The Brief

Glow Recipe. Parasite. Squid Game. Blackpink. Gangnam Style.

If you’re like me, you’re familiar with at least one Korean-based skincare brand, film, show, band or song. As a Sephora girl who LOVES Glow Recipe and thought Parasite deserved ALL of the awards, I’ll admit I’m a target for all things K. That’s why it was such a treat to attend my first KCON in Los Angeles.

For more than a decade, KCON has been the yearly hub for fans to explore all sorts of offerings from Korean culture: music, entertainment, health, food and beauty. The L.A. show wrapped up Sunday and the How to LA team took it all in (but had to soon report on the storm so this post and pod got a little delayed).

Our three main takeaways

When you step into KCON, you leave the hustle and bustle of L.A. for a minute to enter into Korea’s vibrant pop culture scene with hundreds of thousands of other fans. Everywhere we looked, there were performances, workshops, panels and interactive exhibits where you can win gifts and more. I was able to snag some earrings for the upcoming Beyoncé Renaissance concert, a face mask and cool Tiger postcard from the Korean heritage booth.

KCON attendees participate in a Korean game in order to win gifts at KCON in the Los Angeles Convention Center on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.

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Aaricka Washington

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At first glance, it may seem like just a cutesy, aesthetically pleasing conference at the L.A. Convention Center but, for many, KCON’s existence is so much more than what meets the eye. This is billed as the world’s largest fan celebration of Korean culture and music, after all, and it started in Southern California in 2012. Here are the top three things we learned attending our first KCON:

Understand 'hallyu,' or the Korean Wave

Vivian Yoon, the writer and host of LAist podcast K-Pop Dreaming, says hallyu is key. Hallyu refers to the global popularity of South Korea’s cultural economy, which includes pop culture, entertainment, music, food and beauty. K-pop may have boomed in the 1990s, but Korea and the United States have been transferring cultures since the 1950s when the U.S. military continued to have a base in South Korea.

Koreans have lived in L.A. since the early 1900s, but in the 1950s, a second wave of Korean immigrants settled in L.A. due to the Korean War, bringing their traditions and culture with them. Over the years, L.A. has been home to the second-largest Korean population in the world.

Listen to Yoon’s K-Pop Dreaming podcast to learn more about the history of KCON and how L.A. Uprisings in 1992 and the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis played a role in how Korean pop culture spread across L.A. and across the nation.

Korean entertainment's popularity adds to KCON's allure

In recent years, Korean entertainment has taken the U.S. by storm. Back in 2020, the drama Parasite became the first foreign film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. 

The critically acclaimed Netflix series Squid Game became the international blueprint for streaming services to look overseas for shows that had potential for global success.

In 2020, K-pop boy band BTS achieved a new Guinness World Records title for the most viewers for a live-streamed music concert. Plus, its L.A. concert injected millions into the local economy. Earlier this year, Blackpink became the first Asian all-female band to headline Coachella. 

To underscore the impact, K-Pop Dreaming’s Yoon was supposed to speak on a panel at KCON about the Korean influence in Hollywood with some other notable Asian Americans in the entertainment industry (Crazy, Rich Asians writer Adele Lim, Beef costume designer Helen Huang, Minari’s casting director Julia Kim and Elemental director Peter Sohn), but it got canceled due to stormy weather. However, Yoon got to meet with one of her idols, Sohn, at the event. For the latest How to LA episode, we sat down to talk to both of them about the growth of Korean representation in Hollywood. Listen here.

Fans can get up close and personal

KCON gives fans a way to easily access their favorite pop stars through meet-and-greets, concerts and dance tutorials. In one large area of the convention hall, popular girl band Everglow taught fans some of their dance moves in person.

K-pop fans gathered around one stage to learn a dance from the K-pop girl group Everglow at KCON LA on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.

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Aaricka Washington

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Amoura Monroe first learned about K-pop years ago through Instagram. She would see a lot of BTS memes.

“I was like, ‘Oh, they’re funny. I want to know who these guys are,’” Monroe says. “And then eventually I started dibbling and dabbling with their music. The first one I listened to was Mic Drop. And ever since then I fell in love with them.”

Amoura Monroe poses next to her two friends as they anticipate seeing their favorite K-pop band Ateez at KCON LA on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.

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Aaricka Washington

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LAist

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This year, she was at KCON with her friends to see the boy band Ateez.

“Their sound is very unique,” Monroe says. “They generally love their fans as well, which is very great and overall the fandom feels like family.”

Jessica Nguyen traveled from San Diego to see her favorite K-pop girl bands ITZY and (G)I-DLE up close and personal.

“Sometimes, it’s really hard to see them in concert, so KCON is a really great way,” Nguyen says. “In concerts, you can have seats that are very far far back. Here at KCON you can see them a little closer, you can get to know them a little more.”

Jessica Nguyen came to KCON to see her favorite girl bands up close and personal at KCON LA on Sunday, Aug. 20, 2023.

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Aaricka Washington

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LAist

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Nguyen says KCON is important because it preserves and promotes culture. “We've been seeing a lot of cultures and ethnicities fade away,” Nguyen says. “And I think this is a great way for them to preserve it, and also share it with other people.”

William Contreras hit a tying homer in the fifth and singled home the go-ahead run an inning later as the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-4 on Monday in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series.

Four relievers combined to retire the last 15 Dodgers batters in order as the Brewers took a 2-0 lead over the two-time defending World Series champions in this best-of-seven series, which heads to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Wednesday.

The Brewers are chasing their second pennant and first in the NL. They made their lone World Series appearance in 1982, when they were in the American League.

Los Angeles is trying to become the first NL team to win three straight World Series. The Dodgers last rallied from a 2-0 deficit to win a series in 2020, when they beat the Atlanta Braves in a seven-game NLCS before going on to win the World Series.

The Dodgers will need more punch from their lineup to have a chance at getting back to the Fall Classic. They mustered just three hits Monday and went 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position to drop to 2 for 26 in those situations this postseason.

Los Angeles couldn’t even get a boost from Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who entered 8-1 with a 2.14 ERA in 11 career playoff appearances. Yamamoto lasted just 2 2/3 innings for his shortest postseason start.

The Dodgers took the lead on three occasions in the first five innings. Milwaukee responded each time, the last coming when Contreras tied the game with a 436-foot homer to center off Kris Bubic in the fifth.

That turned the game into a battle of the bullpens, where the Brewers again had the edge.

Dustin May, JoJo Romero, Abner Uribe and Aaron Ashby combined to shut down the Dodgers after Logan Henderson’s early exit.

The score was tied 4-all when Milwaukee’s David Hamilton was hit by a pitch from Brock Stewart to lead off the sixth. Stewart attempted a pickoff throw that went off the glove of first baseman Freddie Freeman and into foul territory for an error, advancing Hamilton to second.

After Jackson Chourio grounded out, the right-handed Stewart walked the left-handed-hitting Brice Turang to face the right-handed Contreras, who had homered in his previous plate appearance.

Contreras singled to left this time to bring home Hamilton with the go-ahead run.

Turang and Jake Bauers added RBI singles in the eighth to extend Milwaukee’s lead.

Neither starter lasts long

The anticipated pitchers’ duel between Yamamoto and Henderson didn’t work out according to plan.

In three previous playoff starts following Dodgers losses, Yamamoto had gone 3-0 with a 1.23 ERA. When he faced the Brewers in last year’s NLCS, he threw the first playoff complete game since Justin Verlander did it in 2017.

This time, Yamamoto couldn’t even make it out of the third inning before leaving with the Dodgers behind 3-2.

Henderson entered Monday having not allowed more than three runs in any of his 24 career starts (including the postseason). That streak ended when he allowed four runs over four innings.

Because Henderson committed two errors — matching his previous career total — only two of the runs were earned.

Milwaukee trailed 2-1 in the third when Bauers capped a 12-pitch plate appearance by taking a 3-2 offering in the dirt to load the bases with a walk. Christian Yelich followed by lining a single up the middle that brought home two runs and knocked Yamamoto out of the game.

Los Angeles bailed out Yamamoto by scoring twice in the fifth.

After Kyle Tucker hit a leadoff double, Tommy Edman sacrificed him to third. Henderson fielded the bunt and made a wild throw to first, enabling Tucker to score and moving Edman to second.

Edman advanced to third when Mookie Betts grounded out, and scored on Freeman’s sacrifice fly.

Henderson also had made a wild throw to first on a pickoff attempt in the third inning that allowed Edman to score from third.

Up next

Robert Gasser (5-5, 3.87 ERA) is expected to start for Milwaukee in Game 3. Gasser allowed one run over five innings when the Brewers won 3-1 at San Diego to clinch their NL Division Series.

The Dodgers hadn’t announced their Game 3 starting pitcher.

Actor and disability rights advocate RJ Mitte, who brought a lifetime of experience with cerebral palsy to fictional family struggles in an essential role on “Breaking Bad,” died Monday at age 34, authorities and his representatives said.

Cameron County Justice of the Peace Cyndi Hinojosa told The Associated Press she declared Mitte dead at about 1:30 p.m. at what she believed was his home in Brownsville, Texas. She said she was unable to provide a cause, but an autopsy will be performed.

Mitte played Walter White Jr., the son of Bryan Cranston’s chemistry teacher-turned-meth dealer Walter White on nearly every episode of the five seasons of the AMC show, which recently ranked as the best of the 21st century in a New York Times poll.

Diagnosed at age 3, Mitte told the AP in 2014 that his disability and the surrounding struggles with physical therapy, family problems and exorbitant medical bills — all key subjects on the show — made him better at his job.“You develop a different mentality and you develop a different look at how the world sees you and how you see the world,” he said. “You’re able to use that. And I think it’s an asset instead of something that would hinder.”

Mitte was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi.

He landed small guest roles on sitcoms after moving to Los Angeles to act in 2006. Like his character, he was in his mid-teens when he began his work on “Breaking Bad,” starting in 2007. The show ran from 2008 to 2013.

“Mitte brought authenticity to the role and built a platform on disability awareness and inclusion,” the actor’s representatives said in a statement announcing his death. The statement said he used “his platform to challenge stereotypes and promote greater representation.”

His later credits included the ABC Family series “Switched at Birth” and the superhero satire series “Guardians of Justice.”

He was also a producer of several independent films.

As an advocate, he served as an ambassador for United Cerebral Palsy and Shriners Children’s. He was also president of his own Mitte Foundation supporting philanthropic and community initiatives around disabilities.

The drumbeat of monster hurricanes in the Pacific has broken a record for nasty long-lasting storms east of the international date line, turbocharged by nature’s supersized El Niño, scientists said.

“Since September 20th, when Odalys formed, it’s been berserk,” said Colorado State University researcher Phil Klotzbach, who forecasts and studies storm activity. “This year just everything that forms is just lasting a long time and getting really powerful.”

One of the key measurements meteorologists use to judge hurricane seasons is called accumulated cyclone energy, or ACE, which includes a storm’s wind speed and longevity. On Sunday, a section of the Pacific east of the date line, which brews storms headed for Hawaii, Mexico and the U.S. West Coast, passed the old mark set in 2018. The area is still going strong with Hurricane Simon and appears on the verge of spawning another one that will really ramp up in strength, Klotzbach said.

On Tuesday, the Pacific will tie a record for most days with a hurricane spinning and is likely to break it soon after that, Klotzbach said.

“It feels like almost everything that can spin up does spin up,” said University of Arizona atmospheric scientist Kim Wood.

El Niño and warm water are boosting Pacific hurricanes

Several meteorological factors have come together to supercharge the Pacific, chief among them the El Niño, Klotzbach and other hurricane researchers said. An El Niño weakens and shifts the high altitude vertical winds that otherwise can dampen or even decapitate storms. In the Pacific, that wind shear runs east to west, generally with the direction storms travel, so it’s like riding a bicycle with a tail wind, Klotzbach said.

Meanwhile, the weather pattern has dampened hurricanes in the Atlantic, where the ACE is less than 18% of what’s normal for this time of year. El Niño makes the wind shear in the Atlantic like riding into a headwind, he said.

Another factor is warm water, which serves as hurricane fuel. By definition El Niño is a warming of the equatorial Pacific that changes weather worldwide. In the Pacific storm basin, it’s several degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, said Kristen Corbosiero, a professor of storm atmospheric sciences at the University at Albany in New York.

Usually in the Pacific, the extra warm storm-friendly water doesn’t run as deep as it does in the Atlantic. So when one storm goes over a patch of water, it brings up cold water and makes it hard for a subsequent storm in the same area to stay alive, Wood said. But not this year.

Hurricane Rachel, whose remnants swamped Las Vegas over the weekend, didn’t suffer as it went over, churned up by Category 5 Hurricane Polo, Wood said. She said the waters are warm from both El Niño and climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas.

Another factor in recent storms was a counterclockwise atmosphere spin over Central America — called a gyre — that spits out seeds of stormy weather that can form into hurricanes. It spit out both the Atlantic’s Isaias and the Pacific’s Simon at about the same time, Corbosiero and Klotzbach said.

Five major hurricanes in a row

The last five Pacific hurricanes — long-lasting Nolo, Odalys, Polo, Rachel and Simon — have all reached major status with winds of at least 111 mph (178.6 kph). Nolo, Odalys and Simon hit Category 4, while Polo set the record for time spent at Category 5 at two-and-a-half days.

When Klotzbach made those calculations on the record-breaking activity of the eastern and central Pacific, he looked at all storms east of the date line.

That’s a slightly different approach from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which breaks that broad area into two regions. Neither NOAA-defined region is quite at record levels for ACE yet; put together they are.

Part of that is because often when one of those subregions is more active, the other isn’t quite as crazy, but in 2026 they both are hyperactive, Wood said.≠

“This is the first year that both sides have been this active together,” Wood said. “Usually it’s kind of focused more on one or the other, so that speaks to just the wide extent across this region of where there’s been that lower shear, those warmer waters, and that higher moisture.”

Off the Mexican coast is a disturbance that the National Hurricane Center gives a 90% chance of becoming Tropical Storm Trudy, which then could power up to something big, Klotzbach and Corbosiero said.

“It seems like that area is just one after another. So I would not be surprised to have another storm,” Corbosiero said. “This year, because of the El Niño, we do have very favorable conditions. So as long as there’s some sort of the seeds either from the gyre or from remnant ends of cold fronts, it seems like this is going to continue for a bit.”

California students enrolled in public colleges and universities are now eligible to apply for CalFresh, the state’s food benefits program, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday.

Students enrolled in a degree program at a California Community College, California State University or the University of California may be eligible for up to $300 a month to spend on food at grocery stores and farmers markets.

“We can’t expect students to learn if they’re hungry, and in California, there is no reason for them to be, whether they’re in kindergarten, high school, or college,” Newsom said in a Friday statement. “You shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to get the food benefits you’re entitled to, and now you don’t have to.”

Those who are enrolled in an associate or bachelor’s degree program, at least half time, can apply here. Newsom said that the state expects more than 200,000 additional students to enroll in CalFresh after program expansion.

“This is what government is supposed to do: help the people we serve. It is my hope that these changes will continue to make it easier for students to access CalFresh, the largest anti-hunger program in the country,” California Department of Social Services Director Jennifer Troia said in a Friday statement.