Detecting Invisible Toxins After the Eaton Fire; 'You're Not Alone': A Youth Advocate Offers Hope to Abuse Survivors

It’s been a few months since wildfires devastated Los Angeles, and some people are just now starting the long process of repairing and rebuilding their homes. But mixed into the soot and ash can be some hidden dangers, including lead, asbestos, arsenic and lithium. These toxic materials were used to build those homes and got blown across LA. Scientists from the California Institute of Technology have been investigating this invisible danger, testing more than 50 homes for these contaminants. And one of those homes belongs to the lead scientist behind the study. Reporter Caroline Champlin has more.  And our series on Californians and resilience continues with twenty-five-year-old Brittianna Robinson. She experienced sexual abuse and trafficking as a child. Robinson credits her faith in God and support from mentors and her church for helping her find a path forward. Today, she uses her lived experience to help other commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC) as an advocate on the Los Angeles County Youth Commission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For more than 80 years, the Zorthian Ranch – nestled among the oak trees and steep canyons of Altadena – has been a home for artists, musicians and creatives seeking a different way of life. At this working ranch, people also tend animals and live close to the land, often growing their own food and generating their own energy. But it was almost completely destroyed by the Eaton Fire, and more than twenty people were displaced. Recent resident and audio reporter Sam Anderson interviewed members of this community, who explain the unique history of the ranch, and share in their own words and sounds what it means to them. Artists are often the people in our communities who bring people together in ways that are creative, spontaneous, and surprising. That’s true in the East Bay neighborhood of Point Richmond, where a local artist has created dozens of miniature fairy houses brimming with the personality of their imaginary inhabitants. In this story from the Bay Curious podcast, KQED’s Pauline Bartolone set out to explore these hidden treasures, and meet the person who created them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This weekend, Muslims around California will celebrate Eid al Fitr to mark the end of Ramadan. People observing the holy month have been fasting from dawn to dusk. And although fasting is a big part of Ramadan, so is the food people eat to break the fast each night. Small shops like Besan’s International Market in San Bruno are key to observing Ramadan. Not only do they supply the ingredients for the holiday, they also connect people from all ethnicities who follow Islam. Lisa Morehouse and Leenah Bassouni spent time reporting at Besan’s Market for the series California Foodways.   Then reporter Steven Cuevas takes us to Altadena. Tens of thousands of people evacuated the city during the Eaton Fire. But some people took a huge risk and never left, and tried to protect their homes and neighborhoods. They lived a totally different experience of the fire and its aftermath. Steven brings us this profile of two residents from opposite ends of Altadena, who made that choice to stay behind.   And finally we go to southeast San Diego, where for decades, a dusty grey wall sat at the top of Division Street. Right where it curves upwards, away from the freeway, and down into the mostly residential neighborhood of Paradise Hills. Three high school friends painted a mural here 30 years ago, and as KPBS’s Kori Suzuki explains, they’ve reunited to bring it back to life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month marks the anniversary of the resolution of a landmark student strike at San Francisco State, on March 21, 1969. Patrick Salaver helped organize the protests, demanding the university better reflect and support students of color and admit more non-white students. The protests also led to the creation of the nation’s first-ever college of ethnic studies – a template for colleges and universities across the country. Salaver’s niece Nicole didn’t didn’t know about her uncle’s activism until she went to San Francisco State in the early 2000s. She was shocked to see his name in one of her textbooks, and now, she wants the world to know his story. Today’s show is an excerpt from Inheriting, a podcast from our friends at LAist Studios and the NPR Network. The show, hosted by Emily Kwong, is centered on the stories of Asian American and Pacific Islander families. It explores how one event in history can ripple through generations.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re taking a long train ride on the California Zephyr. The Amtrak line winds through Emeryville, Sacramento, Truckee and then heads east toward Chicago. Parts of the trip are spectacularly beautiful, with scenes of the Rocky Mountains, Donner Lake and the Truckee River. This route also holds so much rich California history – a portion of it is close to the first transcontinental railroad. Starting in the late 1800s, the railroad developed in parallel with the state’s agriculture business, food industries, and dining traditions. It also exploited land and workers, spurring civil rights activism. For her series CA Foodways, reporter Lisa Morehouse explores some of the little-known history of the connection between the railroad and food in our state.  This episode was produced with support from the Food and Environment Reporting Network, and California Humanities, a nonprofit partner of National Endowment for the Humanities. Big thanks also go to the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, the library and archives at the California State Railroad Museum, and Rachel Reinhard. This episode orgiinally aired on December 20, 2024. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For many Californians, winter means snow. But alongside the skiers, snowboarders and snowshoers awaiting the latest weather forecasts, there’s another group of snow obsessives in our state: snow scientists. They measure California’s snowpack every day in order to better predict our statewide water supply for the coming year. Some of the most cutting-edge work in this field is being done by a tiny lab hidden in a rustic cabin in the Tahoe National Forest, and it’s a place that also houses a big secret. KQED’s Carly Severn headed up there to see it for herself. And we meet the San Diego band Al Akhbar. The band combines instrumentation and rhythms of the Middle East with western jazz. And they’re not only preserving their Middle Eastern musical traditions, but also reinventing them. As The California Report Magazine’s intern Hussain Khan explains, they’re bringing audiences from diverse backgrounds together with their unique sound.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some of the homes lost in the Eaton Fire included fireplaces with distinctive hearths made of handmade tiles. These Arts and Crafts-era tiles were created by local artist Ernest Batchelder a century ago. For many Altadenans, these tiles are all that is left of their homes. Now a group of volunteers is working quickly to save as many of these tiles as possible before bulldozers clear the lots. They hope they can preserve history and provide their neighbors with a piece of the homes they’ve lost. And as part of our new series about resilience, we’re asking Californians who've been through difficult times about what resilience means to them. This week, host Sasha Khokha talks to author and poet Alicia Partnoy, Professor Emerita of Modern Languages and Literatures at Loyola Marymount University, and former vice chair of Amnesty International. In the 1970s, she became one of Argentina’s “disappeared” for being a youth activist. She was held and tortured by the military for five months, and later jailed for over two years without being charged for a crime. She’s spent her career writing about exile and loss, as well as survival and courage.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‘Buzzkill’ Examines the Crisis of Disappearing Honeybees and Other Pollinators  The Central Valley’s almond industry is hosting what some beekeepers call the Super Bowl. Commercial beekeepers from across the country take an estimated 90% of the nation’s honeybees and load them into trucks in time to make a narrow pollination window for those Central Valley almond trees. But it’s gotten harder and harder to keep those bees alive. All over the world, bees, butterflies, moths and flies are disappearing. Sasha Khokha sat down with Teresa Cotsirilos, host of Buzzkill, a new podcast that investigates the pollinator crisis. California Composers: Meet Lulu, Ambient Bird Composers Lulu and Wendy Reid make music in collaboration with the natural world. They don’t speak the same language, but composing and performing music together is how they connect. For our series on California Composers, reporter Julia Haney went to one of the duo’s performances in in Berkeley.  The Amateur Photographers Documenting Life In the Imperial Valley Juan Rodelo has spent decades as firefighter and turned to photography to help deal with stress and exhaustion. He appreciated the beautiful landscapes of the Imperial Valley but felt like there he didn’t see those images enough. So in 2024, he started a Facebook group called Imperial Valley Photography to find others documenting the area. The group gained 15,000 followers in less than a year. As part of KPBS’s ongoing series on volunteers, reporter Kori Suzuki caught up with Juan on an evening visit to the Salton Sea.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

February 19 is the Day of Remembrance, the anniversary of when President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which led to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. Some survivors of those prison camps are feeling like the rhetoric about immigrants and mass deportations today is hitting too close to home. In response, some survivors are mobilizing to protect vulnerable immigrants. Reporter Cecilia Lei spoke to a group of them in the Bay Area about how they’re fighting to keep history from repeating itself.  One of the members of that Japanese American survivors group is author and Satsuki Ina. Nine months into her parents’ marriage, Pearl Harbor was bombed. Their life was totally upended when, along with 125,000 other Japanese Americans, they were sent to incarceration camps. After unsuccessfully fighting for their civil rights to be restored, they renounced their American citizenship. That meant the US government branded them as “enemy aliens.” Ina was born in a prison camp at Tule Lake, but didn’t know much about that difficult chapter in her parents’ life. Then she discovered a trove of letters that they sent to each other while they were separated in different camps. Now, at close to 80 years old, Ina – who spent most of her career as a trauma therapist — has published a memoir about how her parents’ relationship survived prison camps, resistance and separation. The Poet and the Silk Girl is a rare first-person account of a generation-altering period in Japanese American history. Sasha Khokha sat down with Satsuki Ina to learn more about her parents’ story and how it shaped the course of Ina’s own life.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Following the Eaton Fire, tens of thousands of people are suspended in a state of shock and grief, even as they have to make life-changing decisions about where to live now, and whether to rebuild. KQED’s Rachael Myrow shares the story of one mother and daughter navigating this new normal. Plus we visit the Santa Cruz studio of Kishi Bashi. The musician and composer defies genre, and it’s hard even for his fans to describe his work – yet they feel deeply connected to his music. For our series on California Composers, we sent reporter Lusen Mendel to one of his recent shows to see if they could figure it out. And we take a trip to the Central Coast to hear the band Loz Rayoz de Guadalupe. The group is part of a growing and thriving norteño music scene there. The band’s frontman, Chencho Perez, is just 19 years old. Reporter Benjamin Purper says Perez is part of a new generation of norteño musicians embracing and evolving this traditional Mexican sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices