The Brief

You've seen it everywhere — ube flavored pancake mix, mochi and cookies lining the shelves at Trader Joe's. Even your local bubble tea joint is pushing ube lattes, and the artisan donut shop is likely to carry an ube offering as well.

But what is ube, and how did this vibrant purple yam manage to colonize America's sweet tooth?

It's the kind of cultural conquest that happens in reverse — instead of us (Americans) imposing our sensibilities on the world, something with soul and history has steamrolled through our supermarkets and Instagram feeds.

This is thousands of years of Filipino ingenuity getting its due, even if it has to wear the costume of artisanal marketing to get there.

But for me, as a Filipino-American, I didn't always love ube.

The first time I saw it as a kid, I stared suspiciously at my aunt and uncle scooping vivid purple ice cream. The color alone made me hesitate — it didn't look like vanilla or chocolate or anything familiar.

I passed without a second thought.

Ube ice cream showcases the distinctive purple color that has made the Filipino yam a popular dessert flavor.

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Years later in Boracay, Philippines, everything changed. I finally tasted ube in halo-halo, a chaotic, layered masterpiece of green jellies, purple ube jam, red beans and yellow jackfruit. It looks like someone dumped a tropical garden into a glass and said "trust me." And somehow, it works perfectly.

But how did this flavor make its way from Filipino kitchens into mainstream markets and bakeries?

Cafe 86's famous "upside down" halo-halo features an ube ice cream base topped with vanilla ice cream, served alongside ube crinkle cookie and butter bar.

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From an ancient staple to modern sensation

Ube (Dioscorea alata) traces back 11,000 years in the Philippines, making it one of the world's oldest crops.

What most people don't realize is that the ube flavor they've fallen in love with isn't actually raw ube at all. Pure ube root delivers subtle, earthy vanilla notes with a delicate nuttiness reminiscent of pistachios — pleasant, but understated.

"What we're craving for is actually ube halaya," said James Oreste, founder of UbeFest, a local event that hosts more than 70 vendors with ube food items on their menus (coming up this weekend in Cerritos). "The flavor of ube mixed with butter, sugar and milk — that's really the flavor profile we're looking for. It's not ube by itself."

The mashed, sweet and creamy ube halaya made for a perfect base to adapt to ice creams, lattes, pancakes and more.

But before it became a sweet treat, ube was a food used for survival.

In the Central Visayas region of the Philippines, specifically in Bohol’s municipalities, ube was the sole surviving crop during extensive droughts in pre-colonial Philippines, sustaining indigenous locals.

The yam became so sacred that dropping one required an apologetic kiss to the dropped purple yam.

"The only thing they could eat was ube because it's invasive, so it could grow anywhere," Oreste notes. "That's why some people call it a blessing."

But the sweet dessert version that our taste buds are used to began with a nun in Baguio City, Philippines.

UCLA anthropology professor Stephen Acabado said that the Good Shepherd's Mountain Maid Training Center created legendary ube halaya in the 70s using carabao milk — from Philippine water buffalo — and butter.

"People would wait in long lines for hours to get a bottle or two, and it usually sold out within the day," he said.

Ube halaya spread on bread shows how the traditional Filipino purple yam jam has found its way into everyday American breakfast routines, bridging cultural flavors with familiar foods.

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The L.A. crossover

While ube remained a Filipino-American party staple for decades, the mainstream breakthrough came in the 2000s at an unlikely spot in Granada Hills. Ninong's Cafe, a small family-owned bakery that opened in 2008, started serving a revolutionary breakfast item: ube pancakes.

Co-owner Carissa "Kissa" Ortega grew up surrounded by ube thanks to her godmother who baked ube cakes after immigrating from the Philippines.

But Ninong's had a bigger mission: "We wanted to share our food and our culture with other cultures, not just share it with fellow Filipinos."

The ube pancake was their bridge — something approachable that would spark curiosity about Filipino cuisine.

"People from all over Southern California would flock to this place in Granada Hills to get ube pancakes," said Joseph Bernardo, who teaches Philippine American Experience at Loyola Marymount University.

The purple pancakes became such a phenomenon that when the pandemic hit and they were forced to close, Ninong's successfully pivoted to selling ube pancake mix online, reaching customers nationwide.

Now operating as Ninong's Dessert Lab, they've expanded to include ube spread, coconut syrup and seasonal products like an upcoming ube cookie mix.

And Ortega takes cultural responsibility seriously. “We were very intentional about not dumbing down the flavor and making sure that what we served was authentic so that other cultures knew what to expect," she added.

Fast-forward to 2021, when James Oreste's UbeFest accidentally ignited something much bigger. What started as a modest gathering hoping for 200 people in Belmont Shore exploded into 1,500 attendees — during a pandemic, no less.

"The city wasn't prepared for it, and everybody in Long Beach was like, 'What the heck is going on?'" Oreste said.

That response revealed massive hunger for accessible Filipino culture.

UbeFest, hosted in SoCal, now draws 50,000 people and has inspired nationwide copycats while pushing creative boundaries with ube pizza, ube lumpia donuts and ube tortillas.

The complex reality

Behind the purple Instagram fever lies something real. Ube's rise represents Filipino culture finding its place in mainstream America through food.

But here's the thing about ube — beneath our relentless appetite for the next trendy flavor lies thousands of years of Filipino heritage, turning a humble purple tuber from ancient survival food to modern celebration. Every ube dessert connects back to that history, whether we know it or not.

Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of November. But many Americans don't wait that long to share a fall feast with their loved ones — that is, if they celebrate Friendsgiving.

Friendsgiving is exactly what it sounds like: A gathering close to the date of Thanksgiving, starring many of its starchy staples, usually served potluck-style, with friends instead of relatives.

Think fewer dinner-table political debates, less travel time, turkey optional (more on that later).

"There are your friends, and there's Thanksgiving," says Emily Brewster, a senior editor at Merriam-Webster. "It's a great example of a word that is just an excellent candidate for adoption as soon as someone thought of it."

This installment of NPR's Word of the Week series takes a look at where Friendsgiving comes from, why it stuck around and how to celebrate it.

A new name for an old tradition 

Of course, people have been celebrating Thanksgiving with friends for centuries.

The concept of Friendsgiving has long permeated pop culture, from 1973's A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (in which an overburdened Snoopy cooks for the gang after they invite themselves over) to Friends, which went on the air in 1994 and included Thanksgiving plotlines in each of its 10 seasons.

But the proper noun only came along relatively recently.

Merriam-Webster started tracking "Friendsgiving" in 2007, after it appeared in posts on what was then Twitter and the early message board Usenet. The word's obvious meaning and accessible pronunciation helped it catch on quickly, Brewster says.

"Friendsgiving" popped up in lifestyle blogs and news articles over the years before hitting it big in 2011. That year, it was both the focus of a Bailey's Irish Cream ad campaign and a major plot point in a Real Housewives of New Jersey episode (titled "Gobblefellas").

Google searches for "Friendsgiving" spiked that November, and increased every year for the rest of the decade.

"All a word like this really needs is to just have more of a presence in the culture, and then it gets adopted into the language very quickly," Brewster says.

Merriam-Webster added "Friendsgiving" to its dictionary in 2020, 13 years after its first known use. While Brewster wasn't involved in that decision, she says "it was clear that it met our criteria."

"We had been seeing these examples of it for a few years, and … it looked like it wasn't going to go anywhere," Brewster adds.

The made-up holiday has inspired chain restaurant deals and numerous hosting guides, and even counted a sitting president among its participants in 2023. There are no official statistics on how many Americans celebrate Friendsgiving, but online surveys from recent years suggest numbers could be as high as 20%.

Brewster wonders whether we are seeing more Friendsgiving gatherings at least in part because there is now a name for them. It doesn't hurt that it's a catchy "blend word," which she says Americans especially get a kick out of (see: "Barbenheimer" or "Galentine's Day").

"I'm curious … if the existence of the word has somehow generated more of this kind of socializing," she adds. "I think words do have that power, that they can actually influence action."

<em>A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving</em> depicts an early example of Friendsgiving in 1973, well before the term entered the lexicon.

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"Friendsgiving" isn't one-size-fits-all 

Lizzie Post, the co-president of the Emily Post Institute, says the etiquette-focused organization started getting questions about Friendsgiving do's and don'ts around the time the word entered the lexicon.

"They were questions along the lines of: 'Is it OK to host Friendsgiving and go to your family Thanksgiving?' 'Can you only do Friendsgiving if your family isn't around and you can't travel to them?' " she explains.

The answer turned out to be a resounding yes. Many of those who celebrate Friendsgiving typically do so in addition to their family Thanksgiving, not instead of it.

"I think Friendsgiving is a nice way to be able to do both," says Emily Stephenson, a cookbook author whose work includes The Friendsgiving Handbook, published in 2019.

Stephenson says she has been hosting Friendsgiving — even though she never called it by that name — for about two decades, starting when she attended college abroad.

"It kind of implies … a younger person who's maybe doing things that's not going to be super traditional," she says. "And I do think part of what's implied in Friendsgiving is maybe it being the first time you host."

To Stephenson, younger generations' embrace of Friendsgiving makes perfect sense, particularly after the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throwing a dinner party can be a rare and special experience, especially for 20-something apartment dwellers who are potentially many years away from hosting a family Thanksgiving.

And there's not one right way to do it, considering the holiday is made-up and the real thing is just around the corner. Stephenson says that hopefully takes some pressure off.

"If you are hosting and a turkey stresses you out, you don't need to make turkey," she adds.

Post says these days, most of the questions the institute gets about Friendsgiving revolve around the etiquette of potlucks. The most important thing, she says, is to make clear who is responsible for what.

"I think that as people, we really value spending time with one another, taking a break from the everyday," Post says. "And whether that means eating off of paper plates … in front of a football game on the couch with a big buffet behind us, or whether that's a formally set table, matters not. It's the gathering that makes the big difference."

Every season of <em>Friends</em> had a Thanksgiving plotline, but the show isn't credited with coining "Friendsgiving." It ended in 2004, three years before Merriam-Webster started tracking the word's usage online.

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Tips for your next Friendsgiving 

That said, there are things both hosts and guests should keep in mind to help make Friendsgiving as easy as pie. Here's some of the best advice we got from Post and Stephenson:

For hosts:

• Do ask people if they have allergies or dietary restrictions beforehand. 

• Do keep track of who is bringing what, whether you assign specific dishes or leave guests to fill out a shared spreadsheet. And if someone shows up with something that wasn't on the list, serve it anyway. 

• Do take responsibility for the main dish — but it doesn't have to be a full turkey. Stephenson suggests preparing a less time-consuming turkey leg or breast, or skipping the bird altogether in favor of something like a shepherd's pie, savory galette or lasagna. 

• Do make it easier for out-of-town guests by tasking them with store-bought contributions, like drinks, napkins or a premade crudité platter.  

• Do give guests key details in advance, like what time the meal will actually be served (especially on a weekend) and a dress code if you're planning a more formal event. 

• Don't be afraid to ask guests to help out. Post recalls that when her mom used to host some two dozen Thanksgiving guests, she would ask people to not only bring a dish but sign up for a job — from setting out place cards to lighting candles to checking who wants ice cream with their pie. "Some people faint when I say this," Post laughs. "But … little tasks like that, when spread out over the whole group, not only make it a little bit even more of a communal experience, but they help ease the burden on the host."
  
• Do try to send guests home with leftovers of the dish they brought. "Just because they've brought it to your house doesn't automatically make it yours," Post says. If they don't want it, transfer it into another container so you can clean their original dish and send it home with them. 
  

For guests:

• Do inform the host of any dietary restrictions (if they don't ask), but do so "with an offer to bring something that meets your needs," Post says.  
  
• Don't arrive empty-handed. "I don't think there's many rules for being a guest besides … don't make soup," Stephenson says, since it adds another round of dishes to clean. 
  
• Do the heavy lifting before you leave the house. Since kitchen space will be limited, it's best to bring a dish that is ready to eat, even if it needs a few minutes in the oven first. 
  
• Don't show up expecting leftovers, though of course it's nice if you end up with some. 
  
• Do remember to thank your host — verbally is fine, Post says. If your friends are into group activities, you may well get a chance to share what you're thankful for anyway.

Copyright 2025 NPR

The University of California’s Board of Regents on Wednesday is slated to vote on a proposal that could hike tuition rates for incoming students beginning in fall 2027.

The UC system is facing state budget cuts and major uncertainty over federal funding as it continues to navigate ongoing conflicts with the Trump administration.

In a recent message to students, faculty and staff, UC President James Milliken said the system is grappling with “one of the gravest threats in [its] 157-year history,” highlighting fears about potential cuts to the $17 billion in federal funding it receives each year — including $1.7 billion in financial aid for students.

What's in the proposal?

The proposal aims to extend UC’s “Tuition Stability Plan,” which went into effect in 2022. Under that plan, annual tuition increases are capped at 5% and tuition is frozen for each incoming class for six years.

The proposal on deck contains key differences, including reducing the rate of undergraduate tuition set aside for financial aid, from 45% to 40%, along with a 1% increase to help pay for new or improved campus facilities.

The University of California Student Association (UCSA), which represents 230,000 undergraduates across nine campuses, opposes the tuition hikes, arguing that many students are already struggling to make ends meet.

“We understand that the university is in a really challenging fiscal period . . . [and] will likely renew the proposal,” said Vincent Rasso, the group’s director of government relations.

If the board adopts the plan, he added, members should, at a minimum, oppose reducing the rate of tuition dollars that support student aid. And instead of using tuition to pay for capital improvements, UCSA asks that a portion of that 1% hike be used to fund retention programs and students' basic needs.

The board's meeting is slated to start at 1:30 p.m. and available to stream online.

The U.S. may be entering another rough winter for flu, according to early data.

"The signs are, it could be a big season," says Richard Webby, who studies the flu at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. "The flu season might have a little bit of a punch to it this year."

The first clue to what may be in store is what influenza did during the Southern Hemisphere's winter. That often predicts what's coming for the Northern Hemisphere.

"They had some pretty decent flu activity in many parts of the Southern Hemisphere," Webby says. "It actually lasted for a longer period of time — the tail of the season went on for longer than typical."

And now, parts of the Northern Hemisphere, such as the United Kingdom, are being hit hard. That often foreshadows what's in store for the U.S.

Another clue is the Northern Hemisphere's dominant flu strain so far. It's an H3N2 flu virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention flu tracker.

And H3N2 viruses "tend to be a little bit more problematic," Webby says. "When we have an H3N2 season, we tend to have a little bit more activity, a little bit more disease at the severe end of the spectrum."

The last major flu season dominated by H3N2 was 2016-2017.

In addition, a new H3N2 variant recently evolved and has become the dominant strain in the U.S.

"There is basically a new variant of influenza circulating that has mutated a little bit," says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins. "And that means that it's just different enough from what your body or the vaccine may recognize that it can kind of get around those protections."

And she says the flu shot this year "may not be as good a match as if we hadn't seen this new variant."

That said, data from the U.K. indicates the vaccines still make a difference, Rivers says. In the U.K., the vaccines appear to be about 70% to 75% protective against hospitalization in children and about 30% to 40% protective against hospitalization in adults.

So Rivers and others are urging anyone who hasn't already gotten a flu shot to get one.

"Definitely get it as soon as possible. Because activity is low right now. But it is increasing. And it will continue to increase straight through until we hit peak, which is usually around the holiday season. There's no sense in waiting when we are barreling into flu season," Rivers says.

It takes about two weeks for immunity to kick in. And people don't want to catch or spread the flu over Thanksgiving. The flu kills between roughly 12,000 and 52,000 people in the U.S. every winter.

"I do have concerns that uptake of both the influenza and the annual COVID vaccine won't be as high this year as it had been in previous years," Rivers said. She is concerned by rhetoric coming from federal health officials questioning "whether vaccines are safe and effective."

"We know that they are," she says. "And they are important for protecting against severe illness. So it's really important that people go out and get them this year."

In a written statement to NPR, a Health and Human Services spokesperson said: "It is too early to know what viruses will spread this season, in what proportion, and how well the vaccine will work in the United States."

The statement added: "The decision to vaccinate is a personal one. Individuals should speak to their healthcare provider on the risks and benefits of a vaccine."

Copyright 2025 NPR

Despite record rainfall this month across Southern California, Rancho Palos Verdes officials say so far the damage to the city’s slow-moving landslide appears to be minimal.

The Portuguese Bend area of the city sits on an ancient landslide that was accelerated by above-average rainfall in 2022 and 2023, causing land to move 1 foot a week in some places. The movement has torn properties, roads and other infrastructure and has led to a buyout program to convert red-tagged properties into open space.

To prepare for this winter’s deluge, officials took measures to slow down land movement, including installing a pipe in Altamira Canyon to prevent water from collecting at the toe of the canyon and covering the ground in some areas with pond liners.

“So far, it appears the impacts of the storm included a few areas of minor ponding on Palos Verde Drive South. The water was removed by pumps, and the roadway remained passable,” Megan Barnes, a spokesperson for the city, told LAist in a statement.

The story was similar in other areas at risk of mudflows and landslides due to recently being scarred by fires. Despite inches of rain, no major damage was reported. Another storm system, however, is expected to move in Thursday through Friday.

Eva Albuja, a resident whose home is surrounded by multiple damaged homes — two red-tagged and three yellow-tagged — said the city needs to do more.

 ”The pooling of water is significant in our area,” she said, noting that the water pools under pond liners. “ I worry because I might be next with all the water problems that we're having.”

What to know about the Rancho Palos Verdes landslide

Albuja’s home is close to the intersection of Dauntless and Exultant drives, where a fissure has expanded to completely engulf the intersection. That area is closed to the public. She said city crews came to pump the water that was collecting only after addressing damages on the main thoroughfare through the landslide complex, Palos Verdes Drive South. By then, some of the water had sunk into the ground, which could cause problems down the line.

The ground in that area is made up of bentonite clay, which slips and slides when wet. It’s a combination that has cost Rancho Palos Verdes tens of millions of dollars in repairs, wells to remove water from underground and other infrastructure maintenance. In the end, experts say all the city can do is try to slow down the unstoppable.

Albuja, who has lived in Rancho Palos Verdes since 1978, said it’s been hard to witness the slow-moving destruction and homes being abandoned.

“It's heartbreaking,” she said.