Topline:
From an historic election to a new Los Angeles area code, LAist covered news that was meaningful to readers and listeners throughout Southern California.
Why it matters: Before we roll up our sleeves and turn our attention to the year ahead, let’s take a moment to reflect on some of LAist's best investigative and enterprise work of 2024.
Check out our editors' picks.
What a year.
From an historic election to a new Los Angeles area code, LAist covered news that was meaningful to readers and listeners throughout Southern California.
But before we roll up our sleeves and turn our attention to the year ahead, let’s take a moment to reflect on some of LAist's best investigative and enterprise work of 2024.
Here are some of the editors’ picks:
Andrew Do resigned in late October as Orange County supervisor and agreed to plead guilty to a conspiracy to steal millions of taxpayer dollars meant to feed needy seniors. The announcement by U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada came after a months-long LAist investigation led by reporter Nick Gerda and later a federal probe. Out of $9.3 million in taxpayer dollars that were supposed to feed people, only 15% went to people in need, according to Estrada.
What should justice look like? Your vote for LA County DA is a choice between 2 visions
The 2024 race to become Los Angeles County’s next district attorney was one of the most-watched in Southern California and across the country. The incumbent, George Gascón, was known as the godfather of progressive prosecutors and was voted into office at a time when the nationwide call for criminal justice reform was particularly strong. But LAist’s Frank Stoltze reported in multiple articles — and a four-episode podcast series — that the political environment had changed significantly. Nathan Hochman, who vowed to reverse many of Gascón’s policies, was voted into office by a decisive margin.
Orange County Public Works officials knew about high fire danger last September, but failed to take precautions the day a crew accidentally started the massive Airport Fire, according to messages obtained by LAist. The fire burned down more than 160 buildings and injured 22 people. Reporters Yusra Farzan, Jill Replogle and Nick Gerda explained the details.
California universities are required to offer students abortion pills. A lot just don't mention it
One year after California became the first state to require its public universities to provide the abortion pill to students, LAist reporters Jackie Fortiér and Adolfo Guzman-Lopez found that many campuses had failed to provide basic information to students about how or where they could get the medication. As of late January 2024, nearly half the clinics at California State University’s 23 campuses had no information about medication abortion on their clinic websites. Of University of California’s 10 campuses, eight mentioned abortion on their clinic websites at the time.
Nearly a third of LAPD shootings since 2017 involved a person in a mental health crisis
The Los Angeles Police Department has said for decades it was doing more to de-escalate confrontations with people struggling with mental illness, but an analysis by LAist reporter Robert Garrova found little change in recent years. Since 2017, 31% of people shot at by police were perceived by officers to be struggling with some kind of mental illness, according to LAPD annual use-of-force reports.
The toxic footprint of the Tustin hangar fire: We mapped 1,382 locations where debris was reported
In November 2023, a fire broke out at a World War II-era airplane hangar in Tustin, sending smoke and asbestos-laden debris into the air and spreading it for miles. In an effort led by reporter Jill Replogle, LAist examined data from the city of Tustin and mapped how far reports showed that the debris fell. Some of it was reported up to 10 miles away from the damaged hangar.
Transitional kindergarten is the first year of a two-year program meant to prepare children for elementary school. In 2021, California embarked on a $2.7 billion plan to offer the program to all 4-year-olds by the 2025-26 school year. But Elly Yu’s reporting shows that many schools are a long way from meeting that deadline. School districts across the state are struggling to build or modify the classroom space needed for the new students.
An audit of the Los Angeles region's biggest homeless services agency was big news, and LAist reporter David Wagner wrote this piece that not only detailed the findings, but explained what they mean now and how they could affect the agency's future. Auditors found that the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which operates with an $875-million annual budget, routinely paid service providers late, failed to track whether they followed gave taxpayer funds earmarked for other purposes to providers who weren’t supposed to receive it.
LAist reporters Nick Gerda and Josie Huang examined contracts each Orange County supervisor created for a pandemic meals program in 2020, and reviewed how that taxpayer money was supposed to be spent. The reporters found that the contract developed for the district represented by then-Supervisor Michelle Steel charged taxpayers the most for meals — by far. The reporters also found that Steel, who later became a U.S. representative, directed a $1.2 million taxpayer-funded contract to a marketing and printing company she was using for her congressional election campaign mailers.
Your guide to following California’s 'compost' law
Two years after California law began requiring residents to keep food waste out of landfills, LAist’s Erin Stone had questions. How would the program work in the city of L.A.? What challenges were cities facing to comply with an unfunded state mandate? Will apartment complexes and other rentals be able to make it work? She found answers and laid them all out in a comprehensive guide for readers.
818 til you die? OG 213? LA, you have very strong feelings about area codes
Prompted by news that Los Angeles County would be getting yet another area code — 738 — reporter Cato Hernández wrote a fun story about how the codes have, for some Southern Californians in particular, become a marker of identity. Even as consumers transitioned from landlines to cellphones, those three little numbers have remained important for various reasons, including what they may signify about who you are and where you’re from.
Hope and heartbreak: Jackie and Shadow's saga is hitting humans hard
A bald eagle couple who were awaiting the hatching of eggs in Big Bear Valley captured the attention of many, including LAist reporter Makenna Sievertson. When the eggs were no longer visible in the livestream, and the Friends of Big Bear Valley Facebook page reported that one of the birds "had begun acting differently at the nest," it was clear that the happy ending many were waiting for was not to be. LAist followed the reactions of many people who watched the saga play out.
Yes, LA pizza is a thing, and it beats out all the other pizza in the world
Controversy? Yeah, we know controversy. That’s why Gab Chabrán didn’t shy away from asking whether Los Angeles had not only the best pizza in the county (sorry, New Yorkers) but the world! His thesis: Untethered by any specific pizza standards, chefs in L.A. get to use all the best parts of what makes a great pie. Don’t believe it? You’re free to test out that theory on your own.
Think you know the origins of the ‘Valley Girl’ accent? Like OMG, as if!
Long live the Valley Girl. Where did that distinctive Southern California accent come from and is it here to stay? Reporter Cato Hernández did some digging into the origins of the moniker and the manner of speaking. Fer sure!
Topline:
Drinking ponche, a warm simmered fruit punch popular in Mexico reminds me of the old country. Making it in L.A. today, affirms where I now. Keep reading, for a look back at holiday memories and stay for my ponche recipe.
Why it matters: Beloved across Mexico, Central America and in the U.S., holiday fruit drink has traveled through time and across the world, melding Europe, Middle East and Asian flavors.
Why now: The nine days before Christmas through January 6 are peak ponche-making days. Finding good quality ingredients in the U.S. can be a challenge.
The backstory: Ponche’s origins are embedded in the name, which is said to originate from the word in India for five. That’s the number of ingredients in a fruit and spice drink brought to Europe, then to what is now Mexico — alcohol, lemon, sugar, water and spices.
Last Sunday, I took out my big 16 quart-pot to make a batch of ponche for my family, friends, and a few LAist colleagues. It’s something I’ve made regularly over the years — a warm fruit punch simmered for five hours that’s popular from Central America to the U.S. The nine days before Christmas, through Jan. 6 are traditionally peak ponche-making days.
My recipe, one of many variations, includes guayabas (guavas), apples, tamarind, cinnamon sticks, raw sugar cane, piloncillo (unrefined sugar), prunes, tejocotes (Hawthorn apples), raisins, and cloves.
Smelling the result of the long simmering of these ingredients makes me play a game: What fruit aromas do I recognize, and which ones are blends of multiple ingredients?
(You can find the full recipe at the end of the article. Feel free to modify as you please).
My strongest ponche memories are from my teens and 20s, going to my aunt’s house in Tijuana during the Christmas season and on trips to Mexico in December. Many of those relatives have since died or have moved far away.
When I moved to L.A. County, at 31, leaving behind my immediate family in San Diego, I reached out to my Mexican relatives to get their ponche recipes. I wanted to recover those supportive feelings of family conversations, relatives who'd known me since I was a kid, and talks with cousins about being Mexican away from Mexico.
What I found is that making ponche in my new home over the years did much more than that. It’s become a way to create new, good memories with my wife and children, friends and colleagues.
By some accounts, ponche’s origins are embedded in the name, which is said to be rooted in the word in India for five, a reference to the five ingredients in a drink Europeans brought back to their countries hundreds of years ago — alcohol, lemon, sugar, water and spices.
That drink was brought to what is now Mexico and Central America, where people incorporated what was grown locally.
Which may explain why the drink has such an eclectic set of ingredients today. Think about the trek those fruits and spices have made: prunes originally from Asia, raisins from the Middle East and guavas from Southern Mexico and Central America, to name a few.
When I set out to make this year’s batch of ponche, I immediately encountered the usual challenge: finding ripe, fragrant guavas at the end of December. Supermarket guavas, more often than not, are sold green and don’t give my ponche the zing I look for.
The search for ripe guavas pushed me to foraging in recent years. There were guava trees in front yards in my neighborhood and I’d pick the fruit and freeze it about a month before making ponche.
But now one of those trees has been cut down and the other is barely a stump. So this year, I felt like I had no choice but to buy supermarket guavas.
I was on my way to Gonzalez supermarket in Long Beach, when, a block away, I spotted a different guava tree in someone’s front yard. I parked and talked to the man sitting on the porch. He told me he was originally from Mexico, is a landscaper and says he waters and gives the tree vitamins. He was gracious and picked a bagful for me to take. He said people come and take the fruit but he likes it when people ask.
Armed with peak guava, I began my prep on Sunday morning, washing and chopping the apples and guavas and painstakingly peeling the tamarind. By the afternoon I was ready to welcome guests, like my colleague Yusra Farzan, who covers Orange County.
“This ponche is like a warm hug. I'm feeling it in my fingers, in my toes,” she said, adding that she liked chewing on the sugar cane slivers in the drink.
Gab Chabran, LAist's food and culture writer, grew up in a Latino household but didn’t try ponche until he was an adult, because his parents aren’t big fans of warm drinks. Still, he said there was something distinctively familiar about it.
It was the flavors of cinnamon and apple, which reminded me of the holidays, mixed with the tropical nature of the guavas, the tejocotes and the tamarind.
“It was the flavors of cinnamon and apple, which reminded me of the holidays, mixed with the tropical nature of the guavas and the tejocotes along with the tamarind,” he said. “Something about them mixed together, it's just so comforting and warm. I feel like I could drink it all year long.”
For others it was a new spin on an old tradition. “It's different from what I make,” said Erwin Cox, who grew up in Guatemala. The ponche he drank as a kid had a pineapple base, instead of guavas. He liked mine — I want to try making his.
As for the food that went with it — for many years when I was growing up, ponche went along with tamales. But now some of my traditions have changed. On Sunday I made latkes to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah, part of the Jewish traditions I’ve adopted from my wife and her mother and father’s families.
And there was ponche, accompanying me along the way, seeing time pass and changing along with me.
For 8 quarts
Put all ingredients in an 8 quarts or larger pot that has a lid. Fill with 8 - 10 quarts of water. The ingredients take up a lot of space and you’ll lose about a quart of water in the simmering. Bring to a boil on medium-high heat, then lower to a simmer and cover. It needs to simmer for at least four hours, ideally five - plus.
Serve in a mug with a sugar cane sliver or other fruit from the pot. You can add rum, brandy, or other distilled spirit to your liking after serving.
I always buy one or two more of the ingredients to put raw/whole in a bowl to show people what they're drinking.
Topline:
No need to stray far from home — L.A.'s urban wineries are making quality wine from grapes grown across Southern California, from Malibu to the Antelope Valley to Agua Dulce.
Try some yourself: Visit these L.A.-area tasting rooms: Angeleno Wine Company (Chinatown), AJA Vineyards (Santa Monica), Cavaletti Vineyards (Moorpark), Herrmann York Wine (Redlands) and Byron Blatty Wines (Highland Park).
Where to start? We suggest Angeleno Wine Company's Bike Path chilled red ($35) or Herrmann York's Lopez Ranch Zinfandel ($33) for holiday meals.
Yes, our Northern California wine behemoth neighbors are usually top of mind as we shop for wines. But there are L.A. winemakers making magic locally, using grapes from Malibu's coastal hills, or century-old vines in Cucamonga, or small family vineyards in Agua Dulce.
It's more of a revival than an innovation, since L.A. was once the center of a booming wine industry. But after decades of disease, Prohibition, and suburban sprawl, by the 1950s, the bulk of production had moved north to Napa and Sonoma.
Today, in Chinatown, Highland Park, Moorpark and Redlands, winemakers offer tasting rooms where you can try a particular pour and see what you like. Or you can just go with recommendations, like our guide below. Either way, grab a bottle or two to share this holiday. Most of these wines are priced from $20 to $50, and you’re not only getting something festive — you’re also supporting local businesses.
This Chinatown tasting room is only open on Friday and the weekends — because on the other days it’s used to crush and bottle grapes grown in the SoCal region. "This entire area becomes our production space during the week," says Amy Luftig, who co-founded the company with Jasper Dickson.
One of their key partnerships is with Alonso Family Vineyard in Agua Dulce, just 45 minutes from downtown. Owner Juan Alonso started the vineyard in 1995, growing French and Spanish varietals, ignoring everyone who said the region couldn't produce quality grapes. You can spot a mural of him in the Angeleno Wine Co. tasting room.
"Juan is the heart and soul of Angeleno," Dickson says. "The character of his vineyard is what shines through in our wines."
If you find yourself in Santa Monica, skip the crowds at the pier and Ocean Ave sports bars, and head to AJA Vineyards tasting room. You may be greeted by the founders’ daughter, Amanda Rubin who can tell you about each wine with pride and enthusiasm.
Named for the originators of the winery Todd and Heather Greenbaum's three children, Alec, Jack, and Amanda, AJA Vineyards farms two acres in the Malibu hills and also sources grapes from up and down the Malibu Coast.
Tasting flights of five wines start at $35, and Rubin makes it clear: no wine expertise required. "We really want to create a welcoming space so that when people come through the door, they don't feel intimidated. They don't feel like they have to be an expert on wine."
Although Cavaletti Vineyards tasting room is in Moorpark in Ventura County, it's a staple in the L.A. wine scene — founder Patrick Kelley is a key part of the L.A. Vintners Association. They source grapes from unique, often overlooked vineyards primarily in Ventura, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara Counties, focusing on organic farming and cool-climate sites near the coast or at high altitudes.
Co-winemaker Sterling Andrews describes one of their key sources, the Lopez Vineyard, as a hidden gem. Drive down the 210 freeway past Rancho Cucamonga: "You would never know," he says —100-year-old vines tucked behind commercial sprawl.
Co-owner Garrett York and his brother Taylor started making wine in their garage with friend Dustin Hermann in 2020. "We learned by making mistakes rather than following advice," York says. "The lessons are more durable that way."
They practice minimal intervention winemaking, meaning they let the grapes do their thing — little to no additives, and trusting the fruit to become wine naturally. They source grapes from small, family-owned vineyards across SoCal, particularly the Inland Empire. "We believe the most exciting thing is allowing a place and variety to contribute something accidental and unique," York says.
These three wines below are included on their “Starchy Meal Deal”, discounted at $91 and curated to pair with your holiday meals.
Owner Mark Blatty brings Hollywood credentials to Highland Park winemaking — he's a producer for The Real Housewives franchise. I gifted the 2022 Rosé to my mom, an avid Bravo TV fan but not as much of an avid wine drinker like me. Tasting the wine with her, she described it as "lightweight" and "refreshing"— her kind of wine for a casual evening.
Blatty sources grapes from various family-owned, sustainably farmed vineyards throughout Los Angeles County, including sites in the Malibu Coast, Sierra Pelona Valley, and the high-elevation Leona Valley.
My personal favorite was the Tremor. The earthy scent on the nose had me intrigued immediately. "From the Antelope Valley, right up on the San Andreas Fault line — hence the name," said tasting room manager Al Amendola. "There tends to be more minerals in the soil."
Topline:
The movie “Love & Basketball” turned 25 this year. The L.A.-set romance starring Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan was a box office success when it came out in 2000, and it’s now included in the National Film Registry. But it almost didn’t get made back then, and writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood isn't sure it would get made today.
The context: “ Every single studio turned it down," Prince-Bythewood says. But after she was invited to the Sundance Directors Lab, her script caught the attention of filmmaker Spike Lee, who produced the film.
Today, she's not sure Love & Basketball would get made: "It might get made on Netflix or Amazon. But a theatrical [release]? No, I don't think it'd get made today. Though I'd like to think I'd fight in the same way I did to finally get it made. But the industry has shifted dramatically."
Read on... for more details about the making of Love & Basketball.
The movie Love & Basketball turned 25 this year.
The L.A.-set romance starring Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan was a hit when it came out in April of 2000. It’s now included in the National Film Registry and in the Criterion Collection. And this Saturday, the Academy Museum is hosting a special screening of the film to celebrate its 25th anniversary.
But the film almost didn’t get made.
The film’s writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood says not only did every studio turn the film down, “ every production company turned it down on top of that. So I didn't even have a company to maybe believe in it and fight for it.”
“ I was getting feedback like, ‘It's too soft,’ [and] ‘Nobody wants to see this,’” Prince-Bythewood says. “It was tough.”
The “too soft” criticism came with some unhelpful suggestions. Like, “Can you add scenes in it, like [in] Soul Food where the woman is chasing her husband with a knife?” Prince-Bythewood says, “It's like, ‘No, that's not this film.’”
At at time when Boys n the Hood and Menace II Society were in the zeitgeist, Prince-Bythewood says, ”Hollywood is so myopic, and that's all they see of Black life. [...] This was not recognizable to too many in the industry. And so for them, this is ‘soft’ as opposed to no, this is our lives. This is real life.”
As the rejections continued to come in, Prince-Bythewood kept a list on her refrigerator of all the studios, crossing each one out with every new “no.” Two days after she’d made it through the entire list came “a miracle” — the Sundance Directors Lab called with an invite. After a table read of her script at the lab caught the attention of filmmaker Spike Lee’s company, “they were like, ‘We wanna do this.’”
But despite that green light, the challenges kept coming.
When it came to the search for the lead character, Monica, “ I knew that I had to find an actor who could ball,” Prince-Bythewood says, “I knew the ball couldn't be whack [because] I didn't wanna set women's sports back years. So actors came in and they did the acting audition, and then if they got past that, then they had to meet me on the court.”
Sanaa Lathan came in, “knocked out the audition, [had] great, amazing chemistry with Omar,” but had “never picked up a ball in her life, and I was like, ‘I can't do this.’”
After a search for another actor who could match Lathan’s performance and play basketball came up short, Prince-Bythewood had to make a decision.
“ I really thought about it and said finally, it's a love story set in the basketball world and realized you can fake a jump shot, but you can't fake a closeup, so go with the actor.”
Lathan trained with a coach for three months, and throughout the production as well, and ultimately she only needed a double for two shots of the entire film.
SUB: Setting the film in L.A. and making it feel authentic
Prince-Bythewood had played track at UCLA, where she also went to film school, and first wanted to set Love & Basketball at her alma mater, but UCLA said no.
“So I went to my big rival” — USC — and “they just welcomed us with open arms, which was amazing because I knew I didn't want to make up a college. That's when films feel fake.”
When it came to the final scene, where Monica is playing in the WNBA, that was all real too — with the Los Angeles Sparks playing at The Forum, the legendary Lisa Leslie on the court and Magic Johnson the stands.
Another hurdle was achieving a PG-13 rating, which was Prince-Bythewood’s agreement with the studio, New Line Cinema.
There is one sex scene in the film, which has been lauded for portraying a request for consent and the use of a condom, but it almost earned the film an R rating.
“I had to go back to the ratings board three times to get a PG-13 because of that scene,” Prince-Bythewood says. “Their feedback on why they were giving me an R is because they said it felt too real.”
“I was like, ‘I mean, that's what filmmaking is.’ I think it's good filmmaking if you feel that it's real.”
So Prince-Bythewood stood her ground: “There was no nudity, no grinding. It's just a love scene and it’s a young woman's first time and I wanted to play the reality of that, and show how it could be done the right way."
As difficult as it was to get Love & Basketball made in the late 90s, would trying to get it made in today’s Hollywood — with the greater value placed on films based on existing intellectual property and big-budget sequels — be even harder?
“I think about that,” Prince-Bythewood says. “ It scares me to death that I don't know that it would get made today.”
While it might get made by a streaming service, ”a theatrical [release?] No. I don't think it'd get made today, though I'd like to think I'd fight in the same way I did to finally get it made. But the industry has shifted dramatically.”
Add to that the fact that, “ the makeup of those in power has not changed over my 30 year career,” Prince-Bythewood says, “You greenlight what's familiar to you, you greenlight what you believe the industry wants. That silences a whole lot of voices, and unfortunately a lot of voices like mine.”
Topline:
An atmospheric river is expected to hit Southern California next week, bringing several inches of rain to the region — just in time for Christmas.
Why it matters: The moderate to strong storm could dump 2 to 4 inches of rain on L.A., Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, while the mountains and foothills could see double that amount.
Why now: The storm is expected to peak Tuesday evening into Christmas Eve, according to the National Weather Service, lingering into Thursday and Christmas Day.
The details: Bryan Lewis, a meteorologist with the NWS Oxnard office, said forecasters also are expecting gusty winds across the region, along with a chance of thunderstorms.
Confidence is high in a return of rain to Southwest California next week with rainfall likely peaking Christmas Eve thru Christmas Day (Dec 24-25). While the most likely outcomes are shown in the graphic, there is still some uncertainty with the details. Stay tuned. #LARain #CAwx pic.twitter.com/MudoabhNm4
— NWS Los Angeles (@NWSLosAngeles) December 17, 2025
What's next: There’s also a growing potential for moderate to heavy showers continuing into next weekend, although Lewis said the details and timing could change as the storm approaches.
Go deeper: Why your skis and snowboard might not get much of a workout this winter
