Greater LA

Thanksgiving can be a tough time for people who’ve lost family members. That’s why one LA mother started a turkey giveaway for families whose children have been killed. She’s been doing it ever since her son was murdered in 1995.

Los Angeles’ oldest children’s theater recently moved from downtown to Highland Park. Now the marionette troupe wants to create a puppeteer academy, host workshops for kids, host film shoots and screenings, and work with musicians and comedians. 

The state’s legal cannabis market is on track to hit $3.1 billion in sales this year. But the unlicensed market is expected to be far larger, at an estimated $8.7 billion. We find out where Angelenos buy their weed.  

The City of LA is considering doing away with requirements that developers provide parking with new buildings in downtown. The city is also discussing phasing out “parking podiums”: where parking spots take up the first few stories of a residential building, and the housing units begin a few levels up. 

Two-bedroom units in Pasadena often sell for $700,000. So how could one cost $75,000? Caltrans owns it. The state agency is selling off many properties that were supposed to be the site of the 710 freeway expansion. That freeway project is now defunct. 

Trojan Shelter is a new homeless shelter in LA, where college students receive three meals a day, peer-to-peer counseling, and assistance in finding permanent housing.

There’s a growing community of warrior enthusiasts who put on armor and use real weapons to live out a fantasy. But this isn't Medieval Times-type stuff. These guys are seriously beating each other up in a knight fighting league.   

Trump may be trying to stop the flow of immigrants, but for $500,000 and a promise to create at least 10 jobs, a foreigner can get a provisional green card. It's called an EB-5 visa, and dozens of big building developments around LA have been financed this way. As of November, the price for an EB-5 visa is going up to $900,000 minimum. One investor from India is helping fund a new building in LA t...

Longtime businesses in Little Tokyo are facing gentrification. They worry they’ll be priced out as downtown has revitalized, and rents are going up. In an effort to save these businesses, the Japanese American community started the Little Tokyo Community Impact Fund.

The Trump administration wants to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows young people who were illegally brought to the U.S. to live and work here. Today, the Supreme Court heard arguments on the program. We hear from DACA recipients whose futures hang in the balance.

On this Veterans Day, we replay some of our favorite segments from the year. Rob Zabrecky talks about his early days in LA’s punk scene. Plus, more and more Angelenos are using photos to chronicle their childbirth experiences. And can research help us be nicer to each other?

In November 2018, the Woolsey Fire burned a huge area from Thousand Oaks to Malibu. Mai Lindquist lost her home in the fire. She had been living there for decades. She says life today sometimes feels worse. 

Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks has been closed since November 7, 2018, the night a Marine veteran walked in and shot and killed 12 people before taking his own life. Owner Brian Hynes hopes to reopen. 

The Trump administration wants to end Temporary Protected Status, which allows immigrants currently living in the U.S. a chance to stay and work here if something catastrophic happens in their home countries. It’s now up to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to decide if some of these immigrants should be sent home.

One nonprofit in Santa Monica is teaching under-resourced kids how to play mariachi music, plus Spanish language and Mexican culture. One student has gone on to play with the LA Phil.

We travel to another dimension, where Rod Serling stretched the imagination and tapped into a societal psyche. “The Twilight Zone” turns 60 this year and is it ever eerily relevant today.

Thousands of residents in and around Simi Valley were forced to flee their homes after the Easy Fire sparked early Wednesday morning. So far, the fire is not contained, and it threatens the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

As fires continue to chew through the parched Southern California brush, all that smoke can cause health problems. How dangerous is that smoke, and what can you do to protect yourself?

There have been widespread evacuations on the westside of LA due to a brush fire that broke out near the Getty Center. More than 600 acres have burned, with around 10,000 structures in the evacuation zone.   

There’s a lot to hate about LA: air pollution, traffic, high rents. But there’s a lot to love: the beach, good food, good weather. So what to do when you’re an Angeleno who hates their own town? 

Today’s show is all about public transit: trains and buses, and how they affect everyday Angelenos, even if you never ride them. 

The Santa Fe Art Colony near the Arts District opened in 1986 as LA’s first publicly subsidized artists’ housing. On November 1, rents are increasing for all tenants.

At a monthly ceremony, people who used to serve life sentences welcome the newly released back into the community. We learn what the ceremony is like, and what freedom means to former lifers.

Shannon James has a full-time job as a dock worker at the Port of Long Beach. But she also spends a lot of time helping homeless people find housing, get off drugs, secure food, and more.

More adults are living with their parents now than they have in more than a century. It’s a third of all adults under 34. But in Los Angeles, it’s more than 40% . We hear from two local educators on why they choose to live with their parents.