The Brief

The Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office has filed a lawsuit against a man who describes himself on social media as an “Airbnb business coach” for allegedly renting out more than 30 properties illegally on vacation rental platforms.

The lawsuit claims Vladyslav Yurov and his alleged associates earned more than $4 million by listing properties they didn’t own on Airbnb in violation of local regulations.

“As renters battle a severe housing shortage and sky high rent, these defendants exacerbated our housing crisis,” City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto said in a news release Wednesday announcing the lawsuit.

How L.A. regulates Airbnb listings 

The city has had a home-sharing ordinance on the books since 2019. Under that law, hosts are:

• required to register with the city
• only allowed to rent out their primary residence
• barred from listing rent-controlled properties, which the city wants to reserve for long-term tenants who actually live in L.A.

The lawsuit alleges Yurov, Anastasiia Medvedeva and Mari Meladze Nagi used various business entities to rent properties from landlords and then illegally sublet those properties on short-term rental platforms including Airbnb.

The properties listed in the complaint include rent-controlled apartments in Venice and other apartments near LAX and the Crypto.com arena.

The city claims the defendants used fake host names on Airbnb and falsely advertised that properties were located outside the city of L.A., in places like West Hollywood and Culver City. Officials say the defendants violated the law because they didn’t live in any of these properties, and at least 10 of the units were covered by the city’s rent control protections.

How to make money “using other people’s properties”

A portion of a post from the @vladbnb Instagram account promises to guide investors to earn profits on Airbnb "with properties they don't even own." Vladyslav Yurov responded to an LAist inquiry through the account saying his “legitimate business was no longer welcome in the city of Los Angeles and it was closed.”

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LAist reached out to Yurov through his Instagram account, where he replied that his “legitimate business was no longer welcome in the city of Los Angeles and it was closed. So it’s not operating anymore.” He declined to comment further.

Through his various social media accounts, Yurov promoted himself as an entrepreneurship guru teaching followers how to hustle to their first $1 million through Airbnb. His Instagram account (@vladbnb) openly stated that he did not personally own the properties he rented out.

“Give me a follow if you want to learn how to make money on Airbnb using other people’s properties,” Yurov said in one post.

In other posts he gave his 10,000-plus followers tips on copying his business model, and offered general advice such as, “You don’t get rich because your money chakra is blocked.”

Housing advocates say enforcement has been anemic

Previous research has found that vacation rental law-breaking in L.A. is fairly common. For one study in 2022, a McGill University urban planning professor estimated that nearly half of all Airbnb and Vrbo listings in the city of L.A. were likely illegal.

Randy Renick is the executive director of the group Better Neighbors L.A., which advocates for tougher crackdowns on illegal activity.

“The city has not taken enforcement seriously,” Renick told LAist. “As a result, unscrupulous hosts — like Yurov here — are fearless. And they think there are no risks to taking rent-controlled properties and illegally renting them out for profit.”

Renick said this lawsuit is a step in the right direction, but the city needs further action to deter other hosts.

This isn’t the first time the city has taken on vacation rental violations. L.A.’s previous city attorney, Mike Feuer, got the platform Vrbo to pay penalties and step up compliance as part of an earlier settlement. And the current city attorney, Hydee Feldstein Soto, filed a lawsuit last year against an alleged party house operator based in Beverly Hills.

Who was allegedly harmed? 

The city’s lawsuit identifies many alleged victims. Guests were allegedly deceived about the location of their rentals. In one case a family allegedly booked a rental they thought was in Burbank, but later found it was actually in a part of North Hollywood where they felt unsafe.

In some cases, the lawsuit claims landlords did not give consent to have their properties rented out on Airbnb.

The city attorney’s lawsuit seeks up to $15 million in civil penalties.

Housing advocates say illegal vacation rentals also harm L.A. residents by lowering the stock of housing available to buy or rent and driving up the price of the city’s remaining options. The 2022 McGill University study estimated that illegal short-term rentals have increased rents for the average L.A. tenant household by about $800 per year.

LAist reached out to Airbnb to ask what action the company took in response to these particular listings, but has not yet received a response.

A federal appeals court has restricted access to one of the most common means of abortion in the U.S. by blocking the mailing of mifepristone.

A panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is requiring that the abortion pill be distributed only in-person at clinics.

Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, the two makers of mifepristone, have directly asked the Supreme Court to grant them emergency relief, to allow mifepristone to remain available through telemedicine as the case continues.

"The Fifth Circuit's order has unleashed regulatory chaos," reads the GenBioPro emergency application to the Supreme Court. The brief also points out that access via pharmacies is restricted by the new order. "Today, patients who planned to pick up a mifepristone prescription at their local pharmacy may no longer be able to do so, regardless of which state they live in."

Since the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed enforcement of abortion bans, prescriptions by mail has become a major way that abortions are provided — including to states where bans are in place.

"Every abortion facilitated by FDA's action cancels Louisiana's ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that 'every unborn child is human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person,'" the ruling states.

Judges have long deferred to the Food and Drug Administration's judgments on the safety and appropriate regulation of drugs.

FDA officials under President Donald Trump have repeatedly stated the agency is conducting a new review of mifepristone's safety, at the direction of the president.

The appeals court judges noted in their ruling that FDA "could not say when that review might be complete and admitted it was still collecting data."

In a court filing, Louisiana's attorney general and a woman who says she was coerced into taking abortion pills requested that the FDA rules be rolled back to when the pills were allowed to be prescribed and dispensed only in person.

A Louisiana-based federal judge last month ruled that those allowances undermined the state's abortion ban but stopped short of undoing the regulations immediately.

"This is going to affect patients' access to abortion and miscarriage care in every state in the nation," said Julia Kaye, an ACLU lawyer. "When telemedicine is restricted, rural communities, people with low incomes, people with disabilities, survivors of intimate partner violence and communities of color suffer the most."

Mifepristone was approved in 2000 as a safe and effective way to end early pregnancies. It is typically used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol.

Misoprostol is an older medication that is also used to treat gastric ulcers. It can be used alone to induce abortion and may remain available via telemedicine. The two-drug regimen is preferred because it generally causes less cramping and bleeding for most patients.

When mifepristone was approved in 2000, the FDA initially imposed strict limits on who could prescribe and distribute the pill — only specially certified physicians and only after an in-person appointment where the person would receive the pill.

Both those requirements were dropped during the COVID-19 years. At the time, FDA officials under President Joe Biden said that after more than 20 years of monitoring mifepristone use, and reviewing dozens of studies involving thousands of women, it was clear that women could safely use the pill without direct supervision.

The conservative-majority high court overturned abortion as a nationwide right in 2022 but unanimously preserved access to mifepristone two years later.

That 2024 decision sidestepped the core issues, however, by ruling that the anti-abortion doctors behind the case didn't have legal standing to sue.

NPR staff Selena Simmons-Duffin and Diane Webber contributed to to this report.
Copyright 2026 NPR

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced several significant rule changes for the 99th Oscars, including AI protections for actors and writers as well as expanded eligibility for international films.

In a statement to NPR, the Academy on Saturday said the changes are in response to listening to the global filmmaking community and addressing barriers to entry in its eligibility process.

The Academy added that its rules and eligibility standards have always evolved alongside technologies such as sound, color, and CGI, and that AI is no different. Awards rules and guidelines are reviewed and refined each year.

A blow for Tilly Norwood 

Among the most noteworthy changes, the Academy now explicitly states that only roles, "demonstrably performed by humans with their consent" are eligible for Acting awards. In other words, AI creations like the much-hyped Tilly Norwood cannot hope to win a Best Actress Oscar anytime soon.

Particle6, the production company behind Norwood, did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment on Saturday about its creations' ban from consideration. In March, Norwood commented, "Can't wait to go to the Oscars!" in an Instagram post announcing its newly released music video.

The Academy also requires screenplays to be "human-authored" and said it reserved the right to investigate the use of generative AI in any submission.

Meanwhile, qualifying flesh-and-blood human actors can now be nominated for multiple performances in the same category if those performances get enough votes to land in the top five. So, someone like Anne Hathaway, who has five major movies scheduled for release in 2026, could now theoretically sweep the nominations – though that outcome seems extremely unlikely.

"If an actor has an extremely prolific year, might we even see someone swallow up three of the five nominations?," wrote Deadline's awards columnist and chief film critic Pete Hammond about the changes. "Probably won't happen, but it's now possible."

Under previous rules, an actor could only receive one nomination per category. If they had two high-ranking performances in Best Actor, for example, only the one with the most votes would move forward.

International films prioritizes filmmakers over countries

While international films can still be the official selection of their countries, now they can qualify by winning the top prize at a major international festival such as the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the Golden Lion at Venice, or the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Historically, countries "owned" the nomination, and only one film per country was allowed. The new rules allow multiple films from the same country to compete if they are critically acclaimed, and it shifts the honor from a geopolitical entity to the filmmakers themselves.

Largely positive response

The changes have prompted a largely positive reaction from the film community on social media, such as on the popular The Shade Room entertainment and celebrity-focused Instagram feed, where commenters widely praised the "human-only" move to protect creative jobs.

The Academy's Awards Committee oversees the rules in tandem with branch executive committees, the International Feature Film Executive Committee and the Scientific and Technical Awards Executive Committee.

The rules are scheduled to go into effect next year, covering films released in 2026.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Los Angeles changes fast, and oftentimes that means some of the architectural relics of our shared past get swept up and paved over in all the "progress." (RIP Garden of Allah.)

But there are still places where you can find ruins that tell a tale, like a long-forgotten speakeasy reputedly for old Hollywood near La Crescenta.

The ruins are still there 

On a recent afternoon, author and local historian Mike Lawler led me just beyond the boundary of Crescenta Valley Park. Joggers like me might have seen an old, towering stone arch shrouded by bushes there — and wondered what lies beyond.

Turns out there was once a place called the Verdugo Lodge back there and Lawler has spent years excavating its history.

A car speeds away from the lodge onto New York Avenue. The stone archway that still stands can be seen in the background.

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Kadletz Family Archives)

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“It was a very high-end speakeasy for a time,” Lawler, who also helps run the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley, said. “An amazing thing. And all the ruins are still here, just like this arch.”

Lawler said we don’t know exactly when the lodge was built, but we do have some of the picture starting in the late 1920s. The place was set up kind of like a timeshare where people bought 10 x 10 foot ‘tent lots’ that gave them access to on-site amenities. There was a golf course, stables, trout stream, a swimming pool — and a lodge with gambling and alcohol.

“The Crescenta Valley in the teens and '20s was a hotbed of moonshine, prostitution, all that stuff," Lawler said. "It was a quiet little community. But in all these canyons up here, stuff was going on. Illegal stuff!”

We don’t have a full guest list, but Lawler said it’s likely at least a few Hollywood types had gone up to the lodge to circumvent Prohibition era laws.

In some ways, it was kind of like the original glamping. Lawler said patrons probably weren’t doing much sleeping, though.

“They might have been unconscious!” he said with a chuckle.

Lawler led me to a road that swooped around a meadow. We passed by a massive swimming pool nestled into the hillside.

Once known as the “Crystal Pool,” it’s now empty and fenced off, with pitch black locker rooms below.

The exterior of the locker rooms for the old Crystal Pool.

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Robert Garrova / LAist

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We continued our journey up the hill and eventually arrived at a cascading stone stairway.

And at the top, the big show: overgrown with orange monkey flowers and goliath agaves lies the foundation of the old Verdugo Lodge, with lofty stone fireplaces the only guardians keeping the surrounding oak trees at bay.

Lawler takes out a floorplan that one of the former owners drew up for him.

“This is what it was laid out like on the inside. So a dancehall, and band stand on that side... And then upstairs was the gambling,” Lawler said.

Lawler had in hand a copy of a Los Angeles Times article from 1933 he found. The headline reads: “Revelers Flee in Lodge Raid.”

“The police that raided it were here at 3 o'clock in the morning. And there were still 500 people here. And they said it was the classiest joint they had ever raided... Anyway, people were diving out of windows and everything,” Lawler explained.

In a ruin like this, covered with moss and overgrowth, the imagination can run wild, too.

The archway that still stands outside of what's now known as Mountain Oaks.

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Robert Garrova / LAist

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Lawler pointed out a questionable door jam below the old dancefloor that’s been cemented over.

“That is a door. So what is behind there? So there’s a room in there that got walled in for some reason,” he said.

What we do know is that, sometime after the raid, the tawdry Verdugo Lodge and the surrounding land were purchased and then renamed Mountain Oaks by the Kadletzes — an entrepreneurial family who had run everything from a Turkish bath to a mini golf course. Over the next few decades, the family would rent the place out to local groups for recreational retreats.

The future of Mountain Oaks 

After they sold it in the ‘60s, Lawler said Mountain Oaks faced a “nightmare” of development threats. Over the years, some of the subdivided "tent lots" had been combined and sold off, Lawler said. A dozen private homes now stand on these pieces of land, next to the ruins of the Verdugo Lodge.

A map showing the Mountain Oaks public property acquired by The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA).

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Courtesy MRCA

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Last year, with help from the City of Glendale, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant among other funding sources, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) put up $6.1 million to acquire 33-acres of the land — not including the private lots where the homes stand — so the public can continue to roam the meadow and ruins.

Paul Edelman, MRCA's director of natural resources and planning, said his group will continue to manage the land, doing things like brush clearance, trash pickup and sign maintenance. And he said there are no current plans to remove the ruins or make any major changes to the property.

“If somebody comes up with a grand idea where they can find some funding for us to do something to enhance it, we’re always open to it,” Edelman said.

The purchase was good news for local preservationist Joanna Linkchorst.

“I grew up directly up the hill. But I always saw the sign that said ‘private property’ and didn’t really think about it until several years ago when I finally asked Mike. And he said, ‘Oh yeah, we got a resort speakeasy down the street,’” Linkchorst said standing among the oaks and overgrowth.

Linkchorst, who founded the group Friends of Rockhaven to preserve another nearby historic site, said it’s been amazing to see all of the decaying structures that were still hiding out at Mountain Oaks.

“There’s almost like these little ghosts in your head as you imagine what it was like when there was a beautiful wood floor and there was a second floor that people came jumping out of,” Linkchorst said.