Portlanders took some of the culinary world’s highest honors Monday night at the 36th annual James Beard Restaurant and Chef Awards in Chicago.
Nodoguro’s Ryan Roadhouse won Best Chef: Northwest and Pacific, a category he was first nominated for in 2015, shortly after the pop-up-turned-restaurant started. Roadhouse is no stranger to the James Beard Awards garnering a staggering nine semifinalist nominations in the category over the last decade.
Roadhouse started his acceptance speech recounting his first restaurant job working as a bus boy at 17 and ended by thanking the mentors “that came before” including Vitaly Paley and Toshi Kizaki saying, “This medal belongs to you — without you, I would be nowhere [near where] I am today.”
Roadhouse was one of two Portland chefs, along with Thomas Pisha-Duffly of Gado Gado, who made it as a finalist in this year’s category which includes chefs in Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii.
Portland’s “cocktail bar for whiskey lovers,” Scotch Lodge, also brought home a win for Outstanding Bar, a category that has nominees from around the country.
Scotch Lodge founder Tommy Klaus spent more than two decades at the forefront of Portland’s cocktail scene, behind the bar at iconic spots like Bluehour and St. Jack, before creating beverage programs at Kask, La Moule, and the Multnomah Whiskey Library. He opened Scotch Lodge in 2019 and this is the second year in a row the bar has been nominated.

LOS ANGELES — “Stand by Me” actor Corey Feldman has been hospitalized after experiencing a medical emergency on a cross-country flight to Los Angeles.
The 54-year-old former child star was met by paramedics after landing at Los Angeles International Airport on June 15, his publicist confirmed to USA TODAY on Monday night. He was admitted to a hospital and is “resting” overnight while awaiting MRI results.
USA TODAY reached out to the Los Angeles Fire Department for more information. TMZ was first to report the news.
Before his hospitalization, the “Goonies” actor posted photos from his Midwest travels on June 15. The prior day, he’d appeared at the “Stand by Me” 40th anniversary tour stop at The Chicago Theatre alongside Jerry O’Connell and Wil Wheaton.
“We have this instant connection and it’s there. The camaraderie is there; the jokes are there. We have so much fun,” Feldman told People magazine in an interview published in March.
“But there’s this looming thing hanging over us,” he added, referring to late costar River Phoenix and director Rob Reiner, who was killed alongside his wife, Michele Reiner, in their home in December.
“The movie is called ‘Stand By Me,’ and there’s four of us,” Feldman said. “We can’t stand by River, because he’s not here. Now with Rob missing too — I’m sorry, I’m going to get a little emotional — but I was so hoping that he would be able to join us for this.”

For this longtime fan, the Toy Story franchise, Pixar’s all-ages assault on funny bones and heartstrings, peaked with its magical second and third entries. But unlike many series that keep going long after the creative well has run dry, milking the cash cow until it goes belly up, this all-access pass to the hidden world of sentient toys has consistently delivered on its promise of wit, inventiveness, adventure and emotional depth. Even the underperformer of the stable, 2022’s origin-story spinoff, Lightyear, had its retro charms.
Directed for the first time by series creator and regular co-writer Andrew Stanton, Toy Story 5 comes an astonishing 31 years after the original and does the enduring franchise proud. The movie’s captivating sweetness is hard to resist, showering its love on a pint-sized human character so out of step with her kid contemporaries she has difficulty making friends. Turning around the lonely life of 8-year-old Bonnie (voiced by Scarlett Spears) becomes an urgent mission for the toys.
Perhaps the key gain is that this scenario puts Jessie — national treasure Joan Cusack, returning to features after a quiet stretch of semi-retirement and bringing warmth, plucky spirit and tender vulnerability to her voiceover work — in charge. Bonnie is now the third-generation owner of Jessie and the red-headed cowgirl generally takes on a prominent role in the child’s elaborate play fantasies, like the celebrant of a wedding sabotaged by a poisoning plot. But Jessie is stymied by a harsh truth before she even comes up with a plan.
While attempting, by invisible means, to nudge the twin boys who live next door to include Bonnie in their games, Jessie discovers that the neighbors are too glued to their devices to pay her any attention.
Conferring with some abandoned toys — bitter and traumatized, dreading their fate in a landfill graveyard — Jessie is bluntly informed that “the age of toys is over.” She scrambles up onto a rooftop, where her eyes are opened by the sight of children through bedroom windows all over town, their faces lit by the glow of their screens. “Extinction! Not again!” wails fretful dinosaur Rex (series stalwart Wallace Shawn) when Jessie shares the grim forecast.
The situation gets even worse once Bonnie’s concerned parents try to connect their daughter with friends by buying her a Lilypad, a child-appropriate smart tablet in frog-like casing, voiced with slappably perky self-satisfaction by Greta Lee. The personalized screen instantly becomes Bonnie’s whole world, with Jessie and the gang left in a heap on the floor. But the cowgirl refuses to believe Bonnie’s new tech fixation is more than just a phase.
While Bonnie is learning that online friendships don’t always translate neatly to real-world playdates, the screenplay by Stanton and co-director Kenna Harris cooks up a way to get Jessie across town to the farmhouse where her original owner Emily once lived. The melancholy reminder that she was donated when Emily outgrew her sets off an anxious spiral in Jessie.
Having gone from Emily to Andy — who gave her to Bonnie when he went off to college at the end of Toy Story 3, a movie that absolutely wrecked me — Jessie despairs at the possibility of another abandonment: “I can’t do this again. I can’t love another kid just to find out I never mattered.”
This is a prime example of the Pixar canon’s ability to weave real feeling into the scenario, without sacrificing humor or derring-do. The enchanting woodsy and pastoral backgrounds when the action moves from the residential suburbs to the rural outskirts add to that poignancy, as do the dulcet tones of Randy Newman’s score.
Jessie learns that Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris), a young girl not much older than Bonnie, lives with her family at the farm. But the discovery of a shed full of discarded toys hits hard. These range from a bendy pizza slice with sunglasses (a voice cameo by Bad Bunny) to three tech gadgets left behind each time Blaze moved on to the next shiny new device.
The most opinionated of these rejects is Smarty Pants, a basic toilet-training tech tool given an amusingly snarky attitude by Conan O’Brien. In exchange for Jessie’s help powering them up with new batteries, Smarty Pants, GPS-equipped toy hippo Atlas (Craig Robinson) and toy camera Snappy (Shelby Rabara) provide a crucial assist. They help Jessie see that despite Blaze’s susceptibility to the allure of the latest gizmo, she’s still creative and silly and present in her world in a way that too many other kids aren’t — rarely looking up from their devices or even talking as opposed to typing.
The ominous theme here is beware the machine, or as Woody (Tom Hanks) puts it with sad resignation: “Toys are for play. Tech is for everything.” Any parent who has ever endured a tantrum when screen time is cut off will feel the sting of those words.
Luckily, Jessie is no quitter, especially once she becomes convinced Bonnie and Blaze will hit it off. She calls Woody for backup, despite him having passed on his sheriff’s badge to her in Toy Story 4. Now paunchy and balding, he’s still a resourceful quick thinker, not to mention newly fashion-forward in a red poncho that earns some eyerolls. Jessie also gets help from a squad of 50 Hi-Tech Edition Buzz Lightyears (Tim Allen), who come with their own hotspots and drone capabilities.
Of course it’s great to see the return of these core Toy Story characters, though the separate plot thread tracing the upgraded Buzz toys to a wrecked shipping container where they struggle out of their boxes feels like something from a different action-adventure movie. Stanton and Harris arguably take too long integrating the Buzz brigade into Jessie’s quest, but once all the toys start working together for a common goal, their collective can-do spirit proves stirring.
The same goes for the insanely catchy Taylor Swift song, “I Knew It, I Knew You,” co-written with regular collaborator Jack Antonoff, on the end credits.
Ultimately, the movie works because it has heart and conviction in the belief that tech toys are not innately bad. They can also serve to bring joy. As the latest model Buzz says: “Our mission on this planet is to make a child happy.” Even Lilypad is given her redemption. But the filmmakers also bring home the point that children need physical interaction and communication with other kids to help them develop and grow, a useful message that’s easy to endorse.

The 2027 Grammy Awards will include five new categories, including best Asian pop music performance, which will recognize artistic excellence in Asian pop music performances originating from or widely recognized within Asian markets, including K-pop, J-pop and C-pop recordings that feature meaningful use of one or more Asian languages.
The four additional categories announced Tuesday by the Recording Academy include best Latin song, best traditional pop vocal performance, best R & B collaboration or duo/group performance and best traditional folk album.
The 69th Grammy Awards will air live on ABC, Disney+ and Hulu on Feb. 7, 2027.
“2027 is going to be an amazing year for the Grammy Awards, and one that reflects the extraordinary growth we’re seeing across music,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. said in a statement. “The changes advanced by our Academy members speak to the breadth of today’s music industry and the many genres, crafts and creators shaping it.”
According to the Recording Academy, the best Asian pop music performance category was created to recognize the breadth of Asian pop music and its growing impact across the global music landscape.
The new best Latin song category creates a dedicated space within the Latin field to honor songwriting, while best traditional pop vocal performance recognizes recordings that do not fit within contemporary pop categories.
The addition of best traditional folk album also creates a separate category for traditional folk recordings.
As a result, best folk album has been renamed best contemporary folk album.
Similarly, best R & B performance will now be known as best solo R & B performance following the creation of the new collaboration category.
The Academy also announced several changes to its voting and eligibility rules ahead of the 69th Grammy Awards.
A new opt-in voting option called Ballot Plus will allow eligible voting members with expertise across multiple genres to vote in up to 15 peer-related categories based on their verified professional credits.
Eligibility requirements for best new artist have been revised to provide greater flexibility, increasing the maximum number of times an artist may be submitted from three to four.
In another notable change, the percentage of new recordings required for an album to qualify for Grammy consideration has been lowered from 75% to 66%, a move the Academy said better reflects how albums are released in today’s music industry.
The Academy also expanded recognition for songwriters and composers.
Going forward, songwriters and composers of new material on winning albums in most genre album categories will receive Grammy statuettes and achievement certificates, bringing their recognition in line with producers and engineers.
In addition, internet-only releases will now be eligible for consideration in the best album notes and best historical album categories if supporting materials are included with the commercial download.
The Walt Disney Co. is the parent company of ABC News.

Sean “Diddy” Combs has had his release date moved once again amid his 50-month federal prison sentence.
The rap music mogul, who is behind bars at New Jersey’s FCI Fort Dix after a jury found him guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution in a federal case last July, is now set for release on Feb. 23, 2028. Combs was previously set to be freed on April 25, 2028.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons declined to comment on the reason for the change, noting it does “not discuss the conditions of confinement for any individual, including release plans.” However, the bureau cited general reasons a release date would be moved up, including for “good conduct time,” time credits from approved programs and activities and credit for time served before sentencing.
USA TODAY has reached out to FCI Fort Dix and Combs’ lawyer for comment.
Combs’ release date has been moved up at least twice in the last few months. A change to his release date in November saw the date pushed back to June 2028, days after Combs’ representative denied a report that claimed the Bad Boy Records founder had created and consumed alcohol in prison.
In a letter to the judge ahead of his original sentencing, Combs said he got sober “for the first time in 25 years,” has been attending therapy and started a mentorship program for his fellow inmates.
His legal team is also still trying to appeal his conviction, after a bombshell trial in which he was convicted on charges related to the transportation of two former girlfriends – Casandra “Cassie” Ventura Fine and the anonymous “Jane” – as well as sex workers for the intent of prostitution.
Combs, who has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct, is still facing upwards of 70 civil lawsuits across the country, including one most recently filed on June 9, from a former child actor.
Contributing: Anna Kaufman, Edward Segarra and KiMi Robinson, USA TODAY