Greater LA

This week, the Los Angeles City Council voted to override a veto by Mayor Eric Garcetti and approve a new proposal for how millions of dollars taken from the LA Police Department will be spent to address homelessness, poverty, unemployment. KCRW looks at how the vote played out, which communities will benefit, and who will oversee the money.

Online sales have skyrocketed during the pandemic, and so have the mountains of packaging that protect those orders in transit. Packaging designers are working to figure out how to lessen the environmental impact of their creations, but it’s a challenging question they have yet to answer.

During the pandemic, many renters have stayed in their homes because of local and state eviction protections, but are still on the hook for back rent. Some landlords are financially struggling too. A new rental assistance program is rolling out on March 15. It uses $2.6 billion in federal funds, and is meant to help the most vulnerable renters and their landlords.

LA County reached 20,000 COVID-19 deaths this week. The death rate has caused a backlog at cemeteries and funeral homes, affecting the physical and emotional wellbeing of those tasked with laying the dead to rest.

At a greenhouse in La Jolla, California, scientists are trying to harness the carbon-sucking power of plants to clean up the atmosphere. They’re behind the Harnessing Plants Initiative. When carbon isn’t polluting the atmosphere, it’s often in the ground, enriching the soil that plants need to grow. The goal is to genetically modify the plant’s cellular structure. Then the plants will sprout bigger roots, and more of them. And they’ll absorb more carbon.

The Ballona Wetlands are juxtaposed against busy streets and tech companies. The area is a small, serene stretch of marsh, mud flats and birds. The wetlands once stood at more than 2,000 acres, but only 577 acres remain today. The state has a plan to restore Ballona and make it more inviting to the public. However, not everyone agrees with that plan.

Many Angelenos are camping out on a sidewalk overnight to be first in a daily unofficial standby line for leftover COVID-19 vaccine doses. That’s raising equity questions at Kedren Community Health Center in the Historic South Central neighborhood of LA, where residents are predominantly Black and Latino, and the people in line are predominantly white and driving from more affluent neighborhoods.

College students have a lot on their plates these days: an upended academic career because of the pandemic, the specter of the virus itself, and the general stress of exams and assignments. All of that fretting and stressing prompted a UC Santa Barbara student and professor to team up and launch the Resilience Summit and Certificate Program. Built around concepts rooted in “positive psychology,” its mission is to equip participants with tips and tools for taking the mental edge off the pandemic. The duo thought they were creating an intimate program that would maybe get a couple dozen sign-ups. It turned out that hundreds wanted to participate.

Maurice Harris owns Bloom & Plume, a flower business with an adjacent coffee shop. Before the pandemic, his products were selling well and his social commentary was resonating. Harris now faces a sobering reality. “When the pandemic hit, we just stopped working because everything left and right was just getting canceled. Sister ‘Rona showed up and she was just like, shutting it all down,” he says. He secured a PPP loan last year from the U.S. Small Business Administration, but says he’ll need additional federal dollars this year to keep his employees on payroll and his rent paid.

As technology becomes more sleek and complex, repairing is more difficult and dangerous. When something breaks, it’s often easier to buy a new one. But California politicians and environmental activists are working to pass a Right to Repair bill to make it easier to fix technology and reduce the e-waste going to landfills.