Should we fear AI? Auto tech founders say we’ll learn to live with it

• June 12, 2024

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the talk of the tech world and has become the dominant new kid on the block in the world of Silicon Valley startups.

AI has also taken to the streets as fully autonomous robotaxis have been roaming San Francisco since last August — and are expected to expand to the rest of the Peninsula soon.

Founded in 2017 in Mountain View, Applied Intuition is among the companies that have emerged at the forefront of developing driver-assisted and automated-driving technologies.

Applied Intuition has Detroit roots, but co-founders Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig say the company is Silicon Valley through and through, and have no plans of following the supposed “tech exodus” to other states such as Texas or Florida.

In April, Applied Intuition reached an agreement with Audi to develop automated driving systems for its vehicles. A deal with Porsche was also recently signed where Applied Intuition would develop software for the luxury carmaker.

While the company is less than seven years old, Applied Intuition landed a $6 billion valuation earlier this year with a $250 million series E investment bagged last March.

We chat with Younis, the former chief operating officer of famed startup accelerator Y Combinator, and Ludwig, who previously led engineering work at Android Automotive for Google. The founders talk about their confidence in autonomous vehicles, fears around artificial intelligence and why they won’t leave the Bay Area.

Q: What is Applied Intuition?

Younis: We build software and AI products that ultimately help people who are in the vehicle industry (whether private or commercial vehicles).

Q: What interested you in developing AI for vehicles?

Younis: So I went to the General Motors Institute for undergrad and I worked at General Motors. And Peter has multiple generations of General Motors alums in his family. We’re both from Detroit.

We grew up there (Peter and I) and we’ve lived out here now for 10 plus years. But within the automotive industry, we realized very quickly that General Motors actually doesn’t make all the stuff that goes in the car.

We recently launched a vehicle platform. So the platform is in the physical vehicle that runs the software and helps you run the applications in the vehicle.

And then we are in the (military) defense business, which is doing some off-road autonomy.

So you can summarize that as we’re like a vehicle software supplier. We supply software that goes on vehicles and to engineers who are building vehicles.

Q: Safety concerns have been raised over autonomous driving in recent months. How does Applied Intuition address these concerns?

Ludwig: The safety (of autonomous vehicles) does vary depending on the company that’s working on the technology.

One of our big focuses is we actually enable companies to make these systems more safe with a variety of tools and infrastructure that we provide. In general, companies try extremely hard to make these systems very safe.

These are systems that meaningfully are generally safer than human drivers, and I think in the long term, these systems will be much, much safer than human drivers.

But right now there is this differentiation between what’s called driver assistance versus a robot taxi.

Q: You announced a partnership with Porsche recently — does this mean we’ll be seeing Porsche autonomous cars on the road anytime soon?

Younis: I can’t speak for Porsche, but I can talk about us — and yes — you will see our software on many, many vehicles. We’re already a supplier to 18 of the top 20 global automotive makers.

Q: Can you describe your company culture and philosophy?

Younis: We’re as Bay Area of a company as you get. Most of our employees are located here in fourbuildings in Mountain View. Most of our employees are software engineers and all are partners of the company.

That’s a very Silicon Valley thing. And we’re a venture-backed company, and the vast majority of our investors, around 90% or more, come from the Bay Area. I mean it is a Bay Area company that is funded by Bay Area investors, and is an employee base which is software engineers, who basically built their lives around here. So in that sense, we’re as traditional Silicon Valley as you get.

It is just also the ethos of the company — as a Silicon Valley company in all the ways that a Silicon Valley company is defined. We’re a business that functions off of our revenues. We are cash flow positive, and do not operate off of investor dollars.

Q: AI has been the talk of the town, and of the world, over the past year or longer. Are the fears people have over AI warranted?

Younis: Any time there’s a new technology, there’s a lack of understanding.

We’re always with new technology entering uncharted territory. And so you always have to be thoughtful about how we approach it.

Take the example of self driving. There is no debate that it will save lives, because the system is always attentive. It has more sensors than human eyes, and it consistently improves.

Some people are going to be afraid of its capabilities, but that’s because they don’t understand the capabilities. They understand that technology works, but not always the “how.”

When cell phones started coming in, there was a pretty big backlash on cell phones. Remember those bumper stickers that would say no cell phones in the car? Now, if you get in a car with someone who doesn’t have a cell phone, you’ll be like, “Are you crazy? How are we going to get where we’re going if you don’t have Google maps?”

Over the arc of human progress, we will learn how to live with AI and use it for our maximal advantage.

Q: With all the conversations over a supposed “tech exodus” to states like Texas and Florida, will you stay in the Bay Area?

Younis: I think the thing that is very hard to find outside of the Bay Area is frankly the number of software engineers that exist here that have precisely the right skills and, two, engineers who understand the value of equity.

It’s easier to explain equity to somebody who’s in the Bay Area. But these are some of the reasons the Bay Area is compelling — lots of people who kind of understand startup life and not only big company life.

Name: Qasar Younis Position: Co-Founder & CEO Education: M.B.A., Harvard University Residence: Bay Area

Name: Peter Ludwig Position: Co-Founder & Chief Technical Officer Education: Master of Science in Engineering & Computer Science, University of Michigan Residence: Bay Area

Five things about Qasar and Peter

— Younis and Ludwig are Michiganders— Their parents live a quarter mile from each other— Their families both worked at GM— Younis was COO of YCombinator in 2015— Younis and Ludwig, along with the Applied Intuition team, take off their shoes and wear slippers when in the office.

​ Orange County Register 

Uncertainty grips US-Mexico border in early days of Biden executive order

• June 12, 2024

Lautaro Grinspan | (TNS) The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

EL PASO, Texas — A 24-year-old mother from Venezuela called it “destiny” that she and her twin daughters had made it into the U.S. just hours before new restrictions were enacted at the border.

Clad in a purple tracksuit, Jenny Giro breastfed her daughters while sitting on the ground of a bustling migrant shelter in the border town of El Paso, Texas.

The timing of the trio’s illegal entry into the U.S. was fortuitous: They crossed the border and turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents at 9 a.m. on June 4, shortly before the Biden administration declared an emergency at the border and issued an executive order restricting asylum protections.

“I was shocked when I found out (about the executive order) because I had no idea that was going to happen,” Giro told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It was destiny that I came when I did.”

Within hours of her arrival, Giro was processed by border officials, outfitted with an ankle monitor, and released. By Friday, the 24-year-old was resting at the El Paso shelter awaiting a free bus ride northward, courtesy of the Texas state government.

Representatives from local U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials wouldn’t answer questions on how much the new executive order had impacted migration flows in this sector of the border, if at all, in its first days of implementation. The agency only updates its publicly available database of migrant apprehensions on a monthly basis.

The leadership of the Sacred Heart Church migrant shelter, whose operations are among those most likely to immediately notice changes in border policy, said it could take several weeks for the full extent of the executive order’s impact to come into focus.

The new policy is the most restrictive border rule instituted by President Biden, choking off access to asylum application process when illegal border crossings reach 2,500 a day. It ends when they average below 1,500 for a week straight. Crossings have not been that low since July 2020.

Asylum is a humanitarian protection for people who face certain types of persecution or torture in their home countries, and it allows people to remain in the U.S. permanently.

Migrants are still eligible for asylum if they show “exceptionally compelling circumstances” exist, such as a health emergency or an imminent risk of harm. Exceptions are also extended to unaccompanied children and victims of human trafficking.

The aim of Biden’s executive order is to boost quick deportations of migrants who illegally cross the border — a sanction that comes with a five-year ban on reentering the country.

Immigration advocates and lawyers said the policy change was unlikely to migrants from attempting to enter the country, at least in the short-term. Many would-be border crossers are already on their journey to the border — a lengthy path through Central America and Mexico. Migrants interviewed by the AJC at the Sacred Heart Church shelter said it took them months to reach the southern border from their home. And experts on the ground said that as long as the border isn’t completely shut down — something this new executive order won’t bring about — word will spread that there is still a possibility of entering the U.S.

“There’s always going to be hope,” said Imelda Maynard, an attorney at Estrella Del Paso Legal Aid, speaking to a group of journalists Friday.

Limited detention and deportation capacity has curtailed the immediate impact of the new executive order. According to reporting from the Associated Press, the administration has not scheduled more deportation flights to ramp up the number of migrants returned to their home countries under the new border measure. The U.S. can only deport a handful of nationalities across the southern border to Mexico. Most migrants must be flown back to their country of origin.

At the Sacred Heart Church shelter, the number of new migrant admissions had already been trending downward. An average of about 90 people are spending the night on the shelter’s foldable mats, compared to a capacity of 120. That’s a far cry from December 2023, when shelter director Michael DeBruhl said close to 1,000 people lined up outside his facility to seek assistance. That month, illegal entries to the U.S. reached an all-time high, with crossings averaging more than 8,300 daily.

DeBruhl, a former Border Patrol agent, said he ascribed the change to stepped-up enforcement of irregular migration within Mexico.

Antonio Bolivar, a 35-year-old Venezuelan migrant at Sacred Heart, said he was deported three times back to Guatemala, Mexico’s neighbor to the south, while trying to make his way up to the U.S. with his wife and two children. He said his failed attempts to reach the U.S. tested his resolve, but his fourth attempt was successful. He came onto U.S. territory at the end of May. He said he was determined to keep trying to give his children a better future.

According to DeBruhl, it will likely take around a month for the dust to settle and the impact of the executive order to become clear, while both U.S. officials to the north and migrants and smugglers to the south assess what implementation looks like.

“The thing is that the Border Patrol is going to take the brunt of this executive order and that they will have to process everybody,” he said. “You’re going to have all these Border Patrol agents making these decisions, all these nuances, of a policy that’s just been implemented,” he said.

When Title 42, a pandemic-era policy to restrict border crossings expired in May 2023, the expected border surge took some time to materialize.

“So that may happen now. I mean, maybe we won’t know for a month or a few weeks (what’s going to happen). I think everybody has a tendency to kind of wait and see, on the south side,” DeBruhl said. “The last few days, we have actually seen no difference whatsoever.”

It didn’t take long for the new asylum restrictions to draw condemnation from immigrant community advocates, including in Georgia.

“The right to seek asylum from persecution is a fundamental human right. Any action on the part of this administration to prevent people fleeing persecution from seeking a safe haven through applying for asylum is reprehensible and must be strongly condemned,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, legal director of Project South, an Atlanta-based organization that advocates for detained immigrants, in a statement.

Gigi Pedraza, executive director of the Atlanta-based Latino Community Fund, echoed that sentiment.

The executive order “shows that immigrants once again are the first on the chopping board when it comes to political gain,” she said in a statement referencing the 2024 election. “We are disappointed to say the least.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said it plans to challenge Biden’s measures in court.

In El Paso, DeBruhl said the new asylum restrictions for those who enter illegally will likely push people to seek entry through an already oversubscribed online app known as CBP One, which awards 1,450 spots daily to legally cross into the U.S. at an official port of entry. The wait time for a CBP One appointment can take up to eight months, according to a May report by the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin.

Migrants can only start trying to book CBP One appointments when they get to northern Mexico.

“It’s hard to get appointments, and the journey is really difficult. So, let’s say they’ve been traveling for five months. They’ve gotten robbed, they’ve gotten beaten, they’ve gotten kidnapped. And then, they get an appointment for four months from now. There’s a lot of frustration,” DeBruhl said.

Antonio Bolivar, the Venezuelan migrant, considers himself lucky. He was able to get a CBP One appointment at the Paso del Norte Port of Entry, an eight-minute walk from the Sacred Heart shelter, after just a one-month wait time.

His plan is to take construction jobs in El Paso to make enough money to buy a bus or plane ticket to Tennessee, to meet acquaintances there. Because he entered the country legally through the app, he will have a work permit in hand in a few weeks, and he won’t have to fear deportation for at least two years.

Still, he said he feels for fellow Venezuelans whose opportunity to come to the U.S. might have become more limited because of the Biden executive order.

“There’s a certain sadness, no? I have friends, family members who were thinking about coming, and maybe they’ll have to wait,” he said.

This story was reported through an El Paso-based fellowship on U.S. immigration policy organized by Poynter, an institute for the professional development of journalists, with funding from the Catena Foundation, a private family foundation based in Colorado.

____

©2024 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at ajc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Recipe: Here’s how to make Jet Tila’s Easy Lo Mein Noodles

• June 12, 2024

Los Angeles-born celebrity chef-restaurateur Jet Tila is a skilled teacher. The son of Thai parents who immigrated to the United States, Tila reveals every essential step in the preparation of dishes in cooking sessions on his Food Network show, “Ready, Jet, Cook.” He offers helpful hints along the way, and relays stories tied to his delicious Thai and Chinese dishes.

His Lo Mein Noodles are a delight. Once all the ingredients are assembled, the irresistible dish cooks in just a few minutes. The dish centers on fresh egg noodles. In the marketplace they are found refrigerated, often labeled “lo mein noodles,” or “egg noodles,” or “pancit noodles.” Sadly, at my local supermarket, they no longer stock fresh egg noodles, but they carry fresh Japanese Yaki Soba noodles. They are tightly packed and accompanied by small sauce packets. I’ve found they work just fine for Tila’s Easy Lo Mein, but they tend to stick together and require some pulling apart in the heat of the skillet using two forks — some of them break but it doesn’t seem to matter. The sauce packets that are included with them in the package can be discarded or used for another dish.

Tila’s Easy Lo Mein Noodles

Yield: 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

Sauce:

1/4 cup chicken broth

3 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon cornstarch

1 teaspoon Asian-style toasted sesame oil

Noodles:

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

4 teaspoons minced fresh ginger

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1/2 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs, sliced into bite-size pieces

2 to 3 cups fresh egg noodles

1/2 medium-large peeled carrot, cut into thin strips (julienned)

1/4 pound baby bok choy, bottom 1-inch removed, cut on the diagonal into strips

Garnish: 3 green onions, cut into 1/2-inch diagonal pieces

DIRECTIONS

1. Before you start to cook, get all ingredients ready to use.

2. Sauce: Stir together the broth, oyster sauce, soy sauce, cornstarch, and sesame oil; set aside.

3. Noodles: Heat a deep large skillet over high heat and add oil. When oil is hot, add ginger and garlic; cook stirring frequently until lightly browned and fragrant, about 20 seconds. Stir in chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until chicken is halfway cooked, about 1 1/2 minutes.

4. Add noodles, carrots and bok choy and cook until tender, about 1 to 2 minutes. Stir sauce and pour it into the pan, making a thin stream over entire surface of noodle mixture; toss and stir to incorporate sauce into ingredients.

5. Continue to cook until chicken is cooked through, and the sauce starts to bubble and thicken. Transfer to a serving platter and garnish with green onions.

Source: Food Network, courtesy of Jet Tila

Award-winning food writer Cathy Thomas has written three cookbooks, including “50 Best Plants on the Planet.” Follow her at @CathyThomas Cooks.com.

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​ Orange County Register 

Stagecoach Country Music Festival announces 2025 dates. Tickets go on sale this week

• June 12, 2024

It’s about time to dust off the cowboy boots and bolo ties. Goldenvoice’s Stagecoach Country Music Festival is set to return to the Empire Polo Club in Indio on April 25-27, 2025, and the tickets go on sale this week.

The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival’s sister country fest will follow the back-to-back weekends of Coachella, which will be held on April 11-13 and 18-20.

Although Stagecoach hasn’t officially announced the lineup, advanced passes will go on sale at 11 a.m. Friday, June 14 at stagecoachfestival.com. General admission passes start at $499 during the advance sale and will increase to $529 later with multiple-tier pricing. Corral standing pit passes in front of the Mane Stage start at $1,799, and reserved seating starts at $1,099-$2,199. A Rhinestone Saloon pass, which includes a viewing area of the Mane Stage with specialty food and drink vendors, air-conditioned restrooms, and a festival merchandise booth, starts at $899. Passes will be available at stagecoach.com.

This past April, Stagecoach celebrated its 16th year in Indio with headlining sets by Eric Church, Miranda Lambert and Morgan Wallen. As usual, festival curators also expanded the layout to expand restauranteur and TV personality Guy Fieri’s Stagecoach Smokehouse.

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EDM DJ and producer Diplo curated and expanded the Honky Tonk Dance Hall, bringing some of his friends and DJ’s including The Chainsmokers, Alana Grace, Cheat Grace, Cheat Codes, DJ Keahi, DJ Lauren, James Kennedy and more. Even though the Honky Tonk was setting the tone with DJ sets, the after-parties at Late Night in Palomino were just as massive. Nickelback, Diplo, and Wiz Khalifa all headlined the stage with densely packed-out crowds that had fans stretched all the way to the perimeters of the festival.

​ Orange County Register 

Travel: Here’s why the best way to see French Polynesia is on a cruise ship

• June 12, 2024

“Welcome to paradise!”

Experience should tell well-traveled warm-weather wanderlusters that when offered this greeting at a tropical resort, it’s best to take it with a grain of sea salt. Too many times has this heat-seeking holiday maker been burned, not by the sun’s rays, but that seemingly hospitable phrase.

At the five-star GoldenEye resort in Jamaica, for one, “paradise” had me waking up in a bedsheet speckled with blood despite having the protection, or not, of a mosquito net and generous layer of insect repellant. Las Brisas Acapulco is a luxury property affectionally called “The Pink and White Paradise,” but the only color I saw was red due to loud service carts whizzing past our room at all hours of the night. A drive-by shooting across the street was the cherry on top during a visit that was far from utopian.

If I had a nickel — or other small-value coin of foreign currency — for every time a tropical destination failed to live up to the paradisical hype, that would be a tidy sum and fodder for a tell-all travel book. But since life is short and we need more positivity in this topsy-turvy world, let’s not dwell on places where slices of heaven are inadvertently mixed with bits of hell. We should instead focus our travel binoculars on a corner of the world that rarely disappoints.

A couple from Mexico celebrates their fifth wedding anniversary on a motu. (Photo by David Dickstein)

We’re talking about French Polynesia in the center of the serene South Pacific. Made up of five archipelagoes and 118 islands, nearly half of them uninhabited, this pinch-me place is a popular setting for screensaver graphics and wall calendars. It literally is the model of what many of us picture as the quintessential tropical paradise.

Who doesn’t dream of cooling off with a fruity libation while lounging beside palm trees swaying in the breeze on a pristine white-sand beach? Here’s where that vision becomes reality, and the icing on the coconut cake are views of crystal-clear turquoise waters surrounded by lush, green mountains. Even sweeter, unlike many vacation destinations near the equator, French Polynesia gets the seal of approval — a Level 1 travel advisory — from the U.S. State Department for safety.

A floating bar on a private motu redefines “watering hole.” (Photo by David Dickstein)

Air Tahiti Nui, American, Delta, French Bee, Hawaiian and United airlines all fly between Tahiti and Los Angeles or San Francisco, and it’s a minimum of eight hours in the air. Although not a short trip, or a cheap one with roundtrips costing north of a grand, the ROI is a French-accented dream vacation with a joie de vivre.

Blessed with unmatched beauty, unique culture, friendly people and an alluring sense of seclusion, French Polynesia is a favored nation for honeymooners, celebrants of milestone anniversaries and others with the urge to splurge somewhere sultry besides the likes of South Florida, Hawaii, Costa Rica and the Caribbean.

The St. Regis Bora Bora Resort is famous for its overwater villas and majestic views. (Photo by David Dickstein)

Staying at a resort is how 80% of visitors do French Polynesia, per the country’s tourism authority (tahititourisme.com), and many go big with lodging at one of those luxurious overwater bungalows synonymous with the destination. The pinnacle of posh is arguably The St. Regis Bora Bora Resort (www.stregisborabora.com), where from inside your high-class hut you can watch sea life though glass-bottom flooring, and outside jump into an aquamarine lagoon off your private platform with a perfect view of iconic Mount Otemanu.

Making a full-service, five-star resort your base for an entire vacation sounds like paradise, and the majority of visitors would seem to agree. But know that if you ever want to explore other islands to get a different taste of Tahitian-French culture, that, mon amie, can be a hassle. Because flights and ferry service are limited to certain islands and days of the week, even the most resourceful hotel concierge may try to talk guests out of this well-intentioned, yet impractical idea.

The luxury, 332-passenger Paul Gauguin is specially built for Polynesian waters. (Photo by David Dickstein)

If catching “island fever” after spending a few days on one property is a possibility, then your best ticket to paradise could be a cruise. By ship is the easiest way to visit multiple islands in a sprawling destination that’s roughly the size of Europe. On a typical 7- to 10-day journey around the Society Islands, for example, ships make calls in Moorea, Taha’a, Raiatea, Huahine and, of course, Bora Bora, before returning to Tahiti. Paul Gauguin, Windstar and Silversea are offering the most roundtrips with this itinerary over the next year, give or take a port, and of special note are those that anchor overnight in Bora Bora.

One of the benefits of cruising is you go to many places and unpack only once. But when given the opportunity to abandon ship to spend a night in an overwater villa, fussing with luggage a second time is a pleasant inconvenience. On a recent weeklong “More Society Islands & Tahiti” voyage aboard the 332-passenger Paul Gauguin, at least two guests skipped out on their spacious veranda stateroom with butler in exchange for an “Overwater Deluxe Villa” at the St. Regis, the only Forbes five-star resort in Bora Bora. That coveted category starts at $1,530 a night. By comparison, the InterContinental Tahiti and Hilton Tahiti were reporting midweek availability in July with rates starting at $330 and $370, respectively, but with markedly less wow factor.

Selling points of the St. Regis include snorkeling safely in the stunning Lagoonarium stocked with more than 120 species of fish, adults-only nooks and crannies, a heavenly spa, themed dining events nearly every night at one of the six restaurants and bars (the luau-like Polynesian Evening on Wednesdays is a high-energy hoot), and among the recreational offerings is an assigned bicycle for every guest.

The farewell party on Paul Gauguin is bittersweet for guests and crew. (Photo by David Dickstein)

The good life continues back on the Paul Gauguin (www.pgcruises.com). With an excellent 1:1.5 crew-to-guest ratio, service on the Paul Gauguin is solid — quite possibly the most caring and friendly this sea-legged scribe has experienced. Several among the crew flaunted other talents at a delightfully entertaining crew show on the penultimate evening.

A Polynesian revue dazzles guests aboard the Paul Gauguin. (Photo by David Dickstein)

On other nights in the understatedly beautiful 314-seat Grand Salon, Polynesian culture is shared through song and dance by impressive local acts. Late-night entertainment is often a weak link on small ships, but not here; the Santa Rosa Band and pianist-singer Jerry Lomocso are two versatile acts out of the Philippines worthy of the extended contracts they just received.

Paul Gauguin passengers enjoy a day on a private motu. (Photo by David Dickstein)

Shipboard entertainment, a stern-side marina for watersports, and most organized activities are included in the cruise fare, which for a 7-day sail can be booked for as low as $5,000, double occupancy. What’s not included are treatments at the well-managed Algotherm Spa and shore excursions. That’s typical even for luxury-category cruising. Looking at a few tours, ATVing in Huahine costs $279 per machine (single or double), but the views along the route, road and off-road, are priceless; “Coral Garden Drift Snorkeling” ($120 in Raiatea, $125 in Taha’a) takes swimmers to one of the best spots in the world; and the “WaveRunner Adventure” in Moorea ($239 per machine, single or double) includes a pitstop at a motu for a thrilling ray encounter.

A cappuccino mousse dessert caps a lovely dinner at L’Etoile. (Photo by David Dickstein)

Adventures of the epicurean kind were mostly successful on the recent cruise; dishes starring steaks, shellfish, lamb and veggies were of the high caliber one would expect from French-based Ponant, which acquired the ship in 2019, and is known for outstanding cuisine. A tip of the chapeau to Cheese Night at L’Etoile restaurant, featuring a dazzling spread of 15 types of prized French fromage.

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Like the food, pretty much everything about the Paul Gauguin goes down smoothly. Even the ship’s bones are specially designed for smooth navigation in Polynesian waters, and at the risk of causing a nerd alert, here’s why: A 17-foot draft allows the ship to get in close to shallow lagoons and isolated islands, maximizing stopover time.

As for parts of the ship we can actually see, recent refurbishments have the 27-year-old ship looking younger and more distinguished than when I sailed on it in 2018. If only the spa’s $210 “Deep Regenerating Sun Care” treatment could have done that for me.

​ Orange County Register 

UC Regents appoint first Latino UCLA chancellor

• June 12, 2024

Dr. Julio Frenk, a global health expert and current president of the University of Miami, was named Wednesday as the next chancellor of UCLA, making him the first Latino to lead the Westwood university in its history.

Frenk will take over the job on Jan. 1, 2025, succeeding Gene Block, who is stepping down on July 31. UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt will serve as interim chancellor until Frenk arrives.

“At this crucial moment for higher education, returning to the public sector to lead one of the top research universities in the world — including one of the 10 largest academic health systems — is an exciting opportunity and a great honor for me,” Frenk said in a statement. “I look forward to adding my lifelong commitment to public service in education and health care to the vibrant, diverse, and cosmopolitan community that is Los Angeles.”

Frenk will take over a campus that has been roiled in recent weeks by pro-Palestine protests. Block has come under fire both on campus and from as far away as Washington, D.C., over the university’s response to a pro-Palestine encampment and other protests sparked by the Israel-Hamas war that have occurred in the past few months.

Frenk — whose father and grandfather were Jews who fled Germany in the 1930s to Mexico to escape growing antisemitism — acknowledged the issues facing the university and institutes of higher education nationwide.

“I consider myself a boundary spanner and a bridge builder,” Frenk said. “And I know that the strength of institutions of higher learning — socially, academically and intellectually — comes from their diversity and from a willingness to cross boundaries.

” … I do think that we’re at a critical moment in higher education. There has been an erosion of trust in institutions in general, including higher education institutions. The biggest challenge for us is to reaffirm our value to society — we have to constantly earn that trust. But the opportunity is huge.”

The University of California Board of Regents approved Frenk’s selection during a special meeting Wednesday at UCLA. UC President Dr. Michael Drake hailed the choice.

“Dr. Frenk has demonstrated a powerful commitment to the health and well-being of people, institutions, and systems around the world,” Drake said. “His leadership will build on the growth and strength the campus has achieved under Chancellor Block and accelerate UCLA’s brilliant trajectory in service to Los Angeles, the nation, and the world.”

Block also praised the choice of his successor.

“Dr. Frenk is an excellent choice to take up UCLA’s chancellorship,” Block said in a statement. “He is widely respected across academia and well-known as an exceptional thinker, an administrator of considerable ability and a brilliant public health leader. UCLA is in great hands, and I am certain that our university’s star will rise even higher under him.”

Frenk, 70, will earn a base salary of $978,904.

Frenk served as Mexico’s Federal Secretary of Health from 2000 to 2006 and was credited with overhauling the nation’s health system and expanding care to millions of uninsured people. He also founded the National Institute of Public Health in Mexico. He also previously held executive positions with the World Health Organization and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. From 2009-2015, Frenk served as the dean of faculty at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

He took over as University of Miami president in January 2016.

After stepping down, Block will remain a member of the UCLA faculty. He intends to return to the lab and continue his research as a member of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences within the David Geffen School of Medicine and in the Department of Integrative Biology and Physiology within the UCLA College.

“As I near the end of my time as UCLA’s chancellor — a role that remains the greatest honor of my professional life — I am filled with many emotions, but above all an overwhelming gratitude for every person who has made the UCLA community so special,” Block wrote in a message to the campus community last week “So in closing, I want to simply offer you my thanks. Thank you for your dedication, creativity, resolve and commitment to excellence. Thank you for the compassion, respect and support you have shown one another. Thank you for carrying out our university’s important mission, and thank you for representing the very best of public higher education.

“At UCLA, even in dark times there is still so, so much light,” he wrote.

Block noted in his message that the war in Gaza has “sown division and strife here on campus,” even leading to instances of “outright violence.”

“The war’s impact on our campus reached a crescendo in the last six weeks, and this period now looms large in UCLA’s collective consciousness,” according to Block. “I do not wish to downplay the anxiety people continue to feel, or the significant healing that we will need to do. I do believe, though, that it is important to remember that our university, our community and this academic year are not defined solely by our current, difficult chapter.”

That strife has continued to percolate on the UCLA campus, with another day of pro-Palestinian protest on Monday culminating in another large-scale police response and more than two dozen arrests.

Frenk will inherit a campus filled with unrest. A massive encampment that grew in the center of campus in mid-April was attacked by a still-unidentified group of counter-protesters and sparked hours of violence. The next night, hundreds of police descended on the campus and forcefully dismantled the encampment, making 209 arrests.

That action has been followed by accusations of unfair labor practices by unionized employees, demands for amnesty for those arrested, a congressional inquiry into the campus’ response to antisemitism, lawsuits accusing the university of failing to protect Jewish students and accusations by protesters of excessive force by campus police and interference with free-speech rights.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block testifies during a hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce regarding pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses on Capitol Hill, Thursday, May 23, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

The university’s commencement ceremonies begin Friday, with departmental ceremonies planned throughout the weekend. It was unclear if those events will be disrupted by additional protests, as pro-Palestine activists continue to demand that the university divest from all businesses tied to Israel.

“The final few days of spring are a period of excitement and anticipation as we prepare to send off a new class of UCLA graduates,” Block wrote in his message last week. “Reaching this milestone is a significant accomplishment at any time, but it is especially meaningful for many of this year’s undergraduates, whose senior year of high school was disrupted by the pandemic and who were not able to participate in their schools’ typical graduation ceremonies.”

Related links

UCLA security heightened after latest pro-Palestine protest and arrests
1st arrest of accused attackers of UCLA pro-Palestinian protesters
As UCLA Chancellor Block testifies in Congress, students launch new campus protest
UCLA police chief temporarily reassigned in wake of counter-protest violence
Criticism from campus to Congress: A dark end to UCLA Chancellor Block’s tenure

When Block announced his plans last year to step down as chancellor, UCLA highlighted Block’s key achievements during his tenure, including UCLA ranking as the No. 1 public university for six years running — up from No. 4 when he joined the university.

Block increased student enrollment by 24%, while the university became the first and only UC school to guarantee housing for undergrad students and built 15 residential buildings, according to UCLA.

Block also successfully steered the university through the pandemic.

He has praised the university’s research skills that delivered five Nobel Prizes in 10 years and nearly doubled external annual research funding, according to UCLA.

Last year, the university launched UCLA South Bay on 35.5 acres on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and UCLA Downtown, a high-rise building in downtown Los Angeles.

​ Orange County Register 

Top Chef winner is bringing classic Middle Eastern food to a new Hollywood restaurant this summer

• June 12, 2024

A Lebanese born Top Chef is bringing Middle Eastern food to Hollywood in a new restaurant with a massive patio set to open this summer.

“Top Chef Middle East & North Africa” season 5 winner Charbel Hayek will be behind the kitchen at the upcoming Laya restaurant, which is set to open at 1430 N. Cahuenga Blvd. on July 2.

“It’s going to be straight-forward comfort food but executed at the highest levels,” said Hayek, who also runs the respected Lady Hawk Mediterranean restaurant in West Hollywood and has worked at other well known restaurants like Mélisse in Santa Monica under two-star Michelin chef Josiah Citrin.

For Laya he is teaming up with the Sunset Entertainment Group, which is behind well-known Los Angeles spots such as the Sunset Room, Lure, White Lotus, Le Jardin, Green Door, La Mesa Lounge and others.

Hayek fell in love with cooking while in the kitchen with his mother, who was herself an accomplished chef.

“I was a chubby kid and I loved food and my mom used to cook great food so it was a great combo,” he said with a chuckle.

At the age of 17 he moved out of Lebanon and headed to Paris to study at the French School of Excellence. While he learned French and Italian cooking techniques as well as modern American, once he went on “Top  Chef” he went back to his roots.

“Being on ‘Top Chef’ you want to create stories for every dish you are doing and the best way to do that is to go back to your memories, and every memory I have as a kid is about our cuisines,” he said.

He’s continuing on that trajectory at Laya where he is planning a Middle Eastern menu that includes various skewers, including Wagyu beef and chicken offerings as well as octopus and an artichoke skewer served with lemon garlic dressing.

“It’s soft, it’s acidic, it’s aromatic and to me it’s the perfect appetizer,” he said, referring to the artichoke dish.

He’s also serving chicken shawarma, hummus, Hanan bread and other classic dishes.

The food will come with quite an ambience since the restaurant will also boast a 6,500-square-foot outdoor patio that will seat up to 157 people.

“I can’t wait for everyone to see the restaurant. It’s turning out to be stunning,” he said.

For more information go to layarestaurant.com.

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​ Orange County Register 

Is Biden’s boost enough to build new river access, restrooms at overused area of San Gabriel Mountains?

• June 12, 2024

An ambitious plan to completely transform a popular day-use area in the Angeles National Forest, heavily damaged by hordes of visitors and offering woefully insufficient amenities, has sat on the shelf for eight years.

But when the 2016 concept plan for the East Fork/Cattle Canyon Project located on a bend in the San Gabriel River in the canyon just north of Azusad was mentioned by President Joe Biden during his expansion of the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in May, the project took on a new life.

A pile of trash left behind along the San Gabriel River East Fork in the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument is seen on Monday, Nov. 20, 2023. Now a plan to revitalize the East Fork area could break ground in early 2025. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
A schematic shows the improvements planned for the Oaks area access, a portion of the 2.5-mile stretch of the East Fork of the San Gabriel River in Azusa Canyon in the Angeles National Forest and San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in a concept plan originally conceived in 2016. (image by Lynne Dwyer, landscape architect/BlueGreen Consulting).

Still, even a presidential push may not be enough for this project to become a reality. Delays and underfunding, both familiar themes with projects involving the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument’s manager — the U.S. Forest Service — could doom improvement of this natural spot where thousands come each year to play in the river, barbecue, picnic and gain relief from the heat and other urban pressures.

The project would would add 270 parking spaces, six river access points, 10 restrooms, six picnic areas, a 2-mile river trail and bus/tram stops along a 2.5-mile stretch of the East Fork. It is estimated to cost $20 million to $30 million. The Water Conservation Authority (WCA), the lead on the project, has received about $2.5 million from the state Rivers and Mountains Conservancy and is searching for more funds.

“It is a critical project and it still needs a lot more funding. You will probably need a big donor to come in. I don’t believe the state, nor the federal government, can offset this cost gap,” said Nathan Nunez, founder of The Canyon City Environmental Project, a local nonprofit.

Trash left behind in East Fork area. The Canyon City Environmental Project began a cleanup there on July 30, 2023. In the first three hours volunteers with the group removed over a ton of trash. (photo courtesy of Canyon City Environmental Project.)

His group leads cleanup efforts along the project area. In July and August of last year, his group removed tons of trash left behind by visitors. They collected one ton of trash in the first three hours, he said. “It was trash in the river, big trash piles on the side of the river and on the side of the road. Trash was everywhere and anywhere,” he said.

Nunez is a descendant of Indigenous peoples from a Native American San Gabriel Mountain village called Japchivit, so he’s vested in seeing his ancient homeland beautified.

The USFS admits that with 4.6 million visitors a year, it can’t handle the load, especially in the East Fork areas. “The intense level of use, especially on peak days, can create management challenges that include excess trash, inadequate bathroom capacity, overflow parking that impairs emergency access, and adverse impacts to fragile water ecosystems,” according to a document released by the USFS recently.

John Monsen, a Sierra Club member who founded the group’s Forest Committee/Angeles Chapter, said Biden’s mention of the Cattle Canyon/East Fork project was not a trivial push. “I think there is a real commitment to this and I think it is going to happen,” he said.

Project early delays

Biden’s written materials about the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument said the East Fork/Cattle Canyon project would break ground later this year. But the WCA has said this month they’re hoping for groundbreaking in early 2025. Needed permits from state and federal agencies have delayed the start.

The first delays came soon after it was conceived, after President Barack Obama designated the monument in 2014, since the East Fork area is in the original monument boundary.

The Bungee America group, which operates off the Bridge to Nowhere near the bighorn Sheep Wilderness Area, sued the USFS. The private enterprise said the concept plan would not provide enough parking. Customers often park in that part of the forest and hike the rest of the way to the bungee jumping area off the bridge in a remote canyon.

Monsen said the litigation stalled the project for four years. Later, the Covid-19 pandemic delayed any work for at least three years. “It is a project that has gone through some really bad luck,” he said, adding that he believes the WCA can build the first of five phases starting early next year.

Nola Eaglin-Talmage of the WCA, and the project manager, also believes the first phase at the Oaks Picnic area access will start on time. “I believe we will have the full funding. Everyone wants this to happen, including the Forest Service,” she said on June 5.

Amenities, river access

The concept plan has five improvement areas from west to east, each with an array of amenities: Oaks Canyon Picnic/Access Area, Junction Area, Confluence Area, Coyote Flat and Heaton Flat.

Phase one would start at Oaks Canyon, with Heaton Flat the next phase, she said. The Oaks area has the most crowds and the most trash left behind. The East Fork, a source of drinking water for the region, has had so much trash in it that the local water board called the river water “impaired,” and requires the USFS to monitor total trash levels in the river, Eaglin-Talmage said.

“It becomes an important public green space to cool off in the middle of a hot summer,” she said. “That area (Oaks Canyon) received too much recreation for what it can actually handle. There have been horrible incidents of tons of trash being left behind from holiday weekends.”

People also build rock dams in the river, choking off oxygen for the endangered Santa Ana sucker fish. Moving the rocks can also destroy the fish’s spawning areas. Signs saying “no dams” will be posted, Eaglin-Talmage said.

The plan also calls for multiple river access points at each area, to unclog the logjam of people at Oaks “and disperse the human impact by providing more options,” she said.

The plan calls for making it safer to reach the river, and in more than one place, along the 2.5-mile stretch. “It is such a high recreation area that people are accessing the river by scrambling down the side of a hill,” she said.

“We would have gradual trails with reasonable access. We would stabilize the path so you could more safety get yourself down there,” said Eaglin-Talmage. The river access paths would be made of decomposed granite and have concrete stairs and railings.

Also at the Oaks access, people stack park, often preventing a car from leaving if there’s an emergency, she said. Also people block access to trash trucks, making them unable to collect trash from the forest Dumpsters. “There is no formal parking so people are wild west, parking on the side of the road,” said Eaglin-Talmage. The plan calls for adding 270 parking spots mostly along the river retaining wall.

A key part of the plan is to build recreational areas with trees, shade structures, benches, picnic grounds, more restrooms and a grassy area so people can lay down a blanket and view the river below — something not possible today because of the steep slopes and dense foliage.

“We are creating a park-like setting above the river. A really big option where you can see the river from up there. The whole area will be beautiful,” said Eaglin-Talmage.

In phase two at Coyote Flat, the plan calls for a scenic river overlook, seat walls, native trees, a perimeter path and a geology hut. Plus restrooms and picnic sites. Stairs from the parking area would lead across a boardwalk bridge to a botanical interpretive trail. Low on the priority list are shuttle stops for the Mount Wilson Express, a proposed shuttle that would connect from an A Line train station to the national forest/monument.

The Confluence Area would have river access, a new single restroom, a pedestrian bridge and a shuttle stop.

While all these amenities have been studied and approved in an Environmental Impact Report finished in October 2018 and a federal Environmental Impact Statement  completed in August 2019, they may not all get built. In the later phases, what actually gets built depends on the amount of funding in hand, said Eaglin-Talmage.

Even if the first two phases are completed, the area would be changed dramatically. Whether it is enough to prevent overcrowding and littering remains to be seen, said Nunez. He said the USFS and Caltrans must do a better job limiting the number of people into the Angeles and the national monument via Highway 39 in Azusa.

“There still needs to be a conversation on the number of people who visit this area. It is a capacity issue,” he said.

Monsen said even completing the first phase of this project would be historic and without precedent. “It is a great example of giving momentum, to show something can be done to improve visitor services within the national monument,” he said.

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Related links

Biden expands San Gabriel Mountains National Monument, adds forest rangers, funding
Volunteers, new programs aimed at curbing littering, graffiti in local mountains
Fodor’s puts San Gabriel Mountains National Monument on its 2024 ‘No List’
President Obama declares 346,000 acres of San Gabriel Mountains a national monument
Public transit into Angeles National Forest being planned for first time in 130 years

​ Orange County Register