Matt Johnstone's father, who has dementia, with his sons Russell Granger, far right, Johnstone, far left, in his room at an assisted living facility in North Hollywood on Aug. 13, 2026.
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Ariana Drehsler
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CalMatters
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Topline:
Health Net’s decision to cut assisted living benefits for roughly 3,500 low-income seniors could force some of them onto the streets, critics fear.
The backstory: Health Net, one of the largest Medi-Cal insurers in the country, is canceling assisted living benefits for members at the end of the year, according to documents obtained by CalMatters and interviews with providers. Approximately 3,500 Medi-Cal patients like Johnstone’s father rely on Health Net to pay for assisted living costs. Most are elderly, and many have cognitive issues like dementia, senior advocates say. Medi-Cal is the state’s public insurance program for low-income Californians and people with disabilities.
Cut impacts: Four weeks ago, Matt Johnstone received a call from the board-and-care facility in North Hollywood where his 89-year-old father lives. Health Net, the insurance company that pays for his care, was eliminating its assisted living benefit, meaning he would have to move out soon. Johnstone panicked. His father has dementia and needs around-the-clock care. Neither Johnstone nor his brother can afford the roughly $6,000 per month the facility costs, and with health problems of their own, they can’t safely meet his needs at home either. Without insurance coverage, their father could end up on the streets, he said.
Read on... for more on what these cuts mean for seniors in California.
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Four weeks ago, Matt Johnstone received a call from the board-and-care facility in North Hollywood where his 89-year-old father lives. Health Net, the insurance company that pays for his care, was eliminating its assisted living benefit, meaning he would have to move out soon.
Johnstone panicked. His father has dementia and needs around-the-clock care. Neither Johnstone nor his brother can afford the roughly $6,000 per month the facility costs, and with health problems of their own, they can’t safely meet his needs at home either. Without insurance coverage, their father could end up on the streets, he said.
“He’s declining, and I just don’t know what’s going to happen if the program ends,” Johnstone said. CalMatters is not publishing the father’s name because Johnstone fears the plan will target him for speaking with media.
Health Net, one of the largest Medi-Cal insurers in the country, is canceling assisted living benefits for members at the end of the year, according to documents obtained by CalMatters and interviews with providers. Approximately 3,500 Medi-Cal patients like Johnstone’s father rely on Health Net to pay for assisted living costs. Most are elderly, and many have cognitive issues like dementia, senior advocates say. Medi-Cal is the state’s public insurance program for low-income Californians and people with disabilities.
CalViva Health and Community Health Plan of Imperial Valley, which contract with Health Net to provide services, have also notified the state of their intent to discontinue assisted living benefits.
Health Net's decision has been shrouded in confusion with little public information. Senior advocates and family members of assisted living residents fear people will become homeless or be shuffled between hospitals and skilled nursing facilities.
A disaster in the making?
Pauline Shatara, deputy director of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, said a few assisted living facilities have already confirmed to her organization that residents have been dropped off at emergency rooms.
“This is going to be a disaster,” Shatara said.
Senior advocates also say the state did not include enough consumer protections to ensure patients stay housed if plans decide to terminate coverage. State regulators dispute that characterization.
The assisted living support is an optional Medi-Cal benefit, meaning plans can opt-into offering it to members and decide annually whether the program will continue. Assisted living support is part of CalAIM, California’s broad effort to improve Medi-Cal services and save money by stabilizing high-cost users who often end up repeatedly in emergency rooms. It pays a majority of the 24-hour service costs at board-and-care homes, memory care facilities, or larger group settings, while residents cover room-and-board fees.
The average nursing home, which offers a higher level of medical care, costs upwards of $10,000 per month, while an assisted living facility costs between $5,000 to $7,000 monthly.
Health Net operates Medi-Cal plans in 10 counties: Amador, Calaveras, Fresno, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Tulare.
In an unsigned statement, a spokesperson for the company disputed the assertion that patients would be left without services and would end up unhoused. Affected members will receive care through their individual authorization date, and could be transitioned to nursing homes, back home with in-home supportive services, or to other programs, according to the statement.
“We are working closely with members, providers and care management teams to develop individualized transition plans based on each member's clinical needs and eligibility for other available programs and services,” the company statement said.
The statement also said internal data showed the assisted living program “has not led to better care” in terms of fewer emergency room visits or days hospitalized.
Matt Johnstone helps his dad Jim put on his shoes while he sits at the edge of his bed in his room at an assisted living facility in North Hollywood on Aug. 13, 2026.
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Ariana Drehsler
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CalMatters
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Health Net told state regulators its decision was fueled partly by an increase in members moving from home to assisted living rather than from nursing homes, a trend that costs the plan money instead of generating savings, according to a termination notice sent to the Department of Health Care Services. The plan also blames regulators for changing program guidelines that had previously allowed Health Net to limit community transitions.
“The guidance raises concerns regarding program integrity and long term viability,” the notice reads.
The Department of Health Care Services, which oversees the program, refused an interview request. In an emailed statement, officials said the department would communicate with Health Net to “ensure member protections and continuity of care”
“Their position is it’s less costly to offer no services than some services,” said Hagar Dickman, director of long-term services and supports for Justice In Aging.
No information sparks confusion, 'rumor mill'
When Johnstone first heard about Health Net’s decision, he searched the company’s website for information about the change: Nothing. Then, he picked up the phone.
“When I called into Health Net customer service, they didn't even know what the program is,” Johnstone said. He has not received a letter notifying him of the upcoming termination.
Jennifer Horcasitas-Glenn ran into the same problem. Her 75-year-old mother-in-law, Jacqueline Glenn, has dementia and Alzheimer's. Horcasistas-Glenn and her husband spent nine years caring for Jacqueline at home until recent hospitalizations made it impossible to continue. She has been in a memory care facility since May.
Horcasitas-Glenn said she was also notified of the change by a third-party provider, not Health Net, and hasn’t gotten answers from the insurer. Horcasitas-Glenn said she spent days bouncing between customer service representatives and supervisors who had never heard of the program before being transferred to a Health Net social worker who was aware of the changes but had no further information.
“I told her I have a plethora of questions I need answered. She said ‘I think you should forward all of your questions to this email,’” Horcasitas-Glenn said. To-date she has not received answers.
The health plan notified some major contractors that services would be terminated Oct. 7, according to providers interviewed by CalMatters. But Medi-Cal enrollees themselves have not been notified of changes by Health Net, according to advocates and multiple families interviewed for this story.
One of the biggest sources of confusion is when services will actually stop. Many of the plan contracts end in October, but the plan has an obligation to continue services until the end of the year, Dickman said.
“The question is, what's Health Net going to do after October 7? They don't have contracts with these facilities, so how are they going to provide?" said Jonathan Istrin, chairman of Libertana, one of the groups whose contracts were terminated. Libertana subcontracts with hundreds of assisted living facilities in California, Istrin said, and Health Net doesn’t have the infrastructure to pay those places directly.
Health Net must notify members of termination 30 days before the service end date. Providers aren’t certain whether notices will go out at the end of September or beginning of December. For some, the notices may come after members are already evicted, Shatara said..
“Right now it can feel like a rumor mill and nobody knows what they should do because Health Net has not been giving anyone any information,” Shatara said.
Matt Johnstone, left, and Russell Granger, right, help their father Jim get up from his bed at an assisted living facility in North Hollywood on Aug. 13, 2026.
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Ariana Drehsler
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CalMatters
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On Aug. 10, Horcasitas-Glenn said she received a letter from Health Net stating that approval for her mother’s memory care facility would be revoked a month early “at the request of the provider.” The provider told Horcasitas-Glenn that they had not requested an early termination and had instead asked Health Net how to accommodate patients who have a right to services until the end of the year. CalMatters independently confirmed this information.
“This is baloney. They’re not being transparent about anything, and they’re lying on documents,” Horcasitas-Glenn said. Customer service still doesn’t know what program she’s talking about when she calls.
According to state regulators, Health Net members are entitled to services until Dec. 31 as long as it is “clinically appropriate.” If the authorization for a member’s assisted living expires before the end of the year, they should request an extension.
State offers few consumer protections
Other than the 30-day notice, advocates say, the state has very few protections for patients when services are terminated.
Health Net has not given patients transition plans, and the state cannot guarantee patients will receive the same level of care elsewhere, Shatara said. Advocates and providers told CalMatters the Department of Health Care Services and Health Net have mutually referred questions to the other organization, offering no clear answers.
The Department of Health Care Services in an email argued its patient notification requirements are adequate, stating “Medi-Cal members have strong protections.” Some patient protections include the right to appeal or file a grievance with the plan, access to alternative services, and continuity-of-care requirements. The state also places responsibility with Health Net.
According to the termination notice filed with the state, Health Net members “will be transitioned to alternative care settings, including home, as appropriate.”
Jim smokes his pipe outside an assisted living facility in North Hollywood on Aug. 13, 2026.
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Ariana Drehsler
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CalMatters
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Pictures of Jim’s sister, Jim with puppies, books, a stuffed animal and a first-prize award for a motorcycle show sit on a nightstand in his room.
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Ariana Drehsler
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CalMatters
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For most patients, home is not an option, Shatara said. Many live on fixed Social Security incomes and give up their primary residence in order to pay room and board fees at care facilities that Medi-Cal doesn’t cover. Their needs are also too acute for family members to meet. The only other appropriate alternative care settings, Shatara said, are nursing homes and hospitals, which may not be able to handle the influx.
“It’s inevitable that people will end up in ERs and on the streets,” Shatara said.
Some families like Horcasitas-Glenn are contemplating switching to another Medi-Cal insurer that still provides the benefit, but have been told other plans don’t want to approve these expensive long-term services for new patients. Others, like Johnstone, are at a loss.
Johnstone’s dad turned a lifelong love of motorcycles and racecars into a successful autobody repair and restoration business in Southern California. Eventually, in his later years, undiagnosed dementia would trap his mind 20 years in the past, Johnstone said, causing him to make poor business decisions and take on enormous amounts of debt and work he could no longer perform. A terminal cancer diagnosis for Johnstone’s mother would also wipe out all of the family’s savings.
“There is nothing else,” Johnstone said.
Worried your loved one will be affected by changes to Medi-Cal services? Send tips to health@calmatters.org.
Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.
Flooding in Seal Beach Saturday afternoon. Heavy rains began Sunday.
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Courtesy Rhea Presiado
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Topline:
Up to an inch of rain is expected today across Los Angeles County from the effects of Hurricane Marie hundreds of miles away in the Pacific Ocean, according to the National Weather Service.
Street flooding: Roadway flooding was reported this morning on the westbound 134 at the 5 Freeway, near Glendale and Griffith Park.
Coastal Flooding: All weekend, forecasters have warned of dangerous rip currents and an elevated risk of coastal flooding.
Flooding was reported yesterday in Seal Beach and Long Beach.
"We have quite a few reports already of waves up to 10 feet on some beaches — Zuma Beach especially, where we've gotten reports [of] strong rip currents," said Todd Hall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
What's next: Hall said to expect more showers across L.A. County today. Tomorrow, he said isolated rain is expected, mostly in the mountains.
Topline:
Up to an inch of rain is expected today (Sunday, Sept. 6) across Los Angeles County from the effects of Hurricane Marie hundreds of miles away in the Pacific Ocean, according to the National Weather Service.
Street flooding: Roadway flooding was reported this morning on the westbound 134 Freeway at the 5, near Glendale and Griffith Park.
Coastal Flooding: All weekend, forecasters have warned of dangerous rip currents and an elevated risk of coastal flooding.
Flooding was reported yesterday in Seal Beach and Long Beach.
"We have quite a few reports already of waves up to 10 feet on some beaches — Zuma Beach especially, where we've gotten reports [of] strong rip currents," said Todd Hall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Advisories and closures:
An ocean water quality rain advisory has been issued for all L.A. County beaches until Wednesday, Sept. 9 at 2 p.m. That means to avoid ocean water contact for at least 72 hours after the rain.
What's next: Hall said to expect more showers across L.A. County throughout Sunday. On Monday, he said isolated rain is expected, mostly in the mountains.
Fiona Ng
is LAist's deputy managing editor and leads a team of reporters who explore food, culture, history, events and more.
Published September 6, 2026 7:08 AM
Firefighters assess the remains of the Lineage warehouse that burned for a week and sent smoke into nearby communities.
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Andrew Lopez
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Boyle Heights Beat
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Topline:
Final cleanup of the burned Boyle Heights warehouse was completed Saturday, according to Lineage Logistics and air quality officials.
Why it matters: On Aug. 29, Lineage removed an estimated 88 million pounds of rotting food waste from the site. It then faced a seven-day deadline to complete the final phase of cleanup, including debris removal, power washing and disinfecting of required areas.
What the company says: Lineage said workers have spent 210,000 hours on cleaning up the 491,000 square-foot site, which burned for about a week after igniting on July 7. The cost of cleanup, the company said, is more than $100 million.
Odor issues: Air quality officials from South Coast AQMD said odor complaints have fallen to fewer than 5 per day since food waste removal — instead of several hundred per day in July.
What's next: Lineage must continue to comply with an odor abatement order from South Coast AQMD, including sealing wastewater from the cleanup in a tank.
Lineage is also required to continue air monitoring around the warehouse.
Keep up with LAist.
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The Bee Museum is inside the vintage store, Hive & Hanger, in Burbank.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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Topline:
Hive & Hanger in Burbank sells vintage clothes and antique jewelry. Inside, you'll also find a pop-up Bee Museum.
What? The owner is Carrie Diazzz, a vintage maven turned urban apiarist. She admits with a smile two extra Zs at the end of her real last name are a homage to her beloved bees.
The backstory: When the store opened in 2020, it was originally all-vintage. The museum was opened almost a year ago after Diazzz became fascinated with the honeybee.
A sign on the front door says “Beekeeper owned,” and inside the Hive & Hanger store in Burbank, the layout is a mix of vintage clothes, antique jewelry and something rather unexpected: a pop-up Bee Museum.
The owner is Carrie Diazzz, a vintage maven turned urban apiarist. She admits with a smile two extra Zs at the end of her real last name are a homage to her beloved bees.
When the store opened in 2020, it was originally all-vintage. “I was not looking to change careers,” she said, but after taking a two-hour beekeeping experience course, she was hooked.
Hive & Hangar in Burbank doubles as a bee museum.
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James Bartlett
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“I don’t like dirt, and I don't like bugs. I'm a heels and lipstick, nails, kind of person,” she said. “There's just something magical about the honeybee. The more you know, the more you want to know.”
That prompted her to pursue a bee master certification at UC Davis. She collaborated with Elina Niño at the university’s Bee Lab to curate information and research to bring her pop-up Bee Museum to life almost a year ago.
A crash course in bees
The Burbank Bee Museum.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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There’s a Bee 101 explainer by the front door, which shows the differences between bees and wasps, and fun touches like pop songs containing the word “Honey,” and a list of Noteworthy Beekeepers including Aristotle, Benjamin Franklin, Leo Tolstoy, Emily Dickinson, Angelina Jolie and Sherlock Holmes.
One long-standing myth is that honeybees are stingers. “People always ask me how often I get stung, but I don’t wear gloves, and I don’t use smoke, and it very rarely happens. And honeybees die after they sting, as opposed to wasps, who can sting repeatedly,” she said.
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James Bartlett
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Most arresting is a floor-to-ceiling collage series of framed model fruits, vegetables, nuts and berries, all of which the honeybee has a role in pollinating. Beside that is an exhibit on pesticides, one of the insect's biggest threats. Pieces of dried honeycomb are everywhere.
Diazzz has also been hosting school trips for the Boys & Girls Clubs. “I might be the only beekeeper they will ever meet,” she noted. The point is to give bees the respect they deserve. “Did you know that it takes 12 honeybees their entire lives to make one teaspoon of honey?”
Rescuing hives across Southern California
The Bee Museum serves up not just honey, but bee knowledge.
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James Bartlett
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There are no live bees in the store, but Diazzz has her own hives in Burbank.
“They are from rescues: I cut the hive out from a wall,” she explained. She takes care of hives from San Diego to Bel Air, with many in the San Fernando Valley, and a couple with a view of the Hollywood Sign. Her caretaking quests have taken her on skyscraper roofs, at apartment buildings and in parking lots.
Almost a year ago, she began her studies as a honey sommelier at the American Honey Tasting Society in Connecticut, where she learned about the science and experience of honey. Her future includes going off to Bologna, Italy, the world honey hub, for the final round of studies and tests at the Albo Nazionale degli Esperti in Analisi Sensoriale del Miele or the National Register of Experts in Sensory Analysis of Honey.
Carrie Diazzz, owner of the store and the museum, sells small jars of honey sourced locally and from her own hives.
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James Bartlett
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“Nectar and honey are not the same thing,” she explained. “Nectar is the liquid sticky substance that bees collect from flowering plants and take back to the hive. They transform it into honey by dehydrating the moisture out of the nectar, and capping it over with wax.”
Diazzz recently held her first informal tasting experience at The Bee Museum, and has small batches of various local honeys for sale: cactus, sage, and honey from her own hives. “I usually leave the honey alone, and only take any extra they have made to sell,” she said, because bees use the honey as sustenance. Her favorite? “A toss-up between dandelion and sunflower. Orange blossom is delicious too, but very sweet.”
NPR's Linda Holmes is a daily puzzle devotee. She recommends games that will test your knowledge of geography, history, and even the most obscure corners of Wikipedia.
Keep reading and dive right into her list of recommendations.
Maybe you, like me, are a daily puzzle player. Maybe you like a Wordle, or a crossword, or one of the other entries from the New York Times puzzle empire.
But maybe you're looking for something else.
So, with a tip of the hat to the people on Bluesky who helped me discover a bunch of games I love in the last month or two, I'm sharing a few games that I'm particularly enjoying these days — ones that are not NYT word games. (No disrespect to my original love, Spelling Bee.)
There are more, of course: the spelling bee game Beeswax, the word game Smush, the vexing Anthropeum, the movie games Framed and Cinematrix. Truthfully, I have more games in the "daily games" folder on my phone than I could ever actually play daily. But given a choice between puzzling and doomscrolling, I'll take the puzzles every time.
Any idea where Regina is? Do your best in MapTap's daily geography game.
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Screenshot by NPR
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MapTap is a very simple game. You are shown a 3D globe that you can rotate with your finger, but there are no lines dividing countries or territories. So you are just looking at the unmarked terrain of the world, and you are challenged to tap as close as you can to a particular named location. Maybe "London, England, U.K." You tap. It shows you the distance between where you tapped and where the place really is. You get more points the closer you are. There are five questions in each daily round.
This game can be genuinely humbling, because without those familiar borders showing, it can be difficult to even locate places you are very familiar with. (Without state and national boundaries, it always takes me a minute to precisely find even a place I myself have lived.) But what I love about MapTap is that as I do it, over and over, I actually get better at world geography, which is worthwhile and enriching.
Look carefully: What's your best guess for where and when this photo was taken? TimeGuessr makes you a detective.
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Screenshot by NPR
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In the same family as MapTap is TimeGuessr, where each day's challenge is made up of five puzzles that each start with a photo. Your task is to choose, on a timeline, what year the photo was taken, and to choose, on a map of the world, where it was taken. Sometimes, the photos are of historically meaningful events, like the aftermath of a battle or a natural disaster. Sometimes, they are photographs of ordinary people going about their lives.
The trick with TimeGuessr is detective work. Some hints are straightforward: a sign in the window of a store that might tip off the location (if you can figure out what language it's written in), a license plate, something along those lines. But sometimes, the clues are more subtle. What are the people in the photo wearing? What do the cars look like? How is everybody wearing their hair? It's a fascinating exercise in putting together clues, and again, you can actually increase your knowledge of the world while you play.
Everything is connected (somehow) in The Loop, which is a perfect first-thing-when-you-wake-up game.
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Screenshot by NPR
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The Loop is my favorite early-morning game, perfect for when I'm only partially awake. It offers you 12 simple illustrations that you have to arrange in a circle so that each illustration connects in some way to the ones on either side of it.
So, for instance, in one round I played, a square-root symbol connected on one side to a carpenter's square (because square/square), which then connected to a picture of a toolbox (because a carpenter's square is a tool). On the other side, the square-root symbol connected to a carrot (because it's a root vegetable), and then the carrot to an icicle (because they're the same shape). It can be fun to crack all the different ways that the images connect to each other, but the game design also offers so many chances to get it right that there's a huge amount of grace for making mistakes. That, of course, is why it's perfect for being half-awake.
It's up to you to figure out who's innocent and who's guilty in Clues by Sam.
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Screenshot by NPR
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Clues by Sam is a logic puzzle. It presents you with a grid — four across and five down — of people, each represented by a name, an emoji and an occupation. Your job is to figure out which of those people are innocent and which are criminals. (There is no set number; there could be lots of criminals or only a couple.) Your opening clue might say, "Michael is one of three criminals in row 2." Then you click on Michael and mark him as a criminal, and when you're right, that gets you another clue, and so on.
Like most of these games, this one is enjoyable largely because it's simple, but its diabolical twist is that you can't guess. If you try to label Jane innocent, for instance, and she eventually will be, but the game hasn't given you enough information yet to actually know that, then that answer is wrong and is rejected. You are only allowed to deduce from the clues you have, because it is genuinely the journey and not the destination. Note that Clues by Sam gets harder each day from Monday through Sunday, so if you're a beginner, give it a whirl early in the week to get the hang of it.
Catfishing asks you to figure out the title of a Wikipedia page from its categories — which is harder than it sounds.
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Screenshot by NPR
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Without a doubt, the hardest game I play regularly. In this game, you get a list of at least some of the categories that a particular Wikipedia page belongs to, and you have to try to figure out what page it is. There are ten questions; my average score is about four, and the highest I've ever gotten is eight.
For example, if you know a page is filed under "20th century musicians," and "21st century musicians," and "American folk musicians," and "people born in Minnesota," you might start to zero in on Bob Dylan. But be warned: Many of the answers are far more obscure than that, and it's very common for me to give up and reveal the answer, only to learn that I never stood a chance, because I've never heard of the person (or event, or phenomenon) at all. It doesn't matter how many ways you classify certain medieval rulers or political conflicts of 19th century Iowa; I may never get there.
This piece also appeared in NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss the next one, plus get weekly recommendations about what's making us happy.
