The Brief

Like most kids, Aahil Valliani has been frustrated by the filters that his school uses to block inappropriate websites. Often, he has no idea why certain sites are blocked, especially when his web browsing is tied to his schoolwork.

Many students in this situation find a way around their districts’ web filters. They access the internet on their phones instead, or use proxy servers or virtual private networks to essentially access a different, unfiltered internet. Aahil, searching for a more systemic solution, teamed up with his younger brother and father to start a company called Safe Kids, raise almost $2 million in venture funding, and design a better filter.

As The Markup, which is part of CalMatters, reported in April, almost all schools filter the web to comply with the federal Children’s Internet Protection Act and qualify for discounted internet access, among other things. Most schools The Markup examined used filters that sort all websites into categories and block entire categories at once. Others scan webpages for certain off-limits keywords, blocking websites on which they appear regardless of the context. In both cases, the filters are blunt tools that result in overblocking and sometimes keep kids from information about politicized topics like sex education and LGBTQ resources.

Aahil, now 17, points out that schools’ overly strict controls disappear as soon as kids graduate. “That’s a recipe for disaster,” he said. Kids, he contends, need to learn how to make good choices about how to use the internet safely when trusted adults are nearby so they are ready to make good decisions on their own later.

The Safe Kids filter turns web blocking into a teachable moment, explaining why sites are blocked and nudging students to stay away from them of their own accord. It uses artificial intelligence to assess the intent of a student’s search, reducing the number of blocks students see while conducting legitimate academic research. One example: if a student searches for Civil War rifles for a class assignment, Safe Kids would allow it. If a student tries to shop for an AK-47, it wouldn’t. Other filters would block both.

The filter also keeps student browsing data private, storing only categories of websites accessed, not URLs or search terms themselves. And it works through a Chrome browser extension, which means students can’t simply get around it with a proxy server or VPN while using that browser.

Safe Kids got its start during the early COVID-19 lockdowns. Sitting around the dinner table with his father, a tech entrepreneur; his mother, a self-employed fashion designer; and his younger brother Zohran, a budding computer scientist, Aahil got his family to strategize how to help all the kids getting sucked into dark corners of the web and battling the mental health consequences of their internet use.

Their idea, building off of the invasive and ineffective filters the brothers saw in school, essentially puts better training wheels on the internet. Aahil said his father did a bit of hand-holding in these early days, helping find board members and angel investors, as well as the data scientists who would train the AI machine learning model behind the filter and psychologists who could craft and test the filter’s hallmark pop-ups directing students toward more appropriate browsing. The company also spent time and money getting their designs patented. Aahil has three patents under his name and Safe Kids has five.

As Aahil and his family were preparing to chase seed funding for Safe Kids, the ACLU of Northern California was demanding the Fresno Unified School District stop using a product called Gaggle, which districts use to monitor students’ internet use, block potentially harmful content, and step in if student browsing patterns indicate they may need mental health supports. The problem, according to ACLU attorneys, was that Gaggle amounted to intrusive surveillance, trampling on students’ privacy and free speech rights.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation levied similar accusations against another web filter called GoGuardian after getting records from 10 school districts, including three in California, that revealed the extent of the software’s blocking, tracking and flagging of student internet use during the 2022-23 school year, when Aahil was piloting Safe Kids. Jason Kelley, a lead researcher on EFF’s GoGuardian investigation, The Red Flag Machine, looked into Safe Kids in response to an inquiry by The Markup. Accustomed to pointing out how bad filters are, he offered surprised praise for Safe Kids, commending its focus on privacy, its open source code that offers transparency about its model, and its context-specific blocking.

“This is, really, I think, an improved option for all the things that we are generally concerned about,” Kelley said.

So far, Safe Kids has not been able to break into the school market. Still, Aahil hopes to one day sign a contract with a school district, and he is marketing to parents in the meantime, offering them a way to put guardrails on their kids’ home internet use. While Safe Kids started out charging for its filter, Aahil said an open source, free version will be released next month.

One of the company patents is for a “pause, reflect, and redirect” method that leans on child psychology to teach kids healthy browsing habits when they try to access an inappropriate website.

“When kids go to a site the first time, we consider that a mistake,” Aahil said. “We tell kids why it’s not good for them and kids can make a choice.”

For example, if a student tries to play games during a lesson, a pop-up would say, “This isn’t schoolwork, is it?” Students can click a “take me back” button or “tell me more” link to get more information about why a given site is blocked. When students repeatedly try to access inappropriate content, their browsing is further restricted until they address the issue with an adult. If that content indicates a student might be in crisis, the user is advised to get help from an adult, and in a school setting, a staff member would get an automated alert.

The teen expects to keep building the company, even as he shifts his focus to college admissions this fall. A rising senior at the selective Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, one of the nation’s best public high schools, Aahil plans to major in business or economics and make a career out of entrepreneurship.

Safe Kids stands out in a web filtering market where products’ blunt restrictions on the web have barely become more sophisticated over the last 25 years.

Nancy Willard, director of Embrace Civility LLC, has worked on issues of youth online safety since the mid-1990s. She submitted testimony for the congressional hearings that resulted in passage of the Children’s Internet Protection Act in 2000 and describes the filtering company representatives that showed up as snake oil salesmen, selling a technology that addresses a symptom, not the root of a problem.

“We need to prepare kids to manage themselves,” Willard said. When traditional filters block certain websites with no explanation, kids don’t learn anything, and they’re often tempted to just circumvent the software.

“This approach helps increase student understanding, and hopefully there’s a way also in the instructional aspects (to increase) their skills,” she said about Safe Kids.

Students on Chromebooks in particular can’t circumvent Safe Kids and its design aims to keep them from wanting to. Now Aahil and his family just need to find buyers.

Kelley said he’s not surprised Safe Kids hasn’t been able to yet, given the “hardening” of school security and student safety efforts over the last decade. “We’ve gone from having cameras and some pretty standard filters to having metal detectors, and locked doors, and biometrics, and vape detectors in the bathrooms, and these much more strict filters and content moderating control software,” he said, “and all this is hard to undo.”

It’s whale watching season, which always makes me think of the novel Moby-Dick.

In the book, Captain Ahab chased a whale for vengeance. I recently chased whales off the coast of Los Angeles, but in my case, it was in pursuit of the beauty and majesty of the natural world.

With warm — relative to Alaska — spring waters, migratory rest-stops and great feeding grounds, Los Angeles County’s coast is considered part of the “Blue Highway,” a crucial whale migration corridor and one of the best places to spot the gentle giants.

According to Cabrillo Marine Aquarium program director Jim DiPompei, many whales can be seen right in our backyard.

“There’s a little over 90 species of cetaceans (marine mammals) in the world, and we see about 30% of the species we could possibly see here in Southern California,” DiPompei told The LA Local.

Cetacean species you may spot in our waters include humpback whales, orcas, blue whales and dolphins. Your best chance, however, is spotting a gray whale. As school bus-sized gray whales migrate back and forth between Alaska and Baja, they consistently hug LA’s coastline.

But where should you go to actually get a good look at whales? Don’t worry — I got you. Here’s The LA Local guide to cruising the Blue Highway.

Top spots to watch whales from shore

Point Vicente Interpretive Center
31501 Palos Verdes Drive West, Rancho Palos Verdes
Free, laid-back, on the mountains!

At the Point Vicente Interpretive Center in Rancho Palos Verdes, you’ll find an overlook dedicated to whale watching. While this is a great free spot for amateurs to come and look out for whales, this is no playground. Professionals conduct the annual whale census here, tracking the migration of whales.

This is a great place to bring a picnic basket and some binoculars to relax while scanning the ocean. Even if you don’t spot any whale action, you can visit the free natural history museum inside, which focuses on the region and its most famous inhabitants: whales. Afterward, step outside and chat with a museum docent accompanying the census watch.

If you want to see whales, stick to the coastal canyons. Canyons aren’t just massive structures above water — they are also mountains beneath the surface, offering depth, cold water and nutrients that attract food for whales. Gray whales tend to follow the canyons to stay away from the dangerous orcas.

Whale spotting 101

Whale watching season typically runs from December through May. It peaks from January to March.

When looking for a whale, try to spot their water mist blowing above the water. Gray whales typically surface for air every five minutes. When they do, they’ll blow out a water mist — that’s your chance to spot and track them until they surface again.

Get on a boat!

If you want to get eye-to-eye and really feel a cetacean’s scale, there are plenty of whale-watching cruises. They typically depart from Marina Del Rey, Redondo Beach, Long Beach, San Pedro, Dana Point and almost anywhere with a port.

Many cruises have a naturalist on board to answer questions and provide expert context to ocean wildlife.

On my tour departing from Long Beach, we saw five gray whales and a swarm of common dolphins feeding.

But be warned: If you get seasick easily, this trip might not be for you. On our two-and-half-hour trip, the boat rocked emphatically as we approached feeding sites. It’s fun if you can imagine yourself on a see-saw, but it might not be that enjoyable if that sounds nauseating.

While boat captains are not allowed to approach the whales too closely due to environmental protections, the whales can approach the boat if they choose. Sometimes the whales seem curious and watch us in return — it’s up to them and how they are feeling.

Get involved

Cabrillo Marine Aquarium
3720 Stephen M. White Drive, San Pedro

If you really catch the whale-watching bug, you’re in luck.

At the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, they offer a whale-watching naturalist program where you can volunteer and train to be a naturalist on board whale-watching cruises.

DiPompei said they train anyone over the age of 18 “who’s interested in learning about whales and volunteering their time to be on these whale-watching boats to talk to the general public and to talk to students.”

This program was started in the 1970s by John Olge, one of the founders of Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, with an emphasis on education and showing schoolchildren the beauty of our natural world.

The aquarium is also a great place to introduce whales to children. With kid-sized exhibits and educational programs throughout the year, it’s an ideal way to show young ones just how big and beautiful our oceans are.

Despite the loss of federal subsidies that lowered costs for millions, California’s private health insurance marketplace held nearly steady this enrollment season. In all, 1.9 million Californians renewed their plan or selected one for the first time — a 2.7% drop compared to last year.

A closer look, however, shows Californians are making concessions to afford staying insured.

More enrollees are opting for “bronze-level” plans. These plans have lower monthly premium costs but higher deductibles and copays; they cover 60% of medical expenses — leaving enrollees to pay the rest. One-in-three new enrollees chose bronze plans for 2026, compared to one-in-four last year, according to Covered California. And 130,000 Californians renewing their coverage switched from a silver or higher-metal tier plan to bronze.

“Many Californians see the value in remaining covered, but they had to make sacrifices and shift to lower-tier plans. We see it as a commitment to health and the value that Covered California provides,” Jessica Altman, Covered California’s executive director said in a statement.

While bronze-level plans may offer people some peace of mind, the high deductibles and copays tend to discourage people from seeking care, said Miranda Dietz, director of the Health Care Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.

“Those out-of-pocket costs do impact people’s decisions to get care, so that’s worrisome as well,” Dietz said.

People earning above 400% of the federal poverty level — $62,600 for an individual and $128,600 for a family of four — no longer qualify for premium assistance after Congress chose not to extend the enhanced subsidies at the end of last year, pushing many to opt for plans with cheaper premiums or drop their marketplace plans entirely.

Of the 224,000 middle-income enrollees set to renew, 22% cancelled their plans, according to Covered California. New sign ups for people in this income bracket decreased by 59% compared to last year.

Whether those who renewed coverage or newly signed up continue to pay their premiums is another question. A clearer picture of who stays enrolled will emerge around April, Covered California said.

“Once you actually face the prospect of paying that premium and the stress that puts on your budget, it’s entirely possible that some of those folks may fall off, and the [enrollment] numbers might go down,” Dietz said.

Affording care: A growing stress point 

It’s unknown whether people who cancelled their marketplace health plans are enrolling in other types of insurance. Covered California data from the last five years show that when people terminate their marketplace plan, 10% to 14% of them report becoming uninsured.

The Affordable Care Act’s enhanced premium subsidies, first enacted in 2021 as part of federal COVID-19 response, helped lower the insurance costs for millions of Americans. They especially helped middle-income earners by allowing them to qualify for financial assistance for the first time, capping premiums at 8.5% of income. That help is now gone, and premiums are up an average of 10%.

Lower-income enrollees remain eligible for standard federal premium aid available since ACA marketplaces launched. They also benefit from state help. California allocated $190 million in 2026 to provide state-funded tax credits for people who earn up to 165% of the federal poverty level — $25,823 for an individual or $53,048 for a family of four — averaging about $45 a month per enrollee.The end of the enhanced federal subsidies also come at a time when poll after poll shows health care costs are a growing stress point for people. Seven in 10 Californians say health care expenses place a financial strain on their household, according to a recent survey by the California Health Care Foundation. Four in 10 have medical debt and six in 10 report skipping care. Meanwhile, eight in 10 Californians say making health care affordable is an “extremely” or “very” important priority for state officials and lawmakers in 2026.

There have been plenty of Beatles-related documentaries in the past decade or so, and yes, I've reviewed most of them. But in my defense, The Beatles are a great subject, musically and biographically — and the best filmmakers are drawn to them.

Peter Jackson gave us the Get Back documentary miniseries and the latest installment of The Beatles Anthology. Ron Howard directed Eight Days a Week, about the group's touring years. Martin Scorsese directed Living in the Material World, his two-part biography of George Harrison. All of them were terrific — and all of them were made by Oscar-winning directors.

Documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville, who won an Oscar for his film about backup singers, 20 Feet From Stardom, has joined that club. He's already directed outstanding biographies of everyone from Johnny Cash and Anthony Bourdain to Steve Martin and Fred Rogers. And now, Prime Video is premiering his latest documentary, Man on the Run, about former Beatle Paul McCartney.

The word "former" is key here: While brief, artful montages encapsulate the frenzy and impact of Beatlemania, Man on the Run is focused on the decade immediately afterward — the 1970s. Specifically, it spans the period from when McCartney left The Beatles to when his former bandmate, John Lennon, was shot and killed.

Neville conducted many lengthy new interviews with McCartney but uses only the sound. Virtually all the footage in Man on the Run is vintage, so there are no white-haired rock stars in sight. But because McCartney is an executive producer and has provided a stunning amount of previously unseen private footage, there's lots of fresh stuff to see here.

The danger of McCartney having such input, though, is of Man on the Run becoming too sanitized as a personal biography. But it's not. The decade covered includes McCartney announcing the breakup of The Beatles, his very public musical feud with Lennon, the formation of McCartney's post-Beatles band Wings, even the "Paul is dead" rumor.

And in these new interviews, McCartney seems to be speaking honestly — not only about what happened, but how he felt about it all. On The Beatles breakup, for example, it was McCartney who announced it publicly — but it was Lennon who already had left the group. McCartney's reaction, at age 27, was to retreat with his family to a remote property he owned in Scotland — in a vintage interview, Linda McCartney recalls her husband's out-of-the-blue suggestion.

Man on the Run relies on other voices and perspectives to defend some of McCartney's infamous actions during this period. Lennon's son Sean, for example, excuses McCartney's stunned, understated reaction to John's death — when asked by reporters, he called it "a real drag" — as having been in shock.

And Lennon himself, in an interview filmed years after The Beatles' breakup, admits that McCartney was right in hating and suing the manager, Allen Klein, whom John had brought in to handle the group. At the time, Lennon and McCartney even attacked one another in song — and in a new interview, McCartney is very open about how much that stung.

That same refreshing honesty extends to other key moments — the formation of his group Wings and recruiting Linda as its first charter member, his jail time in Japan for bringing pot into that country, even the time Lorne Michaels, on Saturday Night Live, jokingly offered The Beatles a ridiculously small check if they would reunite on his show.

Man on the Run is more about the man than it is about his creative process. But his music runs all through the documentary, and it all adds up to an impressive, inspirational second act.