The Brief

The day after the fire broke out in Tustin, some students at Heritage Elementary were given plastic bags to collect and bring home charred pieces of the historic hangar that had floated onto school property, according to several parents.

One parent, who asked to remain anonymous in order to protect her family's privacy, told LAist that on Nov. 8 her fifth-grade daughter brought home a Ziploc bag with a small piece of black debris from the fire.

Her daughter told her she had picked it up with her bare hands. The parent said "the teacher was fully aware."

That same day, air quality authorities reported that debris from the fire contained up to 37% asbestos. The school sits less than a mile from the 7-acre hangar that was destroyed by flames.

The parent said she immediately threw the bag with the fire debris away. The material her daughter had collected, she said, was "paper-light" and easily breakable. Asbestos is most dangerous when the individual fibers are released into the air and can be inhaled and get trapped in the lungs.

A second parent posted a photo on social media of a plastic bag full of large black and gray pieces of debris, according to a screenshot shared with LAist by another parent of a Heritage student. The parent who posted the photo wrote in the post that their son had brought the bag home from Heritage.

In response to an interview request, Heritage principal Courtney Smith referred LAist to district communications officer Rina Lucchese. Lucchese and other Tustin Unified officials have not responded to repeated requests for an interview.

Tustin Unified board member Allyson Muñiz Damikolas told LAist she didn’t have a response to reports from parents about the incident and added that district leaders responded to public health warnings and "reacted to the information as soon as we received it."

The fire debris incident is one of what parents describe as several missteps taken by Tustin Unified School District during its early response to the fire. And this week, as hundreds of students return to Heritage and Legacy Magnet Academy — the two schools closest to the fire that had been closed for testing and cleaning — private test results in adjacent neighborhoods are raising new concerns about toxic fallout from the fire. The findings are heightening concerns among some parents about whether the newly reopened schools are truly safe from potentially toxic fire debris.

The historic hangar in Tustin caught fire in the early hours of Nov. 7. The massive World War II-era wooden hangar was built to house military blimps based in Southern California.

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What happened at Heritage Elementary after the fire

Classes continued as normal at Heritage for two days after the fire began.

A photo shared with LAist by a parent shows Heritage students sitting on the blacktop on campus. It was taken at 8 a.m. on Nov. 8, according to the metadata. Meanwhile, Heritage principal Courtney Smith told parents in emails reviewed by LAist that were sent on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8 that students would remain indoors during recess and lunch. The email on Nov. 8, stated that school leaders continued "to minimize student and staff time outdoors."

In the same Nov. 8 email, she told parents that "the minimal debris that has been found on campus has been safely removed by our custodial staff."

Later that evening, Tustin Unified officials announced that all school campuses would be closed following testing by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) that found asbestos in fire debris.

In the days after the fire broke out, asbestos-laden debris was detected at Tustin schools as far away as Hicks Canyon Elementary, which is about three miles from the burn site, and at Tustin High School, which is two miles from the site, according to the county's initial report of the incident to state authorities.

Most schools in the district were reopened by Nov. 15 after receiving clearance from the district-contracted asbestos consultant. Students at Heritage and Legacy were dispersed at schools across the district by grade level until this week.

Tustin school board member Jonathan Abelove, whose district includes Heritage and Legacy, did not respond to an email request for comment. LAist was unable to reach him at several listed phone numbers.

For one parent, regrets and worries

The parent whose daughter brought home fire debris said she regrets sending her two children to Heritage on the two days after the fire broke out. "That's eating us alive to this day," she told LAist in a phone interview.

She said she and her daughter developed a bad cough a week after the fire broke out. The family ended up leaving their Tustin home for a week to stay in Newport Beach in order to limit their exposure to potential toxins while the fire was still heavily burning.

The fire was finally declared extinguished by Orange County fire officials on Dec. 1.

"The saddest part," the parent told LAist, is how distraught her fifth-grader became when she found out that she had been exposed to a potentially dangerous material, asbestos. "She was asking, 'Am I going to get cancer?'" the parent added.

Cranes were needed to safely lower the entrance doors to the hanger, which remained after the rest of the structure went up in flames.

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What did school officials know?

It's unclear whether school officials were initially aware of the likelihood of asbestos and other chemicals present in the massive blimp hangar that burned to the ground. But some parents said the district should have erred on the side of caution considering the circumstances.

Building fires are generally more toxic than wildfires because of the widespread, and often unknown, presence of toxic materials in homes and businesses. The hangar was widely touted as one of the largest wooden structures in the world — 180-ft. tall, three football fields long and one football field wide.

It was built in 1942, when asbestos and lead paint were widely used in construction.

Documents on the city of Tustin's website note the extensive use of asbestos-containing materials and lead paint in the building's construction.

According to a 2000 report commissioned by the Navy, asbestos was present in roofing materials, wall panels, pipe insulation and floor tiles. Some of this asbestos was "friable," meaning it breaks or crumbles easily and therefore poses a greater risk of being inhaled, which can cause long-term health consequences.

A 2020 report from the Orange County Grand Jury also noted that hazardous materials, including "asbestos, lead, biological contaminants, and groundwater contaminates," had been identified in the hangar's nearly identical twin hangar, which also sits on the 84-acre former military base in Tustin.

According to Chris Dunne, a Navy spokesperson, samples of treated wood from the hangar had been analyzed in the past and found to contain "detectable concentrations of aluminum, arsenic, boron, barium, calcium, cadmium, cobalt, chromium, copper, iron, potassium, magnesium, manganese, sodium, nickel, phosphorus, lead, silicon, and zinc."

Dunne told LAist the Navy had not communicated directly with the school district about potential public health concerns after the fire broke out. "The city of Tustin is the lead agency for cleanup efforts, interagency coordination, and public communication," Dunne wrote in an email.

Tustin Mayor Austin Lumbard, who has three children at Heritage, told LAist that he didn't know "in an official capacity" that there was asbestos and other toxins in the hangar building until he was alerted to the test results by the South Coast Air Quality Management District on Nov. 8. Still, "we all knew there was something in there," he said.

"I think the community that lives out here was aware that these were constructed in the ‘40s and that there was material used in that construction that potentially is not used now," Lumbard said.

The mayor also said people had wandered onto the property for years. In 2019 firefighters had to rescue a teenager who had climbed onto the roof of the hangar.

Asked whether he was concerned about the school district's initial handling of the fire response, Lumbard said: "I know the school district is taking this very seriously and they're leaning on and relying on information that they're getting from the Navy and from the Orange County Health Care Agency."

Regina Chinsio-Kwong, who heads the county health care agency, told LAist she first learned there could be toxic materials in the burning hangar that could pose a health risk when a consultant for AQMD called her on the evening on Nov. 7.

"I didn't have a full report, it was more of a verbal concern," she said.

Chinsio-Kwong said she had a call with AQMD staff the following morning to better understand the concerns. AQMD issued a smoke advisory on Nov. 7. It wasn't until Nov. 8 that they issued an advisory noting the presence of asbestos in testing results of ash and debris from public areas near the hangar fire.

Jeff Lawrence, whose daughter attends Heritage, emailed district and city officials twice on the morning the fire broke out, urging them to immediately start testing the air and soil for toxins.

The hangar building contains "all sorts of potential hazardous materials raining ash all over our neighborhood," he wrote. In one of the emails, he also excoriated school officials for keeping Heritage open "when you have literally zero idea if it is at all safe."

In an interview with LAist earlier this month, Lawrence said "the county and everyone had these reports,” referring to the Orange County Grand Jury report and documents on the city's website.

“From a logical perspective, as soon as you knew that that thing was burning, [toxic material] was going all over the place," he added.

Lawrence was livid that kids were outside while the fire burned, and that the school allowed kids to touch and take home debris from the fire. He said he blames the school district for not ensuring that students were kept inside and away from potentially toxic material.

"Ultimately, the buck stops with them," he said. "They made the decision to keep these schools open. They did not insist that the principal at [Heritage] keep all the kids inside."

Lawrence said he wished the district had immediately closed Heritage and offered distance learning instead. At nearby Legacy, school officials canceled in-person school when the fire broke out on Nov. 7 and instead held virtual classes.

Public health experts weigh in

LAist reached out to public health experts to better understand the risks associated with asbestos. Richard Castriotta, a pulmonologist at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine, said reports of children handling asbestos and potentially bringing it into their classrooms or homes were "concerning."

"We don't really know what a safe level [of asbestos] is," he said.

But, he added, "in order to be dangerous, the asbestos has to be in a form that people can inhale." He said large chunks of asbestos-containing material, if disposed of properly, are less dangerous.

Tustin Unified recently released the results of surface and air testing done in November at Heritage and Legacy that showed no asbestos was detected on either campus. The testing was done in high-traffic areas including the main office and gym at Legacy and the administrative office and several kindergarten classrooms at Heritage.

Orange County Public Health Officer Regina Chinsio-Kwong said her office had also tested for lead at Legacy and Heritage on the heaviest days of smoke and did not detect elevated levels. She said as a whole, the official results from air quality and surface testing in the community nearest to the fire had been "reassuring." (Private testing has shown otherwise, as we explain below.)

In a Dec. 13 letter to Lumbard, the Tustin mayor, and the rest of the city council, Chinsio-Kwong said testing by multiple agencies, including the EPA, "suggests that the main concern for asbestos exposure was from bulk debris while asbestos fibers in the air played a limited role."

Chinsio-Kwong also wrote that environmental experts on the fire's emergency response team had concluded that testing indoor spaces "is not necessary, thanks to reassuring test results from nearby facilities," including public schools, local parks and community centers.

Nevertheless, Tustin officials announced Wednesday evening that they plan to sample soil and interior spaces for toxins from the fire.

"The City appreciates [the O.C. Health Care Agency]’s scientific conclusion that interior residential testing is unnecessary based on the extensive available data," Lumbard said in a news release. "However, in a collective effort to go above and beyond what is required to address lingering community concerns, the City is moving forward with performing exterior soil and interior air/dust sampling for asbestos and lead.”

He said the timing and location of sampling was being developed in consultation with the EPA and would be shared in the coming days.

More than 600 disaster remediation workers have been dispatched to clean up fire debris tainted with asbestos on the former military base and in surrounding neighborhoods.

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John Balmes, an air pollution expert and physician member of the California Air Resources Board, echoed Chinsio-Kwong, saying the reported results from air and surface tests at Tustin schools were "pretty reassuring."

"If they tested several classrooms a week after the fire started when smoke was the highest concentration, that's probably good enough in terms of the schools," he said.

Balmes said the people most likely to be exposed to dangerous, airborne asbestos fibers were the firefighters who responded to the fire, not children attending a nearby school weeks after the fire burnt out.

Disaster experts contracted by the city of Tustin have sealed in place the dust and debris immediately around the former hangar site with an adhesive substance.

Work to take down the hangar doors and adjacent structures — which Chinsio-Kwong had recommended be completed before schools reopened — was finished on Monday, according to the city's latest update.

The Navy announced this week that it had finalized a $6 million contract with a remediation company to clean up and dispose of debris from the fire. But Navy officials said they don’t know when the work will actually start.

“Before we can take action, debris removal plans must be reviewed and approved by state and federal regulatory agencies to ensure the safety of both the community and the environment,” said Gregory Preston, who directs the Navy's base closure program, in a news release.

What happened as students returned to Heritage this week

In an email last week to parents announcing the reopening of Heritage and Legacy, school district officials said both schools would undergo extra cleaning, including of ducts, carpets and rugs, "out of an abundance of caution and in response to potential concerns within our community."

Tuesday was Heritage students’ first day back on campus following a more than month-long closure due to the fire.

During afternoon pick-up, Heritage students streamed out of the school gates carrying handmade ornaments and construction paper Santa Claus cutouts. Ravi Chilakapati, who was picking up his kindergartener and third grader, said he had had some concerns about the school reopening but felt good about the information he had received via school emails detailing extra cleaning that would take place before students returned.

"At least for now, we are happy to be back," he said, adding that the past weeks of dropping off and picking up his kids from far-away school sites was "kind of horrible."

Still, he said he wished school leaders had closed Heritage as soon as the fire broke out. "We would have zero concerns if that had happened," he added.

Peter Thok, who also has two kids at Heritage, said he was "really happy" that the school had reopened and he no longer has to drive his kids to alternative campuses. He said he was satisfied with the school's asbestos testing and cleaning protocols.

"They took extra precautions, which is good," he said.

But he echoed Chilakapati in saying he thought the school should have been closed during the first two days of the fire.

"That's when the fire was raging the most," he said. "That's when it felt like we had the most debris in our house so for sure, it should have been closed."

Heritage students returned to campus on Dec. 19, more than a month after a fire broke out and consumed a massive World War II-era hangar less than a mile away.

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Thok and Chilakapati were both unaware that students at Heritage were allowed to bring home debris from the fire until they were asked about it by LAist.

Thok said, across the board, communication and direction from local authorities has been poor throughout the fire response.

"You could've had guidance that let the teachers know and the parents know what not to do and what we can do," he said.

Nearby homes test positive for asbestos and lead

Sean Storm, who has a child at Legacy and another at Heritage, told LAist he was concerned that authorities hadn't done enough testing at the schools and hadn't tested for a full range of heavy metals. He also said he and other parents would like to see the results of the lead testing Chinsio-Kwong said her department had done at the schools in November. "I just want to know it's safe," he said.

On Wednesday, Storm shared with LAist and school and district officials the results of testing done earlier this month in his neighborhood, which is across from the hangar burn site and about a mile from Heritage. The tests, conducted by AQS Environmental Services and paid for by a local homeowners association, found asbestos and lead in all 20 samples of suspected fire debris collected from buildings throughout the community.

Federal public health officials say even low levels of exposure to lead can damage children's health and development.

Storm also shared testing ordered by his insurance company and conducted on the inside and exterior of his home that showed lead levels in soot on his windowsills exceeded the EPA’s lead hazard levels in dust by at least 14 times.

The testing also found elevated levels of arsenic and barium. The report recommended that the family move out "until all cleaning is completed."

The EPA is monitoring air quality around the perimeter of the former military base and in multiple locations in the surrounding community.

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The test results left Storm uneasy. If his home less than a mile from the burn site wasn’t safe to occupy, he wondered how the school could be safe for kids.

"Were the tables power washed and clean?" he asked. "There are gazebos that cover the picnic tables [students] eat off of. Was that cleaned? I just want to know …is the school truly, actually clean?"

Tustin’s fire clean up costs over $45 million so far

Balmes, the air pollution expert, said public health officials could do additional testing of outside areas on local school campuses for arsenic and lead, the two heavy metals initially detected in smoke plumes from the fire, to "assuage parents' fears." "That's not unreasonable," he said.

Balmes added that the rain this week should wash away much of the remaining ash and soot from the fire in the community, significantly reducing people's likelihood of exposure.

According to the latest update from Tustin officials, work to remove potential asbestos-containing fire debris from homes near the former hangar is about 85% complete. In a news release earlier this week, city spokesperson Stephanie Najera said Tustin’s clean up costs for the fire total over $45 million.

The Navy owns the property where the fire took place and has committed $11 million to the clean-up thus far.

Najera said the total cost of recovering from the disaster could exceed $100 million.

After three years of unprecedented closures that devastated California’s fishing industry, commercial salmon fishing is poised to reopen this spring.

The return comes with a catch: Regulators at the interstate Pacific Fishery Management Council will strictly constrain fishing dates and impose harvest limits for both commercial and recreational fishing to protect the threatened California Coastal Chinook. The council is set to finalize the details this weekend.

It’s not the season the fleet had hoped for after years of closures. But those who survived the shutdowns fear a graver threat: state and federal decisions could reshape California’s water systems and rivers.

“Water policy in California is about to change drastically and irreversibly, and nobody has the energy to pay attention to that,” said Sarah Bates, who fishes commercially from San Francisco. “I am concerned that salmon is going to be (commercially) extinct in our lifetimes.”

For the first time since 2022, Bates was preparing her century-old boat, the Bounty, docked at Fisherman’s Wharf. She ticked off the boat’s needs: an oil change, a hydraulics check, a run-through of the steering system, the anchor. Her fading fishing permit, now four years out of date, still clings to the outside of the cabin.

“Pay no attention to my paint job,” Bates said. “Try not to make my boat look bad.”

Looking at its cracking paint and tangled ropes, Bates — who wrestles waves and weather for a living and uses a fishing float dented by a massive shark bite — seemed a little daunted by the tasks ahead.

Without income from salmon, Bates allowed critical upkeep to lag. “There's been a lot of deferred maintenance,” she said. “I'm actually a little worried about everybody charging out into the ocean in May to go fishing.”

‘A tremendous, avoidable hit’

Salmon is king in California. It’s what keeps the markets and restaurants buying, the industrial-scale ice machines running, the tourists booking charter boats and visiting the coast.

“It’s iconic,” said retired charter boat captain John Atkinson. “We have people who will fish every week for salmon. And for the other species, they come out once.”

But dams, water diversions, low flows and poor ocean conditions have driven decades of decline.

California experienced its driest three year stretch in history from 2020 through 2022 — worsening that burden and causing populations to plummet. Interstate fisheries managers cancelled commercial salmon fishing for an unprecedented three years in a row, and barred recreational fishing for all but a handful of days last year.

The financial damage was severe. California estimated the closures cost nearly $100 million in lost coastal community and state personal income during the first two years alone.

The fishing industry says these numbers vastly underestimate the economic and human costs: Boats went to the crusher, tourists took their money to other states, suppliers went out of business and fishers fled California or the industry altogether.

“This was a tremendous, avoidable hit. We have survived droughts throughout recent history, but none had impacts this drastic,” Vance Staplin, executive director of the Golden State Salmon Association, said in an email.

First: Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco on March 20, 2026. Last: Sunlight pours through a window of the Bounty, a commercial fishing vessel, on March 20, 2026. Photos by Jungho Kim for CalMatters Sarah Bates, a commercial salmon fisher, stands at the wheel of her boat, Bounty, at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco on March 20, 2026. Photo by Jungho Kim for CalMatters California has requested disaster assistance from the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. But federal aid has come slowly, and fallen short. The U.S. government has released only $20.6 million, and only for the 2023 closure.

“The entire framework for fishery disasters has to be totally redone,” said U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat and ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee. “We need something that is much faster, that is less political, that doesn’t depend on all the vagaries of multiple federal agencies and congressional appropriations.”

Rain, but little respite

The rains returned in 2023 — bringing the flows and cool water young salmon need to survive and complete their ocean migration.

Now, the Pacific Fishery Management Council projects that roughly 392,000 Sacramento River fall-run Chinook salmon are swimming off the coast. These are the mainstay of California’s salmon fishery — and the forecasts are better than last year’s, though still a fraction of the millions that returned historically. But the limited fishing season is not the respite that the industry had counted on.

“We're happy to get some fishing this year,” Staplin, of the Golden State Salmon Association, said, “but if we want to preserve the businesses and families that define California's coastal and inland salmon economies, we need a little compromise and balance in prioritizing water during droughts.”

A plan or a patch?

Two years ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom released a plan aimed at protecting salmon from climate change.

The plan received mixed reactions.

Some scientists and members of the fishing community credited state agencies and the Newsom administration with concrete efforts like hatchery upgrades and cutting-edge genetic fish tagging. One$58 million state and federal effort — the Big Notch Project — connected salmon and other fish to prime floodplain habitat in the Yolo Bypass through seasonal gates.

“Anything that can be done is a help right now,” Atkinson said.

But others say that the strategy papers over policies that rob salmon of the cold water they need. California is built around nature-defying engineering that funnels vast amounts of water away from rivers to supply cities and the state’s $60 billion agricultural economy.

“As soon as it stops raining or snowing, we’re going to be back in the same situation with the salmon season closing,” said Jon Rosenfield, science director at The San Francisco Baykeeper. “If we don’t protect river flows and cold water storage, then we’re not protecting salmon.”

Some of the fiercest fights are over the contentious Delta tunnel and Newsom’s controversial deal with major water users, backed by $1.5 billion in state funding, to overhaul how farms and cities take water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta and the rivers that feed it.

Carson Jeffres, a senior researcher at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, takes a more moderate view — the effect on salmon will depend on how California agencies manage these projects, but the status quo isn’t an option.

“I just don't see a world where the salmon are prioritized over human water needs — and I think we should plan for it,” he said. “Then that might be a more sustainable place.”

On top of state policies is a Trump administration that called for “Putting People over Fish” and adopted a plan in December to send more Northern California water to Central Valley farms.

State wildlife officials said at the time that President Donald Trump’s actions “run counter” to California’s efforts to improve salmon populations, “harming the California communities that rely on salmon for their livelihood."

California Secretary of Natural Resources Wade Crowfoot acknowledged the state’s finite water supply can’t satisfy everyone’s priorities.

“There’s no shortage of finger pointing by some groups who argue that not enough water is remaining in our rivers for salmon and aquatic habitat, and other groups that suggest that not enough water is being diverted for California communities and agriculture,” Crowfoot said.

“Water management in California,” he said, “involves balancing water across these needs.”

Last year, the Newsom administration announced that nearly 70% of the salmon strategy’s action items were underway, and more than a quarter were already complete.

That’s “crazy math … What is your outcome measure?" said Bates. "For us, our outcome measure is enough fish to go fishing.”

Adapting to survive

In the absence of enough fish, the industry has been piloting new strategies to survive.

Back at Fisherman's Wharf, a few rows over from Bates, Captain Virginia Salvador was getting ready to take a group out to troll for halibut and striped bass. Her French bulldog, Anchovy, wandered the deck between the ropes.

Salvador started her charter boat business, Unforgettable Fishing Adventures, during the salmon shutdown — and had to quickly expand her offerings.

Now, she runs barbecue and barhopping cruises around San Francisco Bay and takes passengers to McCovey Cove during Giants games. She teams up with food influencer Rosalie Bradford Pareja to offer a chef experience. And she still holds down a second job working in a hospital pathology laboratory.

“When you rely on a natural entity for your income, you have to learn how to deviate, pivot, expand,” Salvador said.

Captain Virginia Salvador on her boat, Unforgettable, at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco on March 20, 2026. Photo by Jungho Kim for CalMatters Where the front row of charter boats line the street like storefronts, Bates’ row at Fisherman’s Wharf has the feeling of a neighborhood. One fisherman clambered down the ladder to Bates’ boat, where they swapped great white shark stories. Bates hollered to another neighbor every time a tourist wandered down the dock, bucket in hand, looking to buy fresh crab.

This neighbor, a tattooed and lanky and exhausted fisherman named Shawn Chen Flading, had been out all night. His 12 hour mission to retrieve crab pots turned into a 26 hour ordeal when his throttle cable broke.

At the time Flading bought his boat, before the shutdowns, it looked like a pretty good living.

“A lot of people — the older generation — put their kids through college, bought their homes. And it just disappeared,” Flading said. “I lost basically half my revenue for the past three years straight.”

He tries to fill the gap by advertising on social media and selling Dungeness crab directly off his boat. But the crab season, too, he said, has been disappointing.

Now, salmon fishing is once again on the horizon.

“Whatever limited opportunity we have for salmon, at least we're getting the ball rolling,” Flading said to Bates across the water between their boats, over the San Francisco mix of cars, construction and seagulls. “Without that, we're just stuck.”

Bates, leaning on the railing of her own boat, agreed. “I really understand why people are upset,” she said. “But also, I'm so excited to catch some fish. Even though it's not enough. It’s not even close to enough.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The crew of NASA's Artemis II mission are safely back on Earth after a nine-day mission took them on a trip around the moon and back, sending humans deeper into space than ever before.

To come home safely, the crew — NASA's Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen — and its capsule had to endure near-record-breaking entry speeds and temperatures up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Orion spacecraft spent 13 and a half minutes falling through the atmosphere, hitting a top speed of more than 30 times the speed of sound.

Orion performed as designed. The capsule's heat shield protected the crew, and a series of parachutes helped the capsule gently splash down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.

With that landing, the mission came to a close, clocking more than 700,237 statute miles, said Artemis II entry flight director Rick Henfling.

Four members of the U.S. Navy Dive team pulled the crew from the capsule. Helicopters plucked them from a raft outside their spacecraft — called the porch — and within 24 hours of splashdown, they'll arrive at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"We did it. We sent four amazing people to the moon and safely returned them to Earth for the first time in more than 50 years," said NASA's Lori Glaze, who leads the Artemis programs. "To the generation that now knows what we're capable of: Welcome to our moonshot."

The crew's flight path took them around the far side of the moon at around 4,000 miles above the surface.

The crew made a number of geological observations and took thousands of photos to help scientists better understand what the moon is made of – and where it might have come from.

But perhaps the most profound vantage point came from looking back at home.

"Trust me, you are special, in all of this emptiness," said Glover, "This is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call The Universe. You have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together."

The Artemis II mission was a critical test flight for the Orion spacecraft, which will carry future Artemis astronauts, including those that will venture to the lunar surface.

The crew tested key systems of the spacecraft — its life support system, maneuverability, its heat shield, the toilet. What NASA learns from this flight will set future lunar missions up for success.

"Part of our ethos as a crew, and our values from the very beginning were that this is a relay race," said Koch "In fact, we have batons that we bought to symbolize physically, that we plan to hand them to the next crew, and every single thing that we do is with them in mind."

That next crew will come soon. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman accelerated the Artemis program, charging the agency with launching an Artemis mission each year.

Even before the Artemis II crew splashed down, work had begun at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prepare for the next mission.

NASA engineering operations manager John Giles oversees the Crawler-Transporter, the massive vehicle that moves the mobile launch pad, and the SLS rocket that launches Orion, from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch site. His team is preparing to move the launch platform for Artemis II back into the Vehicle Assembly Building next week to begin putting together the rocket for Artemis III.

"We really haven't had too much time to relax and reflect on Artemis II, other than thinking what a perfect accomplishment it was," said Giles. "Moving right into Artemis III. No rest for the weary. It's moving on."

A key part of the Artemis III SLS rocket — the core stage fuel tank — is heading to Kennedy Space Center later this month. Parts of the solid rocket motors are already there.

Artemis III aims to launch next year. It'll stay in Earth orbit while testing spacecraft that are designed to land humans on the moon. The following mission, Artemis IV, could bring humans to the lunar surface, for the first time since 1972.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Coachella is the spring break of the music world: a pair of long weekends in the California desert, featuring over 100 acts across eight stages spanning too many genres to count, from vintage groups mounting reunions to the biggest pop stars on the planet to rising talents with viral hits. Nearly the entire event is streamed live via YouTube, starting Friday afternoon, which makes the prospect of catching more acts easier — you don't have to sprint across the grounds of Indio's Empire Polo Club to make it from one set to the next. But even if you're watching from home, the prospect of mapping your route through the weekend in order to catch the greatest possible collection of live experiences can be overwhelming.

To help, three members of NPR Music's team have sifted through the lineup to identify a day-by-day guide. Below, you'll find must-see acts and recommendations to ensure you catch the artists you should prioritize when set times conflict. (Note: All set times listed below are Pacific.)

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FRIDAY

Plan by Dora Levite

Must see:
"Young millionaire, man, I feel like Weezy," says fakemink on his recent EP The Boy who cried Terrified ., a ramp-up to his upcoming album. The 20-year-old London prince of SoundCloud rap has racked up enough well-deserved hype through a steady stream of excellent hyperpop singles and star-studded cosigns (SZA, Drake, Frank Ocean, Ecco2K) to sustain a massive North American tour bookended by Coachella on one side and Lollapalooza on the other.

Naturally, fakemink's hype has sparked a slew of online discourse, which has seemingly had the effect of splitting his fan base in two: day-one devotees who insist the rest of the world is late, and new appreciators who feel their precious attention is what brought him to the global sphere. Regardless of where you fall, this is the must-see set of the day — a chance to hear some of his very best music and to figure out, if you even care, where you stand in his fandom.

Day plan:
The best way to prepare yourself for a day at a music festival is to establish your stage loyalties early. Start with Doom Dave's DJ set at 1 p.m. at the Sonora stage, then release all your pent-up festival anxiety with a cathartic scream when Las Vegas screamo band Febuary takes over.

At 2:10 p.m., I'd watch the Cahuilla Bird Singers and Dancers at the Gobi tent, a Coachella staple for the past few years. At 2:50 p.m., the pop star of the hour, Slayyyter, comes on for her first show with a live band since her excellent new album WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA. Head back to the Sonora stage at 3:40 p.m. to catch the majority of Wednesday's set — the North Carolina band released one of the greatest rock albums of 2025 and is a guaranteed stellar live show.

After that, things get complicated. Start with Lykke Li on the Outdoor Theatre stage at 5:20 p.m.; last time she played Coachella in 2015, she was a festival highlight, and now with new music on the horizon, she's likely to feed the nostalgia the festival loves and bring some more sparkling pop. Head over to Mojave no later than 5:50 to hopefully see Central Cee close out his set with "Sprinter" (cross your fingers for a Dave cameo). Before Dijon starts at the Outdoor Theatre at 6:40 p.m., you'll have time to see the first bit of CMAT, a fresh face in country-tinged theatrical pop, on the Gobi stage.

Next, of course, is fakemink — the buzziest name of the day. 7:20 p.m. on the Gobi stage.

From there it all falls into place: Turnstile (8:05 p.m., Outdoor Theatre, bound to be a great energy boost), Sabrina Carpenter (9:05 p.m., Main stage, every person should see "Manchild" live once in their life), Ethel Cain (10:35 p.m., Mojave tent, the Coachella haunting experience), and finish the night with Blood Orange (11:55 p.m., Mojave — maybe recent collaborator Brendan Yates of Turnstile will skip over from the Outdoor Theatre to join the fun).

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SATURDAY

Plan by Sheldon Pearce

Must see: 
There is something thrilling about watching Alex G strap on an accordion mid-song for "June Guitar," from last year's Headlights, during a gig, and that alone might be worth the price of a Coachella ticket. (OK, probably not, but definitely worth seeing on a livestream for free.) The only thing preventing the DIY king turned major-label convert from being the can't-miss performance of Saturday is a last-minute addition: 2025 Rock Hall inductee Jack White, who joins the first weekend as a surprise set at the Mojave tent. He likely won't play "Seven Nation Army" — so what. You don't even really have to like his last few albums to appreciate him live. It's the one forum where his finicky guitar ways always pay off big — he will grab three to four axes, rotate through them across the set, and shred like he's playing to scrape together bus fare out of Indio.

Day plan:
To get the best Saturday experience, start your stream at 2:40 p.m. with the first 20 minutes of Blondshell's set at the Outdoor Theatre before flipping over to catch Jack White in the Mojave tent.

Stretch your legs, grab a bite, walk the dog, then tap in for Ecca Vandal, a South African-born, Melbourne-raised punk-rock rapper who plays the Sonora stage at 4:20 p.m. Hit Alex G (5:10 p.m., Outdoor stage) and the gripping (and polarizing) band Geese (6:15 p.m., Gobi) back to back.

You can opt in or out of best new artist Grammy shortlister Sombr's 7:05 p.m. set at the Outdoor theatre — maybe you want to see what all the hype is about or maybe you need to step away from the screen for a spell — before embracing the exuberant Afropop pioneer Davido (7:50 p.m., Gobi).

In the first major conflict of the day, catch PinkPantheress at 8:55 p.m. in the Mojave tent instead of The Strokes over on the main stage; sure, she's nostalgic for the era the band got famous in, but her time is now, post-Fancy That? and her Alysa Liu cosign. If you're really yearning for post-punk revivalists from NYC's aughts indie scene, have no fear: Interpol is on at Mojave right after. Then stay up late for whatever Swag hijinks Saturday headliner Justin Bieber has planned for the main stage.

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Matt Winkelmeyer

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SUNDAY

Plan by Anamaria Sayre

Must see: 

My friends: Little Simz. This something-for-everyone artist who retains her own unmistakable flair has graced the desert stage before, appearing in tiny print on the 2019 poster and making a guest appearance with Gorillaz in 2023. On Sunday, the U.K. rapper is back with space to release the full Simz flow on a much larger stage.

Simz has always had a gift for taking a live opportunity to hit you over the head with her rapid-fire flow. She unleashes venom with impressive control and is always certain to mix equal parts slam and R&B. In this late afternoon solo slot, she could have an opportunity to fill out her set with a tight live band or maybe sneak in some strings, all the better to represent a sound that gets bigger and brighter with each new record.

Day plan:

The desert is a marathon, not a sprint. You've made it to Sunday (whether on the ground or virtual) so you're well-versed in pacing. We have to start out slow and maybe a little sad, so first stop is Samia (playing the Mojave tent at 3:15 p.m.), leading directly into Little Simz on the same stage.

From there, keep the energy up by hopping over to Clipse (5:15 p.m., Outdoor Theatre) for what's sure to be a performance as gripping as their off-kilter beats. Do a quick flip halfway through to make it over to the Sonora stage by 5:50 p.m. for the last half of Los Retros. It's sure to be sonic whiplash, given that these young romantic crooners bring living room vibes, but it's worth the sprint, and anyway, by this point in the weekend you're a pro at juggling disparate sounds. When that's over, if you wanna lean into the mood shifts and go for one more heart-rate spike via hardcore cleanse, you can just make the last 15 minutes of Suicidal Tendencies back at the Mojave tent.

Take a little breather, get some sustenance, and hop back to it for some straight-from-Norway dance floor flair with Röyksopp. If you're watching the live stream, you may have to skip the Norwegian gathering (Yuma stage isn't currently included on the YouTube schedule) and trade it for a bumping party closer to home — Georgia-bred rapper Young Thug on the main stage.

Now we're sprinting to the finish: You'll split time at a pair of worthwhile overlapping sets by starting with avant-garde English singer FKA twigs (innovation is twigs' most tried and true mode of being, so there's certain to be something we've never seen before), and (if you can tear yourself away before the end) moving on to catch the end of Chicago's own French Police. Close out the night on the main stage, starting at 9:55 p.m. with the first Latina to ever headline Coachella, la bichota herself, Karol G.

Copyright 2026 NPR

It was the end of an era for a sign of the times.

On a rainy March day in 1999, a 70-foot billboard perched at the doorstep of the Sunset Strip was taken down and trucked away. That spot on Sunset Boulevard and Marmont Lane had long been the home of the rough-hewn, lasso-toting Marlboro Man — so much a fixture it became part of the glitz and glam of L.A.

"It was such an iconic ad — such a tall billboard with this very handsome image up there," said John Heilman, current and then-mayor of West Hollywood. "Right there by the Chateau Marmont and near a lot of music venues that we have up on Sunset."

Billboards along the Sunset Strip, including one for Marlboro, in December 1985.

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That's how I came to know about these larger-than-life Marlboro billboards, going to the Roxy and the Whiskey to see shows, and to the Sunset Tower Records for music in the 1990s. I didn't know it at the time, the image apparently changed every couple of years, but the vibe was so consistent it felt like one, long seamless spell.

 "When you came in on Sunset, that is what you saw," said Neil Ford, head of sales for central U.S. and the West Coast at Big Happy, a digital and mobile ad agency based in Chicago. "It really captured what out-of-home [advertisement] was at that moment, what it meant."

The Marlboro billboard on Sunset Boulevard.

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Ford said the campaign was groundbreaking — advertising at its most effective.

"You think about that image of the Marlboro Man. It was a different size, it had presence and it captured your attention," Ford said.

It was a gamechanger for Philip Morris. Sales for Marlboro hit $5 million in 1955, a more than 3,000%  increase a year after its debut.

In other words, it attracted more smokers.

 "It was obvious that the image of the rugged Marlboro Man encouraged generations of men to smoke," said Paul Koretz, a former West Hollywood council member who was at the sign on that March day to celebrate its fall.

The total pivot

Hypermasculinity aside, Marlboro was originally marketed to women as a luxury brand peddling a mild flavor when it was introduced in the 1920s.

The pivot came three decades later, when the company was looking for a way to sell men on filtered cigarettes, long considered effeminate and less flavorful.

Enter Chicago ad man Leo Burnett, who engineered what many consider one of the greatest brand reinventions of all time by creating a new series of mascots — not just butch cowboys, but tough-as-nail sailors, hunters, businessmen, sportsmen, writers.

At the end, the cowboy won out, becoming the brand's reigning Marlboro Man.

" They brought this masculine symbol — image, visual — and really re-created what Marlboro as a brand meant," Ford said. "And it just was one image, there was very little copy. It had the logo on it. It was its own creation at the time."

The campaign propelled Marlboro to the top of the domestic industry by the 1970s, even as the toll on public health from the use of tobacco products racked up.

The Centers for Disease Control estimates that some 480,000 people in the U.S. die every year from cigarette smoking, including exposure to second-hand smoke. At least four actors who portrayed Marlboro Man died from smoking-related diseases.

In 1971, the U.S. banned cigarette advertising on television and radio. Brands then shifted to other mediums, in particular billboards.

The Sunset Strip

A street view looking west from the northern side of Sunset Boulevard near Chateau Marmont at night. In the background is the billboard for Marlboro.

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The 1.7-mile stretch of Sunset Strip in West Hollywood has never been a stranger to grabby billboards. In fact, it was where the medium became art.

"It's always been known for very creative advertising," Heilman, West Hollywood’s mayor, said.

Its golden era was arguably the 1970s, when giant, hand-painted rock ‘n’ roll signs lined the Strip, a veritable checklist of who’s who in the music world.

Various billboards on the Sunset Strip and Horn Avenue during a full moon in June 1980.

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The phenomenon started in 1967, with Elektra Records taking out a billboard to promote the debut album of a little-known local band called The Doors.

Two years later, The Beatles’ "Abbey Road" appeared, followed by Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen.

The era came to a close in the 1980s with the advent of MTV, which changed the playbook of music marketing, says photographer Robert Landau in his book, Rock 'n' Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip.

"Other types of billboards focusing on the entertainment industry were very popular," Heilman said. "A lot of the new movie releases, new album releases, new product releases."

And the Marlboro Man stood amid this hit parade in one of the most commanding spots on The Strip since at least the late 1970s.

"As I recall, at one point they actually had steam coming out of it to simulate smoke," said Heilman, who has lived in West Hollywood for more than four decades.

Night view of large billboards along Sunset Strip circa 1980.

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Roy Hankey

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Billboard ads along Sunset Strip in November 1985.

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The billboard predates the incorporation of West Hollywood as a city in 1984. Helping to lead the cityhood efforts was Koretz, who went on to become a City Council member for West Hollywood before serving on the state Assembly and the Los Angeles City Council.

"I actually lived near the Sunset Strip, so I thought about it every time I drove by," he said of the Marlboro Man ad. "It was one of the most effective symbols of tobacco marketing."

Both his parents, Koretz said, were heavy lifelong smokers who died from the addiction.  As a lawmaker, Koretz led a number of anti-smoking efforts, including a smoking ban in restaurants in West Hollywood — as well as a near total ban on tobacco advertising in the city.

Large billboard of the Marlboro Man, located on the Sunset Strip at Marmont Lane in West Hollywood, circa 1985.

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That ban was passed in the final months of 1998, just before a settlement agreement between the nation's biggest tobacco companies, including Philip Morris, and dozens of state attorneys general. The $206 billion deal settled lawsuits filed by the states to recoup health care costs for smoking-related illnesses. It also banned youth marketing, as well as outdoor advertising.

As a result, Los Angeles's most famous Marlboro Man stepped down on March 10, 1999 — about a month before the official removal deadline.

That day, Koretz held a news conference to send the sign off. He said not everyone was happy to see the landmark go. But the ban, among a slew of other anti-smoking policies, have made an impact.

Last year, the American Cancer Society reported cigarette smoking among U.S. adults dropped from  42% in 1965 to 11% in 2023.

" It was always controversial. There are always people that didn't like it," Koretz said of the billboard ban. "This is largely a success story."

Shortly after, a new billboard went up in the place of the Marlboro Man on Sunset.

It was still a cowboy, looking eerily similar to its fallen predecessor, but with a limp cigarette hanging from his mouth.

Instead of Marlboro, it read, "Impotent."