Sixteen years, 22 Los Angeles–Area Emmy Awards and 25 Golden Mike Awards later, Life & Times has come to a close. Our final show was broadcast on December 28, 2007. The letters of appreciation we have received from viewers is truly heartening. And I just wanted to thank you for allowing us into your homes every weeknight. I’m honored to have worked with such a dedicated and hard-working team of reporters, producers, editors and contributors. Sixteen years on the air is a remarkable feat. And I’ll always value the memories of being part of such an accomplishment.

The good news is this is not really goodbye. We are working on a new weekly newsmagazine that we plan to launch this spring: SoCal Connected (W.T.). It will blend the best of Life & Times and California Connected to bring you in-depth reports, features, headlines and commentaries in a lively, updated format—along with an enhanced website to get people involved and connected to their communities.

So until then, keep supporting and tuning into KCET! And please comment on this blog and share your favorite memories about the show!

I believe education reform is long overdue in Los Angeles. The size and bureaucracy of the district has affected students, teachers and staff members across the board. While test scores may be rising in the elementary years, the high drop-out rate in high school points to a system that needs major innovation. This new chapter could be a harbinger of much-needed reform.

He told me that he was looking into an old nuclear dump site in Brentwood, Calif. Since this is one of the most exclusive areas in Los Angeles, I wanted to learn more about it.

It would take over a year for us to eventually do the story. And as it turns out, it became the last one I would do for Life & Times before the show goes off the air.

It isn’t an easy one to tell—environmental and contamination stories rarely are—but Life & Times was one of the few TV shows on the air that offered the time to go in-depth into these issues.

If so, how? Some believe that a constitutional amendment allowing the lower courts to hear some of these death-penalty cases would make a significant impact. Others aren’t so sure and believe that the entire system needs more funding, especially the funding of criminal-defense attorneys who are representing the convicted killers.

But in the world of science, data is routinely challenged. A group of local researchers is trying to find funding to continue their work in studying the amount of plastic in the ocean.

The search for answers takes money. There is one thing that all of us can do that won’t break the bank.

The nonprofit environmental group Heal the Bay is promoting December 20, 2007, as “A Day without a Bag.” They’re asking consumers to give up using disposable bags for a full 24 hours.

They say that L.A. County residents use six billion plastic bags each year—yet only recycle a fraction of it. Perhaps going without a throwaway bag for one day will make a difference.

There are California Air National Guard members who show up for work each day in Riverside County and, by remote control, fly unmanned drones that are flying over Iraq and Afghanistan on the other side of the globe. Then, after a shift spent operating in a combat zone, they go home at night to a normal life here in the U.S.

We talked with guard members at March Air Reserve Base about how they perform their new mission, flying Predator drones through a satellite link in support of U.S. troops who are on the ground overseas. They tell us what it’s like to be involved in what has to be the ultimate in telecommuting.

Others need help figuring out what they’re qualified to do. My first stop for this report was a job fair that is targeting veterans.

It was one in a series of 10 that are being held statewide. According to the California Employment Development Department, nearly 7,700 people came in search of work.

Just over 4,000 were veterans. They’re trained to do jobs that most of us are afraid to do in places that most of us wouldn’t dare to go. Now, they’re trying to figure out how to apply skills they have learned in the military to jobs that are available here at home.

We invite you to tell us your thoughts about this issue.

Tijuana has a concentration of people who are trying to cross the border. But those who fail often end up on the streets.

For some desperate women, that means turning to a high-risk profession—prostitution. Others—like the woman we meet in this story—caught the virus from the man she was living with.

The result is a dangerous trend. Tijuana has a higher rate of AIDS than the rest of Mexico. And unless the Mexican government takes steps to educate the population, the trend will only continue.

We invite you to tell us your thoughts about this issue.

Now, he’s a professor of journalism at Cal State Northridge. As a special project, he and some of his students went down to Tijuana—where AIDS cases have been multiplying.

They came back with footage of an impoverished city, where certain groups—like sex workers and drug users—are getting infected. It’s hard enough being HIV-positive in the United States.

Can you imagine what it’s like in Mexico? We see a glimpse of their misery when James takes us into an AIDS hospice, where some dedicated doctors are helping ease the pain of the dying.

No one in the San Fernando Valley argues that this is a crisis that needs to be addressed, but there are concerns on how to best proceed with expansion while taking into account the community’s needs. Some community groups want to ensure that the expansion project of Holy Cross comes with an environmental impact report (the city does not require this) as a token of goodwill to the neighboring communities. There are even threats of lawsuit if the plans continue as is without one.