The Brief

More than a decade after California began setting aside patches of ocean for conservation, change could be coming to its marine protected areas.

The state is considering a variety of changes to the network — a few proposals shrink those areas or remove certain protections, while most propose expanding existing protected areas or adding new ones. The levels of protection can range from a total ban on commercial fishing and certain recreational activities, to highly limited allowances. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is in the process of reviewing more than a dozen proposals from tribes, environmental groups, the fishing industry and other stakeholders.

The discussion comes amid escalating pressures on our ocean — from plastic pollution and offshore energy efforts to rapidly warming temperatures that have, in recent years, led to some of the worst mass dieoffs of marine life ever seen.

So far, the department has recommended denying all 10 of the non-tribal proposals. They have yet to release their recommendations for the five remaining petitions from tribes, including a new protected area proposed by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians that would encompass about 9 square miles off the coast of Santa Barbara.

Ultimately, the decision on whether to approve or deny the petitions lies with the five governor-appointed members of the state’s Fish and Game Commission. A decision is expected this summer.

Some say the state isn’t being bold enough in its approach to boosting protections for marine life, while others argue the existing network is strong enough. There is agreement, however: Marine protected areas can be a powerful tool in boosting certain fisheries and building resilience to climate change.

Creating underwater refuges

California started the process of protecting areas off its coast in 1999, when the Marine Life Protection Act was signed into law. That kickstarted the process of establishing an interconnected network of marine protected areas off the state’s coast.

But the process to get that done was a long and arduous one, slowed by competing interests and political infighting. It wasn’t until 2012 that the state completed the existing coastal network of more than 120 underwater refuges.

That network provides protections from fishing and other activities for a little over 16% of California’s coast. By 2030, the state’s goal, codified by an executive order from Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2020, is to protect 30% of its lands and waters by 2030.

The science of marine protected areas

Marine protected areas have improved the health of underwater ecosystems.

A state review of its network, released in 2023, found that marine protected areas were largely working — supporting larger, healthier and more abundant populations of many species, as well as creating a “spillover effect” that boosts certain lucrative fisheries, such as lobster, outside the bounds of the protected area. For example, a 2021 study found that a 35% reduction in fishing area due to protected area designation off the Channel Islands resulted in a 225% increase in total lobster catch after just six years.

Marine protected areas have also been found to improve resilience for some species in the face of climate change, as the ocean absorbs nearly one-third of the carbon pollution in our atmosphere and about 90% of the excess heat that that pollution would otherwise generate.

Researcher Kyle Cavanaugh and his team at UCLA analyzed satellite data of kelp forests off the California coast in the decades before and after the establishment of the state’s protected areas, focusing on the changes after a severe marine heat wave between 2014 and 2016.

“Marine protected areas recovered more quickly, more strongly compared to the non-protected areas in Southern California,” Cavanaugh said.

Sheephead fish are natural predators of sea urchins that can destroy kelp forests.

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Courtesy Laguna Beach Bluebelt Coalition

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He said that’s likely because these areas protect predators of sea urchins, which graze on kelp and can destroy entire forests if left unchecked. Their predators, such as sheephead fish and lobster, are found in Southern California’s waters.

But the story was a little different in Northern California. Cavanaugh’s team found that marine protected areas didn’t have the same rebound effect for kelp forests there, likely because sea urchin predators up north are sea otters and sea stars.

“Sea otters are protected [by the state] anyway, and sea stars basically have been wiped out across California due to sea star wasting disease,” Cavanaugh said. That disease led to a proliferation of urchins up north, and a dieoff of around 85% of the kelp forest in just the last 10 years.

A seal swims in a marine protected area off Laguna Beach.

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Alex Cowdell

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Courtesy Laguna Beach Bluebelt Coalition

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Though more conservation is likely necessary (and increasingly complicated as climate change shifts ecosystems), a blanket approach to protected areas is not a silver bullet, Cavanaugh said.

“ There's different things going on in different locations, and there's not going to be a one size fits all approach at all,” he said. “We might lose kelp in certain areas in a warming world, and so figuring out which patches might be more resilient to temperatures and protecting those is important.”

Understanding the specific challenges to kelp forest growth or decline in varying regions is key, Cavanaugh emphasized. At the same time, California’s marine protected area network is still young (compare a little over a decade of protections to the more than 150 for many of our national parks), and there’s much to learn about the role they play in boosting the health of our ocean overall.

“These are baby protected areas, and that means we're still learning how they function,” said Douglas McCauley, an ecologist at UC Santa Barbara. “That also means that we're still beginning to see how they mature and the benefits that they can create over time.”

Competing interests, shared connection to the ocean

For Chris Voss, that specificity around the gains of certain marine protected areas is key.

Voss is a lifelong commercial fisherman and president of the nonprofit Commercial Fishermen of Santa Barbara. He said marine protected areas have been a boon for some industries, such as lobster, but not all, such as urchin fishers.

He argues that the existing network is strong, and that more regulations will harm the fishing industry, which has been declining over the past two decades. He’s particularly concerned about the proposals to expand or add entirely new marine protected areas.

 ”We are all small, independent businessmen with families and kids and a desire to scratch out a living from the ocean, but also produce a high quality food product in a sustainable way from the marine environment,” Voss said.

His group, along with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations and a handful of recreational fishing groups, want state commissioners to deny the proposals.

“They didn't put the initial network on low-value real estate in the ocean. They put it on a very high-value real estate in the ocean,” Voss said. “The fishing community has adapted.”

Seagulls gather near a fishing boat in Northern California.

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Brian van der Brug

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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He pointed to multiplying pressures on the industry, such as expanded offshore wind and oil drilling (the group opposes both) and aquaculture efforts, as well as the science that not every marine protected area benefits marine life in the same way.

Voss said urchin fishers, for example, could help reduce kelp-eating urchin overpopulation in some areas. Such efforts have yet to scale, and urchins in kelp-barren areas are not very lucrative, though some researchers say urchin fishing as a management tool before kelp forest collapse could be a potential avenue.

“There’s nuance that we should embrace,” Voss said. “We need to think with and understand the complexity of the different fisheries and their impacts, and then make decisions with a more complete understanding so that we can get win-win situations.”

A blue belt off Laguna Beach

Ocean advocates and recreational fishers and divers in Laguna Beach have proposed to extend the marine protected area to fully encompass the city’s coast. The area is a key link for genetic dispersal of sea life between Palos Verdes and La Jolla, as well as a major draw for ocean tourism.

“Marine life within the marine protected areas of Laguna Beach are really thriving, but as soon as you move past the boundary, there's less sea life,” said Mike Beanan with the nonprofit Laguna Bluebelt Coalition. “The kelp forests that were in South Laguna are gone.”

A recent survey commissioned by the Laguna Bluebelt Coalition and Orange County Coastkeeper brought United Nations-approved underwater survey group Reef Check to Laguna Beach, where they found only female sheephead outside of the bounds of the protected areas and a proliferation of kelp-eating urchins. Female sheephead don’t eat urchins like their male counterparts (all sheephead are born female, then turn into males as they age and grow, which can take decades). Sheephead are targeted by spearfishers and commercial fishing in the area.

“Without sheephead, the sea urchins take over and eat the base of the kelp forest, and then the kelp forest goes away,” said Beanan.  

“For centuries,” he added, “we thought the ocean was an inexhaustible source of food, and now we're finding out that that really isn't the case.”

Tidepools in Laguna Beach.

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Mike Stice

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A lifelong diver who grew up in a working class household and often fished for food off the Orange County coast, Beanan said he’d hoped the petition process would finally lead to full protections, but the Department of Fish and Wildlife has recommended denial of the proposal to protect all of the Laguna Beach coastline.

Local fishing businesses have opposed the expansion. Beanan and his Orange County Coastkeeper counterpart, Ray Hiemstra (who is also a recreational fisher) both said they understand the concerns about expanding protections from local fishing businesses.

“There's going to have to be a sacrifice, and I don't want to belittle the impact on the commercial fishers,” Hiemstra said. “But I think this is a small, incremental, necessary step, and this is the time and the process where we're able to take action on that.”

Something unusual is happening with only a few days remaining before the U.S. men's national team opens its World Cup campaign against Paraguay: Tickets for the match are not sold out.

Although numbers fluctuate regularly, FIFA's ticketing website still shows 132 tickets left to sell for a game that's set to take place in Los Angeles on Friday. Meanwhile, resale platforms such as StubHub and SeatGeek — and FIFA's own marketplace — also show thousands of tickets on sale.

The number is even higher for Canada's opening match against Bosnia Herzegovina in Toronto on the same day, with 226 tickets left in FIFA's website and a high number of tickets available in resale markets.

That's unusual for high-profile events such as the opening matches of the World Cup — traditionally among the hardest to get tickets in the tournament. This year will feature three hosts in the U.S., Canada and Mexico — but so far only Mexico's opening match against South Africa on Thursday looks to be virtually sold out.

Ticketing experts widely agree on the reason: the prices. FIFA dramatically jacked them up for the tournament — especially for high profile games. The most expensive regular seats for the U.S. opener against Paraguay are priced at $2,735 — more than the final cost for the 2022 World Cup final — while the cheapest are $1,120.

Even President Trump said he wouldn't pay those prices.

"I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn't pay it either, to be honest with you," Trump told the New York Post in a recent interview.

The other two remaining games for the U.S. national have far fewer tickets available, given that prices are well below the ones for the opening match.

Prices have also fallen sharply

There are not only plenty of tickets left to sell — a number of them are also available below FIFA's face value. According to Ticketdata, which tracks prices across the resale platforms, the cheapest pair of tickets for the opening match for the U.S. and Canada was $951 as of Monday morning, while in FIFA's resale platform, tickets were available for as low as $690.

Other games across the 104-match tournament also still have many tickets left to sell — despite FIFA President Gianni Infantino's claim that every match is "already sold out." That's especially the case for lesser well known teams such as the Jordan against Algeria match, which still had hundreds of unsold seats in the FIFA's web site.

Demand for high-profile tickets such as Argentina and Portugal was far higher, however, with many of those games looking largely sold out.

Will the opening matches sell out?

Whether eventually the U.S. and Canada opening matches will sell out is hard to answer. Throughout the sales process, FIFA has closely guarded how many tickets it has actually sold and how many are left to sell, making it virtually impossible to gauge.

In addition, like other teams, FIFA could also sell tickets in other platforms including third-party ones such as SeatGeek, which can further obscure how many tickets are left to sell.

FIFA and organizers, however, are hoping for a surge in excitement that leads to a last-minute rush of sales for the opening matches as well as for those such as Jordan against Algeria that look far from being sold out.

Ben Shields, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, says perceptions so far of the tournament have been shaped by how expensive tickets and travel has been for a tournament taking place across an entire continent.

That, he says, "does not seem to sit well with many."

But that could change.

"The hope or bet — for FIFA is that once the matches start — and the greatest players in the world compete for the most prestigious prize of them all, the sport as business lens will fade into the background and the World Cup will be seen and experienced as the enduring global institution that it is," Shields says. "We shall see."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Orange County’s top elected leaders on Tuesday are set to discuss what to do with $3.7 million recovered from the Andrew Do corruption scheme.

Do is now serving a five-year sentence in federal prison after he admitted to accepting bribes in exchange for awarding millions in tax dollars meant to feed needy seniors and people with disabilities in his district.

As part of the plea deal, Do acknowledged taking more than $800,000 in bribes through his two daughters, including a down payment on the house his youngest daughter Rhiannon Do later forfeited to resolve the criminal case. The scheme was first uncovered by LAist.

Federal officials recovered money from seized bank accounts and two properties connected to Do’s scheme — including the Tustin house his daughter bought.

The county Board of Supervisors is expected to publicly discuss plans for the recovered funds as they make decisions on the overall county budget at their meeting Tuesday. Public comment will also be taken.

What to do with the money?

Ahead of Tuesday’s discussion, Do’s successor said the funds should support residents of his former district who were deprived by Do and his alleged co-conspirators.

“For the past five years, every other district in Orange County has benefitted from the same community funds to support their cities, nonprofits, civic projects which strengthens their communities,” Supervisor Janet Nguyen wrote in a mass email to constituents last week. “However, our district went without because Do stole what belonged to our residents.”

“This money was stolen from the First District, and it must come back to the First District,” Nguyen added.

Nguyen was Do’s mentor and former boss more than a decade ago, before the two had a bitter falling out by 2016.

She encouraged residents of her district to send letters to the board and to speak during public comments.

Several county supervisors told LAist they supported a similar approach, one in which the recovered money goes to support the original intended recipients: seniors and people with disabilities in Do’s former district. Some supervisors have since advocated a broader view of how they’d want to use the money, noting that it was meant to address disruptions caused by the pandemic. Now that years have passed since the initial COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns, some supervisors argue community needs have changed.

“We are so many years on, and the problems that money originally was to address (mostly Covid impacts) are now behind us, that I think we should have a discussion about how and where to spend it,” Supervisor Don Wagner told LAist via text message in March. “The budget is so tight and the needs so great across the county.”

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said he’d work toward a fair distribution of the funds to best serve residents, with a focus on current needs.

“We will definitely consider what areas of the County were harmed by Do’s scheme, but we must also remember that the funds were intended for relief efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, a threat we are no longer facing,” he said in March. “We also need to consider addressing the current needs of residents with any dollars returned to the county.”

Millions more haven’t been recovered, at least yet

The amount of taxpayer money recovered so far is less than half of the $7.9 million Andrew Do admitted was diverted from specific meal contracts.

In a lawsuit seeking to recover funds, the county alleges the total amount lost in the scheme was even larger: $13.25 million. The county’s suit — scheduled for trial in November 2027 — covers all of the money Do gave to two nonprofits accused in the scheme, Viet America Society and Hand to Hand Relief Organization.

That leaves more than $4 million — and possibly much more — not yet recovered.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office noted they have an ongoing criminal case against Do’s alleged co-conspirator Peter Pham.

“Assuming we obtain a conviction in that matter, we would expect to seek restitution,” the spokesperson, Ciaran McEvoy, said.

Pham left the country on a flight to Taiwan in late 2024 and remains a fugitive, according to McEvoy. The case against him also includes charges against another alleged co-conspirator, Thanh Huong Nguyen, who led the Hand to Hand nonprofit.

Fans of the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team swelled the stadium at the Great Park in Irvine on Monday to watch players practice for the first time since arriving at the training facility they’ll call home for the first round of the 2026 World Cup.

“Seeing them play right now… it was really cool to see how they play and how they practice,” said Mila Ran, who came with her mother from nearby Mission Viejo.

“This whole time she’s saying, 'I want to go shoot, I want to go play,'” said Mila’s mother, Farah Ran.

They were among about 6,000 people who won free entry to the practice in a lottery that received more than 30,000 entries, according to Irvine officials.

Fans got to the venue early.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

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LAist

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The team’s biggest stars — Christian Pulisic, Antonee Robinson and others — showed off their ball handling skills, honed over years of play on U.S. youth fields and overseas in professional leagues. Fans yelled, waved U.S. flags, held up homemade signs, and did the wave several times.

The U.S. Men's National Team at their only open-to-the-public practice session in Irvine.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

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LAist

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After the roughly 45-minute practice, some players walked to the sidelines to take selfies with fans and sign autographs.

The players know it’s going to take more than this, however, to live up to expectations during the World Cup.

US men's national team player Tim Ream signs an autograph for a fan.

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Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

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LAist

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“To be in a position to train in front of these people today… is such a unique opportunity and one that none of us take for granted,” said backup goalie Matt Freese before the practice. “We’re working as hard as we can, as focused as we can to leave the next generation inspired."

The U.S. men’s team and their training staff will use the Great Park facility over the next several weeks as the team plays Paraguay on Friday, Australia on June 19, and Turkey on June 25 in group play at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

Jury selection began Monday for the trial of the man accused of igniting a fire that led to the deadly and destructive Palisades Fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of structures.

Jonathan Rinderknecht is charged with one count of destruction of property by means of fire, one count of arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and one count of setting timber afire. He could face up to 45 years in federal prison.

How we got here

Prosecutors allege Rinderknecht set brush alight near a popular hiking trail in the Santa Monica Mountains on New Year’s Day, starting the Lachman Fire. Firefighters initially thought they put out the fire, but it remained smouldering underground for several days. High winds then brought the embers to the surface, sparking the Palisades Fire, which burned more than 23,000 acres.

What prosecutors say

In a court filing in April, prosecutors allege Rinderknecht displayed “extreme anger, indignation, and frustration” because he had to spend New Year's Eve alone. After driving around for Uber, Rinderknecht hiked up a popular trail and set chaparral alight in a clearing, according to prosecutors.

“He then started calling 911 multiple times, hiked down the hill, and fled the area in his car before firefighters arrived. Defendant returned to the area after he saw fire trucks arriving and then took videos of the firefighting efforts,” prosecutors wrote.

The filing also states that Rinderknecht threatened to burn down his sister’s home.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Rinderknecht started the smaller blaze knowing it could turn into a bigger inferno.

U.S. District Court Judge Anne Hwang has previously expressed the government’s position could confuse jurors.

What the defense says

Defense attorney Steve Haney previously told reporters that prosecutors were trying to blame Rinderknecht for a fire that started days before the Palisades Fire.

"Well what about what happened between Jan. 1 and Jan. 7?" he asked. "Jonathan wasn't out there with a fire hose putting that fire out at the Lachman location, the Fire Department was. So why are they blaming him for whatever the Fire Department didn't do?"