A rather peculiar red phone booth appeared outside a San Francisco tattoo parlor this week, urging residents in one of America’s most liberal cities to “call a Republican.”

Its counterpart, a blue phone booth, sits outside a bookshop in the staunchly conservative town of Abilene, Texas, where it encourages locals to “call a Democrat.”

Together, the phone booths form a social experiment: When someone picks up the line in San Francisco, it rings in Texas, and vice versa, cultivating a unique opportunity for passersby to chat with a stranger who holds a vastly different outlook on politics and life.

The initiative, dubbed the Party Line project, is the brainchild of Matter Neuroscience, a mental health startup focused on researching the science behind happiness and creating tools to battle major depressive disorders.

Neuroscientists know that fighting with people who hold different views leads to the release of cortisol in the brain, which increases stress, Matter co-founder Ben Goldhirsh explained. On the other hand, engaging in non-hateful, human-to-human conversation activates happiness-boosting neurotransmitters such as dopamine and cannabinoids, he said.

“We wanted to see what would happen when people had the chance to connect with people directly — would they choose to argue and fight, or would they choose to find common ground?” Goldhirsh said. “[Would they choose] the release of cortisol or the release of cannabinoids?”

Much to researchers’ delight, the vast majority of callers have chosen to seek common ground. The project launched lateSunday afternoon, and by Thursday evening researchers had recorded more than 150 conversations and voicemails.

So far the topics callers have discussed have run the gamut, including hobbies, culture and world events, Goldhirsh said. Many callers are rejecting the dichotomy of Republican and Democratic labels and are finding they have similar concerns about the state of the nation and economy.

In one recording, Steve — a San Francisco man who identifies as a liberal — asks, “Are you a Republican?” to a mother of four in Abilene.

She quickly responds “Yes, I am,” but then a moment later says, “Well, no, hmm, ummm, [I’m] probably an independent I would say as I’ve gotten older.”

Steve then asks her if she sees the world as being as crazy as he does, to which she says, “I do. It’s really worse and worse every day.”

“See? We have so much in common!” he responds.

This type of dialogue doesn’t surprise UCLA political science professor Chris Tausanovitch, who wrote a book on the polarization in American politics.

He said that while people often assume they won’t get along with a member of the opposite political party, the average American holds more moderate political views than their elected representatives.

“A lot of the dislike of the other party arises because we don’t like the public stances of whichever party we’re not aligned with,” he said. “If you’re a Democrat, you associate Republicans with the stances of people like Donald Trump, but it turns out that most people are not as extreme as the stereotype of their political party would suggest.”

Addressing the problem of polarization in politics will require significant effort from both parties, Tausanovitch said, but experiments like the phone booth are a fantastic way to get people talking across the aisle.

“There’s a good feeling from talking to another human and realizing they’re human,” he said, “and you actually can learn that there’s a tendency for people not to be as different as you assume that they are in terms of real policy and beliefs.”

From a mental health expert’s perspective, Goldhirsh said he was not surprised that the majority of the conversations have been positive, inquisitive and often led to heartwarming discoveries of shared interests and experiences.

“People are complex, nuanced individuals,” Goldhirsh said, “and really enjoy engaging as such and do it with a real sort of kindness and curiosity when given that chance.”

In one dialogue shared on Matter Neuroscience’s Instagram, Shane, a correctional officer in Texas, chats with Chris, who works at sandwich shop and DJ studio in San Francisco.

Shane opens up about the good and bad aspects of his job, sharing the horror of watching an inmate be murdered and the fulfillment he recently found chatting with inmates about the Bible.

The pair quickly find common ground — Shane’s brother is called Chris and Chris’ mother lives in San Antonio.

“I love this experiment here,” Shane says at the end of the conversation. “We’re already connected, dude,” Chris adds.

The San Francisco phone booth is set up outside of Black Serum Tattoo studio in the Mission District. Owner Brucius von Xylander said he agreed to let Matter Neuroscience set up the phone outside of his studio because he thought it would be a great medium for people across the political spectrum to engage in civil discourse.

“It seemed like a good idea to me, because it’s fun connecting with a stranger somewhere knowing that they might talk about something that is hard to speak about on social media or elsewhere,” Von Xylander said.

Von Xylander said the response to the phone had been overwhelmingly positive both online and in person.

Meanwhile, some 1,600 miles away in Abilene, the owner of Seven and One Books, Arlene Kasselman, also has been delighted with the response to the phone outside her store.

When she first saw the bright blue phone with the “Call a Democrat” sign, she was a little nervous about how the conversations would go. But so far they have been amazing, she said, as people discuss baking, basketball, politics and more.

From her perspective, the goal is to see what it looks like to “not just be a keyboard warrior in the comments section, but to view people as human.”

“We are certainly biologically more similar than dissimilar,” she added. “So how can we reach across the aisle?”

In our increasingly polarized society, Kasselman said she’s excited to facilitate an experience in which people can have positive interactions with strangers from different backgrounds.

Tausanovitch believes meaningful conversations across party lines, in which people connect over shared interests, can wake voters up to the price they are paying because of our extreme political climate. He said everyone suffers when parties are more focused on winning an election than they are on working together on policies that benefit all Americans.

“This kind of thing can help people see that [polarization] is a race to the bottom and a problem that is worthy of being addressed directly,” he said.

Goldhirsh also is delighted with the initial response and said Matter Neuroscience had been flooded with requests to bring the phone booths to other parts of America. For example, Los Angeles rapper the Game sent a message saying the team should install phones in Bloods and Crips territories, allowing members of the enemy gangs to converse.

“We’re going to continue pushing for dialogue,” Goldhirsh said, “because connecting on common ground is better for happiness than, you know, finding joy in the cortisol of the fight-or-flight experience.”

China’s boba behemoth has landed in Hollywood.

Mixue, the fast-growing megachain that boasts a bigger global retail footprint than McDonald’s, opened its first U.S. outpost on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame last month, selling drinks for less than $5 and ice cream for about $1.

Mixue spokesperson Xu Ping said in a written statement in Chinese that the company chose Hollywood as its first U.S. location because the “movie capital of the world” attracts both international tourists and local consumers year-round.

The store, Ping added, “aims to serve a diverse global consumer base and demonstrates the brand’s commitment to the American market.”

The Hollywood opening was followed in quick succession with locations in New York City’s Brooklyn, Koreatown and Chinatown neighborhoods. More Mixue stores are coming to California, Ping said.

The megachain’s entry into Los Angeles’ boba market comes at a time when local shops are struggling with rising costs driven by tariffs and economic uncertainty.

Mixue was founded as a shaved ice stand in 1997 in Zhengzhou, China, by college student Zhang Hongchao, who used money lent from his grandmother. The store’s Chinese name, Mi Xue Bing Cheng, translates roughly to “sweet snow palace.”

The store has more than 53,000 stores worldwide. The lion’s share are in China, but the company also has 4,700 locations across Australia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

By comparison, McDonald’s has more than 44,000 stores worldwide, and Starbucks has more than 40,000.

Founder Zhang and his brother Zhang Hongfu, who control the company, have a combined fortune of $8.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Mixue is able to keep costs low because it is vertically integrated, said UCLA business administration professor Christopher Tang, a supply chain management expert.

Mixue owns the factories in China that produce its powders, syrups and fruit purees, giving the company greater control over pricing, Tang said. The store’s grab-and-go concept means lower rent costs. Having most of its locations concentrated in Asia means lower transportation costs.

Tang said the chain’s U.S. stores may be operating as loss leaders to expand its global footprint, test the American market, and demonstrate growth to investors after its listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last year.

“They can use the profit in China to subsidize the loss in the U.S. for the sake of expansion,” Tang said. “Once [they] get the traction in the US, they can grow a little bit further. Once it grows to critical mass they will be able to sustain the operations.”

On Thursday evening, Mixue customers stood outside — the shop does not offer seating — eating soft serve and sipping on boba milk tea and the store’s signature grape drink with taro balls.

Several passersby snapped photos with Mixue’s inflatable snow “king” mascot that stands guard outside the store entrance. Across the street, actors posed on a red carpet, which had been rolled out on Hollywood Boulevard for the premiere of a Marvel TV show at the TCL Chinese Theatre.

Menu items range from $1.19 for the soft serve to $4.99 for its “super-triple” milk tea with tapioca pearls, pudding and coconut jelly toppings. Self-service kiosks let customers order in either Chinese or English and adjust the sweetness levels in drinks, which can range from 0% to 200%.

The chain appears to be aggressively seeking franchisees in California.

Mixue owns the factories in China that produce its powders, syrups and fruit purees. “They can use the profit in China to subsidize the loss in the U.S. for the sake of expansion,” said Christopher Tang, a UCLA professor of business administration.

(David Butow / For The Times)

QR codes posted on the store’s front window, walls and sidewalk signs lead to an application website for prospective franchisees in California and New York. Opening a store requires an upfront investment between roughly $220,000 and $920,000, depending on size and location, according to the website. Mixue does not charge franchisees ongoing royalty or advertising fees.

Some Chinese customers were already familiar with the Mixue brand or longtime fans.

Tourist Kele Shi, a tech worker living in Washington who is from Shenzhen, China, decided to stop by its first U.S. location after seeing videos on YouTube and the Chinese social media app Xiaohongshu.

Shi had been in the Miracle Mile neighborhood earlier in the day to visit a museum but decided to go to the Walk of Fame to see whether the affordable soft serve was better than Ikea’s version.

“This is 80% of the reason we are here,” said Shi. “It’s good, not too sweet. That’s always a compliment for Asian people.”

Torrance resident Olivia Y, who grew up in China, was picking up five drinks for her friends after a climbing session in the neighborhood.

Y said she had fond memories of eating Mixue’s ice cream — her favorite menu item — and drinking fresh lemonade while pulling all-nighters as a student in Xi’An, China, and wanted to pay the U.S. store a visit after hearing about it on social media.

Other customers, like tourist Susannah Bartram, from Nottingham, England, had never previously heard of the chain. She had been strolling down the Walk of Fame, parched after taking a three-hour guided tour of Los Angeles, when the bright red store colors caught her eye.

“It’s colorful and accessible, and it’s a quick fix,” Bartram said, holding a cup of iced tea with large slices of lemon.

With pearl tea gaining popularity in her home country, “it is just nice to see something fresh,” she said.

On the other side of Hollywood Boulevard, local business Bopomofo Cafe’s location in the Ovation Hollywood shopping complex was relatively quiet on Thursday night.

Earlier this month, the Asian American cafe, which sells boba and snacks — including a sandwich described by L.A. Times food columnist Jenn Harris as the “apotheosis” version of McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish — shared on social media that it was struggling with rising costs of goods, including matcha powder and paper goods due to “trade wars and economic uncertainty.”

The cafe initially mulled a price increase, but decided to first try removing some items from its menu and offering a limited food menu an hour before it closes, said Philip Wang, who co-founded Bopomofo with partner Eric Wang in 2019. Philip Wang also co-owns the Asian American production company Wong Fu Productions.

Bopomofo’s classic milk tea costs $6.50, and blended drinks such as its guava matcha latte cost $8. Toppings are an additional 75 cents.

“[We] are not just chasing profits and a bottom line,” the cafe wrote in the Instagram post announcing the changes. “We’re also not a massive company with hundreds of locations (or thousands overseas) bankrolling our stores.”

Bopomofo’s Hollywood location opened in February as an experiment to see how it would perform in a tourist-driven mall, Philip Wang said.

The store is known for its ultra cheap products, such as $1.19 soft serve cones and $4 boba.

(David Butow / For The Times)

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As it approaches its first year in operation, the shop, located on the shopping center’s second floor, has seen less traffic than its other four locations in Southern California cities with significant Asian populations, such as San Gabriel and Irvine, he said. (A sixth location is to open in Downtown Disney this year.)

Philip Wang said he hasn’t seen noticeable impact on the store’s performance yet in the month since Mixue opened, noting that it’s still early. The holidays boosted traffic, Mixue opened in December, and business slowed in January — a dip he said is typical across the food and beverage industry.

He hopes Mixue’s presence in the U.S. might raise the profile of boba here and encourage more people to “expand their palette” and try local shops.

Bopomofo is no stranger to competing in dense markets: Its original location is San Gabriel, where there are boba and tea shops on every corner. Philip Wang said he’s confident that the drinks his cafe sells, which don’t use artificial flavors, syrups or powders, will continue to attract customers.

But “I would be lying if I said that [Mixue’s] not on our minds,” Wang said.

Software company Autodesk is slashing roughly 1,000 roles, representing a 7% cut of its global workforce.

The San Francisco company, which makes software used by architects, designers and engineers, told its employees Thursday that “strategic shifts,” including its focus on expanding its leadership in artificial intelligence, fueled its latest round of cuts.

Workers in “customer-facing sales” roles will be significantly affected by the layoffs, and the cost savings will be reinvested in the company’s priorities through the fiscal year ending January 2027, the company said in a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

While the rise of artificial intelligence that can generate code, text and images has heightened fears that technology will displace workers, Autodesk Chief Executive and President Andrew Anagnost told employees that isn’t what is driving the cuts.

“I want to be clear that this will not become an annual process at Autodesk and these changes are not driven by the external environment or an effort to replace people with AI,” he told employees in an e-mail on Thursday. “We remain steadfast in our belief that technology is only as powerful as the people who use it and humans will always be the most important part of the equation.”

The company changed how customers purchase and renew its software subscriptions, asking them to pay Autodesk directly.

Autodesk declined to share how many of the layoffs are happening in California. The company has offices outside of the United States, including in Europe and Asia.

The company plans to lay off roughly 104 employees at its San Francisco headquarters in April, according to a Thursday letter to the California Employment Development Department.

Autodesk is the latest California tech company this year to announce another massive round of cuts, even after already shrinking its workforce in 2025. Last year, Autodesk said it would cut roughly 1,350 positions, or roughly 9% of its workforce, citing geopolitical and macroeconomic factors and its AI investments.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is also slashing its workforce again and closing several content studios as it focuses more heavily on investing in wearables such as smartglasses. The layoffs hit more than 1,000 employees and focused heavily on those who were working on the metaverse, digital spaces where people socialize, work, learn and pursue other online activities.

In the third quarter ending in October 2025, Autodesk’s revenue increased 18% to $1.85 billion. The company’s net income during that quarter was $343 million, up from $275 million.