The Brief

Four new A Line stations in the San Gabriel Valley opened to the public on Friday, bringing the total length of the light rail to nearly 60 miles as it now extends into Pomona.

The extension brings the line to within just a few miles of the original goal of building out to Montclair, which wasn’t possible due to budget shortfalls and might never come to fruition after the county-level body overseeing transportation in San Bernardino decided earlier this month not to support the project.

Still, Habib Balian, the CEO of the Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority, which has overseen the expansion of the A-line, said the $1.5 billion extension to Pomona has been a long time coming.

“It's probably 20 years overdue,” Balian told LAist. “But we're happy to bring it into fruition at this point.”

Metro’s CEO, Stephanie Wiggins, called the extension a major accomplishment.

“An executive heading to her job downtown, a student on the way to class, or a family going to a Dodgers game, Metro serves all of us,” Wiggins said. “We are part of shared communities, and those communities are interconnected here in the San Gabriel Valley.”

What to know about the extension

The new stations are located in Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne and Pomona. The addition brings the total number of stations on the A Line to 48.

The north-south segment of the train runs from Long Beach through downtown, Northeast L.A. and Pasadena. The four new stations extend the eastern segment, moving the terminus from Azusa to Pomona.

The Glendora, San Dimas and Pomona stations connect with the Foothill Transit bus network. You can also catch the San Bernardino Metrolink at the Pomona station.

There will be more trains running along the A Line now that it’s extended, according to Balian.

Metro says trains will run every 8 minutes during peak weekday hours. During off-peak weekday and daytime weekend hours, trains will run every 10 minutes. In the later hours, the frequency dips to a train every 20 minutes.

Metro estimates a trip from Union Station in downtown L.A. to Pomona will take just over an hour.

The A Line is one of the most popular L.A. Metro rail lines with around 1.8 million boardings per month since the beginning of last year.

The Glendora to Pomona segment of the A Line will open to the public on Sept. 19.

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The significance of the extension

There are 19 college campuses along the route from Azusa to Pomona.

“This particular line is sometimes called the brain train,” Ed Reece, chairman of the construction authority board, said.

Lucas LeVieux, an urban planning student at Cal Poly Pomona, said the A Line extension will be a “game-changer” that will help the school progress toward its climate and enrollment goals.

"Cal Poly Pomona students are really thirsty for quality public transit on campus,” said LeVieux, who serves as a student representative on the university’s Alternative Transportation Committee. “Even with over 14,000 parking spots, I hear students constantly complain about parking availability — to say nothing of the congestion, cost, safety risk and environmental impact of all those cars.”

University of La Verne President Risa Dickson said the expanded Metro rail opens more opportunities for students. Students at junior colleges, for example, need access to housing, she said.

“If they can get on a line at one place and get off at our campus, they can live in our dorms at a much lower rate it will cost them to rent in the community,” Dickson said. “It also enables them to have access to the dining services, have access to the campus community, and it makes it much easier for them to think about their future in a four-year degree format.”

Given the breadth of areas the A Line serves, Reece said the four new stations will help with mobility during the 2028 L.A. Olympics.

“There's very much an opportunity for riders, enthusiasts [and] visitors to jump on and be able to attend some of these events at some of these venues,” he said.

The L.A. County Fairplex, where the annual fair is held and where cricket will be played during the 2028 Games, is a short distance from the new La Verne stop.

Five years and $1.5 billion later

The Foothill Gold Line Construction Authority has overseen the planning, design and construction of A Line extensions since the state created the independent agency in 1998.

The A Line was formerly known as the Gold Line, hence the name of the agency.

The independent agency began major construction on the 9.1 mile-long extension in 2020. It turned the project over to Metro earlier this year for continued testing and future operation.

This extension was originally conceived to include an additional two stations in Claremont and Montclair. But due to budget issues, the plan was changed in 2019 to complete the extension in two phases, with the first bringing the A Line to Pomona.

“It was determined that it was more important to get the project built as far as we could,” Balian said.

The $1.5 billion extension was primarily funded through Measure M, the half-cent sales tax for transportation and mobility projects that L.A. County voters approved in 2016. Unused funding from the Pasadena to Azusa extension, as well as state and local government dollars also supported the project.

Uncertainty for future extension

Whether the train makes it to Montclair is unclear.

The San Bernardino County Transportation Authority announced earlier in September that without a seat on the governing board of the Construction Authority, which would build the project, it was pulling funding from the Montclair extension.

“This decision was not made hastily,” the agency said in a statement. “It comes after nearly a decade of deliberation about the ever-escalating timelines and costs associated with the extension, coupled with the Board’s frustration over the absence of local control in decision-making.”

Balian said the dispute and ensuing decision over the governing structure was “unfortunate.”

“ Although it's worked in every other city along the way over the last 25 miles, it was not something that they were interested in doing or felt comfortable doing,” Balian said.

The agency is still looking to build at least one additional station in Claremont. Balian said the Construction Authority is hoping to award a design contract for that extension in November, followed by a construction contract in two years.

“ In the intervening years, we'll look to San Bernardino to come up with an alternative,” Balian said.

LOS ANGELES — As the season of Advent begins, many Christians turn toward quiet reflection and preparation for Christmas. But in several Southern California congregations with large immigrant communities, that sacred anticipation is shadowed by a looming sense of fear.

For worshippers like Mike, an Iranian asylum-seeker who attends a West Los Angeles church, the weeks leading up to Christmas feel less like a spiritual refuge and more like a time of apprehension. He asked that only the anglicized version of his Farsi name be used because he fears speaking publicly could affect his immigration case. He fled Iran after converting to Christianity.

"I kept this secret, my faith as a secret, for like 12 years," he said.

Mike arrived in Los Angeles 18 months ago and says he has tried to build a life rooted in community and respect for his new home. But a series of immigration enforcement actions in the region — including the June arrests of two men outside a nearby church with a large Iranian membership — has shaken him.

"Even church is not safe because it's a public place," he said. "They can get there and catch you."

The Department of Homeland Security says enforcement actions at churches require secondary approval and are expected to be rare. Still, the concern is real inside Mike's congregation, where church leaders asked that the name of the church not be published.

A significant number of Iranian parishioners worship there, and the pastor often invites them to pray in Farsi during services. Lately, fewer take her up on the offer.

"It's part of the heartbreak of these days," the pastor said. "They feel like they have to be apprehensive about it — not even wanting to speak in their own language here."

She said the fear is especially painful during Advent, a season she describes as a time to prepare to "give thanks for this God we have who wants to be with us."

Room at the inn, despite fears

East of Los Angeles, at Baldwin Park United Methodist Church, Pastor Toña Rios unzips a red tent pitched in the middle of the sanctuary. For years, the church took in newly arrived immigrants, providing a place to sleep while they looked for work and housing.

The tent remains as a reminder of that welcome — and of the fears many congregants now carry. Rios estimates that about 80% of her church members are immigrants and says many don't have legal status.

"A lot of them say, 'Don't open the door. Just close the door,'" she said.

Rios urges a different posture, especially during Advent. She uses the tent to help her congregation imagine being the ones who offer shelter, not shut others out.

"It is very hard," she said. "But Jesus is going to be born in our heart. That's why we need to be prepared."

For longtime church member Royi Lopez, the sense of vulnerability goes beyond immigration status. Lopez is a U.S. citizen but says she often feels targeted because she is Latina. Many of her relatives are undocumented, and she worries constantly about them.

"What if on my way to church, they catch us?" she said. "On a daily basis, we're scared of going to the school, to work, to church, to even the grocery store."

Lopez says that during Advent, these fears remind her of the Christmas story itself — of Mary and Joseph searching for somewhere to stay, turned away again and again until somebody finally took them in.

"Even though so many doors were closed, somebody opened a door," she said.

That theme of welcome runs through the hymn chosen for every Sunday of Advent at Baldwin Park United Methodist Church, "All Earth is Hopeful." Its lyrics speak of a world longing for liberation, where people labor to "see how God's truth and justice set everybody free."
Copyright 2025 NPR

The Supreme Court today is hearing a billion-dollar case about whether internet providers can be liable for their users' committing copyright violations using their services.

The legal battle pits the music entertainment industry against Cox Communications, which provides internet to over 6 million residences and business.

A coalition of music labels, which represent artists such as Sabrina Carpenter, Givēon and Doechii, sued Cox alleging that company should be responsible for the copyright violations of internet users that Cox had been warned were serial copyright abusers.

The coalition argues Cox was sent numerous notices of specific IP addresses repeatedly violating music copyrights and that Cox's failure to terminate those IP addresses from internet access means that Cox should face the music.

In its briefs, the coalition argued many of Cox's anti-infringement measurements seem superficial and the company willingly overlooked violations.

The coalition points out that Cox had a 13-strike policy for potentially terminating infringing customers, under which Cox acted against a customer based on how many complaints it received about a particular user. The Cox manager who oversaw the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the law at issue in this case, told his team to "F the dmca!!!"

"Cox made a deliberate and egregious decision to elevate its own profits over compliance with the law," the coalition asserts.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and a jury agreed with the coalition, with the jury awarding the coalition more than a billion dollars in damages.

Cox argues it should not be liable for its customers' actions as it never encouraged the copyright infringements, its terms of service prohibit illegal activities, and it does not make additional money when customers use its internet to infringe on copyrights.

In its briefs, Cox specified that less than 1% of its users infringe on music copyrights and that its internal compliance measures "got 95% of that less than 1% to stop." It asserts that if the Supreme Court does not side with them, then "that means terminating entire households, coffee shops, hospitals, universities and even regional internet service providers (ISPs) — the internet lifeline for tens of thousands of homes and businesses — merely because some unidentified person was previously alleged to have used the connection to infringe."

A decision in the case is expected this summer.

Copyright 2025 NPR

The push to ban gas-powered leaf blowers has gained an unlikely figurehead: Cate Blanchett, the Australian actress.

“Leaf blowers need to be eradicated from the face of the Earth,” she said in an interview in March. Her complaints have gone viral on TikTok and other social media platforms. “It’s a metaphor for what’s wrong with us as a species,” Blanchett said. “We blow shit from one side of our lawn to the other side, and then the wind is just going to blow it back!”

Her complaints about leaf blowers — equal parts entertaining and earnest — stretch back nearly 20 years, and now the mood has caught up with her. Today, more than 200 local governments in the U.S. have restricted gas-powered lawn equipment or provided incentives to switch to quieter, less-polluting electric tools. The first bans date back to the 1970s, but the trend picked up after the pandemic lockdowns in 2020, when newly homebound workers discovered just how inescapable the whine of their neighbor’s leaf blower can be.

“With every year that passes, more and more communities across the country are taking action to address the shocking amount of pollution and noise from gas lawn equipment,” said Kirsten Schatz, clean air advocate at the Colorado Public Interest Research Group, called CoPIRG.

Gas-powered leaf blowers aren’t just annoying; they’re bad for public health. Closing the windows can’t shut out their low-frequency roar, which can be louder than the World Health Organization’s recommended limit of 55 decibels up to 800 feet away. The unwanted sound can lead to high levels of stress, along with disturbing people’s sleep and potentially damaging hearing over time.

Leaf blowers’ two-stroke engines also churn out a noxious blend of exhaust: fine particulate matter, smog-forming gases, and cancer-causing chemicals like benzene and formaldehyde. By one estimate, running a gas-powered leaf blower for an hour emits as much smog-forming pollution as driving a car from Los Angeles to Denver.

And while lawn and garden equipment is only a small slice of global carbon emissions, leaf blowers and other gas-powered tools “pack a big punch for the amount that they create based on the size of their engines,” said Dan Mabe, the founder of the American Green Zone Alliance, a group that works with cities and landscapers to shift to electric equipment. In 2020, fossil-fueled lawn and garden equipment in the U.S. released more than 30 million tons of CO2, more than the emissions of the city of L.A.

Cities and states across the country have taken different approaches to dealing with the problem. California’s law banning the sale of new gas-powered blowers took effect last January, while cities like Portland and Baltimore are phasing out their use. Some places, like Wilmette, Illinois, have enacted seasonal limits, either permanently or until a full ban takes effect. Others, like Colorado, attempt to sweeten the deal of buying electric lawn care equipment, offering a 30 percent discount.

But implementing the bans is proving more challenging than many expected. Many communities are frustrated that the new rules are not being properly enforced, said Jamie Banks, the founder and president of Quiet Communities, a nonprofit working to reduce noise pollution.

Westport, Connecticut, fought for years to get a seasonal restriction on gas-powered blowers, only to find that local officials were not enforcing it, Banks said. Noise complaints are not exactly at the top of police officers’ priority lists, and sometimes ordinances are written in a way that’s hard to carry out — police aren’t usually expected to go around town taking noise readings, for example. Some communities are taking a deliberate approach to the problem: Banks pointed to a group of towns in the greater Chicago area, including Wilmette, that are trying to create consistent policies across the region and working with the local police.

Then there’s the matter that swapping gas blowers for ones powered by electricity isn’t as straightforward as it sounds. While the costs are comparable for homeowners — you can get electric blowers at a big-box store like Home Depot for around $200 or less, cheaper than most gas ones — electric blowers are more expensive for commercial landscapers. They require multiple batteries for workers to get through the day. While a typical professional gas-powered blower runs for $550, a comparable electric one costs $700 and requires thousands of dollars worth of batteries. Landscapers also have to buy hundreds of dollars worth of charging equipment and find ways to charge safely on the go.

Plus, it can be difficult to meet the standards customers expect with electric leaf blowers, which are less powerful than gas ones. “If you have customers that are demanding that you get everything off the ground, and you better do it quickly, and you’d better not charge me too much money, it’s really tough,” Banks said.

Bans have already generated a political backlash in some Republican-led states. Texas and Georgia have passed laws prohibiting local governments from regulating gas-powered leaf blowers. The Western States Petroleum Association, an oil industry group, launched a Latino-focused messaging campaign in California that pushes back against laws to electrify vehicles and leaf blowers. But leaf blowers aren’t just a culture-war lightning rod; in some places, they’re leading to personal conflict. In Evanston, Illinois, a suburb north of Chicago, several landscape workers allege they’ve been harassed by people reporting violations of the local ban.

The American Green Zone Alliance noted in a recent statement that “heavy-handed bans on gas-powered leaf blowers can unintentionally create stress and hardship for workers who often labor for low wages, with limited benefits or control over their working conditions.”

Although there remain a lot of details to work out, the organization is still pushing lawn care to go electric. “We are trying to convince our industry, ‘Look, we need to accelerate this,’” Mabe said.

The alliance is advocating for incentives that are sufficient to make the new equipment affordable for landscaping businesses operating on razor-thin margins. (In the end, lower fuel and maintenance costs for electric blowers can save companies money if the equipment is properly cared for, Mabe said.) Seasonal bans on gas-powered leaf blowers may be more feasible in some places than year-round ones, because they leave short windows for using the fossil-fueled devices in the spring and fall to take care of heavy cleanup jobs.

Another solution: Customers could loosen their expectations and accept a scattering of leaves, instead of demanding a perfectly manicured lawn. “Now, if that aesthetic was more relaxed, that could help change things,” Banks said. “Maybe they wouldn’t need to carry so many batteries.” Leaving some leaves on the ground is, at least ecologically speaking, a good thing — decaying leaves fertilize the soil and form a protective layer that provides shelter for snails, bees, and butterflies.

And of course, in many cases, a leaf blower isn’t needed at all: You can do as Blanchett advises and take matters into your own hands with a good-old fashioned rake.