The Brief

Nathan Ryder raises livestock and grows vegetables on 10 acres of pasture in Golconda, Ill., with his wife and three kids. They also live in a food desert; the local grocery store closed a few months ago, and the closest farmers market is at least 45 miles away, leaving their community struggling to access nutritious food.

Opening another supermarket isn’t the answer. The U.S. government has spent the last decade investing millions to establish them in similar areas, with mixed results. Ryder thinks it would be better to expand federal assistance programs to make them more available to those in need, allowing more people to use those benefits at local farms like his own.

Expanding the reach of the nation’s small growers and producers could be a way to address growing food insecurity, he said, a problem augmented by inflation and supply chains strained by climate change. “It’s a great opportunity, not only to help the bottom-line of local farmers, instead of some of these giant commodity food corporations … but to [help people] buy healthy, wholesome foods,” said Ryder.

That is just one of the solutions that could be codified into the 2024 farm bill, but it isn’t likely to happen anytime soon. The deadline to finalize the omnibus bill arrives Monday, and with lawmakers deadlocked along partisan lines, it appears likely that they will simply extend the current law for at least another year.

Congress has been here before. Although the farm bill is supposed to be renewed every five years, legislators passed a one-year extension of the 2018 policy last November after struggling to agree on key nutrition and conservation facets of the $1.5 trillion-dollar spending package.

Extensions and delays have grave implications, because the farm bill governs many aspects of America’s food and agricultural systems. It covers everything from food assistance programs and crop subsidies to international food aid and even conservation measures. Some of them, like crop insurance, are permanently funded, meaning any hiccups in the reauthorization timeline do not impact them. But others, such as beginning farmer and rancher development grants and local food promotion programs, are entirely dependent upon the appropriations within the law. Without a new appropriation or an extension of the existing one, some would shut down until the bill is reauthorized. If Congress fails to act before Jan. 1, several programs would even revert to 1940s-era policies with considerable impacts on consumer prices for commodities like milk.

After nearly a century of bipartisanship, negotiations over recent farm bills have been punctuated by partisan stalemates. The main difference this time around is that a new piece is dominating the Hill’s political chessboard: The election. “It doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen before the election, which puts a lot of teeth-gnashing and hair-wringing into hand,” said Ryder. He is worried that a new administration and a new Congress could result in a farm bill that further disadvantages small farmers and producers. “It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure novel right now. Which way is this farm bill going to go?”

The new president will bring their own agricultural policy agenda to the job, which could influence aspects of the bill. And, of course, whoever sits in the Oval Office can veto whatever emerges from Congress. (President Obama threatened to nix the bill House Republicans put forward in 2013 because it proposed up to $39 billion in cuts to food benefits.) Of even greater consequence is the potential for a dramatically different Congress. Of the 535 seats in the House and Senate, 468 are up for election. That will likely lead to renewed negotiations among a new slate of lawmakers, a process further complicated by the pending retirement of Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, the Democratic chair of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Although representatives are ramping up pressure on congressional leadership to enact a new farm bill before this Congress reaches the end of its term, there is a high chance all of this will result in added delays, if not require an entirely new bill to be written.

That has profound implications for consumers already struggling with rising prices and farmers facing the compounding pressures of consolidation, not to mention efforts to remake U.S. food systems to mitigate, and adapt to, a warming world, said Rebecca Wolf, a senior food policy analyst with Food & Water Watch. (The nonprofit advocates for policies that ensure access to safe food, clean water, and a livable climate.) “The farm bill has a really big impact on changing the kind of food and farm system that we’re building,” said Wolf.

Still, Monday’s looming deadline is somewhat arbitrary — lawmakers have until the end of the calendar year to pass a bill, because most key programs have already been extended through the appropriations cycle. But DeShawn Blanding, who analyzes food and environment policy for the science nonprofit the Union of Concerned Scientists, finds the likelihood of that happening low. He expects to see negotiations stretch into next year, and perhaps into 2026. “Congress is much more divided now,” he said.

The House Agriculture committee passed a draft bill in May, but the proposal has not reached the floor for a vote because of negotiating hang-ups. Meanwhile, the Senate Agriculture committee has yet to introduce a bill, although the chamber’s Democrats and Republicans have introduced frameworks that reflect their agendas. Given the forthcoming election and higher legislative priorities, like funding the government before December 20, the last legislative day on the congressional calendar, “it’s a likelihood that this could be one of the longest farm bills that we’ve had,” Blanding said.

As is often the case, food assistance funding is among the biggest points of contention. SNAP and the Thrifty Food Plan, which determines how much a household receives through SNAP, have remained two of the biggest sticking points, with Democrats and Republicans largely divided over how the program is structured and funded. The Republican-controlled House Agriculture committee’s draft bill proposed the equivalent of nearly $30 billion in cuts to SNAP by limiting the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s ability to adjust the cost of the Thrifty Food Plan, used to set SNAP benefits. The provision, supported by Republicans, met staunch opposition from Democrats who have criticized the plan for limiting benefits during an escalating food insecurity crisis.

Ken Haas, a third generation farmer, rakes recently cut hay so it will dry before it is bailed in Elizabeth, Illinois

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The farm bill “was supposed to be designed to help address food insecurity and the food system at large and should boost and expand programs like SNAP that help do that,” said Blanding, which becomes all the more vital as climate change continues to dwindle food access for many Americans. Without a new farm bill, “we’re stuck with what [food insecurity] looked like in 2018, which is not what it looks like today in 2024.”

Nutrition programs governed by the current law were designed to address pre-pandemic levels of hunger in a world that had not yet crossed key climate thresholds. As the crisis of planetary warming deepens, fueling crises that tend to deepen existing barriers to food access in areas affected, food programs authorized in the farm bill are “an extraordinarily important part of disaster response,” said Vince Hall, chief government relations officer at the nonprofit Feeding America. “The number of disasters that Feeding America food banks are asked to respond to each year is only increasing with extreme weather fueled by climate change.”

That strain is making it more critical than ever that Congress increase funding for programs like the Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP. Its Farm to Food Bank Project Grants, established under the 2018 law, underwrites projects that enable the nation’s food banks to have a supply of fresh food produced by local farmers and growers. It must be written into the new bill or risk being phased out.

David Toledo, an urban farmer in Chicago, used to work with a local food pantry and community garden that supplies fresh produce to neighborhoods that need it. To Toledo, the farm bill is a gateway to solutions to the impacts of climate change on the accessibility of food in the U.S. He wants to see lawmakers put aside politics and pass a bill for the good of the people they serve.

“With the farm bill, what is at stake is a healthy nation, healthy communities, engagements from farmers and rising farmers. And I mean, God forbid, but the potential of seeing a lot more hunger,” Toledo said. “It needs to pass. It needs to pass with bipartisan support. There’s so much at the table right now.”

A criminal justice watchdog is calling into question whether Latinos in the L.A. County Superior Court get a fair shot at bail.

The new report from the nonprofit La Defensa, which advocates for reform in the legal system, analyzes a sample of pretrial decisions from 2025 which had been documented by community court-watching volunteers.

One of the key findings was that defendants who were perceived to be Latino had an average bail amount of $157,700 — more than 15 times higher than white defendants and nearly three times higher than Black defendants.

Studies show that inability to pay bail can affect defendants’ livelihoods and their ability to defend themselves, according to the Vera Institute of Justice.

“ Most families — no matter what they did, no matter what they sold — cannot actually purchase that person’s freedom to give them the fighting chance to go against the state,” Titilayọ Rasaki, La Defensa’s state policy and legal affairs director.

The L.A. County Superior Court says it’s following the law on bail requirements and that the findings are missing context because observation is limited.

How court-watching works

La Defensa’s Court Watch LA program is a community-led effort to document and hold the courts accountable. They train volunteers to go in and observe cases.

The volunteers take notes on the charges, the judge’s conduct and the person’s criminal history, if it comes up. That then gets analyzed against publicly available case information and state law. Programs like this exist in several other cities around the country.

For the latest report, La Defensa volunteers observed 140 felony and misdemeanor criminal cases, chosen at random, between January to November 2025.

Judicial accountability lead Bryanna Siguenza explained how she decided where to send the volunteers.

“ I choose a department, specifically ones that are pretty busy, have high case loads, and are arraignment and pretrial,” she said.

What watchers saw

Racial disparities in pretrial settings have been researched at local, state and national levels, but La Defensa’s findings are based entirely on human observation, Siguenza said.

The volunteers are trained to listen for important details that come up in proceedings, but they may not always get the full story behind the charges, like a defendant’s criminal history.

L.A. County Superior Court spokesperson Rob Oftring said the report needs more context.

“Many of the report’s findings, for example, do not appear to account for charge severity or criminal history, both of which are legally significant factors in any release decision…” he wrote in a statement.

La Defensa did not include in its report what charges had been filed in the cases observed. However, according to the report, comparable charges still had disproportionate bail outcomes that “couldn’t be explained by charge severity alone.”

The severity of charges legally informs bail decisions. The Superior Court is required to have standard bail amounts based on the crime, which judges have discretion to adjust.

State law also requires judges to weigh issues like public safety in bail decisions, as well as the defendant’s ability to post bail. According to the volunteers’ observations, the judges considered the latter in just a quarter of cases when setting bail.

Oftring said the court has taken steps to reduce money bail’s usage as allowed by law.

“Bail at arraignment is set only after both the defense and prosecution have been heard and the judge has weighed the specific facts of the case,” his statement read.

The limits of the findings

Oftring said the court values the role organizations like Court Watch LA play in keeping the justice system accountable, but that the sample size of the researchers used in their report is too small to draw any definitive conclusions.

Roughly 272,000 criminal cases took place during that time period, according to Oftring.

Representatives from La Defensa said they know the report is only a snapshot of the system, and that human observation has its limits.

That’s why in November, they requested 10 years of de-identified data to analyze whether bail outcomes differ across judges, courthouses and demographic groups. Rasaki said they haven’t received it.

“  We would say release the data … by all means, we want to partner. We want to analyze,” she said.

Oftring told LAist they are working on several projects that “provide data-informed scrutiny of how the court operates.”

Southern Californians are in for yet another scorching weekend.

The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for much of the region through Monday, with temperatures expected to hit their peak on Sunday.

Highs in the San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley and other inland areas of L.A. County are expected to range from the mid-90s to about 105 degrees. Downtown Los Angeles and much of Orange, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties will get up to the lower 90s. Beaches will also be hot — in the lower 80s.

Moving farther east, things get really toasty. Forecasters have issued a more severe extreme heat warning for parts of the Inland Empire, where temperatures could get up to 108 degrees, and for the Coachella Valley, where they could hit 120.

Humidity will likely also continue to add to the discomfort, but will be concentrated in areas closer to the coast, where it will keep nighttime temperatures relatively warm and make it more difficult to cool down. Inland areas will feel drier.

Those who are most at-risk from the heat are people who work or spend time outside, people without access to air conditioning and those who are either over 65 or young children.

Forecasters are also warning of dangerous rip currents and swells along the coast this weekend.

If you’re headed to the beach to beat the heat, as many Southern Californians likely are, they recommend staying out of the water or, if you do go swimming, stay in front of lifeguards. It’s also a good idea to avoid jetties and tidal rocks.

Wildfire risk

This weekend will also come with a high risk of wildfires.

Forecasters warn that fire danger will be elevated through at least Monday, driven by heat, dry vegetation and low humidity levels away from the coast.

Despite some extra moisture in the air over the last several weeks, there hasn’t been enough to actually produce rain. Without precipitation, and under consistently high temperatures, plants will continue to dry out and become fuel.

“We have humidity, but it's not reaching the saturation point. Therefore, we won't have a cloud. We won't have precipitation,” said Rong Fu, an atmospheric scientist at UCLA who specializes in weather patterns and wildfires.

Fu said a system of high atmospheric pressure sitting over the Western U.S. is pushing warm, dry air across the Sierra Nevada from inland deserts and into Southern California.

That can generate what’s known as downslope wind. Those winds plus the already dry conditions align to create some especially dangerous fire weather.

One spark can easily turn into a large blaze, and humans are the most common cause of wildfires in Southern California, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

People can accidentally start wildfires in a range of ways, including throwing a lit cigarette into dry brush or dragging a chain behind a vehicle, creating sparks. One of the most common human causes is improperly extinguished camp fires.

Lightning can also start wildfires but is unlikely under current weather conditions. Southern California has seen minimal thunderstorms this summer.

The new normal?

Heatwaves in the summer and fall are obviously not new for Southern California, but they are getting worse.

Much of the heat currently blanketing the region is being driven by the high-pressure system, which traps warm air and compresses it against the ground, heating it even further. Forecasters say it’s likely to stay that way through the end of July.

But high-pressure systems like this one usually don’t stick around this long.

“For this pattern to linger almost two weeks — yeah, I would say, from a climatological point of view — that's pretty unusual,” Fu said.

One major driver of the change, Fu said, is climate change: As the climate warms, this kind of “anomalous” high pressure system will become stronger and more frequent.

And one consequence of hotter and longer heatwaves, is extended elevated periods of risky fire weather.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Los Angeles will be under a heat wave advisory until Monday evening as temperatures show no signs of letting up over the weekend.

Temperatures will linger in the high 80s and low 90s in downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, including Koreatown, Pico Union and Westlake.

The National Weather Service projects temperatures will peak on Sunday afternoon. Meteorologist Bryan Lewis with the National Weather Service said residents can expect more humidity than usual. 

While dense, urban centers have more concrete and see more vehicle traffic, downtown and the surrounding areas will not be the hottest locations during this heatwave in the Southland, as the Antelope Valley will be under an extreme heat advisory over the weekend.

During hot weather, the beach is an immediate go-to for folks that want to stay cool, but Lewis warns against this as the surf will be extra choppy.

The Pacific Coast will see large swells “coming up from tropical systems off the coast of Mexico,” Lewis said. “We are issuing a beach hazard statement that’ll be in effect through at least the weekend [which] may be extended.” 

While the weather is expected to cool down on Monday, forecasts show that another heatwave could develop by the end of next week.

Pools nearby

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Eleanor Green Roberts Aquatic Center

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Pico Union Branch Library

Felipe de Neve Branch Library (Westlake)

Pio Pico – Koreatown Branch Library

Councilmember Heather Hutt’s office recommends residents to rest in shade or a building with air conditioning and to stay hydrated with plenty of water.

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