The recent mayoral race in LA was thought to have been a record low turnout, but it turns out that's not the case.
LA Times' MICHAEL FINNEGAN/BEN WELSH: "Voter turnout in the March 7 mayoral election in Los Angeles was 20%, just above the record low, final results show."
"Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County registrar, had expected turnout to break the record low of 17.9% in 2009, when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was reelected."
"But the final count, released Monday, was 407,147 ballots cast in a city with 2,030,173 registered voters."
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Lee Baca's case was won by a calculated and intelligent move in which the prosecutor purposefully abstained from calling select witnesses in an effort to get damaging anecdotal evidence suppressed.
LA Times' JOEL RUBIN: "Before his retrial even began, Lee Baca was already losing."
"In January, shortly after a jury had nearly acquitted the former Los Angeles County sheriff of charges that he helped obstruct an FBI investigation into abuses in his jails, Assistant U.S. Atty. Brandon Fox tipped his hand in a court filing. At the upcoming retrial, the prosecutor wrote, the government would not call several witnesses from the first trial who had testified that they tried to warn Baca about the inmate beatings and other corruption inside the county jails."
"Fox was making a calculated move. Without the appearance of those witnesses, he told the judge, Baca’s defense attorney should be barred from presenting evidence of any “good acts” Baca did as sheriff to address problems in the jails."
President Trump's federal budget proposal could mean lax FDA oversight on over-the-counter products.
LA Times' DAVID LAZARUS: "The Food and Drug Administration last week shut shut down several Colorado dietary-supplement companies that it said were selling “misbranded and adulterated” products that wrongly purported to treat “high cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes, depression and muscle pain.”
"The agency said violations such as these “put consumers’ health in jeopardy.”
"If President Trump has his way with the federal budget, it’s almost a sure thing that people increasingly will be at greater risk when it comes to the safety and effectiveness of over-the-counter supplements."
Speaking of the budget, there does happen to be some positive news: improved funding to 'initiate a robus interim storage program' on nuclear wastes.
LA Times' ROB NIKOLEWSKI: "A sense of momentum is building about finding a way to deal with the massive amounts of radioactive waste from nuclear power plants, including Southern California’s San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station."
"Last week’s Trump administration “skinny budget” proposal, which calls for boosts in defense spending but cuts in domestic funding and federal agencies, found $120 million for starters to “initiate a robust interim storage program” while also looking at reviving the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada."
“These investments would accelerate progress on fulfilling the federal government’s obligations to address nuclear waste, enhance national security and reduce future taxpayer burden,” a note said in the section reserved for the U.S. Department of Energy. (The Energy Department’s budget came in for a 5.6% reduction.)"
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Who said that playing videogames would never amount to anything?
LA Times' PARESH DAVE: "Jack and Paullie Etienne, co-founders of professional e-sports teams, are so obsessed with winning that they cut off their players’ Internet at 2:15 a.m. to encourage decent rest before practice."
"The Etiennes measure how much players practice, including on their own time, and how encouraging they are toward teammates. Rule breakers get a talking-to. And they afford players at Cloud9 Esports Inc. a full range of paid benefits, including meals and trainers, healthcare and retirement plans, to reduce their stress."
"Cloud9’s efforts — many of them trailblazing in the nascent competitive video gaming industry — have turned the Etiennes and their Los Angeles operation into a dependable source of ideas for their peers. But in Cloud9’s latest move, they’re the ones catching up with the crowd."
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Experts are saying that the hackers behind 2016's election interference were surprised by the strong response against the cyberattacks.
LA Times' ANN M. SIMMONS/MANSUR MIROVALEV: "The Russian cyberattacks that targeted last year’s U.S. presidential elections were as much about wanting to keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House as about proving to the world that the Kremlin was capable of pulling off this feat, a leading Russian expert on cybersecurity said Monday."
“Russian hackers deliberately tried to weaken positions of Hillary Clinton,” said Andrei Soldatov, author of a 2015 book on the Kremlin’s cyberwars against its critics. “She was seen as Russia’s enemy No. 1, a person who inspired Moscow protests [against PresidentVladimir Putin], a person who would harm Russia the most.”
"But Moscow may have miscalculated the fallout of its intrusion, which has so far led to resignation of a high-ranking U.S. official, congressional investigations and a bipartisan circling of the wagons around the need to protect the integrity of America’s democracy, several leading Russia experts said."
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A woman being asked for her proof of residency has publicly decried her harasser's racism, reminding a public at large about the sad disease of xenophobia and how it still lingers around to this day.
LA Times' ANH DO/CINDY CARCAMO/RUBEN VIVES/FRANK SHYONG: "The wary eye of a salesclerk. A snide comment made by a passerby. A remark about her mother’s uneven English."
"Diana Carrillo was accustomed to waving off the disdain that invaded her life as a Mexican American, she said."
"But after a waiter at an upscale Huntington Beach restaurant asked her dining party for “proof of residency,” the 24-year-old Irvine resident said, she decided to go public."
The US has banned the use of electronics on international flights originating from 8 Middle Eastern/African countries.
LA Times' HUGO MARTIN: "US officials have called for a ban on electronic devices larger than a smartphone in the cabin of flights to the U.S. from eight Middle Eastern and African countries, responding to intelligence information about terrorist threats."
"The airlines that serve the eight countries — Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Morocco — were given 96 hours to implement the ban, starting Tuesday morning, according to senior administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity."
"The ban would require passengers on such flights to put all laptop computers, electronic tablets and other devices larger than a smartphone into luggage checked into the cargo compartment."
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Sacramento's McClatchy High has a deteriorating athletic field and now members of the community are trying to figure out how to acquire funding to pay for repairs.
Sacramento Bee's BRAD BRANAN: "More than 100 people crowded into the cafeteria of C.K. McClatchy High School in Sacramento’s Land Park neighborhood on Monday night to learn what can be done to improve the school’s deteriorating athletic fields."
"Jay Hansen, president of the Sacramento City Unified School District board, said he thinks up to $4 million in bond proceeds can be found to fix the school’s aging fields and courts."
"Money from the local Measure R bond intended for school improvements has already been earmarked by board members, but Hansen says he thinks funds from a state bond and another district bond can help the school, which was built in the late 1930s."
