Here are the morning\u2019s top stories on Monday, September 7, 2026<\/p>\n
\u201cYou Dance For Your Loved Ones. You Dance For Someone Who Can\u2019t Dance.\u201c<\/a><\/p>\n It\u2019s a Saturday evening, and a steady drum is beating as dozens of people representing many Native American tribes circle a large patch of grass.\u00a0Small kids dance alongside adults, each in their own tribal colors and with their own rhythm. Dozens more watch intently from the sidelines.<\/p>\n The grassy area is known as an \u201carena,\u201d and it\u2019s tucked into a golden hillside in eastern Fresno County.\u00a0This is a social gathering known as a \u201cpowwow.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Native tribes have held ceremonial gatherings for centuries, powwows are a 19th century tradition, and late summer is California\u2019s busy season.<\/a>\u00a0These gatherings are formal ways of exchanging culture, but what tribes really come here to do is dance \u2013 what they consider as \u201cspreading medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n Waylon Burrough organized this celebration.\u00a0He\u2019s a member of the Chukchansi Indians.<\/p>\n \u201cDancing is healing,\u201d he says. \u201cYou dance for your loved ones. You dance for someone who can\u2019t dance.\u201d<\/p>\n He says at powwows, everyone brings something special.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEach different regalia has a different meaning. And each dance has a different story behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n Tribal members come from all over.\u00a0There\u2019s Choctaw, Mono Indians, Seminole, Lakota, and Navajo, but Burrough says where they come from isn\u2019t the story \u2013 it\u2019s what happens when they get here.<\/p>\n \u201cWe dance in a circular motion. And clockwise motion. And to the beat of the drum. So it\u2019s like dancing with time.\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone moves to the same beat, like a heartbeat.<\/p>\n Twirling in the arena is Murphy Bear-McCloud.\u00a0He\u2019s 17 years old, and belongs to the Dunlap Band of Mono Indians as well as a tribe in Oklahoma.\u00a0He\u2019s wearing yellow and orange \u2013 with two fans of feathers called bustles that look like fireworks on his back.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bustles used to be flat, not big. And they used to be a lot smaller but now they just got bigger because everyone wanted a flare,\u201d says Bear-McCloud.<\/p>\n He shares more with me after his dance\u2026\u00a0once he catches his breath.<\/p>\n \u201cI do this powwow for a living. I\u2019ve been dancing since I was real young, when I could walk. It\u2019s just been sticking with me my whole life.\u201d<\/p>\n This time of the year is his busiest.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cUsually I do it like weekend after weekend after weekend. Like usually I\u2019m never home for weeks. So I\u2019m not going to be home until November.\u201d<\/p>\n One of his fans interrupts our interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis guy\u2019s going to be a superstar in life right here. You know why? Because he\u2019s guided by the best and he\u2019s got the best. And this is his uncle Craig Hackett speaking. And if anybody\u2019s got anything to say to this boy, you can find me. Just say \u2018whats up.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s what you call a proud uncle.<\/p>\n By nightfall, it\u2019s time to compete for prize money.<\/p>\n Lilliane Shakespeare Largo is waiting for her turn.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m from the Din\u00e9 Nation, which is Navajo, and I\u2019m also part of Northern Arapahoe and Mescalero Apache,\u201d says Shakespeare Largo.<\/p>\n She\u2019s 25 and came in from New Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe drove all night, it was about a 10 hour drive.\u201d<\/p>\n She\u2019s performing the \u201cWomen\u2019s Northern Buckskin\u201d dance.\u00a0A large feather points up from her head and curtains of white buckskin fringe hang from her brightly colored shawl.<\/p>\n \u201cMy favorite color is blue. So I made my whole bead work blue. And then they\u2019re family designs,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n In the arena, Largo and the other women take one step. And then another.\u00a0Their buckskin sways in the wind \u2013 almost in slow motion.\u00a0Then, time is up.<\/p>\n The winner? Largo \u2013 she\u2019s taking home 1,000 dollars.\u00a0This is a special win for her.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m five months postpartum. So it\u2019s a lot harder for me. But I feel happy when I do perform well.\u201d<\/p>\n Her dad is holding her five month old baby as they celebrate. Here, three generations point to the spirit of these powwows.\u00a0Tribal members don\u2019t just come to dance for themselves.\u00a0But also for their ancestors, and the next generation, who will one day learn to dance to their own beat.<\/p>\n The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito<\/a> is fielding up to 600 calls a day about sea lions<\/a> that appear confused, lethargic, and, in some cases, dead. The center has treated more than 100 sea lions \u2014 above the yearly average of 75 to 90 \u2014 with the majority of these cases occurring since the start of July.<\/p>\n An algal bloom is poisoning mammals with a toxin called domoic acid<\/a>, which can cause seizures and heart failure. The animals ingest the naturally occurring neurotoxin by eating fish or shellfish.<\/p>\n Giancarlo Rulli is a\u00a0 spokesperson for the center.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a major flare-up in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties,\u201d Rulli said. \u201cThis is highly emotional, and it can be very disturbing to see an animal that\u2019s not in control of itself out on the beach.\u201d<\/p>\n Additional rescues have taken place in San Mateo, San Francisco, Marin and Sonoma counties. The center has also treated a handful of northern fur seals. Treating a single mammal can require up to six trained responders and may involve repeated doses of anti-seizure medication.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s brutal on the animals,\u201d Rulli said. \u201cWe are seeing animals die out on the beaches. There are a fair amount of carcasses out there. We\u2019re seeing animals pass away in transport being brought back to the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n Rulli said the cases are a sign that the toxin has worked its way through the food chain in \u201ca short-term burst,\u201d but said the center is also seeing chronic cases where sea lions have \u201cbrain lesions and permanent heart damage.\u201d<\/p>\n Along the northern California coast, marine algal blooms are primarily caused by natural factors such as ocean upwelling of nutrient-rich water and warm ocean temperatures.<\/p>\n Polluted runoff from agriculture and other human activities also feed blooms, a factor projected to become more frequent and\u00a0severe<\/a>\u00a0due to human-caused climate change.<\/p>\n Rulli says that already warmer-than-normal sea surface temperatures, and further warming from the climate pattern El Ni\u00f1o<\/a>, could exponentially increase the number of affected mammals.<\/p>\n Local officials expect that security plans for the 2028 Olympics will require unhoused people to vacate areas around competition venues, but exactly how many people is unclear.<\/p>\n The new report from academics<\/a> at USC and UCLA indicates that potentially close to 6,000 people could be displaced.\u00a0That figure is more than three times higher than an estimate the L.A. County Department of Housing and Homelessness gave LAist earlier this year.<\/p>\n \u201cThat just seemed obviously low,\u201d said Randall Kuhn, a UCLA professor and demographer who co-runs\u00a0a monthly survey of unhoused people in L.A.<\/a>\u00a0In total, there are around 49,000 unsheltered people countywide, according to the\u00a02026 point-in-time homeless count<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kuhn and his colleagues came up with their higher estimate using numbers from that count, which estimates the number of unhoused people by census tract. They then adjusted those figures based on how much each tract overlapped with a potential Olympic security perimeter and the length of walkable and major streets where unhoused people were likely to be located.<\/p>\n \u201dThe numbers just give us a good starting point, right? What really matters is the people in those buffers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here are the morning\u2019s top stories on Monday, September 7, 2026 \u201cYou Dance For Your Loved Ones. 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