While sharks prevail in the oceans, they are no match for fishers who catch them to cut off their fins for sale. Up to 73 million sharks are pulled from the water each year, according to the ocean protection organization Oceana, and hauled on board a fishing vessel, where their fins are sawed off their […]
Blog: Three worthy books for the California reader
Through the columns, Allen evolves from, in his own words, “a wannabe Dave Barry” looking to hone his craft at a regional paper before moving on to the big leagues into someone who grew to love the area he covered and never left. “On Track” at its best offers small vignettes — an Ontario man […]
Blog: What L.A. can learn from Minneapolis’ ban on single-family zoning
State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) has been pushing for even more dramatic change. Last year he offered a hotly disputed bill to override local zoning and allow taller, denser housing around transit stations — even on single-family lots. That proposal didn’t make it past the first committee hearing, felled by concerns that it would […]
Blog: The state of politics today should scare us into our wits
During the 1952 presidential campaign, Republican nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower gave a speech in Richmond, Va., after which the stage he’d been standing on collapsed. “I’m glad the general wasn’t hurt,” quipped his Democratic opponent, Adlai Stevenson. “I’ve been telling him for two months that nobody could stand on that platform.” This kind of humor […]
Blog: All I want for Christmas is the Godforsaken spammers to stop calling
It was bad, yes. I was getting perhaps three calls a day from numbers that were “UNKNOWN” or “NOT LISTED” or from my own phone number with a few digits switched. The caller invariably told me to give to the Police Foundation or that he was conducting a quick survey or that I needed to […]
Blog: Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s disappointing stance on logging and wildfires
To have such a powerful blue wave wash over California in November only to see Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) take up the mantle of the Republicans and the Trump administration — who constantly and erroneously chant that logging, which we have been doing for more than a century, will now save us from wildfires and […]