LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake Ministerial Association is inviting the community to participate in an “Experience of Homelessness” event scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 22, at the association's community warming center.

The center is located at the Lakeport Seventh-day Adventist Church, 1111 Park Way.

Community members are invited to line up outside the center between 5:15 and 6 p.m. to take part in the experience.

The doors will open at 6 p.m. and guests will have the opportunity to simulate the entire process that the center's homeless guests traverse each weeknight – from completing the guest agreement, to intake, showers (procedure, not real showers this night due to time), smoking break, dinner, sleeping on cots (again, not actually sleeping but to be assigned a cot, lie down on assigned cot and feel what it is like), morning chores and checkout to the morning bus.

For practical purposes, the normal process will be condensed into a two-hour segment. However, the association plans to create an experience similar to that of someone who is on the streets and deprived of the basic services, such as a warm and dry safe space, a hot meal, a shower or a bed.

Dinner will be provided free of charge by the warming center.

No regular guests will be in attendance because the center is not open on Sunday nights.

The Lake Ministerial Association Warming Center is operated by volunteers and leaders from over a dozen churches and nonprofits around the county.

Participating churches and organizations include, but are not limited to, the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Clearlake Community United Methodist Church, Upper Lake UMC, Middletown United Methodist Church, Kelseyville United Methodist Church, Galilee Lutheran Church, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Recovery Road Ministry in Lucerne, Lucerne Community Center, United Christian Parish, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and others.

Park Place restaurant in Lakeport also has given supplies, as have second graders at Lakeport Elementary School, who have provided both meals and scarves for the center as part of the “Kindness Challenge for Kids.”

Personal items for center guests have been donated from Jesus Christ Fellowship in Middletown, St. Vincent DePaul volunteers and many others. Lake Transit provides bus passes.

The association said the warming center is truly a community project.
 
An RSVP is not required to participate in the “Experience of Homelessness” but would be appreciated to help them plan for an appropriate amount of food. RSVP to the warming center hotline at 707-349-4914. Calls are answered from 5:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. and messages during other hours will be returned as needed.

For more information about the warming center, the important outreach it continues in 2017, or for ways to volunteer or contribute, visit its Facebook page.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – A pilot escaped injury in a Wednesday afternoon small plane crash at the Napa County Airport.

The crash, which involved only one plane, occurred just before 2:30 p.m. at the airport, located in Napa, according to Cal Fire Capt. Leah Simmons-Davis.

Simmons-Davis said Cal Fire/Napa County Fire responded with three engine companies, one volunteer company, a helicopter and a total of 14 personnel. Medical and law enforcement personnel also were on scene.

The aircraft was a small personal use airplane that crashed in an apparent attempt to take off from the airport, Simmons-Davis said.

The plane landed into a levee adjacent to the airport, with part of the landing gear submerged in water, Simmons-Davis said. The aircraft suffered major damage.

Simmons-Davis said the pilot was the only occupant, and there were no injuries.

She said the crash will be investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The California Department of Insurance on Friday released the examination findings and settlement agreement concerning the cyber security breach of health insurance giant Anthem Inc., which compromised 78.8 million consumers' records.

Anthem agreed to make a number of enhancements to its information security systems, and also agreed to provide credit protection to all consumers whose information was compromised.

Anthem is paying more than $260 million for security improvements and remedial actions in response to this breach.

California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones was one of seven insurance commissioners leading the national investigation of the Anthem cyber breach.
 
"This was one of the largest cyber hacks of an insurance company's customer data," said Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. "Insurers have an obligation to make sure consumers' health and financial information is protected. Insurance commissioners required Anthem to take a series of steps to improve its cybersecurity and provide credit protection for consumers affected by the breach.”

Jones continued, “In this case, our examination team concluded with a significant degree of confidence that the cyber attacker was acting on behalf of a foreign government. Insurers and regulators alone cannot stop foreign government assisted cyber attacks. The United States government needs to take steps to prevent and hold foreign governments and other foreign actors accountable for cyber attacks on insurers, much as the president did in response to Russian government sponsored cyber hacking in our recent presidential election. "
 
The cyber breach was first discovered by Anthem on Jan. 27, 2015. In early February 2015, Anthem and its affiliates announced the company had suffered a major breach, which compromised 78.8 million consumer records, including records of at least 12 million minors.
 
An investigation by the insurance commissioners' examination team and a separate internal investigation by Mandiant, an information security firm hired by Anthem, revealed the data breach began on Feb. 18, 2014, when a user within one of Anthem's subsidiaries opened a phishing email containing malicious content.

Opening the email permitted the download of malicious files to the user's computer and allowed hackers to gain remote access to that computer and at least 90 other systems within the Anthem enterprise, including Anthem's data warehouse.
 
The lead insurance commissioners employed an examination team composed of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and Alvarez & Marsal Insurance and Risk Advisory Services LLC. The team focused its investigation on Anthem's pre-breach response preparedness, the company's response adequacy at the time of the breach, and their post-breach response and corrective actions.
 
The team found Anthem had taken reasonable measures prior to the data breach to protect its data and employed a remediation plan resulting in a rapid and effective response to the breach once it was discovered.

The team noted Anthem's exploitable vulnerabilities, worked with Anthem to develop a plan to address those vulnerabilities, and conducted a penetration test exercise to validate the strength of Anthem's corrective measures. As a result, the team found Anthem's improvements to its cybersecurity protocols and planned improvements were reasonable.
 
The team determined with a high degree of confidence the identity of the attacker and concluded with a medium degree of confidence that the attacker was acting on behalf of a foreign government. Notably, the exam team also advised that previous attacks associated with this foreign government have not resulted in personal information being transferred to non-state actors.

Within two weeks of discovering the breach and following discussions with the lead states, Anthem hired AllClear ID, a consumer credit protection company, to offer credit protection services to all breach-affected consumers for a two-year period.

Additionally, as a result of this multi-state settlement, Anthem has agreed to offer a credit protection solution to all minors who were under age 18 when the security breach occurred.

Consumers affected by the breach, including parents of affected minors, are encouraged to visit www.AnthemFacts.com to learn more about the credit monitoring and identity theft services that Anthem agreed to offer to individuals.

Following the resignation of California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris, who in the fall was elected to the United States Senate, Gov. Jerry Brown has officially submitted U.S. Congressman Xavier Becerra’s (D-CA) nomination for California attorney general to the state Legislature this week.

The nomination is subject to confirmation by the California State Assembly and Senate, which each have 90 days to act.

“Xavier has been an outstanding public servant – in the State Legislature, the U.S. Congress and as a deputy attorney general,” said Gov. Brown when he named Rep. Becerra as his nominee last month. “I'm confident he will be a champion for all Californians and help our state aggressively combat climate change.”

Rep. Becerra, 58, of Los Angeles, has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1992, most recently as the first Latino member of the Committee on Ways And Means, ranking member of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security and chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

The congressman is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which he chaired from 1997 to 1998, and the Executive Committee of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

In 2010, Rep. Becerra served on the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

Prior to his election to Congress, Rep. Becerra served in the California State Assembly as representative for the 59th Assembly District in Los Angeles County from 1990 to 1992.

He served as a deputy attorney general in the California Department of Justice, Office of the Attorney General from 1987 to 1990.

The congressman began his legal career in 1984, advocating for and representing individuals with mental illness.

Rep. Becerra earned a Juris Doctor degree from Stanford Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from Stanford University.

Rep. Becerra is the son of working-class parents and was the first in his family to graduate from college with a four-year degree. His mother was born in Jalisco, Mexico and immigrated to the United States after marrying his father.

Rep. Becerra is married to Dr. Carolina Reyes. They are the proud parents of three daughters: Clarisa, Olivia and Natalia.

LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – With Northern California having just come through a series of storms bringing snow and rain, forecasters are predicting more heavy weather ahead for the weekend.

The National Weather Service said an “atmospheric river” will bring more rain and high-elevation snow beginning on Saturday, which rainfall and snowfall expected to be heaviest across the region on Sunday and Monday.

Atmospheric rivers are narrow regions on the atmosphere that transport most of the water vapor outside of the tropics, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Forecasters said it will be a once in a five- to 10-year storm for areas near or north of I-80 and a once in a 10- to 25-year storm for areas south of I-80, with some areas of the North State to experience flooding of rivers such as last occurred in December 2005.

In the Sierras, precipitation levels are expected to be twice January's monthly average, the National Weather Service reported.

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm watch for parts of the region, including the northern third of Lake County, that's in effect from late Friday night through Saturday evening.

Areas of the Coastal Range about 5,000 feet are expected to see moderate to heavy snowfall of 8 to 10 inches during that time period the winter storm watch is in place, the National Weather Service said.

Elevations between 3,500 and 5,000 feet are expected to receive 3 to 6 inches of now, the agency said.

The specific Lake County forecast calls for showers to return on Friday and continue through to Wednesday, which chances of snow on Saturday and Sunday north of Upper Lake.

The recent rains have local streams running high, which has contributed to Clear Lake's level, now at almost three times its depth at this time last year.

On Wednesday evening, the lake was at nearly 3.90 feet Rumsey, the special measure used just for Clear Lake. That's compared to 1.36 feet Rumsey on the same date a year ago, 2.5 feet Rumsey on Jan. 4, 2015, and 5.1 feet Rumsey reported on Jan. 4, 2014.

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.

NORTH COAST, Calif. – The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office issued an update on the successful rescue of three young men trapped in the snow in the Mendocino National Forest on Tuesday.

Rescued during the operation were Alexander Winters, 19, of Ukiah; Tyler Bennetto, 25, of Willits; and Jesse Jones, 18, of Redwood Valley, according to Sgt. Andrew Porter.

At 10:30 a.m. Tuesday the Lake County Sheriff's Office notified the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office that they had received notification that a vehicle with three people – Winters, Bennetto and Jones – was stuck in the snow on US Forest Route M-1, just north of the Hull Mountain, Porter said.

Porter said the information relayed to the Mendocino County Sheriff's office indicated that the motorists had become stuck on Monday.

After obtaining GPS coordinates, the Lake County Sheriff's Office determined that the location of the stranded motorists was in Mendocino County, Porter said.

Due to the remote location, coupled with the snowfall and incoming weather front, the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office reached out to the California Office of Emergency Services to request additional resources to rescue the motorists, according to Porter.

Under the mutual aid system, Porter said Cal Fire and South Lake County Fire District in Middletown deployed a Snowcat, a specialized tracked vehicle for traveling in deep snow along with a rescue crew to assist.

At approximately 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Snowcat and crew were under way driving up Hull Mountain on US Forest Route M-1, Porter said.

Porter said members of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue, and Lake County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue maintained a remote command post near the Gravelly Airport north of Lake Pillsbury.

The Snowcat was able to get within a mile of the stranded motorists before experiencing mechanical problems, Porter said.

While the mechanical problems were being resolved, the rescue crew was able to walk the remaining distance to extricate the motorists back to the Snowcat. Porter said the Snowcat was then able to return to the base camp.

No injuries were reported and all the motorists were rescued, Porter said.