Each day, landslide damage at the historic Wayfarers Chapel in Rancho Palos Verdes worsens.

More windows in the famous glass chapel shatter. Metal framing along its walls and ceiling further torque. New fissures open across the parking lot.

The landslide beneath the chapel — mostly manageable for decades prior — has accelerated to unprecedented rates, likely upending the possibility of a future for the chapel at its idyllic seaside site.

Chapel leaders announced on Monday their plans to begin taking the chapel apart. The hope, they said, is to preserve what they can of the national historic landmark, longtime spiritual sanctuary and well-known wedding venue.

“We are taking immediate action to carefully disassemble the chapel’s historic materials as a necessary step in the preservation of the chapel for generations to come,” Dan Burchett, the executive director of Wayfarers Chapel, said in a statement. “Wayfarers is committed to preserving our iconic chapel exactly as it has always been, either on the current site or a similar site close by in Rancho Palos Verdes.”

Burchett and his team have been searching for another nearby location — on more stable ground — where the chapel could be rebuilt in as close to its original form as possible. He said they would also continue to monitor the landslide to see whether the chapel could be reassembled on-site — but that continues to look less feasible by the day as the land movement has intensified.

In February, Wayfarers closed its doors, worried about safety due to the landslide. Last month, city officials red-tagged the administration building that sits not far from Wayfarers Chapel, and as of Monday, all the underground services for the site, including electricity, water, sewer and gas, were broken and unusable, officials said.

The 100-seat glass-and-wood sanctuary was built in 1951, designed by architect Lloyd Wright, son of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Disassembly, carried out by preservation design firm Architectural Resources Group, will be a tedious process, Burchett said. This week, the team is preparing the property for the large-scale project, and Burchett expected work to begin next week.

“The chapel will not be able to withstand much more damage before it becomes impossible to preserve,” Wayfarers officials said in a news release. “It has been determined that the immediate deconstruction of the chapel is the safest and most viable preservation action to take at this time and will prevent further irreparable damage to the chapel’s structure and materials.”

Many of the chapel’s building materials are no longer available, Burchett said, so deconstruction allows the structure to keep its historical designation and paves the way for “a future careful and thoughtful rebuilding of the chapel.”

“With each passing day, more of this material is lost or irreparably damaged,” said Katie Horak, principal of Architectural Resources Group. With deconstruction set to begin, “our team is working against the clock to document and move these building components to safety so that they can be put back together again.”

She said some of the irreplaceable parts included old-growth-redwood glulam (or laminated timber bonded with adhesive), blue roof tile and the elegant network of steel that holds the windows together.

The city’s latest report on the historical landslide complex, which affects about 700 acres on both sides of Palos Verdes Drive South in Rancho Palos Verdes, found that land movement in March and April had further accelerated, almost two times the movement recorded from January through March — when leaders were already sounding the alarms about the situation. In some of the fastest-moving areas, the hillside was shifting up to nine inches per week, the city’s geologist found.

“Wayfarers Chapel has been a treasured part of our community for generations,” Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor John Cruikshank said in a statement. “The city … is committed to working with Wayfarers Chapel to ensure it can be quickly rebuilt on a geologically safe location somewhere within the city, if possible.”

Burchett said the deconstruction and closing of the campus is estimated to cost $300,000 to $500,000 — well beyond the almost $70,000 raised through an online fundraiser that was started after the chapel had to close and cease most of its operations.

The full rebuild is estimated to cost near $20 million, Burchett said.

The nonprofit has about $5 million in savings reserved for that effort, revenue primarily from weddings at the site. Couples would pay more than $5,000 to marry at the highly sought-after Instagram-famous chapel.

Burchett, however, said Wayfarers would still need further community support, and is planning a fundraising drive for the rest.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A political action committee that helps Republicans get elected to Congress is doing the unusual — spending more than $450,000 to defeat a GOP incumbent. That incumbent, conservative two-term Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., voted to remove former Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House speaker last fall.

It’s just the latest example of how money is flowing into races involving some of the eight Republican lawmakers who voted along with Democrats to oust McCarthy. About $3.3 million has been spent on ads in the Virginia race going into Friday, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact.

The ad buy underscores the internal divisions that have cracked open in the Republican Party since McCarthy’s ouster. The rancor has split the party on important House votes and spilled over into some of this year’s primary elections, too.

The latest round of ad buys was unveiled on Monday and comes from Defending Main Street, a super PAC affiliated with nearly 90 Republican lawmakers in the Republican Main Street Partnership. The group describes its members as “conservative, governing Republicans.” It’s just the second time the group has worked to unseat a Republican incumbent.

The first incumbent the group sought to unseat was then-Rep. Steve King of Iowa in 2020. King was removed from his committee assignments after lamenting that white supremacy and white nationalism had become offensive terms. He ended up losing in the GOP primary. Now the group is focused on Good.

“We spend 99% of our money protecting incumbents and adding more mainstream conservatives to the House, but this was a unique situation,” said Sarah Chamberlain, the group’s president and CEO.

Good has pushed Republicans to seek deeper federal spending cuts, even if that means risking a government shutdown. He leads the most conservative members of the Republican conference as chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, and has opposed the spending agreement McCarthy worked out with President Joe Biden so the government could continue paying its bills. When Speaker Mike Johnson split up a $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan into three separate votes, he voted no on each piece.

Chamberlain said her group would have worked to defeat Good even if he had not voted to oust McCarthy because of his voting record. The ad purchased by the group doesn’t mention Good, but features an endorsement from a former local sheriff for Good’s opponent, state Sen. John McGuire, a former Navy SEAL.

“Defending Kevin is not what Main Street does, though we 100% supported Kevin and are sorry that everything happened,” Chamberlain said of McCarthy.

Groups coming in to support McGuire don’t make it a race about McCarthy, who recently himself called on his followers on X to contribute to the challenger’s campaign, saying McGuire “is ready to answer the call to serve our country again. Chip in $5 today.”

But Good’s supporters clearly do want to make McCarthy an issue. In a fundraising pitch, an election group that works to expand the House Freedom Caucus said that McCarthy “and his establishment allies” were dumping millions of dollars into the race to defeat Good.

And Diana Shores, Good’s campaign manager, said McCarthy is “on his revenge tour and he’s targeting conservative leaders like Congressman Bob Good who worked to oust him as speaker for his poor leadership.”

Shores said in an email she expects voters in the district to “see through the Swamp Tactics of groups like Defending Main Street.”

A group called the American Patriots PAC, backed mostly through donations from Kenneth Griffin, the CEO of the investment firm Citadel, has also begun pouring money into the race, spending more than $916,000 so far, according to FEC filings.

In a statement, Griffin doesn’t reference McCarthy, but instead focuses on McGuire’s 10 years as a Navy SEAL and says the PAC’s focus is on bringing exemplary leaders to Washington.

“The American Patriots PAC steadfastly supports veteran candidates who have dedicated themselves to our nation, and John McGuire exemplifies this commitment,” Griffin said.

Meanwhile, a PAC called Virginians for Freedom has spent more than $760,000 to oppose Good, FEC reports show.

A vendor used by both groups is Brian O. Walsh, a longtime adviser, ally and friend of McCarthy who is coordinating efforts to unseat some of the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy last fall. Walsh declined a request for comment. He also serves as a senior adviser to the American Prosperity Alliance, which has spent nearly $300,000 on ads so far in the Virginia race, according to the tracking firm AdImpact.

Good is getting some outside help, with the Sen. Rand Paul-affiliated Protect Freedom PAC spending nearly $675,000 supporting his reelection.

The political dynamics playing out in the Virginia race featuring Good and McGuire can be seen in another race featuring a GOP lawmaker who voted to oust McCarthy.

In South Carolina, Rep. Nancy Mace is being challenged by Catherine Templeton, a former state agency director. A group called South Carolina Patriots PAC has spent more than $1 million opposing Mace.

American Prosperity Alliance, the group where McCarthy ally Walsh is a senior adviser, provided the South Carolina Patriots PAC with $15,000, according to the latest FEC quarterly report. That report doesn’t capture contributions after March 31, so its unclear for now where the political action committee is getting all of its money.

Meanwhile, Club for Growth Action, a group that describes itself as seeking to defeat big-government politicians, has weighed in with more than $475,000 in independent expenditures supporting Mace.

Two other Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, Rep. Eli Crane in Arizona and Matt Gaetz in Florida, have picked up GOP challengers in recent weeks.

Of the other four Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy, Rep. Matt Rosendale is not seeking reelection to a Montana district and Rep. Ken Buck has already retired from his Colorado-based seat. Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., has no primary opponent and Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona appears safe in his reelection bid.

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Associated Press staff writer Chad Day contributed to this report.

• Helen Ryvar, a single mother-of-three and owner of a cleaning business, follows a nightly routine, preparing for her daily early morning runs.
• Starting her running journey in 2020, she now holds the world record for consecutive half-marathons, with 743 completed.
• Ryvar has experienced minimal injuries, attributing her success to hydration, rest and magnesium salt baths.

Helen Ryvar goes through the same routine every night.

She checks the weather forecast, lays out her running clothes, puts her running shoes by the front door, charges her cell phone and flashlight, and sets the alarm for 4 a.m.

By 4.15 a.m., she’s out the door — rain or shine.

18 MARATHON TRAINING ESSENTIALS TO KEEP YOU RUNNING

“I’m just an ordinary person doing extraordinary things,” says Ryvar, a single mother-of-three who runs her own cleaning business in normal daytime hours and pounds the streets, paths and trails of north Wales at a time when the rest of the world would typically be asleep.

Helen Ryvar runs through an underpass in Wrexham during a half-marathon in Wrexham, Wales, on March 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Jon Super)

The 43-year-old Ryvar took up running in 2020, just before Britain went into lockdown amid the coronavirus pandemic and after being told her ex-husband had died following a mental-health battle.

Four years later, she is a world-record holder for consecutive half-marathons — her day-on-day tally, which features in the Guinness World Records book, has reached 743 this past weekend — and an inspiration to many, all while raising money for her favorite charities.

“The runs have become the easy part — it’s juggling life that has become the daily ongoing task,” she said.

SIX TRAINING TIPS FOR RUNNING YOUR FIRST RACE

Ryvar classed herself as a “mediocre runner” while at school and was never really into sports. Even now, she doesn’t have all the latest running gear, doesn’t follow any special diet — just three balanced meals a day — and doesn’t really care about her speed when she runs.

It is more, she says, about building a strong mindset and getting to know her body.

“I found doing it every day, you just get used to it,” she said. “Your body and mind just get used to the routine and you turn off that pity-party that you had with yourself and get on with it.

“It is just flicking that switch in your head and say, ‘We’re doing this.’”

Key for Ryvar is:

• running at the same time every day — in her case, before her kids wake up.

• fitting some sort of exercise somewhere into the structure of your daily schedule. Essentially, “not giving yourself a chance to mess up,” as she puts it.

Experts think the same.

“The key is to find some protected time so it is just part of the routine,” said Dr. Michael J. Joyner, an expert on human performance and exercise at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. “This is why many habitual exercisers go first thing in the morning.”

In nearly two years of running a half-marathon each day, Ryvar says she has only had one injury — and that was when she changed running shoes, which triggered an old glute injury.

Otherwise, her advice is fairly simple:

• drink plenty of water.

• have a balanced diet and early nights.

• try out magnesium salt baths. “They are key,” she says. “When I don’t have them, I notice.”

Dr. Joyner said the main risks of an exercise workload such as Ryvar’s are orthopedic aches and pains and more severe things like stress fractures.

“So you have to build light days into your program,” he advises. “Usually, light days are about less total distance, but they can also be about a less intense effort.”

Most important for Ryvar is learning to understand your own body and staying active, even if that means simply walking down the street on a regular basis.

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“Keep accountable somehow — you’ll build up confidence in yourself and you’ll want to push more,” she says. “Form a habit. If you’re not comfortable doing it by yourself, join a group. There are loads of Facebook groups, or join a park run. Sign up for a race and commit. When you have a goal, it makes a massive difference.”

Ryvar’s goal is to reach 1,000 consecutive half-marathons, which would be some feat considering the previous record for officially timed half-marathons was 75. She would get to that milestone on Jan. 24, 2025 — a date she has circled on her calendar.

In the meantime, she is just happy to have that “nice fuzzy feeling inside” whenever she goes running and to be changing people’s lives with the money she raises for Cancer Research UK and a local charity in Wrexham, Nightingale House Hospice.

Her new hobby is also allowing her to see the world, having had trips in recent months to Jordan, Miami, Turkey and Malta — where she was on national television.

“I’m definitely riding a wave and getting a lot of support,” Ryvar says. “It’s something you can’t buy. It’s such a sense of satisfaction.”