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MONDAY, APRIL 20-APRIL 26, 2026
Eaton Fire recovery: Barger touts $300K from small biz program; advocates call for insurance reforms By Joe Taglieri
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os Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger on Wednesday announced the Shop Local LA County Gift Card Program has generated $300,000 for small businesses that suffered losses as a result of the Eaton Fire, while advocates for fireaffected residents renewed calls for major reforms to the state’s insurance industry. The Shop Local Program by the LA County Department of Economic Opportunity includes a new $225,000 investment by the Altadena Chamber of Commerce to provide $500 gift cards to 450 fire-impacted residents who lost homes, sustained property damage or were displaced, according to Barger’s office. The gift-card spending is designed to immediately move money back into local businesses that continue facing economic hardship more than a year after the devastating blaze. “From day one, I’ve remained committed to standing with Eaton Fire survivors to help rebuild a better future,” Barger said in a statement. “This new investment supports a program that offers continued, steady support for residents and small businesses alike. I remain focused on driving the economic revitalization of Altadena and ensuring this community comes back stronger.” The gift cards are a component of the county’s “Shop Local. Dine Local. Recover Local.” campaign, launched in July through a motion authored by Barger. The initiative intends to help stabilize brick-and-mortar businesses in Altadena and surrounding fire-affected communities that have experienced reduced
LA County quality of life hits record low, UCLA survey finds PG 31
VOL. 15,
Inside Trump’s effort to ‘take over’ the midterm elections By Doug Bock Clark and Jen Fifield, ProPublica This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive The Big Story newsletter as soon as it’s published.
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| Image courtesy of Los Angeles County
foot traffic, revenue loss and continuous economic challenges. Residents and supporters can purchase gift cards in $20, $50 and $100 increments, each paired with bonus cards — $10, $25, and $50 respectively — funded by a donation by LA Cares. Participating small businesses, which enroll through the Recover Local Business Registry, benefit from increased visibility, direct spending and access to additional county resources, according to Barger’s office. More than 110 fireimpacted businesses are in the Recover Local Business Directory, with 68 participating in the gift card program in Altadena, Pasadena, Sierra Madre and other areas. Every dollar spent through the program stays within local communities supporting restaurants, retailer stores
and service providers that are key to long-term recovery and the region’s economic resilience. Residents can support fire-impacted businesses by purchasing and redeeming gift cards at ShopLocal.LA. Meanwhile, local advocates for residents attempting to recover and rebuild have renewed their calls for reform of the insurance industry, which they say is slowing the pace of recovery. The Eaton Fire scorched more than 14,000 acres as the wind-fueled wildfire swept through Eaton Canyon and surrounding communities in January 2025. The fire killed 19 people and destroyed or damaged more than 10,000 structures, while another major blaze on the other side of the county simultaneously See Eaton Fire Page 02
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devastated Pacific Palisades, Malibu and other coastal areas. Former California Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, who authored 2019 wildfire accountability law, wrote an opinion article calling on the state Public Utilities Commission to be fundamentally reformed. “AB 1054 was designed to tie profit to safety,” Holden wrote. “Instead the CPUC handed Edison guaranteed hefty profits with no accountability for safety attached.” In his Pasadena Now article, Holden argued that the CPUC had every tool it needed to prevent the Eaton Fire and chose not to use them. According to Holden, the Commission rubberstamped Southern California Edison’s safety certification
n mid-December 2020, federal officials responsible for protecting American elections from fraud converged in a windowless, dim, fortified room at the Justice Department’s downtown Washington, D.C., headquarters. They had been summoned by Attorney General William Barr. Over the preceding weeks, Donald Trump’s claims that the presidential election had been stolen from him had reached a crescendo. He’d become obsessed with a conspiracy theory that voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan, had switched votes from him to Joe Biden. With each day, Trump ratcheted up the pressure to unleash the might of the federal government to undo his defeat. Barr interrogated experts from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, crammed in beside top FBI officials around a cheap table. He needed the group of around 10 to answer a crucial question: Was it really possible the 2020 presidential vote had been hacked? ProPublica’s description of the previously unreported meeting comes from several people who were in the room or were briefed on the gathering. Everyone understood that the meeting represented an important moment for the nation, they said. Barr, who did not respond to requests for comment, had walked a delicate line with Trump, instructing the FBI to investigate allegations of election irregularities while declaring publicly there had been no
See Midterm elections Page 05
evidence “to date” of widespread fraud. The nonpartisan specialists from CISA, backed by their FBI counterparts, explained they’d unravelled what had happened in Antrim County. A clerk had made a mistake when updating ballot styles on machines, leading to a software problem that initially transferred votes from Republicans to Democrats, they said. There was no fraud, just human error — which would soon be publicly confirmed through a hand count of the county’s ballots. Listening intently, Barr seemed to understand both the truth and that telling it to the president would almost certainly cost him his job. At the end of the meeting, Barr turned to his top deputy, made hand motions as if he was tying on a bandana and said he was going to “kamikaze” into the White House. What happened next is well known. When Barr met with Trump in the Oval Office on Dec. 14, the president launched into a monologue about how the events in Antrim County were “absolute proof” that the election had been stolen. Barr waited to get a word in edgewise before telling his boss what the experts from CISA had told him. Then Barr offered his resignation letter, which Trump accepted. Barr left believing he’d done his part to preserve democratic norms. “I was saddened,” Barr wrote of Trump in his memoir. “If he actually believed this stuff he had become