Pacific Time podcast: Supreme Court nominee, transit solutions, the stakes at Cannes, preserving the San Gabriels and a personal journey

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

In this week’s edition of Pacific Time:

Early this week, President Obama announced Elena Kagan as his nominee to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Supreme Court reporter David Savage gives analysis from Washington, D.C.

Public transit systems throughout Southern California are preparing to jack up fares this summer. And you better believe Business columnist David Lazarus has something to say about it.

With 3,000 journalists from around the world, the stakes couldn’t be higher for movie premieres at the Cannes Film Festival. Universal premiered ‘Robin Hood,’ now open, and Fox premiered ‘Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps,’ which opens in September. We chat with John Horn about how the attention can make a film soar or sink it before its general release.

There’s a campaign brewing to shield a larger portion of the San Gabriel mountain range and its free-flowing rivers from pollution and population woes with the strongest federal protections available. We hear from Bill Reeves, who has been fly fishing in the San Gabriel Mountains for more than five decades. The story and audio slideshow will be available here this weekend.

A sense of place in and connection to our personal histories are basic components of human identity. In a series starting this Sunday, reporter Joe Mozingo set out to find his roots, the source of his unusual surname, and the way his family’s history encapsulates America’s deep divisions and conflicted feelings about race. You can read the first installment in Sunday’s paper and hear from some of the relatives Joe met along the way at latimes.com/mozingo (link will be live late Friday).

Listen to this week’s episode by clicking below, or subscribe here.