The Brief

As deadly fires ravage the L.A. region, experts say symptoms of distress like nightmares, flashbacks, nausea and difficulty sleeping can actually be normal responses to have right now.

But there’s also something called the “dose of exposure”: Did you have a traumatic evacuation experience? Were you fearful for your life or for your family?

Merritt Schreiber, a clinical child psychologist at UCLA, said those can be indicators that it’s time to seek help.

“Of course it’s completely understandable to be very, very scared and frightened. But it’s when that elevates itself to almost paralyzing fear, that can be an indicator that you might seek additional services,” said Schreiber, who is also the chair of Disaster Response for the California Psychological Association.

If symptoms of distress last more than a few weeks, it’s better to seek help sooner than later, Schreiber added.

If you weren’t evacuated but are still dealing with the grief and fear of having fires blazing all over our region, experts say it’s a good idea to stop doom scrolling and limit your media intake.

“When you are exposed to continuous images of distress and destruction and planes and home loss over and over and over again, that can be a hazard to your own mental health,” Schreiber said.

Jaz Robbins, a licensed psychologist and president-elect of the Los Angeles Psychological Association, said in an overwhelming situation like this, it’s important for Angelenos to give themselves some grace and understand that they will be experiencing a wide range of emotions.

Robbins said the conditions of isolation due to the fires feel eerily similar to the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. She urged people to reach out to community far and wide to feel less isolated.

“This is unprecedented, absolutely unprecedented, for Los Angeles,” Robbins said. “I think it’s important for folks to allow themselves to experience the full breadth of emotions that they may be experiencing at this time. Expression and relief and release always feed healing... emotional suppression will only feed trauma."

Mental health resources geared toward the fire disaster

The National Disaster Distress Helpline:

Call or text (800) 985-5990.

From the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): “Counselors are available 24/7 to respond to people who need crisis counseling after experiencing a traumatic event or a disaster. Counselors are trained to offer support to people who may be experiencing a range of symptoms.”

The L.A. County Department of Mental Health has support and resources available though its help line: (800) 854-7771

The Department of Mental Health also has a list of disaster mental health resources.

How to talk to children about wildfires, evacuations and losing a home

L.A. Unified School District:

Los Angeles Unified students and families in need of mental health support are encouraged to call the Student and Family Wellness Resource Line at (213) 241-3840. Support is currently available between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network has tips and resources to help children and families cope with the impacts of wildfires:

· Parent Guidelines for Helping Children Impacted by Wildfires (En Español)

· Wildfires: Tips for Parents on Media Coverage (En Español)

· Simple Activities for Children and Adolescents

· Trinka and Sam: The Big Fire - E-book for young children (En Español)

· Helping Youth After a Community Trauma: Tips for Educators (En Español)

· Talking to Children: When Scary Things Happen (En Español)

Nicole Arzt, a Long Beach-based therapist, is also compiling a list of providers offering pro bono therapy.

The American Psychological Association has a guide to recovering from wildfires.

AirTalk segment: How to process the grief and trauma during a natural disaster

A Trump administration official on Friday signaled a potential rollback of the racial and ethnic categories approved for the 2030 census and other future federal government forms.

Supporters of those categories fear that any last-minute modifications to the U.S. government's standards for data about race and ethnicity could hurt the accuracy of census data and other future statistics used for redrawing voting districts, enforcing civil rights protections and guiding policymaking.

Those standards were last revised in 2024 during the Biden administration, after Census Bureau research and public discussion.

A White House agency at the time approved, among other changes, new checkboxes for "Middle Eastern or North African" and "Hispanic or Latino" under a reformatted question that asks survey participants: "What is your race and/or ethnicity?" The revisions also require the federal government to stop automatically categorizing people who identify with Middle Eastern or North African groups as white.

But at a Friday meeting of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics in Washington, D.C., the chief statistician within the White House's Office of Management and Budget revealed that the Trump administration has started a new review of those standards and how the 2024 revisions were approved.

"We're still at the very beginning of a review. And this, again, is not prejudging any particular outcome. I think we just wanted to be able to take a look at the process and decide where we wanted to end up on a number of these questions," said Mark Calabria. "I've certainly heard a wide range of views within the administration. So it's just premature to say where we'll end up."

OMB's press office did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.

Calabria's comments mark the first public confirmation that Trump officials are considering the possibility of not using the latest racial and ethnic category changes and other revisions. They come amid the administration's attack on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a push to stop producing data that could protect the rights of transgender people and threats to the reliability of federal statistics.

In September, OMB said those Biden-era revisions "continue to be in effect" when it announced a six-month extension to the 2029 deadline for federal agencies to follow the new standards when collecting data on race and ethnicity.

Calabria said the delay gave agencies more time to implement the changes "while we review."

The first Trump administration stalled the process for revising the racial and ethnic data standards in time for the 2020 census.

The "Project 2025" policy agenda released by The Heritage Foundation, the conservative, D.C.-based think tank, called for a Republican administration to "thoroughly review any changes" to census race and ethnicity questions because of "concerns among conservatives that the data under Biden Administration proposals could be skewed to bolster progressive political agendas."

Advocates of the changes, however, see the new categories and other revisions as long-needed updates to better reflect people's identities.

"At stake is a more accurate and deeper understanding of the communities that comprise our country," says Meeta Anand, senior director of census and data equity at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "I am not concerned if it's reviewed in an honest attempt to understand what the process was. I am concerned if it's for a predetermined outcome that would be to ignore the entire process that was done in a very transparent manner."

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2025 NPR

A large black bear that was relocated earlier this year after being found under a house in Altadena is up to his old tricks again.

The bear, nicknamed Barry by the neighbors, was found last week under a different Altadena home, and wildlife officials are using a caramel- and cherry-scented lure to entice the roughly 550-pound male bear out of his hiding spot.

So far, they’ve been unsuccessful.

Cort Klopping, information specialist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told LAist the bear seems to be spooked by increased activity around the home, including media crews outside and helicopters overhead.

“It seems as though in this case, this bear has found this poor guy's crawlspace as a comfortable, safe-seeming, warm enclosure for denning purposes,” he said.

He said the space is “somewhere for this bear to kind of hang its hat when it's relaxing.”

How the bear returned

Wildlife officials can tell it’s the same bear who was lured out from under an Altadena house after the Eaton Fire because of the tag number on his ear.

The bear was trapped and relocated about 10 miles away to the Angeles National Forest in January, but Klopping said he’s been back in the Altadena area for around five months.

The male bear after it was removed from under an Altadena home earlier this year.

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The bear spooked a SoCal Gas crew who stopped by for repairs after the Eaton Fire in January.

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The Department of Fish and Wildlife fitted the bear with a temporary GPS collar so officials could keep track of it. The collar came off a couple months later while the animal still was living in the forest.

The bear is believed to have been spotted around the home last Tuesday, Klopping said, and the owner reached out to wildlife officials a few days later for help.

“I’ve seen pictures of this bear, and I’m shocked to be under that house,” homeowner Ken Johnson told LAist media partner CBS LA.

Officials said they were hopeful the bear would move along on its own. They encouraged the homeowner to set up a camera on the crawlspace and line the area with ammonia soaked-rags or a motion-activated wildlife sprinkler system to deter the bear from returning, Klopping said.

“These are all actions that would not harm the bear, not harm people, but they would make it less comfortable for the bear to be there,” he said.

But the bear stayed put.

“Right now, it seems like it's stressed,” Klopping said. “It seems like it's scared, and therefore, it's not really wanting to leave the security of where it is at the moment.”

The hope ahead

A pair of wildlife officials stopped by the home Thursday to set up the sweet-smelling lure and camera so the department can keep an eye on the bear’s activity remotely.

Barry didn’t take the bait immediately, Klopping said, but officials are hopeful the animal will feel more comfortable leaving the crawlspace once activity around the home dies down a bit.

Klopping also is warning people in the area to secure access points on their property so the bear just doesn’t move in there next.

“If I were in that neighborhood, I would be doing everything in my power to make sure that my crawlspaces would not be accessible,” he said, including covering it with something stronger than the wire mesh the bear got through before.

Bears also are extremely food motivated, and Klopping said they can smell your leftover chicken in trash cans on the curb from 5 miles away.

He encouraged residents to be mindful of trash that could be an easy meal for wildlife, as well as pet food and hummingbird feeders, which Klopping said biologists have seen bears drink “like a soda.”

You can find tips on how to handle a bear in your backyard here and resources from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife here.

There’s a new way you can track pollution in your neighborhood.

The SoCal Clean Manufacturing Coalition, a climate advocacy group, has released a map with the locations of more than 1,800 fossil fuel-burning industrial boilers across Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Many are at universities and hospitals, as well as some apartment complexes like the Park La Brea apartments in the Miracle Mile.

The map is part of an effort to push the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates our air quality, to pass rules to require these large boilers to be phased out.

Why do these boilers matter?

Industrial boilers aren’t exactly the poster child of pollution, but they do play a role in Southern California. Boilers come in different sizes, and although there are electric types, many still burn fossil fuels to generate hot water, steam and, as a byproduct, nitrogen oxide.

South Coast AQMD says that makes it a source of pollutants. Nitrogen oxide contributors are not only a problem for smog and respiratory issues but also for the agency’s effort to meet federal air quality standards.

That’s why last year the agency approved new requirements for certain buildings to use zero-emission water heaters and boilers when they need replacement.

Teresa Cheng,  California director for Industrious Labs, a coalition member focused on creating cleaner industries, says these rules were for smaller “baby boilers” and that the coalition wants to see that applied to larger ones, which are covered under the agency’s 1146 and 1146.1 rule.

The push has caused concern in the gas industry. The California Fuels and Convenience Alliance, which represents small fuel retailers and industry suppliers, says boilers are essential in a wide range of manufacturing facilities that need high heat, like food processing, fuel production and more.

“CFCA is deeply concerned that requiring industrial facilities to abandon gas-fired boilers at the end of their useful life before the market is technologically or economically ready will still have severe consequences for manufacturers, workers and consumers,” the alliance said in a statement.

The organization says many facilities already have invested in “ultra-low” nitrogen oxide technology and that requiring a switch to zero-emissions equipment could destabilize the industry because of costs.

See the map

The map includes the number of boilers in each place, including how many aging units, and their permitted heating capacity. (That metric essentially correlates with how much pollution it can release.)

Cheng says the map is being shared to make the “invisible visible” so residents can know what’s around them. Most boilers are in communities that already deal with environmental pollution problems.

Boilers are even close to K-12 schools, like Glendale’s Herbert Hoover High School, which has its own.

“ These boilers have a very long lifeline,” she said. “If the air district doesn't pass zero-emissions rules for these boilers, we actually risk locking in decades more of pollution.”

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up one of President Donald Trump's most contentious policies by reviewing the American legal principle of "birthright citizenship," potentially upending a 127-year-old understanding of who gets to be a U.S. citizen.

The Trump administration argues that citizenship has been too freely granted to the offspring of non-citizens. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order withholding citizenship from children born to non-citizens "unlawfully present" in the U.S., or non-citizens in the country on a temporary basis, such as tourists. The order would apply only to people born 30 days after the order was signed Jan. 20.

Four federal courts and two appeals courts have blocked implementation of the executive order. Courts cite the 14th Amendment, which was passed after the Civil War and grants citizenship to "[a]ll persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof."

In one of those cases, the Supreme Court earlier this year handed down an important ruling limiting the ability of lower courts to issue universal injunctions. But it did not rule on the constitutionality of Trump's executive order, or the validity of birthright citizenship in these cases.

Lawyers for the administration say parents in the country temporarily are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the U.S., and that broad "birthright citizenship" is out of step with what's done in other countries. The administration also says current practices allow for what they deride as "birth tourism," in which parents without meaningful ties to the U.S. claim citizenship for their children by giving birth here. This practice is not tracked in government statistics, but the Center for Immigration Studies estimates there are more than 20,000 such cases per year.

Despite the administration's repeated losses in lower courts on this issue, the high court will now hear its arguments this spring.

"It does say something about how important this issue is to the president," says César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State who specializes in immigration law. He says the Trump administration is playing "the long game."

"Those skirmishes in the lower courts are skirmishes that they are willing to lose because they have their eyes set on the main prize, and that's a favorable audience in the Supreme Court," he says.

But García Hernández says that doesn't mean the Supreme Court will necessarily agree with the administration's position.

"Birthright citizenship based on the location of birth is common within our neighbors in North America and throughout the Western Hemisphere but highly unusual in other parts of the world," he says. "But what should dictate the way in which citizenship law evolves moving forward is the text of the 14th Amendment, and how that applies in the modern United States."

Since 1898, the governing case has been United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which affirmed the citizenship of a man born to Chinese citizens in San Francisco.

That case has long been seen as establishing an unambiguous citizenship right for children of foreign nationals, but it has also long been criticized by some for allowing foreign-born mothers to exploit the right by visiting the U.S. expressly for the purpose of giving birth here. As President Trump began his second term in January, he made curbing that phenomenon a central part of his larger immigration enforcement plans.

By agreeing to take the case this term, the Supreme Court may end up highlighting the issue ahead of the 2026 mid-term elections.

Copyright 2025 NPR