diff --git a/recipes/latimes.recipe b/recipes/latimes.recipe
index 920252cc0f..0fd773ec22 100644
--- a/recipes/latimes.recipe
+++ b/recipes/latimes.recipe
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ import re
 from collections import defaultdict
 from pprint import pformat
 
-from calibre.utils.date import strptime
+from calibre.utils.date import strptime, utcnow
 from calibre.web.feeds.news import BasicNewsRecipe
 
 DT_EPOCH = strptime('1970-01-01', '%Y-%m-%d', assume_utc=True)
@@ -196,8 +196,10 @@ class LATimes(BasicNewsRecipe):
         for article in articles:
             mdate = date_rx.match(article['url'])
             if mdate is not None:
-                article['timestamp'] = (strptime(mdate.group(
-                    'date'),'%Y%m%d') - DT_EPOCH).total_seconds()
+                try:
+                    article['timestamp'] = (strptime(mdate.group('date'),'%Y%m%d') - DT_EPOCH).total_seconds()
+                except Exception:
+                    article['timestamp'] = (utcnow() - DT_EPOCH).total_seconds()
                 article['url'] = mdate.group(0)
         self.log('Found: ', len(articles), ' articles.\n')
         return articles