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Opinion: Two conservationists — a radical and a rancher — shook up the West with the same goal

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:12:50 GMT

The West lost two larger-than-life conservationists this year, and while I considered both friends, they couldn’t have been more different. Yet both were radical in their own ways.One was ranching reformer Sid Goodloe, the other the activist and “monkey-wrencher” Dave Foreman. Each changed the way we think about this region.Goodloe, who was almost 93 when he died, bought a badly abused ranch in El Capitan, New Mexico, in 1956. Restoring it to health became a project that lasted nearly 7 decades.Taking his young family to Africa to learn traditional livestock techniques set him on a new land management path. There he met Allan Savory who showed him the wisdom of short-duration, rotational grazing. Once home, Goodloe got Savory invited to range management schools to teach the rest of the West how to restore abused land. He also realized something surprising: His ranch had once been a savannah grassland.Goodloe practiced “restorative ranching” long before there was such a term. He won ...

Letters: Don’t nickel and dime Colorado SUV drivers; target dangerous drivers

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:12:50 GMT

“Nickel and diming with fees”Re: “Owners of big SUVs, trucks could pay more,” Oct. 28 news storyState Sens. Lisa Cutter and Faith Winter have identified a problem on Colorado’s roads and want to fix it. They identify the problem as vehicle speed causing injury to pedestrians and bicyclists. And their solution? Tax everyone on the front range who drives a vehicle they deem as too heavy. Their bill goes on to lay out some statistics and such to show why this is the solution to the problem. Nowhere in the bill do the sponsors talk about holding people who speed or drive recklessly accountable. No, it’s just tax the people.They talk about the likelihood of death if you are hit by a vehicle traveling 58 miles per hour — 90%. I think it’s safe to say that the likelihood is the same if hit by a Corolla or an Escalade, although I guess there is a prestige factor if flattened by the Escalade.This new tax will be added to your vehicle registrati...

Mathews: California kids should take over their school boards

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:12:50 GMT

California kids, do you follow the news about the culture wars over local school boards?If you do, you’ll see these wars portrayed as political contests between groups that want to take education in different direction: progressives and right-wingers, and fights between parents’ groups and teachers’ unions.But you won’t hear much about the role of students in these debates. Because there isn’t one.There’s a big reason way you’re being left out. The adults in your lives, for all their performative disagreements over your schools, share a unity of purpose in the education wars: They want to trample on your already very limited rights as students.They just attack you from different flanks.On the right, conservative parents and their political allies seek to take away your right to read what you want. Groups with Orwellian names — like Moms for Liberty — are pursuing bans on books and curricula.  Banning books limits what your teachers can teach, and which of your questions ...

Amazon Fresh expands delivery, free pickup to all customers

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:12:50 GMT

Amazon has expanded its grocery delivery and free pickup service to all customers where Amazon Fresh is available.The retailer said it also updated its technology and grocery offerings at Amazon Fresh stores in Pasadena, Irvine and Woodland Hills.The services were previously available only to Amazon Prime members.Delivery fees for Amazon Fresh orders online range from $4.95 to $13.95 for customers without a Prime membership. That’s $4 more than Prime members pay per delivery. Prime members also get free delivery on orders over $100.In its Thursday, Nov. 9 announcement, Amazon said customers also can order delivery from a variety of grocery and specialty retailers available on Amazon.com. Locally, that includes Bristol Farms and Cardenas Markets.Amazon plans to expand grocery delivery and free pickup to all of its Whole Foods Markets. (Photo courtesy of Amazon) Amazon said it plans to expand grocery delivery and free pickup to all of its Whole Foods Markets, too.Legal headwindsD...

Review: The Games are ever in its favor with ‘Songbirds and Snakes’

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:12:50 GMT

By Jake Coyle | Associated PressTwo hours and 37 minutes is pretty long for a “ballad,” but you can’t call it “The Hunger Games: The Three-Cycle Opera of Songbirds and Snakes” now, can you?Concision was never much in favor in the four “Hunger Games” films, which reached a seeming finale with 2015’s “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part 2.” The intervening years have done nothing to shrink the ambitions of this unapologetically gaudy dystopic series where the brutal deaths of kids are watched over by outrageously styled Capitol denizens with names like Effie Trinket.That clash of YA allegory and color palette is just as pronounced, if not more so, in “The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” a prequel set 64 years before the original books, adapted from Suzanne Collins’ 2020 book of the same name.“The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” which opens in theaters Nov. 16, is an origin story o...

Woman suspected of hate-crime vandalism after crashing vehicle through the gates at California synagogue

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:12:50 GMT

A 54-year-old woman was arrested for suspected hate-crime vandalism after using a vehicle to crash through the gates of a Tarzana synagogue early Thursday, Nov. 9, police said.Around 12:30 a.m., a vehicle plowed through two gates at the Eretz Synagogue and Cultural Center, located along the 6100 block of Wilbur Avenue, according to Los Angeles Police Officer Angie Moran. No injuries were reported as a result of the crash.The woman was found near the site of the crash two hours later and was taken into custody, Moran said. The woman was being held on a $25,000 bail.Related ArticlesCrime and Public Safety | Investigation finds school administrators failed to respond to antisemitism at East Bay high school Crime and Public Safety | Stanford campus hit-and-run investigated as hate crime after Muslim student struck, injured Crime and Public Safety | In Concord, a push to reopen 1985 case of young Black man found hanging from a tree at BART stati...

Southern California confirms 1st human case of mosquito-borne St. Louis Encephalitis since 1984

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:12:50 GMT

The Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the city’s first case of St. Louis Encephalitis — a mosquito-borne virus with symptoms akin to West Nile virus — on Thursday, Nov. 9.It’s the first documented case of St. Louis Encephalitis, or SLEV, in Long Beach since 1984, the health department said Thursday. The city’s announcement came a little more than a week after it confirmed a case of dengue fever.The person who was infected is recovering after being hospitalized, the announcement said, and no other cases have been identified in the city to date.SLE is rarely seen in Los Angeles or in California generally. The state has identified 12 human cases of the disease in 2023 as of early November, according to the health department.SLE is a disease that is caused by the St. Louis Encephalitis virus and is spread to people by the bites of infected culex mosquitoes. It is in the same virus family as West Nile virus, with similar symptoms and transmission, but is less c...

Man who panicked California mall shoppers with false gunman report sentenced to 7 months in jail

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:12:50 GMT

A man who ran through the Ontario Mills mall on Memorial Day yelling “He has a gun” when no gunman existed — creating a panic that injured some customers — has been sentenced to about seven months in county jail.Angel Morin, 44, of Rancho Cucamonga pleaded no contest to one count of reporting a false emergency causing injury on Monday. Nov. 6, the Ontario Police Department said.Related ArticlesCrime and Public Safety | Ex-Baltimore prosecutor Mosby convicted of perjury Crime and Public Safety | Torso found in plastic bag leads to SoCal man’s arrest Crime and Public Safety | Spanish politician shot in the face in Madrid Crime and Public Safety | East Bay man accused of attacking Paul Pelosi was caught up in conspiracies, defense says Crime and Public Safety | Bay Area man gets 65 years to life for child sex assaults San Bernardino County Superior Court records show Morin was sentenced to one year an...

Review: ‘The Marvels’ may be something great, eventually

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:12:50 GMT

By Lindsey Bahr | Associated PressThe stakes feel immensely low in ” The Marvels,” and it’s not because this is a movie that spends a fair amount of time following cats or has an out-of-nowhere musical number. It’s possibly because somewhere along the way, Marvel movies just stopped feeling like events. And this galactic trifle from director Nia DaCosta does not seem to be the one to make them again feel like a must for anyone who has not kept up with all their Disney+ series and who has forgotten what phase the MCU is in and why it matters.Yes, Iman Vellani (as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan) gets her big moment on the big screen and nails it, as does Teyonah Parris (Monica Rambeau). Yes, there is a new villain, and it’s a woman (Zawe Ashton as Dar-Benn) with a powerful new toy. Yes, Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) will have to face her past to move forward. And, yes, there is plenty of action, butt-kicking, wormhole jumping, glowing eyes and smashing of concrete...

Walters: Will Newsom become one of California’s unpopular ex-governors?

Published Fri, 27 Dec 2024 11:12:50 GMT

Sooner or later, some California governors wear out their welcome and leave office in clouds of popular disdain.It’s not a universal syndrome. Republican Ronald Reagan maintained his popularity, so much so that five years after departing in 1975, California voters strongly endorsed his challenge to Democratic President Jimmy Carter.The arc of Reagan’s successor, Democrat Jerry Brown, was very different. He enjoyed strong support in the early stages, but two failed efforts to become president and other miscues dragged down his popularity and voters rejected his bid for the U.S. Senate in 1982.It mirrored the experience of Brown’s father, Pat Brown, who had overstayed his welcome, tried to win a third term in 1966 and lost to Reagan.“I believe the people of California would like a respite from me and in some ways I would like a respite from them,” Jerry Brown said after his Senate defeat. Decades later, he won two more terms as governor and retired in 2019 with his legacy and populari...