The Brief

The Trump administration has, for the first time ever, built a searchable national citizenship data system.

The tool, which is being rolled out in phases, is designed to be used by state and local election officials to give them an easier way to ensure only citizens are voting. But it was developed rapidly without a public process, and some of those officials are already worrying about what else it could be used for.

NPR is the first news organization to report the details of the new system.

For decades, voting officials have noted that there was no national citizenship list to compare their state lists to, so to verify citizenship for their voters, they either needed to ask people to provide a birth certificate or a passport — something that could disenfranchise millions — or use a complex patchwork of disparate data sources.

Now, the Department of Homeland Security is offering another way.

DHS, in partnership with the White House's Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE) team, has recently rolled out a series of upgrades to a network of federal databases to allow state and county election officials to quickly check the citizenship status of their entire voter lists — both U.S.-born and naturalized citizens — using data from the Social Security Administration as well as immigration databases.

Such integration has never existed before, and experts call it a sea change that inches the U.S. closer to having a roster of citizens — something the country has never embraced. A centralized national database of Americans' personal information has long been considered a third rail — especially to privacy advocates as well as political conservatives, who have traditionally opposed mass data consolidation by the federal government.

Legal experts told NPR they were alarmed that a development of this magnitude was already underway without a transparent and public process.

"That is a debate that needs to play out in a public setting," said John Davisson, the director of litigation at the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center. "It's one that deserves public scrutiny and sunlight, that deserves the participation of elected representatives, that deserves opportunities for the public to weigh in through public comment and testimony."

When federal agencies plan to collect or use Americans' personal data in new ways, there are procedures they are required to follow beforehand, including giving public notice.

Another privacy expert, University of Virginia School of Law professor Danielle Citron, called this data aggregation effort a "hair on fire" development. She told NPR she has questions if the project itself is lawful.

Many other questions about the new system remain, including which states plan to use it and how, what sort of data security measures are being taken and how trustworthy the data the tool provides will be. It's also unknown what the federal government plans to do with the voter records after they've been run through the system.

The recent history of elections is littered with failed data matching efforts, often driven by false fraud narratives, which have entangled eligible voters. The first Trump administration attempted the beginnings of a similar data project, though the effort shuttered after most states balked at sharing their voter data.

The fact that the development and rollout follow Trump's falsehoods about widespread noncitizen voting makes election experts wary of how this new tool will work.

"We've never had a list of U.S. citizens to compare our voter registration lists to," said Kim Wyman, the former Republican secretary of state of Washington who is now a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center. "It seems like it takes the federal government more than just [a few] months to be able to make a comprehensive national database of information that's going to be accurate … That's what my concern is, just first and foremost, that the list is accurate."

Potential voters get information at a voter registration event on October 22, 2024 at Cal State Los Angeles in Los Angeles.

(

Frederic J. Brown

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

Everyone registering to vote must swear, under penalty of perjury, that they are a U.S. citizen. The consequences for noncitizens who try to vote include fines, prison time and deportation. Officials say that deterrent is why cases of ineligible people casting ballots are incredibly rare — a fact that's become increasingly apparent as more and more states devote resources to uncovering the few people that slip through the cracks every election. Research has also shown that when noncitizens do vote, it's often not to commit fraud but rather because they misunderstood eligibility rules.

President Trump and his allies have continued to emphasize the issue. The Justice Department has prioritized its prosecution and Republican lawmakers are pushing new legislation at both the national and state level to require people show proof of citizenship in order to register to vote.

If this new tool is successful, it could provide local and state governments a powerful method to check the citizenship of almost all Americans without additional documentation requirements.

"Taking that burden of proof, if you will, off the voter … is a good thing," said Wyman, who also worked for the Department of Homeland Security on election security issues in the Biden administration.

But she noted that a national citizenship list and anything resembling a national voter registration list have been controversial ideas for a long time, so the Trump administration is wading into uncharted waters.

"All of us that live in this free country and this free society want to believe that there are some privacy rights that are still being upheld in our lives," Wyman said. "The attention to detail matters here in many, many big ways."

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, which is under the Department of Homeland Security, is managing the tool. The agency did not provide more information about how it will work when contacted by NPR. In a statement, spokesman Matthew Tragesser called the development a "game changer" and said the agency looks forward to "implementing more updates."

"USCIS is moving quickly to eliminate benefit and voter fraud among the alien population," Tragesser said.

What SAVE did and what it does now

This new citizenship check capability comes from a massive expansion of a tool voting officials only used sparingly in the past.

The tool, known as the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, is a system of DHS databases that state and federal agencies have queried since the 1980s to check the immigration status of noncitizens living in the U.S. legally. Agencies can then decide if the applicants are eligible for different government benefits.

For roughly the past decade, some voting officials have also used SAVE to check the citizenship of voters on their rolls, usually in instances where department of motor vehicle records indicated a voter is a noncitizen, since those records often aren't updated when a person naturalizes. Election officials could use SAVE to get a more recent immigration snapshot, which would either verify that a person had become a citizen and was indeed eligible to vote, or if no naturalization record was found, indicate to the official that they should reach out to the voter about whether they are a citizen.

But using SAVE for this sort of verification was unwieldy.

Election officials across the political spectrum complained they did not have the specific immigration identification numbers needed to query the system, and in cases where they did, it was expensive and labor intensive to submit one query at a time. Ahead of the 2024 election, some Republican-led states ramped up their complaints about the inadequacies of the tool. Just weeks before the election, Texas, Florida and Ohio sued DHS, arguing the Biden administration was failing to help states verify their voters' citizenship.

USCIS began planning upgrades to the system at the end of the Biden administration, according to a person who attended a briefing where it was discussed but was not authorized to speak to the media. After Trump took office, DHS began a series of regular calls with some state election staffers to talk through potential updates.

A key turning point came in March, when Trump signed an executive order that made sweeping changes to voting and election protocols, including requiring DHS to allow states "access to appropriate systems" for verifying the citizenship of voters on their rolls without a cost, and instructing DOGE to assist the agency in combing voter rolls for noncitizens.

The order also instructed the attorney general to prioritize prosecuting non-citizens who register to vote, whether they actually voted or not, using "databases or information maintained by the Department of Homeland Security."

(

Natalya Kosarevich

/

Getty Images

)

Within weeks, USCIS began announcing rolling upgrades to SAVE, crediting DOGE with the changes. On April 22, the agency revealed SAVE was now free for non-federal agencies, and could handle mass checks. Then, a May 22 news release announced SAVE had integrated data from the Social Security Administration so election officials could query it with a nine-digit Social Security Number.

Though the May news release didn't mention it explicitly, the Social Security change meant for the first time SAVE could verify the citizenship of U.S.-born Americans with a valid Social Security number, which nearly every American citizen has.

That development is a major move that turned SAVE from a tool that only responded to queries about foreign-born citizens or noncitizens into something that could comb through entire voter lists. But numerous state voting officials NPR spoke with were not aware that capability was part of the updates.

As recently as late April, a USCIS fact sheet about using SAVE for voting records said the opposite. "SAVE does not verify U.S. born citizens under any circumstances. SAVE does not access databases that contain U.S.-born citizen information," the web page read, according to a snapshot captured by the Internet Archive.

That has now been changed. In a version that was last updated in June, the fact sheet now says that looking up U.S.-born citizens is possible with a Social Security Number. "SAVE is able in many cases to verify U.S.-born U.S. citizens for voter verification purposes, through information accessed through the SSA," it reads. NPR has not yet spoken to a state voting official who has looked up a U.S.-born citizen on the new SAVE platform.

Social Security Administration data systems can show whether an applicant was a citizen or a noncitizen at the time they received their number, said Kathleen Romig, a former SSA official who works at the liberal-leaning policy nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The Department of Homeland Security has combined that point-in-time citizenship information, with SAVE's ability to more thoroughly tell whether a person has naturalized, to create a system that voting officials can use to theoretically nail down citizenship status for voters they have Social Security numbers for.

Upon hearing the details, numerous voting data experts told NPR it sounded like a system that could work. The question, they say, is whether quality control systems are in place to catch the inevitable mistakes that will come from comparing hundreds of millions of records, especially when the stakes are as high as questioning someone's citizenship.

There are some known data challenges with SAVE. For instance, there can be a lag time between when a person naturalizes and when that information is entered into the system, which can lead to the initial appearance that a person is a noncitizen on the voter rolls if they registered to vote immediately after naturalizing. SAVE materials also make clear there are some foreign-born citizens who cannot be verified by the system.

New U.S. citizens stand during a naturalization ceremony in Chicago on June 25, 2025. Newly-naturalized citizens may fall through the cracks of the new citizenship verification tool built by the Department of Homeland Security.

(

Kamil Krzaczynski

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

USCIS acknowledges these shortfalls and tells users that if the system returns an answer other than confirming citizenship, then it must also be manually reviewed by USCIS staff, and the elections office must contact the voter to give them a chance to provide proof of citizenship.

It's also unclear how reliable or complete the data coming from the Social Security Administration is, because as MIT election expert Charles Stewart notes, that data as well as the data within SAVE and on the voter rolls was collected independently and without this sort of integration in mind. A report from the Institute for Responsive Government noted recently that the SSA only began adding citizenship tags to records roughly 40 years ago, so the agency's data on natural-born citizens may be incomplete.

"The concern with any of these data-based matching procedures, is that people who don't know much about voter registration datasets just assume that the data are clean on [all] sides," said Stewart.

The most notable election data matching success story, a program called the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), took multiple years to develop and roll out. The system allows its more than two dozen member states to share government data across state lines, to eliminate dead voters from the rolls, find the few people in every federal election who illegally vote twice, and also register eligible voters when they move to a new place.

Nine Republican-led states have since pulled out of the organization due to viral falsehoods that spread on the far-right and general uneasiness about having a third party combing through state voter rolls. At least two of those states, Louisiana and Texas, are early piloters of this new data tool run by the federal government. The states have not disclosed many details and declined NPR's interview requests.

DHS says so far it has run more than 9 million voter records through the upgraded SAVE system, according to a person who attended a briefing about the new capabilities who was not authorized to speak to the media, and that early analysis found those records to contain 99.99% U.S. citizens. That analysis has not been independently verified, and it's not clear if any of the few noncitizens they did find ever actually voted.

"If this rolls out and it turns out that our voter rolls are pretty darn accurate … and it is shouted from the mountaintops and people believe it, then that would be big," said Tammy Patrick, an election expert at the nonprofit Election Center and former Arizona voting official. She noted however that there are large financial incentives, both for candidates and for grassroots election denial groups and influencers, to keep pushing misleading claims about noncitizen voting.

"My concern is that I'm not so sure that there will be those who will believe it, that there will be those who will stop raising donations and campaign funds on the narrative of fear-mongering and the illegitimacy of our systems," Patrick said.

Most states can't use the new SAVE capabilities yet because they don't collect full Social Security numbers as part of the voter registration process.

But the next SAVE upgrade will allow election officials to query with just the last four digits of a Social Security number, in addition to a full name and birthdate, according to two people who were on calls where such plans were discussed but asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the plan. Such an expansion will make the citizenship searches available for all voting officials, although there is a wide range across the country when it comes to how much of a state's voter records have even partial Social Security numbers associated with them.

Future plans also include integrating state DMV data, according to the same sources, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is expected to reach out to every state's chief election official soon encouraging them to run their rolls through the system.

Some Republican election officials have been happy that DHS is taking their concerns about SAVE seriously. Idaho's Republican Secretary of State Phil McGrane used SAVE extensively ahead of the 2024 election, but found it difficult to use.

"This wasn't what the database was meant for and we were asking something of it that it really wasn't designed for," McGrane told NPR in early June. "Now there is attention being put to it to make it work that way."

However when NPR reached out more recently to ask about SAVE's new broader citizenship check capabilities, a spokesperson for McGrane's office, Chelsea Carattini, said the secretary had not been briefed or made aware of those changes by the federal government.

Who gets to know what's being built

While USCIS denied NPR's interview request about the changes and has sporadically shared updates with some state voting officials, a DHS staffer gave a full briefing about the tool to an influential group known for pushing false and misleading election fraud narratives.

On June 12, the Election Integrity Network, a grassroots group led by conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell who worked with President Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election, hosted a virtual event with David Jennings, who oversees the SAVE system. Democracy Docket first reported the briefing.

NPR also acquired audio of Mitchell seemingly speaking about Jennings at an earlier Election Integrity Network event in May. The nonprofit investigative group Documented, which often acquires audio of Mitchell's events, provided a recording to NPR.

"He is in charge of the SAVE database that has the citizenship data for, you know, everybody," Mitchell said at the May event. "And he is in the process of reconfiguring the entire [thing] so that we can actually determine who on the voter rolls is and is not a citizen."

Voting experts NPR spoke with expressed concern that the agency overseeing the creation of the voter data tool was sharing details with a group involved with denying the 2020 election results, but not the American public.

"Before the federal government just up and creates a massive data system that purports to be a record on all of us — that's a public conversation that we're owed," said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor and former Biden White House adviser on voting rights. "And not just as a public policy matter, as a moral matter, as a legal matter."

Under the Privacy Act of 1974, there is a formal process known as a system of records notice, for federal agencies to give public notice about new ways they intend to collect or use Americans' personal information. No such notice appears to have been published for the upgrade to SAVE that integrates Social Security data, and neither USCIS or SSA responded to an NPR inquiry asking if a new one had been issued.

Data Unknowns

The SAVE upgrade is part of a larger trend, led by DOGE, of the Trump administration taking unprecedented steps to amass and connect data across the federal government. The effort has sparked over a dozen lawsuits and cybersecurity concerns.

The public officials condemning the data consolidation have mostly been Democrats however, which is a departure from past privacy debates in American history.

"One thing that's rather striking about these moves around data in the present is that there has been so little outcry actually on the right, who have been sort of the standard bearers of worry about big government and data merging and data collection to begin with," said Sarah Igo, a history professor at Vanderbilt University.

One conservative voice who is expressing such concerns is Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder of the nonprofit True the Vote, which has pushed numerous election conspiracy theories over the past decade.

Engelbrecht praised the SAVE effort in a recent newsletter, but expressed discomfort about the administration's efforts to centralize various federal databases and give access to the contractor Palantir.

"Such centralization of data poses a threat to individual freedoms and privacy," she wrote. "Surrendering our data to unchecked power isn't just a technical risk— it's a moral failure."

One of the biggest questions about the new SAVE is what happens to the voter data that states and counties upload to the system, particularly since it is now designed to verify entire state voter rolls.

USCIS specifies that it retains records of SAVE queries for 10 years. The agency did not respond to NPR's questions about whether it will keep copies of state voter rolls uploaded to SAVE, or whether it will use information states provide through the system as a basis for criminal or immigration investigations.

A state election official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the development told NPR they were specifically worried about how the administration would use information provided by states in immigration crackdown efforts. For that reason, the official, who has worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations, said they expected there to be a clear partisan division in which states use it, even if all election officials have the same goal of accurate voter rolls.

"If I believed this database was accurate, and that I was going to get good usable information from it, you're damn right I would use it," the official said. "The question is, is the data usable? And [usable] in a way that I'm not going to jeopardize people who live in my jurisdiction?"

Have information you want to share with NPR? Reach out to these authors through encrypted communication on Signal. Miles Parks is at milesparks.10 and Jude Joffe-Block is at JudeJB.10. Please use a nonwork device.

Copyright 2025 NPR

After the Thanksgiving leftovers are gobbled and the Christmas trees come down, many turn their attention to the new year, and may celebrate by making resolutions or watching the Times Square ball drop.

Thanks to the widely adopted Gregorian calendar, most people have marked the new year on Jan. 1 for centuries. But with so many other calendar systems — such as the Chinese, Islamic or Hebrew calendar — how did this come to be? And how did it come to represent new beginnings?

How the Gregorian calendar — and Jan. 1 — was born

Let's go back in time. The Gregorian calendar, and its Jan. 1 start date, has its origins in ancient Rome.

The goal of many early Roman calendars was to find a way to align lunar cycles, solar years and seasons, as several religious festivals and holidays revolved around the equinoxes and moon phases.

For example, many Christians wanted Easter to fall on the spring equinox every year, said Darin Hayton, an associate professor of history at Haverford College.

"So we have a number of competing goals that don't admit easily of mathematical solutions," he said.

When a 10-month calendar didn't do the trick, the Romans borrowed from the Greeks and Egyptians, who figured out that 12 lunar cycles fit into a solar cycle. So Roman King Numa Pompilius extended their calendar to 12 months by adding February and January, named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings. Jan. 1 was then made the start of the calendar, Hayton said.

In 45 B.C.E., while Julius Caesar was high priest, he stretched the 12-month calendar to 365 days and a quarter of a day. But that quarter amounted to a full day after four years. So he implemented leap years to catch the calendar back up with the solar year, Hayton said.

But there was still a problem. The astronomers of Caesar's day who calculated the length of a solar year were off by about 11 ½ minutes, a misalignment that would grow significantly over time.

To fix the overcorrection, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII added a caveat to leap years: a century year (such as the year 2000) will only be considered a leap year if it is divisible by 400.

Hence, the Gregorian calendar was born. It was popularized as European countries that were a "dominant economic force" began using it, and took it with them into countries they colonized, Hayton said.

Many cultures use days other than Jan. 1 to ring in the new year

Much of the world uses the Gregorian calendar and its Jan. 1 start date as New Year's personally and professionally, but many cultures also use their own calendars for social and spiritual occasions.

In some Asian cultures, such as Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese, people celebrate the Lunar New Year between late January and February to coincide with the first new moon on the lunar calendar.

"It emphasizes family reunions, honoring of ancestors, and prosperity," said Usha Haley, who teaches international business at Wichita State University's business school.

Rosh Hashanah is the Jewish New Year and falls on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, which is September or October on the Gregorian calendar, according to History.com. Nowruz, the Persian New Year, coincides with the spring equinox in March, Haley said.

Rosh Hashanah "marks a time of reflection, repentance, and spiritual renewal," Haley said, while Norwuz celebrates "rebirth and nature."

How to make your own fresh start

People gravitate to New Year's Day to reset as a part of the "fresh start effect," said Katherine Milkman, a professor of operations, information and decisions at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton business school.

The phenomenon is rooted in humans' tendency to perceive moments in our lives as chapters, instead of one long continuum, and New Year's gives us a "chapter break" from old patterns and previous experiences.

"'That was the old me, and this is the new me, and the new me is going to be different,'" she said. "It gives us optimism about our ability to achieve more."

New Year's is the most popular "fresh start" because there's a strong social pressure, as many other people are doing the same thing at the same time, Milkman said.

But you don't have to start anew on Jan. 1. A fresh start is still valuable if it's on your birthday, the first day in a new apartment or even on a random Monday, according to Milkman.

To stick with the goals you've laid out for a fresh start, Milkman recommends breaking them down into small, actionable items and making them enjoyable. That could mean partnering with someone on a goal or "temptation bundling," which pairs your goals with things you like.

"Like, 'I only get to binge watch my favorite TV shows while I'm exercising,' or 'I can only listen to my favorite podcast while I'm cooking a fresh meal for my family,'" she said.

If you prefer to stick to Jan. 1 for your fresh start, don't worry. Hayton says the Gregorian calendar is unlikely to change anytime soon, as it would be very disruptive. Switching to a new system would likely face heavy resistance due to the potential social costs, like shifting or losing holidays or birthdays.

"The rebel in me would love it to change, but I think that it would take almost an act of God — not an act of the Pope — to get the calendar to change," he said.
Copyright 2025 NPR

This story will be updated. Check back for details.

Southern California will ring in the new year with a pair of storms that will douse the Rose Parade and possibly prompt evacuation orders in recent burn scar zones.

The heaviest rain is expected to fall across Los Angeles on Wednesday night and into Thursday, New Year's Day, according to the National Weather Service.

The ground and roads are already saturated from last week's winter storm, meaning there's a high risk of mudslides, rock slides and other hazards.

"Because of the saturated, really wet soils, we do have that high risk for downed trees with really any wind as well as rock slides and mud slides," Ryan Kittell, meteorologist at NWS, said. "In those vulnerable canyons and hillsides, there's about a moderate risk for flooding and at least shallow debris flows for recent burn scar areas."

L.A. County has already issued evacuation warnings for burn scar areas beginning 11 a.m. Wednesday. That includes communities in the Eaton and Palisades fires.

Rainfall projections

It's supposed to be one of the wettest New Year's Days in decades, according to the National Weather Service. Here are the projected rain levels:

• Los Angeles: 1.53 inches
• Oxnard: 1.00 inches
• Santa Barbara: 0.80 inches
• San Luis Obispo: 0.57 inches

As another storm heads towards Southern California, the National Weather Service shared New Year's Day rain facts.

(

Courtesy of the National Weather Service

)

The storm will also bring what is likely to be the first time rain to fall on Pasadena’s Rose Parade since 2006.

Snow levels through New Year's Day are expected to remain above 8,500 feet, then drop to around 7,500 feet on Friday.

Evacuations and closures

Due to increased hazard of mudslides and debris flows, evacuation warnings will take effect at 11 a.m. Wednesday in burn zones across L.A. County, including Palisades and Eaton fire areas.

Sign up for L.A. County's emergency alerts for notifications here.

Traffic conditions

Officials urge drivers to avoid the roads as much as possible through Thursday.

See latest road conditions in Southern California

Forecast

This atmospheric river is expected to slightly weaker than last week's, but take this latest round of storms seriously. The ground is already saturated which means we’re at a higher risk for downed trees, rockslides and mudslides.

Understanding National Weather Service warnings

Here’s an excerpt from our guide to understanding flood warnings, if any are issued:

• Flood advisories are how the NWS begins to raise the alarm. The goal is to give people enough time to take action.
• Flood watches are your indicators to get prepared to move.
• A flood warning is issued when a hazardous weather event is imminent or already happening. When one is issued for your area, you need to get to higher ground immediately.
• A flash flood warning is issued when a flash flood is coming or in progress. Flash floods are sudden and violent floods that can start within minutes.

Read more: Flash Flood Warnings? Watches? Here’s What You Need To Know

Tips for driving in the rain

Advice on driving in the rain:

• Check weather and road conditions all along your planned route.
• Slow down.
• Keep a wider-than-usual distance between your vehicle and the one in front.
• Don't drive through standing water — as little as 12 inches of rushing water can carry away most cars, and two feet can carry away SUVs and trucks.
• Make sure tires are fully inflated.
• Check windshield wiper blades and replace if necessary.

Read more: What you should do if you end up driving in a flooded area

Downed tree, power line or flooded road?

Dial 911 in an emergency.

However, if you need to report a flooded road or a downed tree, you can call the following non-emergency numbers:

• L.A. city: Dial 311 for a flooded road or downed tree. Call (800) DIAL-DWP if you see a downed power line.
• L.A. County: (800) 675-HELP
• Ventura County: (805) 384-1500
• Orange County: (714) 955-0200 or visit here.

If you're in L.A. County and need sand bags, you can find some at local fire houses.

Staying safe when the winds are high

• Watch for traffic signals that may be out. Approach those intersections as four-way stops.
• Make sure you have a battery-operated radio and flashlights. Check the batteries to make sure they are fresh. Use flashlights for lighting during a power outage; do not use candles because they may pose a fire hazard.
• If you’re in a vehicle with a fallen power line on it, stay in the vehicle and remain calm until help arrives. It is OK to use your cellphone to call 911. If you must leave the vehicle, exit away from downed power lines and jump from the vehicle, landing with both feet together. You must not touch the vehicle and the ground at the same time. Then proceed away from the vehicle by shuffling and not picking up your feet until you are several yards away. 
• Water and electricity don’t mix. Water is an excellent conductor of electricity. Do not step in or enter any water that a downed power line may be touching.
• Do not use any equipment indoors that is designed for outdoor heating or cooking. Such equipment can emit carbon monoxide and other toxic gases.
• If you use a generator, place it outdoors and plug individual appliances directly into it, using a heavy-duty extension cord. Connecting generators directly to household circuits creates “backfeed,” which is dangerous to repair crews.
• Leave the doors of your refrigerator and freezer closed to keep food as fresh as possible. Place blocks of ice inside to help keep food cold. Check food carefully for signs of spoilage. 
• Check on your neighbors to make sure everyone is safe.

Tips on staying warm

• State law requires residential units to have heating systems that can keep indoor temperatures at a minimum of 70 degrees. That means every dwelling unit and guest room offered for rent or lease should offer heating equipment.
• Use heat smartly to save money: Cranking heaters can be expensive. If money is tight, be judicious about how and when you use your utilities. For example, only use heaters at night or only set the thermostat to around 70 degrees.
• Open and close those vents: If you have central A/C, look at where the vents are around your home. Are any open in places where you don’t stay long? Practice opening and closing those so warm air only goes where you need it (most vents should have a small toggle lever). Humidifiers can also help you warm things up — and it’s useful to add moisture into our dry air.
• Adjust your wall heaters: If you have a wall heater, you can change the output by adjusting the knob (usually at the bottom). Since wall heaters can only warm the areas where they’re placed, it’s essential to close doors to rooms you won’t be in so hot air doesn’t get wasted.
• Turn on your ceiling fan (really): If you have a ceiling fan, try turning it on. This sounds counterintuitive, but there’s science behind it. TSince hot air floats up, your fan can help move it around. For warming, your fan should spin clockwise to create an updraft. Not all fans will have this option.
  

Sign up for emergency alerts

• L.A. City: Notify L.A.
• L.A. County: Ready L.A. County
• Ventura County: Ready Ventura County
• Orange County: AlertOC
• Riverside County: AlertRivCo
• San Bernardino County

How we're reporting on this

WHO IS REPORTING THIS

This is a developing story. We fact check everything and rely only on information from credible sources (think fire, police, government officials and reporters on the ground). Sometimes, however, we make mistakes or initial reports turn out to be wrong. In all cases, we strive to bring you the most accurate information in real time and will update this story as new information becomes available.

It was the everyday moments of saying hello to neighbors. The soundtrack of crashing waves on the walk after dropping the kids off at school. The feeling of cruising down a street filled with trees decorated in lights during the holidays.

These are some of the memories Angelenos shared with LAist in response to our survey asking Pacific Palisades and Altadena residents what made their neighborhoods special before the fires.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the Eaton and Palisades fires, LAist is highlighting, and illustrating, community stories as the region works to rebuild.

To do this, we read through dozens of responses to our survey and spoke to a handful of people directly to help tell their stories.

Here’s some of what they shared, and what they want to always remember.

The magical neighborhoods

For Palisades resident Kelly Sullivan, some of her most cherished memories are what she described as the simple, fleeting moments that capture the magic of “Pali.”

Kelly Sullivan, a resident of Pacific Palisades, stands on the destroyed secret sidewalk near the neighboring El Medio bluffs in October 2025. It was one of her family’s favorite spots to visit.

(

David Rodriguez

/

LAist

)

A colorful phoenix windchime hangs from a charred tree branch in mid October 2025 in the secret sidewalk, which was destroyed by the Palisades Fire.

(

Courtesy from Kelly and Noel Sullivan

)

One of her favorite spots was a path off Abramar Avenue by the El Medio bluffs that neighbors called the “secret sidewalk.” The path, which was destroyed in the fire, now borders the remnants of a home that burned to the ground. Tree branches used to curve down, creating a tunnel, and Sullivan remembers the gentle clanking of windchimes tied to the branches that filled the air.

“There was a sign that said 'secret sidewalk' as you’re walking down. We'd stop and touch all the chimes,” said Sullivan, who used to visit the spot with her family. “You’d have all these beautiful sounds as you’re walking down, and you’d sit on that bench and just listen to them all.”

An illustration of the secret sidewalk before it, and a nearby home were destroyed. This is a special place for Kelly Sullivan, her family, and others in the neighborhood.

(

David Rodriguez

/

LAist

)

To Sullivan, the secret sidewalk had an almost storybook-like look. She said it was a special place for the people in the neighborhood.

A couple miles northeast from the secret sidewalk, Rachel Jonas and her family often visited the Marquez Business Block, a hometown strip of stores in Pacific Palisades that included a deli, restaurant, nail salon, karate studio and pharmacy.

"We practically lived there with our kids,” Jonas said. “It was the kind of place where you'd see the same people over and over.”

An illustration of the now destroyed Marquez Business Block in Pacific Palisades. Rachel Jonas, her family, and their neighbors often visited the local shops.

(

David Rodriguez

/

LAist

)

Jonas’ home was destroyed in the Palisades Fire, and she and her family now live in Tennessee with her in-laws as they work to rebuild.

Rob Fagnani and Rachel Jonas in front of where their Palisades home stood.

(

Courtesy of Rob Fagnani and Rachel Jonas

)

“It wasn't the fanciest but [it] had such an incredible community feel,” said Jonas, describing the business block. “They had annual block parties where there'd be a face painter, a bounce house, etc. It was just the best.”

Residents from both Pacific Palisades and Altadena shared stories in our survey about how great each place was to have a childhood. Julia Goodwine, 16, told us what made Altadena so special to her was the community.

She cherishes memories of biking down to her family's home, which was destroyed in the Eaton Fire, and spending summer evenings at the library. Sometimes she would watch horses go by at Loma Alta Park or sit on the grass with a book. When she was in middle school, she would play baseball near the base of the park’s hill by a Chinese Elm tree with her dad.

An illustration of Altadena's Christmas Tree Lane where many homes were destroyed. The street and lighting ceremony attract many to walk and drive up and down the street admiring the lights on the cedar trees.

(

David Rodriguez

/

LAist

)

One of her favorite places in Altadena is Christmas Tree Lane on Santa Rosa Avenue, where some homes along the street were destroyed in the fire. About a year ago, shortly before the fires, she got her driver’s license and would drive down the street every night to look at the lights.

“I remember the lights [were] so beautiful. I could just kind of sit, look at the trees, then think about the day, think about my problems,” Julia said. “It was really a beautiful experience.”

Being close to nature in L.A.

A place of peace. A place close to nature. That’s how many survey respondents described their communities before the fires.

An illustration of the Via Bluffs looking toward Santa Monica. Pacific Palisades resident Sue Pascoe would often visit these bluffs with her dogs on their walks around the neighborhood before her home was destroyed in the fire.

(

David Rodriguez

/

LAist

)

For Sue Pascoe, walking her dogs along the Via De Las Olas Bluffs in Pacific Palisades was a treasure.

She would pass by the different-styled homes and streets lined with trees. Now, the neighborhood has been mostly destroyed by the Palisades Fire, including Pascoe’s home of three decades.

“You can see dolphins, you can see the waves, you can get the wind. The wind is so great up here. Beautiful breezes. You can see the ships going out,” Pascoe said. “It’s a marvelous place to walk.”

Pascoe is the editor and owner of the local Circling the News site, where she writes about the Westside, including Pacific Palisades. She often meets with other residents to talk about how things are going and to support one another.

She said the people are what made the Palisades so special.

“Kids, schools, religion, made this a very, very good place for families,” Pascoe said. “I think people recognized how good it was for families and that’s why they moved here.”

Altadena resident Elizabeth Gonzalez said she misses the backyard view of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Her parents bought her childhood home in Janes Village in Altadena in 1995. The home is one of a handful left on its block in West Altadena. It was professionally remediated after the fires.

Elizabeth Gonzalez grew up in a home in the Janes Village neighborhood in West Altadena. The home she was renting with her family in Pasadena was destroyed in the Eaton Fire.

(

David Rodriguez

/

LAist

)

Gonzalez rented a home in Altadena for 13 years with her husband and children. It was destroyed in the fire. Now, she said, her family will most likely live in an RV in the driveway of her parent’s surviving home until they can get stable housing figured out .

“It’s hard for me to believe that block after block is gone,” Gonzalez said. “Old wise trees, luscious lawns and charming old homes are gone.”

An illustration of a sign found in West Altadena's Janes Village neighborhood that shows a drawing of the architecture of the homes.

(

David Rodriguez

/

LAist

)

Gonzalez always admired the architecture of the Janes Village homes in Altadena, which she said looked like the cartoon homes in classic Disney movies. She was about 12 years old when they first moved into the neighborhood.

"They’re little cottages,” she said, remembering the homes. “They’re pointy and kind of interesting looking … As kids we thought they looked like the Snow White house.”

“Somehow my parents ended up living somewhere that is [visually] very close to the small towns in Mexico that they grew up in,” Gonzalez said. “I always thought that was pretty cool.”

Another Pasadena resident, Rebecca Rea, remembers the community and connection she found in nature in Altadena on her miles-long walks before the Eaton Fire.

An illustration of Altadena wildlife, including a bear, mountain lion, parrot and coyote, along with poppies. Bears are often found around the Altadena foothills, and parrots can be heard flying around or in the trees.

(

David Rodriguez

/

LAist

)

Rea would go on 12-mile walks starting from Lake Avenue and Orange Grove Boulevard in Pasadena, walk toward the hills and end on Altadena Drive. She appreciated the different homes and small businesses that used to line her route, including the Rancho Bar, a local dive bar that was destroyed in the fire, and the wildlife that lived in the mountains.

“I knew every garden. I knew every tree. I made friends with the coyotes for heaven’s sake,” Rea said. “It was just so very, very beautiful.”

The next chapter

Many who responded to our survey wondered about what comes next.

They shared a hope that Altadena and Pacific Palisades will rebuild and not be remembered only for the deadly fires, but for what makes these places special to Los Angeles.

“It’s going to take a long time to rebuild what it once was,” said Julia, the teen from Altadena. “But I think we have such a great community here that we can rebuild to be something better and brighter than we were.”

The annual Polar Bears Plunge at Cabrillo Beach could look a little different this year as the beach in San Pedro remained closed as of Tuesday afternoon.

Every year on New Year's Day, swimmers take a frigid dip into the ocean water, marking the beginning of the new year. But in 2026, that plunge might not happen.

Cabrillo Beach has been closed to swimmers since last Wednesday after 100,000 gallons of sewage contaminated the water, according to public health officials. Officials continue to urge swimmers to stay out of the water and to not make contact with wet sand.

But organizers of the annual plunge say the beloved tradition will go on, even if that means no swimming. That includes the yearly king and queen coronation, hot cocoa and pastries.

“We are just playing it by ear, I know that there is testing for the water being done, but we have not heard back,” Lisa Guerr, president of the Cabrillo Beach Polar Bears club, told LAist. “We are leaving it up to our lifeguards to have the most up-to-date information and make the decision for us. As of now, we are continuing on as planned.”

What’s going on in the water? 

Officials blame a sewer pipe in Carson for causing the spill, which was stopped last Wednesday, according to the L.A. County Sanitation District. The district said the cleanup at the site was completed the next day.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said staff collected water samples for testing and that they noticed yesterday that the closure signs at the beach were removed.

That signage has since been reposted and lifeguards were notified, officials told LAist.

The county said touching the water during a beach closure may cause illness, especially in children, the elderly and susceptible people.

According to the county, “swimmers should avoid water contact at the posted areas of the beach until the hazardous condition has ended."