This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchel with Jeff Bliss, my good colleague, he is Pacific Watch,

and we're watching a catastrophe of a scale never seen in the United States, in the history of the

United States. The fires in Los Angeles. The Wall Street Journal headline underlines the gravity

of this. Los Angeles wildfire death toll expected to rise. Firefighters race to contain

blazes. In other words, the containment is very, very minimal in many of these fires. So we turn now,

not merely to the firefighting, but to the politics, which don't wait. They come right away.

It just happened sense that the President of the United States,

Mr. Biden, was in Los Angeles. I believe the first day that we heard about the Pacific

Palisades fire, and he was there for a fundraiser which was canceled that night,

and the president stayed overnight, and appeared with the governor, Governor Newsom the next day, promising as long as it takes.

Federal aid, has it already been released, Jeff?

Are there comments about the federal aid?

It's my understanding that some federal aid has been released already.

Some federal resources have been detailed out to L.A., both military

and other police type and firefighter type resources. But the big money from the federal

government is still yet to come. That'll be farther down the road. What has a lot of people

amazed is basically President Biden came out and said,

we're going to take care of expenses, 100% of expenses for the next six months, and then

we'll see what happens.

And of course, that has a lot of people back east, people who live in the Carolinas and

Virginia areas that were hit hard by hurricanes who are still struggling, saying what about

us?

...