The Brief

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One windy morning in December 2024, teachers at Orange Vista High School rushed students into a line that stretched to the street. Southern California Edison had cut the power for parts of Riverside County to prevent its equipment from sparking a fire.

Lessons ended. Classrooms went dark. And anxious parents in the Inland Empire city of Perris waited impatiently to greet their children. A month later, the school lost power again, days after the Eaton and Palisades fires to the northwest destroyed entire Los Angeles County neighborhoods.

Orange Vista High was among at least five Riverside County school districts that reported closures during winter high winds in 2024 and 2025. Local school officials say the disruptions hit harder in economically disadvantaged districts, where families rely on critical services such as free meals and child care.

Since 2012, the California Public Utilities Commission has authorized investor-owned utilities such as Edison to cut power during severe weather events to lower the risk of wildfires. The commission reviews every outage. Utilities may pay penalties – as Edison did in this case – if they don’t notify ratepayers properly, or meet other standards.

Edison says shutoffs are necessary to save lives and protect communities. “Our mission really is to keep the power on when it is safe to do so,” said spokesperson Jeff Monford.

After the power shutoffs, the Val Verde Unified School District redirected $500,000 from the school facilities budget to buy battery storage units that could help Orange Vista High keep the lights on during future outages. But Garrick Owen, the district’s assistant superintendent, said the money would be better spent fixing the grid itself.

“If I had a magic wand, would I spend all the money to harden our schools against power outages, or would I spend it to harden the actual infrastructure of the power lines to not have the power outages?” he said.

As climate change drives more extreme weather and more blackouts across California, the cost of adaptation is a growing bill schools say they can't pay alone.

Low-income students lose out on services 

Because state funding to schools is based in part on student attendance, emergency events like power outages bring a financial risk. When a school closes for the day, or when attendance drops, that cuts into attendance numbers. Schools then can file a waiver request with the state Department of Education to protect their funding.

That’s what happened at public schools throughout Riverside County during the 2024-25 school year, when smoke from nearby fires and high winds created problems.

Eight school districts confirmed to CalMatters that they filed waiver requests with the state Department of Education in December 2024 and January 2025. Three districts – Nuview Union, Perris Elementary and Perris Union High – reported closures for at least one day each. Three more – Banning Unified, Beaumont Unified and Jurupa Unified – reported material decreases in attendance on high wind days. Two districts, San Jacinto Unified and Val Verde, reported both closures and low attendance days.

According to the Val Verde district, three schools there lost a total of 13 days of instruction because of the wind events. That’s more than other Riverside County schools that confirmed filing waiver requests to CalMatters. Val Verde schools also reported lower attendance in September 2024, when smoke from the Bridge, Line and Airport fires spread to the region.

After one chaotic day in December, Orange Vista High principal LaKrecia Graham said school administrators bought floodlights to help keep classes in session in case the power went out again. But when the next outage happened, so many worried parents picked up their children that the district decided to close anyway.

“It disrupts a lot of things and it puts people in a panic that I don't think is necessary,” Graham said. “And that's what's gonna keep happening.”

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LaKrecia Graham, principal of Orange Vista High School, in Perris, on Nov. 18, 2025.

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The lack of power isn’t just an inconvenience. It can pose a safety risk for students, said Catalina Chrest, principal of Skyview Elementary School, also in Perris. Children may hurt themselves navigating dark rooms, or they can lose access to essential needs like water, heaters and air conditioning.

Schools serve as community hubs. For low-income families and students with disabilities, losing access to them means more than a missed day of learning — it means losing child supervision, free meals and critical support services.

The meal they eat at school “might be one of their most nutritious meals of the day,” Chrest said.

In the Perris Elementary School District, more than 90% of students are low-income. At Skyview Academy and Clearwater Elementary School, wind whistling through buildings made classrooms frigid. Bathrooms went completely dark. Parents told school staff that their food was spoiling at home.

The outages “impact our families greater than families in a more affluent neighborhood,” said Perris Elementary School District superintendent Bruce Bivins.

Utilities weigh harms and benefits

When investor-owned utilities decide to turn the power off, the California Public Utilities Commission requires that they balance the potential harms against the benefits. Utilities regulated by the CPUC also must give notice before shutoffs and offer resources to make the outage easier on residents and schools.

In Riverside County, school officials and teachers said delayed notice during the winter wind events made it difficult to prepare for the shutoffs. At Orange Vista High, Graham said the school received notice of a potential outage at a certain time, but it came earlier, so staff was unprepared.

Paula Ford, assistant superintendent of business services at Jurupa Unified School District, said “actually, we would receive a notice that the power was down maybe an hour after the power was already down.”

After the January shutoffs that darkened Riverside County schools, the CPUC fined Southern California Edison $7.8 million for violating notification requirements. Terrie Prosper, a CPUC spokesperson, says the commission is still investigating Edison’s handling of the December shutoffs.

She added the utilities commission is closely monitoring Edison’s work to reduce power shutoffs.

“We understand that PSPS events can be disruptive for schools,” she said. “However, these actions are taken out of serious wildfire concerns. California has experienced devastating wildfires in recent years that have destroyed communities, closed schools for extended periods, and placed lives at risk.”

Clearwater Elementary in Perris, on Nov. 18, 2025.

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Southern California Edison did not comment on the penalty.

Edison spokesperson Monford said that, when possible, notifications for public safety power shutoffs take place three days in advance.

“In some instances, we are unable to send advanced notifications due to emergent weather,” Monford said. “This was especially the case last winter, when we had extraordinarily new wind events.”

Monford added the utility offers assistance to help schools become more resilient to the power outages. But not all schools benefit from the help.

The utility lends power generators to schools most affected by the power outages. He added the utility hopes to expand the program to lend battery storage systems. Edison also invited some districts, including the Jurupa Unified School District and San Jacinto School District, to daily emergency coordination calls, Monford said.

Critics said the outages may end up causing more harm than the events they’re responding to.

“They put a lot of time and effort and money, which I do not begrudge at all, into the analytics of fire risk to calculate the risk of a wildfire actually starting in certain weather conditions,” said Melissa Kasnitz, legal director for the Center for Accessible Technology. “What they have not done is put any fraction of effort into evaluating the risk of what happens when you turn people's power off.”

In response, Edison directed CalMatters to tools it uses to analyze shutoff risks, and to reports the utility has filed with regulators after incidents.

Power outages bring a financial toll 

School administrators say it’s unfair for districts to carry the financial burden of a problem they didn’t create. They also have to contend with a state education system that financially punishes districts for low attendance that results from emergencies out of their control.

Districts with fewer resources like Perris Elementary School District can’t afford generators and have to prioritize other needs.

Bivins said the district looked into backup power but couldn’t afford generators or battery storage. The district is smaller – serving only elementary students – so it obtains less funding than Val Verde Unified or other unified districts. Schools serving more low-income students also tend to see lower attendance rates, he said, meaning even less money coming in.

With so many urgent needs competing for limited dollars, a generator that might only be used a few times a year doesn’t make the cut.

“That could be better security on our campuses, more modernized facilities, better access to technology, or other things they can actually utilize right now versus the preparation for the possible one day this year (the power goes out),” Bivins said.

Student teacher Mayela Covarrubias works with first-grade students.

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An emergency generator on loan from Southern California Edison at Peralta Elementary in Riverside, on Nov. 19, 2025.

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But even schools that can afford generators face hidden costs from the outages.

In nearby Jurupa Valley, Peralta Elementary School was able to keep its doors open, the lights on and the heating and cooling systems running.

The Jurupa Unified School District spent more than $364,000 on two generators – each capable of powering an elementary school – and is investing in infrastructure upgrades to make deploying them easier, Ford said.

Because Peralta Elementary is in a high fire risk area surrounded by brush, Southern California Edison also loaned the school another generator through its pilot program. So far this year, the school hasn’t needed to use it.

Still, the outages take a financial toll. Even if schools are open, some parents keep children home – costing the district attendance-based funding.

“Because we stayed open … we're actually impacted more heavily than schools that close,” Ford said.

To obtain a waiver from the state to protect funding from an emergency, schools have to submit paperwork signed by the school board and county superintendent explaining what happened, and certify they have a plan to keep students learning during the disruption. But the process is uncertain: Schools don't know how much funding they'll keep until the state reviews the waiver request and runs its own numbers. Ford said that more leniency on the conditions necessary to qualify for a waiver could help schools during emergency events.

Bivins, the Perris Elementary Unified superintendent, said the state should fund schools based on enrollment, not attendance, so that emergencies don’t threaten budgets.

Michelle Hatfield, a spokesperson for the state Department of Education, said any changes to rules for how schools handle planned outages – and any proposals to fund schools by enrollment rather than by attendance – would require legislation.

Even districts investing in backup power say they can't fully close the gap on their own.

At Orange Vista High School, newly installed battery storage units will help keep the lights on during the next planned outage. It’s all the Val Verde Unified District could do, said Owen, the assistant superintendent.

But the battery storage systems don’t really solve the broader problem. If a blackout happens at multiple schools over multiple days, “we don't have a plan for that,” he said.

Equipping every school in the district with generators would probably cost millions. "It's one of those numbers I don't need to know, because there's not gonna be that funding," Owen said.

Natasha Uzcátegui-Liggett contributed reporting.

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

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.