The Brief

An L.A. city program that delivers free weekly meals to thousands of people over the age of 60 is officially coming to a close at the end of August.

A last-ditch effort to further fund the Emergency Rapid Response Senior Meals program until the end of the year didn’t make it through the L.A. City Council on Tuesday, with officials bouncing it back to committee after citing the budget process and cost concerns.

Now, more than 5,450 people will lose access to five weekly meals on Aug. 31, and the waitlist with more than 1,300 people on it will be wiped, according to a report from the Department of Aging.

Dominic Engels, the CEO of Revolution Foods, a vendor partner for the program, said in a statement they’re disappointed some of the city’s most vulnerable older adults will miss these vital meals and urged the city council to address “this critical need” as quickly as possible.

“Los Angeles has the largest concentration of food insecure seniors in the nation,” Engels said in a statement. “No senior should ever go hungry, but it’s unfortunately going to be a very difficult fall for many seniors in L.A.”

How we got here

Councilmember Heather Hutt, who has 634 people receiving the free meals and 191 others on the waitlist in her 10th district, said during Tuesday’s council meeting that the program is part of the city’s homelessness prevention strategy, and now is not the time to abruptly end it.

“If seniors need to choose between food and rent or food and medicine, they'll choose food first,” Hutt said. “We need to be more thoughtful about how we approach serving our growing senior population and ensure that we meet their needs.”

Hutt introduced a motion to transfer more than $12.5 million from the city’s “unappropriated balance fund” to the program, adding that the city needs more money for liability payouts, but “not at the expense of our senior residents.”

But Councilmember Bob Blumenfield said it should be sent back to the Budget, Finance, and Innovation Committee for a second time, arguing that moving forward would have thrown the budget process away and lead to equal cuts in other city services.

Council President Paul Krekorian agreed and warned that appropriating the “very substantial amount of money” in that manner could break state law.

“I want to caution members that however we may feel about the substantive benefit of this kind of expenditure, it is almost certainly a violation of the Brown Act to vote on something that hasn't been previously agendized to expend $12 million,” he said. “So that's why this must be referred to the budget and finance committee.”

The city council voted to send Hutt’s motion back to te committee and directed the Department of Aging to come up with a plan for transitioning people to other meal programs.

Hutt’s office didn’t immediately respond to LAist’s request for additional comment.

A map of where the older adults being served by the Rapid Response Senior Meals program live in Los Angeles from a Department of Aging report to the L.A. City Council.

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Alternatives for older adults

Robert Camarena, the director of business development for Revolution Foods, told LAist they’ve been directed to distribute flyers to the roughly 1,600 people they serve “as quickly as we could” warning that the program will end and to direct them to other options in the city.

According to the Department of Aging, they will also connect each person in the program and on the waitlist to senior centers that will have meal options they can turn to come September.

But if someone doesn’t use those meals, or if the senior centers don’t have the capacity to serve them, people can be directed to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, Meals on Wheels, Project Angel Food, and other food programs in the area.

Camarena said while those are good programs that serve a particular population, they don’t address everyone suffering from food insecurity.

“There is a large population of unserved seniors that do suffer from food insecurity who cannot get to traditional sites, need food immediately, and can't afford to go on a long wait list,” he said.

Big Bear’s famous bald eagles — Jackie and Shadow — appear to be welcoming a new chick into the world.

The first pip, or crack, was spotted in one of the feathered duo’s two eggs around 10 a.m. Friday, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs a popular YouTube livestream of the nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.

More than 26,000 people were watching the livestream shortly after the organization confirmed a pip had been spotted, which signals that an eaglet is starting to poke its way out of the egg shell.

“Yesterday afternoon, evening and throughout the night we heard little chirps coming from the chick,” Friends of Big Bear Valley wrote on Facebook to more than a million followers. “This indicates that the chick was able to break the internal membrane and took its first breath of air.”

As of Friday, the first egg is around 38 days old and the second egg is about 35 days old. Jackie and Shadow's usual incubation timeline is around 38 to 40 days, according to the nonprofit.

There’s still time for the second egg to show signs of hatching, and a pip could be confirmed in the coming days.

What we know

Jenny Voisard, the organization’s media manager, told LAist earlier this week that hatching is an arduous process for chicks that takes some time.

For example, last season, the first chick hatched more than a day after the initial pip was confirmed, according to Friends of Big Bear Valley records. The second chick hatched about a day after pipping as well, and the third chick worked its way out into the world about two days after the first crack was confirmed.

The chicks may look like little blobs of gray fluff at first, but they grow quickly, as fans saw with Jackie and Shadow’s eaglets last year. One of last season’s trio of chicks, believed to be the eldest and most dominant sibling, died during a winter storm within weeks of hatching.

In March 2025, Jackie and Shadow welcomed two eaglet chicks with one remaining egg in their nest.

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Jackie and Shadow's three chicks on March 7, 2025. One of the chicks later died, while Sunny and Gizmo successfully fledged a few months later.

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Jackie and Shadow's eaglets during a feeding of fish in April 2025.

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Sunny and Gizmo in Big Bear's famous bald eagle nest on Friday, April 18, 2025.

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Viewers watched as the surviving eaglets, Sunny and Gizmo, grew from a few ounces to several pounds in a matter of months before fledging, or taking their first flight away from the nest, last June.

But any chicks arriving this season will have to learn how to feed before they can fly.

The initial meals may be a bit awkward while the chicks learn to sit up straight. Jackie and Shadow could start feeding the chicks the same day they hatch, typically tearing off pieces of fish or raw meat and holding it up to their beaks.

Bald eagles don’t regurgitate food for their young, unlike other birds. But the feathered parents do pass along a "substantial amount of saliva” full of electrolytes and antibodies to their chicks during feedings, according to the nonprofit.

Voisard said new life coming to the nest is a reminder “why it’s so important to conserve their lands.”

Big Bear fundraiser

Friends of Big Bear Valley is trying to raise $10 million by the end of July to purchase land pegged for a planned housing project that some say would harm rare plants and wildlife in the area, including bald eagles.

You can learn more about the fundraiser here.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta provided guidance this week to childcare providers on new legal requirements to protect children and their families from immigration enforcement activities.

Under a new law that went into effect this year, childcare providers are not allowed to collect information about a child's or family member’s immigration status, unless necessary under state or federal law. Bonta’s office says there currently is no such requirement, though that could change with federal programs like Head Start.

“Childcare and preschool facilities should be safe and secure spaces so children can grow, learn and simply be children,” Bonta said in a statement.

His office says daycare centers also should not keep information about a formerly enrolled child longer than is required by state law.

The new law also requires facilities to inform the attorney general’s office and the state’s licensing agency if they get any requests for information from law enforcement related to immigration enforcement.

Facilities also must ask families to regularly update a child’s emergency contact information to make sure someone can be reached in case a parent is detained by federal immigration officials.

The Santa Ana winds are here to welcome us into the weekend, bringing warmer temperatures.

The winds will reach Point Mugu to the Santa Clarita Valley, down to Orange County and parts of the Inland Empire valleys and foothills east of the 5 Freeway.

Peak gusts are expected to reach 35 to 55 mph. The western San Gabriel Mountains, Highway 14 corridor, Santa Susana Mountains and the western Santa Monica Mountains are under a high wind warning until 6 p.m., when gusts could reach 65 mph.

As for temperatures, highs for L.A. County beaches will reach the upper 70s and up to the low 80s for inland areas.

Parts of Orange County and Coachella Valley will see temperatures in the mid- to upper 80s, with the warmest areas expected to reach 88 degrees.