The Brief

First, there was President Trump’s executive order to release billions of gallons of water from two reservoirs in the Central Valley, a move the Feds walked back after farmers and water experts decried it as wasteful, ill-conceived — and an unnecessary risk factor for levees in the region.

The mandate, said Nicholas Pinter, a professor of applied geoscience at UC Davis who studies California’s levees, amounted to “hydrologic insanity.”

“The volume they were initially starting to release and the lack of warning to local officials — it’s hard to characterize it as anything but insane,” he said.

Then came this week’s atmospheric rivers, which keep people like Pinter on watch during California’s rainy season.

That’s because the condition of California’s levees is, by and large, already precarious. In its 2019 infrastructure report card, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the state’s levees a "D," citing that despite significant investments, much more work is needed to rehabilitate and improve them.

With more rain in the forecast, here’s what to know about California’s levees...

What are levees?

Levees are barriers constructed alongside rivers, streams and other waterways to prevent land and property from flooding, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Levees generally take the form of either an earthen embankment or a floodwall made of concrete or other materials.

Levees are different from dams, which are built across waterways to hold back and collect water in reservoirs. When water is released from a reservoir, it can put levees downstream to the test.

And the consequences of levee failure happen fast. By some accounts, 80% of New Orleans was flooded by Hurricane Katrina in 2004 due to levee breaches, with water depths reaching 7 feet.

In California, levees are managed by a patchwork of federal, state and local agencies, as well as by private landowners. This means that information about the condition of levees across the state can be difficult to find.

“Some levees were simply built haphazardly and aren’t easily found on any map or database, let alone information about their quality and current condition,” said Ann Willis, California’s regional director of American Rivers.

Two of the major players in levee management in the Golden State are the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has a hand in managing approximately 2,300 miles of California levees, and the state, which manages about 1,550 miles of levees, mostly in the Central Valley.

A construction project to stabilize and add height to the Pajaro levee takes place on Aug. 20, 2024, after a breach in the levee flooded the community of Pajaro in 2023.

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The Army Corps’ National Levee Database contains information on over 1,600 federal, state and local levees in California and paints a picture of the communities those structures protect: more than 5 million Californians live behind levees, which protect about 3,000 “critical structures,” like schools, fire stations and electric substations and about 750,000 acres of agricultural land.

How safe are levees?

While levees are a common part of California’s infrastructure, Willis said it’s important to remember that at the end of the day, they’re just human-made structures trying to hold back a powerful force of nature, whether that’s an atmospheric river or 2 billion gallons released from reservoirs with little warning.

That doesn’t mean all levees are on the brink of collapse, Willis said, but it’s a cause for ongoing and increasing concern.

“There are certainly areas where work and maintenance is being done to strengthen the levee system,” she said. “But that is really more of an exception. And this problem is really not going away.”

Trouble is, most people don’t know it. “I think people see a levee and assume that they have a level of flood protection that doesn’t exist,” she said. “Levees aren’t a guarantee. The best protection is to not be in the floodplain in the first place.”

Even though the Central Valley’s levees seem to have withstood the water that flowed after Trump’s surprise executive order, the brief surge put stress on an already precarious system, Willis said.

“The decision to release this much water this quickly,” she said, “increased the flood risk of the communities that the Army Corps of Engineers is tasked with protecting.”

As Pinter put it, “That risk never goes away.”

California saw the consequences of that risk in 2023, when a levee along the Pajaro River that was decades overdue for maintenance failed during a winter storm, flooding a Monterey County community that housed a vulnerable farmworker community of about 1,200.

That same year, winter storms threatened to breach a levee in the Central Valley town of Corcoran, which would have put the city of about 22,000 underwater.

These recent levee failures point to a growing concern in California: as climate change brings more intense storms, the state’s levees are not prepared to handle them.

“There is no infrastructure that was built for a climate-changed future,” Willis said.

On the bright side, Pinter noted, things have started to improve: “There is awareness in California that there was not 20 years ago.”

Who is most at risk?

Nationwide, a disproportionate number of people of color, people with less education and people living in poverty live behind levees, according to a 2023 study by the American Geophysical Union.

The study found that Hispanic people were the most overrepresented group living behind levees nationwide.

In California, this frequently means that low-income people, migrant farmworkers and undocumented people are disproportionately impacted, according to Michael Méndez, assistant professor of environmental policy and planning at UC Irvine. Many of those at risk are in the Central Valley, where hundreds of levees protect farmland and agricultural workers.

“Our communities that are low income are not able to prepare or safeguard from these disasters because they’re not being provided with adequate resources to do so,” he said.

“These are some of the most disenfranchised and stigmatized populations that are seen as being less worthy of infrastructure, resilience and upgrading,” he said. “It doesn’t happen by accident or by coincidence that time and time again, the same communities are being hurt.”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced several significant rule changes for the 99th Oscars, including AI protections for actors and writers as well as expanded eligibility for international films.

In a statement to NPR, the Academy on Saturday said the changes are in response to listening to the global filmmaking community and addressing barriers to entry in its eligibility process.

The Academy added that its rules and eligibility standards have always evolved alongside technologies such as sound, color, and CGI, and that AI is no different. Awards rules and guidelines are reviewed and refined each year.

A blow for Tilly Norwood 

Among the most noteworthy changes, the Academy now explicitly states that only roles, "demonstrably performed by humans with their consent" are eligible for Acting awards. In other words, AI creations like the much-hyped Tilly Norwood cannot hope to win a Best Actress Oscar anytime soon.

Particle6, the production company behind Norwood, did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment on Saturday about its creations' ban from consideration. In March, Norwood commented, "Can't wait to go to the Oscars!" in an Instagram post announcing its newly released music video.

The Academy also requires screenplays to be "human-authored" and said it reserved the right to investigate the use of generative AI in any submission.

Meanwhile, qualifying flesh-and-blood human actors can now be nominated for multiple performances in the same category if those performances get enough votes to land in the top five. So, someone like Anne Hathaway, who has five major movies scheduled for release in 2026, could now theoretically sweep the nominations – though that outcome seems extremely unlikely.

"If an actor has an extremely prolific year, might we even see someone swallow up three of the five nominations?," wrote Deadline's awards columnist and chief film critic Pete Hammond about the changes. "Probably won't happen, but it's now possible."

Under previous rules, an actor could only receive one nomination per category. If they had two high-ranking performances in Best Actor, for example, only the one with the most votes would move forward.

International films prioritizes filmmakers over countries

While international films can still be the official selection of their countries, now they can qualify by winning the top prize at a major international festival such as the Palme d'Or at Cannes, the Golden Lion at Venice, or the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.

Historically, countries "owned" the nomination, and only one film per country was allowed. The new rules allow multiple films from the same country to compete if they are critically acclaimed, and it shifts the honor from a geopolitical entity to the filmmakers themselves.

Largely positive response

The changes have prompted a largely positive reaction from the film community on social media, such as on the popular The Shade Room entertainment and celebrity-focused Instagram feed, where commenters widely praised the "human-only" move to protect creative jobs.

The Academy's Awards Committee oversees the rules in tandem with branch executive committees, the International Feature Film Executive Committee and the Scientific and Technical Awards Executive Committee.

The rules are scheduled to go into effect next year, covering films released in 2026.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Los Angeles changes fast, and oftentimes that means some of the architectural relics of our shared past get swept up and paved over in all the "progress." (RIP Garden of Allah.)

But there are still places where you can find ruins that tell a tale, like a long-forgotten speakeasy reputedly for old Hollywood near La Crescenta.

The ruins are still there 

On a recent afternoon, author and local historian Mike Lawler led me just beyond the boundary of Crescenta Valley Park. Joggers like me might have seen an old, towering stone arch shrouded by bushes there — and wondered what lies beyond.

Turns out there was once a place called the Verdugo Lodge back there and Lawler has spent years excavating its history.

A car speeds away from the lodge onto New York Avenue. The stone archway that still stands can be seen in the background.

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“It was a very high-end speakeasy for a time,” Lawler, who also helps run the Historical Society of the Crescenta Valley, said. “An amazing thing. And all the ruins are still here, just like this arch.”

Lawler said we don’t know exactly when the lodge was built, but we do have some of the picture starting in the late 1920s. The place was set up kind of like a timeshare where people bought 10 x 10 foot ‘tent lots’ that gave them access to on-site amenities. There was a golf course, stables, trout stream, a swimming pool — and a lodge with gambling and alcohol.

“The Crescenta Valley in the teens and '20s was a hotbed of moonshine, prostitution, all that stuff," Lawler said. "It was a quiet little community. But in all these canyons up here, stuff was going on. Illegal stuff!”

We don’t have a full guest list, but Lawler said it’s likely at least a few Hollywood types had gone up to the lodge to circumvent Prohibition era laws.

In some ways, it was kind of like the original glamping. Lawler said patrons probably weren’t doing much sleeping, though.

“They might have been unconscious!” he said with a chuckle.

Lawler led me to a road that swooped around a meadow. We passed by a massive swimming pool nestled into the hillside.

Once known as the “Crystal Pool,” it’s now empty and fenced off, with pitch black locker rooms below.

The exterior of the locker rooms for the old Crystal Pool.

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We continued our journey up the hill and eventually arrived at a cascading stone stairway.

And at the top, the big show: overgrown with orange monkey flowers and goliath agaves lies the foundation of the old Verdugo Lodge, with lofty stone fireplaces the only guardians keeping the surrounding oak trees at bay.

Lawler takes out a floorplan that one of the former owners drew up for him.

“This is what it was laid out like on the inside. So a dancehall, and band stand on that side... And then upstairs was the gambling,” Lawler said.

Lawler had in hand a copy of a Los Angeles Times article from 1933 he found. The headline reads: “Revelers Flee in Lodge Raid.”

“The police that raided it were here at 3 o'clock in the morning. And there were still 500 people here. And they said it was the classiest joint they had ever raided... Anyway, people were diving out of windows and everything,” Lawler explained.

In a ruin like this, covered with moss and overgrowth, the imagination can run wild, too.

The archway that still stands outside of what's now known as Mountain Oaks.

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Lawler pointed out a questionable door jam below the old dancefloor that’s been cemented over.

“That is a door. So what is behind there? So there’s a room in there that got walled in for some reason,” he said.

What we do know is that, sometime after the raid, the tawdry Verdugo Lodge and the surrounding land were purchased and then renamed Mountain Oaks by the Kadletzes — an entrepreneurial family who had run everything from a Turkish bath to a mini golf course. Over the next few decades, the family would rent the place out to local groups for recreational retreats.

The future of Mountain Oaks 

After they sold it in the ‘60s, Lawler said Mountain Oaks faced a “nightmare” of development threats. Over the years, some of the subdivided "tent lots" had been combined and sold off, Lawler said. A dozen private homes now stand on these pieces of land, next to the ruins of the Verdugo Lodge.

A map showing the Mountain Oaks public property acquired by The Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA).

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Last year, with help from the City of Glendale, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant among other funding sources, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) put up $6.1 million to acquire 33-acres of the land — not including the private lots where the homes stand — so the public can continue to roam the meadow and ruins.

Paul Edelman, MRCA's director of natural resources and planning, said his group will continue to manage the land, doing things like brush clearance, trash pickup and sign maintenance. And he said there are no current plans to remove the ruins or make any major changes to the property.

“If somebody comes up with a grand idea where they can find some funding for us to do something to enhance it, we’re always open to it,” Edelman said.

The purchase was good news for local preservationist Joanna Linkchorst.

“I grew up directly up the hill. But I always saw the sign that said ‘private property’ and didn’t really think about it until several years ago when I finally asked Mike. And he said, ‘Oh yeah, we got a resort speakeasy down the street,’” Linkchorst said standing among the oaks and overgrowth.

Linkchorst, who founded the group Friends of Rockhaven to preserve another nearby historic site, said it’s been amazing to see all of the decaying structures that were still hiding out at Mountain Oaks.

“There’s almost like these little ghosts in your head as you imagine what it was like when there was a beautiful wood floor and there was a second floor that people came jumping out of,” Linkchorst said.

Now, let’s check in to the Overlook Hotel.

That’s the fictional place Stanley Kubrick brought to life in his 1980 film The Shining, loosely based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name.

A local architect who hails from South Pasadena meticulously crafted a 3D model of the iconic space so Shining fans everywhere never have to check out.

‘I just couldn’t stop’ 

At his day job, architect Anthony Chieh mainly works on residential and boutique commercial spaces. But over the course of five months, he spent his nights meticulously recreating a virtual replica of the Overlook Hotel from the film that first scared him when he was 12.

Of course he started with the deeply haunted Room 237. That’s where Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, has a terrifying encounter with a ghostly woman.

Chieh's 3D rendering of Room 237

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“But once I started, I just couldn’t stop,” Chieh told LAist.

“I ended up modeling the Colorado Lounge, and then after that I was thinking maybe I should make the lobby and then arriving to the Gold Room, and then Grady’s bathroom.”

“It’s like a rabbit hole,” he said.

Users who download Chieh’s free 3D model can fly through all of those spaces, immersed in atmospheric sounds and music from the film.

“It’s interesting to dive into these kind of fictional environments and try to make sense of it,” Chieh said. “And the hope is people will get a different perspective once they’re in there.”

Kubrick’s take on the Overlook was famously inspired by real hotels like the Timberline Lodge in Oregon and the Ahwahnee in Yosemite. But the interiors you see in the film were created on sound stages in England.

“Real architecture, physical buildings, are built for people to live. And for movies, these are more meant to express the emotional aspect of things. It’s a psychological construct,” Chieh said.

In a recently published video essay on YouTube, Chieh dives deep into those psychological constructs and how, as he puts it, “Kubrick designed the Overlook Hotel not as a backdrop, but as the film's true villain.”

How spaces scare 

Chieh said during the monthslong process he was reminded of the power of architecture and design in the real world too – whether it’s an uncomfortably repetitive carpet design or a claustrophobic hallway.

“A physical construct can affect your emotion,” Chieh said.

“You can use it in a way to make people feel comfortable and you can also use it in a way to create fear.”

Chieh's 3D rendering of the Torrance's apartment in 'The Shining'

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What’s next for this architect moonlighting as a 3D modeler?

Chieh says he’s thinking about giving the spaceship from “2001: A Space Odyssey" the virtual treatment next. Or maybe turning to a local non-fictional space, like the Stahl House.

That is, of course, if he can ever escape the Overlook.