The Brief

Crowds of people gathered in Westwood on Sunday to support the anti-government protests in Iran. For weeks now, triggered by rising inflation, people across Iran have taken to the streets calling for regime change. As a result, hundreds have been killed.

Protesters in L.A. respond to reports that at least 192 protesters in Iran have been killed.

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Jonathan Alcorn

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AFP via Getty Images

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Activists take part in a "Free Iran" rally in Los Angeles on Sunday.

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Jonathan Alcorn

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AFP via Getty Images

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A U-Haul truck clad with signs opposing the demonstrators also drove through the crowd in Westwood, although no injuries were reported. The Los Angeles police said they arrested the 48-year-old driver on suspicion of reckless driving.

A U-Haul truck drove through a group of protesters in Westwood on Sunday during the demonstration. No injuries were reported.

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Kayla Bartkowski

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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According to human rights groups, the death toll has climbed into the hundreds as protests across Iran stretch into a third week, drawing the ire of President Donald Trump, who has mulled military intervention.

Activists take part in a "Free Iran" rally in Los Angeles.

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Jonathan Alcorn

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AFP via Getty Images

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Laura Terry dreamed of having kids — a family she could call her own. But there was one challenge: She wasn't interested in dating, marriage, or partnering up.

So, she came up with an idea for an unusual present to give herself.

"For my 39th birthday, I bought a vial of donor sperm," says Terry, who lives in Nashville, Tenn., and works at a top management consulting firm.

She started the process of having a baby via in vitro fertilization, or IVF, soon after. This path hadn't occurred to her initially, even though she has a Ph.D. in cell and developmental biology. There just wasn't anyone in her orbit who had done it. Her epiphany came from a book in which the author described her own journey with IVF.

"I had never heard of being a single mom by choice before that," says Terry, who is now 44. "It was like a light bulb went off."

That light bulb is going off for a lot of single women. Today, 44% of women in America are unpartnered; finding someone and settling down has become less of a priority when they're in their 20s or even 30s. And when some of them are ready to have kids, they aren't letting singlehood deter them.

Who gets to be a parent is being reshaped by increased access to IVF

The nation's first IVF baby was born in 1981, when the process was such a novelty that she was referred to as a "test tube baby." Since then, its use has surged in the United States, and today, IVF accounts for almost 100,000 births each year. That's up 50% from 10 years ago.

With IVF, which accounts for around 2% of births in America, a woman's eggs are retrieved from her body and fertilized with sperm in a lab. The resulting embryo is then implanted in her uterus, with the hope it will lead to a pregnancy.

This process has opened the door for many people who couldn't otherwise conceive children and reshaped who gets to be a parent, including more LGBTQ+ couples.

It has also become a big driver in the number of older single mothers in the U.S. at a time when the country's overall birth rate is declining. The number of unmarried women in their 40s who are having babies has grown by 250% in the last 30 years, according to data from the government. A portion of these women have partners, but many don't.

There are many reasons for this rise, says Rosanna Hertz, author of the book Single By Chance, Mothers by Choice. Increasingly, she says, young women are pursuing higher education, focusing on their careers, or fulfilling personal goals such as traveling around the world or buying homes.

And when they're ready to partner up in their mid-30s, "there's no one to settle down with," says Hertz, a sociologist with a focus on gender and family at Wellesley College. "So, am I going to spend my time waiting for somebody to come along?"

Hertz says her research shows most women who want a family would rather do it with a partner. For them, IVF is Plan B. But as their reproductive windows narrow with age, some decide to move forward by themselves.

A framed photo of Laura Terry with her mother, Jo, holding baby Eleanor.

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Becoming a mother is a marker of adulthood for them, Hertz says.

"There is a sense that I'm now ready to do something that is selfless, that involves the care and nurture of another human being and be part of a broader community," she says. "What a child does is tie you into a community."

Do I really want to have a baby? How do I choose a donor?

Terry saw that care and community in her own sister's family, when it drew her to Nashville to spend time with her nephews.

Once she knew she wanted to be a mom, she started mapping out her path through the language she understood, which is spreadsheets and PowerPoints.

"I made a decision tree," she says.

The root of that tree was a fundamental question: Did she really want a child? It branched from there to examine how she would become a mother and which path would give her the best chance of having a baby. It led her to IVF.

Soon enough, she was faced with another decision: choosing a sperm donor. Faced with an array of choices, she resorted to another spreadsheet "that was like 30 rows long and 30 columns wide."

In it, she started by listing factors like race, height, ethnicity and education. Then she narrowed it down to a few that really mattered to her: "I cared about some physical attributes to look like me. And I cared about family health history."

Terry was extremely lucky with her IVF process: She got pregnant on her first try. She gave birth to Eleanor in 2021 and Margaret came two years later.

"I should be quite grateful for what my process was," Terry says. "The results were beyond what you statistically expect."

Terry actively tries to find ways to engage her kids. Sometimes she buys a "decoy cucumber" so that when she's prepping dinner, 4-year-old Eleanor can peel it and feel helpful. Terry says, "It's a great use of 75 cents for an extra cucumber."

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She's right: The odds of conceiving a child with just one try of IVF are below 50% after a woman turns 35. And the chances drop rapidly each year after that. Many women try multiple cycles of IVF with no guarantee that they'll get pregnant.

Pregnancies at an older age can also carry health risks for both mom and child, with a high chance of miscarriage. All of this can take a huge physical and emotional toll.

Women with higher education are the top users of IVF

When Kate Snyder, who lives in northern New Jersey, was ready to have a kid, she looked for the right guy. "And, you know," she says, "it didn't happen."

Snyder was already in her 40s when she started thinking of IVF.

Kate Snyder and her 2-year-old daughter get ready for day care at their home in northern New Jersey. An interior designer and artist, Snyder made the decision to undergo IVF when she was in her 40s.

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"Once I came to terms with the fact that the father of my child doesn't have to be the person I end up with, and you separate the two, it's very freeing," she says. "And it just took the pressure off."

Now 48, she is the mother of a 2-year-old daughter, who loves to talk and fills their home with chatter. "She comes home from day care with gossip," says Snyder, who is an interior designer and artist. "She's telling me who pooped their pants and how the teacher had a lollipop today and this person got out of her cot."

Snyder says Google, her former employer, covered a small portion of the cost of freezing her eggs. But she paid for the IVF process herself.

Each time a woman tries to get pregnant via IVF, the cost can range from $15,000 to over $30,000. It's why IVF is out of reach for many.

Snyder wasn't prepared in her mid-40s for the amount of carrying her baby needed in the first two years, whether it was up and down the stairs or getting her in and out of the car.

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It's gotten the attention of President Trump. In October, he announced proposals to help reduce the cost of the drugs necessary for IVF. He also encouraged employers to offer broader infertility coverage directly to workers.

Some people go into debt, while others like Snyder use up their savings. Some women, like Terry, have theirs covered by insurance. Even that is not common — only 1 in 4 companies with more than 200 employees pays for a part of the process.

Women with higher education — especially master's degrees, doctorates or professional degrees — are more likely to use IVF than those with less education, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

These women, on average, have higher incomes. All that gives them the agency to start and support their own family.

"My knees hurt"

Both Terry and Snyder were financially comfortable enough to step off the career treadmill and create time and space for their new families. Snyder now works four days a week. Terry took a pay cut for a different role that was less intense — it allowed her to work from home and requires less travel. Neither has qualms about it.

"It's so physical being a mom. I don't think I expected that," says Snyder.

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Thalia Juarez

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Still, parenting in your 40s is hard.

"It's so physical being a mom. I don't think I expected that," says Snyder, thinking back to her first two years of motherhood and carrying her daughter up and down the stairs or getting her in and out the car. "Motherhood in your 40s, you know, my knees hurt and there are things that are starting to fall apart."

For Terry, one of the hardest parts of being a single mom is not being able to take a break. "If I'm tired or had a rough day at work or I'm frustrated, I'm feeling overwhelmed and I want to step away from my kids, I often can't," she says. "I have to meet their needs first and meet my needs later. And that's hard."

And then there is the weight of decision-making. She discusses her choices with her friends and family, "but ultimately all of that rests on me and that feels really heavy," she says.

Saturday mornings are music class days. Being silly with her kids has helped Terry loosen up and relate to them in a different way. They sing all the time. Her kids make up nursery rhymes on their way to day care or bath time or even while brushing their teeth.

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"Was he sorry I didn't have a husband?"

Even though there are more families like Terry's and Snyder's today, they're still rare. And society hasn't quite caught up with them.

Like when Terry moved to her new home in Nashville, she introduced herself and the girls to a neighbor, who asked what her husband did for work. Terry explained that they were a "mom and kids family" with two cats. The response took her aback.

"He said, 'Oh, I'm so sorry,'" she recalls. "Was he sorry I didn't have a husband? I still don't know to this day. But there is very much like a moment of feeling other and different — and that's often an uncomfortable feeling."

Terry worries about how her daughters will handle such questions. She prepares her oldest child by role-playing with her. But even then, sometimes it doesn't quite play out the way they've practiced.

Recently, she recalls, one of her daughter's classmates said, "'Hey, Eleanor, is that your mom?' And she said, 'Yes.' And they said, 'Well, where's your dad?' And Eleanor just froze in that moment."

But more often than not, the tenderness of motherhood triumphs over such unsettling interactions. Terry treasures the sweet moments she shares with her kids, like when they climb onto her bed in the morning to wake her or when they sit next to each other on the couch to read before bedtime.

"I love moments where they say, 'Mama, I need a snuggle.' Just holding them for a minute or two and seeing how that calms them is really, really powerful."
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Terry reads to her daughters as they snuggle with her on the couch.

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Jessica Ingram for NPR

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Over his nearly 50-year career, Burbank-based attorney Dennis Block has built a reputation as a fierce advocate for Southern California landlords seeking to evict their tenants.

But disciplinary charges filed against him last month by the California State Bar raise questions about his treatment of clients.

Block faces charges involving a series of clients over a span of years. According to the 10 counts against him, Block allegedly collected payments wrongly described as “non-refundable,” failed to account for his fees and didn’t return a client’s property in a timely manner following termination of his employment.

In one case, Block allegedly failed to pay court sanctions on time. In another, he allegedly created a conflict of interest by representing both a tenant and her landlord.

When LAist asked Block how he responded to the charges, he told us to reach out to his defense attorney Erin Joyce. In a statement, Joyce said, “While we cannot comment on the specifics of the case, we believe the matter will be resolved in Mr. Block’s favor prior to trial at the settlement conference.”

The ultimate penalty in California State Bar Court is disbarment, which would prevent Block from continuing to practice law. Lesser punishments could involve a brief suspension or an order to complete an ethics exam.

Should fees have been ‘non-refundable’?

This isn’t the first time Block has faced repercussions for alleged ethical lapses in recent years.

In 2023, LAist reported on a filing Block’s firm submitted in an eviction case that contained multiple references to fake case law. Legal experts told us the filing, which led to court sanctions, was likely produced through misuse of AI.

Legal ethics experts said the new charges against Block are serious.

“The worst thing a lawyer can do is steal a client's money,” said Scott Cummings, a law professor at UCLA. “This is effectively what the bar is saying Mr. Block has done here in roughly half a dozen cases.”

Many counts involve Block allegedly charging up-front fees described by his firm as “non-refundable.” Bar rules state such fees must constitute a “true retainer,” meaning money paid to reserve an attorney’s availability for a specific case or period of time.

LAist previously reported that former clients have complained about poor communication and a lack of availability from Block and his associates.

Richard Zitrin, an emeritus lecturer with UC Law San Francisco, said the rules may sound esoteric, but the bar takes violations seriously.

“When you get right down to what's going on under the surface, it looks like the accusations are that this guy could not do the work for these various clients,” Zitrin said. “If it's one time, it could just be an honest mistake. But if he's doing it repeatedly, serially, of course that's of more concern.”

Representing both sides?

In one case, Block’s firm is accused of taking on a tenant who was in a dispute with her roommate. A few months later, while still representing the tenant, Block’s firm allegedly took on the tenant’s landlord. Block’s firm then sent a letter threatening to evict his own client, according to the charges.

“Lawyers cannot represent opposite sides of a particular case because they owe their duty of loyalty and confidentiality to each client,” said Laurie Levenson, a law professor at Loyola Law School. “It's very likely that one side or the other will feel that the lawyer sold out to the other client.”

Despite the severity and the number of allegations, UCLA’s Cummings said Block’s disciplinary record — which shows no infractions so far — could help him avoid disbarment.

“Suspension seems like — if these facts were all proven to be true — definitely an appropriate sanction in this particular case,” Cummings said.

It’s not yet clear what the charges could mean for Block’s firm, which prides itself on handling a high volume of cases at any given time. Block once reportedly described himself as “a man who has evicted more tenants than any other human being on the planet Earth.”

A status conference in Block’s case is set for Feb. 9.

The Justice Department has subpoenaed the Federal Reserve for information on the central bank's headquarters renovation, according to a video statement released by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell on Sunday.

It's the latest escalation in the administration's pressure campaign to force the central bank to make bigger cuts in interest rates.

Powell said the grand jury subpoenas, received by the Fed on Friday, threaten criminal indictments related to his testimony on the renovation project before the Senate Banking Committee in June.

In an unusually combative statement, however, Powell called it a mere pretext.

"This new threat is not about my testimony last June or about the renovation of the Federal Reserve buildings," Powell said. "The threat of criminal charges is a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president."

The Fed has cut interest rates at each of its last three meetings. But President Trump has been outspoken in saying he wants much lower rates.

Trump has threatened to fire Powell, whose term as chairman expires in May. He's also tried to remove another Fed board member, Lisa Cook, over unsubstantiated allegations of mortgage fraud.
The Supreme Court has ruled that Cook can remain on the Fed's governing board, for now. It's set to hear arguments in the case later this month.
Powell was grilled about the cost overruns during a Senate hearing last summer. The cost of renovating the Federal Reserve's headquarters has jumped, from $1.9 billion to $2.5 billion.

Powell acknowledged in his statement Sunday that scrutiny of the Fed's construction project is legitimate. But he suggested an ulterior motive in the Justice Department's probe.

"No one — certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve — is above the law," Powell said. "But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure."
By design, the Fed is supposed to be insulated from political pressure, so policymakers can make sometimes unpopular decisions, such as raising interest rates to keep inflation in check. Trump, who wants much lower interest rates to goose the economy, has insisted he should have greater say in monetary policy.
Copyright 2026 NPR

The hundreds of people who demonstrated in Westwood on Sunday in support of regime change in Iran were just the latest example of how L.A. is home to one of the largest populations of Iranian immigrants in the country.

Spurred by rising inflation against the backdrop of sanctions reimposed by the United Nations, thousands of people have been protesting the current regime in Iran for weeks now. In the process, outside observers say hundreds of people have been killed, sparking international condemnation.

So it’s no surprise that the developments have spurred action in a region where more than one in three Iranian immigrants call the Los Angeles area home.

One of them is Reza, who asked that his last name not be used for fear that his parents could face retribution in Iran. Since Thursday, he has not been able to reach them because the government cut off internet and phone services as protests escalated.

“My heart is very heavy and I am worried about my parents,” he said.

Reza said he's also carrying  ”a lot of grief because of some pictures and images (that) are emerging that shows the bodies of people, a lot of people have been killed.”

Making sense of the SoCal protests

Sahar Razavi, associate professor of political science at Sacramento State and director of its Iranian and Middle Eastern Studies Center, told LAist’s AirTalk program on Monday that each time there’s an uprising or a mass protest movement in Iran, “it begins as a spark,” and then it “very quickly transforms into wide scale, broad-based calls for transformation of the system.”

One of those calling for a system change is Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince and son of the former Shah, who uses his social media platforms to encourage protests. He has also encouraged the use of the country’s old lion and sun flag and other symbols from when his father was in power to "claim public spaces as your own."

Razavi said Iranians are a diverse group — politically, socially and ethnically.

 ”Within the broad Iranian diaspora, Iranian monarchists are overrepresented in the Los Angeles area. So we see quite a lot of pro-Shah, pro-Pahlavi protests in L.A. that may not necessarily be representative of Iranians across the rest of the country and the world,” she said.

Images from this weekend’s protest in Westwood mostly show people waving the lion and sun flag. Others carried signs calling for the reinstatement of Pahlavi as a leader.

Those who want to see a return to monarchist rule, Razavi said, tend to be people who had the means to flee after the Iranian revolution because “ there is a perception that there would be a restoration of the economy.” But, she said, for rural Iranians, the economic situation was very dire.

 Other prominent factions include leftists, secular Democrats and liberals who call for a secular democracy, free of monarchist influence, Razavi said. Another group who has been seen as an alternative to the current government is Mojahedin-e-Khalq, a leftist dissident group, she added.

Razavi said ethnic minorities like Kurds fear returning to monarchist rule  because “they have a very long history of marginalization of Iranian minority communities.”

Military intervention 

Razavi told AirTalk there are some people who live in Iran who welcome military intervention from the Trump administration or Israel.

But the majority of protesters in Iran, she said, “ are very vocal that they do not want to have any foreign intervention because Iran has a very long history of outside intervention, which has stalled or outright reversed its democratic movements and institutions in the past.”

Reza also worries about military escalation by the U.S. and how that might lead to a failed state in the country. In an ideal world, he added, a new government would be chosen and led by the people.

“ I just want people inside Iran to have a normal life,"Reza said. "They have security, they have an outlook to the future. They have financial security. They have very basic human rights that all humans need to thrive and flourish.”