The Brief

It can be difficult to watch a parent or loved one age, especially when they begin to need assistance. And it is even more of a challenge when you're tasked with becoming their primary caregiver.

On a recent episode of LAist's daily news program AirTalk, which airs on 89.3. FM, host Larry Mantle talked with gerontologist and director of the USC Family Caregiver Support Center Donna Benton about how to navigate the challenges of being a caregiver for a parent or parents — and got some tips from both Benton and AirTalk listeners on things they wish they'd known when taking on caregiving responsibilities.

Start a conversation early

When it comes to discussing your parents’ needs and wishes for elder care, Benton said it's best to plan ahead and not wait until there's a crisis.

“It's a heavy conversation to have, but I know most parents want to lessen the burden of their kids if they can,” she said. “So having that conversation, thinking through those things, is really, really helpful.”

AirTalk listener Anne in Huntington Beach is a caregiver for both her parents and seconded Benton's advice. She said one of the challenges she faced when first starting their care was trying to meet her parents’ needs and expectations for what at-home care looked like for them.

“That's probably one of the biggest lessons I learned is to have a conversation with your parents early,” Anne said. “What do you want? Are you OK being in a home? Do you want to be in your own home? And what does that look like? What do we need to do now to make sure that that can happen?”

At-home care requires financial planning and may entail modifying the home to make it more accessible for your aging loved-one, all things that need advanced preparation. It may also be beneficial to include your parent in the planning and decision process beyond just asking them what they want.

Diana in Fullerton emailed saying that when her father needed additional care, he helped interview home caregivers and that gave him a role in choosing who looked after him.

Know your options

“I think what's helpful for adult children is if [they] can learn about what options are out there, and what questions to ask about services and support in advance,” Benton said.

If your parent or loved one wants to stay at home, Benton said you'll want to find answers to questions like, what services are offered to help enable that? What do they cost? If your parent wants to stay at a facility or assisted living home, what places are in your area?

“Many times when [they] say, ‘Oh, I don't want to leave my home’ it’s because [they] have an image of a nursing home, but there are housing options that are in between...an assisted living facility or smaller, shared housing,” Benton said.

For those trying to make arrangements for loved ones who live out of state, Benton said to reach out to the area agency on aging, who will be able to tell you what the local resources are.

It's also important to understand what financial options are open to you and your loved one.

“Of course these do change, but there's some standard ones you should understand and help your parent understand,” she said. “What does Medicare pay for? What does Medi-Cal pay for if they're eligible?”

Reframe the idea of who is in need of care

Probably the biggest challenge when caring for an aging parent is getting them to accept your help in the first place. After all, you're their child and they may feel strange having the caregiver role reversed.

Benton recommends using this to your advantage, and appealing to your parent’s desire to care for you. Rather than framing the task as something your parent can no longer do on their own, Benton said to turn it around on yourself, as something you want to do or something that is actually helping you instead.

“If there's an objection, you might say, ‘I'm doing this because it makes me feel good. Let me do this as a favor because it makes me feel a little less anxious,’” she said.

It’s OK to ask others for help

Caring for an aging loved one can be isolating and exhausting. Benton said it's important to build a team around you for support so you can find time to also care for yourself. This can be siblings, other family members, or friends.

“Ask your parent, ‘If I can't be there or when I'm not there, who else would you like to help you?’” Benton said.

Anne in Brea said she leans on her sisters for help when caring for their mother.

“We take turns with things during the day so that I can get a little break and my sister, who was taking care of her, can also get a break,” she said.

Mark in the Fairfax district wrote in recommending people use a senior living consultant to help find the right care for their parents.

“I think using consultants can be really wonderful because they know the services and the right questions to ask, and they can cut some of that frustration that you're going to feel,” Benton said.

And finally, be flexible

“A big key is flexibility, and persistence,” Benton said.

Service options change, as well as financial assistance, so options that weren’t open to you and your parent last year, may be open to you the next, she added.

“It's not a one and done answer for anything,” Benton said.

Listen to the conversation

News that Warner Bros. Discovery is up for sale has Hollywood buzzing. The legendary film studio, which has grown to include streaming services and cable channels, is currently accepting non-binding bids until Thursday. According to company spokesperson Robert Gibbs, they expect to have a decision about the sale by Christmas.

It's become something of a Hollywood parlor game to guess who will ultimately take over the business, which was founded in 1923 by four brothers: Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack Warner. They owned a movie theater in Pennsylvania before coming to Hollywood to make movies.

Warner Brothers Pictures found one of its first silent picture stars in a German shepherd named Rin Tin Tin. By 1927, the studio made history with its feature-length "talkie" picture: The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson.

Over the years, Warner Brothers has made or distributed countless iconic films including: Casablanca, The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon in the 1940's. The list goes on, with titles like A Clockwork Orange, Goodfellas, Barbie, as well as Bugs Bunny and all the Looney Tunes cartoons.

Warners Brothers has had multiple owners over the decades. Three years ago, Warner Media, as it was called, merged with Discovery. And in June, the company announced it would split in two, with film, TV and streaming studios in one camp, and in the other, mostly legacy cable channels, including CNN.

The planned split has not yet happened, and a new buyer might get the entirety of Warner Bros. Discovery and its film and TV libraries.

As the film industry continues to consolidate, there's speculation that Warner Brothers' old rival Paramount could take over. Having just merged as Paramount Skydance, CEO David Ellison has already made several overtures.

The idea of streaming giant Netflix buying the company has raised antitrust concerns on Capitol Hill. In an earnings call last month, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told investors, "We've been very clear in the past that we have no interest in owning legacy media networks. There is no change there."

Industry watchers suggest other suitors could be Comcast, Amazon, or an investor who's not already in the entertainment business.

Regardless of whoever does end up buying the company, theater owners say they hope making movies for cinemas will be a priority.

"As long as we have more movies," says Daniel Loria, senior vice president at The Boxoffice Company, which analyzes data from studios and theaters. "That doesn't mean the same amount, doesn't mean less, but more movies. I think you're going to find folks in the movie theater industry support any business decision that gets us there."

Loria recalls that after Disney purchased Fox and Fox Searchlight, their combined studios significantly reduced the number of films they released in the theaters. Crunching the numbers, Loria says in 2016, a year before the merger announcement, Disney and Fox released a total of 38 theatrical films. This year, the consolidated studios released 18.

That's a problem for theater owners who've been struggling to bring audiences back to cinemas after the COVID-19 pandemic shut them down; they're competing with movie-watching on TVs, computers and phones.

Some theater owners and cinephiles also fear studio conglomerates will only greenlight a few big-budget blockbusters, leaving the lower budget indies behind.

"The concern is you're going to see less of that risk taking, less of that experimentation and less of that embracing new directors, new filmmakers in the future," says Max Friend, the CEO of Filmbot, the ticketing platform for independent cinemas in the U.S. "It's really important that there are studios that are funding and supporting, cultivating that kind of work."

He points out that this year, Warner Brothers made a string of critical hits, including Ryan Coogler's Sinners, the horror film Weapons and Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another.

Friend wonders if the next owner will take similar risks with future original, creative films.

Warner Bros. Discovery is a financial supporter of NPR.

Copyright 2025 NPR

A downtown hearing kicked off Wednesday, during which a federal judge will consider holding the city of Los Angeles in contempt of court. The hearing is the latest step in a long-running legal saga regarding the city's response to the region’s homelessness crisis.

The hearing was ordered by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who has been overseeing a settlement in a lawsuit brought against the city by the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, a group of downtown business and property owners. L.A. Alliance sued the city, and county, in 2020 for failing to adequately address homelessness.

Several witnesses are expected to testify during the contempt-of-court hearing, including Gita O’Neill, the new head of the region’s top homeless services agency, and Matt Szabo, the L.A. city administrative officer.

L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger watched at least part of Wednesday’s hearing in the courtroom.

Why now?

Carter said in court documents that he’s concerned “the city has demonstrated a continuous pattern of delay” in meeting its obligations under court orders. During a hearing last week, the judge pointed to several delays, including recently reported issues related to data and interviewing city employees.

The judge noted that similar concerns have come up at previous hearings. Carter told attorneys for the city in March 2024 that he “indicated to the mayor that I’ve already reached the decision that the plaintiffs were misled” and “this is bad faith,” according to court transcripts.

The judge said in a Nov. 14 order that he’s concerned the “delay continues to this day.”

The contempt hearing is expected to cover whether the city has complied with court orders and provided regular updates to the court under the settlement agreement.

Reducing delays

Attorneys for the city have pushed back against the hearing, filing objections with the judge and making an unsuccessful emergency request with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to block it from happening.

City authorities also asked the appeals court to press pause on the judge’s order to appoint a monitor in the case to make sure the city stays on track with the settlement. The city argued that Carter handed the monitor “a blank check to interfere with the democratic process,” according to court documents.

The appeals court partly denied the city’s request. It allowed Wednesday’s hearing to move forward, but it agreed to pause the appointment of Daniel Garrie as monitor.

In light of that response, attorneys for the city have argued that looking at the city’s cooperation with Garrie “would be inappropriate” during the hearing and that L.A. “cannot be held in contempt for either the substance or the manner of its compliance with the order,” according to court documents.

Previous hearings related to the settlement have elicited tense questioning of witnesses and harsh words from the judge, who has been vocal about reducing delays and moving the case forward.

In an opening statement Wednesday, Theane Evangelis — one of the attorneys representing the city — urged the judge to “turn down the heat” on the closely watched case. Evangelis said the “city is constantly under fire” in court while L.A. has made “enormous strides” in getting people off the streets.

Elizabeth Mitchell, lead attorney for L.A. Alliance, said the city treats transparency as a burden.

She said Wednesday that the “city still fights oversight harder than it fights homelessness” and that the court should address L.A. 's “consistent” delays throughout the case.

What’s next?

The hearing will resume Dec. 2, when more witnesses can appear in person.

City authorities told the court they believed a one-day hearing wouldn't be enough time to go over all the evidence.

If the judge does find the city of L.A. in contempt of court and that it "isn't doing what it promised to do," the consequences could range from nothing all the way up to serious sanctions, according to Matthew Umhofer, an attorney for L.A. Alliance.

Umhofer told LAist after the hearing that sanctions could include the court ordering more intensive monitoring of the city’s performance, imposing new requirements on the city, monetary penalties or possibly a receivership.

Carter previously stopped short of seizing control of the city’s hundreds of millions of dollars in homelessness spending and handing it to a court-appointed receiver, deciding against that option in a June ruling.

L.A. Alliance is considering asking for an extension to the settlement agreement, Umhofer said.

“The city has gotten away with not complying for a very long time,” he said. “So extending the agreement can be among the things that we might ask for ... given the pattern of delay and obstruction."

Evangelis and Bradley Hamburger, another attorney representing the city, declined LAist’s request for comment after the hearing.