The Brief

When Julliana Samson signed up for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to help afford food as she studied at the University of California, Berkeley, she had to turn in extensive, detailed personal information to the state to qualify.

Now she's worried about how that information could be used.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has made an unprecedented demand to states to share the personal information of tens of millions of federal food assistance recipients by July 30, as a federal lawsuit seeks to postpone the data collection.

USDA is requiring states turn over identifying information on all SNAP recipients and applicants since 2020, "including but not limited to" names, dates of birth, addresses and Social Security numbers, as well as the dollar amount each recipient received over time. States that do not comply with USDA's data demand could lose funds.

Samson is one of the more than 40 million people who receive SNAP benefits each month. Their personal data has remained within their states' control, but the USDA's demand would change that.

She and three other SNAP recipients, along with a privacy organization and an anti-hunger group, are challenging USDA's data demand in a federal lawsuit, arguing the agency has not followed protocols required by federal privacy laws. Late Thursday, they asked a federal judge to intervene to postpone the July 30 deadline and a hearing has been scheduled for July 23.

"I am worried my personal information will be used for things I never intended or consented to," Samson wrote recently as part of an ongoing public comment period for the USDA's plan. "I am also worried that the data will be used to remove benefits access from student activists who have views the administration does not agree with."

Some senators share her concern. In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Thursday, 13 Democratic senators, led by California's Sen. Adam Schiff, slammed a public notice the USDA issued that grants itself broad authority for using SNAP recipients' data.

"This policy would turn a program that feeds millions of Americans into a tool of government mass surveillance," the senators wrote. They called on the agency to reverse course and warned otherwise the USDA "will be at serious risk of violating federal law."

When asked for comment on the senators' letter, an unnamed USDA spokesperson responding from a media email account wrote the agency's public notice for its proposed SNAP database "is open for comment until July 23."

Data and deportation efforts

The USDA's sweeping data demand comes as the Trump administration is taking wide-ranging and novel steps to collect personal data on people living in the U.S. and link data sets across government agencies for immigration enforcement, identifying potential fraud and waste, and other purposes that are still unknown.

A new federal agreement, for example, allows Immigration and Customs Enforcement to access Medicaid recipients' personal information, including ethnicities and addresses, to locate immigrants who might be subject to deportation. The agreement, which was first reported by the Associated Press and was later confirmed by the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Todd Lyons, on CBS, follows the revelation that federal health officials shared Medicaid enrollees' data from a handful of states with the Department of Homeland Security without notifying states or seeking consent.

Federal agents detain a man after his court hearing in immigration court at a federal building in New York City on July 9, 2025. The federal government's push to collect data on nutrition assistance recipients has advocates worried that the government safety net programs will be harnessed for immigration enforcement.

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The USDA first publicized its data request in early May, saying the information would be used to ensure program integrity. The agency cited President Trump's March 20 executive order that calls for "unfettered access to comprehensive data from all state programs that receive federal funding" including from "third-party databases" to stop waste, fraud and abuse.

The agency has since stated the plan also relates to Trump's February 19 executive order aimed at ensuring immigrants without legal status do not receive public benefits, and has said it will use the data to verify enrollees' immigration status. Some categories of noncitizens who used to qualify for SNAP no longer do after Trump's tax and spending bill that passed earlier this month.

Though immigrants living in the country without legal status are ineligible for SNAP, they can apply for benefits for their U.S. citizen children.

NPR asked USDA if the agency would make SNAP recipient data available to ICE for immigration enforcement.

In response, an unnamed USDA spokesperson referred to a provision of the Food and Nutrition Act, the federal law that created SNAP, that says information shall be shared with local, state or federal law enforcement to investigate SNAP-related violations.

A legal debate over privacy protocols

The USDA temporarily paused its data request in late May after the federal lawsuit challenging it was initially filed. The agency then issued a Systems of Record Notice, or SORN, on June 23 for the proposed new data set, a step required by the federal Privacy Act of 1974 that allows the public to comment on the agency's plan.

Plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit submitted public comments and argued in court filings that the USDA's notice is unlawful, since they say the agency's description for how it intends to use SNAP recipients' data is incompatible with the Food and Nutrition Act that created the food assistance program.

The personal information of more than 40 million people currently use federal nutrition assistance programs administered by states, including addresses, Social Security numbers, and more could be collected by the federal government soon.

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The USDA's notice asserts broad authority to share SNAP recipients' data with other agencies and law enforcement. But the law that created SNAP says records shall be shared with law enforcement only to investigate SNAP-related violations, with an exception for locating fugitives.

"Congress, when they were passing the Food and Nutrition Act, understood how sensitive this information is," Nicole Schneidman, a technology policy strategist at the legal nonprofit Protect Democracy, and one of the attorneys behind the lawsuit, told NPR. "And the bottom line is that this administration can't attempt to basically override that by issuing this overbroad SORN."

Samson, one of the plaintiffs, wrote in her public comment that the federal government is proposing to use her data in ways that she never consented to when she signed up.

"I shared my sensitive information with California with a clear understanding that it was only to determine my eligibility for SNAP and make sure I didn't break any of the rules of being on SNAP," she wrote in her public comment. "Now, this notice from the federal government says they plan to share my data with other federal agencies for reasons that have nothing to do with finding errors and fraud in the SNAP program. I never agreed to that, and it scares me."

She and other plaintiffs in the case argue the notice is defective because it does not spell out the full extent of the data the agency intends to collect.

Another plaintiff, Catherine Hollingsworth, a 76-year-old SNAP recipient in Alaska, wrote in her comment that she has shared extensive personal information with the state, including scans of IDs, medical records and bank information, and she wondered if the federal government might ultimately get those records, too.

"I am very worried that with each additional data transfer data [sic], it will be less secure and that my information will be severely compromised," she wrote.

An unnamed USDA spokesperson told NPR the agency does not comment on litigation, and referred to the Department of Justice, which did not return a request for comment.

States deciding how to respond

Earlier this month, USDA announced its data collection would begin July 24, the day after the comment period for its SORN is slated to close.

Plaintiffs argue the USDA's timeline has not left any time to consider public comments and incorporate feedback.

While several states have indicated they plan to comply with USDA's demand, others have expressed concerns.

"We will protect Marylanders' personal information by following the law," Maryland Department of Human Services press secretary Lilly Price told NPR in an email. "We are currently reviewing the USDA letter."

The lawsuit over the SNAP data collection is one of more than a dozen lawsuits pending over the Trump administration's efforts to access and aggregate Americans' sensitive data.

Last week, twenty states sued over the Medicaid data disclosure to DHS.

In response to an NPR inquiry about the agreement to share Medicaid data with ICE, an unnamed spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a statement, "With respect to the recent data sharing between CMS and DHS, HHS acted entirely within its legal authority – and in full compliance with all applicable laws – to ensure that Medicaid benefits are reserved for individuals who are lawfully entitled to receive them."

The statement went on to criticize California for offering health benefits to immigrants without legal status through a state-run program.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat who is leading the lawsuit to stop the federal government from sharing Medicaid data, said this week he was "deeply disturbed" to learn of the new agreement that gave ICE access to the data.

"The President's efforts to pull personal, private, and unrelated health data to create a mass deportation machine cannot be allowed to continue," Bonta said in a statement.
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The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan begin Friday and eight athletes have roots in Southern California, including Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Team USA’s 232-member roster includes 21 athletes from California. The Winter Games begin Feb. 6 and end on Feb. 22.

Here's a list of who is from L.A. County:

• Spencer Akira Howe - Figure Skating - Los Angeles
• Madison Chock - Figure Skating - Redondo Beach
• Chloe Kim - Snowboarding - Torrance
• Azaria Hill - Bobsled - Santa Clarita
• Beatrice Kim - Snowboarding - Palos Verdes 

Where other SoCal athletes are from:

• Cayla Barnes - Ice Hockey - Eastvale
• Kate Delson - Snowboarding - San Diego
• Maddie Mastro - Snowboarding - Wrightwood

What about the 2026 Paralympics? The Milano Cortina 2026 Paralympics will start on March 6 and run through March 15. Not all qualifying athletes have been announced yet.

You can watch the games starting Friday on NBC and streaming on Peacock.

Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies have reported using thousands of crowd control munitions against protesters in L.A. since June 2025, when federal immigration sweeps began escalating tensions in the region.

Many people who were never accused of breaking the law nonetheless have been struck by what are known as “less-lethal” crowd control weapons, including rubber bullets, tear gas and flash bang grenades.

Legal experts and witnesses told LAist some of these instances violated California’s protest laws.

While a federal judge banned the LAPD from using 40mm projectiles at protests last month, the department still uses other crowd control weapons. According to Scott Reynhout, who researches these weapons for Physicians for Human Rights, a nonpartisan nonprofit, some of these weapons can be just as dangerous as the banned projectiles — if not more so.

LAist spoke with Reynhout to better understand what they do and how people protesting lawfully can protect themselves.

Reynhout said it's very important that people pay attention if law enforcement declares an unlawful assembly, which they are required to do before using crowd control weapons in most cases.

“ If the police have declared an illegal assembly, it would behoove you to take steps to isolate yourself from that particular situation,” Reynhout said. “If that is not possible for you, for whatever reason — say, you live in the particular area where you are — then you could consider [protecting] yourself from chemical irritants or potentially from impact projectiles.”

Some of the most dangerous crowd control weapons used in L.A.

Physicians for Human Rights’ international study, Lethal in Disguise, found weapons that fire multiple projectiles at once were “far and away the most dangerous” type of crowd control weapons.

 "82% of all the recorded injuries in the medical literature that came from impact projectiles were from ... multiple projectile impact projectiles,” Reynhout told LAist. “And 96% of all the ocular injuries from impact projectiles were from these multiple projectile impact projectiles."

He said the LAPD is the only police department in the U.S. he is aware of that uses this type of weapon. The department uses a 37mm less-lethal launcher (LLM) that shoots five rubber bullets with each shell.

According to reports required by Assembly Bill 48, the department used more than 600 of these shells — that’s over 3,000 projectiles — against anti-ICE protesters last June. They have continued to report using the 37mm launcher, most recently to disperse crowds after the Dodgers World Series win on Nov. 2, according to AB 48 reports.

The 37mm launcher is inherently risky, Reynhout said. Even though the 37mm rubber bullets are smaller than the 40mm projectiles the LAPD was banned from using at protests, they are more likely to hit sensitive areas like the face and neck.

The use of multiple projectiles causes the 37mm projectiles to scatter in a cone shape once they leave the launcher, making them much more difficult to control than a single projectile. He said LAPD’s policy of “skip firing,” which means officers are instructed to aim 5 to 10 feet in front of the person they are shooting at, also adds randomness.

A diagram showing LAPD's policy of "skip firing" the 37mm less-lethal launcher at targets.

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LAPD Use of Force Directive

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“ The real risk behind these multi-shot impact projectiles,” he said, “is that you just really don't have any control over where these bullets go in the end.”

Reynhout said people standing beside or behind the intended target could very easily get hit, which he believes was likely the case when Australian reporter Lauren Tomasi was struck in the leg by a rubber bullet in June.

[Note: LAist correspondent Adolfo Guzman-Lopez was struck in the throat by a projectile at a 2020 protest. Long Beach police later said they believed that injury was caused by a ricochet of a foam round.]

LAist reached out to LAPD for comment on their use of the 37mm launcher, but the department did not respond.

Another type of crowd control weapon found to be especially dangerous is the use of beanbag rounds, usually fired from a 12-gauge shotgun. These rounds fire small lead pellets sealed in a fabric bag.

Reynhout said the use of these rounds can be “horrific” and leave people with life-threatening injuries.

According to LAPD policy, beanbag rounds are not allowed to be used for crowd control, but other agencies have used them. The California Highway Patrol reported using beanbag rounds against anti-ICE protesters last June.

If you find yourself in a situation where projectiles are being deployed, Reynhout advises focusing on protecting your face and eyes. That’s where the most serious injuries occur.

Reynhout said ballistic eyewear that meets military standards (MIL-PRF-32432) could offer protection against some of the most severe injuries.

He said the 40mm or 37mm projectiles can be similar to getting hit by a golf ball by someone swinging just 6 feet away, and while things like bike helmets, paintball masks, hockey masks or even soft body armor might help to some degree, they aren’t designed to protect someone from that kind of impact.

What you may most likely be affected by: Chemical agents

Chemical agents like tear gas and pepper spray are crowd control weapons that saturate an area and affect everyone in it, Reynhout told LAist, and that includes people who may not even be part of a demonstration.

He said you should be especially aware of these weapons being used near you if you have asthma or any airway or respiratory system issues because they can provoke severe reactions in some cases.

In their report, Reynhout and other researchers found that children and older people are also at risk of severe reactions, which could be life-threatening.

There is gear on the market to mitigate those risks, including sealed safety goggles and respirators (N-, P- or R-100). If you find yourself exposed to a chemical irritant like tear gas or pepper spray, Reynhout said there is nothing shown to be more effective than flushing the area for 10 to 15 minutes with saline solution.

The saline solution should ideally be sterile and at body temperature, he told LAist, but plain water also works if that is what you have available. The important thing is that you continue to flush the area and dilute the chemicals.

For skin or clothing, Reynhout said dilution with water is still the key, but you can use some Dawn dish soap to help wash away pepper spray.

Other dangers

California law enforcement officers have also used flash bang grenades in response to protests since June. The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and California Highway Patrol together used more than 300 aerial flash bang grenades on June 8, according to AB 48 reports. Those are crowd control munitions shot out of 40mm launchers that explode mid-air and create 170 dB of sound and 5 million candelas of light.

LAist asked the LAPD about their policy on using flash bang grenades for crowd control, but the department did not respond. The LAPD has not listed any uses of flash bang grenades in their AB 48 reports dating back to April 2024.

Aside from these, there are a number of other crowd control weapons and devices that are used by law enforcement agencies in the L.A. area: grenades that explode to release small rubber balls, pepper balls, batons or — unique to the LAPD — officers on horseback using wooden practice swords called “bokken.”

Reynhout said deciding how much protection you might choose to take with you to a protest is very personal. Some bulkier items might restrict your movement, cause you to overheat or impede your ability to maintain situational awareness, so it is important to consider what risks you may face and use your best judgement.

Sometimes, he said, that best judgment might be to walk away from the situation.

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass laid out her vision for Los Angeles at her first of two "State of the City" addresses Monday afternoon at Exposition Park.

The speech, which comes as her race for re-election ramps up, was framed as a celebration of the coming World Cup.

"Let's show the nation and the world we are the greatest city on earth," Bass told the crowd outside the L.A. Memorial Coliseum.

But the mayor moved quickly from announcing that there would be more than 100 free watch parties for the tournament into a retrospective of L.A.'s terrible 2025 — from the January fires to the immigration agents that descended on the city in June and haven't left.

"Raids continue every day in Los Angeles and with them have come the devastating losses of life," she said, naming Renee Good, Alex Pretti and Keith Porter Jr., who was shot by an off-duty ICE agent in Los Angeles on New Year's Eve. " This senseless death, lawlessness and violence must end and so must the presence of ICE in Los Angeles."

Bass described local leaders as the last line of defense against the actions of the federal government.

L.A.’s fire recovery

She also discussed the ongoing recovery of Pacific Palisades, where she has faced substantial criticism for the city's response to the fire and first year of rebuilding, which some residents say has been too slow.

" We've brought in new leadership to overhaul fire preparedness and emergency response," Bass said, referencing her decision to remove former fire chief Kristin Crowley. "And yes, we're fighting the next battle: holding financial institutions and the insurance industry from abandoning Los Angeles because recovery should never feel harder than the disaster itself."

Bass said 400 homes lost to the fire are currently under construction, and that she would travel to Sacramento next week with Councilmember Traci Park and Pacific Palisades residents to push for more state funding for recovery. The Palisades Fire destroyed nearly 7,000 homes and killed 12 people.

The mayor's response to the Palisades Fire is a key issue in her race for re-election. Two of Bass's challengers, former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner and influencer Spencer Pratt, had their homes damaged or destroyed in the disaster.

Housing and homelessness

Bass then laid out her efforts around housing and homelessness, pointing to an affordability crisis that makes staying in stable housing, or buying a first home, out of reach for many Angelenos.

"The greatest test of L.A. is whether people can actually afford to live here year across Los Angeles," the mayor said in her address. "Too many neighbors are packing multiple families into one apartment are working two and three jobs just to stay housed."

Bass lauded her first executive directive ordering city officials to fast-track the construction of developments that have entirely affordable housing units, which she said had "accelerated  more than 30,000 housing units across the city." She also celebrated the city's move to significantly lower rent hikes, in the first reform to rent control in 40 years.

Bass then turned to homelessness, doubling down on her commitment to her signature "Inside Safe" program, which aims to move people off the streets and into interim housing. She said that the city had cleared nearly 120 encampments.

Bass focused on the fight to end homelessness for veterans in Los Angeles — a focus she said was interrupted by the 2025 fires. She said the city had issued 600 housing vouchers for veterans since last year.

She ended the speech where she started — talking about the city's role as host of the World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games.

" We will continue to focus on the fundamentals, the things that shape how a city feels to the people who live here and the millions who will visit," she said.

Watch the replay

This is a developing story and will be updated.