Napa County District Attorney Allison Haley on Monday announced a settlement in an environmental protection action against the corporate entities and individuals who own and operate several gas stations branded as Fast and Easy.
The Yolo County Superior Court entered a judgment ordering defendants Aasim Corp., Aasim Enterprises Inc., Ashraf Ali, Yasmin Ali, Samir Ali, Shafique Bhimani and Mohammed Bilal to pay $1.1 million in civil penalties and investigative costs.
This judgment settles allegations that the defendants failed to follow state laws governing the operation of retail gas stations at locations in Napa, Alameda, Lake, San Joaquin and Yolo counties.
Owners and operators of underground storage tanks, or USTs, at retail gas stations in California are subject to fair, yet stringent environmental rules and requirements designed to prevent underground petroleum releases to surface and ground waters, the Napa County District Attorney’s Office reported.
Prosecutors alleged that the Fast and Easy defendants failed to adequately install, monitor, operate and calibrate important equipment on-site designed to detect leaks at the earliest possible opportunity, and failed to comply with laws regulating hazardous wastes and hazardous materials at the gas stations.
As part of the judgment, the defendants are required to pay $900,000 in civil penalties and $200,000 in investigative and enforcement costs.
The settlement also includes a permanent statewide injunction, prohibiting the defendants from violating UST and hazardous waste laws, and further requires them to retain an experienced, independent environmental consultant to assist with future compliance at all stations.
“Underground fuel leaks pose a significant threat to Napa County’s groundwater supply and to the environment,” said Haley. “This case illustrates the importance of keeping our water supply safe from pollution by holding companies that fail to monitor and maintain their underground storage tanks accountable.”
The Napa County District Attorney’s Office thanked everyone within the Napa County Environmental Health Division, city of San Leandro Environmental Services, Hayward Fire Department, Lake County Division of Environmental Health, San Joaquin County Environmental Health Department and the Yolo County Environmental Health Division for their investigative efforts and assistance with this case.
Sonia Hassan, Wayne State University and Hala Ouweini, Wayne State University
Every two minutes, in about the time it takes to read a page of your favorite book or brew a cup of coffee, a woman dies during pregnancy or childbirth, according to a February 2023 report from the World Health Organization. The report reflects a shameful reality in which maternal deaths have either increased or plateaued worldwide between 2016 and 2020.
On top of that, of every 10 babies born, one is preterm – and every 40 seconds, one of those babies dies. Globally, preterm birth is the leading cause of death in children under the age of 5, with complications from preterm birth resulting in the death of 1 million children under age 5 each year.
The WHO has designated preterm birth an “urgent public health issue” in recognition of the threat it poses to global health.
Those numbers reflect a worldwide problem, but the U.S. in particular has an abysmal record on both preterm births and maternal mortality: Despite significant medical advancements in recent years, the U.S. suffers from the highest maternal mortality rate among high-income countries globally. And the 2022 March of Dimes Report Card, an evaluation of maternal and infant health, gave the United States an extremely poor “D+” grade. That data also revealed that the national preterm birth rate spiked to 10.5% in 2021, representing a record 15-year high.
We are maternal fetal medicine experts and scholars of women’s health who focus on treatments and programs to help women have better maternal health, especially those that reduce preterm birth.
Our Office of Women’s Health leads the SOS Maternity Network, which stands for the Synergy of Scholars in Maternal and Infant Health Equity, a research alliance of maternal fetal medicine physicians across the state of Michigan.
Maternal and infant death are the worst possible outcomes of pregnancy. These numbers make clear just how crucial it is to change this trajectory and to ensure all Americans have practical access to quality reproductive health care.
Dire state of maternal health care
Tori Bowie, an elite Olympic athlete, tragically lost her life at just age 32 because of complications of pregnancy and childbirth.
Bowie’s story drives home the devastating state of maternal health in the U.S. Maternal mortality is a sad and unexpected ending to the often beautiful journey of pregnancy and childbirth. It means that a baby has to go without its mother’s love, care and comforting touch and at the same time the family has to mourn the sudden loss of their loved one. Unless substantial progress is made for lowering maternal deaths, the lives of over 1 million more women like Bowie could be at risk by the year 2030, if current trends continue.
Unfortunately, the maternal and infant health crises are worsening in the U.S., and this association is far from being an unfortunate coincidence. There is an important link between infant health and maternal health, as they both rely on the accessibility and quality of health care. These U.S. rates have been increasing since 2018, when improved reporting of maternal deaths was adopted.
In 2020, the U.S. maternal mortality rate was 23.8 deaths per 100,000 live births – nearly three times as high as the country with the next-highest rate of 8.7 deaths per 100,000 live births, France.
The number of women who died within a year after pregnancy more than doubled in the U.S. over the 20-year period of 1999 to 2019. And there are significant racial disparities in this statistic: The highest number of pregnancy-related deaths were recorded among Black women, increasing from 26.7 per 100,000 births to 55.4 per 100,000 during that same time period.
Tragic rates of infant mortality and preterm birth
Notably, in 2020 the U.S. also experienced the highest infant mortality rate of all high-income countries. The U.S infant mortality rate was 5.4 deaths per 1,000 live births, in contrast to the 1.6 deaths per 1,000 live births in Norway, the country with the lowest infant mortality rate.
You may have heard the term “preemie” before, perhaps when a loved one delivered a baby more than three weeks before the expected due date. A premature birth is one that occurs before the 37th week of pregnancy. Preterm-related causes are responsible for 35.8% of infant deaths in the U.S.
Preterm babies are often not fully physiologically prepared for delivery, which can result in a range of medical complications. While preterm births lead to rising infant mortality rates, even those who survive can face health problems such as breathing difficulties, problems with feeding, significant developmental delay and more throughout their lives. Preterm birth also presents additional risks for the mother, as women who deliver preterm are at higher risk for cardiovascular complications later in life.
Thus, preterm birth takes a significant toll on families and their communities, with serious ramifications in medical, social, psychological and financial contexts.
Maternal care during pregnancy is key
Maternal care appointments and screenings are essential to prevent prenatal complications and a women’s increased risk for developing long-term complications such as cardiovascular disease. For that reason, patients should secure prenatal care as early as possible in the pregnancy and continue to regularly have prenatal care appointments.
Preterm birth can occur unexpectedly in an otherwise normal-seeming pregnancy. It looks no different from the early signs of a typical labor, except that it occurs before 37 weeks of pregnancy. The symptoms of premature labor can include contractions, unusual vaginal discharge, the feeling of pressure in the pelvic area, low dull backache or cramps in the uterus or abdomen. A person who experiences these symptoms during pregnancy should seek medical attention.
Some people are more predisposed to preterm birth based on individual risk factors like substance use, multiple pregnancy – such as twins – infections, race, a medical history of prior preterm delivery and heightened stress levels. Our research team and others have shown that COVID-19 is a known risk factor for preterm birth.
It’s important to speak with your primary care provider to assess how your current health may affect future pregnancy and whether lifestyle changes – such as adopting a healthy diet and active lifestyle and avoiding smoking and drinking alcohol – can improve your likelihood of a full-term delivery.
Preterm birth prevention
The more that pregnant women take ownership of their health and ask their doctors to perform a simple cervical length screening during their pregnancy, the earlier preterm birth can be detected and prevented and the more lives will be saved.
Evidence has shown that patients with a short cervix face a greater risk of the cervix’s opening too early in pregnancy, resulting in preterm birth and other adverse outcomes. The cervix is the lower section of the uterus, which connects to the vaginal canal. As pregnancy progresses, it stretches, softens and ultimately opens in the process of normal childbirth.
All patients – even those who are seemingly low risk – should ask their doctors to have their cervical length checked by transvaginal ultrasound during pregnancy between 19 and 24 weeks. A short cervical length indicates a high risk of a premature delivery. Luckily, there are treatments available, such as vaginal progesterone, which can prevent preterm birth in women found by ultrasound to have a short cervix. This treatment can reduce the risk of preterm birth by more than 40%.
We are optimistic that with greater awareness of these issues and a shift in the focus to evidence-based practices coupled with increased access to vulnerable populations, the U.S. can begin to give women like Bowie and so many others the health care they and their infants deserve.
This article has been updated to highlight the most recent trends in maternal mortality that were reported on July 3, 2023, and to highlight the stark racial disparities.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has many dogs available for adoption this week.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of Anatolian shepherd, Belgian malinois, Chihuahua, collie, German shepherd, hound, mastiff, pit bull and terrier.
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.
‘Little Foot’
“Little Foot” is a 7-month-old male German shepherd puppy with a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 2, ID No. LCAC-A-5315.
Male Great Pyrenees
This 1 and a half year old male Great Pyrenees has a white coat.
He is in kennel No. 3, ID No. LCAC-A-5469.
Male poodle
This 2-year-old male poodle has a black coat.
He is in kennel No. 4, ID No. LCAC-A-5541.
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 Chihuahua
This 5-year-old male Chihuahua has a short tricolor coat.
He is in kennel No. 6, ID No. LCAC-A-5500.
‘Roasie’
“Roasie”is a 2-year-old female pit bull terrier with a short black and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 7, ID No. LCAC-A-5434.
Female pit bull
This 3-year-old female pit bull has a short brown coat.
She is in kennel No. 8, ID No. LCAC-A-5505.
Female pit bull terrier
This 3-year-old female pit bull terrier has a brown and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 10, ID No. LCAC-A-5400.
Female Chihuahua
This 9-year-old female Chihuahua has a short brown and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 11, ID No. LCAC-A-5511.
Female German shepherd
This 2-year-old female German shepherd has a black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 12, ID No. LCAC-A-5488.
Male shepherd
This 2 and a half year old male shepherd has a short black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 14, ID No. LCAC-A-5479.
‘Zeta’
“Zeta” is a 1-year-old female pit bull terrier with a black and tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 16, ID No. LCAC-A-5427.
‘Jax’
“Jax” is a 4-year-old male Siberian husky with a black and white coat.
He is in kennel No. 17, ID No. LCAC-A-5477.
le Chihuahua-terrier mix
This 2-year-old male Chihuahua-terrier mix has a short white coat.
She is in kennel No. 20, ID No. LCAC-A-5381.
Male shepherd
This 2-year-old male shepherd has a black and tan coat.
He is in kennel No. 22, ID No. LCAC-A-5423.
Female pit bull terrier
This 6-year-old female pit bull terrier has a short tan coat.
She is in kennel No. 24, ID No. LCAC-A-5410.
Male shepherd
This 1 and a half year old male shepherd has a short tricolor coat.
He is in kennel No. 26, ID No. LCAC-A-5424.
Female shepherd
This 2-year-old female shepherd has a short yellow and white coat.
She is in kennel No. 27, ID No. LCAC-A-5369.
Female collie mix
This 3-year-old collie mix has a black coat.
She is in kennel No. 28, ID No. LCAC-A-5514.
‘Spot’
“Spot” is a 5-month-old male pit bull puppy with a white coat.
He is in kennel No. 29, ID No. LCAC-A-5325.
Male shepherd mix puppy
This 6-month-old male shepherd mix puppy has a black coat with white markings.
He is in kennel No. 32, ID No. LCAC-A-5408.
‘Nana’
“Nana” is a 2-year-old female shepherd mix with a short yellow coat.
She is in kennel No. 33, ID No. LCAC-A-5277.
Female shepherd
This 10-month-old female shepherd has a tricolor coat.
She is in kennel No. 34, ID No. LCAC-A-5323.
‘Jojo’
“Jojo” is a one and a half year old female pit bull terrier with a short tricolor coat.
She is in kennel foster care, ID No. LCAC-A-5312.
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.
As a child, I had a great deal of anxiety. If you’ve ever seen me speak in public, that might surprise you. But anxiety among children is extremely common and affects almost all children, to varying degrees.
Most researchers have found that anxiety in children increased during and after the pandemic. Lockdowns that isolated children from their peers and interruptions to their routines may have accounted for the findings in these studies.
As a researcher who’s studied children’s mental health for decades, I know that predictability helps prevent anxiety in children. Predictability means things going along as they’ve always gone: sleep at night, up in the morning, cornflakes for breakfast, off to school, activities in the afternoon, dinner with the family. In Louise Fitzhugh’s children’s novel “Harriet the Spy,” Harriet’s mother can’t believe that her daughter always takes a tomato sandwich to school. Always. Harriet has no interest in variety. She’s perfectly happy with the same sandwich, year after year.
Anxiety will crop up for many children again this fall, and it can be intertwined with other feelings, such as excitement and shyness. Here are steps parents can take to help reduce their kids’ back-to-school anxiety and encourage a better start to the fall term.
Ask your kids how they’re feeling about going back to school, and keep an eye out for headaches, stomachaches, sleeping troubles, persistent “what if” questions, crankiness, excessive concern about very distant events, problems focusing on schoolwork and concerns that aren’t alleviated by logical explanations. An example might be your children worrying that they won’t have friends in school, even though they do have friends from their class last year; or concerns that while they’re at school, something extremely unlikely will happen, such as the house being hit by lightning.
What’s tricky, of course, is that any of these behaviors can be an indication of many different problems, so probe further. Talking to your kids about their thoughts may help you unravel whether they’re feeling anxious.
The emotional connection that children have with their families is their psychological anchor during difficult times. At a time of increased stress and uncertainty, spending time with family can be an antidote. Take a walk or a hike together, eat dinner together, or play board games.
5. Embrace distraction
Distraction isn’t a cure for anxiety, but it can diminish its intensity and help sufferers think more clearly about the source of their worries. When children are feeling very anxious, it’s fine to talk to them about how watching TV or reading a funny book can help them feel calmer.
6. Get professional help when needed
If your child’s anxiety is interfering with sleep, eating, socializing or school attendance, and it persists beyond a few days, it’s a good idea to call your pediatrician or family doctor and report what’s going on. Medical professionals who work with children have seen anxiety skyrocket among kids, and they know how to get your child the necessary help.
As with any back-to-school season, you may find yourself shopping for binders and backpacks. However, children and their anxiety may also need your attention. Practicing simple prevention and intervening when necessary can get your kids off to a great school year.
[The Conversation’s newsletter explains what’s going on with the coronavirus pandemic. Subscribe now.]
This article was updated on July 31, 2023 to replace outdated information.
The U.S. homeownership rate in 2022 was even higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic — 65.8% compared to 64.6% in 2019 — a rebound driven largely by those age 44 and younger, according to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey/Housing Vacancy Survey (CPS/HVS).
Homeownership continued to climb from the downturn following the foreclosure crisis (2004) and Great Recession (2008), when rates dipped as low as 63.4% in 2016. Homeownership rates recovered approximately half of the 5.6% decrease from 2004 to 2016.
The recovery began before the pandemic hit the United States in March 2020: rates rose 1.2 points from 2016 to 2019, and by another 1.2 points from 2019 to 2022.
The pandemic disrupted CPS/HVS data collection operations in 2020 and part of 2021. As a result, it is difficult to know whether the homeownership rate grew during each year of the pandemic.
To account for the disruption, this article focuses on homeownership rate changes from the low in 2016; the 2019 pre-pandemic rate; and the rate in 2022 (when data collection returned to normal).
Younger households typically are more likely to rent than own homes. Yet from 2016 to 2022, homeownership among adults under age 55 went up but remained stable among older populations.
From 2016 to 2019, homeownership increased among householders under age 35 (up 2.2 percentage points), ages 35 to 44 (up 1.5 points), and 45 to 54 (up 0.8 points). The increases for the 35 to 44 age group were not statistically different from the youngest and the oldest age groups.
Rates among older householders were not statistically different during the same period.
The pattern was similar from 2019 to 2022 when homeownership rates also rose about 2% among householders under age 35 and between ages 35 and 44, with one exception: the rate also inched up (0.5 percentage points) among those age 65 and over. There was no statistically significant change among householders in other age groups.
Homeownership rates rose in the Northeast, South and West from 2016 to 2019, and in all regions from 2019 to 2022.
Low mortgage rates likely helped drive the rise, even after rates began to go up in 2022.
By 2022, the homeownership rate in the Midwest hit 70%, the highest of all regions. The South had the second-highest homeownership rate (67.3%), followed by two regions that were not statistically different: the Northeast (62.5%) and West (61.4%).
Homeownership rates rose from 2016 to 2019 among non-Hispanic White householders, Asian, and Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander householders. There was no increase among Black or American Indian/Alaskan Native householders.
But from 2019 to 2022, homeownership rates increased among householders of all races and ethnicities except for American Indian or Alaskan Native householders.
The share of non-Hispanic White householders who owned a home grew from 71.9% in 2016 to 74.4% in 2022. There was about a 3-point increase for Black alone householders (45%) and about a 6-point increase for American Indian or Alaska Native householders (53.4%) and Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander householders (61.0%).
There was no significant difference in the increases for non-Hispanic white householders compared to Black alone, American Indian or Alaska Native, or Hispanic householders.
The difference was also not significant for Black householders compared to American Indian or Alaska Native or Hispanic householders, or for American Indian or Alaska Native versus Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander or Hispanic householders.
About the CPS/HVS
Each annual CPS/HVS release includes more detailed information about homeownership rates by region, age of householder, and race/ethnicity of householder. It also includes overall homeownership estimates for the 50 states and the District of Columbia and the 75 largest metropolitan statistical areas.
In addition, it provides characteristics of vacant housing units for rent and for sale at the national and regional levels, as well as rental and homeowner vacancy rates.
More information on confidentiality protection, methodology, sampling and nonsampling error, and definitions is available in this document.
Robert R. Callis is a survey statistician in the Census Bureau’s Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division.
Jonathan Losos, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to go on safari in southern Africa. One of the greatest thrills was going out at night looking for predators on the prowl: lions, leopards, hyenas.
As we drove through the darkness, though, our spotlight occasionally lit up a smaller hunter – a slender, tawny feline, faintly spotted or striped. The glare would catch the small cat for a moment before it darted back into the shadows.
Based on its size and appearance, I initially presumed it was someone’s pet inexplicably out in the bush. But further scrutiny revealed distinctive features: legs slightly longer than those of most domestic cats, and a striking black-tipped tail. Still, if you saw one from your kitchen window, your first thought would be “Look at that beautiful cat in the backyard,” not “How’d that African wildcat get to New Jersey?”
Yet, I’ve always loved and been fascinated by felines, ever since we adopted a shelter cat when I was 5 years old. And the more I’ve thought about those African wildcats, the more I’ve marveled at their evolutionary success. The species’ claim to fame is simple: The African wildcat is the ancestor of our beloved household pets. And despite changing very little, their descendants have become among the world’s two most popular companion animals. (Numbers are fuzzy, but the global population of cats and dogs approaches a billion for each.)
Clearly, the few evolutionary changes the domestic cat has made have been the right ones to wangle their way into people’s hearts and homes. How did they do it? I explored this question in my book “The Cat’s Meow: How Cats Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa.”
Why the African wildcat?
Big cats – like lions, tigers and pumas – are the attention-grabbing celebrities of the feline world. But of the 41 species of wild felines, the vast majority are about the size of a housecat. Few people have heard of the black-footed cat or the Borneo bay cat, much less the kodkod, oncilla or marbled cat. Clearly, the little-cat side of the feline family needs a better PR agent.
In theory, any of these species could have been the progenitor of the domestic cat, but recent DNA studies demonstrate unequivocally that today’s housecats arose from the African wildcat – specifically, the North African subspecies, Felis silvestris lybica.
Given the profusion of little pusses, why was the North African wildcat the one to give rise to our household companions?
In short, it was the right species in the right place at the right time. Civilization began in the Fertile Crescent about 10,000 years ago, when people first settled into villages and started growing food.
This area – spanning parts of modern-day Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Iran and more – is home to numerous small cats, including the caracal, serval, jungle cat and sand cat. But of these, the African wildcat is the one that to this day enters villages and can be found around humans.
Given these tendencies, it’s easy to envision what likely happened. People settled down and started raising crops, storing the excess for lean times. These granaries led to rodent population explosions. Some African wildcats – those with the least fear of humans – took advantage of this bounty and started hanging around. People saw the benefit of their presence and treated the cats kindly, perhaps giving them shelter or food. The boldest cats entered huts and perhaps allowed themselves to be petted – kittens are adorable! – and, voilà, the domestic cat was born.
Where exactly domestication occurred – if it was a single place and not simultaneously throughout the entire region – is unclear. But tomb paintings and sculptures show that by 3,500 years ago, domestic cats lived in Egypt. Genetic analysis – including DNA from Egyptian cat mummies – and archaeological data chart the feline diaspora. They moved northward through Europe (and ultimately to North America), south deeper into Africa and eastward to Asia. Ancient DNA even demonstrates that Vikings played a role in spreading felines far and wide.
There are only two ways to indisputably identify a wildcat. You can measure the size of its brain – housecats, like other domestic animals, have evolved reductions in the parts of the brain associated with aggression, fear and overall reactivity. Or you can measure the length of its intestines – longer in domestic cats to digest vegetable-based food provided by or scavenged from humans.
The most significant evolutionary changes during cat domestication involve their behavior. The common view that domestic cats are aloof loners couldn’t be further from the truth. When lots of domestic cats live together – in places where humans provide copious amounts of food – they form social groups very similar to lion prides. Composed of related females, these cats are very friendly – grooming, playing with and lying on top of each other, nursing each other’s kittens, even serving as midwives during birth.
To signal friendly intentions, an approaching cat raises its tail straight up, a trait shared with lions and no other feline species. As anyone who has lived with a cat knows, they use this “I want to be friends” message toward people as well, indicating that they include us in their social circle.
The sound of these meows has evolved during domestication to more effectively communicate with us. Listeners rate the wildcat’s call as more urgent and demanding (“Mee‑O‑O‑O‑O‑O‑W!”) compared with the domestic cat’s more pleasing (“MEE‑ow”). Scientists suggest that these shorter, higher-pitched sounds are more pleasing to our auditory system, perhaps because young humans have high-pitched voices, and domestic cats have evolved accordingly to curry human favor.
Cats similarly manipulate people with their purrs. When they want something – picture a cat rubbing against your legs in the kitchen while you open a can of wet food – they purr extra loudly. And this purr is not the agreeable thrumming of a content cat, but an insistent chainsaw br-rr-oom demanding attention.
Scientists digitally compared the spectral qualities of the two types of purrs and discovered that the major difference is that the insistent purr includes a component very similar to the sound of a human baby crying. People, of course, are innately attuned to this sound, and cats have evolved to take advantage of this sensitivity to get our attention.
Of course, that won’t surprise anyone who’s lived with a cat. Although cats are very trainable – they’re very food motivated – cats usually train us more than we train them. As the old saw goes, “Dogs have owners, cats have staff.”
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lakeport Fire Protection District Board this week is set to hold a public hearing for its new budget, discuss a contract for dispatch services and a property purchase.
The fire district board will meet at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 8, in the boardroom at headquarters Station 50, 445 N. Main St.
On the agenda is a public hearing on the district’s proposed 2023-24 budget.
The board also will receive a presentation from staff regarding the district’s new Water Rescue Program training and launch.
In other business, the board will consider entering into a contract with Cal Fire for dispatch services and Kelseyville Fire Protection District for dispatch billing services.
They also will discuss adjusting the 2023-24 Measure M parcel tax to account for inflation/cost of living allowance.
Also on the agenda is the finalization of the purchase of 420 N. Forbes, a parking lot next to the main station, which is included in the 2023-24 proposed budget.
Board members also will consider hiring a firm to perform the 2022-23 audit.
The board also will hold a closed session review of Fire Chief Patrick Reitz.
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. — While the state and federal governments have ended their respective COVID-19 emergencies, the virus is still highly active, with case surges taking place across the country and locally.
The state of California’s COVID-19 dashboard showed this week that case numbers began going up earlier this summer and are still on the rise.
The latest numbers for the state, reported through Aug. 3, show California’s testing positivity rate is 8.7%.
Lake County’s positivity rate is 15.2%, down by half a percentage point from the previous week.
State tracking of Lake County’s positivity rate showed that it started to spike in June, dropped in July and then began to rise to its highest levels since the previous June.
The current positivity rate is higher than rates seen in December, which were below 10%.
For comparison, Lake County’s seven-day positivity rate reached its highest point in the pandemic in January 2022, when it hit 25.7%.
State tracking shows that Lake County has typically had two main case spikes a year, one in the summer, beginning in June, and a second, stretching from December to February.
One Lake County resident was reported to be hospitalized due to the coronavirus as of Aug. 3, while there are a total of 906 hospitalized across California.
The state reported that Lake County has had a total of 168 deaths attributed to COVID-19, which is 19 deaths since the start of the year, according to Lake County News’ tracking of virus-related deaths.
The number of deaths statewide is 103,054.
To date, 195,401 total tests performed in Lake County while 202,230,035 have been performed statewide.
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.
Shortly before the rover’s 11th anniversary on the Red Planet, its team helped guide it up a steep, slippery slope to examine meteor craters.
On Aug. 5, NASA’s Curiosity rover will notch its 11th year on Mars by doing what it does best: studying the Red Planet’s surface.
The intrepid bot recently investigated a location nicknamed “Jau” that is pockmarked with dozens of impact craters.
Scientists have rarely gotten a close-up view of so many Martian craters in one place. The largest is estimated to be at least as long as a basketball court, although most are much smaller.
Jau is a pit stop on the rover’s journey into the foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that was covered with lakes, rivers, and streams billions of years ago. Each layer of the mountain formed in a different era of Mars’ ancient climate, and the higher Curiosity goes, the more scientists learn about how the landscape changed over time.
The path up the mountain over the last several months required the most arduous climb Curiosity has ever made. There have been steeper climbs and riskier terrain, but the mission has never faced the trifecta of challenges posed by this slope: a sharp 23-degree incline, slippery sand, and wheel-size rocks.
This trifecta left the rover struggling through a half-dozen drives in May and June, vexing Curiosity’s drivers back on Earth.
“If you’ve ever tried running up a sand dune on a beach — and that’s essentially what we were doing — you know it’s hard, but there were boulders in there as well,” said Amy Hale, a Curiosity rover driver at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
How to drive a rover
Hale is one of 15 “rover planners” who write hundreds of lines of code to command Curiosity’s mobility system and robotic arm each day. (They don’t operate the rover in real time; instructions are sent to Mars the night before, and data comes back to Earth only after the rover has completed the work.)
These engineers collaborate with scientists to figure out where to direct the rover, what pictures to take, and which targets to study using the instruments on its 7-foot (2-meter) robotic arm.
But rover planners are also constantly on the lookout for hazards. They have to write commands to steer around pointy rocks and minimize wear on Curiosity’s battered wheels. Geologists on the team use their field experience here on Earth to help look out for deep sand and unstable rock formations.
There’s even a role on the mission to gauge whether a canyon wall could obstruct radio communications with Earth.
Six-wheeled ascent
Curiosity was never in danger while climbing to Jau: The team doesn’t plan anything that could damage the rover, and the planners write commands so that Curiosity will stop moving if it encounters any surprises.
Unexpected stoppages — referred to as “faults” — can occur when the wheels slip too much or a wheel is raised too high by a large rock. On the route to Jau, the rover found itself in both scenarios on several occasions.
“We were basically playing fault bingo,” said Dane Schoelen, Curiosity’s strategic route planning lead at JPL. “Each day when we came in, we’d find out we faulted for one reason or another.”
Instead of continuing to struggle with the original course, Schoelen and his colleagues put together a lateral detour, eyeing a spot roughly 492 feet (150 meters) away where the incline leveled out.
At least, it seemed to: Planners rely on imagery from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to get a rough sense of the terrain, but images captured from space can’t show exactly how steep a slope is or whether boulders are there.
The detour would add a few weeks to the journey to Jau — unless the terrain was hiding more surprises. If that were the case, the detour might have been for nothing, and the team’s scientists would have to keep looking for another path up Mount Sharp.
Fortunately, the detour paid off, allowing Curiosity to crest the slope.
“It felt great to finally get over the ridge and see that amazing vista,” Schoelen said. “I get to look at images of Mars all day long, so I really get a sense of the landscape. I often feel like I’m standing right there next to Curiosity, looking back at how far it has climbed.”
Since the difficult ascent, Curiosity’s scientists have wrapped an investigation of the Jau crater cluster. Common on Mars, clusters can form when a meteor breaks up in the planet’s atmosphere or when fragments are tossed by a large, more distant meteoroid impact. Scientists want to understand how the relatively soft rocks of the salt-enriched terrain affected the way the craters formed and changed over time.
Despite all that Mars has thrown at Curiosity, the rover isn’t slowing down. It’ll soon be off again to explore a new area higher up on Mount Sharp.
Curiosity was built by JPL, which is managed by Caltech in Pasadena, California. JPL leads the mission on behalf of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Board of Supervisors this week will continue the interview process for two important county positions.
The board will meet beginning at 9 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 8, in the board chambers on the first floor of the Lake County Courthouse, 255 N. Forbes St., Lakeport.
The meeting ID is 969 7504 1585, pass code 923894. The meeting also can be accessed via one tap mobile at +16699006833,,96975041585#,,,,*923894#.
All interested members of the public that do not have internet access or a Mediacom cable subscription are encouraged to call 669-900-6833, and enter the Zoom meeting ID and pass code information above.
In a closed session discussion planned for 1 p.m., the board will continue holding interviews for the chief public defender.
In another closed session that is untimed, the supervisors will hold interviews for the Public Health officer.
During public session, at 10 a.m., the board will consider adopting the three-year Lake County Mental Health Services Act Program and Expenditure Plan for Fiscal Years 2023-26.
At 11 a.m., the board will receive a presentation from North Coast Opportunities on its New Digs program.
The full agenda follows.
CONSENT AGENDA
5.1: Approve travel exceeding 1,500 miles for County Administrative Officer Susan Parker to attend the International City/County Management Association Annual Conference in Austin, Texas, from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4, 2023, in an amount not to exceed $4,000.
5.2: Approve agreement between the county of Lake and Visit Lake County California for provision of administrative services to Lake County Tourism Improvement District in the amount of $112,500 from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, and authorize chair to sign.
5.3: Sitting as the Lake County Air Quality Management District Board of Directors, authorize the air pollution control officer to extend the memorandum of understanding by and between county of Mendocino and the Lake County Air Quality Management District for air pollution control officer duties through Oct. 1, 2023.
5.4: Approve agreement between county of Lake and Women's Recovery Services for substance use disorder residential treatment services in the amount of $105,850 for fiscal year 2023-24 and authorize the board chair to sign.
5.5: Approve the continuation of the proclamation declaring a shelter crisis due to the current need for sheltering for those experiencing homelessness during the weather and temperature patterns that the county of Lake has been experiencing.
5.6: Approve continuation of proclamation declaring a Clear Lake hitch emergency.
5.7: Approve continuation of proclamation of the existence of a local emergency due to pervasive tree mortality.
5.8: Approve continuation of an emergency declaration for drought conditions.
5.9: Approve continuation of a local emergency by the Lake County Sheriff/OES director for the January 2023 Atmospheric River Event.
5.10: Approve continuation of proclamation of the existence of a local emergency due to low elevation snow and extreme cold.
5.11: Approve Board of Supervisors minutes for Aug. 1, 2023.
5.12: (a) Waive the formal bidding process, pursuant to Lake County Code Section 38.1, as an extension of an annual agreement; and (b) approve agreement between the county of Lake and Planet Labs PBC for fiscal year 2023-24 provision of satellite imagery services, amount not to exceed $55,022.41, and authorize the chair to sign.
5.13: Approve abandoned vehicle towing and disposal agreements between county of Lake and (a) Jones Towing for an annual amount not to exceed $30,000 for a term from July 31, 2023, through June 30, 2024; and (b) Kelseyville Auto Salvage and Towing for an annual amount not to exceed $10,000, for a term from June 30, 2023, through June 30, 2024, and authorize the chair to sign.
5.14: Approve contract between the county of Lake and Lake County Office of Education for differential response services in the amount of $70,000 per fiscal year from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2026, and authorize the chair to sign.
5.15: Approve contract between the Lake County Department of Social Services and Lake Family Resource Center for differential response services in the amount of $75,000 per fiscal year from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2026, and authorize the chair to sign.
5.16: Approve contract between county of Lake and California Department of Social Services for adoption services for $266,867 per year and authorize the chair to sign.
TIMED ITEMS
6.2, 9:07 a.m.: Pet of the Week.
6.3, 9:10 a.m.: Consideration of Lake County Tourism Improvement District 2022 Annual Marketing Report.
6.4, 9:45 a.m.: Sitting as Lake County Sanitation District, Board of Directors, consideration of resolution approving an exception to Lake County Sewer Code Sec. 205, allowing APN 012-026-140, located at 9586 S State Highway 29 in Lower Lake, to remain on a private septic system.
6.5, 10 a.m.: Consideration of resolution adopting the three-year Lake County Mental Health Services Act Program and Expenditure Plan for Fiscal Years 2023-26.
6.6, 10:30 a.m.: Consideration of purchase order for an agreement with Freightliner Northwest/ Enoven for weight truck bid, for an amount not to exceed $300,000, and authorize agricultural commissioner to sign.
6.7, 11 a.m.: North Coast Opportunities presentation for their New Digs program.
CLOSED SESSION
8.1, 1 p.m.: Public employee appointment pursuant to Gov. Code Section 54957(b) (1): Interviews for chief public defender; appointment of chief public defender.
8.2: Public employee appointment pursuant to Gov. Code Section 54957(b) (1): Interviews for Public Health officer; appointment of Public Health officer.
8.3: Conference with legal counsel: Existing litigation pursuant to Gov. Code sec. 54956.9 (d)(1) — FERC Project No. 77, Potter Valley Hydroelectric Project.
8.4: Addendum, conference with legal counsel: Significant exposure to litigation pursuant to Gov. Code section 54956.9(d)(2), (e)(1) — One potential case.
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.
LAKEPORT, Calif. — With school set to start in Lakeport this week, police are asking motorists to watch for students as they are heading back to class.
The first day of the 2023-24 school year for the Lakeport Unified School District is Tuesday, Aug. 8.
The Lakeport Police Department said for motorists to drive with great caution as there will be an increase in vehicles and pedestrians. Police also will step up enforcement.
Drivers are urged to obey all traffic rules and regulations in and around the campus.
Officers will be in the area during the first few weeks conducting education and enforcement.
The district asked that If you are visiting your Lakeport Tiger, Terrace Viking or Clear Lake Cardinal outside of drop-off or pick-up times, please check in with the appropriate office staff for a visitor pass. The campus is a tobacco, alcohol, and drug-free zone.
“We thank you in advance for your patience and cooperation as we continue to work towards ensuring a campus environment that is a safe and conducive learning environment,” the district reported.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — A former Middletown High School soccer coach and science teacher has been convicted of felony stalking and misdemeanor annoying or molesting a child for his treatment of students in a case that occurred two years ago.
The District Attorney’s Office originally charged Michael Antonio Dodd, 31, with 14 counts involving nine juvenile victims, both males and females, in the case, which originated in the summer of 2021 while Dodd was a Middletown Unified School District employee.
Had Dodd gone to trial, he would have faced one count of felony stalking, two counts of felony lewd and lascivious acts with a minor, eight misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting a minor, and three counts of misdemeanor simple battery, which is harmful or offensive touching.
He was held for trial following a January preliminary hearing, but in the spring Dodd reached a plea agreement with the District Attorney’s Office.
Dodd’s plea agreement called for him to be sentenced for felony stalking and two counts of misdemeanor annoying or molesting a child.
As a result, on June 5 Judge Andrew Blum sentenced Dood to two years probation, up to 120 days in the Lake County Jail and a requirement to register as a tier one sex offender, for which registration lasts for 10 years.
Judge Blum remanded Dodd into sentencing following the June 5 sentencing hearing. By this week, Dodd already had been released from the Lake County Jail due to half-time credits.
From June to September 2021, the time frame covered by the District Attorney’s Office’s charging document, Dodd — who came from out of the area — worked as a science teacher and boys soccer coach at Middletown High School.
The first day of school that year was Aug. 16. On Sept. 14, the Lake County Sheriff’s Ofifce received a report from a school staffer about Dodd’s inappropriate communications with a female student.
Three days later, on Sept. 17, 2021, Middletown Unified gave Dodd a letter of release, terminating him from his job based on the school’s own investigation into the allegations.
Initially, the sheriff’s investigation focused on one female juvenile victim, eventually increasing to a total of nine victims.
Deputy District Attorney Rich Watson said in a Friday interview that he charged the case very thoroughly and interviewed 20 students about Dodd’s behavior, which included touching and rubbing their shoulders, speaking to them inappropriately with sexual undertones, antagonizing them, gawking at them and being “just creepy.”
Dodd would call girls out of class to come to his classroom, where he would have them sit next to his desk and would rub their shoulders, Watson said.
The main victim was a teen girl who was the focus of Dodd’s attention, one he was grooming and with whom he had tried to have a relationship, but she stopped it. Watson said it was at that point that Dodd threatened the girl.
“He’s a felon now and a sex offener because of the totality” of his behavior, Watson said of Dodd.
Watson said he never would have considered allowing probation or dropping some of the more severe charges had he been able to prove that Dodd had done more than just touching the students’ shoulders. That’s why the lewd and lascivious charges were dismissed. Watson also noted that Dodd had no previous criminal history.
Before reaching the settlement agreement, Watson said he also spoke to the victims’ parents, making clear the plea agreement would accomplish goals including keeping Dodd away from children.
Watson credited the children involved for taking a stand against Dodd’s behavior, and the school district for acting swiftly to investigate and terminate him within 30 days of the start of school.
Hearing from victims
Due to schedule conflicts and to being called to serve on a jury in another case prosecuted by Watson at the same time as the Dodd case was coming to resolution, this reporter was unable to attend the Dodd sentencing or to speak to Watson about it in the weeks immediately afterward.
In order to report on the case’s outcome and the complete testimony from victims and their families, Lake County News requested the court reporter’s transcript of Dodd’s sentencing hearing. The publication received that document in mid-July.
During the June 5 sentencing, the grandmother of Dodd’s main victim said Dodd befriended high school girls and was even coming to her house to see her granddaughter.
Another time, when she was at the park, the woman said Dodd showed up with his dog and began telling her he was in love with her granddaughter. She said he held his head and told her “there’s all these demons in his head and that he doesn’t know what he’s going to do.” He also told her that with the demons going on in his head, “it’s kind of like I’m a pedophile.”
Dodd told the woman that he was filing divorce papers on his wife and that as soon as her granddaughter turned 18, “he was coming to our house and he was taking her. And then he said, ‘Or what are you going to do? Stop me with a shotgun?’”
The woman believed Dodd was capable of rape and murder, and told the court he had been following her granddaughter at school to try to get her to come to his classroom and do papers with him.
She warned the court that he is vindictive, that he had been driving by their home and that they had to put up cameras. “It’s awful. And nobody should have to go through this.”
Her granddaughter also spoke to the court. “I just want to say that I’m glad I spoke up along with the other kids so no one else has to go through this. I’m sorry,” the young woman said.
“It ruined so many of our senior and junior years to have to go through this, to the point where most of us can’t even walk into the classrooms that he was in, to where I feared for my safety going to school, to where I couldn’t see a truck that he drove without having a panic attack, to where most of these girls can’t even go play a sport that they love because he’s ruined it for so many of us,” she said.
She added, “It’s sad to say that people like this are in the world that we trusted as a teacher, a coach, and a role model, someone we’re supposed to look up to and go to to confide in things as a school. We can’t even do that.”
The victim said he had even threatened to drop her grades and fail her in class.
Another young woman who spoke to the court recounted how Dodd pulled her into a classroom to pour out his feelings to her about the main victim, offering to pay her $50 and buy her breakfast and coffee if she would go to the victim to ask how she felt about Dodd.
“He kept begging me to ask her, begging me. And I just — I didn’t know what to say. I was uncomfortable, and I’m still, you know, like shaky and disgusted by it. I feel as if I could have been the next victim,” she said.
That young woman told the court that Dodd had come to her home one night to speak to her about his plans to divorce his wife and his feelings about the victim while her mother was recording the encounter on their doorbell camera.
As soon as Dodd left, “that’s when I sat down and I cried and I told my mom everything about what happened and was going on,” she said.
During the June 5 hearing, Dodd’s defense attorney, Chance Oberstein of Laguna Niguel, said Dodd has a mental illness, that he went through a manic episode — his first — during the time period of the case and that he’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Watson told the court that the District Attorney’s Office entered into the agreement after having discussed it with the victims, and noted the agreement’s goals included that Dodd would be a convicted felon, that he would plead to felony stalking and be a registered sex offender.
“We spoke to 20 children to determine the severity of Mr. Dodd’s behavior and if it had been any more severe than what we had before us, there’s no way we would agree to probation. But we talked to all of those children. We talked to most of their parents, and they’re all in agreement, as far as my knowledge is, with who I spoke to, that our goals that we’ve set for these kids and to punish Mr. Dodd have been achieved,” Watson said.
He said the case was handled swiftly both by the children Dodd victimized and by the school district. “And I do feel that the negotiated disposition is appropriate because it was handled so swiftly and his access to the kids was ended.”
In his arguments, Oberstein told the court that Dodd is on medication that as of April had pulled him out of mania, led to him being more emotionally stable, and “he is making and maintaining great gains in functioning.”
Oberstein said Dodd’s doctor asked for him to be allowed alternative sentencing because incarceration “would surely be a huge setback with regard to his progress in treatment.” He also asked for Dodd to get community service as an alternative to jail time.
During sentencing, Judge Blum emphasized that there was no sexual contact between Dodd and the minor victims, otherwise, probation would have been out of the question.
Blum said Dodd cannot be a schoolteacher again, or work or volunteer in any capacity that caters to minors, and that he must enroll in and complete an approved sex treatment program.
Watson also asked for, and received, a no-contact order barring Dodd from interactions with the four main victims. After the hearing, Dodd was immediately taken into custody.
Dodd received four months in jail at half time, “And there is nothing I can do about that,” Watson said Friday.
Lauren Berlinn, spokesperson for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, told Lake County News that Dodd was released from the Lake County Jail on Thursday, Aug. 3. Berlinn said he was given 61 days of half-time credit and one day of credit from the courts for time previously served.
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.