What killed 3 million honey bees in Southern California? Beekeepers fear the answer has larger ramifications

• October 18, 2023

Caleb Lunetta | (TNS) The San Diego Union-Tribune

The beekeepers had never seen anything like it before.

On the evening of Sept. 20, Dominic Peck and Paul Gunn, co-owners of the San Diego Bee Sanctuary, drove out to their hives in rural Valley Center assuming they were going to find an active, honey-making apiary as usual.

Instead they found a mass graveyard.

“There were just piles and piles of dead bees,” Peck said.

Over the next two days, Peck and Gunn would watch as roughly 80 percent of their 64 hives — each with a single queen protected by 50,000 to 100,000 bees — were decimated by a mysterious plague.

Each year, beekeepers around the country report losing more than 30 percent of their colonies in the winter and spring due to a number of issues — bad weather, destroyed habitats or pesticides. Those numbers have only been increasing in recent years.

But it remains a mystery as to what caused the mass die-off at the San Diego Bee Sancturary.

“It’s an accepted thing in beekeeping that you’re going to lose a lot of bees, at least for some beekeepers,” Gunn said. “But for us, it’s too important that we keep the bees healthy.”

The co-owners said they were shocked — and so were their colleagues with decades of experience in the field.

“Unfortunately we’ve seen reports of (die outs) from different beekeepers throughout Southern California,” said James Nieh, a professor at UC San Diego and expert in the field of bee biology and evolution. “But something like 80 percent. … That’s not normal.

Until the U.S. Department of Agriculture finishes testing samples investigators took last month at the sanctuary — and that process can take weeks — Gunn and Peck won’t know what killed the bees.

And that has them not only worried about their business, but also for the symbiotic relationship between local pollinating bees, Southern California farmers and the national food supply.

“If you don’t have things getting pollinated, you don’t have fruit or vegetables,” Gunn said. “Without bees there’s no you and me.”

Critical workers

Outside of making honey, bees play a critical role on farms as pollinators, according to experts.

When bees leave their colony and land on a flower or plant, pollen is transferred to the hairs covering their body.

As they fly from crop to crop, they transfer pollen from the male parts of flowers to the female parts, ensuring that the plants produce seeds.

The bees return to their hives with the collected pollen, transferring it between one another, mouth to mouth, to dry it out and make honey.

Because of their role in pollination, beekeepers can be brought in by farmers — who grow everything from fruit to nuts to the hay used to feed livestock — to help ensure they have thriving crops, according to Denise Bienias, a local beekeeper and vice president of the San Diego Beekeeping Society.

Roughly three-quarters of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators like bees — accounting for one in every three bites of food, Bienias said, citing a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Bienias says her organization of roughly 300 local beekeepers work together to teach one another healthy beekeeping practices, and to work with local farmers to pollinate crops and perform hive removals at homes and businesses.

But despite the best attempts by beekeepers and academics to spread awareness about the critical role honeybees play in wild ecosystems and our food supply, hives are dying off every year in increasing numbers.

And experts are trying to figure out why.

Honeybee decline

Every year in the winter and spring beekeepers experience die-offs, where colonies are killed by everything from weather to starvation to the varroa mite (a parasite that attacks and feeds on the honeybees).

U.S. beekeepers reported losing nearly 50 percent of their managed colonies in the past year — a 8.5 percent increase from the average over the last 12 years — according to a study released by the Bee Informed Partnership, a nationwide nonprofit dedicated to understanding the decline in honeybees.

Bienias said she lost a hive she kept in her backyard last year. Nieh said he suddenly lost several colonies and has been seeing increasing reports of similar die-offs across Southern California.

However, scientists are taking a particular interest in studying man-made factors that may have also contributed to the steep decline in the health of bee colonies and how it can be avoided.

Nieh said his UCSD lab is focused on demonstrating how pesticides — even at very low concentrations — can be toxic to bees.

The increase in food production coincides with a boom in human population and housing over the last half century. Farmers, housing developers and homeowners use many different types of pesticides with diverse effects to ensure the greatest yield and diversity from crops and plants.

“Imagine if you went home, took everything in your medicine cabinet — cold syrup, maybe leftover antibiotics, everything — and crushed it up in a blender and drank it,” Nieh said. “What do you think would happen? Probably some things that are unintended and surely nothing beneficial.”

Many of the chemical concoctions — designed to protect crops from harmful pests, fungi and weeds — are fatal to bees.

Without knowing they’ve found a poisonous field or crop, bees travel back to their hives and make honey from the tainted pollen.

“Let’s say they find a crop and it has been sprayed with pesticides, the bees actually don’t realize that. They just think it’s sweet food,” Nieh said. “They will actually collect more hive members to go out and get that food and then they will bring that back and concentrate it into honey.”

By doing so, they unknowingly poison one another and their honey, leading to mass die-offs that can happen overnight, Nieh said.

New pesticides, combined with other natural phenomena, have resulted in a 60 percent decline in the U.S. honeybee population since the 1940s, according to a report published by the Department of Agriculture in 2017.

Waiting for answers

Was it an extreme disease, destroyed habitats, or even pesticides that killed approximately 3 million bees at the Valley Center apiary?

Peck and Gunn said they spend most of their time building up their business and occasionally sell honey. They are paid to collect hives from people’s homes, to rehab colonies to sell to first-time beekeepers, and to contract pollinators out to farmers, working roughly 12 hours a day.

But Gunn said for all their work, they couldn’t save many of their hives in Valley Center.

“If you were shoveling them, it probably would be about 30 scoops full of dead bees,” Peck added.

Gunn has his suspicions, including illegal pesticide use or pesticides used in a nearby housing development. The hives that died were located at the top of a hill surrounded by multiple avocado orchards, but bees will travel upwards of 5 miles for food, the beekeepers said.

“We’re supposed to be notified when an application of (pesticides) takes place and then we can prepare for it. We clearly didn’t get that.”

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If beekeepers find a poisoned or sick colony, they have little recourse to cure them outside of giving the bees sugar, water and proper nutrition to improve their immunity to toxins, Nieh said. They can also move their hives.

But in the San Diego Bee Sanctuary’s case, Peck and Gunn said the toxin moved too fast for them to save many of their hives. All they can do now is move forward, and wait for answers.

“We’re definitely going to buy back the number of bees that we lost and we’re going to do a bunch of removals,” said Gunn, adding that they keep the hives they remove from residential areas. “We’re going to be slammed next year because it’s going to be a big winter again.”

The two beekeepers used a GoFundMe page to finance their rebuild, but oftentimes other apiaries or backyard beekeepers don’t have the funds to reinvest in their colonies after a massive die-off.

Between paying for the boxes, hives and transportation costs, beekeepers can face thousands of dollars in losses from a single mass die-off before they are able to turn a profit.

“People think because bees are everywhere that beekeeping is this free, easy, cheap thing and it’s not,” said Gunn. “And a lot of the smaller guys in their backyards, when their colonies die from pesticides or they don’t know why, they’re just like, ‘I’m just gonna give up.’”

So what can people do to save not only the bees, but the beekeeping industry as a whole?

“One of the best things you can do is if you see these in your house, don’t call an exterminator, call a beekeeper (to remove it),” Peck said. “And use environmentally friendly products on your home garden or farm.”

Local bee experts have also called for cities to support Bee City USA, a nationwide project that asks cities to commit themselves to protecting bee populations through policies and awareness campaigns.

“Bee cities” promise, among other things, to reduce pesticide use, host public awareness events, and create a local committee consisting of volunteers and city staff to advise policy.

“If San Diego becomes a Bee City — we’ve started down that road — we would be the biggest in the United States,” Nieh said. “We’d do a lot of good. … We can be the model for the nation.”

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.

©2023 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Disneyland ticket prices haven’t gone up much in a decade — if you know when to go

• October 18, 2023

One of the biggest gripes about Disneyland is the rising cost of admission, but you can still get into the Anaheim theme park for nearly the same price as a decade ago if you know when to go and you have a little flexibility in your schedule.

Disneyland raised admission prices last week with the highest priced ticket topping out at $194 while holding the price of the cheapest daily ticket at $104 for a single park.

SEE ALSO: Why Disneyland raised ticket prices while Disney World didn’t

There was a time not so long ago when getting into Disneyland cost less than $100. Crossing that $100 threshold made big news at the time — which seems quaint now as the top price for admission inches closer to $200.

A decade ago, Disneyland tickets were still under a hundred bucks. One-day, one-park admission to Disneyland or Disney California Adventure was $92 in 2013, $96 in 2014 and $99 in 2015.

In 2016, Disneyland broke the $100 barrier with a new three-tiered pricing system with tickets costing $95, $105 and $119 depending on anticipated crowd sizes. Since then, the number of tiers has increased and the price of the most expensive tickets has steadily climbed.

SEE ALSO: Disneyland fight breaks out in Fantasyland with kids and strollers stuck in the middle

But you can still get into Disneyland for about $100 if you know when to go to the park — and you’re willing to be flexible with your vacation timing.

Disneyland has offered a low-priced $104 ticket since 2019 — typically on Mondays through Thursdays.

The upcoming cheap dates for the rest of 2023 and early 2024 include weekdays during the first three weeks of November, the last four weeks of January and a few days in February.

SEE ALSO: Disneyland playtests cute droid trio in Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge

So far, there are 25 days on the Disneyland calendar at the $104 price point through April 2023 — about 12% of the available dates.

Disneyland’s calendar only stretches through April at the moment — so more $104 days are sure to appear during the last eight months of 2024.

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Disneyland boosted the number of low-priced days by approximately 50% in 2023 with about two months of dates throughout the year. Many of the 2023 low-priced days were scattered throughout June, August and September.

You can save even more if you snap up tickets through Disneyland’s locals and kids discounts — which are offered at select times throughout the year.

​ Orange County Register 

The Compost: 🌧️ Is another wet winter ahead?

• October 18, 2023

Welcome to The Compost, a weekly newsletter on key environmental news impacting Southern California. Subscribe now to get it in your inbox! In today’s edition…

I hadn’t started writing this newsletter yet this time last year. But if I had, I probably would have sent out an edition around this time looking back at how abysmal the rainfall totals were for the “water year” that ends Sept. 30 each year. And I would have included predictions from weather experts for conditions to only get worse in the water year ahead, with another dry winter in the forecast then.

​ Orange County Register 

20 scary books and horror novels to read this Halloween

• October 18, 2023

You may have stocked up on treats, inflated the giant skeleton in your front yard, and dusted off your old “Monster Mash” seven-inch, but if you’re a book lover, your Halloween planning isn’t complete until you’ve shored up your spooky reading list.

Luckily, you still have time. There’s no greater Halloween pleasure than reading a scary horror novel in between trips to the front door to give candy to trick-or-treaters. You can’t go wrong with the classics or the suggestions from a horror master, but if you’re looking for something a little more contemporary, there’s more than enough to choose from.

Related: Sign up for our free Book Pages newsletter about bestsellers, authors and more

This year, authors have wasted no time bringing the scares to readers whose favorite part of the seat is the edge. Here are 20 horror books from 2023 to read under a blanket at home (or, if you’re really brave, at that abandoned amusement park near the old cemetery that the locals prefer not to talk about). 

Isabel Cañas, “Vampires of El Norte” (Berkeley)

Cañas’ follow-up to her well-received “The Hacienda” is a Western with a twist. Nena, a woman in 1840s Mexico, is thought dead by her partner, Néstor, after she’s attacked by a vampire. But she survived and encounters her former beau years later as monsters lay siege to the Rio Grande Valley.

V. Castro, “The Haunting of Alejandra” (Del Rey)

The title character in Castro’s latest novel is a profoundly depressed woman who is haunted by La Llorona, the vengeful ghost of Mexican legend. Alejandra soon learns that she’s not the only woman in her family to deal with the specter.

Johnny Compton, “The Spite House” (Tor Nightfire)

This debut novel follows Eric, a man who agrees to take a job living in a supposedly haunted house in the Texas Hill Country and recording the supernatural activities he witnesses there. Eric doesn’t at first realize that there’s much more to the house than he’s been told.

Tananarive Due, “The Wishing Pool and Other Stories” (Akashic Books)

The latest book from acclaimed author Due, who teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA, contains previously published and new stories that feature her knack for scary prose and clever twist endings. Due’s next novel, “The Reformatory,” which is set in a cruel reform school in the Jim Crow South, is slated for publication by Gallery/Saga Press on Halloween.

Jennifer Dugan, “The Last Girls Standing” (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)

Dugan’s latest novel is meant for young adults, but older readers who grew up with films like “Friday the 13th” and “Sleepaway Camp” will likely be entertained, too. This book follows Sloan and Cherry, two girlfriends who survive an attack on the summer camp where they’re counselors – Sloan starts to think that Cherry isn’t as innocent as she seems.

Alicia Elliott, “And Then She Fell” (Dutton)

The second book from Canadian author Elliott follows Alice, a Mohawk woman who’s working on a new retelling of the Haudenosaunee creation story. She soon starts hearing voices and losing track of time; the novel culminates in a bizarre surprise ending.

Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell, “Our Share of Night” (Hogarth)

Argentine author Enriquez unsettled U.S. readers with her short story collections “Things We Lost in the Fire” and “The Dangers of Smoking in Bed.” Her first novel to be translated into English is a terrifying tale about a man mourning the loss of his wife and trying to save their son from the late woman’s family, members of a violent cult.

Leopoldo Gout, “Piñata” (Tor Nightfire)

In this novel by filmmaker, artist, and author Gout, architect Carmen Sánchez brings her two daughters with her to a restoration job in Mexico. After an accident at the site, a terrible spirit is unleashed and follows the family back to New York.

Elizabeth Hand, “A Haunting on the Hill” (Mulholland Books)

Fans of Shirley Jackson’s classic “The Haunting of Hill House” will likely be interested in this authorized follow-up to the 1959 novel. In this one, a playwright and her girlfriend take residence in the creepy mansion, unaware of the ghosts that haunt it.

Ling Ling Huang, “Natural Beauty” (Dutton)

Acclaimed violinist Huang makes her literary debut with this novel about a Chinese American pianist in New York who gets a job at a wellness store that caters to the jet set. Unfortunately, she soon realizes that the beauty products she’s using and selling have a dark side. Huang’s novel is being adapted into a television series by Constance Wu and Drew Comins.

Stephen Graham Jones, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” (Gallery/Saga Press)

If one scary novel just won’t do, you might want to consider picking up Jones’ 2021 novel, “My Heart Is a Chainsaw,” and this new sequel. Both books follow Jade, a slasher film devotee whose hometown of Proofrock, Idaho, is rocked by a real-life serial killer.

Cassandra Khaw, “The Salt Grows Heavy” (Tor Nightfire)

For anyone looking for a quicker read that doesn’t skimp on the horror, Khaw’s novella might be just the thing. It follows an unspeaking mermaid who flees her kingdom for the forest, where she encounters a plague doctor. The pair stumble onto a village populated by disfigured children and the three doctors who control them.

CJ Leede, “Maeve Fly” (Tor Nightfire)

You’ve (hopefully) never seen L.A. like this. Leede’s novel follows the titular antihero, a theme park “ice princess” with a dark side that’s awakened when her best friend’s brother comes to town. Horror author Grady Hendrix calls this one “an apocalyptic Anaheim Psycho,” and — warning — it’s nearly as violent as the Bret Easton Ellis novel he’s referencing.

Mattie Lubchansky, “Boys Weekend” (Pantheon)

Cartoonist Lubchansky’s graphic novel tells the story of Sammie, a transgender artist’s assistant who travels to a friend’s bachelor weekend in the floating city of El Campo. Sammie can’t help but notice that their hotel is also inhabited by a murderous cult — a fact their friends are mysteriously oblivious to.

Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams, editors, “Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror” (Random House)

Filmmaker Peele (“Get Out”) and editor Adams — both of whom know a thing or two about horror — present an anthology of all-new scary stories from Black authors including Lesley Nneka Arimah, P. Djèlí Clark, N.K. Jemisin, Nnedi Okorafor, and Rion Amilcar Scott.

Keith Rosson, “Fever House” (Random House)

The latest novel from author Rosson is a wild ride. The “hero” of the book is Hutch Holtz, a petty criminal who works collecting drug money for a Portland, Oregon, delinquent. Hutch is caught off-guard when he finds a severed hand in a debtor’s refrigerator — and even more so when he discovers that the hand causes insanity in anyone it comes near.

Related links

13 terrifying books to haunt your dreams as Halloween approaches
5 scary books Stephen Graham Jones recommends for Halloween reading
Real-life money and healthcare woes are what’s truly scary, says horror author Gabino Iglesias
Riley Sager’s Top 5 new book picks for thrilling summer reads
Get stories about books, authors and bestsellers in The Book Pages

Craig Russell, “The Devil’s Playground” (Doubleday)

Scottish author turns his eye to the Golden Age of Hollywood in his latest novel, about a film buff on the trail of a copy of “​​The Devil’s Playground,” a (not real, don’t check Netflix) 1927 horror film that supposedly cursed everyone involved in its making.

Richard Z. Santos, editor, “A Night of Screams: Latino Horror Stories” (Arte Público Press)

Texas-based journalist and novelist Santos curates a collection of spine-chilling tales, some of which touch on contemporary themes including immigration and racism. Contributors to the anthology, published by the acclaimed Houston press Arte Público, include Ann Davila Cardinal, V. Castro, Richie Narvaez, and Ivelisse Rodriguez.

Lisa Springer, “There’s No Way I’d Die First” (Delacorte Press)

Perfect for teen readers who prefer some laughs with their scares, this debut young-adult novel follows Noelle, a 17-year-old horror movie buff who invites a dozen classmates to her Halloween party on Long Island. One problem: The scary clown she’s hired as cheesy entertainment turns out to have a taste for blood, and he’s brought along an axe.

Trang Thanh Tran, “She Is a Haunting” (Bloomsbury)

Young adult readers with a taste for chills will likely be entranced by this debut novel about Jade, a young woman who visits her estranged father in Vietnam. Jade’s dad is fixing up a colonial house, and she’s convinced the building is trying to destroy her and her family.

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​ Orange County Register 

Can a cover song be better than the original version? Absolutely! Here are 6 of the all-time best

• October 18, 2023

George Varga | (TNS) The San Diego Union-Tribune

What’s the difference between a great cover song and a banal cover song that brings little or nothing to the table?

One is like tasting a delicious, unexpectedly creative version of your favorite dish — a new take on a tried-and-true treat that thrills with its skill, vision and ingenuity. The other is like being force-fed a bowl of pudding made out of lard and skim milk.

Sometimes, the most memorable cover songs remain reverent to the original version, at least in terms of their musical arrangements. What elevates them is a transcendent performance that brings new depth, drama or nuance to the work at hand.

For some young artists, a great cover song can ignite their careers and become their signature number — be it Sinead O’Connor’s version of Prince’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” or Joan Jett’s version of The Arrows’ “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

In other instances, an imaginatively done cover song can simultaneously provide an unexpected hit for an established act — and shine a welcome new light on the artist who originally did it.

Pearl Jam’s 1999 version of Wayne Cochran’s previously little-heard “Last Kiss,” released in 1961, is a prime example. So is Amy Winehouse’s 2007 remake of The Zutons’ 2006 song “Valerie.” A more recent one came just this year with country-music star Luke Combs’ chart-topping version of Tracy Chapman’s plaintive 1998 gem, “Fast Car.”

Tracy Chapman, meet Luke Combs

Chapman’s understated original remains my favorite. But Combs’ earnest rendition underscores the broader resonance of Chapman’s lyrics while retaining the spare guitar figure she used to frame her song. With little fuss and minimal musical alterations, Combs turns “Fast Car’s” protagonist from a young woman — whose bleak circumstances leave her with few choices — into almost anyone hoping beyond hope to move, somehow, beyond a dead-end existence.

For me, the most memorable covers are by gifted artists who find and bring to life facets in a song that eluded — or never even occurred to — the original performer or songwriter. In the process, the cover version becomes the definitive version.

A few of my favorite examples include Cassandra Wilson’s splendid, slow-as-molasses 1993 reading of Van Morrison’s 1971 classic, “Tupelo Honey,” Lake Street Dive’s New Orleans-infused 2013 version of The Jackson 5’s propulsive 1969 hit “I Want You Back,” and Alison Krauss’ luminous 1999 rendition of the 1988 Keith Whitley hit “When You Say Nothing at All.” I could easily cite dozens more.

A number of artists have recorded multiple cover albums. They range from Linda Ronstadt and Rod Stewart’s respective mining of chestnuts from the Great American Songbook to indie-rock favorite Cat Power. She has thus far released three albums — 2000’s “The Covers Record,” 2008’s “Jukebox” and last year’s “Covers” — devoted to songs by other artists.

Of course, all of Ronstadt’s albums have in effect been cover albums. Like some of the other great singers of the 20th century — from Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra to Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston — the now-retired Ronstadt was a vocal artist, not a songwriter.

Their gift was their ability to put a distinctive stamp on whatever they sang — and to do it so effectively they made the words and music of other artists indelibly their own.

That was a trademark of the incomparable Ray Charles. After composing and singing such classics as “What’d I Say,” “Hallelujah I Love Her So” and “I Believe to My Soul,” he stopped writing songs by the late 1960s. But no matter.

His towering performances of Hoagy Carmichael’s “Georgia on My Mind,” Percy Mayfield’s “Hit the Road, Jack,” Bobby Sharp’s “Unchain My Heart,” Katharine Lee Bates and Silas G. Pratt’s “America, The Beautiful,” Hank Williams’ “Your Cheatin’ Heart” and many more have long been synonymous with Charles’ name.

‘What can I add to it?’

“The song (by another artist) already speaks for itself,” Charles told me in a 1985 San Diego Union interview. “If I’m going to do it, I think, ‘What can I add to it to make it mine?’ If I can’t do something (different) with it, what’s the point?”

One need only listen to the seemingly countless cover versions of The Beatles’ “Yesterday,” the Bing Crosby staple “White Christmas,” the Elvis Presley hit “Love Me Tender” or Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” to appreciate how many cover versions not only add nothing to the originals but fall far short of them.

That’s why some performers have opted to take songs by other artists in a completely unlikely direction, so much so that even devoted fans — or the original artists themselves — may not initially recognize what they are hearing.

Witness Tori Amos’ ruminative 2001 piano-ballad twist on Slayer’s 1986 thrash-metal anthem, “Raining Blood.” Or consider the Stanley Clarke Band’s biting 1985 hip-hop transformation of Bruce Springsteen’s often-misinterpreted 1984 anthem “Born in the U.S.A.”

Then there’s Miles Davis’ heady, vocal-free version of the 1969 Crosby, Stills & Nash ballad “Guinnevere,” which the jazz trumpet giant stretches to nearly five times its original 4-minute-plus length. (Jazz has long thrived on extending and reinventing existing songs; I could easily devote another article to my favorite jazz cover versions.)

And don’t forget Devo’s wonderfully herky-jerky 1977 take on “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” — which in 1965 gave the Rolling Stones their first No. 1 single in the U.S.

The Stones, incidentally, started off as a cover band playing American blues, rock and R&B chestnuts. So did The Beatles, The Animals, The Yardbirds and an array of other British Invasion-era English groups from the 1960s.

Six of the 14 songs on The Beatles’ 1963 debut album were cover versions. So were all but two songs on the Stones’ 1964 debut album.

Both bands quickly transitioned to writing nearly all their own music. By doing so they helped set the template that serious rock artists needed to create original works, not copy the work of others. It was only after David Bowie and Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry released all-covers albums, both in 1973, that a new cachet for such projects began to grow.

Today, tribute bands are thriving — at least commercially speaking — around the world by exclusively performing cover versions of songs by a single group or solo artist. In a music world now dominated by TikTok, YouTube and other social media sites, a gazillion or more videos of cover songs performed by people with greatly varying abilities is just a click away. (Justin Bieber, Halle Bailey and Lemon Grove native Conan Gray and San Diego-bred singer-turned-Oscar-nominated actress Andra Day are among those who got their starts doing cover versions online.)

Maybe one day, some of the myriad cover songs posted on social media will be considered classics. Maybe.

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite cover songs but with a key caveat: I could easily pick another completely different batch tomorrow. I have skipped entire decades, simply because it would take at least another Sunday cover story to include most of them. That’s where you come in.

The Byrds, “Mr. Tambourine Man” (1965)

Can a cover version birth an entire musical movement in just two minutes and 18 seconds? Absolutely!

Released less than a month after the Bob Dylan original, The Byrds took Dylan’s acoustic reverie, “Hey Mr. Tambourine,” added a jingle-jangly 12-string electric guitar, drums, electric bass, keyboards, a buoyant beat (punctuated by a tambourine) and luminous vocals by Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark. Quicker than you can say: “Play a song for me,” folk-rock was born and ignited.

So did the career of The Byrds, whose version gave Dylan his first No. 1 hit as a songwriter and topped the charts in the U.S. and the U.K. More significantly, the success of The Byrds — whose co-founder, Chris Hillman, is a former San Diegan — inspired Dylan to go electric and form a band of his own. The rest is history.

Singer Aretha Franklin performs at the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on July 25, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. Franklin turned Otis Redding’s brassy 1965 song, “Respect,” upside down and inside out. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images/TNS)

Aretha Franklin, “Respect” (1967)

In one of the greatest musical transformations in modern times, Aretha Franklin turned Otis Redding’s brassy 1965 song upside down and inside out.

The beat and melody are largely the same on both recordings. But where Redding’s original was, in essence, a macho man beseeching his woman to live up to the song’s title, Franklin made “Respect” something else altogether. She added lyrics — including her immortal “Sock it to me!” exhortation and the “Ree, ree. ree, ree” refrain that riffs off her name — and turned it into an anthem for strong women who demanded and commanded equality.

Nearly 60 years later, Franklin’s “Respect” remains her signature song. But it’s only one of the classics first recorded by other artists that she indelibly made her own, as her sublime versions of everything from “I Say a Little Prayer” and “The Weight” to “Amazing Grace” and “Nessun Dorma” readily attest.

Singer Bob Dylan appears on stage in Gothenburg, in Sweden, June 9, 1984. Released less than a month after the Bob Dylan original, The Byrds covered Dylan’s acoustic reverie “Hey Mr. Tambourine,” and the song took off, as did the folk-rock movement. (Roger Turesson/Scanpix Sweden/AFP via Getty Images/TNS)

Jimi Hendrix Experience, “All Along the Watchtower” (1968)

Call it musical alchemy or outright magic, but Jimi Hendrix so masterfully reinvented Bob Dylan’s 1967 song, “All Along the Watchtower,” that Dylan himself quickly realized he had been surpassed.

“Ever since (Hendrix) died (in 1970) I’ve been doing it (his way),” Dylan wrote of Hendrix’s version. “Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it’s a tribute to him in some kind of way.” Dylan elaborated on this in 2015 when he was honored as the Grammy Awards’ MusiCares Person of the Year, marveling at how Hendrix “took some small songs of mine, that nobody paid any attention to, and brought them up into the outer limits of the stratosphere, turned them all into classics.”

Hendrix kept Dylan’s biblically derived lyrics and the basic chord progression. But he kicked up the tempo, beefed up the instrumentation, added a glorious six-string opening phrase, sang with more authority than Dylan and transformed the music into a veritable six-string concerto.

The brilliantly crafted electric guitar choruses Hendrix plays after the verses — each with a different feel and tone — enhance the song rather than detract from it. And his mid-song solo is an exhilarating demonstration of his peerless artistry and boundless imagination. It’s less a solo than a magnificent display of music-making as exciting as it is flawlessly executed.

Frankie Miller, “Jealous Guy” (1977)

John Lennon recorded his largely acoustic song, “Jealous Guy,” in 1971 as an ode to the regret he felt over a failed relationship — and his nostalgic yearning for what might have been. The Bryan Ferry-led Roxy Music had a hit in 1981 with its more overtly melancholic — and orchestrated — remake, which was nowhere as compelling as Donny Hathaway’s soulful 1972 version.

But it is Scottish vocal great Frankie Miller who truly reinvented the song in 1977. In his hands, “Jealous Guy” becomes a brassy 1960s soul-music burner, filled with emotional longing, tension and release. Miller’s version poses an intriguing question: What would the mighty Otis Redding — who died in a 1967 plane crash at the age of 26 — have sounded like reinventing “Jealous Guy” when he was at the peak of his musical powers?

In a word (well, a hyphenated one): Spine-tingling.

“I Got You (I Feel Good),” Run C&W (1993)

The iconic James Brown accomplished many feats in his remarkable career as the Godfather of Soul, a founder of funk and one of the most sampled artists in the history of hip-hop.

What he did not do, to the best of my knowledge, is record an all-acoustic bluegrass album of soul and R&B classics that is both a heartfelt homage and a winking send-up. So, take a bow Run C&W, whose “Into The Twangy-First Century” album improbably features note-perfect bluegrass versions of Brown’s “Please, Please, Please,” Ray Charles’ “What’d I Say,” Rufus Thomas’ “Walkin’ the Dog” and more.

A highlight is what may well be the most uptempo version of Brown’s “I Got You (I Feel Good)” ever recorded. Better yet, it’s done as a mash-up with the Allen Toussaint-penned Lee Dorsey favorite “Working in a Coal Mine.”

The members of Run C&W clearly were singing and playing with their tongues firmly in their cheeks. But the quality of their musicianship turned what could have been a one-joke album into something hip and memorable. The group’s lineup included former San Diego bluegrass mainstay Bernie Leadon, who went on to co-found the Eagles.

Our Native Daughters, “Slave Driver” (2020)

Bob Marley and The Wailers included “Slave Driver” on the band’s landmark 1973 album, “Catch a Fire,” but it has long been overshadowed by such oft-covered Marley classics as “Redemption Song” and “No Woman, No Cry.”

“Slave Driver” is a stinging musical examination of the racial inequities that persist more than a century after the Civil War ended. It has rarely been recorded by other artists, apart from such notable exceptions as Taj Mahal, Cyril Neville and original Wailers member Bunny Wailer.

The most moving and original version I have heard so far is by Our Native Daughters, the talent-rich quartet formed by 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winner Rhiannon Giddens. The group teams her with Allison Russell, Leyla McCalla and Amythyst Kiah. All four share and swap vocals on this stirring banjo-fueled adaptation, which seamlessly blurs the lines between reggae and gospel music.

Together, they make “Slave Driver” a song about both lamentation and resilience, oppression and unity. What results is a haunting work that exudes grace and grit in equal measure.

No, Elvis can’t cover my song!

Having a music legend cover one or more of your works can transform the life of a struggling songwriter, as former Valley Center resident JJ Cale happily learned after Eric Clapton had hits in the 1970s with his versions of Cale’s “After Midnight” and “Cocaine.”

But there are some memorable instances of a music legend being rebuffed in their quest to record a song by another artist. And few instances are more memorable than when Dolly Parton declined to let Elvis Presley record his version of Parton’s song “I Will Always Love You.”

Her decision was predicated on business, not aesthetic preferences. Letting Presley cover her 1973 country-music hit would have required Parton to sign her music publishing rights to “I Will Always Love You” completely over to Presley and Col. Tom Parker, Presley’s notorious manager. Parker made the same demand, usually successfully, for everything Presley recorded.

But the prescient Parton, realizing the value of her song, declined. It was a wise decision. In 1992, Whitney Houston recorded “I Will Always Love You” for the soundtrack of her hit film, “The Bodyguard.” It became the biggest hit of her career. Or as Parton told a CMT interviewer in 2006: “When Whitney (Houston’s version) came out, I made enough money to buy Graceland!”

Parton remains one of the most prolific songwriters in country music or any other genre. However, her next album, “Rockstar,” features 30 selections, only two of which are by her. The rest are her covers of classics by The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Blondie, The Police and others that team her with founding members of those bands.

Hallelujah! Obscurity to ubiquity

Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” did not sound remotely epic when it appeared on 1984’s “Various Positions,” an album his American record company deemed so inferior it refused to release it. Cohen’s gruff vocals, more spoken than sung, made the song sound better suited to a barroom floor than a cathedral.

Velvet Underground co-founder John Cale recorded a more appealing, piano-based version in 1991 that was featured in the smash 2001 movie “Shrek.” Cale’s version inspired Jeff Buckley’s 1994 version, which pared down the 80 (!) verses Cohen originally wrote to a far more manageable four.

Buckley, who died in 1997 at the age of 30, gave “Hallelujah” an impassioned vocal grandeur. His majestic version became a posthumous hit in 2007. It also provided the template for countless inferior versions by contestants on “American Idol” — and seemingly every other TV vocal competition show in the Western world. And it begot the title of the 2021 film documentary, “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song.”

Most surreal cover song, ever?

British actor Sebastian Cabot is best remembered by American baby-boomers for his role as Mr. French in the CBS TV sitcom “Family Affair,” which aired from 1966 to 1971.

Few, thankfully, recall his 1967 release, “Sebastian Cabot, Actor/Bob Dylan, Poet,” which featured him doing pompous, quasi-Shakespearean recitations of the lyrics to 11 Dylan classics. Better yet — and just as questionable — are the orchestrations, by Irvin Spice, an arranger who appears to have had little, if any, familiarity with Dylan’s music.

While the entire album is exquisitely awful, it is Cabot’s preposterously over-the-top reading of “It Ain’t Me Babe” that stands out. It is such a howler that San Diego International Film Festival founder Gregory Kahn and San Diego Reader music critic John D’Agostino both choked on their food when I played it for them at a Thanksgiving gathering in the 1980s. And it is such a howler that it ended up being featured on the 1992 Rhino Records compilation album, “Golden Throats: The Great Celebrity Sing Off.”

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©2023 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Once hailed as a drought fix, California moves to restrict synthetic turf over health concerns

• October 18, 2023

By Shreya Agrawal | CalMatters

Gov. Gavin Newsom last week passed on a chance to limit the use of the so-called “forever chemicals” in legions of plastic products when he vetoed a bill that would have banned them in synthetic lawns.

His veto of an environmental bill that overwhelmingly passed the Legislature underscores California’s convoluted guidance on the plastic turf that some homeowners, schools and businesses use in place of grass in a state accustomed to drought.

Less than a decade ago then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law prohibiting cities and counties from banning synthetic grass. At the time, the state was in the middle of a crippling drought, and fake lawns were thought to be helpful in saving water.

Also see: Are artificial-turf fields unsafe for athletes?

But this year Democrats in the Legislature went in a different direction, proposing bills that would discourage synthetic turf. They’re worried about health risks created by the chemicals present in these lawns, including perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS chemicals.

Some chemicals in the crumb rubber base of synthetic turf, such as bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, can leach out during extreme heat. These chemicals have been linked to various chronic diseases including cancers, diabetes and neurological impairments.

Also see: Artificial turf saves water, but is it safe?

Dianne Woelke, a retired nurse in San Diego, is among the Californians who’ve grown concerned about their neighbors’ synthetic lawns. She joined a group called Safe Healthy Playing Fields to advocate against their use.

“It’s staggering the depth of minutia involved in this product. It’s just a lot of plastic with a lot of chemicals leaching from it,” Woelke said.

One of the bills Newsom signed, for instance, undoes the Brown-era law and allows cities and counties to again ban artificial turf. Some California cities have already begun moving to prohibit fake lawns, including Millbrae in San Mateo County and San Marino in Los Angeles County.

“Emerging research is making it clear that artificial turf poses an environmental threat due to its lack of recyclability and presence of toxins such as lead and PFAS,” said state Sen. Ben Allen, the Redondo Beach Democrat who authored the bill. With the new law “local governments will again be able to regulate artificial turf in a way to both protect our environment in the face of drought and climate change but also by preventing further contribution to our recycling challenges and toxic runoff,” he said.

Manufacturers of synthetic turf say they are working to address concerns about the materials they use, although for the most part they have been unable to entirely remove PFAS. Some have switched to sand and other safer products in an attempt to replace rubber crumb.

“Our members are already working with existing customers, states, and local governments to demonstrate the continued safety of our products and are committed to ensuring their products contain no intentionally added PFAS,” Melanie Taylor, president of the Synthetic Turf Council, wrote in a statement to CalMatters.

Newsom in vetoing the PFAS chemicals bill wrote that he “strongly” supports the intent of the legislation, but he was concerned that the state was not positioned to ensure its effectiveness.

The bill “does not identify or require any regulatory agency to determine compliance with, or enforce, the proposed statute,” he wrote in his veto message.

He also wrote that he’s directing his administration to consult with lawmakers on “alternative approaches to regulating the use of these harmful chemicals in consumer products,” suggesting the issue could return in the next legislative year.

Chemical risks from fake lawns

Synthetic turf is a man-made, non-living replacement of turfgrass that requires no water or maintenance. The grass blades are made of fibers such as nylon or plastic while the base is typically a crumb rubber made from used tires, plastic pellets or sand.

Synthetic grass usually contains PFAS chemicals. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, PFAS chemicals are a known carcinogen which can interfere with hormones, reproduction, immunity and cause developmental delays in children.

Adam Smith, an associate professor of environmental engineering at the University of Southern California, said although research is still being done to understand fully what the health implications of the chemical are, current research suggests that “PFAS is absolutely bad for human health.”

“Certainly, in terms of the drought, (synthetic turf) seems great, but there’s all of these downsides,” Smith said.

According to experts, these chemicals can enter the human body through contact with skin, by breathing the particles in or through water sources, especially groundwater sources, that can get contaminated during leaching.

Microplastics from the grass blades and crumb rubber can also leach into groundwater and freshwater bodies.

“These molecules are actually entering the food chains in the ocean, and they’re in our system, they’re in our blood, they’re in our muscles,” said Sylvia Earle, a marine life advocate and former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“We’ve changed the nature of nature through actions that we’ve taken. Now they are coming back to haunt us.”

At what temperatures is it a risk?

Research by the National Toxicology Program shows that high heat can cause chemicals to leach out of the crumb rubber base of synthetic turf, which is made of recycled tires. These leached chemicals are known to cause cell death in humans.

Synthetic turf, like other artificial surfaces including asphalt and pavement, heats up by several degrees more than living lawns.

According to Kelly Turner, associate director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation’s Heat Equity Initiative, the material can trap heat and radiate it back slowly, staying warm for longer periods of time.

“It is one of the hottest surface materials,” she said. “It is hotter than asphalt.”

Janet Hartin, horticulture expert at UC Extension in Los Angeles County, measured various types of surfaces in Palm Springs, where air temperatures around 100˚F are common during the summer.

On days around 100˚F or more, she reported temperatures of synthetic turf and other artificial substances around 175˚F.

Alternative approaches

Hartin said the best alternative to any artificial surfaces are living plants.

“We want to increase the population of our habitat pollinators, and plant climate-resilient plants that provide shade, buffer sun exposure, provide windbreaks, help reduce stormwater runoff and reduce soil and water erosion. And you can’t do that with synthetic grass,” she said.

There are several drought-friendly approaches to landscaping, including warm-season grasses such as Bermuda grass and Buffalo grass, or doing away with grass altogether and planting trees or drought-resilient varieties of plants that are endemic to California.

Hartin said that even though plants require water and maintenance, their cooling benefits and ecosystem benefits go far beyond the water savings one could get through synthetic turf.

“You have choices,” she said. “What we plant today is going to maximize society and urban ecosystem benefits by the time that you’re in your later years.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

​ Orange County Register 

How Southern California casinos are celebrating Halloween

• October 18, 2023

Halloween can be associated with classic concoctions ranging from wicked witches’ potions to the creepy creations of mad scientists like Doctor Frankenstein. Still, this year’s Halloween cocktails at Southern California casinos could easily be among the most frightful.

Harrah’s Resort Southern California mixologists Tiffany Ten-Napel, Alexa Arenz and Grace Skarra, casino operations manager of beverage and slots, worked together to craft this year’s spooky cocktails at the Valley Center property.

The effort resulted in three Halloween cocktail specials, including the Nightmare on Bourbon Street, La Bruja and the Forbidden Potion. The cocktails include candy eyeballs, a black salted rim and a vile of mystery liquid that changes the drink’s color. Although these specialty drinks aren’t brewed over a cauldron, altar or made with any sacrificial elements, they are still shrouded in the eeriness and style that reminds adults that Halloween is just as much their holiday as it is for the kids.

“For Halloween, we like to have our little menu because all of us here are huge Halloween fanatics,” Skarra said. “We’re all infatuated with Halloween and love taking it to the next level.”

Among this year’s spooky cocktails at Southern California casinos, other activities will include costume contests, live music, and Halloween bites and game promotions. Here are the casinos that are celebrating Halloween this year. Be sure to check the dates of the events, promotions and specials as they vary.

Agua Caliente Casino Cathedral City

68960 E. Palm Canyon Drive, Cathedral City. 800.514.3849. aguacalientecasinos.com.

Halloween Bash: The Halloween party returns at the Agave Caliente Terraza with live music from the LA Allstars on Saturday, Oct. 28. In addition, the casino will host a costume contest where winners can receive up to $1,000. Registration for the costume contest is from 7-9 p.m. The winners will be announced at 9:30 p.m., and another round of free play winners will be announced at 10 p.m. To be eligible to win, participants must be present and ACE Club members. The 21-and-older event runs from 7 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., and is free for ACE club members or $10.

Food and Drinks: Food specials at 360 Sports include Shrimp Diablo Tacos or Vampiro Birria Tacos ($18) along with Tito’s Spicy Bloody Mary, Blood Orange Sangria ($7 each) and red beer ($5). Available all day on Tuesday, Oct. 31.

Agua Caliente Casino Palm Springs

401 E. Amado Road, Palm Springs. 888-999-1995. aguacalientecasinos.com.

Food and Drinks: Halloween specials on the casino floor feature Halloween Candy Old Fashioned and Purple Poison cocktails ($10 each) and festive caramel apples ($5) at Java Caliente Café. Available all day on Oct. 31.

Agua Caliente Resort Casino Spa Rancho Mirage

32-250 Bob Hope Drive, Rancho Mirage. 888-999-1995. aguacalientecasinos.com.

Food and Drinks Specials: At 360 Sports, guests can purchase Halloween-themed hot wings ($19-$37) and the Wicked Rye ($8) on the casino floor. The Pívat Cigar Lounge will also offer draft beers for $4 when guests purchase a cigar. All day on Oct. 31.

Fantasy Springs Resort Casino

84-245 Indio Springs Parkway Indio. 800-827-2946. fantasyspringsresort.com.

Drinks Specials: Fantasy Springs Resort Casino will serve a Black Widow cocktail with Gray Goose Vodka, pineapple juice, cranberry juice and blue curacao for $12.  It will be served at POM, JOY, Springs Bar, LIT Lounge and Twelve now through Halloween.

Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory: The chocolate shop will serve Halloween-inspired treats and feature several spooky chocolate-covered apples, including the Frankenstein Apple, made with a green apple dipped in green confection, candy corn buttons, and candy eyes.

Spooky Slots: Guests who earn 40 points in casino credits on Oct. 31, can enter a slot tournament to compete for their share of $5,000 in free play. Players can enter up to two times in the tournament as long as they earn 80 points on Halloween. The tournament runs from 4- 9 p.m. and is only open to those 21-and-older.

Harrah’s Resort Southern California

777 Harrah’s Rincon Way, Valley Center. 760-751-3100. harrahssocal.com.

Drink Specials: The Valley Center casino will serve spooky cocktails through October. Drinks include the Nightmare on Bourbon Street made with a Garrison Brothers bourbon whiskey, apple cider, garnish cinnamon, whistle pig maple syrup all served in an Old Fashioned Cup ($17), a Forbidden Potion made with Belvedere, pineapple juice, blue Curacao, garnished with a mystery “poison “ test tube consisting of capsulated charcoal infused with a sour apple shot) all served in a Martini Cup ($17), and La Bruja made with 818 Blanco tequila, agave syrup, pomegranate juice, and lime juice, with a black salt rim, garnished with a lime and candy eyeball ($14).

Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa

49500 Seminole Drive, Cabazon. 951-849-3080. morongocasinoresort.com.

Social Media Costume Contest: The casino will host a Halloween costume photo contest on its social media, where a winner will receive a one-night stay and dinner for two at the Good Times Café. Participants can post their Halloween costume image, use the hashtag #MORONGOHALLOWEEN and tag @MorongoCasinoResort to enter to win from Oct. 25-29 and rally their votes from Oct. 25-31. A winner will be drawn from the top 10 most liked posts and announced on Wednesday, Nov. 1. Participants need to tag a friend, like, and save the Halloween costume contest post on the casino’s Instagram bio.

Casino Morongo Bingo and Costume Contest: Located next door to Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa, the property will host a bingo night of 30 Games with a $1,000 prize each. In addition, a costume contest will award $500 to each contestant who dresses as the best Jack and Sally from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” film. $500 will also be awarded to the guest with the scariest costume. Doors open at 3 p.m., and the first bingo game starts at 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28.

Drink Specials: Spooky cocktails through Halloween include an Autumn Punch with vodka, pineapple juice, spiced rum, and grenadine, served over ice and garnished with a cherry ($9.50) and a Zombie Shot with vodka, lemon juice, melon liquor and a splash of Starry ($9.50).

Pala Casino Spa and Resort

11154 Highway 76, Pala. 877-946-7252. palacasino.com.

Mummy Point Multiplier: On Friday, Oct. 27, the casino will allow privileges card members who use their card in any video reel slot machine to earn 2x points from 6-7:59 p.m., 3x points 8 p.m.-9:59 p.m. and 4x points 10-11:59 p.m. This promotion excludes table games, keno, video poker and e-table games.

Pechanga Resort Casino

45000 Pechanga Parkway, Temecula. 877-711-2946. pechanga.com.

Halloween Bash at Kelsey’s: On Saturday, Oct. 28, the Temecula property will host a party at Kelsey’s featuring a live DJ and a costume contest that will award up to $1,000 in gift cards and prizes. Tickets for the contest are $20 on the casino’s website and $25 at the door. No mask, heavy face paint, real or simulated weapons, simulated live nudity or body paint allowed. Guests must be 21-or-older to enter.

Drink Specials: Through Halloween, the casino bars will serve the Poisoned Appletini, made with simple syrup and lemon juice, served with a cherry and grenadine float that sinks to the bottom of the martini glass ($12-14) and the Witches Brew made with vodka, rum, gin, blue curacao, chambord, homemade simple syrup, lemon and cranberry juices, all served over ice with a black rock salt rim ($14-$16).

Yaamava’ Resort & Casino

777 San Manuel Blvd, Highland. 800-359-2464. yaamava.com.

Halloween Trivia Night: Halloween enthusiasts can test their knowledge at the 909’s trivia night on Oct. 31. First place will receive $3,000, second place will receive $1,500 in free play, and third place will receive $500 in free play. 7-9 p.m.

Halloween Haunt on the Pool Deck: The casino will host a Halloween party with music, food, prizes, and a costume contest with a chance to win up to $1,500 in free play. Tickets are $30. 7-10 p.m. on Oct. 31.

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​ Orange County Register 

Israel will let Egypt deliver some badly needed aid to Gaza as it reels from hospital blast

• October 18, 2023

By NAJIB JOBAIN, ISABEL DEBRE, RAVI NESSMAN and MATTHEW LEE

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Israel said Wednesday that it will allow Egypt to deliver limited quantities of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, the first crack in a 10-day siege on the territory. Palestinians reeled from a massive blast at a Gaza City hospital that killed hundreds the day before and grew increasingly desperate as food and water supplies ran out.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the decision was approved after a request from visiting U.S. President Joe Biden. It said Israel “will not thwart” deliveries of food, water or medicine, as long as they are limited to civilians in the south of the Gaza Strip and don’t go to Hamas militants. The statement made no mention of badly needed fuel.

It was not clear when the aid would start flowing. At Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, truckloads of aid have been waiting for days to enter. But the facility has only a limited capacity, and Egypt says it has been damaged by Israeli airstrikes.

Israel’s announcement came as rage over Tuesday night’s blast at al-Ahli Hospital spread across the Middle East, and just as Biden began his visit to Israel in hopes of preventing a wider conflict in the region. The war started when Hamas militants rampaged across communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7.

There were conflicting claims of who was responsible for the explosion. Hamas officials in Gaza quickly blamed an Israeli airstrike, saying nearly 500 were killed. Israel denied it was involved and released a flurry of video, audio and other information that it said showed the blast was instead due to a rocket misfire by Islamic Jihad, another militant group operating in Gaza. Islamic Jihad dismissed that claim.

The Associated Press has not independently verified any of the claims or evidence released by the parties.

Upon his arrival, Biden embraced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and expressed concern for the suffering of Gaza’s civilians. He later said the hospital blast appeared not to be Israel’s fault.

“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” he told Netanyahu in remarks in front of the media.

Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel resumed shortly before Biden’s arrival, after a 12-hour lull. Israeli strikes on Gaza continued Wednesday, including on cities in south Gaza that Israel had described as “safe zones” for Palestinian civilians.

After the hospital blast, Jordan canceled a meeting between Biden, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi. Biden was now visiting only Israel.

The war between Israel and Hamas was “pushing the region to the brink,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told state-run television.

The Israeli military held a briefing Wednesday morning laying out its case for why it was not responsible for the explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital.

Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said it was not firing in the area when the blast occurred. And, he said, Israeli radar confirmed a rocket barrage was fired by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery at the time of the blast, around 6:59 p.m. Independent video showed one of the rockets in the barrage falling out of the sky, he said.

The misfired rocket hit the parking lot outside the hospital. Were it an airstrike, there would have been a crater there; instead, the fiery blast came from the misfired rocket’s warhead and its unspent propellant, he said.

The Israeli military also released a recording they said was between two Hamas militants discussing the blast, during which the speakers say it was believed to be an Islamic Jihad misfire.

Hagari said Israeli’s intelligence would be shared with U.S. and British officials. He also questioned the death toll provided by Gaza’s Hamas-led Health Ministry.

Since the war began, roughly 450 rockets fired at Israel by militant groups had landed in Gaza, the Israeli military said.

Hamas called Tuesday’s hospital blast “a horrific massacre,” saying it was caused by an Israeli strike. Islamic Jihad dismissed Israel’s claims, accusing Israel of “trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed.”

The group pointed to Israel’s order that al-Ahli be evacuated and reports of a previous strike at the hospital as proof that the hospital was an Israeli target. It also said the scale of the explosion, the angle of the bomb’s fall and the extent of the destruction all pointed to Israel.

The Anglican bishop of Jerusalem, Hosam Naoum, said the hospital, run by the Episcopal Church, had received at least three Israeli military orders to evacuate in the days before the blast. It was hit by Israeli shelling Sunday, wounding four staffers, he said. Israel had ordered all 22 hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate last week.

Naoum declined to cast blame on either party for the blast. “As people of the cloth, we are not military experts,” he said. “We just want to let people see what is happening on the ground and hope that people will come to the conclusion that we’ve had enough of this war.”

The blast left gruesome scenes. Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.

On Wednesday morning, the blast scene was littered with charred cars and the ground was blackened by debris. One man who had been sheltering there with his family, Mohammed al-Hayek, said he was sitting with other men in a hospital stairwell Tuesday night, idling away the hours but wary of sitting in the yard.

He stepped away to get them coffee when the blast hit.

“When I returned, they were torn to pieces,” he said. Struggling to speak, he pointed to where their bodies had lain. The stone walls were still splattered with blood. “No one knows anyone,” he managed to say, referring to the difficulty in identifying the victims.

Video after the blast showed the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children.

Some 350 casualties from the al-Ahli blast were rushed to Gaza City’s main hospital, al-Shifa, which was already overwhelmed with wounded from other strikes, said its director, Mohammed Abu Selmia. He said doctors were performing surgery – often without anesthesia – on patients lying on floors.

“We need equipment, we need medicine, we need beds, we need anesthesia, we need everything,” Abu Selmia said. He warned that fuel for the hospital’s generators would run out within hours.

The death toll was in dispute, even among those in Gaza. The Health Ministry initially said 500 had died, but revised that number to 471 on Wednesday, without giving details of the dead. Al-Ahli officials said only that the toll was in the hundreds. Abu Selmia said he thought the toll was closer to 250.

The Gaza Health Ministry said 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 12,000 wounded, with most of the casualties women, children and the elderly. Another 1,300 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

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More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians slain during Hamas’ deadly incursion, which resulted in some 200 hostages taken into Gaza. Militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since toward cities across Israel.

With troops massed along the border, Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, though military officials say no decision has been made.

A strike on a three-story building in Gaza City on Wednesday killed 40 people and another on a bakery in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza killed four bakers, according to witnesses.

The Israeli military says it is targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers and accuses the militants of hiding among civilians.

“It’s not just that people are going hungry. People are at the risk of starvation,” Alia Zaki, a spokesperson for the World Food Program, said.

More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes — roughly half of Gaza’s population — and 60% are now in the approximately 14-kilometer (8-mile) long area south of the evacuation zone, the U.N. said.

Debre and Nessman reported from Jerusalem. Associated Press journalists Amy Teibel in Jerusalem; Samya Kullab in Baghdad; Abby Sewell in Beirut; Samy Magdy and Jack Jeffrey in Cairo; and Ashraf Sweilam in el-Arish, Egypt, contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register