The Brief

Last week, the Center Theatre Group (CTG) announced it was putting a pause on programming at the Mark Taper Forum, citing increasing production costs and significantly reduced ticket revenue.

It’s big news for L.A.’s theater community, with some companies struggling to get back to pre-pandemic stability.

“It gives you pause, in terms of the vulnerability in the current moment that we’re living in,” said Julia Rodriguez-Elliott, artistic co-director at Pasadena’s A Noise Within .

Rodriguez-Elliott said audiences have not bounced back to pre-pandemic numbers at ANW, but she is seeing people attend performances who are first-time theatergoers.

She said she hopes the news of the CTG programming pause will create greater awareness around the struggles L.A.’s regional theaters are facing.

“If you believe in theater, support the art: buy a membership, buy a subscription, buy tickets,” Rodriguez-Elliott said.

A national survey of some 100 theaters found that more than 60% were budgeting for a deficit this fiscal year.

Rodriguez-Elliott says ANW is working to make going to the theater more of an event, with pre- and post show activities that allow patrons to engage more with the art.

Ellen Geer, artistic director at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon said she was saddened to hear about the CTG cuts. “Think of all the L.A. artists who won’t get work,” she said.

So far this year, turnout for WGTB’s production of Macbeth has been strong, Geer said. That may have something to do with Geer working to keep ticket prices low ($10-$48) and the fact that their outdoor theater was one of the only tickets in town during the worst of the pandemic.

For he part, Rodriguez-Elliott at ANW hopes more people will relearn their love for live performances that may have been chilled during the pandemic.

“I think that once you’re in community, you realize what you’re missing: That shared humanity that we get to experience when we come and gather around a great story,” she said.

Searching for loyalty 

Megan Pressman, CTG’s director and CEO, joined LAist’s AirTalk to discuss this challenging moment for theater — and how CTG is looking to overcome it.

Pressman said CTG has not been able to re-emerge fully from the pandemic’s dampening effects. For many months, people were hesitant to return to crowded indoor spaces, and many people’s habits no longer align with the traditional membership model, she said.

People these days are less likely to commit to a subscription for an entire season; instead, they choose just the specific shows they have heard about before, Pressman said.

“We need folks to be with us for that whole journey,” Pressman says. “That is how you can show loyalty to these cultural institutions and give us a chance to be able to put on shows you haven't heard about, to take bigger risks.”

Facing the self-curating society

Danny Feldman is the managing artistic director of the Pasadena Playhouse. He said the birth of regional theater in much of the United States came in the 1960s, when performing artists started to leave New York City, trading the commercialism of Broadway for the opportunity to start theater companies around the country.

But in recent years, the COVID-19 pandemic and changes in audience habits have compounded the stresses that the regional theater business model has always faced, he said. Production costs are rising, while ticket sales and donations have not recovered from the hit they took during pandemic shutdowns.

Feldman said that the struggles of the subscription model reflect broader cultural shifts, like people’s freedom to design their own experiences. For example, Apple Music and other on-demand platforms allow you to purchase a specific song you like, rather than try out the entire album.

“We are now a self-curating society,” Feldman says. “In the past, you would look at an artistic leader of a theater and say, ‘I trust the quality and the brand of the theater. And I may not like everything, but I'm gonna go on an adventure.’”

The reluctance to commit manifests in other ways too, Feldman said. Buying a subscription means blocking out specific days on your calendar weeks or months in advance, but these days, people like to keep their schedules more open and buy theater tickets a few days before the show.

All of this, according to Feldman, has led to smaller audiences.

“We're having a real perfect storm of exorbitant costs,” Feldman says. “Costs are flying up in labor, but also materials, and as well as media costs, [along with a] decline of audiences, who, in my assessment of it, have just fallen out of the habit of going to the theater.”

And this is a great loss not only for theatergoers, but also for performing artists, since these spaces for employment and visibility are becoming rarer, according to Snehal Desai, CTG’s incoming artistic director.

The pause in programming led to an outpouring of support from the community — a reaction that, according to Desai, was both heartbreaking and inspiring.

“There are so few opportunities and so few platforms that anytime you take a space like the Taper out of the equation, even for a short period of time, it has an impact,” Desai said.

Feldman said that getting back into the habit of going to the theater will be important, but he feels that people still see the value of it in our current moment, when gathering spaces have declined in favor of private experiences, like scrolling on our phones.

“Our theaters and our performing arts organizations are uniquely situated to bring folks together to turn off their solo brains and to experience things collectively,” Feldman said. “I think we are the antidote to a lot of what's going on now.”

The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended an order blocking full SNAP payments, amid signals that the government shutdown could soon end and food aid payments resume.

The order keeps in place at least for a few more days a chaotic situation. People who depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to feed their families in some states have received their full monthly allocations, while others have received nothing.

The order will expire just before midnight Thursday.

The Senate has approved a bill to end the shutdown and the House of Representatives could vote on it as early as Wednesday. Reopening the government would restart the program that helps 42 million Americans buy groceries, but it's not clear how quickly full payments would resume.

The justices chose what is effectively the path of least resistance, anticipating the federal government shutdown will end soon while avoiding any substantive legal ruling about whether lower court orders to keep full payments flowing during the shutdown are correct.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only one of the nine justices to say she would have revived the lower court orders immediately, but didn't otherwise explain her vote. Jackson signed the initial order temporarily freezing the payments.

Beneficiaries in some states have received their full monthly allocations while in others they have received nothing. Some states have issued partial payments.

How quickly SNAP benefits could reach recipients if the government reopens would vary by state. But states and advocates say that it's easier to make full payments quickly than partial ones.

Carolyn Vega, a policy analyst at the advocacy group Share Our Strength, also said there could be some technical challenges for states that have issued partial benefits to send out the remaining amount.

An urgent need for beneficiaries

In Pennsylvania, full November benefits went out to some people on Friday. But Jim Malliard, 41, of Franklin, said he had not received anything by Monday.

Malliard is a full-time caretaker for his wife, who is blind and has had several strokes this year, and his teenage daughter, who suffered severe medical complications from surgery last year.

That stress has only been compounded by the pause in the $350 monthly SNAP payment he previously received for himself, his wife and daughter. He said he is down to $10 in his account and is relying on what's left in the pantry — mostly rice and ramen.

"It's kind of been a lot of late nights, making sure I had everything down to the penny to make sure I was right," Malliard said. "To say anxiety has been my issue for the past two weeks is putting it mildly."

The political wrangling in Washington has shocked many Americans, and some have been moved to help.

"I figure that I've spent money on dumber stuff than trying to feed other people during a manufactured famine," said Ashley Oxenford, a teacher who set out a "little food pantry" in her front yard this week for vulnerable neighbors in Carthage, New York.

SNAP has been the center of an intense fight in court

The Trump administration chose to cut off SNAP funding after October due to the shutdown. That decision sparked lawsuits and a string of swift and contradictory judicial rulings that deal with government power — and impact food access for about 1 in 8 Americans.

The administration went along with two rulings on Oct. 31 by judges who said the government must provide at least partial funding for SNAP. It eventually said recipients would get up to 65% of their regular benefits. But it balked last week when one of the judges said it must fund the program fully for November, even if that means digging into funds the government said need to be maintained in case of emergencies elsewhere.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to pause that order.

An appeals court said Monday that full funding should resume, and that requirement was set to kick in Tuesday night before the top court extended the order blocking full SNAP payments.

Congressional talks about reopening government

The U.S. Senate on Monday passed legislation to reopen the federal government with a plan that would include replenishing SNAP funds. Speaker Mike Johnson told members of the House to return to Washington to consider the deal a small group of Senate Democrats made with Republicans.

President Trump has not said whether he would sign it if it reaches his desk, but told reporters at the White House on Sunday that it "looks like we're getting close to the shutdown ending."

Still, the Trump administration said in a Supreme Court filing Monday that it shouldn't be up to the courts.

"The answer to this crisis is not for federal courts to reallocate resources without lawful authority," Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in the papers. "The only way to end this crisis — which the Executive is adamant to end — is for Congress to reopen the government."

After Tuesday's ruling, Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media: "Thank you to the Court for allowing Congress to continue its swift progress."

The coalition of cities and nonprofit groups who challenged the SNAP pause said in a court filing Tuesday that the Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, is to blame for the confusion.

"The chaos was sown by USDA's delays and intransigence," they said, "not by the district court's efforts to mitigate that chaos and the harm it has inflicted on families who need food."
Copyright 2025 NPR

WASHINGTON — Flight disruptions are likely to continue even after the government reopens , airlines and aviation regulators warned, as airlines cancelled scores of flights on Tuesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered airlines to reduce air traffic at 40 of the nation's busiest airports, with cuts still ramping up to 10% of flights by Friday. The agency has been dealing with persistent staffing shortages of air traffic controllers , who are required to work without pay during the shutdown, which is now the longest in U.S. history at 42 days and counting.

This past weekend, the FAA reported staffing shortages at dozens of facilities, prompting the agency to slow air traffic to relieve pressure on air traffic controllers who did show up to work. On Tuesday, airlines canceled more than 1,200 flights, according to the aviation tracking site FlightAware .

The situation seemed to be improving somewhat on Tuesday, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, with only a handful of FAA facilities reporting staffing shortages. But Duffy said that air traffic restrictions would remain in place until regulators are satisfied that staffing is back to normal levels.

"We're going to wait to see the data on our end before we take out the restrictions in travel," Duffy said during a press conference at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. "But it depends on controllers coming back to work."

Even when those restrictions are lifted, it may take several days for airlines to return to normal operations.

"It's gonna take a bit to unwind," said former FAA administrator Randy Babbitt in an interview with NPR's All Things Considered.

"The airplanes are in the wrong cities and so forth. They're going to have to sort all that out as well. So a good deal of the responsibility will be the carriers getting their schedules and the aircraft and personnel back in the right positions to resume normal flying," Babbitt said.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday that airlines may have to "stop flying" if Congressional lawmakers don't vote to end the government shutdown.

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Seth Wenig

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AP

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An aviation industry trade group, Airlines for America, also warned that it will take time for carriers to get back to normal.

"Airlines' reduced flight schedules cannot immediately bounce back to full capacity right after the government reopens. It will take time, and there will be residual effects for days," the group said in a statement.

The FAA argues the flight restrictions are necessary to keep the system safe while fewer air traffic controllers are showing up to work during the government shutdown. Some of those controllers have taken on second jobs during the shutdown, and many have called in sick.

But to the Trump administration's critics, the move appears to be about more than just safety. Some Democrats argue that the cuts were a political ploy to raise the pressure to end the government shutdown.

Secretary Duffy rejected that charge on Tuesday, saying the administration was responding to real concerns from pilots and mounting concerns about increasing loss of separation between aircraft.

And he warned of even bigger disruptions ahead if lawmakers do not vote to end the shutdown .

"You may find airlines that stop flying, full stop," Duffy said in Chicago. "You might have airlines that say, we're going to ground our planes, we're not going to fly anymore. That's how serious this is."
Copyright 2025 NPR

Los Angeles billboard culture is memorable, to say the least.

Our attorney billboards have inspired Hollywood . Creative STD prevention ads have reminded people about safety in weirdly direct ways. Even upside down “ Call Jacob ” and “ hate vegans ” billboards have left a confusing impression.

In a world of drab advertisements, every so often the cream of the crop rises to the top. LAist 89.3’s AirTalk unpacked some of those iconic memories recently. Here’s what listeners shared.

Billboards for music

Billboard for Beatles Abbey Road record circa 1969 on the Sunset Strip.

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Courtesy Robert Landau

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Robert Landau, photographer and author of Rock ‘N’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip , has spent years documenting these scenes. He says you have to be clever to plant a seed in drivers’ minds in only a few seconds.

“ We’re such a car-oriented culture that we take this advertising form of billboards and maybe raise it to an art form,” he told host Austin Cross.

One that he remembers vividly is the Beatles’ Abbey Road billboard in 1969.

He said this period was about rock ‘n’ roll music. The bands he listened to were depicted on what he called artistic, almost non-commercial billboards on the Sunset Strip.

“[It created] almost a drive through gallery at that time,” he said.

Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room”

Sam, a listener from Atwater Village, called to share one billboard that lives rent free in his mind.

“ If you traveled in Hollywood on Highland, anytime in the early two thousands,” he said, “you saw the billboard for the Tommy Wiseau movie The Room.”

The billboard was up for years and had little information about what it was actually about. A black-and-white Wiseau stared down passersby next to directions to call a number on the billboard to “RSVP.” (To the movie? A meeting? Who knew.)

It became a sort of local mystery while the movie reached cult-like status .

The Angelyne campaigns

Another one L.A. won’t soon forget is model Angelyne’s plethora of billboards that have dotted the skyline for decades. Yes, decades .

Michael in Studio City said he’s always found the billboard queen entertaining. They’re known for being bright pink and showing Angelyne, usually in a suggestive or sultry pose, alongside just her name.

“I was confused about what necessarily she was going for other than notoriety,” he said.

We could go on forever about L.A.’s hodgepodge of excellent billboards. What’s one that sticks out to you? Send your thoughts to chernandez@laist.com and we may follow up.

This  story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on Tuesday.

Residents of Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles are invited to join Metro’s community working group to provide input on a series of projects aimed at decreasing pollution and improving streets for pedestrians and cyclists.

The effort is part of the Long Beach-East Los Angeles Corridor Mobility Investment Plan, a $4 billion initiative that includes more than 200 projects and 15 programs that prioritize transit, walking, biking, safety and cleaner air.

It spans 18 cities and three unincorporated communities from Long Beach to East LA along the I-710 corridor. The plan includes an initial $743 million from the previously canceled I-710 freeway expansion project.

Who can join

The working group will be made up of 30 people who will represent their community by serving a two-year term. Working group members may be eligible for compensation at a rate of $150 per meeting, earning up to $4,300 per Metro fiscal year, according to Metro .

“We want residents, community members, family members, students, mothers, fathers, grandmas that can come and represent their community … to help us set the priorities,” said Patrick Chandler, a Metro spokesperson.

Chandler said the hope is working group members then can inform their neighbors, “so they are aware of what their concerns are.”

“We know that especially for Boyle Heights, with the East LA interchange … we want to go in a direction that is equitable, that is community driven,” he added.

How to apply

Applications are due Nov. 14 and can be completed online in Spanish or English . To request a paper application, you can email 710corridor@metro.net. Selected members will be notified in December.

Frequently asked questions about the project are available in English and Spanish . To learn more, visit: metro.net/lb-ela-cp-hub.