Topline:
AirTalk put the call out to listeners for the most embarrassing items they can't bear to part with.
The backstory: The segment was inspired by producer Lindsey Wright's sentimental attachment to her childhood unicycle.
Wild keepsakes: Listeners are keeping all manner of things — from old body parts to tombstones.
Lindsey Wright is a producer on LAist 89.3’s daily news program, AirTalk. More importantly, she was a child unicyclist.
On a recent trip to her childhood home in Indianapolis to help her mother move, she dug out that old unicycle from the garage, rusted with a flat tire, and was absolutely unwilling to get rid of it.
So it came home with her to Los Angeles.
“It felt so ridiculous carrying that thing into the Indianapolis airport to the baggage check.”
So we figured others are probably hanging onto an item they feel ridiculous about as well. AirTalk asked listeners to share the most embarrassing or strange object they’re emotionally attached to and probably never parting with, however silly.
Here’s what listeners revealed.
Sandra in Torrance’s gallstone is special, which she knows because the doctor who removed it wanted to keep it for himself. Sandra declined, and brought the “perfectly round, like a huge mothball” specimen home with her, where it’s been for 20 years.
“Someday, I want to put it in a necklace,” she said.
Not everyone has such clear designs for their anatomical keepsakes. Allison in Pasadena has the placenta from her daughter's birth in the freezer.
“We have no idea what to do with it … I don't really want to bury it in the backyard,” she said.
This indecision has lasted through several moves (and, presumably, several freezers).
LAist’s own Larry Mantle is not immune to hoarding body parts. At his house, you can find his father’s stapes.
“The stapes is a tiny little bone that looks like a little stirrup that's in the ear,” Mantle said.
At one point, his father had his stapes removed and asked Mantle’s wife Kristen, a speech pathologist, if she wanted it. And that’s how “we have this little container with my father's tiny little stapes from his ear sitting somewhere in our house. I'm not sure where.”
The freezer is a common solution for AirTalk listeners with, let’s say, perishable items.
Laure in Encino is holding onto a 1971 See’s Candy Easter Egg, an uneaten gift for her grandmother.
As she explained, “My mom never threw the egg away and kept it in her freezer. And when she passed away in 2006, I found the Easter Egg–it’s still in the packaging. And so I kept it…It’s [been] in my freezer for 18 years.”
“I'm trying to figure out what to do with it when I go. I don't know. Someone in the family is going to get it,” Laure added.
Carla in Mount Washington has a dead leopard gecko in her freezer. He was her first pet as an adult, and since she and her husband have moved around a lot, they haven’t landed on a final resting place for him.
“I just haven't had the heart to put him somewhere, so he's wrapped up with a little note,” Carla said. “I tend to, every once in a while, clean out our freezer and pull him out and say, like, OK, this year is going to be the year.”
Not many people can say they’ve been holding on to their gravestone for 50 years, but Tony in Santa Monica can. It’s a prop from a film he acted in during the 1970s.
“My character in the plot died and the camera took a shot of the prop gravestone…At the end of the shooting, I took it home and I still have it,” he said.
Manny in West Hollywood doesn’t understand what appealed to him about the vase he bought on the Home Shopping Network at 2 a.m. in 1984.
Now he sees it as “a reminder not to shop after midnight.”
Yolanda in Los Feliz detests the color green, but can’t bear to get rid of the dark green bathrobe her father gave her.
“Every time I take a box full of clothes to Goodwill, I want to throw it in there, but I can't because my father gave it to me. He's gone, and he gave me so few things in life except my intellect, if I might say. And so I just keep it in the back of the closet, and there it is, this hideous, dark, green, worn out bathrobe,” Yolanda said.
Nancy in Marina Del Rey has no problem with the shade of her mother’s lipstick. When her mother died in 2007 at the age of 88, Nancy brought the lipstick for the funeral home to use on her because, as she explained, “I knew that she'd be wearing it forever, so let's put the lipstick on her that she always wore.”
Nancy still has that same tube of lipstick, and wears it for special occasions. “I mean, it's really got to be special,” she said.
Nadia in San Pedro said: “I've been holding on to these random old photos I found on the side of the road. They have this couple in them doing everyday things. I couldn't throw them away because I felt like I was throwing away someone's life.”
In a similar vein, Carl in Irvine can’t bring himself to develop the film still left in his grandfather’s camera. “I just like the idea that those images are still captured on that camera,” he said.
Allison in Chinatown’s late father was a film editor for 50 years, and she hangs onto a 35-pound splicing machine from his negative cutting business.
“I've moved it with me five times, but it was part of him. He died this year,” she said. “You just can't part with some of these things because it’s a piece of your family, a piece of your past."
Topline:
Some Long Beach Peninsula residents are taking swift, creative action in an attempt to save their homes after high surf and tides from multiple storms have eroded beaches and battered properties along the coast.
Why it matters: VR Venkataraman is one of them. He’s not an engineer, but he’s acting like one to protect his Seaside Walk home.
Why now: Wave after wave fueled by Tropical Storm Rachel slams the bulkhead at Long Beach Peninsula, further damaging homes along the boardwalk already hammered by last month's Hurricane Marine.
This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.
From his veranda on the Peninsula, VR Venkataraman gets a front-row seat as wave after wave fueled by Tropical Storm Rachel slams the bulkhead and sprays upwards, more than two stories into the air.
For now, his defenses are holding.
In recent days, city officials and work crews reinforced the bulkhead with 12-by-2 boards and added vertical columns supported by wooden braces, riveted into the boardwalk at the angles Venkataraman determined would provide the most support. He’s not an engineer, but he’s acting like one to protect his Seaside Walk home.
“I did the geometry, figured it out, taught the crew how to do it, and did one with them,” said Venkataraman, a former doctor who now owns an Indian-Mexican fusion cafe. “I’m a human being with adequate knowledge and experience of life. That’s all.”
He is one of many Long Beach Peninsula residents taking swift, creative action in an attempt to save their homes after high surf and tides from multiple storms have eroded beaches and battered properties along the coast. On Saturday, though some residents expressed frustration that there wasn’t more preventative action ahead of this fall’s extreme weather, they said they appreciated how the city has sprung into action and partnered with them to salvage whatever they can. Venkataraman praised Jake Heflin with the fire department and Cory Forrester of Parks, Recreation and Marine for their work to help him harden his property, as well as the support provided by Councilmember Kristina Duggan.
Sign up for emergency alerts through the city’s notification system, Alert Long Beach.
Sandbags are available through Tuesday at these locations:
Be sure to bring your ID and a shovel or tool. Residents can pick up a maximum of 10 bags.
“It’s a process of learning,” Venkataraman said.
On Saturday, city crews continued to shore up beaches where sand was washed away as surf driven by Hurricane Marie pounded the Peninsula last month. By morning, sand berms were piled up ahead of high tide. Other emergency repairs included pumping water off streets and filling in the exposed bulkhead with 1,000 sandbags. Storm drains appeared clear and were able to receive water from flooded streets.
“In an emergency, we act. We spend the money we need to. We protect life and safety, but then we record all of those costs,” City Manager Tom Modica said at a press conference Saturday afternoon.
More than $1 million in one-time costs has already been spent so far, he said. The city will aggressively pursue funding from other sources as it undertakes a seven-part plan for near- and long-term resiliency, Modica said. The city is currently in conversation with the governor’s Office of Emergency Services, he added.
Venkataraman was not prepared last month when high surf rushed into his ground floor and dumped more than a foot of sand, rubble and shells into his crawl space, he said. He was forced to rip out several feet of drywall and air out his home with 66 heaters and 18 dehumidifiers from Home Depot.
His first floor was still torn up when powerful waves charged by Tropical Storm Rachel arrived at his door again this week. But this time, he knew he had to take quicker preventative action. He reinforced the planter on his lower level with wood and sandbags and bolstered the bulkhead with various supports.
Though he and his family evacuated and are staying in another home they own, he has been returning to his Peninsula residence during high tides to check on the reinforcements and evaluate what else needs to be done.
He said he now hopes to reinforce the bulkhead on the ocean side, adding 2-by-4 planks for stability. And he said he will continue to periodically tighten the rivets on the support beams, as they loosen with each wall of water that crashes down.
Other residents have also stepped in to buttress the bulkhead. On Friday, the sand berm protecting 62nd Place washed away, and waves “brought the whole ocean and sand down the street,” said Marc Moore, who lives there. Once the water had receded, he started picking up 10-foot pieces of wood and digging them into the sand near the bulkhead — a DIY solution in the hopes of taking a bit of power out of each swell. “Every wave you can stop might protect somebody’s home,” he said. He added the city should have done more to avoid this current disaster, but now they were fully activated and working closely with residents.
Some residents said they were anxious for what was to come throughout the weekend; the National Weather Service issued a coastal flood warning and a high surf advisory on Sunday as rainy weather set to arrive threatened more damage. Flooding impacts could be the most significant the region has seen this season, according to the NWS.
Eight properties were red-tagged as too dangerous for residents to remain, and several structures noticeably creaked and sagged as the waves continued to hit. City officials said they expect the coastal erosion and property damage to worsen on Sunday and throughout the El Niño season.
Still, Venkataraman and his neighbors remained hopeful and focused on action.
“It may be a losing battle,” Venkataraman said, adding he is not ready to give up. “I’m a warrior. I will fight until the bitter end.”
Flock cameras, the automated license plate readers (ALPRs), have faced intense backlash in recent months amid stories of abuse. Yet privacy experts say they're just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to police surveillance.
Why it matters: Police officers in cities across the U.S. are quick to extol the virtues of real-time crime centers as a game changer that helps them find missing children, monitor large events from the skies and scope out dangerous scenes before putting an officer in harm's way. Many of them are now being powered with AI software. And privacy experts are concerned.
Police officers in cities across the U.S. are quick to extol the virtues of real-time crime centers as a game changer that helps them find missing children, monitor large events from the skies and scope out dangerous scenes before putting an officer in harm's way.
Hundreds of police departments have one of these central hubs, which have existed for years. But many are now being powered with AI software, such as Fusus, from the public-safety technology giant Axon.
Fusus, by Axon's own description, is a "rapidly deployable real-time crime center in the cloud." It functions like the brain of a crime center, synthesizing the data it pulls in and allowing police command centers to watch an entire city from one place.
Flock cameras, the automated license plate readers (ALPRs), have faced intense backlash in recent months amid stories of abuse. Yet privacy experts say they're just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to police surveillance.
"I have been watching the debate about Flock with a little bit of puzzlement," says Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University. "Because real-time crime centers have not just ALPR cameras and sensors, but video analytics and drones and essentially a way to create a visual single-pane-of-glass vision of what's going on in a city, with time machine capabilities where you can go back and investigate crime."
Tools like Axon Fusus, which is a leader in this type of software, also pull in footage and data from police body cameras, law enforcement dashcams, 911 dispatch, gunshot detectors and surveillance cameras, including sometimes those of private businesses that opt in.
Its use is growing fast. In 2024, the technology news site 404 Media reported that just over 100 law enforcement agencies had deployed Fusus, which was then its own company and was acquired by Axon that year. The number of law enforcement agencies using the tool has more than doubled since then, according to Axon.
Police officers in departments that use Fusus told NPR that the tool serves as a time-saver and a force multiplier for their agencies.
"We could put analysts in a room and have them access 40 different systems," says Benjamin Weir, a captain with the Oklahoma City Police Department. "But that slows them down. So the biggest leveraging factor for a real-time information center to be productive is to have software that can incorporate all these things into one usable area."
Quincy Whitner, a lieutenant with the Greenville County Sheriff's Office in South Carolina, says Fusus helped his department find a man who shot a police officer and fled the scene, by combining city surveillance footage with license plate data.
"Instead of having to go to a million different systems, a million different places to find answers, we can get it in one platform in one place somewhat instantaneously," says Whitner.
But that push-of-a-button mentality is exactly what makes privacy experts nervous.
Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Liberty and National Security Program at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice, says even a few decades ago, there were more hurdles to overcome when police officers wanted to surveil members of the community. They might have to physically follow someone or do a stakeout. It took time, staffing and resources.
"In addition to all of the things that you would want in place requiring some kind of criminal predicate to launch it, there is just this kind of organic friction that imposes some constraints," she says. "As that friction gets lifted, it becomes easier and easier to do investigations, to look at people and even to pull up broad-scale information."
Police told NPR that they understand those concerns but that the good — the potential for stopping and solving crime — outweighs the bad — the potential for misuse and mass surveillance.
"I understand people's concerns, but if you're not up to no good, we're not looking at you. We are looking at people who are committing crimes," says Michelle Iezzi, deputy director of the Operational Intelligence Division at the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland.
Axon did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But CEO Rick Smith said on the latest earnings call that the company strongly values privacy: "We just have to be thoughtful and understand those concerns and say, 'Look, this is a tool to amplify human ability, not to replace human judgment.'"
But there is broad potential for abuse when a police department is always watching, privacy experts say; surveillance technology can sweep up innocent people by mistake, and it can enable targeting.
"What happens if there is a government that wants to silence a particular group or even a particular person? And you just built the architecture of surveillance that makes that super-easy," says Ferguson, the George Washington University law professor.
Courts are moving slowly in deciding when or if this kind of surveillance crosses a constitutional line. In the meantime, Ferguson says, lawmakers could act by limiting how long data is stored, for instance, mandating regular audits or restricting surveillance near sensitive sites like abortion clinics or immigration courts.
He says those conversations should be happening before a tool ever is used.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
The Taste of Soul Family Festival returns to Crenshaw Boulevard Saturday, Oct. 17 for another full day of free music, health screenings, and food from across the region.
Why it matters: The festival provides an economic boon for local small businesses, gives neighbors a chance to connect with one another, and provides free health screenings for kids and adults.
Why now: The one day festival happens once a year and shuts down nearly three miles of Crenshaw Boulevard from Obama Boulevard to Stocker Street for family friendly fun in South L.A.
Once a year Crenshaw Boulevard comes alive with music, food and celebration at the Taste of Soul Family Festival. What organizers bill as Southern California’s “largest free street festival,” now in its 21st year, takes over nearly three miles between Obama Boulevard and Stocker Street on Saturday, Oct.17.
And “free” is the operative word.
“At Coachella, it's $500 a ticket. At Taste of Soul, you come free,” said Pamela Bakewell with Bakewell Media, the festival's organizer.
Danny J. Bakewell Sr. — chairman of the organization and Pamela’s brother — pitched the festival to then-L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
“He went to him and said, ‘Look, if they can do these things in New Orleans, then why can't we do it in Los Angeles?’”
That first festival in 2005 drew about 25,000 people, according to organizers. Now, some 350,000 people attend every year.
Organizers say the festival has become an economic boost for small businesses in Southern California, featuring over 100 food vendors of serving a variety of cuisines.
“It's the biggest event that I do all year,” said Brian McMillan, owner of The Kobbler King in South L.A. “People place orders after the event. They taste the cobbler; it sets us up for Thanksgiving.”
McMillan has been a vendor at Taste of Soul for 20 years.
“You got food from all over. I have a friend from East Africa; his food is some of the best food I've ever had, and it's extremely healthy,” McMillan said.
McMillan said he relishes seeing different generations of neighbors and customers come by to say hello and get some cobbler.
“It's like a family reunion, and I think that's very important because you don't see that with too many festivals at all.”
Topline:
Long Beach is famously surrounded by a breakwater to protect its harbor, but that massive barrier hasn’t been able to shield homes on the city’s Peninsula from hurricane-charged swells recently. Over the last few weeks, strong waves have repeatedly stripped away sand, broken through a boardwalk bulkhead and threatened to collapse beachside homes by clawing away the sand underneath them. All of this keeps happening in a narrow stretch of homes along the Peninsula, mostly between 62nd and 69th places.
Why it matters: El Niño’s warm waters have supercharged high tides. That, combined with hurricane-driven waves coming up from the south, has stripped so much sand away from the Peninsula’s beach that the wooden bulkhead under the coastal boardwalk has been exposed. At high tide, breakers now slap directly against the wood, repeatedly splintering it. The city is hoping to soon start a $11.4 million dredging project to gather enough sand to rebuild the beach and protect the boardwalk, but that can’t happen while it’s getting pounded by the surf.
What's next: There may be some relief soon. Hurricane season in the eastern Pacific runs from mid-May through November. Hurricanes later in the year are much more likely to form in the western Pacific — as opposed to the southeast — and the federal breakwater that shields Long Beach’s harbor blunts the swells that originate from the west. That’s why much of California’s western coast may still see dangerous waves through the winter, though Long Beach is usually safe. To bolster the Peninsula’s defenses, Long Beach is now considering a $6.8 million plan to build a rock revetment — a wall of boulders that would sit behind the beach as a backup.
Long Beach is famously surrounded by a breakwater to protect its harbor, but that massive barrier hasn’t been able to shield homes on the city’s Peninsula from hurricane-charged swells recently.
Over the last few weeks, strong waves have repeatedly stripped away sand, broken through a boardwalk bulkhead and threatened to collapse beachside homes by clawing away the sand underneath them. All of this keeps happening in a narrow stretch of homes along the Peninsula, mostly between 62nd and 69th places.
Those few blocks are vulnerable to swells coming from the south because of an opening in the breakwater and jetty that allows boat access to Alamitos Bay.
In order to protect those homes, Long Beach typically builds a sand berm to block waves. When waves rip it away, the breakwater keeps it from washing out to sea, and it instead piles up to the west near downtown (a phenomenon called littoral drift.) The city spends $1 million to $1.5 million a year on trucking that sand back to the Peninsula and rebuilding the beach.
This year, it hasn’t been enough.
El Niño’s warm waters have supercharged high tides. That, combined with hurricane-driven waves coming up from the south, has stripped so much sand away from the Peninsula’s beach that the wooden bulkhead under the coastal boardwalk has been exposed.
At high tide, breakers now slap directly against the wood, repeatedly splintering it.
The city is hoping to soon start a $11.4 million dredging project to gather enough sand to rebuild the beach and protect the boardwalk, but that can’t happen while it’s getting pounded by the surf.
There may be some relief soon. Hurricane season in the eastern Pacific runs from mid-May through November. Hurricanes later in the year are much more likely to form in the western Pacific — as opposed to the southeast — and the federal breakwater that shields Long Beach’s harbor blunts the swells that originate from the west. That’s why much of California’s western coast may still see dangerous waves through the winter, though Long Beach is usually safe.
To bolster the Peninsula’s defenses, Long Beach is now considering a $6.8 million plan to build a rock revetment — a wall of boulders that would sit behind the beach as a backup.
But for a long-term solution, officials say it may cost $150 million to $350 million for a full habitat and shoreline restoration — funded partly by state mitigation credits.
It’s the kind of project that would take massive amounts of approvals and planning and likely some delays. The city council, for now, has approved $30,000 to look into it further.
