Dispatch: Week of July 13
Animal Action League clinic dates, L.A. County considers indoor mask requirements, and new school start times
Hello from California’s high desert. Air quality has been a bit unpleasant this week stemming from wildfires burning in the mountains of Mexico's Coahuila state, just south of the border.
Onto this week’s news:
In local news:
Momentum is building around a proposal for a new national monument in eastern Riverside County on the border of Joshua Tree National Park.
The area is home to ancestral tribal lands that are threatened by development and drought.
The proposal includes protections for portions of Mission Creek, Bradshaw Trail and World War II historical sites.
Groups are coordinating with the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan, and Serrano to ensure a culturally aware and respectful path forward in the project.
Animal Action League is hosting the last of its July spay, neuter, and vaccination clinics in the coming days.
AAL is holding clinics on Friday, Saturday, and next week Wednesday through Saturday, July 23. The clinics run from 10 a.m. until 2p.m.
There is an additional chip-only event on Wednesday, July 20, during the same times.
Pet owners are asked to schedule appointments for spay and neuter. You can call 760-366-1100 or visit animalactionleague.net to schedule an appointment. Vaccinations and chips do not require appointments.
AAL holds the clinics at its facilities on Route 62 in Joshua Tree (look for the dinosaurs on the north side of the highway).
Los Angeles County is currently seeing high transmission of COVID-19 due to the highly contagious BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants.
If it remains in that category, which specifies a threshold of 10 hospitalizations per 100,000 residents, the County will reimpose indoor mask mandates.
Other California counties have indicated they would take similar protective measures should hospitalizations continue increasing.
In state news:
The Washburn Fire is burning in Yosemite near the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias.
It has burned 3,772 acres and was 17% contained as of Tuesday. The Route 41 entrance into the park (through Oakhurst) is closed until further notice.
Other portions of Yosemite National Park remain open, but air quality warnings remain in effect.
Starting in the fall, California public high schools are required to begin classes no earlier than 8:30 a.m., and middle schools start no earlier than 8 a.m.
The change was a result of legislation passed in 2019 that moved school start times back to better align with parents’ work schedules.
In other news:
Emmy nominations are out. You’re welcome.
Speaking of must-see TV, the Bachelorette(s) started again on Monday for your guilty pleasure viewing.
Twitter sued Elon Musk in a Delaware court to force him to buy the company as he promised for a whopping $44 billion.
Musk tried backing out of the deal, citing false information about the number of bots on the website.
In other news, business reporters are in for an interesting summer.
Pupdate of the week: Alice lost her favorite outside ball this morning, but luckily we have a few extras of the exact same ball for exactly this reason. Oliver tried to catch (read: eat) a bee the other day but we successfully managed to get the pollinator out alive. Only Oliver’s ego was sore by the end, thankfully.
Trail tip of the week: I recently learned that you are not supposed to stop yourself when hiking downhill to save your knees and instead walk with a bit of bounce to your step to make sure you aren’t putting too much pressure on your joints. On steep areas, you are supposed to walk in a zig-zag line instead of straight down if the trail is wide enough to help make it seem a bit less steep. The more you know!
Show of the week: Emmy nominations came out this week, and if you’ve been around a while you know how much I enjoy these shows. Call it my guilty pleasure of guilty pleasures. Anyway! There is a whole host of awesome shows nominated, but Only Murders in the Building and Abbott Elementary are on the top of my list.
That’s it for this week! The Dispatch is off next week while we try to hike Mt. Whitney in a day. Wish me luck, and I promise to be outside for all of us in the next few weeks if you are not able.
- Megan