The Brief

Earlier this year, Selena Peña spent her days helping Kern County residents learn how to lead healthier lives through nutrition and fitness classes. She was part of a public health team focused on reducing high rates of obesity and heart disease.

But in July the county eliminated the program, citing the loss of $12.5 million in federal public health funding. It was early in a series of cascading cuts to Kern’s health programs this year. Other counties are making similar decisions.

Across the state, county health and human services departments have made significant reductions to bread-and-butter programs as a result of the Trump administration’s funding cuts and freezes. Kern, San Luis Obispo, Orange and Los Angeles counties, as well as the city of Long Beach, are among those reducing health services. The state’s budgetary crisis and subsequent public health cuts have also strained local resources.

California cities and counties have closed public health clinics, eliminated family planning programs, stopped dental services, reduced appointment availability for immunizations, instituted hiring freezes and laid off dozens of local health workers. At the end of the month, because of cuts in Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful Bill, most county health departments will shut down nutrition programs focused on teaching low-income families how to stretch their food stamp dollars and cook healthier food.

Kern has the highest rate of diabetes-related deaths in the state, and 78% of adults are overweight or obese, according to state data. Peña, who was born and raised there, has seen firsthand how poverty, lack of education and language barriers contribute to poor health. That’s why she was thrilled to do work that helped people like her mom begin to take control of their health.

The irony is not lost on local health leaders that while U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vocally pushes an agenda targeting leading causes of chronic disease like obesity and heart disease, local programs to address these issues and more have been gutted. His recent “Make Our Children Healthy Again” strategy report called out poor diet and lack of physical activity as primary drivers of chronic disease among kids.

“It’s not good enough to say this is important,” said Bernadette Boden-Albala, dean of the school of population and public health at UC Irvine. “They talk about nutrition, but where’s the money on nutrition?

Health departments are well-positioned to improve community health outcomes, Boden-Albala said, because their services are often aimed at improving systemic barriers that make it harder for people to be healthy. They focus on food insecurity, health education and access, disease prevention and surveillance, mental health and regulations to promote safety.

The work is preventative in nature, and without it communities will have more illness, higher costs and fewer health care options, said Long Beach Health and Human Services Director Alison King.

“When public health funding is reduced, prevention work is often the first to be impacted,” King said.

Long Beach has lost nearly $4 million in federal grants with the largest cut affecting its HIV and sexually transmitted infection prevention program.

These policies “will reverberate for the rest of this administration if not well beyond that,” said Arthur Reingold, professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley School of Public Health and global infectious disease expert.

DOGE cuts billions of public health dollars 

Many of the cuts to local health departments started in March when Elon Musk, then-adviser to the Department of Government Efficiency, terminated more than $11 billion of public health funding nationwide. California lost nearly $1 billion.

Those cuts targeted money that health departments had used to bolster their response to the COVID-19 pandemic by shoring up laboratory capacity, community outreach and immunization programs. In turn, many counties hired dozens of public health workers and were able to expand other services.

The grants were, in some cases, scheduled to last until 2027. Their abrupt termination left counties scrambling.

“We couldn’t even prepare for the end of this funding. That was what was so catastrophic for us,” said Brynn Carrigan, Kern County public health director. “We received notification the day after the stop-funding order was effective.”

California sued to prevent the Trump administration’s cuts, and a federal judge ruled in May that the money must be restored while the lawsuit plays out. But in many ways, the tug of war between federal cuts and state litigation still left local governments with no choice but to eliminate services. If the courts were to ultimately side with the Trump administration, counties would have to repay the money to the federal government.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, pop-up food distributions in Los Angeles served 1,600 tourism industry workers facing reduced wages or job loss.

(

Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Regional Food Bank

)

“At the end of the day all of the liability and all of the risk is on the county, and we're talking millions of dollars,” Carrigan said.

That’s why programs like Peña’s healthy habits team and others have been terminated.

Her team — called “Know Your Numbers” — checked residents’ blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol and body mass index before providing seven weeks of free dietary and exercise classes to show them how their numbers improved.

“Our health should be a priority. We should want to combat the things that make us unhealthy: Diseases, tobacco, unhealthy foods,” said Peña, a member of Service Employees International Union Local 721. “It’s discouraging when the government doesn’t want to care for the health of the public.”

California counties eliminate dental, other programs

In Kern County, the department has also been forced to close a clinic serving rural farm communities, stop most mobile clinic services, reduce appointment availability at its primary Bakersfield clinic by 67%, and eliminate 35 jobs.

More than 170 miles south, Orange County Health Director Veronica Kelley has grappled with the same difficult decisions. Public health has “not been whole for decades,” Kelly said, but the early federal grant terminations have been especially harsh. They cost Orange County $13.7 million over the next two years.

In May, the county closed its emergency dental clinic. A month later, the children’s clinic and family planning clinic also closed. A federal program to help new moms with diapers, breastfeeding support and food has also been reduced. In October, the county will lose an additional $4 million to combat obesity and food insecurity.

“If we do care about the health of Americans and people who live here and the health of Orange County residents, then we need to put more focus on funding these services,” Kelley said.

The department tried to make reductions in areas where other community providers could absorb the patient load and have the least impact on access to services, Kelley said. But the county isn’t blind to the probability that more cuts will happen in the coming years, as federal support for Medicaid decreases substantially.

Most counties rely on Medicaid to provide mental health services and inpatient substance abuse treatment. It also helps pay for public health clinics where people can get immunizations and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections. Counties that run public hospitals are facing even greater uncertainty.

Los Angeles public hospitals brace for Medicaid cuts

In Los Angeles County, the health services department projects it will have a $1.85 billion annual deficit by 2028-29 largely due to Medicaid cuts. The department operates four public hospitals, and 80% of its patients rely on Medicaid for health insurance.

At a recent county supervisors meeting, county Chief Executive Fesia Davenport said federal cuts will likely result in thousands of layoffs and could precipitate the closure of a county hospital.

There are no current plans to close any hospitals, said Jorge Orozco, chief executive of L.A. General Medical Center, but the department has instituted a hiring freeze. County officials are also considering consolidating services that might be provided at multiple hospitals like radiation oncology and delaying maintenance and capital improvement projects.

Still, a deficit of that magnitude will be impossible for the county to fully absorb.

“Belt tightening efforts and cost efficiencies really are not sufficient to make up $1.85 billion,” Orozco said. “That’s really catastrophic.”

The L.A. County Department of Public Health earlier this year also lost $45 million in federal grants and has instituted a hiring freeze.

Orozco said cuts to the health care safety net will ultimately impact everyone in L.A. County. One-third of all trauma cases are taken to a county hospital, he added.

“Our safety net system really serves a huge segment of our population here at L.A. General,” Orozco said. “So the impact of service reductions, the impact of budget reductions, will be felt not only to the most vulnerable, but really all of our community.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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.

(

California Department of Fish and Wildlife

/

X

)

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

(

California Department of Fish and Wildlife

/

X

)

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.”