The takedown of a dial-up drug network
Beverly Hills resident Ray Mascolo died of a drug overdose in 2020. His passing led investigators to a sprawling, Hollywood-based drug-dealing network with a business model resembling a food-delivery ...
1 Apr 202223min
In praise of long-scorned Black women's hair
When Will Smith slapped Chris Rock during the Oscars for a joke the latter made about the hairstyle of Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, it brought forth the politics of Black hair, especially the hai...
31 Mar 202224min
A soldier's funeral in Ukraine
L.A. Times foreign correspondent Patrick J. McDonnell has covered Ukrainian refugees flooding into Poland and the funerals for Ukrainian soldiers in Lviv. He’s heard from mayors urging Americans to ap...
30 Mar 202219min
California tries to figure out reparations
Two brothers near Sacramento are fighting for compensation for the land they say was taken from their formerly enslaved ancestors during the Gold Rush. Their story got pulled into an even bigger debat...
29 Mar 202216min
A lot of magic with "Winning Time"
“Binge Sesh” is a new L.A. Times podcast taking a deep dive into the television shows everyone is talking about. For its inaugural season, the series gets into the HBO show “Winning Time,” which talks...
28 Mar 202226min
An existential crisis for the Oscars
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has added and subtracted elements to this year’s Oscars. A roundtable of L.A. Times film and television experts discuss those changes, plus offer up oth...
25 Mar 202236min
Where's Jack?
What lengths would you go to find someone you love? Even as their disappearance edges closer and closer to becoming a cold case? Today, we have the story of a family working to find their missing love...
24 Mar 202217min
The medieval prince that Putin adores
In the war for Ukraine, it’s Zelensky versus Putin. Two men with essentially the same first name fighting for their place in history — not just for their respective countries but for the ancestral roo...
23 Mar 202219min
