Articles and More!: Calif

Showing posts with label Calif. Show all posts

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Boxer adds to calls for Calif. lawmaker to resign

AAAMar. 27, 2014 5:09 PM ET
Boxer adds to calls for Calif. lawmaker to resign
By JULIET WILLIAMSBy JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STATEMENT OF NEWS VALUES AND PRINCIPLES

State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, right, D-Sacramento, is consoled by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, after Steinberg and fellow Democrats called for Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, to resign his seat in the wake of his arrest on federal corruption and firearm charges, during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif. Steinberg said lawmakers will immediately suspend Yee unless he steps down. The announcement comes hours after Yee was arrested and appeared in federal court. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, talks to reporters after he called for Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, to resign his seat in the wake of his arrest on federal corruption and firearm charges, during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif. Steinberg said lawmakers will immediately suspend Yee unless he steps down. The announcement comes hours after Yee was arrested and appeared in federal court.(AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, center, D-Sacramento, calls for Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, to resign his seat in the wake of his arrest on federal corruption and firearm charges, during a news conference in Sacramento, Calif. Flanked by fellow Senate Democrats, including Sen. Kevin de Leon of Los Angeles, left, and Mark Leno, of San Francisco, Steinberg said lawmakers will immediately suspend Yee unless he steps down. The announcement comes hours after Yee was arrested and appeared in federal court. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

Buy AP Photo Reprints

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) â€” Sen. Barbara Boxer is calling on a Democratic California state senator to resign from office following his arrest on public corruption and firearms charges.

Boxer on Thursday joined the Democratic leader of the Senate in demanding Yee to resign or face suspension by his colleagues. So far, Yee has only announced he is dropping out of the Secretary of State race.

Yee’s lawyer says the senator plans to plead not guilty to charges of accepting more than $ 42,000 to influence legislation and introduce an undercover FBI agent to an arms trafficker.

Yee’s spokesman and chief of staff did not return calls for comment.

Boxer said she supports the investigation, which sends a message that there is no place in public life for criminals who violate the public trust.

Associated Press

News Topics: General news, Government and politics, Elections, Political resignations, State legislature, Political corruption, Legislature, Indictments, State governments, Political issues, Law and order

People, Places and Companies: Leland Yee, Barbara Boxer, California

AP Privacy Policy | AP Terms of Use

Politics Headlines

Boxer adds to calls for Calif. lawmaker to resign

Monday, March 24, 2014

Calif. Professor Charged in Clash With Teen Abortion Protester

A feminist studies associate professor at the University of California-Santa Barbara is facing criminal charges, accused of stealing a sign from an anti-abortion protester on campus and then physically attacking the teenager in an incident that was captured on a cellphone video.

Mireille Miller-Young, an associate professor, was charged with misdemeanor counts of theft, battery, and vandalism, accused of accosting 16-year-old Thrin Short. She is scheduled to be arraigned on April 4.

Short and her older sister, Joan, 21, were among a group distributing pamphlets for the nonprofit, anti-abortion group Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust in a free speech zone on campus on March 4 when Miller-Young became disruptive.

Story continues below video.

“Before she grabbed the sign, she was mocking me and talking over me in front of the students, saying that she was twice as old as me and had three degrees, so they should listen to her and not me,” Short wrote in an email to FoxNews.com. “Then she started the chant with the students about ‘tear down the sign.’ When that died out, she grabbed the sign.”

The Short sisters and two other UC-Santa Barbara students followed Miller-Young, who specializes in and teaches courses on pornography, as she made off with the sign and tried to recover their property. After walking through an outdoor corridor and into a building, Miller-Young attempted to board an elevator with the sign. When Thrin Short blocked the elevator door from closing with her foot, Miller-Young “pushed and grabbed at the girl.”

“She then got off the elevator and tried to pull me away from the elevator doors so the others could get away with the sign,” Short wrote in her email to FoxNews.

Thrin Short, who suffered scratches on both wrists during the incident, captured much of the confrontation on video with her cellphone and has posted it on YouTube. She said campus police are now reviewing the video.

According to the Santa Barbara Independent, Miller-Young suggested in her interview with police that the activists had violated her rights by displaying upsetting imagery at her place of work and that she believed she had a “moral right” to take down the sign. She added that she is pregnant and was “triggered” by the graphic nature of the imagery on the sign.

It has not yet been determined whether Miller-Young faces any punishment from UC-Santa Barbara. A school spokesman declined to comment on personnel matters, per policy, but acknowledged the university was aware of the incident and said, “It is being reviewed by the appropriate offices.”

William Short, father of the two young activists, said Miller-Young went about her objection in the wrong way and that he hopes the impending legal proceeding will set a better example than she did.

“She was free to engage in a rational dialogue with them. Instead, she chose to bully them, steal and destroy their property, and hit and scratch my daughter,” Short told FoxNews. “After doing so, she said she thought she was setting a good example for her students. I think the goal of this prosecution should be to set a good example for her students, one that will not only deter her from repeating this conduct, but will also deter those who approve of her actions from imitating her appalling behavior.”

Related Stories:

Pregnant Student Battles Texas Anti-Abortion Laws

Anti-Abortion Groups to Boycott Girls Scout Cookies

Newsmax – America

Calif. Professor Charged in Clash With Teen Abortion Protester

Saturday, January 11, 2014

GOP Millionaire Ron Unz Backs Calif. Minimum-Wage Boost

Democrats across the nation are eager to make increasing the minimum wage a defining campaign issue in 2014, but in California a proposal to boost the pay rate to $ 12 an hour is coming from a different point on the political compass.

Ron Unz, a Silicon Valley multimillionaire and registered Republican who once ran for governor and, briefly, U.S. Senate, wants state voters to endorse the wage jump that he predicts would nourish the economy and lift low-paid workers from dependency on food stamps and other assistance bankrolled by taxpayers.

A push for bigger paychecks for workers at the lower rungs of the economic ladder is typically associated with Democrats — President Barack Obama is supporting a bill in Congress that would elevate the $ 7.25 federal minimum to over $ 10 an hour.

But entrepreneur Unz, 52, is a former publisher of The American Conservative magazine with a history of against-the-grain political activism that includes pushing a 1998 ballot proposal that dismantled California’s bilingual education system, an idea he later championed in Colorado and other states.

Two decades ago, as a 32-year-old, the theoretical-physicist-turned-software-developer tried to unseat then-Gov. Pete Wilson, a fellow Republican. After a long break on the political sidelines, Unz’s reappearance has startled members of both major parties, and his proposal — if it goes to voters in November — could unsettle races from governor to Congress.

“He is a wild card in the deck of California politics,” said Bill Whalen, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and former Wilson speech writer.

Republican National Committee member Shawn Steel praised Unz for his 1998 initiative, which abolished most bilingual education programs for students who speak little, if any, English and replaced them with English-only instruction. But Steel predicted a jump in the minimum wage would eliminate jobs, penalizing young people who often hold them.

Unz “is an innovator, he’s extremely bright and he’s a lone wolf,” Steel said.

To Unz, who’s spoken out over the years on issues as varied as campaign finance to IQ and race, the proposal simply makes sense. As drafted, it would increase the minimum wage in two steps — to $ 10 an hour in 2015, and $ 12 the following year, which would be the highest among states at current levels.

His push comes as Seattle’s new mayor, Democrat Ed Murray, has said he wants workers there to earn a minimum of $ 15 an hour, and after fast-food workers staged nationwide rallies calling for higher income.

Unz says taxpayers for too long have been subsidizing low-wage paying businesses, since the government pays for food stamps and other programs those workers often need to get by. He posits that the increase — at $ 12-an-hour, up from the current $ 8 — would lift millions of Californians out of poverty, drive up income and sales tax revenue and save taxpayers billions of dollars, since those workers would no longer qualify for many welfare benefits.

He dismisses the notion that countless jobs would evaporate, noting that most of the state’s lower-wage jobs are in agriculture and the service sector, which can’t be easily automated or transported elsewhere. He believes higher wages would make the jobs more attractive to U.S. residents, curtailing a lure for illegal immigration.

For California, among the world’s 10 largest economies in 2012, the jump “would be a gigantic economic stimulus package,” Unz said in an interview. He hopes its passage in the nation’s most populous state would have a ripple effect, prompting other states to increases wages.

Unz is an unusual figure in California’s largely left-of-center political culture, untethered to traditional party apparatus, libertarian in his leanings and wealthy enough to make potential rivals nervous.

He declined to provide specifics on his personal wealth — he founded Wall Street Analytics, Inc., which was acquired by Moody’s Corp. in 2006.

He calls the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “totally disastrous,” lambasts the government for bailing out Wall Street banks and sees little difference between Obama and predecessor George W. Bush.

In high school, he ranked among the top math students in the U.S. and studied theoretical physics at Harvard University, Stanford University and Cambridge University, according to his website.

His journalism and writings over the years — touching on subjects as diverse as college admissions, immigration and homosexuality — have been described as everything from insightful to offensive.

In an article for the New America Foundation, he wrote that the government’s “vast and leaky conglomeration” of assistance and benefit programs had failed to ensure a decent living for workers, so “perhaps we should just try raising wages instead.”

Businesses could raise their prices a fractional amount to cover much or most of the cost of the higher wages, which in turn would feed the economy with spending, he argues.

He estimates that discount retailer Wal-Mart, for example, could cover the cost with a one-time price increase of about 1 percent. Wal-Mart spokesman Kory Lundberg said he did not know the source of Unz’s calculation and added, “It seems kind of hard to believe.”

Would it be a wash for taxpayers if social spending decreases but the price of consumer goods rises?

Unz acknowledged it would be difficult to craft a precise analysis, since it’s difficult to predict if governments would lower taxes or how different industries would cover the cost, through higher prices or cutting into profits. But overall, he argued higher wages and lower welfare spending would be “a very beneficial result.”

The proposal is under review by the state attorney general, and if it clears that hurdle Unz can then begin gathering tens of thousands of petition signatures needed to qualify for the November ballot.

It’s hard to predict its chances of passage, but raising the minimum wage has had appeal in California in the past — voters endorsed a wage increase by a landslide in 1996.

Bob Mulholland, a longtime adviser to the state Democratic Party, predicted the proposal would help Democrats, defining them as candidates in touch with Main Street.

“I think (Democrats) will see him as a sinner in the past but a welcome angel now,” Mulholland said.

But it could become a tricky issue for Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who is seeking another term and just signed a law that will raise California’s minimum wage to $ 10 an hour by 2016. Businesses are unlikely to welcome another boost.

“This is the essence of insanity,” said John Kabateck of the National Federation of Independent Business in California, who said every bump in the wage threatens jobs created by mom-and-pop businesses also struggling with a new national health care law.

State labor leaders might seem likely potential supporters, but at this point, Unz is being viewed cautiously because of his history in conservative causes. Also, labor is eager to link future increases in the state minimum wage to the rate of inflation.

“We are not totally clear on his motivation or his strategy at this point,” said Steve Smith of the California Labor Federation. “He’s not someone who has a record of supporting workers.”

Newsmax – America

GOP Millionaire Ron Unz Backs Calif. Minimum-Wage Boost

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Ariz. mom suspected of killing 2 kids in Calif.

Anthony Bertagna, with the Santa Ana Police Department talks with media Saturday Sept. 14, 2013, outside the Hampton Inn Suites in Santa Ana, Calif., where the bodies of two children were found dead. (AP Photo/Orange County Register, Mindy Schauer)

Two children were killed at the Hampton Inn Suites on Grand and Dyer in Santa Ana said Anthony Bertagn, with the Santa Ana Police Department. The mother of the children allegedly tried to commit suicide by ramming her car into a utility box behind a shopping center in Costa Mesa, Calif., Saturday Sept. 14, 2013. (AP Photo/Orange County Register, Mindy Schauer) /

Crime scene investigators photograph a car believed to be driven by a women who allegedly tried to commit suicide by ramming it into a utility box behind a Costa Mesa shopping center. Her children were found dead in the Hampton Inn Suites in Santa Ana earlier in the morning, said Anthony Bertagn, with the Santa Ana Police Department. (AP Photo/Orange County Register, Mindy Schauer)

Buy AP Photo Reprints

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) â€” An Arizona woman who was arrested on suspicion of killing her two children after she tried to crash her car into an electrical box outside a Home Depot had a propane tank in her vehicle.

Santa Ana police spokesman Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said Sunday the 42-year-old woman tied a rope or belt around her neck as paramedics tried to rescue her.

Bertagna says officers found her son and daughter dead in a hotel room after the woman told police where to find them.

The Scottsdale woman was released from a hospital into police custody on Saturday night.

Officers also obtained a search warrant for the hotel room late Saturday.

Bertagna says children’s father, who lives in a different state, hasn’t been notified.

Further details are being withheld until he can be found.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

An apparently suicidal Arizona mother was arrested on suspicion of killing her two children after crashing her car in a Southern California supermarket then directing police to a nearby hotel room where the kids lay dead, authorities said.

The 42-year-old woman from Scottsdale, was released from a hospital into police custody on Saturday night, Santa Ana police spokesman Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said.

Coroner’s officials were investigating the scene late Saturday, and the identities of the mother and two children along with the kids’ cause of death were being withheld while relatives were notified, Bertagna said.

Earlier in the day, police in nearby Costa Mesa were called to an Albertsons parking lot where the woman had crashed her gray Honda Accord with a Georgia license plate into protective poles surrounding an electrical box, Costa Mesa police Sgt. Tim Starn said.

Police said the woman appeared to have been suicidal when officers responded to the crash site.

“It was clear that it was an intentional act,” Costa Mesa Sgt. Tim Starn said.

As paramedics were taking her to the hospital, the woman told police where to find the children and what had happened to them, Bertagna said, but did not offer more details.

Officers found the children dead in a third-floor room at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Santa Ana.

The cause of death was under investigation, Bertagna said, but no weapon had been recovered from the scene.

It was not clear why the woman and her children were in Orange County.

Hotel guests were stunned at the discovery at the quiet inn on a sunny weekend in Southern California.

“My goodness if there’s two children involved that’s just horrendous to say the least,” Mike Ramey, who was staying at the hotel with his fiancee, told KABC-TV. “As a parent, it’s just a heartbreaker.”

Associated Press

U.S. Headlines

Ariz. mom suspected of killing 2 kids in Calif.

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Calif. County Votes For Secession From State

Supervisors in a far Northern California county where residents are fed up with what they see as a lack of representation at the state capitol and overregulation have voted in favor of separating from the state.

The Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on Tuesday for a declaration of secession, the Record Searchlight of Redding reported (http://bit.ly/1cFTqUG ). The vote appears mostly symbolic since secession would require approval from the state Legislature and the U.S. Congress, but supporters say it would restore local control over decision making. They want other rural counties in Northern California and Southern Oregon to join them in the creation of a new state called the State of Jefferson.

“Many proposed laws are unconstitutional and deny us our God-given rights,” Gabe Garrison of Happy Camp said at the meeting. “We need our own state so we can make laws that fit our way of life.”

Garrison was among more than 100 people who attended the meeting, and most were in support of the declaration, according to the Record Searchlight.

The declaration does not launch any type of formal process toward secession, but only reflects the county’s support, said Tom Odom, the county’s administrative officer.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

Calif City Looks to Seize Loans to Ease Mortgages

When the mayor of Richmond, Calif., and a gaggle of activists and homeowners showed up at the Wells Fargo Bank headquarters in downtown San Francisco this month, they were on a mission to speak with the bank’s chief executive.

They wanted the bank to drop a lawsuit aimed at stopping Richmond’s first-in-the-nation plan to use the government’s constitutional power of eminent domain to “seize” hundreds of mortgages from Wells Fargo and other financial institutions.

As Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and the plan’s backers approached the bank building, security guards locked the doors. After a bank official told her there would be no meeting then and that someone would call her later, she grabbed a bullhorn.

“I am absolutely not backing down,” McLaughlin said, as curious tourists and lunching office workers milled about.

Wells Fargo, three other banks and even the Federal Housing Finance Agency think otherwise.

The banks have filed two lawsuits alleging that the plan is an illegal abuse of eminent domain, which allows governments to seize private property for public use — like a house in the path of a new highway or a piece of land needed for a new park.

The banks argue the plan would “severely disrupt the United States mortgage industry” because many other cities would likely adopt the same program to help homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth.

So far, Richmond has sent out more than 600 offers, but has not yet begun any eminent domain proceedings. Newark, N.J., North Las Vegas, Nev., El Monte, Calif., and Seattle are considering similar plans, according to Wells Fargo’s lawsuit.

While the housing industry is recovering slowly, Richmond, a city of roughly 100,000 people, is in the middle of a housing crisis, as plummeting home values and rising crime has left many worried that an era of urban blight is upon them.

McLaughlin said cities are considering the program because they are desperate. Nearly half the mortgages in Richmond, for example, are “underwater,” where the owner owes more than the house is worth.

The plan is the brainchild of Cornell University law school professor Robert Hockett and here’s how it works:

“The fact of the matter is that underwater loans do default at massive rates,” Hockett said. “Underwater loans are a major drag on the economic recovery. We have got to do something.”

Richmond, working with San Francisco-based Mortgage Resolution Partners, offers $ 150,000 to buy a $ 300,000 bank loan on a house that is now worth $ 200,000 and is in danger of foreclosure.

If the bank agrees, the city and the company then obtain the loan at $ 150,000. Richmond and the company then offer the homeowner a new loan of $ 190,000, which, if accepted, lowers the monthly payments and improves the owners’ chances of staying.

In such transactions, the company receives $ 4,500 for each completed sale and splits any additional profits with the city.

If the bank refuses to sell the loan to Richmond, then the city invokes its power of imminent domain and seizes the mortgage. It would then offer the bank a fair market value for the home.

Mortgage Resolution Partners, the company partnering with the city, puts up the money and had promised to pay all Richmond’s legal costs. City officials have not said how many homes they hope to refinance through eminent domain.

McLaughlin is a Green Party candidate who beat back opposition from the city’s police and fire unions to win a second term in 2010.

She said she fears homeowners will begin to abandon their homes, leading to blighted neighborhoods and the draining of public coffers to the point of municipal bankruptcy experienced by Stockton, Calif., and Detroit.

“The city is stepping in where Wall Street and where the federal government have been unable or unwilling to do so,” she said.

Federal regulators said eminent domain isn’t the answer. The Federal Housing Finance Agency said plans to seize loans “present a clear threat to the safe and sound operations Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Home Loan Banks.”

Tim Cameron, a Washington, D.C., lobbyist with the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, said there is more at play than a single person’s underwater loan.

Cameron said pension funds, banks and other groups that made loans in Richmond stand to lose millions of dollars if the city is allowed to use eminent domain to force lenders into accepting less than the original terms of the loan.

He also predicted that cities using eminent domain will make lenders wary of doing business there.

“There’s a domino effect in play here,” he said.

Newsmax – America

Calif City Looks to Seize Loans to Ease Mortgages

Monday, August 19, 2013

Calif. GOP clings to immigration reform

Marchers walk during an immigration reform rally in downtown Los Angeles. | AP Photo

Eleven of the 15 districts held by Republicans are a quarter or more Hispanic. | AP Photo

MODESTO, Calif. – Republicans in Washington are taking a piecemeal approach to immigration reform — a strategy that could give the party’s most polarizing figures a months-long platform to pop off about illegal immigrants.

California Republicans have a much different line: Shut up and get it done.

The divide boils down to simple math for California Republicans, who know they can’t win elections here for long without the support of Hispanic voters.

Eleven of the 15 districts held by Republicans are a quarter or more Hispanic — and some of them are prime targets for Democrats who need 17 seats to take back the House in 2014.

But Republican leaders in Washington also face a much different picture nationwide: More than 100 House GOP districts have close to no Hispanic voters.

(PHOTOS: 10 wild immigration quotes)

So, while some Republicans in Washington might argue there’s no need to tackle immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, California Republicans believe they must —or face extinction.

Already the California Republican Party is on the rocks — Democrats hold every statewide office, and an unbreakable supermajority in both chambers of the state house. It’s a situation top players in the state party say is the direct result of missing the demographics tidal wave before it hit — a lesson the national party should remember as they debate immigration reform.

“Republicans in California ignored demographic changes,” state Republican Party Chairman Jim Brulte said in an interview. “As a result, we’re a significant minority.”

Republicans on a national level should take notice, because players in the California GOP argue that they’re merely experiencing what states like Colorado, Nevada and Texas will experience in a few years: a drastically weakened party that’s routinely rejected by booming minority populations.

“Ultimately, it could doom the party 15, 20 years out,” said Rob Stutzman, a former top hand to former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who is now one of the top Republican political advisers in the state, speaking of the perils of not completing immigration reform. “As decimated as the Republican Party has been in California, the opportunity here is to figure this out.”

The pressures are everywhere – but are most acute in the arid and hot Central Valley, where agribusiness is the dominant economic driver, and Hispanic voters are prominent. The need for immigration reform is not only cultural, it’s economic: The year-round, labor intensive farming of things like lettuce, almonds and stone fruit has led to the need for more workers.

Fifteen months away from the next congressional election, Democrats have already stuck a tracker on Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), who represents a 35 percent Hispanic district, and heavy agricultural communities like Ripon and the City of Modesto. As Denham held a town hall on a commuter train from San Jose to Stockton on Thursday, a young man who said he was there on behalf of his grandfather asked Denham if he supports the Senate’s immigration bill. His answer was no, but said later he thinks it’s a major step in the right direction.

In Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s Bakersfield, 1,000 protestors – mostly union workers – held a rally to try to pressure him to support a pathway to citizenship.

Many Republicans believe their only route to survival to find a way to connect with Latinos and Asians, who have doubled their turnout in general elections in the last dozen years. In 2012, 72 percent of Latinos voted for President Barack Obama, while 77 percent of Asians helped re-elect the president.

Making matters worse is internal GOP polling showing 65 percent of California voters have a negative view of the party.

That’s left the shared short-term view out here among most Republicans pretty bleak: We’re screwed.

“Republicans in California have now become experts at getting 25 percent of the Hispanic vote,” Brulte deadpanned.

The immigration reform debate isn’t over, of course, and a perceived legislative victory could help ingratiate Republicans with these minority groups. And few voters make a decision on a single issue. But in order to claw back to becoming a major party here, Republicans agree they need to get the debate behind them.

“All our polling shows immigration is the fourth- or fifth-most-important issue to Hispanic voters,” said Teresa Hernandez, who heads an immigration taskforce for the active Orange County Lincoln Club. “It’s one of those gateway issues — we want to speak to the Hispanic community on things that we agree on: education reform and jobs. But we need to get immigration off the table.”

All of this stands in stark contrast to the overwhelming Republican narrative in D.C. The skepticism about comprehensive reform that’s so pervasive across the Republican Conference is not prevalent here. At least two House Republicans — Rep. David Valadao and Denham —say they like the Senate bill, and are open to a new pathway to citizenship.

From donors to statewide lawmakers to grassroots groups, all are seeking a shift.

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Calif. GOP clings to immigration reform

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Of Bison, Birth Control And An Island Off Southern Calif.

Enlarge image i

A lone bison rests on Santa Catalina Island. A wild herd of bison has been roaming the island since the 1920s, and at one time numbering more than 600.

Kirk Siegler/NPR

A lone bison rests on Santa Catalina Island. A wild herd of bison has been roaming the island since the 1920s, and at one time numbering more than 600.

Kirk Siegler/NPR

In an open-aired Jeep, it’s a bone-jarring ride into Santa Catalina Island’s vast interior. The dirt road winds and climbs, twists and turns, climbing 2,000 feet up.

From there, the deep blue of the Pacific Ocean comes back into view, and if you squint, you can see downtown Los Angeles 30 miles off on the horizon.

Some days, you can also see wild bison.

“This is a really common place to see a bison, you’ll see them in groups, and then solitary males, very frequently in this stretch of road,” says John Mack, chief conservation officer for the private Catalina Island Conservancy, which manages most of the land here.

As if on cue, a couple minutes later, a lone male bison comes into view, standing stoically atop a ridge of a hill blanketed with scrub oak trees.

Enlarge image i

A scientist administers the PZP birth control vaccine to a bison on Santa Catalina Island. The island is the first place contraception is being used on bison in the wild.

Julie King /Catalina Island Conservancy

A scientist administers the PZP birth control vaccine to a bison on Santa Catalina Island. The island is the first place contraception is being used on bison in the wild.

Julie King /Catalina Island Conservancy

“It’s, well, an interesting thing to see,” says biologist Julie King from the backseat.

King is in charge of managing the 150 wild bison roaming the island. They’re by no means native. Fourteen of the animals were brought here in 1924 by a Hollywood crew for a film shoot. The movie never got made, and the bison were never returned to the wild.

“Logistically, probably, it was too difficult, and I’m guessing they thought bison were a lot like cattle, that you could turn them loose and herd them fairly easily,” King says.

You can’t. They jump fences. Or plow right through them. And with no natural predators, their population exploded. At one point in the 1980s, there were more than 600 here. That’s when the conservancy sprang into action. There was some hunting. But mostly they paid to ship excess bison, by barge, over to the mainland, and eventually tribes in South Dakota.

But lately, King and her team have discovered a new, cheaper solution: contraception.

Each spring, she and her small team set out into Catalina’s backcountry on foot, armed with dart guns and a birth control vaccine called porcine zona pellucida, or PZP.

“You have to be careful, because they will charge,” says King, who adds she’s had that happen on more than one occasion after successfully hitting a female cow with the PZP-filled dart.

But she says the risk is worth it, because the contraception program is yielding some impressive early results. Since it began three years ago, the conservancy has managed to bring the herd down to 150 animals; the number they consider sustainable.

No more shipping, no more hunting and no more culling.

That’s starting to get people’s attention in places where bison are a problem, like Yellowstone National Park.

“The problem is reproduction, you can remove animals ’til the cows come home and you haven’t solved the problem,” says Jay Kirkpatrick, director of the Science and Conservation Center at Zoo Montana.

Kirkpatrick says all eyes are on the work that’s being done with bison on Catalina Island. He hopes the early successes will bolster support for a similar solution in Yellowstone. The herd there is also too big for the park, and right now bison that roam outside and onto land grazed by cattle are sometimes shot.

Kirkpatrick says the PZP vaccine has been successful on female bison in zoos for twenty years. The privately owned Catalina Island is the first place contraception is being used on bison in the wild.

Even though bison aren’t supposed to be on Catalina Island, biologist Julie King says removing the animals all together is off the table.

They’re big business. Each summer, thousands of tourists climb into those Jeeps for a day trip into the interior.

“So many people come here because it’s closer than going to South Dakota or to Montana to see bison,” King says.

News

Of Bison, Birth Control And An Island Off Southern Calif.

Thursday, August 8, 2013

Hundreds flee, homes burn, 3 hurt in Calif. fire

Dave Clark, of Twin Pines, tells a neighbor their house is ok as his own house burns on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013. Residents and sheriff’s deputies were left without an escape route and stuck inside an evacuation area Wednesday night as a huge and growing Southern California wildfire left three people injured and burned homes. Fire officials said about a dozen structures were damaged or destroyed, but could not say how many were homes. (AP Photo/Desert Sun, Richard Lui) (Richard Lui The Desert Sun)

The wildfire burns along State Route 243 as a truck carrying a Cal Fire bulldozer moves up the road on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013. Residents and sheriff’s deputies were left without an escape route and stuck inside an evacuation area Wednesday night as a huge and growing Southern California wildfire left three people injured and burned homes. The fire broke out about 2 p.m. and grew with extreme speed, surging to at least 5,000 acres, or nearly 8 square miles, within a few hours, state fire officials said. (AP Photo/The Desert Sun, Richard Lui) (Richard Lui The Desert Sun)

A pickup truck is engulfed in flames as the Silver Fire roars through a residential area near Hwy 243 and Twin Pines Road between Banning and Idyllwild, Calif. on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013. (AP Photo/The Press-Enterprise, Frank Bellino)

Multiple structures burn in the Poppet Flats area as the Silver Fire roared through the area along Hwy 243 between Banning and Idyllwild, Calif. on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013. (AP Photo/The Press-Enterprise, Frank Bellino) NO SALES; MAGS OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

Twin Pines, Calif. resident Dave Clark tells some neighbors their home is ok while his own house burns behind him, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013 near Banning, Calif. A new wildfire has broken out in Riverside County near Banning, sending up a massive plume of smoke and surging toward three communities where people have been told to evacuate. (AP Photo/The Desert Sun, Richard Lui)

Buy AP Photo Reprints

BANNING, Calif. (AP) â€” A wildfire that broke out in the inland mountains of Southern California has expanded exponentially, burning homes, forcing the evacuation of several small mountain communities and leaving three people injured.

About 1,500 people had evacuated as the wildfire of more than 9 square miles raged out of control in the San Jacinto Mountains near Banning, said Lucas Spelman, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Three were injured, including two firefighters taken to hospitals by ambulance and a burned civilian who was airlifted out, state fire officials said. They would give no further details on the injuries.

Fire officials said about a dozen structures were damaged or destroyed, but could not say how many were homes. Footage from TV news helicopters and photos from the scene showed several houses in flames.

They include the Twin Pines home of Dave Clark, whose parents were killed in a house fire in Riverside in April 2012 the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported. Prosecutors alleged Clark’s sister Deborah Clark set the fire, and she was awaiting a mental-competency hearing to see if she was competent to stand trial for her parents’ murder in a case that has received extensive local media coverage.

A photograph taken by the Desert Sun newspaper showed Clark talking on his cellphone with the home fully engulfed in flames behind him.

“He said he lost everything, he couldn’t talk,” brother Jeff Clark told the Press-Enterprise.

About 800 people evacuated the Silent Valley Club, a private RV resort, state fire spokesman Lucas Spelman said.

About 700 more were under evacuation order in the rural communities of Poppet Flats, Twin Pines, Edna Valley and Vista Grande, and evacuation centers were set up at high schools in Hemet and Banning. The communities are in the San Jacinto Mountains along Interstate 10 some 80 miles east of Los Angeles.

Margaret Runnels of Poppet Flats was at work when her house came under an evacuation order. She was in Banning waiting for her husband to collect pets and valuables from their house.

“I was hoping they would let me back up to get some personal items I knew my husband would forget like a jewelry box and stuff that means stuff,” a crying Runnels told the Desert Sun. “You always tell yourself to prepare everything but you never take the stupid time to do it.”

More than 500 firefighters, helped by five helicopters and five air tankers, were working to protect homes and get ahead of the flames. All but three helicopters were grounded after night fall but were set to return to the air Thursday morning.

Associated Press

Top Headlines

Hundreds flee, homes burn, 3 hurt in Calif. fire

Friday, July 19, 2013

Wildfire still looms over S. Calif. mountain town

A female inmate hand crew from Puerta La Cruz and firefighters in an engine company with them set fire to reinforce the line to stave off part of the Mountain Fire burning up a hill toward them on Tuesday, July 16, 2013 off Apple Canyon Road near Lake Hemet, Calif. Tuesday, July 17th, 2013. Officials say the wildfire in the mountains west of Palm Springs has destroyed three houses and three mobile homes and is threatening dozens more residences. (AP Photo/The Desert Sun, Crystal Chatham) RIVERSIDE PRESS-ENTERPRISE OUT; NO SALES; NO FOREIGN

Helicopter crews work the Mountain Fire as it burns in the wilderness near Lake Hemet, Calif. Tuesday, July 17th, 2013. Officials say the wildfire in the mountains west of Palm Springs has destroyed three houses and three mobile homes and is threatening dozens more residences. (AP Photo/The Desert Sun, Jay Calderon) RIVERSIDE PRESS-ENTERPRISE OUT; NO SALES; NO FOREIGN

What remains of a home destroyed by the Mountain Fire smolders Tuesday, July 16, 2013, in Pine Springs Ranch, Calif. The fast-moving wildfire in the mountains west of Palm Springs nearly doubled in size Tuesday, prompting the evacuation of about 50 homes. (AP Photo/The Desert Sun, Marilyn Chung) RIVERSIDE PRESS-ENTERPRISE OUT; NO SALES; NO FOREIGN

A member of the Big Bear Hot Shots works the fire line on Apple Valley Rd. near Lake Hemet, Calif. Tuesday, July 17th, 2013. Officials say the wildfire in the mountains west of Palm Springs has destroyed three houses and three mobile homes and is threatening dozens more residences. (AP Photo/The Desert Sun, Jay Calderon) RIVERSIDE PRESS-ENTERPRISE OUT; NO SALES; NO FOREIGN

An air tanker fighting the Mountain Fire near Mountain Center drops fire retardant on Tuesday morning, July 16, 2013. A fast-moving wildfire in the mountains west of Palm Springs nearly doubled in size Tuesday, prompting the evacuation of about 50 homes. (AP Photo/The Press-Enterprise, Kurt Miller) NO SALES; MAGS OUT; MANDATORY CREDIT

Buy AP Photo Reprints

IDYLLWILD, Calif. (AP) â€” Longtime resident Dave Jones was back in his Southern California home a day after evacuating, but remained ready to leave as a huge wildfire fire threatened to top a ridge near his mostly empty mountain town.

The walls were bare in the home where he’s lived for the past 40 years after the 64-year-old and his wife stowed the valuable mementos, along with more practical items, like clothes, jewelry, medicines and the computer hard drive before heading to their son’s home in nearby Hemet.

“The fire came right up by the ridge yesterday afternoon, gave everybody a pretty good scare that it was going to come down the hill,” Jones said Thursday night.

The last time he evacuated for a fire it was 1997, and he stayed away for four days. Jones said he considered the order he got Wednesday “a light evacuation” and wasn’t afraid because he knows of a controlled dirt road to use as “an escape route” if fire does come down that ridge.

Forest Service spokesman John Miller said firefighters had made “great progress” by late Thursday night given the tough conditions and terrain, and evacuations were called off for a small handful of the thousands under orders to leave.

But the 35-square-mile blaze remained just 15 percent contained and had been growing in an atypical manner. The majority of the 3,300 fire fighters are on the western flank of the fire, near Idyllwild.

“Usually it cools down at night and we get more humidity. That hasn’t happened,” said Tina Rose, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. “It’s been burning like it’s daytime for 72 hours in a row.”

Temperatures were expected to dip into the 60s overnight before creeping up into the 80s on Friday.

“What we’re concerned about is what you see right here,” said U.S Forest Service Fire Chief Jeanne Pincha-Tulley, pointing to a hazy sky. “When you get a column that puts out this much smoke, embers get into the column and can drop anywhere.”

She added the column was expected to go right over Idyllwild for the next two days. While authorities said only 5 percent of the town rebuffed evacuating, they cautioned they might not be able to help those who remain if conditions worsen.

“We cannot guarantee your safety if the fire runs into town,” Idyllwild Fire Protection District Chief Patrick Reitz said.

The 22,800-acre fire spread in three directions through thick brush and trees. Roughly 4,000 houses, condos, cabins and several hotels in Idyllwild and surrounding communities were threatened. Fire crews struggled to carve fire lines around the town to block the towering flames.

Authorities said the fire was “human-caused” but they wouldn’t say whether it was accidental or intentional. There have been no reports of any injuries.

Idyllwild, the small town on the other side of the mountains that tower over the desert community of Palm Springs is known for the arts and is surrounded by national forest popular with hikers and flanked by two large rocks that are favorites for climbers. Popular campgrounds, hiking trails and a 30-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail that runs 2,650 miles from the Mexican border to Canada were closed.

“That’s going right down the middle of the fire,” U.S. Forest Service spokesman Norma Bailey said of the trail.

The evacuation center was alive with music Thursday as four teenage French horn players from Idyllwild Arts Academy rehearsed a piece by Austrian composer Anton Bruckner in a courtyard behind the cafeteria. They said they found it relaxing to play in an uncertain moment. On the other side of the building in the shade, a group of counselors picked at guitars and a ukulele.

“There were a lot of people practicing last night. I took out my piccolo and played a little bit,” said Sophia Yurdin, 16, of Los Angeles.

Grayson Hall, 17, a counselor at a Center for Spiritual Life camp that rents space from Camp Buckhorn said campers were aware a fire had been burning and were surprisingly calm when first told they had to leave.

“We had just done an emotional exercise about acknowledging your emotional baggage and letting it go. And right after we finished that, we got word that we had to evacuate. And we had to literally release our baggage,” he said.

The blaze that began Monday destroyed three houses, damaged another and destroyed three mobile homes, a cabin, a garage and about a half-dozen vehicles, the Forest Service said. Five commercial buildings, 11 other buildings and several smaller structures were also lost.

The fire was about 12 miles from the site of the 2006 Esperanza wildfire that killed five U.S. Forest Service firefighters and destroyed 34 homes and burned an area that hadn’t burned in many years.

___

AP reporters Raquel Maria Dillon in Idyllwild and Shaya Tayefe Mohajer in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Top Headlines

Wildfire still looms over S. Calif. mountain town