December 3, 2018

Is bar that served Dallas Cowboy Josh Brent liable for teammate's death in 2012 crash? Jury to

Is bar that served Dallas Cowboy Josh Brent liable for teammate's death in 2012 crash? Jury to decide


After Dallas Cowboys linebacker Jerry Brown was killed in a drunken-driving crash, his mother forgave the driver — his teammate Josh Brent.

That forgiveness led jurors to sentence Brent to probation instead of prison time. But this week, Brown’s parents will ask jurors during a civil trial to cast blame for what happened. They say the Beamers club where the Cowboys partied is liable for the crash for serving too much alcohol to Brent.

Jury selection is slated to begin Monday. Testimony should start Wednesday.

Brent had a blood alcohol level of 0.18 percent — more than twice the legal driving limit — and was driving at least 110 mph in a 45-mph zone when he flipped his Mercedes. A toxicologist testified at the criminal trial that Brent, a defensive tackle who weighs 320 pounds, would have had to drink 17 standard alcoholic drinks.

Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2018/12/03/bar-served-dallas-cowboy-josh-brent-liable-teammates-death-2012-crash-jury-decide

December 3, 2018

Dunleavy to take office as Alaska governor amid ongoing earthquake recovery

JUNEAU — Alaska Gov.-elect Mike Dunleavy takes office Monday, days after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake rocked heavily populated Southcentral Alaska.

Dunleavy initially planned to make a 65-mile trek by snowmachine from the Western Alaska hub city of Kotzebue to Noorvik for the swearing-in. Noorvik is a tiny Inupiat Eskimo village above the Arctic Circle where his wife, Rose, is from.

But transition spokeswoman Sarah Erkmann Ward said those plans would have required an overnight stay in Kotzebue. Given the ongoing earthquake response, Dunleavy decided to abbreviate his trip, she said. He plans to fly to Noorvik on a private charter from Anchorage on Monday, she said.

Rural Noorvik mainly is accessible by plane and boat, on the Kobuk River. Locals commonly get around using snowmachines and ATVs.

Read more: https://www.adn.com/politics/2018/12/03/dunleavy-to-take-office-as-alaska-governor-amid-ongoing-earthquake-recovery/

December 3, 2018

Nearly 1,400 aftershocks have been measured since Friday's 7.0 earthquake in Alaska

Aftershocks from Friday’s magnitude 7.0 quake will continue to diminish over time, but that doesn’t mean the shaking will stop right away.

“You can expect earthquakes in magnitude 5 or 4 to continue for the next couple of weeks, and as time goes on it tapers off,” said Rafael Abreu, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey Earthquake Science Center. (Track the latest aftershocks here.)

As of Sunday evening, there had been nearly 1,400 recorded aftershocks of any magnitude; 593 of magnitude 2.0 or greater; 17 that registered at least 4.0; and five that were at least 5.0. All the aftershocks have been clustered around the epicenter across Knik Arm from Anchorage.

Abreu said models show the frequency, and strength, of the quakes should go down over time.

Read more: https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2018/12/03/nearly-1400-aftershocks-have-been-measured-since-fridays-70-earthquake-in-alaska/

December 3, 2018

Democrats have a mega-majority in the California Legislature. Expect them to swing for the fences

Californians can be forgiven if they’re slightly nervous about the new two-year legislative session that’s starting. Democrats haven’t wielded this much power in 136 years.

Even a devoted Democratic voter should wince at the overwhelming one-party rule. It’s not exactly what the nation’s founders had in mind and bears watching closely. Exhibit A: One-party Republican control in Washington the last two years.

In Sacramento, the Democrats’ power will be checked only by themselves. There won’t be enough Republicans and moderate Democrats in the Legislature to beat back liberals on most issues even if they wanted to team up.

Any serious legislative squabbling will be solely among Democrats. And there’ll undoubtedly be intraparty fighting over turf and goodies.

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-skelton-democrats-legislature-supermajority-20181203-story.html

December 3, 2018

The Doors - Strange Days

A reminder of life under the Trump regime.

December 3, 2018

OSIRIS-REx spacecraft reaches Bennu, and it will bring a piece of the asteroid back to Earth

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to scoop up a piece of an asteroid and send it back to Earth is about to rendezvous with its target.

After a two-year journey through the solar system, the spacecraft has finally caught up with Bennu, a small, dark space rock that is orbiting the sun about 75 million miles from Earth.

On Monday, OSIRIS-REx — which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer — will come within 13 miles of its new traveling companion.

Once the spacecraft arrives, mission controllers at the Lockheed Martin Space facility in Littleton, Colo., will begin to guide it even closer to the asteroid’s surface, where it will survey Bennu from a distance of just four miles.

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-osiris-rex-reaches-benu-20181203-story.html

December 3, 2018

Qatar's energy minister says country is pulling out of OPEC

The tiny, energy-rich Gulf Arab nation of Qatar said Monday it will withdraw from OPEC, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, in January.

Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, made the surprise announcement during a news conference in the Qatari capital, Doha.

Qatar is the world’s biggest exporter of liquid natural gas.

Qatar, a country of 2.6 million people where citizens make up just over 10% of the population, discovered the offshore North Field in 1971, the same year it became independent.

Read more: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-qatar-leaving-opec-20181202-story.html

December 3, 2018

Huge Delta water deal backed by Dianne Feinstein, Jerry Brown, Kevin McCarthy

WASHINGTON -- California’s most senior Democrat and most powerful Republican in Washington are teaming up to extend a federal law designed to deliver more Northern California water south, despite the objections of some of the state’s environmentalists.

While controversial, the language in their proposal could help settle the contentious negotiations currently underway in Sacramento on Delta water flows — the lifeblood of California agriculture as well as endangered salmon and smelt.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, the House majority leader, are leading the push to fold an extension of expiring provisions in the 2016 Water Infrastructure for Improvements for the Nation (WIIN) Act into the year-end spending bill that Congress must pass this month. And on Friday, they won the endorsement of Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.

The legislation would make hundreds of millions of federal dollars available for California water storage projects as well as desalination and water recycling programs.

Read more: https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article222443740.html

December 3, 2018

Public employees won't recover union fees after court ruling

For now, public sector unions don’t have to return money they collected from workers under a now prohibited system that allowed them for decades to charge fees to workers who did not want to join them.

A federal judge in Washington state this week dismissed a lawsuit that asked the Washington Federation of State Employees to reimburse so-called “fair share” fees to a group of workers who did not want to participate in the union but were compelled to pay the charges. The case will likely be appealed.

The U.S. Supreme Court in June issued a 5-4 decision that banned public sector unions from collecting any kind of fee from workers who do not choose to join them.

Since then, the attorneys behind the Washington case have filed lawsuits all over the country demanding that unions give money back to workers who did not want to participate in labor organizations, or who joined them only because they felt that no other option.

Read more: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article222444045.html

December 3, 2018

San Diego County wants to build 10,000 new homes in fire-prone areas

The San Diego region has no shortage of homes next to fire-prone hillsides covered in highly flammable chaparral and grasslands. The undulating, arid topography has carried flames at mind-boggling speeds in some of the state’s most destructive blazes.

Now elected officials in the county want to add another roughly 10,000 homes in areas largely labeled by Cal Fire as posing a “very-high” fire hazard.

Those units would come in the form of eight new sprawling housing projects, which have drawn widespread opposition and even lawsuits.

While the development, county supervisors have said the housing is badly needed and that, in each case, developers have laid out exhaustive fire-prevention blueprints.

Read more: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/public-safety/sd-me-wildfire-housing-protection-20181203-story.html