Mission Viejo offers a look at the Los Osos Core Area project

• October 12, 2023

Mission Viejo conducted an in-field walking tour for the Los Osos Core Area project on Wednesday, Oct. 11, giving residents a chance to see the budding project and provide feedback.

After a short presentation about the project, approximately 150 people embarked on a 50-minute walking tour of the site.

The tour, led by Keith Rattay, assistant city manager of Mission Viejo, allowed community members to view the entire site, including the areas where Mission Viejo will eventually expand later in the project. Mission Viejo has been working at Oso Creek to grow the area to include a shopping, entertainment and event plaza dubbed the Los Osos Core Area.

Taped on the ground were the project parameters, and with the help of 3D QR codes, attendees were presented with a virtual recreation of the area to envision the Los Osos Core Area.

The City Council plans to summarize the community input received from the event as well as recap previous meetings on the project on Oct. 24. City staff will present the first phase’s overall cost estimate and make a recommendation to the City Council to move the Los Osos project forward to the next phase.

Related Articles

Located at the Village Center off of Marguerite Parkway and La Paz Road, the 22,736 square-foot Los Osos Core Area project takes over the older shopping center and connects to the greater project on Oso Creek.

Before the open house began, attendees participated in a pumpkin painting session with the Mission Viejo Cultural Arts Committee alongside local artist Jack Knight.

​ Orange County Register 

Anaheim briefs: Anaheim Reads celebrates community and reading

• October 12, 2023

Each year, the Anaheim Public Library hosts Anaheim Reads, a month-long celebration of reading.

This year, the chosen book is “There, There,” a debut novel by Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Orange. The book is about a large cast of Native Americans and a month of activities are planned around the theme of exploring Native American culture and history.

For children, companion books to read are “Waa’ake: The Bird Who Fell in Love with the Sun”  by Cindi Alvitre and “Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story” by Kevin Noble Maillard.

The opening reception for Anaheim Reads will be held at the Central Library from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Oct. 14. Virginia Carmelo, a leader from the Tongva-Gabrielino Tribe, will speak and there will be children’s activities, traditional dance performances and a Tongva language learning lesson.

There will be a number of activities and workshops held at the various library branches throughout the month, including making fry bread, book discussions, cooking lessons and basket weaving.

A Native Arts Festival will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Nov. 4 at Founder’s Park on West Street.  For more information visit anaheim.net/library.

Get the story behind the crime

The Anaheim Police Department will again present “Anaheim Confidential,” a popular fundraiser for the department’s Cops-4-Kids nonprofit.

Don’t miss Anaheim Confidential on Oct. 13 at the River Arena in Anaheim.

Join homicide detectives as they unravel a decades-long cold case, walking the audience through how long-awaited justice was delivered to the victim’s family.

The event will be 4 to 9 p.m. at the  River Arena in Anaheim. For more information, visit Eventbrite and search for “Anaheim Confidential.” Tickets are $45.

Historic property workshop offered

A free workshop is being offered at 6:30 p.m. on Oct. 25 about having a historic property in Anaheim.

There will be information on the Mills Act property tax program, maintaining a historic home and researching the history of properties.

The workshop will be held in the Downtown Community Center, 250 E. Center St. RSVP by Oct. 20 by emailing [email protected]

Test your trivia knowledge

The Anaheim Historical Society has a Halloween trivia night planned for Oct. 24, with prizes for top team and individual player.

The event will be held at the Downtown Anaheim Community Center, 150 E. Center St.  Check in at 6:30 p.m. and the trivia challenge begins at 7 p.m.

All are welcome to this free event. RSVP to 714-904-6725 by Oct. 20.

Getting ready for Halloween festival Oct. 28

The Anaheim Fall Festival and Halloween Parade is getting ready for its 100th year celebration.

The Fall Festival will be held from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Oct. 28 on the Center Street Promenade and will include an old-fashioned Halloween carnival, local artists, live music, magic shows, kiddie and doggie costume contests, float decorating, kids crafts and much more. The parade follows that night

The group needs more help working on the floats and parade’s organization.  Visit anaheimfallfestival.org and sign up as a volunteer or donate to help fund this community effort.

Celebrating 55 years

The Anaheim High Class of 1968 is planning a reunion on Oct. 21.

There will be a golf game at the Anaheim Hills Golf Course at 10 a.m., contact Dan Royer at [email protected] for information. Non-golfers are invited to breakfast.

From 4 to 9 p.m. there will be a no-host event at the El Torito Grill in Brea (555 Pointe Drive, Brea); everyone will need to pay for their own food and drinks.

This is a great chance to see your old friends.  For information contact Joni Hanger Gramstad at [email protected].

Alzheimer’s OC plans workshop

Alzheimer’s OC will present an in-person conservatorship workshop at the Anaheim Central Library on Oct. 27.

The one-hour workshop will begin at noon in the Multipurpose Room.

For a list of classes the organization offers, visit www.alzOC.org or call 844-373-4400.

Anaheim Beautiful property awards

Anaheim Beautiful is looking for nominations for honoring those in the city who have taken extra steps to make their property beautiful.

Nominations are being accepted now through midnight Oct. 31. Properties will be adjudicated during November and announced in December.

You can self-nominate your property or submit any residential or commercial property to be considered for an award with a photo and some basic contact.  For more information visit anaheimbeautiful.org.

Weekly market gets spooky

Nightmare on Center Street will be hosted at an upcoming Downtown Anaheim Farmers Market.

Look for spooky vendors, trick or treating, and more at the weekly market on Oct. 26 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 435 W. Center Street Promenade.  For more information, visit www.downtownanaheim.com

Andrea Manes shares with her neighbors events and news about the Anaheim community. If you have an event to share, contact her at [email protected] or 714-815-3885.

​ Orange County Register 

Can a sponge-like ‘nanomaterial’ eat up greenhouse gas? Cal State LA will find out

• October 12, 2023

What if tiny sponge-like things known as “nanomaterials” were designed to fight climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide, the pollution that makes up most of the Earth’s greenhouse gas emissions?

California State University, Los Angeles has received a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to research climate change with the goal of developing smart, porous nanomaterials that act as sponges and can be reused thousands of times to soak up carbon dioxide.

Cal State LA is teaming up with famed Iowa-based Ames National Research to “capture” — or absorb — carbon dioxide and pollution in thousands and thousands of tiny pores that scientists will create on the surfaces of pieces of nanomaterial the size of a tablespoon.

The magic behind this science, says Yangyang Liu, a chemistry professor at Cal State Los Angeles, is that a piece of sponge-like material — small enough to hold in your hand — would have a massive surface area due to its vast number of pores. If stretched out flat, the nanomaterial would equal the size of a football field.

The carbon dioxide that is “captured” in the nanomaterial could be injected underground to prevent the pollutant from returning to Earth’s atmosphere, or the captured pollutants could be transformed into fuels.

“These materials we designed can remove CO2 from the air to combat climate change,” explains Liu. “Just a tablespoon of the material we make in the lab can have the total surface areas of a football field, and all that surface can be used to store CO2. … The captured CO2 can then be injected underground. Or we can also use chemistry to convert the CO2 into fuels or other useful chemicals, such as methanol or ethanol.”

In what the researchers say would be a first in science, the Cal State/Ames team is using sunlight to release the captured carbon dioxide from the “sponges” so the costly nanomaterial can be used to absorb pollution, time and again.

Yangyang Liu, Ph.D. , Associate Professor of Chemistry at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at California State University, Los Angeles. (Photo by J. Emilio Flores/Cal State LA)

In the past, scientists worked with nanomaterials that had limited reuse. Liu wants to devise nanomaterials that can be reused repeatedly — thousands and thousands of times — to keep the cost of creating them to a minimum.

“That’s a major advantage of using these types of materials,” said the professor in an August interview. “Their high surface areas make them excellent candidates for CO2 capture.”

The technical name for the sponge-y materials is “metal-organic framework” or MOFs.

The problem with using carbon capture to tackle climate change is the cost, according to Liu. “The regeneration of materials used for CO2 capture usually requires high temperatures,” she said. “Therefore, the traditional way of capturing CO2 on a large scale may not be economically sustainable or financially feasible.”

So to overcome the costs, “we proposed using sunlight for materials regeneration,” she said.

Sunlight is everywhere and can be used to regenerate the needed materials at zero cost, she explains.

“(Hopefully), we don’t have to synthesize new materials for every ‘capture cycle,’ because material synthesis could be costly, especially given the scale of CO2 capture,” said Liu. “We don’t want to just make these materials and use them once. We want to reuse them many times.”

They hope to launch the effort in the fall semester and estimate that it will take about three years to develop the smart, porous, sponge-like materials to capture pollution.

Cal State LA’s $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy aims to provide more research and training opportunities in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields while addressing important energy and climate challenges.

Long Qi, a representative of Ames National Laboratory, says that Cal State LA is not traditionally recognized as a research university, so this project aims to provide more opportunities for students to train in the field of clean-energy transformation and carbon capture.

Qi said that having more students familiar with that goal, and having the special expertise, will help the country get to carbon zero by 2050.

“We will be able to provide our expertise … and carry out the research … with no difference from doing research at UCLA or Cal State LA,” Qi said in an Aug. 25 interview.

The award is part of $37 million in grants from the DOE’s Funding for Accelerated, Inclusive Research initiative aimed to build research capacity, infrastructure and expertise at institutions historically underrepresented in the DOE’s Office of Science portfolio.

Cal State LA’s collaboration with the Ames National Laboratory, a DOE national laboratory operated by Iowa State University, is formally titled, “Designing Photoresponsive Nanosponges for Efficient and Reversible Capture and Release of Carbon Dioxide.”

Cal State LA undergraduate and graduate students will have opportunities to participate in the research at their university as well as in internships at Ames National Laboratory.

Qi notes that, “While I think the project is exciting, this is one of a few special grants especially for non-research universities to do fundamental research. In the past, the country just gives money to research professors. This is the first time they want to give money specifically for people in more education-based universities.”

Qi said Cal State LA students will visit the Ames National Laboratory for research work and he will come to Los Angeles to oversee the progress in their labs.

“(This will) develop a larger program beyond the current scope of the work for carbon capture,” he said.

And over the next three years, Liu predicts that she and her students will create nanomaterial the size of a tablespoon with so many pores on it surfaces that, if stretched out, will indeed equal the area of a football field.

Related links

Wildfire smoke is reversing years of air pollution progress in California and the West, new study finds
Newsom-Bonta lawsuit against oil industry good PR strategy, bad for fighting climate change
Mixed bag for climate bills as California lawmakers wrap 2023 season
Youths rally at LA City Hall as global climate strike unfolds around the world
LAUSD students celebrate release of sea lions saved from toxic algae bloom

​ Orange County Register 

Video: Dan Albano and Steve Fryer predict the winner of Mater Dei-St. John Bosco and Week 8’s other top games

• October 12, 2023

OCVarsity’s Dan Albano and Steve Fryer get together for their weekly Gridiron Show to discuss the top high school football games in Orange County this week.

This is Week 8 of the season, and it’s the annual Trinity League showdown between Mater Dei and St. John Bosco on Friday night at St. John Bosco. The OCVarsity reporters also make predictions for: San Clemente vs. Mission Viejo, Capistrano Valley vs. Tesoro, Santa Margarita vs. JSerra and Dana Hills vs. Laguna Hills.

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register 

OCSA students turn pumpkins into art pieces for fundraiser

• October 12, 2023

Corpse flower, monster’s eye and candy apples sound like ingredients in a witches’ brew, but instead they are the themes of pumpkin creations by Orange County School of the Arts students for an annual auction.

Students in the school’s visual arts conservatory – open to those in grades 7-12 – designed and constructed pumpkins using a multitude of mediums, drawing their inspiration from everything from popular horror movies to ocean life.

“I started working on my pumpkin at the end of August and have been working on it every day,” said Jenny Wang, an 11th grader who themed her creation around the DC series “The Sandman.”

Johnathan Leanos, an 11th grader, gives a nod to early movie making with his “Bride of Frankenstein” pumpkin.

“The inspiration for my pumpkin was from looking back to old films, especially horror films,” he said. “I think the Frankenstein movie was one of the first movies to inspire other horror films.”

The pumpkin auction raises money for buying art supplies for the conservancy’s students, its director, Paige Oden, said.

Related Articles

“It’s a time when our students use their own creativity and love of characters and gore to fundraise for their own program,” she said. “All the students did these on their own time.”

The auction opens online at 9 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 13, and closes at 9 p.m. Oct. 18. It is open to the public and can be found at  www.ocsarts.net/PumpkinAuction

​ Orange County Register 

Mary Lou Retton’s lack of insurance raises questions as crowdfunding passes $330,000

• October 12, 2023

News broke Tuesday that Olympian champion gymnast Mary Lou Retton is in an ICU unit at a Texas hospital, “fighting for her life” with a rare form of pneumonia, sparking alarm among sports fans all over the United States. But fans were just as dismayed to learn from her daughters that Retton, a highly decorated public figure who supposedly earned millions from endorsement deals over the years, has no health insurance.

Because of this lack of health insurance, the oldest of Retton’s four daughters said the family had to start a crowdfunding campaign to help cover the hospital bill. As of Wednesday night, the Spotfund campaign for Retton, a star gold medalist at the 1984 Olympics, had blown well past its original goal of $50,000, exceeding $330,000 and growing.

“My amazing mom, Mary Lou, has a very rare form of pneumonia and is fighting for her life,” Retton’s daughter McKenna Kelley wrote on Spotfund. Kelley also said her mother is not able to breathe on her own and had been in the ICU for more than a week.

“Out of respect for her and her privacy, I will not disclose all details,” Kelley said. “However, I will disclose that she not insured.”

Among people on social media, the idea that Retton’s family needs to ask strangers to pay for what’s expected to be an enormous hospital bill has incited a range of questions and reactions. At the top of the list: Why doesn’t Retton have health insurance? And, what kind of country is the United States if even a legendary sports figure like Retton can’t pay for an emergency hospital stay?

Thus far, Retton’s daughters are not providing many details “out of respect for her and her privacy.” The New York Times reported that Kelley, who was a gymnast at Louisiana State University, did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Tuesday. In an update Wednesday, Kelley wrote on Instagram that her mother remains in the intensive care unit, “continues to fight” and is “getting incredible medical care!”

With a dearth of information, the internet has been left to speculate on whether Retton, 55, chose to forego health insurance, or if she somehow lost coverage or wasn’t able to obtain coverage. People online also noted she had recently been living in a Houston mansion, citing a May 2022 report that she was selling her “luxury” 9,000-square-foot Houston home, which boasted six bedrooms, six bathrooms and a swimming pool.

In a thread on X, Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist with a large social media following, agreed that the situation “doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m not sure if she’s still wealthy. Something must have happened. Or else they wouldn’t be crowdfunding for her medical bills,” Feigl-Ding said. He agreed with many others in saying, “It’s sad a former Olympic champion who is famous like this now has to beg and crowdfund for medical care. I’m not sure if she is still a millionaire like some claim — people’s situations can quickly change.”

Since Kelley started the Spotfund campaign, nearly 6,000 people have donated varying amounts of money, from $10 to $50,000. Spotfund allows people to provide text messages along with their donations, and the site shows there has been an outpouring of support for Retton, with words of encouragement from thousands.

Forbes reported that crowdfunding for medical expenses has become a common occurrence in the 2020s, with many people turning to websites like GoFundMe and Spotfund to seek help in covering the costs of medical emergencies or even basic care.

A 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation study shows that roughly 10.2% of Americans under the age of 65 don’t have health insurance. The study said that the number of uninsured in the United States actually decreased by about 1.5 million people from 2019 to 2021, mainly due to policies adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic. The policies were designed to help low-income people gain and maintain coverage during the pandemic, and they included enhanced subsidies in the marketplace and the requirement that states maintain continuous enrollment for people on Medicaid, which provides insurance to low-income people.

Most of America’s uninsured are people in low-income families in which at least one family member is working, the study said. Generally, people of color are at higher risk of being uninsured. Some 64 percent of adults surveyed said they don’t get insurance because the cost of coverage is too high, even with policy efforts to make coverage more affordable.

Whatever is going on with Retton’s health insurance, she definitely has many pulling for her. In 1984, she became “America’s newest darling” by winning five medals at the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, including a gold that made her the first American to win an Olympic individual all-round event, the Washington Post reported.

Her victories landed her a spot on the Wheaties cereal box and raised the popularity of gymnastics — a sport once dominated by Eastern Europeans — in the United States. She also campaigned for Ronald Reagan’s re-election in 1984, served as an adviser to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness during the George H.W. Bush administration and delivered the Pledge of Allegiance with fellow former gymnast and 1996 Olympic gold medalist Kerri Strug on the second night of the 2004 Republican National Convention.

Retton also has appeared on “Dancing With the Stars,” a Dairy Queen commercial and an advertisement for Colonial Penn Life Insurance Company, which the company uploaded to YouTube last week, the Washington Post said.

Sasha Farber, her partner on “Dancing With the Stars” in 2018, offered an update on Retton’s condition after Tuesday’s episode, telling Entertainment Tonight: “She’s fighting.” Farber also said he had been able to talk to her. “She kind of wants to give up, but I’m sending her videos of her dancing and I’m telling her, ‘There’s only one Mary Lou Retton. You’ve got this!’”

Just before Retton was eliminated from “Dancing With the Stars,” she revealed that she had split from Shannon Kelley, her husband of 27 years. The retired gymnast said the divorce had occurred months earlier. Kelley is a former football quarterback turned college coach, who last worked as an assistant coach at Houston Christian University.

Related Articles

“I’m on a really good path, and I’m happy with my life,” Retton told People at the time. “I’m really excited for what this new chapter is going to bring instead of being that scared person that I was a couple of months ago. I really have done a full turnaround.”

But as much as many people have been honoring Retton and fondly remembering her at the 1984 Olympics, her “America’s sweetheart” reputation isn’t universally observed. Some gymnastics fans point out that there’s an asterisk by her victory in the history books, given that the Soviet Union, then the most dominant force in women’s gymnastics, boycotted the Los Angeles games, as the New York Times reported.

More recently, Retton angered many in the women’s gymnastics community when she worked to counter a congressional bill, introduced by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, which was designed to protect young athletes from sexual predators, according to The Medal Count blog, which covers women’s gymnastics.

Feinstein introduced the bill after Larry Nassar, the longtime team doctor for the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, was charged in 2016 with sexually assaulting at least 265 young women and girls under the guise of medical treatment. His victims included a number of high-profile female gymnasts.

A year later, Retton joined officials from USA Gymnastics to unsuccessfully lobby Feinstein against passing the bill, also known as the Safe Sport Act, which would make it mandatory for national governing bodies of Olympics sports, such as USA Gymnastics, to report sexual assault to the police, the New York Times reported in 2017. Retton, “the smiling, bubbly sweetheart from the 1984 Games,” was brought along for PR purposes, the New York Times said, to let Feinstein know that the federation’s policies were solid and that gymnastics “was a happy, safe place.” Through bipartisan support, the bill eventually became law, signed by Donald Trump in 2018.

​ Orange County Register 

As desperation in Gaza grows, Israel says it won’t allow aid to flow until Hamas releases hostages

• October 12, 2023

By JOSEPH KRAUSS and WAFAA SHURAFA

JERUSALEM — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed American support to Israel on Thursday as its military pulverized the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip with airstrikes and prepared for a possible ground invasion. As Palestinians tried to stock up on bread and groceries amid dwindling supplies, Israel said nothing would be allowed into Gaza until around 150 hostages taken captive by Hamas during a weekend attack are freed.

International aid groups warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis after Israel halted deliveries of food, water, fuel and electricity to Gaza’s 2.3 million people and prevented entry of supplies from Egypt. The war has claimed at least 2,700 lives on both sides.

“Not a single electricity switch will be flipped on, not a single faucet will be turned on, and not a single fuel truck will enter until the Israeli hostages are returned home,” Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said on social media.

Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, told reporters Thursday that forces “are preparing for a ground maneuver” should political leaders order one. A ground offensive in Gaza, where the population is densely packed into a sliver of land only 40 kilometers (25 miles) long, would likely bring even higher casualties on both sides in brutal house-to-house fighting.

As Israel pounds Gaza from the air, Hamas militants have fired thousands of rockets into Israel. Amid concerns that the fighting could spread in the region, Syrian state media reported that Israeli airstrikes on Thursday hit international airports in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and in the northern city of Aleppo, putting them out of service.

Palestinians fleeing airstrikes in Gaza could be seen running through the streets, carrying their belongings and looking for a safe place. The number of people who fled their homes reached 340,000 people by Wednesday night — roughly 15% of Gaza’s population. Most crowded into U.N.-run schools while others are staying with relatives or even strangers who let them in.

Lines formed outside bakeries and grocery stores during the few hours they dared open, as people tried to stock up before shelves emptied. On Wednesday, Gaza’s only power station ran out of fuel and shut down, leaving only lights powered by scattered private generators.

Hospitals, overwhelmed by a constant stream of wounded and running out of supplies, have only a few days worth of fuel before their power cuts off, aid officials say. The cut-off has also caused dire water shortage for over 650,000 people, according to the U.N.

“Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” warned Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross. When power runs out, it puts “newborns in incubators and elderly patients on oxygen at risk. Kidney dialysis stops, and X-rays can’t be taken,” he said.

With Israel sealing off the territory, the only way in or out is through the crossing with Egypt at Rafah. Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said it has not officially closed Rafah but airstrikes have prevented it from operating. Egypt has been trying to convince Israel and the United States to allow the delivery of aid and fuel through Rafah.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “crush” Hamas after the militants stormed into the country’s south on Saturday and massacred hundreds of people, including killings of children in their homes and young people at a music festival. Netanyahu alleged Hamas atrocities, including beheading soldiers and raping women. His allegations could not be independently confirmed.

Amid grief and demands for vengeance among the Israeli public, the government is under intense pressure to topple Hamas rather than continuing to try to bottle it up in Gaza.

Four previous conflicts ended with the group still firmly in control of the territory it has ruled since 2007. Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists, massed additional forces near Gaza and evacuated tens of thousands of residents from nearby communities. A new war Cabinet, which includes a longtime opposition politician, is now directing the fight.

Blinken’s visit underscored American backing for Israel’s retaliation.

“You may be strong enough on your own to defend yourselves, but as long as America exists you will never have to,” Blinken said after meeting with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv. “We will always be there by your side.”

Blinken is to meet Friday with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose authority is confined to parts of the occupied West Bank, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.

Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in a 1967 war. The Palestinians want all three territories for their future state, but there have been no peace talks in over a decade.

In Gaza, the Israeli military said overnight strikes targeted Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces, including command centers used by the fighters who attacked Israel on Saturday, and the home of a senior Hamas naval operative that it said was used to store unspecified weapons. Other airstrikes killed commanders from two smaller militant groups, according to media linked to those organizations.

“Right now we are focused on taking out their senior leadership,” Hecht, the military spokesman, said of Hamas. “Not only the military leadership, but also the governmental leadership, all the way up to (top Hamas leader Yehia) Sinwar.”

Drone footage filmed by The Associated Press revealed extensive damage at the Shati refugee camp, in the north of Gaza, following overnight airstrikes. Residents picked their way through the rubble as fire and rescue crews looked for survivors.

While Israel has insisted that it is giving notice of its strikes, it is employing a new tactic of leveling whole neighborhoods, rather than just individual buildings.

Hecht said targeting decisions were based on intelligence and civilians were warned.

Even with the warnings, Palestinians say some are unable to escape or have nowhere to go, and that entire families have been crushed under rubble. In the Gaza town of Beit Lahia, Israeli planes dropped leaflets telling people to leave after strikes had heavily blasted the area, residents said.

Jaber Weshah, a 73-year-old rights activist, said there was no warning when a strike leveled a multi-story building neighboring his in the Bureij refugee camp early Wednesday. At least 12 people were killed, including a bookseller, his wife and two toddler daughters and six members of another family, residents said.

“It was an inferno,” Weshah said.

At least 1,000 homes have been leveled and 560 rendered uninhabitable by strikes, according to the U.N.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said two Palestinians were killed in the West Bank on Thursday when Israeli settlers sprayed bullets at a funeral for three people killed in a settler rampage the day before. Footage showed Jewish settlers in their cars swerving into the funeral procession and cutting off the road before stopping and opening fire.

Related Articles

The Health Ministry says more than two dozen Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank and two in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem since Saturday, most when police fired on stone-throwing protesters.

The death toll in Gaza rose to more than 1,400 killed, the Palestinian health ministry said.

The Israeli military said more than 1,300 people, including 222 soldiers, have been killed in Israel, a staggering toll unseen since the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria that lasted weeks.

Thousands have been wounded on both sides.

Israel says roughly 1,500 Hamas militants were killed inside Israel, and that hundreds of the dead inside Gaza are Hamas members.

Shurafa reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Amy Teibel and Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem; Sam McNeil in Be’eri, Israel; Jack Jeffrey and Samy Magdy in Cairo; and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

These fast food giants were born in Southern California

• October 12, 2023

Southern California was a hotbed of fast food innovation in the middle of the 20th century.

In-N-Out Burger, which opened in 1948 and will mark its 75th anniversary on Oct. 22, is credited with introducing a speaker system that allowed customers to order in advance of reaching the window.

Several other famous chains were founded about the same time. Founders either knew each other or watched what the others were doing to find out what worked and what didn’t. Sometimes they helped each other out.

This was especially true in San Bernardino, where McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Del Taco all had their roots.

Related links

See the evolution of fast food in Southern California with this timeline
How fast food history was made at these 12 Southern California sites

Here are six of those chains in chronological order.

Carl’s Jr.: Carl Karcher opened a hot dog cart at Florence and Central in Los Angeles in 1941. He opened the first Carl’s Jr. in Anaheim in 1945. The menu has mutated many times and now has burgers and chicken sandwiches, but no hot dogs. Signature burgers include the Famous Star and the Western Bacon Cheeseburger. Parent company CKE Restaurants moved to Tennessee in 2017, but its leaders came back to Orange County to mark its 80th anniversary in 2021. It has more than 3,800 Carl’s Jr. and Hardees restaurants in 44 states and 43 counties, according to its website.

McDonald’s: The McDonald brothers, Richard and Maurice, had a drive-in serving barbecue in San Bernardino when they decided to streamline their operation in 1948, shortening the menu to burgers and serving customers from a walk-up window. Entrepreneur Ray Kroc came on board as their franchise agent in 1954, taking the company global. Based in Chicago, it now has more than 38,000 locations worldwide. The brothers’ restaurant no longer exists, but an unofficial museum stands in its place at 1398 N E St., San Bernardino. The oldest operating McDonald’s, complete with Golden Arches, is at 10207 Lakewood Blvd., Downey.

Jack In The Box: Robert O. Peterson opened the first Jack In The Box in San Diego. It was initially known for its intercoms topped by clown heads. The chain sells hundreds of millions of its signature tacos a year, according to the San Diego Union Tribune. It is also known for its Jumbo Jacks and collectible antenna balls. It has more than 2,200 restaurants across 21 states, according to a news release.

Wienerschitzel: John Galardi opened his first hot dog restaurant in 1961 in Wilmington with mentoring by Glen Bell, a San Bernardino native who studied the McDonald brothers with the idea of copying their success with tacos. Bell hadn’t hit the jackpot yet but had owned several Mexican restaurants. Wienerschnitzel is now run by his son and 350 franchised Wienerschnitzel locations in operation throughout 10 states as well as a large fan base for its chili cheese dogs. It is based in Newport Beach.

Related Articles

Del Taco: Ed Hackbarth opened the first official Del Taco in Yermo in 1961, according to his website. Del Taco’s timeline uses 1964. Hackbarth was tight with Glen Bell and influenced Neal Baker, founder of Baker’s Drive-thru, which has a similar menu with “twin kitchens” serving burgers and Mexican food. Based in Lake Forest, Del Taco has about 600 restaurants in 15 states. It was acquired by Jack In The Box in 2021.

Taco Bell: Glen Bell had his breakthrough when he opened the first Taco Bell, a 400-square-foot walkup stand, in Downey in 1962. The original simple menu of tacos, burritos and beans has exploded into countless variations, including Nacho Fries and a social media fave called Mexican Pizza. Based in Irvine, it has more than 7,200 restaurants serving 40 million customers in the United States and 1,000 more locations in 30 countries, according to parent company Yum! Brands.

​ Orange County Register