Dunn: Wedding bells for Newport Beach councilmember, Cowboys fan

• May 2, 2024

Newport Beach Mayor Pro-Tem Joe Stapleton didn’t need to star in the television series “The Bachelor” to find his dream girl.

Stapleton, a diehard Dallas Cowboys fan who grew up in Tucson and played youth football for many years on a Cowboys team, was enjoying dinner one night at The Pacific Club in Newport Beach, where he serves on the board of directors, when a cousin mentioned that she knew a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and that the two of them should meet.

They did – and talked on the phone for three hours. What followed was a long-distance relationship, with Stapleton in Newport Beach and his fiancée, Julie Jacobs, in Dallas, where she lived for 17 years and still owns a house.

The couple is planning to tie the knot Oct. 19 in Tuscany.

Jacobs moved to Newport Beach and became the best promoter in Stapleton’s 2022 campaign for a City Council seat, thanks to her door-to-door treks, experience making public appearances and generating interest for an organization, important components for the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, who are grilled with training in media relations, etiquette, referees, game rules and regulations and a variety of public persona details.

There’s no fraternizing with the players, but Jacobs admitted her favorite player “by far” was Jason Whitten, a former Dallas tight end.

The cheerleaders do their own hair and makeup. They arrive at 6 a.m. for Sunday day games to practice all morning. Every cheerleader must either have a full-time job, be a full-time student or a full-time mother to qualify for the glamorous role of a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, the No. 1 dance and cheerleading sports outfit in the world, according to sports lore. The Laker Girls Dance Team is ranked No. 2, Jacobs said.

But the life of a professional dancer in the spotlight is challenging and competitive. Despite some serious knee injuries, Jacobs lasted four years as a Cowboys cheerleader. She dislocated her left knee three times after performing a “jump split” in cowboy boots, in which they land on the ground while doing the splits.

Once, during a game, Jacobs put her knee back in place and continued with the routines. After, she was examined by a member of the medical team in the locker room to make sure she was healthy, and a cheerleading director quipped, “Iis that why you took an extra step,” she said.

Jacobs was inspired to become a Cowboys cheerleader after watching the team play on Thanksgiving Day, a longtime tradition for the franchise. There were 1,000 girls trying out in the first round, only 35 would make the team.

“My dad said, ‘Wow, so you went to college for this?’ But I told him, yeah, I honestly think I’m going to make it,” she said. “He was very proud of me and he’s been my biggest cheerleader.”

What does it take to become a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader?

“You really have to like to dance,” Jacobs said, and it’s not for the salary because first-year cheerleaders earn a whopping $50 a game, with an increase to $100 a game in your second year.

Most of the cheerleaders have a short career span. By Jacobs’ fourth and final year, she was making $200 a game. Some cheerleaders move on to careers in the media, and a few worked in theater on Broadway in New York.

“I still miss performing. I get jealous when I see them out there,” said Jacobs, whose Cowboys calling lasted from 2006 to 2010, from her first tryout to making the all-star team.

Jacobs, now a Pilates instructor in the area, discussed her Cowboys career April 16 at the Oasis Senior Center in Corona del Mar, site of the public forum “Tackling Sports,” hosted by former NFL referee Laird Hayes and Stu News Newport Publisher Tom Johnson.

Richard Dunn, a longtime sportswriter, writes the Dunn Deal column regularly for The Orange County Register’s weekly, The Coastal Current North.

​ Orange County Register 

Daxon: No strike for Brea teachers

• May 2, 2024

After weeks of talks and negotiations, even ones including outside mediators, the Brea Olinda Teachers Association and the Brea Olinda Unified School District have finally agreed on salary terms for the teachers.

So there is no chance of the teachers walking picket lines instead of walking into their classrooms.

“I am pleased to share the teachers agreed to a 2-year agreement, pending board approval on May 9,” Superintendent Brinda Leon said via email.

What the teachers agreed to accept is a 2.40% on-schedule increase, retroactive to July 1, and a 1.60% on-schedule increase, effective from April 1. There is no off-schedule increase, or bonus.

The district’s offer was a 4% increase, a combination on-schedule and off-schedule compensation. While BOTA’s request was for a 4% on-schedule, plus an off-schedule increase. So there is no bonus, but the raise is retroactive in the two-year agreement. Seems like an acceptable compromise.

But the best part is that they came to an agreement without the teachers having to going out on strike, especially so close to all the students’ last day of school, May 31.

May 31 is also graduation day for both Brea Olinda High School and Brea Canyon High School. No more getting out of school in the middle of June. And, they go back on Aug. 15. Maybe the old song, “See You in September” needs to be updated.

Something very much updated is AUsome Resource Market’s Rise of Inclusion Celebration, which will be held 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on May 4 at Fullerton Free Church, 2801 N. Brea Blvd.

There will be more than 50 vendors, assorted food trucks, music by DJ B. Diamond, games, family activities and kid-friendly, interactive fun for all, including neurodivergent kids. There will even be a chance to meet Star Wars characters.

Rise of Inclusion sounds like a fun event for everyone. And entrance and parking are free.

It all started with AUsome Sauce, a nonprofit organization founded by Sarah Watkins, whose young son is autistic. The organization lends support, resources and activities for families with members whose brains work differently. Check out there website: AusomeSauce.org.

Springtime means lots of fun activities in Brea.

Mark your calendar for the annual Brea Bonanza Days Country Music Festival May 17, 18, 19 on Birch Street, Brea Downtown. Grab your boots, your 10-gallon hat and get ready to line dance to cool country bands all weekend long.

Free admission and parking, plus plenty of food and drinks available. Go to BreaDowntown.com for the days and times your favorite country singers will be on stage.

Do you know how Brea’s Bonanza Days got started? According to Linda Shay, Brea Museum executive director and curator, the Brea Lions Rodeo began in 1952 and in 1968 it became Bonanza Days.

“There was a pancake breakfast, picnic and a carnival,” said Shay. She added that there was also a Bicentennial Bonanza Parade on Brea Boulevard in 1976.

And don’t forget to come to Brea Downtown at 5 p.m. on May 23 for the Brea Chamber of Commerce’s annual Taste of Brea, featuring tastes from many restaurants, wineries and breweries.

Go to BreaChamber.com for ordering tasting tickets and more information.

Why not buy Mom a Taste of Brea ticket for Mother’s Day, May 12? Save $10 if you order it by May 22. Better get one for Dad, too.

Terri Daxon is a freelance writer and the owner of Daxon Marketing Communications. She gives her perspective on Brea issues twice a month. Contact her at  [email protected].

​ Orange County Register 

States rethink data centers as ‘electricity hogs’ strain the grid

• May 2, 2024

Kevin Hardy | Stateline.org (TNS)

State Sen. Norm Needleman championed the 2021 legislation designed to lure major data centers to Connecticut.

The Democratic lawmaker hoped to better compete with nearby states, bring in a growing industry, and provide paychecks for workers tasked with building the sprawling server farms.

But this legislative session, he’s wondering if those tax breaks are appropriate for all data centers, especially those with the potential to disrupt the state’s clean energy supply.

Particularly concerning to him are plans for a mega data center on the site of the state’s only nuclear power plant. The developer is proposing an arrangement that would give it priority access to electricity generated at the plant, which would mean less carbon-free power for other users.

“That affects our climate goals,” he said. “It’s additional demand of renewable energy that we would have to replace.”

Needleman, co-chair of the Senate Energy and Technology Committee, is now reconsidering details of the state incentive program as he works on legislation to study the impact of data centers on the state’s electric grid. Mistakes now, he said, could lead to “a real crisis.”

Compared with other employers that states compete for, such as automotive plants, data centers hire relatively few workers. Still, states have offered massive subsidies to lure data centers — both for their enormous up-front capital investment and the cachet of bringing in big tech names such as Apple and Facebook. But as the cost of these subsidy programs balloons and data centers proliferate coast to coast, lawmakers in several states are rethinking their posture as they consider how to cope with the growing electricity demand.

From the outside, data centers can resemble ordinary warehouses. But inside, the windowless structures can house acres of computer servers used to power everything from social media to banking. The centers suck up massive amounts of energy to keep data moving and water to keep servers from overheating.

Data centers are the backbone of the increasingly digital world, and they consume a growing share of the nation’s electricity, with no signs of slowing down. The global consultancy McKinsey & Company predicts these operations will double their U.S. electric demands from 17 gigawatts in 2022 to 35 gigawatts by 2030 — enough electricity to power more than 26 million average homes.

Some states, including Maryland and Mississippi, continue to pursue incentives to land new data centers. But in other states, the growth of the industry is raising alarms over the reliability and affordability of local electric grids, and fears that utilities will meet the demand by leaning more heavily on fossil fuel generation rather than renewables.

In South Carolina, lawmakers have started to question whether these massive power users should continue to receive tax breaks and preferential electric rates.

In Virginia, home to the world’s largest concentration of data centers, a legislative study is underway to learn more about how those operations are affecting electric reliability and affordability.

And Georgia lawmakers just passed legislation that would halt the state’s tax incentives for new data centers for two years. Georgia is home to more than 50 data centers, including those supporting AT&T, Google and UPS, according to the state commerce department.

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Georgia Republican state Sen. John Albers, a sponsor of the Senate bill, said the significant growth of data centers in his state has helped communities and schools by boosting property tax revenues. But, considering factors such as water and electric use, he said the return on the state’s investment “is not there” and that “initial findings do not support credits from the state level.”

Nationwide, data center subsidies were costing state and local governments about $2 million per job created, according to a 2016 study by Good Jobs First, a nonprofit watchdog group that tracks economic development incentives. That figure has certainly ballooned in recent years, said Kasia Tarczynska, the organization’s senior research analyst, who authored the report.

The Georgia bill now sits on the desk of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whose office did not respond to a request for comment.

The Data Center Coalition, a trade group representing tech giants including Amazon, Google and Meta, is urging a veto.

Josh Levi, president of the organization, said data center companies are investing billions in new Georgia data centers, making metro Atlanta one of the nation’s biggest industry hubs.

Levi noted that lawmakers in 2022 extended the state’s tax credit program through 2031.

“The abrupt suspension of an incentive that not only has been on the books, but that was extended two years ago, I think signals tremendous uncertainty, not just for the data center industry, but more broadly,” he said.

Levi said the data center industry has been at the forefront of pushing clean energy. As of last year, data center providers and customers accounted for two-thirds of American wind and solar contracts, according to an S&P Global Market Intelligence report.

“Fundamentally, data is now the lifeblood of our modern economy,” he said. “Everything that we do in our personal and professional lives really points back to data generation, processing and storage.”

‘Electricity hogs’

In fast-growing South Carolina, lawmakers have pointed to data centers as a major factor in rising electricity demand.

As part of a broader energy bill, the legislature considered a measure that would prevent data centers from receiving discounted power rates.

Republican state Rep. Jay West said inducements such as reduced power rates are appropriate for major, transformational endeavors. He pointed to the BMW factory in Spartanburg, which employs 11,000 people, draws in major suppliers and pumps millions into the state economy.

While data centers boost local property taxes receipts, they don’t do much for the state, he said, and shouldn’t receive preferential rates. And they are being built faster than new energy generation can be added.

“I do not speak for my caucus or the [legislative] body in saying this,” he said, “but I don’t think South Carolina can handle more data centers.”

The House provision on data center utility rates was quickly struck in a Senate committee, the South Carolina Daily Gazette reported.

Lynn Teague, vice president of the League of Women Voters of South Carolina, said that change was made with no public discussion.

Teague, who lobbies the legislature, said South Carolinians, including more than 700,000 people living in poverty, shouldn’t have to pick up the tab for tax or utility breaks for major data center firms.

“We have companies like Google with over $300 billion in revenues a year wanting these folks to subsidize their profit margin at the same time that they’re putting intense pressure on not just our energy, but our water,” she said.

Lawmakers saw data centers as a possible successor to South Carolina’s declining textile industry when they approved the data center incentives in 2012, The State reported at the time. One Republican bill sponsor, then-state Rep. Phyllis Henderson, also cited North Carolina’s success with data center incentives, saying South Carolina was “just losing projects right and left to them.”

But on the Senate floor earlier this month, Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, a Republican, described data centers as “electricity hogs that aren’t really providing a whole lot of jobs.”

‘Rippling effects’

Virginia has been a hub for data centers for decades, touting its proximity to the nation’s capital, inexpensive energy, a robust fiber network and low risk of natural disasters. Now, Virginia lawmakers are increasingly scrutinizing the industry.

That’s in part because data centers have moved into traditionally residential areas, said Republican state Del. Ian Lovejoy, who represents a Northern Virginia district.

He sponsored two pieces of legislation this year affecting data center land use issues. One would have prevented data centers from building too close to parks, schools or neighborhoods; another would have altered land use disclosure rules for developers.

“There’s no way to power the data center inventory that’s being proposed and is likely to be built without substantial increases to the power infrastructure and power generation,” he said. “And that’s going to have rippling effects far away from where the data centers are being sited.”

Aaron Ruby, spokesperson for Dominion Energy in Virginia, the state’s predominant electric provider, said data centers, like other classes of customers, pay for the costs of their electric generation and transmission.

He said the company forecasts consumers’ monthly bills to grow by less than 3% annually over the next 15 years. That increase, he said, is due to the company’s significant investment in renewable energy projects. While Dominion is “all in” on renewables, Ruby said it doesn’t foresee being able to meet increasing demand with only renewables.

“That’s just not physically possible,” he said.

Dominion has pointed to data center growth as a key driver of its increasing electricity demand. In one state filing, the company said Virginia’s data centers had a peak load of almost 2.8 gigawatts in 2022.That was 1.5 times the capacity of the company’s North Anna nuclear plant, which powers about 450,000 homes.

“It is heart-stopping — just the scale at which these things are growing and the power they’re sucking up,” said Kendl Kobbervig, the advocacy and communications director at Clean Virginia, a well-funded advocacy group pushing for renewable energy, campaign finance reform and greater oversight of utilities.

She said the state must address how data centers could undercut its clean energy goals and how the industry is affecting the utility bills of everyday households and small businesses.

Over the past two years, Clean Virginia has tracked more than 40 proposed bills related to data centers.

Most of those efforts stalled this session as some lawmakers elected to wait on the results of a study announced in December by the state’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.

The lack of action frustrated many lawmakers and residents.

“I don’t know exactly what the study is going to say that we don’t already know,” said Democratic state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam, who sponsored a bill that would have required data centers to meet certain energy efficiency and clean energy standards to be eligible for the state’s lucrative sales tax exemptions.

“I think we already know that data centers take up a lot of power and present a lot of challenges to our grid.”

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

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

For immigrant workers who die in US, a body’s journey home is one last struggle

• May 2, 2024

Nearly two decades after Maynor Suazo Sandoval left Honduras seeking American prosperity, he will finally make the long-awaited trip home.

Suazo Sandoval was a month from his 39th birthday when he and five other highway workers fell to their deaths March 26 as the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed.

His return soon to Central America will allow his mother, Emerita, to lay her youngest child to rest in his native soil. People plan to meet Suazo Sandoval’s body at the airport in San Pedro Sula with a caravan of cars to accompany him to his hometown of Azacualpa, where the married father sent enough money from the U.S. to fund a kids’ soccer league and his relatives’ educations. The family expects a crowd of 4,000 people to say their goodbyes. 

“It was Maynor’s wish to be buried in his land,” said his nephew, Hector Guardado Suazo, speaking in Spanish by phone from Honduras. 

Suazo Sandoval is not unique among Baltimore-area immigrants who want their country of origin to be their final resting place. But repatriation can be a costly and lengthy process. And it complicates funeral arrangements for relatives, many of whom are forced — by physical separation and the need for visas and passports — to mourn in one country or the other. 

Still, the pull of tradition or a desire to satisfy the deceased’s wishes motivates Maryland’s immigrant families to scrape together thousands of dollars, some selling chicken and rice at construction sites or asking for donations online. 

Candi Cann, an associate professor at Baylor University who studies death, dying and grief, said for the many immigrants who come to the U.S. out of economic necessity, repatriation is a last “gift” a family can give the deceased. 

“Many of them left because they felt like they had no other options,” Cann said. “Repatriation under these circumstances becomes even more important and it becomes a kind of symbol, if you will, of the love and care of the community, that their one last act for the dead is to allow them to return home.” 

So far, teams combing the Patapsco River’s depths have recovered the bodies of five men, including Suazo Sandoval and Miguel Luna, whose body was found Wednesday. One worker, José Mynor López, remains missing. 

While some of the workers’ families have decided to repatriate their loved ones, 35-year-old Alejandro Hernández Fuentes‘s relatives planned to bury him in the U.S.

Widespread public attention and sympathy for the families of the Key Bridge crew has generated enough money to help fund repatriation expenses, as well ensuring the U.S. granted permission for two dozen relatives to travel here to mourn their loss. Officials obtained authorization in as little as 24 hours for some relatives to enter the United States, said Tom Perez, a senior White House adviser and a former Maryland and federal labor secretary who has met with families.

The relatives of Maryland immigrants who die in less-public circumstances rely on community advocates, funeral directors and foreign diplomats to usher their loved ones home. For some, the U.S. immigration system determines whether families grieve together or apart.

The path to a final flight

On Monday morning, funeral director Brian Cable prepared to transport the body of a woman from Philip D. Rinaldi Funeral Service in Silver Spring to BWI Marshall Airport for her final flight to Honduras.

It’s not unusual for the suburban Washington funeral home to repatriate several bodies a week to other countries, part of a service for which Rinaldi charges $7,500. 

Although arranging for a repatriation can take as little as seven to 10 business days, families sometimes wait months to ship a body to allow political instability to subside at home, gather far-flung family members for a funeral, wait out a rainy season or raise enough money, Cable said. 

On Monday, the woman’s sealed metal casket lay in a cardboard container that was mounted on a wooden base. Rinaldi employees assembled a death certificate, an affidavit, a county health department letter stating the body was free from contagious diseases and a burial transit permit.

Days earlier, her relatives held a church service and an overnight vigil. Cable said families often hold visitations late in the evening to allow fellow immigrants working two or three jobs to attend.

Susana Barrios attended such a late-night Mass in March at Sacred Heart of Jesus for three members of a family who died in a fire in Baltimore Highlands in Southeast Baltimore. 

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Barrios, vice president of the Latino Racial Justice Circle, helped arrange repatriation of the bodies for the Guatemalan family, sorting out the complex paperwork that can be an obstacle for people in the grip of grief.

Ángel Gustavo Adolfo Paz Gutierrez, 8; his sister, Yeymi Rubi Gutierrez Paz, 13, and their cousin, Geremias Gutierrez Gomez, 22, were laid to rest March 24 in Guatemala. Barrios made use of a contact at the Guatemalan consulate to help the three-week process along, a resource of which she said not everyone is aware.

“A lot of the time, people just go around their community and they do food sales. They sell pupusas, they sell whatever, so they can raise money to repatriate,” Barrios said. 

A few thousand dollars can be a hurdle for families that have just lost someone who was a breadwinner for dependents in their home country. That was the case for Geremias Gutierrez Gomez, who was supporting his child and his younger sister in Guatemala. 

Also, Barrios said, funeral homes occasionally charge grieving families too much or fail to be transparent about their prices.

“If you know what’s happening, it’s not hugely complicated,” Barrios said. “But if you don’t know what’s happening, you can fall prey.” 

Barrios experienced the repatriation process herself more than two decades ago. Her brother, Carlos Flores, 33, was found dead in 2003 in a trailer at a Fells Point construction site. Consumed by heartbreak, she let her then-husband handle most of the arrangements.

“For us, it wasn’t religious. It was my mother,” Barrios said. “She needed to bury him in Guatemala. She visits him there.”

For most undocumented relatives, grieving apart is a “sad reality,” Barrios said. Some people who live in the U.S. can’t travel home with a body without risking being denied reentry, while family abroad can’t easily enter the United States to make funeral arrangements. Even for those with a secure immigration status, time and distance can create their own difficulties.

“It’s a blessing and a curse when you’re here and you haven’t seen family members in so many years,” Barrios said. “When somebody passes away and you’re used to not seeing them, it’s not real sometimes that they are gone.” 

Funeral Director Brian Cable of Rinaldi Funeral Service in Silver Spring, describes the complexities of repatriating the deceased to their home countries. (Jerry Jackson/Staff)

Extra paperwork

Along with supplying or approving documents, foreign consulates also offer financial assistance to those trying to send a loved one home. 

Honduran families in the Washington area who ask the consulate to help pay for repatriation can go to one of six funeral homes, including two in Maryland, said Bianka Cortes, a protection agent for Honduran migrants at the Consular Section of the Embassy of Honduras in Washington.

For needy families, the Honduran consulate will pay the cost — around $7,000 to $10,000 — directly to those funeral homes. 

“In Honduras, we do not have the culture of cremating our bodies, so burying them is our cultural way to say our last goodbye to our family members,” Cortes said.

Families in Honduras typically hold a candlelight vigil — “una vela” — and spend 24 hours eating food and drinking coffee before burying the body the next day, she said. 

The Consulate General of Guatemala in Maryland receives between 15 to 20 requests per month for information on repatriating loved ones’ remains. Around three families apply each month for economic assistance, according to a consulate spokesperson. 

Carmen Luna paints a message to her late husband, Miguel Luna, on a mural dedicated to the six workers killed in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. (Jerry Jackson/Staff)

Funeral directors perform the bulk of the legwork when it comes to repatriation, which varies between countries and requires more documents than a local burial or transporting a body within the U.S.

“It really does boil down to paperwork,” said Michael T. Kaczorowski, the owner and mortician at Kaczorowski Funeral Home on Dundalk Avenue. “We try to take as much off the family’s plate as humanly possible.” 

To send a body to some countries, a Maryland-based funeral director might need to pay a visit to a consulate in Washington, have documents certified in Annapolis and get materials professionally translated, all before booking a flight and bringing the body to an airport’s cargo facility. Coordinating across language barriers with a funeral home in the receiving country can add an extra layer of difficulty. Prices vary, as costs like airfare fluctuate throughout the year.

Requirements differ from country to country and airline to airline. In some cases, remains that have not been embalmed or cremated may not be accepted, said Jack Mitchell, president of the Mitchell-Wiedefeld Funeral Home in Towson and past president of the National Funeral Directors Association.

An embalming requirement could create added difficulties for some Key Bridge families, Mitchell said. The bodies of the victims who have not yet been found may be too decomposed for the traditional preservation process, which requires fluids to be circulated through a person’s blood vessels, he said.

However, morticians may be able to use other embalming methods to meet the requirements, said Andrew Dowell, a mortician at Lilly & Zeiler Funeral Home in Baltimore, which handles one to two repatriations each month.

Or, the families could opt for cremation.

The countries the six Key Bridge workers hailed from — Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico and Guatemala — have deep Catholic roots. Although the Vatican lifted a prohibition on cremation in 1963, the church still requires ashes to be buried, rather than scattered. 

Home to Kathmandu

For some immigrants, local burial traditions may drive the desire to repatriate. In Nepal, those customs often involve cremating the deceased in a wood fire along the banks of a nearby river.

For Nepalis whose loved ones die in the United States, Democratic Del. Harry Bhandari of Baltimore County said he has become something like a “911 call.” Since he became the first Nepalese American elected to office in the U.S. in 2019, he has helped nearly 400 families navigate the process of repatriating bodies to South Asia.

Some challenges of repatriation to Nepal include contacting next-of-kin who are 10 time zones away and don’t have reliable phone and internet access, as well as transporting remains to towns so remote they can require a helicopter ride from the capital of Kathmandu. 

For the rich and well-connected, the process may not be difficult, Bhandari said. But most of the people who call Bhandari for help are from poor families, with a deceased loved one who traveled to America in search of education or opportunity. 

“They don’t have a voice. It’s hard for them to navigate through the process,” Bhandari said. “They don’t have the resources. They don’t have a contact.”

Across the Nepali-American community, word has traveled about his expertise, so much so that his senior citizen constituents bring it up.“They say: ‘Hey, Delegate, I have heard that you help Nepalis,’” Bhandari said. “‘If I die, can you please send my body to Nepal?’”

Baltimore Sun reporter Lia Russell contributed to this article.

​ Orange County Register 

New Key Bridge estimated to be completed by fall 2028, cost up to $1.9B, officials say

• May 2, 2024

Maryland transportation officials said Thursday that they expect to replace the Francis Scott Key Bridge with a new span in just over four years.

The project to replace the span of Interstate 695 by fall of 2028 is estimated to cost between $1.7 and $1.9 billion, Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said Thursday.

Plans to replace the 1.6-mile bridge have been in flux since the span collapsed into the Patapsco River early March 26, when a support column was struck by a massive cargo ship, killing six construction workers. Experts initially estimated it’d take between two and 15 years to replace the bridge, which closed the loop of the Baltimore Beltway when it opened in 1977.

The cost estimate is preliminary, with detailed engineering specifics not confirmed, Wiedefeld said in a phone interview. A major caveat in the timeline will be going through the bidding process, too. The rebuild will be a “progressive design-build” project, meaning the selected contractor will hire a designer and plan steps along the way, to “get this thing open as quickly as possible,” Wiedefeld said.

The new bridge is expected to be paid for either mostly or entirely with federal funds, with Maryland’s entire congressional delegation putting forth legislation to ensure the federal government covers all costs.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore was slated to discuss funding with House lawmakers Thursday morning in Washington.

Democratic President Joe Biden has pledged for the federal government to pay for the entire response, committing to moving “heaven and earth to rebuild this bridge as rapidly as humanly possible” while visiting the collapse site last month. His administration has started that process by releasing an initial $60 million in emergency relief funds to Wiedefeld’s department.

The federal government, in turn, will get some relief from a $350 million payout from Chubb, the state’s insurance provider for the Key Bridge, Wiedefeld confirmed, saying that the money would be directed to the federal government as part of a condition of the Federal Highway Administration’s emergency relief program, which is funding the bulk of the bridge rebuild.

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Until Thursday, most considerations on the new bridge were hypothetical, with officials largely focused on clearing the nearly 50,000 tons of steel and concrete from the path of the bridge that has blocked the Port of Baltimore to most vessel traffic. Crews were still in the water Thursday trying to clear the wreckage of the old bridge from the river and locate the last of the six construction workers who were killed in the collapse.

Officials said earlier this week that they are focused on removing sections of steel off the Dali in an effort to refloat the giant freighter, which is more than three football fields long and remains stuck aground on the side of the harbor’s main channel. While alternate channels are allowing larger vessels each week, the main 50-foot channel is still expected to open around the end of this month.

The Maryland Transportation Authority, which oversees the bridge, will be holding a virtual forum May 7 with the construction industry as the agency develops a formal request for proposals.

Until the new bridge is open, the state will continue to work on strategies to relieve traffic issues that have stemmed from the bridge collapse, such as rush hour congestion hitting the two tunnels that cross the Baltimore Harbor.

​ Orange County Register 

The US is building a pier off Gaza to bring in humanitarian aid. Here’s how it would work

• May 2, 2024

By LOLITA C. BALDOR (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. and allies are scrambling to pull together a complex system that will move tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza by sea. Nearly two months after President Joe Biden gave the order, U.S. Army and Navy troops are assembling a large floating platform several miles off the Gaza coast that will be the launching pad for deliveries.

But any eventual aid distribution — which could start as soon as early May — will rely on a complicated logistical and security plan with many moving parts and details that are not yet finalized.

The relief is desperately needed, with the U.N. saying people in Gaza are on the brink of famine. But there are still widespread security concerns. And some aid groups say that with so much more needed, the focus should instead be on pushing Israel to ease obstacles to the delivery of aid on land routes.

Setting up the system is expected to cost at least $320 million, the Pentagon said Monday. Here’s how it will work:

IT ALL STARTS IN CYPRUS

Humanitarian aid bound for Gaza through the maritime route will be delivered by air or sea to Cyprus, an island at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea.

Cyprus Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos has said the aid will undergo security checks at Larnaca port. Using that one departure point will address Israel’s security concerns that all cargo be inspected to ensure that nothing is loaded on ships that Hamas could use against Israeli troops. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The screening will be strict and comprehensive, including the use of mobile X-ray machines, according to a Cyprus government official who spoke on condition of anonymity to publicly disclose details about the security operation. The process will involve Cypriot customs, Israeli teams, the U.S. and the United Nations Office for Project Services.

An American military official said the U.S. has set up a coordination cell in Cyprus to work with the government there, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other agencies and partners. The group will focus on coordinating the collection and inspection of the aid, said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operation details.

THEN TO THE FLOATING PLATFORM

Once the pallets of aid are inspected, they will be loaded onto ships — mainly commercial vessels — and taken about 200 miles to the large floating pier being built by the U.S. military off the Gaza coast.

There, the pallets will be transferred onto trucks that in turn will be loaded onto two types of smaller Army boats — Logistic Support Vessels, or LSVs, and Landing Craft Utility boats, LCUs. The U.S. military official said the LSVs can hold 15 trucks each and the LCUs about five.

The Army boats will then shuttle the trucks from the pier to a floating causeway, which will be several miles away and anchored into the beach by Israeli Defense Forces.

Since Biden has made clear that no U.S. forces will step foot in Gaza, the troops doing the construction and driving and crewing the boats will be housed and fed on other ships offshore near the large floating pier.

The British Royal Navy support ship RFA Cardigan Bay will provide accommodations for hundreds of U.S. sailors and soldiers working to establish the pier. Another contracted ship will also be used for housing, but officials did not identify it.

SMALL BOATS TO THE CAUSEWAY

The small Army boats will sail to the two-lane, 550-meter (1,800-foot) causeway.

The U.S. military official said an American Army engineering unit has teamed up with an Israeli engineering unit in recent weeks to practice the installation of the causeway, training on an Israeli beach just up the coast. The U.K. Hydrographic Office also has worked with the U.S. and the Israeli military to analyze the shoreline and prepare for the final installation.

U.S. vessels will push the floating causeway into place, shoving it into the shoreline, where the Israeli Defense Forces will be ready to secure it.

Trucks loaded with the pallets of aid will drive off the Army boats onto the causeway and down to a secure area on land where they will drop off the aid and immediately turn around and return to the boats. The trucks will repeat that loop over and over, and they will be confined to that limited route to maintain security.

They will be driven by personnel from another country, but U.S. officials have declined to say which one.

DISTRIBUTION TO AID AGENCIES AND CIVILIANS

Aid groups will collect the supplies for distribution on shore, at a port facility built by the Israelis just southwest of Gaza City. Officials say they expect about 90 truckloads of aid a day initially and that it will quickly grow to about 150 a day.

The U.N. is working with USAID to set up the logistics hub on the beach.

There will be three zones at the port: one controlled by the Israelis where aid from the pier will be dropped off, another where the aid will be transferred and a third where Palestinian drivers contracted by the U.N. will wait to pick up the aid before taking it to distribution points.

Aid agencies, however, say this maritime corridor isn’t enough to meet the needs in Gaza and must be just one part of a broader Israeli effort to improve sustainable, land-based deliveries of aid to avert famine.

The groups, the U.N., the U.S. and other governments have pointed to Israel’s aid restrictions and its failure to safeguard humanitarian workers as reasons for the reduction in food shipments through land crossings, although they credit Israel with making some improvements recently.

U.S. Gaza envoy David Satterfield said last week that only about 200 trucks a day were getting into Gaza, far short of the 500 that international aid organizations say are needed.

SECURITY ONSHORE AND OFF

A key concern is security — both from militants and the Israeli military, which has been criticized for its killing of aid workers.

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Sonali Korde, a USAID official, said key agreements for security and handling the aid deliveries are still being negotiated. Those include how Israeli forces will operate in Gaza to ensure that aid workers are not harmed.

Aid groups have been shaken by the Israeli airstrike that killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers on April 1 as they traveled in clearly marked vehicles on a delivery mission authorized by Israel.

And there has already been one mortar attack at the site by militants, reflecting the ongoing threats from Hamas, which has said it would reject the presence of any non-Palestinians in Gaza.

U.S. and Israeli officials have declined to provide specifics on the security. But the U.S. military official said it will be far more robust when deliveries begin than it is now. And there will be daily assessments of the force protection needs there.

The IDF will handle security on the shore, and the U.S. military will provide its own security for the Army and Navy forces offshore.

Associated Press reporters Menelaos Hadjicostis in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed.

​ Orange County Register 

Santa Anita horse racing consensus picks for Friday, May 3, 2024

• May 2, 2024

The consensus box of Del Mar picks comes from handicappers Bob Mieszerski, Art Wilson, Eddie Wilson and Kevin Modesti. Here are the picks for thoroughbred races on Friday, May 3, 2024.

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​ Orange County Register 

‘What have we done?’ Lawyer describes shock at possible role in Trump’s 2016 victory

• May 2, 2024

By MICHAEL R. SISAK, PHILIP MARCELO, ERIC TUCKER and JAKE OFFENHARTZ

NEW YORK — A lawyer who negotiated a pair of hush money deals at the center of Donald Trump’s criminal trial recalled Thursday his “gallows humor” reaction to Trump’s 2016 election victory and the realization that his hidden-hand efforts might have contributed to the win.

“What have we done?” the attorney Keith Davidson texted the then-editor of the National Enquirer, which had buried stories of extramarital sexual encounters to prevent them surfacing in the final days of the bitterly contested presidential race. “Oh my god,” came the response from Dylan Howard.

“There was an understanding that our efforts may have in some way — strike that — our activities may have in some way assisted the presidential campaign of Donald Trump,” Davidson told jurors.

The testimony from Davidson was designed to directly connect the hush money payments to Trump’s presidential ambitions and to bolster prosecutors’ argument that the case is about interference in the 2016 election rather than simply sex and money. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has sought to establish that link not just to secure a conviction but also to persuade the public of the significance of the case, which may be the only one of four Trump prosecutions to reach trial this year.

“This is sort of gallows humor. It was on election night as the results were coming in,” Davidson explained. “There was sort of surprise among the broadcasters and others that Mr. Trump was leading in the polls, and there was a growing sense that folks were about ready to call the election.”

Davidson is seen as a vital building block for the prosecution’s case that Trump and his allies schemed to bury unflattering stories in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. He represented both porn actor Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal in negotiations that resulted in the rights to their claims of sexual encounters with Trump being purchased and then squelched in exchange for money, a tabloid industry practice known as “catch-and-kill.”

He is one of multiple key players testifying in advance of Michael Cohen, the star prosecution witness and Trump’s former lawyer and personal fixer whom Davidson has depicted as determined to protect Trump at all costs.

Trump’s lawyers sought to blunt the potential harm of Davidson’s testimony by getting him to acknowledge that he never had any interactions with Trump — only Cohen. In fact, Davidson said, he had never been in the same room as Trump until his testimony.

He also said that he was unfamiliar with the Trump Organization’s record-keeping practices and that any impressions he had of Trump himself came through others.

“I had no personal interactions with Donald Trump. It either came from my clients, Mr. Cohen or some other source, but certainly not him,” Davidson said.

The line of questioning from Trump attorney Emil Bove appeared intended to underscore the defense’s points that Trump was removed from the negotiations — that Cohen was handling the hush-money matters on his own — and that his testimony isn’t relevant to the charges, which allege Trump falsified business records by logging reimbursement payments to Cohen as legal fees.

Earlier Thursday, jurors viewed a confidential agreement requiring Daniels to keep quiet about her claims that she had a tryst with the married Trump a decade earlier. The agreement, dated less than two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, called for her to receive $130,000 in exchange for her silence.

The money was paid by Cohen, and the agreement referred to both Trump and Daniels with pseudonyms: David Dennison and Peggy Peterson.

“It is understood and agreed that the true name and identity of the person referred to as ‘DAVID DENNISON’ in the Settlement Agreement is Donald Trump,” the document stated, with Trump’s name written in by hand.

While testifying Thursday, Davidson also recalled Cohen ranting to him about Trump in a phone conversation about a month after the 2016 election, complaining that he had been passed over for a job in the new administration and that Trump had not reimbursed him for the Daniels payment.

He also said that Cohen told him that he and Trump were “very upset” when The Wall Street Journal published an article that exposed a separate $150,000 National Enquirer arrangement with McDougal, who has said she and Trump had an affair, just days before the election.

“He wanted to know who the source of the article was, why someone would be the source of this type of article. He was upset by the timing,” Davidson said of Cohen. “He stated his boss was very upset, and he threatened to sue Karen McDougal.”

Trump has denied relationships with either woman and any wrongdoing in the case.

Before the start of testimony, prosecutors requested $1,000 fines for each of four comments by Trump that they say violated a judge’s gag order barring him from attacking witnesses, jurors and others closely connected to the case. Such a penalty would be on top of a $9,000 fine that Judge Juan M. Merchan imposed Tuesday related to nine separate violations that he found.

“The defendant is talking about witnesses and the jury in this case, one right here outside this door,” prosecutor Christopher Conroy said. “This is the most critical time, the time the proceeding has to be protected.”

“His statements are corrosive to this proceeding and the fair administration of justice,” Conroy added.

Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche countered that Trump’s candidacy and the massive media attention he receives have made it impossible for him not to be asked about, or comment on, the trial.

“He can’t just say ‘no comment’ repeatedly. He’s running for president,” Blanche said.

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Merchan did not immediately rule on the request for fresh sanctions, though he indicated he was not particularly concerned about one of the four statements flagged by prosecutors.

Yet the mere prospect of further punishment underscored the challenges Trump the presidential candidate faces in adjusting to the role of criminal defendant subject to rigid courtroom protocol that he does not control. It also remains to be seen whether any rebuke from the court will lead Trump to adjust his behavior given the campaign trail benefit he believes he derives from painting the case as politically motivated.

The trial, now in its second week of testimony, has exposed the underbelly of tabloid journalism practices and the protections, for a price, afforded to Trump during his successful run for president in 2016.

After the $130,000 payment was made to Daniels, Trump’s company reimbursed Cohen and logged the payments to him as legal expenses, prosecutors have said in charging the former president with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records — a charge punishable by up to four years in prison.

​ Orange County Register