The Brief

A brutal heatwave hit historic highs for parts of Southern California on Sunday, with new record temperatures set in several cities, including in the Antelope and Coachella valleys.

But the National Weather Service has warned that these numbers are preliminary, and the weather isn’t going to change over the next few days, so we could see the highs creep up even more before it's expected to cool off into next weekend.

“We're going to continue to see, you know, probably records being cliffed, or being near that every day through this week,” Todd Hall, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told LAist.

Antelope Valley

Palmdale reached 114 degrees on Sunday, breaking the 35-year-old daily record high of 110 degrees.

It was even hotter in neighboring Lancaster with temperatures reaching 115 degrees on Sunday. That broke the daily record of 110 degrees set in 2017 and 1989, as well as the July monthly high by a single degree.

Both areas also had their fourth day above 110 degrees over the weekend, which Hall said set a new record for the most consecutive days since the National Weather Service started keeping track of Palmdale in 1931 and Lancaster in 1945.

Sandberg saw 101 degrees on Sunday as well, breaking the old record set in 2018.

Palmdale, Lancaster, and the rest of the Antelope Valley are under an excessive heat warning until at least 9 p.m. Saturday.

Riverside County

The desert city of Palm Springs reached 124 degrees on Friday, breaking the previous all-time-high of 123 degrees, according to NWS.

Idyllwild in the San Jacinto Mountains got up to 104 degrees, which tied the temperature record previously set in June 2021 and September 2020.

Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley are under an excessive heat warning until at least 9 p.m. Thursday, while Idyllwild and the Riverside County Mountains are under a heat advisory for the same time period.

“This is exceptional from the standpoint that it's going for an extended period of time,” Hall said. “We have a very stubborn high pressure system that's refusing to budge.”

Tips to keep in mind during extreme temperatures 

Be mindful of hydration and heat this week, Hall said, especially if you’ll be spending time outside.

One person died and another was taken to Las Vegas to be treated for severe heat illness this weekend after traveling through Death Valley on motorcycles, the National Park Service confirmed in a statement.

Temperatures reached 128 degrees on Saturday, breaking Death Valley’s previous record from 2007.

“If you're working outdoors the next couple days, you know, take more frequent breaks,” Hall said. “Avoid the midday sun if possible, drink plenty of water, try and avoid alcoholic drinks.”

And listen to your body. If you’re already feeling hot at home, it might not the best time to go on that hike.

The increase of federal immigration sweeps in Southern California this year made one thing clear to street vendors without authorization to be in the U.S. — running a business outside was risky.

In response, L.A. nonprofit Inclusive Action for the City ramped up an existing program that trains street vendors to work in private catering.

“One of the big successes of the year was the growth of our Hire a Vendor program, where our business coaches essentially became brokers for our street vendors and other entrepreneurs so they can get catering jobs,” said Rudy Espinoza, the group’s CEO.

The program was created in 2024 but the group expanded it this year after the increase of immigration sweeps. The group said in its annual report that 34 small businesses were trained for catering this year and more than 350 catering jobs came to those trainees this year.

The training program includes menu design and pricing, electronic sales systems and marketing

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Courtesy Inclusive Action for the City

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“Everywhere from the mayor's house to a small backyard party,” Espinoza said.

The group’s effort is part of actions taken by individuals and groups across the region to help people targeted for detention keep sources of income.

That help has included buyouts of daily inventory of fruit and flowers, as well as the awarding of grants to street vendors who lost income because they stayed home.

Advocates said the loss of income through detentions — many carried out through violent means — often affected family members who were U.S. citizens and has created a humanitarian crisis as families have lost the means to pay bills and buy food.

Street vendors in a Hire a Vendor session organized by Inclusive Action for the City.

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Courtesy Inclusive Action for the City

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The vendor training program sought to alleviate that.

“Sometimes, challenges force us to think, be creative and think about how to adapt,” Espinoza said. “The Hire a Vendor program is just an example of how some entrepreneurs really dedicated themselves to build out a different line of business for themselves.”

How it works

The Hire a Vendor program is free to people who seek and receive micro-loans from Inclusive Action for the City.

Four of the program’s nine sessions are "office hours" in which a business coach works one-on-one with the business owner.

The trainings cover:

• Catering basics such as delivery, set-up and presentation
• Invoicing and electronic sale systems
• Menu design and pricing
• Marketing through social media

The trained vendors are free to pursue their own catering jobs but also get catering work through a portal created by Inclusive Action for the City.

Espinoza said one full-time employee oversaw the program this year, and he’d like to add another full-time worker to expand the trainings in 2026.

The Trump administration will resume garnishing wages from student loan borrowers in default in early 2026, the U.S. Education Department confirmed to NPR.

The move comes after a years-long pause in wage garnishment due to the pandemic.

"We expect the first notices to be sent to approximately 1,000 defaulted borrowers the week of Jan. 7," a department spokesperson told NPR. The spokesperson said wage-garnishment notices are expected to increase on a monthly basis throughout the year.

A borrower is in default when they have not made loan payments in more than 270 days. Once that happens, the federal government can try to collect on the debt by seizing tax refunds and Social Security benefits and also by ordering an employer to withhold up to 15% of a borrower's pay. Borrowers should receive a 30-day notice from the Education Department before this wage garnishment begins.

Betsy Mayotte, the president and founder of The Institute of Student Loan Advisors, says even though borrowers have expected this, the timing is unfortunate.

"It will coincide with the increase in health care costs for many of these defaulted borrowers," she said, referring to the premium increases for Affordable Care Act health insurance that kick in in 2026. "The two will almost certainly put significant economic strain on low- and middle-income borrowers."

About 5.5 million borrowers currently are in default, according to a recent analysis of the latest federal student loan data published by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a public policy think tank.

Another 3.7 million are more than 270 days late on their payments and 2.7 million are in the early stages of delinquency.

"We've got about 12 million borrowers right now who are either delinquent on their loans or in default," Preston Cooper, who studies student loan policy at AEI, told NPR.

That's more than 1 in 4 federal student loan borrowers.

Cory Turner contributed to this story.

Copyright 2025 NPR

The Justice Department released a new batch of files Tuesday related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein which contain hundreds of references to President Donald Trump.

Trump has not been accused of wrongdoing in connection to Epstein though he had a well-documented friendship with the disgraced financier in the 1980s, '90s, and 2000s. This latest tranche gives more details on Trump's relationship with Epstein, including documentation of Trump flying on Epstein's private jet in the 1990s. Epstein's relationship with powerful politicians and businessmen — and in particular, to what degree Trump may have been aware of Epstein's crimes — has been a central question as the DOJ has continued to release the files.

Congress required the Justice Department to make all files available by last Friday. The department has taken a piecemeal approach to releasing the files, which are expected to contain hundreds of thousands of pages.

In a Tuesday-morning social media post, the department said that the latest batch contains nearly 30,000 pages, adding that it includes "untrue or sensationalist claims" about Trump. When asked for comment on the newest files, the White House referred NPR to the Justice Department statement.

The latest set of files includes a 2020 email from an unidentified federal prosecutor saying that "Donald Trump traveled on Epstein's private jet many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware)."

The prosecutor said Trump was listed as a passenger on at least eight flights between 1993 and 1996, including four on which Ghislaine Maxwell — Epstein's co-conspirator and herself a convicted sex offender — was also a passenger. The prosecutor also wrote that one flight included only Trump, Epstein, and a 20-year-old whose name was redacted.

Flight logs included in the latest files show that Trump's flights were primarily domestic, between New Jersey, Palm Beach, and Washington, D.C.

President Trump has yet to respond directly to the latest document dump, but on Monday told reporters that he thinks the Epstein files are a distraction, and that they unfairly implicate innocent people.

"What this whole thing is with Epstein is a way of trying to deflect from the tremendous success that the Republican Party has," Trump said. "A lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people that really had nothing to do with Epstein, but they're in a picture with him because he was at a party. And you ruin a reputation of somebody."

The files also include a 2019 letter supposedly sent by Epstein to convicted sex offender Larry Nassar — the former U.S. gymnastics team doctor.

The letter, which says Epstein sent it from a correctional facility in Manhattan, says that "our president shares our love of young, nubile girls." A stamp on the letter says it was returned to sender.

The DOJ document release also includes an FBI document requesting that a laboratory perform a handwriting analysis to determine whether the letter was written by Epstein. It's unclear whether the FBI came to a conclusion in this case.

Another document included is a 2021 subpoena to Trump's Mar-a-Lago club for employment records during the investigation into Maxwell.

NPR's Luke Garrett contributed reporting.
Copyright 2025 NPR