Community News · Mill Valley, CA
Catherine Breed, a 33-year-old Mill Valley resident and former NCAA swimming champion at UC Berkeley, completed her 900-mile staged swim from the Oregon border to Mexico on Monday afternoon at Coronado Bay. The 111-day expedition, which began July 1, is believed to be the first completed staged swim of California's entire coastline, pending formal ratification. Breed used her nonprofit Sea Dreamers to host community gatherings along the route discussing kelp forests, marine wildlife, water quality, and coastal access. She also swam past Imperial Beach near the Tijuana River sewage crisis, describing it as among the most polluted waters in the country.
Local Politics · Imperial County
With less than three weeks until Election Day, PACs backed by tech companies, unions, and business groups have spent over $100 million on California legislative races this cycle, eclipsing 2024 totals. Two new tech-backed groups—Grow California (funded by Chris Larsen and Tim Draper) and California Leads (funded by Meta and Google)—have dominated independent spending in competitive districts. In the Latino-majority border district along the California-Mexico line that Republican Jeff Gonzalez flipped in 2024, Imperial councilmember and nurse practitioner Ida Obeso-Martinez is challenging him, with outside groups having spent $2.7 million supporting Gonzalez while the Democratic Party has given her over $1.5 million. The article profiles nine of the most expensive competitive general-election contests statewide, including races in Orange County, coastal Los Angeles, Marin/Sonoma, Riverside County, and the Sacramento area.
