The West Ranch Beacon – News & Commentary for the Santa Clarita Valley

(From SmartMoney.com) Back-to-school sales are already in full swing, but shoppers hunting for bargains this year face the challenges of bigger bills and reduced store inventory. The average family will spend $606 on clothes, shoes, school supplies and electronics, according to the National Retail Foundation. That’s up 10.5% from last year’s average $549, and just slightly above the pre-recession spending of $594 in 2008. (more…)

Due to fire activity in the Antelope Valley, air quality in parts of Los Angeles County may be affected. Health officials urge all residents living and working in areas of visible smoke or where there is an odor of smoke to avoid unnecessary outdoor activity. “Everyone should avoid any outdoor or indoor exertion or exercise in smoke-impacted areas,” said Jonathan E. Fielding, MD, MPH, Director of Public Health and Health Officer. (more…)

The Community Hiking Club will be traversing the Walker Ranch and Bear Divide Trails on Saturday, July 31, 2010. Hikers interested should plan on meeting at the Walker Ranch Trail head on Placerita Canyon Road at 7:00 AM for a 7:15 departure to the trail head, leaving some of the vehicles at Walker Ranch. The other cars will drive to the base of Bear Divide trail. You’ll hike 2 miles up the Bear Divide Trail, cross through the wild land fire fighter’s camp, go down 3N17 to Wilson Saddle, then back up the road to Los Pinetos which we will take down to Walker Ranch. Total mileage will be close to 10 with 800 ft gain. Bring water, lunch or snacks and your camera…there are spectacular views! For more information contact Dianne at Zuliebear@aol.com. Hike subject to cancelation depending on local fires!

(From Science Daily) Researchers watched two groups of mice, both nearing the end of a two-day fast. One group was quietly huddled together, but the other group was active and alert. The difference? The second set of mice had been engineered so their brains produced more SIRT1, a protein known to play a role in aging and longevity. “This result surprised us,” says the study’s senior author Shin-ichiro Imai, MD, PhD, an expert in aging research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “It demonstrates that SIRT1 in the brain is tied into a mechanism that allows animals to survive when food is scarce. And this might be involved with the lifespan-increasing effect of low-calorie diets.” (more…)

The following is political activity for Friday, July 30, 2010, going on in Washington and across the nation. It is courtesy of Scott Wilk, Community Organizer, and Anchor Consulting group. The Beacon will be posting these daily as they become available. (more…)

Recently I was thrilled to meet one of my Facebook wine friends in real life: Carmen Russo. We both attended Kirk and Nicole Stinson’s 4th of July party and met, don’t you know, over wine.  I had brought a couple of “picnic” wines, a French Rose and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, while Carmen brought wine from her favorite Italian region, Montepulciano. She had quite a bit to say about the benefits of Italian over American wines so I’ve turned our meeting into an interview for Beacon readers: (more…)

Venerable Beacon columnist and humorist John Boston has won honorable mention in the 2010 National Society of Newspaper Columnists annual contest. John’s columns The Boston Report: Tarzan and the Moist Lions of Dr. Holly Peno ; The Boston Report: Coming this Fall: The Further Adventures of S.W.A.T. Monkey which appeared in The West Ranch Beacon and Stop Writing or We’ll Kill You from his own site, www.thebostonreport.net  all received Honorable mention in the Blog Column category which included the likes of Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times; Maggie Van Ostrand from the Huffington Post; Mary Curtis of AOL Politics Daily among others. (more…)

(From the AP) About 1,000 homes remain evacuated from homes in the Antelope Valley northeast of Los Angeles Friday morning as crews battle a wildfire that’s burned at least three buildings. Los Angeles County fire Inspector Matt Levesque says another 1,000 homes in Rancho Vista that were evacuated Thursday are now considered safe after the fire burned nearly to their doors but was stopped at an aqueduct. (more…)

(From the sacbee.com) City administrators from around the state scrambled Thursday to get ahead of the unfolding salary scandal in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell. The League of California Cities took the unusual step of lambasting one of its own and said it would explore state legislation requiring that the salaries of the highest-paid employees in state and local government be made easily available to the public. (more…)

(From the AP) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger challenged cities Thursday to post officials’ salaries on websites if they have nothing to hide. The Republican governor said Californians were asking what their local government officials were paid after revelations that the Southern California city of Bell paid three of its top administrators a total of $1.6 million a year. (more…)

(From the latimes.com) Three wildfires broke out in northern Los Angeles County on Thursday, the worst of which was threatening at least 1,500 homes in Leona Valley, near Palmdale. Some structures have been lost to the so-called Crown fire, officials said, but they will not be able to determine whether those were homes or outbuildings on the many ranches in the area until sometime Friday. (more…)

Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) issued the following statement to highlight the intention of the Obama Administration and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to direct the largest tax increase in U.S. history on families and small businesses starting on January 1, 2011. (more…)

(From nytimes.com) The United States economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter, after expanding 3.7 percent in the previous few months, the Commerce Department reported on Friday. (more…)

(From KHTS) Both the Briggs and Crown fires have flared and are once again burning out of control, according to LA County Fire officials. The US Forest Service has requested road closures at Soledad Canyon Road and Crown Valley Roads and Soledad Canyon Road at Agua Dulce Canyon Road due to the fires burning in the area. (more…)

The City of Santa Clarita’s Arts Commission moved forward on two agenda items during their July Arts Commission meeting. The Commission selected finalists for a new public art piece for the City’s Sports Complex Aquatics Center and a name was selected for the City’s new arts foundation. (more…)

(From the nytimes.com) E-books of the latest generation are so brand new that publishers can’t agree on what to call them. In the spring Hachette Book Group called its version, by David Baldacci, an “enriched” book. Penguin Group released an “amplified” version of a novel by Ken Follett last week. And on Thursday Simon & Schuster will come out with one of its own, an “enhanced” e-book version of “Nixonland” by Rick Perlstein. (more…)

(From Science Daily) A new article published in the 29 July issue of the journal Nature reveals for the first time that microscopic marine algae known as “phytoplankton” have been declining globally over the 20th century. Phytoplankton forms the basis of the marine food chain and sustains diverse assemblages of species ranging from tiny zooplankton to large marine mammals, seabirds, and fish. Says lead author Daniel Boyce, “Phytoplankton is the fuel on which marine ecosystems run. A decline of phytoplankton affects everything up the food chain, including humans.” (more…)

The following is political activity for Thursday, July 29, 2010, going on in Washington and across the nation. It is courtesy of Scott Wilk, Community Organizer, and Anchor Consulting group. The Beacon will be posting these daily as they become available. (more…)

C’mon. Up and at ‘em, wag it and shag it, you Thursday a.m. bunk huggers. Sun’s almost up and we’ve got some tall riding ahead. Actually, because of the time traveling aspect, we’ve got some tall riding behind. Relativity can just be a stinker when it crosses paths with syntax. Dress light. We’re riding into what will seem to be hell- the hottest July on record. (more…)

(From the AP) Mother Nature is helping firefighters in their battle against the most destructive of two big California wildfires that have burned homes and forced hundreds to evacuate communities on the edge of the Mojave Desert and southern Sierra Nevada. (more…)