Headlines From The Times

The Roots drummer and music legend Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson sifted through 40 hours of archival footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival for his documentary, “Summer of Soul.” It was a festival where legends like Nina Simone and Stevie Wonder performed in the same summer as Woodstock. The film is now in the running for Best Original Documentary at this year’s Oscars. So today, we’re airing a...

With more economic development and rents on the rise, Inglewood is struggling to meet its goal of encouraging more investment while trying to preserve one of California’s last remaining Black enclaves. Today, we examine this through the prism of SoFi Stadium, which is hosting the Super Bowl this Sunday. More reading: Op-Ed: For Inglewood, it won’t be a Super Sunday ‘A crisis for renters’: Football...

 Even if you don’t like football, you probably have opinions about the Super Bowl halftime show. Today, we look at the history of this curious spectacle, from its humble beginnings to the mega-star extravaganzas of today. And along the way, we’ll take a look at how this roughly 15-minute intermission became an unlikely reflection of American culture. More reading: At SoFi Stadium, Dr. Dre assemble...

In a league where Black players make up 70% of active rosters, the NFL currently has only two Black head coaches. League officials and even fans have offered all sorts of excuses about this discrepancy for decades. But now there’s an explosive federal lawsuit about the matter. It was filed this month by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores. In it, he puts this persistent and longstanding...

For the latest installment of our “Masters of Disasters” series, we talk tsunamis in the wake of a volcanic eruption near Tonga last month that caused waves felt across the Pacific. There was none of the devastation like the world saw in Fukushima in 2011, or across the Indian Ocean in 2004. But what happened in Tonga got us thinking: How are the effects of tsunamis so devastating, yet so little i...

Everybody is talking about the metaverse right now. But Times host Gustavo Arellano didn’t want to just talk about it; he wanted to experience it firsthand. And so off he went inside the metaverse with a guide. Is it all it’s cracked up to be? More reading: Explainer: What is the metaverse and how will it work? Want to glimpse our metaverse future? Theme parks are already on the case Op-Ed: Mark Z...

A first-of-it’s kind case in Los Angeles County is going to play a big role in determining culpability whenever self-driving cars get into accidents. Prosecutors have charged a driver with felony manslaughter after his Tesla crashed into a car in 2019, killing two people. The accused was in the driver’s seat, but prosecutors say his Tesla … was on autopilot. More reading: A Tesla on autopilot kill...

There’s a growing realization that the brilliance of the world’s best athletes isn’t enough anymore to cover some glaring problems that come with putting on the Olympics every two years. The International Olympics Committee has always claimed the Games are about promoting goodwill and celebrating the brotherhood of mankind. But as it turns out, not only do Olympics not do that, they tend to make d...

Mexico trails just Syria and Iraq as the deadliest country in the world to be a journalist. That’s according to data collected from 2000 through 2022 by the Committee to Protect Journalists. And the Mexican government has done little to stop it. But in the wake of the murder of four reporters so far this year — José Luis Gamboa, Margarito Martínez Esquivel, Lourdes Maldonado López and Roberto Tole...

Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, is a national holiday, not just in Vietnam but all over the world wherever Vietnamese may be. And in the United States, red envelopes filled with money, special dishes and other traditions have become a part of life in major American cities such as San Jose, Houston and especially in Orange County, which is home to the largest Vietnamese expat community in the w...

In Santa Monica during the 1950s and ‘60s, city leaders evicted hundreds of Black families to build what ended up being the 10 Freeway. But now, in an act of civic penance, Santa Monica is trying to bring some of those families back. It comes at a time when municipalities across the United States are reckoning with their racist actions from the past. We’ll talk about Santa Monica’s attempt to redr...

It was the Taylor Swift diss heard around the world. “She doesn’t write her own songs.” That’s what Damon Albarn, the lead singer for the British bands Blur and Gorillaz said to L.A. Times pop music critic Mikael Wood. The drama between Taylor and Damon got real. But it also hit on something really interesting — songwriting, and who gets the credit for it, is a thing … now more than ever. More rea...

Just when it seemed schools and parents and teachers were figuring out how to do in-person learning again, Omicron hit. The highly contagious variant really blew up while schools were on winter break in California. So when schools reopened and students returned, there were problems. Today, we hear from a parent and high school students who are trying to navigate their teenage years while worrying...

On New Year’s Day, comedian Jen Murphy boarded a cruise ship out of Miami and got ready to perform for 1,800 people. She never did end up getting on that comedy stage, though. Instead, she ended up getting trapped in a COVID cruise quarantine. Today, Murphy gives us a hilarious and intense look into why she got on a cruise ship in the middle of the pandemic in the first place and what she learned...

Xiomara Castro is about to be inaugurated as the first-ever female president of Honduras. But la presidenta has a daunting task in front of her. Her countrymen continue to leave the nation, tired of poverty, government corruption and violence. And the legislative majority she was counting on to help her reform Honduras is now gone. Today, we’ll talk about how Castro promises to solve her country’s...

Native American culture and history have long been ignored or romanticized as vestiges of a lost people — or both. The Serrano people of Southern California have seen their Indigenous language nearly vanish. But tribe member Ernest Siva has been working to save it. Among his efforts: The octogenarian contributes to Cal State San Bernardino’s language program. Then, 25-year-old Mark Araujo-Levinson...

Felicia Rangel-Samponaro used to live a fairly normal life as a suburban stay-at-home mom in the border city of Brownsville, Texas. But now the half Black, half Mexican-American mom crosses the border to help Black and Latino migrants, many of them asylum seekers stuck in camps in the border town of Reynosa, Mexico.  Today, we hear her story. More reading:  The woman defending Black lives on the b...

For over 140 years, street vendors hawking Mexican food have been a staple of life in Southern California. Horse-drawn tamale wagons turned into taco trucks, turned into hot dog carts, turned into pop-up tents — …and, eventually, hipsters caught on and these trends went national. But even as SoCal has become famous worldwide for its street food scene, government officials have amped up their war o...

This past December brought record-high amounts of snow to the Sierra Nevada, California’s main mountain range. The state, of course, has suffered for years from bad, bad drought, so we should all be happy that the dry days are over with all this snow, right? In fact, those who monitor such things are saying we should be saving water more than ever. Because there’s a real possibility that one day,...

The COVID-19 era is rough, to say the least. But let’s put it in perspective. Every pandemic ends eventually, and this one will too. Today, assistant editor Jessica Roy with the L.A. Times’ utility journalism team walks us through a century of past pandemics — from the 1918 flu to SARS — and the different ways they resolved, and she describes what’s likely to happen in our future. Then medical his...

Two years ago, Nikole Hannah-Jones launched “The 1619 Project,” a collection of New York Times Magazine articles, photography and podcasts. That project became a launching point to talk about Black people’s roles in shaping the United States. Hannah-Jones has been praised and vilified for her work ever since. Today, we share highlights from a L.A. Times Book Club chat between Hannah-Jones and L.A....

COVID-19 has been devastating for everyone, but in the United States, there’s one demographic hit particularly hard: Latinos. According to the California Department of Public Health, Latinos make up about 39 percent of the state’s population but nearly half of all cases and 45 percent of all deaths. A perfect storm of factors made Latinos especially vulnerable to the coronavirus: Multigenerational...

How the hell does a chain based on an orphaned mouse who plays in a band survive and thrive? Very carefully. Today, we’ll talk to L.A. Times business reporter Samantha Masunaga about the company, and we’ll hear from its new chief executive about everything Chuck E. Cheese, including its infamous animatronic band. More reading: How do you make a 44-year-old animatronic rodent appeal to today’s kids...

A Gallup poll last fall found that 45% of full-time U.S. employees were still working from home at least some of their hours. A full quarter of them exclusively work from home. Because of this, companies are increasingly using technology to monitor the activities of their workers while they’re on the clock, wherever they are.  Today, we examine how and why companies are spying on their workers at...

Issa Rae is the brilliant, hilarious mind behind the recently concluded HBO show “Insecure.” In this crossover episode with The Envelope, Rae talks about the incredible trajectory of her career, from a YouTuber turned Hollywood powerhouse, and how she repped South Los Angeles in a way that wasn’t just real but uplifting. More reading:   Issa Rae almost ended ‘Insecure’ differently. But she couldn’...