Mayor Bass decried the Colorado attack, ordering LAPD to conduct 'extra patrols'
A man with a makeshift flamethrower yelled “Free Palestine” and hurled an incendiary device into a group that had assembled to raise attention for Israeli hostages in Gaza, law enforcement officials said Sunday. Eight people were injured, some with burns. The suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was booked into the Boulder County jail north of Denver and expected to face charges in connection with the attack, which the FBI was investigating as a terrorist act. Online records did not immediately show when he would make a court appearance. This morning on AirTalk, we’ll update you on how Los Angeles public officials and our local Jewish community are responding to the attack. Joining us is Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and Ben Ginsburg, Communications Director for NewGround: A Muslim Jewish Partnership for Change.
Introducing…LAist’s watchdog team
LAist is excited to welcome a new team of watchdog reporters into the fold, working to increase transparency and accountability across LA institutions. This kind of reporting is crucial at a time when local journalism is struggling and the future of the media landscape is unclear. Joining us today on AirTalk to talk about the new Watchdog team, its role in the newsroom, and some of its current areas of focus is Jared Bennett, LAist Watchdog Editor.
SoCal History: Salton Sea and its major milestones
A body of water where the Salton Sea exists today has been an intermittent presence in Southern California for thousands of years, depending on the whims of the Colorado River. The lake we know today formed during the construction of a canal to bring Colorado river water to the Imperial Valley. Spring floods overwhelmed the canal and spilled into the Salton basin and since then, the lake has been kept alive by agricultural runoff. The Salton Sea has lived many lives: as a mid-century resort, an important pit-stop for migratory birds, and now, a potential lithium and geothermal energy hotspot. But it’s also an environmental problem to be solved. The increasing salinity of the lake over the years has led to a large die-off of fish, affecting the birds who relied on it as a food source, and its receding shores have exposed the lakebed, releasing toxic dust into the air. But it’s not all bad news for the Salton Sea, which reached a major milestone recently when water began flowing into a newly constructed basin to help restore wetlands in the area. Joining us today on AirTalk Janet Wilson, senior environment reporter for The Desert Sun and Wade Crowfoot, secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency.
How community college services like ESL are being impacted under threats to immigration
Central to the second Trump administration’s agenda has been the curtailing of undocumented immigration to the country. But the policies being considered and implemented have spilled over into the realm of legal immigration, with ramifications for nearly all of the country’s immigrants. The President has been in conflict with Harvard, attempting to force the University to expel its international student population altogether, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the Department of Homeland Security will begin “aggressively” revoking the visas of Chinese students across the country. As immigrant students contend with whether or not they’ll be able to stay in the country, California community colleges are reorienting a category of free classes they offer to better assist them. Today on AirTalk, we check in on the state of noncredit adult education courses being offered at Los Angeles community colleges with Martha Clayton, chair of noncredit adult education at Los Angeles City College and a professor of English as a second language.
The tiny towns we can't help but visit
Take a wrong exit off the 5 or 99, a few more wrong turns, and you'll come across them: Cool, Peanut, and it's likely you'll encounter Likely. These small towns with quirky names are a bit off the beaten path, but that doesn't make them any less enticing to visit. There's something about ending up at a place called Butt Lake that reminds you nothing is ever really that serious. But even outside their fun names, these small towns offer visitors something they can't get in the big touristy parts of the state: authenticity. And that authenticity can be addictive once you get a taste for it. That's what happened to Los Angeles Times metro reporter Hailey Branson-Potts, who has found herself on something of a quest to collect datelines — those city names, with all capitalized letters, often affixed to the front of newspaper articles — from both California's and the country's many, many oddly named small towns. She joins AirTalk today to talk about all the small towns she's fallen for. Larry also wants to hear from you! What's your favorite small-small-tiny town in the Golden State, and what draws you to it? Give us a call at 866-893-5722 or you can email us at atcomments@laist.com.
