Topline:
Southern California farmers are conserving a lot more Colorado River water, but that’s also causing the Salton Sea to dry up faster.
Why it matters: Since Southern California farmers agreed to a major new deal with the federal government to cut water use significantly, the Salton Sea has dropped about 10 inches and the sea has shrunk by some 3,500 acres, exposing more toxic dust from the lakebed.
Keep reading...to learn more about addressing this conservation conundrum.
Southern California farmers are conserving a lot more Colorado River water, but that’s also causing the Salton Sea to dry up faster.
That’s because the Salton Sea is filled primarily by agricultural runoff from farms in the Imperial Valley in far Southern California. Those farms have a single source of water: the Colorado River.
The Salton Sea is a landlocked, shallow lake in Riverside and Imperial counties. The lakebed has been contaminated for more than 100 years with pesticides and other chemicals that create dangerous air pollution for surrounding communities.
Balancing conservation with the impact on the Salton Sea is a long-running conundrum.
“It feels that we are responsible for conserving the Colorado River for the good of the many,” said Silvia Paz, director of grassroots group Alianza Coachella Valley, which is working to address the impacts of pollution from the Salton Sea.
“And on the flip side, I don't think it's fair that one particular community that's already an environmental justice community has to bear that responsibility — almost alone it feels like,” Paz said.
The Salton Sea is part of the massive Colorado River delta. For millennia, the area flooded periodically as the river shifted across the sandy delta region spanning across present-day Southern California, southern Arizona and northern Mexico.
Lake Cahuilla is some of the last evidence of that era of flooding before the river was controlled and diverted via dams and canals. Today, the river no longer meets the sea.
The Salton Sea as we now know it is California’s largest lake. And it's man made. It was first created back in 1905, when an irrigation canal gate failed and the river flooded into the historic lakebed of Lake Cahuilla.
Since then, the sea has been fed by agricultural runoff. Once a popular vacation destination in the 1950s, as farmers got more efficient with water use and climate change-driven heat worsened, the lake — and its tourists — has been drying up, and the lakebed has become increasingly exposed.
Researchers are finding that a naturally occurring toxin plus chemicals from farm runoff in the drying lakebed are worsening air quality and contributing to higher rates of asthma and other respiratory illness in surrounding communities.
Though it’s saltier than the ocean, the Salton Sea remains a biodiversity hotspot for fish and migratory birds.
Imperial Valley farmers in Southern California use more Colorado River water than anyone. They grow primarily hay as well as leafy greens and other produce that feeds much of the country and the world.
In August, the Imperial Irrigation District agreed to a major new deal with the federal government to cut its water use by an amount that’s more than double the amount the entire state of Nevada uses in a year. The cuts will happen through 2026.
And they're needed: Two wet years have helped, but the risk of Lake Mead reaching deadpool — meaning the water level has dropped so low that it can no longer flow downstream — remains a looming possibility. That could cut off the main water supply for tens of millions of people and farms downstream.
The first phase of this new program started this summer, and included a program where participating forage crop growers didn’t water those crops for 49 days, during the hottest part of the year. The main crop grown in the Imperial Valley is alfalfa.
In return, the Imperial Irrigation District got $589 million from the feds to pay those farmers who can then invest in more water-efficient technologies, pay workers, or otherwise invest in their farms.
The program was a success, said Tina Shields, the Imperial Irrigation District’s water manager. She said the district cut water use by about 175,000 acre-feet this summer. For comparison, the entire city of L.A. uses about 500,000 acre-feet of water every year.
The short duration of the program had little impact on the economy. If anything, it helped farmers stay in business because hay markets are bad right now — that’s a reason why so many farmers participated this summer, Shields said.
Plus, water use in the area is down in general because October has been abnormally hot, so watering would just burn crops.
Since that program ended at the end of September, the surface elevation of the Salton Sea has dropped about 10 inches and the sea shrunk by some 3,500 acres, exposing more dust from the lakebed, said Paz, whose group along with researchers from UCLA and the Pacific Institute measured the decline.
“Our communities don't have the luxury to escape the dust that is blown into the air,” Paz said. “Siloing this issue as a water-only issue leads to all these other consequences.”
In its review, the federal government found the new agreement with the Imperial Irrigation District, or IID, would have no significant new environmental impacts to the Salton Sea and surrounding communities. But many people in the area disagree.
“The reality is that, for our communities, it's not a negligible impact,” Paz said. “This is a cumulative impact to the conditions that we're already suffering.”
Research has shown that asthma rates and other respiratory diseases are far higher than average among communities near the Salton Sea.
Those impacts are why the Sierra Club recently sued the IID about the conservation deal. The organization says the district did not do a proper environmental review of the impacts to the Salton Sea and nearby communities.
“We believe that they should be paying the bill for some of the impacts,” said Richard Miller, director of the Sierra Club’s San Diego chapter.
The IID argues it's already done it's part to address the issues caused by a drying Salton Sea. Shields said the district only agreed to this recent round of additional conservation efforts because they negotiated that $250 million in federal dollars would go towards accelerating the state’s Salton Sea efforts.
“That funding is conditioned on IID implementing these additional conservation efforts,” Shields said. “So we up front took care of the Salton Sea from our perspective.”
But it’s the state that is primarily responsible for addressing the pollution impacts of a shrinking Salton Sea. They are behind on their 10-year plan, which aims to restore nearly 30,000 acres by 2028 of exposed lakebed to native desert habitat and man-made ponds that support endangered fish, migratory birds and reducing pollution.
In recent years, restoration efforts have accelerated, in large part thanks to that $250 million in funding from the Biden-Harris Administration, said Miguel Hernandez, a spokesperson for the state’s Salton Sea Management project, in a statement to LAist.
He wrote that, so far, the state has completed more than 2,000 acres of habitat restoration and dust control, with some 6,500 acres currently under construction and major construction complete for a 4,100-acre conservation area — additional federal funding is helping to expand that project by 750 acres.
See a map of completed and ongoing Salton Sea restoration projects here.
“IID is doing the right thing conserving water to stabilize the Colorado River, and our federal partners stepped up to provide funding for this water conservation and for California’s ongoing projects at the Sea to reduce dust emissions and restore habitat,” Hernandez wrote.
But Paz said the sea is shrinking faster than projects are being built to cover the exposed lakebed.
“We need to balance this out. They need to move a lot faster,” Paz said.
Everyone agrees the ongoing restoration efforts are key to addressing the impacts of a shrinking Salton Sea. But balancing necessary conservation with the impacts of that conservation can seem like an impossible problem to solve.
“It’s the rock and a hard place,” said Shields. “As we get more efficient, the downside is the Salton Sea has less water. It's a tough thing with an inland body of water that has no outlet and the only inlet is receiving drainage water from the adjacent areas. So it's a balancing act to keep everybody happy.”
It’s the rock and a hard place.
Shields continued: “But if the Colorado River crashes, that's not something you just fix the next year,” So we're going to do everything we can to ensure that our communities have a reliable and safe water supply. And it may be that there are impacts to the Salton Sea, but without the Colorado River, there would be no Salton Sea.”
Paz said she supports and understands the conservation needs, but that means that policymakers and water managers need to think more holistically about the mitigation efforts.
“If this is the only way, we need to broaden how we think about how we’re protecting and preparing our communities,” Paz said.
She said accelerating the state's restoration projects is essential, plus funding for air filters and weatherizing more homes, particularly mobile homes that house farmworkers, for which funding is lacking, she said.
But Paz said mitigation for conservation impacts to the Salton Sea could go beyond direct impacts, to improving general quality of life, especially as desert communities face some of the quickest accelerating impacts of the climate crisis.
One example? A new plan envisioned by the community and supported by local governments to build a commuter rail line connecting all the Coachella Valley communities, that will also add green space, shade and an emergency shelter to help communities ride out disasters and excessive heat.
“We’re talking about being very mindful of how our built environment is being developed to address the needs that we have, particularly when it comes to climate resilience,” Paz said.
She added that funding from Proposition 4, which is on the November ballot, would help speed up some existing efforts.
“We're very hopeful that Proposition 4 gets support statewide and that that funding will become available,” Paz said. (Update: Voters did indeed pass that proposition).
As for the state’s plan, it’s estimated it will cost more than a billion dollars to complete the necessary habitat restoration and dust mitigation efforts.
Among other things, a large chunk of the $250 million from the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act will go towards a more than 4,000-acre restoration area to plant habitat that supports migratory birds and reduces dust pollution, said Mike Lynes, public policy director for Audubon California. Other ongoing projects are showing preliminary promise.
“We cannot lose our hope,” said Paz. “Transforming our communities takes a lot of work, but at the end of it, this is a work of hope and that is what allows us to keep envisioning and to keep trying. Because I believe that a different future is possible.”
Topline:
Residents in East LA are weighing the promise of a new Metro E Line extension with concerns over construction disruptions, small-business impacts and whether more outreach is needed about the project.
What is the project: The 4.7-mile extension of the Metro E Line would connect East Los Angeles to Montebello with four new stations. The project would relocate the existing Atlantic and Pomona station underground, and include a mix of underground, aerial and street-level track transit.
Read on ... for more about the pros and cons locals see for the extension.
Residents in East LA are weighing the promise of a new Metro E Line extension with concerns over construction disruptions, small-business impacts and whether more outreach is needed about the project.
The 4.7-mile extension of the Metro E Line would connect East Los Angeles to Montebello with four new stations. The project would relocate the existing Atlantic and Pomona station underground and include a mix of underground, aerial and street-level track transit.
The $7.9 billion project is expected to open for service between 2035 and 2037, according to Metro.
Construction will begin in 2029 and last approximately eight to 10 years, pending full funding approval. It’s part of a wider plan to connect the E Line to the city of Whittier, though officials say the work will be built in two phases due to funding constraints.
While officials say the project is intended to reduce traffic congestion and ease pressure on local roads, residents at a recent community meeting focused more on the immediate impact and communication.
“Thirty days for comment on a complex issue like this is ridiculous. … We need better outreach,” said East LA resident Clara Solis about a 30-day public comment period ending June 26.
Solis and others also raised concerns about how construction could affect traffic and disrupt local commerce, pointing to past transit projects.
“How is this going to impact the businesses? When the Gold Line went through, a lot of our businesses really suffered economically. We want to see a presentation on that. You should have a presentation just on how it’s going to impact the businesses,” Solis added.
East LA resident Kristie Hernandez said community outreach for the project should also extend to people who do not necessarily live within the immediate 200-foot project radius.
“We need to understand that folks who don’t necessarily live within that close proximity also frequent that area when they drive,” said Hernandez.
Hernandez advocated for a 90-day public comment window and also called for presentations on underground infrastructure, especially in the wake of the East LA pipeline that was punctured during construction work in late May.
“We do not want that to happen again,” she said.
Lucia Martinez spoke favorably about the extension plans, considering that she relies on buses to get around East LA to do her shopping. She said she looks forward to using the Metro to travel to the Citadel as well as to the hospital in Pasadena.
“As an older woman who became aware of this project, I think it is amazing because I am someone who does not drive,” she said.
LA Documenter Rafael Cazzorla contributed reporting for this story. LA Documenters trains and pays LA residents to take notes at local government meetings around Los Angeles. You can find meeting notes and audio at losangeles.documenters.org
Topline:
For the first time in nearly three decades, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new chemical UV filter for use in sunscreens sold in the U.S. And that has many dermatologists cheering.
Why it matters: The new ingredient is called bemotrizinol, and it has several advantages over the chemical sunscreen ingredients previously available in the U.S., says Dr. Heather Rogers, a dermatologist in Seattle and a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology.
The backstory: In the U.S., sunscreens are regulated as over-the-counter drugs rather than cosmetics, as they're classified in Europe. That means ingredients need to undergo rigorous testing for safety and efficacy before they can be approved for use in the U.S.
Read on ... for four key things to know about this coming change.
For the first time in nearly three decades, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new chemical UV filter for use in sunscreens sold in the U.S. And that has many dermatologists cheering.
"This is a very big deal," says Dr. Heather Rogers, a dermatologist in Seattle and a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology.
The new ingredient is called bemotrizinol, and it has several advantages over the chemical sunscreen ingredients previously available in the U.S., Rogers says.
"It hits like really every box for us that we have been waiting for as dermatologists and consumers," Rogers says.
Here's what you need to know about this new ingredient and how it could lead to better sunscreens sold stateside.
Rogers says in general, you want to use sunscreens that are broad spectrum, meaning they protect against both UVA rays — the longer wavelengths that cause premature aging and wrinkles — and UVB rays, which lead to sunburns. Both types of UV rays can cause skin cancer.
She says the sunscreens currently sold in the U.S. do an excellent job of protecting against UVB rays, but the chemical UV filters available in sunscreens in the U.S. until now aren't as good at blocking out UVA rays.
In general, chemical sunscreens sold in the U.S. rely on an ingredient called avobenzone to block out UVA rays, says Kelly Dobos, a cosmetic chemist who teaches at the University of Cincinnati.
But avobenzone by itself isn't photo stable, meaning its protection can start to break down rapidly when exposed to sunlight. And as avobenzone breaks down, it can release molecules that lead to skin irritation, says Alexa Friedman, a senior scientist with the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, or EWG.
By contrast, bemotrizinol offers protection against both UVA and UVB rays all on its own, and it is photo stable, so it breaks down more slowly, offering better protection, Rogers says.
"So if you go a little longer than two hours to reapply your sunscreen, there will be more protection left," Rogers says. However, she says you should still reapply sunscreen every two hours.
Bemotrizinol has been widely used in European and Asian sunscreens for decades. But it has taken 20 years for the FDA to approve its use in this country.
That's because in the U.S., sunscreens are regulated as over-the-counter drugs rather than cosmetics, as they're classified in Europe. That means ingredients need to undergo rigorous testing for safety and efficacy before they can be approved for use in the U.S.
"It's really expensive and time consuming," Dobos says. The European company DSM-Firmenich spent at least $18 million over more than two decades in its push to gain FDA approval for bemotrizinol.
However, all that testing means bemotrizinol has more safety data to back it up than any other chemical sunscreen ingredient currently approved in the U.S., says Friedman of EWG.
"This ingredient is exciting because we have that data to support its safety," Friedman says.
Friedman says animal testing showed bemotrizinol doesn't lead to concerns like reproductive harm, while clinical testing on humans found that it does not irritate the skin, even after repeated application over time, "which is hopefully how people are using sunscreens."
And because bemotrizinol's molecules are larger, it's not readily absorbed by the skin and into the bloodstream, she says.
That's important, because studies have shown that some of the other chemical sunscreen UV filters sold in the U.S. can be absorbed in the bloodstream, prompting calls for more safety data and leading to a backlash against sunscreen on social media fueled by misinformation. Rogers says that trend is concerning because skin cancer is the most common form of cancer.
"We just need to have sunscreen that people will use, that they'll trust," Rogers says. "And this ingredient is going to allow that to happen. And that is very exciting."
And bemotrizinol is also considered to be non-irritating, Friedman says. That should be welcome news to people who've been put off by chemical sunscreens in the past.
Until now, Rogers says, the only sunscreen ingredient available in the U.S. that offered the aforementioned advantages of bemotrizinol — photo stable, non-irritating, minimally absorbed into the skin and with good broad spectrum protection against both UVA and UVB rays — was zinc oxide.
Both zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are mineral UV filters. Both chemical sunscreens and mineral sunscreens work by absorbing UV rays from the sun. Mineral sunscreens also reflect some UV rays. The bigger difference is that mineral sunscreens sit on the surface of the skin, while chemical sunscreens get absorbed into the skin, Rogers says.
The downside of mineral sunscreens is that they can leave an unattractive white cast on the skin — think of lifeguards with white paste on their noses. "Particularly if you're a person of color, zinc is going to make you look pale, white or ashy, which really makes it hard to use on a regular basis," Rogers says.
Bemotrizinol, on the other hand, is transparent on the skin, and because it protects against both UVA and UVB rays on its own, it doesn't have to be mixed with as many other chemical filters and stabilizers to achieve broad spectrum protection, Dobos adds. She says that should lead to more aesthetically pleasing, less greasy sunscreen formulations in the near future.
"I think it's a real win for public health," Dobos says. "If we can make a sunscreen that consumers like to use and want to use and apply in the proper amounts, I think that's something that's really going to be a win for consumers."
DSM-Firmenich has exclusive rights to market bemotrizinol in the U.S. for 18 months. It will be sold under the brand name Parsol Shield. The company says the first sunscreen products containing the ingredient should start hitting American store shelves around September.
Topline:
The Justice Department yesterday approved Paramount's proposed $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
How we got here: The decision came after the DOJ concluded its antitrust investigation into the pending merger. The department said in a statement that it found that the deal posed no threat to competition or consumers of film, broadcast television or streaming.
What's next: The decision clears the way for a merger of two rival Hollywood studio titans: Paramount, the owner of CBS, including CBS News, will swallow the much larger Warner, which includes HBO and CNN. But several states, including California, have raised antitrust concerns. The European Union is investigating as well.
The Justice Department on Friday approved Paramount's proposed $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
After concluding its antitrust investigation into the pending merger, the department said in a statement that it found that the deal posed no threat to competition or consumers of film, broadcast television or streaming.
The decision clears the way for a merger of two rival Hollywood studio titans: Paramount, the owner of CBS, including CBS News, will swallow the much larger Warner, which includes HBO and CNN.
The DOJ''s Antitrust Division concluded that a union of two studio giants isn't anti-competitive because the streaming market has expanded the competition for conventional Hollywood studios, which includes Netflix, Apple and Amazon, as well as smaller streamers. The Justice Department's view is that, for the same reason, consumers won't lose out because there are plenty of other places to get entertainment.
Several states, including California, have raised antitrust concerns. The European Union is investigating as well.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has been investigating the deal for antitrust violations, said in a post on social media following the Justice Department's approval: "The merger of Warner Bros and Paramount is not a done deal and remains under investigation by my office."
In a statement following the decision, Paramount described the deal as "pro-competitive," and would result in "a stronger company better positioned to compete against dominant technology platforms in an industry increasingly defined by intense competition for audiences, talent, technology, and investment."
The company said it planned to complete the merger as soon as possible, "delivering its benefits to consumers, creators, and the entertainment industry as a whole."
The consolidation will put media mogul David Ellison — son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison — at the helm of Warner Bros. studio as well as its cable and streaming properties, including CNN and HBO. The Ellison family took over Paramount and CBS last summer.
In the months leading up to the regulatory approval, critics in Hollywood feared the deal would consolidate an already concentrated media landscape and lead to fewer jobs and less creative content.
In April, thousands of directors, actors, writers and other industry talent — including Kristen Stewart, Pedro Pascal and Javier Bardem — signed an open letter opposing the merger.
The elder Ellison is also a financial backer and adviser to President Trump on artificial intelligence. Critics of recent changes at CBS under the Ellisons' control are concerned that, as they say has happened with CBS News, the acquisition would make CNN more friendly to Trump.
NPR's Carrie Johnson and Mandalit del Barco contributed to this story.
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
Countless soccer fans will stream into SoFi stadium in the coming days, or maybe catch a match at a neighborhood watch party. At LACMA, a series of miniature face-offs are also happening, thanks to a local artist who’s captured some big moments with the tiniest of soccer players in the exhibition, Fútbol Is Life.
'Sportraits': Artist Lyndon Barrois, Sr. crafts chewing gum wrappers — little strips of foil and paper — into art: one inch-tall, lifelike sculptures of humans in kinetic poses. Oftentimes, that means capturing his favorite moments from sports games with what he calls ‘sportraits.’
The backstory: The story goes that Barrois began making his miniatures at the age of 10, back when he was living in New Orleans and wanted to make drivers for his Hot Wheels cars.
Read on ... to find out more about the exhibition ...
Countless soccer fans will stream into SoFi Stadium (temporarily renamed Los Angeles Stadium) in the coming days, or maybe catch a match at a neighborhood watch party.
But right here in Los Angeles — at LACMA’s Resnick Pavilion to be specific — are a series of miniature face-offs too, thanks to a local artist who’s captured some big moments with the tiniest of soccer players in the exhibition, Fútbol Is Life.
Artist and animator Lyndon J. Barrois Sr. gave me a tour of his home studio in Mid-City on a recent Friday. Tools of his trade are scattered throughout, including a glue gun, paint brushes and a life-sized recreation of a human skeleton.
And inside an orange, Halloween-themed Utz pretzel barrel, thousands of pieces of a material that sets Barrois apart: chewing gum wrappers.
“I find them around the world,” Barrois said. “When we travel, I see them on the ground and I pick them up. One trip we took to New Orleans... I must have come back with maybe two dozen. I found some in Lisbon, I found some in Marrakesh, I found some in Nairobi.”
Barrois crafts these little strips of foil and paper into art: one inch-tall, lifelike sculptures of humans in kinetic poses. Oftentimes, that means capturing his favorite moments from sports games with what he calls ‘sportraits.’
“All my life I was just making toys,” he said. “These are all my toys. Because I would play with these things like action figures.”
Barrois began making his miniatures at 10 in New Orleans, starting with the tiny drivers he made for his Hot Wheels cars.
Many of those original creations he’s held onto for five decades. Now they overflow from a Hershey’s Chocolate tin.
There are hundreds and hundreds of his tiny gum wrapper figures in Barrois’ studio: soccer players and boxers and football players with helmets so small he crafts them on pin heads.
It was while he was studying graphic design at Xavier University in New Orleans that Barrois says he realized his craft could be more than just a childhood hobby. One of his professors encouraged Barrois to take his miniature for what it really was: sculpture.
Barrois went on to get his master’s degree in film and video from CalArts in 1995 and has worked in animation and visual effects ever since, with credits on films like The Matrix Reloaded, Night at the Museum and Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life.
“It’s weird what things take you where,” Barrois said. “I always loved movies and wanted to do it in some capacity. I just didn’t know how. And to say that this is what led to all that, a childhood hobby, I don’t even know how to describe the feeling. Or how humbling it is,” he said.
Ravi S. Rajan, president of CalArts, said that whether Barrois is animating a monologue by author Ta-Nehisi Coates or creating special effects for a Matrix film, he makes his subjects more human and relatable.
“And I think that’s the magic of what he does as an artist,” Rajan said.
Barrois’ mastery in making his lilliputian figures has brought him into plenty of fine art spaces. Just a couple of miles from his home, Fútbol Is Life meticulously recreates historic moments from men’s and women’s soccer in a sizable space inside the Resnick Pavilion.
“You can imagine when they showed me this room, I was like: I gotta fill this room with little people!,” the artist said on a recent visit to his show.
And fill it he did. Inside clear cases there are dozens of scenes from soccer history spanning nearly a century of World Cup matches. That includes Brazilian footballer Marta Vieira da Silva celebrating a goal during a 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup match.
“One of them that really gave me the most joy is probably the game where Marta kisses her foot after she scores. Because just the flex of that whole moment. I can’t kiss my foot, man,” Barrois said with a chuckle.
But there are less celebratory moments, too, like when German players gave a pre-kickoff Nazi salute before facing off against the Swiss team, foreshadowing a world that would soon be at war.
It’s a dark moment in history captured in a playful way that makes you look twice.
“That was the German team in 1938. Pre-World War II, but it was the rise of Nazism. And so that’s how the team saluted when they came out on the field,” Barrois said. “The importance of this was to also contrast what the same German team did in 2022. They wore ‘human rights’ on their T-shirts.”
As museum visitors look in wonderment at the minuscule scale of Barrois work, they are also drawn into some of these past realities.
“It makes the subject matter easier to digest. Because there’s a lot of tough subject matter here. But still, you pay attention to it,” Barrois explained.
Each vignette is a different conversation starter: from on-field protest moments, to celebrations of underdog victories to prisoners of war playing their beloved game on a dirt field.
Barrois said his exhibition is a deep dive into the history of the game. That includes “the players, the personalities, and the politics.”
“Because it’s countries. It’s bragging rights. It’s unification. It’s division. It’s all that,” he said.
And discourse arising from the current World Cup isn’t lost on Barrois. The Iran men’s team is scheduled to play two matches here in L.A., even as the U.S. war with their country looks like it will continue.
“This game is already writing history before it even begins with all this political stuff happening,” Barrois said.
“So it’s going to be interesting to see all the stories that get told out of this one.”
Maybe a job for some skilled hands... And a few humble gum wrappers.
Exhibit: Fútbol Is Life
