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Extremely rare “doomsday fish” found off Southern California coast
Kayakers and snorkelers exploring the Southern California coast spotted an extremely rare oarfish, nicknamed a “doomsday fish” since they are seen in some parts of the world as harbingers of imminent disasters. It’s one of less than two dozen confirmed sightings of an oarfish in the state in over 120 years, according to UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
The oarfish is a “strikingly large, odd-looking fish” with a long, silvery, ribbon-shaped body, according to the Ocean Conservatory. The fish can grow to more than 30 feet long, and have large eyes and “foreboding” red spines in a crown-like cluster. Typically, these fish are deep-sea dwellers and thrive in waters that are the least explored by scientists.
Michael Wang and Owyn Snodgrass
The fish spotted by oceangoers on August 10 was 12 feet long, according to the institution. The fish had already died at the time of the discovery, and was found near the shores of La Jolla Cove. Because the fish usually reside in the deep ocean, they are only spotted close to the surface if they are sick, dying or disoriented, according to the conservatory.
Only 20 oarfish have washed up in California since 1901, the Scripps Institute said.
The group coordinated with the NOAA Fisheries Service, California Sea Grant team members and local lifeguards to transport the fish to a NOAA facility. Scientists from the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Science Center and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography plan to perform a necropsy to attempt to determine a cause of death.
The remains of the fish will later be displayed in the Scripps Marine Vertebrate Collection, which is one of the largest collections of deep-sea fish in the world, according to the institution.
The fish have their alarming nickname due to a reputation as harbingers of earthquakes or other bad news, according to the Ocean Conservancy. Twenty such fish reportedly washed up on the shores of Japan right before the catastrophic 2011 earthquake. The California oarfish was indeed found just two days before a 4.4 earthquake struck the region and rattled Los Angeles.
The House Ethics Committee, which has been conducting an investigation into sexual misconduct and obstruction allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, scheduled a vote for Friday on whether to release its report, according to three sources with knowledge of the committee’s work.
Hours after President-elect Donald Trump said he planned to nominate Gaetz to be attorney general, Gaetz resigned his congressional seat, effective immediately.
“I do not intend to take the oath of office for the same office in the 119th Congress, to pursue the position of Attorney General in the Trump Administration,” Gaetz said in his resignation letter obtained by CBS News
House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that there was about an eight-week period during which Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis could fill his seat by setting the date for a special election.
Now that Gaetz has resigned, it is unclear whether the panel will vote on releasing the report, since Gaetz is no longer in Congress.
There is precedent in Congress on the Senate side for an ethics committee report to become public after a member resigns from Congress, however. In 2011, this happened when Sen. John Ensign of Nevada resigned amid allegations that he tried to hide an extramarital affair.
But it’s not clear that that would apply to the House, leaving open the possibility that the report on Gaetz would not be released.
In June, the House Ethics Committee released a statement saying it was investigating a range of allegations against Gaetz, including sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, and bribery.
Multiple sources at the time told CBS News that four women had informed the House Ethics Committee that they had been paid to go to parties that included sex and drugs, and that Gaetz had also attended. The committee has Gaetz’s Venmo transactions that allegedly show payments for the women.
Gaetz has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and has called the committee’s investigation a “frivolous” smear campaign.
Some of the allegations of sexual misconduct under review by the committee were also the subject of a previous Department of Justice probe into Gaetz. Federal investigators sought to determine if Gaetz violated sex trafficking and obstruction of justice laws, but no charges were filed.
The House Ethics Committee resumed its investigation into Gaetz in 2023, following the Justice Department’s decision not to pursue charges against him.
Gaetz has long blamed then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, also a Republican, for the probe. And Gaetz later led the movement to sack McCarthy as speaker.
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