LA County supervisor withdraws controversial proposal to ‘depopulate’ jails

• April 3, 2023

A controversial proposal to depopulate and decarcerate Los Angeles County jails collapsed Monday after its main proponent, Supervisor Hilda L. Solis, withdrew the plan that blindsided and drew sharp criticism from law enforcement stakeholders.

The sweeping proposal, also backed by newly elected Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath, was scheduled to be discussed at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting. However, Solis took the item off of the board’s agenda.

“Los Angeles County is subject to numerous federal consent decrees and settlement agreements, including those regarding the treatment provided for incarcerated people with mental health needs and severe overcrowding in county jails, including Men’s Central Jail,” Solis said in a statement. “They are expensive and getting into compliance is becoming more challenging as the population becomes more complex; and the conditions in the jails, as we have long known, are horrid and inhumane

“Nonetheless, since the motion was published, my office has received concerns from a variety of stakeholders — those who feel the motion is not doing enough and those who feel it is doing too much. To that end, I will be referring the motion back to my office so that I can continue to gather input from all stakeholders.

The goal now, she said, is to “balance the needs of public safety while also getting into compliance with our federal obligations. And in that process, I ask that county departments and agencies help us with meeting the need of our most vulnerable.”

County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

The plan aimed to declare a “humanitarian crisis” in the jails and advocate for or instruct several county agencies to evaluate, create and expand programs that would keep more people out of a jail, even after they are convicted of misdemeanors and some felonies.

“To depopulate and decarcerate is a monumental task, and the Board is committed to redress historical wrongs, deeply rooted in systemic racism and prejudice, and reverse status quo responses to poverty, mental health and medical needs, and substance use dependencies,” the supervisors wrote in their motion.

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The Los Angeles County Police Chiefs Association says it was blindsided by the proposal, only learning about it on Friday.

Early Monday, Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Janice Hahn said they would not support the proposal, while Horvath and Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell could not be reached for comment.

“This board has taken steps to divert people from our jails safely, but Men’s Central Jail continues to be overcrowded and dangerous for both our inmates and our deputies,” Hahn said in a statement Monday. “That being said, I have concerns with this proposal and its potential impact on public safety, and I cannot support it. Any plan to reduce the population of our jails needs to be decided in partnership with law enforcement, our deputy district attorneys, and our courts.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

​ Orange County Register 

Newport Beach lifeguards mark 100 years watching over the beach

• April 3, 2023

Newport Beach Chief Lifeguard Brian O’Rourke analyzed a dramatic photograph of 13 swimmers struggling in the ocean, swept out to sea in a massive rip current.

“They are getting pulled off their feet, watching the shore slip away… they are getting tired and exhausted,” O’Rourke said. “Fear and panic is setting in and the drowning process is starting to begin. These people are going to drown pretty quickly.”

While the photo was taken decades ago, it’s a scene that has played out time and time again — and if it weren’t for lifeguards in situations such as this, countless lives would be lost to the unpredictable, unforgiving sea each year as people flock to the coast.

Newport Beach lifeguards are marking 100 years of service along the city’s shoreline and it has been a chance to reflect on the department formed in 1923 and to celebrate successes and pivotal moments in its long history.

Before 1923, there was no lifeguarding service in the city, but as more people started showing up to the shore and tragedies occurred as beachgoers tested the waters, unaware of the ocean’s dangers, its need became obvious.

“People would go out in these waters, these massive rip currents and they would die out here,” O’Rourke said during a presentation recently to city officials. “And there was a community on the beach who said, ‘We need to provide a service to protect these beaches.’

“They went into a preventive-action mode,” he said. “They went out and stopped these tragic events from happening.”

Retired lifeguard Mike Brousard, who wrote  “Warm Winds and Following Seas: Reflections of a Lifeguard in Paradise,” recounted a pivotal moment in Newport Beach’s lifeguarding history when, in 1925, a fishing boat overturned in massive surf.

Hawaiian Olympic swimmer Duke Kahanamoku, a regular surfer at Corona del Mar before the rock jetty destroyed the wave, along with Newport Beach’s first lifeguard Antar Deraga and fellow lifeguards Thomas Sheffield and Charles Plummer and a few others rushed to help.

Kahanamoku grabbed his surfboard and saved seven people. Other lifeguards retrieved their boards and saved another five. Their use of surfboards and paddleboards helped spawn the idea of using rescue boards, still done to this day.

“After that, Newport got a lot more serious about having lifeguards on their beaches,” Brousard said.

Much of O’Rourke’s early-day research for his city presentation came from the book “The Tide Has Changed,” written in 1968 by a woman whose daughter nearly drowned in front of her in West Newport, saved by lifeguards.

“The knowledge and skills of these early guards has been passed on through every generation of lifeguards and through the ranks, all the way into modern-times here,” O’Rourke said. “After 1923, lifeguard services started to get creative in how they were protecting the beaches.”

The first female lifeguard was hired in 1929, but not much is known about her, other than her first name Hilda, O’Rourke said, and that “she was a really great swimmer and people really liked her.”

As visitors started flocking to Newport Beach in the ’40s and ’50s, the lifeguard department expanded, more towers were built and patrol vehicles with two-way radios were added.

In 1958, the first rescue boat was put into service.

“This was a game changer for lifeguards,” O’Rourke said, noting that the population was “exploding” on the beaches. “People came from all over the place. The first rescue boat in the first decade saved thousands of people.”

The first lifeguard headquarters built in 1965 cost a “whopping” $7,000 and included a dispatch and observation area to watch over the beach.

While the lifeguard program started as part of the Fire Department, it branched out to be its own emergency services department in 1958. It rejoined the Fire Department in 1995.

Jim Turner, a longtime Newport Beach lifeguard chief who started his career in 1973 and retired from the department in 2014, said merging back with the Fire Department to become a cohesive part of the city’s emergency response was a key moment.

Lifeguards today are called on for swift-water rescues and train along the Fire Department for other scenarios that may need ocean or water skills.

While many beaches are simply stretches of sand, Newport Beach’s coastline is unique, Brousard said. One of the most dangerous areas is known as the Wedge, a wave that can get up to 30-feet tall on a summer south swell.

“That is the most unusual wave maybe on the West Coast, the angle of the jetty refracts this thing into a monster,” Brousard said.

Also challenging? The rock groin jetties in West Newport that stick out like fingers in the sea.

“The swells push in there and hit the jetty, it’s a man-made rip current against the south side of the jetty,” he said. “They get some really gnarly rescue stuff going on there near the jetty.”

It’s one of the toughest places on the coast to lifeguard, he said. “You have to know what you’re doing there.”

Even the strongest, most trained swimmers have fallen victim to the sea.

Among them was Ben Carlson. In 2014, Newport Beach suffered its first death in the line of duty when Carlson died while doing a rescue in massive surf. The surf and current were so strong, his body was found half a mile away from where he went missing, O’Rourke said. The swimmer he went after survived.

A statue was erected in his honor.

“Ben forever watching over the water” at McFadden Square, O’Rourke described it. “This wasn’t just an incident that shocked our lifeguards, our department, but also this community.”

Following his death, Carlson’s family, friends and fellow lifeguards created the The Ben Carlson Memorial & Scholarship Foundation to continue his legacy of water safety, as well as give scholarships to budding lifeguards. The lifeguard headquarters were renamed the Benjamin M. Carlson Lifeguard Headquarters in 2015.

Carlson was also a key member of the junior lifeguard staff; the program was started in 1984 by Reenie Boyer, who was recruited from Huntington Beach to start Newport Beach’s version of the youth training.

The summer program has swelled through the years, with an estimated 1,500 children and 60 staff members participating.

“We’re not just doing preventative action, we’re educating the youth on how to come to the beaches … enjoy it safely,” O’Rourke said.

Another key moment in Newport Beach’s history not mentioned in O’Rourke’s presentation came in 2016, when Newport Beach lifeguards were the first in the county to respond to a major shark attack after swimmer Maria Korcsmaros was bitten off Corona del Mar by a great white shark.

Lifeguards Andy Matsuyama and Mike Ure happened to be doing boat training near Korcsmaros, who started waving her arm frantically in the air, blood turning the water red.

The attack – and the lifeguards’ swift response – helped agencies around the state and the country train for shark-encounter scenarios.

Turner, who took a job as chief lifeguard at Lake Mission Viejo following his retirement from Newport Beach, noted a few more milestones through the years: the transition from using a steel “can” buoy to molded plastic and high-density foam buoys to allow for multiple victim rescues by a single lifeguard; adding rescue boats that can pick up a dozen victims at a time; and the use of rescue watercraft that can go into the surf zones to help victims.

Technological advancements in forecasting surf has helped both staff the beaches in anticipation of dangerous conditions and alert the public to dangers, Turner added.

But while technology and tools may have changed, the goal has remained the same and always will: To save lives.

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These days, Newport Beach lifeguards protect an estimated 10 million visitors along the city’s 6.2 miles of ocean and 2.5 miles of bay beaches.

“It’s been a huge battle to gain credibility over the years,” Brousard said, noting that not long ago lifeguards had a stereotype of simply hanging out on the beach all day. “There’s a lot of days when it’s quiet. But when the surf is big and the crowd is big and the rips are going – you’re on the edge of exhaustion, going, ‘Do I have another rescue in me?’ It’s a unique, misunderstood profession.”

A centennial celebration is in the works for this summer at the new $5 million junior lifeguard building under construction near Balboa Pier.

​ Orange County Register 

Disney CEO Iger blasts DeSantis’ policies as ‘anti-business’

• April 3, 2023

By Thomas Buckley | Bloomberg

Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger came out swinging at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis saying his policies regarding the theme-park giant have been “not just anti-Florida, but anti-business.”

The executive, who spoke during the company’s annual meeting, responded to questions from investors about Disney’s political standing in Florida and its decision to oppose legislation that limits discussion of gender identity in state schools.

“A company has a right to freedom of speech just like individuals do,” Iger said.

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Disney has been in a high-profile fight in Florida over the past year. The Republican governor and state legislators replaced the board of a municipal district that provides services to the company’s theme parks in the state. The company plans to invest $17 billion in Florida over the next decade.

Iger likened the company’s stance to Civil Right-era protests.

“As long as I’m in the job I’m going to be guided by a sense of decency and respect,”  he said.

​ Orange County Register 

‘Middle Eastern or North African’ census category is ‘long overdue’, community members say

• April 3, 2023

When Mary Chammas applied to Cal State Fullerton in 2018, she identified as a White student on official forms since that is how those of Middle Eastern or North African descent are categorized.

But in reality, Chammas, who is Lebanese American, does not identify as White.

“We are not White. We don’t receive the same privileges when we speak our native tongues in public,” said Chammas.

The federal government is now considering adding a new category on federal surveys and the U.S. census to designate Middle Eastern or North African descent (MENA), a move Chammas says is “long overdue.”

The Biden administration’s proposal comes after several years of urging by Census Bureau officials to more accurately collect data as well as campaigning by MENA groups.

Now, the Office of Management and Budget, which sets the federal government’s standards on race and ethnicity reporting data, has five racial categories: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander and White. The standards were last updated in 1997 when the reporting of mixed race was included.

OMB is accepting public comment on the proposed new identifier until April 12.

In the meantime, the Anaheim-based Arab American Civic Council is conducting information workshops at universities, mosques and churches across Orange County to raise awareness of the proposed change and encourage community members to share public testimony.

“While I was working in the community towards designating Little Arabia, our city officials asked us how many Arab Americans live here,” said Rashad Al-Dabbagh, the Arab American Civic Council’s founder and executive director. “I don’t know. We don’t have data about our community. We don’t have accurate numbers of our community.”

A separate category on federal forms, Al-Dabbagh said, will allow the community to avail of resources, such as small business loans specifically available to marginalized groups, and to ensure ethnic enclaves are not divided during the redistricting process.

For UC Irvine Ph.D. candidate Sarah Abolail, a MENA designation could have opened up more scholarships and grant opportunities as she continues her education. Abolail, an Egyptian American, said she found some funding options were only “catered to minorities that are officially recognized,” but given her categorization as White, she did not have access to them.

The MENA category, Abolail said, is “essential” because it will create more visibility for certain minority groups.

Aside from community data, a MENA category could ensure health care disparities among different racial and ethnic groups are better addressed, according to Rep. Lou Correa. The Anaheim Democrat last year urged the Department of Health and Human Services to include such a designation “across all HHS data collection and reporting activities;” HHS has not included it thus far as it uses OMB’s standards.

“There are some groups that are more disproportionately affected by certain medical challenges than others, and so this is where good data makes a difference,” Correa said. “The more categories you have to identify communities of interest, the better you are at making decisions as a government.”

Orange County, home to the biggest concentration of Vietnamese people outside of Vietnam, Little Arabia, large Korean and Chinese communities and an emerging Ukrainian populace, is always changing, Correa said, and it’s vital to capture individuality.

And the unique identity and needs of the large Iranian and Arab American communities, said Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine, aren’t captured in the current census.

“As more and more families — including my own — move towards multiracial categories, these changes will also help ensure that we’re better understanding the demographic changes in the U.S. population,” Min said.

While Chammas welcomes the federal government’s move, she said MENA is still not as inclusive as a SWANA, South West Asian and North African, designation.

Spurred by her own experience when applying to Cal State Fullerton, Chammas worked with the chancellor’s office in 2021 to add SWANA as a racial category prospective students can check when applying to the 23 campuses within the Cal State system. Under that designation, students can choose the ethnicity that applies to them — including Armenian, Jordanian and Turkish — allowing the university system to track students’ racial and ethnic backgrounds more accurately, she said.

“The Middle East, it’s not even the middle of the east so geographically it’s inaccurate. It’s a colonial term (coined by the British),” Chammas said. “SWANA fully encompasses the entire region.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Russia blames Ukraine for bombing that killed pro-war blogger

• April 3, 2023

Russian authorities blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies on Monday for orchestrating a bombing at a St. Petersburg cafe that killed a Russian military blogger who fervently supported Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and they arrested a suspect.

Ukrainian authorities did not directly respond to the accusation, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in reference to the attack that he doesn’t think about events in Russia, and a senior Ukrainian official earlier described the bombing as part of Russia’s internal turmoil.

Vladlen Tatarsky, 40, was killed Sunday as he led a discussion at the cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of Russia’s second-largest city, officials said. Tatarsky, who had filed regular reports from the front lines in Ukraine, was the pen name for Maxim Fomin. He had accumulated more than 560,000 followers on his Telegram messaging app channel.

The bombing, which also wounded more than 30 other people, was the latest attack inside Russia on a high-profile pro-war figure. Last year, a nationalist TV commentator was assassinated when a bomb exploded in her SUV outside Moscow.

Investigators said they believe the bomb at the cafe was hidden in a bust of Tatarsky that a member of the audience gave him just before the explosion. A video showed him joking about the bust and putting it on a table next to him.

Russian authorities announced the arrest of Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old St. Petersburg resident seen on video presenting Tatarsky with the bust, and classified the case as an act of terrorism. Police had detained Trepova for participating in a rally against the war on Feb. 24, 2022, the day of the invasion, and she spent 10 days in jail.

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The Interior Ministry released a video showing Trepova telling a police officer that she brought the statuette that exploded to the cafe. When asked who gave it to her, she said she would explain it later. The circumstances under which Trepova spoke were unclear, including whether she was under duress.

According to Russian media reports, Trepova told investigators she was asked to deliver the bust, but didn’t know what was inside it.

The National Anti-Terrorist Committee, which coordinates counter-terrorism operations, said the bombing was “planned by Ukrainian special services,” noting Trepova was an “active supporter” of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Navalny, the Kremlin’s fiercest foe who had exposed official corruption and organized massive anti-government protests, is serving a nine-year fraud sentence that he has denounced as a political vendetta.

Navalny associate Ivan Zhdanov warned that authorities could use the claim of involvement by political opponents as a pretext to extend his prison term. He also charged that Russian security agencies could be behind the explosion to cast Navalny’s supporters as an “internal enemy.”

According to Russian media reports, police tracked down Trepova using surveillance cameras, although she reportedly cut her long blond hair short to change her look and moved to a different apartment in an apparent attempt to escape.

Military bloggers and patriotic commentators compared the bombing to the August 2022 assassination of nationalist TV commentator Darya Dugina, who was killed when a remote-controlled explosive planted in her SUV blew up as she drove on the outskirts of Moscow.

Russian authorities blamed Ukraine’s military intelligence for Dugina’s death, but Kyiv denied involvement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the attacks on Dugina and Tatarsky proved that Moscow was justified in launching what it describes as “the special military operation” in Ukraine.

Moscow has offered a series of explanations for the invasion, denounced by Ukraine and the West as an unprovoked act of aggression, while providing little if any evidence for the charges.

“Russia has faced the Kyiv regime, which has supported terrorist activities,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters. “That is why the special military operation is being conducted.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the St. Petersburg millionaire restaurateur who heads the Wagner Group military contractor spearheading Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine, said he owned the cafe and allowed patriotic groups to use it for meetings. He said he doubts the involvement of Ukrainian authorities in the bombing, saying it was likely launched by a “group of radicals” unrelated to the government in Kyiv.

Zelenskyy brushed off questions about the bombing.

“I don’t think about what is happening in St. Petersburg or Moscow. Russia should think about this. I am thinking about our country,” Zelenskyy told journalists.

While not claiming responsibility for various explosions, bombings and other attacks within Russia since the invasion began, Ukrainian authorities have often greeted them jubilantly and insisted on Ukraine’s right to launch such assaults.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak responded to the news of the bombing by casting it as a result of infighting in Russia.

“Spiders are eating each other in a jar,” he tweeted in English late Sunday. “Question of when domestic terrorism would become an instrument of internal political fight was a matter of time.”

On Monday, Podolyak said Russia has “returned to the Soviet classics,” pointing to its increasing isolation, the rise of espionage cases and an increase in political repression.

Last week, Russia’s security service announced the arrest of American reporter Evan Gershkovich on spying charges, the first time a U.S. correspondent has been detained on such accusations since the Cold War. His newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, has vehemently rejected the allegations and demanded his release.

Tatarsky was born in Ukraine’s industrial heartland of the Donbas and worked as a coal miner before starting a furniture trade business. When he ran into financial difficulties, he robbed a bank and was sentenced to prison.

He fled custody after a Russia-backed separatist rebellion engulfed the Donbas in 2014, weeks after Moscow’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Then he joined separatist rebels and fought on the front line before turning to blogging.

While Russian authorities have silenced alternative voices by shutting down independent news outlets critical of the war and jailing critics of President Vladimir Putin, military bloggers have played an increasingly visible role. While strongly supporting the war, they also have frequently pointed out flaws in Russian military strategy and occasionally criticized the military brass.

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​ Orange County Register 

How Cheryl Strayed’s ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ became a Kathryn Hahn Hulu series

• April 3, 2023

“Tiny Beautiful Things” is an unusual hybrid. The new Hulu series is adapted from a collection of essays that Cheryl Strayed wrote anonymously for the “Dear Sugar” advice column on The Rumpus website, yet the letters are only part of the narrative thread. 

The main arc focuses on Claire, a 49-year-old woman (played by Kathryn Hahn), who is one step beyond her wit’s end. She is fraying completely — her recent behavior has badly alienated her husband and her daughter and possibly cost Claire her day job even as she begins giving advice as “Dear Sugar.” The series also flashes back to the younger version of Claire, whose life is upended at 22 when her mother suddenly discovers she has terminal cancer. Claire is an extremely autobiographical version of Strayed … except where it’s not. 

The framework of younger Claire’s life – growing up working class and estranged from her father, losing her mother, getting married and divorced young, diving into drugs – is often taken directly from Strayed’s life. But the older Claire veers away wildly, having had none of the success and stability that Strayed has achieved. 

Juggling those elements is tricky. Strayed and husband Brian Lindstrom tried creating a “Tiny Beautiful Things” series for HBO back in 2015 but the show never got off the ground. This time, Strayed and fellow executive producers Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern (both of whom starred in the movie version of Strayed’s smash hit memoir, “Wild”) brought in Liz Tigelaar as the showrunner. 

Tigelaar, who was the showrunner on “Little Fires Everywhere” (which starred Witherspoon), apologized for being frazzled during our recent video interview by saying, “I definitely have a lot of Claire in me,” though she comes across as warmer and more together than Claire. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Q. Were you a fan of Cheryl Strayed before this project?

I read “Tiny Beautiful Things” when it came out. I loved it and read “Wild” and saw the movie and read Cheryl’s first novel, “Torch.” When I was working on “Casual,” Michaela Watkins told me she was listening to the most amazing podcast called “Dear Sugar,” which Cheryl was co-hosting. So I spent years driving to work listening to the whole podcast. I was all-in on all things Cheryl.

I met Reese while we were working on “Little Fires Everywhere” and her producing partner Lauren Neustadter asked me, “Do you know who Cheryl Strayed is?” 

I said, “My kid is named Wilder.”

Q. Really?

Yes. There’s a Mary Oliver quote in the beginning of “Wild” talking about the word “wild,” and so it was my favorite writer quoting my favorite poet. So I named my kid Wilder.

Q. When Lauren and Reese asked you to adapt this book were you nervous about creating something so different from a book you cherished?

Sometimes you just say, “Yes, of course” without even thinking, which I did. It was only after that I started thinking, “How do you make an advice column a show?” 

There’s the TV logline idea: A woman who’s a mess giving advice to others. It can get whittled down to that, but I wanted it to be a deeper exploration of how we are all messes but still capable of helping others, and in helping others we can help ourselves. 

I also wanted to explore how you can be all ages of yourself at the same time – I’m 47, but I can also be 32 or 13 and sometimes I’m 8 and just want to have a temper tantrum. And there’s also the idea that Claire’s volatility at 49 is not just about being a woman getting older – this isn’t about aesthetics or “How does my neck look” – but about heading into a decade that her mother never got to live into. 

Q. Do you write a story and choose a letter or write a story around the letter you’ve chosen?

That was one of the hardest parts of the show. You can’t really decide one thing and retrofit the other; they have to move in tandem. We have to ask: “Where are we emotionally coming into this episode?” and “What do we want to tackle?” and “What letters that we know we want to use?” There were some letters I flagged that just had to be included. It was structurally and narratively ambitious for a half-hour show. That’s probably why I was so scared at the beginning. 

Q. How involved was Cheryl?

In the beginning, I would talk to her and then go off and bring something back for a creative conversation between the two of us. Then she wanted to be in the writers’ room and we thought she’ll probably taper off and do the important Cheryl Strayed things she has to do, but she never left. If she had tried, I wouldn’t have let her. 

Q. The younger Claire sections are explicitly autobiographical, but the present is not. Was it strange charting a life for someone with Strayed’s background but such a different life? 

We knew the story was going to center around this middle-aged character but Cheryl didn’t want it to be her in the present and an examination of her marriage and her children. It really needed to feel like a different person. But that person had the same fundamental shaping things and those were important for Claire.

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What Cheryl says is that there’s this “ghost ship” version of her – who might she have been if she had the same past but never hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and never wrote “Wild.” The one thing they share is this anonymous advice column falling into her lap but it happens much later for Claire. The story is about her evolving as a writer from there.

Q. Is there a “ghost ship” version of you in your life?

There are a million things for so many of us – if you stayed in this or that relationship – but the first thing that popped into my head was when I was working on “Dawson’s Creek” a million years ago and Mike White was leaving to work on “Freaks and Geeks” and I also interviewed with Judd Apatow and I don’t remember the job I was offered but at the time I decided not to leave “Dawson” and I often think, “What would have happened if I’d gone to work for Judd?”

With every decision you make, you have a gain and a loss.

Q. Is that line from one of the letters in the book and on the show?

Oh, definitely. I’m just internalizing Cheryl and thinking, “What a deep quote of mine, someone should write this down” but really I’m just regurgitating her.

​ Orange County Register 

Morning after pill company increases access, supply

• April 3, 2023

By Parija Kavilanz | CNN

One maker said it is responding to high demand for the morning-after pill, after the US Supreme Court last year ended a constitutional right to abortion, by speeding up availability of the emergency contraceptive in retail stores and introducing a new two-count pack.

Julie launched as a one-step tablet of emergency contraceptive containing Levonorgestrel, the key ingredient in the popular Plan B emergency contraceptive that was approved by FDA in late 1990s without a prescription, at 4,500 Walmart stores nationwide last September.

The startup experienced a surge in demand for its $42 tablet at launch amid an overall spike in purchases of emergency contraceptive following the US Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade in on June 24, 2022.

The FDA-approved morning-after pill can reduce the chance of pregnancy after unprotected sex or failure of another contraceptive method like a condom, and is ideally taken within 72 hours. The pill, which is legal in all 50 US states, works by delaying ovulation or preventing implantation and cannot terminate a pregnancy.

While the plan from the beginning was always to make the product widely accessible as quickly possible, the Supreme Court’s ruling only compelled the startup to accelerate the timetable for Julie’s nationwide rollout.

“The Dobbs decision and overturning Roe v. Wade last year rocked everyone’s world, our customers and our retail partners,” said Amanda E/J Morrison, cofounder of Julie. “It lit a fire under us to provide our product to more women and, more importantly, to educate women about emergency contraceptives.”

In April, just seven months after hitting the market, Julie is now expanding into 5,600 CVS stores and 1,500 Target stores. The brand is also introducing a new 2-count pack of its emergency contraception (which has a three-year expiration period). The two-count pack rolled out at CVS locations over the weekend.

“With the two-pack, we want to make it easier for women to keep extra emergency contraceptive at home, just like they would with other birth control options like condoms,” said Morrison.

The price for two-count pack is $70. Morrison said the pill works most effectively the closer it is taken after unprotected sex, ideally within 72 hours.

Dr. Colleen Denny, a clinical associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said she saw the upside to a two-count pack of emergency contraception, which she hasn’t seen before from other emergency contraception brands.

“It generally makes sense for barriers to emergency contraception, prescription and over the counter, to be as low as possible,” said Denny,

“Emergency contraception is incredibly safe and effective at preventing pregnancy when used in the right time frame,” she said. “Relationships are complicated. There can be situations where there isn’t access to emergency contraception or women might not ask the partner to use it. So being able to have access to one pill and a backup is a great idea.”

Kelly Cleland, executive director of the American Society for Emergency Contraception, said emergency contraception brands, like Julie, still have to work harder at making the product not only more accessible, but also more affordable.

“I am in favor of expanding access, but this is a missed opportunity when a generic brand comes into the market with a high price barrier,” Cleland said about Julie’s $70 price for the two-count pack.

Cleland said a study done last year by the American Society for Emergency Contraception on access to emergency contraception in stores compared price at retail for branded and generic emergency contraception options. The report said some generic options were priced at $6 or less.

Julie said it set the price for its single pill and two-count pack so it can fund its one-for-one donation program (in which the company donates one box for every box purchased) and to cover business costs tied to packaging and marketing.

By overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court revoked the notion that the constitutional right to privacy included an abortion. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court expanded states’ authority to regulate or restrict abortion.

A total of 26 US states have since implemented new abortion restrictions or all-out bans.

In the rulings’ immediate aftermath, doctors and prescribers saw a sharp jump in demand for different forms of contraception, including emergency contraception, and longer-lasting forms of birth control. The rush on emergency contraceptives forced some pharmacy chains to impose temporary purchase limits.

“Every time there is a new development on restrictions to reproduction health care, there’s a run on emergency contraceptive. Our retail partners confirmed this,” said Morrison, adding that news events continue to influence buying patterns for emergency contraceptive.

“The current political climate has emboldened Julie,” Morrison said. This, according to the company, includes expanding Julie’s available within communities through unexpected places like bars, restaurants and coffee shops.

​ Orange County Register 

Southern California builders grow share of home sales

• April 3, 2023

New Home Co. opened Monroe neighborhood in South Corona, Calif., in March 2023. (Courtesy: New Home Co./John Leonffu, Warm Focus Photography)

In an iced winter for house hunting, builders may have been Southern California’s bright spot.

Now it’s hard to get giddy when the number of closed purchases for new homes in the six-county region was just 4,944 in the three months ending in February, down 24% in a year, according to CoreLogic. But existing home sales fell 45% in the same period.

That translated to builders accounting for 11.2% of all wintertime local sales vs. 8.4% a year earlier – a gain of 2.8 percentage points. And note that in pre-pandemic 2015-19, builders were just 8.5% of the local sales market.

Homebuilders are having better luck because of two key factors.

First, they have noteworthy inventory of unsold homes to sell. Existing homeowners have been reluctant to sell in a market dominated by high prices and interest rates.

Plus, builders have been willing to offer steep discounts – often in the form of free upgrades, help with closing costs or buying down the buyer’s mortgage rate.

Locally speaking

Look at builder sales in the three months ending in February, by county …

Riverside: 1,743 sales, down 17% in a year. Share of sales 20.7% vs. 14.1% a year ago – a gain of 6.6 points.

San Bernardino: 1,089 sales, down 35% in a year. Share of sales 14.9% vs. 12.4% a year ago – a gain of 2.4 points.

Los Angeles: 878 sales, down 42% in a year. Share of sales 4.8% vs. 4.7% a year ago – a gain of 0.1 points.

Orange: 551 sales, down 3% in a year. Share of sales 11.7% vs. 7.5% a year ago – a gain of 4.2 points.

Spring ahead

Local builders say the spring selling season started relatively briskly, with house hunters willing to sign sales contracts as mortgage rates dipped and the economic outlook seemed less muddy.

In Los Angeles and Orange counties, pending sales were up 11% in February vs. January, according to Zonda. Sales were still 30% below February 2022. In Riverside and San Bernardino counties, pending sales were up 3.4% in February vs. January but down 35% in a year.

What they’re saying …

Richard Douglass, Trumark Homes’ Southern California president: “February was a tremendous month, with 52 homes sold — marking our largest sales volume for the month in the history of our division. We have 11 new home communities actively selling all over Southern California from Irvine and Saddleback to Oceanside and Covina. We are seeing continued increases in traffic and reservations.”

Stephanie Walker, Rancho Mission Viejo’s vice president of marketing: “Sales for our new Village of Rienda have been strong since opening last year, but February 2023 was a particularly strong month with 43 sales across all of our neighborhoods. We continue to see great demand for our homes with more than 50% of homes in the first phase sold or reserved.”

Patrick Higgins, Landsea Homes’ vice president of sales for Southern California: “Sales were incredibly strong in February, especially with the grand opening of Avelina in San Juan Capistrano earlier in the year. This sales pace has continued into March and we are confident it will remain in the coming months given the high demand.”

And new options are hitting the market.

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In South Corona, New Home Co. opened the Ellis and Monroe neighborhoods in the Bedford master-planned community.

Ellis has 78 two-story, detached residences, ranging from 1,730 to 2,013 square feet with up to three bedrooms and three bathrooms. Prices begin in the mid $600,000s. Monroe has 66 two-story detached homes, ranging from 1,826 to 2,175 square feet with up to four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Prices begin in the high $600,000s.

New Home Co. said that 11 homes sold before the projects formally launched.

“Ideal options for buyers looking for attainably priced homes with more space and access to a wealth of lifestyle amenities,” said Michael Battaglia, New Home’s Southern California president.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com

​ Orange County Register