The Brief

As Los Angeles firefighters push into their sixth day battling the still-raging wildfires, thousands of residents are beginning to survey the damage left behind in their communities.

Hundreds of homes have been destroyed, and more than 150,000 residents are under evacuation orders as the city braces for more powerful winds which threaten to exacerbate the already devastating fires.

Last week, President Biden declared a major disaster in the area, opening up federal funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The White House says the funding is being used to provide people with services such as grants for temporary housing and low-cost loans to cover uninsured property losses.

In an interview with NPR's Weekend Edition, Deanne Criswell, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, spoke with host Ayesha Rascoe about how this assistance is being used to help LA County residents affected by the wildfires.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

FEMA administrator Deanne Criswell appears before the Senate Appropriations Committee in November. Criswell says more than 24,000 people have already applied for assistance in California as a result of the L.A. wildfires.

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Mark Schiefelbein

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Interview highlights

You've seen a lot of disasters. What stands out about this one?

People have lost everything. When you look at a hurricane and a tornado, people have something that they can come sift through and try to find their memories. But here, they've lost the physical structure. But they've also lost so many of their memories, which makes this journey that they're going to have to go through that much more difficult in the coming weeks and months.

What sort of financial assistance is FEMA offering people who've lost their properties and possessions?

FEMA has a program called individual assistance, and it's designed to jump start the individual or family's recovery process. If they haven't registered already, they should register for assistance, and they can go to disasterassistance.gov.

And what they need to do too is contact their insurance company, because while our programs jump start the recovery process, we're not going to rebuild their home for them. So the insurance company is the biggest piece that may help with that. If they still have needs, we're going to work with our other partners, like the Small Business Administration or our philanthropic and our nonprofit partners, to help each of these families as they're trying to figure out what they're going to have to do next.

Do you know how many people have applied for FEMA assistance so far?

Over 24,000 have applied already, but we know that that number is going to continue to rise.

You talked about people trying to go to their insurance companies, but we know that a lot of people may not have insurance policies that cover fires. Is there anything that FEMA can do about that?

There's nothing that we can do as far as requiring the insurance company to stay in. What we want to be able to do is work with these communities as they rebuild and rebuild them in a way that makes them more resilient to future disasters so the insurance industry wants to stay there, but I just want to emphasize that we need people to still go to their insurance company and get something that shows that they're either underinsured or uninsured. If they are, it opens up their ability to access the other programs, and so it's a really important step to still reach out to them.

What about people who have evacuated but can't stay with friends or family? Are there temporary shelters?

There are a number of shelters around the area. But one of the programs that FEMA also has is we can reimburse them if they've been staying in a hotel. If you've stayed in a hotel, keep your receipts. Register for that assistance, and then we can help them get reimbursed for the costs that they've had in these initial days of just trying to stay safe and stay out of harm's way.

FEMA money also goes to local governments for recovery efforts. What's the top priority there right now?

For the rebuilding, the first thing that we're going to have to do is remove all of the damaged debris, right, all of the structures that have been destroyed. And so before we can start rebuilding roads and rebuilding homes, rebuilding businesses, we have to get that debris out of the way. That's one of the big steps that needs to start, which is why President Biden gave 100% of cost reimbursement to California for debris removal, as well as covering all of their emergency costs that they've had during the response to this. And then we're going to work with the state of California with what their priorities are to help them in their recovery process.

President-elect Donald Trump is claiming FEMA doesn't have enough money to respond to these fires. Is that true?

Copyright 2025 NPR

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on Feb. 5, 2026.

As Tax Day approaches, organizations across the Eastside are helping residents file their taxes for free.

Many of the available resources are provided through the IRS’ Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, which offers free tax help to people who need assistance preparing their own returns, including people with disabilities, limited English speakers and individuals who generally earn $69,000 or less, according to the program’s website. Before your visit, check the list of what to bring to your appointment.

Other services are available with income requirements.

In California, the deadline to file state and federal income tax returns is Wednesday, April 15.

Here’s a list of places offering assistance:

Inclusive Action for the City

Trained volunteers from the CSUN VITA Clinic are available weekly through April 15.

East LA Community Corporation

The East LA Community Corporation is offering free tax preparation services from March 15 through March 25.

Cal State LA

Cal State LA is offering one-hour tax preparation appointments every Saturday through April 4.

Cypress Park Branch Library

The Cypress Park Branch Library is offering one-hour tax preparation appointments every Saturday through April 4.

El Sereno Branch Library

The El Sereno Branch Library is offering one-hour tax preparation appointments every Saturday through April 4.

Lincoln Heights Branch Library

The Lincoln Heights Branch Library is offering one-hour tax preparation appointments every Saturday through April 4.

Weingart East LA YMCA

The Weingart East LA YMCA is offering free tax assistance every Friday and Saturday until March 28. Unlike the services offered by VITA, the household income requirement is $67,000 or less.

California’s Fish and Game Commission will soon consider designating the Western spadefoot as endangered.

The tiny amphibian is found in the grasslands of Southern California and the Central Valley. It has endured several challenges in recent decades, including habitat loss and prolonged drought.

But state endangered species protection could give the little frogs a break from the urban sprawl that threatens their habitats.

What’s a  Western spadefoot?

The animal resembles a toad but technically isn’t. It can fit in the palm of your hand and has bumpy skin. Spadefoots are short and stout and have a hard black spur on their back feet that they use to dig — hence the name.

Sofia Prado-Irwin, staff scientist at the from the Center for Biological Diversity, describes the Western spadefoot as “adorable” and “resilient.”

 ”The most charming feature that they have is they have really big eyes that are sort of situated pretty high up on the head, so they almost look like googly eyes,” Prado-Irwin said.

They breed in streams and vernal pools, temporary wetlands that pop up after rains. Once they reach adulthood, Western spadefoots hop to grasslands, where they like to burrow.

And to protect themselves from predators, their skin oozes a slime that smells like peanut butter. That scent is meant to trigger watery, itchy eyes and to irritate the nose, almost like a sneeze, granting the frog a chance to leap out of danger.

Why they might need more than peanut butter ooze for protection

Prado-Irwin says many of those complex habitats with vernal pools and grasslands or shrublands are hard to find now in California.

“There’s estimates in Southern California that 90 to 95% of those pool habitats that once existed don’t exist anymore,” Prado-Irwin said.

That’s because those areas have been paved over to make way for urban development and agricultural use.

Development can isolate populations of Western spadefoots. Prado-Irwin said that when vernal pools aren’t connected to grasslands, it can lead the amphibians to inbreed and cause the species to further decline.

That’s what has happened to the Western spadefoot in Orange County, where two clusters of spadefoots that are genetically distinct are small and isolated.

The backstory

Prado-Irwin said this isn’t the first time the Western spadefoot has been considered for protection.

In 2012, the species was petitioned for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act. In 2023 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to list the species as threatened but a decision wasn’t finalized.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a petition in September 2025 asking for the state to list the Northern and Southern California populations of the species as threatened and endangered under state law.

That petition highlights development projects that could begin within the next few years that could affect the Western spadefoot’s habitat, including one in L.A. A proposed housing development called Northlake near Castaic Lake would pave over Grasshopper Creek. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, it would likely eliminate one of the last surviving populations of the Western spadefoot in the region.

Why it matters

Prado-Irwin said it’s important the state steps in to protect the species, as the Trump administration continues to weaken environmental protections, including the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act.

And if there’s another reason to care about Western spadefoot, Prado-Irwin says, it’s because the amphibians are really good indicators of how the environment is doing:

“ When amphibian populations are doing well, that’s usually an indication that the environment is generally pretty healthy,” she said. “But once amphibians start declining, that's kind of a warning flag that we need to be looking at what's going on. Because usually that means there's bigger environmental problems.”

If the Western spadefoot eventually receives protection from the California Endangered Species Act, one upshot would be that development that could affect the species would require extensive reviews to mitigate harm to the amphibians.

Protection would also allow the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to start working to arrest the species’ decline and to help it recover.

What’s next

The California Fish and Game Commission will meet April 16 to discuss whether the Western spadefoot is a candidate for protection.

Walk into Rustic Canyon on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica any evening between 5 and 6:30 p.m., and you'll find chef Elijah DeLeon plating birria de res the way his Jalisco-born grandmother taught him. Meanwhile, at Seline, on Main Street, chef Dave Beran is fortifying a dish with eucalyptus because "when it rains, Topanga Canyon smells like eucalyptus."

On Montana Avenue, the line at Bread Head is full of locals ordering their second turkey pesto focaccia of the week. And at Xuntos, a Spanish tapas restaurant housed in a building as old as Route 66 itself, near the Promenade, chef Sandra Cordero is serving percebes — goose barnacles — to a dining room that hasn't stopped filling since the Palisades Fires hit.

A new generation of Santa Monica chefs have gravitated to the neighborhood because, they say, it offers something often rare today — community. Meanwhile, their top-tier skills are helping turn it into one of the city's diing destinations.

Alex Williams/Jordan Snyder, Bread Head

Alex Williams and Jordan Snyder opened Bread Head in Santa Monica in 2024 after four years of pop-ups perfecting their "Frankenstein focaccia."

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Will Blunt

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Bread Head's mozzarella sandwich on their signature "Frankenstein focaccia"

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Gab Chabrán

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In 2019, Alex Williams and Jordan Snyder earned a Michelin star together at Trois Mec, the 24-seat tasting-menu spot in Hollywood. But for years, the duo had been dreaming of opening a sandwich shop together, viewing fine dining as a precarious enterprise. "People run down the list of restaurants,” says Williams. “You typically try that place out, and maybe you come back once more." Plus, with a newborn at home, the demanding hours meant he was "going down a path of not being around."

In 2020, after Trois Mec closed during the pandemic, they pivoted to pop-ups, crafting what Williams calls their "Frankenstein focaccia" — inspired by an Italian kebab shop sandwich he'd become obsessed with during a trip to Italy. What mattered most was "the balance of bread to filling ratio" and achieving a "nice crispy texture... like the underside of Pizza Hut pizza... that lacy kind of buttery crust." The recipe, tweaked through countless batches at his house during the pandemic, would become the foundation for every sandwich at Bread Head.

After four years of pop-ups, they found a spot on Montana Avenue. "Once I saw Montana, it just clicked," Williams says. "People spend all day down here between Pilates, nails, salon, coffee, and lunch." Opening their first brick-and-mortar in 2024, they quickly expanded to Manhattan Beach and Westwood over the next 15 months. But it was the regulars who surprised him most. "Some locals come in twice a week, and you get to know these guys... how was your trip to Italy? How are the kids?" Williams says. "That's really special." Turkey pesto, his least favorite sandwich, became their top seller. "You can't always cook for yourself," he laughs.

Chef Dave Beran, Pasjoli and Seline

Chef Dave Beran of Pasjoli and Seline in Santa Monica.

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John Troxell

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A dish from Seline's autumn menu, where Chef Dave Beran says "seasonality meets surrealism."

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When you ask Chef Dave Beran to share his personal story, it resembles something like a plot line from The Bear. After spending 10 years with Chicago's Alinea group — a three-Michelin-star destination for modernist cuisine — Beran moved to Los Angeles in 2016, part of a wave of chefs making similar moves. "L.A. felt very much like something sparked... like this magic, like I felt in Chicago in the early 2000s," he says. But it wasn't downtown that called to him. After a lease in the Arts District fell through, Beran found himself cycling around Santa Monica, slowly falling in love with Main Street. "One of the few streets that really felt like the neighborhoods I knew," he says. "I wanted to become part of a community, not just someone living there."

In 2019, he opened Pasjoli with a simple vision: a neighborhood bistro serving refined French cuisine through the lens of California produce. Five months later, the pandemic hit. Like other restaurants, Pasjoli was on the verge of closing. "It felt like there was a community here that wanted us to survive," Beran says. "And we did."

After a successful five years, in 2024, Beran hit reset. While sitting at the bar with his 3 year-old-daughter, he had a moment of clarity. He realized the restaurant had drifted into being "a little more fine dining and a little less approachable," he says. "It had become the place I don't wanna go to all the time anymore."

He closed for three weeks to reconfigure, returning with a menu that Pasjoili. A few months later, he opened a second restaurant, Seline, also on Main Street. It was the opposite of Pasjoli — a 16 to 22 course journey ($295 per person) that Beran describes as "where seasonality meets surrealism," harking back to his modernist Alinea days. The Autumn menu alone tells the story: leek with eucalyptus and banana, Dungeness crab with smoked pork, coffee paired with caviar. "The last thing I wanted was a restaurant that you could pick up and put anywhere," Beran says. "I felt it was very important to be representative of where we are — but not in a predictable way. For me, it was finding my own storyline through my life that related to what exists here now." At Seline, Santa Monica isn't just an address — it's an ingredient.

Beran believes the neighborhood is now destined for gastronomic greatness. "We're two more restaurants away from this being one of the best dining destinations in the city," he says. For Beran, that tipping point isn't a question of if — it's when.

Chef Sandra Cordero, Xuntos

Chef Sandra Cordero brings the flavors of her childhood summers in Galicia to Xuntos in Santa Monica.

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Xuntos' menu features Galician specialties including pescaíto frito, empanadas gallega and fresh seafood.

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Chef Sandra Cordero spent her youth in Amsterdam, but it was summers in Galicia with her Spanish father that shaped her. For six to eight weeks each year, she'd find herself in a tiny village of 500 people, walking cows to fields and absorbing a food culture that stuck. "Childhood memories of Coruña... a seaside town close to the beach, going from one place to another, eating tapas," she recalls. "I love eating for six hours."

After a decade at Gasolina Café in Woodland Hills, Cordero, who moved to New York in 2001 before coming to L.A., had long wanted to serve the food she grew up with. Santa Monica called for two reasons: beach culture ("tapas close to the beach... that was the feeling I wanted") and the renowned Wednesday farmers market ("reminds me of home, it's my people, it's my family.") She opened Xuntos, (pronounced shoon-toess), , which opened just a few blocks from the Promenade, before Gasolina closed in early 2025, marking Cordero's full transition from the San Fernando Valley to the Westside.

The menu philosophy mirrors that of Galician fish shops: "just a little plancha and steamer... really simple, getting the best ingredients... not so fussy." True to that spirit, the menu features percebes — goose barnacles flown in from Alaska — alongside pescaíto frito, empanadas gallega and fresh shell beans from the farmers market for fabada, a hearty Spanish stew from the Asturias region made with white beans, chorizo, morcilla and pork.

Xuntos is housed in a 1926 building — turning 100 this year — and Cordero explains that the vibe is both modern and nostalgic. "I think it's my European looking for some history and oldness," she says. "It has a soul, it has energy." The name Xuntos — which means "together" in Galician — was born out of a post-pandemic desire to create a space for connection. "We're gonna bring back the roaring twenties," Cordero says with a laugh. "Abundance and celebrating... eat all night, drink all night... put those phones away and just engage."

But 2025 tested that vision. Strikes, fires and the closure of Pacific Coast Highway for four months hit the neighborhood hard. Cordero transformed Xuntos into a community hub, feeding up to 400 evacuees daily during the Palisades Fire. The neighborhood noticed. "We really have a lot of neighbors who keep coming back," she says. Cordero makes annual trips to Spain, drawing inspiration from restaurants such as Culler de Pau, the two-Michelin-star restaurant in Galicia known for its zero-mile philosophy and dishes that evoke the local landscape and sea. That sensibility — simple, local, deeply rooted — shows up on the Xuntos menu. Her vision remains simple: "We really want to be the neighborhood place."

Chef Elijah DeLeon, Rustic Canyon

At Rustic Canyon, Executive Chef Elijah DeLeon blends South Bay roots with Jalisco traditions and California's seasonal abundance.

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Courtesy Rustic Canyon

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Alex Scott

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Birria de res quesadillas from Chef Elijah DeLeon at Rustic Canyon, based on a recipe passed down from his Jalisco-born grandmother.

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Mike Hos

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Elijah DeLeon grew up in Torrance, Carson and Gardena — an area he still calls "my favorite part of Los Angeles... it does not feel L.A." He began cooking at 18 and quickly became obsessed with the landmark cookbook On Vegetables, by Jeremy Fox, owner of Rustic Canyon in Santa Monica. "That's my favorite cookbook," DeLeon says. "I was obsessed with his Instagram." He applied to its sister restaurant, Birdie G's, as a cook right before pandemic restrictions lifted, working his way up to junior sous chef and sous chef before joining Rustic Canyon six years ago. He's now the restaurant's executive chef, after Fox stepped down last year.

DeLeon draws deeply from his roots. The son of a mother from Jalisco and a Filipino father, he spoke Spanish at home. "I grew up very Mexican," he says. "My grandma would stay with us four or five months of the year... the music my mom would play, the traditions." Those traditions, along with years spent at the Torrance Farmers Market, would come to shape everything he puts on the plate.

That influence found its fullest expression in “Rustic Cantina,” a weekly Thursday event that began in September, where the entire menu became Mexican-inspired. The concept proved so popular that it's become the restaurant's daily happy-hour menu available every evening from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the bar and lounge, and roughly 50 percent of the regular menu is now made up of Mexican dishes. The Japanese sweet potato tamal has become a topseller, while the birria de res with huitlacoche, an earthy, smoky delicacy with a mushroom-like flavor that was eaten by the Aztecs, holds a special place.

"My grandma, that's one of the first dishes she showed me how to make," he says. Skirt steak with huitlacoche and fried sunchoke chips adds what he describes as "super umami, savory" depth, while chocoflan rounds it out — "the dessert I would love having on my birthday."

With cumbias blasting and birria now flowing every evening, Rustic Cantina has become proof that the best restaurants aren't just about the food — they're about the stories behind it.

Jyan Isaac Horwitz, Jyan Isaac Bread

At 25, Jyan Isaac Horwitz may be LA's youngest artisan baker — and one of its most prolific.

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Jyan Isaac Horwitz's breads include porridge loaf, marble rye and the city sourdough — "just flour, water and salt".

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One of the youngest bakers in Los Angeles might just be the most prolific as well. At 25, Jyan Isaac Horwitz has taken the city by storm with his Westside bakery churning out deliciously whole-grain sourdough loaves.

Born and raised in Venice, Horwitz started baking in middle school — his mother is a pastry chef. After earning his GED, he got a job at Gjusta Bakery in Venice, the acclaimed artisanal bakery known for its house-made sourdough and ingredient-driven approach. It's where he got serious about the craft. "I owe a lot of it to my time at Gjusta," Horwitz says. "I learned a lot and I met a lot of people and had some mentorships."

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Horwitz took a volunteer furlough from Gjusta. Plans to work at a bakery in Germany fell through, so he started baking sourdough loaves at home and selling them to neighbors. Word spread quickly, and Horwitz launched what he calls a "bread hustle" — baking 50 loaves a day and delivering them across the city with help from his family. His father had a lease on a shuttered pizza restaurant on Ocean Park Boulevard, so Horwitz started using that kitchen. Eventually, he scaled to 100 loaves a day, baking 20 at a time over five hours.

When the Los Angeles Times profiled him in July 2020, demand exploded. Horwitz had a months-long waitlist and lines down the street. That's when they invested in a proper bread oven and turned it into a real business. The growth has been gradual since then, transforming into what Horwitz calls "a neighborhood place with regulars."

Today, the menu at Jyan Isaac Bread spans bagels, baguettes, ciabatta, olive fougasse and bagel sandwiches with house-made gravlax. But Horwitz's heart belongs to the hearth loaves: the porridge loaf, made with a Three Sisters grain mix of rye, oat and barley flakes cooked into porridge with a toasted wheat germ crust; the marble rye with caraway seeds, "perfect for pastrami sandwiches", and the German-style crackle rye. Then there's the city sourdough — the purest expression of his philosophy. "It's so simple... just flour, water and salt," Horwitz says. "Through the process of fermentation, they turn into something that's much more complex." That flour — milled fresh in Skagit Valley, Washington, with all its nutrients intact — makes all the difference. "The flour makes everything for me because since it's so fresh, they keep all of the nutrients inside that get stripped for shelf life," he says. "I want to make a product that people seek out... that you can't just get at the grocery store."

At 25, he's likely the youngest baker in LA's artisan bread scene, constantly learning from other bakers while building his own legacy. The most rewarding part? "Making a product that I feel proud of... something I want more people to experience." That mission is expanding: a Silver Lake location is set to open in the coming months. "L.A. is so massive," Horwitz says. "So many different communities and neighborhoods that want and love good bread. I'm trying to fulfill some more of that need."