The Brief

Social media videos last week showed fireworms trailing aqua green lights and bright blue waves crashing in the waters off Newport Beach.

How to catch a glimpse of the fireworms

The tiny, half-inch long glowing fireworm, known scientifically as Odontosyllis phosphorea, lives on the seafloor. They’re usually found in the south Pacific Ocean or in the Caribbean. Dimitri Deheyn, a research scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, said they come to the surface to release eggs depending on the moon cycle, with the fertilization process usually happening during tides just after the quarter moon. They tend to rise to the surface around 45 minutes after sunset.

“The female swims in the water column and releases a puff of mucus that glows, like you see in the pictures, and in which you have eggs,” Deheyn said. Once the males catch sight of the glow, the make their way toward the eggs and hope for fertilization.

“They need to have warm water, but also still water so it has to be in an enclosed bay or on a shore where there is not too much wind,” he said.

Are the fireworms here to stay?

While the creature is not typically seen along the Southern California coastline, Deheyn said rising ocean temperatures could mean they’ll become a feature in our waters.

Fireworms, which are harmless to humans, are a rarity in Southern California, but Dehyn said due to global warming, “we probably will see more and more of those during the summertime.”

“If you are swimming and you see it in the water, don't freak out,” he said. They will not irritate human skin as the glowing mucus is “totally organic.”

Another glowing phenomenon returns

Bioluminescent waves, the color of Windex or a Blue Raspberry Slurpee, also returned to Newport Beach last week. Caused by a species of plankton called dinoflagellates which swim in clusters causing a red tide, they emit glittering flashes of light when they're disturbed.

Back in January when the waves last made an appearance, we spoke to Peter Nguyen, a resident of Costa Mesa. He keeps an eye out for the glowing waves and said to pick a very dark spot on the shoreline, and plan to be there awhile. But once the bioluminescent waves appear, they tend to come in 20 to 30 minute intervals.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Campaign donations are both a measure of popular support and a sign of which candidates special interests believe they can influence. CalMatters analyzed campaign finance data in the California governor’s race. Here are five takeaways on where the money is coming from and where it’s going.

Outside money is shattering records

It’s a record-breaking election when it comes to spending by corporations and special interest groups trying to influence who becomes the next governor.

Outside groups, which unlike candidates can receive unlimited donations, reported spending $79 million so far — more than double the amount spent through the November 2018 general election when Gavin Newsom won his first term.

Billionaire Tom Steyer is the biggest target: A political spending committee called California Is Not For Sale, funded by the state Realtors association, the California Chamber of Commerce, Pacific Gas & Electric and the state’s electrical workers’ union poured $32 million into ads opposing him.

Steyer has vowed to lower electricity bills by challenging PG&E’s monopoly in much of Northern California. He’s also promised to pursue a ballot measure that would raise revenue for public services by requiring more accurate property tax assessments on business properties, a move that could upend the commercial real estate market.

Some of the same groups spending against Steyer are running ads for Xavier Becerra. Those groups — along with organizations representing doctors, contractors and several labor unions — have spent $13 million through PACs to boost Becerra.

Chevron, McDonald’s, dialysis giant DaVita and one of the state’s largest oil drillers, California Resources Corp., are funding one of the largest pro-Becerra groups, with each of them contributing $500,000. Meta and AirBnB chipped in about $1 million each and health insurance corporation Centene, which runs California-based HealthNet, put in $100,000.

Steyer is reveling in the spending against him, pointing to it as proof he’d stand up to utilities and big business. A climate activist, Steyer has highlighted Becerra’s support from Chevron.

The progressive unions California Nurses Association and United Domestic Workers have spent a comparatively modest $1.4 million on mailers and digital media boosting Steyer. Outside groups have also spent $1.8 million opposing Republican frontrunner Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host and British political strategist.

Mahan fizzles out

The second-highest outside spending went to boost Mahan, the San Jose mayor and moderate Democrat who entered the race late to much fanfare from Silicon Valley.

California’s tech billionaires urged Mahan to run and backed him with millions in donations and two independent spending committees. They were enamored with his platform of government efficiency and opposition to new taxes — positions that would shield them from the Legislature’s push to regulate tech and raise taxes on the wealthy.

Donors included venture capitalists Michael Moritz and Brian Singerman, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu, Intuit founder Scott Cook, Google co-founder Sergey Brin and Los Angeles developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso.

The committees spent nearly $22 million on ads supporting Mahan, significantly more than the $9 million his campaign has spent. But the money wasn’t enough to overcome his significant disadvantage in name recognition as the first-term mayor of a city that doesn’t get much attention. Strategists told the committees’ backers they needed at least $45 million to make a difference.

One of the PACs, California Back to Basics, last week returned $1 million from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings; Hastings cryptically posted on X that he hadn’t asked for the money back. The refund was an acknowledgement that the committee hadn’t succeeded in raking in a final $10 to $15 million the billionaire backers hoped to raise in the last weeks of the campaign, committee spokesperson Matt Rodriguez said.

Steyer spending breaking its own records

Yet despite his opponents’ deep-pocketed donors, no one has matched the $213 million Steyer has spent on his own campaign, allowing him to blanket the airwaves with ads, pay influencers to post videos with him and send billboard trucks to drive around gas stations highlighting Becerra’s Chevron support.

That makes his the most expensive primary campaign in California gubernatorial history, exceeding that of former eBay executive Meg Whitman, a Republican who spent about $94 million in the June 2010 primary — about $142 million in today’s dollars — spending tens of millions more before losing to Jerry Brown in the general election.

California gubernatorial candidates during a debate hosted by CBS Bay Area and the San Francisco Examiner in San Francisco on May 14, 2026.

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Godofredo A. Vásquez

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AP Photo/Pool

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Swalwell donors flocked to Becerra

DaVita, the California Medical Association and the California Professional Firefighters Association all supported former Rep. Eric Swalwell’s gubernatorial bid before he dropped out over sexual assault allegations.

They were among the biggest Swalwell backers to quickly switch to Becerra, who has enjoyed surging support from social media and the Democratic establishment.

Small donors made a similar leap. The CalMatters analysis found that after Swalwell dropped out, more than 500 of his campaign donors went on to contribute to Becerra’s campaign. No other candidate received that much support from former Swalwell donors.

Swalwell, who has also since resigned from Congress, continues to use his gubernatorial campaign to pay more than $313,000 to attorney Sara Azari, who is defending him against the allegations. He has also refunded about $250,000 to nearly 50 donors.

Republican Steve Hilton had the most donors

The Republican frontrunner amassed the highest number of campaign donors in the race: more than 20,000. Nearly a quarter of them live outside California.

The former Fox News host seeks to slash state environmental regulations, build housing on undeveloped suburban land and cut income taxes for the middle class. He received a slight uptick in donations after President Donald Trump endorsed him on April 6.

Katie Porter, the Democratic former congressmember from Orange County and consumer protection attorney, had the second-highest number of donors, with more than 15,000.

She also has the highest share of donors outside California, reflecting her relative national fame from her headline-grabbing time grilling corporate CEOs in Congress.

But fundraising stalled for the onetime progressive darling, who touts her reliance on grassroots donors and refusal to take corporate contributions. From April 18 through May 19 she brought in less money than Mahan.

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

County leaders this summer may take up a vote to add a seat exclusively for Long Beach on the Los Angeles County Metro’s Board of Directors, the agency that oversees the nation’s second-largest transit system.

In a letter to a board committee on Tuesday, County Supervisor Janice Hahn, whose district includes Long Beach, argued that many of the county’s 88 cities are underrepresented on the agency’s board, leading to planning and funding decisions that favor the city of Los Angeles at the expense of farther-flung municipalities.

“We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape a Metro Board that better represents the diversity of our vast county as well as the needs of people who regularly rely on Metro,” Hahn said. “Long Beach is the second-biggest city in L.A. County and a regional powerhouse. It’s time that its almost half a million residents had a dedicated, permanent voice on this Board, and I’m hoping that my colleagues on the Ad Hoc Board Composition Committee agree.”

Hahn also recommended adding a board seat for someone who rides the train regularly, as well as allowing board members to designate alternate members who can vote in their absence.

The board currently has 13 members who vote on contracts worth billions of dollars for construction, trains, computers and all the other hardware needed for a transit system to send riders from the coast to the Inland Empire.

Members include all five county supervisors, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and three seats she appoints. The remaining four seats are shared by 87 cities divided into four geographic areas: North County and San Fernando Valley, San Gabriel Valley, Southeast County and Long Beach, and Southwest Corridor.

Long Beach shares the Southeast sector with 26 other cities, even though it accounts for a quarter of the sector’s weighted voting power — given its population of more than 462,000 — which gives it an incredible sway in who is elected to the seat.

The sector selects its leadership through an L.A. County City Selection Committee, which consists of 26 city representatives, who cast votes based on their population. Long Beach has 46 of the 164 total votes.

Breaking off Long Beach into its own seat would serve a dual purpose, Hahn said, of giving not only Long Beach better representation but also a better chance for the smaller cities to vie for the seat.

Several organizations expressed support for the new seat, including representatives from the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, the city of Long Beach, the Downtown Long Beach Alliance, Congressman Robert Garcia and Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson.

This comes as Richardson was appointed to the seat on Tuesday, filling a vacancy left behind by outgoing Whittier City Councilman Fernando Dutra. Richardson is expected to join the MTA board officially in July.

Talks to overhaul Metro’s leadership run parallel to other governance changes seen across Los Angeles County, which began with the voter-approved Measure G in 2024 to create an elected County CEO in 2028 and grow to a nine-member Board of Supervisors in 2032.

Given their schedule, the Metro Board could take the matter to a vote as early as July, though Hahn’s office says it may take time to iron out the details of the seat and how to handle its appointment process.

It reinvigorates a 2016 effort by then state Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, who tried to shake up leadership by lowering the board to two supervisor seats while adding eight members to the 14-member board, including representatives from Long Beach and other cities across the Southland.

The bill was ultimately shelved by state legislators and even opposed by members of the County Board of Supervisors at the time.

The story first appeared on LA Local.

A week after an underground pipeline near East Cesar E. Chavez and North Eastern avenues was punctured, questions remain about who was responsible.

Officials said early reports indicated a boring crew conducting directional drilling for a fiber optic line struck the 16-inch petroleum pipeline, which sent an estimated 2,400 gallons of crude oil onto nearby streets and into storm drains and the Los Angeles River. Streets in the area reopened Thursday after days of closures that disrupted nearby residents, businesses and schools, though more soil remediation remains ahead.

Spill report updates from the California Office of Emergency Services indicate that the reported cause of the spill was a “human error.”

Here’s what we know about the companies involved:

Who operated the pipeline?

The pipeline is operated by Pacific Pipeline System, which since 2006 has been owned by Plains All American Pipeline.

Who was drilling?

In the hours after the spill, Boyle Heights Beat reporters witnessed a truck labeled Camarillo Drilling Inc. A Camarillo Drilling representative told the Beat they were seeking counsel and could not confirm if they were working at the site.

A February 2026 report from the state Department of Water Resources notes that Camarillo Drilling Company, in April 2020, punctured the Santa Ana Pipeline in Riverside “while performing directional and horizontal boring during installation of an underground communications cable.”

The Department of Water Resources (DWR) filed a complaint against Camarillo Drilling in Riverside County Superior Court in April 2022, seeking damages of about $1.2 million to cover pipeline repair expenses and DWR staffing costs, according to the report. 

Why were they drilling?

NBC4 reported that HP Communications was behind the drilling of the fiber optic line. A representative with HP Communications told the Beat they could not comment or confirm that they were working at the site. 

HP Communications is one of the companies awarded a contract for the Broadband for All plan, a $6 billion state and federal investment to close the digital divide. 

The plan involves building a network of high-capacity fiber lines that carry large amounts of data at high speeds over long distances, according to LAist. About 10,000 miles of fiber optic cable is being installed throughout California, including more than 500 miles in Los Angeles County. The state owns and manages the system.

Another company that was awarded a contract for the plan is Arcadian Infracom, which in 2023, held a groundbreaking event in Boyle Heights for the California portion of its L.A. to Phoenix fiber route, LAist reported in 2024.

The project will help serve residents in East L.A. and extend to communities in Barstow and Needles (The route totals 306 miles, but only 40 are within L.A. County limits).

What remains unknown?

It’s not clear if the drilling that led to the pipeline rupture is linked to the Broadband for All effort. Arcadian Infracom has not returned a request for comment regarding any potential involvement with the pipeline puncture. 

The California Department of Technology did not respond to Boyle Heights Beat’s questions in time for publication.

Pacific Pipeline System (PPS) has also not responded to questions regarding the third-party companies involved. 

A state investigation into how the pipe was struck remains ongoing. Supervisor Hilda Solis on Thursday said she’d work with the Board of Supervisors to ensure “every responsible party is held accountable and advancing stronger protections for impacted residents, communities, and small businesses.”

How to file a claim

Claims of damage believed to be caused by the spill can be submitted to PPS by calling (877) 817-5465. Callers will be prompted to leave their name and contact information in a voicemail for a representative to return the call.

According to the pipeline operator, some examples of claims that may be considered include: 

• Property damage
• Business interruption or loss of access
• Cleanup or remediation expenses
• Equipment, vehicle or inventory damage
• Other documented costs directly related to the incident

PPS will request contact information and a description of the claimed damages. The timeline for any potential compensation depends on the urgency of the claim, according to the spokesperson.

How to report air quality concerns

To report excessive odors, smoke, dust and other air contaminants, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice advises residents to contact the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) by calling (800) CUT SMOG or (800) 288-7664. 

Residents can also access South Coast AQMD’s online complaint system by clicking here. 

To report health concerns related to odors, residents can also contact the L.A. County Department of Public Health by calling (626) 430-9821 or by emailing DPH-OEJCH@ph.lacounty.gov.