The Brief

It’s well before the lunch hour when a worker lugs a large plastic storage bin out of the kitchen at the Bluewater Grill in Newport Beach and into the back of Kaysha Kenney’s minivan.

The bin is full of discarded oyster shells from the previous night’s dinner service, plus some lemons and half-eaten bread. Kenney wants the shells, but the extra food bits are OK, she said, “because they sit out in a field and they have little animals that will come and kind of pick off the food scraps.”

This pickup is the first phase of a project led by Kenney’s group Orange County Coastkeeper. The goal is to use oyster shells from local restaurants to restore the once-abundant oyster beds along the coast and buffer the shoreline from erosion and rising seas.

Though the shells Kenney collects are non-native oysters, Coastkeeper’s project is focused on restoring Olympia oysters — the only native species along the West Coast. The species has been decimated by coastal development and overharvesting, starting in the Gold Rush days when they fed tens of thousands of hungry fortune-seekers.

In early fall, Orange County Coastkeeper collected dozens of oyster shell strings hanging off docks in Huntington Harbour. This year, they recruited more than 700 baby oysters or "spat" that will be transplanted to coastal restoration projects.

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Courtesy Coastkeeper

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Stop 2: San Joaquin Marsh

With the blue Coastkeeper minivan full of stinky shells, Kenney heads inland to a hot, sunny patch of land next to the San Joaquin Marsh in Irvine. Here, she weighs each restaurant’s contribution, and spreads the shells out to cure in the sun to rid them of pathogens — and any leftover horseradish and tabasco sauce.

California regulations require the shells to cure for at least six months before they can be put back into the water. These particular shells are destined for the Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge. Coastkeeper is working with California State University, Fullerton, and the U.S. Navy to build what’s called a living shoreline to help protect Navy buildings in the refuge that are threatened by erosion.

 ”A living shoreline is where we take an eroding shoreline and we effectively replant it with living plants and animals that can stabilize that shoreline,” explained Danielle Zacherl, a biology professor at Cal State Fullerton who’s leading the project.

And using discarded shells helps reduce restaurant waste.

“Think about this natural product that's getting sent to landfills that really could be doing so much more good,” Zacherl said.

Kenney spreads out the morning's collection from restaurants onto a patch of land near the San Joaquin Marsh in Irvine. The shells will cure in the sun for at least six months to rid them of pathogens.

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Jill Replogle

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Living shorelines are becoming popular across the country. They’re seen as more cost-efficient and ecologically friendly compared to what’s known as hard armoring, like seawalls and riprap. Zacherl and Coastkeeper have teamed up on several living shoreline projects along the Southern California coast, including in Newport Bay and Long Beach’s Alamitos Bay.

Oyster beds anchor the shoreline, keeping it from washing away, Zacherl explained.

“They also encourage sedimentation by generating eddies. The shells popping up into the water column slow the water velocity and allow sediment to filter down,” she said. “That's really important for coastal habitats right now, especially in the face of climate change.”

Daniel Zacherl, a professor at Cal State Fullerton, leads restoration projects along the Southern California coast that use oysters and complementary species like eelgrass to slow down coastal erosion.

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Jill Replogle

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Oysters also filter the water, removing excess nutrients that cause harmful algal blooms. In fact, a single adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons a day. They also improve water quality for eelgrass — which sequesters carbon, provides habitat for ocean critters and also helps prevent erosion.

The living shoreline planned for the Seal Beach refuge will be made up of a combination of oyster beds, eelgrass and another coastal plant, cordgrass. But first, Zacherl needs live oysters.

That’s where folks like Craig Schauppner come in.

Craig Schauppner

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Jill Replogle

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Stop 3: Huntington Harbour

Schauppner is one of close to 90 residents in Huntington Harbour, at the northwestern end of Huntington Beach, who has become a kind of oyster nanny. Last spring, Coastkeeper gave him and the other volunteers strings of discarded and cured oyster shells to hang off their docks.

Oyster larvae floating through the water settle on those shells and start to secrete their own shell. Combined with other oysters, they effectively glue themselves together to form oyster beds.

During a visit last month, Schauppner pulled up a wire strung with more than a dozen oyster shells and pointed out a small dark circle on the inside of one of them.

“ So you could see, like right there, there's a spot. There might've been an oyster there at one time, but maybe a predator came and ate it or something like that,” he said.

His shell strings weren’t particularly attractive to baby oysters this year. But that’s OK, he said.

An oyster bed restoration project in Jack Dunster Marine Biological Reserve in Long Beach.

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Courtesy of Danielle Zacherl

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“Part of the project is to figure out where we can harvest oysters, where they can grow and, you know, where to avoid,” he said. “So I’m contributing to the data, right?”

At the end of September, Coastkeeper retrieved the shell strings from Schauppner and other volunteers in Huntington Harbour. They harvested more than 700 baby oysters, called “spat,” which were then transplanted to Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge for the living shoreline project.

Kenney from Coastkeeper said it’s sometimes hard for the oyster nannies to let go but hopefully a little easier knowing their slimy charges will be helping clean the water and reestablish a resilient California coast.

The World Cup is coming to Los Angeles in 2026. Could the Women's World Cup come here too?

On Friday, FIFA released the bid books for the 2031 Women’s World Cup.

The U.S. Soccer Federation submitted a joint bid with Mexico, Costa Rica and Jamaica. It was the only bid that made the deadline.

If approved, several cities across the four countries would host the global football tournament.

Forty venues have in the U.S. have been proposed as potential sites for 2031 games, with some right here in southern California.

Football’s coming back?

Four Los Angeles stadiums are part of the bid.

• Rose Bowl
• Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
• Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson
• SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

Show me the money

The bid projected that the 2031 tournament would bring in $4 billion in total revenue — four times more than $1 billion projected to be made from the upcoming 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil.

Organizers expect to generate revenue from across six main sources including: ticket revenues, hospitality, concessions, fan festivals, broadcast, and marketing opportunities.

Ticket prices are projected to start at $35 for the opening rounds seats, and between $120 and $600 for later matches

Wait and see

FIFA is expected to formally confirm the bid at their next congress on April 30th in Vancouver.

The evaluation process will focus on, according to FIFA, “the event vision and key metrics, infrastructure, services, commercial considerations, and sustainability and human rights.”

The venues where games will be held won't be decided for at least a few more years.

California ag giant the Wonderful Company suffered a setback on Tuesday in its bid to overturn a new farmworker unionization law when an appeals court tossed its lawsuit against state labor regulators.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno leaves in place a controversial new law backed by the United Farm Workers that was meant to boost organizing in a heavily immigrant workforce. The law allows farmworkers to signal their support for union representation using a signed card, bypassing the traditional in-person, secret-ballot election usually held on the employer’s property.

The Wonderful Company — owner of the Wonderful Pistachios brand and Fiji Water, Pom pomegranate juices and Halos oranges —filed suit against the state’s Agricultural Labor Relations Board last year trying to overturn the law, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in 2023.

The suit, alleging the law is unconstitutional, came after the United Farm Workers filed a petition with enough signatures to represent 600-odd workers at the company’s grape nursery in Wasco.

In a contentious public dispute, the company accused union organizers of tricking workers into signing cards supporting unionization and provided over 100 employees’ signatures attesting to being deceived; in turn, the union accused the company of illegally intimidating workers into withdrawing their support. Regulators at the agricultural labor board filed charges against Wonderful after investigating the claims.

All of those allegations were being heard before the labor board last spring when Wonderful took the matter to court, arguing the new law deprived the company of due process. A Kern County judge initially halted the board proceedings, but the appeals court allowed them to continue last fall. After weeks of hearings this year, the labor board has yet to issue a decision on whether UFW can represent Wonderful employees.

In the meantime, the company has shuttered the Wasco nursery and donated it to UC Davis, making the question of an actual union at the worksite moot.

In the new ruling, the appeals court judges issued a sharp rebuke of the company for suing over the unionization instead of waiting for the labor board decision.

“Wonderful filed this petition notwithstanding approximately 50 years of unbroken precedent finding an employer may not directly challenge a union certification decision in court except in extraordinarily and exceedingly rare circumstances, which Wonderful does not meaningfully attempt to show are present here,” wrote Justice Rosendo Peña.

Elizabeth Strater, a United Farm Workers vice president, said the decision affirms that “every farm worker in California has rights under the law, and those rights need to be protected.”

But Wonderful Company General Counsel Craig Cooper dismissed the ruling as only a matter of timing: “the decision explicitly does not address the merits of Wonderful Nurseries’ constitutional challenge.”

After an Afghan national was named as being behind a shooting in Washington, D.C., that left one member of the National Guard dead and another in critical condition, the Trump administration says it is halting all asylum decisions.

Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said Friday night that the agency is pausing decisions "until we can ensure that every alien is vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible."

"The safety of the American people always comes first," Edlow wrote on X.

The decision follows President Trump's promise of a sharp crackdown on immigration from countries he described as "third world."

Writing on social media on Thursday night, Trump railed against immigrants from impoverished nations, accusing them of being a burden on the nation's welfare system and "preying" on natural-born citizens.

"I will permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover," he wrote on Truth Social.

"Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation."

The Trump administration is already deporting some immigrants, either to their countries of origin or to third countries, many of which are paid to receive them. Venezuelans were deported from the U.S. to El Salvador, a number of migrants were sent to Eswatini and South Sudan, and Rwanda has agreed to accept deportees.

Edlow wrote on social media Thursday that he had been directed to conduct "a full scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern."

He did not say which countries this would entail, and the USCIS did not respond to an NPR request for comment. But a June White House proclamation placed a travel ban on 12 countries of concern.

A makeshift memorial of flowers and American flags stands outside the Farragut West Metro station on Nov. 28, 2025 in Washington, DC.

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These included many African nations suffering from conflict and terrorism such as Chad, Sudan and Somalia — as well as other countries, such as Afghanistan. Another 7 countries were slapped with partial restrictions.

In a statement to CNN, the Department of Homeland Security said it had already halted all immigration requests stemming from Afghanistan and was in the process of reviewing "all" asylum cases approved under former President Biden.

The department did not respond to an NPR request for comment.

History of anti-immigrant sentiment

The president's latest comments against immigration was sparked by the revelation that the alleged shooter was identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal — a 29-year-old Afghan national who had worked with the CIA to fight the Taliban in his native country and was admitted into the United States in 2021 as a result of his service. In a Thanksgiving Day call with servicemembers, Trump described the shooting as a terrorist attack and the shooter as a "savage monster."

He blamed the Biden administration for Lakanwal's entry to the United States and for a general failure of the immigration system.

"For the most part, we don't want 'em," he said, referring broadly to immigration seekers as gang members, mentally ill and previously incarcerated.

Trump ran both successful White House campaigns on a pledge to crack down on illegal immigration, targeting at various points migrants from countries including Mexico and Somalia.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday after the Thanksgiving call, Trump widened his attack to focus not just on the alleged shooter but to rail against immigration to the U.S. and immigrants in general.

When asked by a reporter about the fact that as a former CIA asset, Lakanwal had been vetted, Trump repeatedly berated the reporter as "stupid."

People detained earlier in the day are taken to a parking lot on the far north side of the city before being transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Oct. 31, 2025, in Chicago, Ill.

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Asked by another reporter whether he blamed all Afghans for the alleged actions of one, Trump said: "No, but there's a lot of problems with Afghans."

Trump then turned his attention to immigrants from Somalia, who he has repeatedly accused of being gang-affiliated and "taking over" Minnesota — home to the nation's largest Somali community.

Questioned about what Somalis had to do with the D.C. shooting, Trump said: "Nothing." But, he added, "Somalians have caused a lot of trouble." .

Later on social media, he described "Somalian gangs" in Minnesota as "roving the streets looking for 'prey' as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone."

Officials for the United Nations on Friday criticized Trump's call for sweeping halts to immigration seekers.

"They are entitled to protection under international law, and that should be given due process," U.N. human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence told reporters in Geneva.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Alex and Elvia Huerta of Evil Cooks have released the El Sereno Food Passport, a $10 booklet to promote local restaurants.

The first edition of the booklet features 18 local restaurants, each offering its own little perk when you visit and get your passport stamped. Customers can either get free snacks or drinks or get a discount.

At Tirzah’s Mexi-Terranean, you can either get 15% off your order or a free esquite when you show your passport.

Evil Cooks is so metal, they make black octopus tacos. They have also experimented with gansito tamales. This Halloween, they collaborated with Amiga Amore, a Mexitalian eatery, to create a special “witches menu” that included huitlacoche, aguachile negro and lamb shank in fig mole.

Get the passport

Pick up a passport:

• Evil Cooks, 3333 N. Eastern Ave., Los Angeles
• Lil East Coffee, 2734 N. Eastern Ave., Los Angeles