The Brief

I was glad the coyote was getting in its steps for the day.

Last night, I spotted the wild canine sauntering around my Highland Park block with the confidence of a lifetime Venice Beach jogger. It darted a quick glance my way before continuing its route, nonplussed by my presence and my very cool new tracksuit.

It was a true casual encounter. Which makes sense — they belong here, and “they’re not going away,” said Ken Pellman, public information officer for the L.A. County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office.

And for the next two months they're getting all dolled up, flirty and frisky — it’s mating season, after all.

“There's going to be coyotes out there. And even if a particular coyote gets removed, there'll be another coyote eventually to take its place,” Pellman said. “They're highly adaptable. They'll have larger litters if they sense that there's more room to spread out because some coyotes have been taken away.”

The breeding season started in January

Coyote: Canis latrans. Click to read our guide on SoCal wildlife.

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Dan Carino

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California coyotes breed in January, February, and March. Gestation takes about two months, so pups are born in March through May. Both natural cycles can cause changes in behavior, according to Elizabeth Miller, staff biologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services headquarters.

“To prepare their own bodies for mating, you know, the process of pregnancy, labor, you know, delivery and then raising those pups, you might imagine that they're trying to secure a safe area to do that, and then also satisfy those nutritional requirements,” Miller said. “So you might see that translate to aggression, and bolder behavior, and more desperation to obtain those two resources.”

Coyotes may be more emboldened during these times, venturing into areas with more human activity and even seeking shelter and possible spots for their dens right in your backyard.

“There may not be other suitable alternatives, you know, a park may be the most green space and an area of backyard may be the most green space in an area,” Miller said. “So you do see those interactions increased, the more densely populated an area is, just because the overlap is so much more. ”

These behavioral changes can all spell peril for pets. A coyote’s perspective on our domesticated pals isn’t a particularly kindhearted one.

“To a coyote, a pet is either a territorial threat or an easy meal,” Pellman said.

Here's what to do if you encounter bold coyotes

Well first, be mindful of your surroundings. At the first glance, you might clock a roaming coyote as a neighborhood dog off-leash. Or you might gauge their lack of interest as a one-off encounter. But that incident is unlikely to be isolated.

As Miller told us: “If there's one in the area, there's likely another one."

Then, there’s action. “Hazing” is a tactic used to ward off coyotes, but it can come in different forms, both active and passive. During an encounter, even a seemingly subtle one, you should be the bold one.

A coyote in Elysian Park.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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“Be aggressive in a way that is safe to you,” she said. “Shouting, trying to make yourself look big, you want to make sure that you appear as an adversary, that the animal weighs the risk of taking [you] on and decides not to…Make yourself look big, get on a rock, open your jacket, things of that nature.”

Take these steps to prevent those encounters

Prevention is also key. Making your home unappealing to the ol’ canis latrans can be crucial.

“Pick up any fallen fruit, make sure that they're not able to get into your trash. And bring your pets inside at night. Keep an eye on your pets,” Pellman said. “You might even want to clear away bushes and brush that can form, kind of cover for rodents, rats, mice, squirrels, those all attract coyotes.”

And reporting sightings can give your local agencies a better idea of species activity to inform possible intervention, if necessary.

“Your first stop is your city,” Pellman said. “If you live in an incorporated city, inform the city. If you don't live within an incorporated city, then your county government is your next stop.”

And if your encounter turns into a dangerous one, “that’s 911 time,” per Pellman.

A medical helicopter transporting a patient crashed off Catalina Island, killing two people and leaving two hospitalized, authorities said Thursday.

Rescuers continued searching Thursday for a fifth person who was aboard the aircraft and went missing after the Wednesday night crash.

The Coast Guard, area firefighters and divers with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department were among emergency personnel who worked through the night, Coast Guard Capt. Stacey Crecy said at a news conference.

“We’re still doing an active search for the person who’s missing and then in addition to that, the divers and the remote operated vehicle are going to get a look at more of the wreckage and hopefully if there’s a sunken fuselage … we’re hoping to get a better picture of that this morning,” Crecy said.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear. Crecy said the helicopter went down shortly after takeoff and hit the water a short distance from the island.

Authorities were working on identifying the victims, she said.

“We believe that the medical aircraft was transporting a person off the island for additional medical care on the mainland,” Crecy said, adding she did not have more information on the transport or the patient.

First responders were called to the crash shortly before 8 p.m. Wednesday and pulled four people from the water. Two were pronounced dead at the scene and two were brought in stable condition to hospitals on the mainland, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.

Firefighters on the island were able to get to the scene quickly by boat, Crecy said.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it is investigating and identified the helicopter as a Eurocopter EC-135-P2.

Authorities said the helicopter was submerged in 240 feet (73 meters) of water off Catalina, which is located about 22 miles (35 kilometers) off the mainland of Los Angeles County.

The helicopter was believed to be operated by REACH Air Medical Services of Sacramento, California, KTLA-TV reported. A spokesperson for its parent company, Global Medical Response, told the station that it was aware of the accident and was gathering information.

Global Medical Response did not immediately return a message seeking comment Thursday morning.

Californians watching Wednesday night’s gubernatorial debate would be forgiven for thinking the candidates for governor are President Donald Trump and the Democratic Party.

Trump was the central topic in the debate between Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton, with Becerra repeatedly tying Hilton to Trump’s policies on immigration, taxes, housing, the environment and Big Tech. Hilton also tried to tie Becerra to outgoing Gov. Gavin Newsom and California Democrats at large, whom Hilton blames for business and housing regulations that contribute to high costs.

Becerra mentioned the president, who is widely unpopular in California, more than a dozen times during the hourlong debate on CNN.

“You’re going to end up with Trump results if you follow Steve Hilton’s plans,” Becerra said when asked about Hilton’s proposal to eliminate income taxes for middle-class Californians. He pointed out that Hilton’s plan to drop income taxes on the first $150,000 in earnings also includes a tax cut for the state’s wealthiest earners, comparing it to federal tax cuts enacted by Trump.

Similarly, when Hilton said he would wait to assess whether California needs to more aggressively regulate artificial intelligence companies, Becerra linked his response to Trump’s inaction, saying “if you listen closely, you can hear Donald Trump in that response.”

Becerra also said he would impose limits on AI data centers in communities that oppose them. Hilton noted that Becerra’s campaign has received donations from the biggest artificial intelligence companies, Anthropic and OpenAI.

Trump endorsed Hilton during the contested primary election, but the former Fox News host has since tried to distance himself from both the president and the Republican Party, running ads telling voters they can dislike Trump and still support him. Last week, in an acknowledgement that opposition to Trump is dragging down Republicans’ approval rating, Hilton's campaign released a poll claiming he was “unscathed from (the) Republican collapse.”

On Hilton’s proposal to expand oil drilling in California, Becerra brought up Trump’s effort to expand drilling off the state’s coast.

On homelessness, Hilton noted Becerra once graded Newsom an “A for effort” on the issue despite homelessness increasing during his terms, while Becerra countered that Trump has blocked federal funding for local homelessness agencies.

It’s a predictable strategy for Becerra, who enjoys a double-digit lead over Hilton in the heavily Democratic-leaning state where voters also disapprove of Trump by wide margins. The Democratic candidate and former U.S. Health and Human Services secretary has laid low since getting the most votes in the crowded all-party primary election in June, making few public appearances and agreeing only to one debate. Hilton criticized Becerra for repeatedly mentioning national politics, arguing the Democrat isn’t offering Californians any concrete solutions to the nation-topping cost of living.

“All you ever say is ‘Trump, Trump, Trump,’” Hilton said. “And that’s nothing but an insult to every Californian who is desperate for something to change in this state.”

The candidates traded insults throughout the night. Hilton cited reports that Becerra’s colleagues in President Joe Biden’s cabinet had “described (Becerra) as an idiot.”

Then, in several testy exchanges over immigration, Becerra, the son of Mexican immigrants, tied Hilton to Trump’s aggressive nationwide immigration raids and mass deportation campaign.

“You seem to welcome immigrants who look like you, but deport immigrants who look like me,” Becerra said. Hilton, a British immigrant and former adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron, bristled at the comment, calling it “disgraceful.”

Hilton praised the deportation campaign last January as “perfect” during an appearance on Fox News. He has previously described himself as “pro-immigration.” On Wednesday night, he dodged questions on whether he would undo the state’s sanctuary law limiting police cooperation with immigration agents and direct California officers to assist in Trump’s campaign.

Instead, he said, he would prefer to “turn down the temperature” on that debate.

The candidates argued over the best way to increase housing construction.

Hilton wants to build 10 new cities and allow more new construction on undeveloped land to avoid battles between the state and residents and local governments that are resistant to new development.

“We have got so much space that we could be building in,” he said.

Becerra said to address the housing crisis, he would reduce administrative and bureaucratic hurdles to getting construction permits, boost down payment assistance programs and stop Wall Street investors from competing with would-be homeowners. He pointed to the lawsuit he filed as state attorney general against the city of Huntington Beach to force it to approve new housing.

“No locality should have the right to try to stop all of our people in California from having the housing they need,” Becerra said.

They found common ground on how to keep the film industry in California amid competition from other states and countries. Los Angeles County has lost about 50,000 film and TV jobs since 2022. But while both candidates support expanding the state’s film tax credit to lower the cost of producing in California, they still each got in a dig over who to blame.

“Who’s been in charge when all those jobs have gone?” Hilton said.

“Donald Trump,” Becerra said.

“The Democrats,” Hilton said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Recent storms have brought an epic run of big, surfable waves to Southern California. But they’ve also wreaked havoc on beaches, surfside homes and coastal infrastructure.

The prospect of El Niño bringing even more volatile weather raises a serious question about the chosen venue for surfing at the 2028 Olympics: Will there still be a beach at Lower Trestles when the Games roll around?

The World Surf League held its annual competition this month at Trestles, a beach south of San Clemente that straddles Orange and San Diego Counties. The competition took place a few days after Hurricane Marie’s remnants hit the Southern California coast.

High tides and big surf shut down coastal rail tracks just north of Trestles. Waves pummeled beachfront homes in nearby Dana Point, rendering at least 10 of them uninhabitable.

At Lower Trestles, the surf break where the competition took place, seawater flooded the narrow beach, washed out the access road and pooled around several of the temporary structures.

Compared with other parts of the coast, the damage was minimal. But as sea levels continue to rise, organizers of the 2028 Olympics will need to address some tough questions, especially with more hurricanes and what forecasters are calling a “Super El Niño” on the way: Where will ticket holders watch the event? How much infrastructure can the beach hold? And how will organizers get equipment there?

Getting to Trestles Beach generally requires a long walk or bike ride from the nearest parking lot. Its lack of development helps keep the area resilient to extreme weather.

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What makes Trestles a world-class surf beach

SoCal Olympic surfing hopefuls were stoked when LA28 organizers announced the surfing event would take place at Lower Trestles.

“It’s a dream,” said local pro Griffin Colapinto, who was surrounded by autograph-seeking kids as he exited the water during the Trestles competition earlier this month. Colapinto, who’s from San Clemente, competed for the U.S. at the 2024 Paris Games.

“Focus on getting there, and then go for gold,” he told LAist of his dreams for LA28.

The potential hometown advantage excites surfers like Colapinto. So does Trestles’ reputation for delivering consistently good waves. People familiar with surf competitions say that dependability is clutch for international sporting events that depend heavily on environmental conditions.

The relatively pristine San Mateo Creek watershed is the secret to Trestles' world-class waves.

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The spot’s consistency stems from its location at the mouth of San Mateo Creek, within San Onofre State Beach. When flowing creeks and rivers meet a slower-moving body of water — in this case, the ocean — they drop heavy materials like rocks and boulders, which eventually form a cobblestone reef.

This is a defining feature of prized surf spots along the California coast, said Chad Nelson, CEO of the Surfrider Foundation, a coastal conservation group.

“That's true at Rincon, at Cardiff, at Malibu,” he said. “All these iconic places are these cobble river mouths.” That underwater topography makes for amazing waves, Nelson said.

Also key to the excellent waves at Trestles is the lack of development upstream along San Mateo Creek. Nelson called it “one of the last natural surf spots in urbanized Southern California.”

Its isolation — there is no paved public road leading to the beach, much less a beachfront parking lot — bodes well for the area’s resilience to extreme weather. At the same time, it presents some conundrums for staging a major international sporting event.

‘We’ve had way worse’

Matt Riggs has helped set up the beachside infrastructure for many surf competitions at Trestles. He said the damage from Hurricane Marie in 2020 was "way worse" than this year's hurricane of the same name.

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The beach at Lower Trestles is a narrow strip of sand, about 30 to 40 feet wide, backed by protected wetlands. The coastal railroad runs through the wetlands behind the beach.

On each of the four days before the World Surf League’s competition began earlier this month, the tide at south Orange County beaches was high enough to flood part of the beachside competition area.

On one of those mornings, Matt Riggs, a contractor for the event, was out at the beach early with a small tractor, hauling sand and dirt to rebuild the beachfront access road the surf had washed away.

“I'll probably have to do [it] again tomorrow morning since there's another high tide and another swell,” he told LAist. Riggs and other workers also had to resecure some of the elevated structures used for watching and judging the competition.

But he said the damage wasn’t bad compared to flooding at the competition a few years back. “We’ve had way worse,” he said.

“These stairs here,” Riggs said, pulling up a photo of a previous year's damage on his phone, “they fell into the ocean.” (edited)

Planning around unpredictable weather

Much is still unknown about the planning efforts for the Olympic surfing event in 2028. How many tickets will be sold? How will spectators get to the beach? What about the many journalists who will want to cover the event, and all of their equipment?

LA28 declined an interview request for this story. But spokesperson Jacie Prieto Lopez emailed a statement saying, in part, “We are actively monitoring developments. … With less than two years until the Games, we remain focused on our shared planning efforts to ensure the safe and successful delivery of the 2028 surfing competitions."

One of LA28’s closest planning partners is California State Parks, which leases the land that includes Trestles from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. Scott Kibbey, State Parks superintendent for the Orange Coast District, noted that surf competitions have taken place at the spot for decades. They’ve had to adjust, he said, as the coastal environment shifts.

“This is a dynamic area,” Kibbey said. “Right now we're looking at a beach that is much narrower than it has been in recent years, and we're letting nature kind of dictate how we plan for future events.”

The last few years have been busy for Kibbey and his staff, as storms and rising seas have posed increasingly thorny challenges. In June, heavy surf and high tides caused a lifeguard stand to collapse at Crystal Cove State Park. One of the park’s historic beachfront cabins was also damaged, and the public access trail flooded.

“Old Man’s,” a beloved surf spot at San Onofre State Beach south of Trestles, has suffered severe erosion in recent years, forcing officials to rethink public access to the beach.

At the same time, record-high temperatures, fueled in part by El Niño, sent visitors flocking to state beaches this summer, straining staff and infrastructure.

“Our state park resources, our staff have been hit incredibly hard,” Kibbey said.

High winds and rough surf didn't deter beachgoers in Malibu this summer.

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Courtesy Rhea Presiado

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Environmental concerns

Kibbey said sustainability is at the forefront of planning for the Olympic surfing event. Surfers and others who cherish the spot will be watching closely, given past environmental activism at Trestles, plus concerns that erupted over the previous Olympic surfing event at the Paris 2024 Games, which took place in Tahiti.

Two decades ago, surfers, conservationists and members of the Acjachemen Nation joined to fight a toll road that would have cut through San Mateo Creek, potentially destroying some of the tribe’s most sacred sites and ruining Trestles’ perfect waves. A few years into the project’s public approval process, several thousand people showed up to a California Coastal Commission hearing to voice opposition to the project.

“It was an epic fight,” said Nelson from Surfrider. Given that history, Nelson said his group met the news that Trestles would host Olympic surfing with a mix of excitement “and a little bit of trepidation.”

Nelson noted that surf competitions at the famed big wave spot Mavericks in northern California have brought problems in the past. In 2006, hundreds of spectators walked out onto the reef and scaled coastal bluffs to watch the contest, trampling the delicate ecosystem.

At a Mavericks' event in 2010, huge waves tore through contest infrastructure, knocking people off one of the watch towers and injuring 15 spectators.

Environmental concerns also tinged preparations for the Olympic surfing event at the 2024 Paris Games, especially over the drilling of a new judging tower into the delicate coral reef.

“That was definitely a cautionary tale,” Nelson said. Still, he added, “I'm pretty confident that we're going to be able to find a solution down here that's well managed and takes this special place into consideration.”

Erosion has also shut down train traffic through San Clemente State Beach numerous times in recent years.

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El Niño ‘not all bad’ for coastlines

After Hurricane Marie, the cities of Laguna Beach, San Clemente and Dana Point declared states of emergency to address coastal damage. Orange County and Gov. Gavin Newsom followed with their own emergency declarations, in part to prepare for potentially worse damage from even stronger El Niño effects in the coming months.

The Orange County Transportation Agency recently announced plans to place 690,000 cubic yards of sand on beaches just north of Trestles in hopes of protecting the coastal rail corridor.

Kibbey, the State Parks superintendent, said the expected heavy precipitation from El Niño could also bring some benefits. If San Mateo Creek flows strong enough to reach the ocean, he said, “it would bring a bunch of sand here naturally.”

Its beach may be narrowing, but Trestles has actually fared much better than its neighbors, thanks largely to its natural state, Nelson from Surfrider said.

“Usually the problem isn't coastal erosion,” he said. “It's when coastal erosion meets human infrastructure.”

No matter what Trestles looks like in 2028, Nelson thinks the Olympic spotlight will bring more benefits than drawbacks.

Surfing is one of the only Olympic sports “completely reliant on the health of the coastal ecosystem,” he said. “If a million people learn the lesson that we need to protect our coasts and protect our ocean, or millions, then I think that's probably ultimately to our advantage.”

California’s High-Speed Rail Authority failed this year to push through most of the state legislation it deemed necessary to keep construction of the 171-mile rail line connecting Merced and Bakersfield on its current schedule.

In August 2025, authority Chief Executive Ian Choudri urged state leaders to commit stable state funding and cut red tape that he said had long stalled the project. He pitched several legislative ideas that would allow the agency to tap into local tax revenues and fast-track court disputes, environmental reviews and negotiations with utility companies in the rail line’s way.

“State action is critically needed to maintain the cost & timelines of the program,” he wrote in a January presentation to authority board members.

But only one of Choudri’s essential policy proposals became law. Senate Bill 1425, by Senate Transportation Committee Chair Dave Cortese, a San Jose Democrat, allows the authority to grant permits to outside entities such as utilities, local governments and private developers that want to build on authority-controlled land. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it into law Sunday.

Most of Choudri’s other pitches remained “concept-level ideas” that the high-speed rail authority never developed into written proposals, said authority spokesperson Micah Flores. When asked why, Flores told CalMatters that the agency is not tasked with writing laws.

“Legislators who learn about the concepts may choose or author legislation independently to help the project,” he said.

Many of those ideas faced fierce opposition from local governments. One proposal — vaguely mentioned in Choudri’s August 2025 report — would have allowed the authority to collect sales and property tax revenues within a half-mile of the rail line, alarming local officials who say it would divert essential funding local governments rely on for social services and road repairs.

“This proposal … is fiscally reckless, legally vulnerable, and fundamentally unfair to the communities expected to host High-Speed Rail facilities,” 11 mayors in the Central Valley and Southern California wrote in a June opposition letter. “Simply put: the state cannot solve a state funding problem by raiding local tax bases.”

After this story was published, Flores told CalMatters that the agency is still talking with local governments and is not proposing any policy, “particularly not one that would override local land-use or tax authority.”

The high-speed rail project is already long delayed: In 2008, voters approved a $10 billion bond to build a high-speed rail line from San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2020 for an estimated $45 billion. The project is now estimated to cost between $126 billion and $231 billion, with a full buildout expected by 2040, according to the authority’s latest business plan. Current plans call for building a first leg linking Merced to Bakersfield.

The project is set to receive $1 billion each year from the state’s carbon market auction proceeds until 2045, a deal Newsom championed last year. But the funding could be in jeopardy under new climate rules from the Newsom administration, which threaten to cut carbon market revenue by half.

The authority’s legislative losses this year could further stall the project, but it’s unclear by how much.

The agency’s business plan calls for the authority to complete the Merced-to-Bakersfield segment by 2033. But that timeline largely relies on the “overly optimistic” assumption that state lawmakers will approve the agency’s legislative priorities into law “almost immediately,” according to a review of the plan issued in July by the Office of Inspector General that oversees the authority.

The authority declined CalMatters’ multiple requests for interviews with Choudri or the chair of its board of directors, Steve Kawa. In a statement, Flores said the agency plans to push for similar legislative concepts next year and provide project cost and schedule updates in March.

It’s unclear what the next governor makes of the high-speed rail project. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra said in May he would “scrap the current configuration” but provided few details, whereas Republican Steve Hilton would cancel the entire project.

Other proposals died

Sen. Henry Stern, a Sherman Oaks Democrat, authored the only other proposal related to high-speed rail this year. His Senate Bill 1411, which had bipartisan support, would have allowed the rail authority to spend more state funds outside the Central Valley segment of the rail line, but the legislation was shelved in May during a process known as the “suspense file” hearing, where lawmakers rapidly kill or approve proposals without explanation.

Under current law, the authority can only spend up to $500 million from its share of the state climate fund on high-speed rail projects outside the Merced-to-Bakersfield portion. Stern’s measure would have lifted that cap and allowed the authority to use the money for early designs, engineering and land acquisition elsewhere along the planned rail route from the Bay Area to Southern California.

Stern said the flexibility would help the authority build “bookend” rail line projects across the state and attract investors from private companies while still building in the Central Valley.

“If you are not unlocking private dollars in those demand centers … you are then leaving money on the table that could otherwise accelerate the entire project. It can lift those boats in the valley,” he said.

But doing so would divert dollars from the Merced-to-Bakersfield project and contradict state lawmakers’ intent just four years ago to keep the funds in the Central Valley, legislative staffers warned in a May analysis of the measure, shortly before it died.

A top priority for the authority this year was to speed up the relocation of overhead power lines, water pipes and other infrastructure that is in the rail line’s construction path, Choudri said at an August board meeting. Utility companies have no incentive to move their lines and the agency does not have authority to compel them or bind them to a deadline, Choudri said.

“We are talking about utilities that were identified in 2017 that are still there in the way,” he said at the meeting. “Minus the legislative action, I just don’t know how else we can solve this.”

Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat, authored Senate Bill 445 last year to address the issue. But the measure went through several last-minute overhauls amid opposition from local governments and utilities and also died in the suspense file.

Other priorities Choudri identified included:

• Expedite environmental review for facilities that will provide renewable energy for the rail line;
• Speed up resolution of court disputes over property acquisition, and
• Exempt the authority from paying sales tax on construction materials.

Cortese, a champion of high-speed rail, told CalMatters the rail authority is partly to blame for the legislative losses.

“The governor’s office and the high-speed rail [authority] haven’t asked us to write any bills,” he said. “Have they contributed to these bills not getting passed by simply not providing enough help? Sure, absolutely.”

Still, he said his fellow lawmakers also need to better advocate for the project.

“We can’t have bills like Stern’s bill and Sen. Wiener’s bill just completely stalled out,” he said. “That’s not on the authors as much as it’s on the legislative process that those bills can disappear without a debate.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.