News brief March 3-7

International

On Wednesday, three New Zealand fisherman received the shock of their lives when a 900 lb dolphin joined them for a ride, leaping into their boat with a crash.

According to the boat’s owner, Dean Harrison, no one sustained serious injuries, including the dolphin.

As he and his two friends were fishing near Hole in the Rock (a scenic fishing spot off the far coast of New Zealand’s North Island), they spotted dolphins ahead.

“This one decided to jump on board and say hello,” Harrison told NBC. “One minute everything was fine and just like lightning strikes, there’s a big dolphin in our boat thrashing around and breaking everything.”

The 11-foot bottlenose dolphin broke “every single fishing rod we had in the boat” and severely damaged the bow before settling down. Unable to return the animal to the water, the men cared for him the best they could.

“We looked at the dolphin still alive and breathing and we thought, we’ve got to start looking after him and figure out what to do,” Harrison said.  “Because he’s stuck in the boat for now, so he’s coming along for the ride.”

New Zealand’s conservation agency directed him to a boat ramp one hour away. In the meantime, his friends kept the dolphin wet with a hose and protected from the sun with a towel.

Rescuers managed to safely transfer the unexpected passenger back to the water using a tractor.

“The dolphin got to swim away and we got to walk away and we’ve all got a story to tell,” he said. “It’s a good ending in a situation that could have been very different.”

National

Los Angeles County and the City of Pasadena have filed lawsuits against Edison International, faulting the utility company for allegedly causing one of California’s most devastating wildfires.

In early January, the Eaton fire burned more than 14,000 acres (an area the size of Manhattan), resulting in dozens of deaths and millions of dollars in property damage.

The County of Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Flood Control District, the Consolidated Fire Protection District of Los Angeles County, the City of Pasadena and the City of Sierra Madre filed suits seeking compensation for damages to public infrastructure caused by the blaze.

“The lawsuits seek to hold Southern California Edison responsible for this devastating fire and recover the critical infrastructure and taxpayer resources that the fire destroyed,” Ed Diab, founding partner of Diab Chambers, the organization representing the public entities, told Reuters.

The claims are based on eyewitness testimony and photographs proving the existence of a fire at the base of an SCE transmission tower that would later be spread by strong winds.

Lawsuits anticipate that the extent of the damages is in the hundreds of millions.

Local

This week, Oklahoma lawmakers examined an audit uncovering financial mismanagement at Oklahoma State University.

The audit, obtained via an Open Records Request, revealed the misuse of $41 million of taxpayer dollars between July 2021 and January 2025. Funds were not restricted correctly and were improperly mixed with other money, violating state laws and policies.

The audit uncovered several other instances of financial malpractice. An internal email uncovered that OSU’s Innovation Foundation intended to pay an executive administrative associate $85,000 despite a maximum hiring range of $62,500.

“I’m sad to hear it too,” Oklahoma House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson told KOKH. “I was very proud of Dr. Shrum’s leadership at Oklahoma State University and I think as more information comes out I’ll have more to comment on that.”

Former OSU President Kayse Shrum unexpectedly resigned in February. This audit may negatively reflect the status of finance handling under Shrum’s administration.

“Are we concerned? Yes,” Oklahoma Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton told KOKH. “I mean, talking about state-appropriated dollars that potentially were spent where they weren’t appropriated to be spent at. So, yes, we’re concerned.”

Paxton noted that this year’s funding will likely be unimpacted as the audit findings are only preliminary.