The Brief

Reza Arzanian has only been able to get in touch with his parents in Iran once since the U.S. and Israel began bombing the country over the weekend. Communication into the country is nearly impossible — he has to rely on them contacting him.

The Los Angeles resident isn’t yet sure how to think about the evolving attack on the country of 90 million people, where he lived until he was 25. Even when news came Saturday that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed, Arzanian was unmoved.

“ I wasn't happy or I wasn't sad,” he said. “All I could think of was the last time I spoke with my mom and her voice was shaking and she was telling me her jaw was shaking because she was so scared.”

This is the reality for so many Southern Californians with ties to the Middle East. In the last few years, there has been a relentless barrage of news about tragedy and bloodshed: Iran’s Zan, Zendegi, Azadi movement in 2022; Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023 that killed about 1,200 people and Israel’s subsequent military assault on Gaza that killed more than 70,000 people; the fall of Bashar Al Assad’s regime in Syria; recent protests in Iran over economic conditions that the regime violently put down; and other headlines from Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

The unrelenting stories of destruction and tragedy from the region — which are inescapable on the news, social media and in group text message threads — are taking a toll.

Marwa Azab, a mental health expert and a professor at Cal State Long Beach, said people can go from a state of “hyperarousal” — or increased anxiety — in their nervous systems to “being disconnected from the body, feeling emotional numbness.”

 ”The misinformation, inciting and inflaming media has made our identity fragments fight each other, like parts of us are fighting each other, really making it very difficult, if not impossible, at this present moment to feel whole,” she said.  ”This numbness, this detachment from the body where the mind and body becomes separate, makes us further removed from who we are, from our identity, and gives us a sense of being fragmented.”

Arzanian, who is Iranian American, can relate.

“ It feels hard to exist in my body,” he said Monday. “Like yesterday, I didn't know what to do with myself. I cannot distract myself.”

Struggling to exhale

Rachel Sumekh, an Iranian Jewish economic justice activist, told LAist she feels as though she is holding her breath, struggling to exhale.

“We have no idea what will happen. We pray that what happens next will be something that's good, will be something that brings freedom to the people of Iran,” she said.

And as a U.S. citizen with Iranian roots who is Jewish and has ties to Israel, Sumekh called the current moment “nuts.”

But her identity has also been politicized since she could remember.

“ I have avoided telling people I'm Jewish at times since Oct. 7, simply because I feel like then I need to qualify that I believe in human rights and whatever my international positions are,” she said.

But she added that this multifaceted identity has also helped her cope and navigate life in America, “designing and developing life here in America in a way that feels future-oriented as opposed to saddled with what the heaviness of those identities comes with.”

Sumekh has never set foot in Iran. Her father left before the Iranian Revolution, and her mother escaped a few years after the Revolution on the back of a camel. Israel was where her family escaped to as refugees when they left Iran. And her identity shows up in how she interacts with people and moves through life. Her activism, including organizing around ending campus hunger, she said, is rooted in Persian principles of hospitality, warmth and openness.

One way she copes with the heaviness of it all, she said, is deleting social media.

Arzanian said he has been avoiding social media, too. Instead, he relies on a Telegram channel for news updates. To get away from the news, he tries to stay active, do breath work and write in his journal.

“I  try to write before doing anything, and usually my writing is a mixture of how I'm feeling and prayers,” he said.

Shared reality 

Sandy Hamideh knows how Sumekh and Arzanian are feeling.

The last few years have left the Palestinian American who lives in Rowland Heights “overwhelmed.”

Her young children remind her of the children dying in Gaza, and as she prepares their food and helps them with homework, she’s reminded of the people back home.

“ I'm just stuck in this cycle, the same just recurring cycle,” Hamideh said. “We think it's going to get better, and here we are two and a half years later and still, stuck and confused and scared.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has changed her, she said. She's become a more grateful person, not overlooking the little luxuries. And, she said, she has been heartened by the outpouring of support she's seen for Palestinians. Before, Hamideh said, she would quickly brush past the fact that she was Palestinian.

“ Now, I'm more proud about it because people are out there like learning and loving your culture, so that's really nice,” she said.

But there is also a sadness that permeates everything she does, Hamideh said.

 ”The things I would get excited for before, now I look at it differently,” she said. “People across the world don't have these resources or have these moments of good times or these chances to go out and explore and just the freedom.”

Sumekh also identified with recent victims of violence. She said the news of Iranian protesters being killed earlier in the year as they called for regime change affected her more than the recent strikes.

“ Those were Iranians who could have been me there fighting for freedom,” Sumekh said. “What's happening now is just a bunch of strong men, politicians bombing each other.”

Survivor’s guilt 

Marwa Azab, a psychology professor at Cal State Long Beach.

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Cal State Long Beach’s Azab calls this survivor’s guilt “a beautiful thing.”

 ”It means that we are still human … that we have morality,” she said.

She cautioned that people should not let that fester into feeling responsible for the destruction and tragedy.

Instead, Azab advised, people should turn any guilt they feel into values. Remind yourself that feelings of guilt mean you value human life and relationships.

For people with ties to the Middle East, the images can be retraumatizing, she said. The danger that some people fled has not ended, so they keep reliving that trauma over and over again.

And, Azab said, the images of destruction can be more triggering for people with ties to the region because they share aspects of their identity.

How to prioritize conversation 

Andrea Hodos, associate director of NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change, understands why people feel overwhelmed.

“ I'm worried about Israeli Jews, Palestinian citizens of Israel. I'm worried about Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. I'm worried about people in Saudi Arabia. I'm worried about people in UAE and Lebanon and all of these places. Jordan was hit because there are U.S. bases there and there are so many civilians who are impacted by Iranian leadership,” she said.

Her advice to people is to have deep conversations — and to do more listening than talking.

Even if you go into a conversation really wanting to share your perspective, she said, first be prepared to listen. You may find openings in someone else’s perspective and the other side will be open to hearing your side.

A federal appeals court has restricted access to one of the most common means of abortion in the U.S. by blocking the mailing of mifepristone.

A panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is requiring that the abortion pill be distributed only in-person at clinics.

Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, the two makers of mifepristone, have directly asked the Supreme Court to grant them emergency relief, to allow mifepristone to remain available through telemedicine as the case continues.

"The Fifth Circuit's order has unleashed regulatory chaos," reads the GenBioPro emergency application to the Supreme Court. The brief also points out that access via pharmacies is restricted by the new order. "Today, patients who planned to pick up a mifepristone prescription at their local pharmacy may no longer be able to do so, regardless of which state they live in."

Since the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed enforcement of abortion bans, prescriptions by mail has become a major way that abortions are provided — including to states where bans are in place.

"Every abortion facilitated by FDA's action cancels Louisiana's ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that 'every unborn child is human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person,'" the ruling states.

Judges have long deferred to the Food and Drug Administration's judgments on the safety and appropriate regulation of drugs.

FDA officials under President Donald Trump have repeatedly stated the agency is conducting a new review of mifepristone's safety, at the direction of the president.

The appeals court judges noted in their ruling that FDA "could not say when that review might be complete and admitted it was still collecting data."

In a court filing, Louisiana's attorney general and a woman who says she was coerced into taking abortion pills requested that the FDA rules be rolled back to when the pills were allowed to be prescribed and dispensed only in person.

A Louisiana-based federal judge last month ruled that those allowances undermined the state's abortion ban but stopped short of undoing the regulations immediately.

"This is going to affect patients' access to abortion and miscarriage care in every state in the nation," said Julia Kaye, an ACLU lawyer. "When telemedicine is restricted, rural communities, people with low incomes, people with disabilities, survivors of intimate partner violence and communities of color suffer the most."

Mifepristone was approved in 2000 as a safe and effective way to end early pregnancies. It is typically used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol.

Misoprostol is an older medication that is also used to treat gastric ulcers. It can be used alone to induce abortion and may remain available via telemedicine. The two-drug regimen is preferred because it generally causes less cramping and bleeding for most patients.

When mifepristone was approved in 2000, the FDA initially imposed strict limits on who could prescribe and distribute the pill — only specially certified physicians and only after an in-person appointment where the person would receive the pill.

Both those requirements were dropped during the COVID-19 years. At the time, FDA officials under President Joe Biden said that after more than 20 years of monitoring mifepristone use, and reviewing dozens of studies involving thousands of women, it was clear that women could safely use the pill without direct supervision.

The conservative-majority high court overturned abortion as a nationwide right in 2022 but unanimously preserved access to mifepristone two years later.

That 2024 decision sidestepped the core issues, however, by ruling that the anti-abortion doctors behind the case didn't have legal standing to sue.

NPR staff Selena Simmons-Duffin and Diane Webber contributed to to this report.
Copyright 2026 NPR

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.