The Brief

Almost nine months have passed since the Eaton Fire blazed through neighborhoods of Los Angeles County in January, destroying more than 9,000 buildings and causing an estimated billions of dollars in damages.

Since then, dozens of lawsuits, including two filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, have blamed high power transmission lines managed by the utility company, Southern California Edison, for starting the flames. SoCal Edison acknowledges that its transmission equipment could have been associated with the ignition of a fire that started just after 6 p.m. on Jan. 7, when sparks were spotted near high power lines in Eaton Canyon, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.

By the end of January, when the fire was finally contained, Altadena was one of the neighborhoods most damaged. Almost all 19 of the people who died in the blaze perished in the neighborhood. But the community is miles away from Eaton Canyon, and satellite imagery shows that the Eaton Fire front didn't cross into the western part of Altadena until after 5 a.m. the next day, according to a report commissioned by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

For months, amongst each other and in groups online, Altadena residents have wondered whether something else might have started fires earlier in their neighborhood. An NPR investigation now reveals that transmission lines were not the only kinds of electrical equipment that caused problems on Jan. 7.

Distribution lines that power individual homes malfunctioned in Altadena as early as 11 a.m., NPR found, and at least one fire linked to a problem with a distribution line started in Altadena hours before the sparks near Eaton Canyon. Throughout that morning and afternoon, firefighters were dispatched to different parts of Altadena to respond to problems with power lines. And although SoCal Edison can prevent the damage electrical fires can cause by shutting off the power that flows through power lines, the utility did not turn the power off to most of the circuits in Altadena on Jan. 7, NPR found.

An aerial view of cleared residential lots, with the San Gabriel Mountains in the background, in Altadena on Aug. 21, just over six months after the Eaton Fire, which claimed 19 lives and destroyed more than 9,000 structures.

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Robyn Beck

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Malfunctions, or "faults," can happen when falling tree limbs or poles touch power lines and trigger voltage drops in the current running through the wires, said Bob Marshall, the CEO of Whisker Labs, a company that collects voltage activity information from grids across the U.S. Electricity jumping into the air in the form of a spark or arc at points of contact can melt metal parts of the electrical infrastructure that can fall to the ground and ignite wildfires.

In the calmer weather days leading up to the wildfires that started on Jan. 7, distribution power lines never malfunctioned more than 18 times across L.A. But on Jan. 7, as winds across the region reached hurricane strength, the distribution lines malfunctioned more than 200 times in the L.A. region, Whisker Labs estimates.

Three of those malfunctions were in Altadena. The first of the three was at 11 a.m on the eastern side of Altadena, well before the Eaton Fire started. Another occurred at 9:38 p.m. in West Altadena, hours before satellite imagery appeared to show the Eaton Fire front arrived in that part of the neighborhood.

More distribution malfunctions could have happened that the Whisker Lab sensors didn't detect, said Marshall. And each malfunction that the sensors did pick up was significant enough to have ignited flames.

"All of those events when we see sharp voltage drops, it's something that's going wrong on the grid," Marshall said. "Most of them likely have an arc or a spark associated with them and they could start a fire."

Meanwhile, all morning and afternoon, firefighters were being dispatched to respond to electrical problems on power lines. On Jan. 7, firefighters were sent to locations in Altadena at least 35 times because of calls that had to do with wires down or arcing, records obtained by NPR from the Los Angeles County Fire Department show. Most of those dispatches — 30 of them — were made before 6 p.m., around when sparks were seen on transmission lines miles away in Eaton Canyon.

When asked to comment, SoCal Edison replied through a representative that "the investigation into the Eaton Fire is ongoing."

The fact that firefighters were dispatched to locations because of problems with power lines doesn't mean there was a fire at each of those places. The dispatch records only log the reason for the dispatch, not the gravity of the situation when firefighters arrived.

But hours before sparks were seen near Eaton Canyon, at least one family saw a fire start on their property following a problem they believe was with distribution lines nearby.

Just after 4 p.m. on Jan. 7, Tom Ware said he noticed the lights flickering on and off inside his house near Catherine Road, a street just west of Lake Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares of the neighborhood.

When Ware went outside to investigate what was causing his electricity to falter, he saw that a ground fire had started in his backyard, near a tall, wooden utility pole and wires that carried power to his home and that of his tenant, whose unit was also on the property. The electrical equipment had sprayed sparks on the ground, Ware said, which started the fire.

"So I grabbed the hose, a couple of hoses, one for me, one for my tenant," said Ware. "And we started to battle that from our side of the fence."

Lea Chazin stands in front of her home in Altadena, which was damaged by the Eaton Fire.

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Their property survived the first fire. But the tenant's unit caught fire two more times within the next 24 hours, Ware said. Flames eventually burned everything inside the walls.

Walking around a pile of debris next to the destroyed unit where her tenant used to stay, Ware's wife, Lea Chazin, said the fires that started on their property devastated their family.

"It was really our future, just to have this house and be able to rent the front house for our retirement, which, of course, we can't do now," said Chazin. "And we don't really think we'll have enough in insurance money to rebuild it."

Preventable problems

There was early evidence that weather conditions were dangerous and the power grid was strained. The National Weather Service issued two red flag alerts for the Altadena area on Jan. 6 and Jan. 7, meaning the wind and weather conditions created "an increased risk of fire danger." On Jan. 7, the agency added an additional rare warning, advising that conditions in Altadena over the next two days were so dangerous that they qualified for the most extreme advance notice that can be issued by the NWS for expected weather hazards. By 8 a.m. that day, the wind gusts swirling at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains had reached hurricane strength.

That kind of wind can easily knock tree branches and other electrical equipment into power lines, the sort of activity that can lead to malfunctions on distribution lines. And the distribution lines were already faulting all over L.A.

Utility companies are able to shut power off to the circuits they manage. Cutting off power from flowing through the wires on those circuits prevents voltage drops and the electrical fires they can cause.

SoCal Edison did take some preventative action. At around 3:30 p.m., SoCal Edison shut the electricity off to sections of two of the 12 circuits that power homes in Altadena, according to data SoCal Edison submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission, the state group that monitors utilities. By around 9:46 p.m., SoCal Edison had shut off sections of two more circuits that power Altadena, the L.A. County report shows.

But SoCal Edison left eight circuits in Altadena on as the wildfire spread on Jan. 7, allowing electricity to continue flowing to buildings powered by those lines all day.

Workers work on repairing and restoring power lines on Jan. 13, in Altadena, where the devastating Eaton Fire caused widespread damage.

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Raj Roy, the vice president of Distribution Operations at SoCal Edison, said the utility company carefully examines weather conditions to come to decisions about shutting off power. A company report states the utility also weighs the financial, reliability and safety cost to residents from losing power, which can have consequences for people who rely on electricity to power devices important in emergencies, like cell phones and medical equipment.

"We don't take that decision lightly, it impacts customers. And so we only de-energize when we feel there is warranted fire risk," said Roy. "We care about our communities and honestly, it was such a historic event."

Some residents in Altadena whose homes were destroyed feel the utility company should have done more to protect them.

"You keep telling us that what happened was just unprecedented and that there was nothing they could do," said Marisol Espino, an Altadena resident whose house and family truck were both incinerated in January. "But the majority of us are just not buying it."

It's unclear how much electrical problems on distribution lines contributed to damage caused by wildfires in January. Fires could have been sparked and spread by other causes. Winds created flames up to 200 feet long and sent embers flying up to two miles away, according to the L.A. County report.

But the electrical problems in Altadena may have worsened an already dangerous situation on Jan. 7.

"Additional ignition sources in the neighborhood could be significant in terms of helping the fire to spread and complicating firefighting efforts," said Michael Wara, an attorney at Stanford University who lectures about wildfires.

SoCal Edison increasing rates, despite starting more fires 

SoCal Edison is required to report fires that its equipment starts to state authorities. That data shows that SoCal Edison's infrastructure is igniting more fires than it did a decade ago. In 2024, SoCal Edison's equipment ignited 178 fires, up from 39 in 2014, the company's data shows.

But the utility's 2025 data may be incomplete, NPR found.

Firefighters were dispatched at least 47 times to Altadena during the month of January in response to electrical issues, like wires down or arcing, the Los Angeles County Fire Department data shows. One of those times, during the fire at Catherine Road, NPR confirmed that firefighters helped put out a fire that met most of the criteria for ignitions that are required to be reported by utilities to authorities.

When NPR requested SoCal Edison's list of all ignitions during January that involved its equipment, however, the list the company provided did not document any fires that started in Altadena.

"Appropriate SCE personnel must be made aware of the ignition in order for it to be reported," a SoCal Edison representative responded, after NPR asked why the company did not list the fire on Catherine Road.

The damaged fence where the charred utility pole fell stands between Lea Chazin's home and her neighbor's backyard.

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The destruction the fires caused in January is still front of mind for the residents who lived in Altadena. For months after the fires, construction teams were the only people walking up and down otherwise mostly empty streets. While some businesses and home owners have returned to the neighborhood, many residents remain in temporary housing, unable to move back in until their houses are restored.

That's what happened to the family that lived on Catherine Road. After high levels of toxins were found throughout the tenant unit that burned, the structure was demolished. Tom Ware and Lea Chazin have not yet moved back into their home and have been living in an Airbnb as they battle their insurance company for the money to fix the property.

In July, SoCal Edison announced a program that is expected to start offering direct compensation in the fall to some fire victims that choose to waive their rights to sue the company. But all Altadena residents will soon have to pay more for electricity to SoCal Edison.

But in September, the California Public Utilities Commission granted SoCal Edison permission to charge ratepayers 9% more, starting Oct. 1. The rate hike would cover growing operational and infrastructure costs, SoCal Edison representatives have said.

Some residents resent being asked to pay the utility more when they believe the company is at fault for contributing to fires that burned down their homes.

"It's just so aggravating to me," said Espino. "They just don't want any accountability."

Methodology

Analysis of distribution line faults
Whisker Labs provided data to NPR collected from plug-in sensors that monitor electrical networks in individual homes. The sensors form a network for mapping regional electrical disturbances that originate on the electric utility grid and can detect voltage changes as small as a fraction of a volt.

NPR analyzed Whisker Lab's data between Dec. 27, 2024, and Jan. 8, 2025, from the greater Los Angeles area, identifying events where sensors recorded a change in voltage at the same time. These voltage changes are known as transient faults and are the difference in measured voltage between consecutive readings.

Events were estimated by Whisker Labs to be distribution level if recorded by less than 70% of sensors, or transmission if recorded by 70% or more sensors.

Analysis of LA County Fire Department dispatch logs
NPR analyzed dispatch data from the Los Angeles County Fire Department for the month of January. The information contained responses for ZIP codes 91001 and 91003 and included dispatches resulting from calls received or requests from field units. Data provided did not include "incidents that were handled as part of the Eaton incident," a representative told NPR.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Updated March 15, 2026 at 20:05 PM ET

The 98th Academy Awards are underway at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, with Conan O'Brien hosting the ceremony. This year, Sinners received a record 16 nominations, followed by One Battle After Another with 13 nominations. You can catch up on the best looks from the red carpet, read our predictions, or run to the kitchen to make a movie-themed snack.

Below is the full list of 2026 Academy Award nominees. We'll mark the winners in bold as they are announced. Follow along with us as the wins come in!

Achievement in casting

WINNER: One Battle after Another, Cassandra Kulukundis
Hamnet, Nina Gold
Marty Supreme, Jennifer Venditti
The Secret Agent, Gabriel Domingues
Sinners, Francine Maisler

Achievement in makeup and hairstyling

WINNER: Frankenstein, Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel and Cliona Furey
Kokuho, Kyoko Toyokawa, Naomi Hibino and Tadashi Nishimatsu
Sinners, Ken Diaz, Mike Fontaine and Shunika Terry
The Smashing Machine, Kazu Hiro, Glen Griffin and Bjoern Rehbein
The Ugly Stepsister, Thomas Foldberg and Anne Cathrine Sauerberg

Achievement in costume design

WINNER: Frankenstein
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Sinners

Best animated short film

WINNER: The Girl Who Cried Pearls
Butterfly
Forevergreen
Retirement Plan
The Three Sisters

Best animated feature film

WINNER: KPop Demon Hunters
Arco
Elio
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Zootopia 2

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

WINNER: Amy Madigan, Weapons
Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value
Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another

Best picture

Bugonia
F1
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Train Dreams

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
Delroy Lindo, Sinners
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Emma Stone, Bugonia

Achievement in cinematography

Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Train Dreams

Achievement in directing

Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme
Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value
Ryan Coogler, Sinners

Best documentary feature film

The Alabama Solution
Come See Me in the Good Light
Cutting Through Rocks
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
The Perfect Neighbor

Best documentary short film

All the Empty Rooms
Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud
Children No More: Were and Are Gone
The Devil Is Busy
Perfectly a Strangeness

Achievement in film editing

F1
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sentimental Value
Sinners

Best international feature film

The Secret Agent, Brazil
It Was Just an Accident, France
Sentimental Value, Norway
Sirāt, Spain
The Voice of Hind Rajab, Tunisia

Original score

Bugonia, Jerskin Fendrix
Frankenstein, Alexandre Desplat
Hamnet, Max Richter
One Battle after Another, Jonny Greenwood
Sinners, Ludwig Goransson

Original song

"Dear Me" from Diane Warren: Relentless; music and lyric by Diane Warren
"Golden" from KPop Demon Hunters; music and lyric by EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seon and Teddy Park
"I Lied to You" from Sinners; music and lyric by Raphael Saadiq and Ludwig Goransson
"Sweet Dreams of Joy" from Viva Verdi!; music and lyric by Nicholas Pike
"Train Dreams" from Train Dreams; music by Nick Cave and Bryce Dessner; lyric by Nick Cave

Achievement in production design

Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners

Best live action short film

Butcher's Stain
A Friend of Dorothy
Jane Austen's Period Drama
The Singers
Two People Exchanging Saliva

Achievement in sound

F1
Frankenstein
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Sirāt

Achievement in visual effects

Avatar: Fire and Ash
F1
Jurassic World Rebirth
The Lost Bus
Sinners

Writing (adapted screenplay)

Bugonia, screenplay by Will Tracy
Frankenstein, written for the screen by Guillermo del Toro
Hamnet, screenplay by Chloé Zhao and Maggie O'Farrell
One Battle after Another, written by Paul Thomas Anderson
Train Dreams, screenplay by Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar

Writing (original screenplay)

Blue Moon, written by Robert Kaplow
It Was Just an Accident, written by Jafar Panahi; script collaborators: Nader Saïvar, Shadmehr Rastin, Mehdi Mahmoudian
Marty Supreme, written by Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie
Sentimental Value, written by Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier
Sinners, written by Ryan Coogler
Copyright 2026 NPR

Sunday is the 98th Academy Awards, where many of Hollywood's top talents will walk the red carpet before settling in for a night of triumphs, heartbreaks and abruptly cut-off acceptance speeches.

Most of us just refer to the ceremony as "the Oscars," the longstanding nickname of the gold-plated statuettes that winners in each category take home.

Cedric Gibbons, the art director of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, is credited with designing the iconic statue ahead of the first annual awards banquet of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka "the Academy") in 1929.

He dreamed up the knight (possibly modeled on a Mexican actor of the era) standing on a reel of film, holding a crusader's sword to defend the industry from outside criticism. And Los Angeles-based sculptor George Stanley made the statuette a reality, one that stands 13 1/2 inches tall and weighs 8 1/2 pounds.

Its full legal name is the "Academy Award of Merit." The Academy officially adopted its nickname, Oscar, in 1939.

But where did it come from?

Bruce Davis got that question all the time — in letters and emails from the curious public — during his two-decade tenure as the Academy's executive director, which ended in 2011.

"And what astonished me was that when I would ask around the building, everybody would say, 'Well, we don't exactly know,'" he told NPR. "And so I didn't do anything about it myself until I was retiring."

Davis decided to use his newfound free time to compile a history of the institution, ultimately publishing The Academy and the Award in 2022. One of the questions it explores is the origin of the Oscar nickname.

"As it turned out, that was not an easy thing to find out," Davis said. "It took a lot of running around and doing some actual research, and I did finally come up with something that I'm reasonably confident is the right answer."

There are three enduring — and competing — myths about where the name came from. Davis debunked them all and proposed a fourth.

The debunked claims 

"Oscar" made its first mainstream newspaper appearance as shorthand for an Academy Award in March 1934, when entertainment journalist Sidney Skolsky used it in his Hollywood gossip column.

Davis recounts the apocryphal legend this way: Skolsky was running up against deadline on his awards-night rough draft when he was stopped by the word "statuette."

"He thought it sounded awfully snobby and he didn't know how to spell it," he said. "And he asked a couple of people around in the hall, and I guess no one was helping him spell statuette."

Skolsky later said he thought back to a vaudeville routine where the master of ceremonies would tease an orchestra member by asking, "Oscar, will you have a cigar?" And he claimed he decided to poke fun at the ceremony's pretentiousness by referring to the statuettes as Oscars instead.

Davis sees a few holes in this story, namely that the term appeared in at least one industry publication months before Skolsky's column. But it's not a total loss for Skolsky, who is separately credited with coining or at least popularizing the term "beefcake."

The most famous version of events involves none other than legendary actress Bette Davis. She had long claimed, including in her 1962 biography, that she coined the Oscar's nickname while accepting her first Academy Award some three decades earlier.

"Her story was that she was holding [it] in her hands and just kind of waiting for the ceremonies to move along, and she started looking at the hindquarters of the statuette and she said … the hindquarters of the statuette were the very image of her husband," Davis explained.

But Davis' husband at the time, musician Harmon Oscar Nelson Jr., was primarily known by another nickname, "Ham." And mentions of "Oscar" appeared in print years before Davis won her first one, in 1936. Davis eventually retracted the claim in her 1974 book, telling her biographer: "A sillier controversy never existed."

"I don't feel my fame and fortune came from naming Oscar 'Oscar,'" she said, according to USA Today. "I relinquish once and for all any claim."

The more-likely suspects

Perhaps a more likely source is Margaret Herrick, the Academy's mid-20th century librarian-turned-executive director.

She apparently referred to the statue as such in the 1930s "because it looked like her Uncle Oscar," said Monica Sandler, a film and media historian at Ball State University.

Sandler says Herrick is the most logical choice, given her proximity to the Academy.

Herrick joined her then-husband, executive director Donald Gledhill, at the Academy in the early 1930s as an unpaid volunteer, and became its official librarian in 1936. Herrick took over as interim executive director when he left for the Army in 1943.

She was formally appointed to the role two years later and led the Academy until her retirement in 1971.

"There are very few women with the type of power and control she had over an institution at that time in the industry," Sandler said.

Herrick is credited with building up the Academy's library into one of the world's primary film research centers, as well as negotiating the award show's first television contract — and a major step toward financial independence — in 1953.

Davis says she often took credit, in conversations and media interviews, for jokingly naming the Oscar after her uncle. But he's skeptical of Herrick's claim.

"We're not sure that she was really the first person to use that because she had difficulties over the ensuing years in identifying this Uncle Oscar," he explained.

Davis does, however, think that the most likely originator was someone else on the early staff of the Academy: Eleanore Lilleberg, a secretary and office assistant who apparently oversaw the pre-ceremony handling of the statuettes.

He said her name surfaced every now and then, but he didn't have "much hard proof" until after his retirement, when he got wind of the Einar Lilleberg Museum. It's a small community center in California's Green Valley honoring Eleanore's brother, Einar Lilleberg, an artist and craftsman. He booked a visit and immediately happened upon a box of Einar's writings.

"And I thought: 'This is it. Now, this is going to tell the story about the Oscar,'" Davis says. "And he almost did."

He said Einar's correspondence was light on detail, but unmistakably credited the naming to his sister, describing it as: "Yes, she got in the habit of doing that, and the rest of the staff thought it was amusing not to call them the 'Academy Award of Merit,' but just 'Oscar' … and it really did catch on."

So which Oscar did Lilleberg have in mind? Her brother's explanation, which Davis endorses, is that she was thinking back to a Norwegian veteran they had known as children in Chicago, who "was kind of a character in town and famous for standing straight and tall."

Davis wasn't able to track down that particular Oscar. But he says no one has challenged his theory in the years since his book was published, "so I'm sticking with it."

The lingering mystery 

While Davis takes some personal satisfaction in the outcome of his quest, he accepts that the mystery of the Oscar nickname may never be solved conclusively.

"If I had come up empty, I wouldn't be arguing that we need to change the name," he said. "But it's interesting that it became such a tradition. There were no film awards that had a personal name before Oscar gained his, and then … within the next couple of years … everybody started looking for a personal name."

Sandler, the media historian, says that because the Academy Awards were "really the first major pop culture award," many others used it as a template.

The prizes in other countries' most-prestigious award ceremonies have similarly personified names: France's César Awards, Mexico's Ariel Awards, Italy's David's. Plus, there are the Emmy and Tony awards, both products of the mid-20th century.

Davis says he's just satisfied that people are still interested in the Oscars, regardless of who they're named after.

"You feel closer to an award if you're on a first-name basis with it, I guess," he added.

After years of faded storefronts, Inglewood’s Market Street is getting a facelift.

The Inglewood City Council voted 4-0 on Tuesday to move forward with plans to split $8.5 million in state grant money among Market Street businesses for renovation projects. 

Market Street’s shopping area, which runs south from Florence Avenue, has visibly lagged behind other corners of Inglewood during the city’s decade-long building blitz. 

“It’s a ghost town for the most part,” said Jeffrey Psalms, owner of the Cuban Leaf Cigar Lounge. 

The revitalization of Market Street “has always been a priority,” said Bernard McCrumby, the city’s development services director. He said city officials want the street to become a cultural hub that represents the best parts of Inglewood.

City leaders are timing their beautification efforts to coincide with a hopeful boost in foot traffic from the planned Inglewood Transit Connector. The city is currently moving to take over the shopping mall on Market Street and Florence Avenue for the transit station.

A large part of the city’s planning are the business renovation grants — up to $250,000 cash grants that McCrumby said business owners can use for internal or external improvements. McCrumby said the grants are conditional on building owners keeping rents stable for five years. 

The city has been working on the project since early 2025. McCrumby said the first group of awardees were notified this week, with another group coming soon. PCR Business Finance, a development advisory firm, is being paid by the city to run the program. 

Not every business on Market Street will get a grant. The city had more than 80 applicants ask for more than $17 million in grants last summer — well over what the city has available — and won’t be opening up for new applications, McCrumby said. 

Owen Smith, one of the co-owners of The Miracle Theater, said the theater won a $250,000 grant that it will use to repair the theater’s marquee and refresh the outside paint. Smith said the theater is hoping the grants and permits will come through before the FIFA World Cup. 

“It’s a boost,” he said. “We’ll see what it turns into.” 

Psalms, the cigar lounge owner, said he wasn’t able to apply for a grant because he couldn’t track down the owner of his building to sign off on an application. To him, he said, the program was a bust.

Inglewood is aiming to have all of its Market Street beautification efforts done in advance of the Olympics, McCrumby said.

Market Street is going in a different direction from its heyday, official says

Psalms recalled a different level of energy on the street when he was a child visiting the former Fox Theatre, the Big 5 and the Inglewood Marketplace swap meet. He believes there’s still a lot of potential.

“The intention to be better is there. I don’t think we’ve been forgotten about,” Psalms said. 

Where development in other parts of the city has spiked in recent years, Market Street has lagged. Sip & Sonder, a Black-owned coffee shop that held down a flagship spot on Market Street for seven years, closed in December. 

Psalms estimated half of the storefronts around his lounge are vacant. His own business remains stable, he said, thanks to a stream of out-of-town visitors. 

McCrumby said the street is starting to “go in a different direction” from its heyday. More bars and restaurants line the street than before, he said, and city residents should expect more service businesses as residential development continues in Inglewood’s downtown core. 

The city is also in the middle of planning for streetscape improvements that could include new lighting and landscaping. Last week, the city hosted meetings with business owners and community members to get feedback on designs.

For decades, people applying for Medicaid were told their personal information — including their names, addresses and immigration status — would not be used for immigration enforcement.

But a December court ruling changed that. And that change has sent ripples of fear through families and communities.

"My daughter's life depends on Medicaid," says P., who asked that NPR identify her by her first initial only.

P. and her family have legal immigration status, but she fears that the health insurance keeping her medically fragile daughter alive could also put her family at risk of being detained or deported by immigration authorities.

For decades Medicaid promised eligible immigrants they wouldn't share information with immigration authorities. It was even explicitly written on government websites. Those commitments are no longer on the Medicaid website.

The promise was meant to assure eligible immigrants "to feel comfortable that they can access their care without fear of putting their immigration status into jeopardy," says Cindy Mann, who oversaw Medicaid during the Obama administration and now works at the legal and consulting firm Manatt Health.

Mann calls the change, which the Trump administration began quietly last year, a "180-degree reversal of longstanding policy."

'Anxiety every day'

P.'s 11-year-old daughter has Rett Syndrome, a rare neurological condition that makes it hard for her to eat, breathe, walk and talk.

"She receives in-home support," P. says, along with frequent visits to cardiologists, pulmonologists and other specialists. "She also receives [physical therapy], [occupational therapy], speech, aquatic therapy on a weekly basis."

All this care would cost tens of thousands of dollars without Medicaid — the joint state and federal health insurance program for more than 70 million people with low-incomes or disabilities.

P. says she and her husband are allowed to work in the U.S. legally and have private health insurance through their jobs. They have two children who qualify for Medicaid coverage because of disabilities.

"It brings us an amount of anxiety every day," P. says. She's had friends detained by immigration authorities and she worries about her family's safety. This is the case even though everyone in P.'s family has legal status, including two of their children who are citizens.

Unusual requests 

Twenty-two states have sued to stop federal health agencies from sharing Medicaid data with the Department of Homeland Security, including Arizona, Michigan and New Jersey. At the moment, following the December ruling in federal court in San Francisco, Medicaid can share names, addresses and other identifying information for people who are in the country unlawfully with immigration officials. In the remaining 28 states including Texas, Kentucky and Utah, there are no limits on what Medicaid data can be shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other entities.

Some other recent federal actions are raising new alarms.

One former state Medicaid director told NPR they received what they described as a highly unusual request from the federal government in summer 2025 — a list of mostly Latino-looking last names, with instructions to check only immigration status.

The director, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss federal communications, said that's not how these reviews typically work. Usually, states are asked to review all criteria — income, disability and immigration status — to determine eligibility for the program, not single out one factor.

The director says they were floored. After reviewing the cases, they found everyone on the list remained eligible to continue with Medicaid.

Last August, the federal agency that oversees Medicaid, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), started a new initiative to review immigration status of Medicaid enrollees. The agency said in a press release it would start sending monthly enrollment reports with names of people it needed states to verify.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to NPR's questions about whether the data has been used for immigration enforcement. In the Federal Register and in a memo issued in October 2025, ICE says that it is rescinding a 2013 policy that said CMS and HHS data would not be used for immigration enforcement. The Associated Press first reported on the Trump administration's change in July 2025.

Choosing between care and fear

At Venice Family Clinic in Los Angeles, staff say patients are increasingly asking whether it's safe to remain on Medicaid.

Pattie Lopez manages the clinic's health insurance department. She says one patient became so worried about the policy change that she dropped her coverage — only to return after struggling without it.

"She found it incredibly hard to go without health coverage," Lopez says. "Now she's here taking a risk because she needs her medication."

Venice Family Clinic is qualified to receive special federal funding to take care of vulnerable communities, and 80% of its 45,000 patients rely on Medicaid. If people drop coverage but still need care, the clinic could face financial strain. It has already frozen hiring and is looking for other ways to cut costs.

Andrew Cohen, an attorney with Health Law Advocates in Massachusetts, said that for people already enrolled in Medicaid or other programs, the federal government likely has their information already.

"So remaining on coverage may be no additional risk," he said. "But there are instances where it may not be safe for everybody."

Some immigrants may be weighing whether to sign up or continue coverage. For P., though, walking away from Medicaid isn't possible.

"We don't have any other option," she says about dropping coverage for her severely disabled daughter. "We will have to risk that."

Without the coverage, she says, it's her daughter's life that would be at risk.