On the night of September 24, 2025, Hollis Frazier-Herndon performed an acoustic rendition of his song “Eldest Child” for a sold-out crowd at USC’s Shrine Auditorium. During his croon of the lyrics, “Eldest child, eldest child, I know your momma and your daddy so goddamn proud. They don’t know me, no. They don’t know me now,” the artist known as 2hollis went from a fractured growl to a sweet silky falsetto to a full collapse into tears.
It was a moment of raw catharsis as well as a culmination. During a pre-show interview backstage, Hollis revealed the hidden meaning behind the lyrics. He said the figurative “momma and daddy” are actually his fans, whose expectations he’s glad he’s fulfilled, even though they “don’t actually know each other” in real life. Thus, a sold-out crowd enthusiastically singing back at him evoked an emotional release. In tandem with that though, is the fact that this was 2hollis’ first show in his hometown since his Altadena childhood house burned down in the January 2025 fires. The embrace from his extended community after he persevered through that tragedy and continued to ascend to musical stardom was palpable.
“I’m at a place now where I feel like, in a way, it’s sort of a phoenix situation,” Hollis said about his post-fire rise from the ashes. “The whole town burned down. It was terrible and insane. But it weirdly felt like that needed to happen [to make the new album what it is]. I don’t know, it’s hard seeing somewhere you grew up just be a deserted place.”
On the day before the release of his fourth album, “star,” in April, 2hollis posted a picture of a burnt-edged tarot card with the same title. He added a message explaining that the star card was the only thing he and his mother found intact when they returned to Altadena to assess the damage. It was also later reported by 032c Magazine that atop a tall hill behind Hollis’ family property existed a wooden and metal star statue filled with lightbulbs that would glow at night. That star, which Hollis and his childhood friends would hike up to, also burned. The album “star,” 2hollis’ best version of his signature crystalline hardstyle EDM, meets grimy rage trap, meets velvet emo pop punk, emerged directly and impactfully from the remains of the roaring flames.
At the end of the full throttle album opener “flash,” Hollis said he added recorded sounds of the wind chimes from his Altadena home porch, triggered by the Santa Ana winds in the lead up to the fire. You can also hear faint gusts and flame sounds emerge sparsely throughout the project. He let the weather itself dictate the type of immersive experience the album could be, even as it also chronicles his layered chase for notoriety and glory.
“There are a lot of self-reflective moments, and it is very personal and emotional, but it’s also like one big party,” he explained. “I feel like, in a f—ed up kind of way, that’s what a fire is, too. It’s so big and full of visceral anger and emotion and almost a sad kind of wave. But then, also, it’s lit.”
2hollis is a visual thinker, thus he envisions scenes and uses optical inspiration to craft his imaginative rave-like soundscapes. Grammy-winning producer Finneas, during a recent interview with Spotify, recalled a time in the studio with 2hollis when he described a sound he was trying to capture as “a crystal with a pretty face on it.” This is a regular practice. Backstage, he described the process of juxtaposing an RL Grime-esque intense trap drop with a synth piano inspired by the movement and presence of a porcelain Chinese lucky cat he kept in his bedroom studio at the Altadena house. This was for his song “burn” from “star,” a scorcher which also happened to be the last song recorded in his home before the flames hit.
For 2hollis’ most openly psyche’d song on the album, “tell me,” where he professes lyrics like, “Everybody I don’t know tryna know me these days I don’t even know who I am,” his mental visual for the ending electro drop is illuminating. “I always imagined heavy rain there and lightning shining on someone’s face,” Hollis said about a perhaps heroic moment linked to the fire. “And it’s also like a face-off. Maybe me versus my ego on a rainy war field at the end of ‘Squid Game.’”
2hollis often creates outlandish alternate worlds he hopes to thrust his listening audience into. “I think there’s become this thing with a lot of artists where they feel the need to be relatable,” he proclaimed questioningly. “That’s cool, but I want [to present] the fantasy of, ‘Let me listen and pretend I’m not me for a few minutes.” In a time of constantly looming shaky ground, Hollis presents escapism as mindful.
2hollis
(Sandra Jamaleddine)
2hollis, at times, appears in tandem with a white tiger. The animal bears the name of his first album and appears on stage at his shows as a large figurine that roars vehemently behind him during song transitions. As much as it feels a part of his fantastical sonic world, it is also deeply tied to his personal story.
On a follow-up call from backstage at a later show in Detroit, Hollis recalled a period of debilitating psychosis he experienced at 18 years old. He mediated and prayed to Archangels as an attempt to pull himself back together. When he invoked the spirit of the Angel Metatron, he would picture a white tiger destroying all the darkness and “demonic shit” around him. “It was wild and sounds insane, but it really helped me come out of it,” he said.
The more one speaks to Hollis, the more one realizes he embodies the Shakespearean line “All the world’s a stage.” Even in the most wholesome times in his life, as a little league baseball player and school theater kid, he would get a similar “butterfly in the stomach feeling” from the performance of it all. But by that same token, he is also someone who values solitude and garnered his appreciation for it from Altadena itself.
Hollis describes it as a place of “untouched, unscathed innocence.” A place where he could walk his dog up to the star behind his home, meditate, and look at the city of LA in the distance. “I go back there all the time even though there’s nothing there anymore,” Hollis said from Detroit about his home’s unending pull. “It’s just comforting to be there by myself. The energy that was there before didn’t die.”
That far-gone youthful time alone is where Hollis dreamed of the world he’s in now. He said, if he could, he’d say to that wide-eyed yet apprehensive kid, “Dude, you’re doing it, you were right, you knew. Now it’s beautifully harmoniously coming together.” On “tell me” 2hollis raps that he’s equal parts scared of “press,” “death,” and “judgment.” But now, with overwhelming chaos in his rearview, he proclaims, “I’m running headfirst into everything. I’m not dying. I’m not scared of sh—.”
Aug. 26 (UPI) — A man has been arrested near the White House for setting an American flag on fire shortly after President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to prosecute acts of flag “desecration.”
The Secret Service confirmed the arrest in a statement to Newsweek, stating the suspect was detained in Lafayette Park for “igniting an object” at about 6:15 p.m. EDT Monday.
The suspect was turned over to U.S. Park Police, which told NBC News that the person had violated a statute that bans fires in public parks.
In a video of the incident published on social media by The Bulwark news organization, the suspect identified himself as a 20-year combat veteran who said he was burning the flag “as a protest to that illegal fascist president that sits in that House.”
The arrest came hours after Trump signed an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to “prioritize” enforcing the nation’s criminal and civil law “against acts of American flag desecration.”
The order does not explicitly make American flag burning illegal, which the Supreme Court has ruled is protected by the Constitution, but says that burning “this representation of America may incite violence and riot.”
During the signing ceremony in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump claimed American flags are being burned “all over the country.”
He also mentioned the 5-4 Supreme Court decision of 1989 that found flag burning is a form of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment, but seemingly disregarded it, stating people “go crazy” when a flag is burned.
“If you have hundreds of people, they go crazy. You can do other things. You can burn this piece of paper,” he said, gesturing toward a piece of paper on his desk.
“But when you burn the American flag, it incites riots at levels that we’ve never seen before. People go crazy in both ways. There are some that are going crazy for doing it. There are others that are angry, angry about them doing it.”
Trump signed the executive order as some 2,000 National Guardsmen have been deployed to Washington, D.C.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
The U.S. Navy’s San Antonio class amphibious warfare ship USS New Orleans suffered a fire today while it was off White Beach in Uruma City on the Japanese island of Okinawa.
A U.S. official has confirmed to TWZ that the blaze has been contained, but it is unclear at this time if it has been fully extinguished. The fire started at about 5:00 PM local time (4:00 AM Eastern), according to NHK in Japan. At the time of writing, there have been no reports of casualties, and the cause and extent of the damage remain unknown. The New Orleans is homeported in Sasebo on the Japanese home island of Kyushu to the north, and is assigned to the U.S. 7th Fleet.
A screen capture from a video showing the response to the fire aboard the USS New Orleans. NHK capture via X
“Crews are responding to a fire aboard USS New Orleans (LPD 18) this evening, Aug. 20, (Japan Time), which is in the vicinity of Okinawa, Japan,” another Navy spokesperson had earlier told TWZ in a statement. “We will provide more details as they become available.”
“Smoke was confirmed rising from the bow of the ship, but so far there have been no requests to evacuate the crew,” a Japanese Coast Guard official told NHK. A Navy spokesperson confirmed to us that no evacuation order has been given.
Videos from the scene posted by NHK show two firefighting tugs located on both sides of the bow pouring water on the vessel. A Navy spokesperson told us the tugs were from White Beach Naval Facility in Okinawa.
Footage showing firefighting ships with the Japanese Coast Guard fighting a fire onboard the San Antonio-Class Amphibious Transport Dock, USS New Orleans (LPD-18), off the coast of Okinawa, Japan. pic.twitter.com/czcUFgvSO8
NHK reported that Japan Self-Defense Force vessels arrived to conduct firefighting efforts, and the Japan Coast Guard had also dispatched a patrol boat to the scene. A Navy spokesperson earlier told TWZ that they believed that the ship’s crew, plus the two tugs from White Beach, had been actively fighting the fire.
A stock picture of the San Antonio class amphibious warfare ship USS New Orleans. (USN)
Okinawa’s White Beach is “a staging area for Marines and their equipment based on Okinawa,” according to the Navy. “This departure point allows utility landing craft and air-cushioned landing vehicles to ferry troops, vehicles and equipment to amphibious ships pier side or at sea.”
The cause of the fire and extent of the damage will be investigated, a Navy spokesperson also told TWZ.
Update, 5:52 PM Eastern:
The U.S. 7th Fleet has now put out a statement regarding the fire aboard USS New Orleans, which it says was extinguished at approximately 4:00 AM local time on August 21. This is roughly 12 hours after the blaze began. Two crew members were treated aboard the ship for unspecified “minor injuries.” An investigation is now underway.
The full statement is as follows:
“A fire aboard the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS New Orleans (LPD 18), which is anchored near White Beach Naval Facility, Okinawa, was declared extinguished at 4 a.m., Aug. 21.
The fire began at approximately 4 p.m., Aug. 20. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.
New Orleans Sailors’ firefighting efforts were supported by the crew of the San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship USS San Diego (LPD 22), which is moored at White Beach Naval Facility.
Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force; Japan Coast Guard; and U.S. Navy commands from across Commander, Fleet Activities Okinawa also provided critical support to the firefighting efforts.
Two Sailors were taken to New Orleans’ medical for minor injuries.
New Orleans’ crew will remain aboard the ship. Additional services and berthing are available aboard San Diego and Commander, Fleet Activities Okinawa, if needed.
Thousands of firefighters, backed by soldiers and water-bombing aircraft, have battled more than 20 major wildfires raging across western Spain, where officials say a record area of land has already been burned.
Spain and neighbouring Portugal have been particularly affected by forest fires spurred by heatwaves and drought, blamed on climate change, that have hit southern Europe.
Two firefighters were killed on Sunday – one in each country, both in road accidents – taking the death toll to two in Portugal and four in Spain.
Spain’s civil protection chief, Virginia Barcones, told public television TVE that 23 blazes were classified as “operational level two”, meaning they pose a direct threat to nearby communities.
The fires, now entering their second week, are concentrated in the western regions of Castile and Leon, Galicia, and Extremadura, where thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.
More than 343,000 hectares (848,000 acres) of land – the equivalent of nearly half a million football pitches – have been destroyed this year in Spain, setting a new national record, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).
The previous record of 306,000 hectares (756,142 acres) was set in the same period three years ago.
Help from abroad
Spain is being helped with firefighting aircraft from France, Italy, Slovakia, and the Netherlands, while Portugal is receiving air support from Sweden and Morocco.
However, the size and severity of the fires and the intensity of the smoke were making “airborne action” difficult, Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles told TVE.
Across the border in Portugal, about 2,000 firefighters were deployed across the north and centre of the country on Monday, with about half of them concentrated in the town of Arganil.
About 216,000 hectares (533,747 acres) of land have been destroyed across Portugal since the start of the year.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said the country had endured 24 days of weather conditions of “unprecedented severity”, with high temperatures and strong winds.
“We are at war, and we must triumph in this fight,” he added.
Officials in both countries expressed hope that the weather would turn to help tackle the fires.
Spain’s meteorological agency said the heatwave, which has seen temperatures hit 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of the country, was coming to an end.
Two cooks talk about loss and recovery. Plus, our summer cook-along with “Chef That!” Also, advice on cooking for dogs and eating with dogs, taquito comfort and fan-service restaurants (or what Day 1 was like at the Tesla Diner). I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.
Kitchen dreams
Michelle Huneven in her Altadena kitchen before it was destroyed along with the rest of her home in the Eaton fire.
(Shelby Moore/For The Times)
The most beautiful kitchen I ever cooked in was far from perfect. It was built into one of six Pasadena apartments that in the 1920s had been carved out of a Victorian mansion designed by Frederick Roehrig, the architect behind Old Town Pasadena’s Hotel Green and its surviving annex, Castle Green.
The dining room and kitchen had once been a grand parlor room with a fireplace at one end and most of the original wood details still on the walls and ceiling. The kitchen’s counter curved with the arc of several windows set into the bend of one wall, with soft sunlight filtering in through the greenery planted outside.
But the stove, relocated and updated since the days Jonathan Gold and I occupied that apartment, was a finicky old thing. And the counter, so attractively placed, was too low for serious cooking. Our backs would often ache if there were too many vegetables to chop or dishes to wash.
It was a dreamy kitchen, but it wasn’t a dream kitchen. And yet, we made some of our happiest meals there.
There are cooks I know who have had dream kitchens, spaces that were designed just for them and functioned according to their specific cooking needs.
Ruth Reichl, author and former restaurant critic and editor, says she designed her U-shaped kitchen to fit her body and the open floor plan of the home she and her husband, Michael Singer, share in New York’s Columbia County. With expansive views of the upper Hudson Valley, it’s inviting but also intimate in its footprint; no more than two or three steps are required to reach most of her appliances and tools. During parties, Reichl is easily able to roll out pie dough while catching up with early-arriving guests and there is lots of counter space around the U for setting out platters of food that always tempt some hungry person before it’s officially time to eat.
Closer to home, I was lucky enough to be invited many times to the Altadena home of Michelle Huneven, novelist and food writer (often for this paper), and Jim Potter, an attorney specializing in environmental law and an accomplished bread baker. From big, crowded Seders at Passover to weekday soup meals, always with something wonderfully sweet at the end, I watched their modest cooking space expand and evolve into a beautiful, functional and comfortable modern space with a dining table at the center of the room that allowed guests to watch the interplay of two excellent cooks at work.
“I had a little 1,000-square-foot house, and when Jim and I married, that was fine for a while,” Huneven said recently in the Times Test Kitchen. “Then he began to bake bread. And very shortly, everything in my little kitchen was covered with bread glue. I was like, ‘We need a bigger kitchen.’ Before we knew it, we’d designed a great big freestanding kitchen. I’m short, so in the place of overhead cabinets, we had windows out to our garden. He had his breadmaking area; I had my cooking area. We each had a sink. He had his own oven. And he had his own dishwasher. Praise the Lord.”
Cookbook author Molly Baz‘s dream kitchen in Altadena was one I never saw in person but I interacted with it virtually through her “Hit the Kitch” video series and Instagram feed.
“My home kitchen was also my place of work,” Baz said, sitting alongside Huneven in the Times Test Kitchen. “My husband, [Ben Willett], designed the space as the heart of the home. It was an expansive space that was a hanging-out living room, lounge, bar, kitchen, all in this one large room. We designed the kitchen very intentionally to be the anchor of like everything I do, the place where I would shoot my cookbooks and all of my content, where I would develop all of my recipes. So we decided to do it all butter-colored, and it was just this beautiful monochromatic, creamy butter-yellow-colored dream.”
Food personality Molly Baz in her butter-yellow Altadena kitchen before her house was destroyed by the Eaton fire.
(PEDEN + MUNK)
As you’ve undoubtedly surmised by now, both Huneven and Baz lost their Altadena homes — and their dream kitchens — in the Eaton fire.
“We evacuated to a friend’s house about 4:30 in the morning with another couple who lived much closer to Eaton Canyon,” Huneven said. “When they learned that their house had burned, I found that so shocking that I just sat there with my hands over my mouth for about, I don’t know, 15 minutes. I just couldn’t absorb it. Then, at about 8 o’clock, Jim decided to drive up to our house. He later told me he’d known even before he drove up because he controlled the sprinklers and the solar panels from his phone, and nothing was responding. When he called me to say it was gone, he sent a picture of the house on the corner still burning with flames coming out of the windows, not a fire truck in sight. I was preconditioned for the loss, because I’d already reacted to one home burning down. I didn’t cry until 48 hours later.”
Baz’s story is similar. “I evacuated earlier, at 7:30 p.m., because some friends and neighbors had seen the fire, and it was creeping closer and closer,” she said. “We never got a notice, but we decided, let’s get out of here. Throughout the night, we were refreshing our phones, watching the map get populated with new homes that had burned. But the whole night, I was under the impression that my house had somehow by the grace of God gotten skipped because of this map. In the morning, my husband wanted to go to the house just to triple check and so, he got in the car and drove nervously up there. I got a call about 30 minutes later and he was just in tears. He was like, ‘There’s nothing left.’ ”
Molly Baz and Michelle Huneven in conversation at the Los Angeles Times Test Kitchen.
(Catherine Dzilenski / For The Times)
“One of the things that I wanted in the kitchen was a sofa,” Huneven said, “so we had this beautiful, long window seat with big welted cushions. Every morning we would wake up and drink our tea and coffee there with the dog and look out into the garden and get ready for the day.”
“We also had a sitting area where we would start the day,” Baz said. “We had a built-in couch that my husband designed, the first coffee table he ever made, and a chaise longue, which didn’t really have a use until I had my son 10 months ago. It became the perfect place to nurse. I would have my coffee and nurse him on the chaise longue every morning. It was just kind of a perfect place.”
After the fire, neither Huneven nor Baz felt much like cooking.
“I rebelled,” Huneven said. “I didn’t cook for two months. Or, rather, I cooked like two dinners, and it was the same dinner where I stuck a bunch of cherry tomatoes on a sheet pan, boiled some pasta and that was it, with maybe some burrata. I don’t even remember how we ate. I mean, I say I wasn’t traumatized, but it really was a blur.”
“I didn’t cook for a while either,” Baz said. “I got back into the kitchen to finish a recipe I was working on the day of the fire. It was a savory egg quiche, but treated like a burnt Basque cheesecake, cooked at a really high heat, a crustless quiche. I thought about taking it with me when we evacuated, but I expected I’d be back the next day. One of the the last things I said before I left was, ‘Damn, I just wish the quiche was a little more burnt.’ Because I had this vision of a really burnished exterior. And so later the quiche got burnt. Once I pulled myself together enough to think about food, that’s the next thing I made. It was really comforting and cathartic. I made everyone leave the kitchen and was like, ‘I’m cooking. I need to be alone.’ So it was a bit of a therapy session for myself. And yeah, the quiche was delicious.”
Molly Baz with a just-baked batch of her pistachio brown butter and halva chocolate chunk cookies at the Los Angeles Times Test Kitchen.
(Catherine Dzilenski / For The Times)
Both Baz and Huneven are now living in different rental homes in Echo Park while they figure out the logistics of rebuilding.
“So much of cooking is a graceful dance,” Baz said, “and I felt so ungraceful for the first three weeks that it made me not want to cook. I’ve gotten over that hump, and I think I’m regaining my muscle memory in this new space now. I feel like I can cook and not fumble around.”
“We moved into a completely empty house, nothing in the drawers. We had a couple of camping pans that had been in the trunk of our our truck. But one of the things that was so amazing is that we landed in a sea of generosity. I’m not wearing any clothes that I bought. They’re all gifts. And people furnished our kitchen with a house-warming party, but it was really a kitchen warming.
“The incredible kindness and generosity of people, that’s a gift I never anticipated,” Huneven continued. “It’s also really lessened the trauma. Because, you know, it’s stuff, and it can be replaced. Houses can be rebuilt. Somebody said to me, ‘This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you.’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s not.’ You know, the loss of people that I’ve loved, some bad breakups in my youth. Now those were bad. This was bad too, but it’s not the worst thing.”
“We lost all of the physical things,” Baz said, agreeing with Huneven. “But it highlights what you do have, which is your relationships and your community. And that becomes the most important thing in the world. My friends and my family, the people who are holding me together in all of this, are everything to me right now. All of the bulls— just washes away. You learn and understand like that living is actually about humanity and people. The rest can burn down, and you’re going to be OK.”
Newsletter
You’re reading Tasting Notes
Our L.A. Times restaurant experts share insights and off-the-cuff takes on where they’re eating right now.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
Summer cook-along
Andrew and Michelle Muñoz with beef ribs, beef rib tacos, and salsa outside the Los Angeles Times Test Kitchen.
(Catherine Dzilenski / For The Times)
Baz is just one of the cooks and chefs who have been to the Times Test Kitchen in recent weeks to meet our “Chef That!” challenge: Come up with a recipe that demonstrates chef skills and creativity but is still simple enough for an average home cook to make. Our “Chef That!” video series is ongoing, but this Sunday we’re publishing a special cook-along recipe section full of summer recipes from the chef series plus a few from cookbook authors in our “Book to Cook” video series. Among the recipes to look for, home-oven-cooked beef ribs with outdoor smoker flavor from Andrew and Michelle Muñoz of Moo’s Craft Barbecue, spicy cold mung bean noodles from 88 Club’s Mei Lin, Hailee Catalano‘s “mean, green” turkey sandwich, the egg salad sando that Father’s Office founder Sang Yoon serves at his Helm’s Bakery complex in Culver City and an incredible grapefruit cream pie from Quarter Sheets’ dessert guru Hannah Ziskin.
Dog days
Photographer Anne Fishbein’s bull terrier Ivy with dog food made from recipes by writers Carolynn Carreño and Michelle Huneven.
(Anne Fishbein / For The Times)
Los Angeles, says senior Food editor Danielle Dorsey, is ranked the nation’s most popular city to own a dog. It’s also a very good city for eating out with a dog. Dorsey put together a guide to the best dog-friendly patios to take your pup as part of our “Dog Days of Summer” collaboration with our features team. Regular contributor Carolynn Carreño explored the evolution toward human-grade dog food over the last 15 years and provides a recipe for Rufus hash, a raw dog food blend she used to make for her late dog, Rufus. It’s made with ground beef, turkey or chicken, organ meat, bone meal, steamed broccoli and steamed sweet potato. Novelist Michelle Huneven (see story above) also shares her recipe for the homemade hash she feeds her rescue dog, Tatty Jane. Like Carreño, she uses ground meat and broccoli (or spinach) but also includes peas, brown or white rice, fish oil or sardines, finely ground baked eggshells for bone health and, for the antioxidants, frozen-fresh cranberries.
The comfort of taquitos
Chef Wes Avila, left, with his father, Jose Luis Avila, in Pico Rivera in 2025.
(Wes Avila)
Chef Wes Avila‘s father, Jose Luis Avila, is a legal resident of the U.S. But he felt so fearful of being caught up in the ICE raids happening all over California that after more than 50 years in this country he recently moved to Mexico. Avila told Food reporterStephanie Breijo that when he’s missing his father he makes a version of the Durango-style caldillo, or stew, that his father used to cook.
“It connects me to him,” said Avila, who leads the kitchens at MXO and Ka’teen. “I talk to him every other day. We have a very close relationship.”
And when he’s missing his mother, who died in 1995, he makes beef taquitos, which he thinks was her favorite dish — or at least, he says, “our favorite dish for her to make when my brother, my sister and I were kids.” He shared recipes for both dishes.
Also …
The lunch line at One Piece Cafe in Little Tokyo.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
In a time of too many restaurant closures, two very different but fan-driven new restaurants are drawing big crowds. Karla Marie Sanfordtalked with diners lined up in Little Tokyo for One Piece Cafe, based on the longtime anime and manga series. “‘One Piece’ has a pretty big community,” a fan told Sanford, “and especially with the Lakers and Dodgers collaborating with One Piece, L.A. is bringing anime into their culture as well.” And on Day 1 of the Tesla Diner, reporters Lauren Ng and Stephanie Breijoshowed up at the fully electric 24-hour restaurant where they found a protester decrying Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a threat to democracy while Tesla aficionados lined up for smashburgers and more from the diner menu created by chef Eric Greenspan. Whether either restaurant will last beyond the curiosity phase remains to be seen.
The Tesla Diner.
(Lauren Ng / Los Angeles Times)
In this week’s Quick Bites, Breijo has details about the return of Ohana Superette in Silver Lake, from Eric and Miriam Park, serving “thoughtful, traditional poke”; Lasita‘s new weekend cafe Kapé, “a daytime-only Filipino cafe that riffs on meryenda culture” from Nico de Leon and Chase and Steff Valencia; the newest location in Highland Park of Sogo Roll Bar; a new Manhattan Beach branch of the Bill Addison-praised sandwich shop Bread Head; and notes on Dine LA’s two weeks of “special items and limited-run prix-fixe menus” from nearly 450 restaurants across L.A. County.
Lauren Harvey reports that the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner determined this week that popular Food Network host Anne Burrell died by suicide June 17. “Her previously recorded final season on ‘Worst Cooks,’ co-hosted with Gabe Bertaccini, is scheduled to premiere July 28.”
Piper Heath reports on In-N-Out Burger owner and Chief Executive Lynsi Snyder’s decision “to establish a corporate office in Franklin, Tenn.,” a state where there are currently no In-N-Out locations but where she plans to move her family. She also plans to shift the chain’s California offices from Irvine to Baldwin Park.
And Dee-Ann Durbin reports on Coca-Cola‘s decision to “add a cane-sugar version of its trademark cola to its U.S. lineup this fall, confirming a recent announcement by President Trump.” She notes that “Coke currently sells Mexican Coke, which is made with cane sugar, in the U.S.”
Newsletter
Eat your way across L.A.
Like what you’re reading? Sign up to get it in your inbox every week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
Rioters said to target ‘foreigners’ in Northern Ireland town following alleged sexual assault of local teenage girl.
Hundreds of masked rioters have attacked police and set homes and cars on fire in Northern Ireland’s Ballymena in the second night of disorder described as “racially motivated” by police following a protest over an alleged sexual assault in the town.
Police said they were dealing with “serious disorder” on Tuesday night in the town, located about 45km (30 miles) from the capital Belfast, and urged people to avoid the area.
Officers in riot gear and driving armoured vehicles responded with water cannon and firing plastic baton rounds after being attacked with Molotov cocktails, steel scaffolding poles and rocks that rioters gathered by knocking down nearby walls, the Reuters news agency reports.
One house was burned out and rioters attempted to set a second home alight, according to reports, while several cars were set on fire.
The Belfast Telegraph newspaper said that some residents in Ballymena have started to mark their front doors to indicate their nationality to avoid attack, while Irish media outlets report that a call has gone out for protests to be held in other towns and cities in Northern Ireland, currently part of the United Kingdom.
Police vehicles are parked as flames rise during a second night of riots, in Ballymena, Northern Ireland, on June 10, 2025 [Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters]
During earlier violence on Monday, four houses were damaged by fire and windows and doors were smashed in other homes and businesses, in what police said they are investigating as racially-motivated hate attacks.
“The terrible scenes of civil disorder we have witnessed in Ballymena again this evening have no place in Northern Ireland,” the UK’s Northern Ireland minister, Hilary Been, said in a post on social media.
“There is absolutely no justification for attacks on PSNI [Police Service of Northern Ireland] officers or for vandalism directed at people’s homes or property,” he said.
Unrest first erupted on Monday night after a vigil in a neighbourhood of Ballymena where an alleged sexual assault occurred on Saturday. The trouble began when people in masks “broke away from the vigil and began to build barricades, stockpiling missiles and attacking properties”, police said.
Two teenage boys, charged by police with the attempted rape of a teenage girl, had appeared in court earlier in the day, where they had asked for a Romanian interpreter, local media reports said.
Tensions in the town, which has a large migrant population, remained high throughout Tuesday, with residents describing the scenes as “terrifying” and telling reporters that those involved were targeting “foreigners”.
“This violence was clearly racially motivated and targeted at our minority ethnic community and police,” Northern Ireland Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson said.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said it was investigating “hate attacks” on homes and businesses and that 15 officers were injured in the rioting on Monday, including some who required hospital treatment.
Cornelia Albu, 52, a Romanian migrant and mother-of-two who lives opposite a house targeted in the attacks, said her family has been “very scared”.
“Last night, it was crazy, because too many people came here and tried to put the house on fire,” Albu, who works in a factory, told the AFP news agency.
She said she would now have to move, but was worried she would not find another place to live because she was Romanian.
