California
A new plan seeks to protect California’s coast against a rising ocean. And it doesn’t require sea walls.
Recent raging winter storms have caved in streets, wrecked piers, collapsed homes and apartment buildings, and submerged property up and down California’s coastline.
Now, as sea levels continue to rise from climate change, scientists are working on a real-world experiment that could help reduce the impacts.
At a 247-acre property near the Santa Cruz-Monterey county line, crews are planning to protect against flooding — not by trying to hold back the ocean by building bigger sea walls — but by converting flood-prone farmland into tidal wetlands. During big storms and high tides, this allows ocean waters to move inland in an orderly way instead of threatening homes and other property.
In other words, working with nature, as opposed to trying to battle the ocean’s relentless forward march.
“It’s a demonstration,” said Sarah Newkirk, executive director of the Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, which is overseeing the project. “What we are doing here is applicable to other places in California, the Gulf of Mexico, and other parts of the country.”
On Wednesday, Newkirk’s non-profit environmental group closed a $13.4 million deal to buy the property, known as Beach Ranch. The bucolic farmland sits at the mouth of the Pajaro River near the crashing waves of Monterey Bay, and has flooded multiple of times over the past few generations, most recently this January, and during the previous winter.
A sprawling expanse the size of 187 football fields and covered with neat rows of lettuce, beets, broccoli and other produce, the landscape had been owned for generations by local farming families, including some with connections to major operations, such as Ocean Mist Farms, a Castroville company that is the largest artichoke grower in North America.
The land trust received funding from two state agencies, the California Coastal Conservancy and the Wildlife Conservation Board. It also raised money from Driscoll’s, a major Watsonville strawberry grower. Last month, the project received a $6 million grant from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The plan is to convert 65 flood-prone acres and the lowest quality farmland to tidal marshland similar to what existed a century or more ago, while leaving farming on the rest. Scientists from the land trust, the Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and other agencies plan to move back existing inadequate dirt levees, build tidal gates, or use other methods.
By creating wetlands, the project aims to create a buffer where flood waters can move in and settle, losing their energy, protecting other nearby farmland and property like Pajaro Dunes, a collection of adjacent oceanfront homes and condominiums.
It also will create a new estuary for birds, fish and other wildlife to help make up for oceanfront wetlands that are expected to be submerged in the coming decades.
“When it rains it gets pretty soggy out here,” Newkirk said during a recent visit. “We are trying to buy and protect habitat where it is going to be. Like Wayne Gretzky said: ‘skate to where the puck is going to be.’”
The threat of sea level rise is growing.
The 10 hottest years on Earth since modern records began in 1850 all have occurred since 2014, according to NOAA and NASA. The warming climate has caused ocean levels to rise as glaciers and polar ice sheets melt and warming seawater expands. San Francisco Bay and the ocean along California’s coast have risen 8 inches since the mid-1800s.
Recent studies by the U.S. Geological Survey and other scientific organizations estimate that the Pacific Ocean on the West Coast will rise another 1 to 2 feet by 2050 and 4 feet or more by 2100, depending on the amount of greenhouse gasses released into the atmosphere in the coming years.
“This is the biggest dilemma human civilization has had to face,” said Gary Griggs, a distinguished professor of Earth Sciences at UC Santa Cruz, in an interview earlier this year. “Many of the biggest cities in the world are at sea level. Our options are very few. We have to face it. There is absolutely nothing we can do over the long term to hold back the Pacific Ocean.”
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Between $8 billion to $10 billion of existing coastal property in California is likely to be underwater by 2050, with an additional $6 billion to $10 billion at risk during high tides, according to a report in 2020 from the state Legislative Analyst’s Office.
In some cases, homes and other oceanfront buildings can be raised. Natural solutions, like offshore reefs, or jetties that stop sand from drifting down the coast, or sand replenishment, can help save beaches, but the sand often washes away in big storms. That leaves sea walls. But those are controversial, because they can cause public beaches to erode. The other option is “managed retreat,” the idea of letting the ocean move inland.
That is very controversial, however, when it involves property with existing homes and businesses, but less so for undeveloped land, like farmland that’s common along the coast, including along San Francisco Bay’s delta.
“This project is very forward thinking,” said Jess Brown, executive director of the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau. “There’s a cost of farming in areas that are getting flooded. If they can alleviate that, it’s a better solution.”
The land trust will continue to rent the rest of the property to tenant farmers. But there are challenges. Coastal California farmland is expensive. And politics and land use rules vary around the country.
“There are lessons to be learned in this example,” said Noah Diffenbaugh, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University. “Can it be scaled? In many ways this is where the rubber meets the road in terms of responding and adapting to climate change.”
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In the wide-open race for California governor, billionaire Tom Steyer is on a spending binge.
The hedge fund manager-turned-liberal activist is using his personal fortune to saturate TV screens and mobile phones with advertising, while his competitors accuse him of trying to use his vast wealth to buy the state’s most powerful job.
Steyer’s ads — in which he promises to bring down household costs or rails against federal immigration raids — appear inescapable at times in heavily Democratic Los Angeles, the state’s largest media market. Data compiled by advertising tracker AdImpact show Steyer has spent or booked over $115 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio — nearly 30 times the amount of his nearest Democratic rival.
If he makes it through the June 2 primary election, Steyer could easily eclipse the 2010 record set by Republican Meg Whitman, who spent $178.5 million in a losing bid for governor, much of it her own money. At the time, it was the costliest campaign for statewide office in the nation’s history.
Even when ad buys from all his major competitors are combined, along with ad purchases by independent committees supporting candidates, Steyer is outspending the field by tens of millions of dollars.
“Billionaire money is flooding our state in an attempt to buy this election,” former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, one of Steyer’s chief rivals, warned her supporters this month.
Mail-in ballots are set to go out to voters next month. Steyer is among a crowd of candidates hoping to seize a spotlight after former Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s dramatic departure from the race following sexual assault allegations that he denies.
But while Steyer has ticked up in polling amid his spending splurge, he has not broken away from the field, leaving some wondering if he’s getting value for his dollars.
“If your first round of ads doesn’t move you dramatically (in the polls), the third, fourth, fifth, six, seventh and eighth rounds won’t either,” said veteran Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, who for years advised the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. “There is something inherently holding Steyer back.”
In recent prior campaigns for governor, at this stage a leading candidate was taking control of the race. This year, voters appear to be shrugging at a contest that lacks a star candidate among seven leading Democrats and two Republicans.
“Somehow the campaign is frozen,” Carrick added.
History shows that money doesn’t always translate into votes.
Billionaire developer Rick Caruso spent over $100 million in 2022 in his bid to become Los Angeles mayor, much of it his own money, but he was handily defeated by Mayor Karen Bass, who spent a fraction of Caruso’s total. Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion of his own money on his 2020 presidential bid before dropping out. And Steyer’s money was unable to lift him into contention in the 2020 presidential contest, when he dropped out early in the year after a poor finish in the South Carolina primary.
Steyer has never held elected office.
In a 2019 interview with The Associated Press, Steyer was asked what he would say to people who think he’s trying to buy the presidency.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Steyer said at the time, before adding, “I’m never going to apologize for succeeding in business. That’s America, right?”
His campaign did not respond directly when asked about similar criticism facing his run for governor.
“Tom now stands as the only Democrat with the grassroots energy, institutional backing and resources to advance to the general election,” spokesperson Kevin Liao said in a statement.
The governor’s race was recently reordered by two developments: Swalwell, a leading Democrat, abruptly withdrew from the race then resigned from Congress, following sexual assault allegations. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump endorsed conservative commentator Steve Hilton.
Still, there is no clear leader.
Polling in late March and early April by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found a cluster of candidates in close competition: Democrats Steyer and Porter, Republicans Hilton and Chad Bianco, and Swalwell. Other candidates were trailing. The polling was conducted before Swalwell withdrew.
Democrats have feared the party’s large number of candidates could lead to them getting shut out of the general election in November. That’s because California has a primary system in which only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party.
Leading Democrats are all claiming to have picked up support since Swalwell’s exit. Steyer nabbed one plum endorsement, when the influential California Teachers Association, which previously backed Swalwell, recommended him.
In his ads, Steyer promises to “abolish” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been staging raids across California. In another, he laments the state’s punishing cost of housing, “Everybody needs an affordable place to live,” he says.
Rapper was stabbed 16 times by fellow inmate in May 2025 while 10-year sentence in Megan Thee Stallion shooting case
Tory Lanez has filed a $100 million lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections stemming from a May 2025 incident where the rapper was stabbed in prison.
Lanez — born Daystar Peterson and currently serving a 10-year sentence after being found guilty in the Megan Thee Stallion shooting case — also sued the warden and guards at the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, where the rapper was stabbed 16 times in an “unprovoked life-threatening attack” by another inmate, the lawsuit states.
Peterson was hospitalized following the May 2025 incident, suffering a collapsed lung among stab wounds to his back, torso, and head.
According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit criticized the Department of Corrections for housing Peterson with fellow inmate and alleged attacker Santino Casio, who was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. “The choice to house Casio with Peterson was known or should have been a known danger,” the lawsuit said, adding that Tory Lanez’ “high-profile celebrity status” made him a target.
The lawsuit also said that prison guards were slow to respond to the shanking, and didn’t employ flash grenades or other measures to halt Casio’s attack.; Casio was not charged for stabbing Peterson, the Associated Press notes.
Lanez, who following his hospitalization was transferred to San Luis Obispo County’s California Men’s Colony, also alleges in the lawsuit that he never received his possessions from the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, including songbooks filled with lyrics to his unreleased music.
Lanez is serving a 10-year prison sentence for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot during a confrontation in the summer of 2020. He was eventually convicted on several firearms charges, including assault with a firearm, in December 2022. In November 2025, his appeal was denied by a three-judge panel, and the 10-year sentence was upheld.
From one crackdown on hospice fraud to another.
A few weeks ago, the FBI arrested multiple people in Southern California that were accused of defrauding the government for millions of dollars.
In a more recent announcement last Thursday, California’s State Attorney General Rob Bonta held a press conference to announce a fraud bust of their own.
“Operation Skip Trace uncovered and ended a hospice fraud scheme that defrauded Medi-Cal of $267 million,” Bonta said. “So just to be clear, a quarter billion dollars over funds that are paid for by California taxpayers, funds that are meant to provide care to Californians in need. It is unacceptable. It is illegal and we will not stand for it.”
The operation saw a total of 21 suspects charged as a result and dismantled a major hospice fraud scheme, with two handguns and over $750 thousand in cash seized as well.
According to the state’s attorney general, this is just one of the many cases over the years the state has cracked down on.
“This is just the latest example of the California DOJ’s longstanding ongoing and successful efforts to combat hospice and medical fraud,” Bonta said. “We have been doing this work for years. We’ve been doing it successfully before certain people in this country decided to think about it for the first time. We will continue to do this work. Heads down, sleeves rolled up, important investigative work, prosecutorial work.”
He added to that by taking a shot at the Trump Administration’s latest fraud operations.
“While healthcare fraud might be President Trump’s shiny new political talking point, the California DOJ has been going after healthcare fraud since 1979,” Bonta said. “For decades, Trump is late to the party. Protecting taxpayer dollars and protecting programs sick and vulnerable Californians rely on have been our priority for nearly five decades.”
Governor Gavin Newsom also spoke out about this latest crackdown while taking a shot of his own at President Trump.
In a post to “X” the Governor’s Press Office wrote in part quote…
“California has been cracking down on hospice fraud long before Trump gutted oversight and pardoned the architect of the biggest health care fraud scheme in U.S. history.”
State Republicans have responded to this latest announcement from Attorney General Bonta, calling for a special session to demand accountability from the Governor on widespread fraud.
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