Starting in January and throughout 2022, the City of LA plans to give 3,200 families in poverty $1,000 a month — with no conditions. The $38 million program is called “BIG:LEAP.” To be eligible, families must live in LA, have at least one dependent child, and earn income at or below the federal poverty level. Theater students at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo uncovered stories about the history of their campus, and transformed them into a collection of short plays called “Camarillo Tales: Echoes in the Hills.” And LACMA is currently displaying the famous Obama portraits plus a whole exhibition called “Black American Portraits,” while Kehinde Wiley is curating a show of other artists’ work called “Self-Addressed” at the Jeffrey Deitch gallery. 

The smell of freshly-grown cannabis surrounds specific parts of Carpinteria along California’s Central Coast. The county isn’t doing much, so some growers and fed-up residents decided to put their heads together. But will it make the neighborhood less stinky? The Netflix show “Gentefied,” about gentrification’s real-world implications in Boyle Heights, releases its second season on November 10. Greater LA speaks with two of the show’s creators.

A couple of dozen Malibu neighbors have been developing “community brigades” since the 2018 Woolsey Fire. The brigades are meant to fill in the resource gap when firefighters are stretched too thin. This model relies on training volunteers and coordinating with local agencies. It requires a lot less training and a smaller time commitment, and offers more roles than other volunteer firefighting programs. It also takes an “all hazards” approach that can be used in any natural disaster. A posthumously published memoir explains how Trader Joe’s founder Joe Coulombe built a quirky grocery empire by exploiting legal loopholes and product discontinuities. And the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments today in a class action lawsuit filed against the FBI by three Muslim men from Orange County who say they were spied on, due to their faith, after 9/11.

Cannabis has now been legal for recreational use in California for five years. When the state adopted Prop 64 in 2016, the idea was to bring in money from taxes, reel back the impacts of the years-long war on drugs, expunge marijuana misdemeanors, and legalize the state’s illicit cultivators and sellers. On this anniversary, Greater LA looks at how far we’ve come, what LA is doing right and wrong, and why the illegal market continues to boom.

New urban oil wells would be prohibited under new regulations proposed by the Newsom administration. But phasing out these lucrative drill sites will take time, and environmental activists are concerned the proposal doesn’t go far enough to protect California’s most vulnerable communities. Plus, a new report looks at which areas and residents of LA are most affected by extreme heat and droughts. And KCRW listeners share what actions they’re taking to make the earth a greener and cleaner place.

There may come a day when fire-prone areas like Malibu aren’t habitable as climate change makes wildfires more frequent and more difficult to control. Some homeowners are spending thousands of dollars to keep their homes from burning, or even risking their lives to stay and fight the fires themselves. LA Mayor Eric Garcetti is in Glasgow for the U.N. climate conference, and he tells KCRW that LA is among more than 1,000 cities worldwide committed to following through on ambitious carbon neutral goals. At Various Small Fires gallery, visitors can see Ashley Bickerton’s colorful seascapes made with man-made debris washed ashore.

Artists and activists from the Chicano civil rights movement of the 1970s helped dramatically expand appreciation of Día de los Muertos among Mexican Americans living in LA. The first public celebration in the city was held at Self-Help Graphics and Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights. Also, a proposed solar array in Anaheim would power 2,000 homes, but some residents worry about how it’ll impact their views, property values, and the surrounding wildlife. In Orange County, the City of Irvine wants to become carbon neutral by 2030, and it has won a $1 million grant from the Cool City Challenge to meet that goal. 

The Arroyo Seco Tiny Home Village has 177 separate sheds for each person or couple who used to live on the streets. However, it’s not easy for everyone to adjust to a new life in the village, which comes with rules. Also, the LA Times analyzed data over the past year and a half of remote learning and found “deep drops in assessment scores or below grade-level standing in key areas of learning.” KCRW checks in with a third grade teacher and a high school history teacher. “Now I have more students who are working than ever. … Their managers forget that they are high school students and schedule them for really, really tricky hours,” says Aviva Alvarez-Zakson, who at Hamilton High School in Castle Heights.

Once a year, an all-female demolition derby at Irwindale Speedway offers a high-adrenaline night of destructive mayhem — all to benefit breast cancer research. The LA Zoo wants to expand within Griffith Park, but some say it’s an environmental mistake. And a retiring librarian shares a farewell to LA’s Central branch.

Native plants are vital to the health of the local ecosystem, particularly during a time of climate change, hotter weather, and droughts. KCRW tours the Theodore Payne Foundation to learn about the power of native plants and how to grow them yourself. Plus, there are 18 endangered butterfly and moth species that the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance works to protect. And Santa Ana is Orange County’s first city to adopt rent control.