With lighted Marry Me letters on the beach, a proposal is made at Crystal Cove

• July 10, 2024

Against a dazzling and intentionally timed Crystal Cove sunset, two words lit up like a movie theater marquee. Standing 4 feet tall and surrounded by 120 red roses on a red carpet, seven metal letters spelled: MARRY ME.

Albert Pina wanted things perfect for his Fourth of July beach proposal. It had been five years since he first laid eyes on Claritza Erives, 29, and the couple have “vibed ever since,” he said.

“The first time I saw her, she looked gorgeous,” he said. “And I still find myself staring at her.”

Pina, 39, a sheriff’s deputy in Tucson, Arizona, enlisted the help of his younger sister, Vanessa Pina, to pull it off.

“It turned out to be more complicated than I thought,” said Vanessa, also of Tucson.

After Pina shared his proposal idea, his sister got busy ordering letters online.

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When they arrived from Amazon they were not 4 feet tall like Albert requested. They were a squat 4 inches.

“I was thinking maybe I could stand them on something to make it work,” Vanessa Pina said, “but that’s not what my brother wanted.”

She was literally at a loss for words and running out of time.

“How am I going to pull this off in just two days on a holiday weekend?” she fretted. “I can laugh about it now, but it was very stressful.”

In the meantime, 30 family members, some driving from as far away as Naco, Mexico, were arriving in Orange County to surprise Erives, who thought she was going on a small family vacation.

Running out of time, Vanessa Pina called local retailers, who quoted rental prices as high as several thousand dollars without the required generator to power the lights inside the letters.

Vanessa Pina finally found a reasonably priced vendor from L.A.

But that’s not where the happily ever after begins.

The letters ended up at the wrong beach, as the 7 p.m. deadline loomed.

“I just want to be honest,” Vanessa Pina recalls the vendor saying, “I don’t think we are going to make it.”

But the vendor hustled to the Crystal Cove parking lot, and family members met her at the shuttle that takes visitors to the beach. Everyone grabbed a letter and scrambled onto the bus. They hurried down the sand, to the amusement of other beachgoers.

Finally, the letters were in place and it looked like smooth sailing from there. But it wasn’t.

The generator failed and the letters lost their magical golden glow.

“I had to come up with a Plan B,” Vanessa Pina said. She was going to offer money to a guest at the adjacent Crystal Cove Cottages for 10 minutes of electricity.

But love was in the air and it was electric. A guest offered free power and delivered it down the wooden bungalow steps and onto the sand via a 20-foot extension cord that they just happened to have.

Finally, Pina and Erives, a hospital auditor wearing a flowing white dress, strolled down the sand while the tide rushed in. As they passed the Beachcomber Cafe, Erives heard people whispering, “There she is! There she is!”

As instructed by his sister, Pina stopped at “E” so he didn’t block the other letters for photo opps. He got down on his left knee – minutes earlier he had Googled: “Which knee should be on the ground when proposing?”

As Pina took Erives’ hand in his, he felt her trembling.

“I blacked out,” she said.

“All I could see was Albert. And then it hit me when I saw everyone,” she said referring to her family.

The country song “Die a Happy Man” by Thomas Rhett played over portable speakers while Pina proposed — “Oh, if all I got is your hand in my hand. Baby, I could die a happy man.”

When Erives finally said “yes,” the beach erupted in applause.

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​ Orange County Register 

Tour de France: Vingegaard moved by Stage 11 victory over Pogacar

• July 10, 2024

LE LIORAN, France — Just three months ago, Jonas Vingegaard was lying in a hospital bed with broken ribs and a collapsed lung. On Wednesday, he beat his rival Tadej Pogacar in a two-man sprint after a brutal day in the mountains.

Pogacar, the Tour leader, kept the yellow jersey but it was the two-time defending champion who earned a psychological victory at the end of an epic battle in the Massif Central.

The pair left all their rivals in their wake and Vingegaard, after closing a big gap to Pogacar in a brutal climb, outsprinted his rival to finish half a wheel ahead for the stage win.

“It is of course very emotional for me. Coming back from the crash,” Vingegaard said, trying to hold back tears. “It means a lot. All the things I went through in the last three months, it makes you think of that.”

Vingegaard was hospitalized for nearly two weeks in April following a high-speed crash in the Tour of the Basque Country.

He only resumed competitive racing at the Tour and there were many question marks about his form. His tremendous ride Wednesday showed he is more than ready to defend his title.

“I’m just happy to be here and it means so much to win a stage, especially to win it for my family. They were there supporting me the whole time,” Vingegaard said.

True to his habit of attacking every time he gets the chance, Pogacar tried to move away alone about 32 kilometers from the finish with a strong attack. After getting dropped, Vingegaard kept his head cool and proved to be the fastest in the next ascent to catch his rival.

Vingegaard said he thought he would not be able to bridge the gap opened by Pogacar, and was also surprised he could beat him in the sprint.

“I would never have thought this three months ago. I was only thinking about doing my own pace and then the sprint.”

The pair then stayed together to gain time on Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic, who crashed near the finish. Evenepoel reached the finish 25 seconds behind, with Roglic 55 seconds off the pace, according to provisional results.

Evenepoel trails 1:06 behind Pogacar overall, with Vingegaard in third place, 1:14 back. Roglic is fourth, 2:45 behind the race leader.

The rollercoaster 211-kilometer (131-mile) Stage 11 featured four brutal ascents in its second half and included more than 4,000 meters of climbing.

The race started at a high pace and the peloton stayed together for some 40 kilometers before riders could break away in humid conditions. A group of 10 men rode at the front but split at the foot of the first major climb, the steep Col de Neronne.

Pogacar’s Team Emirates set a fast tempo but they were caught one by one one as they rode up to the Puy Mary, the hardest climb of the day.

Pogacar, a two-time Tour champion, attacked 600 meters from that summit to drop everyone else then went all in on the downhill, showcasing his great skills in the technical descent to increase his lead and start the next climb with a lead of 35 seconds. But Vingegaard still had the final word.

​ Orange County Register 

Kawhi Leonard is off the U.S. Olympic team

• July 10, 2024

By TIM REYNOLDS

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Kawhi Leonard will not be part of the U.S. men’s basketball team that will compete in the Paris Games after all.

It would have been the first Olympic trip for Leonard, who missed 12 of the Los Angeles Clippers’ final 14 games this past season with right knee inflammation. USA Basketball said it, along with the Clippers, made the decision on Leonard’s status.

“Kawhi has been ramping up for the Olympics over the past several weeks and had a few strong practices in Las Vegas,” USA Basketball said in a statement Wednesday. “He felt ready to compete. However, he respects that USA Basketball and the Clippers determined it’s in his best interest to spend the remainder of the summer preparing for the upcoming season rather than participating in the Olympic Games in Paris.”

USA Basketball will be permitted to replace Leonard on the 12-man roster and was working toward bringing in Boston Celtics guard Derrick White to take his place, a person with knowledge of the discussions told The Associated Press. The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because USA Basketball did not reveal that publicly, and it wasn’t immediately clear when the addition would be finalized.

Leonard is a two-time NBA champion, six-time All-Star and six-time All-NBA player, but injury issues have been a recurring theme in his career.

He has missed 256 regular-season games over the last seven years, including all of the 2021-22 season with knee trouble. He appeared in 68 games this past season for the Clippers, his most since playing in 74 for San Antonio during the 2016-17 season.

“This is just my journey,” Leonard said earlier this week, discussing his injuries. “I can’t lay out the perfect script for me. Last year I tried to play as much as possible, felt great and at a certain period of time I couldn’t go. I tried the best that I could, but it’s just my journey. I don’t want to be in a situation that (I’m) in, but I’ve got to take it for what it is. And a lot of people are watching, supporters or doubters. But I motivate a lot of people, so I’ve got to keep doing what I’m doing.”

Leonard — part of a 592-person Olympic team formally named by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee earlier Wednesday — had said earlier this week that his knee was fine and he was able to resume on-court training about three weeks ago to get ready for the Games.

“I’m ready to go,” Leonard said then. “I’m playing now so, I’m happy.”

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A couple of days later, hours before the first U.S. exhibition game against Canada and one day before the team departs for Abu Dhabi — the first of two international stops for more games and practices before arriving in France for the Olympics — Leonard was gone.

That leaves the U.S., at least for the very short term, with 10 available players. Kevin Durant will not play against Canada because of a calf strain and could not compete in the team’s four-day training camp in Las Vegas that ended Tuesday.

Leonard had been invited to be part of USA Basketball teams in the past and had to decline for various reasons, primarily injury issues or long playoff runs.

“I always wanted to play against other talent overseas or just other basketball styles and players,” Leonard said. “It is one of the reasons why I play the game.”

​ Orange County Register 

Panda pair ‘acclimating’ to new home at San Diego Zoo

• July 10, 2024

Yun Chuan and Xin Bao, the long-awaited giant pandas on loan to the San Diego Zoo from China, are adjusting to their new home after arriving June 27 — but aren’t quite ready to meet zoo visitors yet.

Zoo officials released “first-look photos” of the pair on Tuesday and provided a brief update on how their stay is going at the Balboa Park attraction, saying they are “acclimating well to their new home.” Veterinary staff from China and the zoo are closely tracking the pandas, monitoring their weight, appetite and other health indicators, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance said in a statement.

The zoo has not said exactly when the pandas will be viewable by the public, but it is expected to be several weeks down the line. They are the first pandas to enter the U.S. in 21 years.

The pandas, largely solitary creatures in the wild, are being housed in separate habitats, zoo officials said.

Yun Chuan, the male, is nearly 5 years old and is from the Wolong Shenshuping Panda Base. He already has links to San Diego. He is the son of Zhen Zhen, a panda born at the San Diego Zoo in 2007.

Zoo officials say he is easily identified by his long, slightly pointed nose. He seems “extremely comfortable” exploring the grass and climbing trees in his new habitat, officials said.

Officials hope that he will produce babies with Xin Bao, a female who is nearly 4 years old. She was born at the Wolong Shenshuping Panda Base.

Yun Chuan grabs a bite of fresh bamboo in his new home at the San Diego Zoo. He is part of a pair of pandas that recenly arrived from China. (San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance)

According to a zoo statement, she’s enjoying sunbathing and focusing on an unnamed favorite food. She has a large, round face and big fluffy ears, officials said.

“Over the past week, the San Diego Zoo worked closely with Chinese experts to cater to the dietary needs and preferences of the giant pandas,” the zoo said in a press release. The pandas were given a variety of fresh bamboo and also fed a local adaptation of wowotou (woe-woe-toe), a traditional Chinese bun also known as panda bread, the statement said

Yun Chuan and Xin Bao are the first pandas in San Diego since 2019.

In February, the zoo and Chinese officials signed a conservation agreement laying the groundwork for the 10-year panda loan. The zoo agreed to pay $1 million a year in exchange for the pair, with the hopes that they will reproduce. Money paid to China is earmarked for conservation, officials have said.

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The zoo has a long history of working with Chinese partners on conservation of the bears and their bamboo forest habitats. Pandas first came to the San Diego Zoo in 1987 under an exhibition loan and returned in 1996 under a conservation agreement focused on improving panda reproduction.

That program resulted in six cubs being born and scientists helping to develop techniques credited with keeping young pandas alive, including creating panda-milk formula.

Pandas were long considered endangered in the wild, but gains in panda health and forest protection allowed their status to be upgraded to vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2016.

Zoo officials say they’ll post information on the pandas on their website at sandiegozoo.org/giant-pandas.

​ Orange County Register 

Vote no on all ‘citizens’ initiative’ tax increases. Send a message that this scam must end.

• July 10, 2024

It’s one of the biggest swindles in California history, cheating state residents out of hundreds of millions of dollars, but don’t expect the government to do anything to stop it.

The government is behind it.

I’m speaking of massive theft through the use of the “Upland” loophole, which really should be called the “Upland” sinkhole at the rate it’s swallowing your money.

“Upland” is shorthand for a 2017 California Supreme Court decision that suggested, without really deciding, that the state constitution’s requirement of a two-thirds vote of the electorate to pass special-purpose taxes did not apply if the tax was proposed by a “citizens’ initiative.”

Who, you may wonder, are these “citizens” who are so anxious to raise their own taxes that they stand in front of supermarkets in the heat to collect signatures on petitions?

Consider the newest “Upland” tax proposal in Los Angeles County. It’s a citizens’ initiative that would increase annual property taxes by $60 per 1,000 square feet of a home, business or other structure located in the L.A. County Fire Protection District. Every year, the tax would adjust upward for inflation. The money would be directed to the L.A. County Fire Department for hiring and equipment.

The citizens promoting this initiative happen to be the L.A. County firefighters’ union.

This new parcel tax would raise approximately $150 million per year. You might think the L.A. County Board of Supervisors should prioritize hiring and equipment for the fire department, and cut something else in the county’s $46.7 billion budget. But why should they, when the firefighters’ union can crawl through the “Upland” loophole to the ballot?

And here’s the scam: even though this tax increase is proposed by government employees for government services, as a “citizens’ initiative” under the state Supreme Court’s fabricated “Upland” standard, the tax increase will need only 50%-plus-one-vote to pass, instead of two-thirds.

In March 2020, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors put a similar parcel tax proposal on the ballot. It needed a two-thirds vote, 66.67%, because it was proposed by “the government.” Measure FD won the approval of only 52.59% of voters, with 47.41% voting no. It failed.

If the supervisors had put the same proposal on a clipboard and headed to the supermarket to collect signatures to put it on the ballot, it would have slipped through the “Upland” loophole without any problem. In fact, that happened in San Francisco in 2018. Two of the county supervisors ran an initiative campaign for a tax on commercial property leases to pay for childcare and early education programs. It received the barest majority vote, and the supervisors declared it passed because it was a “citizens’ initiative.”

This was challenged in court, but the appellate court said it was fine.

It’s not fine. The state constitution says tax increases of this kind need a two-thirds vote. But the state Supreme Court has so far refused to review any of the appellate courts’ rulings in the San Francisco case and similar cases around the state. The “Upland” standard remains fuzzy and fictional.

But wait, there’s more.

A genuine citizens’ initiative, not from government employees, sought to close the “Upland” loophole. Over 1.4 million voters signed petitions to place the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act on the statewide ballot this November.

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Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature filed a lawsuit to have it taken off the ballot, and that’s exactly what the California Supreme Court did. Respect for “citizens’ initiatives” only applies to tax increases.

Now any union of government employees can write its own tax increase, direct all the revenue to its own benefit, pay for signature collection to get it on the ballot, buy enough advertising to bamboozle half the voters and start collecting your money.

In June, the firefighters’ union turned in the signatures to qualify its measure for the November election. Their tax hike proposal will join another “Upland” tax increase on the L.A. County ballot, a “citizens’ initiative” that doubles and makes permanent the county’s “temporary” Measure H sales tax for homelessness programs.

Both would pass with 50%-plus-one-vote instead of the 66.67% the constitution requires.

Vote no on all “citizens’ initiative” tax increases. Send a message that this scam must end.

Write [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley

​ Orange County Register 

Senate Bill 1047 will crush AI innovation in California

• July 10, 2024

​ Orange County Register 

John Stossel: Biden and Trump fight about everything, except tariffs

• July 10, 2024

Joe Biden and Donald Trump fight about everything.

But they agree about one thing: tariffs, the subject of my new video.

Trump imposed tariffs on steel, aluminum, washing machines, solar panels and other products from China.

Then Biden took office and slapped a 100% tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.

Now Trump says, if elected, he’ll impose the tariff on all Chinese cars.

This is a destructive competition.

The idea of a tariff sounds good. Protect American businesses from foreigners! Protect American workers from cheap foreign labor!

That’s the seen benefit for Americans.

The unseen harm is worse.

First, tariffs are a hidden tax. They make everything cost more. Yet few consumers see that inflation is increased by tariffs.

American steelmakers love Trump’s tax on Chinese steel, but every American who uses steel has to pay more.

The U.S. International Trade Commission says that Trump’s tariffs helped increase domestic production of steel, but production in other, dependent industries dropped by a greater amount.

A second unseen harm: protected companies get lazy.

Instead of devoting their energy to customer satisfaction and innovation, it’s easier and often more profitable to lobby politicians, pushing for more tariff protections.

When I was young, Ford and GM improved their cars because they found they had to compete with Toyota, BMW, Honda, etc.

We should all be glad that no 100% tariffs existed then.

Trump’s big tariffs on steel didn’t even help U.S. Steel. It’s now trying to sell itself to a Japanese steel company.

By contrast, trade benefits most everyone.

Flying today is cheaper than ever.

Fifty years ago, a flight from Los Angeles to Boston cost about $1,000.

Today, you can book the same trip for just over $100.

Trade makes that possible. Manufacturers buy airplane parts from all over the world.

Boeing’s newest plane depends on Italian manufacturers for its engine. Its wings come from Germany and France. Floor beams are sourced from the United Arab Emirates, and the plane’s doors come from Vietnam.

A tariff on any of these parts would make flying more expensive for all of us.

(Boeing’s recent safety problems weren’t caused by trade. That was all American.)

Of course, not everyone flies. But everyone enjoys the fruits of trade.

Do you eat fresh produce in winter?

Our avocadoes come from Mexico. Grapes from Peru and Chile. Bananas from Guatemala and Ecuador.

Attempts to meddle in these voluntary exchanges disrupt our lives and lower our standard of living.

Biden and Trump don’t get that.

Goldman Sachs’ chief economist predicts that Trump’s plan to “put a ring around the country” would raise our inflation rate another 1.1%.

Biden once pretended to understand trade.

“Trump doesn’t get the basics,” he said in 2019. “He thinks his tariffs are being paid by China. Any freshman econ student could tell you that the American people are paying his tariffs.”

Biden promised to remove Trump’s tariffs.

But once in office, he caved to special interests and increased them.

The Tax Foundation says tariffs imposed by the last two presidents equal a $625 tax on every U.S. household.

Of course, the justification for tariffs is protecting American industry and American jobs.

Trump said his tariffs were a part of his “duty to protect the interests of working men and women, farmers, ranchers, businesses and our country itself.”

Biden now says his tariff proposals are “strategic and targeted actions that are going to protect American workers.”

It’s true that trade sometimes crushes American companies and takes jobs from some Americans.

But that opens up new opportunities.

When NAFTA took effect, 100,000 automotive workers in Michigan lost jobs.

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But soon, total sales of cars and car parts went up. Most former auto workers applied their skills in more productive ways elsewhere … mostly in specialties where Americans produce most efficiently: high-end machinery, energy, movies, music, medicine, internet startups.

Not only do Americans make more money producing those things, but the jobs are safer and less physically demanding.

Despite “America first” fearmongering about growing international trade, it hasn’t reduced total wages or the total number of American jobs. Unemployment remains near an all-time low.

Yes, cheap imports hurt some American companies. Politically connected industries will always try to persuade ignorant politicians to “protect” them.

But tariffs hurt many more Americans than they help.

Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom.

​ Orange County Register 

High-speed rail waste continues

• July 10, 2024

A Google search for “California high-speed rail” and “boondoggle’ returned 31,900 results. One linked to a New York Post story, “California mocked over high-speed rail bridge to nowhere,” after the project boasted its completion of the Fresno River Viaduct.

Then on June 27 the California High-Speed Rail Authority, which runs the project, announced its Board of Directors cleared Final Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) approvals for the segment between Palmdale and Burbank.

That completed all approvals for the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco section, the largest for the project, “with only the Los Angeles to Anaheim section remaining in Phase 1” of construction.

CEO Brian Kelly called it “a transformative project for the state of California as a whole, and today’s approval is a major milestone for connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than three hours.”

The problem remains that the funding for the project is as unrealistic as when then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger talked voters into approving Proposition 1A in 2008.

Sixteen years ago voters were promised, as they read in the initiative’s fiscal impact statement, “State costs of about $19.4 billion, assuming 30 years to pay off both principal ($9.95 billion) and interest ($9.5 billion) costs of the bonds.” It was supposed to be completed by 2020.

However, on March 12 the Legislative Analyst’s Office analyzed the project’s 2024 Draft Business Plan and found the cost had ballooned to $107.6 billion. The plan included grabbing $3.3 billion in federal funds, and “identifies a target” of getting another $4.7 billion from federal taxpayers.

That money will be tough to get with Republicans in Congress questioning more funding. On May 29, Sens. Ted Cruz of, R-Texas, and Rep. Sam Graves, R-Missouri, wrote a letter to Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg maintaining “there is no reasonable path forward for successful completion of the project.”

As they continue their August recess, legislators ought to ask constituents whether more taxpayer funding ought to go to this boondoggle, or to filling potholes.

​ Orange County Register