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LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Halloween is the celebration of all things scary. For children, this means dressing up as their favorite characters and enjoying tricks and treats. For adults, the celebration often involves alcohol.
Unfortunately, Halloween is also known for having the highest number of child-pedestrian deaths all year and ranks among the worst for holiday-related DUI crashes and deaths.
The California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) and California Highway Patrol (CHP) are providing tips to trick-or-treaters, parents, and partygoers to keep everyone safe this Halloween.
“Halloween should be a time of fun for kids and adults alike,” said OTS Director Rhonda Craft. “Some planning ahead, plus extra caution that night, can keep everyone safe on our streets this year.”
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, on Halloween night between 2009 and 2013, 119 people were killed by drunk driving, and 43 percent of all motor vehicle deaths involved drunk driving.
The number of deaths among pedestrians ages 5 to 14 is four times higher between 4 and 10 p.m. on Halloween than on any other evening of the year. In 2013, 26 percent of all pedestrian fatalities on Halloween night involved a drunk driver.
“With an increase in the number of children and adults out on Halloween, motorists play a critical role in helping to keep them safe,” said CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow. “As a driver, it is important to abide by the rules of the road and remain alert, sober, and free from distraction.”
Trick-or-treaters are often too excited and forget about safety, so motorists and parents must be even more aware.
Keep these helpful tips in mind when out and about:
• Plan your route ahead of time on well-lit streets. Avoid busy streets.
• Choose a costume that makes it easy to walk, see and be seen. Light color costumes are best.
• Select costumes, masks, wigs, or beards made of flame-retardant materials (check the labels). Avoid flimsy, lightweight fabrics and costumes with billowing skirts or loose baggy sleeves.
• A mask may keep kids from seeing well, so make sure they take it off before crossing the street. Consider using makeup instead of a mask for added safety.
• It is best to trick-or-treat when it is still light outside, but carry a flashlight so trick-or-treaters can see and drivers can see them.
• Use retro-reflective tape on costumes. Be creative in applying it to make it fun to be seen.
Adults often party on Halloween night, which can lead to drunk and drugged driving, and even dangers fueled by costumes and the excitement of the night.
Motorists, partygoers and hosts should keep these tips in mind:
• Avoid driving through residential areas where trick-or-treaters are likely to be present.
• This is a night to slow down, be extra cautious, and obey all traffic signs and signals. The risk of killing a pedestrian increases with just small increases in speed. A pedestrian is nearly twice as likely to be killed if hit by a car going 30 mph compared to 25 mph.
• Watch for children walking on roadways, medians, and curbs, and in dark costumes; they will be harder to see at night. Also, be aware that trick-or-treaters may not be paying attention to traffic and may run out mid-block or between parked cars. Motorists should scan far ahead when driving in residential areas, watch for children and cautiously monitor their actions. Turn on your headlights to make yourself more visible, even in daylight.
• Plan ahead if you will be drinking. Designate a sober driver. If you are already out and have had too much to drink, call a taxi, friend, or family member to drive you home.
• Party hosts should have plenty of food on hand for everyone throughout the evening and several non-alcoholic drink choices for the designated drivers. Do not allow anyone to leave if you have any doubts about their ability to drive.
• If you are going out on the town, be sure to download the DDVIP mobile app to locate bars, clubs, and restaurants near you that offer free non-alcoholic beverages and additional perks for designated drivers. The free app is available in both iTunes and Google Play stores.
The California Office of Traffic Safety and the California Highway Patrol want you to have a fun and safe Halloween. To keep up with the latest traffic safety information, be sure to follow us on Twitter at @OTS_CA and @CHP_HQ or “Like” us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/CaliforniaOTS or www.facebook.com/chp . For more information on all OTS efforts, visit www.OTS.ca.gov .
New results from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) mission are providing insights into the huge impacts that dominated the early history of Earth's moon and other solid worlds, like Earth, Mars, and the satellites of the outer solar system.
In two papers published in the journal Science, researchers examine the origins of the moon's giant Orientale impact basin. The research helps clarify how the formation of Orientale, approximately 3.8 billion years ago, affected the moon's geology.
Located along the moon's southwestern limb – the left-hand edge as seen from Earth – Orientale is the largest and best-preserved example of what's known as a “multi-ring basin.” Impact craters larger than about 180 miles in diameter are referred to as basins.
With increasing size, craters tend to have increasingly complex structures, often with multiple concentric, raised rings. Orientale is about 580 miles wide and has three distinct rings, which form a bullseye-like pattern.
Multi-ring basins are observed on many of the rocky and icy worlds in our solar system, but until now scientists had not been able to agree on how their rings form. What they needed was more information about the crater's structure beneath the surface, which is precisely the sort of information contained in gravity science data collected during the GRAIL mission.
The powerful impacts that created basins like Orientale played an important role in the early geologic history of our moon. They were extremely disruptive, world-altering events that caused substantial fracturing, melting and shaking of the young moon's crust. They also blasted out material that fell back to the surface, coating older features that were already there; scientists use this layering of ejected material to help determine the age of lunar features as they work to unravel the moon's complex history.
The importance of Orientale
Because scientists realized that Orientale could be quite useful in understanding giant impacts, they gave special importance to observing its structure near the end of the GRAIL mission. The orbit of the mission's two probes was lowered so they passed less than 1.2 miles above the crater's mountainous rings.
“No other planetary exploration mission has made gravity science observations this close to the moon. You could have waved to the twin spacecraft as they flew overhead if you stood at the ring's edge,” said Sami Asmar, GRAIL project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Of particular interest to researchers has been the size of the initial crater that formed during the Orientale impact. With smaller impacts, the initial crater is left behind, and many characteristics of the event can be inferred from the crater's size. Various past studies have suggested each of Orientale's three rings might be the remnant of the initial crater.
In the first of the two new studies, scientists teased out the size of the transient crater from GRAIL's gravity field data. Their analysis shows that the initial crater was somewhere between the size of the basin's two innermost rings.
“We've been able to show that none of the rings in Orientale basin represent the initial, transient crater,” said GRAIL Principal Investigator Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, lead author of the first paper. “Instead, it appears that, in large impacts like the one that formed Orientale, the surface violently rebounds, obliterating signs of the initial impact.”
The analysis also shows that the impact excavated at least 816,000 cubic miles (3.4 million cubic kilometers) of material – 153 times the combined volume of the Great Lakes.
“Orientale has been an enigma since the first gravity observations of the moon, decades ago,” said Greg Neumann, a co-author of the paper at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “We are now able to resolve the individual crustal components of the bullseye gravity signature and correlate them with computer simulations of the formation of Orientale.”
Reproducing the rings
The second study describes how scientists successfully simulated the formation of Orientale to reproduce the crater's structure as observed by GRAIL. These simulations show, for the first time, how the rings of Orientale formed, which is likely similar for multi-ring basins in general.
“Because our models show how the subsurface structure is formed, matching what GRAIL has observed, we're confident we've gained understanding of the formation of the basin close to 4 billion years ago,” said Brandon Johnson of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, lead author of the second paper.
The results also shed light on another moon mystery: Giant impacts like Orientale should have dredged up deep material from the moon's mantle, but instead, the composition of the crater's surface is the same as that of the lunar crust. So, scientists have wondered, where did the mantle material go?
The simulation shows that the deep, initial crater quickly collapses, causing material around the outside to flow inward, and covering up the exposed mantle rock.
The new GRAIL insights about Orientale suggest that other ringed basins, invisible in images, could be discovered by their gravity signature. This may include ringed basins hidden beneath lunar maria – the large, dark areas of solidified lava that include the Sea of Tranquility and the Sea of Serenity.
“The data set we obtained with GRAIL is incredibly rich,” said Zuber. “There are many hidden wonders on the moon that we'll be uncovering for years to come.”
The twin GRAIL probes were launched in 2011. The mission concluded in 2012.
Congressman John Garamendi is a loyal advocate for Lake County in Congress. He brings a diverse array of public service experience to the table.
Garamendi spent his days as insurance commissioner fighting for consumers, saving policy owners over $22 billion in premium costs. I received a significant rebate from my vehicle insurance company thanks to John Garamendi.
As majority leader of the State Senate, Garamendi championed legislation to improve health care access to rural communities.
Garamendi secured resources to clean up our lake and combat invasive species. Garamendi knows how important our lake is to our economy, and he’s helped secure the resources to protect it.
We’ve experienced four wildfires in 15 months, and have received Federal Emergency Management Agency assistance just once.
Garamendi held community forums and toured the fire sites with local representatives to learn our concerns and needs. He secured over $2 million in SBA loans to help homeowners and small business owners alike rebuild after the Clayton fire.
He also is introducing legislation that will require FEMA disaster relief assistance for communities that have experienced at least four disasters within 15 months.
Garamendi has spent his time in Congress fighting against corruption on Wall Street and working to establish a firewall between investment and consumer banking. He’s a strong opponent of the twin tunnels, and has authored a counter proposal that prioritizes new water storage, conservation and levee restoration over twin tunnel construction.
The community speaks and Garamendi listens. I have met and spoken with him at several local town hall meetings. He is knowledgeable, thoughtful and has good ideas on every issue I asked him about including water shortage, Clear Lake, our economy and jobs. I’m thankful to have him represent me.
On Nov. 8, I hope you’ll join me in voting Garamendi for Congress, so that Lake County can continue to have a strong voice for our working families and community in Congress.
James Evans lives in Clearlake Oaks, Calif.
We am submitting this letter because we think its important to support people who are willing to take on the monumental task of working for our community.
Monica Rosenthal is one of these people and she is our choice for supervisor in our District 1.
We have attended most of the supervisor candidate forums and are very impressed with her responses to the questions asked.
She is informed and knowledgeable and has a very impressive resume.
Our next supervisor must be accessible and available to represent us on all matters, especially as our communities recover from the horrific events that happened last year. We need someone who can give their full attention to us.
This is why we thought it was important to write this “letter to the editor” in support of Monica Rosenthal for supervisor. She's active and works very hard for us in all the areas of District 1.
Please remember to get out and vote on Nov 8th. It’s not just a privilege its our duty.
Rita Caroni, Dayle Marshall, Sandi Mino and Kitty Tucker live in Lower Lake, Calif.
Kite fishing
Question: Can you tell me the regulations regarding using a fishing kite from shore or a pier to catch fish?
We use these specially modified kites to help us get our lines out farther than the distance we could normally cast them. (Jenny C.)
Answer: There are no specific regulations prohibiting the use of a kite or other windborne device (a helium-filled balloon, for example) to help you to get your line out to where the fish are.
However, please be mindful of the environment and remember that any items or materials discarded or abandoned could be considered litter.
If, for instance, an angler used a balloon to catch a fish and then released the balloon when the fish was hooked – or when the line reached the desired distance from shore – the angler could be subject to citation.
Also, there may be local (city or county) ordinances that pertain to this, so please check with local authorities.
What to do about raccoons visiting my backyard
Question: I live in a residential area and raccoons have begun visiting my backyard at night. They are using my yard as a rest stop in their nightly urban foraging. Our backyard is landscaped including a grass lawn.
I am looking for anything short of cages to discourage them. Is there any non-toxic substance I can spread near their entrance/exit point to discourage their visits? They do not appear to be eating or digging up anywhere in the yard, but they’ve adopted my yard as their restroom.
I would appreciate any insight or suggestions you may have. (John W., Elk Grove)
Answer: We see an upsurge in raccoon sightings and reports this time of year because youngsters born in the spring are now independent of their moms and the adults are building up their fat reserves for the winter.
According to California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) Wildlife Biologist Jeff Cann, you should first remove all attractants from your yard such as pet food, dropped fruit, old garden vegetables, and securely close all garbage cans and compost heap containers.
Even water can be an attractant this time of year, so if you have a fountain or fish pond, try to make it off limits (e.g. electric fence or dry it out). If the raccoons are coming in through holes in the fence, block those entry points with wire, wood or some other barrier.
Keep in mind that raccoons are excellent climbers and are capable of gaining access to yards by climbing fences or using overhanging limbs to bypass fences altogether. Cutting overhanging limbs may help to keep them from dropping in.
If the raccoons are climbing over your fence, one deterrent could be to line the top with spikes or sharp tack strips. An easy way to do this is via carpet tack strips which are essentially a lot of little nails anchored in wood that carpet installers use to stretch carpet over. If you completely line the top of the fence with these then the raccoons will not use the top board as a transit way either.
A “hot wire” from an electric fence charger at the top of the fence will greatly increase the effectiveness of a fence for excluding raccoons but you’ll need to find a way to properly ground it.
While these may all seem like extreme measures, the point here is to make your yard less hospitable than your neighbors so the pesky critters will move on.
If you’re looking for chemical detractors, one option you could try is Capsaicin (a chile pepper extract). It's registered as a repellent for raccoons and may be useful in deterring trash-raiding raccoons.
A great place for more information on this is the University of California Integrated Pest Management Program page on raccoons. Good luck!
Is licorice legal bait?
Question: My brother and I have two burning questions we have been wondering about. Is it legal to use licorice to fish with as bait?
Also, we observed a man with a syringe injecting air into his bait worms so they would float off the bottom. Is this legal? (Marcus O.)
Answer: Processed food, such as licorice, are legal under bait regulations for inland waters where the use of bait is legal (California Code of Regulations Title 14, section 4.00).
It is also legal to inject air into a fishing worm and many such kits are found at sporting goods outlets. This method can be a very effective way to keep a worm off the bottom of lakes with heavy bottom vegetation.
Can you lure a lobster with a sardine?
Question: Are you allowed to lure lobsters out of a hole with a piece of sardine in your hand? (David C.)
Answer: Sure, you can give it a try, but I don’t know how successful you’ll be.
The law says that skin and SCUBA divers may take crustaceans by the use of the hands only and may not possess any hooked device while diving or attempting to dive for them (CCR Title 14, section 29.80). There is no prohibition against waving snacks in front of them.
Carrie Wilson is a marine environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. While she cannot personally answer everyone’s questions, she will select a few to answer each week in this column. Please contact her at
JACK REACHER (Rated PG-13)
Lee Childs, the author of the “Jack Reacher” novels, is even more prolific than Ian Fleming when he created a series of novels about British secret agent James Bond.
As such, the character of Reacher, only called by his last name, is ripe for a franchise, which Tom Cruise may have set forth in the 2012 release of “Jack Reacher,” an adaptation of Child’s ninth Reacher novel “One Shot.”
For the second go-round we are fortunate to have “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back,” which adapts the eighteenth novel. Deriving films from the source material in chronological order appears not to be essential.
Tom Cruise’s Jack Reacher is really quite good as the former Army Major who has become a drifter involved in righting wrongs and taking on bad guys. His mantra appears to be: Have toothbrush, will travel.
With the lead character now in his mid-fifties in real life, the question is how many more “Jack Reacher” films will Tom Cruise be able to execute? For now, he’s very impressive with his ability to kick start the thrills.
The nomadic crusader for justice gets drawn back into his old military life when his successor, Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), is framed for espionage because she got too close to the truth behind the killings of soldiers on duty in Afghanistan.
Other sinister forces are going after Reacher on trumped-up charges which could land him in hot water. On top of that, he has to deal with a paternity suit alleging his neglect of a teenage girl.
Tough and scary in his combat skills, Reacher is an unstoppable force who can take down four guys at once. This ability will be sorely needed to go up against the Hunter (Patrick Heusinger), who is determined to eliminate the former military officer.
In trying to get to the bottom of what is happening, Reacher has to stage a ruse to be locked up in the same heavily-guarded military prison with Major Turner just so that he can initiate a convoluted escape.
Dogged in his effort to destroy Reacher, the Hunter has Samantha (Danika Yarosh) in his crosshairs in order to draw Reacher out of hiding because our hero, who may not be the father, won’t allow the young girl’s life to be in danger.
With the Major and the girl on the run with Reacher, the trio ends up in New Orleans where the climactic action scene occurs during a French Quarter Halloween parade. If you’ve ever been to the Crescent City, you know they love parades for every occasion.
The ultimate bad guy is Robert Knepper’s corrupt General Harkness, who has little screen time and serves not much purpose other than to be the final piece of the puzzle about nefarious activities that placed the good guys in harm’s way.
Whether you are a fan of Tom Cruise or not, the important thing to savor a really good action thriller, and on that score “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” delivers big time. Here’s hoping for more in the franchise while Cruise remains in good shape.
TV CORNER – “DESIGNATED SURVIVOR” ON ABC NETWORK
We’re in the final stretch of a corrosive presidential election campaign that has many hoping for a tie in the Electoral College if only to obtain a different result.
The ABC network may be tapping into the national zeitgeist or at least into basic trepidations about where we are headed. “Designated Survivor,” not just good drama, posits a scenario of presidential succession in a time of crisis.
Keifer Sutherland has returned to network television not as Jack Bauer but as a low-level Cabinet member, though you may soon be cheering for his inner tough guy to emerge during critical moments.
The former star of “24” is Tom Kirkman, who has never held public office and is suddenly thrust into the national spotlight when a terrorist attack on Capitol Hill kills the President and everyone else in the line of succession.
During the State of the Union address to Congress, Kirkman, serving tenuously as the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, is left behind in an undisclosed location.
After the explosion, Kirkman, who lives in Washington with his wife Alex (Natascha McElhone) and a rebellious teenage son and young daughter, finds his life completely upended to assume an awesome responsibility for which he has obviously not been prepared to undertake.
A show like “Designated Survivor,” much like any political drama at the seat of national power, involves a lot of palace intrigue inside the White House, and there is plenty of that here.
Kal Penn’s White House Press Secretary Seth Wright, a gifted speechwriter, has strong doubts about Kirkman’s ability to lead the nation. It’s worse than that when a high-ranking Army General wants to go a step further as if following the script of “Seven Days in May.”
Even more insidious might be Adan Canto’s White House Chief of Staff Aaron Shore, readily willing to advise the new President while simultaneously harboring notions to undermine him.
“Designated Survivor” is a good political drama worth a look, certainly more intriguing, engaging and fascinating than what’s playing in the real world.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.