Sponsored message
Logged in as
Audience-funded nonprofit news
radio tower icon laist logo
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Subscribe
  • Listen Now Playing Listen
  • Listen Now Playing Listen

The Brief

The most important stories for you to know today
  • See the standout moments from Team USA

    Topline:

    Team USA finished second in the overall Paralympics medal count, after 10 days of competition in which American athletes made dazzling debuts, defended titles and cemented legacies.

    Why it matters: China topped the medal count for the second Winter Games in a row, with 44 total medals (15 gold), followed by the U.S. with 24 total medals, including 13 gold. The U.S. improved on its fifth-place standing from 2022. This is the same number of gold medals it won in 2018, in what officials are calling its "strongest gold-medal showing in the last 20 years."

    More details: A total of 28 American Paralympians and two guides reached the podium this year. Six of them won medals for the first time, and six of them earned multiple medals, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC).

    Read on... for more about the highlights from Team USA.

    Team USA finished second in the overall Paralympics medal count, after 10 days of competition in which American athletes made dazzling debuts, defended titles and cemented legacies.

    One of the many made-for-TV moments came just hours before the closing ceremony on Sunday, when the U.S. sled hockey team defeated rival Canada to claim its record fifth gold medal in a row.

    "You don't ever start out and try to be the only five-time gold medalist in the sport," said captain Josh Pauls after personally achieving that very feat. "But to be with these guys, to lead them and kind of pass on that tradition, it's the ultimate honor."

    The day — and the Games — ended with the closing ceremony in Cortina d'Ampezzo, featuring performances, speeches and the extinguishing of the Paralympic flame. American skiers Kendall Gretsch and Andrew Kurka, who are both leaving Italy with new medals, carried the flag for Team USA.

    "I've been involved in four Games and have only been able to go to two closing ceremonies: in PyeongChang, where I won my gold and silver, and this year, where I won my bronze," said Kurka, who medaled in men's super-G. "It's been a career filled with ups and downs, but even the small victories count for me."

    Two people in White USA coats and beanies carrying an American flag as people sitting in wheelchairs watch close to blue stands.
    Andrew Kurka and Kendall Gretsch carry the U.S. flag during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Paralympic Games closing ceremony in Cortina on Sunday.
    (
    Mattia Ozbot
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    At the ceremony, International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons declared the Games — the 50th anniversary of the Winter Paralympics — officially over, and a success: "The biggest and most beautiful Winter Paralympics with more athletes, more nations, more women and more global broadcast and digital coverage than ever before."

    A record 611 athletes from 55 countries competed in 79 medal events across six sports.

    China topped the medal count for the second Winter Games in a row, with 44 total medals (15 gold), followed by the U.S. with 24 total medals, including 13 gold. The U.S. improved on its fifth-place standing from 2022. This is the same number of gold medals it won in 2018, in what officials are calling its "strongest gold-medal showing in the last 20 years."

    A total of 28 American Paralympians and two guides reached the podium this year. Six of them won medals for the first time, and six of them earned multiple medals, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC).

    In third place — both overall and in gold medals — was Russia, which was allowed to participate under its own flag for the first time since 2014 despite its ongoing war in Ukraine. Ukrainian athletes boycotted both the opening and closing ceremonies in protest.

    But even in a moment of intense geopolitical upheaval, amid conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, the IPC's Parsons said the Paralympics offered "proof that sport can unite us through respect, fairness and human achievement."

    "Paralympians, you rose above pressure, expectation and global tension to keep the focus where it belongs: on you and your sport," he said. "You expanded the imagination of the world. You have shown that excellence is universal and that determination knows no boundaries."

    Parsons passed the proverbial torch to the next Winter Paralympics host: the French Alps for 2030. Those will follow the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Los Angeles.


    Team USA highlights

    Hockey players in white and blue uniforms and two in red uniforms fight for a hockey puck in a hockey rink.
    Team USA's Declan Farmer, center, fights for the puck during the gold-medal match against Canada.
    (
    Antonio Calanni
    /
    AP
    )

    On the ice: 

    The U.S. sled hockey team got off to a strong start in an early-round match against Italy, when it beat the host nation 14-1 — the largest margin of victory in the sport's U.S. history.

    It stayed dominant, outscoring opponents 46-6 throughout the tournament before becoming the first Paralympic or Olympic team to win five consecutive winter gold medals.

    "You are going to enjoy something like this, for sure," Coach David Hoff said afterward. "But I don't know if it's just the wins. It's so much more than that. They just love playing together."

    Team USA beat Canada 6-2 on Sunday, thanks to a hat trick from Jack Wallace — who was named "best defender" of the tournament — and goals by Kayden Beasley, Brody Roybal and four-time Paralympian Declan Farmer.

    Farmer, the top scorer and official MVP of these Games, scored 15 goals and 26 points throughout the tournament to become the all-time leading scorer in Paralympic sled hockey history at just 28 years old. But he was quick to share the credit with his teammates.

    "A lot of the guys stepped up and had their best games of the tournament, and we just carried each other," said Farmer. "I'm just so happy for the guys, we earned it together."

    You're forgiven if you have deja vu from last month: This win makes the U.S. the first country to sweep all three Olympic and Paralympic hockey tournaments in one year.

    Team USA also made history in wheelchair curling, with Steve Emt and Laura Dwyer finishing fourth in the brand-new mixed doubles event. That's the United States' best-ever Paralympic finish in the sport.

    "In the two years we've been together, we've shown the world what we're capable of doing and we're going to go home, take some time off, relax, re-group and come back even better next year," said Emt, the most decorated Paralympic curler in U.S. history.

    In Para Nordic Skiing (cross country and biathlon):

    A woman in a ski suit pushes herself with two poles . Large trees and fog are visible in the background.
    Oksana Masters competes in the para cross-country skiing 20km in Tesero, Italy, on Sunday.
    (
    Luke Hales
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    Eight-time, dual-season Paralympian Oksana Masters, the most decorated Winter Paralympian in U.S. history, is leaving Italy with four new gold medals and a bronze in biathlon and cross-country skiing events, bringing her career total to 24 medals.

    That's despite a concussion, infection and injury that almost kept her from competing in the first place.

    "I think that is what makes it so special, because nothing is guaranteed," Masters told NPR on Saturday. "A win's not guaranteed, and the podium's not guaranteed, and so that's been a really great motivator for this whole … year so far."

    Four-time Paralympian Jake Adicoff, with guides Reid Goble and Peter Wolter, won four gold medals in four visually impaired skiing events to set a new record for the most Para cross-country golds won by a Team USA athlete in a single Games.

    Five people wearing white coats and gold medals place their hand over the chest while on a stage. One person on the left side uses a wheelchair.
    Joshua Sweeney, Oksana Masters, Sydney Peterson, Jake Adicoff and his guide Reid Goble of Team USA participate in the medal ceremony after the para cross-country skiing mixed 4x2.5km relay.
    (
    Luke Hales
    /
    Getty Images Europe
    )

    "It's incredibly scary to put a high goal out to the public," the 30-year-old said. "I was doubting it so much this week, I didn't know what was going to happen, but the races came together and I'm just overjoyed."

    One of those was the mixed 4x2.5km relay, where the all-star team of Adicoff, Masters, Josh Sweeney and Sydney Peterson came from behind in the final leg to defend the U.S. title.

    Peterson, competing in her second Paralympics, won four medals — three of them gold — this time around.

    And Kendall Gretsch, closing ceremony flag-bearer, won four medals at her third Winter Paralympics (and fifth total): one gold, one silver and two bronze. That brings her total medal count to 11 across Summer and Winter Games.

    In Alpine skiing:

    A person wearing a helmet, ski suit, using a bucket seat device, flies off the ground past a blue stand and banner that reads "Allianz."
    Andrew Kurka competes in the super-G leg of the para Alpine skiing men's combined.
    (
    Maja Hitij
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    Andrew Kurka won bronze in the men's super-G sitting, adding to his silver and gold from 2018.

    "I'm happy to be here. I'm happy to have a great career. Gold, silver, and bronze, happy to be done," said Kurka, who wrote on Instagram after the closing ceremony that he is stepping back from ski racing to deal with injuries.

    In 2022, he competed with a broken nose, thumb and humerus bone, finishing fourth in the sitting downhill event before withdrawing from the rest of competition. Kurka said in Italy that he's broken over 20 bones in his career.

    "When it comes to it, losing is nothing compared to the pain of failure," he said after winning bronze. "And when it comes down to today, I was just happy to get across that finish line without any injuries and in a relatively quick time. Usually, if I cross the finish line, it's pretty fast."

    Meanwhile, Patrick Halgren won silver in the men's super-G standing event — the first for Team USA since 1998.

    A man with long hair in a braid, wearing a white puffer jacket, smiles as he holds two stuffed animals
    Patrick Halgren celebrates after winning a silver medal in the alpine skiing men's super-G standing on Monday.
    (
    Emilio Morenatti
    /
    AP
    )

    The 33-year-old wasn't necessarily a favorite for the podium, having placed 26th and 24th at his events in the Beijing Paralympics. But Halgren said he felt the presence of his late twin brother Sven — his source of encouragement to try para Alpine skiing — who died in a motorcycle accident in 2016. Halgren himself lost most of his left leg, and nearly his life, in a motorcycle accident three years earlier.

    Halgren, who wowed the internet with his winning performance and rock-star persona, dedicated his win to Sven and called it the "best day of my life until tomorrow."

    "You celebrate the victories the same as the defeats," he added. "I've been blessed to have to develop my character over the last 11 years, losing my leg, and could either roll over and die, or I could become the greatest Patrick Halgren on Earth, and that's what you're seeing."

    In snowboarding: 

    Three women pose for photos while wearing gold medals and holding stuffed animals. Two wear white puffer jackets and one wears an orange jacket.
    Kate Delson, center, and Brenna Huckaby, right, of Team U.S. pose for a photo on the podium during the medal ceremony for the para snowboard banked slalom.
    (
    Maja Hitij
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    Three-time Paralympian Brenna Huckaby leaves Italy as the most decorated Paralympic snowboarder in history.

    She won bronze in the women's banked slalom event — which she dominated in 2022 — to bring her career total to five medals. That came days after she finished sixth in the snowboard cross event, which she still saw as a win.

    "I'm here representing a very small portion of people who want to see themselves represented," Huckaby said. "They want to know that if they lose their leg above the knee, life does not end. I accomplished that here simply by being. So I'm happy."

    First-time Paralympian Kate Delson medaled in both of those events, winning gold in the banked slalom and silver in snowboard cross.

    "I was just stoked to be here, I think it's such a fun course," Delson said after. "I got to get a medal with my teammate, [Huckaby], one of my best friends in the world, that's unreal."

    On the men's side, Noah Elliott won gold in the banked slalom, a repeat of 2018, and silver in snowboard cross to double his career medal count.

    A man in a blue snow suit with a prosthetic rides down a hill. There are trees and large mountains with snow in the background.
    Mike Schultz brought home a bronze medal in his final Paralympics, for which he outfitted many athletes with their prosthetics.
    (
    Evgeniy Maloletka
    /
    AP
    )

    And Mike Schultz earned his fourth career medal — bronze in banked slalom — at the last race of his third and final Paralympics.

    "To finish my last run and bring home a bronze medal, that's storybook stuff there," Schultz said in an emotional Instagram video after watching a compilation of congratulatory messages from his U.S. snowboarding teammates, whom he called his family.

    All the while, the 44-year-old outfitted many para athletes — including some who beat him — with high-performance prosthetics, a business he has run for over a decade, which he plans to pursue in retirement.
    Copyright 2026 NPR

  • SoFi workers could walk out
    A dark skin-toned woman with long curly black hair stands in a parking lot, her arms crossed. She wears sunglasses, a black shirt and an open red zip-up hoodie.
    SoFi workers say they want premium pay for the World Cup and other major events and protections from their work being subcontracted. They've threatened to strike.

    Topline:

    Workers at SoFi say they're worried that jobs that would typically go to union workers will instead go to subcontractors during the World Cup. It's one reason they're threatening to strike.

    The background: Bartenders, cooks, dishwashers and servers represented by Unite Here Local 11 have staffed the major events held at the stadium since it opened — from the 2022 Super Bowl to Taylor Swift and Beyoncée concerts. That includes positions in suites, where fans can pay — and tip — top dollar for private rooms, food and drink.

    What's happening for the World Cup?  FIFA has hired another entity entirely to run its luxury program for World Cup fans. The company, called On Location, is FIFA's official "hospitality partner." Workers with Unite Here say they're worried On Location will bring on its own non-union workers for lucrative positions during the tournament.

    What else are workers asking for? The union is pushing for double pay for mega-events like the World Cup, and protections against ICE.

    Read on… for more on SoFi workers' ongoing union negotiations.

    Spectators in L.A. this summer for the World Cup could pay up to $209,000 for a private suite for just one match, but union workers at SoFi Stadium are worried they'll miss out on the action.

    Bartenders, cooks, dishwashers and servers represented by Unite Here Local 11 have staffed the events held at the stadium since it opened, from the 2022 Super Bowl and NFL games every fall to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé concerts. That includes positions in suites, where fans can pay top dollar for private rooms, food and drink.

    But FIFA has brought in another entity entirely to run its luxury program for World Cup fans. The company, called On Location, is FIFA's official "hospitality partner," offering those that can afford it exclusive seating, special gifts and meals. Their packages can cost tens of thousands of dollars or more.

    A screenshot of a web page offering luxury suites for the July 10 World Cup Quarter Final in Los Angeles. A Luxury Suite is $209,100 USD and includes 34 tickets, food and beverages.
    Luxury suites for fans attending the World Cup at SoFi Stadium cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
    (
    FIFA
    /
    https://fifaworldcup26.suites.fifa.com/
    )

    Workers at SoFi say they're worried that FIFA's relationship with On Location means jobs that would typically go to union workers — and the wages and tips that go with them — will instead go to subcontractors without union protections. It's one reason they're threatening to strike when the World Cup comes to town.

     "We have so many wonderful workers who've been here season after season," said Kay Blake, a bartender from Inglewood who works at SoFi Stadium. "I don't see why they would partner with someone else to bring an experience that we can bring ourselves."

    Workers also want to be paid a higher rate that reflects the sky-high ticket prices for the eight World Cup matches at SoFi Stadium. They're asking for double pay for major events including the tournament — an arrangement that the food service workers at Dodger Stadium have for the World Series, according to Unite Here.

    "We're trying to ensure that there is no disparity between the profits of the company as opposed to our labor," Blake said. "We don't want to be exploited."

    How does the World Cup affect labor negotiations?

    Unite Here Local 11 represents around 2,000 workers at SoFi, and they're currently negotiating a new contract with Legends Global, the company that runs the stadium's bars and food services. Their old contract expired last year.

    The union is leveraging its role in the coming World Cup to push for higher wages, especially at mega-events. Its workers also want protections from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, after the agency's head said that ICE will play a key role in security for the tournament. Unite Here filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, saying ICE's planned presence at the World Cup threatened the union's ability to collectively bargain.

    But the battle over subcontracting could also lead workers to the picket line. The union says the use of subcontractors will determine who will benefit from the riches that FIFA brings to Inglewood.

    "Subcontracting is supposed to be rare," Unite Here Local 11 co-president Kurt Petersen told LAist. "So in this contract, we're saying no more. It needs to end and especially needs to end at the World Cup because we want those jobs to be good jobs."

    How common is subcontracting?

    Petersen said the World Cup isn't the only event where jobs have been threatened. He said that union members lost out on more than 100,000 hours of work in 2025 that was instead given to subcontracted workers.

    Kay Blake, the bartender, offered LAist an example: an external company paying to operate a suite or two for an event at SoFi.

    "If you bring in a subcontractor, they're going to want to bring in their people," she said. "Let's say that this subcontractor usually buys one to two suites… We have a group of people called suite attendants, and so now there's one to two suites less from their workload."

    Blake said that she and her co-workers are scheduled by seniority, and fewer suites could mean people work fewer hours. She also said more short-term workers at the stadium for the World Cup could dilute tips for the workers who are at SoFi year-round.

    A spokesperson for Legends Global declined to comment on ongoing negotiations with Unite Here Local 11. A representative for Hollywood Park, the site of SoFi Stadium owned by Stanley Kroenke, deferred to Legends Global. FIFA also did not respond to emails requesting comment on the ongoing negotiations.

    Luxury packages are the new normal

    The dispute between SoFi workers and their employer comes as high ticket prices for the World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games face scrutiny and mega-event organizers emphasize luxury experiences for the very wealthy.

    On Location is also the hospitality partner for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The company supplied the same service in Paris in 2024 — the first time the Olympics had such an official luxury service, according to the New York Times.

    "The higher end can run well into the tens of thousands of euros: bespoke multiday all-inclusive packages that might include stays in five-star hotels, meals cooked by Michelin-starred chefs, seamless car service between venues and the best seats at the most in-demand events," a Times reporter described in the summer of 2024.

    LAist reached out to On Location via email, requesting an interview on the services they provide and their workforce. The company didn't respond.

    Isaac Martinez, a cook at SoFi Stadium who lives in Inglewood, said he's still waiting to learn what his schedule will be for the World Cup and he's worried about his hours.

    Martinez told LAist that since World Cup prices are so high, he and his co-workers should get a slice of the pie.

    "The people that are able to afford those tickets and those suites, they're not people like us," Martinez said through an interpreter. "They're not the people that are gonna make the food or make the experience."

    The World Cup kicks off in Los Angeles on June 12 with the first U.S. men's match against Paraguay. If there's no resolution to negotiations, attendees could arrive to a picket line.

  • Sponsored message
  • State halts ambitious SoCal Gas hydrogen project
    The SoCal Gas Community Service Office in Porter Ranch. The company said its Angeles Link project would lower the amount of methane gas stored at the Aliso Canyon storage facility above the L.A. neighborhood, where the largest known methane leak in US history from the SoCal Gas facility occurred in 2015.

    Topline:

    State regulators voted Thursday to stop Southern California Gas Co. from charging customers to help pay for planning miles of pipelines that would bring hydrogen gas to the L.A. Basin, effectively halting the effort.

    The vote: . SoCal Gas had proposed a monthly increase of $0.35 on the average residential customer bill over the course of three years to help fund the effort. The commission unanimously rejected the request, saying the company had not proved any direct benefit to customers.

    Why it matters: Hydrogen is a clean-burning fuel that experts say is likely a critical piece of the effort the cut planet-heating pollution. But it's expensive and largely untested.

    Keep reading for more details.

    State regulators voted Thursday to stop Southern California Gas Co. from charging customers to help pay for planning miles of pipelines that would bring hydrogen gas to the L.A. Basin.

    The company says the project would reduce the region’s reliance on methane gas.

    Southern California Gas estimates it would cost about $266 million to study and plan the project — called Angeles Link — and asked the state Public Utilities Commission to allow it to recover those costs through customer rates. The company had proposed a monthly increase of $0.35 on the average residential customer bill over the course of three years.

    The commission unanimously rejected the request, saying the company had not proved any direct benefit to customers. The decision effectively halts the project for now, and comes amid a stall in federal funding for hydrogen projects under the Trump administration.

    Local environmental groups involved in the community advisory process had also grown frustrated by negotiations that they said, in a letter to state regulators, “does not prioritize genuine community engagement.”

    As global pollution levels continue to climb, the commission’s decision also highlights the growing challenge of transitioning to a cleaner energy supply amid rising utility bills and open questions about the safety and true environmental cost of largely untested technology.

    Why hydrogen?

    Hydrogen is a colorless gas that is considered "clean" because it doesn’t involve carbon, which — when burned to create energy — becomes carbon dioxide, a major planet-heating gas.

    But it takes energy to produce hydrogen, and most hydrogen these days is created by burning fossil fuels. “Green” hydrogen is created by using clean energy sources like solar and wind to split water into oxygen and hydrogen.

    SoCal Gas said the Angeles Link project would prioritize green hydrogen.

    Most experts see green hydrogen as an important clean-burning fuel for hard-to-electrify industries, such as long-haul trucking and gas-fired power generation. The city of Los Angeles, for example, wants to retrofit its Scattergood Power Plant near El Segundo to burn hydrogen instead of methane gas to generate electricity.

    There are many open questions about how safe the highly-combustible gas is for proposed uses and how much water it will require to make. At the same time, extracting and burning fossil fuels for electricity and fuel also takes water — a growing problem as climate change drives longer and hotter droughts.

    Experts say, if done right, hydrogen can reduce that water intake and not have a major impact on water supplies.

    Also, burning hydrogen could actually worsen local, lung-damaging nitrogen-oxide air pollution, at least with the technology as it currently stands, according to energy researchers.

    Reactions to the decision

    SoCal Gas will now have to turn to shareholders or other sources of funding if the company wants to proceed. The company did not directly answer LAist’s questions about whether it would.

    “We continue to believe that hydrogen—including clean renewable hydrogen—can help advance California’s energy and climate goals while supporting the long‑term affordability, security and reliability of energy service for customers,” SoCal Gas spokesperson Brian Haas wrote in an email to LAist.

    Environmental groups celebrated the vote, while emphasizing they see green hydrogen playing a role in the state’s future.

    “Residential customers should not subsidize speculative infrastructure for large industrial users,” said Michael Colvin, director of the California Energy Program at Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement.

    “We look forward to working with regulators, utilities and large customers to build a credible, cost-effective strategy to cut climate pollution from sectors that are hardest to electrify,” the statement read.

  • Here are some murals you won’t want to miss
    Fans take photos beneath a new outdoor mural depicting Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani
    Fans take photos beneath a mural depicting L.A. Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, created by artist Robert Vargas on the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo.

    Topline:

    Global events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics are sure to draw thousands of new visitors wanting to get to know Los Angeles. For those interested in exploring the region’s art, here are a few murals you won’t want to miss.

    Why it matters: L.A. has been called the mural capital of the world, with its widespread collection of public art.

    Read on … for a must-see list of the area’s murals.

    Global events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics are sure to draw thousands of new visitors wanting to get to know Los Angeles.

    L.A. has a lot to offer, including its vast and varied portfolio of public art. It’s even been referred to as the mural capital of the world. So if you want to explore some of the city’s art, here are a few murals you won’t want to miss.

    Sports 

    “LA Rising” at the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo celebrates the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, depicting him in his two roles — hitter and pitcher.
    - Where to find it: 328 First St., Los Angeles

    “Blue Heaven on Earth” is a love letter to the Dodgers, depicting both Shohei Ohtani and the late Fernando Venezuela.
    - Where to find it: 1647 Blake Ave., Los Angeles

    A man on a ladder paints on a white wall. In the painting a woman with brown and blonde hair smiles while taking a bite of her gold Olympic medal. Portions of the American flag can be seen wrapped around her shoulders.
    A mural honoring Winter Olympics Gold Medalist Alysa Liu in Gardena.
    (
    Jay L Clendenin
    /
    Getty Images
    )

    California native and Olympian Alysa Liu captured the world’s attention with her figure skating in the Winter Olympics. This mural in Gardena celebrates her win.
    - Where to find it: 15532 Crenshaw Blvd., Gardena

    A tall man wears a Lakers jersey. He has his arm around a small girl who has a white basketball jersey that reads, "MAMBA." The two have angels wings behind them.
    A mural of L.A. Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna can be found outside Hardcore Fitness L.A.
    (
    Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times via Getty Imag
    /
    Los Angeles Times
    )

    “City of Angels!” pays tribute to Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gigi.
    - Where to find it: 400 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles

    Music

    Whitney Houston, Rihanna, Aaliyah, Amy Winehouse and Selena are memorialized on this Hollywood mural.
    - Where to find it: 7677 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 

    “Jazz on the field” is an ode to Wrigley Field and the Dunbar Hotel in South L.A. and depicts jazz icons Louis Armstrong and Etta James, as well as Martin Luther King Jr.
    - Where to find it: 43rd St. and Grand Ave., Los Angeles

    When Kendrick Lamar featured Tam’s Burgers in his “Not Like Us” music video, the burger spot in Compton commissioned a mural highlighting the rapper’s unforgettable single.
    - Where to find it: 1201 Rosecrans Ave, Compton

    Historic to LA

    A mural depicts crowds of people protesting outside a yellow multi-story building.
    A section of the Great Wall of Los Angeles mural, designed by muralist Judy Baca, that showcases pivotal moments in Los Angeles History.
    (
    Ashley Balderrama
    /
    LAist
    )

    “The Great Wall of Los Angeles” is one of the largest murals in the world, and it’s supposed to get bigger. The half-mile art piece depicts California’s rich history.
    - Where to find it: Along the L.A. River in the San Fernando Valley, on Coldwater Canyon Avenue between Burbank Boulevard and Oxnard Street. 

    “The Blessing of the Animals” at La Placita Olvera depicts the Catholic tradition of blessing one’s animals.
    - Where to find it: 115 Paseo De La Plaza, Los Angeles

    “El Grito” depicts a scene that sparked Mexican independence from Spanish rule.
    - Where to find it: Placita de Dolores at 831 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles

  • One burrito. A lot of feelings
    A lomo saltado burrito cut in half with spicy mayo being poured over the cross-section, revealing wok-fired steak, beans, peppers and rice inside.
    The lomo saltado burrito at Merka Saltao in Culver City, served with your choice of homemade sauce.

    Topline:

    Alonso Franco and Ignacio Barrios, two lifelong friends from Lima, opened Merka Saltao in Culver City in August 2025, with a simple mission: to bring Peruvian food to everyday American diets through a fast-casual format built around lomo saltado — Peru's most iconic dish. Then a viral storm blew up.

    Why it matters: Peruvian cuisine has long punched below its weight in the U.S. despite being one of the most complex and biodiverse food cultures in the world. Franco and Barrios are betting that accessibility — not exclusivity — is the key to changing that, offering bowls starting at $13.60 in a neighborhood where Erewhon and Cava are the competition.

    Why now: A lomo saltado burrito on their menu sparked an online backlash from self-described Peruvian purists who accused the owners of "Mexicanizing" their heritage — igniting a broader debate about authenticity, fusion and who gets to define what a cuisine can become. The controversy, which spilled from Instagram onto Reddit, ultimately drove more customers through the door than any marketing campaign could have.

    What's next: Franco says the restaurant is roughly breaking even and he has his eyes on a second location. For now, he's focused on making Merka Saltao a fixture in Culver City — one burrito, bowl or salad at a time.

    When you take a bite of the lomo saltado burrito from Merka Saltao, a fast-casual Peruvian restaurant in Culver City, one of the first things you'll notice is the sauce.

    The wok-fried chunks of steak, dressed in a soy-and-oyster sauce reduction spiked with vinegar, saturate the rice inside the tortilla, highlighting the sweet heat of ají amarillo mixed with the velvety texture of pinto beans.

    It's a beautiful confluence of flavors. It is also, depending on who you ask, either a creative act of evolution or a betrayal of Peruvian culinary heritage.

    Standing on business

    The lomo saltado burrito at Merka Saltao wasn't exactly a calculated move. Lifelong friends Alonso Franco and Ignacio Barrios — who met in high school in Lima — came to Los Angeles to bring Peruvian food to the masses, first through a ghost kitchen concept they ran from 2021 to 2023. The burrito happened almost by accident: a member of their kitchen team brought in a tortilla one day, someone suggested wrapping the lomo saltado in it, they ate it, and within three days, it was on the menu.

    Merka Saltao co-founders Ignacio Barrios, left, and Alonso Franco, right, both with a light skin tone stand in front of a painted mural of a llama wearing glasses against an orange and white tiled wall inside their Culver City restaurant.
    Merka Saltao co-founders Ignacio Barrios, left, and Alonso Franco, right, inside their Culver City restaurant. The two lifelong friends from Lima opened the fast-casual brick-and-mortar location for their Peruvian concept in August 2025.
    (
    Courtesy Merka Saltao
    )

    The data from the ghost kitchen made the case for keeping it there. Franco and Barrios had launched with around 140 dishes — lomo saltado, ceviche, chicken dishes, the works. But the numbers kept pointing to the same thing: wherever lomo saltado appeared on the menu, in whatever form, burrito, bowl, salad, it was the winner.

    (Ceviche, for all its cultural cachet, is raw fish with raw onion — a harder sell for a weekday lunch. Lomo saltado, Franco noted, is steak and fries — basically a hamburger.)

    The backlash

    The two friends made the leap to brick-and-mortar in August 2025, opening Merka Saltao in downtown Culver City. It's one of the more competitive dining corridors in L.A., the kind of block that can support a $16 wellness bowl and a craft beer bar in the same stretch, populated by Amazon employees on lunch breaks, families on weekend outings, and food-literate regulars who will absolutely have opinions about what goes in a burrito.

    Those opinions arrived faster than Franco expected. Within the first week of opening, an influencer came in and posted about the restaurant — but instead of showing the full menu, the bowls, the chicha morada, the flexibility of the concept, they showed the burrito. Just the burrito.

    A man with a light skin tone, the Merka Saltao co-founder Alonso Franco works a large wok over an open flame in the restaurant's kitchen.
    Franco working the wok at Merka Saltao. The high-heat wok technique at the heart of lomo saltado traces its roots to Chinese immigrants in Peru
    (
    Christopher Mortenson
    /
    Courtesy Merka Saltao
    )

    The comments turned quickly. "No! Peruvians don't eat burritos. ¿Qué car—o es eso?" — roughly, "what the hell is this?" — wrote one commenter. Another said "Burritos? We don't eat burritos in 🇵🇪”. Franco describes sitting at his computer reading the pile-on, feeling something between anger and devastation. "There was a moment where I probably even cried," he said, "thinking, I've made a mistake." But then he looked at the numbers. 30,000 had seen the post…. And half the comments were in his defense.

    He took the conversation to Reddit, posting to r/FoodLosAngeles asking the community directly: am I wrong for this? The response was overwhelming — hundreds of comments, almost entirely in his favor, and a surge of new customers walking through the door shortly after.

    Fusion by default

    This is Los Angeles, where many of the dishes that define the Southern California diet were born precisely from cultures colliding. Roy Choi built an empire on Korean tacos. Al pastor traces its technique to Lebanese immigrants who brought the vertical spit. The California roll, invented by Japanese chefs in Los Angeles in the 1960s, introduced an entire country to sushi. None of these dishes destroyed the traditions they borrowed from. If anything, they expanded their audience. And the lomo saltado burrito isn't exactly a novel concept in Southern California to begin with — everyone from Pablitos Tacos in North Hollywood to Le Hut in Santa Ana, run by 2025 James Beard Award-nominated chef Daniel Castillo, has featured their own version. Even Disney's California Adventure got in on it, serving a lomo saltado burrito out of the Studio Catering Co. food truck as recently as last year.

    A lomo saltado bowl with wok-fired steak, tomatoes, onions and rice sits alongside a lomo saltado burrito served in its container, with a side of french fries and yellow chili sauce at Merka Saltao in Culver City.
    The lomo saltado bowl and burrito at Merka Saltao in Culver City — two versions of the same dish that sparked an unlikely online debate about Peruvian culinary identity.
    (
    Courtesy Merka Saltao
    )

    Franco would also point out that lomo saltado itself — the dish the purists are so eager to protect — is a product of Chinese immigrants bringing the wok and soy sauce to Peru roughly 300 years ago. "Peruvian is by default fusion," he told me. "So we have all the right to wrap it up in a burrito." What the online critics were really doing, whether they knew it or not, was defending a dish that was itself once considered inauthentic — and doing so in the name of authenticity.

    Where things stand

    Since the backlash, Franco says business has been mostly steady — breaking even, which for a concept that requires high volume at a low price point, he considers a good sign. The controversy changed things in ways he didn't expect: people started coming in specifically because of the story, not just the food. He began putting himself front and center in the brand, regularly making videos on social media about what it's like to run the business, occasionally poking fun at himself and the whole debate. When we visited during the weekday lunch rush, there was a steady line of people waiting to order, many stopping to talk with Franco directly.

    In a way, he's answered the authenticity question not with an argument but with a presence — showing up, telling the story, letting the food speak. "Honoring my food, if that requires pairing lomo saltado with a salad or wrapping it in a tortilla, I have no problem," he said. "I'm not being less authentic. We are evolving in Peru anytime. I have to be authentic on the individual flavor and then be flexible to reach more people to discover our flavors."

    The burrito, it turns out, was never the point. It was just the door.