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Brady Bunch House Declared Official Historical Los Angeles Landmark 

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The legacy of the classic TV show “The Brady Bunch” is continuing to live on, as the Los Angeles City Council voted to designate the famous house from the sitcom as a historic-cultural monument. The Studio City Midcentury property is now officially a piece of the city’s history. 

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“Long before it became a pop‑culture pilgrimage site and backdrop for countless photo ops, the Brady Bunch House helped shape America’s vision of family life in the late 1960s and early ’70s — especially the idea of a blended family,” said Adrian Scott Fine, president of the L.A. Conservancy. 

“We’re thrilled to see it now designated as a Historic-Cultural Monument, ensuring the Brady Bunch — and their iconic home — remain part of Los Angeles’ story.”

The Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission unanimously voted to recommend the house as a landmark on January 15th. The Planning and Land Use Commission then approved the designation a month later, and sent the final decision to the City Council, according to the LA Times. 

“I look forward to seeing this memorialized in the appropriate way as part of San Fernando Valley television history,” Council member Adrin Nazarian said.

The landmark status protects the home, located at 11222 Dilling Street in Studio City, from demolition. If the owner ever wants to destroy the home, the Cultural Heritage Commission can delay the process for up to a year in order to find preservation solutions. 

The commission also will now be more heavily involved when it comes to making alterations to the property. 

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“The Brady Bunch” was actually filmed entirely in a studio, with the Studio City home working just for the exterior shots. However, its legacy was almost immediately cemented through the iconic sitcom’s popularity. 

Initially built in 1959 by architect Harry M. Londelius, the home is the perfect symbol for Southern California’s suburban, single-family charm. 

The home was owned by Violet and George McCallister for decades. The couple bought it for $61,000 in 1973, and when they passed away, their children sold it for $3.5 million in 2018. The major increase in sale price was due to an intense bidding war for the property, in which HGTV came out as the winner. 

The channel then announced a $1.9 million remodel to recreate the interiors exactly as they appeared in the show. The entire process was documented and premiered as a four-part miniseries called “A Very Brady Renovation.”

The end result was a near exact replica of the Brady home, including a floating staircase, orange kitchen counters, and so much more. The crew also added 2,000 square feet to the back of the home to make room for the bedrooms, and added a second story which is hidden from the street by lowering the foundation a foot, LA Times reports. 

Now, the home and show will live on in its legacy as a historical monument.

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Los Angeles Planning To Host The Most Sustainable Olympics Yet For 2028 Summer Games

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Los Angeles, California will be hosting the 2028 Summer Olympic Games. In the most recent Summer Games, hosted in Paris, there were major strides made in sustainability and protecting the environment while holding the world’s most anticipated athletic competition. 

Throughout the Paris Olympics, the total CO2 emissions equated to 1.59 million tons, which is less than half of the average emissions at both the London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 Games, according to reports from Forbes Magazine. 

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Becky Dale, the Vice President of Sustainability for Los Angeles 2028 said that they’re ready and willing to try to become even more green than the Paris Games, which have become the new standard for sustainability. 

“It’s the great thing about the sports industry: everyone wants to win, including sustainability. Every time you host, you want to up the ante.”

Dale cited the 2028 Game’s Impact and Sustainability Plan, which outlines how the city is committed to reducing waste, utilizing materials that can be put back into the community. 

Nurit Katz, UCLA’s Chief Sustainability Officer, collaborated with Dale to give a presentation on how they plan on making the Games greener than ever. The two presented the plan at the Energy Innovation Conference at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. 

LA 2028 also released an Impact and Sustainability Plan, “a structured document laying out how organizers plan to maximize the Olympic’s sustainability potential,” Blythe Lawrence for Forbes wrote.

One of the biggest aspects of this plan is that LA is not planning to build any new venues for hosting the event. This is major because the last time the Olympics took place without any new construction being built beforehand was London in 1948. 

The sustainability plan wrote: “[LA was] built for large, live-scale events, from the Grammys and the Academy Awards to the FIFA World Cup and the Super Bowl. With the region’s abundance of existing world-class stadiums and arenas ready to host the Games today, athletes at the 2028 Games will have access to exceptional fields of play and fans will enjoy unbeatable spectating.” 

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This automatically sets LA up for being much greener than previous Olympic Games. Not only will there be a reduction of carbon emissions from the lack of construction, but it entails that every competition venue will take place within a 35-mile radius of downtown LA, so transport around from the Olympic village to each venue won’t take as much energy/emissions. 

Dale went on to explain that almost all of the materials used for the Games will be reused in some way after the Olympics are over. 

“The target is to have 90% of materials used for temporary infrastructure reused or recycled. LA will rely on a combination of rentals, buybacks, and donations to ensure reuse of as much material as possible,” she stated. 

The plan also noted that the electricity used to power venues will be fully renewable by using the grid to reduce the Games’s carbon emissions. 

Dale stated that the organizers will be enhancing public transit to motivate fans to to take it from one venue to another. 

“Our big challenge is how do we make public transportation the most attractive option for people coming to the Games? Ultimately people are creatures of free will, but there are ways to create incentives and smooth the path so we can make it a more desirable option,” she said. 

Katz also discussed at the conference that the Olympics going green doesn’t necessarily mean that the planning and implementation of the new sustainable measures will be more expensive than the average cost of putting on the Games. 

“There’s very much a myth that going green or being sustainable always has to cost more. Some of our initiatives, especially around energy efficiency or around reducing waste, really have operational savings.”

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NBA Investigating Report Of Prohibited Clippers Endorsement Deal With Kawhi Leonard 

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The NBA announced it will be investigating the Los Angeles Clippers after a report accusing the team of orchestrating a deceptive endorsement deal to sign star forward Kawhi Leonard.

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The White House Announces Taskforce For 2028 Los Angeles Olympics 

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The White House will be creating a task force led by president Donald Trump to oversee the 2028 Olympics taking place in Los Angeles, California. The president signed an executive order to establish the task force to include JD Vance, cabinet members, and other government officials.

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According to the White House, Trump will be the chair of the task force with Vance as the vice-chair. An executive director will also oversee “daily operations.” 

“The LA Olympics is shaping up to be a wonderful moment for America. It’s going to be incredible,” the president stated. 

Los Angeles is heavily preparing for the Summer Games in three years, as the event is expected to bring in millions of people over the course of 16 days. 

The United States has hosted the Olympics eight times throughout the entire Games’ history; four times for the Summer Games and four times for the Winter Games. The last time the nation hosted the Games, however, was in 2002 for the Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the last time the US hosted the Summer Games was in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Los Angeles has been planning for the 2028 Games for years. The Los Angeles Times reported that the city has been involved in “high stakes” negotiations with the committee managing the event, LA28, over the use of city staff and police officers. 

A proposed ballot measure is also setting out to require some Olympic venues to receive approval from voters to be used. 

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LA is also working hard to combat the devastating wildfires that massively impacted the area in the beginning of the year. Recovery efforts are still ongoing and using a lot of finances for the city, creating new challenges when it comes to planning the Games. 

Additionally, LA has also been clashing with Trump and his administration over the intense immigration raids throughout the city, as well as the deployment of US troops in the city, despite multiple objections from city and state leaders. 

LA mayor Karen Bass has said that despite these troubles, the city will be ready to host the Olympics by the time 2028 rolls around, and former International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, said that LA is a “strong city” with support from the US. 

“With regard to LA, we have the full support of the president of the United States and the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles for the success of these Olympic Games,” Bach told the Associated Press earlier this summer. 

The White House task force will be responsible for streamlining “visa processing and credentialing” for participants and media, according to a statement. The order will also direct various government departments like the FBI and the Secret Service to “use every tool at their disposal” for a safe Olympics.

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FBI Offering $10 Million Reward For Information On Ex-Olympian Ryan Wedding

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United States authorities are offering a $10 million reward for information that can lead to the arrest of Ryan Wedding, a Canadian former Olympic snowboarder that’s now known as an international drug kingpin. 

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This Thursday, police in Los Angeles said that Wedding, also referred to as “El Jefe,” “Giant,” and “Public Enemy” is currently wanted for his role in a billion-dollar cross-border drug trafficking operation. He’s also wanted for several homicides that are linked to the trafficking. 

The FBI has stated that Wedding is one of the US’s top 10 most-wanted fugitives, and is likely hiding in Mexico under the protection of the Sinaloa drug cartel, according to officials.

“The increase in the reward should make it clear: there is nowhere safe for Wedding to hide,” the LAPD deputy chief, Alan Hamilton, said.

Wedding grew up in Ontario, Canada and competed for Team Canada at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic games. He places 24th in the parallel giant slalom event. 

Four years after those Games, Wedding had a search warrant against him connected to a marijuana-growing operation that was occurring in British Columbia, however, he was never charged. 

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In 2010, he was convicted for drug trafficking after he tried to buy cocaine from a US government agent, he was sentenced to four years in prison. 

At that time, Wedding worked to get the charges dismissed over claims that US authorities were committing “outrageous conduct” and used a “violent former KGB agent” as an undercover operative. 

Since 2010, Wedding has become known as a powerful transnational narcotics trafficker. Last year he was charged for leading a group that committed “cocaine trafficking and murder, including innocent civilians.”

Wedding is now known for allegedly overseeing the transportation of hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from Columbia, through Mexico, across the border into southern California, and then to Canada. “[His operations moved] five metric tons of fentanyl per month,” to US and Canadian cities, according to LA police. 

Of a list of 16 defendants that are wanted by the police in connection to this case, Wedding and another individual are still on the loose.

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Burned Lots In LA Are Now Being Sold Despite Ongoing Wildfire Concerns 

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After devastating wildfires engulfed parts of LA, the lots that once were filled with homes and businesses are now being sold for hundreds of thousands over their asking price, despite concerns over future wildfire risks.

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Los Angeles Rental Listing Sites Are Combatting Price Gouging From Renters Amid Destructive Wildfires 

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“If you’re one of these people who have engaged in price gouging, not only do you need to stop it immediately, I would strongly recommend that you go back and fix it, go back and refund the amount that you have overcharged people.”

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Los Angeles Mansion Named ‘The One’ Could Become The Most Expensive Home Sold In The US At $295 Million 

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The One is a mansion in Bel-Air that was once valued at $500 million. Now, the megamansion is being sold for $295 million and will be available on the open market until it’s auctioned off from February 28th to March 3rd. Concierge Auctions is the online auction marketplace responsible for the listing. 

The home will be sold without reserve, which essentially means the highest bidder gets the house. Even if it sells close to the listing price, it will likely break US real estate records. Currently billionaire Ken Griffin’s $238 million New York penthouse holds the record as the most expensive US home ever sold when it was purchased back in 2019.  

The One took more than 10 years to build and bring to life. Nile Niami developed the property, however, after his development company, Crestlloyd, filed for bankruptcy last year, the home has been redirected to auction as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. The home still has about 12 months of work left, meaning the buyer will have to put down around $340,000 as a deposit. 

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Aaron Kirman of Compass and Branden and Rayni Williams of The Beverly Hills Estates are partnering with Concierge Auctions to market the home:

“As the real estate community knows, there are a very limited number of $300 million homes and it often takes one to five years to sell ultra high-end mega mansions. An auction is the best way to sell the home in a specific period of time. The team is open to receiving offers prior to the auction, based on price and terms. It is highly probable that the auction will happen in order for buyers to compete to own the world’s ultimate estate,” Kirman explained. 

The One is one of the largest homes ever built. It’s twice the size of the White House at 105,000 square feet on a property of over 3.8 acres. Outside of the property there;s a moat of water covering three sides of the home, five pools, a 10,000 square foot deck, and a 400-foot outdoor running track. 

“What we have learned from the pandemic is that a home is one of the most important aspects of life. The property provides an extravagant life, where one doesn’t need to leave their home.”

“It has everything one can imagine, including five swimming pools; a wellness center with a juice bar; large salon and spa; game rooms; bars; bowling alley; a full-size theater; golf simulator;  rooftop; cigar lounge;  a charity pavilion or special event space; and numerous other astonishing amenities,” Kirman says. 

The home has 21 bedrooms, 42 full bathrooms, and seven half bathrooms. Within the home there is artwork that has been custom curated from artists Mark Fields, Stephen Wilson, and Simoe Cenedese. 

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“The One earns its moniker because a home of this size and magnitude simply can never be built again due to anti-mansionization laws that were passed in Los Angeles during The One’s construction. To have 3.8 acres at the top of Bel-Air with unobstructed 360-degree views from every single room is unparalleled,” says co-listing agent Branden Williams. 

The home also includes a putting green, 10,000 bottle wine cellar, tennis court, and night club. 

“The private gala event space with 360-degree views of the city and floating pod seating was an important vision to realize for the developer. He envisioned a home that would be the buyer’s own private resort and have the ability to host the world’s top philanthropists for charity events without ever leaving your estate. It’s obvious why the home holds value, but in a time when metaverse real estate is in the conversation, there’s something to be said about the importance of physical property,” Williams says. 

“These virtual assets have a value based on how much a consumer is willing to pay backed by a specific commodity, typically money, gold, property, etc.,” Kirman says. 

“Real property is an indefinite necessity with proven market values over time, so buying one of the most unique properties ever built in Los Angeles is an investment that cannot be quantified and will be worth it. Comfort is an invaluable resource, so purchasing a property with virtually every amenity available is impossible to quantify since it has never been done before. Supply and demand helps determine something’s value and this is one of one. The supply couldn’t be more limited.”

The home is expected to sell without reserve by March 3rd.

Covid Outbreaks Among Unvaccinated LA County Children Linked To School Sports

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Health officials in Los Angeles County are reporting an increased spread of Covid-19 among unvaccinated children. As of right now, the officials are mainly connecting the increase to the start of school sports.

Barbara Ferrer, LA County’s Health Director, held a media briefing last week in which she called the initial increases in infections among unvaccinated children “somewhat sobering.” 

“While coronavirus case rates amongst almost all other age groups in the county declined in recent weeks, cases among unvaccinated children rose from 73 per 100,000 in May to 307 cases per 100,000 by August 14th.”

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“Though it’s still low, the COVID-19 hospitalization rate for unvaccinated children is also much higher than the virtually nonexistent hospitalizations among vaccinated children. We anticipate an upward trend in outbreaks as our schools have reopened, but we’re continuing to work hard to prevent, investigate, and manage them as they happen,” Ferrer said.

Between August 16th and August 22nd there were 3,186 new Covid cases reported at K-12 schools, according to the county health department. A large portion of those cases have come from the LA Unified School District, where children are required to be tested weekly. 

LA County has been reporting three Covid-19 outbreaks a week, and each outbreak impacts dozens of students. Ferrer claims that of the 14 school outbreaks the county saw this month about half could be directly tied to school sports. 

Between July 30th and August 20th there were nine different outbreaks among high school dance and cheerleading teams that involved 131 students. Ferrer says that these outbreaks were tied to multi-day indoor camps “which took place outside L.A. County and brought together students from different schools that each abided by different masking policies,” she added.

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The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that LA County cancel all high-risk sports and extracurricular activities, or hold them virtually. However, LA County is seeming to ignore that advice.

As of right now, LA County is relying on masking, quarantine, and testing policies in its schools among students and faculty. Ferrer did say that the county would be changing its guidance to require a negative Covid-19 test from all athletes and staff members within 72 hours of competition. 

“Masks are also required for all participants indoors, regardless of vaccination status. And the county has also been encouraging schools to move practices and games outdoors whenever feasible, and reduce capacity indoors. I do join with you in wishing that it was a lot simpler, and that rules didn’t need to change, but the virus has changed, and we all need some flexibility to adapt to this more dangerous variant,” Ferrer said.

At LAUSD, 6,500 students had to miss school during the first week due to Covid-19 outbreaks. If an unvaccinated student gets infected, the district’s current policy states that the student must quarantine for 10 days, or seven days if they test negative six days after exposure and have no symptoms.  

Currently, only children aged 12 and up can get vaccinated against COVID-19. L.A. County or other city sites make it easier for residents to get the shot without an appointment.

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Los Angeles Reinstates Mask Mandate As Delta Variant Cases Continue To Rise 

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Los Angeles County has reinstated its indoor mask mandate this weekend due to the continued spreading of the Delta variant of the Covid-19 virus. The reinstatement also comes just one year after Governor Gavin Newsom initially instated an order that closed down most schools in LA County. 

On July 17th 2020, Newsom issued health and safety guidelines that closed down all schools unless a certain list of criteria were met for in-person learning. Exactly one year later on the same date, he reinstated the mask mandate. 

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A majority of California’s public and private k-12 schools had to close, and many critics called out the government for neglecting families that rely on support provided by schools; specifically working parents. 

Reopen California Schools is a social media movement that has spoken out about the disruptions to social development that these children are enduring due to a lack of organization from the government in regards to schooling during the pandemic. 

“Newsom’s decision to close our schools will go down as one of the darkest times in California and U.S. history, as other ‘special interests’ were taken into consideration over children.”

Republican assemblyman Kevin Kiley, who is running in the recall election to replace Newsom this fall, said that Newsom’s school shutdowns did a lot of harm that many don’t even realize. 

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“Today is the one year anniversary of Gavin Newsom’s school shutdown order. You’d be hard-pressed to find any action by any governor that did more harm or for worse reasons.”

Los Angeles County Officials announced last week that they would be reviving the requirement to wear masks in all public settings regardless of vaccination status due to a “rapid rise in Delta variant cases.” 

According to LA County data, the 7-day daily average positivity rate is at 3.17%; about 1,000 new cases a day. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently confirmed that Delta variant cases were on the rise all throughout the US, and that more serious mask mandates should be enforced nationally. 

The CDC reported that the most recent seven-day moving average of daily new cases for the Delta variant in the US is 26,306. This marks a nearly 70% increase when compared to the previous seven-day average (15,541).