Today's headlines:
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Today's headlines:
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts to get The L.A. Report delivered to you twice on weekdays, with special editions on Saturday and Sunday.
Topline:
Flask & Field, a downtown L.A. wine and spirits shop, has become a go-to for free natural-wine tastings.
Background: Former entertainment lawyer Miriam Yoo opened in 2018 and has gone through many reinventions. Yoo pivoted to an online storefront and a COVID-safe outdoor booth when foot traffic vanished early in the shutdown. She's since leaned into the fast-growing nonalcoholic category, expanding into de-alcoholized wines and botanical spirits as demand climbed.
Life’s all about taking risks, and sometimes a single bold choice can change everything. Just ask Miriam Yoo. Eight years ago, she traded her successful career as an entertainment lawyer to pursue her entrepreneurial dream and launch Flask & Field, a wine and spirits shop.
Since then, she’s never looked back. “It’s all of the things that a job could be and so many things that I could never have expected to experience,” Yoo told The LA Local.
Nearly a decade later, Flask & Field has become a downtown L.A. go-to destination for wine hangs, the point of the day where Yoo and her staff offer complimentary pours during select hours.
At Flask & Field, visitors are instantly transported into Yoo’s dreamscape of spirits, wines and nonalcoholic bottles with custom-made tags that are ever so thoughtfully detailed and creatively amusing. At every corner, you’ll find a selection of gifts like artisanal chocolates, specialty teas and mixology tools, as well as quirky finds like a pickle wine stopper or an olive hair clip.
For customers looking to shop and unwind late in the day, Yoo and her staff uncork two or three new bottles from Thursday to Friday between 4 and 6 p.m. She calls these “natural wine happy hours,” where they talk about the wines, share opinions and offer samples while chatting with customers.
On Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m., the tasting events are more structured. Brand representatives and winemakers are there to answer customers’ questions about their products.
“It gives our partners a chance to sort of communicate directly with our customers, introduce themselves, tell them about their brand and their business,” Yoo said.
Best of all, tastings are free and include discounts on featured wines.
Flask & Field
Where: ROW DTLA, 767 S Alameda St #180, Los Angeles
Ultimately, Yoo’s goal was not just to open a wine and spirits shop but to create a space for people to hang out, chat and feel a little bit of a respite.
“It’s super rewarding,” Yoo said, “because ultimately, you’re selling things that help people enjoy their lives or gather with their friends and family.”
Yoo worked as an entertainment lawyer for nine years while she fantasized about opening a place like Flask & Field.
Yoo would picture herself in an adorable, rom-com-type scenario: a solo shopkeeper in a perfectly curated wine shop, greeting regulars with a smile and savoring whimsical moments.
In 2018, Yoo’s dream of opening her own brick-and-mortar shop had finally become a reality, but it wasn’t a rom-com. It was actually a lot of hard work, she said. She had to struggle to stay afloat especially during the early days of the pandemic. But that rough time forced her to constantly evolve.
During the shutdown, for example, Yoo and her team pivoted to having an online storefront; sales skyrocketed. In-person foot traffic halted, but they found a way to meet new and regular customers by setting up a small, COVID-safe booth, so there was still a shopping presence for those visiting Flask & Field.
That spirit of constant evolution is still part of the way Yoo does business. To keep up with the latest in craft beers, mezcals, soju, whiskey, wines and more, Yoo and her team set up meetings with buyers to collaborate, organize weekly tastings and forge relationships with small businesses.
They regularly use Instagram to post about alcoholic drinks and non-spirits, as well as flyers. Currently, they are creating social media videos where they show off new bottles, give insight into where they come from and share their honest reviews.
“Knowledge is the currency. We want to just know everything that’s out there and how it’s tasting this season,” Yoo said.
Part of that currency is getting to know their customers, especially their views on certain brands.
“Something that we noticed was that the younger generation, in general, cares more about farming practices, labor practices and price point. That’s also very important,” she said.
In 2021, Yoo saw growing interest in alcohol-free beers and wines, as more people traded hangovers for deliciously vibrant zero-proof crafted beverages as a healthy alternative. As demand grew, Yoo embraced innovation and expanded her selection to include botanical spirits and de-alcoholized wines.
“The brands have done such a good job being creative, and the products now are so much better than they were in 2021,” Yoo said.
Topline:
COVID hasn't forgotten about us. The good news is the virus is still at very low levels.
Why it matters: The virus is spreading the most again in the South and West, but is also on the rise in the Northeast and Midwest.
But hold: So far this summer's wave seems to be continuing the trend of getting milder each year, sending fewer people to the hospital and causing fewer deaths.
Hantavirus. Ebola. West Nile. Measles. And, of course, cyclospora — that stomach parasite making people miserable across the country. Americans have plenty to worry about this summer.
But remember COVID-19? It may not be surprising that many people may have almost forgotten about COVID. Unfortunately, COVID hasn't forgotten about us.
"We're now in the midst of a growing summer surge of COVID here in the United States," says Dr. John Brooks, an infectious disease doctor at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., who used to work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "I think most of us kind of feel like it's fading away and are certainly very grateful for that. But nationally we're seeing it ticking up pretty much everywhere."
The virus is spreading the most again in the South and West, but is also on the rise in the Northeast and Midwest. The good news is the virus is still at very low levels. And so far this summer's wave seems to be continuing the trend of getting milder each year, sending fewer people to the hospital and causing fewer deaths.
"What we're seeing is very likely evidence of growing herd immunity, if you will," Brooks says. "More and more people have had one or more infections that give them some immunity against the virus and have had more than one vaccination, or maybe both. And all of that really has begun to offer us a lot of protection."
Now, that doesn't mean people don't have to worry about COVID at all anymore. The disease still makes lots of people feel awful for a week or two, foiling their summer vacations and forcing them to miss work and school.
And COVID can still cause serious disease for some people, sending them to emergency rooms, causing hospitalizations and even sometimes still causing death.
"COVID-19 is still dangerous, particularly for older adults, infants and people who are immunocompromised," says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. And that is a lot of Americans. "In a typical office, if you have 20 colleagues, it's likely that one or two of them have some degree of immunocompromise. So it's very common that people have risk factors that make COVID-19 dangerous."
Unlike the flu, which only surges during the winter each year, COVID sees spikes twice a year — both in the summer and winter. The reason for that remains unclear.
"It's a big mystery as far as I'm concerned. It is the only seasonal respiratory virus that has a summer season," River says. "To my knowledge, we don't know what is causing this seasonality."
Rivers says she still masks up when she's in crowded places like busy airports, and recommends that people stay up to date on their vaccines. The next shots look like a good match for the dominant strain of COVID that's circulating and should start becoming available soon.
Unlike previous years, the CDC hasn't issued updated recommendations for the vaccines because of litigation over the Trump administration's efforts to overhaul immunizations in the U.S. The administration no longer recommends that everyone aged 6 months and older routinely get an annual shot.
But major medical groups still do recommend it. And insurers have indicated they will keep covering vaccines. The shots are likely to remain available for free through government programs like the Vaccines for Children program.
Public health experts worry that conflicting messages will cause confusion, discouraging people from getting another shot.
"The message is that COVID vaccine and flu vaccine will be available, they're covered by insurers, they're recommended by medical societies. People should get them and get them for their kids," says Clare Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers, which advocates for immunization programs.
There's also even a new drug, called Xocova, that people can take right after they've been exposed to the virus to cut their chances of actually getting sick from COVID.
"It is something for people to just have in the back of their mind," Brooks says. It is expected to be a useful tool in hospitals and nursing homes when exposures happen to vulnerable people.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
The race to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as San Francisco’s representative in Congress features two Democratic candidates who both claim the title of “progressive.”
The candidates: On the one hand, there's San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who has Pelosi’s endorsement. She pitches herself as a fighter for working families who’s immune to the influence of corporate PACs. Her opponent is state Sen. Scott Wiener, a fierce advocate for LGBTQ rights who made national headlines for a bill to unmask ICE agents”
Why it matters: The major fault line? Housing and urban development.
Progressives across the country are undeniably having a moment.
Voters are rallying behind populist, insurgent-left candidates like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan senate hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and Randy Villegas in California’s 22nd Congressional District.
But in the race to succeed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as San Francisco’s representative in Congress, the city’s voters are split between two Democratic candidates who both claim the title of “progressive.”
The major fault line? Housing and urban development.
San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who has Pelosi’s endorsement, is pitching herself as a fighter for working families who’s immune to the influence of corporate PACs and the deep-pocketed tech industry that supports her opponent, state Sen. Scott Wiener. She has characterized Wiener, a fierce advocate for LGBTQ rights who made national headlines for a bill to unmask ICE agents, as a “corporate Democrat bankrolled by billionaires.”
But Chan’s own legacy of thwarting housing development projects and zoning changes in her district could turn off some progressive voters, especially those new to city politics. San Francisco voters have for decades tended to oppose new building projects, favoring neighborhood preservation over additional housing.
That attitude largely contributed to the housing crisis the city now faces. Rent costs have hit a historic high as Bay Area tech workers hit the AI windfall — one recent industry report found the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment has surpassed $4,000.
“Progressivism in San Francisco has really become very tied to this identity where it doesn’t say ‘yes’ to a lot of stuff,” said Jane Natoli, a housing advocate who lives in Chan’s supervisorial district and supports Wiener.
“For whatever reason, especially on issues such as housing, San Francisco progressives have largely said ‘no.’”
In the June primary, voters chose Wiener and Chan over former Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez staffer Saikat Chakrabarti, who excited younger voters with his messages echoing those of Mamdani and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. The tech millionaire aligned with Wiener on the need to turbocharge new housing construction, yet embraced the anti-establishment, anti-corporate attitude.
“I really liked him so much because it was like a very ‘Yes, and’ approach to YIMBYism,” said Alex Vanscoy, Chakrabarti’s former field director. Now he backs Chan, who has promised not to take any corporate PAC money, saying “taking money from lobbyists is a huge issue to me.”
Wiener and Chan concur that affordability is the top issue for San Franciscans and agree the city suffers a shortage of housing across all income levels. But they differ profoundly on the role of state and federal governments in fixing the issue.
Wiener believes the state should ensure that local governments actually build new housing, rather than just promise to do so, especially cities and counties that have long resisted new construction. As a standard-bearer for the abundance and Yes in my Backyard movements, he authored legislation, eventually signed into law, that eliminated regulatory hurdles for certain building permits, pleasing both labor and developers. City officials have told the Legislature that the “streamlining” policy has shortened the average permit wait times from years to three to six months.
Chan has largely opposed new housing and development projects, saying she’s prioritizing tenants who would be displaced and small businesses that could lose business during construction. She has said that the “urban renewal” of the city’s Fillmore district from the 1950s through 1970s had detrimental effects on San Francisco’s Black community and doesn’t want the same to happen in other neighborhoods. The backlash to that urban renewal gave rise to the modern San Francisco progressive.
“I think we’re starting to see the real divide show up,” said Eric Kingsbury, a Wiener supporter and member of the San Francisco County Central Committee, the local Democratic arm. “I would really expect to see a lot of discomfort, because if you are pro-housing and you’re an otherwise progressive person, you have a candidate in this race, and it’s Scott Wiener.”
Chan, who is one of the four most left-leaning members on the San Francisco board, recently voted against moderate Mayor Daniel Lurie’s family zoning plan — a state-mandated revamp that seeks to increase density and building heights near public transit stations and on major thoroughfares. Chan previously led an effort to sue the state on the grounds that its housing requirements unfairly targeted San Francisco. She said she opposed Lurie’s plan because it didn’t include enough safeguards to prevent demolition of rent-controlled units and displacement of tenants and small businesses.
“I think for people to say that she’s anti-development is kind of ridiculous,” said Norman Yee, a former San Francisco supervisor who supports Chan. “All she wants is to make sure that number one, tenants don’t get displaced, and two, to make sure that community concerns are addressed.”
In 2021, Chan helped kill a proposal for a nearly 500-unit mixed-income development proposed for an empty parking lot a block from a BART station, prompting The San Francisco Chronicle editorial board to excoriate the then-eight progressive supervisors for sabotaging “seemingly all earnest attempts to deal with this city’s housing crisis.”
Outside of housing, Chan also railed against a plan to build an express lane for a bus route that was one of the busiest in the country prior to the pandemic, protesting the loss of parking spaces and arguing that small businesses would suffer during the construction. The city’s transit agency approved it anyway.
Chan has objected to Sacramento involvement in local planning and zoning. She argues that corporate developers and the Wall Street real estate industry have convinced lawmakers like Wiener to allow them to bypass local review and zoning regulations — an attack Wiener described as “tired” and untrue.
“We can still have accountability, we can still have environmental review and improve government efficiency at the same time,” Chan said.
Chan points to her support of a recent 98-unit affordable housing development for seniors, which she features in her campaign launch video. Chan highlighted that no existing tenants had to be displaced since it was built on the site of an abandoned funeral home.
“I always make this joke that if anybody got evicted from the site, it was a ghost from the funeral home,” Chan said.
In the video, Chan touts that she would “build real affordable housing, not the Sacramento version that destroys our neighborhoods.”
Wiener said the building, which opened last November, was made possible largely because of his Senate Bill 35, a landmark law Wiener introduced to fast-track building permits, along with close to $60 million in state funding.
“If you’re trying to make it harder and more expensive to build housing, or even impossible to build, then that’s not progressive,” Wiener said. “That’s conservative.”
It’s still unclear whether San Franciscans who supported Chakrabarti, who won about 18% of primary voters in June, will coalesce behind Chan or Wiener in November.
Housing isn’t the only issue in the race.
Wiener, who is Jewish, alienated some progressives by resisting using the word “genocide” to describe the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. After public pressure mounted following a tense candidate forum, Wiener reversed himself and explained his decision in a video on social media.
The reversal landed awkwardly at best and offended enough members of the Jewish community that he was forced to step down as chair of the Legislative Jewish caucus. Others deemed his change of heart performative and “too little, too late.” Months later, pro-Palestine hecklers berated and harassed him so aggressively at the city’s trans march that he left the event.
Wiener’s back-and-forth on the use of “genocide” has created trust issues for a lot of younger voters, said Kaizen Betts-LaCroix, another former Chakrabarti staffer who supports Chan. Betts-LaCroix said Chan’s unequivocal opposition to military aid to Israel and her rejection of corporate PAC money are main reasons they back her.
The senator and his campaign have also faced criticism for negative and mean-spirited attacks, including repeating the misleading claim that Chakrabarti lived in Maryland and a now-defunct parody AI chatbot that mimicked Chan and cheekily criticized her obstructive record on housing and other issues.
Pelosi, who has wielded her influence to boost Chan’s campaign, immediately denounced the site and rallied several high-profile Democrats, including seven female members of Congress and former Mayor Willie Brown, to join her.
“Women have spent generations fighting to have our own voices heard in the halls of power,” Pelosi declared on social media. “We should not have to now fight against artificial intelligence putting words in our mouths.”
Within days, Wiener’s campaign deactivated the site, took down the billboards promoting it and apologized for offending voters, acknowledging that the site “missed the mark.”
Topline:
Did you know Orange County was once home to one of the trippiest and perhaps the most prescient science fiction writers of the 20th century? That man was Philip K. Dick, who once called Santa Ana home.
PKD's O.C. legacy: Dick grew up and spent the majority of his days writing in the San Francisco Bay area. A professor at CSU Fullerton invited Dick in the early 70s, where he continued to write, give guest lectures and eventually donate many of his papers to the library.
A lit festival in the OC: The 4th International Philip K. Dick Festival features a wide range of talks and panels exploring everything from quantum physics and artificial intelligence to death and the afterlife in the author’s works
Read on ... to find details on how to attend.
Did you know Orange County was once home to one of the trippiest and perhaps the most prescient science fiction writers of the 20th century?
That man was Philip K. Dick, who once called Santa Ana home.
This week, the Philip K. Dick Festival will celebrate the work and honor the O.C. legacy of the sci-fi master at Cal State Fullerton.
Most stories about Philip K. Dick — or PKD as many fans refer to him — start out with a list of Hollywood adaptations of his work: Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, The Man in the High Castle... and the list goes on.
Dick’s more than 40 novels and some 120 short stories are filled with explorations of what it means to be human, untrustworthy realities and generally mind-bending narratives.
“Philip K. Dick’s novels are basically impossible to film. But he’s a big idea guy and the ideas seem to excite a lot of Hollywood producers,” said David Sandner, an English professor at Cal State Fullerton.
The Pollak Library at Cal State Fullerton houses a Philip K. Dick archive, which includes original manuscripts, correspondence and recordings of the author talking as a guest speaker in the 1970s.
“Science fiction is a world where you could be,” Dick can be heard saying on the recording. “You always feel this thin tenuous line between your world and a good science fiction novel.”
Some fans who read Dick now might feel that tenuous line disappearing more than ever. Take for instance the fictional news device known as a "homeopape" from his novel Ubik, first published in 1969. It prints out articles based on a user’s interests and allows them to dial in the specific, niche news they want to read. Sound familiar?
“He understood that the technology was going to get inside of our heads... Which is what the algorithms are doing now. Right? They’re being set and then they’re being shifted more and more to bring us under control,” Sandner said from the third floor of the Pollak Library, where the Philip K. Dick papers are stored.
Dick grew up and spent the majority of his days writing in the San Francisco Bay area. Still somewhat obscure and recovering from a self-harm incident in Vancouver, a professor at Cal State Fullerton named Willis E. McNelly invited Dick out to Orange County in the early '70s, where he continued to write, give guest lectures and eventually donate many of his papers to the library.
Patrice Prestinary, archivist and special collections librarian at the Pollak Library, said Dick’s papers have been moved to their own, more accessible spot because they are so frequently requested.
The collection of PKD-related material includes colorful 1950s and 60s-era paperbacks emblazoned with rocket ships and psychedelic visions.
But Prestinary said many researchers who come here are seeking out the more personal ephemera.
“You know, writing to his mother and talking about really ordinary things like paying bills and his cat,” she said. “Sometimes they just want to know the man behind these stories that they love.”
The man behind those stories spent the last 10 years of his life in Orange County, including at a two-bedroom apartment in Santa Ana.
During that period, Dick had some of his most trippy, spiritual experiences, including a run-in with a pink beam of light that he believed imparted transcendent wisdom.
“He himself is a character. And once you start learning about his life and the experiences that he had... It’s interesting because then his own life became like his novels,” author and Dick researcher Keith Giles told LAist. Giles will release a set of PKD-inspired novellas from seven authors at this week’s festival.
But it wasn’t just transcendental experiences — Dick was making plenty of more terrestrial friends in Orange County, too. Those include author Tim Powers, who will be part of a panel called “Phil’s Orange County Friends” on Aug. 22.
Where: Cal State Fullerton campus and the Fullerton Marriott
When: Aug. 20-23, 2026
Cost: Free
For more info and optional registration, visit the Philip K. Dick Festival website
“In a lot of ways, I think he really felt like Orange County saved his life,” said David Agranoff, author and co-host of the Dickheads podcast.
“I don’t think he felt like he could change his life if he didn’t go somewhere else,” Agranoff said, citing Dick’s struggles with substance use in the San Francisco Bay area.
Dick died in 1982, just a few months before the release of Blade Runner, which was loosely based on his novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The film skyrocketed his name into the mainstream.
“He’s this 20th century writer who’s almost more relevant today than he was then,” Agranoff, an organizer of the festival, said.
The festival features a wide range of talks and panels exploring everything from quantum physics and artificial intelligence to death and the afterlife in the author’s works.
“He wrote about all those things and it gives us a chance to talk about not just science fiction, but philosophy and politics,” Agranoff said. “And the festival becomes this way to expand out into the universe... from the view that Phil gave us.”
