David Yturralde arrived at the mushroom talk in Newport Beach recently armed with a pen and paper and a host of questions. The goal, he said, was to demystify those fascinating fungi that popped up on his grass after heavy winter rain.

He’s long been interested in the mushrooms that sprout on the front lawn of his San Clemente home, but he’s always been too timid to pick any. And there’s no way he’s collecting any to taste, he said.

“Mushrooms are mysterious little things because right away your parents tell you, as a child, don’t eat that,” he said.

But after hearing about recent illnesses and fatalities related to the death cap mushroom, Amanita phalloides, in California, Yturralde and several others who gathered in the Environmental Nature Center’s conference room sought answers about which mushrooms in the area are deadly.

In the past three months, California has seen a sudden uptick in the number of people becoming sickened and dying after accidentally eating poisonous mushrooms found in the wild. While the fatalities have occurred along the Central Coast and in Northern California, the phenomenon has prompted concerns and discussions among mycological societies and amateur foragers across the Golden State.

The most recent death was reported on Jan. 27 by public health officials in Contra Costa County who confirmed a 60-year-old man died after eating wild mushrooms, bringing the total number of fungi-related fatalities to four.

Public health officials could not identify which wild mushroom caused the man’s death, said Nicola Gillette, spokesperson for Contra Costa Health. But officials said the man, who was described as being of “Hispanic descent,” died after eating wild mushrooms foraged at a regional park in the county.

“Preliminary information indicates the man may have mistaken the mushroom for a variety that is edible in his home country,” Gillette said.

The California Department of Public Health reported 39 death cap-related illnesses, including four fatalities and three liver transplants, between Nov. 18 and Jan. 18.

In a typical year, the California Poison Control Center may receive up to five cases of poisonous mushroom-related illness, according to authorities.

The last major outbreak occurred in 2016 with 14 reported cases, and while there were no deaths, three people required liver transplants and one child suffered a “permanent neurologic impairment.”

In this slew of cases, the California Department of Public Health has reported that 60% of affected individuals spoke Spanish as their primary language — other affected people speak Mixteco, Mandarin Chinese, Ukrainian, Russian and English.

The incidents that have occurred within the Latino community this year could be an anomaly, said Mike McCurdy, president of the San Francisco Mycological Society.

The society has been working closely with the state public health department to create a warning sign and fliers with a QR code leading to more information in multiple languages that can be distributed in recreational areas such as parks, nature preserves and hiking trails.

Generally, people are accidentally poisoned after they mistakenly eat a wild mushroom they thought was safe, McCurdy said.

Some situations are more nefarious. In 2025 Erin Patterson, a 51-year-old Australian woman, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering three relatives and trying to kill another by intentionally feeding them a beef Wellington that included poisonous fungi in the ingredients.

Two of the most toxic mushrooms that can be found in the state are the death cap and the western destroying angel mushroom, Amanita Ocreata. Death cap mushrooms have a dome-shaped cap that may have olive or yellowish tones, while the western destroying angel has a cream or ochre-colored cap.

At the start of Joanne Schwartz’s presentation in Newport Beach recently, the expert amateur mycologist acknowledged the number of recent deaths caused by toxic fungi.

“Guess what, these mushrooms are right here in Orange County,” Schwartz said. “You might even have one on your lawn.”

She warned the roughly 20 attendees that some edible mushrooms look like toxic ones, many grow side by side and if a person collects a mushroom species in one part of the world, there might be a deadly look-alike somewhere else.

While mushroom poisonings have been concentrated further north, word of the deaths and illnesses has trickled down to Southern California, sparking fear among those who are wary of the spongy wonders, said Rudy Diaz, president of the Los Angeles Mycological Society.

When mushroom poisonings make the headlines, people who aren’t a part of the fungi community tend to see those who are as being irresponsible or ruining habitats, he said.

On a recent hike with a friend, Diaz said he was looking at some mushrooms he found on the trail and a stranger “chided me for doing something so risky.”

“For people who have been able to redevelop that kind of spiritual connection with the land through their years of observation and study, eating things that you forage is kind of like an active communion with these environments that you love and you’ve come to know,” Diaz said.

But experts, including Diaz, say eating mushrooms isn’t a necessary part of observing, learning and appreciating them.

For those who are well versed in mushrooms in Southern California, there isn’t a sense of alarm of possible poisonings because the toxic mushrooms are a lot less conspicuous in the southern part of the state.

In Northern California, death caps are abundant in local parks, “whereas here in Southern California you have to dig through some oak litter before you tend to spot things,” Diaz said.

Still, the message from the mycology society and mycologists throughout the state is one of caution: Unless you’re familiar with your local environment, have an expert you can consult or are part of a mushroom or foraging club, you should not be eating wild mushrooms.

Mycologists use dichotomous keys to identify the species of mushroom based on its physical characteristics including the cap, stem, ring and gills.

The mistake people outside the fungi community or beginners make when identifying mushrooms is solely relying on social media, a field guide or an app like iNaturalist, said Bob Cummings, a leading mycology expert in Santa Barbara. Just comparing the mushroom to a photo isn’t enough to make an accurate species identification, he said.

Schwartz encouraged the public to be active participants in community science. Her hope, she said, is that people get engaged with mushrooms because there’s so much to learn about the more than 1,500 species in Orange County and over 3,000 types of fungi in the state.

Mushrooms, toxic or not, are OK for all to pick and observe, she said.

Yturralde came away from the weekend discussion with his mind made up.

“I’m open to learning more about mushrooms, but I’m not interested in eating anything that I find,” Yturralde said. “In other words, I learned that it’s best to only eat what’s in the [grocery store].”

BERKELEY, Calif. — Ace Buckner and RJ Godfrey each scored 13 points as No. 20 Clemson overwhelmed California 77-55 and moved into a first-place tie with No. 4 Duke in the Atlantic Coast Conference on Saturday.

The Tigers (20-4, 10-1) and Blue Devils meet in Durham, North Carolina, next Saturday. Duke (21-2, 10-1) lost 71-68 at No. 14 North Carolina on Saturday.

Clemson has won 14 consecutive ACC road games, tied for the second-longest road win streak in conference history. Duke won 24 in a row from 1998 through 2001. The Blue Devils also had a 14-game road ACC win streak (1962-64).

Jake Wahlin and Carter Welling each had 11 points for the Tigers, who went 27 for 59 (55.1%) from the floor, including 12 for 26 (46.2%) from beyond the arc.

Justin Pippen led Cal (17-7, 5-6) with a game-high 19 points.

Pippen’s 3-pointer less than five minutes into the game gave the Bears a 13-9 lead. The Tigers then put together a 23-1 spurt capped by Wahlin’s 3 that put Clemson up 32-14 with three minutes left in the half.

Dai Dai Ames scored for California on the ensuing possession, ending the Bears’ field-goal drought at nearly 13 minutes.

Clemson entered Saturday second in the ACC in fewest points allowed per game at 64.5. The Tigers led 39-20 at halftime as they held the Bears to 6 for 25 shooting in the opening half. California also committed nine turnovers in the first 20 minutes.

Cal played without center Lee Dort. He missed his fourth straight game because of a leg injury he suffered in the Bears’ 78-66 win at Stanford on Jan. 24.

Clemson: Hosts Virginia Tech on Wednesday.

Cal: Plays at Syracuse on Wednesday.

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This story has been corrected to show Wahlin and Welling each scored 11 points instead of 13.

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When a southern California city council proposed building a giant datacenter the size of four football fields last December, five residents vowed to stop it.

Through a frenetic word-of-mouth campaign, the small group raised awareness about the proposed facility in Monterey Park, a small city east of Los Angeles known affectionately as the country’s first suburban Chinatown. No Data Center Monterey Park organizers – working in tandem with the grassroots racial justice group San Gabriel Valley (SGV) Progressive Action – held a teach-in and rally that drew hundreds of participants, knocked on doors, and distributed flyers on busy streets. They emphasized how the computer systems facility would strain the power grid, drive up energy rates and create noise pollution. A petition quickly amassed nearly 5,000 signatures. All the materials were shared in English, Chinese and Spanish – a concerted effort to reach Monterey Park’s diverse populace, which is two-thirds Asian and one-quarter Hispanic.

In just six weeks, the community won. City leaders issued a 45-day moratorium on datacenter construction and a pledge to explore a permanent ban.

“It’s like the third act of an Oscar-winning movie,” said Steven Kung, a co-founder of No Data Center Monterey Park.

Over the past year, homegrown revolts against datacenters have united a fractured nation, animating local board meetings from coast to coast in both farming towns and middle-class suburbs. Local communities delayed or cancelled $98bn worth of projects from late March 2025 to June 2025, according to research from the group Data Center Watch, which has been tracking opposition to the sites since 2023. More than 50 active groups across 17 states targeted 30 projects during that time period, two-thirds of which were halted.

The movement against these facilities has even made for strange bedfellows, bringing together nimbys and environmentalists in Virginia, “Stop the Steal” activists and Democratic Socialists of America organizers in Michigan.

“There’s no safe space for datacenters,” said Miquel Vila, lead analyst at Data Center Watch, a research project run by AI security company 10a Labs. “Opposition is happening in very different communities.”

A bipartisan dislike of datacenters

Datacenters have exploded in states with abundant land, cheap power and generous tax breaks. Though the facilities power everything from streaming services to artificial intelligence, functioning as an engine for our digital lives, few people seem to want these sites that drain enormous amounts of water and energy, causing energy costs to soar. A November Morning Consult poll found that a majority of voters support banning datacenter construction near where they live and say “AI datacenters” are partly responsible for rising electricity prices.

Vila said a spike in media coverage from national outlets, particularly of protests in the north-east and midwest, had helped consolidate local campaigns against datacenters into a movement. The proliferation of the centers “has become a hot topic at a national level, which reinforces local dynamics”, Vila said.

In Indiana, a datacenter hub with more than 70 facilities, local communities are fighting another 50 projects and have halted at least a dozen in the past year, according to data from Citizens Action Coalition, an Indianapolis-based consumer and environmental advocacy non-profit.

“It’s like a revolt in the heartland,” said Bryce Gustafson, who organizes with the Citizens Action Coalition. “There’s an unbelievable amount of pushback, bipartisan and non-partisan, against these datacenters.”

The datacenter rebellion in the Republican stronghold of Indiana, he said, was built in part on a strong backlash in recent years against solar projects on farmland that many residents felt threatened the state’s rural character. The same concerns over land privatization and tech overreach carried over to the fight against datacenters, as conservatives and environmentalists joined forces to organize town halls, conduct canvassing training and file lawsuits to block developments.

“For many Hoosiers, datacenters have become a physical manifestation of their mistrust of big tech, the elected officials who have embraced them, and the system that allows all this to happen,” Gustafson said.

Local fights against AI infrastructure have even begun to turn the tide at the state and federal levels as the midterms approach. In Virginia – the datacenter capital of the world with more than 600 facilities – the newly elected governor, Abigail Spanberger, campaigned on lowering utility bills by ensuring that AI companies are paying “their fair share” of electricity costs rather than passing them on to consumers. The progressive lawmakers Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib have publicly backed calls for a datacenter moratorium. GOP leaders, including the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and Missouri senator Josh Hawley, have also introduced bills to regulate AI.

Datacenters’ fate in community hands

In Monterey Park, concerns over the proposed datacenter are primarily about its economic, environmental and public health impact. The facility would employ 14 on-site diesel generators, which researchers said produce “ambient air pollutants”, such as nitrogen oxide, that are linked to a host of respiratory illnesses, including asthma and lung cancer.

Organizer Hrag Balian said No in Data Center Monterey Park took inspiration from other communities’ organizing, including protests in Virginia and Pennsylvania that have stalled projects. “None of us had experience doing this, so seeing patterns and parallels have been tremendously helpful.”

Kung said a core tenet of the group’s organizing strategy was building coalitions with different community organizations in the greater San Gabriel Valley area, such as SGV Progressive Action, Asian Youth Center and Montebello Teachers Association. All these community groups mobilized their own members to show up and testify at the January city council meeting. “It’s a decentralized movement,” Kung said.

Andrew Yip, a community organizer with SGV Progressive Action who helped create flyers and organize rallies, said the campaign succeeded because residents were able to put aside their differences and rally around a single cause: halting a development that would affect their livelihoods.

“This is about community members rising to the occasion to look out for one another,” Yip said.

For Monterey Park organizers, the fight is far from over. Rather than gutting the proposed facility themselves, city council members are considering placing the decision before voters on the November ballot. Kung said the move would put the onus on residents to develop a “long, drawn-out awareness campaign” about datacenters for the remainder of the year. In the meantime, the organizers have continued to engage new neighbors, gather signatures for the petition, and show up at council meetings.

“We won a victory, but there’s still a lot of work to do,” Kung said.