First suicide memorial by a US archdiocese signals a compassionate shift by the Catholic Church

• October 9, 2026

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO

EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org

CHICAGO (AP) — The Rev. Charles Rubey recalls the moment when he realized Catholic priests needed to do a better job supporting families of those who died by suicide.

Two women told Rubey they had asked their parish priest to pray for family members who had killed themselves. At that time, the Catholic Church banned funeral rites and burial on consecrated grounds for those who died by suicide. Rubey says the women told him: “the first thing out of the priest’s mouth was: ‘Well, you know, your loved one is in hell.’”

But Rubey disagreed with the damning judgment. Seeking to ease the pain, he reassured them: “They’re with God!”

It was a turning point for Rubey. He began blessing bridges, railroad tracks and basements where people had taken their lives, and in 1979 founded the LOSS Program (“Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide”), a counseling and support service run by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago. At 86, this ministry remains an important part of his life.

The Chicago archdiocese recognized Rubey’s work this year by dedicating in his honor a memorial to the lives lost to suicide and their surviving families. The archdiocese says the “At Peace” memorial at Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery is the first of its kind by any U.S. archdiocese.

To Rubey, it’s a sign of the church’s shift toward a more compassionate understanding of suicide.

“They’ve made a complete turnaround embracing families who have lost a loved one to suicide,” Rubey said. “They’re no longer condemned or thought to be in hell.”

Catholic teaching still considers suicide a grave sin. But it acknowledges that mental health problems can lead people to suicide and says salvation is possible for those who take their own lives.

Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV has dedicated some of his monthly prayer intentions to people suffering from mental health problems and suicidal thoughts.

He called on the church to become “a safe space where everyone has a place — a community that accompanies and never excludes, that listens without judging and draws near without fear.”

The memorial’s location was carefully planned

Rubey and Bishop Lawrence Sullivan, vicar general of the Chicago archdiocese, designed “At Peace” during the COVID-19 pandemic, when mental health issues came to the forefront, intending the memorial to provide succor for people of all faiths.

“We used to tell people, ‘Buck up, just white-knuckle through it,’” Sullivan said. ″And now we understand, ‘No, there’s serious mental health issues out there.’ It’s not a question of willpower. It’s not a question of right or wrong.”

The memorial, which features sculptures of an angel and bronze doves, is located in a cemetery that is also home to the world’s largest Catholic mausoleum.

“We did not want this memorial hidden away and we were intentional in every detail,” Sullivan said when the memorial was announced. “This is not something we are ashamed of.″

Among those who attended the memorial’s dedication in June was Rabbi Marianne Novak, who joined LOSS after her 18-year-old daughter, Batsheva Chaya, died by suicide in 2017.

“It was important to have a place for people so that they could remember their loved ones in a loving way, not to focus on how they died,” Novak said.

Catholic burial for people who died by suicide

Until a 1917 church law was revised in 1983, those who died by suicide were denied Catholic burials on consecrated grounds.

“The church never showed an acceptance of suicide. … They thought that their adamant position would dissuade people from doing it,” said James Keenan, a Boston College theology professor.

He said a shift in attitude began with the reforms of Vatican II, the 1960s meetings that modernized the Catholic Church. It continued with the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which was approved in 1992.

That document says suicide is contrary to God’s love. But it also says “grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide,” and “we should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives.”

A turning point after a painful experience

In recent decades, a greater understanding of mental illness has helped shift the cultural view on suicide and influenced Catholic teaching.

The Rev. James Martin, editor-at-large of the Jesuit magazine America, says the Catholic Church’s approach mirrors that of the broader society with more sympathy for all affected by suicide.

“To be able to extend pastoral care to the family members is extremely important, and to not make them feel any sense of shame or isolation, or judgment on them from the church,” he said.

That was the painful experience of a Michigan family.

The priest officiating the funeral of 18-year-old Maison Hullibarger in 2018 questioned whether the athlete and honors student would get to heaven after he died by suicide. His father, Jeff Hullibarger, told the Detroit Free Press he asked the Rev. Don LaCuesta to stop but the priest continued his critical sermon, calling suicide a “sin against God with dire eternal consequences.”

The Archdiocese of Detroit apologized, saying an “unbearable situation was made even more difficult.”

Maison’s mother Linda Hullibarger sued LaCuesta and the Detroit archdiocese, alleging intentional infliction of emotional distress and more, but the courts sided with the priest on First Amendment grounds.

“That was really a turning point in many ways because the Catholic Church got such bad press,” said Mathew Schmalz, a religious studies professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.

“It also shows that the priesthood in the United States, and I’d say throughout the world, needs better training in dealing with complex phenomena like suicide,” he said.

A call to expand mental health ministry

Ed Shoener, whose daughter Katie died by suicide in 2016, co-founded the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers to “educate parish communities to break down the stigma around mental illness and to accompany people in the midst of these struggles.”

The global association advocates for the Catholic Church to do more to improve mental healthcare.

In January, Shoener met with Pope Leo to thank him for his interest in mental health and told the pontiff that he hoped the church could issue an in-depth statement about mental health in the form of an apostolic letter or an encyclical.

This month, he returned to the Vatican for an event coinciding with Leo’s monthly prayer intention and World Mental Health Day on Saturday. Religious leaders and health professionals will gather to examine how parishes respond to mental health issues and how to best answer Leo’s call to establish mental health ministries to overcome stigma and discrimination.

That′s also Shoener’s hope. “I’d love to see this become just a fully integrated ministry into the church — that it’s a common ministry in every parish around the world, just like youth ministry.”

He and Ranana Dine, director of the Catholic-Jewish Studies Program at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, hope the Chicago memorial will be replicated elsewhere.

“Creating physical spaces, landscapes, things that people can touch, sit in, be in, that tell them they’re not alone, that they don’t need to be ashamed, that give a physical space for grief, is really important,” Dine said.

AP Vatican correspondent Nicole Winfield contributed.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

​ Orange County Register 

The midterms stakes are high for these 2028 presidential prospects

• October 9, 2026

By STEVE PEOPLES, JILL COLVIN and JOEY CAPPELLETTI

NEW YORK (AP) — As most of the political world focuses on next month’s midterm elections, the shadow primary for the 2028 presidential contest is quietly playing out in public view.

Democratic and Republican presidential prospects have been crisscrossing the country, raising money and tapping their political connections to help boost their parties’ candidates — and their own White House ambitions.

Here’s a closer look at some of the leading prospects and how their political futures may be influenced by what happens Nov. 3.

Newsom has a Southern strategy

Gavin Newsom leaves the California governor’s office at the end of the year, and he’s been among the most active Democrats throughout the midterms.

He’s paid particular attention to the South, where he’s campaigned with candidates up and down the ballot in states like Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina and, not surprisingly, South Carolina, which hosts the party’s first presidential primary contest in 2028.

The Southern focus aligns with the mission of Newsom’s political action committee, established in 2023 to help his party compete in red states. But it could also help endear him to Black voters, heart of the Democratic base.

Newsom’s star power and extensive email list have strengthened his relationships with Democratic officials in states like Nevada and New Hampshire, where his fundraising emails have generated a surge of donations.

Perhaps Newsom’s biggest midterm contribution was backing Proposition 50, California’s response to the Texas Republican mid-decade gerrymander. The proposition, approved by California voters last year, created a new congressional map that may allow Democrats to pick up as many as five additional U.S. House seats in California this fall.

Vance’s fate is tied to Trump

No potential candidate’s fate is as closely tied to President Donald Trump and Republicans’ performance as Vice President JD Vance.

The 42-year-old has embarked on an aggressive midterm campaign schedule from the Midwest to the South and Alaska, focused on the administration’s anti-fraud efforts.

A key state will be Ohio, which Vance briefly represented in the Senate. Republican Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill Vance’s seat in 2025, is facing an aggressive challenge from former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. Democrat Amy Acton is in a close contest with Republican Vivek Ramaswamy for governor.

The effectiveness of the conservative group Turning Point Action will also be scrutinized. Erika Kirk, the widow of Turning Point co-founder Charlie Kirk and the organization’s new leader, has already endorsed Vance’s potential presidential bid and leaders have said they intend to use the group to support his campaign.

Vance has said he is not focused on running for president, but “trying to help elect Republicans.”

Shapiro is all about Pennsylvania

Among the Democrats leading the 2028 conversation, none have done less beyond their home state than Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. He hasn’t visited any early primary states or campaigned with any midterm candidates beyond his state.

That’s by design for a 53-year-old Democrat whose selling point as a presidential candidate might be his clout in Pennsylvania, perhaps the most important swing state.

Shapiro is expected to cruise to reelection over his Republican challenger, state Treasurer Stacy Garrity, which has allowed him to spend his political capital elsewhere.

If Shapiro can demonstrate strength in swing counties like Beaver, Luzerne or Erie, it could help him make a credible claim to winning back some of the working-class voters Democrats lost in the Trump era.

Beshear faces risk and reward

As chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear may have done more than any other potential candidate to boost his national profile during the midterms. He’ll headline a get-out-the-vote tour through key states, beginning with Nevada on Oct. 22.

He’s also been on a national book tour, allowing him to cozy up to influential Democrats in early states.

Still, Beshear’s spending decisions as chief of the governors association in 2026 may present the highest risk and reward for him heading into 2028.

He’s been active in supporting Democratic candidates in traditional swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona while pushing into Republican-leaning states like Ohio and Iowa, places he argues could be critical in the next White House campaign.

But Democrats in other states are clamoring for more resources and warning Beshear of blowback if he doesn’t deliver. Under pressure, the governors association sent $1 million this week to help the candidate for Texas governor, Gina Hinojosa.

Cruz hits the road

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has long been one of his party’s most active campaigners and fundraisers, and that’s not changed as he openly weighs another presidential bid.

His PAC has spent more than $2.4 million this year on ads supporting midterm candidates, according to AdImpact, mostly to help Senate candidate Ken Paxton in his home state.

Cruz has traveled three times to Iowa, the first state on Republicans’ nominating calendar and where he won the caucuses during the 2016 primary. He’ll be in Alaska next week, and is also planning trips to South Carolina, North Carolina and most likely Michigan.

Pritzker’s money plays

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is seeking his third term in November, but the Democrat has focused more on helping midterm candidates in other states. Pritzker’s team says the billionaire Democrat has already donated $38 million to the party’s midterm efforts.

More than other 2028 prospects, Pritzker has been focused on the Texas governor’s race, where he donated $1 million this week, on top of $200,000 he gave earlier. He’s also been active on the speaker circuit, having participated in more than 75 events across the country. He’s expected to visit South Carolina before Election Day.

AOC’s progressive politics face a test

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York has been increasingly open about a potential presidential run, where she would be a major player in the Democratic Party’s progressive lane.

But first, she’s trying to prove that brand of politics can succeed in a presidential swing state like Michigan, where she has thrown her weight behind Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. They appeared together this week at a New York City fundraiser, and she cast his campaign as a broader test for the progressive movement.

“If Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere,” Ocasio-Cortez told the audience.

Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats have acknowledged that she’ll face questions about whether she can appeal to voters across the country. Ocasio-Cortez argues an El-Sayed victory could challenge some of those assumptions.

Buttigieg is busy, too

Since leaving his job as transportation secretary under President Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg has had the luxury of free time. He has used it to travel across the country, raising money and campaigning for Democrats on the ballot this year.

Buttigieg has endorsed nearly 100 candidates, from state legislative contests to Senate races, and has appeared on the campaign trail with roughly half of them, according to his team. He has visited 37 states since leaving office.

The range of those appearances also offers a glimpse at Buttigieg’s appeal within the party.

Democrats have welcomed him even in deeply Republican territory, including Nancy Lacore, a U.S. House candidate in South Carolina who campaigned with Buttigieg in August. He also helped bring Democratic candidates together for a Michigan unity event in August after hotly contested primaries.

​ Orange County Register 

ICE officers shot New York man because they believed they were in danger, official says

• October 9, 2026

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal immigration officers opened fire on a Dominican man whom they were trying to arrest in New York because they believed their lives were in danger, a senior Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said Friday.

Marcos Charles made the comments alongside U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and other immigration officials during a news conference in Washington meant to “highlight the dangerous consequences of sanctuary city policies.”

The 28-year-old man, whom New York City police identified as Oscar Belgal, was shot in the neck Thursday as he drove his car with a 5-year-old boy inside, officials said.

ICE agents didn’t know the child was in the car, but Belgal “was aware” and chose to evade officers, Mullin said.

Belgal was shot “superficially” in the neck as ICE officers attempted to arrest him, Charles said.

ICE had issued a detainer on Belgal and that he runs with a gang known for thefts using weapons and mopeds, he said. Officers used vehicles to block him in as he attempted to drive off. Instead, Charles said, he accelerated his vehicle toward officers, smashing some of their vehicles.

Protesters and local officials decried the shooting as an example of the dangers of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Much of Mullin’s remarks were reserved for excoriating New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his immigration policy.

“Sanctuary politicians, they create an environment for criminal activity to thrive, not for the American citizens to be safe,” he said.

Mullin said ICE has requested more than 14,000 detainers in the state of New York for individuals in local custody that they’re seeking to deport.

“Silence. Absolute silence is what we have gotten back,” he said. “Why would they release these individuals back onto the streets?”

“We’re enforcing our nation’s laws. We’re not picking and choosing,” Mullin continued. “Why is that controversial? We should all want law and order on our streets.”

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County School of the Arts students scare up spooky creations

• October 9, 2026

Charlie Brown and Winnie the Pooh were there along with a Minion, space men, and even a couple of banana splits.

Students at the Orange County School of the Arts unveiled their pumpkin creations for the school’s annual Painted Pumpkin Auction.

Each year, students in the school’s visual arts conservatory – open to grades seven through 12 – design and construct pumpkins using a variety of mediums, including paint, clay, cardboard and glitter, for the auction, which is a fundraiser to support the program.

In keeping with the Halloween theme, students drew inspiration from popular horror movies, cartoons and books.

The auction opens online at 9 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 9, and closes Oct. 16.

It is open to the public and can be found at ocsarts.net/pumpkinauction.

​ Orange County Register 

If you’re worried about your bond portfolio, you’re missing the point

• October 9, 2026

By CHRISTINE BENZ of Morningstar

A friend who’s close to retirement texted that she was concerned about the bond market. She’d been building out that fixed-income allocation over the past several years at the urging of her adviser.

Her message made me wonder if some people might have misguided ideas about bonds.

Volatility is much lower than for stocks

For one thing, notwithstanding the recent headlines, bonds’ volatility is almost always going to be mild alongside the fluctuations that stocks experience. For example, on Sept. 1, 2026, a day when bonds grabbed the top headline on The Wall Street Journal’s website, total bond market index funds were down about half a percentage point. Returns for the year to date were just barely in the red. As the saying goes, “A bad year in the bond market is like a bad day in the stock market.”

Of course, the 2022 bond rout is fresh in everyone’s minds: Amid the Federal Reserve’s seven interest rate increases that year, the typical intermediate-term bond fund shed about 13%, and long-term Treasury bonds dropped nearly 30%. But those were the worst bond market losses in history, exacerbated by the fact that starting yields were so low at the time of the sell-off. When bond yields go up, hurting prices of already-existing bonds with lower yields attached to them, investors still receive whatever interest the bond pays; those interest payments help offset price declines. But with 10-year Treasury yields of about 1.5% in early 2022, yields provided limited cover for the interest rate-related losses in bond prices. In 2026, with 10-year Treasury yields at roughly 4.8%, bond investors have more protection in the form of higher yields.

The goal is return of capital, not return on capital

Another point that can get lost is why you hold bonds in the first place. Stocks are your growth engine, but bonds and cash are the sleep-at-night portion of your portfolio, designed to hold their value or lose just a bit when stocks are down. So, if the potential for losses in your bond portfolio is stressing you out, that can be a sound reason to change it up so that it doesn’t. You might give up some return potential in the process, but that’s OK. Your goal for your bond portfolio is “return of capital, not return on capital,” as the saying goes. Return on capital is why you hold stocks.

To help ensure your bond holdings land in the black for a specific spending need, use individual bonds, especially Treasury bonds and Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities, and hold them to maturity. This allows you to lock in a specific yield, whereas bond mutual funds’ yields will ebb and flow based on prevailing market yields. A laddered portfolio of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities is a popular strategy to address retiree spending needs.

Alternatively, you can use mutual funds or exchange-traded funds. That approach doesn’t provide the same type of principal protection as buying and holding individual bonds to maturity, but it’s less rigid and can make sense for people with less precise spending goals.

If you go with bond funds, the best way to ensure their “sleep-at-night” functionality is to be willing to give up some return potential in exchange for more stability. For money you’ll need within the next few years, stick with cash instruments like money market funds or high-yield savings accounts. For spending horizons of three to 10 years, short- and intermediate-term high-quality bond funds are a solid option. They have some potential for losses, but if you match the bond fund’s duration to your anticipated holding period, your bond fund is likely to be in the black when you need the money.

This is not the spot to be a tactician

Some financial advisers and individual investors try to make tactical moves with bonds: shifting into shorter-term bonds or even cash when it appears higher rates are in the offing, or back into longer-duration bonds when they think yields are at a high-water mark.

My advice: Get out of the timing business. Most professional bond-fund managers don’t make active bets regarding their portfolios’ interest rate sensitivity, so it’s hard to see why individual investors would be able to gain an advantage.

Morningstar’s “Mind the Gap” research provides a stark reminder that bond investors’ ill-conceived timing decisions can take a bite out of returns.

For the 10-year period through December 2025, for example, the typical taxable bond fund earned 3.0%, but the typical investor in such a fund earned just 2.1%. Focusing on your individual situation and not taking more risk than you need to are key ways to avoid unforced errors with your bond portfolio.

This article was provided to The Associated Press by Morningstar. For more personal finance content, go to https://www.morningstar.com/personal-finance.

Christine Benz is director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar and co-host of The Long View podcast. Subscribe to her free newsletter, Improving Your Finances.

Related links:

How Much Should You Allocate to Safer Assets?

https://www.morningstar.com/portfolios/how-much-should-you-allocate-safer-assets

Retirement Planning for Real Life, With Christine Benz

https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/retirement-planning-real-life-with-christine-benz

Christine Benz’s Best Investment Portfolio Examples for Savers and Retirees

https://www.morningstar.com/portfolios/best-investment-portfolio-examples-savers-retirees

​ Orange County Register 

In the high desert, dogs are being dumped to die a ‘horrible death,’ animal advocates say

• October 9, 2026

For Faith Easdale, it’s the running that breaks her heart the most.

After dogs are abandoned in the middle of nowhere, they will chase after the owners who dumped them. “Even if they’ve been abused, they run after the vehicle,” says Easdale, director of the foster-based Dream Fetchers Project Rescue. “They run their little legs off.”

She knows this because, sometimes, perpetrators are caught on grainy security camera videos, forcing dogs out of their cars in empty parking lots, in the desert adjacent to remote housing tracts, or by lonely highways. In one instance, a man in a hooded sweatshirt picked up a pit bull terrier and hurled the dog over a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.

These abandonments happen on scorching hot days, with coyotes circling, with no food or water for miles.

After 10 years rescuing abandoned dogs, it’s hard not to lose faith in humanity, Easdale says. “I wish I didn’t even know about all this stuff, so I could have a normal life,” she says. “You can’t unsee that stuff.”

The number of unwanted dogs, especially in the inland regions of Southern California, has become a major crisis for animal rescue groups.

“Honestly, we’ve been past the breaking point for about a year and a bit,” says Mike Ryan, an independent rescuer based in Apple Valley who takes in abandoned dogs.

In that timeframe, donations have plummeted more than 75%, Ryan says. A call for donations used to earn him a porch full of dog food; now, he’s lucky if he gets a few boxes. Adoptions are down as well, he says.

“I have personally not been able to find a home for a dog for over two years,” Ryan says. “Before, I could find them like crazy.”

In May 2025, Riverside County Animal Services announced its shelters were 220% over their limit, and in September, San Bernardino County Animal Care announced its shelters were “at full capacity” and offered free adoptions.

“We have more animals in our shelters than I’ve ever seen,” agreed Lesley Huennekens, a field commander with the Riverside Department of Animal Services. “It is definitely worse than it used to be.”

The cause of the crisis

The problem is the result of both intentional breeding and a lack of spaying and neutering, Huennekens said. In the county’s four shelters, all of which are at or over capacity, Riverside Department of Animal Services employees see both accidental litters and purebred dogs, including Belgian Malinois, huskies, French bulldogs — breeds popularized in movies or that are “trending online,” Huennekens said.

There’s “no one reason” for this uptick, she said. Instead, she points to a nationwide shortage of veterinarians, a culture that views animals as “disposable,” and a lack of access to spay and neuter services, especially during COVID, when some veterinarians were forced to temporarily halt those services.

Spay and neuter services are harder to access in more remote areas, said Melissa Durston, director of community outreach for the Spayce Project, a nonprofit that hosts spay and neuter clinics and offers other veterinary services in underserved areas. Many pet owners are coming from the high desert, which Durston says includes communities along the route to Las Vegas, such as Adelanto, Apple Valley, Victorville, Hesperia, Lucerne Valley, Barstow, Daggett and Newberry Springs.

“People are coming to our clinics, walking three miles with their dog, using a shoelace as a collar or a leash, or plastic bags tied in knots as a leash,” Durston says. “They’re trying to do the right thing.”

In the high desert, Durston said she sees people living off the grid, and many don’t have the money or transportation to get their dogs fixed. “If you are struggling to put gas in your car, or feed your children, or whatever, and someone hits you with a $600 spay or neuter bill, it’s not going to happen,” she said.

Spay and neuter clinics

The Spayce Project hosts clinics in shelters, grooming facilities, community centers and even thrift stores. At a clinic in the Lucerne Valley in early September, the Spayce team fixed 52 dogs in one day. The nonprofit, primarily funded through grants and private donations, doesn’t charge pet owners for their services.

“We never want to take someone’s last $5,” Durston said. But many pet owners will donate — anywhere from $100 to a handful of change.

Durston hopes these clinics help address the root of the problem, and that, soon, “we’ll see less dumping, we’ll see less suffering, we’ll see less unwanted litters, and we’ll start to see a reduction in the shelters that are busting at the seams.”

But for now, some shelters are so full, they’re unable to take in more animals, advocates say. Plus, some owners might want to avoid the questions a shelter might ask — like why they’re giving the dog up and what its history is, advocates say. Shelters may have owners fill out paperwork when they surrender an animal.

The fate of these unwanted dogs is often grim. Some dogs wind up dumped on the street. Easdale estimates that she gets “at least” 10 people reaching out to her per day about abandoned dogs, most of which are found in the Inland Empire.

“It’s out of control,” she says. “We can’t keep up.”

The calls keep coming

Faith Easdale knows she doesn’t have a normal life, but she can’t turn her back on the nonstop pleas for help.

When people see an abandoned dog, they call or text her, or when someone sees a video on social media of a dog wandering, they tag her. She gets calls from the San Bernardino Airport security guards and the California Highway Patrol.

When she gets a call, she drops everything, driving for hours in her Jeep with two transport crates packed in the trunk. Then, when she spots the dogs, she sets up the crates wired with a trip pan, baiting the dogs with food or water, and she waits — sometimes for days.

About half of the abandoned dogs she picks up are left in desert regions, she said — areas such as Thermal, Coachella, Hinkley, and near the Salton Sea. “These monsters will go where they think no one sees them,” she said.

In the desert, nature takes its course. It’s “a horrible death,” said rescuer Mike Ryan. “I wouldn’t wish that upon my worst enemy.”

Huennekens said Riverside Animal Services has not heard increased reports of dumped dogs in the desert. “If that’s happening, it’s not being reported to us,” she said.

‘No place for them to go’

Abandoning an animal is illegal under California law, and San Bernardino County Animal Care “conducts public education and outreach, including in desert communities, to educate residents about responsible pet ownership and available resources and alternatives to abandonment,” said Francis Delapaz, a communications officer for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health.

Rescue work has taken over every corner of Easdale’s life, it seems. Speaking by phone, she wonders midconversation if she’s gotten messages about dogs in need. Easdale works part-time as a medical esthetician in a dermatologist’s office, but her clients understand — the dogs come first. “I tell my clients that, ‘Hey, I can’t come in today. I’m sorry, I have to go save lives.’ And they all put up with me.”

But lately, her rescue has hit its limit. “We’ve killed ourselves rescuing these dogs, but there’s no place for them to go,” Easdale said. “Everybody’s full.”

Boarding alone costs $3,000 per week, she said, and there can be thousands of dollars of veterinary bills on top of that. “If something miraculous doesn’t happen, we’re just going to get to the point where we’re like, OK, we can’t do it,” she said.

Sometimes, when she’s tagged in a video or receives messages about a dumped dog, she knows she doesn’t have the resources to take it in. “It just kills me when I’m like, ‘What am I going to do with that dog?’ ”

Mike Ryan, a retired English teacher, has taken in more than 70 foster dogs, including six litters of puppies, since he started doing this work in December 2020. Rescuing dogs is “not inexpensive,” he said — there’s the expense of food and medicine, but also the hidden costs of keeping the lights on and the air conditioning running so the litter of puppies in his garage stays cool.

It’s eaten up his retirement savings — about $190,000, he estimates. Now, he raises money on GoFundMe and takes substitute teaching shifts to afford the costs of rescuing.

“I was planning on traveling and vacationing,” he says goodnaturedly. “Here I sit, rescuing dogs.”

The problem has gotten so severe that dogs that survive abandonment will find each other, breed, and form feral packs, Easdale said. Reports of feral dogs attacking livestock have emerged from remote regions of Riverside County. Humans also have been attacked — in 2018, three loose dogs mauled a woman in Anza, and, last year, a pack of stray dogs killed a woman in Perris Hill Park in San Bernardino.

Easdale blames the spike on the COVID pet adoption boom. Now that many people have returned to working from an office, the dogs they adopted during the pandemic are “inconvenient,” she said. Ryan also cites the economy and inflation as contributing factors.

People who abandon their pets fall into a handful of categories, in his experience, Ryan said: There’s backyard breeders who can’t sell their puppies. Then, there are those who adopted high-maintenance breeds, like a husky, and didn’t know what they were getting into, or people who adopted a dog with behavioral issues but didn’t take the time to train them. There also are owners who fall ill or die without a plan for what to do with their pet. The last group is the “cruel SOBs,” Ryan said.

Huennekens encouraged anyone who sees a person dumping a pet to report it to Animal Services. Willful abandonment is a misdemeanor, but the charge can be elevated to a felony depending on where the animal is dumped, Huennekens said — for example, in the hot desert with no access to shade or water. “We do take those crimes very seriously,” she said. “We need to know about these things.”

Keeping the faith

Animal rescue has made Easdale encounter dogs in horrific conditions — pregnant, left in ice chests or dog food bags, bitten by coyotes, in temperatures over 100 degrees.

“You meet a lot of great people through this, but you also see the ultimate worst in people that dump these dogs,” Ryan said.

But Easdale remembers one dog that took her months to track down — a Westie running along the side of the highway between Victorville and Apple Valley. Finally, down a dirt road, she found the dog huddled in a sliver of shade under a cactus. Easdale took him to the emergency vet to tend to his injuries.

One of the vet techs adopted him and named him Ghost. To this day, his owner sends Easdale photos of Ghost — sprawled in the backseat of a car, stretched out belly-up on the couch, perched on the front of a kayak. “That dog is dearly, dearly loved,” Easdale said.

Getting updates like these “is what keeps me going,” Easdale said. “I look at the ones that I’ve saved and I’m like, yeah, well, this got put in front of me for a reason.”

​ Orange County Register 

What happens when fruit trees don’t produce fruit

• October 9, 2026

Five things to do in the garden this week:

Fruit. I had cut back my plumcot twice this year, which never produced fruit due to our warm winter, and just did it again. Given a typical dose of winter cold, plumcots produce enormous numbers of fruit and still put on ten feet of new growth, if not more, each year. In the absence of fruit, all energy in the plant this year has been channeled into vegetative growth, expressed in shoots that just won’t stop growing. Harvesting fruit at a considerable height is a challenge and, generally speaking, all fruit trees can be kept at an eight-foot height and still produce significant crops.

Vegetables. Toy choy is a miniature bok choy (or pak choy) that can produce edible fare in as little as 30 days. Growing just five inches tall, its leaves are delectably tender and crisp. Should we get a sudden surge of hot days, toy choy is more adept at withstanding the heat than other bok choy varieties. Due to its small size, it is also an excellent candidate for container growing.

Herbs. Silver ocean (Mertensia maritima) is also called oyster leaf due to the flavor of its foliage. Recommended for the fall and winter garden, foliage is silver to blue-green while magenta flower buds open into sky blue flowers. This is a tough perennial that can grow on the ocean’s edge and has been cultivated by indigenous peoples in Arctic zones as a source of vitamin C. It can grow in sand or gravel.

Flowers. Sow sweet pea seeds now. No chain link or wooden fence, no unadorned block or stucco wall – as long as it is sun-exposed – should be without fragrant sweet peas scaling its heights. Although bush-type sweet peas are available, the vining types are more rewarding, and their longer flower stalks are more amenable to cut flower arrangements. You can also plant sweet peas in containers to adorn your sunny balcony or patio. Thanks to their tendrils, they can climb unaided up a chain link. For regular fences or walls, you will need to attach twine or wires to which they can grab hold as they grow.

Indoor plants. At Florahound, I was astonished to see a leafy cactus known as lemon vine (Pereskia aculeata var. Godseffiana), named for its edible, if tart, yellow-orange fruits. I learned from Leon Massoth that all cacti were originally tropical plants. Proof of this is the Christmas cactus, an epiphyte that still grows in the canopies of tropical trees. Lemon vine’s foliage is colorful and the plant does climb when given the chance. It is sensitive to frost, is best grown indoors, and must be given the sunniest exposure available.

​ Orange County Register 

Navi Pillay wins the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in international justice

• October 9, 2026

By STEFANIE DAZIO, JAMEY KEATEN and KOSTYA MANENKOV

OSLO, Norway (AP) — Navi Pillay, a South African-born jurist and former U.N. human rights chief whose career has spanned from defending the rights of an imprisoned Nelson Mandela to leading a panel that found that Israel committed genocide in Gaza, won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her efforts to promote international law as it comes under attack.

Her win is sure to be seen as a high-profile rebuke to U.S. President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who have both rejected the findings of a U.N. commission she led that Israel committed genocide in Gaza. The leaders also have been highly critical of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court; Pillay has worked at both.

Pillay’s work “is a source of hope and inspiration to all those who seek to bring about a more peaceful world,” said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in announcing her win in Oslo, Norway, as part of the peace prize’s 125th anniversary.

The Norwegian committee said it sought to strengthen international law at a time of conflict, and Watne Frydnes said Pillay’s award was a message to those seeking to undermine “the international rules-based system and the institutions.”

While her career has been global in scope, criticism often has been fiercely local, notably in places like Israel and in apartheid-era South Africa as she and peers took on some of the world’s most painful and sensitive legal issues and most vulnerable populations.

Pillay, 85, received the news while attending a forum in Nuremberg, Germany, the location of the trials of Nazi war criminals that helped lay the foundations of international law.

“Firstly, at this venue, your applause means a great deal to me,” she said to a standing ovation. “You know, you don’t want to receive an award, prize or anything unless the public agrees that you deserve this.”

And, joking, she added: “But being a lawyer and a judge, I still want to verify this information.”

She chaired an investigation that determined Israel committed genocide in Gaza

Pillay chaired the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, which was created by the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council. The commission a year ago concluded Israel was responsible for genocide in Gaza with a specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.

Gaza was among Pillay’s first comments Friday after hearing she had won. “What’s happening there is genocide,” she said in Germany, to more applause.

The commission last year also found that the Israeli president, prime minister and former defense minister “have incited the commission of genocide.” Israel, which has refused to cooperate with the commission since it was established in 2021, has strenuously denied the accusations.

Pillay has repeatedly rebuffed critics who accused her of antisemitism or allegedly turning a blind eye to the Hamas attacks in Israel.

In an interview with the AP last year, she recalled how she worked closely with some Jewish lawyers in the fight against apartheid in her native South Africa and was invited to Israel as the U.N. rights chief from 2008 to 2014.

The Nobel announcement came at another critical time for Gaza, just two days after the anniversary of the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 people and sparked the war. Over 74,000 Palestinians have since been killed, with their territory devastated. Saturday marks a year since a fragile ceasefire took effect, while Israeli strikes continue.

A senior Hamas official, Bassem Naim, in a statement Friday called the Nobel for Pillay a message of hope for Palestinians, especially in Gaza, that “humanity still resists the forces of evil targeting international justice.”

The Israeli foreign ministry, meanwhile, said in a statement that “if there were an award for lies, hatred, and blood libels, Navi Pillay wouldn’t just be a contender. She’d be a frontrunner.”

It added on X that the award “isn’t a recognition of justice. It’s the grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice.”

The award also was announced less than three weeks before Israel’s election, in which Netanyahu is fighting to stay in power. For Israelis, however, the issue is less about the government’s approach to Gaza and more about how well it would protect them from further attacks.

Her win puts the focus on a court under pressure from Trump

Pillay’s win brings renewed attention to Trump’s ongoing feud with the International Criminal Court, where Pillay was a judge from 2003 to 2008. The Trump administration already has sanctioned 13 of the ICC’s staff members, among them key prosecutors and nine judges including the court’s Japanese President Tomoko Akane.

In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month, Trump called the court an “out of control institution” and an “anti-American tribunal with no jurisdiction” over the U.S. as he urged member states to quit the “rogue institution immediately.”

There are fears the court as a whole could be sanctioned, a move that could seriously hamper its ability to mete out justice.

Pillay is currently serving as an ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice, the highest court of the United Nations, in the ongoing genocide case against Myanmar.

When countries do not have a national on the court’s permanent, 15-judge panel, they can appoint an expert of their choice. Gambia, which launched the proceedings in 2019, selected Pillay when the country accused Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya minority group.

As a young lawyer in apartheid South Africa, part of Pillay’s work involved establishing key rights for political prisoners being held on Robben Island, which included Mandela, who later won the Nobel Peace Prize.

After apartheid ended, then-South African President Mandela appointed Pillay to be the country’s first non-white woman to serve as a High Court judge.

There were nearly 300 nominations for this year’s prize

The Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo received nominations for 287 candidates for this year’s prize, with just over a quarter of them organizations.

Last year, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation.

Machado gave Trump her Nobel medal shortly after the United States ousted then-President Nicolás Maduro. But it was largely a symbolic gesture: the Nobel Committee has said the honor itself cannot be transferred.

In Trump’s second term, he has been outspoken about his desire for the Nobel, but has expressed doubts that the committee would ever award him the prize.

“They have a reputation for maybe not giving it to people like me,” Trump told reporters Wednesday.

Nominations can be made by a select group of people and organizations, including heads of state or politicians serving at a national level, university professors, directors of foreign policy institutes, past Nobel Prize recipients and members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee itself.

The peace prize follows a week of Nobel announcements

Four of this year’s Nobels were announced earlier this week, in the categories of medicine, physics, chemistry and literature. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences will be announced Monday.

The prize money this year is 12 million Swedish kronor (about $1.2 million), whether for an individual, small group of laureates or organization.

Dazio reported from Berlin and Keaten from Geneva. Associated Press journalists Gerald Imray in Cape Town, South Africa, Ali Swenson in New York, Cara Anna in Jerusalem, Molly Quell and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Mark Lewis in Stavanger, Norway.

AP Nobel Prizes: https://apnews.com/hub/nobel-prizes

​ Orange County Register