Erin Stone
covers climate and environmental issues in Southern California.
Published July 14, 2026 4:16 PM
High tides and a small swell overtop a berm built to protect a boardwalk and homes on the Long Beach peninsula.
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Erin Stone
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LAist
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Topline:
The highest tides of the year typically hit in summer and winter — around each solstice. That’s tracking so far this year, but a combination of natural phenomena and human-caused climate change are adding to the extremes of these normal cycles.
One community's view: In mid-June, a combination of strong swell and high tides led to dramatic images of water splashing over sand berms, onto the boardwalk and into streets at the Long Beach Peninsula. Experts say the tides are a window into the future.
Keep reading ... for more on efforts to protect the Long Beach peninsula.
The highest tides of the year typically hit in summer and winter — around each solstice. That’s tracking so far this year, but a combination of natural phenomena and human-caused climate change are adding to the extremes of these normal cycles.
The Long Beach Peninsula — a narrow stretch of homes on the sand between the ocean and Alamitos Bay — is one place where all of those forces are coming together.
A brief history of the Long Beach Peninsula
The peninsula was once a dynamic sandspit, and the Alamitos Bay primary tidal marshes and wetlands, so the area is naturally prone to flooding. (The nearby Los Cerritos Wetlands are the last remnants of wetlands that once spanned more than 2,400 acres).
The first homes on the peninsula were built at the start of the 20th century, when beachgoers took the Pacific Electric "Red Cars" there from Los Angeles and Pasadena. The area even became known as the “Waikiki of Southern California” for its surfable waves. In 1939, the first national surfing championship was held there, according to Surfrider Foundation.
Once the U.S. military built the breakwater in the 1940s, the waves stopped and the natural flow of ocean currents was disrupted. That affected sand flow to replenish the beach and worsened pollution in the water. The hard infrastructure along the coast continues to affect erosion along the peninsula. Natural phenomena like El Niño and high tides, plus rising sea levels long-term, only exacerbate the issue.
High water
In mid-June, a combination of strong swell and high tides led to dramatic images of water splashing over sand berms, onto the boardwalk and into streets.
This week and last, tides topped 7 feet again. Without the same swell, the results were less dramatic.
Higher-than-average tides are normal for this time of year, but they’re predicted to become the new normal overall by late century.
“What is happening rarely now will happen almost at every high tide when we get to the end of the century,” said Mark Merrifield, an oceanography professor at Scripps.
Merrifield said the recent tides have been high due to natural cycles related to the moon’s position to Earth this time of year. It’s also likely related to El Niño, a natural climate pattern that warms the Pacific Ocean — and warmer water takes up more space, leading to higher sea levels.
That warm water tends to peak at the end of the year, which means winter, during the next high tide season, is likely to be even more “eventful,” Merrifield said.
The city of Long Beach’s climate action plan estimates sea levels will rise as much as 2 feet by 2050 and nearly 7 feet there by 2100.
“We're going to see sea level going up much faster as we go into the latter part of the century,” Merrifield said. “I think at some point it will come down to understanding how to live with high water, which is not something we've normally done.”
A map from Long Beach's climate action plan shows projected sea levels in the lowest-lying areas of the city.
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Courtesy city of Long Beach
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LAist
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And those who know Long Beach’s peninsula have noticed.
“The tides that we're seeing now, we did not see in the past,” said Todd Leland, Marine Bureau manager for the city. “We used to not have to build berms year-round. We'd only have to do it on an occasional basis here on the peninsula.”
It’s been in just the last 10 years that Long Beach has had to build sand berms to protect oceanfront properties from high tides and south swells, which the south-facing beach is particularly vulnerable to, Leland said.
An earth mover rebuilds the sand berm at the end of the Long Beach peninsula after a storm flooded it in January 2023.
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Thomas R. Cordova
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Long Beach Post
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City crews build up a sand berm as they prepare for high tide along the peninsula in Long Beach in 2022.
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Thomas R. Cordova
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Long Beach Post
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Six days a week, city workers truck sand from the wider, western side of the beachfront back to the peninsula to replenish the sand that gets sucked away by the water between the jetty and the breakwater down the beach. It all costs the city about $1 million per year, Leland said.
“We're running out of space to build the berms because we're not able to keep up with the sand movement,” Leland said.
To address that, the city hopes to break ground on a project later this year to dredge some 415,000 cubic yards of sand from the Alamitos Bay Channel and replenish the beach about 200 feet out again. That could cost as much as $14.5 million, according to the city, which is facing a major budget deficit. A spokesperson told LAist the city plans provide an update on funding the dredging plan next month.
“ With 200 more feet of area to work with, we potentially might not have to make berms,” Leland said. The city had considered long term plans to restore kelp beds and rocky reefs in front of the peninsula in part to help slow wave energy, but that effort has stalled.
Todd Leland, Marine Bureau manager for Long Beach, stands by berms on the peninsula.
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Erin Stone
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The view from the peninsula
Charles Thomas has lived on the peninsula for 50 years. He married his wife on the beach in front of his house.
“It used to be the widest part,” he said. “We had a big 96-foot tent. It was a big party, and everybody had a great time.”
Charles Thomas has lived on the Long Beach Peninsula for 50 years and remembers when the beach was much wider.
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Erin Stone
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On a recent afternoon, just before high tide, water flooded over an eroded berm and underneath the lifeguard tower toward Thomas’ house.
“ We could not fit that tent there anymore,” Thomas said, shaking his head. Thomas said he supports the dredging project and hopes it will help more than the berms.
Down the boardwalk, Siobhan Gadallah stood with her husband and son, watching the water splash over the berms. The young child squealed in glee as the water came onto the boardwalk.
Cathy Gaddalah (left to right), Bauer Parks, Siobhan Gaddalah and her husband, Mitchell Parks.
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Erin Stone
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LAist
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“The waves splash over pretty intensely, like to the point where I think it could knock over my 4-year-old pretty badly,” Gadallah said. “ Thankfully we haven't had any flooding [inside], but our entire porch has been pretty badly flooded.”
The family has rented here for two years, but they’re not too worried about the long-term prospects. Moving from downtown Long Beach, their new place feels like “living in a different country,” Gadallah said.
“ As long as you have those sandbags, they do their job pretty well,” she said.
Long Beach trucks sand from this western part of the beach back to the peninsula to help with erosion.
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Erin Stone
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LAist
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A sand berm on the Long Beach Peninsula protects homes from flooding but also blocks the ocean view.
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Erin Stone
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LAist
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As for the berms?
“ I do think the berms help, although I'm not a fan obviously,” she said. “I do think it creates some sort of barrier, but once it hits a certain point, it does absolutely nothing.”
The unemployment rate dipped to 4.1%, but only because more than 260,000 people dropped out of the workforce.
It was the second month in a row that the monthly jobs tally came in weaker than forecasters had expected.
"We are increasingly hearing from workers that they are anxious about their job security and they are frustrated by the fact that they are stuck in roles that are not necessarily good for them," said Daniel Zhao, chief economist at the job search website Glassdoor. "And that's on top of workers who are not in a job right now and feel frozen out of the job market."
Glassdoor's worker confidence index slumped in July to a record low.
The Fed's job gets harder
Restaurants and retailers cut thousands of jobs last month, and local government also saw large job losses. Healthcare continued to add workers, but at a more modest pace than earlier in the year.
The softening job market may complicate the Federal Reserve's job, since it's also battling stubborn inflation. The Fed may be more cautious about raising interest rates at a time when the labor market appears less stable.
For people who are working, average wages have risen 3.2% in the last 12 months. That's likely not enough to keep pace with inflation, however, so workers' paychecks don't stretch as far as they used to.
"Part of the reason that workers are feeling bad about today's job market," Zhao says, is that "a lot of those wage gains have been eaten up by rising energy prices."
Every Sunday night, a semi-secret event at the tony Los Angeles Athletic Club lets anyone experience a near-private concert from jazz legends — for just $10.
Why it matters: The revolving cast draws from a repertory group of about 15 artists, including: saxophonist Rickey Woodard, who played for Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald and more; trumpeter Nolan Shaheed, who backed Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Stevie Wonder.
Read on ... to find the details of this hidden gem ...
It seems that jazz is everywhere in Los Angeles. Blue Note opened a club last year, venues like Sam First, Catalina’s, Vibrato and the Baked Potato draw large crowds, and hotels and bars are adding jazz to their schedules.
But every week, a semi-secret event at the tony Los Angeles Athletic Club lets anyone experience a near-private concert from legends such as Rickey Woodard, who played saxophone for Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn and others; and Nolan Shaheed, trumpeter for Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye and more.
That’s before you get to the evening’s singer, who might be 96-year-old pianist Betty Bryant, former Raelette Val Monroe or singer and Grammy-winning songwriter John Proulx.
Until recently, the Sunday night Jazz Salon was free. Now it charges a nominal $10 per person, which is still an outrageous bargain, so be sure to add something to the tip jar on the piano, and maybe try one of the cocktails or the steak frites.
Inside the club
Walking into the club earlier, you see black-and-white photos of all types of healthy pursuits on the walls, as well as trophies and mementos of the club’s nearly century-and-a-half history. Plush sofas, high ceilings and book-filled shelves are the order of the day, and alongside members in gym gear or lugging laptops, you go up in one of the elevators to the third floor, where the Jazz Salon takes place.
Dave Ross, bassist and founder of the Jazz Salon.
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James Bartlett
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LAist
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The bassist who built it
Earlier in the day, Dave Ross, 76, was setting up the amps, drum kit, mixer and mic stands. He also administers the website, acts as MC and plays double bass as part of the ensemble. He began the venture over a decade ago, when he persuaded the LAAC, of which he had long been a member, to host concerts in their redecorated restaurant and bar.
Ross draws from a repertory group of about 15 artists, and the concert takes place opposite the bar in a wood-paneled room of just a few dozen leather chairs and tables. This small scale makes the night intimate and unique.
Sunday Night Jazz Salon
Location: Invention (3rd Floor), The Los Angeles Athletic Club, 646 S Olive St., Downtown Los Angeles
Time: Sundays, 6:00 PM – 8:30 PM (with a brief intermission) Cost: $10 cover charge at the door Make reservations and check out the weekly artist schedule
“No gig is ever the same,” says Ross. “We don’t rehearse, and every time we play a song, we're never trying to play it the same way we played it before.”
That makes the night fun, too. Since you’re right near the musicians, you can hear their laughter and banter, as well as their impressive solos. Ross, stage left, stays out of the limelight — which is how he prefers it — and often says he's just happy to be there playing.
“You're there to keep the beat, the pulse of the music,” he says. “And then, secondarily, the notes that you play help the other musicians understand what the chord, what the harmony is. I'm just doing it for the pleasure of playing the music.”
The Jazz Salon is a $10 Sunday night concert at the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
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James Bartlett
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Why $10 barely covers it
Once a month, Ross and some of his stable join a touring artist — recently five-time Grammy-nominee Karrin Allyson — in the club’s 250-seat ballroom for a more formal ticketed event, but there have been just two complete sellouts of them this year: tributes to Bill Evans and Dave Brubeck/Paul Desmond.
Donations and the tip jar on Sunday evenings sometimes haven’t been enough to break even, either, which led to Ross reluctantly introducing the $10 charge. No matter what, he is determined the Jazz Salon will keep going.
“When I was younger, there was a receptionist I knew who was a nun. She said: “‘You know what your problem is? You’re too optimistic!’”
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Gab Chabrán
covers what's happening in food and culture for LAist.
Published August 8, 2026 5:00 AM
Shemtob approaches strangers across Los Angeles and asks a simple question: What's your mom's best dish?
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Screenshot via Better Than Your Mom
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Topline:
Lime Truck founder and two-time Great Food Truck Race champion Daniel Shemtob is approaching strangers across L.A., asking what their mom's best dish is, and turning it into a taco on his food truck the same day. It's all part of a new five-episode series, Better Than Your Mom, launched on what would have been his mother's birthday.
Why it matters: What starts as a quick, chaotic street-corner challenge opens into something bigger — a Long Beach woman honoring her late mother-in-law's gefilte fish recipe, and a chef processing his own mother's death and the loss of his home in last year's Palisades Fire, one taco at a time.
Read on … for how a stranger's yes turns into a family's story, and what happens when a taco truck becomes a place to grieve, honor and remember.
Daniel Shemtob has been going around Los Angeles asking strangers this question: "What's your mom's best dish?"
He then turns their answers — from Filipino oxtail adobo to the Ashkenazi Jewish favorite of gefilte fish — into a taco for his new five-episode web series, "Better Than Your Mom."
One episode breaks from the format entirely: a head-to-head chopped salad taco challenge between Shemtob and Vanessa Silverton, daughter of famed L.A. chef Nancy Silverton, judged blind by Nancy herself.
Daniel Shemtob, founder of The Lime Truck and creator and host of Better Than Your Mom.
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Courtesy Daniel Shemtob
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A two-time winner of "The Great Food Truck Race" on the Food Network, Shemtob is no stranger to reality TV — he also founded The Lime Truck, serving Cali-Mex cuisine in Orange County.
What starts as a quick, chaotic street-corner challenge opens into something bigger — a Long Beach woman honoring her late mother-in-law's gefilte fish recipe, and a chef processing his own mother's death and the loss of his home in the 2025 Palisades Fire.
A dish for his mother
Despite loving fine dining, Shemtob said nothing beats the experience of having someone invite him to their mother's home for dinner.
"It's by far my favorite thing," he said.
Gundry watched as Shemtob reworked her mother-in-law's recipe in real time — a process that normally takes her more than two hours, done in 20 minutes.
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Screenshot via Better Than Your Mom
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That urge to connect with other people also came from wanting to celebrate his late mother's legacy and the impact she had on him in the kitchen.
"Eating was like a big part of how we shared and celebrated," Shemtob said. "It was a culture that was built around food."
A stranger says, 'yes'
While most walk past him or decline to talk, Shemtob said he's been surprised by how many strangers say yes almost immediately — like Anne Gundry, a retired biology teacher in Long Beach.
She answered with a dish from her mother-in-law from her first marriage — gefilte fish served cold.
Shemtob's take on Dena Levenstein's gefilte fish, reimagined as a taco with an apple-horseradish slaw.
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Courtesy Daniel Shemtob
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Gundry recalled her first meeting with Dena Levenstein, who would become her mother-in-law. The relationship started out cold — but cooking together changed their dynamic.
"That's where I honestly think we had the deepest bond with her," Gundry said.
Gundry described yearly visits to Levenstein's house as a cooking "apprenticeship," where Gundry was taught to cook by feel — adding ingredients by the handful, testing a dish's consistency by touch.
"She used to say, 'How does it feel?'" Gundry recalled. "And I'd say, 'I don't know, I don't know how it's supposed to feel.'"
Over the years, she learned. Now, Gundry teaches her own children that recipe the same way — without referring to what's written down.
Watching Shemtob cook on "Better Than Your Mom," Gundry was skeptical. Her own process takes over two hours; his took 20 minutes — until she tasted the apple-horseradish slaw he added.
"Brilliant," she said. "I've been trying to duplicate it at home."
Josie Huang
is a reporter and Weekend Edition host who spotlights the people and places at the heart of our region.
Published August 8, 2026 5:00 AM
Phoebe Bridgers plays with her band Boygenius during the 2023 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
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Frazer Harrison
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Getty Images North America
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Topline:
Phoebe Bridgers is giving Southern California fans an unusual way to hear her new album Lost Weekend with a listening session inside the Orange Coast College planetarium in Costa Mesa.
Why now: Lost Weekend, Bridgers’ first studio album in six years, is out Friday, with listening sessions taking place at dozens of planetariums around the world next week.
The backstory: Orange Coast College already has a tradition of pairing music with visuals through popular laser shows featuring the music of everyone from Pink Floyd to Taylor Swift. But the Bridgers event is by far the most high-profile, pairing the album with both a laser show by Laser Fantasy and a full-dome presentation with imagery by taken by astrophotographer Babak Tafreshi.
Next week Phoebe Bridgers fans in Southern California will get an otherworldly way to enjoy her new album ahead of its official release Friday.
And a Costa Mesa institution will enjoy the chance to introduce indie music lovers to what it does beyond astronomy lectures and field trips.
The Orange Coast College Planetarium is one of dozens of planetariums around the world – and the only in Southern California – hosting listening sessions next week for Lost Weekend, one of the year’s most anticipated indie releases and Bridgers’ first solo studio album in six years.
The Pasadena native is not expected at any of the planetarium shows. But that doesn’t matter to her fan base.
Phoebe Bridger fans can listen to her album in the planetarium's 125-seat dome theater.
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Courtesy Orange Coast College Planetarium
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Twelve shows in the 125-seat theater sold out within four hours of going on sale Thursday, according to the planetarium. So staff added 16 more, bringing the total to 28 screenings over four days, Aug. 10 through 13. (At last check, tickets for showings earlier in the day were still available.)
“We have never had an event that was this anticipated,” Rhiannon Graffio, lead speaker and educator at the planetarium.
Listening to Lost Weekend...at a planetarium
When: Aug. 10–13. Shows are scheduled throughout the afternoon and evening, with both fulldome and laser show experiences.
Where: Orange Coast College Planetarium, 2701 Fairview Road, Costa Mesa.
Tickets: $20. Tickets are available through Orange Coast College’s ticketing site.
Phone-free: Phones must be placed in locking Yondr pouches during the listening sessions. Smartwatches, cameras, Meta glasses and other recording
There’s two ways to experience the record from start to finish, which is a little over 50 minutes long.
One is a full-dome show featuring images taken by renowned astrophotographer Babak Tafreshi.
“It's gorgeous,” Graffio said. “There's some that are of the night sky, where you can see the paths of the stars as the Earth rotates, or auroras or lightning.”
The other option is a laser show created by Laser Fantasy, with scenes and storylines moving in time with the music.
Graffio said the planetarium had been approached by Bridgers’ label Dead Oceans to host the shows, which are being presented in partnership with Spotify.
Rhiannon Graffio, a lead speaker at the Orange Coast College Planetarium, has been working with Phoebe Bridgers' label on next week's listening sessions.
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Courtesy Rhiannon Graffio
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The events are strictly phone-free. To prevent album leaks, attendees will have to put their phones in pouches provided by Yondr, a company that works concerts and other events. Smartwatches, and Meta glasses also aren’t allowed.
The Lost Weekend events are the most high-profile but certainly not the planetarium’s first experiment with mixing music and visuals.
The theater regularly hosts laser shows set to music, cycling through different artists like Taylor Swift and Beyoncé each month while keeping some crowd favorites like Pink Floyd in rotation. Graffio said in the last year KPop Demon Hunters laser shows have been especially popular.
Accommodating the Lost Weekend shows has meant bringing extra staff to handle the weekday crowds at the community planetarium.
But Graffio said there's a big upside to introducing music fans to a place they may never have thought to visit.
“It’s a wonderful experience,” she said. “And most of the shows that we do are also educational in some sense. As cool as the visuals are, they are about the universe and what we know about it.”
And for those who can't make it to the planetarium shows, there's a more traditional route to marking Bridgers' new album. A dozen record stores around Southern California are hosting listening sessions at midnight Friday.
