In a pop era where personal messiness is the oxygen of fame, Dua Lipa is the rare unfazed professional.
Just as Taylor Swift and Charli XCX’s (extremely asymmetrical) feud spilled over the Hot 100 trenches, in comes Lipa’s Radical Optimism tour for four nights at the Forum to reassert that it is, in fact, possible to spin off hits while leaving one’s personal life unscathed.
On Saturday at the opening night of her Forum stand, Lipa — herself a British-Albanian-Kosovar atelier of sophisticated, structurally flawless disco-pop — played for nearly three hours with nary a sweat broken. The club hits pulsed, her dancing was evocative and precise, and the set was again punctuated with a locally-sourced cover from each city she performs in; this time “The Chain” from Fleetwood Mac. (Other recent installments included “Me Gustas Tú” by Manu Chao, AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” and “Dernière Danse” by Indila.)
Dua Lipa takes her Radical Optimism tour to the Forum over the weekend.
(Madison Phipps)
This tour in particular feels like the moment when Lipa is opting out of the rise-and-crash fame cycle and into becoming more of an album artist and deeply considered live act. The hazy disco-rock of “Radical Optimism” (produced with tastemakers Kevin Parker, Andrew Wyatt and Danny L Harle, among others) hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200, her best album debut yet. But it didn’t yield era-defining singles like the pandemic lifesaver “Future Nostalgia” did.
That’s a tough act for anyone to follow up; she should have been on the NHS payroll for the good that “Don’t Start Now,” “Levitating” and “Physical” did in keeping spirits up in 2020. Her last U.S. top-10 single was 2023’s “Barbie”-soundtrack cut “Dance the Night,” and “Houdini” peaked at 11. Yet this tour sold out four nights in L.A. and is unquestionably the most creative, rigorous and musicianship-driven tour of her career.
With a sprawling live band and big moments of unvarnished vocal candor, this was pop at its highest caliber, but with an eye toward long-term durability and integrity. During the set, Lipa took at least two passes around to the front rows, pressing the flesh and taking selfies with gobsmacked tweenage fans. No algorithm will match that for an impact.
From the opening calisthenics of “Training Season” and “Break My Heart,” Lipa ripped through a quiver of deep-house and neo-disco staples to fuel Pride parties for the rest of her life. Those early memes about her terminal chillness must have lighted a fire under her: Lipa’s revamped as one of the top-tier dancers and physical performers of her era, while never shortchanging that smoky ‘90s house-diva vocal power. No singer deserves a Pilates Reformer endorsement deal more.
Dua Lipa makes a stand at the Forum on Saturday night.
(Madison Phipps)
On the poignant breakup-in-waiting ballad “These Walls,” the stiff-upper-lip rock bombast of “Happy For You” and her pass through “The Chain,” she made the case that her range extends well beyond the fizzy, watchgear-precise electropop she’s best known for. On record, “Anything For Love” gets a knowing wink with in-studio jibing between Lipa and her producers; here she played it straight as a lofty piano ballad for the back seats on a floating riser.
But there’s something just so effortless about her Majorca-primed house singles like “Maria,” which feel ready to slip into magic hour rooftop DJ sets for time immemorial. There are other singers to turn to when you’re emotionally ransacked; Dua gets the best nights of your life instead.
Encoring with the still-freaky, deliciously disciplinarian “New Rules” and the laser-cut banger “Houdini,” Lipa walked off the Forum stage with all the proof she needed that, by aligning with a fervent literary life, unwavering peace advocacy and an expanding palette of meticulously groovy songwriting, she’s in an enviable position for a long and meaningful career to come. Let the woman vacation in peace.
Sept. 26 (UPI) — After the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, President Donald Trump said that more indictments are coming.
As he left the White House to head to the Ryder Cup in New York, he was asked by reporters who would be next on his list.
“It’s not a list, but I think there will be others. They’re corrupt. These were corrupt, radical-left Democrats,” The Hill reported Trump said.
“They weaponized the Justice Department like nobody in history. What they’ve done is terrible. And so I hope — frankly, I hope there are others. Because you can’t let this happen to a country.”
Trump added that the Comey indictment wasn’t about revenge.
“It’s about justice. … It’s also about the fact that you can’t let this go on. They are sick, radical-left people, and they can’t get away with it,” Trump said. “And Comey was one of the people. He wasn’t the biggest. But he was a dirty cop.”
A U.S. District Court of Eastern Virginia grand jury indicted Comey on Thursday with one count each of making a false statement and obstruction. The indictment was based on oral testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in September 2020.
The indictment did not elaborate, but the charges seem to stem from when Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, asked Comey if he had allowed his deputy to speak with a reporter about an investigation into Trump.
Comey told Cruz that he didn’t.
Comey, a Republican, said after the indictment that he understood there was a price for standing up to Trump.
“We will not live on our knees,” he said. “And you shouldn’t either.”
Besides Comey, some people Trump has mentioned who should be prosecuted are New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff and former President Barack Obama.
It’s not easy being from California, especially if you’re hoping to leave the Golden State’s fires and rising home costs behind and move to a more affordable red state.
In Texas, some politicians have adopted “Don’t California my Texas” as both a rallying cry and a fundraising appeal.
In Montana, rising home prices prompted lawmakers to pass a package of bills this year that increased property taxes on people — including many Californians — who own second homes in the state.
And now, in Oklahoma, education officials have entered the fray by requiring teachers from California and New York to take an exam aimed at guarding against “radical leftist ideology.”
The test is being developed by leadership from the Oklahoma State Department of Education and PragerU, a nonprofit advocacy group that produces videos promoting conservative views of history, finance and other topics. PragerU videos have already been approved for use in schools in several states, including Oklahoma.
“Our teacher qualification test is very simple,” PragerU CEO Marissa Streit said in a statement to The Times. “Frankly, every American should be able to pass it. Certainly, every teacher should be able to pass it.”
She added that the full test will be available in the coming weeks. “We encourage you to take a look at the test yourself and make your own decision on whether it’s reasonable or not,” she said.
Superintendent Ryan Walters poses for a portrait in his office.
(Nick Oxford)
Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s state superintendent of public instruction, told The Times that he launched the test out of concern over state standards in California and New York that require teachers to instruct students about gender identity.
The test comes at a time when Californians are increasingly relocating to other states in search of a slower pace of life and more affordable housing. Some cities seeking to reverse years-long population declines have created incentive programs to attract remote workers.
Tulsa Remote, which pays workers $10,000 to move to the second-largest city in the Sooner State, has attracted more than 3,600 remote workers since its inception in 2019. More than 7,800 Californians have applied to the program and 539 have made the move, cementing California as the second-most common origin state behind Texas.
Amid a nationwide teacher shortage, the Oklahoma schools system has launched a $50,000 signing bonus program — the largest in the country — to help recruit new educators for some of the most difficult to fill jobs, including early elementary and special education instruction.
The so-called “Californian exodus” accelerated during the pandemic, with places like Texas, Florida and Tennessee seeing major influxes from the West.
But by 2024, the exodus had ended, according to state data. The state’s population rose slightly in 2024 after three years of decline.
A Public Policy Institute of California survey in March found that many Californians who leave are either favoring nearby states such as Arizona, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; larger states such as Texas; or locations without income taxes — not necessarily Oklahoma.
And the emigration of Californians to other states has done little to shift political demographics in their new homes, according to Eric McGhee, a policy director and senior fellow with the Public Policy Institute of California.
“The partisan balance of people moving to different states tends to be an exaggerated version of the partisan balance of the state they’re moving to,” he said. “So states that are more Republican tend to have migrants from California who are even more Republican than people in the state they’re moving to.”
The number of teachers that would be mandated to take the test in Oklahoma is unclear, but some data indicates that it might be small.
Information from the Commission for Educational Quality and Accountability — which oversees the education department and reviews out-of-state certification assessments for comparability with Oklahoma’s testing standards — shows that since 2020, the agency has reviewed only 19 out-of-state applications from California and New York. In 2025, only one applicant came from California, and none from New York.
Critics say the exam will discourage educators from accepting jobs in Oklahoma, which has been struggling with a teacher shortage and continues to lag behind the national average in reading and math, according to national data.
“This MAGA loyalty test will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said.
“[Walters’] priority should be educating students, but instead, it’s getting Donald Trump and other MAGA politicians to notice him,” she said. “Teachers are patriots, and whether they are conservative or liberal, they want what students need: safe and welcoming public schools that are engaging and relevant and that prepare kids for college, career and life.”
Dennis Prager, founder of PragerU, in 2024 in Los Angeles. A test for new teachers in Oklahoma is being developed by leadership from the State Department of Education and PragerU.
(Araya Doheny / Getty Images for DailyWire+)
Experts say the creation of a test where teachers are forced to adhere to a certain viewpoint to get a job is unprecedented in the American education system. It also highlights the growing foothold PragerU has on the education system in certain states, said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.
“What they’re doing is they’re making Prager into a central player in the operation by vetting teachers based on their affinity for what Prager believes,” Zimmerman said. “I think the other thing that’s unprecedented, frankly, is the involvement of the White House in all of this.”
In January, Trump signed an executive order titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” which sought to cease funding any schools that teach gender ideology or curriculum that portrays the United States as “fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory.” The order emphasizes the need for a “patriotic education.”
“I don’t think we’ve ever seen the White House engaging directly in these sorts of questions,” Zimmerman said.
“Historically, in the United States, school has been a state and especially a local concern and it still is,” he added. “The bulk of money for schools comes from states and localities, but I think something’s really different about our moment in the way these issues have become nationalized.”
With respect to California and New York educators, Walters has taken issue with the “gender fluidity argument,” which details that a person’s gender identity is not fixed and can shift or change over time, which he says is a “lie that they continue to push.”
The California Healthy Youth Act, which took effect in 2016, requires that districts provide comprehensive sexual health and HIV prevention education for students in grades 7 through 12 in public schools. The lessons, which parents can opt to take their children out of, include discussions of gender and sexual orientation.
Oklahoma public schools are not required to teach sex education, including gender. In 2021, the state passed a bill, HB 1775, that restricts the teaching of certain concepts related to race and gender in public schools and universities. The ACLU filed a lawsuit challenging what they called “unconstitutional censorship” in schools. That case is ongoing.
New York and California were “the first states that we’ve seen that are actually requiring their teachers to do things that are antithetical to our standards,” Walters said, adding that the test’s goal is to ensure they’ll teach to Oklahoma state standards. Walters is also looking at requiring the test for teachers from other states including Massachusetts, Maine and Minnesota.
Still, the notion that waves of Californians moving to other states are changing the political leanings on a large scale of their destinations isn’t borne out in the research.
The 50 question multiple choice exam, which is expected to be rolled out in the next few weeks, will include questions about gender, civics and American history. A preview of the exam released by the department of education included the question: Why is freedom of religion important to America’s identity?
Teachers must answer all 50 questions correctly to pass the test, Walters said, noting that the state is proud to be focusing on creating good citizens and being “unapologetic about a patriotic education.”
Zimmerman sees the creation of a good citizen a bit differently.
“To me, a good citizen, is somebody who has the capacity and skill to judge matters for themselves. Now how are you going to teach a future citizen to do that if you’re simply giving them one answer? I don’t think you can,” he said.
The Trump administration has canceled a sexual education grant to California worth about $12.3 million on the grounds that it included “radical gender ideology” after state officials refused to revise the materials.
The funding helps pay for sex education programs in juvenile justice facilities, homeless shelters and foster care group homes, as well as some schools, reaching an estimated 13,000 youths per year through 20 agencies.
State officials did not have an immediate response Thursday morning to the federal announcement, which was linked to a 60-day compliance deadline.
“California’s refusal to comply with federal law and remove egregious gender ideology from federally funded sex-ed materials is unacceptable,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison, of the Administration for Children and Families. “The Trump Administration will not allow taxpayer dollars to be used to indoctrinate children. Accountability is coming for every state that uses federal funds to teach children delusional gender ideology.”
State officials had taken the position that its materials are accurate and did not violate the terms of the federal grant.
California is not being accused of failing to carry out the abstinence and contraception instruction funded by the grant. Rather, the state has included additional content that the Trump administration defines as objectionable and “outside the scope” of the grant’s purpose.
A June 20 letter to a senior California official cited, as one of several examples, sample wording from a middle school lesson:
“We’ve been talking during class about messages people get on how they should act as boys and girls — but as many of you know, there are also people who don’t identify as boys or girls, but rather as transgender or gender queer. This means that even if they were called a boy or a girl at birth and may have body parts that are typically associated with being a boy or a girl, on the inside, they feel differently.”
The California Department of Public Health responded in an Aug. 19 letter that it “will not make any such modifications at this time” because its materials already had been approved by the same agency that is now demanding change. In addition, officials described the materials as “medically accurate” and relevant to the instructional goals. California also challenged whether the Trump administration had authority to cancel the grant in this manner.
The amount of money at stake is small compared with other issues that are being litigated between California and the Trump administration, but the dispute embodies now-familiar legal parameters that have resulted in more than three dozen lawsuits.
The grant cancellation also represents another front in the conflict between the Trump administration and California related to LGBTQ+ issues. These culture war-fueled disputes date back substantially to Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order that recognized two sexes, male and female, a dictum that has moved across all departments under his jurisdiction.
In youth sports, this divide has unfolded with Trump threatening to withhold vast sums of federal funding unless California bars transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.
California has responded by creating dual-award categories for women’s sporting events, so that the success of a trans athlete, in a track-and-field competition for example, would not prevent another athlete from winning an award. The compromise does not address the issue of trans athletes in women’s team sports, such as volleyball.
The Trump administration does not accept these steps taken by California as compliance with its directives.
Within the classroom, the Trump policy opposes curriculum that allows for more than a binary — male or female — expression of gender. Historically, federal authority over local curriculum has been limited, but Trump has been quick to use federal funding as leverage.
In this case, it’s the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that has been applying pressure.
The children and families department administers a grant program that annually distributes $75 million nationally “to educate adolescents on … both abstinence and contraception for the prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS,” according to federal statute.
For a three-year period, through the next fiscal year, California has been allotted funding worth more than $18.2 million, according to Health and Human Services. Under the federal decision, the state is expected to lose $12.3 million that it has not yet received, covering multiple years.
The federal grant supports the California Personal Responsibility Education Program, or CA PREP, which provides “comprehensive sexual health education to adolescents via effective, evidence-based or evidence-informed program models,” according to a statement from the state.
“Data show that participants who completed CA PREP had a better understanding of sexual and reproductive health topics and improved health outcomes,” the health department stated.
The Trump administration does not deny that the federal government had previously approved the California materials, but said the Biden administration “erred in allowing PREP grants to be used to teach students gender ideology.”
California law requires school districts to provide students with comprehensive sexual health education, along with information about HIV prevention, at least once in high school and once in middle school.
The Trump administration has asserted complete authority over federal grants, including those in progress. Many of its grant cancellations are being challenged in court. Some have been allowed to take effect; others have been blocked. In some instances, Congress has narrowly approved grant cancellations, including for foreign aid and to support the public broadcasting network.
When the fires this year upended Los Angeles and put into question what it even means to return to normal, I was reminded of a chapter in “California Against the Sea” that had expanded my own understanding of what it takes to truly adapt our built environment — and to reimagine the places that we have come to love and call home.
This chapter, which opens with a radical shoreline reconfiguration just north of San Francisco, came not without controversy, but it provided a glimpse into what compromise might need to look like for so many communities struggling to keep up with climate change. Rather than hold the line with increasing futility, here was a humbling example of what can be possible when we transcend the throes of politics — and when we choose to set aside our differences and think beyond just reacting to the same disasters time and time again.
Since the book was published in 2023, the bridge described in the following excerpt has been completed, and the creek is finally free. Accommodating nature in this way called for some tough and unfamiliar changes, but go out to the beach today, and you can see the marsh starting to recover and the entire ecosystem gently resetting with the rhythms of the sea.
So much of the climate debate is still framed around what it is that we have to give up, but does it have to be this way? Rather than confront these decisions as though it’s our doom, can we embrace change and reconsider each effort to adapt as an opportunity — an opportunity to come together and build more bridges to the future?
A few winding turns past Bodega Bay, about an hour north of San Francisco, relentless waves pound against a stretch of coastline in dire need of re-imagining. Gleason Beach, once reminiscent of a northern version of Malibu, is now mostly just a beach in name. Sand emerges only during the lowest of tides. Bits of concrete and rebar are all that remain of 11 clifftop homes that once faced the sea. A graveyard of seawalls, smashed into pieces, litters the shore. Here along the foggy bluffs of the Sonoma coast, the edge of the continent feels more like the edge of the world — a window into the future if California does not change course.
Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.
These wave-cut cliffs, a brittle mélange of ancient claystone and shale, have been eroding on average about a foot a year, exacerbated since the 1980s by a hardened shoreline, intensifying El Niños and, now, sea level rise. With the beach underwater, the seawalls destroyed and so many homes surrendered, the pressure is now on Highway 1 to hold the line between land and sea. Year after year, residents have watched the waves carve away at the two-lane road — their only way to get to work, their only way to evacuate, their only way to reach all the rocky coves, beaches and seaside campgrounds that make this coast a marvel.
Broken concrete is all that’s left of a number of clifftop homes at Gleason Beach on the Sonoma Coast, pictured here in 2019.
(Carolyn Cole/ Los Angeles Times)
So, with every storm and every knock from the ocean, officials have scrambled to save the highway, pouring millions of tax dollars into a vicious cycle of sudden collapses and emergency repairs. From 2004 to 2018 alone, state transportation officials spent about $10 million in emergency defenses and failed repairs. In 2019, almost half a mile had to be reduced to one lane.
This lifeline for the region now hangs inches from the edge. The once spectacular coastline had seemingly morphed overnight — an apocalyptic transformation, decades in the making, seen with stark clarity now that orange caution tape and makeshift traffic lights mark what’s left of the shore.
“This is what unmanaged retreat looks like, and it is quite frankly a hot mess of septic systems, old house parts and armoring that have fallen into the intertidal zone with no real mechanism for cleaning it up,” Sonoma County supervisor Lynda Hopkins declared. “If we don’t start planning ahead and taking proactive measures, Mother Nature will make the decisions for us.”
With the realities of climate change looming ever closer, California transportation officials agreed it was time to try something different: make peace with the sea and move the crumbling highway more than 350 feet inland. They knew nailing down the details would be fraught, but, if done right, this would be the first radical effort by the state to plan for a reimagined coast — a coast that could support California into the next century. It was the rare managed retreat proposal that intentionally sought to both raise and relocate critical infrastructure far enough from the shore to make room for the next 100 years of rising water.
Compromise wasn’t easy. Officials studied more than 20 alternatives that tried to balance safety codes, traffic needs, fragile habitats, public access to the coast and other competing requirements that were tricky to meet given the topography. There were also all the nearby property owners who needed persuading, not to mention a skeptical, conservation-minded community that was averse to saving a human-altered shoreline with more human alterations. They ran into every argument and counterargument that have tugged, pulled and paralyzed other communities.
At its heart this project, like so many attempts along the California coast, called for a reckoning over what was worth saving — and what was worth sacrificing — and whether it was possible to redesign a treasured landscape so that it survives into the future.
Book cover for “California Against the Sea” by Rosanna Xia
(Heyday Books)
“It seems daunting; it’s a lot of change to cope with, but it’s also an opportunity for communities to think about, ‘What are the coastal resources we want to have access to fifty, one hundred years from now?’” said Tami Grove, who oversees transportation projects for the California Coastal Commission and spent years reconciling all the emotional meetings, the disagreements, the many stops and stalls and hand-wringing compromises. “It gets lost, sometimes, when people are worried about everything that we’re going to lose to sea level rise — but there are things that we’re going to be able to choose and enhance and design into the future if we start planning now.”
In what many described as a major coup in government bureaucracy, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the coastal commission and county leaders set aside their differences to come up with a new solution together. By November 2020, they had hammered out a plan to relocate almost one mile of the highway — most notably with a new 850-foot-long bridge spanning Scotty Creek, a degraded stream that, choked for decades by the highway’s current configuration, rarely reached the ocean anymore. Rather than agonize over how to restore the landscape to some former, unobtainable baseline of “natural,” officials unanimously agreed that this bold re-imagining of the coast was the best way forward among no perfect options.
The concrete bridge (a monstrous overpass or a reasonable compromise, depending on who’s talking) will at least allow Scotty Creek to flow freely into the ocean again — making room for more red-legged frogs, Myrtle’s silverspot butterflies, and the passage of steelhead trout and coho salmon. Officials reasoned that elevating the highway would avoid paving over what’s left of the wetlands, which were already in desperate need of healing. By rerouting traffic onto a bridge, these drowning habitats would have the space to recover and migrate inland as the sea moved in.
State transportation officials also agreed, as part of the $73 million project, to pay $5 million to help clean up the mess of abandoned homes and failed road repairs. An additional $6.5 million will go toward wetland, creek and prairie restoration. Some of the old highway will be converted into a public coastal trail, and visitors will have access to a new parking area, as well as a beach that was once limited by private property.
Caltrans also set aside money to negotiate and acquire land from three private properties, including oceanfront portions of a historic ranch that will be most impacted by the realigned highway. Once completed, much of the open space will be transferred to Sonoma County to manage on behalf of the public.
This all came as a shock at first for Philip and Roberta Ballard, who own and live on the ranch, but they said they’ve come to understand the necessity of this project. The bridge still feels way too big — especially for this rural stretch of paradise that first captured their hearts more than two decades ago — but after years of meetings, questions and debating each trade-off, the retired couple decided to turn their energies toward making sure Scotty Creek got restored as part of the deal.
The creek, the largest watershed between Salmon Creek and the Russian River, has needed help since before they purchased the ranch, they said. In a past life, steelhead trout and coho salmon thrived in this stream. The once-abundant fish disappeared after the concrete culvert, installed in 1952 to support the highway, blocked their ability to migrate between fresh- and saltwater. The brackish habitat drowned over the decades. Then the creek, swollen after a series of big storms in the 1980s, flooded the lower plain. The stream banks were denuded of vegetation and the riffle crests obliterated as the choked stream tried to reach the sea.
Since 2004, the Ballards, both professors emeriti of pediatrics at UC San Francisco, have been piecing together ways to restore the creek, one small project at a time. Full restoration would require grading and reshaping the riverbanks, bringing back the native vegetation, improving water flow and re-creating the pools that once provided shelter to juvenile fish. The $6.5 million that Caltrans promised as part of the final deal will go a long way, they said, to nursing this entire ecosystem back to life.
“A lot of our efforts have gone into trying to make the best out of something that is necessary,” Roberta Ballard said. “We’ve arrived at feeling reasonably good about getting the best mitigation we can get for this region and getting something reasonably positive out of it.”
Construction crews work on building a new bridge over Scotty Creek, as part of Caltrans’ Gleason Beach Roadway Realignment Project.
(John Huseby / Caltrans)
When we don’t understand and don’t allow for the ocean’s ways, we end up with homes perched on crumbling cliffs and seawalls still making a stand. Guided by a few mere decades of history and a narrow understanding of the California shore, many today know only how to preserve the version of the coast they learned to love. Rather than imagine a different way to live, we cling to the fragility of what we still have and account for only what we consider lost. Even remembering how wide a beach used to be, or how the cliffs once withstood the tide, glorifies the notion that resilience is measured by our ability to remain unchanged.
We fail to see how we’ve replaced entire ecological systems with our own hardened habitats, and then altered the shoreline even more once the shore began to disappear. Neither replicating the past nor holding on to the present is going to get us to the future that we need. Learning from the recurring cycles of nature, listening to the knowledge gained with each flood and storm, adapting and choosing to transform — this is what it means to persevere. Change, in the end, has been the only constant in our battle for permanence. Change is the only way California will learn how to live with, not on, this beautiful, vanishing coastline that so many people settled and still wish to call home.
Stefan Galvez-Abadia, Caltrans’s district division chief of environmental planning and engineering, is now attempting with his team to design a prettier bridge at Gleason Beach, one more fitting for the rural landscape. They’ve studied the arched columns of Bixby Creek Bridge on the Big Sur coast and other popular landmarks that have become iconic over time. They’ve conducted surveys on what color to paint the bridge — some shade of gray or brown, for example, or a more distinct hue like that of the Golden Gate Bridge. Donne Brownsey, who served as vice chair of the Coastal Commission at the time, remarked that the project reminded her of a concrete beam bridge in Mendocino County that spans the mouth of the Ten Mile River, just north of where she lives in Fort Bragg. “It was a new bridge, it caused a lot of consternation, but I didn’t know that the first few times I went over it — I would look forward to that part of the drive, because I could see the whole estuary to the west, and I could see the rivershed to the east,” she said. “You don’t even really see the bridge anymore because the swallows now all nest there, and it’s just part of nature.”
The bridge at Gleason Beach, facing similar design constraints as the Ten Mile Bridge, also has to be massive — a counter-intuitive twist to what one might think it means to accommodate the environment. Engineers had at first tried more minimal options — a shorter bridge, thinner columns, a less intrusive height — but many were not large enough in size or distance to outlast the coastal erosion projected for the next 100 years. And to give the wetlands enough space to grow back, the highway needed to be elevated at a landscape-wide scale.
The completed bridge and realignment of Highway 1 can now be seen at Gleason Beach, about an hour north of San Francisco.
(Caltrans)
Despite so many years of seminars and talks about climate change adaptation, turning an abstract concept like managed retreat into reality has been a delicate exercise in compromise, Galvez-Abadia said. There were few case studies to turn to, and each one he examined dealt with an increasingly complicated set of trade-offs.
“You don’t have many choices when it comes to sea level rise,” he said, flipping through almost two dozen renderings his team had tried. “Whichever way you choose, you’re going to have some kind of impact. These are the difficult decisions that we will all have to make as a region, as a community, for generations to come.”
As he filed away his notes and prepared to break ground, he reflected once more on all the years it took to reach this first milestone. The process wasn’t easy. A lot of people are still frustrated. Even more are disappointed. Many tough property negotiations still lay ahead, but he hoped, at least, to see the wetlands and creek recover beneath the bridge one day. If the native plants reemerge, the salmon return, and there still remains a coast that families could safely access and enjoy, perhaps this new highway — however bold, however different — could show California that it is possible, that it isn’t absurd, to build toward a future where nature and modern human needs could finally coexist.
The drive south through County Cork grew prettier with every turn. From Gougane Barra, where a tiny chapel sits at the lake’s edge, the road winds through old rebel country, into deep forests where foxgloves bloom along the mountainside. Bantry House – a magnificent estate overlooking a lovely bay – marked our path toward Ballydehob, West Cork’s boho village just north of the Mizen Head peninsula.
It’s a suitably impressive setting for Native, a new off-grid eco-guesthouse just a stone’s throw from the village. The brainchild of Didi Ronan (who previously worked in public policy and the music industry) and husband Simon (who runs the sustainable landscape architect studio SRLA), the aim was to create somewhere that has a positive impact on both the environment and local community.
Previously a derelict farmhouse, the chic three-bedroom B&B, set in beautiful gardens, celebrates Ireland’s craft heritage, too. From the communal living room – with its art books and antique maps – to the timber-clad garden sauna, every element is carefully considered. The bedrooms lean into a modern-meets-vernacular aesthetic, with muted tones and tactile textures. Ours opens on to a private patio, and above the bed are hundreds of vintage National Geographic magazines – collected by Didi’s grandmother – arranged in artful symmetry across a bespoke bookshelf.
Didi and Simon Ronan are investing part of the profits from their Native guesthouse to rewild the nearby land
Over dinner, a delicate crab risotto with fresh farm greens (evening meals, booked in advance, are intimate home-cooked affairs), the couple share their vision. Sparked by a flash of clarity Simon had while designing high-end eco-resorts in the Maldives, when the true cost of tourism on Indigenous land and ecology became unavoidable, they began dreaming of a new kind of hospitality. “Could a hotel not only tread lightly, but also give back to the land?” they wondered.
Sustainability is baked into the whole project, from the build to what they do with their profits. Instead of conventional plaster, Didi chose hemp – a more natural alternative – while Simon ensured that every existing material was reused, from the original foundations to the retaining walls. Two new cabins opening this summer aim to be the “gold standard in sustainable architecture”, made of local timber, hemp and wood wool fibre. A newly restored barn will open as a creative hub for workshops, natural wine tastings, and collaborations with foragers and craftspeople, too.
The style of Native is modern meets vernacular, with muted tones, tactile textures and sustainability at its core. Photograph: Kate Bean Photography/PR
But perhaps most impressive of all is that 20% of Native’s profits go directly to their 75-acre rewilding site nearby – a living laboratory of native tree planting, invasive species removal, and ecological education. Guests are encouraged to visit – and the next day we drive 10 minutes along winding roads and walk across fields, their dog, Peig, darting ahead through rushes and briars, to learn more. “First, you eradicate invasive species. Then you conserve what you have, protect it from overgrazing, and then plant native trees to help things along,” Simon says.
At the ridge, the land opens into a sweep of sea and scattered islands. Below us lies Roaringwater Bay; behind, the skeletal remains of an old cottage clings to the earth. Didi gestures toward a patch of young trees. “The problem is huge – biodiversity, climate – but the solution’s simple: trees, wetlands, space.”
We carry on down towards an artificial lake, where dragonflies hover and moorhens skitter through the reeds. There we meet Sam Keane, a coastal forager and artist who runs immersive coastal tours guests can book, unlocking the powers of the sea, and demonstrating the tastes and powerful healing properties of seaweed and other ocean plant life.
Native is just a short stroll from the heart of Ballydehob, a village of just a few hundred but with plenty of pubs, and later that day I wander the pretty streets, soaking up a different kind of energy: human, social, alive. It’s a place that over-delivers, not in size but in spirit. At Levis Corner House the Wednesday market spills out on to the street. The heart of a thriving community, Levis is a pub, concert venue that hosts live performances from behind the old shop counter, and essentially a welcoming village living room.
Levis Corner House in Ballydehob is a pub, a concert venue and food market – essentially ‘a village living room’
There’s a lively art scene here too. The late potters Christa Reichel and Nora Golden helped found the local craft movement in the 1970s, still seen in venues like The Working Artist Studios on Main Street, and in the homegrown ceramics, textiles and artisan food shops crammed between colourful pub fronts and gable-end murals.
It’s a village that’s hard to leave, but the next day I set out to explore the area further. A 12-arch viaduct from the old rail line arcs across the estuary at the town’s edge. Pastel shop fronts curl along the hill. The 17th-century Butter Road leads from Ballydehob to Schull, a bright little harbour village. I stop and follow a walking trail through green lanes and quiet country roads, a soft scenic route, edged by hedgerows and sea glimpses, once used to carry churns of West Cork butter to market.
From here, Mizen Head begins, a tapering peninsula where the past is never far away. A Neolithic portal tomb lies accessible, close to the roadside overlooking the bay. I follow a path to Three Castle Head. Fields give way to a wide sweep of jagged coastline, steep tufty hills rising and falling in tandem with the Atlantic. The hike climbs gradually, then steeply,
and the ruins of three weather-beaten towers, 15th-century remnants of a defensive castle on a limestone ridge, come into view. From a distance, they seem almost grown from the rock itself, overlooking an indigo bay cupped in a lush green valley. Back in the car, the road dips and rises again toward Mizen Head Signal Station, mainland Ireland’s most southwesterly point. The footbridge to Fastnet signal station arches across sheer cliffs, a solid span above the Atlantic, cinematic in scale.
That evening, back in Ballydehob, I discover Chestnut, a Michelin-starred restaurant, where former pub walls now host a dining room led by chef Rob Krawczyk. His tasting menu captures the season with clear flavours: preserved, foraged and grown. Everything is impeccable and in keeping with the narrative I’ve uncovered in this progressive, ecologically minded, quietly radical corner of West Cork. As Didi put it, “Sustainability is only part of the story – regeneration is the next step.”
The trip was provided by Native. Double rooms from €200 a night B&B (two-night minimum). Exclusive hire of the guesthouse, sleeping six, from €650 per night, and garden sauna experience €75. Cabins, sleeping two, from €350. For more inspiration visit ireland.com
What in particular impacts LGBTQIA+ mental health and wellness?
LGBTQIA+ people face unique mental health challenges, due to persistent discrimination, social exclusion, and systemic barriers in healthcare, housing and employment. Many of us have experienced rejection, bullying, or isolation. Even within healthcare, many LGBTQIA+ individuals report poor experiences, including misgendering or a lack of cultural understanding, leading to delayed care or opting-out altogether. Mainstream services often don’t meet our community’s needs, while private therapy is financially out of reach. People with intersectional identities are often impacted more. At Queerwell we focus on prevention, creating a sense of community, belonging and empowerment – creating spaces where LGBTQIA+ people feel seen, heard, and supported to thrive.
So, who inspires you?
Firstly, I’d like to mention Maari Nastari, co-founder of Queerwell, a trans woman of colour, who we sadly lost last December. She gave 19 years of her life to providing support to LGBTQIA+ people facing homelessness, housing issues and domestic violence. Queerwell delivers its work in memory of her. Secondly, the LGBTQIA+ community also inspires me, especially those who get out of bed every day and face a world where they may experience discrimination, isolation, loneliness, anxiety and other forms of poor mental health. That is the biggest achievement – getting up and facing the world. It can be so hard for many LGBTQIA+ people, which is why Queerwell will be there for them.
How can people support Queerwell?
Queerwell is creating radical, affirming support, including therapy, coaching, and creative healing spaces that actually work for our community. We’re done waiting. With your help, we’ll build a future where every queer person gets the care they deserve. Be the change. Please donate to our #BeWell25 campaign, so that we can launch our services this summer. For example, £25 could ensure a person can access a learning space workshop or PlayShop. We want to focus on delivering our services in places where there are fewer options. You can also provide support to Queerwell as a volunteer or practitioner – all our therapists, coaches and facilitators are paid. And, you can fundraise for us.
