The Brief

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is stopping a successful flu vaccination campaign that juxtaposed images of wild animals, such as a lion, with cute counterparts, like a kitten, as an analogy for how immunization can help tame the flu.

The news was shared with staff during a meeting on Wednesday, according to two CDC staffers who spoke with NPR on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, and a recording reviewed by NPR.

During the meeting, leadership at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases told CDC staff that the Department of Health and Human Services had reviewed the campaign and advised that it would not continue.

The move comes during Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s first full week on the job as head of HHS.

The "Wild to Mild" flu vaccination campaign sought to encourage people to get the flu vaccine. In particular, the campaign aimed to communicate that flu vaccination can lessen symptoms and the chance of getting severely ill, even if it doesn't prevent someone from catching the flu.

The Trump administration's decision to pull the campaign comes in the midst of a brutal flu season that's still raging. More than 50,000 patients were admitted to hospitals for influenza during the week ending Feb. 8, the highest level in 15 years.

Paid media for the ad campaign was ending on Wednesday, according to one of the current CDC staff members who spoke to NPR. The website for the "Wild to Mild" vaccination campaign is already offline.

Requests for comment to the CDC and HHS were not immediately returned.

The campaign sought to "reset public expectations around what a flu vaccine can do in the event that it does not entirely prevent illness," according to the CDC's webpage describing the launch of the campaign in 2023. It was renewed for the current flu season.

"We found that it was very successful—people understood the message, [and] they were swayed by the message," Erin Burns, associate director for communications in the CDC's Influenza Division, told the trade website Fierce Pharma in October 2024.

The campaign was a response to falling flu vaccination rates since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and targeted groups at higher risk, the CDC's launch webpage says, "especially pregnant women and children."

"The CDC campaign is a creative and effective way of conveying an extremely important public health message about 'partial protection' vs. 'complete prevention' of disease," Marla Dalton, executive director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told NPR in an email.

While it was primarily digital, the campaign also found a home in public transit over the fall. "Wild to Mild" branding was wrapped around trains in four major cities, and ads were featured at mass transit stations. According to a presentation from the CDC in November, those ads reached more than 30 million riders and generated another 30 million digital impressions by the end of October last year.

It's unclear how much time was left in the campaign, but it would have at least gone through the end of this flu season and the materials would have stayed on the agency's website, one of the CDC staffers told NPR.

Have information you want to share about the ongoing changes at federal health agencies? Reach out via encrypted communications: Will Stone @wstonereports.95
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Southern California’s largest gas company wants to shut down all of its branch locations, which could affect how you pay your bill.

SoCalGas has 43 locations across the region where customers can ditch the service hotline and get help with their bills in person. Its offices span from Dinuba (near Fresno) all the way down to the border in El Centro.

The utility asked the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) for permission to close them last year. Now, the state agency wants your input.

Lower use

Chris Gilbride, a spokesperson for the utility, said in a statement the proposal is about adjusting to customer preferences and long-term affordability.

Bill payments make up nearly all transactions at SoCalGas offices, but those have declined significantly over the years, according to the application.

Most customers pay online, call in or go to one of 400 authorized payment locations, like grocery stores, all of which are cheaper to run. SoCalGas says these are reasonably comparable alternatives to the branches.

Those 43 locations cost nearly $19 million to operate in 2024. If the closures are approved, the utility says it’ll return those savings to customers.

How much that could be is unclear. The union representing branch employees, UWUA Local 132, says they were told there might not be any direct savings.

The commission has let other utilities, like Southern California Edison, close their branch offices in the past.

Access concerns

While a majority of customers don’t rely on in-person anymore, there are still some who do.

William Gilbertson, the local’s president and a lead  construction technician at SoCalGas, said that at authorized payment locations, you pay your bill and leave. Branch offices do more, like schedule service and answer questions about your bill.

“[During] Palisade Fire and the Eaton Fire, a lot of people went to our members to ask questions at the branch offices,” he said. “It was kind of like a lifeline for the community.”

He said the union has also heard about difficulties customers have had resolving serious issues in their accounts without an in-person location.

“ You can do [fraud verification] online, but you have to have a fax machine and you have to fill out all the paperwork,” he said. “So it’s kind of tough for someone that isn’t tech savvy to do that.”

Multiple unionized branch employees have written to the CPUC. They’re asking the commission to deny the proposal, saying they want to continue providing a needed service for their customers. Some don’t trust the internet, can’t use the customer service hotline or experience language barriers.

SoCalGas says it’ll work with local faith and community groups to make sure vulnerable people, such as those with low-come or a disability, are aware of the closures and alternate options.

The timing of branch closures would vary since the utility leases some buildings and owns others, but if it’s approved, SoCalGas is generally eyeing a 120-day timeline. Gilbertson expects a decision to come in June.

How to add your voice

Until then, you can add your thoughts anytime to the filing’s docket card.

The CPUC is also having public hearings. What you share at these meetings will be transcribed and put into the formal record so it can inform the agency’s ruling.

The first few will take place in person in L.A. and Orange counties. If you want to give public comment, you’ll sign up at the location’s Public Advisor’s Office table. Another pair of hearings will happen remotely, which take public comment over the phone.

Language interpreters and other accommodation are available if you contact the CPUC’s Public Advisor’s Office with at least five business days’ notice of the given hearing. Here are the dates and times for both formats:

Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal includes no money for a fund formed last year to boost the state’s local newsrooms, casting doubt on whether a heralded effort to help California journalists will amount to anything and how serious Newsom is about supporting the struggling industry.

It’s a significant walkback from an August 2024 deal between state leaders and Google in which they agreed to jointly spend $175 million over five years to fund local journalism.

The deal, which Newsom hailed as a “major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms” at the time, was reached after Google spent a record sum — $11 million — lobbying state lawmakers successfully to drop two proposals that would have forced Google to pay newsrooms for using their content. Under the agreement, the state would pay $70 million and Google $55 million into the newly established California Civic Media Fund for local news outlets. Google would also continue issuing its annual $10 million newsroom grants.

But in May 2025, citing budget restraints, Newsom slashed the state’s first-year commitment to just $10 million for fiscal year 2025-26, with no future state funding guaranteed. Google subsequently said it would match the state’s $10 million investment but no more.

Google was clear in the deal that “its contributions were contingent” on state funding, similar to its journalism funding deal in Canada, said Erin Ivie, spokesperson for Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who brokered the deal in 2024.

A 2019 study by the trade group News Media Alliance estimated that Google made $4.7 billion from news sites in 2018. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, made over $100 billion in the third quarter of 2025 alone — its “first ever $100 billion quarter,” said Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. By Wednesday, Alphabet’s market cap was over $4 trillion.

None of the $20 million pledged has reached local news outlets, drawing disappointment from journalism advocates. The Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, which administers the funds, has received the money and expects to distribute it this year, said agency spokesperson Willie Rudman.

“At this point right now, nobody should be jumping up and down and getting excited,” California News Publishers Association President Chuck Champion said.

Newsom’s lack of proposed funding for future years angered Champion, who said the governor failed to keep his promise.

“He’s more interested in the billionaires and his friends than he’s interested in journalists who are out on the street,” Champion said. “He talks about democracy, he talks about how critically important it is, and then he allows our journalists to starve on the vine.”

The lack of future commitment from the state also raises the question whether Google will deposit anything into the fund next year. Google News Initiative did not immediately respond to a CalMatters inquiry for comment.

Newsom’s office did not respond to questions about his decision to skip the funding this year, directing CalMatters to the state Department of Finance and Rudman.

Lawmaker promises to fight for more funding

“There’s no going back on the deal,” Department of Finance Director Joe Stephenshaw stressed to reporters during a budget briefing last week, saying that the state has already contributed the $10 million promised last year.

Wicks said budget restraints forced Newsom’s hand last year.

“What you saw last year was the budget being what it was,” she said. “Programs across the board got cut and sliced, either got completely zeroed out or significantly reduced, and this is no different.”

But she said she will fight for more funding.

“I’ve been operating on the assumption that (the state) will honor the multiyear commitment,” Wicks said.

But even the full amount of the Google deal may not be enough to “arrest the collapse of independent community news in California,” said former state Sen. Steve Glazer, an Orinda Democrat who authored a bill that would have offered tax credits to employers of journalists by charging a fee to platforms like Google.

“Leaders can't just talk about protecting our democracy,” he said. “They need to act to direct the resources to support independent news reporting that provides the oversight and accountability of our democratic institutions.”

The journalism industry nationwide has been diminishing. Between 2005 and 2024, more than 3,200 newspapers shut their doors, according to a 2024 report by the Local News Initiative at Northwestern University.

As of that year, California had 1.5 news outlets for every 100,000 residents, ranking 45th among all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Between 2013 and 2024, the number of newspaper journalists in California dropped by more than half.

To make matters worse, Congress last year voted to strip public broadcast stations nationwide of federal funding, putting dozens of stations across California in peril. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a national nonprofit that has funded public media since 1967, announced its dissolution due to the funding cuts last week.

California’s public broadcasters stand to lose as much as $30 million a year due to the federal cuts, said Assemblymember Chris Ward, a San Diego Democrat, in a letter last month to legislative budget leaders requesting state funding for public media.

Ward, along with 11 other Democratic assemblymembers, is asking for $70 million next year for public broadcast stations.

“California is one of only 16 states that do not provide funding for public media,” he said in the letter. “California’s 33 non-profit public media organizations provide coverage to over 90% of the state, and serve diverse communities in both (the) largest metropolitan areas and rural communities — services that not only include arts, culture, and community engagement, but emergency alerts and education.”

CalMatters CEO Neil Chase was involved in the 2024 deal as a board member for Local Independent Online News Publishers. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the organization, newsroom or its staff.

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

State health officials on Wednesday issued their second warning this season to avoid mushroom foraging as illness and deaths from eating wild mushrooms known as death caps rise to unprecedented highs.

Thirty-five people have gotten sick so far this season, three needed liver transplants, and three died, compared to a typical year that sees only three to five cases. Doctors worry more cases are coming amid a “super bloom” of death caps, sparked by early rains and warm temperatures in the fall.

“We anticipate that these mushrooms could continue to be fruiting in abundance throughout the rainy season in California,” said Dr. Craig Smollin, medical director of the San Francisco division of the California Poison Control System.

Immigrants from Mexico and China make up a disproportionate number of the cases, as death caps, or Amanita phalloides, look very similar to edible mushrooms that grow in those countries. The California Department of Public Health released a series of fact sheets and videos on Wednesday in multiple languages, including Mixteco, an indigenous language of Mexico spoken by communities in Monterey County, where the first poisonings emerged in November.

Since then, people have been treated in hospitals throughout the Bay Area after eating mushrooms found in the Oakland Hills, Stinson Beach and Pinnacles National Park, among other sites, though Smollin said that they grow along the West Coast and that no part of California is a death cap-free zone. Some dogs have also died.

Death cap mushrooms sit by the side of a trail during an educational mushroom walk at Anthony Chabot Regional Park in Oakland on Dec. 12, 2025. Mushroom foraging is not allowed in the park.

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“It’s a really dangerous time to be mushroom hunting and foraging right now,” said Dr. Rita Nguyen, assistant state public health director. “It can be very hard, even for experts, to identify the difference between edible mushrooms and not.”

Symptoms of death cap poisoning include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, and can occur 6 to 24 hours after ingestion. Extreme cases can lead to liver failure, necessitating an urgent liver transplant or death. Cooking, boiling or freezing the mushrooms does not inactivate the toxin.

“A single bite of the mushroom could cause significant toxicity,” Smollin said.

Local mushroom experts and enthusiasts have bemoaned the state’s messaging around the poisonings as narrow and fear-based. Many would prefer to see an emphasis on education, rather than a prohibition on all foraging, and point out that touching, smelling and looking at mushrooms is safe.

“There’s a lot more nuance,” said Debbie Viess, co-founder of the Bay Area Mycological Society. “It’s much more important to steer people to places where they can educate themselves about the safety and the dangers of eating wild mushrooms.”

Viess said field reports coming into her organization suggest the growth of death caps may be slowing in the Bay Area, while another kind of poisonous mushroom known as the destroying angel, or Amanita ocreata, is starting to pop up.

People who believe they or a family member may have ingested a toxic mushroom — or health care providers who have a patient showing signs of mushroom toxicity — can call the state’s toll-free poison control hotline 24/7, free of charge for advice: 1-800-222-1222.

Translation services are available in any language, and all personal information is kept confidential, said Dr. Cyrus Rangan, a pediatrician and toxicologist with poison control.

“We can then determine whether you need to go into the emergency department or whether we, as poison experts, can help you treat the situation at home,” he said.

A year after the Eaton Fire, some small business owners in Altadena are striving to rebuild, in some cases while also grappling with being displaced from homes that burned down or were severely damaged.

For others, such as Steve’s Pets Store owner Carrie Meyers, it’s just too much.

“People want me back,” Meyers said. “But I don’t know if we can survive up there. No one lives there … mentally I’m not there.”

Meyers said she had just received a delivery before the fire last January, so about 65 animals perished, including cats, rats, birds and a 40-year-old parrot. The store is now permanently closed, and its website shows a message from former employee Michael Mersola, who said he would miss it because “people would just (hang out) here, I swear it was Starbucks for animal lovers lol.”

Meanwhile, Carrie’s husband Ed is dealing with trying to rebuild their home, which burned down. He has dealt with a long insurance process with State Farm that has, four claims adjusters later, finally improved.

One adjuster “was the king of no” and “existed like a great cloud in our lives for four to five months,” Ed Meyers said. “Then one day, like winning the lottery, we got a new adjuster.”

Other survivors of the fire that killed 19 people have complained about insurance companies assigning them multiple adjusters, slowing things down. Now, Ed said things are looking better than they were six months ago and they are on their way to rebuilding, though they were underinsured, something many fire survivors have in common.

The small business owners and others CalMatters spoke with for this story stressed the importance of thoughtful and timely help from insurance companies, community organizations and all levels of government for businesses and residents as key to the recovery of the unincorporated town of about 43,000 residents — even for the businesses that survived the fire.

“Our struggling businesses can’t afford patience,” said Nic Arnzen, chief of the Altadena Town Council, who called the community’s path to recovery a chicken-and-egg situation. “Without the population returning to Altadena, they’re in a tough corner.”

Los Angeles County has received about 2,700 applications for permits to rebuild in Altadena, according to the county’s dashboard. Of those, the county has issued about 1,200 permits and 560 homes are being rebuilt right now.

‘The heart of Altadena’

Jimmy Orlandini, owner of Altadena Hardware, thinks it might take five years to reopen his business at its original location after almost the whole building burned down.

“Five years is an eternity to not have a business running,” he said. As others rebuild, they will need a hardware store, so he is looking for a temporary place to run his business as he waits for the property owner to rebuild. He had 21 employees at the time of the fire; he thinks most of them have found other jobs, while some are relying on unemployment benefits.

His family has been in the hardware business for decades, and he has two other locations elsewhere. But he has deep ties to the community, having lived in Altadena for 40 years, since he was 2.

Jimmy Orlandini stands inside what’s left of the Woodbury Building on Jan. 12, 2026.

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Orlandini displays a photo on his phone of what Altadena Hardware looked like before it burned in the Eaton Fire last year. It’s one of the few photos he has of the store. All other photos of his business were kept in the store and burned during the fire.

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The Woodbury Building in Altadena on Jan. 12, 2026. The building burned during the Eaton Fire last year. Since then, it has undergone some repairs, but has yet to be largely rebuilt.

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The Woodbury Building in Altadena on Jan. 12, 2026. The building burned during the Eaton Fire last year. Since then, it has undergone some repairs, but has yet to be largely rebuilt. Photo by Jules Hotz for CalMatters

“It’s really difficult,” he said. “Altadena was our best store in terms of revenue, and our relationship with the customer base.” (Another business owner CalMatters spoke with, the owner of a pizza restaurant, called the hardware store “the heart of Altadena.”)

Orlandini and his family returned to their house in October. It did not burn down even as “everything around us burned,” he said. But Mercury Insurance eventually deemed it a total loss because of smoke damage and lead contamination of all its contents.

“We have no couch,” he said. “We’re sitting on camping chairs in the living room. The kids still haven’t gotten their toys back.” But he said they finally received a big portion of the payout for the contents of their house a couple of weeks ago, so “now we can start buying stuff.”

Uneven help 

A common refrain among Altadena’s small business owners: Some of the help available to homeowners is not extended to them.

Matt Schodorf co-owns Café de Leche with his wife, Anya. Their home, about 15 to 20 minutes away in Highland Park in Los Angeles, is fine except for some ash in the attic. He understands that Altadena homeowners whose homes were destroyed and want to rebuild need assistance — those are his customers.

But their Altadena coffee shop, the only one whose building they owned out of their four locations and which he said was their busiest store, burned down. Now they’re dealing with the rebuilding process and in some ways are feeling left out.

“FEMA in particular excluded us from debris removal originally,” Schodorf said. So Schodorf and his wife complained and were featured “on all the media” including CNN. FEMA included Café de Leche in federally funded clearing of debris after the media appearances, Schodorf said. He also credited L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger’s office for advocating for them.

Schodorf also said, as did others, that the Los Angeles Department of Economic Opportunity has been a huge help in providing information about grants and other support.

Still, “it feels frustrating because it feels we are very small potatoes, especially from the perspective of the government,” he said. “It doesn’t seem like it would be too much to ask: waive permit fees, clean our lots out. Don’t make us go on national news pleading for help.”

Melted glass on a window pane in the Woodbury Building on Jan. 12, 2026. The building burned during the Eaton Fire in Altadena last year.

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Daniel Harlow, whose office was destroyed, agreed that businesses need more help. His custom computer programming and software development business is up and running again, but it was in a separate structure at his home and was a total loss.

“A lot of rules for homeowners insurance don’t apply to businesses,” he said. “To not have more assistance for small and medium businesses is a problem.”

For example, the state law that allows homeowners to get some upfront payouts without having to provide a full inventory of the contents of their home does not apply to businesses.

Harlow is now dealing with both rebuilding his office and repairing his house, which suffered some damage. He’s living in a rental home.

“I’m trying to find architects and contractors while running my business,” he said. “It’s basically (another) full-time job.”

A shift, and more changes ahead

Zak Fishman’s Prime Pizza in Altadena is the only pizza restaurant of the four in Altadena that survived the fire. It was a bit of good news for his family. Their house burned down, and they’re now rebuilding.

Fishman, who owns several other locations in the Los Angeles area and elsewhere, said his Altadena location was closed for about a month but is now doing pretty well, considering the circumstances.

“We do see a shift,” he said. “You see different types of people coming. A lot of workers in the area had nowhere else to eat (lunch).”

Fishman opened the Altadena location in September 2023 and was seeing a lot of growth, he said. He said sales at the location probably would have been up 20% over the prior year if the fire hadn’t happened. Now he says they’re up about 8% to 10%.

“I’m certainly not complaining, it’s amazing,” he said.

With about half of Altadena’s businesses destroyed in the fire, it’s going to be a long way back.

Judy Matthews, president of the Altadena Chamber of Commerce, said her group is working with other chambers and the county to help promote shopping local, and to identify more opportunities for grants and help for small and medium-size businesses.

“There’s increasing collaboration between local government and business,” she said. “That’s critical. No one man can stand alone and say I did it.”

A “We Are Altadena Strong” sign outside the Woodbury Building on Jan. 12, 2026.

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When more of the community is able to rebuild, it could end up looking drastically different. Whether homeowners return could depend on their insurance provider and whether they can fill the gap from being underinsured, some said. Whether small businesses rebuild could depend on what type of service or goods they offer, and their location.

“Most worrisome are retail and specialty shops, and those that depend on a steady flow of customers,” Matthews said, noting that Altadena’s limited foot traffic and visibility because of its location has been and will continue to be a factor.

Arnzen, the town council chair, said there is “a lot of competition for funds and assistance. There’s potential for people to feel left out. That is exacerbated by feelings of trauma and in some cases, historical neglect, especially from marginalized communities.”

Nearly half of Black households in Altadena, or 48%, were destroyed or had major damage, according to the NAACP.

“We need to ensure a balanced recovery that supports diverse types of businesses,” Matthews said.

Orlandini, owner of the hardware store, said he expects his business and customers to change.

“It’s definitely going to be a different town,” he said. “My store was catered to older homes, and a lot of those are gone now.”

He added: “That’s the thing that bothers me most about the fire — how much of the history is gone and will never come back.”

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