The Brief

The death rate for unhoused Angelenos remained relatively flat in 2023, and experts point to increased availability of anti-overdose medication being a potential factor, according to a report released Thursday by the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

The mortality rate rose just 1% in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available. That’s about 2,500 deaths of unhoused people in Los Angeles County that year, 45% of which were caused by drug overdoses.

On average, nearly seven people experiencing homelessness died each day in L.A. County in 2023.

In 2022, there were 2,374 unhoused deaths in L.A. County.

In previous years, there had been steep increases in deaths of unhoused people — a 56% increase between 2019 and 2021 — driven largely by a rapid rise in fentanyl overdoses. Since then, there have been efforts to make naloxone, a drug that can reverse the effects of opioid overdose, more widely available in libraries, jails and other spaces.

This year’s report credits expanded distribution of naloxone, known by the brand name Narcan, as likely helping prevent further dramatic increases. But drug-related deaths are still a major concern.

“Despite the continued plateau in drug-related overdoses among people experiencing homelessness, we are still facing the worst overdose crisis in history,” said Dr. Gary Tsai, director of county Public Health’s Bureau of Substance Abuse Prevention and Control, at a Thursday morning news conference.

Drug overdoses remain the leading cause of death for the region's unhoused population, and the drug overdose mortality rate among homeless Angelenos is nearly three times higher than it was in 2019.
Fentanyl was involved in 70% of drug-related fatalities in 2023, the report states, compared with 68% the previous year.

Coronary heart disease was the second leading cause of death, increasing significantly in 2023. Transportation-related injuries remained the third leading cause, with an unhoused pedestrian or cyclist dying about every other day.

The deadliest locations for unhoused Angelenos included downtown/Skid Row and Westlake/MacArthur Park, according to geographic analysis.

Reaction from county leaders

County government leaders appeared to be encouraged by some the findings in the report. Some said a plateau in the mortality rate is evidence that investments in housing and treatment for unhoused people were working.

Supervisor Hilda Solis said in a statement that she is well aware of the need for safe housing, mental health services and substance-use programs. Her district includes Skid Row and MacArthur Park.

“While it’s encouraging to see the overdose deaths and other major causes of death start to level off, we can’t stop here,” Solis said.

Supervisor Janice Hahn seems to agree.

"Getting people out of encampments and into shelters saves lives, and we should double down on harm reduction and preventing overdoses,” she said.

The Public Health Department offered more than a dozen recommendations for reducing homeless mortality in L.A. County, including expanding housing options for people who use drugs, increasing harm reduction services, improving access to cardiac care and collaborating with cities to curb traffic deaths.

By the numbers

Between 2013 and 2023, L.A. County’s homeless population nearly doubled to more than 75,000 people. In that time, the number of deaths of unhoused people increased every year, as did the overall mortality rate for the unhoused population.

That means as L.A. County’s unhoused population has grown, it also became even deadlier to experience homelessness in the region.

Overall, unhoused residents died at 4.5 times the rate of the general population in 2023. Their rate of drug overdose mortality was 49 times higher, and their rate of transportation-related death was 20 times higher.

Causes of Death

The top five causes of death have consistently been drug overdose, coronary heart disease, transportation-related injury, homicide and suicide, except in 2020 and 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2023, those five causes made up 75% of all deaths among people experiencing homelessness in the region, according to L.A. County’s Department of Public Health.

1. Drug overdose

Drug and alcohol overdoses have been the leading cause of death since 2017, according to county data. The overdose mortality rate spiked dramatically between 2019 and 2022, before leveling off in 2023. Methamphetamine overdoses were the biggest cause of overdose death, followed by fentanyl.

“I think it's so important that we don't allow this data to let us become complacent,” said Trevor Lee, medical director of the harm reduction division at L.A. County’s Department of Health Services. “We are still in the midst of the worst overdose crisis in history, which is disproportionately affecting people experiencing homelessness.”

Health officials say increased distribution of naloxone, as well as other harm reduction, overdose prevention and substance use treatment services helped reduce the number of overdose deaths related to fentanyl and other opioids. In 2020, L.A. County service providers handed out 48,000 doses of naloxone. Last year, it was nearly 480,000 doses.

Still, the risk of fentanyl overdoses remains high among unhoused Angelenos who use drugs. The percentage of overdose deaths involving fentanyl increased to 70% in 2023, from 13% in 2018. That was similar to the previous year.

“It's so important that we interpret these results by identifying what's working and then doubling down on those efforts so that we can actually begin to see a decrease in deaths, because the plateau is not not good enough,” Lee said.

Methamphetamine was involved in 79% of overdose deaths. Most overdose deaths involve more than one drug, and more than half involved both fentanyl and methamphetamine in 2023, according to county officials. Cocaine was involved in 15% of overdose deaths, and heroin in 5%.

2. Coronary heart disease 

The second leading cause of death among L.A.’s unhoused population continues to be coronary heart disease, which accounted for 14% of deaths in 2023. The rate for this cause of death rose 22% between 2022 and 2023 — the largest increase recorded by L.A. County health officials since 2016.

The rate was nearly six times greater among unhoused L.A. County residents than in L.A. County generally.

Previous reports have pointed out that unhoused people in L.A. die from coronary heart disease at much younger ages than people who are housed. In 2022, the average age at death from coronary heart disease among the unhoused was 64, compared to 78 for all L.A. County residents.

3. Transportation-related deaths

In 2023, an unhoused pedestrian or cyclist was killed by a moving vehicle approximately every other day in L.A. County. But homeless Angelenos were 20 times more likely to die from transportation-related injuries than L.A. County residents overall.

People experiencing homelessness are more vulnerable to traffic deaths because they're more likely to live near roadways, according to the report. Transportation-related injury remained the third leading cause of death among all unhoused L.A. County residents and the second leading cause among unhoused women.

Traffic-related injuries caused 8% of all unhoused deaths in L.A. County in 2023, and the mortality rate associated with these deaths increased 50% compared with 2019.

County health officials recorded 347 traffic-related unhoused fatalities in 2022 and 2023. They found that the deaths were not concentrated in any specific location but spread out across L.A. County.

In 2023, 14% of all fatal traffic accidents reported to police involved unhoused victims, according to LAPD data.

4. Homicide

Homicide was the fourth leading cause of death among unhoused people in L.A. County in 2023. That year, 120 unhoused people were killed at the hands of another, a 25% decrease in the homicide mortality rate from a year earlier.

Unhoused Angelenos were 16 times more likely to die by homicide than the general population.

5. Suicide

The suicide rate among L.A.’s homeless population has remained relatively stable over time. Unhoused residents are eight times more likely to die by suicide than Angelenos in general.

Suicide rates have been consistently higher among younger people experiencing homelessness and among white and Latino people experiencing homelessness.

Recommendations

The L.A. County Department of Public Health had several recommendations to slow the mortality rate among unhoused people in the region.

They include:

• Ensure rapid access to housing and shelter.
• Expand harm reduction and overdose prevention outreach for residents at highest risk for overdose.
• Ensure that physical health, mental health and substance use treatment services are available and responsive to the needs of unhoused Angelenos.
• Work with municipalities and unincorporated communities to reduce traffic deaths among L.A. County residents experiencing homelessness.

Read the full report here.

A Powerball player in Arkansas won a $1.817 billion jackpot in Wednesday's Christmas Eve drawing, ending the lottery game's three-month stretch without a top-prize winner.

The winning numbers were 04, 25, 31, 52 and 59, with the Powerball number being 19.

Final ticket sales pushed the jackpot higher than previous expected, making it the second-largest in U.S. history and the largest Powerball prize of 2025, according to www.powerball.com. The jackpot had a lump sum cash payment option of $834.9 million.

"Congratulations to the newest Powerball jackpot winner! This is truly an extraordinary, life-changing prize," Matt Strawn, Powerball Product Group Chair and Iowa Lottery CEO, was quoted as saying by the website. "We also want to thank all the players who joined in this jackpot streak — every ticket purchased helps support public programs and services across the country."

The prize followed 46 consecutive drawings in which no one matched all six numbers.

The last drawing with a jackpot winner was Sept. 6, when players in Missouri and Texas won $1.787 billion.

Organizers said it is the second time the Powerball jackpot has been won by a ticket sold in Arkansas. It first happened in 2010.

The last time someone won a Powerball jackpot on Christmas Eve was in 2011, Powerball said. The company added that the sweepstakes also has been won on Christmas Day four times, most recently in 2013.

Powerball's odds of 1 in 292.2 million are designed to generate big jackpots, with prizes growing as they roll over when no one wins. Lottery officials note that the odds are far better for the game's many smaller prizes.

"With the prize so high, I just bought one kind of impulsively. Why not?" Indianapolis glass artist Chris Winters said Wednesday.

Tickets cost $2, and the game is offered in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Copyright 2025 NPR

The holiday season means holiday movies: films that can be counted upon to bring warmth and holiday cheer — and also probably some snow, a little bit of magic, and grumpy, greedy, workaholic protagonists who need to be reminded of the true meaning of Christmas.

Good holiday movies can be great, but bad holiday movies? They can be fun in their own way. Maybe they serve up tired clichés or schmaltzy sentiment. Or maybe if it's Love Actually, they just do Emma Thompson really dirty.

So we're debating: what's the worst Christmas movie of all time?

This has been adapted from an episode of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. You can listen to the full conversation here. 

Jingle All The Way (1996) 

Stephen Thompson: When you break it down, what makes a Christmas movie bad? I don't think you can come up with a better metric than purports to satirize or comment upon commercialism while being 100% steeped in it, and refusing to undermine it in any way.

The plot of Jingle All The Way can be summed up in five words: Man wants toy for science. Arnold Schwarzenegger is your star, and Sinbad is his kind-of sort-of rival. This is part of the colossally large genre of '90s family comedies about terrible fathers. It has enough material for a skit, maybe a 22-minute episode of a sitcom, but it is stretched out to 90 minutes full of digressions. None of this looks fun for anybody. Phil Hartman has a ton of scenes, none of which are funny.

On top of that, very little lesson-learning happens. The only person who winds up having any kind of perspective is the little kid played by Jake Lloyd, who would go on to play Anakin Skywalker and then leave acting.

Jingle all the Way has a sequel from 2014. Does it have any of the same actors? It does not. It has Larry the Cable Guy.

I Believe in Santa (2022) 

Aisha Harris: I have a pretty high tolerance for bad Christmas romantic comedies. That is my genre. I can enjoy them almost no matter what. The 2022 Netflix rom-com, I Believe in Santa, is an exception.

What if Elf or Miracle on 31 Street were supremely creepy? That is the premise of this movie. Lisa (Christina Moore) is a writer for a local newspaper. The only assignments she seems to get are holiday-related. Then she meets Tom (John Ducey), a lawyer, and when they hit Christmas season, she discovers that Tom is obsessed with Christmas — and he believes that Santa is real.

He likens his faith in Santa Claus to a religious belief that adults just don't get. If you've had enough eggnog, that might actually start to make sense. But the more you think about it, the more you wonder: is this movie trying to say that Tom is a persecuted minority because he believes in Santa Claus? 

Love Actually (2003) 

Wailin Wong: Love Actually is the much beloved 2003 holiday rom-com written and directed by Richard Curtis and featuring a stacked cast: Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley, Laura Linney, and Colin Firth are all in it. But I have resented this movie getting canonized as the ultimate holiday rom-com — or even a rom-com at all — because to me, it fails as a rom-com. There are too many storylines, and only a few of them are even a little bit romantic. Most of them are super sad, or just kind of nothing-burgers to me.

It opens with a monologue by Hugh Grant's character, playing the prime minister, in which he mentions 9/11. No, thank you. Why are we talking about 9/11 in the opening minutes of a rom-com? The script is also weirdly fatphobic, which I realize on a rewatch. It's terrible.

And the one thing that I really, really don't like about this movie — the thing that grinds my gears the most — is the storyline featuring Keira Knightley, whose character is married to Chiwetel Ejiofor's. His best friend is played by Andrew Lincoln, and he has been secretly yearning for her. He shows up at the end of their storyline with these big cue cards that say things like, "To me, you are perfect." I hate this: it's been sold to us as the ultimate grand romantic gesture, when to me, it is the height of narcissism. It's so selfish.

Scrooge and Marley (2012) 

Glen Weldon: The 2012 film Scrooge and Marley is a gay take on A Christmas Carol set in modern day Chicago. And when you hear that there's a gay version of A Christmas Carol, certain questions leap inevitably to mind. So let's knock them down: Number one, is it narrated by Judith Light? Yes, it is narrated by Judith Light. Another: Who plays Fezziwig? Is it Bruce Vilanch? Bruce Vilanch does play Fezziwig, because Bruce Vilanch is what happens when you can't meet Harvey Fierstein's quote.

Ben Scrooge (David Pevsner) owns a gay piano bar (redundant), he hates Christmas, and ghosts arrive to take him on a tour of Chicago in the past, present, and future. This film was done on the cheap, and it looks it, filmed in cramped, underlit Chicago apartments and bars. There's one gay bathhouse, Man's Country, which has since closed. In the credits, the producers thank two and only two companies for their product placement — Absolut Vodka and Grindr.

Look: I don't legitimately believe this to be the worst holiday movie of all time. It exudes exactly what you expect it to exude, which is raw sincerity and sentimentality. Those are two things I'm allergic to personally — but it's doing its job, right? I think it's entirely possible that someone who does not have a desiccated husk where a heart should could even enjoy this film. Not likely, but entirely possible.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Winter may seem like a season of stillness, but science tells us a different story.

Even in the quiet winter months, the natural world buzzes with activity. Insect migration patterns shift, animal survival tactics kick in, and tiny engineering feats unfold as snowflakes form in the sky.

These five Deep Look videos bring that hidden winter world to life.

The sex lives of Christmas trees

When forests grow quiet in winter, pine cones emerge as the reproductive engines of conifers, with male and female cones playing distinct roles.

The male cones release clouds of pollen in spring, but the female cones do the real winter magic: they hold the seeds.

Their armor-like scales act like tiny gates, opening just wide enough to catch pollen spread by the wind, then sealing shut for months as the seeds develop inside.

When conditions are just right, often during crisp, dry weather, the cones flex open again and let the seeds whirl out into the cold air, find a home in the ground and grow into the next generation of trees. Conifers survived ice ages, fires, and everything in between with this ancient system, as old as 300 million years.

Why reindeer and their cousins are total boneheads

Every year, male reindeer grow an entirely new set of antlers, essentially full bones that sprout from their heads in a process fueled by testosterone.

In summer, these antlers are wrapped in velvet, a dense skin rich in blood vessels that nourish the fast-growing bone. Come fall, the velvet sheds, revealing the smooth, polished antlers, the reindeer use to spar with rivals and impress potential mates.

But after this courtship season ends and hormone levels drop, the antlers simply fall off. Squirrels, mice and other winter scavengers gnaw on the cast-off antlers for calcium.

Within weeks, the reindeer begin growing the next set. They may not fly, but they’re winter’s most impressive bone-builders.

Identical snowflakes? Scientist ruins winter for everyone

Each snowflake starts as a tiny water-vapor speck freezing into an icy hexagon.

As it tumbles through clouds, temperature and humidity shape its branches, making each one’s journey and pattern unique.

But in a lab, physicist Ken Libbrecht can actually make identical snowflakes by precisely controlling the conditions.

Nature may be unpredictable, but science proves it can be repeatable, at least under the right conditions.

You’d never guess what an acorn woodpecker eats

In the oak woodlands of the West, acorn woodpeckers spend the colder months guarding something very valuable: thousands of acorns meticulously stored in their communal granaries.

These birds drill hole after hole into trees, sometimes over generations, to create a kind of pantry wall where they can tap acorns in like a wooden peg.

Acorn woodpeckers live in family groups and spend winter tending their stash and defending it from thieves. Come spring, they’ll shift to insects and oak flowers, but in winter, acorns fuel their lively, noisy, and highly social world.

Loveliness of ladybugs

Did you know that a cluster of these insects is known as a “loveliness of ladybugs”?

Just when the cold sets in and their favorite foods, like aphids, disappear, ladybugs join one of the most surprising winter gatherings in nature.

These usually solitary insects take to the air, riding wind currents toward mountain slopes where their ancestors have clustered for years. They’re guided by pheromone trails that act like tiny chemical breadcrumbs.

When they arrive, they pile together in rust-colored heaps, sometimes thousands strong. This communal hibernation is their best chance of surviving winter, and since most only live a year, it’s also their one shot at reproducing in spring.

Stealing a smooch under the mistletoe is a time-honored holiday tradition — but the word itself has an origin that invokes the exact opposite of romance.

As part of NPR's "Word of the Week" series, we're exploring the history of the plant's name, diving into the tradition of kissing beneath it, and taking a scientific detour along the way.

The etymology of mistletoe — a plant with small, oval evergreen leaves and waxy white berries — likely comes from the Anglo-Saxon words for manure — "mist" or "mistel" — and "tan" (sometimes rendered as "toe"), meaning "twig" or "stick."

"It literally means bird poop on a twig," according to Susie Dent, a British lexicographer and author of Guilt by Definition.

The name stems from the way its seeds are carried by birds and dropped after passing through their digestive tract. This method of seed dispersal is called endozoochory, says Tristram Seidler, a biology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the curator of the UMass Amherst Herbarium.

In short, animals eat fruits, including berries, move on and "deposit" the seeds in a different location, he says. For mistletoe seeds, that location happens to be the tops of trees. From an evolutionary standpoint, Seidler says, species survival can depend on getting seeds away from the parent plant.

"Any seeds that land near their parent plant may germinate," he explains. "But they're almost certainly going to be wiped out by disease because those areas tend to be crowded and small plants are very susceptible to their own pathogens."

Humans, then, make use of the mistletoe spread by those birds — planting it in cultural practices that stretch back into antiquity.

Mistletoe history

The oldest customs surrounding mistletoe are likely tied to celebrations of the winter solstice, according to Bettina Arnold, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. These go back to the Neolithic era in prehistoric Europe.

"All agricultural societies would have made note of [the winter solstice] because it literally is the time when… you can start seeing the days getting longer again," she says. "So it's a return to life after sort of a seasonal death, in a way." The mistletoe, being evergreen, "is actually almost a metaphor for that."

Arnold says that Pliny the Elder, a first-century Roman author, provided a detailed account of mistletoe and its use by druids, a nature- and ritual-focused priesthood that lived in Iron Age Gaul (modern-day France) and the British Isles. Pliny said that when they found mistletoe growing on a particular kind of oak tree, a priest in white vestments would climb up to cut down the mistletoe with a golden sickle.

"They believe that mistletoe given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren, and that it is an antidote for all poisons," Pliny wrote. (In fact, modern medical literature says the exact opposite).

Given mistletoe's association with fertility and rebirth, it's not surprising that it made its way into Christian tradition, Arnold says, noting that although we often forget it today, "the Roman Catholic Church is really kind of an extension of the Roman Empire." The Romans themselves also had their own solstice tradition that seeped into Christian practice: Saturnalia, in honor of the god of agriculture, Saturn, included decorating homes with evergreen boughs, wreaths and garlands to symbolize renewal.

Norse mythology adds another mistletoe tale — of Baldur, the god of light. In a story reminiscent of the Greek hero Achilles, Baldur's mother, Frigg, makes her son invincible to all things except mistletoe. Loki, the trickster, exploits this unusual weakness by using an arrow made of mistletoe to kill Baldur. In some later versions of the story, Frigg's tears over her son's death become mistletoe berries, symbolizing her love.

Plant a kiss

So, what about all the kissing?

A reference appears in a song from the 1784 musical comedy Two for One, which celebrates "what good luck has sent ye / And kiss beneath the mistletoe."

It's the oldest written reference to the custom, according to Arnold. It appears to have gained popularity in the following centuries, with holiday themes of regeneration, renewal and redemption helping to reinforce it.

According to author Dent, the story of mistletoe reflects this transformation, evolving from a "slightly scatological beginning … [to] blossom into something rather beautiful."

Copyright 2025 NPR