With the new year comes changes in California, including an increase in the minimum wage.
As of Jan. 1, California’s minimum wage has increased to $16 per hour for all employers, up from $15.50 for all employees regardless of employer size in 2023.
The state reported that some cities and counties have a local minimum wage that is higher than the state rate.
As of April 1, fast food restaurant employees will have a $20 per hour minimum wage, while health care facility employees will have a minimum wage of $18, $21 or $23 — based on the type of facility — beginning on June 1.
Another group who has new rules for their pay as of Jan. 1 is sheepherders and goat herders. Their monthly minimum salary increases to $2,444.48 plus $1,830.75 required overtime pay for a total of $4,675.23 per month for employers who employ over 25 employees and $2,844.48 plus $1,179.88 in required overtime pay for a total of $4,024.36 for employers who employ 25 or fewer employees. Wages paid to sheepherders and goat herders may not be offset by meals or lodging provided by the employer.
The change in the minimum wage affects the minimum salary an employee must earn to meet one part of the overtime exemption test.
Exempt employees are not subject to the payment of overtime for hours worked. An employee must earn no less than two times the state’s minimum wage for full-time work to meet this initial requirement of the exemption test.
As of Jan. 1, employees in California must earn an annual salary of no less than $66,560 to meet this threshold requirement.
Employers must post the minimum wage order and the wage order applicable to their workplace at a worksite area accessible to employees. The wage orders can be downloaded and printed from the workplace postings page on the DIR website.
Employers must ensure that the wage rate is displayed on the employee’s pay stub, and that employees are paid at least the minimum wage even when employees are paid at piece rate.
Most employees in California must be paid at least the minimum wage per hour, with some exceptions explained in the FAQs here.
At this time of year many of us resolve to prioritise our health. So it is no surprise there’s a roaring trade of products purporting to guarantee you live longer, be healthier and look more youthful.
While an estimated 25% of longevity is determined by our genes, the rest is determined by what we do, day to day.
There are no quick fixes or short cuts to living longer and healthier lives, but the science is clear on the key principles. Here are five things you can do to extend your lifespan and improve your health.
1. Eat a predominantly plant-based diet
What you eat has a huge impact on your health. The evidence overwhelmingly shows eating a diet high in plant-based foods is associated with health and longevity.
If you eat more plant-based foods and less meat, processed foods, sugar and salt, you reduce your risk of a range of illnesses that shorten our lives, including heart disease and cancer.
Plant-based foods are rich in nutrients, phytochemicals, antioxidants and fibre. They’re also anti-inflammatory. All of this protects against damage to our cells as we age, which helps prevent disease.
No particular diet is right for everyone but one of the most studied and healthiest is the Mediterranean diet. It’s based on the eating patterns of people who live in countries around the Mediterranean Sea and emphases vegetables, fruits, wholegrains, legumes, nuts and seeds, fish and seafood, and olive oil.
2. Aim for a healthy weight
Another important way you can be healthier is to try and achieve a healthy weight, as obesity increases the risk of a number of health problems that shorten our lives.
Obesity puts strain on all of our body systems and has a whole myriad of physiological effects including causing inflammation and hormonal disturbances. These increase your chances of a number of diseases, including heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes and a number of cancers.
In addition to affecting us physically, obesity is also associated with poorer psychological health. It’s linked to depression, low self-esteem and stress.
One of the biggest challenges we face in the developed world is that we live in an environment that promotes obesity. The ubiquitous marketing and the easy availability of high-calorie foods our bodies are hard-wired to crave mean it’s easy to consume too many calories.
3. Exercise regularly
We all know that exercise is good for us – the most common resolution we make this time of year is to do more exercise and to get fitter. Regular exercise protects against chronic illness, lowers your stress and improves your mental health.
While one of the ways exercising helps you is by supporting you to control your weight and lowering your body fat levels, the effects are broader and include improving your glucose (blood sugar) use, lowering your blood pressure, reducing inflammation and improving blood flow and heart function.
While it’s easy to get caught up in all of the hype about different exercise strategies, the evidence suggests that any way you can include physical activity in your day has health benefits. You don’t have to run marathons or go to the gym for hours every day. Build movement into your day in any way that you can and do things that you enjoy.
4. Don’t smoke
If you want to be healthier and live longer then don’t smoke or vape.
Smoking cigarettes affects almost every organ in the body and is associated with both a shorter and lower quality of life. There is no safe level of smoking – every cigarette increases your chances of developing a range of cancers, heart disease and diabetes.
Even if you have been smoking for years, by giving up smoking at any age you can experience health benefits almost immediately, and you can reverse many of the harmful effects of smoking.
If you’re thinking of switching to vapes as a healthy long term option, think again. The long term health effects of vaping are not fully understood and they come with their own health risks.
5. Prioritise social connection
When we talk about living healthier and longer, we tend to focus on what we do to our physical bodies. But one of the most important discoveries over the past decade has been the recognition of the importance of spiritual and psychological health.
People who are lonely and socially isolated have a much higher risk of dying early and are more likely to suffer from heart disease, stroke, dementia as well as anxiety and depression.
Although we don’t fully understand the mechanisms, it’s likely due to both behavioural and biological factors. While people who are more socially connected are more likely to engage in healthy behaviours, there also seems to be a more direct physiological effect of loneliness on the body.
So if you want to be healthier and live longer, build and maintain your connections to others.
When you enter the gym, which way should you head first? Toward the treadmills and spin studio to get your sweat on with a cardio session? Or toward the free weights and strength-training machines to do some resistance training?
The American College of Sports Medicine suggests doing both types of exercise to take advantage of their unique benefits for improving health and daily functioning and reducing chronic disease risk. But what is the optimal sequence to get the best results?
The answer to this question is … it depends. I’m an exercise physiologist. Recently in my lab we have been studying the effects of combinations of aerobic and resistance training on improving health-related fitness, particularly aerobic capacity and muscular strength.
Research suggests that when you’re designing your exercise program, there are a few factors to take into account, including your age, fitness level and exercise history and goals. You’ll also want to consider the volume of your exercise routine – that is, its duration and intensity – and how you’ll schedule your training during the day.
Benefits of exercise
First, just about any exercise at all is going to be better for you than doing nothing.
Aerobic exercise is rhythmic activity that gets your heart pumping. Examples are walking, running, swimming, cycling and using a cardio machine such as an elliptical trainer.
Aerobic exercise can improve cardiorespiratory function – over time, your heart and lungs get better at delivering oxygen to your muscles to make energy for continued muscle contractions. Aerobic exercise can also reduce several chronic disease risk factors, increase how much energy your body uses and how much fat it burns, and improve physical and cognitive function.
Resistance training involves strengthening your muscles by lifting, pushing or pulling against resistance. This type of exercise can be done using free-weight barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, weight machines or even elastic bands.
Resistance exercise improves muscular strength, endurance and the power and the size of muscles – what exercise physiologists call muscle hypertrophy. Studies show resistance training has health-related benefits, as well, particularly for people who have or are at risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. It can improve blood pressure, blood levels of glucose and the ability of muscles to use glucose for energy, and it helps maintain lean body mass and bone health.
Training for health benefits
With a limited amount of time to devote to working out, many people include both cardio and weights in the same exercise session. This concurrent training comes with plenty of benefits for your health, including lowering your cardiovascular and metabolic risks.
In fact, doing both forms of exercise together is better, especially for people with chronic disease risk factors, than exercising for the same amount of time but sticking with just aerobic or resistance exercise.
Studies of concurrent training suggest a generalized training effect – similar improvements in aerobic capacity and muscular strength, regardless of the order of aerobic and resistance exercises in a session. These benefits hold for a wide variety of people, including those who are initially inactive, recreationally active, young people and older women and men.
So if your exercise goals are along the lines of staying generally healthy and enjoying the mental benefits of moving your body, resistance training first might provide a little boost. Research suggests that overall, though, you don’t need to worry too much about which order to focus on – cardio versus weights.
Training with performance goals in mind
On the other hand, you may want be more thoughtful about the order of your workout if you’re a performance-oriented athlete who is training to get better at a particular sport or prepare for a competition.
Research suggests that for these exercisers, concurrent training may slightly inhibit improvement in aerobic capacity. More likely, it can hinder gains in muscular strength and power development, and to a lesser degree muscle growth. This phenomenon is called the “interference effect.” It shows up most in well-trained athletes undertaking high volumes of both aerobic and resistance exercise.
Researchers are still investigating what happens on a cellular level to cause the interference effect. Aerobic and resistance training unleash competing influences at the molecular level that affect genetic signaling and protein synthesis. At the start of an exercise program, the body’s adaptations are more generalized. But with more training, the muscle changes become more and more specific to the kind of work being done, and the likelihood of the interference effect kicking in increases.
Of course, many sports require combinations of aerobic and muscular capabilities. Some elite-level athletes need to improve both. So the question remains: What is the optimal order of the two modes of exercise to get the best performance effects?
Given research findings about concurrent training for high-level athletes, it makes sense to do resistance exercise first or to train first in the type of exercise that is most important to your performance goals. Additionally, if possible, elite athletes should give their bodies a break of at least three hours between resistance and aerobic training sessions.
Don’t sweat the order
In my lab, we’re studying what we call “microcycles” of aerobic and resistance exercise. Instead of needing to decide which to do first, you weave the two modalities together in much shorter bursts. For instance, one set of a resistance exercise is immediately followed by three minutes of walking or running; you repeat this cycle for as many times as necessary to include all of the resistance exercises in your routine.
Our preliminary findings suggest this method of concurrent training results in similar gains in aerobic fitness, muscular strength and lean muscle mass – while also feeling less challenging – when compared with the typical concurrent routine where all of the resistance exercise is followed by all of the aerobic exercise.
For most people, my current advice remains to choose the order of exercise based on your personal preferences and what will keep you coming back to the gym. High-level athletes can avoid any significant interference effect by doing their resistance routine before the aerobic routine or by separating their aerobic and resistance workouts within a particular day.
They go by many names – pigs, hogs, swine, razorbacks – but whatever you call them, wild pigs (Sus scrofa) are one of the most damaging invasive species in North America. They cause millions of dollars in crop damage yearly and harbor dozens of pathogens that threaten humans and pets, as well as meat production systems.
The wild pigs in Canada are unique because they were originally crossbred by humans to be larger and more cold-hardy than their feral cousins to the south. This suite of traits has earned them the name “super pigs” for good reason. Adults can reach weights exceeding 500 pounds, which is twice the size of the largest wild pigs sampled across many U.S. sites in a 2022 study.
As a wildlife ecologist, I study how wild pigs alter their surroundings and affect other wildlife species. Early detection and rapid response is of utmost importance in eradicating an invasive species, because invasions are more manageable when populations are small and geographically restricted. This is especially true for species like wild pigs that have a high reproductive rate, can readily move into new areas and can change their behavior to avoid being captured or killed.
Omnivores on the hoof
Much concern over the spread of wild pigs has focused on economic damage, which was recently estimated at about US$2.5 billion annually in the United States.
Wild pigs have a unique collection of traits that make them problematic to humans. When we told one private landowner about the results from our studies, he responded: “That makes sense. Pigs eat all the stuff the other wildlife do – they just eat it first, and then they go ahead and eat the wildlife, too. They pretty much eat anything with a calorie in it.”
More scientifically, wild pigs are called extreme generalist foragers, which means they can survive on many different foods. A global review of their dietary habits found that plants represent 90% of their diet – primarily agricultural crops, plus the fruits, seeds, leaves, stems and roots of wild plants.
Wild pigs also eat most small animals, along with fungi and invertebrates such as insect larvae, clams and mussels, particularly in places where pigs are not native. For example, a 2019 study reported that wild pigs were digging up eggs laid by endangered loggerhead sea turtles on an island off the coast of South Carolina, reducing the turtles’ nesting success to zero in some years.
And these pigs do “just eat it first.” They compete for resources that other wildlife need, which can have negative effects on other species.
However, they likely do their most severe damage through predation. Wild pigs kill and eat rodents, deer, birds, snakes, frogs, lizards and salamanders. This probably best explains why colleagues and I found in one study that forest patches with wild pigs had 26% fewer mammal and bird species than similar forest patches without pigs.
This decrease in diversity was similar to that found with other invasive predators. And our findings are consistent with a global analysis showing that invasive mammalian predators that have no natural predators themselves – especially generalist foragers like wild pigs – cause by far the most extinctions.
Altering ecosystems
Many questions about wild pigs’ ecological impacts have yet to be answered. For example, they may harm other wild species indirectly, rather than eating them or depleting their food supply.
Our work shows that wild pigs can alter the behavior of common native wildlife species, such as raccoons, squirrels and deer. Using trail cameras, we found that when wild pigs were present, other animals altered their activity patterns in various ways to avoid them. Such shifts may have additional cascading effects on ecosystems, because they change how and when species interact in the food web.
Another major concern is wild pigs’ potential to spread disease. They carry numerous pathogens, including brucellosis and tuberculosis. However, little ecological research has been done on this issue, and scientists have not yet demonstrated that an increasing abundance of wild pigs reduces the abundance of native wildlife via disease transmission.
Interestingly, in their native range in Europe and Asia, pigs do not cause as much ecological damage. In fact, some studies indicate that they may modify habitat in important ways for species that have evolved with them, such as frogs and salamanders.
So far, however, there is virtually no scientific evidence that feral pigs provide any benefits in North America. One review of wild pig impacts discussed the potential for private landowners plagued with pigs to generate revenue from selling pig meat or opportunities to hunt them. And it’s possible that wild pigs could serve as an alternative food source for imperiled large predators, or that their wallowing and foraging behavior in some cases could mimic that of locally eradicated or extinct species.
But the scientific consensus today is that in North America, wild pigs are a growing threat to both ecosystems and the economy. It is unclear how invading super pigs would contribute to the overall threat, but bigger pigs likely cause more damage and are generally better predators and competitors.
While efforts to control wild pigs are well underway in the U.S., incursions by Canadian super pigs may complicate the job. Invasive super pigs make for catchy headlines, but their potential effects are no joke.
This is an updated version of an article originally published on Aug. 26, 2019.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — Lake County Animal Care and Control has many dogs who need a new home for the new year.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of border collie, Boxer, Doberman pinscher, German shepherd, Great Pyrenees, hound, Labrador retriever, pit bull, Queensland heeler, shepherd 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.
Those dogs and the others shown on this page 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.
The shelter is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport.
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.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has dozens of dogs that continue to wait for their new homes.
The Clearlake Animal Control website lists 33 adoptable dogs.
The adoptable dogs include “Bugsy,” a 1-year-old male pit bull terrier mix with a black coat. He has been neutered.
Also available is “Lionel,” a male German shepherd mix with a tricolor coat.
The shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
For more information, call the shelter at 707-762-6227, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.
This week’s adoptable dogs are featured below.
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.
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. — There is a sweet spot of nature in Middletown called Rabbit Hill.
The site is owned by the Lake County Land Trust.
This nine-acre serpentine outcropping is a geologically and culturally significant piece of property, with 360-degree views.
Rabbit Hill also has a sculpture (Invitation — Gateway to the Sky 2020-22) created by artist Marcus Maria Jung in collaboration with community members and the Middletown Art Center, in remembrance of the 2015 Valley Fire.
Soon residents, visitors and those passing through will see significant improvements on the 9-acre preserve.
The Lake County Land Trust is working with Cal Fire on vegetation management. Shaded fuel breaks near the road and property lines will lessen the danger from wildfire.
The goal is to keep the neighborhood safe while at the same time considering the importance of wildlife habitat provided by the chaparral/leather oak community that makes up the preserve.
An exciting public art project on Rabbit Hill is currently in progress. It’s a partnership between the Middletown Art Center, the Middletown Rancheria of Pomo Indians of California, and the Callayomi County Water District.
The partners are seeking design proposals for 360-degree murals inspired by Pomo basketry to be painted on Callayomi's water tanks.
As Rabbit Hill is the highest point in town, the murals will be visible from multiple locations in Middletown and from the highway, and will enhance the property.
The project is funded by the partners with additional support from the National Endowment for the Arts and community members. Learn more at https://middletownartcenter.org/waterbasket.html.
Beginning in 2022 several Middletown High School students have been conducting their community service hours at Rabbit Hill with pruning, trash collection and erecting a very fine directional post that points to the mountain peaks visible from the hilltop.
Unfortunately, over this time Rabbit Hill has experienced extensive vandalism. Graffiti on the cement picnic table, water tower, and rocks including some hate symbols have been a disappointing and common occurrence.
The new directional signs have been broken off, bent, and then tossed around the area. The Land Trust will be replacing these directional signs for the third time.
The Lake County Land Trust is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit whose mission is to conserve lands of natural and cultural significance. The funding for improvements and stewardship of Rabbit Hill Preserve comes from local contributions and volunteers.
Many people live near Rabbit Hill and walk it often. The Land Trust appreciates that many of those folks pick up trash and enjoy the views and calm of this small gem.
The hope is that more people will volunteer to monitor and report problems to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or leave a message at 707-262-0707.
The Land Trust is beseeching parents to remind their youth that vandalism is not only an annoying prank but also a serious crime.
Hate symbols or words and the monetary value of the damage done by vandalism can increase the crime level. When vandalism, including graffiti, malicious damage, destroying, or defacing someone else's property happens, it is disappointing and expensive to replace and repair.
The cost is borne by all those who support the Land Trust. Those costs and possibly jail time will be borne by those caught committing the crime.
Please remind youth and adults of the moral and legal consequences of their actions.
Where possible, the Land Trust opens its privately owned preserves, including Rabbit Hill, to the public. It is a gift to the people of Middletown and visitors that Rabbit Hill remains open, and improvements are made.
Please help the Lake County Land Trust continue to safely keep Rabbit Hill open to the public by keeping an eye on it, reporting crimes to the Land Trust and the local sheriff and reminding young people to be responsible citizens.
The year 2023 proved to be an important one for space missions, with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returning a sample from an asteroid and India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission exploring the lunar south pole, and 2024 is shaping up to be another exciting year for space exploration.
The latter half of the year will feature several exciting launches, with the launch of the Martian Moons eXploration mission in September, Europa Clipper and Hera in October and Artemis II and VIPER to the Moon in November – if everything goes as planned.
I’m a planetary scientist, and here are six of the space missions I’m most excited to follow in 2024.
1. Europa Clipper
NASA will launch Europa Clipper, which will explore one of Jupiter’s largest moons, Europa. Europa is slightly smaller than Earth’s Moon, with a surface made of ice. Beneath its icy shell, Europa likely harbors a saltwater ocean, which scientists expect contains over twice as much water as all the oceans here on Earth combined.
The mission plans to do this by flying past Europa nearly 50 times to study the moon’s icy shell, its surface’s geology and its subsurface ocean. The mission will also look for active geysers spewing out from Europa.
The launch window – the period when the mission could launch and achieve its planned route – opens Oct. 10, 2024, and lasts 21 days. The spacecraft will launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket and arrive at the Jupiter system in 2030.
Artemis II is the first crewed step in this plan, with four astronauts planned to be on board during the 10-day mission.
The mission builds upon Artemis I, which sent an uncrewed capsule into orbit around the Moon in late 2022.
Artemis II will put the astronauts into orbit around the Moon before returning them home. It is currently planned for launch as early as November 2024. But there is a chance it will get pushed back to 2025, depending on whether all the necessary gear, such as spacesuits and oxygen equipment, is ready.
3. VIPER to search for water on the Moon
VIPER, which stands for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, is a robot the size of a golf cart that NASA will use to explore the Moon’s south pole in late 2024.
This robotic mission is designed to search for volatiles, which are molecules that easily vaporize, like water and carbon dioxide, at lunar temperatures. These materials could provide resources for future human exploration on the Moon.
The VIPER robot will rely on batteries, heat pipes and radiators throughout its 100-day mission, as it navigates everything from the extreme heat of lunar daylight – when temperatures can reach 224 degrees Fahrenheit (107 degrees Celsius) – to the Moon’s frigid shadowed regions that can reach a mind-boggling -400 F (-240 C).
VIPER’s launch and delivery to the lunar surface is scheduled for November 2024.
4. Lunar Trailblazer and PRIME-1 missions
NASA has recently invested in a class of small, low-cost planetary missions called SIMPLEx, which stands for Small, Innovative Missions for PLanetary Exploration. These missions save costs by tagging along on other launches as what is called a rideshare, or secondary payload.
One example is the Lunar Trailblazer. Like VIPER, Lunar Trailblazer will look for water on the Moon.
But while VIPER will land on the Moon’s surface, studying a specific area near the south pole in detail, Lunar Trailblazer will orbit the Moon, measuring the temperature of the surface and mapping out the locations of water molecules across the globe.
However, because it is a secondary payload, Lunar Trailblazer’s launch timing depends on the primary payload’s launch readiness. The PRIME-1 mission, scheduled for a mid-2024 launch, is Lunar Trailblazer’s ride.
PRIME-1 will drill into the Moon – it’s a test run for the kind of drill that VIPER will use. But its launch date will likely depend on whether earlier launches go on time.
While Earth’s Moon has many visitors – big and small, robotic and crewed – planned for 2024, Mars’ moons Phobos and Deimos will soon be getting a visitor as well. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, has a robotic mission in development called the Martian Moon eXploration, or MMX, planned for launch around September 2024.
The spacecraft will spend three years around Mars conducting science operations to observe Phobos and Deimos. MMX will also land on Phobos’ surface and collect a sample before returning to Earth.
6. ESA’s Hera mission
Hera is a mission by the European Space Agency to return to the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system that NASA’s DART mission visited in 2022.
The kinetic impact technique smashes something into an object in order to alter its path. This could prove useful if humanity ever finds a potentially hazardous object on a collision course with Earth and needs to redirect it.
On Jan. 1, 2024, the Corporate Transparency Act, or CTA, is becoming effective US law.
The CTA requires many domestic businesses and foreign businesses doing business in the US to report Beneficial Owner Information, or BOI, to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or “FinCen,” regarding the company itself and its beneficial owners, i.e., the individuals who ultimately own or control the company.
FinCen collects the BOI to combat various criminal activities, including money laundering and terrorism, that involve businesses, by sharing the BOI information with law enforcement authorities.
Explaining the CTA involves five major areas: (1) Reporting companies; (2) beneficial owners whose information is provided; (3) boi information provided; (4) how to report; and (5) when to report.
“A reporting company is (1) any corporation, limited liability company, or other similar entity that was created in the United States by the filing of a document with a secretary of state or similar office (in which case it is a domestic reporting company), or any legal entity that has been registered to do business [in the United States].”
There are important exceptions for numerous types of businesses. The point of the CTA is to get information about smaller businesses that are not otherwise reporting information about themselves. Thus, small LLC’s and corporations are required to report.
Beneficial owners include: (1) “any individual who, directly or indirectly, either exercises substantial control over a reporting company or owns or controls at least 25% of the ownership interests of a reporting company; and (2) “an individual who exercises substantial control over a reporting company if the individual meets any of four general criteria: the individual is a senior officer; the individual has authority to appoint or remove certain officers or a majority of directors of the reporting company; the individual is an important decision-maker; or the individual has any other form of substantial control over the reporting company.”
A trustee and other persons involved with a trust can be beneficial owners of an LLC or corporation if the trust owns or controls at least 25% of the ownership interest in the reporting company.
That is, the trustee, some beneficiaries and the settlor of the trust may all be beneficial owners who must report information to FinCen.
Each BOI report must include information about the reporting company and its beneficial owners. “The beneficial owners must report to FinCEN their name, date of birth, address, and unique identifier number from a recognized issuing jurisdiction and a photo of that document.
If an individual decides to file their information to FinCEN directly, they may be issued a “FinCEN identifier” which can be provided on a BOI report instead of the required information.”
The use of a FinCen identifier number by business owners is a big step towards streamlining the process by making the owners responsible for directly reporting their information to FinCen.
A reporting company is expected to report the BOI information to FinCen by means of a secure portal on FinCen’s website. The portal will begin accepting BOI reports on Jan. 1, 2024.
Existing businesses have one year to file their first BOI report. Businesses that are established between Jan. 1, 2024, and Jan. 1, 2025, have ninety (90) days to file their report (measured from the date they were incorporated or allowed to do business); and business established, or allowed to do business in the US after Jan. 1, 2025, have thirty (30) days to file their BOI report.
BOI reports must be updated as necessary. However, if a business owner has a FinCEN number then the burden is directly on the owner to update his or her information.
For further information and assistance visit FinCen’s website, www.fincen.gov/boi.
The foregoing brief discussion is not legal advice. Consult a qualified attorney or accountant for guidance.
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.
“The land that you’re on, it came with a price.” — Sonja Thinn-Miller, Round Valley Indian Tribes
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA — Across the country, national forests are cared for by the Forest Service, but native people have lived, traversed and taken care of these lands long before the land management agency existed.
For the Forest Service, it’s important to understand this piece of American history and learn from native communities.
The Nome Cult Walk — also known as the Konkow Trail of Tears — was one of many forced removals of Indigenous people from their homelands across what is known today as the Mendocino National Forest.
The Nome Cult Walk Cultural Committee invited Forest Service staff to walk the old trail and listen to the stories of the descendants who walked those sorrowful footsteps long ago.
Early on a Sunday morning in September, about 60 people gather in a circle near the Sacramento River just west of Chico.
Most are wearing good walking shoes, sun hats and safety vests. The women wear beautiful handmade skirts adorned with ribbons and butterflies.
It is the beginning of the 28th annual Nome Cult Walk.
This ceremonial walk covers over 100 miles from Chico to Covelo and commemorates the California Indians who were forcibly detained and marched across the valley and North Coast Mountains in September 1863. It was one of many forced marches that occurred in Northern California following the establishment of reservations in the 1850s.
“It started out as just a walk for our ancestors,” said Ronnie Hostler, an elder born and raised at Round Valley Indian Reservation, about the origins of the Nome Cult Walk. “How were they feeling, leaving their home and looking at that mountain, not knowing where they were going?”
Over the course of a week, the Nome Cult Walk participants traverse an average 15-25 miles each day while their supporters drive water, food, camping supplies, and porta-johns alongside them. Support vehicles display handwritten safety messages of “Walkers Ahead!” and flashing lights to slow oncoming traffic.
Each day, organizers prepare walkers for the hard journey, reminding them of the importance of staying hydrated, taking breaks, and applying moleskin to any blisters.
During the morning circle, they remember their ancestors who were forced along these roads under the most severe conditions. Each person has their own reasons for doing the journey, and some participants reflect on who they walk for each day.
“I walk for my mom, my grandmother, my father, my son. Now I walk for my granddaughter. So that's why I'm here today,” said Ronnie.
As the day warms, each step becomes heavier, harder. Raw spots become blisters. Physical discomfort mirrors the pain of interior wounds and loved ones now gone. The walkers — supporting each other — push on.
“We’ve been doing a remembrance walk for the Nome Cult Trail. Not just remembering it through story. It's reliving the history and getting a better idea of what my ancestors had to go through for me to be here today,” said Kyle Miller of Round Valley Indian Tribes.
“This walk is my heritage,” said Brandon Miller, Kyle Miller’s brother and also from Round Valley.
Past and present merge on Nome Cult Walk
That original walk 160 years ago was unimaginably difficult. Native Americans had been rounded up in encampments with little food or water. Many were malnourished and sick before the walk even began.
Soldiers guarded them on horseback and brutally forced them, like cattle, to march from Chico, across the valley, over the eastern spur of the North Coast Mountain range, and down into Covelo to the Round Valley Reservation (then called the “Nome Cult Farm”).
Of the 461 who began the journey in 1863, only 277 survived.
On the third day of the current Nome Cult Walk, the trail climbs into the foothills. Participants enter lands managed by the Mendocino National Forest along the 23N35 Road, locally known as Mud Flat Road.
This is one of the hardest days of the journey. The walkers ascend during the late afternoon, in full sun with no relief from the shade.
Memories of their ancestors haunt each step. Leaders of this year’s walk remind participants that this was the section of the trail when soldiers separated the babies from their mothers, then killed the babies with bayonets. This is also where many of the elderly or those who were too sick to continue were left behind.
“People don’t realize how America became America,” said Sonja Thinn-Miller, member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, and mother of Kyle and Brandon Miller. “The land that you’re on, it came with a price.”
As much as the walk is full of physical and spiritual pain, it is also a walk of healing, gratitude and resilience.
“It’s healing our ancestors and ourselves and future generations,” said Jack Cunningham of the Mountain Maidu Tribe, who is on his 16th Nome Cult Walk.
On some nights, singers and dancers share beautiful songs, stories and prayers underneath the stars. In between the songs there is plenty of laughter. As much as it is about remembrance, the Nome Cult Walk has grown into something new, a celebration of life, family and traditions.
“This walk really helps bring us back together,” said Victor Alvarez, member of Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians. “We are mending our family ties that were once broken by generational trauma. I believe it will make us better as a whole, as a family.”
Today the Nome Cult Walk brings together many generations and members of several tribes in the area, including descendants of the Concow Maidu, the Round Valley Indian Tribes, Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, Berry Creek Rancheria of Maidu Indians of California, Redding Rancheria, Grindstone Nomlaki, the Mechoopda Tribe, Pit River, Wintu, Nisenan and Greenville Maidu. Over the course of the week, the walkers’ connections to each other grow deeper.
A granddaughter helps lead the way
One of the original walkers was only 8 years old when he was forced on the journey. Now 14 of his descendants walk a similar path.
“My grandfather was one of the children that were able to make it over into Round Valley,” said Charlotte Bauer, who is Concow and Wailaki, born and raised on the Round Valley Indian Reservation.
Bauer was one of the “Crazy Eight” who worked with a Forest Service archaeologist in locating the Nome Cult Trail and began the annual commemorative walk in 1996.
“The reason I still do this walk is to not only honor my grandfather but all of the ancestors and also the people that walked with us and are no longer here,” she said.
“I also walk for the future,” Bauer added. “We have been encouraged, from the beginning, to hand this down to future generations where we want to keep it going on indefinitely.”
For nearly 30 years, tribal members have walked through their ancestral lands to honor the memory and retrace the footsteps of their ancestors, as part of an ongoing healing process.
As the walkers descend the mountains toward the Eel River, a new group of young children from Round Valley school joins them.
Kyle Miller, great-great-grandson of one who was forced on the original march, picks up the lead staff and guides the walkers home to Round Valley.
Laura Leidner works for the Mendocino National Forest. This video and article were produced in collaboration with the Nome Cult Walk Cultural Committee and the Forest Service.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — With several more days of rain and wind in the forecast, combined with the New Year’s holiday, the Lakeport Police Department is urging community members to use extreme caution on area roadways.
The National Weather Service forecast for the week expects rain every day, with the exception of a sunny New Year’s Day, but rain is expected that night.
The Lakeport Police Department encourages drivers to check vehicle equipment — from headlights to wiper blades.
If you have not installed new wiper blades on your vehicle since summer, police say to make that a top priority. Most Lake County auto parts stores will install them for free.
If you plan on drinking alcoholic beverages, they also recommend you plan on a sober designated driver.
Law enforcement officers from all county law enforcement agencies will be looking for intoxicated drivers. “Don't make us ruin your fun,” Lakeport Police said.
The California Highway Patrol also is in the midst of a maximum enforcement period for the New Year’s holiday.
To celebrate the holiday season, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the galaxy known as UGC 8091, which resembles a sparkling festive snow globe.
With a dazzling array of wavelengths of light captured by filters on Hubble's premier scientific instruments, the millions of stars in this galaxy are being explored in more depth than ever before.
UGC 8091, also known as GR 8, lies around seven million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. Unlike other galaxies whose stars take a more orderly appearance, UGC 8091 is classed by astronomers as an irregular galaxy.
It's not hard to see why — the stars that make up this celestial gathering look more like a brightly shining tangle of string lights than a galaxy.
Some irregular galaxies are thought to have become tangled by tumultuous internal activity, while others are known to have formed by interactions with neighboring galaxies.
The result is a class of galaxies with a diverse array of sizes and shapes, including the diffuse scatter of stars that is this galaxy.
In particular, UGC 8091 is a dwarf irregular galaxy, meaning that it only contains around one billion stars. That's a huge number of lights, but not for a galaxy: our own Milky Way galaxy is thought to encompass over 100 billion stars, and other galaxies can have trillions!
Dwarf galaxies often orbit larger galaxies, and their low masses leave them vulnerable to being disturbed and consumed by their bigger neighbors, a process which produces twisted-up dwarf irregulars like UGC 8091.
This type of galaxy is thought to have similar characteristics to the enormously old and distant galaxies seen by astronomers in deep-field images.
It’s hoped that investigating the composition of dwarf galaxies and their stars, particularly their low metallicity, will help to uncover the evolutionary links between these ancient galaxies and more modern galaxies like our own.
To do this, astronomers have been carefully examining the many-coloured stars of UGC 8091. Different features of the galaxy can be picked out by using filters to restrict the light entering Hubble's instruments to very specific wavelength ranges. Those filtered images can then be recombined to make a full-color image — an astonishing twelve filters combine to produce this image, with light from the mid-ultraviolet right through to the red end of the visible spectrum contributing.
The blossoming patches of red represent light emitted by excited hydrogen molecules in hot, energetic stars that have formed in recent starbursts. The other sparkles on show in this image are a mix of older stars.
The data used in this image date from 2006 to 2021, and were taken by two of Hubble’s most advanced instruments: the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
Among other things, the observing programmes sought to investigate the role of low-mass galaxies, like UGC 8091, in reionizing the early Universe, and to examine the results of star formation in low-metallicity galaxies.
Despite how small and misshapen they look, dwarf irregular galaxies turn out to hold a great deal of information about our Universe — no less than any of the other celestial lights in our sky.