The Brief

This year Pasadena hosts its annual Cheeseburger Week, Jan. 21- 27. It's been a regular event for more than a decade, but this year is particularly notable — the city says it's 100 years since the national icon was born.

The week is hosted in honor of Lionel Sternberger, who, according to local lore, created the beloved cheeseburger at his roadside stand off Route 66 in Pasadena in the 1920s.

But did Sternberger really create the cheeseburger? And what year? And why? While the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce believes it occurred in 1924, other sources give different dates. Other states also claim the honor. It’s one of SoCal’s numerous unsolved mysteries.

Burger history

The course of food history is often murky at best. According to The Great American Burger Book, by George Motz, it is believed burger meat (originally raw mutton) originated in the 13th century Mongol empire, before Russian and German immigrants brought their chopped beef version to America in the 19th century. It was in the go-go U.S.A. that a sizzling burger was probably slapped between two slices of bread, with multiple people claiming the honor sometime between 1885-1900.

But there is no ambivalence about the fact that 20th century Southern California is the birthplace of fast food. Due to our early adoption of cars, freeways, commutes, and our love of a cheap, greasy meal, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Fatburger, and In-N-Out, among others, were all started by savvy, entrepreneurial Southern Californians. And Lionel Sternberger was a true forerunner to these revolutionary restaurateurs.

Sternberger’s road stand

The earliest known version of Sternberger’s creation of the cheeseburger was recently discovered by food historian Andrew Smith, author of Hamburger: A Global History. It is in an article in The Pasadena Post, a now defunct newspaper. Published July 23, 1931, it sheds light on Sternberger’s early life and innovative ideas.

Lionel Sternberger was born in New York City in 1907. Soon the Sternberger family was off to booming SoCal, and Lionel attended grade school in Eagle Rock before attending high school in Pasadena. A natural born entrepreneur, he started a cider stand at the age of 12 and was running a grocery store at the age of 15.

Lionel Sternberger in the Pasadena Post.

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Courtesy of the California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside

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According to the Pasadena Post, in 1927, an act of kindness led Sternberger to his most famous acquisition — 1500 West Colorado Boulevard (part of the legendary Route 66), just west of the Colorado Street Bridge:

The young man started on the present enterprise in 1927, as the result of an interesting incident. On the approach to Pasadena, he halted his automobile and gave a lift to a waysider who wanted to get off at the soft drink stand at the crown of Colorado Street near Annandale Golf Links. Sternberger knew this location well — he and his father, years before, sold fruit on the same spot.

The road was already lined with quick serve options for harried commuters.

“There was a row of food stands offering everything from burgers and fries to Chinese food,” says Paul Little, president of the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and Civic Association in an interview over email. “They catered to drivers heading into Eagle Rock and other parts of L.A. and toward Glendale.”

Sternberger reached the little stand, which a 1937 issue of Western Restaurants claims was called Hinky Dink Barbecue Stand. The Post reported:

“On reaching the top of the hill, Sternberger drove his car to the doorstep so his passenger would not have to wade in the mud left by the rain the night before. Sternberger engaged the owner of the soft drink stand in conversation, with the result he swapped his car for the stand.”

He renamed the stand (little more than a cooking shack) the Boulevard Stop, before changing its name to The Rite Spot. But the going was rough, and Sternberger’s stand was only bringing in around $2 a day.

Adding the cheese

Stories diverge wildly over what prompted Sternberger to add a slice of cheese (kind unspecified) on the hamburger. According to The Pasadena Post, an unnamed friend suggested the struggling Sternberger try something new that would set his stand apart.

“Together the pair ‘invented’ a new hamburger sandwich,” the Post reported, “which included a slice of cheese, a food never before tried on such a sandwich. It was very tasty.”

Sternberger’s nephew Don heard another story from his father, Van, who would join Lionel in the family business.

“Lionel was a big eater,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2012. “One day he just decided he wanted a hamburger with cheese on it and started doing it. That’s how my dad described it to me. My dad was proud of it. I tried once to get him to go to In-N-Out with me and he wouldn’t.”

(There are also other versions, like Sternberger putting “everything” on a burger as requested by an enthusiastic customer, including cheese, and Sternberger burning one side of a patty, which he covered up with a cheese slice.)

According to The Pasadena Post, Sternberger was initially wary of promoting this new burger with cheese, due to cheese costs at the time. However, he tried it out one day on two faithful customers — and they loved it.

“The next day,” The Pasadena Post reported, “an automobile with six passengers halted at the door. The driver asked: ‘Is this where hamburgers with cheese are served?’”

The customers loved the newfangled cheeseburger so much they ordered seconds. Soon The Rite Stop cheeseburgers were all the rage in Pasadena, and Sternberger was banking $400 a day.

“As a Muir Tech student in Pasadena in the late ‘20s and early ‘30s,” Pasadena native Jim Horbuckle recalled, per Smith, “the big treat was to take our dates to Lionel Sternberger’s Rite Spot — delicious hamburgers with cheese — 15 cents, a glass of cider, 10 cents. The total bill was $1.”

The menu of the Rite Spot showing Aristocratic Hamburger, the original hamburger with cheese, on the top left hand side.

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Courtesy of the Archives (EPH-RES 2.39)

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Pasadena Museum of History

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An undated menu for The Rite Spot shows just how important this new edition to the menu was. The first item on the menu, it was called the “Aristocratic Hamburger” and billed as “the original hamburger with cheese.” The rest of the menu was standard Americana fare — chili and beans, Steak Lover’s Delight, Baked Alaskan Shrimp, and Pie á la Mode.

One side of the menu from a Rite Spot restaurant.

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Courtesy of the Archives (EPH-RES 2.39)

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Pasadena Museum of History

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By 1931, Sternberger was prospering. The Rite Spot expanded to another brick-and-mortar eatery in Pasadena, and also opened locations in Glendale and Highland Park. With his newfound fortune, Sternberger reportedly built a large house in the Pasadena neighborhood of Annadale, which he shared with his mother.

The Sternberger family continued in the restaurant business for decades. When Sternberger died in 1964, Time Magazine credited him as the inventor of the cheeseburger (although it stated he had created it while working at a stand owned by his father).

Rivals to the crown

However, there are other claimants to the cheeseburger throne. According to George Motz, a 1928 menu from Odell’s Restaurant in South Los Angeles features a chili cheeseburger. Kaelin’s Restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, has long asserted that their founder Carl Kaelin created the cheeseburger in 1934. And Louis Ballast of Humpty Dumpty Drive-In in Denver had the name “cheeseburger” trademarked in 1935.

“There has been some discussion back and forth in a friendly rivalry,” Little says of the competing claims. “Menus and other historical artifacts support the Rite Spot as being the originator of the hamburger with cheese. Sternberger did not call it a cheeseburger, which is what the others who claim to be originators use.”

Indeed, if the newly uncovered Pasadena Post article is accurate, it seems the main competition for “first cheeseburger” may only be the long-gone Odell’s. But Pasadena has embraced the legend of Lionel Sternberger and uses it today to celebrate the city’s thriving restaurant scene.

“In 2011, as part of California Restaurant Month, we started hosting Cheeseburger Week in January,” Little says. “We have done that every year since. It was a take-out version during the pandemic.”

A plaque commemorating cheeseburger's invention in Pasadena in the sidewalk outside the LA Financial Credit Union at 1520 W. Colorado Boulevard.

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Courtesy Pasadena Chamber of Commerce

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In 2017, a marker was placed at the site of the first The Rite Spot, into the sidewalk outside of the LA Financial Credit Union at 1520 W. Colorado Blvd. It tells yet another version of the story.

“On this site in 1924,” it reads, “sixteen-year-old Lionel Sternberger first put cheese on a hamburger and sold it to a customer, thereby inventing the cheeseburger. The “Aristocratic Burger” at the Rite Spot is the first instance of a hamburger with cheese being served to a customer.”

Whatever the case, we can all agree the end result was delicious — and well worth celebrating during Cheeseburger Week.

A slew of Medicare Advantage plans are disappearing for next year, leaving seniors in many areas with fewer options. In 193 counties across the country, no plans are offered at all.

Medicare's annual open enrollment period kicked off October 15 and runs until December 7, and seniors enrolled in those privatized Medicare plans that are closing in certain markets should carefully review their options.

Medicare Advantage means private insurers run Medicare for older Americans who choose it over traditional Medicare, where the federal government itself administers the program. More than half of the 70 million Americans in Medicare choose Medicare Advantage. It's popular because it covers services like vision and dental, often with lower premiums than traditional Medicare. It also often folds in the "Part D" drug benefit, simplifying that decision.

But a downside of Medicare Advantage is that companies can pick and choose where they offer plans. If a certain community is not profitable, a company can leave that market. And that has been happening on an increasingly large scale the last three years, according to research published in JAMA.

Who is affected

Big swaths of rural America are losing Medicare Advantage choices and so are some major metro areas.

Last year, 2.9 million seniors were in Medicare Advantage plans that closed up shop, according to JAMA. This year, an analysis of insurance company announcements by An Arm and A Leg podcast, shows at least 2 million people will be affected. Other preliminary estimates range from 3.2 million to 5 million seniors. About 35 million people are enrolled in Medicare Advantage.

According to an analysis of federal data by the health policy research organization KFF, the 193 counties that will have zero Medicare Advantage plans are mostly rural. Last year that number was about 120 counties without a plan offered.

KFF's numbers also show that there will be far fewer plans offered in some metro areas. Dallas, Minneapolis, Seattle, Houston and Portland all have between a quarter and a third fewer Medicare Advantage plans for seniors.

What happens next

If your plan is ending, and you don't choose another, the insurance company will assign you to another Medicare Advantage plan or the government will enroll you in traditional Medicare — but without a supplemental or drug plan.

If you want to switch from Medicare Advantage to traditional Medicare and your plan is ending, you can enroll in a Medicare supplemental plan — also known as Medigap — without the same restrictions that you would normally have. If you have a pre-existing condition that has prevented you from enrolling in Medigap before, that could be good news.

Another wrinkle this year is that insurance companies can cap enrollments on some of the Medicare Advantage plans that they do offer.

Which means: If you wait to sign up, a plan you want might already be full.

The companies are supposed to enroll people on a first-come, first-serve basis — and not cherry-pick customers based on health conditions, age, or demographics.

Another reason not to delay is that with so many people on the hunt for new plans, it may take longer than usual to get help.

How and where to find help

Here are some tips for navigating Medicare open enrollment this year:

• Find out if your plan is still offered: First, check your mail. Medicare Advantage plans that are closing should have sent letters the first week in October. You can also log in to your account on Medicare.gov to check your plan's status for next year.
  
• Try calling your SHIP: There's a State Health Insurance Assistance Program — known as a "SHIP" — in every state to help seniors with Medicare. The name's not easy to remember or particularly descriptive, but it's free, mandated by the federal government, and the staff and volunteers are required to give you unbiased information on all available options. Find your state in the directory at shiphelp.org. Your county may have a specific number that you can find on your state's SHIP website.
  
• Look for local Medicare counseling services: Friends, family, leaders at your place of worship, and the constituent services of your local elected officials may have the scoop on where you can get one-on-one help. The nonprofit Medicare Rights Center also has a national helpline, and a well-organized library of online guides.
  
• Brokers can be helpful, but be savvy: You want a broker who's going to talk with you about all your options — including switching to traditional Medicare and a supplemental plan. Ask if they sell plans from all available insurance carriers. And ask if they answer questions about your plan year-round, because insurance never stops being confusing.
  
• Double check what you see on Medicare.gov: Medicare's Plan Finder allows you to search plans online. But lists of doctors and drugs that are covered can sometimes be wrong. To be safe, double check with your doctor's office or a SHIP counselor, broker, or other Medicare assistor.
  
• Don't share your personal information with services you find online: Be careful where you share your personal information like your phone number. Some online agencies will sell your information, leading to spam calls and potentially even scam artists.
  
• Be mindful of the deadlines: Open enrollment for Medicare runs October 15, 2026 through December 7, 2026. The coverage starts January 1, 2027. If your plan is ending, you qualify for a "special enrollment period" to give you a little more time — until February 28, 2027. (For coverage that starts January 1, 2027, enroll by December 31.)

Emily Pisacreta is the senior producer for An Arm and a Leg, a podcast about the cost of healthcare produced in partnership with KFF Health News and distributed by KUOW, Seattle's NPR member station. 

Copyright 2026 NPR

Federal prosecutors sent letters to county registrars across California on Friday demanding that local officials set aside and verify ballots that the Department of Justice said may belong to noncitizens, according to the Los Angeles County registrar and a letter obtained by The Associated Press.

The letters are the latest escalation in a legal battle between California and President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice, which has recently focused on the state in its efforts to root out noncitizen voting ahead of the midterm elections. Data shows illegal voting by people who aren’t U.S. citizens is incredibly rare, difficult to prove and has not been shown to change the outcome of races.

Earlier this month, the federal government targeted Los Angeles County and the California Secretary of State’s office in a lawsuit that aimed to block them from counting the votes of roughly 20,000 people who are “likely” noncitizen voters. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Tuesday.

The Trump administration asked the 9th Circuit court of appeals to rule on the lawsuit barring a decision from the district judge assigned to the case. They set a deadline for Saturday.

Now, according to the LA County registrar’s office, at least 18 counties across the state have received similar letters. They have been given a 48 hour deadline to provide identifying information corresponding with ballots that the federal government believes were sent to noncitizens illegally registered to vote. The letter requests that county officials also sequester any ballots where citizenship cannot be verified.

“Any election official who knowingly processes the ballot of a noncitizen is opening themselves to legal jeopardy,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli.

The Justice Department is asking counties to send information about the voters it suspects are noncitizens including social security numbers, ID information, a copy of their registration and more.

That information can help the government and state quickly assess each person suspected of illegally registering to vote, said the letter sent to San Bernardino County voting officials. The letter says the government’s list of suspected noncitizen voters includes 1,133 people from the inland Southern California county.

California’s secretary of state and the Los Angeles County registrar have opposed the federal government’s demands. In legal filings, lawyers for California say the request threatens to delay the certification of the vote and undermine the legitimacy of the November midterms. They have also argued that the federal government’s data is unreliable and that their demands risk disenfranchisement of citizens.

Voting is underway in California, with the state’s more than 23 million registered voters receiving ballots in the mail earlier this month. The state said in legal filings that over 330,000 mail-in ballots have already been counted.

The letters on Friday came on the heels of statewide sweep by federal authorities earlier in the week, where 28 people from the list of 20,000 were charged with illegally registering to vote. Some were also charged with illegally voting and lying on naturalization paperwork. Those charges could lead to years in prison.

The California State University faculty union is asking its members to authorize a strike, as negotiations with the California State University system remain stalled.

This summer, the California Faculty Association declared an impasse after 16 months of negotiation with the CSU. The union’s president said university officials negotiating with the union have “not been honest agents.”

If a majority of members approve the strike authorization, voting from Oct. 26 through Nov. 19, CFA leadership would be authorized to call a strike.

The union, which represents 29,000 professors and other university employees, is seeking salary increases, changes to faculty workloads and protections related to the use of artificial intelligence.

In recent weeks, CSU has reached tentative agreements with three unions: the Statewide University Police Association, the United Auto Workers Local 4123 and Academic Professionals of California. Together, the agreements cover 14,000 university employees.

The tentative agreements, which must be approved by union members and CSU’s Board of Trustees, include an 8% salary increase over two years, along with one-time raises negotiated by each bargaining unit.

It can be tough to be tall. I am 6 feet, hear me out.

And yes, complaining about being able to see over a crowd may sound silly. But height can be a love-hate relationship for many people, particularly towering women and children who feel like they just don’t fit in.

Well, that’s where a worldwide social club for tall people comes in, but whether it’ll reach its 100th birthday is in question.

Tall Clubs International is an organization spanning more than a dozen states and several countries that offers tall adults a chance to connect and commiserate. The original chapter, founded in Los Angeles in 1938, is called the California Tip Toppers.

To get into the L.A. group, men have to be 6 feet 4 inches or taller, and women have to be at least 6 feet. One of the tallest members of the organization is 7 feet 2 inches, and honestly, I couldn’t help but perk up at the opportunity to feel short for once in my life.

At 13, I was still growing at 5 feet 10, towering over almost every kid in my freshman high school class. One of the first questions people still ask me is whether I played volleyball or basketball, and I’ve learned to laugh at the look they get when I say I preferred theater.

“People see how tall you are, they expect ‘Oh, you're going to be great on the basketball court,’” said Michele Cripps, a 6-foot-1 member of the California Tip Toppers, who joined in 1996. She's married to William Walter Wiseman II, a fellow member. “Well, I'm sorry, white girls can't jump sometimes, and I'm one of them.”

Some of the tall club members are generational, encouraged to join by their parents or older relatives, which has started to pose its own problems as the chapters get older.

What’s the big deal anyways?

William Walter Wiseman II and Michele Cripps at the 2026 Tall Clubs International convention in Hollywood.

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Courtesy Michele Cripps and William Walter Wiseman II

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The chapters became a way for tall people to trade practical tips, like which stores sold pants that actually covered your ankles or shoes that didn’t need to be specially made.

“I was always being kidded about my pants being too short or my clothes not fitting correctly,” said Wiseman, who's nearly 6 feet 9 and also wasn’t much of a basketball player. “And as I grew as an adult, people are a little bit afraid to approach people that are tall.”

Wiseman has a good sense of humor about his height, cracking jokes that I’ve added to my arsenal when answering “how’s the weather up there?” But he doesn’t gloss over the pain points either — Wiseman can’t fit into cars or roller coasters, hotel beds are never long enough, and airplanes can be an expensive nightmare.

“It's not just the socialization of being tall, but it's also the physicality of it,” he said. “It's almost a handicap to be tall.”

Members of the Tall Club of Orange County at the 2026 convention.

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Courtesy Michele Cripps and William Walter Wiseman II

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Cripps said she was a skinny kid, but she couldn’t help but feel “huge” growing up a head above everyone else, which hurt her young self-esteem and made dating more difficult.

The clubs gave them both a chance to see eye to eye with a room full of people for the first time, and potentially even find a partner. Wiseman’s parents met in the Dayton Altitudians tall club in Ohio, decades before Wiseman and Cripps met through their own California clubs.

“The people that married inside the club stayed married,” said Wiseman, who lives in Torrance with Cripps. “The people that married outside of the club got divorced.”

A Dayton Daily News clipping of William Walter Wiseman II's father measuring tall teens in the Dayton, Ohio area from November 19, 1958. 

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Courtesy William Walter Wiseman II

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Future of the club in question

But now, the California Tip Toppers is having trouble bringing in new, younger members — a recruitment crisis that’s essentially dissolved groups in other areas, Wiseman said.

Members of the California Tip Toppers at the 2026 convention.

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Courtesy Michele Cripps and William Walter Wiseman II

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“We're facing the same challenges like all other clubs,” Cripps and Wiseman said, jumping in to finish each other’s thoughts. “Some of it could be generational. Some of it's that since COVID, the clubs have not been quite as active as they used to be. Some people [don’t have] homes to open up anymore … and we're all getting older.”

The club is at a crossroads: Get new members on board or fade away. The couple seems to have made it a mission to rejuvenate the California Tip Toppers, but Cripps was frank when she said they’re not sure how to get more people involved, whether it's fresh events or outreach opportunities.

At the end of the day, they’re hoping the club and the community it fosters can help others learn how to “stand tall” and be proud.

The clubs crown a new Miss Tall International at a formal pageant held during the annual convention. The former Miss Tall Clubs International that were at the 2026 convention from left to right: Susan Hopkins, 2019, from the Tall Club of Orange County, Martine Whitford, 1959, from the Los Angeles Higher Ups, Norma Forrest, 1996, from the Tall Club of Toronto and Mary Eleman, 2022, from the Central Arizona Tall Society.

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Courtesy Michele Cripps and William Walter Wiseman II

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Members of the Tall Clubs International convention committee.  From left to right: Barry Umbs from Milwaukee, William Walter Wiseman II from the California Tip Toppers, Jim Nelson from the Paramount Tall Club-Chicago and Michele Cripps from the California Tip Toppers.

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Courtesy Michele Cripps and William Walter Wiseman II

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“It’s a challenge, but it’s something that was given to us,” Cripps said. “I say as I've aged, I should have listened to my mother, I should have stood up tall.”

Moms everywhere, mine included, rejoice.

“Everybody wants to be something different than they have,” Cripps continued. “So, try and embrace what you have. Life is too short, and it goes too quick.”