The Brief

The State Department has reversed a Biden-era font change that aimed to make its paperwork more accessible to readers with disabilities.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio directed diplomats around the world to switch from Calibri to Times New Roman 14-point font in all official documents, starting on Wednesday, the State Department said in a statement to NPR. The difference between the two fonts comes down to a few finishing strokes.

"Whether for internal memoranda, papers prepared for principals, or documents shared externally, consistent formatting strengthens credibility and supports a unified Department identity," the statement said.

Times New Roman had been the State Department's official font for nearly two decades, from 2004 until 2023.

According to the Associated Press, Rubio said in a cable sent to U.S. embassies and consulates that the 2023 change, implemented by then-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, was part of misguided diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Calibri is a sans serif font, meaning it doesn't have the decorative tops and tails at the ends of letters that serif fonts like Times New Roman do.

Times New Roman is a serif font, with decorative flourishes, while the sans-serif Calibri can be easier to read.

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Those little flourishes can make the lettering harder to read, says Kristen Shinohara, who leads the Center for Accessibility and Inclusion Research at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

"This impact can be more severe for people with learning or reading disabilities like dyslexia or for people with low vision," she told NPR's Morning Edition.

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires sans-serif fonts on physical signage and display screens because of their relative legibility. At the same time, serif fonts like Times New Roman remain the norm in print newspapers, books, legal documents and more.

"Times New Roman specifically, and serif fonts generally, are more formal and professional," the State Department statement said. It did not respond to NPR's questions about reduced accessibility.

Times New Roman was designed specifically for the British newspaper The Times in the 1920s and quickly became the favored typeface for many other publications. It was also the default font of Microsoft programs like Word beginning in the 1990s until it was replaced by Calibri — which was designed with screens in mind — in 2007.

Microsoft replaced Calibri with a sans-serif font called Aptos in 2023. The company wrote in a blog post at the time that Aptos' designer, Steve Matteson, wanted the font to have "the universal appeal of the late NPR newscaster Carl Kasell and the astute tone of The Late Show host Stephen Colbert."

Small lettering, bigger patterns

Rubio's memo describes the 2023 change to Calibri as "another wasteful DEIA program" and says it did not lead to a meaningful reduction in the department's accessibility-based document remediation cases, according to copies obtained by Reuters and The Associated Press.

The Trump administration has made no secret of its disdain for its predecessor's focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.

Trump has issued numerous executive orders dismantling DEI initiatives in federal agencies, the foreign service, federal contracts and more. His administration put pressure on universities and public schools, threatening to withhold federal funding from those that have DEI programs, though a judge struck down some of those efforts in August. And growing anti-DEI backlash has also resulted in scores of private companies scaling back their own such initiatives.

During his tenure at the State Department, Rubio has already abolished offices and initiatives meant to foster inclusion and diversity, both in D.C. and abroad.

The State Department statement says the return to Times New Roman better aligns with Trump's "One Voice for America's Foreign Relations" directive from February, by underscoring its "responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications."

It also fits into the Trump administration's broader fixation on aesthetics, from his gilded Oval Office redesign to his proposal of a classically-styled D.C. arch to mark the nation's 250th birthday to his August executive order mandating that new federal buildings prioritize classical and traditional architectural styles.

And well before the Trump administration started specifying federal agencies' fonts, it was restricting the words they could use.

The Health and Human Services Department removed entire webpages devoted to topics like LGBTQ health and HIV, while the Department of Energy instructed employees to avoid using terms including "climate change" and "sustainable." Just this week, court filings emerged showing the administration's six-page list of words the federal Head Start programs cannot use, including "disability," "race" and "women."
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A federal judge has ordered Los Angeles to pay more than $1.8 million in attorneys’ fees and costs to the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights and other organizations that sued the city over what it deemed an inadequate response to the homelessness crisis.

The city is appealing the decision.

The details

L.A. Alliance is a group of business owners and residents who sued the city and county of Los Angeles in 2020 in an effort to push both governments to provide more shelter to unhoused people in the region.

The city of L.A. settled with the plaintiffs in 2022, and U.S. District Judge David O. Carter is overseeing the city’s progress in keeping up with the terms of that agreement. The judge found the city breached its agreement in multiple ways in a ruling last summer.

Specifically, the judge found that the city did not provide a plan for how it intends to create 12,915 shelter beds, as promised, by 2027. The court also found the city “flouted” its responsibilities by failing to provide accurate, comprehensive data when requested and did not provide evidence to support the numbers it was reporting, according to court documents.

In addition to $1.6 million in attorneys’ fees and $5,000 in costs to L.A. Alliance, Carter awarded about $200,000 in fees and $160 in costs to the Los Angeles Catholic Worker and Los Angeles Community Action Network.

The organizations are considered “intervenors” in the suit, representing people experiencing homelessness on Skid Row. Their attorneys include those from the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

Why it matters

In his order, released Tuesday, Carter compared the recent award to the millions of taxpayer dollars city officials agreed to pay an outside law firm representing L.A. in the settlement.

Carter wrote in the order that the attorneys' fees and costs to L.A. Alliance and others “is reasonable, especially in light of the approximately $5.9 million that the City’s outside counsel is charging.”

LAist’s housing and homelessness coverage was cited several times in the order.

“It has fallen to plaintiff, intervenors, and journalists to point out the deficiencies in the city’s reporting,” Carter wrote, referring to data the city is required to report to the court as part of the settlement.

“Plaintiff and intervenors must be compensated for this,” he said.

The city’s response 

Attorneys representing the city filed a notice of appeal with the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on Thursday.

L.A. City Attorney Hydee Feldstein-Soto’s office did not respond to LAist’s requests for comment by phone or email.

Shayla Myers, senior attorney with the Unhoused People's Justice Project at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, told LAist the intervenors participated in the case without compensation “because it's incredibly important given what is at stake in these proceedings that unhoused folks have a voice.”

Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for L.A. Alliance, told LAist he’s thrilled the court is imposing accountability on the city, including sanctions for violating the settlement agreement. But Umhofer said he’s saddened that L.A. Alliance is going to have to keep fighting to hold the city to its promises.

“The obvious city strategy here is hire a big, good law firm to fight on absolutely every front in hopes that the plaintiffs, the intervenors or the court will ultimately give up trying to hold the city accountable,” he said.

What's next

The parties are scheduled to appear in federal court in downtown L.A. on Monday, when a hearing will resume to determine whether the judge will hold the city of Los Angeles in contempt of court.

Carter has said in documents that he’s concerned “the city has demonstrated a continuous pattern of delay” in meeting its obligations with court orders under the settlement and that the “delay continues to this day.”

Every January, the open-air downtown food fair reopens after its winter break and announces new additions to its carefully selected group of regular vendors.

This year’s new vendor class demonstrates the resilience of L.A.'s independent food scene, ranging from a Grammy-nominated producer's Persian-influenced pizza to Southern fried fish celebrating Black American culinary traditions, to an LAist 2025 Tournament of Cheeseburger heavyweight contender.

The reopening also marks the start of Smorgasburg LA's 10th anniversary year, and will feature 41 returning vendors, who've helped build the regular event into a fun, family-friendly opportunity to try new, often cutting-edge food you may not be familiar with.

Doors open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at DTLA’s The Row, with free entry and free parking for the first two hours.

A new year

General manager Zach Brooks said this is his favorite time of year. "We add the new vendors at the beginning of the new year, everyone's excited."

Vendors apply through Smorgasburg's website, and the team meets with every applicant to taste their food before acceptance. Brooks said it's not a vetting process like "Shark Tank" but rather a matter of seeing if it's a good fit. Competition remains fierce, with many more applicants than available spots.

"I think it's just a testament to L.A. and the resilience of people who love this business and have a passion for it, and are going to continue to persevere and start their businesses and want to be out there selling food," Brooks said.

Here are a few highlights:

Viral orange chicken sandwich 

Long Beach-based Terrible Burger becomes Smorgasburg's new permanent burger vendor after standout appearances at LAist's Tournament of Cheeseburgers and the market's rotating Smorgasburger Stand. The smashburger pop-up, run by husband-and-wife team Nicole and Ryan Ramirez, specializes in burgers that draw from pop culture and global influences. They've made waves with a Korean barbecue burger topped with bulgogi barbecue sauce and a viral orange chicken sandwich, previously available only at their Tuesday night residency at Long Beach's Midnight Oil, making its L.A. debut Sunday.

Terrible Burger's viral orange chicken sandwich makes its LA debut at Smorgasburg after being available only in Long Beach.

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Courtesy Terrible Burger

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"We have been big Smorgasburg fans for a really long time before we even started Terrible Burger. We would go to Smorgasburg on dates, just eat and hang out. And it was just always a little dream of, "oh, what if we ever sold food here?" Nicole Ramirez said.

Crispy fried snapper and thick-cut fries 

Orange County-based Hot Grease, run by Asha Starks, is among four vendors graduating from residencies to permanent status. The Southern fried fish pop-up celebrates Black American history through food that honors Starks' family heritage.

"Folks often forget that there are Black folks in Orange County. My family came to Orange County during the second wave of the Great Migration, and they settled in Santa Ana... my food is very cultural. And the story, I feel like, is just as important to highlight," Starks said.

Hot Grease's crispy buttermilk fried snapper with thick-cut fries and "Ill Dill" tartar sauce.

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Courtesy Hot Grease

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Hot Grease serves crispy buttermilk fried snapper with thick-cut fries and small-batch sauces like "Ill Dill" tartar. Honoring the fish fry's history as a site of mutual aid, Starks directs 3% of sales to the Potlikker Line, Hot Grease's reproductive justice mutual aid fund. For January, she's added fish and grits, black-eyed peas and collard greens.

Pizza with a Persian twist

Mamani Pizza brings studio-born energy to Smorgasburg LA with pies featuring Persian-inspired creativity.

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Courtesy Mamani Pizza

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Mamani Pizza, from the Grammy-nominated producer Farsi, part of the music production team Wallis Lane, started making Neapolitan-style pizzas at his West L.A. recording studio a year ago. What began as late-night pies for friends and artists became an underground hit. Most pizzas are traditional, but Farsi adds Persian touches like The Mamani, topped with ground wagyu koobideh, roasted Anaheim chilis, Persian herbs and pomegranate molasses.

Other new vendors

Banana Mama - Asian-inspired pudding
Barranco's Yogurt - Oaxacan fruit yogurt
Franzl's Franks - Austrian sausages
Melnificent Wingz - Gourmet chicken wings
Piruchi - Peruvian street food
RuRu's Golden Tea - Karak chai
Stick Talk - vegan corn dogs
SouuLA - Taiwanese breakfast concept
Unreal Poke - Hawaiian poke
Zindrew Dumpling Shop - Spicy wontons