Topline:
The Aquarium of the Pacific's annual photographer night this October brought a host of wildlife photographers to Long Beach, and they captured some winning shots.
What the judges were looking for: Entries are ranked based on their technical and emotional depth, as well as a "wow" factor, according to a judge.
The winners: Winning photos featured everything from crustaceans to giant sea bass to octopuses.
To see past winners: Read LAist's story on photographer's night from September.
Photographers trawled the Aquarium of the Pacific looking for perfect shots at the Aquarium of the Pacific's annual photographers' night this October, and the prize-winning catches have now been announced.
Crystal Stromer's photo of a giant sea bass appearing to gaze pensively at a school of fish took home the top prize. The aquarium's Andrew Reitsma, who helped to judge the entries, said that the winning shot caught the judges' attention for its moodiness that embodied the times we live in.
Reitsma said that the judges look for technicality, composition, and emotion in the photos of the aquarium's animals, but they're also looking for an unquantifiable "wow" factor.
"Having done this for 10 years, you see a lot of similar images and you kind of look for things that you haven't seen before, things that kind of strike out as, 'wow, this is an amazing image,'" Reitsma said.
The photo contest's past winners have captured a variety of animals at the Aquarium, from frogs to tropical fish to the Pacific spiny lumpsucker.
During this year's photo night, photographers had free rein over the museum's exhibits, and they could also borrow equipment from vendors to help them take their shots. The aquarium was closed to the public for the event, allowing nature photographers to get wildlife photos without having to brave the waters of the Pacific.
Reitsma also said the Blue Lagoon, where the first-place picture was taken, is a great place for visitors to camp out looking for a shot.
"It has a lot of opportunities for taking pictures of the sardines and the schools of fish to the slow moving giant sea bass," Reitsma said. "It becomes challenging, but you can also step back and get these beautiful shots of glowing light coming down from the upper parts of the exhibit downlighting the darker areas at the bottom."
Reitsma, who has a photography degree from Cal State Long Beach, said his favorite animal to take photos of is the octopus. While they can be hard to track down at the aquarium since they spend much of their time out of sight, octopuses featured in two of the top ten photographs this year.
He offered some tips for anyone taking photos at the aquarium.
"Try to be as head on with your subject matter as possible," Reitsma said. "When you start shooting at an angle, you get aberration in the glass and it makes it difficult to get sharp shots, but if you try to get forward facing, perpendicular to your subject, it really helps to get everything really sharp."
Topline:
Robert Mueller, the ex-FBI director and former special counsel who led the high-profile investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump, died Friday at 81.
Family statement: "With deep sadness, we are sharing the news that Bob passed away" on Friday night, his family said in a statement Saturday shared with NPR. "His family asks that their privacy be respected."
Robert Mueller, the ex-FBI director and former special counsel who led the high-profile investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by President Trump, died Friday at 81.
"With deep sadness, we are sharing the news that Bob passed away" on Friday night, his family said in a statement Saturday shared with NPR. "His family asks that their privacy be respected."
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
Copyright 2026 NPR
At the Koreatown Senior and Community Center, people were used to seeing Keum-soon Lee arrive early. When she didn’t show up for the 11 a.m. group harmonica class at the center last Friday, people took notice.
Members of the center later learned that Lee, 73, was critically injured in a hit-and-run crash while biking home in Koreatown after attending early morning prayer at her church. She died in a hospital March 13 from her injuries, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Why now: The senior center, where Lee was a fixture and known as a reliable friend, has designated March 20 as a day of mourning. On Friday, Lee’s church held a funeral service, where members of the harmonica ensemble performed the hymn, “Nearer My God to Thee,” in her memory.
Read on ... for more on Lee's life and memory.
At the Koreatown Senior and Community Center, people were used to seeing Keum-soon Lee arrive early. When she didn’t show up for the 11 a.m. group harmonica class at the center last Friday, people took notice.
“She would always be there first,” said conductor Eun-young Kim. “If she couldn’t come, she would tell me ahead of time. This time, I didn’t receive any messages from her. I thought, something isn’t right.”
Kim tried calling and sending messages. She didn’t get a response.
Members of the center later learned that Lee, 73, was critically injured in a hit-and-run crash while biking home in Koreatown after attending early morning prayer at her church. She died in a hospital March 13 from her injuries, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
“I was shocked,” said Jin-soon Baek, who has played with Lee for years. “We’ve been friends for a long time. We ate together, practiced together. She was like a sibling to me.
“She was so hardworking. Always the first one there to sign in for class. She’d walk ahead of me and I’d follow behind. That’s how it always was.”
Baek, who is in her 80s, said the two also shared something more personal: Both had cancer.
“I had cancer years ago, and she was going through treatment recently,” Baek said. “We understood each other.”
In January, Lee played with the harmonica ensemble at an LA Kings game. Lee spoke with a journalist about undergoing surgery and chemotherapy, and what the group meant to her.
“I think I’ve almost fully recovered,” Lee told journalist Chase Karng at the hockey game. “Even while receiving chemotherapy, I felt encouraged when I heard that I could perform here.”
Lee was born in 1952 in South Korea and immigrated to the United States in 1998. She was an elder at Saehan Presbyterian Church in Pico Union and is survived by her husband, Sang-rae Lee, and son, Young-jo Lee.
The senior center, where Lee was a fixture and known as a reliable friend, has designated March 20 as a day of mourning.
On Friday, Lee’s church held a funeral service, where members of the harmonica ensemble performed the hymn, “Nearer My God to Thee,” in her memory.
“I usually don’t attend funeral services, but I had to come for hers,” said Alice Kim. “Whenever I came to church, I would see her watering the grass, bent over, and she would smile and say, ‘You’re here, Alice,’ and hand me the Sunday bulletin.”
In her eulogy, elder Gyu-sook Lee said the sudden loss has hit the congregation hard.
“She always greeted everyone with a warm smile,” she said. “She was the kind of person who always stepped forward first to do the hard work that no one else wanted to do. And when she took something on, she saw it through to the end.”
“She still had so many years ahead of her,” Baek said. “She was younger than us. Full of hope. It feels like it should have been me instead.”
According to police, Lee was riding through a crosswalk when a white Dodge Ram truck turning right struck her around 6:40 a.m. near Olympic Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. The driver briefly stopped, then drove away, authorities said.
Investigators found the truck and are looking into whether the driver was impaired on drugs or alcohol. The truck was seized and there was no information about the driver.
Kim, the conductor, said Lee was the first person to reach out to her when she started to lead the ensemble in September.
“She sent me a message saying thank you for coming,” Kim said. “She was such a special person to me.”
At Friday’s service, speaker after speaker described Lee as someone who was a light in every community she was part of.
“The way she served the church behind the scenes became a lesson in faith for all of us. There isn’t a single part of this church that hasn’t felt her touch. Her warmth, her love, her dedication — I can still feel it,” Gyu-sook Lee said.
Top line:
Twelve candidates announced campaigns in February to replace Curren D. Price Jr. Of them, six candidates have qualified to be on the June 2 primary election ballot, none of whom are Black. They include: Estuardo Mazariegos, Elmer Roldan, Jorge Hernandez Rosas, Jorge Nuño, Martha Sánchez and Jose Ugarte.
The background: This area was the center of Black political power in LA because it was one of the few places in the city Black people were allowed to live and thrive due, in part, to housing restrictions.
Why now: The list is a reflection of the demographic shift of the area, but candidates also told The LA Local that it shows the strength of the district’s Black-Latino political coalition. And with the civil rights gains since the 1960s, while some locals are concerned that issues facing Black voters won’t get the attention they need, others who live in the district said they’re less concerned with what their representative looks like. Instead, they said they want someone who listens and gets things done.
Read on ... for more about the changes in District 9.
When Gilbert Lindsay became the first Black person elected to Los Angeles City Council in 1963, it gave the residents of the predominantly Black District 9 someone who understood the challenges they faced living in South Central.
This area was the center of Black political power in LA because it was one of the few places in the city Black people were allowed to live and thrive due, in part, to housing restrictions. For the next 63 years, voters in this district — which includes historic South Central, Exposition Park and a small portion of downtown Los Angeles — consecutively chose a Black representative.
That will end with Curren D. Price Jr., the current District 9 councilmember who can’t run again due to term limits.
Twelve candidates announced campaigns in February to replace Price. Of them, six candidates have qualified to be on the June 2 primary election ballot, none of whom are Black. They include: Estuardo Mazariegos, Elmer Roldan, Jorge Hernandez Rosas, Jorge Nuño, Martha Sánchez and Jose Ugarte.
The list is a reflection of the demographic shift of the area, but candidates also told The LA Local that it shows the strength of the district’s Black-Latino political coalition. And with the civil rights gains since the 1960s, while some locals are concerned that issues facing Black voters won’t get the attention they need, others who live in the district said they’re less concerned with what their representative looks like. Instead, they said they want someone who listens and gets things done.
“As long as you do good in the community, we’re going to be happy,” said Dennis Anya, who works on Central Avenue and has lived in the district for nearly 40 years.
The upcoming election comes as the demographics have changed in District 9 and South LA. The Black population in South Los Angeles was 81% in 1965, according to a special census survey from November 1965 of South and East LA.
As of 2021, District 9, specifically, is about 78% Latino and 13% Black, according to LA City Council population demographic data taken that year as part of a redistricting effort.
Officials have predicted the district’s shift for years. Former City Councilmembers Kevin De León and Nury Martinez discussed the district’s future in the leaked 2021 audio — checkered with racist remarks — that the LA Times reported in 2022.“This will be [Price’s] last four years,” De Leon said at one point in the conversation, the transcript of which the LA Times published in full. “That eventually becomes a Latino seat.”
Erin Aubry Kaplan, a writer and columnist who traces her family’s roots to South Central, told The LA Local that because District 9 has historically voted for a Black candidate, there is some anxiety amongst Black voters about losing Black representation in Los Angeles.
“I would hope that whoever wins, will carry the interest of Black folk forward,” she said.
Manuel Pastor, a USC professor and co-author of “South Central Dreams: Finding Home and Community in South LA,” told The LA Local that traditionally, voters are older. While District 9 is now home to a younger, immigrant community, they may not vote at the same rate as older generations, and undocumented residents are ineligible to vote.
Pastor said it’s likely for this reason that the current District 9 candidates are not emphasizing being Latino but are modeling their campaigns after other city leaders and focusing on Black-Latino solidarity.
“Just because the demographics have changed, doesn’t mean that the voting population has changed,” Pastor said.
Chris Martin, one of the two Black candidates who campaigned for the seat but did not qualify for the ballot, said he believes the city’s Black elected officials should have supported Black candidates in the race. Martin said he will challenge the city clerk’s decision on his nomination petition in court.
“The story of Black political power in the city of Los Angeles is dying,” Martin said. “I felt like I had a good chance of keeping it alive.”
Michelle Washington, the other Black candidate who also did not qualify, did not respond to a request for comment.Price, the current District 9 councilmember, endorsed his deputy Jose Ugarte in the race and wrote in a statement that this election is about solidarity.
“As a Black man who has served a majority-Latino district, I know that progress in South Central has always come from Black and Brown families moving forward together,” Price wrote. “We’ve had to fight harder for housing, safety, opportunity and the basic investments every neighborhood deserves. And when we’ve made gains, it’s because we stood united.”
Five of the six candidates who qualified for the ballot told The LA Local that not having a Black candidate on the ballot doesn’t diminish the place of the district’s Black community. (Candidate Jorge Hernandez Rosas did not return requests for comment.)
“It has always been a Black community and will always be a Black community. This isn’t about a passing of the baton or one community taking over another. It’s about building a solidarity movement,” Estuardo Mazariegos said.
Elmer Roldan, who carries endorsements from LA Mayor Karen Bass and City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, said the district needs a councilmember who won’t leave anyone behind.“We have to avoid at all costs contributing to Black erasure and Black displacement,” Roldan said.
Ugarte said that the major quality of life problems — like dirty streets and broken street lights — affecting the neighborhood’s Black and brown communities haven’t changed since he was a child living in the district.
“The same issues are still here,” he said.
If you haven’t registered to vote and you want to receive a vote-by-mail ballot, you must register to vote by May 18.
Results from the primary election will be certified by July 2. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two candidates will move on to the general election on Nov. 3, according to the City Clerk’s website.
The winner of District 9 will begin a four-year term Dec. 14.
Topline:
The L.A. County Medical Examiner has released the cause of death for Emily Beutner, the daughter of former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner. The manner of death was ruled a suicide.
The backstory: The former Loyola Marymount University student was found alone and suffering from medical distress by L.A. County Fire Department personnel shortly after midnight in a field by a highway in Palmdale on Jan. 6.
Resources: If you or someone you know is experiencing a crisis, you can dial the mental health lifeline at 988.
The L.A. County Medical Examiner has released the cause of death for Emily Beutner, the daughter of former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner.
The 22-year-old died from the effects of a combination of drugs, including two linked to the opioid known as kratom — mitragynine and 7-hydroxymitragynine — according to the statement released by the medical examiner Friday.
A county health official told our partner CBS L.A. that kratom products are sometimes sold as natural remedies but are illegal and unsafe.
The other two substances cited as causes of death were quetiapine and mirtazapine — the former is an antipsychotic medication, and the latter is used to treat depression, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The former Loyola Marymount University student was found alone and suffering from medical distress by L.A. County Fire Department personnel shortly after midnight in a field by a highway in Palmdale on Jan. 6. She was transported to a hospital and pronounced dead soon after.
After his daughter's death, Beutner dropped out of the L.A. mayoral race.
The Medical Examiner said the manner of death was ruled a suicide.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a crisis, you can dial the mental health lifeline at 988.
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