The Brief

The competition schedule for the Olympics is out, more than two years ahead of the 2028 Games.

The extensive program, released by Olympics organizing committee LA28 this morning, lays out the dates, times and locations of all competitions for 51 sports taking place across Southern California (and as far as Oklahoma City).

The first Olympic winner will be named at the women's triathlon in Venice Beach on the morning of July 15 — the first day of the Games and the day after the opening ceremony. The last will be more than two weeks later, July 30, when the men's and women's medley relay finals and other swimming finals will take place at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

The closing ceremonies will take place the same day at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum in Exposition Park.

The 2028 Games have flipped the traditional Olympic schedule to start with track and field and end with swimming. On a press call, LA28 executive Shana Ferguson said that's because SoFi Stadium is one of the venues hosting the Opening Ceremonies, and the site of all swimming competitions.

"In order to transition from opening ceremonies to swimming, we just couldn't do it," Ferguson said.

Olympics schedulers considered summer weather

Ferguson called developing the competition schedule a "painstaking process" that took months of coordinating with the International Olympic Committee and 36 international sports federations, which manage individual sports.

The Games will come to Los Angeles in the middle of summer, and Ferguson said LA28 considered heat and sunshine when it laid out the schedule.

" Some of the timings were made based on having a little bit later session in the evenings for cooling for fans and for athletes, as well as sun position, water tides, water quality," she said. "When we're having a diving competition outside, we have to think about the position of the sun so as to not distract the athletes."

Diving will take place at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center in Pasadena . Those competitions are scheduled either in the morning or afternoon, with a gap between 12:30 and 2 p.m.

Equestrian competition also has been scheduled with the summer heat in mind.

Those competitions will take place at the Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia, either in the morning or late afternoon. Ferguson said that's for the horses — and also the fans.

" We are also thinking about, quite frankly, how quickly we can get 'em into the venue, right?" she said. "We don't want them necessarily standing outside in long lines for too long. Let's get them inside where it's shaded."

Schedule highlights

July 29, will be the busiest day of Olympic Competition, with 26 finals in marathon, boxing, swimming, table tennis and many more.

The first day of competition will have the most women's finals, including the triathlon and 100-meter and women's rugby sevens.

You can find the detailed competition schedule here . The Paralympic schedule hasn't been released yet.

When can I get tickets? And how much will they cost?

Fans will be able to register for tickets starting in January . They'll cost as little as $28.

Los Angeles is working on its first major overhaul of the city’s charter — the document that acts as the city’s constitution for how government is run — in more than 25 years. Now there’s a new way residents can get involved. Applications are open for Angelenos who want to be a part of an upcoming mini civic assembly on charter reform.

The details

The L.A. Charter Reform Commission, a civilian board with 13 appointed commissioners, recently endorsed these mini assemblies and pledged to hear their recommendations at commission meetings. This group selected from the applications will come up with a set of suggestions for updating the rules on how L.A. is run and present them to the commission for consideration.

A mock civic assembly taking place in Culver City on June 7.

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Brianna Lee

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LAist

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What’s a civic assembly?

It’s a process by which a small group of residents get together and work out solutions to thorny community problems . Think of it as an intensive, in-person group project. Members are chosen by lottery but also selected to be demographically representative by factors like age, race or geography.

When is the assembly and how do I apply?

The first mini assembly, organized by a coalition called Rewrite LA , takes place Dec. 13 at the Institute of Contemporary Art in downtown L.A. Forty people will be selected, and this session will focus on one specific topic related to charter reform. If you’re interested, apply on Rewrite LA’s website by Tuesday .

How else can I weigh in on charter reform if I don’t get picked?

There are more assemblies planned for 2026. In the meantime, Rewrite LA is asking residents to share their thoughts here for what the assembly should address and how the city should be run. You also can give public comment at upcoming Charter Reform Commission meetings or submit written comments at ReformLAcharter@lacity.org .

Go deeper 

• Want residents, not politicians, to find answers to LA’s thorniest problems? Try a civic assembly

The Supreme Court on Tuesday extended an order blocking full SNAP payments, amid signals that the government shutdown could soon end and food aid payments resume.

The order keeps in place at least for a few more days a chaotic situation. People who depend on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to feed their families in some states have received their full monthly allocations, while others have received nothing.

The order will expire just before midnight Thursday.

The Senate has approved a bill to end the shutdown and the House of Representatives could vote on it as early as Wednesday. Reopening the government would restart the program that helps 42 million Americans buy groceries, but it's not clear how quickly full payments would resume.

The justices chose what is effectively the path of least resistance, anticipating the federal government shutdown will end soon while avoiding any substantive legal ruling about whether lower court orders to keep full payments flowing during the shutdown are correct.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only one of the nine justices to say she would have revived the lower court orders immediately, but didn't otherwise explain her vote. Jackson signed the initial order temporarily freezing the payments.

Beneficiaries in some states have received their full monthly allocations while in others they have received nothing. Some states have issued partial payments.

How quickly SNAP benefits could reach recipients if the government reopens would vary by state. But states and advocates say that it's easier to make full payments quickly than partial ones.

Carolyn Vega, a policy analyst at the advocacy group Share Our Strength, also said there could be some technical challenges for states that have issued partial benefits to send out the remaining amount.

An urgent need for beneficiaries

In Pennsylvania, full November benefits went out to some people on Friday. But Jim Malliard, 41, of Franklin, said he had not received anything by Monday.

Malliard is a full-time caretaker for his wife, who is blind and has had several strokes this year, and his teenage daughter, who suffered severe medical complications from surgery last year.

That stress has only been compounded by the pause in the $350 monthly SNAP payment he previously received for himself, his wife and daughter. He said he is down to $10 in his account and is relying on what's left in the pantry — mostly rice and ramen.

"It's kind of been a lot of late nights, making sure I had everything down to the penny to make sure I was right," Malliard said. "To say anxiety has been my issue for the past two weeks is putting it mildly."

The political wrangling in Washington has shocked many Americans, and some have been moved to help.

"I figure that I've spent money on dumber stuff than trying to feed other people during a manufactured famine," said Ashley Oxenford, a teacher who set out a "little food pantry" in her front yard this week for vulnerable neighbors in Carthage, New York.

SNAP has been the center of an intense fight in court

The Trump administration chose to cut off SNAP funding after October due to the shutdown. That decision sparked lawsuits and a string of swift and contradictory judicial rulings that deal with government power — and impact food access for about 1 in 8 Americans.

The administration went along with two rulings on Oct. 31 by judges who said the government must provide at least partial funding for SNAP. It eventually said recipients would get up to 65% of their regular benefits. But it balked last week when one of the judges said it must fund the program fully for November, even if that means digging into funds the government said need to be maintained in case of emergencies elsewhere.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to pause that order.

An appeals court said Monday that full funding should resume, and that requirement was set to kick in Tuesday night before the top court extended the order blocking full SNAP payments.

Congressional talks about reopening government

The U.S. Senate on Monday passed legislation to reopen the federal government with a plan that would include replenishing SNAP funds. Speaker Mike Johnson told members of the House to return to Washington to consider the deal a small group of Senate Democrats made with Republicans.

President Trump has not said whether he would sign it if it reaches his desk, but told reporters at the White House on Sunday that it "looks like we're getting close to the shutdown ending."

Still, the Trump administration said in a Supreme Court filing Monday that it shouldn't be up to the courts.

"The answer to this crisis is not for federal courts to reallocate resources without lawful authority," Solicitor General D. John Sauer said in the papers. "The only way to end this crisis — which the Executive is adamant to end — is for Congress to reopen the government."

After Tuesday's ruling, Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on social media: "Thank you to the Court for allowing Congress to continue its swift progress."

The coalition of cities and nonprofit groups who challenged the SNAP pause said in a court filing Tuesday that the Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, is to blame for the confusion.

"The chaos was sown by USDA's delays and intransigence," they said, "not by the district court's efforts to mitigate that chaos and the harm it has inflicted on families who need food."
Copyright 2025 NPR

WASHINGTON — Flight disruptions are likely to continue even after the government reopens , airlines and aviation regulators warned, as airlines canceled scores of flights on Tuesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration ordered airlines to reduce air traffic at 40 of the nation's busiest airports, with cuts still ramping up to 10% of flights by Friday. The agency has been dealing with persistent staffing shortages of air traffic controllers , who are required to work without pay during the shutdown, which is now the longest in U.S. history at 42 days and counting.

This past weekend, the FAA reported staffing shortages at dozens of facilities, prompting the agency to slow air traffic to relieve pressure on air traffic controllers who did show up to work. On Tuesday, airlines canceled more than 1,200 flights, according to the aviation tracking site FlightAware .

The situation seemed to be improving somewhat on Tuesday, according to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, with only a handful of FAA facilities reporting staffing shortages. But Duffy said that air traffic restrictions would remain in place until regulators are satisfied that staffing is back to normal levels.

"We're going to wait to see the data on our end before we take out the restrictions in travel," Duffy said during a press conference at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. "But it depends on controllers coming back to work."

Even when those restrictions are lifted, it may take several days for airlines to return to normal operations.

"It's gonna take a bit to unwind," said former FAA administrator Randy Babbitt in an interview with NPR's All Things Considered.

"The airplanes are in the wrong cities and so forth. They're going to have to sort all that out as well. So a good deal of the responsibility will be the carriers getting their schedules and the aircraft and personnel back in the right positions to resume normal flying," Babbitt said.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Tuesday that airlines may have to "stop flying" if Congressional lawmakers don't vote to end the government shutdown.

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Seth Wenig

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An aviation industry trade group, Airlines for America, also warned that it will take time for carriers to get back to normal.

"Airlines' reduced flight schedules cannot immediately bounce back to full capacity right after the government reopens. It will take time, and there will be residual effects for days," the group said in a statement.

The FAA argues the flight restrictions are necessary to keep the system safe while fewer air traffic controllers are showing up to work during the government shutdown. Some of those controllers have taken on second jobs during the shutdown, and many have called in sick.

But to the Trump administration's critics, the move appears to be about more than just safety. Some Democrats argue that the cuts were a political ploy to raise the pressure to end the government shutdown.

Secretary Duffy rejected that charge on Tuesday, saying the administration was responding to real concerns from pilots and mounting concerns about increasing loss of separation between aircraft.

And he warned of even bigger disruptions ahead if lawmakers do not vote to end the shutdown .

"You may find airlines that stop flying, full stop," Duffy said in Chicago. "You might have airlines that say, we're going to ground our planes, we're not going to fly anymore. That's how serious this is."
Copyright 2025 NPR

Los Angeles billboard culture is memorable, to say the least.

Our attorney billboards have inspired Hollywood . Creative STD prevention ads have reminded people about safety in weirdly direct ways. Even upside down “ Call Jacob ” and “ hate vegans ” billboards have left a confusing impression.

In a world of drab advertisements, every so often the cream of the crop rises to the top. LAist 89.3’s AirTalk unpacked some of those iconic memories recently. Here’s what listeners shared.

Billboards for music

Billboard for Beatles Abbey Road record circa 1969 on the Sunset Strip.

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Courtesy Robert Landau

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Robert Landau, photographer and author of Rock ‘N’ Roll Billboards of the Sunset Strip , has spent years documenting these scenes. He says you have to be clever to plant a seed in drivers’ minds in only a few seconds.

“ We’re such a car-oriented culture that we take this advertising form of billboards and maybe raise it to an art form,” he told host Austin Cross.

One that he remembers vividly is the Beatles’ Abbey Road billboard in 1969.

He said this period was about rock ‘n’ roll music. The bands he listened to were depicted on what he called artistic, almost non-commercial billboards on the Sunset Strip.

“[It created] almost a drive through gallery at that time,” he said.

Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room”

Sam, a listener from Atwater Village, called to share one billboard that lives rent free in his mind.

“ If you traveled in Hollywood on Highland, anytime in the early two thousands,” he said, “you saw the billboard for the Tommy Wiseau movie The Room.”

The billboard was up for years and had little information about what it was actually about. A black-and-white Wiseau stared down passersby next to directions to call a number on the billboard to “RSVP.” (To the movie? A meeting? Who knew.)

It became a sort of local mystery while the movie reached cult-like status .

The Angelyne campaigns

Another one L.A. won’t soon forget is model Angelyne’s plethora of billboards that have dotted the skyline for decades. Yes, decades .

Michael in Studio City said he’s always found the billboard queen entertaining. They’re known for being bright pink and showing Angelyne, usually in a suggestive or sultry pose, alongside just her name.

“I was confused about what necessarily she was going for other than notoriety,” he said.

We could go on forever about L.A.’s hodgepodge of excellent billboards. What’s one that sticks out to you? Send your thoughts to chernandez@laist.com and we may follow up.