UPPER LAKE, Calif. — A celebration is planned to honor the work done by volunteers and the Post Wildfire OHV Recovery Alliance in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service over the last six months to reopen motorized trails damaged by heavy winter storms.
The celebration event for Post Wildfire OHV Recovery Alliance, or PWORA, will be held on Saturday, June 17, at the Middle Creek Campground on the Mendocino National Forest near Upper Lake.
It will take place from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
The severe rain storms, high winds, and heavy snow had caused hundreds of trees damaged by recent wildfires to fall across the designated road and trail system that blocked public access and raised concerns about rider safety and environmental impacts due to unauthorized reroutes around blocked travelways.
To help address those storm impacts, PWORA organized numerous work events attended by 170 volunteers who contributed over 2,000 hours to clear downed trees off of the multiple-use road and trail system managed by the Upper Lake Ranger District.
PWORA worked with District Ranger Frank Aebly and OHV recreation specialist, Matt Nourmohamadian, to ensure that trail clearing efforts followed sustainable trail management practices and safety protocols.
“Getting OHV routes reopened for public use before the Memorial Day Weekend was a herculean effort that was only accomplished by a strong collaboration between PWORA, volunteer crews, and the Upper Lake Ranger District management and staff,” said Ted Cabral, PWORA president and CEO.
“Special thanks also goes to the Lake County Public Works Department and Forest Service law enforcement who worked on a temporary fix and management strategy to reopen a slide on a section of the Elk Mountain Road to allow for trail repair crews to continue clearing downed trees,” Cabral said.
Cabral added, “The celebration event is an appropriate way to highlight the heavy lift by the Forest Service and partners to reopen this important recreation area so it can once again be enjoyed by the recreation community.”
PWORA thanked its many sponsors and grant partners who helped make the reopening possible and they include, FOX FACTORY Trail Trust Program, Factory Pipe, Metal Cloak Industries, California State Park OHV Grant Program, Metal Cloak Industries, Yamaha Grant Initiative and the Marin County Motorcycle Association.
BERKELEY, Calif. — NASA's Parker Solar Probe has flown close enough to the sun to detect the fine structure of the solar wind close to where it is generated at the sun's surface, revealing details that are lost as the wind exits the corona as a uniform blast of charged particles.
It's like seeing jets of water emanating from a showerhead through the blast of water hitting you in the face.
In a paper appearing online today (June 7) in the journal Nature, a team of scientists led by Stuart D. Bale, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and James Drake of the University of Maryland-College Park, report that the Parker Solar Probe has detected streams of high-energy particles that match the supergranulation flows within coronal holes, which suggests that these are the regions where the so-called "fast" solar wind originates.
Coronal holes are areas where magnetic field lines emerge from the surface without looping back inward, thus forming open field lines that expand outward and fill most of space around the sun.
These holes are usually at the poles during the sun's quiet periods, so the fast solar wind they generate doesn't hit Earth. But when the sun becomes active every 11 years as its magnetic field flips, these holes appear all over the surface, generating bursts of solar wind aimed directly at Earth.
Understanding how and where the solar wind originates will help predict solar storms that, while producing beautiful auroras on Earth, can also wreak havoc with satellites and the electrical grid.
“Winds carry lots of information from the sun to Earth, so understanding the mechanism behind the sun’s wind is important for practical reasons on Earth,” Drake said. “That’s going to affect our ability to understand how the sun releases energy and drives geomagnetic storms, which are a threat to our communication networks.”
Based on the team's analysis, the coronal holes are like showerheads, with roughly evenly spaced jets emerging from bright spots where magnetic field lines funnel into and out of the surface of the sun. The scientists argue that when oppositely directed magnetic fields pass one another in these funnels, which can be 18,000 miles across, the fields often break and reconnect, slinging charged particles out of the sun.
"The photosphere is covered by convection cells, like in a boiling pot of water, and the larger scale convection flow is called supergranulation," Bale said. "Where these supergranulation cells meet and go downward, they drag the magnetic field in their path into this downward kind of funnel. The magnetic field becomes very intensified there because it's just jammed. It's kind of a scoop of magnetic field going down into a drain. And the spatial separation of those little drains, those funnels, is what we're seeing now with solar probe data."
Based on the Parker's detection of some much higher energy particles — particles traveling 10 to 100 times faster than the solar wind average — the researchers conclude that the wind could only be made by this process, which is called magnetic reconnection. Parker was launched in 2018 primarily to resolve two conflicting explanations for the origin of the high-energy particles that comprise the solar wind: magnetic reconnection or acceleration by plasma or Alfvén waves.
"The big conclusion is that it's magnetic reconnection within these funnel structures that's providing the energy source of the fast solar wind," Bale said. "It doesn't just come from everywhere in a coronal hole, it's substructured within coronal holes to these supergranulation cells. It comes from these little bundles of magnetic energy that are associated with the convection flows. Our results, we think, are strong evidence that it's reconnection that's doing that."
The funnel structures likely correspond to the bright jetlets that can be seen from Earth within coronal holes, as reported recently by Nour Raouafi, a co-author of the study and the Parker Solar Probe project scientist at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. APL, located in Laurel, Maryland, designed, built, manages and operates the spacecraft.
“Solving the mystery of the solar wind has been a six-decade dream of many generations of scientists,” said Raouafi. “Now, we are grasping at the physical phenomenon that drives the solar wind at its source — the corona.”
Plunging into the sun
By the time the solar wind reaches Earth, 93 million miles from the sun, it has evolved into a homogeneous, turbulent flow of roiling magnetic fields intertwined with charged particles that interact with Earth's own magnetic field and dump electrical energy into the upper atmosphere.
This excites atoms, producing colorful auroras at the poles, but has effects that trickle down into Earth's atmosphere. Predicting the most intense winds, called solar storms, and their near-Earth consequences is one mission of NASA's Living With a Star program, which funded Parker.
The probe was designed to determine what this turbulent wind looks like where it's generated near the sun's surface, or photosphere, and how the wind's charged particles — protons, electrons and heavier ions, primarily helium nuclei — are accelerated to escape the sun's gravity.
To do this, Parker had to get closer than 25 to 30 solar radii, that is, closer than about 13 million miles.
"Once you get below that altitude, 25 or 30 solar radii or so, there's a lot less evolution of the solar wind, and it's more structured — you see more of the imprints of what was on the sun," Bale said.
In 2021, Parker's instruments recorded magnetic field switchbacks in the Alfvén waves that seemed to be associated with the regions where the solar wind is generated. By the time the probe reached about 12 solar radii from the surface of the sun — 5.2 million miles — the data were clear that the probe was passing through jets of material, rather than mere turbulence.
Bale, Drake and their colleagues traced these jets back to the supergranulation cells in the photosphere, where magnetic fields bunch up and funnel into the sun.
But were the charged particles being accelerated in these funnels by magnetic reconnection, which would slingshot particles outward, or by waves of hot plasma — ionized particles and magnetic field — streaming out of the sun, as if they're surfing a wave?
The fact that Parker detected extremely high-energy particles in these jets — tens to hundreds of kiloelectron volts (keV), versus a few keV for most solar wind particles — told Bale that it has to be magnetic reconnection that accelerates the particles and generates the Alfvén waves, which likely give the particles an extra boost.
"Our interpretation is that these jets of reconnection outflow excite Alfvén waves as they propagate out," Bale said. "That's an observation that's well known from Earth's magnetotail, as well, where you have similar kind of processes. I don't understand how wave damping can produce these hot particles up to hundreds of keV, whereas it comes naturally out of the reconnection process. And we see it in our simulations, too. "
Parker won't be able to get any closer to the sun than about 8.8 solar radii above the surface — about 4 million miles — without frying its instruments. Bale expects to solidify the team's conclusions with data from that altitude, though the sun is now entering solar maximum, when activity becomes much more chaotic and may obscure the processes the scientists are trying to view.
"There was some consternation at the beginning of the solar probe mission that we're going to launch this thing right into the quietest, most dull part of the solar cycle," Bale said. "But I think without that, we would never have understood this. It would have been just too messy. I think we're lucky that we launched it in the solar minimum."
The work was funded by NASA (Contract NNN06AA01C).
Robert Sanders writes for the UC Berkeley News Center.
The trustee of a special needs trust, or SNT, may make discretionary distributions for the “special needs” of a disabled person.
That the trustee has discretion to make distributions and that such distributions are for the beneficiary’s special needs are to preserve the SNT’s beneficiary’s eligibility to receive government needs based benefits, e.g., Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”), Medi-Cal and food stamps.
The government benefits pay only for the beneficiary’s necessities of life (e.g., rent, utilities and food) and the SNT may pay for additional things not covered by such benefits to make a richer life (e.g., vacations, etc.). This way the SNT assets last longer.
When the SNT Trustee provides required accountings to the government caseworker, disagreement can arise over whether the SNT distributions were appropriate under the terms of the SNT and applicable federal and state law. A trustee of an SNT must understand and follow both the SNT’s own distribution standards and the relevant government benefit laws.
In Daniel McGee v. Department of Health Care Services (Super. Ct. No. 12PR7408), the California Third Appellate Court considered what types of distributions for Special Needs a trustee may make from a SNT.
The appellate opinion in McGee addressed whether, “… the term “special needs” … refers only to ‘the beneficiary’s special needs as created by the limitations due to her condition,’ … .”
The court examined the terms of the SNT and applicable federal law and ruled that the term “Special Needs” (i.e., that for which distributions may be made) is not limited only to the beneficiary’s Special Needs created by his or her disability.
Rather the court found that the SNT, “… instrument defines special needs broadly. It declares that the phrase “special needs” broadly means “the requisites for maintaining the Beneficiary’s good health, safety, and welfare when, in the discretion of the Trustee, such requisites are not being provided by any public agency.”
Nonetheless, limitations still exist on what purchases and payments a Trustee of a SNT can make.
The opinion also says that, “the trust instrument did not vest the trustee with sole or absolute discretion to make distributions. Instead, the instrument requires all distributions to be “reasonably necessary in providing for this Beneficiary’s special needs, as defined herein.”
The trustee may make distributions to or for the beneficiary’s benefit in such sums and at such times as the trustee in his discretion determines are “appropriate and reasonably necessary for the Beneficiary’s Special Needs.”
The court also recognized that the SNT instrument allowed the Trustee to make distributions that would reduce or eliminate the beneficiary’s receipt of needs based government benefits if the benefits outweighed the cost.
Thus, for example, the SNT could pay the beneficiary’s rent, and so reduce the beneficiary’s SSI income, if doing so was in the beneficiary’s best interest.
The McGee opinion involved a “First Party” SNT, i.e., an SNT established with the assets belonging to a disabled person, required to meet the federal requirements for a First Party SNT, including that all trust distributions be, “for the sole benefit” of the disabled person, and that, at the disabled beneficiary’s death, the SNT “pay back” to all states the cost of Medi-caid services received in any state.
These other SNT limitations were not relevant to this opinion but play an important part in the drafting and the administration of a “First Party” SNT.
Nonetheless, the discussion in McGee has relevance to Special Needs distributions from all SNT’s, including third party SNT’s, i.e., trusts established by persons other than the disabled beneficiary using assets not belonging to the disabled person.
The foregoing is a brief discussion of how the appellate decision in McGee broadly defined “Special Needs” as it relates to SNT distributions. It is not legal advice. For legal guidance in drafting or administering a special needs trust consult a qualified attorney.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lake County Chamber of Commerce is pleased to announce that Michele Carson, client relations manager at Strong Financial Network, has been named the “CTA of the Year” by the Tourism Ambassador Institute.
The institute, or TAI, is an international organization that licenses and accredits over 30 local CTA Programs in 20 states.
The Lake County CTAs have been delivering quality education to local residents that aspire to become advocates for Lake County.
The CTA Program teaches best practices, itinerary planning, customer service, and helps the CTAs increase their knowledge of Lake County. The program provides resources so that CTA know how to answer questions from visitors.
“Michele Carson, this year's recipient of the CTA of the Year Award, was an absolute standout amongst the competition,” said John Marks, former CEO of the San Francisco Convention & Visitors’ Bureau and Chair of the 2023 International CTA of the Year judging committee.
Marks said Carson leads an innovative, and involved program in Lake County, “where she plans, and executes, numerous gatherings for her local CTA’s to become even more involved in the community. Every time Michele walks into a room, everyone is greeted with a genuine smile, and her sense of invaluable service."
Carson is the shining star of this program, dedicating countless volunteer hours running meetings, facilitating annual strategizing sessions, planning “EdVentures” that combine fun social activities with education, and coordinating an annual project that will place our beautiful county in a positive light to our visitors.
In 2022, Carson wrote a grant and was awarded funding to promote Lake County to visiting anglers. The fishing industry has a big impact on the local economy, and she believed that we could do more to make the anglers feel more welcome.
She produced banners and signs for businesses and municipalities to display to make visiting anglers feel more welcome when they visited Clear Lake.
Carson is also credited with collaborating with the Clear Lake High School’s Culinary Program to ensure that the students became CTAs over the course of their studies.
“The CTA Program has been recognized by the Lakeport Unified School District administration as academically sound and has included in Clear Lake High School’s Hospitality Career Technical Education curriculum, a career readiness program that prepares students to enter the workforce upon graduation,” said Laura McAndrews Sammel, CEO of the Lake County Chamber of Commerce. “We are thrilled to serve our local businesses by offering this training to our up-and-coming workforce.”
Lake County boasts the only CTA Program in the entire network that is chaired and overseen by volunteers.
While Carson’s efforts are supported by the paid staff at the Lake County Chamber of Commerce, much of the program is coordinated by Carson and the CTA Core Committee — with the help of many other CTAs, which is what the chamber called “the Michele Magic.”
Carson is credited with being able to take an idea that someone mentions to her and put it into action. It inspires others into action and, before you know it, another major accomplishment has been made.
She focuses on strong customer service to and for Lake County’s visitors because she innately understands how that impacts economic development for the community.
Lake County residents and visitors alike will recognize a CTA by the gold or silver star lapel pin. Some CTAs wear their pin to work, while others don theirs when they go out to a community event.
Carson was recently spotted wearing hers at a friend’s wedding reception. She is always prepared to answer visitors’ questions no matter where she is! This international accolade proves what we already know: Michele Carson is a shining Lake County Star.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. — Caltrans and local officials on Wednesday gathered at State Route 29 at Konocti Rock Company Road to celebrate the completion of the $85 million Konocti Corridor project, the first phase of a safety project that will eventually widen an 8-mile section of Route 29.
The cost was covered by Caltrans, the Lake Area Planning Council, or Lake APC, and the Federal Highway Administration.
“Completing the first phase of the Konocti Corridor Project advances the long term vision for a brighter future for Lake County and all Californians,” said Caltrans District 1 Director Matt Brady. “Our continuing partnership with the Lake Area Planning Council and the Federal Highway Administration has helped make this safety project possible.”
Lake APC Executive Director Lisa Davey-Bates, who has worked on this project for 23 years, highlighted the importance of the partnerships that enabled the project to proceed.
“From the start, it’s been a long, but rewarding process. I’d like to take this opportunity to give my sincerest thanks to Caltrans staff who have contributed their time, energy, and financial support to the Konocti Corridor project,” said Davey-Bates. “Since 1988 there has been a team of experts working together on this project to provide a safer and more efficient roadway network for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians in Lake County.”
The corridor serves the communities of Lakeport, Kelseyville, Lower Lake and Middletown, as well as auto and commercial truck traffic traveling between U.S. 101 and Interstate 5.
With anticipated traffic growth, by expanding the section of highway to four lanes with controlled access, capacity will be increased, and highway safety will be significantly improved.
In addition, the new expressway will assist in achieving the long-range plan to divert traffic from communities on the northern end of Clearlake, where pedestrian and nonmotorized traffic safety have been an ongoing concern.
In all, the project will widen an 8-mile section of Route 29 and is separated into three different segments.
The recently completed 3-mile segment, 2C, extends from east of Route 175 near Kelseyville to Konocti Rock Company Road.
The other two portions, segment 2A and 2B, are to the east of 2C, and the partners are working to secure funding to complete the project.
“While we are grateful for the completion of the first phase of the Konocti Corridor safety project, we are still not done,” said Caltrans Corridor Manager Jaime Matteoli. “Our team is currently working on the financial support needed to finish the five-mile stretch of roadway on Route 29.”
O.C. Jones & Sons was the contractor for the first segment of the project.
New research from the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, has shown that the magnetic fields in 30 Doradus — a region of ionized hydrogen at the heart of the Large Magellanic Cloud — could be the key to its surprising behavior.
Most of the energy in 30 Doradus, also called the Tarantula Nebula, comes from the massive star cluster near its center, R136, which is responsible for multiple, giant, expanding shells of matter.
But in this region near the nebula’s core, within about 25 parsecs of R136, things are a bit weird. The gas pressure here is lower than it should be near R136’s intense stellar radiation, and the area’s mass is smaller than expected for the system to remain stable.
Using SOFIA’s High-resolution Airborne Wideband Camera Plus, or HAWC+, astronomers studied the interplay between magnetic fields and gravity in 30 Doradus. Magnetic fields, it turns out, are the region’s secret ingredient.
The recent study, published in The Astrophysical Journal, found the magnetic fields in this region are simultaneously complex and organized, with vast variations in geometry related to the large-scale expanding structures at play.
But how do these complex-but-organized fields help 30 Doradus survive?
In most of the area, the magnetic fields are incredibly strong. They’re strong enough to resist turbulence, so they can continue to regulate gas motion and hold the cloud’s structure intact. They’re also strong enough to prevent gravity from taking over and collapsing the cloud into stars.
However, the field is weaker in some spots, enabling gas to escape and inflate the giant shells. As the mass in these shells grows, stars can continue to form despite the strong magnetic fields.
Observing the region with other instruments can help astronomers better understand the role of magnetic fields in the evolution of 30 Doradus and other similar nebulae.
SOFIA was a joint project of NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR. DLR provided the telescope, scheduled aircraft maintenance, and other support for the mission. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley managed the SOFIA program, science, and mission operations in cooperation with the Universities Space Research Association, headquartered in Columbia, Maryland, and the German SOFIA Institute at the University of Stuttgart. The aircraft was maintained and operated by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center Building 703, in Palmdale, California. SOFIA achieved full operational capability in 2014 and concluded its final science flight on Sept. 29, 2022.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control’s kennels this week continue to feature many dogs from puppies to older dogs needing homes.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Anatolian shepherd, Catahoula leopard dog, German shepherd, mastiff, pit bull, plott hound and pointer.
Dogs that are adopted from Lake County Animal Care and Control are either neutered or spayed, microchipped and, if old enough, given a rabies shot and county license before being released to their new owner. License fees do not apply to residents of the cities of Lakeport or Clearlake.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption.
Call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278 or visit the shelter online for information on visiting or adopting.
Male German shepherd puppy
This 6-month-old male German shepherd puppy has a black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 2, ID No. LCAC-A-5315.
Female pit bull
This 2-year-old female pit bull has a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 4, ID No. LCAC-A-5301.
Anatolian shepherd-mastiff mix
This 3-year-old male Anatolian shepherd-mastiff mix has a short fawn coat.
He is in kennel No. 5, ID No. LCAC-A-5276.
Male pit bull puppy
This 3-month-old male pit bull puppy has a short brindle coat.
He is in kennel No. 6, ID No. LCAC-A-5266.
Male pit bull terrier
This 3-month-old male pit bull terrier has a short brindle coat.
He is in kennel No. 7, ID No. LCAC-A-5265.
Male pit bull
This 1-year-old male pit bull terrier has a short black coat.
He is in kennel No. 11, ID No. LCAC-A-5258.
Male Catahoula leopard dog puppy
This 2-month-old male Catahoula leopard dog puppy has a short brindle coat with white markings.
He is in kennel No. 12b, ID No. LCAC-A-5245.
Female Catahoula leopard dog puppy
This 2-month-old female Catahoula leopard dog puppy has a short brindle coat with white markings.
She is in kennel No. 12c, ID No. LCAC-A-5246.
Male plott hound
This 2-year-old male plott hound has a short brown coat.
He is in kennel No. 18, ID No. LCAC-A-5143.
Female pit bull terrier
This 5-year-old female pit bull terrier has a short gray and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 19, ID No. LCAC-A-5321.
Female pit bull terrier
This one and a half year old female pit bull terrier has a short tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-5312.
Male pit bull terrier
This 3-year-old male pit bull terrier has a short black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 21, ID No. LCAC-A-5076.
Male shepherd
This 2-year-old male shepherd has a tan and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 22, ID No. LCAC-A-5223.
Male shepherd
This 1-year-old male shepherd has a tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 25, ID No. LCAC-A-5303.
Male pit bull
This 1-year-old male pit bull terrier has a short tan coat with white markings.
He is in kennel No. 26, ID No. LCAC-A-5120.
Male pit bull terrier
This 1-year-old male pit bull terrier has a black coat with white markings.
He is in kennel No. 27, ID No. LCAC-A-5203.
Male pit bull puppy
This 5-month-old male pit bull puppy has a white coat.
He is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-5325.
‘Luna’
“Luna” is a 1-year-old female husky with a red, tan and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 30, ID No. LCAC-A-5270.
Female pit bull-shepherd puppy
This 5-month-old female pit bull-shepherd puppy has a short tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-5072.
Male shepherd
This 1-year-old male shepherd has a tricolor coat.
He is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-5310.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Dozens of Lake County residents are being victimized as the result of a recent series of thefts targeting their benefit cards.
Lake County News has received reports of community members having thousands of dollars taken from their cards, leaving them unable to pay for rent, groceries and other needs.
Crystal Markytan, director of Lake County Social Services, confirmed to Lake County News that the thefts have been occurring.
“We are able to reimburse victims for loss of their most recent monthly allotment but cannot reimburse over that amount for those recipients who have over one month's allotment stored on their card,” said Markytan.
Markytan added, “This is part of a statewide problem that we have been fortunate enough to largely avoid.”
Rachael Dillman, deputy director over Social Services’ eligibility and employment services, is tracking and reporting the thefts to the state.
Dillman said Lake County residents who are holders of electronic benefits transfer, or EBT, cards are experiencing theft by skimming and scamming.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that skimming occurs when cardholders’ PINs are captured by devices that are illegally installed on ATMs, point-of-sale terminals or fuel pumps.
Criminals then use the data to create fake debit or credit cards and steal from victims’ accounts, the FBI reported.
“It is estimated that skimming costs financial institutions and consumers more than $1 billion each year,” the FBI said on a webpage dedicated to explaining skimming.
Until this month, Dillman said Social Services clients had experienced very little skimming or scamming theft in Lake County, although larger counties throughout the state have been experiencing it for the last few years.
“With each replacement from EBT skimming/scamming theft, we also make a referral to law enforcement for investigation. That does not bar customers from making their own report to law enforcement if they wish to do so,” Dillman said.
She said that from June 1 to 5 alone, there were 49 total cases of skimming/scamming, resulting in $45,325 being stolen. Of that, $41,588 was replaced.
Of those theft cases, Dillman said 37 involved CalWORKs clients, with $34,796 stolen, all of which was replaced.
The remaining 12 clients are in the CalFresh Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, program, with $10,529 stolen and $6,792 replaced, Dillman said.
She explained that with CalFresh, Social Services can only replace a maximum of one month's benefits, so if customers were saving up multiple months of benefits, they may have had more stolen than can be replaced under the regulations.
Dillman has been in contact with the California Department of Social Services, and their advice is that customer education is the key to prevention.
As such, Dillman said Social Services has made several postings over the last few months on its Facebook page to educate customers.
In addition, Dillman said the agency has posted notices in its lobbies and handed out informational material to customers when they get their EBT cards.
“I’ve also set a mass emergency text to go out to all customers enrolled to receive text messages reminding them of EBT security and to report theft,” Dillman said.
Safety tips
The Department of Social Services offered the following safety tips to prevent skimming and scamming theft.
If you have an EBT card, follow these tips to keep your benefits safe: • Keep your PIN and card number secret • Cover your hand when typing in your PIN • Change your PIN often, at least once a month the day BEFORE your benefits become available • Do NOT click on any links from text messages or emails regarding your EBT card • Watch out for suspicious websites • Protect your benefits, keep track of your balances daily. There are three ways to check your balance: online at www.ebt.ca.gov or www.benefitscal.com; all 1-877-328-9677, available 24/7; and check your receipt after each purchase.
If you get cash aid, sign up for direct deposit if possible. Bank cards with smart chips are more secure. The state of California is working on updating EBT cards to smart chips, but that won’t begin until 2024.
If you believe your food or cash benefits have been stolen, please call the EBT Customer Services Helpline 24/7 at 1-877-328-9677 or visit your county office right away, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., telephone 707-995-4200, TTY 711, 15975 Anderson Ranch Parkway, Lower Lake.
You may be eligible to have the stolen benefits replaced by completing the EBT 2259 form. You may also wish to file a police report, but that is not required to have your benefits replaced, the Social Services Department reported.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
By getting to know your neighbors and investing in your community, you can make your neighborhood safer. Vladimir Vladimirov/E+/Getty Images Ishita Chordia, University of Washington
A series of gunshots fired late at night in East Atlanta recently prompted my neighbor to post on our local Facebook group, asking what we can do as a community to make it less dangerous to live and work in the area.
You may be asking yourself the same question. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, cities across the country have seen an increase in gun violence and homicides.
Around the country, crime seems to be rising, and that sense of danger influences our daily choices – from where we walk our dogs to how we vote.
As a researcher at the University of Washington, I study how media and technology influence our sense of safety. New apps and technologies have made crime information increasingly accessible and available in real time and on demand. However, I’ve found that access to so much information can cause some people to feel helpless and anxious rather than empowered.
If that sounds like you, here are four evidence-based strategies you can use to take power and transform your neighborhood. While these strategies may not lead to immediate changes, they shift the underlying social, economic and environmental characteristics of your neighborhood to make it truly safer in the long run.
For example, if you see a child involved in a fight, knowing your neighbors might help you contact the child’s parent or guardian or intervene yourself. If you see an older adult looking lost, you may know how to guide them home or call someone who does. You do not need to be close friends with your neighbors, but by taking small, consistent actions to look out for one another, especially those neighbors who are most vulnerable, you are creating a safer community.
2. Selectively listen to crime news
Despite the real problems the country is facing with gun violence, crime rates in the United States are still at historic lows: Property crime and violent crime have been decreasing steadily since the early 1990s, with a slight uptick in violent crime since 2015.
Then why have you heard about so much crime?
While crime rates are largely decreasing, information about crime is more accessible than ever. Mobile apps and websites now enable you to view and share crime information in real time with the click of a few buttons.
In a recent study, we interviewed people who use the Citizen app to stay informed about local safety incidents. We found that while such apps can provide users with timely local information, they can also spike users’ fears by raising the salience and visibility of every little incident regardless of whether it presents a risk to users’ safety.
The Citizen app, like many other apps, has a financial incentive to report as much information as possible because it profits from users’ engagement. However, for users of these apps, the resulting fear can lead them to avoid going out in the evenings or heighten their fear of strangers - the opposite of the kind of social trust and cohesion necessary for long-term crime prevention.
If you find yourself feeling anxious or fearful after reading crime news, consider using filters, turning off alerts and maintaining perspective by reading good news as well as the crime stories.
3. Support local organizations
Another influential study found that organizations that focus on neighborhood development, substance abuse prevention, crime prevention, job training and recreational activities for youth all reduce the crime rate.
The study was large, looking at data from 20 years and 264 cities, and found that establishing 10 additional community organizations in a city decreases the homicide rate by 9%, the violent crime rate by 6% and the property crime rate by 4% within a year. Those effects persist for at least three years, even if the organizations cease to exist.
One famous example is a program called Midnight Basketball, which began in the early 1990s in Washington D.C. Its aim was to provide youth with a safe space to play basketball during high-crime hours and use that opportunity to connect them with educational and social services.
Despite research documenting the success of Midnight Basketball in reducing crime, the program struggled for many years due to poor political and financial support. By supporting local, high-quality programs in various ways – with dollars, volunteer time and political support – community members can begin addressing the underlying social and economic factors that lead to crime in the first place.
4. Fix up your neighborhood
Organizing is an effective crime prevention strategy. When neighborhoods organize against crime, however, they often default to crime watches and neighborhood patrols. One study estimates that over 40% of the U.S. population lives in areas monitored by a neighborhood watch group.
There are other ways to organize that makes the area safer for everyone. For example, you can focus on changing the underlying characteristics of a neighborhood.
Community members can identify individual blocks or vacant plots of land that look run down. Clean up trash, advocate for more street lights and plant greenery – the goal is to transform run-down parts of your neighborhood into vibrant areas where people would enjoy congregating.
When you feel unsafe, a natural reaction is to isolate yourself and distrust the strangers around you. However, such responses not only lead to more fear, but they can also weaken community cohesion and make your neighborhood less safe.
By building relationships, looking out for one another and investing in your social and physical infrastructure, you can truly make your neighborhood safer in the long run.
Body dissatisfaction among children and adolescents is commonplace and has been linked to decreased quality of life, worsened mood and unhealthy eating habits.
I also have firsthand experience with this topic: I am 15 years post-recovery from an eating disorder, and I grew up when people were beginning to widely use social media. In my view, the impact of social media on diet and exercise patterns needs to be further researched to inform future policy directions, school programming and therapeutic treatment.
A recent review found that, as with mass media, the use of social media is a risk factor for the development of an eating disorder, body image dissatisfaction and disordered eating. In this review, social media use was shown to contribute to negative self-esteem, social comparisons, decreased emotional regulation and idealized self-presentation that negatively influenced body image.
Another study, called the Dove Self-Esteem Project, published in April 2023, found that 9 in 10 children and adolescents ages 10 to 17 are exposed to toxic beauty content on social media and 1 in 2 say that this has an impact on their mental health.
Eating disorders are complex mental illnesses that develop because of biological, social and psychological factors. Eating disorder hospitalizations and the need for treatment have dramatically increased during the pandemic.
Some reasons for this include isolation, food scarcity, boredom and social media content related to weight gain, such as the “quarantine15.” That was a reference to the weight gain some people were experiencing at the beginning of the pandemic, similar to the “freshman 15” belief that one will gain 15 pounds in the first year of college. Many teens whose routines were disrupted by the pandemic turned to eating disorder behaviors for an often-false sense of control or were influenced by family members who held unhealthy beliefs around food and exercise.
Researchers have also found that increased time at home during the pandemic led to more social media use by young people and therefore more exposure to toxic body image and dieting social media content.
While social media alone will not cause eating disorders, societal beliefs about beauty, which are amplified by social media, can contribute to the development of eating disorders.
‘Thinspo’ and ‘fitspo’
Toxic beauty standards online include the normalization of cosmetic and surgical procedures and pro-eating-disorder content, which promotes and romanticizes eating disorders. For instance, social media sites have promoted trends such as “thinspo,” which is focused on the thin ideal, and “fitspo,” which perpetuates the belief of there being a perfect body that can be achieved with dieting, supplements and excessive exercise.
Some social media posts feature pro-eating-disorder content, which directly or indirectly encourages disordered eating. Other posts promote deliberate manipulation of one’s body, using harmful quotes such as “nothing tastes as good as thin feels.” These posts provide a false sense of connection, allowing users to bond over a shared goal of losing weight, altering one’s appearance and continuing patterns of disordered eating.
Small steps at home to cut down on social media consumption can also make a difference. Parents and caregivers can create phone-free periods for the family. Examples of this include putting phones away while the family watches a movie together or during mealtimes.
Mindful social media consumption is another helpful approach. This requires recognizing what one is feeling during social media scrolling. If spending time on social media makes you feel worse about yourself or seems to be causing mood changes in your child, it may be time to change how you or your child interact with social media.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Two Lake County projects that aim to help the threatened Clear Lake hitch have received state funding.
The hitch is the focus of an emergency declaration the Board of Supervisors passed in February.
The Governor’s Office reported that it has dedicated $71 million to address drinking water shortages, species protection and populations particularly impacted by drought.
Those projects include $500,000 to fund stream gages and well transducers for use in Clear Lake to better understand the relationship between streamflow, well pumping and water use.
The second project, for a contract to investigate groundwater/stream water interactions in the Clear Lake region, also will receive $500,000 for a contract to investigate groundwater/stream water interactions in the Clear Lake region.
The funding for both, totaling $1 million, will support the threatened Clear Lake hitch.
Other awards that are part of that funding round include:
• $10 million to provide immediate and near-term financial and technical support to help small communities whose water supplies have been impacted by drought.
• $55 million to address dry wells by providing hauled water and well repair and replacement.
• $5 million to provide direct relief grants for small-scale and historically underserved farmers.