The Brief

Unusual creatures are visiting Southern California’s coastal waters.

One of them, a sea turtle, nested near Seal Beach last week for the first time in California history.

And they’re here because of El Niño.

Forecasters say there is more than a 90% chance that this year’s El Niño is going to be very strong, and most Southern Californians are bracing for record-high surf and heavy rains that usually come with the climate pattern.

Residents got a taste earlier this month of what could come this fall and winter, when surf from Hurricane Marie caused widespread damage along the Southern California coast.

But the region is also starting to see a lesser-known effect of El Niño: sea creatures that don’t normally live here showing up in our waters.

Scientists say they are following the warm waters that fuel El Niño, which are likely to have a dramatic impact on our marine ecosystems over the course of the season.

“ Animals like a certain range of temperature, just like you're setting the thermostat at home to a certain temperature that you like,” said Bill Ludt, a curator of ichthyology, or the study of fish, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History.

During an El Niño year, the normally cool waters off the California coast warm significantly. As that happens, animals that normally live in warmer, tropical waters off the coast of Mexico, like sea turtles, move north.

Unusual visitors

The endangered olive ridley sea turtle crawled out of the ocean near Seal Beach on Sept. 16, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It dug a hole and laid its clutch of eggs inside before burying it and shuffling back into the sea.

A turtle was also seen nesting near the Huntington Beach Pier. Officials have fenced off both nesting sites.

The Seal Beach turtle is just one of a number of unusual creatures that have been spotted off the Southern California coast lately.

A whale shark was spotted near the Channel Islands, off the coast of Malibu. There have also been reports of hammerhead sharks and other large fish like mahi mahi and bullet tuna.

Like the turtle, some creatures have never been recorded in California waters before. A fisherman recently caught a longfinned bigeye from the Venice fishing pier, a bright red-orange fish that normally lives off of Mexico and Baja California.

“It is a wide-ranging species, just not typically in California,” Ludt said. “So it will occur in Baja, as well as other parts of the world. But for California, this is a first.”

Ludt and his colleagues at the Natural History Museum collected the longfinned bigeye and are preserving the physical specimen in the museum’s archive.

“We just want to document things that are rare along our coast, as well as the common things,” Ludt said. “Our goal is always to just document life and how it changes over time on our planet.”

According to Ludt, the creatures Southern California is seeing so far are just the beginning of what’s to come this year.

Animals like the sea turtle and the sharks are what scientists call pelagic animals, meaning they live mostly in open oceans, often migrating in search of food.

Ludt said it will take longer for sea life to show up that doesn’t normally migrate over long distances, like smaller fish. He said we could eventually see colorful reef fish, such as damselfish, angelfish or pufferfish, similar to those one might see living among corals in Hawaii.

A yellow-bellied sea snake, recovered from a previous El Niño event, is preserved at the L.A. County Natural History Museum.

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Edgar Chamorro Gonzalez

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Courtesy of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

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Sea snakes are also likely to move into our waters. There was a report of a yellow-bellied sea snake washing up at Crystal Cove in Orange County, but scientists have yet to confirm its authenticity.

Yellow-bellied sea snakes have also been seen here during past El Niño events. They are venomous but don’t pose a threat to humans unless handled.

These warm-water animals will likely retreat south, and some may die and wash ashore when waters cool down again later this winter.

Stress on native wildlife

While the newcomers thrive in warm waters, California’s native sea life does not.

The heat can affect their immune system and metabolism. That, in turn, means less food is available for other animals that eat fish, including seals, sea lions and dolphins.

Another danger is algal blooms. Warmer water allows more algae to grow, and at times, the algae can be toxic, especially to marine mammals.

Scientists say these stressors will likely leave some animals sick and stranded.

“They'll beach, and they'll be acting up weirdly, sometimes maybe more aggressively than they normally would,” said Jorge Velez-Juarbe, curator of marine mammals at the L.A. County Natural History Museum.

Velez-Juarbe added that we could also see more deaths of marine mammals over the next few months.

El Niño’s warming trend is also a window into the effects of a changing climate. Velez-Juarbe said it's an example of how ongoing ocean warming due to climate change can affect Southern California’s marine environments.

Thankfully, Velez-Juarbe said it's unlikely El Niño will cause long-term damage to native species populations. They will likely rebound when ocean temperatures fall later this winter.

If you see a sick or stranded animal, the best thing to do is to keep your distance and call authorities. He also recommends reporting the animal to NOAA’s stranded animal hotline at (866) 767-6114.

If you come across an unusual sea creature along the shore, you can also email the team at the Natural History Museum at nature@nhm.org.

Julia Feinberg feels like she’s living in a sinister version of Groundhog Day. For the second year in a row, California lawmakers have made it tougher for seniors and people with disabilities to qualify for state-funded health benefits.

Feinberg, 37, who has a degenerative neuromuscular disorder, said without Medi-Cal she would be confined to a nursing home rather than living and working as a therapist in Oakland.

“We keep having to have the same fight over and over and over again,” Feinberg said. She requires a power wheelchair and about 19 hours of caregiving each day, which Medi-Cal covers.

California is cutting Medi-Cal after a decade of expansion, part of sweeping federal and state cuts that experts estimate will kick more than 2.2 million Californians off coverage in the next four years, doubling the state’s uninsured rate.

The latest cut came in June, when state leaders approved a budget that will lower the asset limit for low-income seniors and people with disabilities to $21,000 to qualify for Medi-Cal, starting in July 2027. Feinberg, who has built up emergency savings, will have to spend about $10,000 to get under the cap.

In 2024, the state eliminated longstanding Medi-Cal asset limits, but since then lawmakers have chipped away at that policy. At the beginning of this year, state leaders reinstated an asset limit of $130,000, and the June budget lowered it further.

A primary residence and one vehicle are exempt from the new limit, but people 65 and older as well as those with disabilities cannot own a second home or car, and they can’t have more than $21,000 in savings accounts, certain retirement accounts, life insurance policies or even burial plots. They must still meet Medi-Cal income eligibility limits of about $1,800 a month for a single person.

Advocates say the rules unfairly target older people and those with disabilities.

“It’s really expensive to be disabled,” said Elizabette Guéçamburu, 44, who like Feinberg has spinal muscular atrophy and requires a power wheelchair as well as daily caregiving.

Guéçamburu said she’s saving up for a used wheelchair-accessible van, which costs about $75,000. Home modifications such as adding ramps and making bathrooms accessible also cost tens of thousands of dollars, none of which are covered by Medi-Cal. Guéçamburu said those expenses would be impossible to afford if she couldn’t save.

Guéçamburu lives on her family’s farm in Patterson where they grow walnuts, almonds and alfalfa. She works part time as the farm’s bookkeeper. In 2024, doctors diagnosed Guéçamburu’s father with prostate cancer, and he could no longer act as her caregiver. The same year, California eliminated asset limits for people with disabilities and seniors — Guéçamburu cried, able to qualify for Medi-Cal for the first time.

“The timing was a godsend,” she said.

Now, her aging father is unable to take care of her should she lose Medi-Cal, and Guéçamburu is struggling to figure out what to do with money left to her by her grandmother. She’ll likely have to put it into a special needs trust controlled by a family member and give up financial independence. She also had her family strike her from inheriting any portion of their 100-year-old farm. Private home care costs thousands of dollars a month, making it hard for lower- and middle-income people to pay for it out-of-pocket.

“I have to surrender our legacy just to have medical security and have the ability to live my life,” Guéçamburu said.

Asset limit flip-flop

Gov. Gavin Newsom eliminated Medi-Cal asset requirements in 2024 after a yearslong campaign by senior and disability rights advocates. In a statement before the elimination, Newsom said he was proud of the “bold investments” his administration was making to “protect life savings and homes.”

But two years later, faced with a $12 billion budget shortfall, Newsom proposed reinstating the former $2,000 limit, arguing that more than twice as many people enrolled as previously estimated. The Legislature opposed that proposal and compromised at the current higher limit of $130,000, lowering it again to $21,000 starting next July.

Lindsay Imai Hong, California director for Hand In Hand, an advocacy group supporting families that need caregiving, said organizers are looking to the next governor for change.

“We would love to see the asset test permanently taken off of the chopping block,” Imai Hong said.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton said in a statement to CalMatters that he opposes asset limits. He criticized the state for extending other Medi-Cal benefits beyond what it could afford, including coverage for immigrants without legal status.

“Seniors and people with disabilities shouldn’t lose their coverage because they’ve managed to save some money. They’ve done the responsible thing. Why punish them for it?” he said.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate and front-runner Xavier Becerra did not answer specific questions about the asset limit policy, but a campaign spokesperson blamed the Trump administration’s federal cuts for “squeezing” California’s Medi-Cal program.

Becerra will be “focused on protecting access to care and demand savings that are real, measurable and sustainable,” spokesperson Johnathan Underland said. On the campaign trail, Becerra has called himself California’s next “healthcare governor” and has previously floated raising taxes to reverse Medi-Cal cuts, but has not released detailed health policy plans.

Camille Nguyen, an attorney with the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, said most people who struggle to stay under the limit have little financial security.

“They have all of their life savings in cash savings instead of a house. That's their retirement. That is the amount they are expecting to live off of for the rest of their life,” Nguyen said.

State data shows about 600 people lost Medi-Cal when California reinstated the $130,000 limit. Advocates expect many more to lose Medi-Cal at the lower limit, but the state never released budget estimates before lawmakers approved the $21,000 limit. If the state reinstated the much lower $2,000 limit, the Department of Finance estimated 62,000 seniors and people with disabilities would lose Medi-Cal over two years.

Limit fuels anxiety, anger among people with disabilities

Feinberg said the prospect of losing Medi-Cal is especially scary because she would also lose access to a special disability program that pays for extra caregiving hours and has a multiyear waitlist. Caregivers help Feinberg get in and out of bed, dress and prepare her meals.

Before the limit was erased in 2024, Feinberg said she checked her bank account every day to make sure the balance was low. At the time, Feinberg was a graduate student and did not earn very much money. Now, as a licensed therapist Feinberg has been able to squirrel away some money.

“I don’t want to spend down that money. I want to save that for retirement, maybe buying a house in the future,” Feinberg said. “The prospect of not being able to have a nest egg is very unsettling.”

Guéçamburu said she’s angry and frustrated that the state views services for people with disabilities as expendable.

“It’s exhausting to have to justify your existence every legislative cycle,” she said.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

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

President Donald Trump’s administration is on track to deport about 660,000 people over the past year, a new report released Thursday shows, as arrests ramp up across the country fueled by billions of dollars meant to supercharge his immigration agenda.

The report by the Migration Policy Institute shows deportations increased from 620,000 during the first year of Trump’s second administration. The numbers fall short of previous highs in the early 2000s and fail to meet the Trump administration’s promise, made when it received the billions from Congress, that the money would allow for 1 million deportations annually.

The report, based on publicly available data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, comes after the Trump administration in January 2025 stopped publicly releasing similar figures compiled by the Department of Homeland Security.

Trump, a Republican, returned to power last year promising to stanch crossings at the southern border and crack down on immigration. His administration has pushed through restrictions on both legal and illegal immigration and launched high-profile arrest operations in its bid to force migrants out.

More people being deported, but not at all-time highs

The analysis found that the Department of Homeland Security carried out 980,000 deportations during the first 18 months of the second Trump administration.

During the last fiscal year — when the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement mechanisms were shifting into high gear — an estimated 660,000 people were deported.

According to MPI’s analysis, that’s a 26% increase from the yearly average from 2021 to 2024 during the administration of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, but well below the 1.86 million deportations recorded in 2000, under President Bill Clinton, another Democrat.

Despite the surging arrests, the report details some of the challenges to the Trump administration reaching its deportation targets.

Historically, many immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization were from Mexico and didn’t often seek asylum. But in recent years, migrants have come to the U.S. from a wide range of countries, which can make it more complicated to deport them. And immigration courts, which ultimately decide whether someone can be removed from the country, face more significant case backlogs.

Voluntary departures are increasing as are interior arrests

The report said voluntary departures — when people give up their cases in immigration court and agree to leave the country — were at an “all-time high,” with 170,000 choosing to do so since Trump returned to office in January 2025. People who choose voluntary departure could one day return to the U.S. But some immigrant advocates and lawyers say that people give up their court fight and agree to leave simply to get out of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention.

The Trump administration was also increasingly deporting people it arrested in the country’s interior, the report said, reflecting how it was stepping up enforcement against migrants who have been in the country for a long time. In 2025, about 28% of the people deported were arrested inside the country, but by July of this year that had risen to 39%.

Migrants arrested at the southern border still make up a large number of deportations, the report said — 69% of all deportations between Jan. 20, 2025, and July 31, 2026, were of people initially intercepted at the border.

People in the country longer may have more opportunities to contest their removal while the government typically has greater authority to fast-track deportations for people arrested at the border.

The analysis said most people deported have never been convicted of a crime, despite the Trump administration claiming to be targeting the “worst of the worst.” Previous data has showed the same.

In response to the MPI report, White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said: “President Trump has delivered the largest reduction in illegal immigration in modern history.”

Trump administration no longer regularly releases immigration data

Homeland Security stopped releasing similar data when Trump took office, making it difficult to track one of his key campaign promises. Figures the Trump administration has released are inconsistent and unverifiable.

The administration says it is transparent. On Tuesday, it released some of its own figures as part of a document boasting of its achievements on immigration, including that 1.2 million migrants have been deported or removed during Trump’s second term. The discrepancy could not immediately be reconciled.

In the absence of regular data, analysts and activists interested in immigration trends have relied on information obtained through lawsuits or limited and sporadic information released by federal agencies to track deportation data.

Mortgage rates fell this week for the first time since late August, easing some of the pressure on prospective homebuyers facing higher borrowing costs on home loans.

The benchmark 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to 7.32% from 7.40% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the average rate was 6.19%.

Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, often sought by borrowers refinancing a home loan, also eased this week. That average rate slipped to 6.68% from 6.71% last week. A year ago, it was at 5.44%.

Rates on home loans are influenced by inflation, Federal Reserve policy and bond-market investors’ expectations for the economy, among other factors. They generally follow the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.

Mortgage rates have been climbing since late February, when the U.S. war with Iran began, pushing up the price of oil and driving inflation higher. The run-up in rates also reflects heightened bond market volatility, which has pushed up yields on U.S. Treasurys.

The 10-year Treasury yield has been mostly easing the last couple of weeks after climbing to its highest level since 2002. That’s caused the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to hold steady after reaching 7.4%, its highest level in nearly three years.

The yield was at 5% at midday on the bond market Thursday. It surged to more than 5.30% earlier this month and remains well above its 3.97% level from before the war with Iran.

U.S. home sales remain stalled this year in large part because of rising mortgage rates, which c an add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, limiting homebuyers’ purchasing power and prompting many to put off buying a home.

In late February, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage briefly dipped to 5.98%, its lowest level going back to late 2022. The rise in rates since then has added roughly $355 to the monthly cost for a borrower financing a $400,000 home loan, going by the latest average rate.

Depending on a borrower’s income, credit and other factors, they may qualify for a rate on a 30-year mortgage that is below or above the current average.

The U.S. housing market has been in a slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at a 30-year low.

In its latest forecast, mortgage buyer Fannie Mae projects that the rate on a 30-year mortgage will average 7.4% in the final quarter of this year, and average 7.5% in 2027.