports and birth certificates, as well as some state and tribal IDs. This documentation is prohibitive in some cases: 1 in 10 eligible voters, or 21.3 million people, said in a national survey conducted by a voting rights organization that they either "do not have or could not quickly find" proof of citizenship records.
Trump has tried to require proof of citizenship for anyone registering to vote via executive order, but that effort was permanently blocked by a federal court on Wednesday.

2. It requires photo ID to cast a ballot

The bill requires that voters show one of these valid forms of identification to cast a ballot in person. Notably, it also requires that people voting by mail provide "a copy of a valid photo identification" with their ballot.
If they can't do that, they have to provide the last four digits of their Social Security number and sign an affidavit from state officials that says they were unable to get an ID "after making reasonable efforts to obtain such a copy." Voter ID requirements are largely popular among voters. And most states require some form of ID to vote, already. However, voters aren't as supportive of a sweeping overhaul that would change various aspects of American elections.

3. It requires that state officials remove noncitizens from their voter rolls

States routinely check their voter registration list for people who shouldn't be there – whether it's people who passed away or who lost their voting rights due to legal trouble.
And that also includes those who were improperly registered. However, when states have tried to identify and purge alleged noncitizens from their rolls, their efforts have gone wrong in some cases.

4. It requires that states submit their complete voter rolls to the Trump administration

States would have to turn over complete, unredacted copies of their voter registration lists to the Department of Homeland Security through the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system.

These voter lists contain sensitive voter data like driver's license numbers and partial Social Security numbers, which is why many states have refused to turn over this information when the Trump administration began asking for them last year.

The Department of Justice has since been suing states across the country to obtain these lists, but the courts have consistently blocked those efforts. A federal court also recently ruled that the Trump administration's expanded SAVE system is unlawful and cannot be used in its current form.

5. It creates new penalties against election officials

Lastly, the SAVE America Act creates a private right of action against an election official who registers someone who didn't provide proof of citizenship. It also establishes new criminal penalties against officials who register people without citizenship documents.

Copyright 2026 NPR

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

A fire at the Lineage cold storage facility in Boyle Heights was knocked down​ Wednesday evening, a week after solar panels on its roof ignited and blanketed the region in harmful smoke.

The Los Angeles Fire Department announced the fire was extinguished at 5:58 p.m., and said there were no active flames and no threat of fire spread.

“While the fire has been knocked down, debris within the structure continues to smolder as crews transition into the overhaul phase of operations,” LAFD posted on Instagram.

“The chief’s goal was to have us put this out today,” Milo Cope, a public information officer with the Los Angeles Fire Department, told Boyle Heights Beat on Wednesday morning.

“They’ll manage tearing this building apart and we can stand by for any small smoldering fires that need to be addressed,” Cope said. 

Firefighters will now begin handing over operations to the owners of the building. 

The fire at the cold storage facility began burning last Wednesday on a solar panel farm on the warehouse’s roof that later burned through the rubber insulation around the building. It reignited on Friday, with the city of Los Angeles and the governor’s office declaring an emergency the following day. 

Since the fire broke out, residents living closest to the facility have endured smoky conditions that they say have disrupted daily life, affected their health and limited their ability to work as firefighters continued battling the blaze.

Mayor Karen Bass on Sunday said a mandatory evacuation “is not necessary;” state guidelines tie evacuation orders to immediate threats to life or property. For those who wish to voluntarily leave, “we have the facilities for you,” she said, pointing to the smoke relief shelter available. 

She and LAFD Fire Chief Jaime Moore have repeatedly advised residents sensitive to smoke or who have respiratory concerns to stay indoors, close their windows, wear masks when they do need to go outside and head to established shelters if they need more relief.

Councilmember Ysabel Jurado on Monday called for the public release of air quality and environmental testing results in English and Spanish and for a full report detailing the materials that burned at the facility. Boyle Heights residents, Jurado said, “deserve the very basic right to know what is in the air.” 

On Tuesday, Supervisor Hilda Solis urged agencies to be diligent in the cleanup process. “Some of our communities have become particularly alarmed about being the dumping ground for hazardous or toxic material…,” Solis said.

Poor air quality on Sunday led several schools hosting summer programs to announce they would move classes elsewhere on Monday as a precaution. The school relocation will last until Friday, said officials from LAUSD’s Region East.

Students from Dena Elementary and Dacotah Early Education Center were relocated to Sunrise Elementary, Eastman Early Education Center students moved to Humphreys Elementary, and Stevenson Middle School students were moved to Belvedere Middle School, according to the Los Angeles Unified School District.