The Brief

Former Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison, after an LAist investigation and federal probe led him to resign and plead guilty to a conspiracy to steal millions of taxpayer dollars meant to feed needy seniors.

The penalty was issued by James V. Selna, a U.S. District Court judge, in front of a packed Santa Ana courtroom as Do sat and watched with his attorneys. It was the maximum penalty possible under the federal bribery charge Do pleaded guilty to.

Do is ordered to report to Lompoc, a low-security federal prison in Santa Barbara County, by Aug. 15.

Selna said Do's breach of his duty is a "real crime" as he handed down the sentence.

“Public corruption wreaks damage far beyond the loss to the county. It undermines the public’s trust of the government. It undermines the government’s ability to function," he said.

At Monday’s hearing, Do’s attorneys asked for a four-year sentence, pointing to the recommendation of federal probation officials. But Selna said anything less than the five-year maximum would fail to reflect the gravity of Do’s crime.

“I just do not believe that any sentence less than the maximum reflects the seriousness of the crime,” Selna said.

Selna ordered a hearing on Aug. 11 to determine the amount of restitution owed to taxpayers. He said Do and his daughter Rhiannon Do, who was involved in the scheme, would be "jointly liable" for paying the money back.

Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do at an Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting on Nov. 28, 2023.

(

Nick Gerda / LAist

)

Andrew Do declined to speak when the judge asked if he had anything to add about the sentencing and did not respond to questions from an LAist reporter as he exited the courtroom. Paul Meyer, his attorney, said via text message that given the upcoming hearing, no response is appropriate at this time.

Andrew Do's plea agreement says that he gave up his right to appeal the sentence.

It’s the first time in decades that an O.C. supervisor has been convicted of corruption, according to prosecutors.

After an LAist investigation exposed millions in unaccounted-for coronavirus relief funds Andrew Do quietly routed to a newly-created nonprofit connected to his youngest daughter, federal law enforcement launched a probe.

Facing the prospect of being prosecuted on multiple felonies, Andrew Do ultimately admitted that of $9.3 million in COVID relief money he directed to the Huntington Beach nonprofit, only 15% actually went to feed seniors and people with disabilities as earmarked. The other roughly $8 million was diverted, Do admitted.

Andrew Do also admitted to accepting over $550,000 in bribes for directing and voting in favor of more than $10 million in COVID funds to the nonprofit, Viet America Society. Many of the bribes were routed through roughly $400,000 in down payment money that Rhiannon Do, the younger of his two daughters, used to buy a house in Tustin, according to facts he ultimately admitted to as part of his plea deal.

Law enforcement searched the Tustin home of Rhiannon Do, on Aug. 22, 2024.

(

Jason Armond

/

Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

)

When then-U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada announced the plea deal last October, he said, “Mr. Do and his co-conspirators stole money from the poor.” Estrada called the conspiracy “Robin Hood in reverse.”

Andrew Do pleaded guilty last fall to a single federal charge of bribery, in a deal that spared his younger daughter from prosecution. As part of the deal, Rhiannon Do admitted to committing one federal and three state crimes in connection with the home purchase, including perjury and mortgage fraud. She was a law student at UC Irvine at the time. The plea deal required her to keep attending law school — she graduated last month — and to study for the bar exam to become an attorney or find a job.

Andrew Do’s wife and the mother of his two daughters is Cheri Pham, an Orange County Superior Court judge. She was the supervising judge overseeing the criminal courts when her husband started directing meal money to the nonprofit. Later, she was promoted to the second-highest-ranking judgeship at the court, a position she held from the beginning of 2023 until the end of last year when she was reassigned to family court. She has not been publicly accused of wrongdoing.

O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do (center left) in December 2023 with his daughter Rhiannon Do (right) and wife Cheri Pham (between them).

(

Screenshot of a public video posted by Do’s official YouTube channel

)

Response to the sentencing

In a statement, O.C. Supervisor Katrina Foley commended the U.S. Department of Justice for holding Do "fully accountable."

“No one is above the law. This maximum sentencing of Andrew Do sends a strong message that we do not tolerate public corruption in Orange County,” Foley said. “Andrew Do enriched himself off the suffering of others, betraying our residents and violating his oath of office.”

O.C. Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento told LAist he would have preferred a longer sentence.

Sarmiento added that the county is working to conduct a third-party audit of all contracts that came from Andrew Do’s office and any county deals made during the pandemic when oversight was lax. He added that the county has work to do to restore the public's confidence in government.

“I do think that it's going to take a very long time to re-establish the public's trust in the county,” Sarmiento said. “It takes a long time to build, but it's very easily eroded and damaged.”

O.C. Supervisor Doug Chaffee told LAist he also wished Do's sentence had been longer. Chaffee and Sarmiento applauded the recent federal indictments of Do’s conspirators, Peter Pham, of Viet America Society, and Thanh Huong Nguyen, of Hand to Hand Relief.

"Maybe we can finally come to a conclusion in a just way that will play itself out over time,” Chaffee said of the indictments.

Any stolen funds recovered by the county, Chaffee said, should go toward the residents previously represented by Andrew Do. Supervisor Janet Nguyen, who now represents the First Supervisorial District where Andrew Do used to serve, told LAist she also supports the idea of directing recovered COVID-relief funds to district residents. The district is in the northwestern region of the county and includes Cypress, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach and Westminster.

“The victims are the First District,” Nguyen said. “These individuals that I represent, the residents of the First District, are the ones who didn't get the benefits or the help from the county that they deserved.”

Accountability doesn’t end now with Andrew Do’s sentencing, Nguyen added, saying she hopes federal prosecutors will continue to "go after every individual and not let this go."

"We will hold everybody accountable,” she said.

A spokesperson for Supervisor Don Wagner said he was not available for comment.

Thai Viet Phan, a member of the Santa Ana City Council, said she thought Andrew Do’s crimes went well beyond bribery. “He literally stole money from poor people,” she said, referring to the meals for needy seniors that the contracts Andrew Do received kickbacks from were supposed to provide. “It’s just so cruel.”

Westminster resident Terry Rains showed up at the courthouse in Santa Ana to see the sentencing in person.

“I’m glad that we got the max allowed for this charge,” Rains said. "This is what journalism is all about … unrooting the corruption and then seeing the consequences of that.”

How much prison time did he and prosecutors ask for? 

Prosecutors asked Selna to impose the maximum sentence of five years, saying Andrew Do’s crimes were “an assault on the very legitimacy of government” and left vulnerable people with “empty stomachs and worsened health conditions.”

In calling for the maximum sentence, prosecutors also pointed to Andrew Do’s public attacks on LAist’s integrity — including a news release he issued in December 2023 falsely accusing an LAist reporter of forging documents and calling for the reporter to be fired.

“It was a calculated attempt to discredit those who sought to hold him accountable and to chill further investigation. Rather than confronting the truth, the defendant sought to delegitimize it,” prosecutors wrote.

“His actions sent a clear message: that the real threat, in his view, was not corruption or the misuse of public funds, but the exposure of those facts to the public.”

Ahead of Monday's hearing, Andrew Do asked the judge for a 33-month sentence — about half of what prosecutors called for. In a court filing, his attorney wrote that Andrew Do was “willfully blinded to the violations” and placed part of the blame on his fellow supervisors. He wrote that the money directed to Viet America Society was a decision made by all the members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors, not him alone.

An office suite in Huntington Beach for the nonprofit Viet America Society, shown in April 2024.

(

Brian Feinzimer

/

LAist

)

County records show otherwise. Several million of the meal dollars were directed to the nonprofit at Andrew Do’s sole discretion, without the other supervisors ever voting on choosing that organization.

In calling for the lesser sentence, Andrew Do’s lawyers also wrote Andrew Do did not directly receive payments. And they wrote he has been volunteering with a youth program teaching youngsters how to foster confidence by learning how to sail.

Andrew Do’s lawyers wrote that he’s been spending 20 hours per week volunteering with the sailing program. A captain there told LAist Andrew Do has come in a few times per month.

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

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.

What the trail has to offer

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.

• Address: 2615 Angler Ave., Hemet
• Hours: Wednesdays through Sundays, 6:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

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).

Observe safely

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.

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.

Jose Gutierrez, assistant general manager of Westlands Water District, on land that could become a solar farm.

(

Dan Charles

)

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.

Developers say scale will justify new power lines 

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.

Farmworkers wonder if they will also benefit

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.

Rey León is the mayor of Huron, Calif., home to many farmworkers who aren't yet sure what they will get out of solar coming to the region.

(

Dan Charles

)

"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.

A possible model for other parts of California

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

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.

How it works

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 East Side-ish Round

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:

• Virgil Avenue / Sunset Boulevard / Hollywood Boulevard vs Sunset Boulevard / Sanborn Avenue / Santa Monica Boulevard
• Stadium Way / Academy Road vs Glendale Boulevard / Fletcher Drive / Silver Ridge Avenue
• Telegraph Road / Atlantic Boulevard / Triggs Street / Ferguson Drive vs wildcard vs Huntington Drive / Garfield Avenue / Atlantic Boulevard
• York Boulevard / N Avenue 50 vs Glendale Boulevard / Alvarado Street vs Avenue 42 / Eagle Rock Boulevard

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 West Side-ish Round

The competition heads to Beverly Hills, Culver City, Westchester, Venice, Westwood Village and Brentwood for the second, “West Side-ish” round.

The options include:

• Beverly Hills 6 way stop vs Pacific Coast Highway / Chautauqua Boulevard / West Channel Road
• Washington Boulevard / Culver Boulevard vs Exposition / Robertson / Venice Boulevards
• Sunset Boulevard / Bellagio Drive / Bellagio Road / Bellagio Way vs wildcard vs Abbot Kinney Boulevard / California Avenue
• La Cienega Boulevard / Centinela Avenue / La Tijera Boulevard vs Wilshire / Westwood Boulevards vs San Vicente Boulevard / Montana Avenue

“It will be the Beverly Hills 6 stop,” one Instagram commenter wrote. “It is known.”

The Central LA-ish Round 

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:

• Hollywood Boulevard / Highland Avenue vs Highland / Franklin Avenues
• Fairfax Avenue / La Cienega Boulevard vs Fairfax Avenue / Olympic / San Vincente Boulevards
• Jefferson Boulevard / La Brea Avenue vs wildcard vs La Cienega / Sunset Boulevards
• Franklin Avenue / Vine Street / 101 Freeway vs Virgil Avenue / Beverly Boulevard / Temple Street vs Santa Monica Boulevard / Western Avenue

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.

The Valley-ish Round

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:

• Lankershim Boulevard / Vineland Avenue / Camarillo Street vs Burbank / Lankershim Boulevards / Tujunga Avenue
• Victory / Burbank Boulevards / Victory Place / 5 Freeway / Costco vs Ventura Place / Radford Avenue / Trader Joe’s / Sephora parking lots
• Harvey / W Broadway vs wildcard vs Sepulveda / Burbank Boulevards
• Mulholland Drive / Coldwater Canyon Avenue vs Barham / Cahuenga Boulevards vs Vineland Avenue / Magnolia Boulevard

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.”