The Brief

More than three months after 16,251 homes and other buildings were destroyed in the Eaton and Palisades fires, rebuilding has begun. Now that burned debris has been removed from lots, both Los Angeles city and county have started issuing building permits.

Among the many decisions homeowners face is whether to rebuild with all-electric appliances or re-install gas ones. California's policy is to transition away from burning climate-warming natural gas in buildings and switching to electric. Climate activists hope to persuade homeowners to make that choice, but requiring all-electric homes of people who just had their lives upended by a wildfire is proving challenging.

Shawn Maestretti's yard is filled with signs of January's destructive fire, like this vent that he believes may have allowed embers into the house.

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"I love cooking with gas. I didn't learn how to cook with electric," says Shawn Maestretti, a landscape architect whose Altadena home burned in the Eaton Fire.

Maestretti has questions before deciding to rebuild all-electric. He wonders where electricity powering the grid comes from and how climate-friendly it is — federal data for 2023 show about 60% of the state's electricity came from zero-carbon sources. He also wants more information about the benefits of switching to electricity and what it's like to adapt to that change.

"I have questions, naturally, and it's too soon for me to be making decisions about this right now," Maestretti says. He's working with a building contractor, still needs to clear burned debris from his lot, all while continuing to run his business. The question of whether he'll install gas in his new home is just one of many issues he'll need to decide in the coming months.

Electricity mandate or choice?

Almost a third of the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet come from buildings — much of it from burning natural gas in appliances. That's why electrification is a key climate solution. The idea is to switch from climate-warming methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, to electric appliances and heaters powered by an increasingly cleaner grid.

Organizations concerned about climate change are pushing Los Angeles policymakers to rebuild without gas. A few of them created a coalition called Rebuild LA S.A.F.E. (secure, affordable, fast and electric).

In the wake of the fires, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued an executive order to speed permit approvals for homeowners who planned to build a home similar to what they'd lost — including reinstalling gas appliances. But two months later, in a win for climate advocates, she updated that to speed permits for people who choose all electric in their rebuilt homes.

According to Altadena resident Lupe Sanchez signs like this one are up because developers were in the area not long after the fires. "But we don't want to sell out," she says. "We want it rebuilt."

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That still leaves gas as a choice for homeowners, despite a 2022 city ordinance that requires only electricity for most new buildings. Sticking with that "would be ideal," says Aleksandar Pavlović, president of the environmental nonprofit Resilient Palisades.

His family also lost their home in the Palisades wildfire. "Our house was a total loss. We went back to it several days after the fire, and all that's standing now is just a chimney," Pavlović says. His family plans to rebuild without gas but does not think others should be required to make that same choice.

Savannah Bradley agrees. She co-founded Altadena Recovery Team, which also is part of the Rebuild LA S.A.F.E. coalition. "We understand that in a time of crisis when people — all they're looking for is stability, it's really hard to sometimes present what may be a new idea," Bradley says.

Instead, the groups hope to convince as many as possible to choose only electricity. Bradley says this is an easier argument to make if homeowners had already been thinking about getting rid of gas before the fires.

Switching from gas to electric requires planning

Jaime Rodriguez lived in his Altadena home for two-and-a-half years before the Eaton Fire destroyed it.

"The house was a two bedroom, two bath — great for myself and my daughter," Rodriguez says. Standing in the driveway, he points to where the garage used to be and remembers evacuating in January.

"I had a classic BMW M Roadster in there and, unfortunately, I could only take one of the cars with me," he says. With the remains of the burned car now hauled away and plans to clear his land of debris, Rodriguez says he'll build a more climate-friendly home.

"I plan on rebuilding what's called a passive home," Rodriguez says — referring to an air-tight building style with plenty of insulation that reduces the home's energy consumption.

Rodriguez started converting gas appliances to electric ones before the fire. He replaced a gas furnace with a more efficient heat pump and says that's saved him money. He looks forward to cooking with an electric induction stove, which uses magnetism to heat food, and avoids some of the health concerns scientists warn about.

When it comes to electrifying his home, Rodriguez says the devastating fire also is an opportunity. "I'm a big advocate of building back better, and building back better is without gas," he says. But he doesn't want to force his neighbors to do that too. "People have lost so much, and I wouldn't want to take anything more away," Rodriguez says.

For people who've never considered converting to an all-electric home, the decision to do that now can be more difficult.

A mile down the hill from Rodriguez — past the burned elementary school — Lupe Sanchez's home is still standing but she says the roof was damaged in the fire. There's a blue tarp on top and water damage inside from a rainstorm.

Sanchez says switching to all-electric appliances never occurred to her.

"I haven't heard anything about that at all," Sanchez says. Asked if gas service is important to her, she says, "Well, yeah, that's how I cook. That's how I had my dryer running, you know, on gas."

Sanchez says she prefers to cook with gas, "I don't like electric stoves." And she's not considering a switch now.

Gas utilities have used tobacco-style tactics for decades to undermine science that points to potential health risks with gas stoves. That's helped utilities avoid regulation and, at the same time, they've boosted the popularity of gas cooking with a marketing campaign.

Many lots in Altadena have been cleared and prepared for construction. Others are dotted with signs from the Army Corps of Engineers, burned out cars with "not EV" scrawled across them and other indications of changes since the immediate aftermath of the fire.

Climate advocates still hope to convince homeowners, like Sanchez, to rebuild with electric appliances in coming months. The California-based group Building Decarbonization Coalition is providing information and technical help.

"Many of these homeowners have never built a house — never intended to build a house. And now they find themselves having to make thousands of individual decisions that they never thought they would have to make," says Beckie Menten, California director for the coalition.

One of their more compelling arguments is that electrification can save money.

"We estimate that you can save somewhere between $7,000 and $10,000 [in construction and appliance costs], by building an all electric home as opposed to a dual-fuel home," she says. That argument was recently bolstered by a report from the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at University of California Berkeley.

Among the potential savings, a house rebuilt with only electric appliances doesn't need new gas pipes installed throughout the home. That can save on construction costs, Menten says.

The local gas utility, SoCalGas, did not respond to NPR's interview request. Instead, it offered a statement of support for its customers who are rebuilding. The utility says on its fire website that about half the 30,300 customers initially affected by the fires have had their service restored.

Climate groups hope to convince the remaining customers to give up gas and choose electric appliances instead.

Across from a burned out lot a cart is pushed past an open store as the sun sets in Altadena.

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Storylines about abortion and conversations about it showed up on television 65 times this year, on prestigious dramas like The Pitt and Call the Midwife, on reality shows such as W.A.G.s to Riches and Love is Blind and on lowbrow animated comedies like Family Guy and South Park. That's about the same as last year. In 2024, TV shows featured 66 such plotlines.

But in the past few years, there's been a significant drop in the number of characters who actually went through with an abortion. 37% obtained an abortion in 2025, a 14% decline since 2023.

That's according to the annual Abortion Onscreen report. It comes from Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health, a research program on abortion and reproductive health based at the University of California San Francisco.

"I think there still is a lot of stigma, even in allegedly liberal Hollywood," says researcher Steph Herold. She says the report, which has come out for about a decade, reflects a profound lack of accurate representation of abortion use in America. For example, she points to research showing that about 60% of real life Americans who seek an abortion deal with some sort of barrier.

"But only about a third of people who are characters on screen face any kind of barrier to abortion," Herold said. "Whether it was not being able to come up with the cost of the abortion, not having somebody to watch their kids or cover for them at work, having to deal with clinics that are miles away, or in other states having insurance that wouldn't cover the cost." Most TV shows in 2025 depicting women struggling to get abortions focused on legal obstacles in the past and present.

On TV, 80% of characters seeking abortions are upper or middle class, but in real life, most abortion patients struggle to make ends meet. "This [disparity] obscures the role that poverty plays in obstructing access to abortion, and perhaps explains why we so rarely see plotlines in which characters wrestle with financial barriers to abortion access," the study says.

This year, a teenager on The Pitt sought abortion pills to end her pregnancy — one of only three stories depicting medication abortion out of 65 plotlines about abortion this year. That's another disparity between representation on-screen and real-world numbers: research shows that abortion pills account for the majority of abortions in the U.S. Another difference: only 8% of people seeking abortion on TV are parents. In real life, most abortion patients have at least one child.

It is unrealistic, says Herold, to expect TV to perfectly reflect current abortion use in the U.S., but she said she was disappointed by certain trends. Fewer characters this year received emotional support around their abortions, and more shows, she said, including Chicago Med, 1923, Breathless and Secrets We Keep featured plotlines that emphasized shame and stigma around abortions, especially because of religion. These storylines, the report says, "both obscure the diversity of religious observance among people having abortions, portraying religious patients as exclusively Christian, and also only associating religion with prohibiting abortion, instead of being a meaningful or supportive part of someone's abortion decision-making and experience."

But even though abortion has long been a hot-button political issue, Herold says millions of Americans have had some sort of experience with abortions. "Whether it's having one themselves or helping a daughter or a friend," she said, adding that stories that reflect a diversity of abortion experiences will be familiar to many viewers.

One bright spot, she added, was that television is doing a better job of reflecting the racial realities of abortion. A slight majority of characters in abortion plotlines are people of color — and although they are by far the majority of abortion seekers in real life, this marks a notable improvement from a decade ago, when TV shows more often portrayed women seeking abortions as wealthy and white.

Geminids, the strongest meteor shower of the year, hit a peak this weekend, sending over 150 meteors per hour through the night sky tonight and Sunday.

Vanessa Alarcon, an astronomical observer at the Griffith Observatory, says despite being the best and brightest every year, these meteors don’t tend to get many fans.

" It's usually not as heavily attended, I think because it's a lot colder in the winter. So it's definitely a deterrent, but technically, it's more meteors per hour than the Perseids are," Alarcon said.

The Perseids are typically visible between July and August, but this summer, they were mostly drowned out because of light pollution from the full moon.

Alarcon says it will be a different story this weekend.

" The Geminids ... there's about a 25% crescent moon. So it's actually going be even better than the Perseids," Alarcon said.

Where to go for the best view

For the best viewing experience, you'll have to brave the cold of the deserts and mountains at night, but it should be worth the trip.

"You should go to a darker sky," Alarcon said. "And basically, you just want to get away from the city lights — anything away from the city lights is going to be an improvement from trying to watch it at home."

When to best see it

The Geminids are notable for being exceptionally bright, burning like fireballs for several seconds. The meteors can be seen after 8 p.m. tonight, Alarcon said, peaking between 1:20 and 2:20 a.m. and visible until 5:20 a.m.

Anyone will tell you that these are tumultuous, borderline-apocalyptic times for the film industry. Box office is down. The threat of AI looms. Billionaires and tech giants are laying waste to what remains of the major Hollywood studios. I'm not entirely sure how to square all this bad news with my own good news, which is that I saw more terrific new movies this year than I have any year since before the pandemic. True, most of those movies weren't from here, but all of them played in U.S. theaters in 2025, and all of them are well worth seeking out in the weeks and months to come.

1. Sirāt

The best new movie I saw this year is a breakthrough work from a gifted Spanish filmmaker named Oliver Laxe. It's a nail-biting survival thriller, set in the desert of southern Morocco during what feels like the end-times. It's a little Mad Max, a little Wages of Fear, and all in all, the most exhilarating and devastating two hours I experienced in a theater this year. Sirāt also features the year's best original score, composed by the electronic musician Kangding Ray.

2. One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson's much-loved, much-debated reimagining of Thomas Pynchon's novel Vineland is an exuberant mash-up of action-thriller and political satire. One Battle After Another stars Leonardo DiCaprio in one of his best and funniest performances as an aging revolutionary drawn back into the field. He leads an ensemble that includes Teyana Taylor, Benicio del Toro, Sean Penn, Regina Hall and the terrific discovery, Chase Infiniti.

3. Caught by the Tides

Caught by the Tides is an unclassifiable hybrid of fiction and nonfiction from the Chinese director Jia Zhangke. Drawn from a mix of archival footage and newly shot material, it's a one-of-a-kind portrait of the myriad transformations that China has gone through over the past two decades.

4. Resurrection

Resurrection, another structurally bold Chinese title, is a bit like an Avatar movie for film buffs. Placing us in the head of a shapeshifting protagonist, the director, Bi Gan, takes us on a gorgeous, dreamlike odyssey through various cinema genres, from historical spy drama to vampire thriller.

5. My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow

My No. 5 movie is the year's best documentary: My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow, from the director Julia Loktev. It's a sprawling yet intimate portrait of several Russian independent journalists in the harrowing months leading up to President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As a portrait of anti-authoritarian resistance, it pairs nicely with my No. 6 movie.

6. The Secret Agent

The Secret Agent is an emotionally rich, sneakily funny and continually surprising drama from the director Kleber Mendonça Filho. Set in 1977, it lays bare the personal cost of dissidence during Brazil's military dictatorship.

7. Sound of Falling

Although not a horror film, exactly, this German drama qualifies as the best and spookiest haunted-house movie I've seen this year. Directed by Mascha Schilinski, Sound of Falling teases out the connections among four generations of girls and young women who have passed through the same remote farmhouse.

8. April

April, from the director Dea Kulumbegashvili, is a tough, bleak, but utterly hypnotic portrait of a skilled OB-GYN trying to provide health care for women in a conservative East Georgian village. It may be set far from the U.S., but the difficulties these women face would resonate in any setting.

9. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl

Directed by Rungano Nyoni, this Zambian film is a subtly mesmerizing drama about a death that takes place in a middle-class household, setting off a chain of dark revelations that threaten to tear a family apart.

10. It Was Just an Accident

It Was Just an Accident, which won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is a shattering moral thriller from the Iranian director Jafar Panahi. It centers on a group of former political prisoners who are given a rare chance at retribution. In the past, Panahi has been a prisoner in Iran himself, and earlier this month, the government sentenced the director in absentia to a year in prison. I hope that Panahi never sees the inside of a jail cell again, and that his movie is seen as far and wide as possible.
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