‘It’s not a possum, it’s a person’: Man missing for a month is found dead in chimney

• October 27, 2023

A month after a tenant reported frantic yelling in his Nebraska apartment building, a missing man was found dead in a chimney.

1414 S. Third St., Norfolk, Nebraska. (Google Maps image)

Police in Norfolk announced on Wednesday, Oct. 25, that the body recovered the previous week was that of Zachariah A. Andrews, 29. The Norfolk man had been officially reported missing on Oct. 3, and the last sighting of him was Sept. 15, the police said.

On the afternoon of Sept. 16, a resident called police to report somebody yelling for help, apparently inside the two-story apartment building. “It was someone saying, ‘Dear Jesus, help me. Dear Jesus, help me,’” another tenant later told the Norfolk Daily News.

By the time officers responded, the yelling had stopped, and three other residents said they hadn’t heard anything. The police suggested that the noise might have come from a loud television on the first floor.

Within about a week of the incident, tenants reported a foul smell. A maintenance worker initially attributed it to dampness in the 110-year-old brick building, the landlord told the Daily News.

The landlord said he asked the man to investigate further, and on Oct. 18 the worker cut a hole in the basement ceiling. Seeing what he believed to be an opossum tail, he told the landlord the odor was from a dead animal and that he would remove it the next day.

On Oct. 19, he called the landlord with startling news: “It’s not a possum, it’s a person.” The tail was actually the lace of a shoe on somebody who was wedged in an out-of-use chimney.

The body was removed by police, who had to break through a wall in a first-floor apartment. In announcing the identification, the department said a parking warning had been placed on Andrews’ car, near the building, on Sept. 20, and that officers had spoken with the missing man’s family.

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The police said the preliminary finding is that the death was accidental. They did not provide any information on why or how Andrews is thought to have entered the chimney.

The landlord told the Daily News that it would have been difficult to enter the chimney either from inside the building or from the roof. He said the opening of the chimney is about 10 inches wide at the bottom and perhaps a little wider at the top, which extends 7 feet above the roof. When workers need access to the roof, he said, they use a 20-foot ladder from the roof of the adjoining one-story building, Hank & Snook’s Mint Bar.

The case is similar to that of Harley Dilly, a 14-year-old Ohio boy who went missing after leaving for school on Dec. 20, 2019. He was found dead more than three weeks later in the chimney of a vacant house across the street from his family’s. It is believed that he got on the roof and descended the chimney, then hit a blockage in the shaft and was unable to climb out.

​ Orange County Register 

Boos!Letter: Horror-themed escape rooms that elevate the scare factor

• October 27, 2023

Happy Friday, Ghosties!

While there are dozens of walk-thru attractions with plenty of pop-out scares to enjoy throughout Southern California this haunting season, if you truly want to immerse yourself into the terror, an escape room just might be the ticket.

There are several horror-themed escape rooms now open with a variety of backstories from zombies being created in a lab to being trapped in the home of a serial killer. These timed experiences are designed for small groups and put individuals in charge of certain tasks.

Can you work with your crew find all of the clues to move forward? Will you be brave enough to step up to the monsters in an effort to find your way out?

Check out reporter Richard Guzman‘s list of 10 Halloween-themed escape rooms here.

Here’s more frightfully fun news.

Ariana Madix and Harvey Guillen at Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights on October 6, 2023. (Photo by Hamilton Pytluk, Universal Studios Hollywood)

Photos: Stars at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights

Even celebrities like a good scare.

Since Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights opened on Sept. 7, stars have been showing up for a screaming good time.

From actors and actresses like Vince Vaughn, Abigail Breslin and Pedro Pascal to rockers and pop stars like Billie Eilish, Blink-182’s Travis Barker and Metallica’s Robert Trujillo, they’ve all turned out to experience walk-thru attractions based on films like “The Exorcist: Believer” and “Evil Dead Rise” and television shows including “Stranger Things” and “Chucky.”

Take a spin through a photo slideshow of all of the horror-loving talent here.

View of the atmosphere during a spine-chilling soirée in celebration of the launch of Disney+ and Hulu’s “Goosebumps,” the new series inspired by R.L. Stine’s books, at Chelsea Factory on October 13, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Santiago Felipe/Getty Images)

Hulu’s free Halloween pop-up brings its latest offerings to life

Hulu’s “Huluween: Now Screaming” pop-up experience at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood will feature several scare zones based on films like “Annabelle,” “The Boogeyman,” “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” and TV shows like “American Horror Story” and “Goosebumps.”

There will also be photo-ops and exclusive Huluween merchandise.

It’s all free, too, and runs from 4-10:45 p.m. Oct. 29-31. Richard has more on the event here.

Long Beach based 562 LIVE Radio is using a cast of local actors for its Halloween-themed radio show dubbed Haunted Radio 2023, which will air online from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Oct. 31.(Photo courtesy Alex Exum)

Tune into Haunted Radio via Long Beach’s 562 LIVE

On Halloween night, Long Beach’s 562 LIVE Radio will flip its programming to become Haunted Radio online with voice actors sharing family-friendly campfire ghost stories from 6:30-8:30 p.m.

It’s a homage to classic radio dramas, where friends and families would gather around the home radio to listen to plays that also include music and other sound effects.

Find out how to tune in and what goes into creating the broadcast here.

 Until next week, happy haunting!

 Get previous online editions of the Boos!Letter

Boos!Letter: Halloween concerts, cocktails and a haunted car wash

Boos!Letter: Pomona Fairplex transforms into the Fearplex for Halloween

Boos!Letter: Delusion provides the scares, but is Phillips Mansion in Pomona really haunted?

Boos!Letter: Where to celebrate Halloween in Southern California

Boos!Letter: Pumpkin patches and kid-friendly Halloween events

Boos!Letter: Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights: Tips for survival

Boos!Letter: How Knott’s Scary Farm is celebrating its 50th anniversary

Boos!Letter: Halloween Horror Nights and Oogie Boogie Bash launch next week

 Want more spooky fun? The Boos!Letter newsletter includes exclusive content you won’t find on our websites. Get it sent directly to your inbox by subscribing to our Holiday Events newsletter here.

​ Orange County Register 

Candy prices are up. Here’s why, and how to save on Halloween

• October 27, 2023

By Cara Smith | NerdWallet

Forget the ghouls and ghosts — inflation is spooky enough. And it’s coming for your Halloween candies.

Candy and gum prices rose 7.5% between September 2022 and September 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For context, the broader category of grocery prices increased 3.7% over that time frame.

Why is candy so expensive?

Beyond overall inflation, which rose 3.7% year over year since September 2023, there are a few more reasons why candy is so expensive right now. The cost of raw sugar reached an 11-year high in April, per CNBC, due to the effects of extreme weather on the crop, as well as rising demand.

And a U.S. agricultural policy that requires 85% of sugar purchases to come from domestic processors is further tightening an already strained supply, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Consumers are taking notice. In a survey of 1,000 U.S. households that celebrate Halloween, 41% of respondents said that inflation has impacted how much they plan to spend on Halloween candy this year, according to Advantage Solutions, an e-commerce analytics firm.

Go for this cheap Halloween candy in 2023

Thankfully, there are some candies whose prices actually fell year over year, according to a new report from Pattern, an e-commerce analytics firm. So you can still indulge in some sweet treats without exceeding your budget.

Pattern tracked the price changes of more than 30 types of candy on Amazon every day for one year. First, Pattern data scientists calculated a baseline price for specific candies — such as Twix, Milky Way or Skittles — by taking the average of the 10 most popular versions of those candies.

For example, Milky Way’s 10 most popular products may include a two-pack of candy bars, a 36-pack of candy bars and a bag of Milky Way “Fun Size” minis. Those prices, as well as the prices of the seven other most popular products, would then be averaged. That average would represent the Milky Way baseline price.

Then, Pattern compared that initial baseline cost from October 2022 with each candy’s baseline price one year later.

By measuring how each candy’s baseline price changes over time, a picture emerges of how each candy’s price rose or fell over a given time period — regardless of product.

In the 12 months leading up to Oct. 9, 2023, the analysis found that prices fell on Amazon for these candies:

Hot Tamales (-44.90%).
Mounds (-13.23%).
Heath (-10.24%).
Rolos (-9.83%).
Milk Duds (-7.58%).
Whoppers (-6.9%).
Reeses (-5.13%).
Milky Way (-4.28%).
Nerds (-2.96%).
Kit Kat (-1.63%).

Those percentages translate to significant real-world savings. Last year, Hot Tamales’ baseline cost on Amazon was $45.69 on Amazon. Today, that figure is 44.9% less, at $25.32, per Pattern. Even Milky Way’s much smaller percentage change of -4.28% means the candy’s average price dropped from $21.70 in 2022 to $19.01 in 2023.

To avoid inflation’s hardest-hit treats, stay away from these candies, whose prices rose the most dramatically over that time period: Airheads (+26.34%), Baby Ruth (+13.51%), candy corn (+13.24%), PayDay (+12.0%) and Tootsie Rolls (+11.36%). Airheads’ average cost was $10.15 in 2022; today, that figure is $15.32.

How to save money on Halloween

With expensive winter holidays like Christmas and Hanukkah just around the corner, here’s how to spend less on Halloween, beyond avoiding the priciest treats.

Avoid buying your favorite candy. Seems counterintuitive, right? But, as Fortera Credit Union notes, you’re more likely to munch on your favorite treats before Halloween, leaving you in a pinch on the big night. Stock up on sweets you won’t be tempted to eat.

Make your own costume. You can also ask friends if they want to trade costumes, recommends Farmers Trust & Savings Bank. If you’re responsible for kids’ costumes, reach out to other families in your social circle and see if any parents would be interested in a costume swap.

Trade home and yard decor with friends and family. For decorations, buy art supplies from a dollar store, per Advisors Management Group, an investment firm in Wisconsin.

The article Candy Prices Are Up. Here’s Why, and How to Save on Halloween originally appeared on NerdWallet.

​ Orange County Register 

Medical exceptions to abortion bans often exclude mental health conditions

• October 27, 2023

Nada Hassanein | (TNS) Stateline.org

If you are in need of support, call or text the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-TLC-MAMA (1-833-852-6262) for free, confidential and 24/7 support, or dial 988 for the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

____

More than a dozen states now have near-total abortion bans following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, with limited medical exceptions meant to protect the patient’s health or life.

But among those states, only Alabama explicitly includes “serious mental illness” as an allowable exception. Meanwhile, 10 states with near-total abortion bans (Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wyoming) explicitly exclude mental health conditions as legal exceptions, according to an analysis from KFF, a health policy research organization.

Abortion rights advocates and mental health experts say those laws could put women’s lives at risk. A report released last year by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzing maternal deaths between 2017 and 2019 found that that pregnant women and new mothers were more likely to die from mental health-related issues, including suicides and overdoses from substance use disorders, than any other cause. Mental health conditions in total accounted for 23% of maternal deaths with an identified cause.

The Alabama exception, which requires a diagnosis from a psychiatrist in practice for at least three years, doesn’t define “mental illness.” However, it specifies a diagnosis can only be used as an exception “if there is reasonable medical judgment” that the patient might engage in something that could result in her death or loss of the pregnancy.

Florida’s medical exception requires two physicians to certify an abortion is necessary to save the pregnant woman’s life or avoid “serious risk” of substantial impairment to a “major bodily function of the pregnant woman other than a psychological condition.”

Similarly, Tennessee’s law reads, “No abortion shall be deemed authorized … on the basis of a claim or a diagnosis that the woman will engage in conduct that would result in her death or substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function or for any reason relating to her mental health.”

During a special legislative session on abortion in July, Iowa Republican state Rep. Shannon Lundgren defended the exclusion of mental health exceptions during a floor debate, after Rep. Austin Baeth, a Democrat and physician, cited the maternal mental health-related death statistics, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported.

“I would like to recognize that abortion isn’t a treatment for mental illness,” Lundgren said. “Obviously if we have someone whose life is in danger, a doctor should take an approach to make sure they immediately refer them to inpatient care.”

The National Right to Life Committee, whose model state legislation on abortion bans explicitly exempts abortions “performed on the basis of a claim or a diagnosis that the woman will engage in conduct that would result in her death,” considers mental health exceptions to be untenable because conditions such as anxiety and depression can be treated.

But policies that dismiss mental health as less important than physical health endanger patients, said Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a Columbia University psychiatrist and former president of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law.

“You can’t take into account a 90% possibility of postpartum psychosis. That clearly should be changed,” Appelbaum said.

“Psychiatric disorders are as real and as treatable as any other medical disorder,” he added. “And to discriminate against people with a vulnerability to disorders developing during or after the partum area is simply unacceptable and unjustifiable.”

Inequities, lack of safety net

When Cindy Herrick of Phoenix became pregnant and gave birth to her son 11 years ago, she felt crushed by intense anxiety.

Thoughts of failure plagued her. “Everyone else looks happy,” she recalled thinking. Meanwhile, “I was scared to touch the baby.”

Herrick suffered depression and anxiety before pregnancy, but they became worse.

“Mental illness wasn’t new to me. The severity of it was new to me,” she said. It took months to find a new combination of psychiatric medications to give her relief. She recalled her husband saying, “I was really worried you weren’t going to make it.”

One in 5 women suffer mental health conditions during pregnancy or postpartum, including depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder and, although rare, postpartum psychosis, according to the Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance, an organization that advocates for improved mental health care.

Awareness of maternal mental health conditions as crises is critical, said Herrick, a peer support specialist certified in perinatal mental health.

“We have one child because of that,” she said of her own mental health crisis. “I do not want to get pregnant again. And I’m not alone in that.”

Even before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last year overturning the federal right to abortion, women with mental health problems faced disproportionate barriers to getting an abortion, said Sarah Roberts, a researcher with the University of California, San Francisco’s Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health program.

As mental health care remains elusive for many people, experts worry those barriers will be exacerbated.

Fewer than 20 states have state-funded perinatal psychiatry access programs. Thirty-eight states and Washington, D.C., have extended Medicaid coverage for 12 months postpartum, but fewer mental health practitioners accept Medicaid or private insurance compared with other specialties, making it harder for patients to get care.

“People who reported using more substances or having more mental health conditions were more likely to report a policy-related barrier to obtaining an abortion,” Roberts said. In the aftermath of Dobbs, she said, “There’s no reason to believe that things would have become easier.”

Low-income women are disproportionately affected by bans, making cost and travel burdens to get abortions elsewhere. Additionally, the Hyde Amendment, a federal rule renewed annually since 1976, restricts use of federal dollars, including federal Medicaid funds, for most abortions. While 17 states have state-only abortion funds, Hyde affects about 7.8 million reproductive-aged women across more than 30 states where it has effect, according to reproductive health research organization the Guttmacher Institute. Half of those affected are women of color.

Joy Burkhard, the founder and executive director of the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health, a California-based national nonprofit and think tank where Herrick is a project manager, said the issue should be a bipartisan opportunity to “put systems in place to support women’s mental health delivery.”

Burkhard also stressed that an already taxed health care workforce will be further stressed as more women give birth post-Roe and need care. A report by inequities research organization Mathematica estimated untreated maternal mental health conditions cost $14.2 billion for births in 2017, or $32,000 on average for every untreated mother and her child.

“Everyone’s going to be waiting longer, struggling to access care — and no one’s talking about that,” she said.

Already, an estimated three-quarters of women with mental health conditions are untreated, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance.

“They need to be offered [mental health care] in a way that a birthing person doesn’t have to scramble to find those services,” said Isha Weerasinghe, a senior mental health policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, a national nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., focused on addressing poverty barriers.

She said policymakers need to define “medical necessity” for abortions more broadly, by considering what a pregnancy and birth will mean for a woman’s mental health.

Many of the states with strict abortion bans have large communities of color, and Black women are three times as likely and Indigenous women twice as likely as white women to die of pregnancy-related causes.

The CDC’s analysis found mental health-related conditions were the top cause of maternal deaths among Hispanic, white, and American Indian and Alaska Native mothers.

Black women also face disproportionate risk — twice as likely as white moms to suffer from a maternal mental health condition but half as likely to get treatment, according to the Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance.

The CDC’s analysis also included a specific report on maternal deaths for American Indian and Alaska Native people, who are more than twice as likely as white mothers to die of pregnancy-related causes but often undercounted in health data due to misclassification. More than 90% of these mothers’ deaths were preventable, the CDC analysis found, with most of their total deaths due to mental health conditions, followed by hemorrhage.

Dr. Allison Kelliher, who is Koyukon Athabascan, Dena, from Nome, Alaska, is a family medicine physician and a researcher at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Indigenous Health. She’s practiced and taught medical students in North Dakota, and said the strict abortion bans ignore the disproportionate illnesses and lack of access to care Indigenous people in rural areas already face. Indian Health Service-run clinics are allowed to provide abortions only in rare circumstances, and patients are often forced to cross state lines or drive hours for care.

But, Kelliher said, many young Indigenous people may not have “the privilege of money, of a vehicle, of a provider who knows them.” In addition to disproportionate poverty rates, tribal women are at higher risk of violence and assault, all of which contribute to increased risk of mental health burdens, she added.

“When you couple that with the very stressful experience of pregnancy … you can see why we’re so vulnerable during that time, when we might be suffering from increased risk of mental illness,” she said.

Higher risk, opportunities for prevention

Clinicians, advocates and policy experts fear that abortion bans will cause even more pregnant women and new mothers to need mental health care.

“There’s no question that there’s going to be increased demand for mental health services, both during pregnancy, for women with unwanted pregnancies … and after delivery,” Applebaum, of Columbia University, said.

UC San Francisco’s landmark, oft-referenced Turnaway Study, which followed women for more than a decade who were denied abortions because their pregnancies were past the gestational age limits, found these women were more likely to suffer anxiety and poverty and to stay tethered to an abusive partner.

Pregnancies as a result of rape and incest often need law enforcement involvement to allow for an abortion, and can have chronic, traumatic repercussions on a woman.

Women with previous mental health conditions are at higher risk of developing depression during pregnancy or postpartum according to the National Institutes of Health, and if a woman experienced postpartum depression previously, she’s at higher risk of developing it again. While postpartum psychosis is rare, women with a history or family history of bipolar disorder or psychosis are at higher risk, but many women may develop it for the first time in their life postpartum, said Dr. Adjoa Smalls-Mantey, a psychiatrist at New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.

Some medications to treat psychosis or bipolar disorder, particularly lithium and valproic acid, may cause severe birth defects, especially during the first trimester, she said. Women on these medications are strictly placed on contraception.

But unexpected pregnancies may still occur.

“Say you do have a pregnancy that is unexpected, and you end up having a fetus that has a severe defect that for some may not result in a viable pregnancy, or if it does, can be extremely challenging and devastating,” Smalls-Mantey said. “A lot of options are restricted, and then the child, the mom, have a lot of challenges in their life going forward.”

“I just really fear for the people that don’t even have the resources, what options they’re turning to, and if even more women are becoming suicidal or attempting suicide as a result of this very sentinel event in their lives that they’re not ready for,” she said. “How desperate they could become that they would try to end their life.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2023 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

FivePoint Amphitheatre has closed. Will there be live music in Irvine in 2024?

• October 27, 2023

Before country music act Zac Brown Band took the stage at FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine on Saturday, Oct. 21, vocalist Zac Brown was informed that his band’s performance would be the last ever for the venue.

“Glad we got to shut it down with you, Irvine,” the band posted on its official Instagram account along with photos and video from the final show. “Honored to have been the last band to play the @fivepointamphitheatre stage last night. Where should we play next time we’re in SoCal?”

The temporary 12,000-capacity space was constructed in 2017 after the 2016 demolition of the long-running, 16,000-capacity Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, which was located on the opposite side of the 5 Freeway.

Brown was just as shocked as the fans were to learn this news. And Tom See, president of Venue Nation, who overseas 150 venues including amphitheaters, theaters and clubs at Southern California concert production company Live Nation, said he was pretty surprised, too.

“I thought we had a 2024 season at FivePoint Amphitheatre and that came to a screeching halt,” See said during a recent video call.

Despite the ongoing back-and-forth between Live Nation and the city of Irvine — which have worked together for more than four decades to bring live music to the area until the city abruptly ended its partnership with the company and scrapped proposed plans for a permanent amphitheater inside the Irvine Great Park back in July — See said he was confident they’d be able to continue on since there certainly wouldn’t be a permanent venue constructed in less than a year. However, because of the ongoing FivePoint residential development, there’d be no way to continue producing shows in the current space.

“It was one of those bittersweet weekends,” See said of the final two shows with Zac Brown Band, while also noting that the group later posted the song it recorded live at Irvine Meadows, a cover of “The Way You Look Tonight,” with more kind words about playing in Irvine.

“I had to give Zac a heads up on Friday night (Oct. 20) and he was blown away and instantly started thinking about all of the times he’d played in Irvine,” See said, adding that the band had performed a total of seven times between the two venues. “He took photos from this last show and melded them with the live song from Irvine Meadows and continued to reiterate how sad and sorry he is to see live music go away in Irvine and this was days after the final show. That just goes to show how important a connective audience is to these artists. They don’t take it for granted.”

What happens now

During a City Council meeting on July 25, city officials effectively ended the agreement with Live Nation to build a new, 14,000-capacity amphitheater inside the Great Park. With all of those plans suddenly scuttled, City Manager Oliver Chi was tasked with coming back to the council in 90 days with a new proposal and timeline for an amphitheater — which would replace the temporary FivePoint Amphitheatre — and include up to 10,000 seats an an in-house speaker system to reduce residential noise impacts.

“Right now, the situation at hand with FivePoint Amphitheatre now closing down is creating a lot of uncertainty for music fans in Orange County,” Dave Brooks, Senior Director of Live Music and Touring at Billboard said in a recent phone interview. “Not only that, but fans are now questioning if the City of Irvine can even pull off bringing back a new amphitheater.

“What’s most interesting about what’s going on here is that concertgoers in Orange County and overall in Southern California, they know what they are losing right now, they just don’t know what they are even getting,” Brooks continued.

Recent calls to connect with Chi have gone unanswered, but councilmembers Tammy Kim and Kathleen Treseder, who voted against the original proposed venue and agreement with Live Nation, were available to discuss some possibilities for a venue for next season. Since these processes and decisions have historically worked very slowly in Irvine, Kim pointed to setups at some local music festivals as examples of a temporary venue that Irvine could emulate.

“Look at Coachella or even Head in the Clouds. That just comes up and then goes back down,” Kim said. “It’ll take maybe a week to build a stage. … We could totally do that.”

A potential spot that’s been brought up is near the sports complex at the Great Park, said Councilmember Treseder. A temporary venue, Treseder said would most likely be bare-bones — just enough to ensure noise mitigation, safety and performances, she said.

“I’m not expecting it to be amazing design-wise. I just want to make sure we have continuity of musical programs,” she said.

Treseder and Kim both said being able to host the Pacific Symphony in a temporary venue is most important.

“We need to figure out a temporary solution for next summer,” Kim said. “Pacific Symphony has no place to play for the Fourth of July. They typically will do four or five shows for the season. They’re left without a home right now.”

City leaders are still moving forward to construct a permanent venue within the Great Park. Irvine is looking at a 10,000-seat venue that provides flex space and an in-house sound system to mitigate residential noise impacts. Several design consultants have already looked at the site, Kim said, and she’ll be having additional meetings with them next week. Kim said the ideal venue would be one that is large enough to attract A-list talent but not so large that it scares off smaller talent, and it should “tap into the diversity that is Irvine.”

“We want to provide a place where we can have various music festivals across all genres,” Kim said. “Opportunities for Pacific Symphony, opportunities for a jazz festival, K-pop, a Bollywood festival, a Farsi music festival. There’s a proven market for world music that quite frankly hasn’t been accomplished in the FivePoint Amphitheatre.”

She added: “We need the common denominator bands that work for everyone. The Goo Goo Dolls, Dave Matthews Band. That’s great because those are draws, but we also need to have opportunities where creative promoters can book their acts.”

Other potential locations

While no longer partners, See said that Live Nation would continue to support the city of Irvine and the company is open to working together in the future.

“They have the ability to get it done and I’m sure it will be a wonderful venue and we’ll be there to support them in any way we can,” he said. “We’re open to dialogue, too, if they all of a sudden say ‘Hey, we want to reopen our conversations with Live Nation and talk about what the future might look like.’ There’s no ill will here, we’re all open ears.”

While there’s no ill will, it’s still business and since parting ways with Irvine, See said neighboring cities have reached out with interest in bringing an amphitheater to their area.

“First and foremost we were committed to Irvine,” he said. “We weren’t dating, we were in a very long-term relationship and one that we thought through and had mutually agreed upon the venue, the size, and had got two approvals through the City Council and then there was a right hand turn all of a sudden and we weren’t dating any longer. Since the world has been advised of that, our phone has been ringing and our emails have been lit up. We know a permanent amphitheater takes time, it takes years, but we’re also sitting on the assets of FivePoint and are actively in conversations to determine what’s next. We can’t get into details of who, where or when. … That will come in time.”

What’s special about Irvine

For more than four decades See said that major artists have included Irvine, and the temporary FivePoint Amphitheatre, among their massive tour stops including Dave Matthews Band, Miranda Lambert, Darius Rucker, Iron Maiden, Brad Paisley, Incubus, Pitbull, Weezer, The Offspring, Snoop Dogg and more.

“Irvine has been on the back of concert T-shirts for more than 40 years, almost putting Irvine on the map and getting people to learn what Irvine is all about over all of those years,” he said.

It’s also important, he said, that a venue in the area have the ability to accommodate a certain number of fans, which is why the original concept for the permanent venue included a capacity of 14,000. This make it financially and economically possible for those big acts — usually with semi trucks full of staging and gear — to come to the area.

“Irvine and the Orange County market is a massive market with millions of residents and concertgoers and the one thing we’ve learned over time is the less friction you can provide a fan to enjoy live music, the better,” See explained. “They don’t necessarily want to get in their cars or take mass transit, they want to go out within their community. Orange County is as big as some states within the U.S., so it’s important to an artist to spend time cultivating an audience in Orange County. And Orange County, San Diego and Los Angeles, those are three entirely different markets. You can go to San Bernardino, too, and have an entirely different market.”

Related links

FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine hosts its final show
Irvine ends partnership with Live Nation for Great Park amphitheater
Irvine and Live Nation to hash out Great Park concert venue plans
Irvine’s partnership with Live Nation for Great Park concert venue could be in jeopardy
A permanent amphitheater at Irvine’s Great Park would look like this

In booking tour routes, See said that the artists look carefully at these markets and use curated data to see where they could potentially maximize their revenue since acts now make a majority of their income on the road and increasingly less from selling actual music.

“They know their worth,” he said. “A big act that’s historically played Irvine and can sell 10,000-plus seats is going to want to continue to generate that income in the market somehow or some way and if they can’t there, there are other markets they can play. They can wind up playing two dates in L.A., two nights in San Diego or end up in San Bernardino. They can go to Anaheim and play The Pond (Honda Center) or head to (Inglewood) to play The Forum. There are a lot of choices for an artist and it’s a highly competitive business.”

“Irvine is a great location when it comes to touring,” Brooks echoed. “It’s a known market, so artists who bring shows there have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen, not to mention the great weather all year long. Most importantly, it’s just been a reliable stop when connecting both Los Angeles and San Diego residents. There’s nothing really else in the surrounding cities that features a great amphitheater experience.”

​ Orange County Register 

Tiny, rural hospitals feel the pinch as Medicare Advantage plans grow

• October 27, 2023

Sarah Jane Tribble | (TNS) KFF Health News

When several representatives from private health insurance companies called on him a few years ago to offer Medicare Advantage plan contracts so their enrollees could use his hospital, Bleak sent them away.

“Come back to the table with a better offer,” the chief executive recalled telling them. The representatives haven’t returned.

Battle Mountain is in north-central Nevada about a three-hour drive from Reno, and four hours from Salt Lake City. Bleak suspects insurance companies simply haven’t enrolled enough of the area’s seniors to need his hospital in their network.

Medicare Advantage insurers are private companies that contract with the federal government to provide Medicare benefits to seniors in place of traditional Medicare. The plans have become dubious payers for many large and small hospitals, which report the insurers are often slow to pay or don’t pay.

Private plans now cover more than half of all those eligible for Medicare. And while enrollment is highest in metropolitan areas, it has increased fourfold in rural areas since 2010. Meanwhile, more than 150 rural hospitals have closed since 2010, according to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina. Largely rural states such as Texas, Tennessee, and Georgia have had the most closures.

Medicare Advantage growth has had an outsize impact on the finances of small, rural hospitals that Medicare has designated as “ critical access.” Under the designation, government-administered Medicare pays extra to those hospitals to compensate for low patient volumes. Medicare Advantage plans, on the other hand, offer negotiated rates that hospital operators say often don’t match those of traditional Medicare.

“It’s happening across the country,” said Carrie Cochran-McClain, chief policy officer of the National Rural Health Association, whose members include small-town hospitals.

“Depending on the level of Medicare Advantage penetration in individual communities, some facilities are seeing a significant portion of their traditional Medicare patient or beneficiary move into Medicare Advantage,” Cochran-McClain said.

Kelly Adams is the CEO of Mesa View Regional Hospital, another rural hospital in Nevada. He said he applauds Battle Mountain’s Bleak for keeping Medicare Advantage plans out of his hospital “as long as he has.”

Mesa View, which is a little more than an hour’s drive east of Las Vegas, has a high percentage of patients enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans.

“Am I going to say I’m not going to take care of 40% of our patients at the hospital or the clinic?” Adams said, adding that it would be a “tough deal” to be forced to reject patients because they didn’t have traditional Medicare.

Mesa View has 21 Medicare Advantage contracts with multiple insurance companies. Adams said he has trouble getting the plans to pay for care the hospital has provided. They are either “slow pay or no pay,” he said.

In all, the plans owe Mesa View more than $800,000 for care already provided. Mesa View lost about $1.3 million taking care of patients, according to its most recent annual cost report.

NRHA’s Cochran-McClain said the growth in the plans also narrows options for patients because “the contracting that is happening under Medicare Advantage frequently has an influence on steering patients to specific types of providers.” If a hospital or provider does not contract with a Medicare Advantage plan, then a patient may have to pay for out-of-network care. That generally wouldn’t happen with traditional Medicare, which is widely accepted.

At Mesa View, patients must drive to Utah to find nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities covered by their Medicare Advantage plans.

“Our local nursing homes are not taking Medicare Advantage patients because they don’t get paid. But if you’re straight Medicare, they’d be happy to take that patient,” Adams said.

David Allen, a spokesperson for AHIP, an industry trade group formerly known as America’s Health Insurance Plans, declined to respond to Bleak’s and Adams’ specific concerns. Instead, he said enrollees are signing on because the plans “are more efficient, more cost-effective, and deliver better value than original Medicare.”

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services press secretary Sara Lonardo said CMS has acted to ensure “that private insurance companies are held accountable for providing quality coverage and care.”

The reach of private Medicare Advantage plans varies widely in rural areas, said Keith Mueller, director of the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. If recent trends continue, enrollment could tip to 50% of all rural Medicare beneficiaries in about three years — with some regions like the Upper Midwest already higher than 50% and others lower, such as Nevada and the Mountain States, but trending upward.

In June, a bipartisan group of Congress members, led by Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), sent a letter urging federal agencies to do more to force Medicare Advantage insurers to pay health systems what they owe for patient care.

In an August response, CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure wrote that a final rule issued in April made “impactful changes” to speed up care and address concerns about prior authorization — when a hospital and patient must get advance permission for care to ensure it will be covered by an insurer. Brooks-LaSure noted another proposed rule that, once finalized, could mandate that insurers provide specific reasons for denying care within seven days.

Hospital operators Adams and Bleak also want more federal action, and fast.

Bleak at Battle Mountain said he knows Medicare Advantage plans will eventually move into his area and he will have to contract with them.

“The question is,” Bleak said, “how can we match the reimbursement so that we can sustain and keep our hospitals in these rural areas viable and strong?”

(KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2023 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Arrest made in death of man found inside 55-gallon drum at Malibu Lagoon State Beach

• October 27, 2023

MALIBU — A suspect has been arrested in connection with the killing of a man whose body was discovered in a 55-gallon drum on a beach in Malibu, authorities said Friday.

According to KCAL 9, Joshua Simmons was arrested and charged with murdering 32-year-old Javonnta Murphy, who was found inside the drum on July 31 at the 23200 block of Pacific Coast Highway.

A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department official told reporters at the scene that the drum had been seen in the water at Malibu Lagoon State Beach the previous night by sanitation workers, but they were unable to retrieve it.

A lifeguard spotted the same barrel the following morning and was able to bring it to shore, then opened it and saw the body inside.

Sheriff’s homicide investigators determined that Murphy was shot to death and stuffed inside the barrel.

Simmons, 37, was arrested on Oct. 3 and is being housed at the Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles, according to county jail records.

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KCAL reported that Simmons was also involved in an attempted jewelry store robbery in El Monte on Sept. 3.

It was not immediately known on what charge Simmons was being held but according to KCAL, law enforcement authorities confirmed he had been charged with murder.

His next court date is scheduled for Nov. 3.

Anyone with information on the case was urged to call the Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500. Tipsters may also call Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS, or use the website lacrimestoppers.org.

​ Orange County Register 

How spooked is California’s housing market? 12 factors to watch

• October 27, 2023

A witches’ brew of economic forces is stirring unnerving thoughts about what’s next for California’s homebuying market.

One particularly ghoulish factor in these spooky times is that most Californians can’t afford to buy a home in the state – whether they are a first-time house hunter or an owner looking for a new place.

That’s largely due to a scary reversal of mortgage rates, which have risen to 23-year highs, less than three years since we saw record lows.

Yes, prices have not cracked and remain near record highs.

Still, these gut-twisting gyrations walloped the pace of statewide home sales, which are eerily slow and run 35% below average this year.

Forecasting California’s homebuying future requires a peek into a spine-chilling concoction of market forces that may not mix well.

Remember, housing’s history is filled with painful memories of the Great Recession and the very gloomy days of the early 1990s.

But any California outlook means pondering a potentially haunted house with a dozen real estate characters lurking.

No. 1 Central bankers: The scariest thing about the Federal Reserve has been its resolve to fight the worst bout of inflation in 40 years. Driving up interest rates – notably home loans – “higher for longer” to cool the overheated economy has iced homebuying. Spooky stat: A borrower’s buying power has shrunk by 45% from its peak when mortgage rates fell to 2.65% in January 2021.

No. 2 Lenders: It’s frightening to see the pullback in mortgage-making. Loans counts have tumbled as layoffs multiplied. Meanwhile, lenders seem fearful. So borrowers face increased qualification standards. Spooky stat: The Mortgage Bankers Association’s Credit Availability Index this summer hit an 11-year low.

No. 3 Bond traders: This normally anxious flock seems extra antsy. To protect their mortgage investments from inflation’s ravages, they’ve demanded premium rates to keep funds flowing to homebuying. Spooky stat: Thanks to rising rates, mortgages as an investment have lost 8% of their value this year – and 20% over three years.

No. 4 Investors: It’s spine-tingling to think how dark homebuying might be without this often-derided slice of the market. But how long can deep-pocketed investors keep buying amid market turmoil? Spooky stat: 34% of California home purchases in the second quarter were made by investors – the highest share in the nation, according to CoreLogic.

No. 5 Owners: The move-up market is a ghost. This group is petrified of selling because they likely can’t afford to buy another home – an inability to move which cuts demand and supply. Spooky stat: California listings have run below 2022’s slim pickings for five consecutive months, says California Association of Realtors.

No. 6 House hunters: Jittery first-time homebuyers are staring down an unsettling clash of lofty prices and low affordability. Plus, there’s worry high rates could stick around and limit future refinancing savings. Spooky stat: Only 32% of Californians could qualify to buy in the second quarter – the lowest level in 17 years, a Realtor starter-home index shows.

No. 7 Builders: The ghastly cold market for resale homes created opportunities for sellers of new construction. But developers have run into various shortages – materials, labor and land to build. Spooky stat: How short are builder supplies of property lots? San Diego (71% below normal), Los Angeles-Orange County (66%), San Francisco (48%), and the Inland Empire (46%).

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No. 8 Landlords: Soaring rents pitchforked folks into ownership two years ago. But 2023’s fears of empty rentals nudged apartment owners to chill their pricing – motivation for tenants to stay put. Spooky stat: California rents were rising at a 16% annual rate as recently as April 2022. In August 2023, they were falling at a 2% yearly rate.

No. 9 Employers: Jobs drive homebuying. And a strong hiring pace has helped keep the California housing market stable. But bosses now seem skittish and slowed staffing growth. Spooky stat: California hiring is off 10% this year.

No. 10 Consumers: Shoppers’ overall psyche is the bedrock for homebuying. And that foundation seems a tad creeky of late amid a host of economic and political tensions. Spooky stat: California’s future looks 15% gloomier over the past year, according to the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index.

No. 11 City planners: California’s horrifying inability to build enough housing seems like a never-ending nightmare. Getting residential projects through local approval mazes remains daunting. Spooky stat: California is home to 11 of 25 US metropolitan areas with the largest housing shortages.

No. 12 Movers: The hair-raising cost of California living is pushing residents out and scaring off potential relocations to the state. Perhaps that exodus lessens congestion and helps a housing shortage short term. It could strangle the state economy long term, too. Spooky stat: In 2021-22, California lost 1.65 million residents to other states but only 900,000 people moved here.

Postscript

Want to see just how “spooked” you are by these dozen housing worries?

Take our online “Spooky Housing” quiz at bit.ly/spookyhousing to gauge your real estate anxieties.

By the way, my score was 50% – so let’s just say I’m half-spooked!

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]

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