The Brief

On a recent spring Saturday, about 20 people gathered in a parking lot of a building off of Florence Avenue in South L.A. They each stood by a brand new, bright orange electric bike.

“How often do we get to experience electric bikes in South L.A.?” said Adé Neff, founder of Ride On Bike Shop in Leimert Park. “Electric bikes are all over the city. But they're not within South L.A.”

Until now. Neff is part of a coalition of community-based groups that helped launch a new e-bike rental program called South Central Power Up.

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The program brings 250 e-bikes to South L.A., where, after a safety training, residents will be able to get an e-bike to take home for at least a month, and then they will be able to renew the bike for free, for the first six months of the program. After that, they’ll be able to rent them for a small fee that will be determined later.

It’s part of a growing trend to make e-bikes more widely accessible — e-bikes run at least a few hundred bucks, and more often are more than $1,000. And, most car trips we take are relatively short, so e-bikes can help replace those miles and have a significant impact on climate pollution as well as help folks save money on gas. The South L.A. program is modeled after similar programs in Pacoima and Wilmington.

Adé Neff, owner of a bike shop in Leimert Park and long-time L.A. bicyclist, is part of a coalition of community-based groups that helped launch the new e-bike rental program.

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The goal is to bring a climate friendly and money-saving mode of transportation to an area that lacks dependable public transportation, has disproportionate levels of air and climate pollution, and where high gas prices are particularly burdensome.

“We're offering opportunities to folks that will allow them to have more autonomy and agency over their travel and commute,” said Lena Williams, program director for People for Mobility Justice, one of the community-based groups spearheading the program.

Williams said they aim to serve street vendors and other entrepreneurs such as delivery drivers, and people who frequently use public transportation or walk or bike to get around, as well as folks who want to save on gas money, or just have some fun on a bike without the physical exertion of a traditional bike.

“There’s a place for e-bikes within our society and our communities,” said Neff. “I was on a bike for 10 years in L.A. — I didn't have an electric bike. And I was going from South L.A. to Santa Monica to Long Beach to Pasadena, downtown and by the time I got to my destination, I'm winded, I'm sweaty. Whereas, I can get on the e-bike and get to my destination and I'm not exerting that much energy.”

Lena Williams, program director for People for Mobility Justice, one of the community-based groups spearheading the South Central Power Up e-bike program.

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An e-bike tour of South L.A. 

But on this particular Saturday, the group is going for a ride on the new e-bikes to have some fun and learn about South L.A. and the long fight for environmental and social justice.

South L.A. resident Patrena Shankling, 62, came out to try the bikes with her 32-year-old son Lonnie, who joined from Bellflower.

“I want to get out of my car and get some exercise in,” said Shankling. “It's good for the environment, good for me, health-wise.”

She said she also wants to save money on gas.

South L.A. resident Patrena Shankling, left, and her son Lonnie, came out to try the e-bikes and have some mother-son time together.

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South L.A. resident and community advocate Blanca Lucio said she’s long used regular bikes to get around but this is her first time on an electric one.

“Tengo muchos años este usando bicicleta,” she said. “En mi comunidad, la gente siempre anda caminando, anda en el bus, entonces cuando yo llegué a vivir en sur centro, yo era la mamá que siempre llevaba a los hijos en la bicicleta, la dejarlos a la escuela.”

“I have for many years used a bicycle,” she said. “In my community, people are always walking, taking the bus, so when I came to South Central I was the mother who always took the children on the bicycle to drop them off at school."

She said e-bikes are one way to get around more easily and address air pollution, an issue that’s particularly important to her.

Community advocates Blanca Lucio, left, and Guadalupe Rivas hanging out before the e-bike tour on a recent Saturday.

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Zaakiyah Brisker grew up in South L.A. and only uses a bike to get around. She got rid of her car because of the financial stress of paying the car off, the registration, and maintaining the vehicle, but also because it’s better for the environment.

“When I started riding my bike, it was easier because I used to live in mid-city and all of the shopping that I would do would be in Culver City, which is a totally walkable neighborhood,” Brisker said. “Since moving back to South Central, it's been a challenge because this is not a walkable area. But I love riding my bike so much and I believe in the values of not harming the planet and not adding to climate change as much as possible, especially as it relates to hood areas like South Central.”

It’s one reason why Brisker is a communications associate at Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, or SCOPE for short, a long-time civil rights organization in South L.A. and another partner on the project, and the launching point for our ride today.

South L.A. resident Zaakiyah Brisker stands beside new electric bikes that will be available to rent for free for community members through the new South Central Power Up program

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Turning points for justice in South L.A.

After a safety briefing and getting comfortable on the bikes in the parking lot, it’s time to head out on our ride.

The group listens to Williams discuss safely using the e-bikes.

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We get off to a rough start. As soon as we tried to cross Florence Avenue, an aggressive driver tried to nose through our line of bikes crossing the street — evidence of the dangers bikers face every day on L.A. roads, especially here in South L.A., which has some of the least infrastructure for bikes.

But we safely make it to our first stop — the corner of Florence and Normandie, the very spot where the 1992 unrest began.

Once we got off Florence and onto quieter neighborhood streets, everyone started to relax and have some fun. Soon, the party grew.

Juan Brown, 21, and his buddy decided to join us on their own bikes. They popped wheelies and did other tricks, riding alongside us as we and people watching from outside their homes cheered.

“I ride my bike every day,” Brown said. “For fun, to get around, everything. It's bike life all day.”

21-year-old South L.A. resident Juan Brown joined us for part of our ride.

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But he said dangerous drivers and the lack of infrastructure for bikes is a major, and sometimes deadly, challenge. He says he’s lost friends who have been hit by cars. But it hasn’t stopped him. He said that’s because of the community that biking provides.

Our next stop is Exposition Park, where we talk about how gentrification and housing costs around USC are impacting the community. Next, we head to a former oil drilling site that, after a decade of organizing, the community successfully got shut down.

A map showing the "hubs" where South L.A. residents will be able to pick up e-bikes as part of the South Central Power Up program.

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We end our ride at Village Market Place off Vermont, which sells fresh, locally grown produce and other goods at an affordable price. And, by the way, it’s powered by solar panels.

The ride was 12 miles altogether, but all of us barely broke a sweat.

Our group rides towards Exposition Park.

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Each stop we made on our ride showed how the climate problem is really a justice problem, like how the racism and disinvestment that sparked the L.A. uprising is the very same disinvestment that makes south L.A. worse off when it comes to climate impacts such as extreme heat. And how the climate crisis intersects with food insecurity, and housing costs driving displacement and exacerbating financial stress.

But each stop also revealed the opportunity to turn that around — such as the former oil drilling site, which has been bought by a community trust that has the goal of turning it into a park with permanent affordable housing. Or how growing food locally is a way to boost health and resilience. And the effort to get e-bikes here and get more people out of cars and spur deeper investment in bike infrastructure and public transportation.

The threads tying it all together were the folks who have long pushed for these changes in south L.A.

Without infrastructure, too soon for e-bikes?

Throughout the ride, the lack of safe street infrastructure was glaringly obvious. It’s a problem across L.A., but more so in South L.A, where potholes are rampant, bike lanes are few and far between, and protected bike lanes are nonexistent.

So is it too soon to be pushing e-bikes?

“The streets of South Central are notoriously dangerous, whether you're walking, biking, driving,” Williams said. “But I think there is something super, super important about actually just taking up space — people being seen in this way that says, ‘This is what we're doing. The streets are intended to be multi-modal and we want to show the ways that we can coexist.’”

The slow progress on improving bike infrastructure has been a challenge that the e-bike lending program in Pacoima, Electro-Bici, which has now run for nearly three years, has also faced, said Miguel Miguel, policy director with Pacoima Beautiful, the grassroots group that is heading the project there.

“We're creating a program in a community where a program like this, the infrastructure for it, wasn't ever really thought of,” Miguel said. “It's almost like we're trying to paint the wall right before we fix the drywall. So some of the challenges have been like, we're offering this service, but how do community members now utilize the actual transportation network to be able to go from point A to point B.”

The Electro-Bici program received 100 refurbished electric bikes from the New York-based Shared Mobility Inc., which has provided "e-bike libraries" in several U.S cities.

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The huge lack of even the simplest infrastructure such as bike racks to lock bikes at destinations like grocery stores is also a major barrier, Miguel said. But that hasn’t made the program a failure — far from it actually. Miguel said one big lesson learned has been that the “need” doesn’t always have to come before the “want.”

“This is an activity that community members have been asking for, for a while, but unfortunately there's some true income inequality issues that don't allow folks to have access even just to a regular mechanical bike,” Miguel said. “If we come into this first thinking we want to repair people's relationship with their inner child, we want to repair people's relationship with what it is to have a bike – I think that's what these programs are.”

Miguel said many of the folks who regularly use the e-bikes through Pacoima’s program are either on the older side or the younger side, and rather than only using it to get to and from work or run errands, they’re often using the bikes for exercise, or to go to the park, or just ride around with friends.

“This is an opportunity to have community members step aside from the day to day of working, of living in a city, and into just being a child for a while and just enjoy playing and healing through playing.”

Williams would agree.

“Biking is medicine. If we allow the fears to keep us from getting there, it's such a detriment to our experience,” Williams said.

So e-bikes may be great for saving money on gas and getting around sustainably (they can truly help lower climate pollution), but they’re also just plain fun. And having fun — experiencing joy — well, that’s an important piece of building resilience too.

Demonstrations are planned by several different local groups in SoCal today over the fatal shooting of a man by federal agents in Minnesota on Saturday morning

Here’s a list of some of those actions today:

• Echo Park
  
  • 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the corner of Park Avenue & Echo Park Lake Avenue
• Irvine
  
  • 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Corner of Culver Drive & Barranca Parkway
• Ontario
  
  • Starts at 11:30 AM at Euclid Avenue & Holt Boulevard
• Cypress Park
  
  • Noon to 2 p.m. at The Home Depot on 2055 N. Figueroa St.
• Rancho Cucamonga
  
  • Noon to 2 p.m. at Haven Avenue & Foothill Boulevard
• Long Beach
  
  • Starts at 3 p.m. at the intersection of Pine Avenue and 3rd Street
• Downtown Los Angeles
  
  • Starts at 3 p.m. outside of the Federal Building, at 300 North Los Angeles Street

Some 31,000 nurses, pharmacists and healthcare workers employed by Kaiser Permanente will begin an open-ended strike tomorrow in California and Hawaii, with 28,000 of those workers in California alone.

The health system and the union representing Kaiser workers — United Nurses Associations of California & the Union of Health Care Professionals — have been negotiating for a new labor contract since the end of September. Core bargaining issues include wages for nurses, understaffing and retirement benefits.

Picketing is slated to begin at 12 local Kaiser medical facilities in the following communities: Anaheim, Baldwin Park, Downey, Fontana, Irvine, Los Angeles, Ontario, Riverside, Harbor City, Panorama City, West Los Angeles and Woodland Hills.

Kaiser said in a statement that their hospitals and medical offices will stay open during the strikes, but some pharmacies will close.

Billions of dollars are pouring into data centers to power streaming services, cloud storage and the biggest energy monster of all, artificial intelligence.

Dozens of data centers already dot the region, from El Segundo to downtown L.A. But in Monterey Park, residents concerned about the environmental and health impacts of data centers are drawing a line.

A developer has proposed building a nearly 250,000-square-foot data center in a local business park. Last Wednesday night, hundreds of people packed City Hall to say they didn’t want it — or for that matter, any such facility.

“No data centers in Monterey Park!” the crowd chanted.

Residents’ immediate goal was to ensure the City Council approved a 45-day moratorium on data center development, an item added to the agenda after weeks of mounting public pressure.

What they got, in a meeting that stretched past midnight, was the council’s commitment to draft an outright ban during the 45-day period for a later vote. “That is more than I ever could have hoped for from this meeting,” resident Steven J. Kung said. “I am shocked and a little bit overjoyed.”

Residents organize

Hours earlier at a rally he helped lead, Kung had been far more cautious.

He expressed little faith in city officials, especially after learning that the project had been moving through the city’s planning process for about two years without his knowledge.

Kung said he only found out about the proposal from the Australian-based developer when his husband showed him a social media post by SGV Progressive Action last month — despite their living about 1,300 feet from the proposed site.

“I was incensed that no one had told me, especially since I lived so close,” he said.

Steven J. Kung is part of the activist and resident-led No Data Center Monterey Park.

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Kung joined a grassroots group of residents and activists called No Data Center Monterey Park, which has organized teach-ins, canvassing drives and yard sign campaigns in the weeks leading up to the vote.

Developer's promises

The developer, HMC StratCap, has said its proposed data center on 1977 Saturn Street would generate more than $5 million a year in tax revenue and more than 200 jobs during construction. It’s also promised to build a public park.

But residents said that’s not worth the tradeoff of the massive energy demand of data centers, pollution from diesel backup generators and noise from cooling equipment.

The developer counters that the generators will be strictly regulated, a “closed-loop cooling technology” will use water efficiently and noise will be “similar to a typical commercial area,” according to a handout shared with residents at Wednesday’s meeting.

Monterey Park City Hall was packed to capacity as people waited to testify in opposition to a proposed data center.

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The developer has also agreed to an environmental impact report.

Kung and others say an EIR is the least the developer should do. They say they’re also troubled by the decision to locate a data center in a city of roughly 60,000 people, more than half of them immigrants.

“They see a small city full of Asians and Latinos, and they don’t think we’ll fight back,” Kung said. “But they’re wrong.”

“People, not machines”

So many people showed up that the lobby was converted into overflow space.

Among them was Alex Leon, a mathematician who attended with his wife, a phlebotomist, and their two young daughters.

“This has kind of been our dream, living in Monterey Park,” Leon said. “I just don’t want it to turn into an industrial farm for big data.”

Alex Leon came to speak out against the proposed data center with his wife Janette and their two daughters.

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Like dozens of others, Leon wasn’t there just to watch, but wanted council members to listen. When his turn came to give comment, he met the eyes of the council members.

“Monterey Park should be built for people, not machines,” he said. “For families, not server racks. For community life, not industrial infrastructure. This is our home, and it’s worth defending.”

“Open and honest conversations”

A handful of speakers supported the project, including a representative for the developer. Laziza Lambert pivoted at the podium to face the crowd.

“We just really want to be good, long-term partners with the community and hope to have open and honest conversations,” she said, as some in the audience started to jeer.

Residents voiced concerns that once one data center is approved, the floodgates would open, noting that the developer owns another parcel on the same street.

But much of the anger that night was aimed at city leaders. Speaker after speaker said they had been kept in the dark.

Tran and

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Katherine Torres, a real estate agent and president of the Monterey Park Women’s Club, said the organization is apolitical, but she would be sure to tell the members.

“I swear, I’m going to spread the word about the data center because they need to know,” she said as the room erupted in applause.

She looked at the council members with whom she was on a first-name basis.

“I have dinner with you guys,” she said. “I go to your events. Why didn’t I know?”

A surprise shift

By the fifth hour, nearly 80 residents had spoken. Then it was the council’s turn to give comments before their vote on the 45-day moratorium.

Two members said they supported going beyond a temporary pause and considering a permanent ban. Jose Sanchez’s opposition to data centers was already known to those closely following the issue. But Elizabeth Yang’s was not.

Yang told the room that her mother and stepfather live within a mile of the proposed site.

The council meeting was preceded by a rally against data centers.

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“I’m not going to vote for something that’s going to hurt my own family,” she said.

She added she was disappointed the developer had not done more with outreach and information.

“Because of all of you feeding us good information, I’m siding with no data center,” Yang said.

The remaining residents started clapping and rose to their feet.

What’s ahead

The council unanimously approved the 45-day moratorium during which city staff will draft an ordinance that could ban data centers outright — a proposal that will return to the council for a vote.

Outside council chambers, Steven J. Kung praised his fellow residents for speaking out and pushing the council to think bigger.

“I’m so proud of Monterey Park and our residents,” he said. “The more I’m here, the more I fall in love with the people.”

He’d celebrate that night. But then it’d be back to work, making sure the ban stands and Monterey Park keeps data centers out for good.

The developer would not be sitting back either. Lambert, the representative for the developer, said they were moving forward with plans to host a town hall with residents in the next couple of weeks.

When Christian Bryson needs quick weather information, like for this weekend's massive snowstorm, he doesn't wait for the 5 p.m. local newscast. Instead, he turns to Ryan Hall.

"It's as if he's sitting in the living room with you tracking the storm," said Bryson, a 21-year-old meteorology student at the University of Tennessee at Martin.

Hall, who goes by "Ryan Hall, Y'all" on his social media platforms, calls himself a "digital meteorologist" and "The Internet's Weather Man." His YouTube channel has over 3 million subscribers. Hall did not respond to a request to comment about his platform.
Hall is part of an increasingly popular genre of social media weather accounts that share information leading up to extreme weather, and then livestream for their viewers, sometimes for hours at a time. Overall, Hall offers solid information and is a good communicator with a few technical omissions, experts told NPR. But the weather genre online spans a wide range of sources — from amateurs with no science background to accredited meteorologists.
Experts say that while weather influencers can help fill an information gap, platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X tend to prioritize engagement and likes over accuracy. That means extreme weather updates on social media are often sensationalized or lack context, says Gary Lackmann, a professor of atmospheric science at North Carolina State University.
"They're not going to the National Weather Service web page, they're just looking at what's in their feed," Lackmann said. "Once you start clicking on viral extreme weather stuff, then the algorithm is going to just feed you more and more."

Rise in social media use for weather updates

Lackmann, who is also head of NC State's department of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences, said in 2024 during Hurricane Helene, a weather disaster that swamped western North Carolina, killing 108 people, he started to see more and more people getting their weather information from social media
He says that, in the face of extreme weather events, people need credible and authoritative sources such as the NWS.
But with social media, sometimes "you get some kid who wants to get a lot of shares and likes and be an influencer on social media," he said.
Matthew Cappucci, a senior meteorologist for the weather app MyRadar, has personal experience with both worlds. He worked for years at the Washington Post as a meteorologist, and now posts weather forecasts on the internet.
Cappucci said his success on Facebook, Instagram, and X shows how rapidly people are shifting from getting their weather information from traditional news outlets versus social media.
"Within two months, I was able to reach 60 million-plus people on social media, just on Facebook," Cappucci said
Bryson, the 21-year-old, said Hall and other credible weather influencers use language that non-meteorologists understand and they can share information at any time of the day.
"The fact that it's available at your fingertips," Bryson said. "I could go to Ryan Hall at 4 p.m. I'm eating my dinner and get the information that I need."

Digital meteorology can help fill information gaps 

There are positives to having meteorologists and credible weather sources on social media, Lackmann said. He's seen local weather influencers in North Carolina help disperse information from official outlets.

"There's a real need for that kind of localization and personalization of weather information," Lackmann said.
Aaron Scott, an assistant professor of meteorology at the University of Tennessee at Martin, said digital meteorology, a relatively new certification program that encompasses all forms of digital media, has an important place in the new media landscape.
"People do trust them, and they have built rapport," Scott said. "Sometimes that can make the difference if someone's going to actually go take shelter from a tornado or not."
Scott's department at UT Martin is now offering a digital meteorology class dedicated to teaching students how to engage with an online audience.
Cappucci also sees the positives with his own content. Social media allows for more flexibility than on-air television, he said. He pushes back on climate misinformation or weather conspiracy theorists.

A minefield of misinformation on social media

But all three experts interviewed by NPR see the downsides in the way social media algorithms push the most sensationalized — not always the most accurate — information to the forefront.
"The brightest colors, the most outlandish information will always get more following than actual truthful information," Cappucci said.
Cappucci said the ability to make increasing amounts of money on social media can also lead to inaccurate weather information.
"As TV viewership wanes and as salaries come down, it's easier to make up that money by posting crazy stuff online," Cappucci said.
Meteorologists use a number of different numerical models as they predict the possible outcomes of an extreme weather event. Because of this, people can "cherry-pick" one model and sensationalize a forecast, Lackmann said.
"You cry wolf too often, and people won't take proper precautions when there really is a high probability of an extreme event," Lackmann said.

The effort to preserve credible weather reports

Meteorologists and other weather professionals are grappling with how to navigate the new media landscape and prioritize accurate information, the experts said.
NWS has increased its social media presence, Lackmann said. Experts at the American Meteorological Society have discussed a social media certification that extends beyond the digital media certification currently available.

Scott said how the field will grapple with social media, and now AI-generated media, is "a huge question mark."
"That's the million-dollar question," Scott said. "How do we make it? Do we have some type of badging system where you're certified, you're not? Then, who decides that?"
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