Greater LA

UCSB's first class of Promise Scholars graduated this past spring. Low-income students received free tuition for maintaining at least a 2.75 GPA. Many of the students are the first in their families to graduate from a four-year college. They face more challenges than financial ones.

The LAPD is planning to expand its volunteer police force to 5,000 across the city. But some residents worry that vigilantism could take a wrong turn. We go for a ride-along.

We look at how black men and women became stunt doubles in a Hollywood that resisted them at first. And a new report out this week says the main agency in charge of dealing with homelessness in LA is failing to meet its own goals.

Scientists hope to reduce whale fatalities from ship collisions by using a new sound technology that detects when the endangered animals are present, and then alerts cargo ships to slow down. A new study on Latinx representation in films gives Hollywood a low grade. And three companies are vying to redesign the La Brea Tar Pits.

Rob Zabrecky, the former frontman of new wave punk band Possum Dixon, has written a memoir called "Strange Cures." It's about LA's rock 'n roll scene during the late 1980s and 1990s. Zabrecky chronicles his early days growing up in "boring Burbank," his fascination with seedy Hollywood and music on the Sunset strip, and his own Hollywood story. 

Mountain lions now roam the hills surrounding Los Angeles. But there's a 99.7% chance they will be extinct in the Santa Monica Mountains and Santa Ana Mountains in less than 50 years, according to a study by the Park Service and UCLA. Environmentalists have filed a petition to protect the big cats under the California Endangered Species Act.

Ninety years ago this August, 20 women pilots flew from Santa Monica to Ohio in nine days. It was the first all women's national air race. It was a dangerous feat, and one woman didn't survive. Earlier this month, 13 women and one man raced from Santa Monica to San Bernardino to commemorate that first race. 

The Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) has garnered a lot of media attention and a huge fan base, and some soccer fans want to point out that there's another team in LA: the Galaxy. The Galaxy is more than 20 years old, has won five Major League Soccer titles, and has attracted some of the most famous soccer players in the world.

LAUSD kids are back in their classrooms today. For parents, it means buying new school supplies, dropping off their kids at school or at a bus stop, and fighting traffic. We visit Baldwin Hills Elementary to see how students are being welcomed. Most students come from black, indigenous, or Latino families.

Last November's Woolsey Fire burned down hundreds of homes in LA and Ventura counties. In response, home insurance companies are raising rates of some policyholders, while not renewing policies of other homeowners. Residents have also started to rebuild, and the city is trying to speed up that process.