The Brief

Los Angeles’ newest pedestrian-only plaza is also its largest.

Broxton Plaza — 14,000 square feet of outdoor space in Westwood Village, just minutes from UCLA — is getting its big introduction to Angelenos today.

A grand opening event from noon to 5 p.m. includes a ribbon-cutting with UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk, city officials and performances by UCLA’s marching band and spirit squad.

The plaza, years in the making, is the shopping district’s big play for visitors at a time when businesses there could really use the foot traffic.

“It’s been struggling for a while,” said Michael Russell, executive director of the Westwood Village Improvement Association, which has been pushing for a plaza for the last decade.

The plaza, which had a soft opening in October, already draws regulars who come for the weekly farmer’s market, the vintage clothing Bruins Flea market and First Thursday nights featuring UCLA artists and musicians.

Now that it’s permanently closed to traffic, the plaza could become its own attraction and compete with the likes of Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica and the Westfield Century City mall, Russell said.

“You’re not worried about getting hit by cars,” Russell said. “We're in an area that's a safe space for people to come and enjoy the city again.”

Glory days

The district’s heyday was some 50 years ago when its famed theaters, shops and restaurants drew crowds into the night.

“When I was a kid and I would visit Westwood Village in the '80s, it was really the hot spot,” Russell said. “I remember going to those theaters, seeing 'Goonies' there, going to Diddy Riese.”

That’s the cookie shop on Broxton — still open. It began serving customers in the '80s when Westwood “was the only kind of real destination on the Westside,” Russell said.

UCLA’s Vice Chancellor of Strategic Communications Mary Osako recalls growing up in the '70s “two exits down the 405 from Westwood.”

“If there was a movie opening, everyone headed to Westwood,” Osako said. “Westwood was the jewel of Los Angeles in terms of being a place of community."

But then other cities and developers started to put their stake in the ground, and more shopping plazas opened.

“And then, unfortunately, there was the tragic incident,” Russell said.

A sudden turn

Gang violence was surging in L.A., and in 1988 it jolted Westwood Village.

A 27-year-old woman named Karen Toshima was taking a stroll after dinner with a friend when she was killed by gang-related gunfire.

Her death in the affluent neighborhood shocked the city. Police patrols tripled, but the crowds began to dwindle.

“And then right after that, the market competition happened,” Russell said. “Third Street Promenade became an official promenade. Then the Westside Pavilion mall opened. Then eventually the Grove.”

Plaza ambassadors

Russell expects the new plaza — on Broxton Avenue between Kinross and Weyburn avenues — will help turn around the district’s fortunes.

The city’s Department of Transportation resurfaced Broxton and added signage, barricades and planters through its People Street program launched under former Mayor Eric Garcetti.

It's surpassed the Sunset Triangle Plaza in Silver Lake as the largest plaza in the city. Others include Leimert Park Village Plaza and Bradley Alley Plaza in Pacoima.

The Westwood Village association plans to spend upwards of $100,000 a year on upkeep and staffing including a dedicated Plaza “ambassador” who will greet visitors and set up tables and chairs outdoors to expand the al fresco dining areas for restaurants, which include Barney’s Beanery and the Broxton Brewery.

The plaza now provides much-needed open space in Westwood Village, said Megan Furey, the business association’s director of programs and partnerships.

“We're just looking to add a third space and get back on the radar,” Furey said. ”I feel like a lot of times Westwood gets forgotten, and we're here and we're not what we used to be, but we're going to be something different, something better."

A large flatbed truck pulled up outside a remote immigrant detention center north of Los Angeles last month. On the truck bed, converted into a mobile stage, a band played protest songs. Huge speakers projected them loud across the desert landscape. But were they loud enough, the musicians wondered, to penetrate the detention center's tall, thick, concrete walls?

Loyda Alvarado looked toward the barbed wire fence and began to sing to the immigrants jailed inside:

Asómate a la ventana, te traje una serenata

Look out the window. I've brought you a serenade.

Aunque estés encarcelado, mira, te canta quien te ama…

Though you're locked up, someone you love is here to sing to you.

In a crowd of protesters looking on, a young woman's phone rang. It was her dad calling. He was detained inside, fighting deportation. She climbed onto the truck and took a microphone.

"He can hear us!" she yelled. "They all can hear us!" The crowd erupted.

The concert was staged by Los Jornaleros del Norte. Since federal agents began aggressive immigration raids in LA last June, the band's 11 members have been crisscrossing Southern California on their mobile stage determined to lift the spirits of people affected by the crackdowns. The band also hopes to provide a jolt of musical energy at otherwise somber protests.

"Since day one, we as musicians started organizing to protest wherever there were raids," said Omar León, the band's director, accordionist and songwriter. The band has often rolled up to street corners days or even hours after immigration agents have whisked someone away there. Many of their songs are about undocumented workers trying to make a living while evading immigration agents. Most are protest songs played as upbeat Mexican cumbias or as corridos, a style of ballad that often narrates the experiences of working class people.

León said the band's goal at demonstrations is to redirect protesters' anger and sorrow.

"People are already ready to march and to chant," he said. "But when they hear the music, they get more excited. It also minimizes tension and confrontation between police, ICE agents and the people who are protesting."

Loyda Alvarado, a lead singer in the band, said that in the crackdown's early weeks and months, it was hard to bring lively cumbias to the very place where an immigrant worker had just been taken away from their family and community.

"It just felt so heavy," she said. But over time, watching people dance and sing to their music, "I was reminded that this is a way in which we resist as well. The joy, despite all the suffering, despite all the pain, is such an important part of what we do because it helps us to keep our culture and to connect with each other."

The concert and serenade outside the desert detention center was one way the band has tried to reach detained immigrants themselves.

"We are bringing music for the people we love," said Manuel Vicente, who plays congas. "And to show them that we're waiting for them outside. And that their community is doing everything we can to bring them back."

Though the band has turbocharged its performance schedule in the last year, it's been performing at immigrant and workers' rights protests for three decades. Pablo Alvarado and Lolo Cutumay were among a small group of workers who formed the band in the mid 1990s after one of them witnessed immigration agents raid a site where day laborers were lining up for free health services. Their first song told the story of that raid

Their name, Los Jornaleros del Norte means The Day Laborers of the North. To this day, most of its musicians are current or former day laborers, and work closely with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, using music to help mobilize immigrant workers.

On a recent evening, the band's mobile stage pulled up to a Home Depot east of LA. Weeks earlier, masked immigration agents had chased down day laborers gathered in the parking lot in search of a day's work. One of them, Carlos Roberto Montoya Valdéz, ran across the nearby freeway in a desperate attempt to escape. He was hit and killed by a car. The Jornaleros had come to honor his life.

For more than an hour, they played sentimental ballads as a tribute, and later, fast-paced cumbias to liven the mood.

"The songs that we do are stories about hardworking immigrants, hardworking women and hardworking men," Omar León said after the performance, as he put his accordion away. "Tonight we chose songs that talk about life, that talk about struggle. We chose love songs to remember Carlos Roberto Montoya."
Copyright 2026 NPR

LOS ANGELES — Singer D4vd has been arrested on suspicion of killing a 14-year-old girl whose decomposed body was found last year in his apparently abandoned Tesla that was towed from the Hollywood Hills, authorities said Thursday.

Los Angeles police said in a brief statement that the 21-year-old Houston-born alt-pop singer whose legal name is David Burke was being held without bail on suspicion of murder after his arrest in the investigation of the killing of Celeste Rivas Hernandez.

Police said investigators would present a case to prosecutors at the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office on Monday. The office said in its own statement that it is aware of the arrest and its Major Crimes Division will review the case to determine whether there is enough evidence to file charges.

The singer had been under investigation by an L.A. County grand jury looking into the death of Rivas Hernandez. The probe was officially secret, but its existence — and the designation of D4vd as its target — was revealed on Feb. 25 when his mother, father and brother filed an objection in a Texas court to subpoenas demanding they testify.

Emails seeking comment from an attorney and a publicist who have previously worked with D4vd were not immediately returned. His representatives have not responded to multiple previous requests from The Associated Press for comment on the case.

The long-dead body of Celeste Rivas Hernandez was found in a Tesla on Sept. 8, a day after she would have turned 15. She was a 13-year-old seventh grader when her family reported her missing in 2024 from her hometown of Lake Elsinore, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. Authorities give her age as 14 when she was killed in court documents.

The 2023 Tesla Model Y was registered in the singer's name at the Texas address of his subpoenaed family members, according to court filings from prosecutors. It had been towed from an upscale neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills where it had been sitting, seemingly abandoned.

Police investigators searching the Tesla in a tow yard found a cadaver bag "covered with insects and a strong odor of decay," court documents said, and "detectives partially unzipped the bag and observed a decomposed head and torso."

Investigators from the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office removed the bag and "discovered the arms and legs had been severed from the body," according to court documents. A second black bag was found under the first, and dismembered body parts were inside it. No cause of death has been publicly revealed.

Authorities had not publicly named D4vd — pronounced "David" — as a suspect prior to the arrest.

D4vd gained popularity among Generation Z fans for his blend of indie rock, R&B and lo-fi pop. He went viral on TikTok in 2022 with the hit "Romantic Homicide," which peaked at No. 4 on Billboard's Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart. He then signed with Darkroom and Interscope Records and released his debut EP "Petals to Thorns" and a follow-up, "The Lost Petals," in 2023.

When the body was discovered, D4vd had been on tour in support of his first full-length album, "Withered." Later, the last two North American shows, in San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with a scheduled performance at LA's Grammy Museum, were canceled, as was the European tour that was to have begun in Norway.
Copyright 2026 NPR

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Eastsiders will have several ways to honor Earth Day, from joining community cleanups in Boyle Heights and El Sereno to celebrating 20 years of Ascot Hills Park during the 18th Annual Ascot Hills Park Kite Festival. 

Earth Day is on April 22, but Eastside events marking the day begin this Saturday.

Ascot Hills Park Kite Festival 

Free kites, crafts for kids, live entertainment and a tree giveaway for L.A. residents are all part of the fun. There will also be rain barrels, compost pails and other sustainability resources. 

This year’s celebration will mark 20 years of Ascot Hills Park being open to the community. The free event is hosted by Councilmember Ysabel Jurado in partnership with the Ascot Hills Park Advisory Board and North East Trees.

Orgullo Boyle Heights cleanup stops

The nonprofit Visión y Compromiso will host a series of cleanup stops in Boyle Heights.

Volunteers will be at each location for a little over an hour and are encouraged to bring their own brooms and cleaning tools. Limited supplies will be provided. All ages are welcome. 

We Love Boyle Heights Earth Day celebration

Vision y Compromiso’s Earth Day events will culminate with a celebration, featuring music and entertainment at Mariachi Plaza.

The events are held in partnership with White Memorial Community Health Center, Rising Communities, the County of Los Angeles Public Health, and Councilmember Ysabel Jurado’s office. 

Giveaways at LA General Medical Center

Get free bicycle helmets, tote bags, water bottles and other merchandise at the Earth Day event spearheaded by Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Hilda L. Solis, the Los Angeles County Department of Economic Opportunity, Centennial Partners, The Wellness Center and Primestor.

Refurbished bicycles will also be given away, but all bikes have already been reserved. 

Beautify Boyle Heights

In partnership with Ülëw Coffee, a community clean-up will be held at KIPP LA Prep. Gloves, masks, trash bags and tools will be provided. 

East LA Trash Walkers

The East LA Trash Walkers are hosting a community clean-up in El Sereno. Gloves and trash bags will be provided. Volunteers will meet at El Sereno Recreation Center and will end their cleanup at Lil’ East Cafe. 

More than a decade after California began setting aside patches of ocean for conservation, change could be coming to its marine protected areas.

The state is considering a variety of changes to the network — a few proposals shrink those areas or remove certain protections, while most propose expanding existing protected areas or adding new ones. The levels of protection can range from a total ban on commercial fishing and certain recreational activities, to highly limited allowances. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is in the process of reviewing dozens of proposals from tribes, environmental groups, the fishing industry and other stakeholders.

The discussion comes amid escalating pressures on our ocean — from plastic pollution and offshore energy efforts to rapidly warming temperatures that have, in recent years, led to some of the worst mass dieoffs of marine life ever seen.

So far, the department has recommended denying all 10 of the non-tribal proposals. They have yet to release their recommendations for the five remaining petitions from tribes, including a new protected area proposed by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians that would encompass about 9 square miles off the coast of Santa Barbara.

Ultimately, the decision on whether to approve or deny the petitions lies with the five governor-appointed members of the state’s Fish and Game Commission. A decision is expected this summer.

Some say the state isn’t being bold enough in its approach to boosting protections for marine life, while others argue the existing network is strong enough. There is agreement, however: Marine protected areas can be a powerful tool in boosting certain fisheries and building resilience to climate change.

Creating underwater refuges

California started the process of protecting areas off its coast in 1999, when the Marine Life Protection Act was signed into law. That kickstarted the process of establishing an interconnected network of marine protected areas off the state’s coast.

But the process to get that done was a long and arduous one, slowed by competing interests and political infighting. It wasn’t until 2012 that the state completed the existing coastal network of more than 120 underwater refuges.

That network provides protections from fishing and other activities for a little over 16% of California’s coast. By 2030, the state’s goal, codified by an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, is to protect 30% of its lands and waters by 2030.

The science of marine protected areas

Marine protected areas have improved the health of underwater ecosystems.

A state review of its network, released in 2023, found that marine protected areas were largely working — supporting larger, healthier and more abundant populations of many species, as well as creating a “spillover effect” that boosts certain lucrative fisheries, such as lobster, outside the bounds of the protected area. For example, a 2021 study found that a 35% reduction in fishing area due to protected area designation off the Channel Islands resulted in a 225% increase in total lobster catch after just six years.

Marine protected areas have also been found to improve resilience for some species in the face of climate change, as the ocean absorbs nearly one-third of the carbon pollution in our atmosphere and about 90% of the excess heat that that pollution would otherwise generate.

Researcher Kyle Cavanaugh and his team at UCLA analyzed satellite data of kelp forests off the California coast in the decades before and after the establishment of the state’s protected areas, focusing on the changes after a severe marine heat wave between 2014 and 2016.

“Marine protected areas recovered more quickly, more strongly compared to the non-protected areas in Southern California,” Cavanaugh said.

He said that’s likely because these areas protect predators of sea urchins, which graze on kelp and can destroy entire forests if left unchecked. Their predators, such as sheephead fish and lobster, are found in Southern California’s waters.

But the story was a little different in Northern California. Cavanaugh’s team found that marine protected areas didn’t have the same rebound effect for kelp forests there, likely because sea urchin predators up north are sea otters and sea stars.

“Sea otters are protected [by the state] anyway, and sea stars basically have been wiped out across California due to sea star wasting disease,” Cavanaugh said. That disease led to a proliferation of urchins up north, and a dieoff of around 85% of the kelp forest in just the last 10 years.

Though more conservation is likely necessary (and increasingly complicated as climate change shifts ecosystems), a blanket approach to protected areas is not a silver bullet, Cavanaugh said.

“ There's different things going on in different locations, and there's not going to be a one size fits all approach at all,” he said. “We might lose kelp in certain areas in a warming world, and so figuring out which patches might be more resilient to temperatures and protecting those is important.”

Understanding the specific challenges to kelp forest growth or decline in varying regions is key, Cavanaugh emphasized. At the same time, California’s marine protected area network is still young (compare a little over a decade of protections to the more than 150 for many of our national parks), and there’s much to learn about the role they play in boosting the health of our ocean overall.

“These are baby protected areas, and that means we're still learning how they function,” said Douglas McCauley, an ecologist at UC Santa Barbara. “That also means that we're still beginning to see how they mature and the benefits that they can create over time.”

Competing interests, shared connection to the ocean

For Chris Voss, that specificity around the gains of certain marine protected areas is key.

Voss is a lifelong commercial fisherman and president of the nonprofit Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara. He said marine protected areas have been a boon for some industries, such as lobster, but not all, such as urchin fishers.

He argues that the existing network is strong, and that more regulations will harm the fishing industry, which has been declining over the past two decades. He’s particularly concerned about the proposals to expand or add entirely new marine protected areas.

 ”We are all small, independent businessmen with families and kids and a desire to scratch out a living from the ocean, but also produce a high quality food product in a sustainable way from the marine environment,” Voss said.

His group, along with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and a handful of recreational fishing groups, want state commissioners to deny the proposals.

“They didn't put the initial network on low-value real estate in the ocean. They put it on a very high-value real estate in the ocean,” Voss said. “The fishing community has adapted.”

He pointed to multiplying pressures on the industry, such as expanded offshore wind and oil drilling (the group opposes both) and aquaculture efforts, as well as the science that not every marine protected area benefits marine life in the same way.

Voss said urchin fishers, for example, could help reduce kelp-eating urchin overpopulation in some areas. Such efforts have yet to scale, and urchins in kelp-barren areas are not very lucrative, though some researchers say urchin fishing as a management tool before kelp forest collapse could be a potential avenue.

“There’s nuance that we should embrace,” Voss said. “We need to think with and understand the complexity of the different fisheries and their impacts, and then make decisions with a more complete understanding so that we can get win-win situations.”

A blue belt off Laguna Beach

Ocean advocates and recreational fishers and divers in Laguna Beach have proposed to extend the marine protected area to fully encompass the city’s coast. The area is a key link for genetic dispersal of sea life between Palos Verdes and La Jolla, as well as a major draw for ocean tourism.

“Marine life within the marine protected areas of Laguna Beach are really thriving, but as soon as you move past the boundary, there's less sea life,” said Mike Beanan with the nonprofit Laguna Bluebelt Coalition. “The kelp forests that were in South Laguna are gone.”

A recent survey commissioned by the Laguna Bluebelt Coalition and Orange County Coastkeeper brought United Nations-approved underwater survey group Reef Check to Laguna Beach, where they found only female sheephead outside of the bounds of the protected areas and a proliferation of kelp-eating urchins. Female sheephead don’t eat urchins like their male counterparts (all sheephead are born female, then turn into males as they age and grow, which can take decades). Sheephead are targeted by spearfishers and commercial fishing in the area.

“Without sheephead, the sea urchins take over and eat the base of the kelp forest, and then the kelp forest goes away,” said Beanan.  

“For centuries,” he added, “we thought the ocean was an inexhaustible source of food, and now we're finding out that that really isn't the case.”

A lifelong diver who grew up in a working class household and often fished for food off the Orange County coast, Beanan said he’d hoped the petition process would finally lead to full protections, but the Department of Fish and Wildlife has recommended denial of the proposal to protect all of the Laguna Beach coastline.

Local fishing businesses have opposed the expansion. Beanan and his Orange County Coastkeeper counterpart, Ray Hiemstra (who is also a recreational fisher) both said they understand the concerns about expanding protections from local fishing businesses.

“There's going to have to be a sacrifice, and I don't want to belittle the impact on the commercial fishers,” Hiemstra said. “But I think this is a small, incremental, necessary step, and this is the time and the process where we're able to take action on that.”