The Brief

Overdose deaths around the nation appear to have dropped as much as 13%, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In California, the numbers reveal a slower drop. From May 2023 to May 2024, state overdose deaths seem to have decreased by around 9%.

However, the projection is based on preliminary data that’s far from finalized.

Local experts say it’s too early to tell what the drop means for the state and more specifically for Los Angeles.

As California’s most populated county, L.A. has had the highest number of deaths compared to other areas in the state for years — an issue that’s disproportionately affected marginalized communities.

The national stats

Joseph Friedman, a physician and a substance use researcher at the University of California San Diego, said the national news is encouraging.

“Obviously, we don’t want to jump to conclusions and kind of determine that prematurely, but it really does appear to be a real thing,” he said.

Friedman, who tracks rapid shifts in the overdose crisis, said there may be several reasons for the reduction in deaths.

Some researchers say the fentanyl supply is getting less deadly. Another impetus could be the strategy known as harm reduction, which is a drug prevention approach that aims to meet people with addiction where they’re at. In recent years, local governments have done more to provide free overdose reversal agents like naloxone.

Still another cause may be simply that the crisis is so severe that many people who use fentanyl and other opioids are dying off.

Why it’s not clear in California

It’s hard to know right now if the apparent decline in overdose deaths in California will continue to show up in the numbers.

That’s because county health departments can be slow to report overdose deaths to the CDC. A coroner or medical examiner might change the reported cause of death for a particular person after more information becomes available. And because the counts from local municipalities are relatively small, it can be challenging to use those numbers to identify trends.

State counts can give a clearer picture of the drug crisis. But Friedman said the CDC’s early data could reflect an undercount, or that deaths could have picked up in the months after May. It will likely be months into 2025 until we know a fuller picture.

“We’re the state with the single highest number of overdoses,” he said. “Really, the single most important place to kind of tackle the overdose crisis, I would argue, is California. We’re the overdose capital of the world.”

There were other declines in previous years, Friedman added, but then deaths went up exponentially.

California’s racial inequalities in overdoses

What we do know is that change is not occurring equally for everyone.

The latest data from 2023 shows the overdose death rate among Black and Native Americans in California is about twice as high as those among white people.

In total numbers, Black people accounted for about 13% of the fatal overdoses in California last year, while making up about 5% of the state’s population, according to public health and census data.

In L.A. County, that’s starker at roughly 19% of deaths compared to making up 8% of the local population. That gap also widens in the county for fentanyl-related deaths.

The death rate among Hispanics is lower than other groups, but Friedman said it’s rising quickly among young Hispanics, which is concerning.

“This is consistent with the national picture where even though historically Hispanic communities have been really insulated from the worst of the opioid crisis,” he said, “that’s really starting to change.”

L.A. County is a prime case study

Ricky Bluthenthal, a sociologist at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, has been doing community-based research with people who use drugs in L.A. since 2000.

He and other experts generally agree the overdose crisis gets portrayed as a white problem. At one point in Bluthenthal’s career, he was one of a handful of African Americans leading a syringe program in the country. These programs help dispose of and provide access to sterile supplies for safer substance use.

Harm reduction strategies like this have also often targeted white populations better than communities of color.

“The early places where harm reduction was adopted was driven more by the politics of the local communities than the need,” he said. “So even in L.A., the first syringe program wasn’t in Skid Row. It was in West Hollywood.”

A dose of naloxone.

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Irfan Khan

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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Disparities cross more than race, too. In Bluthenthal’s first study in L.A. from years ago, a third to half of the people in it were unhoused. But in his recent studies, people experiencing homelessness now make up closer to 80%.

Drug overdose has been the leading cause of death among people experiencing homelessness, at a risk factor 38 times more than the general county population. In 2020 and 2021, overdose accounted for about two deaths per day.

Bluthenthal said there’s been robust efforts to reduce the impacts of drugs, like syringe service programs and naloxone distribution. But it gets complicated when people live on the street.

“People have their stuff thrown away and that stuff includes medications for HIV, for Hepatitis C, naloxone for overdose reversal treatment,” he said. “All of these things diminish people’s capacity to take care of themselves. And those behaviors fall more heavily on people of color.”

In just four days, the Los Angeles Official Martin Luther King Day Parade will take over South L.A.

The LA Local recently spoke with Sabra Wady, the parade’s lead organizer, who said this year’s parade will look much the same as recent years.

So, whether you’re attending the parade or watching it on TV, here’s everything you need to know about Monday’s parade:

The procession will begin at 10 a.m., with ABC7 set to begin a broadcast at 11 a.m.

What time does the parade start? How can I watch? Is anything happening after?

Wady said the best place to catch the parade in person is the intersection of Crenshaw Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. King Boulevard, or “camera corner,” where the parade will culminate and organizers are planning a live preshow. Bleacher seats, though, will be limited.

The Metro K Line runs directly to the intersection, dropping people off at the Martin Luther King Jr. Metro station.

Onlookers can also post up along the parade route with folding chairs and other self-arranged seating, Wady said.

The parade broadcast will run until 1 p.m., but Wady said the procession is expected to keep going until mid-afternoon.

“After the cameras stop rolling, it’s the people’s parade,” Wady said.

LA City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and Councilmembers Curren Price and Heather Hutt – who represent council districts 8, 9 and 10, respectively — will organize the annual MLK Freedom Festival in the Leimert Park Plaza from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

What route will the parade take?

The route will remain the same, running down King Boulevard from Western Avenue to Crenshaw Boulevard before turning south down Crenshaw and heading to Leimert Park. Much of the route will be closed to traffic overnight before the parade.

More than 150 groups, including bands, floats, horseback riders and marchers, will trek down the boulevard. Wady said organizers cut off new sign-ups weeks ago in order to keep the parade manageable.

What will road closures look like?

Colin Sweeney, a spokesperson for the LA Department of Transportation, said in an email that the department will close off traffic down the main parade route overnight.

Here are the roads that will be closed to all vehicles for the duration of the parade and festival.

• King Boulevard from Vermont Avenue to Crenshaw Boulevard 
• Crenshaw Boulevard from King Boulevard to 48th Street
• Leimert Boulevard from 8th Avenue to Leimert Park 
• Degnan Avenue between 43rd Street and Leimert Park

Sweeney said only residents will be allowed to drive into the band of neighborhoods directly along the length of the parade route. That includes the blocks from 39th Street to 42nd Street along King Boulevard and the blocks between McClung Drive and Victoria Avenue along the Crenshaw closure.

The transportation department will allow traffic to cross the parade route at major intersections — including Western Avenue, Arlington Avenue and Stocker Street — but those crossings will be shut down at 10 a.m. All closed roads will stay blocked off until the parade and festival wrap up and transportation officials determine crowds have sufficiently dispersed, Sweeney said.

Wady said the parade is expected to peter out around mid-afternoon. The festival at Leimert Park Plaza is scheduled to end at 5 p.m.

Vehicles parked in the parade assembly area, parade route and disbanding area will be subject to impound or tickets, Sweeney wrote.

Topline:

By the numbers: Film and television shoot days totaled 4,625 in the final three months of 2025, up 5.1% in that timeframe. But overall last year, there were 19,694 shoot days, which is down 16.1% from 2024's total of 23.480.

Why it matters: Production in Los Angeles has been slow to rebound since the COVID-19 pandemic and the Hollywood writers and actors strikes in 2023. There is also increased competition from other states that offer appealing film tax credits and other incentives for productions that decide to take their shoot outside of California. This summer, Gov. Gavin Newsom expanded California's Film and TV Tax Credit Program in an effort to lure productions back to the Golden State.

What's next: Film L.A.'s Phil Sokoloski says that many of the productions approved under the expanded tax credit program are just now getting underway, and he hopes the industry will start to see the effects of not only the tax incentive expansion in 2026, but also L.A. Mayor Karen Bass' directives to streamline the permitting and shooting process in the city.

In L.A., there is no shortage of events to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day this year.

Since 1986, the federal holiday is observed on the third Monday of January to honor the life and legacy of the Civil Rights leader.

California African American Museum

The California African American Museum is hosting a King Day scavenger hunt on Sunday from 2 to 3 p.m. On Monday, it is hosting an all-day event honoring King that will culminate with a performance by the Inner City Youth Orchestra of L.A., which is billed as the largest majority Black youth orchestra in the country.

Orchestra at Skirball

The orchestra will also perform at the Skirball Cultural Center on Saturday evening. The free event is already at capacity, but you can try your luck by signing up for the waitlist here. Earlier Saturday, the orchestra will join the Santa Monica Symphony for its annual MLK concert.

Parades and celebrations

Cedric the Entertainer will be the grand marshal of this year’s official L.A. MLK Day Parade on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard between Western and Crenshaw avenues on Monday. If you’re looking for a parade earlier in the weekend, you can head to Long Beach’s MLK Day parade on Saturday. Also on Saturday is a celebration of King’s legacy at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Culver City.

Volunteer opportunities

In 1994, President Bill Clinton officially decreed MLK Day as a day of service. If you’re looking for opportunities to volunteer, grab free tickets to Monday’s MLK Day Volunteer Festival at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum.

Free access to state parks

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Friday that more than 200 California state parks will be free to enter on Monday. The move comes after the Trump administration eliminated MLK Day and Juneteenth from the list of days when it’s free to access national parks. There are 12 free state parks on the list in L.A. County, including Los Angeles and Will Rogers State Historic Parks, as well as Topanga and Malibu Creek State Parks. See the full list here.

A 2017 Los Angeles Times article tells the tragic story of Lai Hang, a terminally ill woman who killed her 18-year-old son George, who’d been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

It’s a carefully reported story by journalist Frank Shyong about a family, about the shame and stigma that can surround mental illness in Asian American communities, and how media portrayals of people with mental disorders can perpetuate harmful misconceptions.

So when Shyong was first approached about the idea of adapting the story he wrote into a narrative film, he had some “very intense” concerns about whether a film would get the story right.

But after conversations with the filmmakers, and thinking through the potential value of telling fictionalized stories based on real-life events, Shyong says, “ I think I realized that my story was in a lot of ways incomplete.”

Nine years later, the film, titled Rosemead, is finished. Directed by Eric Lin and written by Marilyn Fu, the film stars Lucy Liu as Irene, a character based on Hang, and Lawrence Shou as Joe, who’s based on George.

And Shyong, who is credited as an executive producer and served as a consultant on the film, says “it’s sort of completing the circle a little bit” — fleshing out Hang and George as “full 360 degree human beings” and giving glimpses of how their story might have ended differently.

Reporting on trauma in Asian American communities

Back in 2015, when the events depicted in Rosemead happened, the breaking news coverage revealed the basics of what was known at the time — that a woman had fatally shot her son in a Rosemead motel and turned herself in.

“ I think a lot of people probably realized there was more story there,” Shyong says. But the only person who knew the details, Hang’s longtime friend Ping Chong, had declined to talk to the media.

Still, Shyong kept following up because the court records hinted at a story that he thought should be told.

The court records revealed that Hang had been dying of cancer, and that Chong continued to visit her after she turned herself in, performing Buddhist rituals for her.

“Just knowing those two facts,” Shyong says, “and knowing Asian American families, and how complete and terrifying the sense of responsibility that a parent can feel toward a child, I just thought there's gotta be something there.”

He would visit Chong’s shop, a traditional Chinese pharmacy, leaving notes for her and talking to her about why he wanted to know more. And he gained her trust.

 ”You just have to say, ‘This is [the] story I think is here. And do you think that story is true? And if so, can you help me tell it?’ And that's all I did,” Shyong says. “I think that's all any journalist ever does.”

It’s a story that Shyong says he would come to learn is more common than many may expect.   “When you are a caregiver in these communities,” Shyong says, “you can find and name a tragic story like this in probably every zip code.”

How filmmaking and journalism can complement each other

Shyong’s article ends with this poignant quote from Chong, about her friend: “People will only know her as the mother who killed her son [...] But she was more.”

The piece itself goes a long way toward dispelling Chong’s concern, including details about Hang’s life — that she was a talented graphic designer, that she was “beautiful, smart and ambitious,” that she’d lost her husband to cancer, and that she deeply cared about her son.

But “in this case fiction,” Shyong says, “could give closure to characters in a way that I couldn't in reality. It could tell the fullness of this family story.”

The film shows Liu’s character Irene having fun with her son at the beach, and joining his therapy sessions at the urging of a psychiatrist, despite being visibly uncomfortable doing so.

It shows George (Joe in the film) with his friends, who come to visit him after he has an intense schizophrenic episode at school.

The sound design gives a sense of what it’s like to experience schizophrenia, and a part of the film where Joe runs away shows how quickly a boy with a mother and friends who care about him can become an unhoused person who someone might fear on the street.

Ultimately, the film ends on a note of hope, which grew out of something that Shyong learned from Chong after the article was published. In a way that he couldn’t do in print, “It added parts to the story that I wanted to see depicted.”