The Brief

Tucked away in Bixby Knolls, a neighborhood in Long Beach, you’ll find the iconic parks service sign, a trail and native plants.

The fact that the trail takes 15 seconds to walk and you can also find fairies and bigfoot’s footprint gives a clue to what this 0.05 acre park actually is — an injection of whimsy, if technically fake.

The bridge hovers about an inch off the ground.

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The "woowoo" bear at Bixby Knolls National Park on April 6.

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Why the ‘national’ park started

I was given a guided tour by Blair Cohn, executive director of the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association, who’s the mastermind behind this make-believe spot.

He said the National Park Service hasn’t reached out about their tongue-in-cheek name, but it’s a tribute to them that takes inspiration from Portland.

Shhhh, don't disturb the fairies

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“Somebody in their backyard had a tiny little sign and they made it their own little national park,” Cohn recalled. “We said, OK, well let’s take it up.”

The origin of the park started before it opened in 2021. Businesses were struggling because of the pandemic. The association cut programs and was doing what it could to help local shops. But it was facing an uncertain future.

Planning for the worst, Cohn said they wanted to go out with a bang, so they looked at landscaping they could do to help people get back outside. They picked an abandoned lot at Roosevelt Road and Long Beach Boulevard, right near a business corridor.

“ We said we’ll do one last thing for the neighborhood and let’s create something fun in this corner,” he said.

They got the city on board and some funding. But they wanted to do it in a fun and cheeky way, which is when they came up with the tiny, fake National Park idea.

Cohn said the comical take is about giving people a welcome distraction.

From left to right: Rusty B. and Blair Cohn explain what creatures are in the Bixby Knolls park on April 6.

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“ There’s so much bad news,” he said. “But our combat daily is to do things like this, always sprinkle in a little bit of sarcasm, a little bit of BS into the mix because we all could use a laugh and be lighthearted.”

The association maintains the park now, keeping it clean and ready for visitors.

The tiny but mighty sights

During my visit, there was an unexpected visitor: The officially-unofficial park ranger of Bixby Knolls “National” Park, Rusty B. (He said the “B” is because he’s “ like a bear with no ears.”)

As with all the foolery here, he’s not a real park ranger but played the role quite well with an Australian accent (crikey!). Rusty gave me a tour of all the sites you can see in the tiny park, which include Matilija poppies and other native plants.

He pointed out how the park’s largest inhabitants, a wolf and “ woowoo” bear, sit still to hunt for prey. These totally aren’t statues (wink, wink). We also crossed a bridge over a “raging river” of dry gravel.

Near the park’s mountain range mural, you’ll catch some other surprises. “ We’ve got some mushrooms and we’ve got a couple of leprechauns hanging out there,” Rusty said. “It’s completely native.”

 And watch out as you walk. A fake trap is on the ground that’s there to capture big rodents that come from Anaheim, according to Rusty. Bigfoot’s footprints are also immortalized on the grounds, who was supposedly spotted in the neighborhood around 1918.

Donut Rock, aka Angel Food Donuts, is directly across the street from Bixby Knolls "National" Park.

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Before you leave, make sure to pay a visit to the other places of interest around this tiny spot.

Donut Rock (aka Angel Food Donuts across the street) sells “Bixby Bear Claws” and donut rocks (donut holes). There’s also the big blue “Finger Pointe” within eye-shot of the park, which is where they get their  printing done, and the Bixby Knolls “National” Park shuttle (aka a standard bus stop wrapped in wood covering).

You could explore this area for a while and likely find something new each time, like a light pole giraffe or moose head, but don’t worry about getting lost. The park has a map sign with information about all of the tiniest “national” park’s best features.

Southern California is likely in for a solid dose of rain this week, just days after heat and Santa Ana winds helped fuel several wildfires across the region.

Forecasters expect the bulk of the rain to roll into the Los Angeles basin Wednesday night and continue into Thursday morning, with a small chance of thunderstorms and hail.

The San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and coastal areas across L.A. and Orange counties could get around an inch over the next few days. Hills and mountains could get up to 3 inches.

“We could see some pretty high rain rates,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford. “It's a good storm for this time of year — it's a little stronger than what we would see normally.”

The possibility of significant rain in the mountains raises concerns about flooding in areas recently burned in wildfires, particularly around the Bryson Fire burn scar near Malibu, which is only a few days old. Burn scars can’t absorb heavy rainfall and are susceptible to landslides.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for the Santa Monica Mountains and surrounding communities from Wednesday afternoon through Thursday. That means heavy rain there could flood streets, creeks and rivers. The flood watch area includes both the Bryson Fire and Palisades Fire burn scars.

This will also be the first nontropical storm of the season, meaning it’s moving into the region from the north. Most storms that hit Southern California follow a similar path, especially during the winter, unlike the tropical storms that formed off the coast of Mexico and brought muggy weather to the region this summer.

Nontropical storms also bring cold air to the region. On Wednesday and Thursday, forecasters expect highs in the 60s and 70s. High elevations will be even cooler.

The science research institute that would likely receive $4.2 billion in public taxpayer money if voters approve Proposition 38 this November had only three employees as of last month — far fewer than the 51 staffers it planned to have hired by last year.

Public statements and public records CalMatters obtained raise questions about how well prepared the institute is to shepherd so much money if the bond measure passes.

Prop. 38 would allocate up to $8.4 billion in bonds for scientific research on diseases and cures concerning the immune system, with an emphasis on finding treatments for Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease. The ballot language stipulates that a single, unnamed research institute would receive half the bond’s money to conduct research and partner with other researchers if it meets highly specific criteria. Bonds are a type of debt that must be repaid.

Previous reporting by CalMatters found only one institute in California currently meets those criteria: the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. The institute’s principal funder is billionaire Gary K. Michelson, who wrote Prop. 38 and is by far the largest donor to its political campaign.

Backers of the proposition said state bond money is needed to stabilize research funding after President Donald Trump repeatedly attempted to cut existing and future federal science grants.

The measure’s critics say Prop. 38 is well-intentioned but poorly designed because it overlooks the many established public and nonprofit university and hospital research labs in California. They also say California should not subsidize subsets of scientific research and instead should support research more broadly.

CalMatters obtained documents that included the five-year business plan of the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy. The plan was part of the formal affiliation agreement between UCLA and the institute, which the two parties signed in August 2024. Among other details, the agreement requires the institute to pay UCLA 7.5% of the net revenue of any drugs and technologies developed by the institute’s staff. The institute is one of the founding tenants at a UCLA-owned research park in West Los Angeles, where the institute is leasing 235,000 square feet of research space, the institute says.

Far fewer employees than plan called for

Between summer 2024 and summer 2025, the institute committed to hiring “approximately” 51 employees, including six executives, five “world-class” scientists who can lead research labs, and 40 other employees, such as data scientists, lab technicians, biologists and administrative personnel. Between 2025 and 2027, the institute would hire roughly 90 more workers, including 10 research lab leaders, according to the agreement.

But John Mazziotta, a senior UCLA official who also serves as a board member of the immunology institute, last month said the institute has hired just three employees: a chief operating officer, a general counsel, and a scientific advisor, and “they're well into the search” for a director. Mazziotta, the CEO of UCLA Health and vice chancellor for health sciences at UCLA, made his comments during the Sept. 16 UC Regents meeting.

The Yes on Prop. 38 campaign has repeatedly refused to comment on whether the bond was written specifically for the immunology institute. Claudia Briggs, a spokesperson for the campaign, told CalMatters in July that whichever nonprofit receives the $4.2 billion portion of the bond fund should be a sophisticated one that “is prepared to accelerate lifesaving research immediately while maintaining the highest standards of scientific quality, accountability, and stewardship of public funds.”

At a September press conference, a Yes on Prop. 38 spokesperson appeared to confirm CalMatters’ findings that only one institute currently qualifies to be the one to receive half the bond money. “It is very likely that CIII, which is a research institute affiliated with UCLA, will qualify for half of the funds under the current criteria,” said Robin Swanson. CIII is the initialism for the immunology institute.

According to the five-year plan, the institute was supposed to spend $25 million on personnel between 2024-25 and 2025-26 and $45 million total on operating expenses in that time, including maintenance, utilities and rent. It was also supposed to spend an additional $167 million in that time on capital expenses, such as construction and demolition. However, Mazziotta told UC regents that the institute had so far spent a total of $20 million on “operating expenses, hires” and other expenses.

The Yes on 38 campaign refused CalMatters’ request to interview Michelson for this story, as did Michelson himself in a separate email. A spokesperson for the institute, Becky Warren, sent a written statement that didn't answer CalMatters' questions about employing far fewer people than the five-year plan laid out. Instead, she highlighted the promise of the institute and a few of its milestones, including signing the affiliation agreement with UCLA and clearing a state environmental review of its forthcoming research facility.

The institute won’t get state bond money if it isn’t ready to begin work, “plain and simple,” wrote Swanson, the Yes on 38 spokesperson, in an email. She stressed that though the institute very likely qualifies, the ultimate decision to award half the bond funding is up to the California Department of Public Health.

Institute facility will be built by 2028

The UCLA research park that houses the institute isn’t slated to be fully built until at least late 2028, according to the agenda item of the September UC regents meeting. The research park is a former mall UCLA acquired in late 2023 that’s now undergoing major retrofitting.

But the 2024 affiliation agreement between UCLA and the institute anticipated this. The agreement permitted the institute to use UCLA health research space on another campus property on an interim basis. Mazziotta told regents that research is underway there.

Mazziotta also told the regents the institute's construction costs are not fully funded — it still needs roughly $100 million. He said UCLA was in serious talks with a donor to provide about $50 million to the institute.

If Prop. 38 passes, the bond funding would be provided in increments based on how often the institute requests new money that senior state officials approve. If all the funds are depleted, Californians would repay the bond at a rate of $500 million to $600 million annually for about 20 years.

Institute would be exempt from public records act

CalMatters submitted the public records request to UCLA, which must comply with the California Public Records Act. The institute, as a private nonprofit, does not have to comply. And while Prop. 38 would channel billions of dollars in taxpayer money to the institute, the proposition’s language specifically exempts the nonprofit that will receive the $4.2 billion from state public meetings laws, political reform laws and the public records act. The other half of the funds would go to a council that’ll pick projects led by researchers from a limited pool of universities and nonprofits. The council would generally be governed by the state’s political reform act, which prohibits financial self-dealing.

Briggs defended the institute’s exemption in Prop. 38, writing that applying state transparency laws to existing private organizations would “not fit well with how private entities are organized and operate.” Instead, she noted the selected nonprofit institute would be required to publish annual reports on its research progress and financial plans plus commit to annual state audits, among other disclosures written into the ballot measure.

Still unclear to the UC regents is the relationship between UCLA and the institute on matters of public disclosure. Four senior UCLA officials sit on the institute’s board. So is a document held by those UCLA officials public because it’s related to UCLA affairs or private because it’s related to the institute’s affairs? UC’s general counsel couldn’t explain where that dividing line is after a regent member asked him. The regent member, Michael Cohen, said he wants more clarity when the regents meet again in November.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Democratic Party endorsed Prop. 38, as have dozens of patient and research advocacy groups, plus the state GOP. The union of graduate students and post-doctoral researchers, whose pay often relies on science research funding, has also endorsed the proposition. The union doesn’t represent faculty.

Money raised in support of Prop. 38 now exceeds $66 million, including at least $61.2 million in contributions from Michelson and his policy institute. Roughly $14 million of that includes loans from Michelson. The no camp has raised about $8,800

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Ever since the pandemic, grocery prices have been out of whack.

COVID-related lockdowns forced people to eat at home more often, and in April 2020 grocery prices took their biggest leap in decades, increasing 2.6% from the month earlier.

Then, in 2022, food prices began another upward swing as Americans with cash on hand returned to stores in large numbers and retailers struggled to meet the pent-up demand. The food system faced other shocks that year, including a severe avian flu outbreak and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Grocery prices rose 11.4% in 2022 alone.

That period of dramatic food inflation slowed down in 2023, though prices generally haven't returned to previous levels. Instead, grocery costs have continued to rise, just at a slower rate, roughly in line with overall inflation.

"But the damage had been done," said Ricky Volpe, a professor of agribusiness at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. "Any inflation that happens now in the grocery store is on top of these already very high prices, and consumers are very sensitive to that."

President Trump pledged to lower grocery prices in his second term. And while some individual items have become cheaper since Trump returned to office, overall grocery prices are up on average. That has been driven by a number of systemwide factors, from increased labor costs to tariffs to higher energy prices caused by the war with Iran.

Zoom in on a single food item, though, and the story is often more complicated. Specific issues facing one crop, animal species or geographic region can influence the retail price halfway around the world. Sometimes, the price of an item swings far beyond what inflation itself can explain, or the price goes down when most other items are trending up.

We picked five everyday food items — ground beef, eggs, coffee, butter and chocolate chip cookies — to explain the complicated math behind what you pay in the grocery store checkout line.

Ground beef

The cost of ground beef has been on the rise for years, largely due to weather and financial pressures on producers. A typical pound of ground beef last month cost $6.79, an 85% jump from a decade earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Recent droughts have devastated U.S. cattle herds, which can take years to recover. Layered onto that are the rising costs of farming equipment and fuel, a lack of land for grazing and a consolidated meatpacking industry that farmers and ranchers say eats into their profits. The number of U.S. cattle farms has been shrinking, according to the most recent Census of Agriculture. "I think there's still a sector of young people that have an interest in ag, but the barriers to entry to agriculture are huge," said Reid Hall, a Kentucky cattle farmer. All of that has led to the smallest U.S. cattle herd in 75 years.

The Trump administration has tried a number of measures to lower ground beef prices over the past two years, including allowing in more imports of ground beef with no tariffs. But U.S. ranchers have largely panned such moves, arguing that increasing the amount of imported ground beef will only make it harder — and more expensive — for U.S. farms and ranches to operate.

Eggs

In recent years, the seesawing price of eggs has largely come down to avian flu, which affects wild birds and poultry. Large outbreaks force farms to cull their flocks to prevent the spread of the disease, diminishing the domestic supply of chickens and raising prices. That's what happened in 2022 and again in 2024, when there was a spike in the price of eggs, followed by a steep drop-off. How damaging avian flu is in a given season depends on the severity of the outbreak and the success of any biosecurity measures that U.S. farms take in response to the disease.

Outbreaks can have a whiplash effect on egg prices. An average dozen reached a record high of $6.23 in March of last year, when stocks were depleted by a brutal avian flu season. Yet last month, the typical U.S. price had dropped to $2.27 per dozen.

Though avian flu is the main driver of egg prices, it's not the only thing that can scramble U.S. poultry operations. The Trump administration's tariffs on foreign goods have also raised the cost of packaging materials, such as cardboard, that are used in egg cartons.

Coffee

The U.S. imports more than 99% of the coffee it consumes. That was why the Trump administration's tariffs on countries like Brazil, which is responsible for 35% of the global coffee supply, were particularly bitter for U.S. coffee drinkers. Last fall, the Trump administration scrapped tariffs on some foreign goods in a bid to lower prices, and coffee made the list.

But the price of coffee last month was still 44% higher than it was two years before. Severe weather and climate change are jolting harvests. Both drought and heavy rainfall in coffee-producing countries such as Brazil, Vietnam and Costa Rica have ground down coffee bean yields. And excessive moisture on coffee farms can cause mold growth and disease.

Butter

Butter currently costs a lot less bread than it used to. A pound of butter averaged $3.96 in September. That was down 17.3% since last year, bucking the trend of rising food prices.

Interest in butter has spread recently, nourishing a strong demand for the dairy product. New dietary guidelines announced this year by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who spearheaded the Make America Healthy Again movement, encourage people to eat fats like butter.

Yet even though demand for butter is high, supply is even higher. U.S. butter production is booming, in part because dairy farms grew their herds and increased milk supply to produce more milk proteins for popular foods like Greek yogurt and cottage cheese. That has also led to an oversupply of butter.

Chocolate chip cookies

The price of chocolate chip cookies began to rise steeply during the pandemic, hitting a record $5.35 per pound this January. (Last month, the classic treats were 20 cents cheaper.)

Part of the price spike can be explained by looking at the ingredients that go into chocolate chip cookies. The war in Ukraine ran up the cost of flour. Cocoa prices have hit multiple all-time highs in recent years. And avian flu largely determines what eggs go for in a given month. Some of those prices have come down recently, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last year that baked goods have remained pricey in part because of a high consumer demand for "more expensive luxury treats."

Keegan Rodgers, founder and pastry chef at the Lakehouse Bakery in Chelsea, Mich., has resisted buying cheaper ingredients — such as margarine instead of butter — just to save money. "If I switched to garden-variety ingredients, my costs would decrease by about 30%," he said.

But Rodgers, who noted that he is also paying more for labor and insurance, said he has reluctantly raised his prices to be able to afford high-quality ingredients and employ skilled bakers. "Real food is more important than the bottom line," he said.

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