The Brief

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on Nov. 26, 2025.

The LA Phil on Wednesday said it secured new donor funding that would allow it to fully continue the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles program at Esteban E. Torres High School in East LA, just days after community outcry and Boyle Heights Beat reported that programming at YOLA’s Torres site would be reduced.

“YOLA is fundamental to the LA Phil’s mission of sharing the transformative power of music, so we are thrilled our donors recognized that this funding provides vital access to music education for the East LA community,” said Kim Noltemy, president and chief executive officer of the LA Phil, in a statement.

“Joining together, we have and will continue working tirelessly over the coming months to ensure we remain in a position to support this program, because it is more important than ever,” Noltemy added.

Programming was set to take place through Dec. 12, with orchestra rehearsals scaled back from four to two days per week. Parents said cuts at Torres involved beginner programs. They were also told that all instructors at the Torres site would be removed except for the conductors.

In response, families and community members held meetings and launched a campaign on Instagram, urging the LA Phil to save the program at Torres.

In a press release, parents noted that cuts come at a time when communities like East LA are grappling with fear and instability due to immigration raids that began over the summer. YOLA, they said, has been a safe space. They emphasized that no other YOLA site in LA “is being cut or reduced due to ‘funding.’”

“Only Torres — the site serving East LA’s predominantly Latino community — is affected,” they said in the release.

Students and parents share their concerns about cuts to YOLA programming at a meeting Wednesday at Esteban E. Torres High School.

(

Courtesy of YOLA Torres community

)

The announcement of programming reduction comes as staff at all YOLA sites filed for union representation with the American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada, according to the YOLA United Teaching Artists Instagram page.

YOLA, which was founded by the LA Phil, provides free instruments and ensemble training for thousands of young musicians who are 5 through 18 years old. The after-school program operates at sites across LA, including in Inglewood, Rampart District and Rampart/MacArthur Park. YOLA at Torres serves 165 students who attend East LA area schools, such as James A. Garfield High School and KIPP charter schools.

In the statement, the LA Phil said its board is working to “ensure the program is positioned for lasting success.”

“We will evaluate whether Torres remains the best and most sustainable location for YOLA programming after this school year,” the statement read.

The LA Phil also said it is establishing a parent advisory committee “to maintain consistent dialogue with YOLA families as future decisions are made.”

“We know how difficult and disruptive the initial decision to reduce the YOLA program at Torres has been for students, families, and teaching artists, and we are deeply apologetic,” Noltemy said in the statement. “We are profoundly grateful to the generous donors who made it possible for us to continue this essential program.”

You don't have to walk by a dog park to know that domestic dogs come in all shapes and sizes. From 2-pound Chihuahuas to 150-pound Newfoundlands, chunky Labradors to slender Vizlas, our canine companions are some of the most physically diverse mammals on the planet.

It's commonly believed that this vast range in physical attributes is a product of the Victorian era, when kennel clubs started selectively breeding dogs to produce certain characteristics roughly 200 years ago.

A new analysis of hundreds of prehistoric canine skulls, spanning the last 50,000 years, shows it emerged much earlier.

"By about 10,000 years ago, half of the amount of diversity present in modern dogs was already present in the Neolithic," said Carly Ameen, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Exeter and one of the lead authors on the new study. "So very early on in our relationship with dogs, we not only change them from wolves but they begin to change amongst themselves and generate a lot of diversity."

To determine when those changes happened, Ameen and a team of international researchers created 3D models of 643 skulls of ancient and modern dogs and wolves. The models allowed them to discern subtle changes in the skulls' shape over time.
The results, published in the journal Science, show that by nearly 11,000 years ago, just after the last ice age, dog skulls were already different from those of wolves. They were shorter and wider. But perhaps more surprising, Ameen said, is that the dog skulls were already different from each other, meaning that the switch from wolf to dog had to have happened much earlier.

"The relationship between wolves and dogs had to already have been ongoing," she said. "It's not an instantaneous change — the dog comes from the woods into your house and changes the shape of its skull."
Those kinds of changes typically accumulate slowly, over many generations.

Scientists have long wondered when the domestication of dogs first started. Dogs are believed to be the first domesticated species — before cows, pigs, sheep, or plants like wheat.

The new study doesn't answer the question but "it narrows the window," Ameen said, and gives us insights into how humanity's mutually beneficial relationship with dogs physically changed them over time.

That relationship was the focus of another new study, published in Science, that used ancient DNA from dogs to find that humans were traveling with — and even trading — domestic dogs in Eurasia for at least the last 10,000 years.
The study's lead author, Minmin Ma, a researcher at Lanzhou University in China, said it makes sense that prehistoric hunter-gatherers were bringing dogs with them during migrations because they could assist with hunting.
But for prehistoric farming and pastoral societies that raised animals like cattle, sheep and horses, "dogs weren't particularly essential in that economic sense," she said. And yet, their study found that those groups made the effort to bring dogs with them during migrations too.

"Although the roles [dogs have] played varied across different periods, they have consistently been close companions to humans," Ma said. "We should cherish this bond even more."
Copyright 2025 NPR

Often described as housing of last resort for some of the city’s poorest renters, single-room occupancy buildings in Los Angeles are operating at a financial loss — and losing more money every year.

That’s according to a November report from Enterprise Community Partners, an affordable housing nonprofit. The report surveyed 39 buildings across California. It found that only two — both located in San Francisco — have positive cash flow.

All of the L.A.-area properties are run by organizations that keep buildings financially afloat by digging into their own budgets, making up for rental income that isn’t enough to cover operating costs.

“Owners that are carrying these properties are really trying to make them work,” said Marc Tousignant, who oversees vulnerable populations for Enterprise’s Southern California market. “They're really at the front lines of ending homelessness.”

Losses have tripled

The buildings surveyed in the report contained more than 3,000 single-room occupancy units in total. These are bare-bones apartments, usually just a bedroom without a private bathroom or kitchen.

Many are located in old residential hotels, often in downtown L.A.’s Skid Row neighborhood.

The report found building owners have needed to triple the amount of money they’re advancing per unit over the last five years. Losses cost organizations an average of $971 per unit in 2020. Now, that figure is up to $2,866 per unit.

Some, like the storied Cecil Hotel, have struggled to attract tenants. The report found an average vacancy rate of 20% in the surveyed buildings. Some of the aging properties are unattractive to prospective tenants because of deferred maintenance or damage caused by residents with untreated mental health issues.

“There have been discussions around, should we just abandon this model and convert them completely?” Tousignant said. “But they are really serving, I think, an important role.”

What could turn them around?

The two buildings in San Francisco that are financially healthy both have project-based vouchers through the city’s Section 8 program. These vouchers help tenants pay for rents in the building, and the vouchers cannot be transferred to other properties.

Tousignant said this approach could help improve the financial outlook for buildings in L.A.

“Unfortunately, in L.A., we haven't really been dedicating any new project-based vouchers to older or existing buildings,” he said. “They've really been going towards newer buildings.”

Rehabilitation is another approach that could improve vacancy rates at the buildings. The estimated cost of fixing up each single-room occupancy unit was $165,000 on average, according to the report. Some of those plans could involve converting units into studio apartments, complete with kitchen and bathroom facilities — though that could involve reducing a building’s total number of units.

“It's this sort of trade off,” Tousignant said. “What's more important? Making these complete units or losing a little bit of affordability in terms of the amount of units?”

Tousignant said if the affordable housing field doesn’t find solutions to these problems, more buildings could find themselves in court-ordered receivership, with tenants facing an uncertain future.

That’s the situation the Skid Row Housing Trust found itself in, before developer Leo Pustilnikov bought its troubled portfolio of buildings.

Students are wrapping up their semesters and slowly lapsing into holiday mode.

But as some families come together to celebrate federal and state-recognized holidays, others participate in religious and cultural celebrations that take place on school days, raising questions about how to ensure students can participate in rituals and cultural celebrations while keeping up with their schoolwork.

“If [Indigenous students] are at a ceremony or in [a] roundhouse all night dancing for their ceremonies, they’re likely to be tired and absent from school on Mondays,” said Ashley Crystal Rojas, the policy director for Indigenous Justice. “It’s really important that our young people not feel the pressure to choose between academic success and their cultural identity.”

Here’s what to know about state and federal holidays, absences and accommodations.

What are the California state and federal holidays? 

• New Year’s Day  
• Martin Luther King Jr. Day
• Presidents Day
• Cesar Chavez Day 
• Memorial Day
• Juneteenth 
• Independence Day
• Labor Day
• Veterans Day
• Columbus Day/Indigenous Peoples Day
• Thanksgiving Day
• Day after Thanksgiving 
• Christmas Day 

There are also several holidays recognized by the California education code, some of which school districts choose to observe, including Genocide Remembrance Day and Native American Day. And in October, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 268 into law, which adds Diwali — a festival of lights observed by Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains — to the list of state holidays beginning in 2026, which districts can choose to observe.

Can my child take a holiday off that isn’t a state holiday? 

Yes, according to California’s education code, observing religious holidays — and participating in cultural ceremonies and events — are among the reasons students can take off from school and have it count as an excused absence.

But there are limits. For instance, students cannot miss more than one school day per semester to attend religious retreats.

What are some holidays that students may consider taking off? 

It entirely depends on individual family practices and can vary widely. Some include:

• Good Friday
• Yom Kippur
• Rosh Hashanah
• Eid al-Fitr 
• Eid al-Adha
• Holi 
• Vesak
• Lunar New Year 
• Kwanzaa
• Indigenous rituals connected to various seasons 

What should I do if my child needs to miss a day of school to celebrate a holiday? 

For any holiday or observance, it is best to contact your child’s school administration in advance, notify them of the absence and make sure they understand it is for religious and/or cultural reasons that are excused and justified.

At Indigenous Justice, a nonprofit focused on the self-determination of Indigenous people, Rojas said, they often work with families to understand their rights, including on school absences.

“There’s a really inconsistent implementation across school sites,” Rojas said, noting that even with state and federal protections, not all campus administrators are receptive to students’ needs.

Sometimes, Rojas added, it can be helpful to copy additional administrators on correspondence, including the principal or area superintendent.

Parents or their students should contact teachers to ensure plans are in place for them to make up any missed work and assessments.

Will the student be able to make up any work or exams?  

Yes, because the days away from school count as excused absences. Students are entitled to opportunities to make up for missed work and assessments without any penalty in grade or loss in credit.

According to the state education code, teachers should “determine which tests and assignments shall be reasonably equivalent to, but not necessarily identical to, the tests and assignments that the pupil missed during the absence.”

Do schools provide accommodations for students who participate in religious fasting, such as Ramadan?

Yes, schools in California provide K-12 students participating in religious fasting accommodations for physical education under Assembly Bill 2377.

To access support, provide written documentation to a school principal and notify them of your child’s participation, and the student should be granted credit for instructional time during the accommodation period.