The Mixer

California-based automaker Tesla announced this week that it will be laying off a slice of its workforce. It comes amid concerns about the production levels of their newer Model 3 sedan, ordered by hundreds of thousands, yet produced at a snail’s pace. Can CEO Elon Musk turn things around?

House Republicans came up short, again, in an effort to produce some sort of immigration compromise. It is an issue that united Democrats, but has split conservative and moderate factions of the GOP. For the second time this week, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy gathered the factions, and emerged without a deal. There could be a vote on the issue, whether Speaker Paul Ryan wants it or not and it comes as immigration policies are having profound effects at the border.

California Democrats are banking that the anti-Trump movement will thrust their candidates into seats that have not been blue in decades. But in recent weeks, there has been some push back to that push back. What does it all mean for myriad Congressional races, heading into the primary?

The race to replace retiring LAPD Chief Charlie Beck is coming down to the wire. This week, the L-A Police Commission named its three finalists. All have ties to the department and all come from diverse backgrounds. But not in the way that many City Hall insiders had hoped.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti invited a handful of journalists to City Hall to talk about... anything. No format. No rules. KCRW's Saul Gonzalez was one of those invited. He joins Steve Chiotakis this week on The Friday Mixer.

There is little debate that the character 'Apu' from The Simpsons is a stereotype of an Indian immigrant shop owner. But recently, that character has come under renewed criticism, and the man who voices him says he is even willing to stop doing it. Should he?

It’s been nearly 5 months since sales of recreational marijuana became legal in California. And the business of pot is slowly coming into its own. But there are a lot of things that are dragging, not at all helped by the fact that marijuana is still listed as a schedule one substance that is open to federal criminal prosecution.

This week, Facebook said it would stop spending money to fight a possible initiative aimed at increasing data privacy in California. Backers are gathering signatures to put a proposal on the November ballot. The social media giant’s statement comes after the company’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, took a grilling from Congress over the company’s handling of user data. How much will really change?

President Donald Trump says he wants to send between 2,000 and 4,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. The Republican governors of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona have all cheered Trump’s decision. But conversations between the administration and Governor Jerry Brown’s office are said to be “sensitive," and Brown himself has been uncharacteristically silent.

Tens of thousands of people in cities across the country are set to take to the streets tomorrow, in a march calling for the end gun violence and mass shootings in American schools.

Hollywood's biggest night, the Oscars, is this weekend. What really happens after you win?

From Riverside County, to South Whittier, Castaic, to most recently, today – Harvard Westlake. There’s been a rash of shooting threats this week by students at local schools. Those threats have increased in the days since a gunman killed 17 people at South Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. And they have local leaders - even the President - searching for possible solutions.

The Senate has left hundreds of thousands of "Dreamer" immigrants in limbo, rejecting rival plans that would have spared them from deportation and strengthened the nation's border security. This coincides with some new, aggressive ICE raids in the Los Angeles area.

The L.A. County District Attorney’s office is taking a closer look at the City of Maywood. It executed several search warrants this week at Maywood City Hall, along with some other locations including the home and business of the city’s mayor, Ramon Medina. The raids do follow a recent, state audit that criticized the city of Maywood for poor oversight of its finances.

Did state officials declare the drought over, too early?

Jerry Brown took jabs at the White House, defended his legacy infrastructure projects and - generally - painted a rosy picture of California during his final "state of the state" address as Governor. But there still a number of lingering questions, including who will replace him.

Journalists at the L.A. Times voted overwhelmingly today to unionize, the first time they have done so in more than 130 years.

KCRW's Steve Chiotakis speaks with KCRW's Kathryn Barnes and Santa Barbara Independent's Keith Hamm about how a rain storm escalated into a deadly disaster in Montecito.

Whether its marijuana, immigration, offshore drilling or border security, California and the Trump Administration continue to find themselves on the opposite side of major policy issues. Which one will blink first?

We are getting a clearer picture about the alt-newspaper L-A Weekly’s new direction.