The Brief

Amid a flurry of political mail sent ahead of the upcoming election, Megan Shuham of Los Feliz received one piece in particular that gave her pause.

It featured a photo of Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman — a progressive, MIT-educated urban planner — next to one of L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón, known for his fight against mass incarceration by seeking lighter penalties for people convicted of crimes.

A caption on the mailer reads: “Nithya Raman and George Gascón broke their promise to keep us safe.”

“It did surprise me,” Shuham told LAist. “The mailer was saying if you don’t like what Gascón’s doing, you’re really not going to like Nithya either."

“I don’t think the two are associated,” said Shuham, a stay-at-home parent who lives in City Council District 4, which is represented by Raman. “It felt like a reach.”

The mailer comes from an independent expenditure committee funded by a powerful real estate mogul and the labor union that represents Los Angeles police officers. Together with the firefighters union, they are spending more than $1 million in an effort to defeat Raman, whose district runs from Silver Lake west to Reseda, and includes all or parts of the Hollywood Hills, Studio City, and Sherman Oaks.

These forces want voters to see Raman the same as the embattled Gascón, who faces 11 challengers looking to unseat him, and beat back a growing progressive trend in L.A. politics.

Raman, however, has indicated her district is one of the safest in the city.

"All of the negative ads funded by outside spending say that crime and homelessness are spiking in our district. But it's not true ..." she said in a statement to LAist.

Citing the Police Department's own data, she noted that violent and property crime had fallen in the last two years, and "we've continued to steadily reduce street homelessness as we’ve brought hundreds of people indoors," she continued.

"So I don't think [the ads] are representing our district or their motivations honestly."

Major contributions from a real estate mogul, police union

Real estate company Douglas Emmett Management, owned by Dan Emmett, contributed $400,000 to the independent committee opposing Raman, according to campaign finance reports. The Los Angeles Police Protective League contributed $164,000.

The company refused to state its reason for the contribution.

“While we are committed to transparency, we do not discuss the specific reasons for our contributions,” Douglas Emmett said in a statement.

Raman, who chairs the City Council’s Homelessness and Housing Committee, was a vocal opponent of Dan Emmett’s ongoing attempts to evict tenants from more than 700 units at his Barrington Plaza high-rise in Westwood — something he said was necessary to install fire systems.

An outspoken supporter of tenants’ rights, Raman sided with residents who accused Emmett of staging the mass evictions so he could raise rents in the rent-controlled building. The residents argued that the sprinklers could have been installed without evicting anyone.

The ad makes no mention of Emmett’s dispute with Raman. Instead, it focuses on her opposition to a city ordinance that banned homeless encampments within 500 feet of schools, parks and daycare centers.

At a recent candidates’ debate, Raman said the law — known as 41.18 — had done nothing to solve homelessness.

“It has pushed people around the neighborhood without actually getting people off the street,” she said. “The focus of my work has been getting tents off of our streets.”

Raman faces two challengers in the March primary. Ethan Weaver is a deputy city attorney. Lev Baronian is a software engineer.

Weaver assailed Raman’s position on 41.18. “The purpose of [the law] is about protecting our children. It's not about solving homelessness,” he said.

Baronian said he “wholeheartedly” supports the ordinance. “In fact," he added, "I think we should look at more places where we need to prohibit tents."

Independent expenditures dominate

So far, Raman has collected more money in individual campaign donations — about $368,000 — than her opponents. Weaver has raised about $252,000; Baronian about $32,000.

But it is the independent expenditures that are dominating this race.

The independent expenditure committee opposing Raman and two others supporting Weaver have raised more than $1 million to defeat the incumbent.

The firefighters’ union is playing a major role. It has spent more than $300,000 in support of Weaver, with some of its ads blaming Raman for a 10% increase in homelessness during her term. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and Kilroy Realty also have made significant contributions to eject Raman.

Independent expenditure committees supporting Raman, whose donors include the hotel and restaurant workers union Unite Here Local 11 and Smart Justice, have attracted more than $200,000.

The race is shaping up to be a barometer on the city’s more progressive tilt in recent years, said Fernando Guerra, a professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles.

“Raman was the face of that early momentum, as well as George Gascón, and now both are under severe attack,” Guerra said.

Follow the money

Differences on key political issues

Raman and her two opponents differ substantially on several additional key issues.

At the debate, held last month at the Autry Museum, Raman said she opposed a hefty pay raise last year for L.A. police officers because of the burden it placed on the rest of the city budget.

“Now we’re in a $250-million deficit, which is only going to increase and impact all of the other services that matter for quality of life,” she said.

Weaver said he would have supported the raise, regardless of its affect on the budget.

“Morale is low because there is no leadership for LAPD in City Hall, and I’m running to provide that leadership,” he said.

Baronian said the raise mostly kept up with the cost of living and he “definitely would have voted in favor.”

Government reform is another point of demarcation among the candidates. Raman has said she strongly supports expanding the size of the 15-member City Council to make it more representative of L.A. residents.

Weaver and Baronian oppose expansion. Weaver said he would not support it “unless we do real structural reform on how power works.” (Read more about the candidates’ policy positions at the LAist Voter Game Plan.)

The ad campaigns against Raman play on the fears and frustrations of voters, some of whom say they have buyer’s remorse after supporting Raman in 2020.

“I actually voted for her and unfortunately I regret it,” said Elizabeth Lovins, a renter who sits on the board of directors of the Los Feliz Improvement Association.

“I’ve seen the quality of life degrade over the past five years,” she added, citing among other things RVs in front of homes “dumping waste.”

Jade Luu, a landscape architect from Silver Lake said she voted for Raman four years ago, but won’t be supporting her again.

“The increase in crime has been a major issue in my neighborhood,” Luu said. “Catalytic converters stolen, copper pipes cut, defecation, crazy people screaming obscenities, vandalism.”

Aida Ashouri, of the Los Feliz Neighborhood Council, said she believes L.A. is ”broken,” but she is unwilling to point to Raman as the problem.

“If we blame one person, we ignore all of the other structural issues that predated that person,” Ashouri said.

Amy Gustincic of Los Feliz agreed.

“It's very easy for someone running for office to say, ‘Yes, I’ll do that, I’ll fix that, I’ll make that better,’ and the incumbent has to talk about the realities of it,” she said.

One of Raman’s challenges is that the boundaries of her district changed dramatically during the 2021 redistricting process. Nearly 40% of the district now includes voters who have never seen her name on a ballot.

If no candidate garners a majority of the votes in the March 5 primary election, the two top finishers will face off in November.

Maloy Moore and Brian Frank contributed to this report.

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.

The State Department said Wednesday it will suspend the processing of immigrant visas for citizens of 75 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Somalia, whose nationals the Trump administration has deemed likely to require public assistance while living in the United States.

The State Department, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said it had instructed consular officers to halt immigrant visa applications from the countries affected in accordance with a broader order issued in November that tightened rules around potential immigrants who might become "public charges" in the U.S.

The step builds on earlier immigration and travel bans by the administration on nearly 40 countries and is part of President Donald Trump's ongoing efforts to tighten U.S. entry standards for foreigners.

"The Trump administration is bringing an end to the abuse of America's immigration system by those who would extract wealth from the American people," the department said in a statement. "Immigrant visa processing from these 75 countries will be paused while the State Department reassess immigration processing procedures to prevent the entry of foreign nationals who would take welfare and public benefits."

The suspension, which will begin Jan. 21, will not apply to applicants seeking non-immigrant visas, or temporary tourist or business visas, who make up the vast majority of visa seekers. Demand for non-immigrant visas is expected to rise dramatically in the coming months and years due to the upcoming 2026 World Cup and 2028 Olympics both of which the U.S. will host or co-host.

Cable calls for screening of non-immigrant visa applicants

A separate notice sent to all U.S. embassies and consulates said that non-immigrant visa applicants should be screened for the possibility that they might seek public benefits in the United States.

"With the uncovering of massive public benefits fraud across the United States, the Trump administration is laser-focused on eliminating and preventing fraud in public benefits programs," said the cable that referred specifically to most non-immigrant visa applications and was sent on Monday.

The cable, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, urged consular officers to ensure that foreigners wanting to travel to the U.S. "have been fully vetted and screened" for whether they may rely on public services before they are issued a visa.

The cable noted several times that it is up to the applicant to prove that they would not apply for public benefits while in the U.S. and said consular officers who suspect the applicant might apply should require them to fill out a form proving their financial bona fides.

President Trump's administration has already severely restricted immigrant and non-immigrant visa processing for citizens of dozens of countries, many of them in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Consular officials must consider a range of personal details

The November guidance on which Wednesday's decision is based directed U.S. Embassy and consulate officials to comprehensively and thoroughly vet visa applicants to demonstrate that they will not need to rely on public benefits from the government any time after their admission in the U.S.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio makes a statement to reporters while meeting with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan at the State Department in Washington on Tuesday.

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While federal law already required those seeking permanent residency or legal status to prove they wouldn't be a public charge, Trump in his first term widened the range of benefit programs that could disqualify applicants, and the guidelines in the cable appear to go further in scope.

Immigrants seeking entry into the U.S. already undergo a medical exam by a physician who's been approved by a U.S. Embassy. They are screened for communicable diseases, like tuberculosis, and asked to disclose any history of drug or alcohol use, mental health conditions or violence. They're also required to have a number of vaccinations.

The new directive expanded those with more specific requirements. It said consular officials must consider a range of specific details about people seeking visas, including their age, health, family status, finances, education, skills and any past use of public assistance regardless of the country. It also said they should assess applicants' English proficiency and can do so by conducting interviews in English.

Experts said at the time it could further limit who gets to enter the country at a time when the Republican administration is already tightening those rules.

The countries affected by the suspension announced on Wednesday are: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Congo, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan and Yemen.

Copyright 2026 NPR

After a tense day of confusion and backroom negotiations, the Trump administration moved Wednesday night to restore roughly $2 billion in federal grant money for mental health and addiction programs nationwide.

The money had been cut off late Tuesday without warning, sending shockwaves through a segment of the country's patchwork system of public health that relies on grant funding.

"After a day of panic across the country, non-profits and people with mental health conditions are deeply alarmed, but also hopeful that this money is being restored," said Hannah Wesolowski with the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

An administration official confirmed to NPR that the cuts, first announced by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), were being reversed. They asked not to be identified because they didn't have permission to speak publicly about the decision.

They said all of the roughly 2,000 organizations affected by the whiplash series of events were being notified that full funding would be restored.

NPR was unable to confirm who triggered the initial decision to terminate the grants by sending letters that abruptly signaled programs no longer "aligned" with the Trump administration's public health agenda.

After sending the letters, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services and SAMHSA went silent, offering no clarification to health care providers or the public about what would happen next or where patients should go for care.

The sudden defunding and lack of communication triggered a backlash from local officials and care providers, who said the American public would see a rapid dismantling of essential safety net programs.

"We provide treatment, life saving treatment," said Dan Lustig who runs the Haymarket Center, the largest non-profit addiction treatment program in Chicago, which treats people at high risk while using illicit drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamines.

"If people don't get access to treatment they just die. That's a fact," Lustig said. "You can spin this any way people want to, but people are going to die."

The American Medical Association weighed in, issuing a statement saying it was "deeply concerned" by the cuts and calling for grants to be restored.

"At a time when patients already face too many barriers to care, sudden funding disruptions risk leaving them without the support and treatment they urgently need," the statement said.

That message reached members of Congress. Republican and Democratic lawmakers scrambled to urge White House and Health and Human Services officials to reverse course.

"We heard from offices on both sides of the political aisle who were working on this issue throughout the day," said Wesolowski. The bipartisan pressure, she added, "really speaks to the power of the collaboration on this issue."

While most of the talks happened behind closed doors, some Democratic lawmakers publicly blasted the Trump administration and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for what they described as roughshod treatment of front-line care providers.

"After national outrage, Secretary Kennedy has bowed to public pressure and reinstated $2 billion in SAMHSA grants that save lives," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut.

"Our policy must be thoughtful – not haphazard and chaotic. This episode has only created uncertainty and confusion for families and health care providers," she added.

While confusion over funding was apparently short-lived, public health organizations and other sources told NPR that the termination letters demoralized staff in a system already weakened by deep cuts to Medicaid, enacted by the Republican-controlled Congress last year.

For 24 hours, it was unclear which programs would survive and who would still have jobs when the dust settled.

Dr. Yngvild Olsen, an addiction treatment physician who served as the director for the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment inside SAMHSA until July 2025, said the turmoil also raised questions about who in the Trump administration is making key public health decisions.

"My understanding is that much of the staff at SAMHSA was caught unaware," Olsen said. "These were decisions made without the input of experts in these programs and experts in this [addiction and mental health] field."

For months, Trump administration officials have been signaling they think many of the country's current public health programs are ineffective and need to be replaced.

But public health experts told NPR there has been little or no communication with frontline groups that provide much of the actual in the U.S. Meanwhile, no clear plan from the administration has emerged. Instead, local government agencies and non-profits caring for patients have faced a series of threats, disruptions and funding chaos.

"This sparks a lot of uncertainty about who's making public health decisions in this country," said NAMI's Wesolowski.
Copyright 2026 NPR