San Bernardino County, like the 3,143 other counties in the United States, committed considerable resources and manpower to its just-concluded point-in-time count of the homeless within its 20,105-square mile confines.
Point-in-time counts, annual surveys of homeless people in all 50 states and U.S. territories, have been conducted since 2005 by local agencies called continuums of care on behalf of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Point-in-time counts are coordinated throughout the country to take place over the course of a single night and during the following day, traditionally at the beginning of the year within the span of two winter weekdays in either January or February, an approach which limits the potential for undercounts since the weather encourages hunkering down and discourages movement on the part of those targeted for the tallying.
The data obtained from the point-in-time count assists the Department of Housing and Urban Development as well as a multitude of federal, state and local agencies focusing on social benefit and welfare programs by establishing the dimensions of the homelessness problem, identifying changes in the homeless population over time, tracking progress toward ending homelessness and providing a baseline for an effective and equitable distribution of resources.
The 2025 Point-in-Time Count took place on the night of Wednesday, January 22, 2025 and during the day on Thursday, January 23, 2025. Continue reading →

In recent days and weeks, there have been a large number of coyotes spotted in Rancho Cucamonga.
There is a sizable coyote population in the local foothills and in the areas of undeveloped chaparral at the periphery of Etiwanda and Alta Loma. Coyotes, while accustomed to human activity and less than fearful of people, instinctively avoid most human contact and do not often openly occupy areas frequented by large numbers of humans. They do, however, occasionally travel into and through urban areas where food and water are available, particularly during certain conditions or seasons, such as a drought when water is scarce.
It is believed, though not firmly established, that the coyotes seen recently in Rancho Cucamonga came south from the foothill area in reaction to the recent high wind conditions. It appears they migrated in or along or next to the flood control channels built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
A large pack of coyotes, which remained in the area for several days, was seen in the area near Foothill Boulevard and Etiwanda Avenue earlier this week. Continue reading →

Ridership at Ontario International Airport in 2024 eclipsed its most significant milestone since the City of Ontario re-attained ownership of the aerodrome from Los Angeles in 2015 and reassumed its management in 2016.
Last year, more than 7 million air travelers passed through Ontario International’s gates on their ways to both foreign and domestic destinations. The 7 million mark is of consequence because that is very close to the airport’s historic 7.2 million passenger high point which occurred in 2007. It was the sharp decline in ridership into and out of Ontario that began with that year’s local, state and national financial collapse and a more than five-year-running economic downturn sometimes referred to as “the Great Recession” which triggered an effort by Ontario officials, led by Councilman Alan Wapner, to wrest ownership and control of the airport back from the City of Los Angeles.
In 1967, when Ontario Airport had a sand flea-infested gravel parking lot and fewer than 200,000 passengers passing through its gates per year, the Ontario City Council entered into a joint powers agreement with the City of Los Angeles in which the larger city’s Department of Airports was to take over aviation operations in Ontario. Los Angeles officials, with their control over gate positions at Los Angeles International Airport, was able to induce a multitude of airlines to fly into and out of the smaller facility.
By 1969, flights out of Ontario had dramatically increased and would continue to do so as, Los Angeles World Airports, the corporate entity running the Los Angeles Municipal Department of Airports, used its influence with various airlines. Continental Airlines, PSA, United, American Airlines, Hughes Air West, and Delta established routes to and from Ontario. Though a benchmark of 10 million passengers at the airport by 1975 was not achieved, Los Angeles World Airports still assiduously promoted Ontario International. Under the management and care of Los Angeles officials, in 1981, a modern, second east-to-west runway at Ontario International was built, necessitating the removal of the old northeast-to-southwest runway. Continue reading →

Stan Hoffman, who with his wife Jeanne, defied, or otherwise found a way to wiggle around, the governmental standards and regulations being imposed in the 1970s by the officials of his generation on the innovations of that era’s youth to make possible a major cultural and athletic progression by the next generation, has died.
In 1976, the 45-year-old Hoffman was too old to himself take part as a direct participant in the transformation of skateboarding that was then occurring. It was his then-16-year-old son, Don, who was first gripped by the quintessential California phenomenon. Nevertheless, it was Stan who would turn the page so that in terms of skateboarding coming into its Golden Age, the rubber could meet the road, or, more accurately, the polyurethane could meet the elaborately-contoured concrete.
In the very early 1950s, while Stan Hoffman was in his early 20s, the skateboard – a small wood plank to which traditional metal roller skate wheels were attached – had just come into being, allowing the rider to “sidewalk surf.” In the early 1960s, the metal wheels gave way to ones composed of clay. Both metal and clay wheels, however, had the drawback of locking up or ceasing to roll fluidly if, with the weight of the rider pressing down upon the board, they encountered a pebble or gravel on the surface they were gliding over. In 1973, clay wheels were eclipsed by Frank Nasworthy’s introduction of polyurethane wheels, which were superior on multiple score, including traction, resistance to obstruction and a smoother ride. With the near simultaneous advancements in the assemblage that connects the wheels to the board, including the axles and baseplates, hangers, trucks and the fastening kingpin, which allowed the wheels to swivel and turn, skateboards became far more maneuverable than they had been previously. Continue reading →

As was done by the city councils in Colton, Chino and Redlands in recent years, the Rialto City Council on Tuesday, January 28 suspended logistics facility construction in its 24.09-square mile, 104,030-population city with the imposition of a 45-day moratorium on new warehouses.
If myriad issues relating to the impacts and implication of the facilities can be worked out within the next six to seven weeks, the halt in the consideration of new warehouse projects will come to an end on the Ides of March. If those areas of concern are not resolved to the satisfaction of a majority of the council’s five members, the panel will be able to renew the ban for as much as another year, provided four of its members are resolved to keep such projects, which have been prodigiously proliferating throughout the Inland Empire for upwards of a decade, in check for that long.
A major issue at play in Rialto at this point pertains to zoning for the facilities. In Rialto, which was incorporated as a city in 1911 and was referred to by the name Realito in Raymond Chandler’s 1939 novel The Big Sleep, has been marred over the last century by a hodge-podge approach to development and construction. In many cases, industrial buildings are not too distant from homes and schools. That tradition has continued, particularly as warehouse development throughout San Bernardino County and the Inland Empire has intensified in recent years. Continue reading →

Phoebe Dong, the Rancho Cucamonga woman, who with her husband last September was found guilty of operating a “birth tourism” scheme that charged Chinese clients up to $40,000 to help them give birth in the United States and obtain birthright U.S. citizenship for their children, was sentenced Monday to more than 3 years in prison.
Dong and her husband, Michael Liu, were among more than a dozen defendants charged nearly ten years ago when the U.S. Department of Justice during the Obama Administration undertook to prosecute those involved in an elaborate set of arrangements and mechanisms by which woman from foreign countries – the People’s Republic of China, Russia, Nigeria, Taiwan, Korea, Turkey and Brazil – came into the United States while hiding their pregnancies and then gave birth before leaving, conferring U.S. citizenship on their offspring in the process.
The 14th Amendment provides that any child born in the United States is an American citizen. Enterprising foreigners, the largest number being from the People’s Republic of China, have sought to exploit that Constitutional provision by assisting pregnant women, with the most numerous of those again originating in the People’s Republic of China, in coming into the country, generally on tourist visas. Once here, the women are but up in birth houses, which generally consist of large multi-bedroom single family residences or high end apartments, where the women bring their children to term.
According to the U.S. Justice Department, the motivation for these schemes varies. In many cases, those involved are looking to create a better life for their children by having them raised in the United States with the full rights and privileges of American citizenship as well as the prospect of ultimately obtaining a U.S. college education. An added bonus to this is that the women and their husbands can then use the citizenship of their child to obtain for themselves permanent U.S. residency. Another reason is the restrictions that were placed on Chinese citizens more than a generation ago, an effort by the government to control population growth in what was then the world’s most populous country by prohibiting couples from having more than a single child. Having a child in the United States is a way to get around that limitation. It has also been suggested that in some cases, birth tourism involving those from the People’s Republic of China is a form, or an auxiliary element, of espionage, as the family around a child born in the United States with full citizenship can serve as a “sleeper” unit, and can remain dormant in the United States for upwards of a generation, melding into American society, at the ready to be called into action by the Communist Chinese government at a time of its choosing.
At their four-day trial in September, Dong, who is also known as Jing Dong, (董晶), and her husband, also known as Michael Wei Yueh Liu (刘维岳), were found guilty of one count of conspiracy and 10 counts of international money laundering.
According to evidence presented by prosecutors, beginning no later than January 2012 and at least until March 2015, Liu, 59, and Dong, 47, ran a maternity house in Rancho Cucamonga and rented apartment units in Southern California to provide short-term housing and provide other services to pregnant women from China who traveled to the United States. Typically, within one or two months after giving birth, the women returned to China.
Among the services Liu and Dong provided was assistance in obtaining visas to enter the United States, customs entry guidance, housing, and transportation in the United States, as well as assistance applying for U.S. legal documents for the children of their customers.
Liu and Dong advised their customers on how to hide their pregnancies from the immigration authorities. Prosecutors convincingly argued at trial that Liu and Dong also knew or deliberately avoided learning that their customers made factual and material misrepresentations on their visa applications submitted to immigration authorities to enter the U.S.
Generally, their customers’ visa applications falsely stated that the purpose of the trip to the United States was for tourism, when it was to give birth, and the length of the stay was days or weeks, when it was in fact months. The visas also misstated the location where the customers intended to stay, which was the defendants’ maternity hotel.
Liu and Dong or their agents also advised their customers to fly to ports of entry where there was what was perceived to be less customs scrutiny, such as Hawaii, before flying to Los Angeles; to wear loose fitting clothing; to favor certain lines at customs manned by less strict agents; and on how to answer customs officials’ questions.
Liu and Dong received money from overseas and used that money to promote their scheme.
United States District Judge R. Gary Klausner on December 9, 2024 sentenced Liu to 41 months in prison. On January 31, Judge Klausner gave Dong a matching 41-month sentence and ordered her immediately taken into custody from his federal court in Los Angeles. Judge Klausner said he had reduced the sentences meted out to the couple, who had separated by the time of their trial last year, from the five-year maximum in deference to their 13-year-old son.