The Brief

A baby pelican traveled at least 500 miles up California’s coast before landing near Mendocino alone on May 10 — exhausted and starving.

Now, the fledgling is in the care of International Bird Rescue, which took in an above-average number of emaciated young brown pelicans so far this spring. It’s the third starvation event in four years for the iconic California seabirds. Experts can’t fully explain why, though they said climate change is at play.

“Everything’s getting weirder,” said Corinne Gibble, a marine bird specialist for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “We’re having harmful algal blooms and more unexpected weather events. What we can do is get more birds into rehab and better the science around helping them.”

To explain last year’s starving pelicans, scientists hypothesized that the birds could not see their prey in choppy, murky water after late-season storms. Another possibility is that anchovies and other fish swam farther below the warm sea surface, too deep for the pelicans to reach.

For last year’s event, the state recorded roughly 1,000 pelicans captured for rehabilitation — and in 2022, for similar reasons, 800.

This year, there are only 250 ailing pelicans tallied so far, but fresh challenges. The seabirds arrived in two waves, sick and then starving.

At first, rescue centers received adults poisoned by a toxic algae bloom in Southern California. The blooms, predicted to become more severe with climate change, have lasted longer this year — and produced not one but two types of neurotoxins: domoic acid and saxitoxin.

And then came the starving babies. The majority of the roughly 250 pelicans International Bird Rescue received since March were less than 6 months old. The center gets about two-thirds of the birds statewide and considers 90 birds a month highly unusual. The state’s seabird scientists are still looking for answers.

Finn Watson (left), Wildlife Rehabilitation Technician, and Kelly Buffa, Registered Veterinary Technician, examine a California Brown Pelican at International Bird Rescue in Fairfield on May 19, 2025.

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Gibble said the breeding season was early and especially successful this year. It’s natural to see the fledglings struggle more to forage than adults, so that might just be amplified right now. In 2012, there was a similar large starvation event for young birds after a booming breeding season.

Rebecca Duerr, director of research and veterinary science for International Bird Rescue, said that’s a possibility. An additional theory about these starving young, she said, is that their parents, sickened by the harmful algal blooms, might have abandoned them before they were ready to forage alone.

“These young birds didn’t know how to eat yet,” Duerr said. “It’s circumstantial evidence, but it looked like, you know, if mom doesn’t come back, they have to leave the nest or they’ll die.”

This California subspecies of brown pelicans breeds from the Channel Islands south into Mexico. Both the male and female pelicans should feed their chicks until they learn to fly, what’s called fledging, at around 3 months old. V-formations of pelicans then typically migrate north together during the warmer months.

ierra Koop, wildlife rehabilitation technician, fills a tray of herring with water to feed rescued California Brown Pelicans at International Bird Rescue in Fairfield on May 19, 2025.

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Gibble, who handles the state’s dead seabirds, will wait to hazard more guesses about what went wrong this year until she has additional test results later this month. She wants to see if the algal blooms also affected the starving young pelicans that died, even though they hadn’t shown symptoms while alive.

Luckily, the numbers indicate the starvation event is slowing.

For Ciera Duits-Cavanaugh, the manager of the SPCA Monterey County’s Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, the influx of young pelicans this year is a mystery. “This may be just an annual thing that happens now,” she said. “Three of the past four years have broken our averages, so something is different.”

Times have been tough for brown pelicans before. The birds almost went extinct in the 1960s, thanks to the now-banned pesticide DDT, and were listed as endangered until 2009.

Warming seas present a newer kind of threat. Back in 2014, some seabird populations plummeted due to fish die-offs during the marine heat wave scientists called “the blob.” Some researchers think pelicans in particular might find fewer fish with warmer sea surface temperatures, such as during El Niño cycles, which are expected to intensify.

“We’re really on the frontline of climate change here,” said JD Bergeron, the CEO of International Bird Rescue. “You can read a research paper and get it intellectually. But the feeling of seeing all these birds struggling when they were previously doing just fine is a scary thing.”

Meanwhile, Bergeron’s staff and volunteers at International Bird Rescue’s two facilities in Fairfield and Los Angeles are working around the clock to bring the rescued pelicans back to life.

The pelicans that the International Bird Rescue releases live on average for six years in the wild. The younger birds have a slightly lower chance of survival.

The one bird that stranded in Mendocino County on Albion Flat Beach had flown the greatest distance of any other pelican at the Fairfield rescue center. The small bird is likely a female, though still too young — at around 3 months — for the vets to tell.

Since arriving earlier this month, the pelican has graduated from an inside enclosure, where the birds that need routine medicine and other care reside, to an outside space.

On Monday, the other pelicans stretched their wings, swooping between high perches. The fledgling rested by the swimming pool, sometimes watching and other times tucking its face under its wing.

University of California officials announced Wednesday they have offered admission to a record number of California students. Around 102,000 residents were offered seats, about 1,400 more than last year. UC also admitted about 29,400 California community college transfers, another record high, officials said.

In Southern California, UCLA offered seats to 57% of California residents who applied, UC Irvine 52% and UC Riverside 87%. Around 2,500 of the admitted California students at UCLA are first-generation college students.

“For generations, a University of California education has been one of the state’s most powerful engines of social mobility, opening doors for talented students from every background and region of the state,” said UC President James B. Milliken. “The record number of California students we’re welcoming this year reflects UC's enduring commitment to expanding opportunity while preparing the next generation of leaders, innovators, educators and public servants."

UC has also increased its offer of admissions to out-of-state students and international students.

Why it matters

UCs increasing California student admissions is tied to a deal the university system struck with lawmakers after facing increased complaints from parents and students that the top UC schools — UCLA, UC Berkeley and UC San Diego — were so hard to get into.

The deal, UC’s Multi-Year Compact, requires UCs to increase in-state students by 1% every year and make it easier for community college students to transfer. In turn, the state would increase its funding to UCs to make up for the loss of revenue from non-state students — about a 5% increase every year.

The University of California has said it's on track to meet that goal.

Race and ethnicity in admissions

Earlier this year, the Justice Department accused UCLA of “intentionally” selecting students based on their race, favoring Black and Latino students. This is part of a larger trend of the Department of Justice pursuing legal action against the University of California in President Donald Trump’s second term, including suing UCLA over allegations that the university allowed antisemitism on campus. The Justice Department also unsuccessfully demanded a range of concessions to bring UCLA more in line with its ideology, in addition to more than $1 billion in fines. The administration also tried to freeze the university’s research funding, prompting an effort to have the state of California be a backstop.

But admission trends in race stayed mostly the same as in previous years.

Around 6% of California students offered admissions at UC identify as Black, proportional to the state’s Black population, while around 38% of the in-state admitted students are Latino. Around 40% of the state’s population is Latino.

Around 18% of the in-state students offered admissions identified as white and 33% Asian.

We’ve all had a problem neighbor at one time or another, but what if they howled at the moon?

That’s what West Hollywood is dealing with right now at a so-called “coyote condo,” where a pack has taken over a construction site, leading to complaints from residents.

Now, officials are making the property owner take action.

How we got here

Coyotes often show up in Southern California’s urban areas looking for food, but these ones are sticking around.

The pack is squatting in an unfinished site near the corner of North Spaulding Avenue and Romaine Street.

The area was supposed to become a 22-unit condominium building, according to the city. However, construction stopped in 2024 and permits have since expired.

The roughly 19,500-square-foot lot is fenced off. Neighbors have reported coyotes traversing the bare wood frames, though it’s unclear if they’ve caused any other problems besides being a nuisance.

What’s next

West Hollywood said its Neighborhood and Business Safety Division is in touch with the owner’s representative.

“As with any privately owned property, the owner is responsible for maintaining the site,” the city said in a statement.

Officials are requiring the owner to “promptly” retain a wildlife control operator that specializes in humane wildlife management. That expert is tasked with assessing and recommending next steps, so it’s still unclear how the coyote problem will be dealt with.

The city of West Hollywood follows a coyote coexistence plan, which only recommends lethal action for unprovoked human attacks. Wild animal relocation is also generally illegal under state regulations because moving them can disrupt local ecosystems and spread disease.

However, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife can give written permission to relocate coyotes under certain circumstances. The city says it will update residents on its website as new information becomes available.

In the meantime, don’t feed the coyotes and take caution when you’re in the area. Keep pets on a leash and indoors, if you live close. Coyotes are known to attack small animals. Young children can also get targeted, but it’s less common.

You can learn more about how these urban canines live in our coyote guide.

A state appeals court ruled Monday that Long Beach must rehire an officer it fired four years ago after he was accused of lying in official reports.

The unanimous decision from the three-judge panel upholds a previous ruling from a city employment panel and a lower court. It also brings an end to a roughly five-year legal saga during which the city filed two appeals in an attempt to keep former Long Beach police Officer Dedier Reyes off the force, even at a time when the department has struggled to fill vacancies.

Long Beach City Attorney Dawn McIntosh said she was “disappointed” by Monday’s decision by the appeals court, but said her office does not plan to file any further appeals.

Monday’s ruling means Long Beach owes Reyes more than four years of pay he has missed since his dismissal, and the city must offer him a job with the police department that is on par with his previous position as a patrol officer. Records from Transparent California show Reyes’ base salary was $121,948 in his last full year at the LBPD.

The city fired Reyes in 2022, shortly after he was charged with one count of filing a false police report and one count of perjury for allegedly lying about his observations during a 2018 gun arrest. A jury ultimately acquitted Reyes and his less-experienced partner, Officer David Salcedo.

But the charges, the city’s firing of the two officers and the criminal trial that followed, cast doubt on their credibility. As a result, prosecutors dropped dozens of cases where the two made arrests or would’ve needed to testify to make the case.

Reyes, who was training Salcedo, was accused of lying and perjuring himself when he wrote in a February 2018 police report that he recognized two gang members standing outside a Long Beach taqueria and then saw one go inside and leave a bag containing a gun.

Surveillance video from the taqueria made internal affairs investigators question how Reyes could have seen what was happening inside the restaurant and also showed he arrested the wrong gang member for allegedly carrying the bag with the gun.

Reyes later told internal affairs investigators that he “made a mistake in this police report,” according to an interview transcript from a separate civil lawsuit.

Reyes and Salcedo continued working and weren’t criminally accused for nearly four years after the incident. Then-District Attorney Jackie Lacey reviewed the case and decided it didn’t merit charges, but when George Gascón became the new District Attorney in 2021 — after making police reform central to his campaign — he brought charges against the officers.

After their acquittal on the criminal charges, a city employment panel ruled they must be rehired, but Long Beach sued to try to block that decision.

After reviewing all of the evidence, the three-judge appeals panel sided with Reyes on Monday. They found it plausible that he mistakenly recalled the events leading up to the 2018 arrest and noted that the city “identified no apparent motive” for him to falsify the police report, according to their ruling.

When the city fired Reyes, it noted that he had racked up 14 use-of-force reviews and 11 citizen complaints since 2010, according to court documents. But the department determined that all of those uses of force were within policy and none of the citizen complaints were determined to have merit, the court noted in its ruling.

Long Beach has, however, been sued twice over Reyes’ alleged misconduct, resulting in payouts of $550,000 and $499,800.

After Monday’s ruling, Reyes will have the option of rejoining LBPD.

Salcedo has already been rehired and assigned to work patrol, LBPD Executive Communications Officer Allison Gallagher wrote in an email last October.

Canter's Deli turns 95 this year, and the iconic Jewish deli and coffee shop will sell its hot pastrami sandwich — with coleslaw, pickle and chocolate chip rugelach — for 95 cents.

Is there a catch?

No. But dine-in only, limit one per customer.

I don’t eat meat

Lucky you — a plant-based corned beef substitute is available.

Why it matters

The Fairfax institution has been feeding Angelenos since 1953, serving everyone from the neighborhood's Jewish community to the Supreme-loving skate punks who arrived decades later.

Co-owner Marc Canter, the third-generation owner, put it best: Canter's is the place where "grandkids grow up and bring their grandkids."

Why 95 cents?

Canter says the price is purely symbolic of the anniversary, not the actual cost — they charged 50 cents for the 50th anniversary and 75 cents for the 75th.

The history

Now three generations deep, the family has logged roughly 159 years combined behind the counter: Canter's grandfather, about 50; his father, about 65; and Marc himself, 44 and counting.

The sprawling namesake business started in 1931, when Marc Canter’s grandparents sold corned beef sandwiches off a cart in Jersey City before landing in Boyle Heights on Brooklyn Avenue (now César Chávez Avenue).

Canter said his Aunt Selma struck out on her own in 1948 at age 23 and moved the business to Fairfax. Her parents joined her there in 1953. One current employee has been on staff since 1964 — 62 years and counting.

Despite the neighborhood's changes, Canter's hasn't: No remodels, no menu overhauls. The matzo ball soup, potato pancakes, and cheese blintzes have never left.

"The ancestors are watching from above," Canter said, "so you have to keep [going] to make them proud."