The Brief

Interest in air filters and purifiers is spiking in Southern California, including questions about how to build a homemade air purifier. Getting clean air is the latest challenge for residents who evacuated to safe areas, only to be forced to endure unhealthy smoky air.

On Friday, a large area in and around Los Angeles was listed as having unhealthy air due to particulate matter from large wildfires that devastated communities this week, according to the federal AirNow air quality monitor.
On AirNow' map, a "red zone" (signaling air quality index values from 151 to 200) stretched from Inglewood in the northwest to Long Beach and Sunset Beach in the southeast.
In the "unhealthy" range of 151 to 200, some people may experience health effects and members of sensitive groups — children and older adults or those with heart or lung disease — "may experience more serious health effects," the Environmental Protection Agency says.

A big worry, experts say, is fine inhalable particulate matter known as PM 2.5 (for 2.5 microns) that can lodge deep into our lungs.

And as researchers at the University of Washington note, "Smaller ultrafine particles (PM 0.1) can pass into the bloodstream and organs, including the brain."

Here's a quick guide to getting cleaner air:

Search filters by their MERV rating

Filters are key, whether you're using them to upgrade your home's HVAC system or put them in an air purifier or a DIY air cleaner. A filter's ability to pull particulates and other matter out of the air are rated by Minimum Efficiency Reporting Values, or MERV. Filters with higher values can catch smaller contaminants like smoke, bacteria and viruses.

A MERV rating of 13 means the filter is efficient at catching items from 0.3 to 1 micron in size: "Bacteria, droplet nuclei (sneeze), most tobacco smoke, insecticide dust," according to the California Air Resources Board, or CARB.

"Upgrading to a filter rated MERV 13 or higher can be especially important during smoky periods to effectively remove fine particle pollution from smoke in the indoor air," the EPA says. It adds that most HVAC systems work fine using MERV 13 filters, as long as the filter is replaced frequently — but if you're in doubt, ask an HVAC technician to be sure.

One thing to remember: If you're using your HVAC system to clean your home's air, it only does so when the unit is running. You can learn more about filter rating systems from LAist here.

An air quality map shows a large part of the Los Angeles metro area with "unhealthy" air, due to large wildfires fueled by strong winds.

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Air Now/ Screenshot by NPR

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Build an air cleaner at home

All you need is a box fan, good air filters and some duct tape, and you're in business.

NPR has previously posted a design and guide to building an air purifying cube known as a Corsi-Rosenthal Box, using four 20-inch MERV 13 filters, a 20-inch box fan and two 20-inch panels of cardboard.

A smaller and more affordable approach is to attach one MERV filter to the back of a box fan, an idea laid out in a website from the Montana group Climate Smart Missoula. The group notes that people using that option should use newer box fans, and be sure the motor is clean to reduce the risk of overheating.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says these DIY purifiers can be effective for a temporary solution, especially if you don't have any other alternatives.

Use HEPA air purifiers and other methods

HEPA (for high-efficiency particulate air) filters are used in many air purifier machines. HEPA is roughly equivalent to a MERV 17 filter, the California Air Resources Board says.

"A well-sealed HEPA filter is more than 99.9% efficient for all sizes of particles," according to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers, or ASHRAE.

If you plan to buy a portable air cleaner or purifier, the EPA says you should make sure it has a HEPA filter. To help your search, California has a table of state-certified air cleaners that lists more than 1,000 products by brand, model number, and type. The EPA also has a guide on matching your room size with the appropriate unit.

Whichever strategy you choose, experts say you should also make sure doors, windows and air ducts are well sealed, to keep out smoke and pollution. You should also drink plenty of water to help ease irritation — and wear a mask if you go outside, as NPR has reported.

More tips on staying healthy

Laist has a guide on how to navigate the unhealthy air here.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Karlo Campana, a father of three in Tustin, took four weeks of paid leave after the birth of his son in May, just as the dad was able to for his older children.

“You need that adjustment period of like, ‘I need to figure out how we're going to adjust now to a new child into our family,'” he said. “My wife isn’t doing it on her own, she doesn’t feel like she’s alone on this journey. She feels like she has support, and that’s another benefit.”

Campana is among a growing number of fathers who are taking paid leave in the state to care for a new child, and part of a larger cultural shift in the increasing roles dads play in caregiving. Now, for the first time in the program’s history, more fathers than mothers in California are applying for leave.

California’s program offers up to eight weeks of paid bonding leave for workers of all genders.

In 2025, men accounted for 51% of bonding claims filed.

It’s a massive shift from when the program started in 2004, when men made up about 18% of claim applications. The state additionally saw a record in applications for paid family leave in 2025. That includes leave to care for a sick family member.

“We're in a very different place in terms of our understanding of gender roles, of paternity leave, of dads' roles than we were twenty plus years ago,” said Molly Weston Williamson, policy director at Paid Leave for All, a national organization that advocates for paid family leave policies.

Campana has seen the shifting attitudes in his own family.

“It's funny — my mom sees me being really involved with my kids, changing diapers, staying up with them at night, reading books, cooking for them, and my mom's like, ‘Your dad really didn't do much of that … I didn't know that was something dads did,’ And she was like, ‘I'm glad to see you're doing that,’” he said.

The trend is playing out elsewhere, as well. California is one of 14 states along with D.C. that have passed laws for paid family leave. Williamson said she’s also seen dads make up a higher proportion of those taking paid family leave in those states in recent years.

Why now?

In addition to changing gender norms, Williamson said there are other factors at play that’s likely contributing to the increase in men filing for claims: greater awareness about the program in general in California and recent changes to the benefit.

In 2025, the state increased the amount of income a worker can recoup while they go on family leave. Before then, most workers would get 60% of their pay. Now, they can get 70% to 90% of their income.

“ We definitely heard from a lot of fathers that they went out to take bonding leave, then came back [to work] when they got their first check because they realized [that] 60% just wasn't going to cover their bills,” said Jenya Cassidy, director of the California Work & Family Coalition, a statewide advocacy organization based in the Bay Area. “ I do think that the expanded wage replacement, especially for low income fathers maybe is part of that — that they're able to take the time.”

But both Cassidy and Williamson said more research is needed to understand the data. Barry White, a spokesperson for the state Employment Development Department, which administers the program, said the department couldn’t provide “definitive reason(s)” in the increase in male bonding claims.

“We're getting one particular vantage point into this data, which is useful and valuable, but it's only telling us sort of part of the story,” said Williamson.  ”Is it that more dads are working and therefore are potentially eligible for these benefits? Is it that women are deciding not to take leave?  We'd need other kinds of information to better understand the full picture.”

Williamson said, for instance, mothers who leave the workforce after having children would not be captured in the data.

Who benefits from paid leave?

Research has shown that paternity leave has benefits beyond allowing a father the time to bond with their new baby — it has positive effects on the whole family, including better health outcomes for both parents. Paid parental leave is also linked with lower incidents of postpartum depression and even a decrease in infant mortality rates. It’s also linked to higher employee retention.

Campana said taking paid leave allowed him to team up with his wife in taking turns feeding their baby, or changing constant diapers.

“People don’t think about the mental strain," he said.
"Like, you’re both a little bit sleep-deprived. And you’re kind of just adjusting. Nobody gives you a playbook.”

As someone who didn’t have close friends who were dads, Campana also joined the local chapter of a nonprofit support group, Dads Supporting Dads, for a community to lean on. The group provides virtual support groups and meetups for dads in an aim to help change “the narrative around modern fatherhood.”

Initially, Campana said he wasn’t sure about taking leave with his first child because of lingering stereotypes.

“ I think dads feel like they need to be the provider. I felt guilty for sure,” he said. “I think that’s because my dad … he worked three jobs, and so it was very different for him. It was hard for him to be present, and I think that’s the one thing now — it’s like, ‘No, be present. Be there for your kids. You have that paid time.’”

WASHINGTON — The Department of Transportation is doubling down on its campaign against "DEI bike lanes," as Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called them in a social media post earlier this month.

The Federal Highway Administration has quietly stripped bike lanes, speed cameras and several other best practices from a list of "Proven Safety Countermeasures," as they're known, that have been shown to reduce crashes and save lives.

The FHWA says the changes to its website, which have not been previously reported, are part of a broader review of safety countermeasures to ensure they align with current DOT policies and the administration's priorities. But critics say the Trump administration is undermining safety strategies that have already been proven to work.

"We should be making decisions about safety based on evidence," Stephanie Pollack, the former acting administrator of the FHWA under President Joe Biden, told NPR. "It's hard for me to understand how you could say you're putting safety first, and then make arbitrary decisions about what does and doesn't improve safety."

Pollack oversaw the most recent expansion of the Proven Safety Countermeasures program in 2021, when the list grew to a total of 28 recommended strategies for state and local planners to consider. In recent weeks, she said, the FHWA has removed five of those strategies, including bike lanes, speed safety cameras, variable speed limits and two other recommendations.

The FHWA has not publicly announced or explained the decision to cut the list of safety strategies from 28 items to the current total of 23.

In a statement to NPR, an FHWA spokesperson said the DOT is "taking action to reverse the last administration's policies that decreased lane capacity and increased congestion."

"Drivers paying taxes and vehicle fees expect their dollars to be reinvested into our roads, not social initiatives that burden their commutes," the statement said. "Under Secretary Duffy, the Department is getting back to basics and putting safety first."

Bike lanes are not a new target for the DOT. The Trump administration previously tried to remove a stretch of bike lanes around the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and pulled back funding for projects across the country that it deemed "hostile" to cars.

It's not clear exactly when the FHWA dropped these safety strategies from its website. Safety advocates say they first noticed the change late last week, after the DOT announced more than $1.7 billion in discretionary grants that included no funding for bike lanes or pedestrian projects. The Biden administration, by contrast, had used the same program to fund hundreds of millions of dollars in bike lanes and trails nationwide.

On Tuesday, July 7, the same day DOT announced the grants, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the Biden administration "used YOUR MONEY for DEI bike lanes and climate change." In response, some of the administration's critics noted that the federal government itself had previously acknowledged that bicycle lanes make roads safer.

By last weekend, bike lanes and the four other strategies had been stripped from the FHWA's website.

The list of Proven Safety Countermeasures does not directly affect how the government funds projects. FHWA distributes tens of billions of dollars each year to the states, which decide how to spend them. But safety advocates say the list can have a big influence on decisions at the state and local level.

"It's not just changing the web page, but it's really going to put lifesaving projects at risk," said Josh Naramore, a policy expert at NACTO, the National Association of City Transportation Officials.

"That list of approved safety countermeasures and all the research really helped change the game for local agencies and even for states to have conversations with the federal government, with state departments of transportation, and even with regional planning agencies," Naramore told NPR. "So you're essentially taking tools out of the toolkit that would be available for them."

For example, safety advocates worry it will now be harder for state and local authorities to make the case for speed cameras, which have faced significant pushback from drivers despite evidence that they make roads safer.

Speed cameras can reduce crashes on urban arterial roads by as much as half, according to a booklet published by the FHWA in 2021 when it announced the expanded list of Proven Safety Countermeasures. In the same document, the FHWA said that adding a bike lane could cut crashes on a two-lane road by as much as 30%. For a four-lane road, that number jumped to 49%.

Former FHWA staff say the agency based its conclusions on rigorous analysis.

"We had a team evaluate the research literature and identify countermeasures that are effective," said Michael Griffith, who worked for more than a decade in the safety office at FHWA before retiring from the agency in 2022. "'Proven' is basically backed by sound research, research that we have confidence in."

More than 36,000 people were killed on U.S. roads last year, though that number has declined since 2021. The number of pedestrians killed in the U.S. has also been falling since 2022, when it reached a four-decade high, though it's still higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overall, safety advocates say U.S. roads are far less safe than those in other developed countries that are equally attached to driving, including Canada.

"We're still struggling in the United States with a completely unacceptable number of roadway deaths," Pollack said. "These measures are one of the most important tools that the federal government has to help state and local transportation officials make smart decisions about how to make their roads safer. And they need to be credible."
Copyright 2026 NPR

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained more than 650 children in California under President Donald Trump’s second term, an EdSource analysis of federal data has found. Most arrests happened in California communities, rather than at the border, and involved minors who resided and attended school in the state.

The number of children detained in the state’s interior rose 90% during the first year of Trump’s second term compared to the prior year under the Biden administration, our analysis shows. More than 100 of the children detained under Trump were age 5 or under.

The rise in child detainments in the state’s interior began soon after Trump took office in January 2025. Trump won office on a promise to carry out mass deportations, vowing to deport “illegal immigrant killers, rapists, and drug dealers from our streets and [send] them back where they belong.”

Starting immediately and escalating over the summer of 2025, ICE agents have conducted large-scale operations in neighborhoods with large immigrant populations. Some children have been detained while accompanying parents to routine ICE check-ins. The practices reflect an escalation in enforcement activity that state education officials say has kept some students from attending school.

The children detained so far include a 17-year-old honors student from Los Angeles County who was detained in June 2025 and deported to Guatemala; a 9-year-old boy from Torrance who, along with his father, was detained at an immigration hearing that same month and deported to Honduras; and a 6-year-old deaf student who, in March, was detained without his hearing aids and deported to Colombia along with his mother and younger brother.

Medical professionals and advocates contend that no period of time in detention is safe for children. In 2016, a Department of Homeland Security Advisory Committee recommended discontinuing the use of family detention — the practice of detaining children with their parents as they await the outcome of their case — writing “detention is never in the best interest of children.”

“The kids that are in detention in these facilities, they’re losing their childhoods every single day that they’re in there,” said Wendy Cervantes, who oversees research and advocacy of immigrant families at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Law and Social Policy.

A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to EdSource that this data is “being cherry-picked” to “peddle a false narrative.” ICE, the spokesperson said, is “not targeting children.”

“ICE does not separate families,” the unidentified DHS spokesperson said. “Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children, or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.”

What the data shows

EdSource analyzed federal detainment data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley and UCLA, capturing federal detainments between October 2022 and March 2026. The analysis found:

• There were 666 Californian children detained during the Trump administration. Of those, 408 children — or 61% — were deported. Under the Biden administration, 8% were ultimately deported. 
• Nationally, children have been held longer in detention under Trump than under Biden. The median length of detention jumped from one day under Biden to eight days under Trump. This does not include 335 children who had not yet been released from detention as of March 11, the last day for which data was available.
• Nationally, the average number of children in detention jumped nearly 10-fold under Trump, due in part to these longer detention stays. Under the last year of the Biden administration, there were, on average, 23 children held in detention each day. During Trump’s first year of his second term, that figure rose to 219.

The Trump administration is going after “the worst of the worst,” including pedophiles and rapists, a DHS spokesperson said.

“Many of the individuals that are counted as ‘non-criminals’ are actually terrorists, human rights abusers, gangsters and more; they just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.,” the DHS spokesperson said. “Further, every single one of these individuals committed a crime when they came into this country illegally.”

According to EdSource’s analysis of ICE’s data, none of the 666 detained children in California under Trump had any felonies or previous convictions listed. Twelve minors were listed as having pending criminal charges, including three girls between ages 6 and 9. The nature of those pending charges is not disclosed. The ICE data does not include information about any connected family members or their cases.

During his second term, Trump reopened family detention facilities, including the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley and the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center in Texas. In California, 250 detained children were ultimately sent to these family facilities.

A 12-year-old from Los Angeles, identified by the initials G.S., gave a declaration in federal court describing their experience living inside the South Texas Family Residential Center during a 64-day detainment with their parents and younger sister.

The child said ICE agents detained the family during a routine ICE check-in in Los Angeles. The family lost their apartment and belongings, according to the May 22 declaration. The status of the child and their family is unclear.

“It makes me feel hopeless to be here for so long, because now it’ll take me and my whole family a long time to get back to normal because of how much money and education we have lost,” the child said in their declaration. “If I could change one thing here, it would be to shut down the whole facility.”

Trump vs. Biden

One major difference between the Trump and Biden presidencies has been the number of children who arrived at the border. Of the 5,676 children detained in California between October 2022 and when Trump started his second term, 94% were apprehended at the border.

Biden prioritized placing some of the unaccompanied minors who arrived at the border with sponsors, Cervantes said, and ended the practice of family detention that resumed under Trump. Cervantes said the Biden administration largely followed the Flores Settlement Agreement.

The 1997 agreement provided rights for immigrant children in U.S. custody and prohibited most detentions from lasting more than 20 days. The declaration from the detained Los Angeles minor is one of several included from children and parents in a lawsuit claiming their rights under the Flores agreement have been violated.

Attorneys representing the Trump administration in this case argued in court in June 2025 that conditions at detention centers for children have “drastically improved” since the original agreement. Referencing the high number of immigrants at the border, the administration said the Flores Settlement Agreement “hamstrung the government in addressing this catastrophic illegal migration.”

Apprehension in California

During the first year of Trump’s second term, adults were detained in California’s interior at more than four times the rate they were held during the last year of Biden’s administration, while the rate of child detainments rose by 90%.

California has passed laws and issued guidance with the aim of shielding schools from federal immigration enforcement. For instance, under California law, school officials cannot allow immigration officials on campus without a judicial warrant.

In some California communities, parents, teachers and neighbors have formed rapid-response networks to report sightings of ICE agents for students and their families to avoid while commuting to and from school.

The sites of some immigration enforcement operations, such as job sites, may be more likely to target adults than children. However, Cervantes notes that some teens working at restaurants or as lifeguards at pools have been apprehended in ICE raids while they’re on the job. She also disputes the Trump administration’s claim that children have not been targets of immigration enforcement.

Children may not be detained at the same rates that adults are, but medical experts warn that any time spent in detention is too long for their well-being.

Shortly after Trump began his second term, medical professionals wrote an open letter to the president and then-Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warning that “detention itself poses a threat to child health.”

“We have endless amounts of research and expert testimony on how harmful detention is to children,” said Michelle Brané, who was the immigration detention ombudsman under the Biden administration and now leads the nonprofit Together and Free, which supports asylum-seeking families. “You see kids with extreme depression. You see kids really regressing, kids going back to wetting the bed after they’ve been trained for years.”

EdSource Reporter Zaidee Stavely and Data Journalist Daniel J. Willis contributed to this story.

A water main break near Palm Avenue and Harratt Street sent waters flooding through West Hollywood early Thursday, causing a massive sink hole.

Roads have been closed off and residents warned to stay out of the area, with dramatic footage posted online of water rushing down streets and cars slamming into each other:

Because of the highly pressurized water system, emergency crews said Thursday they must work slowly and carefully to avoid causing more damage. Several roads were closed and Metro system buses detoured — see details below.

A leak from an over 100-year-old trunk line caused the rupture, authorities said. The line has been shut down, as well as two large valves to the east and west. Anselmo Collins, chief operating officer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, assured residents that drinking water is not affected and remains safe to drink.

“We are also coordinating on the ground with law enforcement and will be working with traffic control as we make progress and assess and begin repairs,” wrote LADWP in a statement.

Residents were are encouraged to take pictures of any damage from the flooding in case a claim needs to be filed later.

What you need to know about affected areas:

Avoid the area if at all possible. But if you need to venture in, here’s what you need to know:

Road Closures:

• Eastbound Sunset Boulevard is closed between Larrabee Street and Sherbourne Drive.
• Eastbound Holloway Drive is closed between Sunset Boulevard and Westmount Drive.
• Eastbound Santa Monica Boulevard is closed between San Vicente Boulevard and Hancock Drive.

The following bus routes have been delayed or detoured.

• 2 Line (Sunset)
• 4 Line (Santa Monica)
• 10/48 (Melrose)
• 14/37 (Beverly)
• 16 Line (3rd Street)
• 20 Line (Wilshire)
• 28 Line (Olympic)
• 30 Line (Pico)
• 35 Line (Washington)
• 134 Line (PCH)
• 217 Line (Fairfax)
• 602 Line (Sunset)
• 617 Line (Robertson)

LAist will continue to update this story as we learn more.