In California: A sleuth helps find a missing hiker. And politicians rack up fines but pay zero
Julie MakinenIn California brings you top Golden State stories and commentary from across the USA TODAY Network and beyond. Get it free, straight to your inbox. I'm Julie Makinen, California editor for the USA Today Network, bringing you Thursday's key headlines.
But first. This is a lot of ferocious teeth! A new study out Thursday from paleontologists at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates about 20,000 Tyrannosaurus rexes were alive at one time, roaming a range that is now the West Coast of North America, from Southern Canada through the Rocky Mountains and California to New Mexico. According to the Mercury News, it's the first attempted headcount of the world’s most famous — and fearsome — dinosaur.
Politicians rack up fines, but never forced to pay
When ordinary Californians neglect to pay a traffic ticket, they get in hot water. Fines increase when people don’t pay. Eventually, people can be charged with a misdemeanor for not paying, or have their tax refunds seized through a debt collection process.
But when politicians, lobbyists and campaign donors don't pay fines related to required disclosure reports, they seem to get off scott free, a new CalMatters probe has found.
The California Secretary of State’s Office has failed to collect $2 million in fines owed by politicians, lobbyists and campaign donors who the office says filed disclosure reports late. It’s allowed some of the largest fines to languish for many years with no consequences to those who are supposed to pay up, the CalMatters analysis shows.
The debts are owed by 26 state lawmakers and 21 superior court judges, as well as former legislators, losing candidates, ballot measure campaigns, Democratic and Republican clubs and corporate and labor-backed political action committees. Forty-five of them are for more than $10,000, and some are for violations more than a decade ago — raising questions about whether California is effectively enforcing its campaign finance law that is meant to promote transparency and prevent corruption.
The Secretary of State’s Office sends three letters to people who owe the fines, but doesn’t take steps beyond that to collect the money, spokesperson Joe Kocurek said.
“It’s a large amount of money, and so the question is: What can we legitimately do?” Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in an interview this week. “They’ve done things in the past, (but) what good is a fining system, if you can’t enforce it?”
An amateur sleuth helps locate a missing hiker with satellite images
Ben Kuo scanned through satellite photos of the San Gabriel Mountains on Tuesday trying to match the terrain to a grainy image released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
Authorities had asked for the public's help in their search for a lost hiker, who was reported missing Monday. The Sheriff's Office posted on Facebook and Twitter, attaching a photo the hiker had sent to a friend. The photo showed his legs dangled off a cliff high above patches of green brush.
Kuo thought he could figure out where the photo was taken, or at least get pretty close.
The ham radio operator, who teaches courses in wilderness first aid and radio communications at CSU Channel Islands, had searched through satellite images before, tracking the spread of wildfires.
"A lot of that is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle," said Kuo, who runs an online site that tracks the venture capital and start-up communities as a day job. He found the same growth pattern to the south of the Angeles Crest freeway, then used Google Earth to set the lighting for the time of day when the hiker had called his friend for help. When he found a view that matched the photo, he alerted authorities.
As it turned out, the GPS coordinates he provided nearly hit the mark. A team found the lost hiker, Rene Compean, 45, around 3:45 p.m. Tuesday. In a tweet, the Montrose Search and Rescue Team thanked Kuo for his help.
Some Disneyland fans report seven-, eight-hour waits to buy tickets ahead of April 30 reopening
Disneyland fans really, really want to get back to the Magic Kingdom. Under the reopening plans for Disneyland and California Adventure, visitors need both a theme park reservation and a valid admission ticket for the same park on the same day to enter the park. The parks are also only open to California residents.
Because capacity will be limited to 15% due to state guidelines, Disneyland is managing attendance numbers on a new reservation system requiring all visitors to make a reservation for entry ahead of time, the theme park said last month.
But many people reported long wait times for the reservations and tickets on Thursday, with some saying they waited for more than seven hours. Others complained of issues the Disney website was having and warned other fans via social media to stay strong.
Are you 16 or older? You can now get a vaccine anywhere in California
Vaccine open season finally arrived in the Golden State on Thursday as all Californians 16 and up became eligible for inoculation.
So far, nearly half of eligible Californians have received at least one dose, and 30% are fully vaccinated, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. California has administered 24 million doses — more than any other state, and more than all but five countries in the world, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.
“This state is ready to come back, come roaring back,” Newsom said. “But the architecture of that is getting more shots in people’s arms — 50% is good but it’s not good enough.”
Excitement over open season also was somewhat dampened by state and federal authorities temporarily yanking the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — one of the three approved for use in the United States — out of rotation due to safety concerns. Newsom said that a safety board organized by several Western states had agreed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the concerns needed further investigation before bringing back the Johnson & Johnson product.
Here's one reason to get the shot: Burning Man hasn't committed to whether an event will happen, but, if it does, organizers have decided this much: vaccines will be required. The organization also has opened up 1,000 reservations — at a cost of $2,500 each — that would guarantee participants can buy tickets to two successive events when they go on sale.
Billions and billions...
A little-known startup just a few short years ago, San Diego’s autonomous vehicle maker TuSimple raised more than $1 billion Thursday when it listed on Nasdaq in its initial public offering, selling at a rate that valued the startup at $8.5 billion, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. That’s a significant jump from its valuation in 2019 when the startup made headlines for a $1 billion valuation.
TuSimple's IPO paled, of course, in comparison to Coinbase's Wednesday IPO. The San Francisco-based company that helps users buy, sell, and store cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin and ethereum was briefly valued at as much as $100 billion in its Nasdaq debut, a landmark event for the cryptocurrency industry. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is now one of the richest people on earth, CNBC reports.