Topline:
A small group of Angelenos is campaigning to have a palm tree relocated in downtown L.A.
Why now: The palm, which they call Sunshine, needs a new home because its longtime patch of ground is being developed for a new Colburn School of Music building.
Why it matters: Fans of Sunshine argue that the palm holds unique value as one of the last remnants of old Bunker Hill.
Read on … to learn more about the palm, Bunker Hill’s history and the campaign to save Sunshine.
Near the corner of First and Hill streets is a palm tree sitting all by its lonesome in a pot.
Sunshine is a scraggly 50-footer not unlike the region’s other queen palms. But to its biggest champions, it’s special and deserves a forever home.
"Sunshine is this storyteller, this witness, this survivor," said Kim Cooper, cofounder with husband Richard Schave of Esotouric — the sightseeing company that showcases the forgotten, hidden and weird sides of Los Angeles.
The two first learned about Sunshine from a friend who noticed the palm stood erect, all alone, in a patch of dirt at Second and Hill streets — its home for decades.
"I fell in love with her the first time I saw her sitting so proudly ... waving her palm leaves in the air with not a care," Annette Zilinskas, Cooper and Schave’s friend, said.
That patch of dirt will be the site of the expanded Colburn School of Music, which broke ground last year to construct a new building at that corner.
" And she said, 'Well, what's gonna happen to this cool tree?'" Cooper recalled.
That patch of dirt also happened to be hallowed ground of sorts, according to architecture historian Nathan Marsak, author of Bunker Hill Los Angeles: Essence of Sunshine and Noir and a longtime friend of Esotouric.
Marsak, in a blog post from 2008, had identified that very bluff of dirt as a last "remnant" of a bygone Bunker Hill, a leftover chunk of a bona fide hillside that was razed to make way for parking lots at around 1935.
"That was the last bit of untouched earth on old Bunker Hill," Cooper said.
Bunker Hill, of course, is an area of downtown that has made and remade itself since the 19th century — from a tony enclave of Victorian mansions, to a working class district of boarding houses by the 1930s, to the site of eminent domain land seizures and evictions of thousands of low-income residents in the late 1950s. It continued to transform and later became what we know today — a hub of office towers, cultural institutions and pricy condos.
"Trees really serve as living monuments that anchor a community's identity, anchors their history and connect generations," Marsak said. "Here's this wonderful tree that has somehow survived everything being torn down around it."
That makes saving Sunshine a no-brainer.
"She is one of the last living things from old Bunker Hill," Schave said.
"It might be as young as 50 years and as old as 70 years," said Donald Hodel, a tree and palm expert who was recruited by Cooper and Schave for the campaign to save Sunshine.
The tree is in fair condition, he said, remarkable since it doesn’t appear to have been cared for — receiving no water other than rainfall.
As to its provenance, Hodel said, there's no real way of knowing how Sunshine got there in the first place. But the very fact that it's still standing, he said, "suggests the palm had excellent care for a long time to allow it to develop an extensive and deep root system making it more resilient to the recent years of neglect."
Those facts alone don't confer historical value, Hodel said, given how common queen palms are in Southern California.
"Nonetheless, Esotouric assured me of its other attributes, primarily its significance of survival on Bunker Hill and the history of the site," Hodel said in an email. "I came around to appreciate this palm and the need for its continued survival in an appropriate place."
Since first finding out about the Colburn school's expansion plans, the crew of Sunshine evangelists has been trying to find her another home. They enlisted Colburn and the construction company behind the expansion project to agree to pot the queen palm, and to move it to another part of the construction site near the intersection of First and Hill.
"I had really hoped that they would find a spot for her on their property," Cooper said. But, "they want to do their own thing. I think it's wonderful that she was saved and she was not killed."
Potential new digs have been identified at a small plaza next to the base of Angel's Flight at Fourth and Hill. The DTLA Alliance, a business coalition, told LAist it was facilitating communication to relocate the palm there temporarily.
But the organization says the details of relocation and long-term placement are outside its jurisdiction.
For that, Schave and Cooper said they hope Council District 14, which includes parts of downtown, can help.
The two said they have been in contact with the office of Councilmember Ysabel Jurado to save Sunshine, but the conversation fell off earlier this year. (We are awaiting a response from Jurado's office).
"I really, truly believe this could happen. Sunshine could be put on a flatbed, laid flat, and brought two blocks down to Fourth and Hill," Schave said.
Apparently Sunshine wouldn’t be the first. In 1981, a Moreton Bay fig was to be moved from Bunker Hill a few hundred feet to the Angelus Plaza senior housing complex. The towering giant was believed to be 90 years old at the time, according to the Los Angeles Times in July of that year, and it was the last one of its kind to remain standing after redevelopment began in the neighborhood.
Whether the tree really made the trek is up for debate, as Schave was never able to nail down documentation of the move. Still, Hodel the horticulturalist told him the big fig tree sitting at said courtyard fits the size and age.
And they want nothing less for the queen palm.
“You got to save what’s left of old Bunker Hill. There’s so little left on this hill,” Schave said. “So we are not going to lose Sunshine.”
Topline:
The Warner Bros. Discovery board announced late Thursday afternoon that Paramount's sweetened bid to buy the entire company is "superior" to an $83 billion deal it had struck with Netflix for the purchase of its streaming services, studios, and intellectual property.
What's next: Netflix says it is pulling out of the contest rather than try to top Paramount's offer. "We've always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance's latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid," the streaming giant said in a statement.
The context: Warner had rejected so many offers from Paramount that it seemed as though it would be a fruitless endeavor. Speaking on the red carpet for the BAFTA film awards last weekend, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dared Paramount to stop making its case publicly and start ponying up cash.
The background: Paramount previously bid for all of Warner — including its cable channels such as CNN, TBS, and Discovery — in a deal valued at $108 billion. Earlier this week, Paramount unveiled a fresh proposal increasing its bid by a dollar a share.
Read on... for more on what to expect.
The Warner Bros. Discovery board announced late Thursday afternoon that Paramount's sweetened bid to buy the entire company is "superior" to an $83 billion deal it had struck with Netflix for the purchase of its streaming services, studios, and intellectual property.
Netflix says it is pulling out of the contest rather than try to top Paramount's offer.
"We've always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance's latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid," the streaming giant said in a statement.
Warner had rejected so many offers from Paramount that it seemed as though it would be a fruitless endeavor. Speaking on the red carpet for the BAFTA film awards last weekend, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dared Paramount to stop making its case publicly and start ponying up cash.
'If you wanna try and outbid our deal … just make a better deal. Just put a better deal on the table," Sarandos told the trade publication Deadline Hollywood.
Netflix promised that Warner Bros. would operate as an independent studio and keep showing its movies in theaters.
But the political realities, combined with Paramount's owners' relentless drive to expand their entertainment holdings, seem to have prevailed.
Paramount previously bid for all of Warner — including its cable channels such as CNN, TBS, and Discovery — in a deal valued at $108 billion. Earlier this week, Paramount unveiled a fresh proposal increasing its bid by a dollar a share.
On Thursday, hours before the Warner announcement, Sarandos headed to the White House to meet Trump administration officials to make his case for the deal.
The meetings, leaked Wednesday to political and entertainment media outlets, were confirmed by a White House official who spoke on condition he not be named, as he was not authorized to speak about them publicly.
President Trump was not among those who met with Sarandos, the official said.
While Netflix's courtship of Warner stirred antitrust concerns, the Paramount deal is likely to face a significant antitrust review from the U.S. Justice Department, given the combination of major entertainment assets. Paramount owns CBS and the streamer Paramount Plus, in addition to Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other cable channels.
The offer from Paramount CEO David Ellison relies on the fortune of his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. And David Ellison has argued to shareholders that his company would have a smoother path to regulatory approval.
Not unnoticed: the Ellisons' warm ties to Trump world.
Larry Ellison is a financial backer of the president.
David Ellison was photographed offering a MAGA-friendly thumbs-up before the State of the Union address with one of the president's key Congressional allies: U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican.
Trump has praised changes to CBS News made under David Ellison's pick for editor in chief, Bari Weiss.
The chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, told Semafor Wednesday that he was pleased by the news division's direction under Weiss. She has criticized much of the mainstream media as being too reflexively liberal and anti-Trump.
"I think they're doing a great job," Carr said at a Semafor conference on trust and the media Wednesday. As Semafor noted, Carr previously lauded CBS by saying it "agreed to return to more fact-based, unbiased reporting."
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
Calling all people who love to snap pictures of nature: this year’s wildflower bloom at Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County is starting a little early.
What’s there? The ecological reserve around the lake grows a lot of colorful native flowers, like California poppies and red bush monkeyflowers. The 1.3-mile trail loop takes you through the wildflower bloom and gives you a peek at the drinking water reservoir.
How can I see it? The wildflower trail at the lake reopens Friday, Feb. 27. You can visit it Wednesdays through Sundays, from 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Hours will be extended in about a week.
Know before you go: You will have to pay to use the wildflower trail. Access is $4 per person. If you drive, parking costs $11 (or $5 if you meet certain requirements).
Read on…. to learn about etiquette practices to keep the flowers safe.
Each spring, the land around Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County bursts into a vibrant array of native wildflowers. This year, it’s happening earlier than expected because of the recent rains.
The lake’s wildflower trail is scheduled to reopen this Friday, Feb. 27. Here’s what you should know before you go.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which manages the body of water in Hemet, says wildflower blooms are already dotting the hillsides around the ecological reserve at Diamond Valley Lake.
Think of a bright color wheel — that’s the kind of colorful blooms you’ll see. The hills grow orange California poppies, baby blue eyes, red bush monkeyflower and yellow tidy tips, to name a few. You’ll also get a peek at SoCal’s largest drinking water reservoir.
Known as the Judy Abdo Wildflower Trail, the 1.3 mile loop extends from the Lakeview Trail, close to the trail head and parking area. You can see a map here. The hike has some rugged terrain, but it’s rated as easy-to-moderate.
When you visit, don’t go too late! No entry is allowed after 3:30 p.m. Starting March 8, it’ll be open until 5:30 p.m. (with no entry after 4:30 p.m.).
You’ll have to pay $4 per person to use the wildflower trail. Parking costs $11 (or $5 if you’re: 62 years and older, a military member or a veteran).
Wildflower blooms are very popular in Southern California because of how beautiful (and Instaworthy) the scenery is, but you should tread cautiously.
About 10 years ago, Diamond Valley Lake’s trail had to be closed because crowds of visitors trampled the wildflowers. So when you visit, make sure to follow these etiquette tips so the bloom can be enjoyed by everyone.
Here's guidance from the California Botanic Garden on how to responsibly view the state's spectacular flower blooms:
Topline:
A mammoth solar farm is moving forward in the heart of California. If built, which seems increasingly likely, it would cover 200 square miles of land and generate 21,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power entire cities.
Farmers back the project: Farmers don't have enough water to grow crops on big chunks of their land, and they're looking for new uses for it. Westlands Water District, a farmer-run organization, is a key player in this effort, negotiating with solar companies and government regulators on behalf of its members.
About the solar farm: A solar developer called Golden State Clean Energy presented Westlands Water District with a master plan for a collection of vast solar projects. Patrick Mealoy, a partner at Golden State Clean Energy, says they had to propose a solar farm that would generate an enormous amount of power to make the case for new multibillion-dollar power lines to carry electricity from the San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Mealoy says smaller proposed projects have stalled because they weren't big enough to justify building those power lines.
What's next: Getting the managers of California's electrical grid to approve construction of those transmission lines could be the project's biggest remaining hurdle. If built, the cost of those power lines, along with the benefits of greater electricity supply, eventually will show up in consumers' electricity bills.
A mammoth solar farm is moving forward in the heart of California. If built, which seems increasingly likely, it would cover 200 square miles of land and generate 21,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power entire cities. Huge batteries will store some of that power until it's needed most.
Farmers are among the project's backers. They don't have enough water to grow crops on big chunks of their land, and they're looking for new uses for it.
"We're farmers, and we would rather farm the ground," says Ross Franson, president of Woolf Farming and Processing, his family's business. "If we had the water to do it, we would farm it. But the reality is, you don't. You have to deal with the cards you're dealt."
Franson is on the board of the Westlands Water District, a farmer-run organization that's a key player in this effort, negotiating with solar companies and government regulators on behalf of its members. Westlands is an agricultural power and has long represented the interests of farmers in a large swath of land on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley, between the towns of Firebaugh and Huron. Decades ago, it helped persuade the federal government to build a giant canal to deliver irrigation water to this area from rivers far away in Northern California.
Yet these farmers are now facing a new water crisis. The canal has been delivering less water in recent years because of droughts and competing claims on that water. Until recently, the farmers had a backup water supply: They could pump water from aquifers a thousand feet underground. Now, though, a new state law is coming into force that bans overpumping from the aquifer.
So farmers in Westlands have been leaving large chunks of land unplanted. Another large piece of land, now owned by the Westlands Water District itself, has been fallowed because irrigating it could release high levels of a mineral called selenium that can poison wildlife or people. The farmers, and the district, have been looking for new ways to put that land to use.
A solar developer called Golden State Clean Energy seized the opportunity. Several years ago, it presented Westlands Water District with a master plan for a collection of vast solar projects.
Patrick Mealoy, a partner at Golden State Clean Energy, says they had to propose a solar farm that would generate an enormous amount of power to make the case for new multibillion-dollar power lines to carry electricity from the San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles and Silicon Valley. Mealoy says smaller proposed projects have stalled because they weren't big enough to justify building those power lines.
"In order to actually have solar be productive, you need size and scale, a mass of projects that support the necessary investment in high voltage transmission lines to collect the electrons and move them," Mealoy says.
Getting the managers of California's electrical grid to approve construction of those transmission lines could be the project's biggest remaining hurdle. If built, the cost of those power lines, along with the benefits of greater electricity supply, eventually will show up in consumers' electricity bills.
Franson says his immediate reaction to the proposal was "Yes, we need to do this." Negotiating the details and completing an environmental review took several years, but in December, the Westlands Water District's board voted to move ahead.
Golden State is the plan's architect, but other solar developers will build sections of it. Construction could take a decade. Even though the Trump administration has abolished some financial incentives for solar projects, Mealoy says it's still a solid business opportunity.
"The state needs it. It's permitted. It's the right place for it. I'm excited about this," he says.
Grace Wu, an environmental scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says "this is a fantastic place for solar" because the fallowed farmland isn't high-value habitat for wildlife.
About 150 farmers within the Westlands Water District, including Jeremy Hughes, have signed up to put solar on some of their land. "We look at it as a new crop. We're harvesting electricity," Hughes says. The guaranteed income from those acres makes it possible to keep farming the rest of his land.
"Because of solar, we can continue farming in Westlands. It'll keep the farming community alive," says Jose Gutierrez, assistant general manager of Westlands Water District.
In the small towns nearby where many farmworkers live, however, there are worries that local residents won't see many benefits from the project. Among those towns is Huron, home to about 6,000 people. Rey León grew up here, working in his family's restaurant. Now he's the town's mayor.
"I'm worried about Huron," he says. This solar deal may be great for the landowners of Westlands, he says, but less farming means fewer jobs for people who worked in the fields and orchards. León wants some of the solar revenue to flow to this community for education and training, to help people find jobs in this new solar industry.
"We are shareholders," he says. "We kept these communities alive, these economies robust. There's no excuse to leave us out."
Westlands and Golden State Clean Energy have been discussing what they call a community benefits package, but officials haven't released any details.
Caity Peterson, at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), says other farming communities in California may try to imitate what Westlands is doing. Because they, too, will have to stop pumping so much water from the ground as the new state law comes into force. "There's going to be some kind of right-sizing of agricultural land in the San Joaquin Valley," she says.
According to a study that PPIC carried out, farmers in the valley will have to stop growing crops on between 500,000 and 1 million acres. There will be a lot of dry, sunny land in California, just waiting for a solar developer.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
A truly Los Angeles twist on March Madness is back, but this year, Angelenos are invited to weigh in on the worst intersections in greater L.A.
Why it matters: Whether you feel personally victimized by the Virgil Avenue, Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards intersection by the Los Feliz border, which a city official called a “‘nightmare,” or break into anxious sweats every time you get in line for the Burbank Boulevard Costco — you can soon channel some of that frustration into a social media match-up.
The backstory: After Koreatown was voted as having the city’s worst parking last year, the latest competition run by Americana at Brand Memes on Instagram is upping the stakes with infamous intersections.
Why now: The anonymous account holder, who goes by Mr. Glen Dale, told LAist that the “One Bad Intersection After Another” bracket is designed to be a democratic process for people to collectively crown the worst in L.A. once and for all.
What's next: “No matter who wins, it's all bad,” Mr. Glen Dale said.
Read on ... for more on the March Madness-style bracket.
A truly Los Angeles twist on March Madness is back, but this year, Angelenos are invited to weigh in on the worst intersections in greater L.A.
Whether you feel personally victimized by the Virgil Avenue, Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards intersection by the Los Feliz border, which a city official called a “‘nightmare,” or break into anxious sweats every time you get in line for the Burbank Boulevard Costco — you can soon channel some of that frustration into a social media match-up.
After Koreatown was voted as having the city’s worst parking last year, the latest competition run by Americana at Brand Memes on Instagram is upping the stakes with infamous intersections.
The anonymous account holder, who goes by Mr. Glen Dale, told LAist the “One Bad Intersection After Another” bracket is designed to be a democratic process for people to collectively crown the worst in L.A. once and for all.
“No matter who wins, it's all bad,” Mr. Glen Dale said.
Voting kicks off this weekend, and the winner will be crowned by April.
The competition is divided into four rounds based on the general geographic area, with nine intersections in each round.
Starting Sunday, @americanaatbrandmemes will post the competitors on Instagram with a poll attached around 11 a.m. each day throughout March.
The polls will be open for 24 hours, and the intersection with the most votes will move on to the next round to face off against the others.
To complete this year’s lineup, Mr. Glen Dale again started with a list of his personal worst before turning to his followers for some suggestions.
The intersection of Harvey Drive and East Broadway toward the Glendale In-N-Out was a popular proposal, for example, but Mr. Glen Dale said he felt that may be too niche for the bracket.
“I tried not to narrow in too much on one area,” he said. “And then tried to use my own experience to be like, ‘Oh yes, these ones feel like hallmarks.’”
If your personal worst isn’t in the competition, you can also suggest an intersection in the comments by writing “WILDCARD: (your suggestion).” The suggestions with the most likes will be added to the competition, with a wildcard slot in each of the four rounds.
Some popular wildcard suggestions include the Cypress Park roundabout at Riverside Drive and San Fernando Road, the Glendale Boulevard and Riverside Drive intersection with the wonky left-turn lanes in Silver Lake, and for another year in a row — all of Koreatown.
“I always put [wildcards] in there because I'm always like there's something I'm not thinking of that someone's going to suggest,” Mr. Glen Dale said. “This is a fluid list, we could change it.”
The intersection voted as L.A.’s worst of the worst will be crowned on Americana At Brand Meme’s account by April 1.
The first round focuses on the “East Side-ish” of L.A., including Silver Lake, Highland Park, East L.A., Echo Park and Eagle Rock.
The rounds are broken up by “side-ish” so people can focus their debates on the intersections, not the geographic boundaries of the bracket, according to Mr. Glen Dale.
The options include:
Mr. Glen Dale said Avenue 50, which came up often in followers’ suggestions, could get its own bracket because the intersections in the area don’t seem to communicate with each other.
“You'll be sitting at a red light and seeing a green in front of you and being like, oh, when I get to that one it's going to be red,” he said. “But, you know, I ended up with York and 50 … [it] felt like a good representation of that street as a whole.”
The competition heads to Beverly Hills, Culver City, Westchester, Venice, Westwood Village and Brentwood for the second, “West Side-ish” round.
The options include:
“It will be the Beverly Hills 6 stop,” one Instagram commenter wrote. “It is known.”
The third, “Central LA-ish” round takes us into the heart of Hollywood, West Hollywood, the border of Miracle Mile and Carthay Circle as well as the border of Wilshire Center and the Dayton Heights neighborhood.
The options include:
The Los Angeles Times released a report this week ranking L.A.’s worst intersections based on traffic data, with the troublesome top spot going to Highland and Sunset in Hollywood.
Last but not least, the “Valley-ish,” which includes intersections in North Hollywood, Burbank, Studio City and Sherman Oaks.
This round also features my personal nemesis — Barham and Cahuenga boulevards.
I take this route relatively often to get from Burbank to West Hollywood and have to give myself a pep talk every time. The seemingly-constant congestion over the hill, driver confusion about what lanes lead where and people cutting into lines of cars just before a turn makes the experience feel like it takes years off my life.
The options include:
Mr. Glen Dale agreed with my assessment, describing the Barham Boulevard intersection as his “white whale.”
“I hate going through that intersection, and it's not even that it's scary like other ones where you don't know what's happening,” Mr. Glen Dale said. “No matter which way you're going, everyone is converging onto Barham, and it just creates this madness.”
But Lankershim / Vineland / Camarillo appears to be an early follower favorite, as one commenter wrote, it “takes 2-3 business days to get through” and another added, “I’m rioting if [the intersection] doesn’t win.”
