The Brief

This article was supported by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

When Jarret Palmer moved to the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles four years ago, he thought he had found his dream home. But now, he’s regretting that decision.

The roar of planes from nearby Van Nuys Airport is relentless, he said, adding that he fears the pollution from one of the nation’s busiest general aviation hubs is harming his family. Three years ago, his daughter was born underweight and spent days in the neonatal intensive care unit, he said.

“It kind of makes you … wonder, … was I so determined to find a house for my child?” said Palmer, who has a 2-year-old child. He added, “Did I make the mistake of … not looking into the environment enough? … There’s definitely, like, a little bit of guilt there,” said Palmer, who also has a 2-year-old son.

Palmer is not the only resident concerned about the dangers of living near Van Nuys Airport, a major revenue generator for the city and a frequent launch point for private jets used by celebrities including Elon Musk, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Jennifer Lopez.

In a Capital & Main survey of 80 residents who live in the airport-adjacent neighborhoods of Lake Balboa and Van Nuys, 65% of respondents said they attributed a health condition to noise and air pollution from VNY, the airport’s call letters. Nearly half of respondents said they had consulted a medical professional for what they suspected were airport-related health problems since 2020. The survey is not a representative sample, but it is an indication of anxiety among residents living near the airport. Despite their health concerns and activism at public meetings, residents said local officials have largely ignored their pleas for years.

Jarret Palmer sits in his home near the Van Nuys Airport.

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“I’m sending letters and comments [to the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council] and all that, but they don’t get it,” said Danielle Sweet, a 30-year resident of Lake Balboa. The citizen panel offers feedback to airport officials. But Sweet, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, said the officials have done little to address her concerns. The disease can be caused by long-term exposure to chemicals and by tobacco use. Sweet said she is not a smoker.

“They [airport officials] don’t really care about us. They’re still making money, and it’s almost like they don’t care what they have to do to do that,” Sweet said.

Newly appointed airport manager Jacob Haik, whom some residents credit with improving the airport’s communication with its neighbors, said he is committed to ensuring that Van Nuys Airport “remains a good neighbor, while continuing to serve as a vital economic engine for the region.” Last fall, Haik told Capital & Main, “We’ve been working on all kinds of different sustainability, compliance and noise reduction plans.”

Los Angeles City Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who represents Van Nuys and Lake Balboa, said in a statement: “I remain committed to working with Los Angeles World Airports and City departments to center residents’ voices and strengthen environmental safeguards.” Padilla also pointed to the city’s efforts to update its land use plan for the airport, a process she initiated “to ensure future airport developments prioritizes community well-being,” she said in the statement.

Most health concerns reported by residents to Capital & Main were respiratory in nature, but dozens also said they linked other health problems to the airport, including skin conditions, cardiovascular problems and cancer.

Jeremy Fenske, a Lake Balboa resident of four years, said he copes with the constant smell of jet fuel in the air by keeping his windows closed at all times and having air purifiers in every room. A father of small children, he said the air quality has gotten worse since his family moved into the neighborhood. He said on one occasion his toddler son had an asthma attack that required a trip to urgent care for albuterol.

“There are flights going on at 2 a.m. or later here, and that’s the least annoying thing about the airport — it’s just the smell,” Fenske said. “It smells like raw jet fuel blowing into our neighborhood. We can’t even have parties at the house, we feel embarrassed about it.”

Fenske said that he plans to move his family out of the home this year.

Audrey Anderson, a Van Nuys resident of 14 years, said that despite being a nonsmoker, she suffers from an annoying cough and eye irritation when she is home. Those symptoms disappear when she is away at work.

Capital & Main conducted its digital survey of residents in Van Nuys and Lake Balboa last summer and fall. Reporters also canvassed door-to-door in Lake Balboa, a neighborhood of more than 26,000 residents. Van Nuys is home to more than 162,000 people.

It is difficult to draw a direct line between a particular illness and pollution at the airport, said Ed Avol, a professor of clinical medicine at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. But he added that the airport’s neighbors are understandably concerned. “I think those [concerns] are valid and should be looked at,” added Avol, who is an expert in respiratory health and air pollution.

Danielle Sweet in her Lake Balboa home.

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A 2016 study found that those who live near the 12 largest airports in California suffered from higher rates of respiratory and heart disease and visited emergency rooms at higher rates. A 2021 study linked increased brain cancer risk to exposure to airport-related ultrafine particles near Los Angeles International Airport, which is also operated by Los Angeles World Airports.

Children born in hospitals near Van Nuys Airport have a higher-than-average rate of low birth weights, according to the California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. The children who live in Lake Balboa, the community immediately west of Van Nuys Airport, are in the 90th percentile of lead exposure statewide, Cal EPA reported.

Van Nuys Airport ranks as the second-largest producer of lead emissions among airports statewide, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2017 National Emissions Inventory. Children under the age of 6 are especially vulnerable to lead exposure, which can slow their development and contribute to learning, behavior and speech problems.

But Van Nuys Airport is also an economic powerhouse for the city, generating more than $2 billion in business revenues annually and more than 10,000 jobs for the local economy. L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, whose district includes parts of Van Nuys, Encino and Sherman Oaks, described the community members’ battles with the airport as a “David versus Goliath situation.”

“The economic impacts and benefits of these airports for this region are really enormous, and a lot of the time, for people in leadership, that outweighs considerations of the impacts that they’re having on local communities,” Raman said.

The challenge of addressing the effect of the airport on the surrounding community became clear last year when a Los Angeles City Council committee voted to block the construction of a new hangar at Van Nuys Airport in response to residents’ concerns, only to later reverse its decision. The initial vote was met with stiff opposition from the aviation industry, as well as from federal regulators, who threatened to withhold grant funding. Mayor Karen Bass ultimately argued that rejecting the lease would result in the loss of hundreds of millions in federal dollars, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Raman joined the majority in voting to both approve the lease and to settle a lawsuit filed against the city by Bonseph Helinet LLC, the helicopter joint venture that had proposed the new hangar at the airport.

Palmer views a plane above his Van Nuys home.

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Van Nuys Airport’s economic importance is not the only challenge for residents. City and federal agencies share oversight authority over the airport, but none wields absolute control over its operations. In some cases, gaps in oversight exist.

For example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency establishes air quality standards nationwide under the Clean Air Act, but neither of the local agencies charged with enforcing these standards — the California Air Resources Board or the South Coast Air Quality Management District — have jurisdiction over aircraft emissions.

“They don’t have the authority to tell a particular airport that you need to shut down because your emissions are too high or that you cannot operate because you don’t meet our emission standards, because those airports are outside their jurisdiction,” said Yifang Zhu, a professor in the University of California, Los Angeles’ Department of Health Sciences who researches air pollution and climate change. “Those emission sources are under EPA’s purview but their hands are tied because this is also FAA-involved.”

The Federal Aviation Administration provides millions of dollars in grant funds for improvements at airports across the country, including Van Nuys Airport.

That said, it is not impossible for city officials to push back against polluting airports. After a decades of local protest and litigation, city and federal regulators agreed to close the Santa Monica Airport in 2028.

“If someone really wants to work on it, there are ways to do it,” Zhu said. “It’s just that you have to see it as a priority. And I don’t think they [governmental bodies] are seeing it as a priority at this point.”

Frustrated advocacy groups have turned to the courts, successfully suing companies at Van Nuys and other airports that provide fueling and maintenance for private planes that use leaded fuel.

In 2014, companies at 23 California airports settled with the Oakland-based Center for Environmental Health over alleged violations of Proposition 65, which mandated warnings for carcinogen exposure. The settlement also required the companies to switch to unleaded fuel once an alternative was available. Late last year, the center filed a motion in Alameda County Superior Court alleging that the companies had not complied with the agreement.

Meanwhile, the volume of air traffic at Van Nuys continues to trend upward. Between 2012 and 2022, the airport averaged more than 249,000 takeoffs and landings annually, according to Los Angeles World Airports. Former Van Nuys Airport manager Paul Herrera told Aviation Week in April 2024 that the number of such operations had reached nearly 328,000.

“It sounds like they’re dive-bombing us,” said Kern Konwiser, a Van Nuys resident of nine years. “It’s certainly a heightened anxiety and persistent level of stress.”

Vani Sanganeria contributed to the reporting of this article.

All photos by Jeremy Lindenfeld.

Copyright 2025 Capital & Main.

This summer's World Cup has been a bonanza for corporate sponsors.

Hydration breaks are "powered by Powerade." Each game crowns a Michelob Ultra "superior player of the match." Even the signs announcing player substitutions have a label slapped on: Rexona deodorant, which is owned by Unilever. They're the "official personal care sponsor" of this World Cup.

This relentless branding is nothing new for major sporting events, but it has provoked outrage in Los Angeles, where protests during the tournament took aim at FIFA's corporate partners, saying they betrayed the city's values.

At a demonstration in downtown L.A. last week, advocates rallied against a number of high-profile sponsors of the tournament, including Home Depot, the official "home improvement retailer" for the 2026 World Cup.

Its signature orange branding has been splashed across tournament activations this summer, but in the L.A. area its parking lots have been the sites of high profile immigration raids. Last summer in Monrovia, a man was killed fleeing ICE activity in a Home Depot parking lot after he ran onto a freeway and was hit by a car. In another incident, federal agents jumped out of a Penske moving van at the Westlake Home Depot and detained 16 people.

" Their parking lots have been turned into hunting grounds," said Miriam Arghandiwal, an organizer with the Boycott Home Depot Coalition.

" FIFA has been intentional in allowing the people's game to become the billionaire's game, and there's no better example of this than its choice in sponsors," she said at the protest.

The group also railed against FIFA partners Hyundai and Kia, citing a 2022 report that suppliers of Hyundai and Kia had used child labor in its Alabama factories. LAist has reached out to Home Depot and the Hyundai Motor Group, which also owns Kia, for comment.

Demonstrators said they wanted FIFA to make corporate accountability a metric of accepting a sponsor.

" We know mega-events like the World Cup can only happen with the support of host communities, local infrastructure and resources, with the workers throughout various supply chains that make these events possible," said Valerie Lizárraga with the nonprofit Jobs to Move America.

The group was also gathered to demand action from the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission, which runs the L.A. World Cup Host Committee. Demonstrators said they were dissatisfied with the committee's guidance on human rights for the World Cup.

A spokesperson for that commission deferred to FIFA for comment on corporate sponsorships. FIFA did not respond to LAist's request.

Last week, a small group of climate activists also demonstrated outside SoFi Stadium against Saudi energy company Aramco, another major FIFA partner. They were calling on FIFA to drop the fossil fuel giant as a sponsor.

The World Cup is wrapped up in Los Angeles after Friday's quarterfinal match between Spain and Belgium. But advocates rallying in L.A. say they are looking toward the future.

" Things like the World Cup [and] the Olympics are events that are fueled by people," said Father Thomas Carey, a member of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. "The question is, do we hold them to account to take care of and protect the people who work for them and the people who attend their games?"

Next year, Los Angeles will host the 2027 Super Bowl. And the year after that will be the Olympics.

The Trump administration is abandoning its most aggressive attempt to end gender-affirming care for youth nationally, according to an official document obtained by NPR.

The document shows that the Department of Health and Human Services will not be finalizing a proposed rule that would have blocked all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told NPR in a statement: "CMS does not comment on future rulemaking or speculate on potential actions. The Trump Administration rejects ideologically driven surgical interventions on vulnerable children."

(Surgery is very rare among transgender people under age 18, and the rule applied to all gender-affirming care, which is mainly therapy and medications for children.)

A "victory" for trans rights, but not a "retreat" by HHS

The fact that the Trump administration is backing off from this action is "a victory for people who are defending the rights and interests of trans people," says Sam Bagenstos, a professor at Michigan Law who served as general counsel at HHS under the Biden administration. "But I don't think it indicates a more general retreat from the aggressive posture of the Trump administration."

Bagenstos notes that this type of leverage — a "conditions of participation" rule for the Medicare and Medicaid program — has historically been used by HHS to compel states and hospitals to meet basic health and safety standards. Things like "making sure that you have stockpiles of certain kinds of equipment, making sure that you have certain kinds of emergency protocols, making sure that you have certain staffing ratios," he explains.

The proposed rule was unprecedented, Bagenstos says, because it instead would have prohibited certain kinds of treatments for a certain population. He says it seemed unlawful in a variety of ways. For one, "it violates the Medicare Act, which says that Medicare and Medicaid can't be used to control the practice of medicine within the state — states get to regulate the practice of medicine," Bagenstos says.

Medical groups opposed the change

Normally, HHS would propose a rule, accept public comment for 60 days, and then finalize the rule so that it could take effect. In this case, after proposing the rule in December and receiving more than 30,000 comments, the administration is abandoning the rule. At least in the next year, it will not be finalized and will not take effect.

The American Medical Association and the Children's Hospital Association both submitted comments urging the agency to rescind or withdraw the proposed rule. Major U.S. medical groups say that puberty blockers and sex hormones are safe and can be effective for transgender young people.

Even so, gender-affirming care for youth is banned in 27 states after a flurry of laws passed over the last several years. In the remaining 23 states, many hospital clinics that offer gender-affirming care have continued to operate, while others have shuttered in the past year citing pressure from the Trump administration.

That pressure has come in the form of this proposed rule, another rule that would bar federal Medicaid reimbursement for transgender pediatric patients, and a declaration from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that aimed to redefine the standard of care. (Interestingly, the press release issued when those actions were unveiled in December is now missing from the HHS website, as is the Kennedy declaration document.)

The Medicaid rule is currently in the final stage of review and appears to be on track to take effect in the coming weeks. A coalition of Democratic-led states sued over the so-called Kennedy declaration and succeeded in blocking it in federal court in Oregon. The Trump administration has not appealed that decision so far.

Protesters who are against gender-affirming care for young people gathered outside Boston Children's Hospital in September 2022.

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Carlin Stiehl for The Boston Globe

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At the same time, the Department of Justice has issued administrative and criminal subpoenas to hospitals seeking full personal medical files for transgender youth and employment files for their medical providers, although many of those attempts have been blocked in court so far. The Trump administration has also reached settlements with hospitals in Texas and Ohio that involved establishing "detransition" clinics.

And last month, when the Supreme Court allowed states to bar young transgender girls from sports, the White House issued a press release saying that the decision "Bolsters President Trump's Push to Eliminate Transgender Insanity." The release listed actions targeting transgender people across the federal government, from passport markers to military service to research funding.

Will hospitals that ended care for trans youth restart it?

While the Trump administration does not appear to be backing down from anti-transgender actions broadly, its decision not to finalize its most aggressive healthcare rule is significant, says Katie Keith, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown University who also worked in the Biden administration. Those other efforts are not nearly as durable as a finalized rule that takes effect, she notes.

The decision of the Trump administration not to finalize this rule "should give hospitals more confidence to either resume or continue offering the care," she says. Because the rule was never in effect, "I would argue that they should have been doing this all along anyway."

Kellan Baker agrees. He's a senior adviser for health policy at the Movement Advancement Project think tank, which focuses on LGBTQ issues. "This administration may have checked itself in one of the most extreme expressions of its agenda and I think people should take solace in that," he says. "But at the same time, this administration is continuing to show that its ultimate goal is eliminating healthcare for trans people and that it is apparently prepared to use almost any means necessary to do so."

The Medicare and Medicaid rule could theoretically be revived at some point, since it has not been formally withdrawn. An entry in the Trump administration's recent unified agenda sets a final action date for the proposed rule as December 2028, just before President Trump leaves office.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a new law that expands the state's mobile ID program to 60% of licensed drivers, his office announced Monday.

For the last few years, participating residents have been able to use the state-issued mobile app and store their IDs in certain phone wallets as part of a pilot program.

Where you can use it

The program works for driver's licenses and state IDs.

The mobile version is mainly valid at airport security, but use is expected to expand in the future.

TSA accepts the California DMV Wallet App, as well as Apple, Google or Samsung wallets. A small number of stores accept them for age-restricted purchases.

One big caveat: Mobile IDs are not accepted by law enforcement or most state government agencies.

That means you should still keep your physical ID or license with you, especially if you're driving. You can find a full list of accepted places on the DMV's website.

How you can apply

Access to the program was previously capped to 4.2 million drivers — now that's quadrupled to over 16 million.

You can join the pilot by downloading the CA DMV Wallet app from your phone's app store and logging into your MyDMV account.

You'll need to provide your driver's license or ID card information. The app will prompt you to scan your card, and you'll have to refresh the mobile ID every 30 days.

More than 3.5 million Californians have joined so far.