The Brief

While the movement to increase awareness of neurodiversity has been around since the 1990s, you might be hearing the term "neurodiverse" in conversations, news stories or even on your social media feeds more frequently in recent years. Neurodiversity diagnoses in adults has been on the rise, and more people today are self-diagnosing as neurodivergent, some because they can't get a diagnosis from a health care provider.

One of those people struggling to get the assessment and treatment they feel they need is LAist's Weekend Edition host Julia Paskin.

"Many of us (myself included) have spent years living with a core belief that we are inherently 'broken,'” she said. "So, to discover that no, we are not broken but different, and not alone, can be a tremendous relief. It’s also angering to think about how long you may have struggled personally and professionally because you lacked support."

This series from LAist's daily news show AirTalk explains the complexities of neurodiversity, our history of understanding it as a society, why awareness surrounding it has increased recently and how people who are neurodivergent interact with the world and communicate with others.

We invite you to listen to those conversations:

The spectrum, provider shortages and self-diagnosis 

Neurodiversity is a term that has become ubiquitous in the past couple of years. It was first coined in 1997 by sociologist Judy Singer to explain a span of cognitive and neurological differences in the human brain. The term encompasses everything from Tourette's syndrome and dyslexia to autism and ADHD.

While there is lots of research on these disorders, the focus tends to be on children, not adults. Many adults with neurodivergence struggle to get a diagnosis for a number of reasons. This week on AirTalk we’re covering neurodivergence for various angles.

Guests: Vanessa Bal, associate professor of applied psychology at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Lawrence Fung, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University and Karissa Burnett, licensed psychologist at Divergent Pathways.

Defining characteristics & long-lasting stigma

For most of the 20th century, neurodiverse conditions like autism were considered to be quite rare, having less to do with their prevalence but more so with their researcher characteristics. Despite books like The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders having definitions for disabilities like ADHD or autism, the 1990s saw notable increases for both once clinical diagnoses began to understand the complexities of neurodiversity.

In this conversation, we get into this century-long development of definitions and how recent decades have led to a much more nuanced look into what neurodiversity is.

Guests: Steve Silberman, science writer and author of the book "NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity," and Dr. Shulamite Green, licensed clinical psychologist and assistant professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA.

Advice for businesses and employees

Neurodiversity is a rising umbrella term used to describe people with variation in their mental function. It can be used to describe people with things like autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, epilepsy, obsessive compulsive disorder and many other conditions. In this conversation, we focus on neurodiversity in the workplace, the various challenges neurotypical people can experience, and advice for both individuals and employers for how to improve the situation.

Guests: Devon Price, social psychologist, professor at Loyola University Chicago, and the author of the book Unmasking Autism (Harmony, 2022), and Alex Gilbert, coach, CEO and founder of Cape-Able, a consulting and coaching organization that supports individuals with learning disabilities and works with companies.

Dealing with mental health challenges

The world isn’t built for neurodivergent people. At the very least, it’s exhausting to navigate a neurotypical world, potentially leading to burnout from having to constantly mask one’s true self. But neurodivergent people can also face significant mental health challenges, like depression and anxiety. How common are mental health problems in the neurodivergent community?

How do these conditions present themselves? And how does finally receiving a diagnosis affect a patient’s mental health?

Guests: Melody Marin, clinical psychologist specializing in neurodivergence and Ryan Sultán, pediatric psychiatrist at Columbia University’s Mental Health Informatics Lab.

Navigating relationships

This week, we’ve covered the topic of neurodiversity from a variety of angles, including the challenges of getting diagnosed, the need for workplace accommodations and mental health challenges that often accompany neurodivergence. Today, we’re talking about neurodiversity in relationships. One in five people in the U.S. identify as neurodivergent; so it’s very likely you’re in a relationship of some kind with someone who is neurodiverse. What does that mean for the relationship and how conflict is approached and addressed?

Guest: Jodi Carlton, neurodivergence relationship expert and host of the podcast "Your Neurodiverse Relationship.”

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Inside three water tanks in a tucked-away room at the Aquarium of the Pacific, biologists are tasked with bringing back a population of frogs that once thrived across the state’s mountainous streams but has since reached the brink of extinction.

It’s a program that’s nearly closed out its fifth year with a major milestone: more than 1,000 frogs raised and released into the wild.

That’s more than five times as many mountain yellow-legged frogs — named for the lemon-hued streak along their hind legs — believed to be in the wild when last recorded in 2019, reduced to small pockets of wild streams in the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains. By the time the frog was listed under the federal Endangered Species Act in 2002, fewer than 100 adults remained in Southern California. A count in 2020 put the number at about 188 in the wild, though biologists say that figure has almost certainly shifted since.

The species’ collapse is tied to a compounding list of threats: wildfire, mudslides, pesticides, fungal disease, habitat loss and the appetites of non-native trout, bullfrogs and crayfish. It’s a decline so severe that biologists consider the species among the rarest vertebrates on Earth.

Staff at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach are working to change that math, one tadpole at a time.

In the latest release, about 653 of the endangered frogs were returned to their native mountain habitat by staff from the Aquarium of the Pacific, the Los Angeles Zoo and the U.S. Geological Survey. Of those, 394 had been head-started at the aquarium — its largest release of the species yet, bringing its total to 1,032.

The frogs were bred at the Los Angeles Zoo’s breeding program, then transferred to Long Beach as tadpoles, where aquarium staff reared them through metamorphosis into froglets and frogs. The process typically takes one to two years, though the species can remain in its tadpole stage for up to five years, making a given frog’s age something of a mystery even to the people who raised it.

A tadpole chills by the rocks in a tank at the Aquarium of the Pacific, where it is being raised before being released into the local mountains, Tuesday, Sept., 15, 2026

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Thomas R. Cordova.

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Long Beach Post

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Inside the aquarium, the water is engineered to mimic the mountains it’s standing in — kept near 60 degrees in summer, the temperature currently found in the streams the frogs call home, and cooled to around 52 degrees in winter, with reduced UV exposure to simulate the season’s shorter, dimmer days.

The aquarium’s involvement began in 2021, in the aftermath of the 2020 Bobcat Fire, which tore through the central San Gabriel Mountains and destroyed an estimated 95% of the frog’s remaining usable habitat.

“They had salvaged some tadpoles from the fire-impacted areas, and they ended up bringing a handful of them here,” said Erin Lundy, with the aquarium’s conservation team. “And then we also had some captive-bred ones from the L.A. Zoo that year, and that was our first group.”

Since then, the team has expanded to include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which help monitor populations and oversee releases.

Erin Lundy from the Aquarium of the Pacific looks into a tank at frogs as she gets them ready to be released into the local mountains Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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As the aquarium’s tadpole numbers have grown, some are now sent to the Santa Ana Zoo each October to continue growing until they’re ready for reintroduction. Frogs are carefully separated by genetics and population of origin, so each can be released back into its native range and preserve healthy genetic lines.

“I think that we have some responsibility to give the animals the best chance that they could possibly have,” Lundy said, “but this is certainly a species that without a good amount of human intervention would not exist to this day.”

Much of the aquarium’s work is now focused on an even more elusive threat than fire: chytrid fungus, a microscopic pathogen that attacks the keratin in amphibian skin, blocking the salt absorption frogs rely on and eventually causing cardiac arrest. It has driven amphibian populations to collapse worldwide, and mountain yellow-legged frogs appear especially vulnerable to it.

“Some amphibian species over time have developed a resistance to chytrid, and so part of the intention of growing so many animals is hoping to find what gene that is that introduces some chytrid resistance,” Lundy said. Researchers are testing whether frogs can be inoculated before release, or whether introducing different microbes to their skin might help them fend off the fungus on their own.

Tadpoles swim in a tank at the Aquarium of the Pacific as they are raised before being released into the local mountains, Tuesday, Sept., 15, 2026

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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Lundy has now been on three of the aquarium’s release trips, watching frogs she has cared for — some for years — carried up into the mountains and set loose into the streams they were bred to repopulate. It is, she says, a strange kind of joy.

“It’s a little bittersweet because, oh no, I’ve been taking care of you for so long, but that is the point, so it feels a little bit like Christmas Day,” Lundy said.

Not every frog leaves the same way. Some, she said, shoot off into the current without so much as a pause. Others linger at the water’s edge beside her for a few minutes before finally disappearing beneath the surface.

“Almost feels like they’re saying goodbye,” she said.

Keno’s Restaurant in Anaheim Hills is a family-run business with a vintage feel — and a 15-pound burrito on the menu.

General Manager Shauna Reyes joined Austin Cross on AirTalk, LAist 89.3's daily news show, to talk about what customers can expect at the decades-old steakhouse that has a cafe twist.

About the owners

Vintage photos of Keno's, back when it first opened, and was a 24-hour restaurant.

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Courtesy Greg Rogers

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Keno's originally opened in 1972, gaining enough popularity to expand into a small chain of restaurants. Gus Cooper helped build and operate the Anaheim Hills location since its opening in 1980. The Anaheim Hills location eventually changed hands to Gus' nephew, Steve Cooper, in 1993. Steve Cooper and his family have been running Keno's ever since.

What it's like being a Keno's customer

Photo of Keno's lounge and steakhouse section.

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Courtesy Greg Rogers

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According to Reyes, the ambiance and customer connections are what set Keno's apart.

You can experience the cafe, with a bustling diner feel, or step into their steakhouse, which has a fireplace Reyes says was inspired by the Peppermill in Las Vegas.

Restaurant details

• Keno’s has a live event schedule that includes solo acoustic sets and a Frank Sinatra cover artist.
• In addition to the 15-pound burrito, you can also find a 32-ounce Tomahawk steak on the menu.

Menu items we tried

• The Lumberjack Breakfast
• Monte Cristo
• California Chicken Sandwich
• Tomahawk Steak
  

What should we try next?

What should we try next?

Uber must pay $40 million to the parents of a woman who was struck and killed after an Uber driver left her on an Orange County freeway in 2023, an arbitrator has ruled.

The arbitrator rejected Uber’s arguments that California’s Proposition 22 — a voter-approved law written by Uber and other gig companies that cemented drivers’ status as independent contractors, not employees — shields it from liability for a driver’s actions.

“Prop. 22 does not immunize Uber from vicarious liability” for the wrongdoing of its drivers, Richard Stone, a retired judge who served as the arbitrator, wrote in his July arbitration award. Vicarious liability is indirect liability for the actions of another, such as in instances where the parties have a legal relationship.

In his earlier ruling in March, Stone wrote that when California voters passed Prop. 22 in 2020, they could not have intended to do away with Uber’s liability for its drivers’ actions. He noted that the language in the ballot proposition urging voters to approve it referred to classifying drivers as independent contractors, meaning they would not get standard benefits and protections like employees would.

“There is no reference in key voter materials to the liability of app-based transportation companies,” Stone wrote. “Not a word.”

On Aug. 12, 2023, Uber driver Vu Tran picked up Emily Normandin-Parker and her friend, Luna Moore, from a bar. When Moore started throwing up in the car, Tran stopped at a gore point — the small, triangular area at the off-ramp — on State Route 73. As Tran and Moore argued, Normandin-Parker, 23, was struck and killed after wandering into traffic because she was inebriated, according to the ruling. Stone wrote that it was hard to determine exactly what happened because the testimony of both Moore and Tran were not entirely credible.

Normandin-Parker’s parents and Moore sued Tran and Uber in Orange County Superior Court in September 2023, and the parties agreed to arbitration. Stone awarded Normandin-Parker’s parents, Carol Normandin and Ken Parker, $20 million each, and Moore $300,000.

Uber reported revenue of more than $14 billion and net income of more than $2 billion in its second quarter that ended in June.

Uber spokesperson Gabriela Condarco-Quesada told CalMatters that the company disagrees with the decision.

“We believe the arbitrator was wrong in holding Uber legally responsible for the tragic events of that night,” she said, citing Prop. 22. Uber, along with companies such as DoorDash, Lyft and Instacart, spent more than $200 million on the ballot initiative.

She also said the company’s “thoughts continue to be with the Normandin-Parker family.”

Parker pushed back on what he called a spin campaign by Uber, noting that the company tried to keep them from talking about the arbitrator’s award.

“Their thoughts have never been with us,” he told CalMatters on Thursday, the day he and Normandin appeared on Good Morning America to discuss the case and the death of their daughter, a UCLA graduate.

Parker said Uber has never apologized or acknowledged responsibility, and that throughout the arbitration process the company was “at best aloof and at worst distastefully crass.”

In a November filing, the company argued the incident “was the result of Moore and Normandin-Parker’s extreme intoxication, which was existent because of Moore’s and Normandin-Parker’s intentional conduct — not Tran’s driving.”

The award will help fund the Emily Normandin-Parker Foundation, which her parents created last year. Part of the foundation’s mission will be to hold corporations accountable, particularly in the ride-hailing industry, Parker said. He said that might come through advocacy in legislation, regulations or the “court of public opinion.”

The arbitrator also rejected Uber’s argument that it is not a common carrier that transports people or goods, but a transportation network company because it’s licensed as such by the Public Utilities Code. Stone wrote that Uber could be subject to both public utility rules and a non-transferable legal duty for safety as a common carrier at the same time, citing other cases in which the company was deemed to be a common carrier. Further, he said another California law, Proposition 51, does not apply in this case. Prop. 51 limits liability for non-economic damages to a defendant’s proportionate share of fault. Stone said Uber is 100% responsible for the driver’s actions.

Lawyers for Normandin-Parker’s parents said evidence presented during the arbitration showed Uber had received previous complaints about Tran's driving.

Uber said in a filing that Tran had a valid driver’s license and passed its background check, and that the company had no duty to train Tran beyond that because he was an independent contractor. The company spokesperson said this week that Tran, who can no longer drive for Uber, had completed thousands of trips without any unsafe drop-offs, freeway stops or rider injury.

CalMatters contacted the law firm that represented Tran but did not immediately receive a response.

Stone wrote that he hopes Uber “will learn from this tragic incident … and change the pertinent policies and procedures accordingly. Should it fail to do so, it no doubt engages in that approach at its own substantial risk.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Several Los Angeles-area organizations that serve survivors of domestic violence and people experiencing homelessness say a legal dispute over federal homelessness funding is holding critical dollars hostage.

Groups, now forced to cover up to millions of dollars in annual grant agreements, are running out of reserves, cutting staffing and relying on private donations to keep people housed and services running.

The organizations have had contracts stalled for months in a legal back-and-forth between the Trump administration and the region’s top homeless services agency, which has some programs starving for money.

“If these contracts don't get executed, if HUD doesn't start to reimburse agencies quickly … we're going to see more suffering on the street,” said Myong Kim, chief program officer at the Downtown Women’s Center. “It's going to be more tangible and more visible.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development told LAist it's not currently required to execute grant agreements after the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency stay while it decides on HUD’s appeal in the coming weeks.

“HUD stands by its commitment and legal right not to continue supporting LAHSA, which even Judge [David O.] Carter and Mayor Karen Bass have acknowledged is an abject failure and riddled with fraud, waste, and abuse,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

The region's top homeless services agency, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, told LAist that it’s not backing down and is actively pursuing legal remedies to force the federal government to honor its commitments.

“Frontline providers have kept lifesaving programs running for months without compensation,” spokesperson Chris Yee said in an email. “Releasing these federal funds is essential to maintaining their operations and protecting services for people who rely on these critical programs.”

Overall, HUD delays are expected to affect more than 50 local service providers, with the bulk of their renewal grants expiring in the next three months, according to LAHSA. Dozens of grants could be affected by the end of this year, totaling nearly $65 million.

A fight over who controls funding

The situation facing these providers is part of a broader delay with HUD's execution of FY2025 Continuum of Care grants, which has affected groups in other parts of the country, such as Ohio.

More than 1,300 of the FY2025 Continuum of Care renewal grant agreements — about one in five — had not been fully executed as of Monday, according to court documents reviewed by LAist. That includes more than 400 agreements that had not been issued by HUD.

But the L.A. grants are not just facing bureaucratic delays — they’ve become entangled in a fight over who controls the region’s federal homelessness funding.

HUD suspended LAHSA from federal grant activity this summer, and LAHSA sued. Some of the organizations’ leaders were hopeful a federal judge could clear the path for their contracts to be paid in August.

That’s when U.S. District Judge David O. Carter issued an order that, among other things, named a dozen service providers for which HUD has failed to execute grant agreements after getting award letters earlier this year. He wrote that the delays leave them without the funds they need to continue operating.

Carter ordered HUD to execute those signed agreements immediately. But about a month later, the order was paused by the Ninth Circuit.

“We expected HUD to immediately execute our grant agreements in compliance with Judge Carter's order,” said Jessica Reed, LAHSA’s director of Continuum of Care, during a LAHSA Commission committee meeting Wednesday. “Obviously, the appeal [by HUD] has continued to hold that up.”

LAist reached out to all 12 organizations named in the order, and several said they’re getting stuck in the middle of the legal dispute.

Groups in limbo for months

House of Ruth in Pomona, a roughly 50-year-old domestic violence agency that offers crisis, outreach, housing and legal services, has a roughly $286,000 grant tied up in the litigation, according to Pat Bell, CEO. The grant, which hasn’t been executed since April, pays for the organization’s transitional housing shelter.

Bell said LAHSA has told her an executed contract was unlikely to come anytime soon, forcing House of Ruth to float the funds in the meantime. The organization is now reducing staffing for its transitional shelter, including layoffs and cutting hours, according to Bell.

“We have six months of paychecks going out to the staff that are providing the transitional shelter services without any reimbursement,” Bell said.

House of Ruth is not an isolated example.

The Downtown Women’s Center based in Skid Row, which provides housing, employment and mental health services to survivors of violence experiencing homelessness, has been waiting on a $3.5 million annual contract since July, according to Kim, the chief program officer. The renewal contract supports rent payments for survivors of domestic violence, she said.

The Downtown Women’s Center has been covering about $150,000 a month in costs with private donations since then, but Kim noted that’s “not going to last forever.”

“In the midst of all the politics, and in the midst of all the back and forth, we really need to remember that these are individual lives — women, their children, their dependents — that are at risk and that are counting on us to move things forward,” Kim said.

‘Wreaking havoc’

The People Concern, an L.A. County nonprofit that provides housing and services to people experiencing homelessness and survivors of domestic violence, has two outstanding contracts for a little more than $2.2 million combined, according to John Maceri, CEO. He said a few other contracts that are set to end in the coming months could also be affected, bringing the total to about $3.3 million.

The People Concern is relying on donations and reserves, but Maceri said cash flow is a particularly big challenge, and it’s “really wreaking havoc in the system.”

He said they’re approaching an untenable situation.

“Ultimately, the people who are hurt are the people that we're serving,” Maceri said. “Because at some point, organizations cannot continue to finance debt.”

Jewish Family Service L.A. has been waiting since April on a contract for its transitional shelter that supports women and children who survived domestic violence.

Eli Veitzer, CEO, said the organization is tapping into its reserves to cover the roughly $300,000 portion of annual costs to keep the shelter open until at least next summer. But that can’t be a long-term solution, he noted.

Veitzer said LAHSA has fallen short in critical ways, but blocking funding to the agency without another path for service providers “essentially shuts down the system.”

“HUD hasn't proposed an alternative method for getting these funds to the providers and the clients who need those services, and that's the part that is the most upsetting,” Veitzer said. “There's a complete disregard for the impact of the people in L.A. County who need these services desperately, and who benefit from these services.”

Why it matters

Scott Cummings, a professor of legal ethics at the UCLA School of Law, told LAist it’s not unusual to seek a stay after an order like Carter’s. But litigation takes time, and the programs are effectively put on hold while it’s worked out in court.

“There are short-term wins for the [Trump] administration in just playing this delay game,” Cummings said. “The delay can actually last a long time, and in the meantime, the programs are suffering, and the people they're serving are suffering.”

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath commented on the contracts in Tuesday’s board of supervisors meeting, saying: “A top concern is the 2025 LAHSA COC contracts that HUD is refusing to execute, although those programs are already operating without funding.”

Horvath requested an update next Tuesday from the county’s Department of Homeless Services and Housing to go over the remaining contracts at LAHSA.

The Ninth Circuit is expected to hear arguments next Tuesday, according to court documents, and Carter has scheduled a status conference for the week after.

LAist’s Aaron Schrank contributed to this story.