Monks & Merrill

Hour 1 - The earlier LAFD investigation tried to answer a technical question: what physically caused the Lineage Logistics fire?

Nithya Raman is taking heavy fire over a since-deleted campaign video that paired the phrase “Only you can stop fascist liars” with images of Mayor Karen Bass and LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell, including a red X over McDonnell’s face.

Councilwoman Traci Park wants to broaden Los Angeles Municipal Code 41.18, which restricts sitting, sleeping, lying or storing property in designated public spaces.

Measure FD would raise the City of Los Angeles sales tax another half-cent, taking the rate from 10.25% to 10.75% and generating an estimated $345 million a year specifically for the LAFD.

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Hour 2 - The Los Angeles Police Protective League is escalating its opposition to Measure FD, the half-cent sales tax increase backed by the firefighters union, by preparing to spend millions of dollars against it.

Garden Grove will require hotels to give employees working alone in guestrooms personal security devices beginning January 1.

Orange County has formally ended its relationship with Mind OC, the nonprofit behind Be Well OC, and taken full control of the behavioral-health campuses in Orange and Irvine.

Newport Beach is now planning two elections on November 3.

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Hour 3 - Voters are increasingly using ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and other AI tools to research candidates, compare positions and sort through down-ballot races that receive little traditional news coverage.

California's Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team now rates LAUSD at high risk of insolvency, citing chronic deficit spending, declining enrollment, rising labor costs, soaring special-education expenses and a school system built for far more students than it actually has.

About 75% of Torrance Unified classrooms lack air conditioning during this week's brutal heat, forcing the district to rely on cooling rooms, hydration stations, extra ice and even slushies while officials contemplate heat days and a future bond measure costing hundreds of millions.

Southern California remains under an Extreme Heat Warning through Thursday evening, with downtown Los Angeles forecast near 99 degrees today and the mid-90s Thursday. At the same time, the tropical Pacific continues to warm rapidly, and NOAA now says there is a 75% chance the current El Niño becomes a historic event exceeding previous El Niños' in records dating to 1950.

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Hour 1 - President Trump was defending the war with Iran and its economic costs Monday night when he suddenly invoked Los Angeles and San Diego as cities Iran could potentially “take out.”

The Trump administration has opened a federal enforcement action against LAUSD, arguing that district policies improperly allow schools to keep a student’s gender identity and other sensitive information from parents.

LAUSD is considering a 390-unit workforce housing development on the long-vacant former Collins Street Elementary School site in Woodland Hills.

Councilman Bob Blumenfield is pushing back on claims that Los Angeles invented a mountain lion habitat designation to kill a 398-unit housing proposal at the Woodland Hills Country Club.

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Hour 2 - Southern California is in the middle of an unusually long and intense October heat wave, with temperatures running roughly 15 to 22 degrees above normal in many areas, and Extreme Heat Warnings continue.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed SB 868, creating a legal pathway for small plug-in solar systems that renters and homeowners can install without going through the full rooftop-solar interconnection process. Co-Founder of Bright Saver, Cora Stryker, joins the show.

Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky is pushing two related ideas: make Los Angeles much more aggressive about redeveloping underused public property, and remove city barriers that make condos, townhomes and other starter homes harder to build than apartments.

Yaroslavsky argues Los Angeles can attack housing costs from both ends by putting underused public land to work and removing regulations that discourage starter-home construction.

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Hour 3 - Councilwoman Traci Park wants Los Angeles to substantially broaden Municipal Code 41.18, the city’s anti-camping law, by adding more protected locations and eliminating a procedural step that currently requires the full City Council to approve many individual no-camping zones.

The Los Angeles City Council is considering stepping into LAPD’s rapidly expanding use of automated license plate readers.

A new Hilton-commissioned poll puts Xavier Becerra ahead just 45.7% to 40.1%, dramatically tighter than recent independent surveys showing Becerra ahead by 20 points or more.

Steve Hilton’s campaign is testing an unusual theory: California’s Republican ceiling is so low that he has to reach voters who normally recoil from the GOP brand, even if the effort irritates conservatives.

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Hour 1 - 

Metrolink raises fares today, October 5, for the first time in 13 years. Does charging paying customers more actually fix a transit system struggling with ridership and finances?

Hollywood Burbank Airport cuts the ribbon today on a new 355,000-square-foot terminal that begins handling passengers Tuesday, October 13.

Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken now acknowledges she had an unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

Federal agents arrested Irvine realtor Wanying “Heather” Zhang at LAX as she allegedly prepared to fly to Shanghai, accusing her of acting as an unregistered agent of China.

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Hour 2 - New Pew research argues that California's housing shortage is itself a major cause of poverty, with unusually high rents swallowing much of the benefit from programs designed to help struggling households.

Your argument holds up, with one important refinement: Latino voters could be decisive not because they are moving together, but because they are deeply divided by age, housing status and political priorities.

Scientists have spent years documenting a massive legacy of industrial dumping in the waters between Los Angeles and Catalina Island. UC Santa Barbara Professor of Earth Science, David Valentine, joins the show.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed SB 1090, temporarily shielding Altadena from state laws that make it easier to split residential lots and build small multifamily projects. California YIMBY argues the law removes options that could help cash-strapped homeowners finance their own return. Director of Communication at YIMBY, Matthew Lewis, joins the show.

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Hour 3 - Measure ULA has undeniably produced substantial money for affordable housing and homelessness programs, but research increasingly suggests it also changes behavior in the very real-estate market the city needs to produce housing.

A new 724-page independent investigation commissioned by Gov. Gavin Newsom lays out a blunt picture of the Eaton and Palisades fires. The report makes 266 recommendations, and some of its findings are likely to force significant changes in how Southern California prepares for major fires.

Steve Hilton’s “Just Try It, California” ad uses sexual innuendo and two young women to make voting Republican look like a forbidden experiment.

A new Hilton-commissioned poll puts Xavier Becerra ahead just 45.7% to 40.1%, dramatically tighter than recent independent surveys showing Becerra ahead by 20 points or more.

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It's MORE Monks & Merrill! Here's Saturday's fresh content: What college degrees deserve to be subsidized by the government, and which should you avoid at all costs? How to communicate with your Gen Z coworkers. Are there unforeseen consequences to no-fault divorces? 

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