TimesOC: Orange County on verge of exiting state COVID-19 watch list

Good afternoon, and welcome to the TimesOC newsletter. It’s Friday, Aug. 21.

My name is David Carrillo Peñaloza, the author of the TimesOC newsletter and an editor for Los Angeles Times Community News. You can call me DCP for short.

The weekend has finally arrived in Orange County, and the county is on the verge of getting off the state’s coronavirus watch list.

Going into Friday, the county’s COVID-19 case rate was at 96.6 per 100,000 people, just below the 100 per 100,000 threshold. If the county can stay at or below that number and meet five other state pandemic metrics for 14 straight days, it can reopen schools for in-person learning after Labor Day.

Keep in mind that the Orange County Health Care Agency reported on Wednesday the first death of a child in the county due to COVID-19. The agency said the teenage girl had underlying medical conditions but didn’t release her age or identity.

Reporter Alex Wigglesworth wrote that the teenager became the second Californian younger than 18 whose death was confirmed to be related to COVID-19. The first died in Madera last month.

Close to 12,000 have died in California due to the virus, more than 850 of those in Orange County. Medical experts say wearing masks, social distancing and hand-washing will help the county, state and country slow the spread of COVID-19, in hopes of helping things return to some sense of normalcy.

60-year-old in the fight to end solitary confinement

Dolores Canales knows all about pain, it’s in her first name. Translate Dolores into English and you get “pain.”

She’s suffered in jail, in solitary confinement, and so has her son, John Martinez. The 60-year-old Canales, who served time for drug-related arrests, has been out for some time. As for her son, she said he’s still locked up because he committed second-degree murder as a young adult.

Reporter Ben Brazil featured Canales, from Fullerton, and her fight to end the kind of conditions she and her son, and many others, endured in the prison system. To change things, Brazil wrote that Canales helped found the group California Families Against Solitary Confinement in 2011 to support and advocate for incarcerated family members involved in the highly publicized hunger strike in the state’s highest-security prison, Pelican Bay State Prison.

“Why did a thousand people even have to go without eating for a few days to get these things resolved?” Canales told Brazil. “It’s the only way to get people to listen.”

How lifeguard Tower P got its name in Newport Beach

If you’re headed to the Wedge in Newport Beach this weekend and you see a lifeguard tower with the letter P on it, the P isn’t for the name of a nearby street.

On Balboa Peninsula, there is no P Street.

The story of how Tower P got its name dates back to 1983, when a 16-year-old named Eric Connella and his crew spray painted a P on the tower.

Reporter Hillary Davis caught up with Connella, now 53 and a financial advisor in Laguna Niguel, and told his story. The rest of the towers on the beach had a number or letter. Why not give the one near his parents’ house on M Street a name too?

O.C. rape case goes from D.A. to state A.G.

Orange County District Atty. Todd Spitzer got what he ultimately wanted, thanks to Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregory Jones’ ruling Thursday.

Davis wrote that the high-profile case involving a Newport Beach surgeon and his girlfriend accused of working together to serially lure, drug and rape several women has been taken out of the district attorney’s hands.

The case against Dr. Grant Robicheaux, 39, a former reality-TV personality, and Cerissa Riley, 33, is now the state attorney general’s office to prosecute. As Davis reported, this is what Spitzer asked for last year, to have the case transferred to the state because of how his predecessor, Tony Rackauckas, handled the sensational case during the 2018 election season.

Musicians worth reading, listening to

Two Orange County musicians play on during a pandemic and social justice movement.

Hannah Rooth, through virtual concerts, is educating the public about systemic racism and collecting social justice donations. Reporter Vera Castaneda interviewed the recent Irvine transplant.

Megan Rose Francisco, who had always performed with a band, is learning how to make music by herself, doing so out of her bedroom in Orange. Editor Ada Tseng featured the self-described extrovert.

Someone say cheese?

What do you call someone at a restaurant who serves as the house leader of cheeses, plans the cheese menus, executes the cheese party planning and does the cheese purchasing?

A cheesemonger.

Freelancer Bradley Zint profiled a cheesemonger, Tracy Nelsen, from Five Crowns restaurant and SideDoor pub in Newport Beach.

Golden State Killer given life

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., 74, was sentenced to life without parole on Friday for killing 13 people and raping 50, the last of which included the rape and murder of a teenage girl in Orange County in 1986.

Here’s the lede on the story by reporters Paige St. John and Luke Money: All that now awaits the Golden State Killer is an end of his days in prison.

Get in touch

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See you Monday afternoon.

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