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How to block Los Angeles Times on iPhone

Two ways, both on the phone in your hand. Option A is free and already built into iOS. Option B is Paused, if you'd rather it happen automatically and be harder to tap past.

Not trying to block it — just want Los Angeles Times off your Lock Screen or the top of your screen? That's a Live Activity; here's how to remove it →

Free · built into iOS

Option A — Apple Screen Time

No download, no subscription. Apple's own App Limits can block Los Angeles Times specifically, and Downtime can switch it off by time of day.

  1. Turn Screen Time on. Open Settings → Screen Time. First time? Tap Turn On Screen Time, choose "This is My iPhone", and set a Screen Time passcode — pick four digits you won't type on reflex at 11pm.
  2. Add an App Limit. Still in Screen Time, tap App Limits → Add Limit.
  3. Select Los Angeles Times. Apple sorts your apps into broad buckets and Los Angeles Times sits with the Information & Reading apps. Tap the arrow beside Information & Reading to expand it and tick Los Angeles Times only — or just type "Los Angeles Times" into the search field at the top, which is faster. Tap Next.
  4. Set the allowance. Choose how long Los Angeles Times gets each day. 30 minutes is a soft cap; 1 minute is effectively off. Tap Customize Days if weekends should be different, then tap Add.
  5. Turn on Block at End of Limit. Reopen the limit you just made and switch on Block at End of Limit. Without it, the "Ignore Limit" button hands the whole evening straight back to Los Angeles Times.
  6. Add Downtime for a time-of-day block. A daily budget isn't the same as "off after 10pm". For that, go back to Screen Time → Downtime → Scheduled and set the window (10pm–7am is the classic), then check that Los Angeles Times is not listed under Always Allowed. During Downtime it's blocked outright — there's no allowance left to burn.

The honest catch: it works, but it's four screens deep in Settings, the limit resets its own way, and if you know the passcode you can undo it in about six seconds. That's why so many people set an App Limit once and never think about it again.

Automatic · one tap

Option B — block Los Angeles Times with Paused

Same Apple blocking engine underneath, built for the one job: getting Los Angeles Times out of your evening without you having to decide again every night.

  1. Create a Block Schedule. Open Paused and create a Block Schedule — that's the recurring, automatic kind.
  2. Pick Los Angeles Times. Choose Los Angeles Times from your installed apps. While you're in there, add the rest of your news time-sinks too — New York Post, The Telegraph, The Times — because Los Angeles Times is almost never the only one.
  3. Choose the window. Set the days and hours: 10pm–7am so the night is yours, 9–5 for work, or 7–9pm so dinner and the evening stay phone-free.
  4. Save it and forget it. That's the whole setup. From then on Los Angeles Times turns itself off when the window starts and comes back on when it ends — no willpower, no remembering.
  5. Use a Focus session when you need Los Angeles Times gone right now. One tap starts a Focus session: pick a length — 25 minutes, two hours, until dinner is over — and Los Angeles Times stays locked until the timer runs out.
  6. Let the streak do the rest. Every day you keep the block stacks your streak. That's the part that keeps this working in week three, once the novelty of a fresh limit has worn off.

What it can see: nothing. Paused blocks through Apple's Screen Time (Family Controls) framework, so it can stop Los Angeles Times from opening without reading your messages, your browsing, or anything you do inside the app. Your usage stays on your device.

How to get Los Angeles Times off your Lock Screen or the top of your iPhone screen

A score, an order tracker or a countdown that stays pinned to your Lock Screen — or sits in the Dynamic Island at the top of the screen on newer iPhones — is a Live Activity. It's controlled by Apple's switches below, for free, and blocking Los Angeles Times is a different job.

  1. Clear the one that's showing. On the Lock Screen, swipe left on the Los Angeles Times Live Activity and tap Clear. It stays gone until Los Angeles Times starts a new one (the next game, order or countdown).
  2. Stop Los Angeles Times starting them. Open Settings → Los Angeles Times (on iOS 18 and later: Settings → Apps → Los Angeles Times) and turn off Live Activities. That also keeps it out of the Dynamic Island, which has no Clear button of its own.
  3. Or keep every Live Activity off the Lock Screen. Settings → Face ID & Passcode → under Allow Access When Locked, turn off Live Activities.
  4. No Live Activities switch? Then Los Angeles Times isn't using one. If it's a notification, go to Settings → Notifications → Los Angeles Times and untick Lock Screen or turn off Allow Notifications. If audio or video is still playing, it's the Now Playing player — stop playback in Los Angeles Times and it disappears.

Why Los Angeles Times is hard to put down

Breaking alerts and a feed that updates all day, so checking the news becomes a reflex.

Which is the point worth sitting with: you're not weak, you're up against a team of people whose job is the next tap. That's also why "I'll just be more disciplined" keeps failing and a dumb, boring wall — Los Angeles Times simply doesn't open between 10pm and 7am — keeps working. Put the decision somewhere your 11pm self can't reach it.

And block the neighbours while you're there. Closing Los Angeles Times and landing on the next news app in the same second is the most common way this falls apart — so block the cluster (New York Post, The Telegraph, The Times), not the single worst offender.

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