California
'Doomsday fish' washed ashore in California, but what does that mean?
If one oarfish landing on a beach is a sign of a disaster to come, how bad will it be if three wash up in quick succession?
A silvery 10-foot-long creature, the oarfish has fueled fisherman’s tales of sea serpents — and in some cultures has been a portent of natural disasters.
It’s rare to see an oarfish up close in California; only 22 have washed ashore since 1901, according to UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. But in the last three months, three of them have surfaced on Southern California beaches.
The latest was on Nov. 6, when an oarfish was discovered at Grandview Beach by Alison Laferriere, a doctoral candidate at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The other two beached in La Jolla and Huntington Beach.
The last time a series of oarfish came ashore in California and other parts of the world was over several months in 2013 and 2014. Misty Paig-Tran, associate professor of biological science at Cal State Fullerton, studied four of them.
Every time an oarfish makes an appearance on the sand, it’s a spectacle for scientists as well as the general public for several reasons.
To start with, nobody is expecting a behemoth that’s up to 25 feet long to come so close to the California coast, said Paig-Tran.
“What’s special about them is that when they’re freshly dead or just about to die and you look at their skin, it actually [looks] like a mirror,” she said.
Its length combines with its silver skin and bright red scarlet fins to give it a mythical look.
Since the 1500s, sailors have told of sea monsters as long as their ships, and have even drafted maps that warned of areas in the ocean where such creatures resided. Their depictions appear to describe oarfish.
Oarfish generally live in the upper layers of the ocean depths, from about 300 feet to almost 3,000 feet underwater. Scientists call this section of the ocean the “twilight zone” because the fish that inhabit it are basically living in darkness with only a small glimpse of light, Paig-Tran said.
The twilight zone is too deep for divers to reach and explore, adding to the allure of this species.
If an oarfish happens to swim up to the ocean’s surface, a sailor would see a long slithering creature with spiky protrusions on its head and could believe it was a sea monster, Paig-Tran said.
It’s a jarring sight, but oarfish are anything but dangerous. Oarfish are bottom feeders, meaning they primarily feed on krill (a small shrimp-like creature) using powerful mouths shaped liked vacuum nozzles, according to Scripps.
An oarfish’s body is extremely delicate, so much so that if you pick one up it could break in half because of its jelly-like bones, Paig-Tran said.
Another factor that adds to the mystique of this creature is the lack of knowledge about its history and daily life, including how it mates, when it lays eggs, what its movement patterns are and how often it feeds.
Scientists are able to study the creatures only when they wash up on a beach.
“When a body comes up, we can do our best to look to the biology and the physiology and try to make our best guesses, but we don’t get to see it living in its natural environment,” Paig-Tran said. “It’s a completely open-ended question of what’s going on with these fishes.”
Why are dead oarfish washing ashore?
Scientists don’t know why these oarfish have died and washed ashore.
The latest oarfish spotted in Encinitas was recovered by a team of NOAA Fisheries Service and transported to Southwest Fisheries Science Center, where it will undergo an autopsy so researchers can learn more about the biology, anatomy, genomics and life history of oarfish, according to Scripps.
The deaths of the three fish that have surfaced “may have to do with changes in ocean conditions and increased numbers of oarfish off our coast,” said Ben Frable, manager of Scripps Oceanogaphy Marine Vertebrate Collection.
“Sometimes it may be linked to broader shifts, such as the El Niño and La Niña cycle, but this is not always the case,” he said.
There was a weak El Niño earlier this year, and this wash-up coincided with the recent red tide and Santa Ana winds last week. But many other factors could have played a role in these strandings, Frable added.
Another possible explanation is that the oarfish got stuck in a current and couldn’t go back down into deeper waters.
Oarfish aren’t strong swimmers. They primarily rely on their dorsal fin, whereas strong swimmers use their caudal fin or back tail, Paig-Tran said.
An oarfish that gets caught in a current and is taken up to the surface doesn’t have a good way to get back down.
“If you are a fish that lives in the deep and you got stuck on the surface, you’re kind of hosed,” she said.
Where did the “doomsday” name come from?
Oarfish have been dubbed “doomsday” fish because some cultures consider it a bad sign when they appear. The moniker is derived from a manipulation of Japanese folklore that became popular following the Fukushima disaster, Frable said.
“In the two years prior to the disaster, about a dozen oarfish washed up in Japan, most hundreds of miles away from this area.” he said.
In the aftermath of the natural disaster, people latched onto these strandings as an omen of the disaster.
This prompted researchers in Japan in 2019 to test whether oarfish and other deep-sea animal strandings were correlated with earthquakes, tsunamis and other factors.
“They found no correlation whatsoever,” Frable said. “But the name is too evocative to disappear.”
On the other hand, Paig-Tran said there could be some truth to the myth because when an earthquake happens, it releases pressure that can change a current underwater.
“When the pressure gets released, it changes the currents that [the fish are] living in, and it brings them up to the surface with this kind of big bolus of air and gasses and whatever the turbulence [is] from this earthquake,” she said.
So, are the oarfish that surfaced in Southern California a harbinger of a massive earthquake? According to Paig-Tran: probably not.
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As the nation prepares for its 250th Independence Day celebration, a decades-long California Fourth of July fireworks tradition that has raised millions for local children’s programs is going dark this year after the California Coastal Commission rejected a final effort to keep it alive, citing environmental concerns to protect the bay.
“We’ve raised over the past 14 years $2 million for kids programs here in Long Beach,” event organizer John Morris told Fox News Digital, adding the July 3 event is fully funded by the local community.
“This community pays for everything — everything. City fees, and the city doesn’t give us a break. We pay $20,000 to the city for police and fire, which I’m fine with, because there’s 100,000 people enjoying the fireworks,” said Morris, a Long Beach resident and business owner.
Morris, who owns the Boathouse on the Bay restaurant, had planned a scaled-up fireworks display this year to mark America’s 250th Independence Day.
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Long Beach residents have enjoyed the fireworks organized by John Morris for over a decade. (Scott Varley/MediaNews Group/Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images)
In January, Coastal Commission staff rejected the proposal, and last week commissioners unanimously upheld that decision despite an appeal backed by local, state and federal officials.
Regulators warned Morris last year that 2025 would likely be the final year for fireworks at the event, as they continue pushing organizers to switch to drone shows they say are more environmentally friendly.
The decision stands in contrast to other approvals by the commission, including a permit granted to SeaWorld allowing up to 40 nights of fireworks.
“They get 40 nights in Mission Bay. All I’m asking for is 20 minutes — it doesn’t make any sense,” Morris said.
Morris, 78, also pushed back on the environmental concerns cited by the commission, pointing to years of testing around the event.
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Due to the lack of fireworks, Morris has decided to cancel the July 3rd celebration.
“We’ve had 10 years of environmental studies,” Morris said. “We test the water before and after the fireworks and send a robotic camera into the bay to check for debris — there’s never been any. It’s been spotless.
“We’ve also had eight years of bird reports to make sure we’re not harming wildlife. We’ve never had an issue. We’ve never been written up one time. So what is it really about?”
Joshua Smith, a spokesman for the California Coastal Commission, told Fox News Digital that permits are determined on a case-by-case basis, citing environmental concerns to “protect the bay.”
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Organizer John Morris said environmental studies are regularly conducted to measure the impact of the fireworks show on the bay. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Smith said Morris was approved for a permit to hold a drone show in lieu of fireworks. Morris told Fox News Digital such a show would cost about $200,000 — roughly four times more than traditional fireworks.
Smith confirmed that SeaWorld received a permit allowing 40 nights of fireworks. When pressed on the discrepancy, he reiterated that decisions are made individually and declined to provide further details.
Morris said the loss of the fireworks show will be felt across the community, from local businesses to families who have made the event an annual tradition.
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.
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