LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – The California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office said it is planning an upcoming checkpoint to check for drunk drivers and people without driver’s licenses.
The safety checkpoint will take place on Friday, Aug. 16, somewhere within the unincorporated area of Lake County.
The goal of the CHP is to ensure the safe passage of each and every motorist by targeting roads where there is a high frequency of intoxicated or unlicensed drivers.
The agency said a sobriety/driver license checkpoint is a proven effective tool for achieving this goal and is designed to augment existing patrol operations.
Vehicles will be checked for drivers who are under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or driving unlicensed, officials said.
The CHP said the objective is to send a clear message to those individuals that consider driving and mixing alcohol or drugs, or driving when unlicensed, that you will be caught and your vehicle will be towed away.
Funding for this program was provided from a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – A Lake County native has received a new command, the latest accomplishment in his military career.
On July 11 in New River, North Carolina, Lt. Col. Daniel Goff took over command of HMH-366 United States Marine Corps Heavy Helicopter Squadron.
Goff was just known as “Daniel” when he lived in Lake County, but now you’ll find most people refer to him as “sir.”
Goff grew up in Lakeport, was an All Empire and All County Athlete in baseball, and basketball and graduated from Clear Lake High School in 1992. After graduation he went to Sonoma State University where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in history.
He entered the Marine Corps through the Officer Candidate Class program and was commissioned a second lieutenant upon graduation from Officer Candidate School in 2000.
Upon completion of the basic school in June 2001, he attended Naval Aviation Flight Training in Pensacola, Florida, where he earned his wings in 2003.
In September of 2003, Lt. Col. Goff reported to “Ironhorse” of Heavy Marine Helicopter Squadron 461, Marine Corps Air Station New River, North Carolina.
In 2004 and 2006 Goff deployed to Djibouti, Africa, in support of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa.
In the spring of 2007, he attended Weapons and Tactics Instruction WTI Course and became the HMH-461 Pilot Training Officer before deploying in 2008 with HMM-365 as the Action Combat Element for the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, where he planned and led combat missions in Afghanistan.
In the spring of 2009, Lt. Col. Goff was selected as an Olmstead Scholar, a prestigious award only provided to a handful of military personnel from every branch of the United States military each year.
To date since 1960, Lt. Col Goff has been one of only 82 Marines that have ever been selected as an Olmstead Scholar.
After studying Russian at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, Goff traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine, where he, his wife Scheri and their two children lived from 2010 to 2012.
While in Kyiv Lt. Col Goff studied political science in the Russian language at the National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy and received his master’s degree in European political studies.
During his stint in Ukraine he flew home to Lake County to give his little sister away in marriage to Greg Panella, also a former Marine.
Upon completion of his Olmsted Scholar tour in the summer of 2012, Goff joined the “Condors” of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 464 aboard MCAS New River. He served as the future operations officer, operations officer and later deployed as the detachment officer in charge of the squadron’s Unit Deployment Program to Okinawa, Japan.
From 2014 to 2017 Goff served as the deputy director of Stockdale Center at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
While at the Naval Academy, Lt. Col. Goff served in a variety of roles to include leadership education, development division, political science instruction and leatherneck operations officer.
In the summer of 2017, he was assigned to the Strategic Initiatives Group as a part of the Commandant of the US Marine Corps’ at the United States Pentagon.
His personal decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal, two individual Air Medals with combat “V” and Strike/Flight Numeral 3, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal (3), the Joint Services Achievement Medal and the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal.
Lt. Col. Goff plans to eventually retire from the Marine Corps and hopes to return to Lake County where his mother Ana Goff and sister, Allison Panella, still live. He hopes to gain employment with a local school district and teach high school students.
Lt. Col. Daniel Goff returned to Lake County, Calif., to walk his sister, Allison, down the aisle. Courtesy photo.
Champagne Delsie Leubner, 24, was arrested on Friday, August 2, 2019, for animal cruelty in Clearlake, Calif. Lake County Jail photo. CLEARLAKE Calif. – The Clearlake Police Department has arrested a woman for animal cruelty after she left her dog in the heat without shelter or water, with the animal so sick as a result that it had to be euthanized.
Champagne Delsie Leubner, 24, was arrested on Friday, police reported.
The investigation into the case began on July 23. On that day, Clearlake Animal Control Officer John Moretz was dispatched at about 2:30 p.m. to a call regarding a dog that was tied out in direct sun with no water.
When Moretz arrived at the scene, police said he was pointed in the direction of the dog in a backyard tied to a stationary object, completely entangled in its cable, no access to water and directly in the sun.
Weather records for July 23 show that temperatures hovered in the low to mid 90s.
Seeing the condition the dog was in, suffering severe heatstroke, Moretz entered the backyard to free the dog and rush it to a veterinary office, police said.
However, due to the severity of the heatstroke – police said the dog’s body temperature was so high that it was unreadable by a thermometer – and the fact that the dog was completely unresponsive, it was decided to humanely euthanize the dog based on the veterinarian’s recommendation.
Based on pictures posted online, the dog was large and white, with black markings on its face. It was similar in looks to an American bulldog or Great Dane mix.
Police said Moretz's subsequent investigation led to a warrant for the arrest of Leubner being issued by the Lake County District Attorney's Office.
On Friday, Clearlake Police Officer Shane Audiss spotted Leubner at the Mobil gas station on Lakeshore Drive and she was taken into custody.
Leubner was booked into the Lake County Jail on Friday evening, with bail set at $35,000, according to her booking sheet, which also lists her as unemployed.
She is tentatively scheduled to be arraigned in Lake County Superior Court on Monday, based on jail records.
Jail booking records show Leubner has previous arrests, in 2017 for possession of drugs and paraphernalia and in 2018 on a bench warrant.
Police and Animal Control officials reminded city residents that with temperatures now regularly topping the 100-degree mark, “It is imperative that you are taking every necessary precaution to keep your animals and yourself safe from the heat.”
Clearlake Animal Control Officer John Moretz found this dog suffering severe heatstroke on Tuesday, July 23, 2019, in Clearlake, Calif. The dog later was euthanized due to its condition. Photo courtesy of Clearlake Animal Control.
State Controller Betty T. Yee has published the 2018 self-reported payroll data for state departments and California State University, or CSU, institutions on the Government Compensation in California Web site.
The data cover more than 375,000 positions and a total of $22.04 billion in 2018 wages.
Users of the site can:
· View compensation levels on maps and search by region; · Narrow results by name of the entity or by job title; and · Export raw data or custom reports.
The newly published data include 252,214 positions in 151 state departments and 123,717 positions in 23 CSU campuses and the Chancellor’s Office.
California law requires cities, counties, and special districts to annually report compensation data to the State Controller.
The State Controller also maintains and publishes state and CSU salary data. A list of entities that did not file or filed incomplete reports is available here.
Since the Web site launched in 2010, it has registered more than 11 million pageviews. The site contains pay and benefit information on more than two million government jobs in California, as reported annually by each entity.
Wendy Melillo, American University School of Communication
The star of the longest-running public-service advertising campaign in U.S. history is now big on social media, with Facebook, Flickr, Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Americans are also still sending the imaginary character loads of real mail. The postal service has delivered hundreds of thousands of the bear’s many letters and occasional jars of honey to his own ZIP code: 20252.
Some 96% of Americans recognized this constant reminder to keep forests safe, according to a survey in 2013, making him about as familiar as Mickey Mouse and Santa Claus.
By the way, there’s no “the” in Smokey’s name. The word was added by songwriters to make their 1952 medley dedicated to the iconic image more catchy.
Cowboy actor William Boyd, aka Hopalong Cassidy, recounted the bear’s tale in 1953.
Wartime propaganda
I researched Smokey and six other public service ad campaigns for my book about the Ad Council, the nonprofit that creates public-service campaigns on behalf of clients like the U.S. Forest Service. It taught me that there’s much more going on with that friendly face than you probably realize.
The fire-prevention campaign, like the Ad Council itself, has a past rooted in wartime propaganda.
A Japanese submarine had surfaced off the coast of California on Feb. 23, 1942, and fired a volley of shells toward an oil field. This first wartime attack on the U.S. mainland caused little property damage and no loss of life, but it had an enormous psychological impact.
The threat to America’s national security including its vast lumber supply, needed to build ships and guns to fight the war, worried government officials and business leaders alike. The Forest Service worked with what was then known as the War Advertising Council, and later became the Ad Council, to create a fire prevention campaign.
WWII posters, like this one with a caricature of a Japanese soldier, cast taking care not to start forest fires as a patriotic duty.Library of Congress
With the war winding down in 1944, the Forest Service wanted the campaign to keep educating Americans about forest fire prevention, minus the scary imagery. After briefly featuring Bambi, the deer from the popular Walt Disney 1942 film, the Forest Service landed on a black bear. It hired New York artist Albert Staehle, who drew “Butch,” a floppy-eared cocker spaniel seen on Saturday Evening Post covers.
In 1944, Staehle created a tender-looking bear pouring a bucket of water over a campfire for the Forest Service. Three years later, came the well-known slogan that told Americans “only you can prevent forest fires.”
Whose land is it?
Sometimes, Smokey gets caught in the middle of the campaign’s roots in World War II patriotism, propaganda and racism.
Some scholars, including geographer Jake Kosek, who study anthropology and race even argue that the campaign is a symbol of white racist colonialism.
Kosek documented how the bear can trouble Native Americans, Chicanos and other people living off the land who are unhappy with the U.S. government’s land management policies.
In the forests of Northern New Mexico, local people see Smokey’s fire prevention message as a threat because they burn off small parts of the forest to plant crops or graze animals. Kosek found Smokey’s posters riddled with bullets in protest.
Kosek said the fire-suppression campaign reflects a belief, deeply rooted in the Forest Service’s history, that people who set fires in forests are deviants and evildoers.
The Ad Council produced this Smokey Bear PSA in 2017.
A Smokey effect
There is also growing controversy about whether the campaign’s message contributes to the wildfire problem since research shows that some fires help forests.
To be sure, fire suppression as a policy didn’t originate with Smokey. It started after a disastrous fire in 1910.
In the 1930s there were 167,277 fires per year, according to a report from the Forest Service, other government agencies and the Ad Council. They credit Smokey for helping make that number fall to 106,306 in the 1990s. There may now be fewer fires, about 72,400 fires annually since 2000, but they have grown larger and more destructive in many regards.
Contrary to Smokey’s message, fires can be good for forests. There are forest management professionals who say the campaign interferes with the government’s ability to manage the problem by preventing small fires that clear out underbrush and tiny trees.
Despite his critics, Smokey seems destined for an even longer career. That’s because the Insurance Information Institute says 90% of “wildland fires” in America are caused by people.
That could make Smokey’s message as important as ever.
Distortions in the growth of the antlers can be caused if the pedicle on the skull is cracked or damaged, the antler itself is broken while in the velvet stage, or nerve damage is done to the buck’s hind legs. NORTHERN CALIFORNIA – Right now, you’re probably seeing a lot of our male regional Columbian Black-Tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) walking around in their “velvet,” that fuzzy material that covers their antlers while they grow.
Diet and disease both play a part in how robust the antlers are, but other factors can intervene and cause the antlers to come out wonky: stunted, mismatched or completely misshapen.
To understand how and why that might happen, you need to know a little bit about how the antlers develop.
Antlers grow from a specific connection point on the skull called a pedicle. What’s interesting about this antler-launch-point is that each deer’s pedicles have a pattern on them that is unique to that individual deer, like a fingerprint.
So, if you know what the pattern on the pedicle looks like, you can match it to the pattern on the base-end of the shed antlers later on in the year and know precisely which deer shed those antlers.
In black-tailed deer, hormonal changes in the summer months that herald the oncoming rut (breeding season) trigger the pedicles to start growing a new set of antlers.
At first, the antlers look fuzzy and have rounded tips. This is the “velvet” stage. The velvety-looking structures you see growing from the pedicles are actually antler material in its pre-calcified state and are made up of a concentrated network of cells, nerves blood vessels. During this stage, each antler can grow at the rate of a half-inch per day!
While they’re growing, the fuzz-covered antlers are extremely sensitive to touch and feel hot in your hand. Once the underlying structure of the antler calcifies, everything cools off and the outer layer of fuzz is shed revealing the sharp-tipped hard bone antler underneath it.
Although they’re made of bone, antlers aren’t permanent structures. In fact, black-tailed deer grow and shed their antlers every year, adding an extra tine (the pointy bit) to their rack every time the antlers are regrown. The first antler that sprouts has a single tine, and male deer sporting these lone tines are referred to as “spike bucks.”
Antlers grow from a specific connection point on the skull called a pedicle. Each deer’s pedicles have a pattern on them that is unique to that individual deer, like a fingerprint.
It takes about two years, though, before the pedicle is strong enough to support the antlers, so the deer you see out there with antlers are actually older than the number of tines on their racks. Spike bucks can actually be up to 3 years old.
Trying to guess the age of any black-tailed deer by the tines on its antlers alone can be made even more difficult by the fact that intervening factors can cause the antlers to come out stunted or stubby, bent into odd contortions, or completely mismatched.
Distortions in the growth of the antlers can be caused, for example, if the pedicle on the skull is cracked or damaged, or the antler itself is broken while in the velvet stage. Whether or not the distortion caused by these injuries is permanent depends on when the damage occurs and how severe it was.
Let’s say an antler is broken during its velvet stage this year. The distortion that break caused will be visible in the hardened antler for the duration of this breeding season. But when the breeding season is over, and the antlers are shed and start to regrow next year, that distortion will no longer appear. If the pedicle, that anchor point from which the antlers grow, itself is damaged, however, distortions to the antlers can appear every year for the rest of the deer’s life.
Another factor that can affect antler growth comes in the form of what biologists call “systemic influence”, which loosely means that what happens to one part of an animal’s body can have a direct impact on an entirely different system in the same animal’s body.
In the case of black-tailed deer, this influence can be seen when antler deformations appear as a result of damage to the nerves in the deer’s hind legs. Usually, but not always, the deformed antler will appear on the side opposite of the leg that suffered the nerve damage. So, nerve damage in the right hind leg may show up, through systemic influence, as a deformed left antler.
See? There’s a lot more to antlers than you might have realized. Just for fun, get out there and check out the deer in your area. How many wonky antlers can you find?
Mary K. Hanson is a Certified California Naturalist, author and nature photographer, living with terminal cancer. She developed and helps to teach the naturalist program at Tuleyome, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit conservation organization based in Woodland. For more information, see their website at http://tuleyome.org/.
It takes about two years before the pedicle on the head is strong enough to support the antlers, so the deer you see out there with antlers are actually older than the number of tines on their racks. Spike bucks, like this one, can therefore actually be up to three years old.
Cindy Leung, University of Michigan and Julia A. Wolfson, University of Michigan
SNAP is the primary way the government helps low-income Americans put food on the table. According to the government’s own calculations, an estimated 3.1 million people could lose SNAP benefits, commonly referred to as food stamps, through a new proposal that would change some application procedures and eligibility requirements.
We are nutrition and food policy researchers who have studied the effects of SNAP on the health and well-being of low-income Americans. Should this change go into effect, we believe millions of Americans, especially children, and local communities would suffer.
“My eating habits have improved where I can eat more healthy than before,” a Massachusetts woman who had recently been approved for SNAP told us. “It is like night and day – the difference between surviving and not surviving.”
SNAP benefits also ripple through the economy. They lead to money being spent at local stores, freeing up cash to pay rent and other bills. Every US$1 invested in SNAP generates $1.79 in economic activity, according to the USDA.
Trying again and again
The Trump administration has repeatedly attempted to slash SNAP and make it harder for people who qualify for benefits to get them.
The Trump administration also worked with Republicans in Congress to try to tighten eligibility requirements. Had this policy been implemented, all beneficiaries between the ages of 18 and 59 deemed “able-bodied” would have had to prove they were working at least 20 hours per week or were enrolled in school. According to government projections, some 1.2 million Americans would have eventually lost their benefits as a result.
Congress, which would have needed to approve the change for it to take effect, rejected it in December 2018. The White House then sought to change work requirements through a new rule that has not yet taken effect.
In July 2019, the Trump administration again sought to restrict access to food stamps without any input from Congress, this time by going through Temporary Assistance for Needy Families – a program that gives low-income families with children cash to cover childcare and other expenses.
Currently, most states automatically enroll families in SNAP once they obtain TANF benefits. The new rule would prevent states from doing this. Even though 85% of TANF families also get SNAP benefits, the vast majority of them still live in poverty.
The Trump administration’s proposed budgets have also called for changing how the government helps low-income families get food they have trouble affording. Its 2019 budget proposal called for replacing half of SNAP benefits with what it called “harvest boxes” of nonperishable items like cereals, beans and canned goods.
According to research we conducted with low-income Americans, 79% of SNAP participants opposed this proposal, with one of the primary reasons being not being able to choose their own foods.
“People who are struggling are already demoralized,” a New Mexico woman who uses SNAP benefits told us. “Being able to make our own food decisions is something that keeps us feeling like human beings.”
Advocates for food aid fear that recent proposals to change how SNAP works would reduce the share of Americans who get these benefits by making it harder to qualify and enroll in the program. Should this major transformation ever occur, children and families won’t have access to critical benefits that help them avoid going hungry.
Tracking the demand for food stamps
Although the Trump administration has until now largely failed in its effort to cut SNAP spending, the number of people getting food stamps is already declining. This trend began during the Obama administration, in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
Since the economy is doing well overall, the number of people on food assistance programs has fallen. The reason for the decline is that the number of people who are eligible for these benefits rises when the economy falters and falls when conditions improve. As a result, the government is spending less on food stamps without cutting the SNAP budget.
Case in point, 7 million people have already left SNAP due to better economic stability. In parallel, federal spending on SNAP budget has dropped from $78 billion in 2013 to $64 billion in 2019.
If the Trump administration wants to shrink SNAP, reduce costs and have fewer low-income Americans receive benefits, we believe that the best thing it can do is to keep working to improve the economy – particularly for low-income Americans, who have been reaping fewer benefits from the improving economy than others in recent years.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Animal Care and Control has a mix of larger dogs, with one little dog, ready for new homes.
Dogs available for adoption this week include mixes of boxer, Cane Corso mastiff, Chihuahua, husky, mastiff and pit bull.
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.
If you're looking for a new companion, visit the shelter. There are many great pets hoping you'll choose them.
The following dogs at the Lake County Animal Care and Control shelter have been cleared for adoption (additional dogs on the animal control Web site not listed are still “on hold”).
This female pit bull is in kennel No. 5, ID No. 12601. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Female pit bull
This female pit bull has a short white and brindle coat.
She is in kennel No. 5, ID No. 12601.
This male Chihuahua is in kennel No. 13, ID No. 12583. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male Chihuahua
This male Chihuahua has a short tan coat.
He’s in kennel No. 13, ID No. 12583.
This male husky is in kennel No. 15, ID No. 12628. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male husky
This male husky has a short tan coat and blue eyes.
He is in kennel No. 15, ID No. 12628.
“Rocky” is a male pit bull-mastiff in kennel No. 21, ID No. 12515. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Rocky’
“Rocky” is a male pit bull-mastiff with a short black coat.
Shelter staff said he does well with others, and is a sweet and loving dog.
He’s in kennel No. 21, ID No. 12515.
“Cash” is a male pit bull terrier in kennel No. 27, ID No. 12413. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Cash’
“Cash” is a male pit bull terrier mix with a short black and white coat.
Shelter staff said Cash does well with others, loves people and walks well on a leash.
He has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 27, ID No. 12413.
“Chucky” is a male pit bull terrier in kennel No. 29, ID No. 12523. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Chucky’
“Chucky” is a male pit bull terrier with a short black and white coat.
He already has been neutered.
He’s in kennel No. 29, ID No. 12523.
“Buddy” is a male pit bull terrier mix in kennel No. 31, ID No. 12508. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Buddy’
“Buddy” is a male pit bull terrier mix with a short tricolor coat.
He’s in kennel No. 31, ID No. 12508.
This male boxer is in kennel No. 32, ID No. 12512. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. Male boxer
This male boxer has a short black coat.
He’s in kennel No. 32, ID No. 12512.
“Bear” is a male Cane Corso mastiff in kennel No. 34, ID No. 11456. Photo courtesy of Lake County Animal Care and Control. ‘Bear’
“Bear” is a male Cane Corso mastiff with a short brown coat.
He is in kennel No. 34, ID No. 11456.
Lake County Animal Care and Control is located at 4949 Helbush in Lakeport, next to the Hill Road Correctional Facility.
Office hours are Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday. The shelter is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday and on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
For more information call Lake County Animal Care and Control at 707-263-0278.
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. – A North Coast man who last year was arrested after shooting a neighbor and attempting to shoot the neighbor’s wife during a fight over a property easement has been sentenced to more than a decade in state prison.
Harry William Miller, 70, of Anchor Bay was sentenced on Friday in Mendocino County Superior Court for attempted voluntary manslaughter in the March 2018 shooting of his neighbor, Paul Palestrini, and felony assault with a firearm on Palestrini’s wife, Desiree, along with special enhancements related to use of a firearm, the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office said.
According to reports from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office, on the afternoon of March 26, 2018, there was an altercation regarding an easement on a shared driveway – specifically, a small gravel pile on the shared roadway – between Miller and Paul Palestrini in the 35000 block of South Highway 1 in Anchor Bay.
Authorities said that during the dispute Miller produced a firearm and shot Palestrini, without provocation, in the stomach at point blank range. Palestrini in turn hit Miller with a shovel while defending himself.
After shooting Paul Palestrini, Miller fired four shots at Desiree Palestrini, but missed, authorities said.
Both Paul Palestrini and Miller suffered significant injuries and had to be flown by air ambulances to Sonoma County for treatment.
In June, Miller entered a guilty plea for attempted voluntary manslaughter for shooting Paul Palestrini, and also admitted a sentencing enhancement that he personally used a firearm in the commission of the attempted killing, the District Attorney’s Office said.
At the same time, authorities said Miller pleaded guilty to felony assault with a firearm on Desiree Palestrini, and admitted a sentencing enhancement under that count that he personally used a firearm in the commission of that separate offense.
On Friday, the District Attorney’s Office said Judge John Behnke found there was no provocation or other cause to have justified or mitigated Miller from shooting point blank at Paul Palestrini and firing four shots at Desiree Palestrini.
Judge Behnke also found that the evidence supported the district attorney's argument that the defendant succeeded in killing Paul Palestrini but that medical teams were able to use their collective skills and experience to bring him back to life multiple times.
Behnke denied Miller’s application for probation as contrary to the interests of justice and instead sentenced Miller, who recently had been living in Santa Rosa, to 11 years, 10 months in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, authorities said.
At the conclusion of Friday’s extended proceedings – the lengthy sentencing hearing carried over from the morning session into the afternoon – authorities said Miller was handcuffed and taken into custody, and then escorted by deputies from the courthouse to the jail for later transportation to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Both convictions are felonies and, in concert with the two personal use sentencing enhancements, are legally characterized by the California Penal Code as violent crimes.
Because of that characterization, the District Attorney’s Office said any good or work time credits Miller may attempt to earn in state prison will be limited to no more than 15 percent of the defendant's total sentence. In other words, Miller will not be eligible for parole under current law until he has served just over 10 years.
Susan Mary Miller, the defendant's wife, was previously convicted by a separate jury of being a felony accessory to the violent crimes of her husband. The District Attorney’s Office said she was given permission to observe Friday’s proceedings in Behnke’s courtroom after agreeing to later surrender herself at the Mendocino County Jail to begin serving her own 10-month jail sentence.
Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster prosecuted the Miller case. The law enforcement agencies that gathered the necessary evidence supporting the convictions were the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office and the District Attorney's own Bureau of Investigations. Eyster offered special thanks to the Stutchman Forensic Laboratory of Napa for its exceptional forensic analysis and work on this case.
The District Attorney has expressed gratitude to all the medical professionals – from the medical care providers in Gualala to the emergency life flight helicopter team to the surgeons, nurses, and medical staff at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital – for their combined and exceptional work to save Paul Palestrini's life. Eyster cited medical providers in Fort Bragg who provided important after care services.
Pico Viejo, located in Teide National Park on Tenerife is the second highest volcano in the Canary Islands. Teide National Park is the most visited national park in Spain and Europe and, as of 2015, became the eighth most visited in the world. Photo by Billy Oertel.
Just 62 miles west of Morocco off the coast of North Africa, lie seven beautiful islands known as Las Islas Canarias in the language spoken there.
The Canary Islands, as we know them, are so close to the African continent that weather on the nearest islands is influenced by the arid winds from the Sahara Desert; even so, it’s Spain that claims the territory, making them the most remote outpost of the European Union.
And what a jewel in Spain’s crown they are!
The world’s third highest volcano (when measured from the ocean floor), El Teide, is located on Tenerife, the largest of the islands in both area and population. Its height makes it the tallest mountain in Spain.
In addition, three of Spain’s four UNESCO World Heritage Sites are in the Canary Islands, an astounding fact if one considers mainland Spain’s rich trove of culture and history.
Each of the Canary Islands is unique, with variances in climate, geology and flora depending on where they’re situated in the archipelago. Some islands have flora found nowhere else in the world.
The Canary Islands chain is part of Macaronesia, a collection of four North Atlantic archipelagos of volcanic origin off the continents of Europe and Africa. Others in the group are the Azores, Madeira and Cape Verde.
San Cristobal de la Laguna, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, contains many well-preserved 16th century buildings, such as this church featured in an Easter procession. Dragon trees, native to the Canary Islands and a symbol of the island of Tenerife, are in the foreground. Photo by Billy Oertel. There are still active volcanoes on the Canaries, evidenced by the spewing forth of a full four eruptions since European habitation in the 15th century.
While subtropical in climate, the culture is definitely European. The Canary Islands chain is the only part of Macaronesia that had inhabitants before European conquest, and the aboriginal peoples, the Guanche, are now completely assimilated into the current civilization.
Mystery surrounds the origin of these native people (some legends claim that they’re descendants of the lost city of Atlantis); however, DNA gleaned from mummified remains shows them to be most closely related to the Berbers of North Africa. Some mummies reportedly had blond or red hair.
Historical evidence indicates that they traded with the Romans; in fact, it was Roman author and military officer Pliny the Elder who first reported their existence.
While Guanche culture is considered lost, a legacy remains through the remnants of Guanche food found in Canarian cuisine.
This float is part of a Good Friday procession in San Cristobal de la Laguna on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Semana Santa, or Holy Week, is celebrated enthusiastically there. Photo by Billy Oertel. The Canary Islands were once considered a crossroads between Europe, Africa and the Americas, so the cuisine there has hints of Spanish, Latin American and North African fare.
The influence goes both ways, however. Canarian elements can be found in such New World cuisines as the Tex-Mex food found along the southern U.S. border, surprising until I learned that the city of San Antonio, Texas was founded by Canarian settlers, whose descendants fought alongside Davy Crockett at the Alamo.
My son spent a recent year in Tenerife teaching English, and my appreciation for the Canary Islands increased dramatically thanks to his rich experience.
He lived in the largest city on the island, San Cristobal de la Laguna (commonly known as La Laguna), which happens to be one of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the island chain.
From the images my son sent while there, the town’s architecture is a beautifully preserved example of 16th century Spain.
La Laguna exudes history, particularly in the historic downtown area where my son taught, yet is very much alive with activity. Festivals and processions take place regularly, both religious and local in nature, and it’s not unusual to see jugglers and other artisans in the many public plazas.
Near his apartment vendors offered their wares in the Mercado de Municipal de la Laguna, a large, open building with a tent-like roof where individual stalls display a seemingly endless array of foods such as cheeses, meats, fish, vegetables, candied fruits, spices and sweets.
At nearby outdoor stalls live chickens, pigeons, ducks and rabbits could be found, as well as clothing, religious items, and even flowers sold by nuns.
San Cristobal de la Laguna on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands comes alive during Semana Santa, or Holy Week, such as during this Easter procession. Photo by Billy Oertel. A favorite Mercado find of his was olives in a variety of flavorful local sauces known as mojo.
Perhaps no food is more quintessentially Canarian than mojo sauce. The most popular version is called mojo picon, or red pepper sauce, made from dried red peppers, oil and other ingredients, thickened with stale bread.
Mojo verde, a green version, is made with fresh cilantro or parsley. These sauces are served with potatoes, fish and meats.
One of the teachers at my son’s school gifted him with a bag of gofio, a Canarian flour made with toasted grains (usually wheat or maize).
Gofio goes back to the time of the Guanches, when it was a staple of their diet and made with barley and a rhizome of certain ferns.
Canarians are raised on gofio – it’s rich in vitamins and minerals – and emigrants have spread its use to the Caribbean and the Western Sahara.
Gofio doesn’t spoil easily, so it was a favorite of Canarian mariners.
To accompany the flour, he was given a bottle of homemade palm syrup. As is typical, my son mixed the gofio flour with milk and the palm syrup to make a sweet paste, which he enjoyed.
He says that gofio tastes and looks like the dust in the bottom of a box of Cheerios (a good thing in his opinion).
If any readers are interested in trying gofio, a quick Internet search revealed that it can be purchased online at a surprising variety of vendors common to us.
Typical of the Canary Islands are guachinche restaurants, usually found in the countryside or small towns, though my son frequented one in La Laguna near his home.
This flowering plant, echium wildpretii, is endemic to the island of Tenerife, and is found mainly in the canyons of El Teide, a volcanic mountain that is Spain’s tallest. Photo by Billy Oertel. These restaurants are unique in that they’re owned and run by families who prepare large batches of food made exclusively with bounty from a working farm which they also own. Wines made with grapes from the property are often served.
It’s not unusual to see smoked pig legs hanging from the ceilings of coffee shops and bars, with the meat used to make sandwiches. A favorite neighborhood pub of my son’s featured an employee whose job was to carve ham at the end of the bar.
As a vegetarian, my son stuck with almogrote, a thick and delicious Canarian cheese sauce served with toasted bread.
Fried cheeses, queso asado, are served with a variety of sauces in the islands, including in sweet presentations. My son especially enjoyed (and now misses) queso asado con miel de palma, fried cheese with palm syrup.
I’m sure he would enjoy it if I could find the ingredients to make it.
Today’s recipe is for a signature dish in the islands, papas arrugadas, or wrinkled potatoes, which are served as a side dish or in a restaurant as tapas, typically accompanied by red or green mojo sauce. (A recipe for mojo verde is included below.)
What makes them interesting are the wrinkly skin and high level of salt that coats it, which originally came from boiling them in sea water.
The modern version uses heavily salted water, and I found a wide variety in the amount of salt added, from 2 tablespoons to a full quarter cup. I prefer a happy medium of 4 tablespoons, but you can adjust the salt as desired.
And before we go, you might be interested to know that the closest Taco Bell restaurant to La Laguna in Tenerife is 886.6967 miles away in Madrid, something that my son researched. As much as he enjoyed Canarian cuisine and his experience there, it was good to be home to enjoy a nice, American taco.
Please enjoy!
Papas arrugadas con mojo verde
2-1/2 pounds baby potatoes, the smaller the better (I like using a mixture of colors) 4 tablespoons coarse sea salt Water to just cover potatoes
For the mojo verde: 1 large bunch of cilantro (parsley can also be used; increase the cumin a bit, if so) 2 cloves garlic, peeled ½ teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon cumin 1/3 cup olive oil 3 or more tablespoons cold water 2 or more (to taste) tablespoons sherry vinegar
Scrub potatoes and remove eyes, but do not peel. Place in pot with the salt and just enough water to cover them. Bring to a boil and then simmer until potatoes are cooked, about 20 minutes, but this will depend on their size.
In the meantime, make the mojo. Add cilantro, garlic, salt and cumin to a blender and puree to a paste. Add the oil in a steady drizzle while blending, then add the water and blend again. Add the vinegar and blend again. Check for seasoning and add more salt, cumin or vinegar to taste. Thin with more water, if needed.
Once the potatoes are cooked, drain all the water and return pot to the heat. Once all the moisture has evaporated, a thin coating of white salt should start to form on the potatoes. Shake or stir the pot to keep them from sticking. When the potatoes start to brown and wrinkle slightly, they’re done.
Served hot, topped with the mojo verde.
Editor's note: A previous version had inadvertently omitted the cumin in the mojo verde recipe.
Esther Oertel is a writer and passionate home cook from a family of chefs. She grew up in a restaurant, where she began creating recipes from a young age. She’s taught culinary classes in a variety of venues in Lake County and previously wrote “The Veggie Girl” column for Lake County News. Most recently she’s taught culinary classes at Sur La Table in Santa Rosa, Calif. She lives in Middletown, Calif.
Old mixes with new in San Cristobal de la Laguna on Tenerife in the Canary Islands when a cattle tender takes a break to check his cell phone during one of the many local processions. Photo by Billy Oertel.
A piping hot planet discovered by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has pointed the way to additional worlds orbiting the same star, one of which is located in the star’s habitable zone. If made of rock, this planet may be around twice Earth’s size.
The new worlds orbit a star named GJ 357, an M-type dwarf about one-third the Sun’s mass and size and about 40 percent cooler that our star. The system is located 31 light-years away in the constellation Hydra.
In February, TESS cameras caught the star dimming slightly every 3.9 days, revealing the presence of a transiting exoplanet – a world beyond our solar system – that passes across the face of its star during every orbit and briefly dims the star’s light.
“In a way, these planets were hiding in measurements made at numerous observatories over many years,” said Rafael Luque, a doctoral student at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, or IAC, on Tenerife who led the discovery team. “It took TESS to point us to an interesting star where we could uncover them.”
The transits TESS observed belong to GJ 357 b, a planet about 22% larger than Earth. It orbits 11 times closer to its star than Mercury does our Sun. This gives it an equilibrium temperature – calculated without accounting for the additional warming effects of a possible atmosphere – of around 490 degrees Fahrenheit (254 degrees Celsius).
“We describe GJ 357 b as a ‘hot Earth,’” explains co-author Enric Pallé, an astrophysicist at the IAC and Luque’s doctoral supervisor. “Although it cannot host life, it is noteworthy as the third-nearest transiting exoplanet known to date and one of the best rocky planets we have for measuring the composition of any atmosphere it may possess.”
But while researchers were looking at ground-based data to confirm the existence of the hot Earth, they uncovered two additional worlds. The farthest-known planet, named GJ 357 d, is especially intriguing.
“GJ 357 d is located within the outer edge of its star’s habitable zone, where it receives about the same amount of stellar energy from its star as Mars does from the Sun,” said co-author Diana Kossakowski at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. “If the planet has a dense atmosphere, which will take future studies to determine, it could trap enough heat to warm the planet and allow liquid water on its surface.”
Without an atmosphere, it has an equilibrium temperature of -64 F (-53 C), which would make the planet seem more glacial than habitable. The planet weighs at least 6.1 times Earth’s mass, and orbits the star every 55.7 days at a range about 20% of Earth’s distance from the Sun. The planet’s size and composition are unknown, but a rocky world with this mass would range from about one to two times Earth’s size.
Even through TESS monitored the star for about a month, Luque’s team predicts any transit would have occurred outside the TESS observing window.
GJ 357 c, the middle planet, has a mass at least 3.4 times Earth’s, orbits the star every 9.1 days at a distance a bit more than twice that of the transiting planet, and has an equilibrium temperature around 260 F (127 C). TESS did not observe transits from this planet, which suggests its orbit is slightly tilted – perhaps by less than 1 degree – relative to the hot Earth’s orbit, so it never passes across the star from our perspective.
To confirm the presence of GJ 357 b and discover its neighbors, Luque and his colleagues turned to existing ground-based measurements of the star’s radial velocity, or the speed of its motion along our line of sight.
An orbiting planet produces a gravitational tug on its star, which results in a small reflex motion that astronomers can detect through tiny color changes in the starlight.
Astronomers have searched for planets around bright stars using radial velocity data for decades, and they often make these lengthy, precise observations publicly available for use by other astronomers.
Luque’s team examined ground-based data stretching back to 1998 from the European Southern Observatory and the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile, the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, and the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain, among many others.
A paper describing the findings was published on Wednesday, July 31, in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and is available online.
TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.
Francis Reddy works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
We are careful to emphasize how rare shark bites are: You are 30 times more likely to be struck by lightning than be bitten by a shark. You are more likely to die while taking a selfie, or be bitten by a New Yorker. In anticipation of the anxiety that’s typically generated by the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week programming, here are a few things about sharks that are often overlooked.
A big, diverse family
Not all sharks are the same. Only a dozen or so of the roughly 520 shark species pose any risk to people. Even the three species that account for almost all shark bite fatalities – the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), tiger shark (Galeocerdo cuvier) and bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) – are behaviorally and evolutionarily very different from one another.
The tiger shark and bull shark are genetically as different from each other as a dog is from a rabbit. And both of these species are about as different from a white shark as a dog is from a kangaroo. The evolutionary lineages leading to the two groups split 170 million years ago, during the age of dinosaurs and before the origin of birds, and 110 million years before the origin of primates.
White, tiger and bull sharks are distinct species that diverged genetically tens of millions of years ago.Gavin Naylor, CC BY-ND
Yet many people assume all sharks are alike and equally likely to bite humans. Consider the term “shark attack,” which is scientifically equivalent to “mammal attack.” Nobody would equate dog bites with hamster bites, but this is exactly what we do when it comes to sharks.
So, when a reporter calls me about a fatality caused by a white shark off Cape Cod and asks my advice for beachgoers in North Carolina, it’s essentially like asking, “A man was killed by a dog on Cape Cod. What precautions should people take when dealing with kangaroos in North Carolina?”
Know your species
Understanding local species’ behavior and life habits is one of the best ways to stay safe. For example, almost all shark bites that occur off Cape Cod are by white sharks, which are a large, primarily cold-water species that spend most of their time in isolation feeding on fishes. But they also aggregate near seal colonies that provide a reliable food source at certain times of the year.
Shark bites in the Carolinas are by warm-water species like bull sharks, tiger sharks and blacktips (Carcharhinus limbatus). Each species is associated with particular habitats and dietary preferences.
Blacktips, which we suspect are responsible for most relatively minor bites on humans in the southeastern United States, feed on schooling bait fishes like menhaden. In contrast, bull sharks are equally at home in fresh water and salt water, and are often found near estuaries. Their bites are more severe than those of blacktips, as they are larger, more powerful, bolder and more tenacious. Several fatalities have been ascribed to bull sharks.
Tiger sharks are also large, and are responsible for a significant fraction of fatalities, particularly off the coast of volcanic islands like Hawaii and Reunion. They are tropical animals that often venture into shallow water frequented by swimmers and surfers.
Sharks are important predators that play critical roles in ocean food chains.
Humans are not targets
Sharks do not “hunt” humans. Data from the International Shark Attack File compiled over the past 60 years show a tight association between shark bites and the number of people in the water. In other words, shark bites are a simple function of the probability of encountering a shark.
This underscores the fact that shark bites are almost always cases of mistaken identity. If sharks actively hunted people, there would be many more bites, since humans make very easy targets when they swim in sharks’ natural habitats.
Local conditions can also affect the risk of an attack. Encounters are more likely when sharks venture closer to shore, into areas where people are swimming. They may do this because they are following bait fishes or seals upon which they prey.
This means we can use environmental variables such as temperature, tide or weather conditions to better predict movement of bait fish toward the shoreline, which in turn will predict the presence of sharks. Over the next few years, the Florida Program for Shark Research will work with colleagues at other universities to monitor onshore and offshore movements of tagged sharks and their association with environmental variables so that we can improve our understanding of what conditions bring sharks close to shore.
More to know
There still is much to learn about sharks, especially the 500 or so species that have never been implicated in a bite on humans. One example is the tiny deep sea pocket shark, which has a strange pouch behind its pectoral fins.
Only two specimens of this type of shark have ever been caught – one off the coast of Chile 30 years ago, and another more recently in the Gulf of Mexico. We’re not sure about the function of the pouch, but suspect it stores luminous fluid that is released to distract would-be predators – much as its close relative, the tail light shark, releases luminous fluid from a gland on its underside near its vent.
The goblin shark, found mainly off Asia, can project its jaw forward to pull prey into its mouth.
Sharks range in form from the bizarre goblin shark (Mitsukurina owstoni), most commonly encountered in Japan, to the gentle filter-feeding whale shark (Rhincodon typus). Although whale sharks are the largest fishes in the world, we have yet to locate their nursery grounds, which are likely teeming with thousands of foot-long pups. Some deepwater sharks are primarily known from submersibles, such as the giant sixgill shark, which feeds mainly on carrion but probably also preys on other animals in the deep sea.
Sharks seem familiar to almost all of us, but we know precious little about them. Our current understanding of their biology barely scratches the surface. The little we do know suggests they are profoundly different from other vertebrate animals. They’ve had 400 million years of independent evolution to adapt to their environments, and it’s reasonable to expect they may be hiding more than a few tricks up their gills.
