SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) - Chocolate lovers, brace yourselves — your favorite treat is feeling the heat.

Inside Menchaca Chocolates, a hidden factory in Santa Barbara, the sweetest season collides with a global cocoa crisis.

Inside, liquid chocolate swirls like molten gold, but behind the glossy ganache lies a story of resilience.

Cocoa prices have exploded –soaring more than 400 percent– driven by climate change, droughts, and supply disruptions.

Still, chocolate makers Pete Menchaca and Leanne Iverson refuse to let their dream melt away.

"We’re bean-to-bar," Pete says, as he guided rich Ecuadorian and Guatemalan beans through the grinder. "Every bag demands math, and every batch is a small victory."

Rather than cut corners, Leanne turned turmoil into innovation –launching art chocolate workshops– where families become chocolatiers for a day, molding, tempering, and tasting their own creations.

"We’re not just selling chocolate," she smiles. "We’re handing over the magic wand."

At the workshop, laughter blends with the scent of melted cacao. Kids drizzle dark chocolate over mango slices; parents shine their hand-wrapped bars like tiny treasures.

As prices surge, one truth remains: chocolate still melts hearts — especially when it’s made with care.

Because in Santa Barbara, even as costs climb, some treasures are too sweet to let go.

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(CNN) — The Justice Department on Wednesday said it has uncovered over a million more documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case and may need “a few more weeks” to process and release them to the public.

The department made the revelation in a post on X, saying the the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the FBI had informed the department of the new documents.

“The DOJ has received these documents from SDNY and the FBI to review them for release, in compliance with the Epstein Files Transparency Act, existing statutes, and judicial orders,” the post said.

“We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible. Due to the mass volume of material, this process may take a few more weeks. The Department will continue to fully comply with federal law and President Trump’s direction to release the files,” the post continued.

The announcement on Wednesday comes after a week of intermittent releases as required by a new transparency law that Congress passed last month.

The deadline to release all of the materials was Friday, and the Justice Department posted a massive trove of documents that day. That was followed up with another drop early Saturday, and another major release on Tuesday, which contained several notable references to President Donald Trump.

A bipartisan array of lawmakers and a growing number of survivors of Epstein’s abuse have criticized the Trump administration’s rollout of the documents.

Some have raised questions about the heavy-handed and seemingly haphazard redactions that shielded Epstein’s associates from scrutiny. Other critics have expressed anger over under-redacted materials that Read more

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