Reporter Brandon R. Reynolds:

The 2016 film Shin Godzilla (back in theaters for a limited time!) is a bone-dry satirical take on the monster-invasion genre, in which a progression of bureaucrats meets to discuss — to endlessly discuss — possible courses of action as Godzilla destroys Tokyo. It’s Veep with atomic breath.

A similar story is playing out in Topanga Canyon these days, as a black bear named BB-14 and her cubs rampage adorably through that bohemian community. The scale is smaller: She’s smashing beehives and trash cans rather than skyscrapers, and in lieu of bureaucratic meetings (Topanga doesn’t even have a mayor), it’s community text threads. But the drama is basically the same: How do we control nature after we’ve already screwed it up?

In Godzilla’s case, the trouble started with nuclear tests. In LA, it started in the early 1900s when the state eradicated native grizzly bears, and then trucked in black bears in an attempt to restore balance. Now, black bears are Godzilla-ing into backyards and swimming pools and houses all along the Angeles Crest. In the latest chapter, they’ve reached as far west as Topanga. Meetings ensue.

But, really, any story about wildlife gone wild — orcas attacking boats, bears in Topanga, a mountain lion in Griffith Park — is only ever about one thing: how we navigate our need to be a part of nature while also trying, catastrophically at times, to get it to do what we want. Topanga, like Tokyo, is the latest frontline.

Topanga is latest town with black bears. Nature or nuisance?

The California Dept. of Fish and Wildlife first caught BB-14 in Claremont in late May 2024. She was a wanderer. Over that summer, she ranged along the Angeles National Forest, then west to the Santa Clarita Valley, crossing a bunch of freeways — the 210, 14, 5, 118, and 101. Eventually, she ended up in a parking lot in the San Fernando Valley, where Fish and Wildlife caught her again and moved her back into Angeles National Forest. That’s where she, as Topanga resident Kat High puts it, “managed to run into a good-looking hunk of a bear,” and got knocked up. After her summer fling, she hit the road again, and by fall of last year, she ended up back in the Santa Monica Mountains, where she had her cubs. Now she’s the first black bear in Topanga Canyon, as far as anyone knows.

“The majority of people that I've been in connection with really are trying to figure out how we can make it safe for the bears to live here,” says Rosi Dagit, a conservation biologist for the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains. “Then we have another contingent of folks who think that it's a really great idea to feed the bears and to try to interact with the bears.”

Kate Kimmel, an organizer of Topanga’s weekly farmers market, says, “I'm worried for her welfare, as a mother of three. It's hard for me to keep my human babies alive. So I can’t imagine what it's like for her.”

Clergy show up to ‘witness’ immigration court in case of ICE raids

The Federal Building in Downtown Los Angeles has become the backdrop for frequent interactions with immigration agents who sometimes detain people right after a judge has let them out of a hearing. 

Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE), a faith-based group in LA, is training observers to help immigrants and their families. Its main goal is to observe federal court proceedings, and if someone is detained by ICE, to collect contact information for that person and their family members so they can reach out and let them know what has happened. They also help link people with legal representation. 

“We love slow days. We love boring days. We love no ICE presence in the building,” says CLUE’s Jennifer Coria. “But even if there [isn’t any] ICE presence, our presence does make a difference to the people impacted. They feel comforted by us, especially if clergy is around and they see that.”

Fears of Trump historical rewrite at Japanese internment camp

During World War II, the federal government imprisoned 120,000 innocent Japanese and Japanese Americans at a camp now designated as the Manzanar National Historic Site. 

In 2025, amid ICE raids, many visitors see Manzanar’s existence as increasingly relevant. That includes Sharrell Katibah, who was there recently from the Sacramento area: “In our current climate, it just seems appropriate to see what happens when hate and suspicion are carried out to their extreme. It feels like some of this is happening now.”

Today, given the Trump administration’s budget cuts to national parks and growing demands to avoid negative depictions of American history, many worry that Manzanar’s mission to shine a light on a shameful period of U.S. history could be diluted or erased. “I feel they’re going to make it so I don’t have a voice for my mother — that I won’t be able to tell her story,” says Pat Sakamoto, whose mom was 17 when she was forced from her home in Boyle Heights and sent to Manzanar.

Terry Riley gave the world minimalist music. At 90, he’s still performing

With the song “In C,” deemed a “stealth masterpiece” by the Library of Congress, composer Terry Riley launched a new music movement called minimalism, which other composers like Phillip Glass and Steve Reich embraced. It also influenced artists across genres, including ambient, electronic, pop, and rock.

Riley turned 90 years old in June. The Ford amphitheater will celebrate his birthday and music on September 7th. Terry Riley’s son, Gyan Riley, will join The Bang on a Can All-Stars and other special guests to play “In C” and other songs.

Gyan Riley tells KCRW that after collaborating with his dad for so long, he started to more spontaneously react to what he was hearing, which “turned out to be a great thing for the whole sound of the music.” He says, “There was so much more freedom. And I wasn't worrying about, oh, wrong notes or this or that. It was just reacting and experiencing it with him.”

Micro dramas on phones: Will Hollywood startup win audiences?

The streaming app Quibi was around for less than a year in 2020, offering videos that ran 10 minutes or less, meant to be viewed on cell phones. Now, the Hollywood-based company MicroCo is launching a new version of that idea. 

Artificial intelligence is key to their business. Brooks Barnes, who reports on Hollywood for The New York Times, tells KCRW that while Quibi spent $1 million on one episode lasting three to eight minutes, MicroCo believes it can spend the same amount of money on 30 episodes by using AI tools, whether to generate images or write scripts. 

“They insist … several times [that] humans will always be at the core of what we're doing here. And look, there are a lot of people who might be interested in creating entertainment like this, people who are out of work, for example. But also, there's now been this huge micro drama market proven. And it's not just … in Asia. Millions of Americans have downloaded these apps and are watching.”