The Brief

Phillips 66 announced last week it will shut down its oil refineries in Wilmington and Carson by the end of next year, marking the end of an era.

Starting more than 100 years ago, the refineries have turned crude oil into billions of gallons of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from their location next to the nation’s largest ports. Together, the refineries supply about 8% of all of California’s gasoline demand. They also contribute to California’s single largest source of planet-heating pollution from the industrial sector.

The decision comes as demand for gasoline continues to decline and an aging facility faces costly maintenance and updates to meet pollution regulations.

About 600 employees and 300 contractors will be affected by the closure, according to the company.

What does the closure mean for nearby communities? 

Pollution from refineries has been linked to higher rates of asthma and cancer in neighboring communities. Homes in Wilmington, for example, are a stone’s throw from the Phillips 66 facility, just across a cinder block wall. The Wilmington and Carson area has the largest concentration of oil refineries in California.

“These facilities are linked to so much suffering and death that they will never pay for,” said Alicia Rivera, an organizer with Communities for a Better Environment who has advocated for better protections from refinery pollution in Wilmington for more than 20 years.

She said she’s glad the refinery is closing, but worries the site will just be turned into another health-harming facility, such as hydrogen, biofuel production, or carbon capture. Those types of operations may reduce planet-heating carbon pollution compared to traditional oil and gas production, but they can also increase or not significantly reduce local health-harming air pollution, as well as have other impacts.

“I hope that Phillips 66 doesn’t plan another polluting operation…continuing the trend of fossil fuels that are fueling the catastrophe of illnesses in the neighborhood and in the climate,” Rivera said. “The neighbors are vigilant about what the plans are.”

An aerial view shows Marathon Petroleum Corp's Los Angeles Refinery in Carson, Calif. It's the state's largest producer of gasoline. It's among the many refineries in Wilmington-Carson area, including Phillips 66's Los Angeles Refinery, which will shut down next year.

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Phillips 66 converted its other California refinery in San Francisco to produce “renewable diesel” and “sustainable aviation fuel,” made mostly from vegetable oils, animal fats, and animal feed. However, that facility may not reduce carbon pollution as much as claimed, and could increase local air pollution.

Rivera said the community has not yet been involved in discussions about what may be next for the site.

Redevelopment would be subject to a full public process under the California Environmental Quality Act.

What’s next for the refineries?

“With the long-term sustainability of our Los Angeles Refinery uncertain and affected by market dynamics, we are working with leading land development firms to evaluate the future use of our unique and strategically located properties near the Port of Los Angeles,” said Mark Lashier, chairman and CEO of Phillips 66, in a news release. “These sites offer an opportunity to create a transformational project that can support the environment, generate economic development, create jobs, and improve the region’s critical infrastructure."

A Phillips 66 spokesperson declined to provide more details on their future plans for the 650-acre site.

Phillips 66 has been trying to sell the aging refineries for years, said David Hackett, chairman of Stillwater Associates, a transportation energy consulting firm in Irvine.

Phillips 66 is not one of their clients, but Hackett said they called him about the closure before the public announcement.

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Hackett told LAist their representative told him that part of the 650-acre site will be converted to an oil terminal, which will store and distribute imported petroleum products.

The rest of the site he expects they’ll clean up and repurpose for other industrial uses, such as warehousing. The land is zoned industrial.

“Land that's zoned industrial is very dear in Southern California,” Hackett said. “So they could essentially recycle the land, scrape the buildings that are there, clean up the dirt, and then sell it to somebody for other industrial uses. There are plenty of examples of this in the industry. You see this fairly frequently.”

Why now? 

Demand for gasoline has been steadily declining since the early 2000s due to slowed population growth, more efficient gas and diesel vehicles, and now the increasing adoption of electric vehicles. The Phillips 66 L.A. refineries also face higher costs to maintain and upgrade aging facilities and meet pollution reduction requirements.

Hackett said he wasn’t surprised Phillips 66 decided to shut down the aging refinery, but he was surprised by the timing.

“What we forecast is that the demand is going to come off to the point sometime before the end of the decade where the economics of running a refinery are poor,” Hackett said. “At that point, somebody would give up and quit. We didn't think somebody would be quitting next year. We figured it would be around 2027.”

A spokesperson for Phillips 66 said in a statement that the decision was primarily related to high-cost operations and a long-term decline in demand for crude oil products.

Will gas prices be affected? 

Phillips 66 said in its news release that despite the closure at the end of next year, it will continue to “work with the state of California to supply fuel markets and meet ongoing consumer demand.”

The company declined to provide more details to LAist on how exactly they'll meet that demand.

Hackett said the closure could lead to higher gas prices, because the company will likely need to import more gasoline to meet demand.

“While demand is decreasing, it's not going to decrease 8% between now and the end of next year,” Hackett said. “That gasoline supply…is going to come in by tanker from someplace else.”

And imported gasoline on average costs more, Hackett said.

"Instead of being produced locally, it'll be produced someplace else: India or Korea or the United Kingdom — those are the places that make the most California-like gasoline, so it's got to come from halfway around the world," Hackett said. “It's going to be expensive.”

The refineries will shut down late next year, so the exact impact won’t be quite clear until closer to the date.

A festival dedicated to handmade cat zines is taking place in Long Beach. Among the offerings: an illustrated ode to Filipino snacks and a cat army overthrowing an authoritarian regime.

The zines come in all formats and topics, including collages, illustrations and poetry, created by makers from as young as 10 to professionals in the animation industry.

“There's some just really silly ones about cat buttholes and different cats cleaning themselves,” said Matt Carr, mastermind of Cat Zine Fest.

Matt Carr, co-founder of Cool Cat Collective and Cat Zine Fest.

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A zine from Serbia featured in this year's Cat Zine Fest.

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Those titles are a tiny fraction of some 250 zines Carr and his partner, Jena Winberry Carr, received in the one-month submission period for this year’s festival, kicking off June 26, at their shop, Cool Cat Collective.

Thirty titles will be featured, many others will be on display until July.

“It is such an accessible medium,” said Jena, who was born and raised in Long Beach. “If you can access a piece of paper and a pencil, you can make a zine.”

Matt Carr and Jenna Winberry Carr.

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Handmade the old school way

Matt started the festival last year after searching high and low for DIY zines to stock at their cat-themed shop but came up short.

So he put out a call for submissions — “You just have to make a zine that features cats” — and got responses from across the world.

“The opening at the time was our busiest day ever,” Matt said. “It was a big success.”

Cool Cat Collective sells and displays only cat-themed things.

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Cat Zine Fest started in 2025, featuring homemade zines from around the world.

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Cool cats unite with a mission

The annual zine fest is just one event held regularly at the boutique on Fourth Street.

Cool Cat Collective on Fourth Street in Long Beach.

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The Carrs opened Cool Cat Collective in 2024 to proffer the coolest cat-related products imaginable. (Fancy scratch pads that look like a set of DJ turntables? You’re in luck.) But the shop also comes with a mission.

“We came up with the idea through being frustrated with the cat overpopulation problem in L.A. County,” Jena said. Up to 4 million stray and feral cats live on the streets, according to estimates from the city and county of L.A. “It's about being a collective solution.”

Cool Cat Collective holds workshops on cat care, and regular fundraisers for TippedEars, a nonprofit that uses TNR — trap, neuter, return — to reduce cat populations in Compton. (Groups like ASPCA endorse the method, while others, like PETA, do not.) The shop also fosters cats rescued by the organization to promote adoption.

Interior of Cool Cat Collective in Long Beach.

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A cat fostered by Cool Cat Collective that people can adopt.

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Currently, six cats are crashing at the Cool Cat Collective; they roam among three “petting” rooms through a custom-built cat walk near the ceiling.

Long Beach resident Lindsay Flaming Yeats and her son Ryan were playing with the kittens. She said her wife is allergic and so the collective is a good alternative.

“It's so fun for him to be able to come in and be around animals and learn to be gentle,” she said.

In two years, the cat-themed space has become a destination amid a community of independent businesses that has made the Fourth Street corridor unique.

“We kept getting people that were visiting from out of town to go to Disneyland and making us a part of their itinerary,” Matt said. “I was like, ‘Whoa, us and Disneyland in the same sentence. We've made it.’”

A large plume of white smoke billowed out of a cold storage facility on Friday afternoon, two days after the fire first ignited at the Boyle Heights warehouse.

"Due to an expected change in wind conditions, there was a flare-up inside the structure, which was anticipated by crews on scene," the Los Angeles Fire Department said in a statement. "More smoke is currently visible in the area of this incident; however, there is no additional hazard. Crews will continue to flow large amounts of water into the building for an extended period of time."

LAFD Chief Nick Ferrari later told reporters that the fire had burned through the roof, letting up gases and smoke. That cleared some of the interior of the building, allowing firefighters more visibility into conditions inside.

“This is going to be an extended event,” he said. “We have made great progress, just today alone.”

What residents are experiencing

Residents near the facility on South Los Palos Street reported a strong smell as they watched the smoke rise up, and vehicles driving in that direction turned around as it appeared that the fire flared up shortly before 5 p.m.

Gabriela Dueñas lives less than a mile from the warehouse and put on a mask while she sheltered indoors at her home.

“It smells horrible outside. More ashes are falling now. Seems like the fire is inside the structure now,” Dueñas said just before 5 p.m. on Friday.

Firefighters were at the scene dousing the building. The smoke shifted from black to white before turning black again within an hour. LAFD spokesperson Lyndsey Lantz said that the white smoke was a sign that firefighters were getting water on the flames, and brown smoke likely meant that materials were burning.

“We want to assure people that we expected that change due to the wind,” Lantz said. “Our crews were prepared for that.”

A thick cloud of smoke descends over a street near a cold storage warehouse after a reported flare-up.

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Dueñas said it was frustrating to learn that firefighters anticipated those changes, saying residents were not adequately informed ahead of time.

“Why isn’t LAFD using their social media platforms to provide updates to residents?” she asked. “Instead, we begin to panic when we see the sun covered with a black cloud of smoke.”

Will residents need to shelter in place?

LAFD does not expect a shelter-in-place will be put into effect, Lantz said.

A previous shelter-in-place order was triggered as fire reached an ammonia line. Since then, Ferrari said, the building operator was able to pull ammonia out of the facility’s tanks and transport the chemical off-site. The operator also filled a generator, allowing the building’s interior sprinkler system to keep running, he said.

Ferrari stressed the unusual nature of the fire, and the aggressive tactics that firefighters were using. Helicopter water drops — almost unheard of for a structure fire — continued on Friday. Firefighters were also able to retrieve a number of forklifts with lithium-ion batteries from inside the building, lessening the hazard that the batteries posed. Some remained inside, Ferrari added, but they were in a portion of the building uninvolved in the fire.

The fire broke out Wednesday, prompting an hours-long shelter-in-place order due to hazardous materials, including ammonia.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District on Friday extended a particle pollution advisory to 12:30 p.m. Saturday, and a smoke advisory remains in effect in a zone near the fire.

Early monitoring showed particles were generally present at background levels, AQMD said, but for several seconds at a time, they found increased levels of bromine and chlorine.

“Bromine and chlorine are typically found at trace levels during structural fires and the levels seen were below short-term health-based exposure thresholds,” AQMD said. “Concentrations below this level are not expected to cause adverse health effects. No significant levels of air toxic metals were seen.”

What the city's leaders say

Mayor Karen Bass spoke outside the building Friday evening, praising firefighters’ efforts. She added that people in the area could expect to continue to see smoke, and she urged people and their pets to stay inside as much as possible. She asked people to wear masks when they needed to go outside.

“We know that this is concerning. This is inconvenient, but we are doing everything we can to end this as soon as possible,” she said. “And we want everyone to be safe in the meantime.”

The city’s Department of Recreation and Parks opened the Pecan Recreation Center, 145 S. Pecan St., as a smoke relief center on Friday, and it will stay open overnight and as long as it is needed. Community groups, including Proyecto Pastoral, Running Mamis and Centro CSO, went door to door distributing masks, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado said.

Jurado thanked the community for stepping up, allowing fire officials to focus their efforts on extinguishing the fire. She added the Eastside deserved great fire service just as much as Westside neighborhoods.

“This has been a resilient community that has faced history of environmental pollution, and with no recourse,” she said. “This city needed to show decisive action.”

SEATTLE — For days, questions about the health of star winger Christian Pulisic's left calf had loomed large over the U.S. men's national soccer team: After being kicked in the leg during last week's Paraguay game, would he be available in the pivotal second U.S. game of the FIFA World Cup?

In the end, it didn't matter.

The U.S. dominated Friday's match against Australia, winning 2-0 even as Pulisic, who was ultimately deemed unavailable before kickoff, watched his teammates from the sidelines.

The scoring started early when American striker Folarin Balogun streaked down the left side of the field and powered a pass into the penalty area, where Australian defender Cameron Burgess booted it into his net for an own goal in the 11th minute.

"I want to be dangerous. I want to create opportunities. And it might not always be myself that scores, but if I can force an error that gives us the lead, for me that's like a goal as well," Balogun said. "It was a special start to the game to give us the momentum, and then I think we carried it out."

The U.S. added a second goal when defender Alex Freeman knocked in a header just before halftime. The chippy match resulted in seven total yellow cards, three for the U.S. on defenders Antonee Robinson and Chris Richards and Balogun.

After the game, U.S. head coach Mauricio Pochettino praised his team and their approach. "We build the victory in our attitude," he said.

The win guarantees that the U.S. will advance to the knockout stage of the tournament, and it puts the Americans in the driver's seat to win Group D. That would set up the team for a more advantageous path through the knockout round, which begins Sunday, June 28.

Cristian Volpato #20 of Australia and Weston McKennie #8 of the United States battle for the ball during the team's World Cup Group D match on Friday in Seattle.

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About 90 minutes before kickoff, Pochettino told Fox that Pulisic would be unavailable due to the nagging left calf injury suffered last Friday. "It is hoped, as soon as possible, [that he] can be ready to be selected again to be part of the team," Pochettino said.

In his place, forward Ricardo Pepi made the start on the left side. For Freeman, his first career World Cup goal was the latest step in a remarkable trajectory for a 21-year-old player who made his first appearance for the U.S. national team just over a year ago. 

It was unclear whether Pulisic would be available for the third and final U.S. group stage game, a match against Turkey set for next Thursday.

Whether that game will matter depends on the outcome of Friday night's Turkey-Paraguay matchup; if Turkey draws or loses, the U.S. is guaranteed the top spot. If Turkey wins, that sets up next week's head-to-head game to determine the group winner.

Turkey, whose roster features stars like Arda Güler of Real Madrid and Kenan Yıldız of Juventus, had been considered by some analysts to be the strongest team in the group.

The U.S. victory over Australia was the second win in the group stage — the first time the American men have done that in a World Cup since 1930.
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Bernard Brown grew up going to parties all around Los Angeles. Maybe a little before he was supposed to.

“I won't say my age. I don't wanna get nobody in trouble,” he joked. “But I went to clubs like The Catch — The Catch One — and The Study on Hollywood and Western and places like that that are no longer with us.”

Brown went on to become a contemporary dancer and choreographer, and he remembers watching dancers at Black queer clubs, and the tenderness they had for each other. He told LAist that was exactly what informed his new art installation and dance performance, “Sissies: Something Perfect Between Ourselves,” at the Pieter Performance Space this Juneteenth weekend.

“ I thought a lot about how intergenerational learning was starting to slip away, and what does it mean to learn how to be a Black queer person?” Brown said. “Where are those spaces, and how did I learn how to be this way? And so making this work has been about this labor, this love, this intergenerational learning, and also community.”

What to expect

“Sissies” has two components: an installation on view Friday through Sunday, and a dance performance featuring some of L.A.’s most prominent dancers and voguers this Saturday night at 8:30 p.m.

Rosalie Tucker, director of Pieter Performance Space, said this will look a little different from other dance performances you may have been to.

“The invitation to everyone who is a guest in the show, who has bought a ticket is: Let it go,” she said. “Let yourself be in the club. React. You don't have to be quiet. This isn't a silent setting. This is not a traditional theater setting, and that is intentional.”

That’ll culminate after the performance, when the audience will also be invited to join the dancefloor.

Though the installation is this weekend only, Brown told LAist that once it's over, he hopes to find a permanent home for the archives and exhibits he’s amassed.

The inspiration behind ‘Sissies’

Of course, archival research is a big part of the work. But for Brown, who was actually there at clubs watching vogue practitioners work the dancefloor, the research process looks a little different.

Brown, who teaches dance at UC San Diego, calls the work “autoethnographic” — that is, much of what you’ll see is based on his own experiences and observations over the decades.

“ We're talking about vogue, all of the elements: hand performance, floor performance, catwalk, duckwalk,” Brown said. “All of those things appear in the work, but it's based on the truth and the authenticity of our people.”

The themes in Brown’s work resonated with Tucker, especially in this political moment.

“What we're seeing is our histories being not just erased, but violently erased, excluded and lied about,” she said. “So we really have, I think, a responsibility to the future, to ourselves, to claim the truth of, 'This is what happened then, this is what's happening now.'”

Brown’s collaborators

Los Angeles has a long history of queer Black underground clubs and events, one that continues to this day in parties and warehouses.

“ Bernard has built this with the people who are the Black underground in Los Angeles as well, so it's not just like a theoretical thing,” Tucker said.

The score for the show is by DeFacto X, who co-founded Black Bass Collective, a staple of L.A.’s warehouse scene. Co-creator and visual director Malachi Middleton will also perform in the work. Some of Brown’s dancers have shared stages with people like Beyoncé, but he said they’re all also movers and shakers in their own right.

“They are creating their own work,” Brown said. “They are making spaces where people congregate, and they're doing the Lord's work in that regard, finding their way to the movement of our queer ancestors.”

Though Brown won’t be performing in the show, he said he gets emotional when he sees younger generations go through the same movements as the voguers and other dancers he saw in clubs decades ago.

“I am filled with joy — literal joy — and sometimes tears at how beautiful it is to see Black queer men being together intimately, folding into each other, their individual kikis and lala's that happen during performance, the authenticity of their visceral connection to each other,” he said.