Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said he shifted resources from the solar company he bought three years ago to save his electric-car company from bankruptcy while it was ramping up production of the Model 3.

Musk made the admission as part of a lawsuit filed by Tesla investors over the company’s 2016 buyout of SolarCity, a solar-panel installer. Disgruntled shareholders contend Tesla directors rolled over when Musk pushed to buy the renewable-energy company. Musk was SolarCity’s chairman and largest shareholder at the time and his cousin was the chief executive officer.

“If I did not take everyone off of solar and focus them on the Model 3 program to the detriment of solar, then Tesla would have gone bankrupt,’’ Musk said in a June pre-trial deposition made public in state court in Delaware. “So I took everyone from solar, and said: ‘instead of working on solar, you need to work on the Model 3 program.’ And as a result, solar suffered, as you would expect.”

Pension funds opposing the SolarCity buyout say in court papers Musk should have told them Tesla was in no condition in 2016 to buy a $2-billion company and that it would be forced to rely on that firm’s manpower to keep Tesla afloat.

Tesla now has roughly 400,000 solar customers, one of the U.S.’s biggest renewable-energy portfolios. But Walmart Inc. sued Tesla in August, saying the company’s rooftop panel systems caused fires at their stores and warehouses. Tesla has also reached out to homeowners across the U.S. to tell them their solar systems need preventative maintenance.

Tesla’s rooftop solar business increased for the first time in a year, the company said during its most recent earnings report Oct. 23. Tesla deployed 43 megawatts of solar in the third quarter, a 48% jump from the previous three months.

In its earnings report last week, the electric-car maker said it earned $1.86 a share, surprising Wall Street. Musk delivered several positive updates: The company’s new factory in China is on track and the Model Y crossover SUV will launch earlier than expected. Tesla shares, which had languished for much of 2019, closed Tuesday at $316.22 and are down just 3.5% for the year.

Musk acknowledged in the June 1 deposition — unsealed Friday — that he probably wouldn’t support the SolarCity acquisition again given the stress Tesla faced from the Model 3 push.

“At the time I thought it made strategic sense for Tesla and SolarCity to combine. Hindsight is 20/20,” he said. “And if I could wind back the clock, you know, I would say probably would have let SolarCity execute by itself; would have let Tesla execute by itself.”

“But I just didn’t realize how difficult it would be to do the Model 3 program,” Musk added. “And so that was just a big distraction and sort of offset a lot of things by more than a year, year and a half maybe.”

To deal with that internal stress, Musk said scores of SolarCity employees — from engineering, management, sales and service — were transferred to the Model 3, the first electric car Tesla sought to produce in high volume. Some of the SolarCity workers were deployed to Tesla’s retail stores and delivered cars to customers, according to Musk’s deposition.

Tesla delivered a record 97,000 vehicles in the third quarter and the company’s surprise profit gives the company some breathing room. Executives have begun talking up the energy side of its business again.

On Friday, Musk held a conference call focused on “Version 3” of the company’s solar roof product, which was first revealed three years ago. “It’s been quite hard,” Musk said. “Roofs need to last a long time. When you add electrification to the roof, it’s a fair bit of complexity.”

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The 48-year-old Musk, who has had his share of run-ins with lawyers over the years, got particularly combative with Randy Baron, a California-based lawyer for Tesla shareholders challenging the wisdom of the SolarCity acquisition. They’ve sued the company’s board in Delaware Chancery Court.

At one point, Musk calls Baron “reprehensible” because the lawyer — according to the Tesla CEO — questioned whether SolarCity was a viable entity and the validity of sustainable energy as a whole.

“You seem like a very, very bad person. Just a bad human being,” Musk said in the deposition. “And I hope you come to regret your actions in the future, but you probably won’t. And that’s sad.”

When Baron questioned whether Musk’s push for the SolarCity deal amounted to a bailout, the executive snapped again and told he lawyer he was “a shameful person.”

“To bail out SolarCity was good for the world, you’re telling us?” Baron asked. “Advancing solar is absolutely good for the world,” Musk shot back. “Do you just think about money? What is your purpose in life?”

At another point in the deposition, Musk defended the SolarCity acquisition and accused Baron and other investors’ lawyers of “barking up the wrong tree.”

“SolarCity would have done just fine by itself and Tesla would have done just fine by itself, but in the long-term, they are better together. And that is what the future will show. That is why I think you should stop wasting your time now.”

The case is set for trial before Delaware Chancery Judge Joseph Slights III in March 2020, according to Tesla’s securities filings. Slights will hear the case without a jury.

Here’s a look at what roughly $800,000 buys right now in the coastal cities of San Diego, Oceanside and Chula Vista in San Diego County.

SAN DIEGO: Wrapped in stained-wood shingles, this charming 93-year-old Craftsman sits up above the street on a grassy, elevated lot.

Address: 4167 Ingalls St., San Diego, 92103

Listed for: $814,900 for two bedrooms, two bathrooms in 928 square feet (3,374-square-foot lot)

Features: Living room with brick fireplace; kitchen with breakfast bar; master suite with deck access; fenced backyard with freshly planted grass

About the area: In the 92103 ZIP Code, based on 11 sales, the median price for single-family homes in September was $860,000, down 0.2% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

OCEANSIDE: Bright splashes of color and a variety of outdoor spaces keep things interesting in this Southwestern-style ranch on half an acre.

Address: 1427 Avocado Road, Oceanside, 92054

Listed for: $780,000 for three bedrooms, two bathrooms in 1,586 square feet (23,958-square-foot lot)

Features: Skylit living room; multicolored common spaces; scenic dining area; trellis-topped brick patios

About the area: In the 92054 ZIP Code, based on 19 sales, the median price for single-family homes in September was $670,000, up 8.9% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

CHULA VISTA: This Spanish-style construction of stucco and clay tile is complemented by a guest casita and outdoor spaces with arched openings.

Address: 7 Bonita Road, Chula Vista, 91910

Listed for: $759,999 for five bedrooms, 3.5 bathrooms in 3,200 square feet (7,500-square-foot lot)

Features: Travertine floors; remodeled kitchen; second-story covered balcony; back patio with hot tub

About the area: In the 91910 ZIP Code, based on 36 sales, the median price for single-family homes in September was $588,000, up 12.3% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

SAN DIEGO: This turnkey two-story in the Del Sur community features stacked-stone accents, tile finishes and verdant landscaping in the front and back.

Address: 8453 Kern Crescent, San Diego, 92127

Listed for: $799,999 for three bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms in 1,930 square feet (2,970-square-foot lot)

Features: Open floor plan; granite kitchen; upgraded appliances; front-facing balcony

About the area: In the 92127 ZIP Code, based on 54 sales, the median price for single-family homes in September was $1.116 million, up 0.1% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

OCEANSIDE: It’s all about the views in this scenic home in Spinnaker Ridge, and a balcony off the remodeled master suite takes full advantage.

Address: 5014 Viewridge Way, Oceanside, 92056

Listed for: $799,000 for four bedrooms, three bathrooms in 2,251 square feet (6,762-square-foot lot)

Features: Two-story living spaces; column-lined dining room; kitchen with wine fridge; master suite with custom bathroom

About the area: In the 92056 ZIP Code, based on 66 sales, the median sales price for single-family homes in September was $566,000, down 1.5% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

CHULA VISTA: Past a yellow exterior with plantation shutters, this two-story home with a pool and spa opens to powder blue living spaces with travertine floors.

Address: 345 Corte Trova, Chula Vista, 91914

Listed for: $785,000 for five bedrooms, four bathrooms in 3,058 square feet (6,196-square-foot lot)

Features: Open floor plan; spacious master suite; second-story deck; fenced backyard with palm trees

About the area: In the 91914 ZIP Code, based on nine sales, the median price for single-family homes in September was $758,000, down 22.7% year over year, according to CoreLogic.

On a recent afternoon, Candace Bushnell and I were sitting at the poolside bar of the Beverly Hills Hotel. It had been 25 years since she had submitted her first “Sex and the City” column to the New York Observer, the weekly broadsheet where I was an editor. In that quarter century, during which Candace and I remained close friends, the column became a book, which became the wildly popular HBO series (running from 1998 to 2004 and winning several Emmys for its stars), which was followed by two movies, “Sex and the City” in 2008 (worldwide box office $415 million) and “Sex and the City 2” in 2010 ($294 million).

Candace was wearing a gray pinstriped, men’s-style vintage Tuleh jacket, flowered linen shirt, white silk trousers and leather Gucci slippers lined with lambswool. She ordered scrambled eggs and a pink Frosé cocktail. Tan, whippet-thin and preternaturally optimistic, Candace swivels between impish and WASPish — the “New England stiff upper lip” she was raised with in Connecticut sharing time with the crooked smile that made her a Meg Ryan doppelgänger and It-Girl of demimonde Manhattan in the 1990s.

This summer, Grove Press published Candace’s most recent book, her eighth, “Is There Still Sex in the City?” — part memoir, part dating guide for women over 50. Candace is developing the book into a TV series with Paramount Television and Anonymous Content; she is cowriting the pilot and will serve as executive producer. If she was a sensation in her 30s, Candace has become a franchise at 60.

“When I first got the column, the first thing I thought was, ‘This will be my big break,’” she said of her 34-year-old self. “I felt like I had been practicing for that moment for years. And when something like that happens to a woman, people tend to think, ‘Oh, it’s a random thing, and you just kind of got lucky.’ No. I’d been working professionally in journalism since I was 19. And one of the continual frustrations of being me at that time was the incredible sexism. Those were real #MeToo times. I find out now there are men out there who actively tried to sabotage my career. One even told me so. That’s one of the things that I really remember, is how the men behaved, and how as a woman you had to negotiate all of this. You’re trying to make a living against a backdrop where the negotiations are not straightforward. They’re always muddied by sexism.”

Candace’s initial title for her new book had been “Middle-Aged Madness.” In 2011 her husband, former New York City Ballet principal ballet dancer Charles Askegard, asked her for a divorce. (They had married in 2002, in a union chronicled in the “Vows” column of the New York Times.) “I felt like the system had defeated me,” she writes in the book. “Not only could I lose my home but I was about to become one more of the millions of middle-aged women who would get divorced that year. Who would have to get back out there, to once again look for a man who doesn’t exist.”

Candace wrote most of the book in her home in Sag Harbor, Long Island. (She also has an apartment on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.) Over those two years, her father died and her best friend, publicist Jeanine Pepler, committed suicide. During that time she also started dating Jim Coleman, a tall and strapping real estate advisor whom she met the old-fashioned way, at a party, and to whom she dedicates her new book. They were introduced by Chris Noth, the actor who played Mr. Big on “Sex and the City.”

“We live in a time when it seems like people have to keep starting over and over again,” Candace said. “The reality is that there are losses. It’s also a time when people feel like, ‘It’s now or never to change my life.’ In your 50s, you start to run out of steam. You’ve been doing everything and going so hard, and you get numb, because you’ve got this routine and you’re doing it over and over again. But then these losses hit you; there’s divorce, death. They make you sad and they do change your idea of who you are in the world. They can set off a bout of middle-aged madness, where the core of it is, you’re trying to figure out what to do to feel better about your life.

“One of the things that also happens to people is feeling like you are 12 again,” she continued. “Women aren’t menopausal forever. According to research I’ve done, you technically can only be menopausal for one year. And then you’re postmenopausal. Some women have said — and I had this experience too, when the hormones kind of go all of a sudden — you feel like you’re 12 again, the way you felt before you even had any damn hormones! Now I know it sounds kind of kooky. People do go a little bit crazy — like there’s a desire for running, a desire for dancing, for movement. The person may start hanging out with people who are much younger. If somebody is in the middle of this middle-aged madness — for instance, they’re dancing or they’re drinking too much and they’re behaving in a way that’s not themselves — don’t try to stop them, because they also could be very angry, and they will no doubt yell at you.”

If “Sex and the City” served as a blissfully unreliable narrator for women in their 20s and 30s, Bushnell’s gimlet eye has swiveled toward women in their 50s and 60s who are grappling with a “hazy future.”

“You end up getting divorced and you haven’t been in the job market in a serious way for 20 years. You have no income and you’re trying to get a job you had 30 years ago,” she said. “It’s really a feeling, ‘Well, I came full circle.’ It’s not the fairy tale ending that women are promised.

“What’s interesting is that doesn’t seem to really matter, what choices you’ve made,” she continued. “Although what ends up mattering the most is not love, but money. And, you know, that’s very, very harsh.”

Candace said she loves what she’s seeing in the work of younger women writers. “I’m very impressed,” she said. “I think women writers right now are really at the forefront. There is a serious level of thinking and analysis that women weren’t really allowed to do when I was in my 20s. I look at all these young women — many of them seem to have gone to Ivy League schools and had quite a bit of education. They’re not off-the-cuff, cowboy researchers like me.”

She took a sip of her pink drink and laughed. “That’s an edible flower,” she said.

When No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal and his wife, Erin Lokitz, renovated their Spanish Revival home in Los Feliz, they decided their furniture would be like their diet — strictly vegan.

“We really emphasized the need for a cruelty-free home,” Lokitz said. She tapped Tatum Kendrick, of the L.A.-based design firm Studio Hus, to source animal-friendly and kid-friendly fabric. Her guidelines? “No suede or mohair, and no silk, wool or down,” Lokitz said. A vegan-furnished household, after all, doesn’t include anything tested on animals or sourced from animals.

It may sound like a scene in “Portlandia” or an “SNL” sketch on California living: A famous musician and his actress-designer wife are so hardcore vegan that even silk doesn’t enter their home. But if 2019’s shortages of Oatly’s oat milk and meatless Impossible Burgers — now sold as an Impossible Whopper at Burger King — are any indication of the U.S.’ increasingly vegan-adjacent lifestyle, the Kanal-Lokitz family is ahead of the curve. If not inventing it.

After all, a recent study by food company So Delicious Dairy Free found 31% of those polled identified as “flexitarians” or those who regularly swap out meat for plant-based alternatives. A poll by British supermarket chain Waitrose reported that a third of U.K. consumers have cut back or stopped buying meat altogether. There’s Meatless Monday. The new year’s Veganuary. Is a flirtation with veganism in home design next? There are definite signs of a burgeoning (mostly) California-led shift.

The Duchess of Sussex, Los Angeles’ own Meghan Markle, recently selected a vegan paint for royal baby Archie’s room. What makes it vegan? It’s free of casein, traditionally used as a binder for wall paint, which is made from cow’s milk.

Meanwhile, several of Californian Elon Musk’s new Teslas are slated to go fully vegan in 2020 while Bentley is catering to California and U.K. clientele requests by offering vegan interiors — including one made from leftover wine industry grapes.

There’s also the environmentally minded French designer Philippe Starck’s recent collaboration with Cassina, the high-end Italian furniture design company (which has a location in Los Angeles on Beverly Boulevard). Starck’s design features a luxe collection of sofas and other furniture upholstered in his novel Apple Ten Lork, a “vegan leather” derived from apple cores and other waste from the apple industry. He’s also experimented with a flexible pineapple textile dubbed Piñatex, sourced from the cellulose fiber in pineapple leaves.

Miami-based interior designer Deborah DiMare, who has clients in New York and California, is ecstatic to see this rise in vegan design.

She runs DiMare Design with an emphasis on creating custom vegan, sustainable and toxic-free environments. That means her furnishings are free of leather-bound books, geese-down comforters, crocodile pillow covers and sheep wool rugs, among other animal-derived items.

DiMare points toward the wool industry, which has been accused of encouraging cruelty, as one of the many reasons she decided to switch to vegan furnishing. “There’s no way that you can bring in animal-based materials and decor and call it sustainable or call it clean or call it healthy,” she said. “It’s like saying carrot cake is not fattening. It’s just so toxic, and it is so devastating to the environment.”

It’s worth noting that raising animals for our food — and fabric — requires large swaths of land as well as energy and water and that it’s well-documented that animal agriculture produces large amounts of emissions that pollute our air and water. Thus, vegan advocates argue that by avoiding animal products they are de facto environmentalists.

For alternatives to wool, whether baby alpaca, cashmere or merino, DiMare suggests hemp and bamboo silk mixes. “Anything with a hemp or jute or sea grass mix will give that rough texture that wool has without the gamy smell,” she said. DiMare also likes cork for upholstery and wall coverings.

As for a silk replacement? DiMare says banana silk and Tencel (made from fiber found in wood pulp) are super soft and look and feel just like the real thing, without vast numbers of silk worms being sacrificed. “I try my best, when doing pieces for my furniture line, to stick with textiles that are as clean as possible — dye-free linens, hemp, bamboo and banana silks. For durability, faux high-end leathers work very well,” DiMare said. She says vegan leather is more durable than that made from cowhide and likes the buttery-soft textiles from Holly Hunt and Kravet.

When Kanal and Lokitz renovated their home several years ago, they used several of these alternatives. “Knowing nothing in our home has suffered adds to the beauty of it,” Lokitz said.

It helped that she and Kanal already had mostly animal-free items because Lokitz says down has always “creeped” her out. But they also wanted stylish and modern pieces to balance the heaviness of their 1920s Spanish-style home with its high beam ceilings and iron-framed windows.

The couple met Kendrick at their children’s preschool in Silver Lake, and their visions aligned, although Kendrick had never dabbled in all-vegan furnishing.

“It was actually really exciting, and once we dove into those parameters it really wasn’t that challenging to do,” Kendrick said. “It’s almost like eating out for vegan food in L.A.; everywhere you go there’s always vegan options.”

The expansive light-filled living room is the main hub of the household, so the owners wanted it to not only look fantastic but to hold up to wear and tear from playing with the kids and hosting friends, Kendrick said. “We anchored the room with a large Living Divani sofa that could accommodate Sunday family gatherings. We upholstered it in a Perennials indoor-outdoor fabric that is very resistant to stains and spills,” Kendrick said. And where there might be feathers in the sofa, there’s foam.

One of the spaces Kendrick and Lokitz love is the children’s playroom, which has navy walls and whimsical pops of color, including a pink custom-made sofa with the look of mohair. “We wanted this room to be fun and wacky since the living room is pretty calm and serene,” said Kendrick. One standout piece is a leopard-pattern nylon rug. There’s also a vibrant seafoam green vintage ’70s Saporiti lounge chair.

Many vegan lifestyle enthusiasts such as L.A.-based musician Moby (who is so dedicated to his animal activism he recently had “Vegan for Life” tattooed on his neck), tout upcycling as a vegan-friendly option.

“The only challenge we came across in terms of everything you would think of when interior design happens — style, colors, budget — was a large rug,” said Lokitz. Although cotton kilims or dhurries have Kendrick’s spot-on cool aesthetic, they weren’t as durable as wool.

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Kendrick ended up selecting a synthetic cut-pile rug from Perennials Fabrics that didn’t sacrifice coziness and used Perennials vegan textiles for reupholstering vintage pieces, including Vladimir Kagan lounge chairs in a pewter-hued faux leather.

The result of Kendrick’s design is a modern aesthetic with a slight masculine vibe. “We’re really proud of it because it just proves that you don’t have to sacrifice personal style or taste or function; you can be vegan and have it all,” Lokitz said.

After designing the Kanal-Lokitz home, Kendrick was brought on to design the interiors for Moby’s animal-free Silver Lake restaurant Little Pine, housed in a 1940s Art Deco building complete with the musician’s own forest photographs, rust-colored vegan leather cushions and raw wood.

Kendrick says that after working on both projects, her Studio Hus design firm now abstains from using animal materials and has more of a sustainable approach to design — in part because of customers’ demand for it.

At Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood, Jeff Sampson, vice president of marketing, has also seen the interest in vegan design swell. “Vegan hasn’t been a category that we have used in the past to categorize the broad array of goods that is available here at the PDC,” Sampson said. “But that may change due to the growing interest in the vegan lifestyle.”

Among the PDC’s vegan-friendly offerings are the Holly Hunt showroom’s high-end textile brand Mokum’s new La Primavera textiles collection, in which almost every piece is 100% polyester or mixed with other vegan-friendly materials like acrylic, linen or even steel. There’s also the A. Rudin showroom’s luxury faux leather and vinyl upholstery, handmade in downtown Los Angeles, and modern resin furniture pieces by O’Hara Studio.

But there are no PDC showrooms designated as all-vegan designs yet.

“It’s definitely still an emerging trend,” said Haily Zaki, the co-founder of LA Design Festival, which features interiors and architecture from Los Angeles and has been running annually for almost a decade. She notes that the vegan trend is further along in fashion because pieces are smaller and generally less expensive and complicated to make. “Here is the thing: If you want something to be vegan design, you need to pay for it. And it’s expensive.” Zaki said. She explains that because such careful sourcing is involved, many pieces have to be custom-designed and ordered.

Lokitz posited that cruelty-free pieces don’t have to be over-complicated. She points to a rug in her daughter’s room from Target. Meanwhile PETA has highlighted affordable offerings from big-brand stores such as down-free couches from Ikea, hand-woven throws that are sans wool from Crate & Barrel, and vegan cotton and polyester rugs from Anthropologie.

Lokitz co-runs a design company, Four + Four Design, with her husband and another couple, in which they buy and refurbish homes on the Eastside. She says they have been able to avoid using any animal-derived materials.

“We feel very fortunate and lucky that we’re able to make that choice of having the time to think about it,” Lokitz said. She’s raised both of her girls, now 5 and 8, vegan and because it’s been several years since she renovated her home to be all-vegan, she’s ecstatic to see the interest in animal-friendly living grow. “I feel like the awareness in the world right now, especially with the climate change, is really pushing design.”

As for Zaki, though she says vegan design can be exhaustive and expensive, interest is strong enough that for the upcoming L.A. Design Festival themed “future,” she plans to have a panel dedicated to the trend. After all, she respects the imagination that vegan design involves and says Los Angeles is home to an affluent clientele that can afford to experiment.

“L.A. has such a robust manufacturing community that if you can think it up, you can figure out any idea,” Zaki said. “If there’s anywhere where there are people who are creative enough to figure vegan design out, it’s here in L.A.”

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TOKYO — 

A fire early Thursday burned down structures at Shuri Castle on Japan’s southern island of Okinawa, nearly destroying the UNESCO World Heritage site.

Firefighters were still battling the blaze a few hours after the fire started early Thursday and nearby residents were evacuated to safer areas, Okinawa police spokesman Ryo Kochi said.

The fire in Naha, the prefectural capital of Okinawa, started from the castle’s main building. The main Seiden temple and a Hokuden structure, or north temple, have burned down. A third main structure, Nanden, or south temple, was also burned down later.

Nobody has been injured. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

A fire department official in protective gear told reporters in a televised interview from the scene that the fire was reported by a private security company that recognized the alarm. The fire that started near the main hall quickly jumped to the other buildings.

Footage on NHK television showed parts of the castle engulfed in orange flames and turning into a charred skeleton, collapsing to the ground. Residents gathered and looked on from a hillside road, where many quietly took photos to capture what’s left of the castle before it’s lost. Some people were crying.

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“I feel as if we have lost our symbol,” said Naha Mayor Mikiko Shiroma, who led an emergency response team. “I’m shocked.” Shiroma vowed to do everything she could to save what is remained of the castle.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters that the central government will also do the utmost for the reconstruction of the castle, which stands on a national park.

Kurayoshi Takara, a historian at Univerisity of the Ryukyus who helped reconstruct the Shuri Castle, said he was speechless when he saw the scene. He told NHK that the castle reconstruction was a symbolic event for the Okinawans to restore their history and Ryukyu heritage lost during the war.

“I still can’t accept this as a reality,” Takara said. “It has taken more than 30 years and it was a monument of wisdom and effort of many people. Shuri Castle is not just about buildings but it reconstructed all the details, even including equipment inside.”

The ancient castle is a symbol of Okinawa’s cultural heritage from the time of Ryukyu Kingdom that spanned about 450 years from 1429 until 1879, when the island was annexed by Japan.

The castle is also a symbol of Okinawa’s struggle and effort to recover from World War II. Shuri Castle burned down in 1945 during the Battle of Okinawa near the war’s end, in which about 200,000 lives were lost on the island, many of them civilians.

The castle was largely restored in 1992 as a national park and was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2000.

Okinawa was under U.S. occupation until 1972, two decades after the rest of Japan regained full independence.

SYDNEY — 

Around a quarter of the world’s pigs are expected to die from African swine fever as authorities grapple with a complex disease spreading rapidly in the globalization era, the World Organization for Animal Health’s president said Thursday.

A sharp reduction in the world’s pig population would lead to possible food shortages and high pork prices, and it might also cause shortfalls in the many products made from pigs, such as the blood-thinner heparin that’s used in people, said Dr. Mark Schipp, the organization’s president.

The disease’s spread in the past year to countries including China, which has half the world’s pigs, had inflamed a worldwide crisis, Schipp told reporters at a briefing in Sydney.

“I don’t think the species will be lost, but it’s the biggest threat to the commercial raising of pigs we’ve ever seen,” he said. “And it’s the biggest threat to any commercial livestock of our generation.”

African swine fever, fatal to hogs but no threat to humans, has wiped out pig herds in many Asian countries. Chinese authorities have destroyed about 1.2 million pigs in an effort to contain the disease there since August 2018.

The price of pork has nearly doubled from a year ago in China, which produces and consumes two-thirds of the world’s pork. And China’s efforts to buy pork abroad, as well as smaller outbreaks in other countries, are pushing up global prices.

“There are some shortages in some countries, and there’s been some substitutions using other sources of protein, which is driving up the prices of other proteins,” said Schipp.

Progress had been made toward a vaccine, but Schipp, who is also Australia’s chief veterinary officer, said the work was challenging because the virus itself is large and has a complex structure. He said a big step forward was the announcement last week that scientists had unraveled the 3-D structure of the virus.

African swine fever is spread by contact among pigs, through contaminated fodder and by ticks. It originated in South Africa and appeared in Europe in in the 1960s. A recent reappearance in western Europe came from wild pigs transferred into Belgian forests for hunting purposes.

Its capacity to spread rapidly is shown by its spread from China in the past year, Schipp said. Mongolia, the Korean Peninsula, Southeast Asia and East Timor have had outbreaks as well.

He said the spread reflects the global movement of pork and of people but also the effect of tariffs and trade barriers, which sends those obtaining pork to seek out riskier sources. And Schipp said quality control was difficult for products such as skins for sausages, salamis and similar foods.

“Those casing products move through multiple countries,” he said. “They’re cleaned in one, graded in another, sorted in another, partially treated in another, and finally treated in a fourth of fifth country. They’ve very hard to trace, through so many countries.”

An emerging issue in the crisis is a potential heparin shortage, Schipp said.

“Most of it is sourced from China, which has been badly hit. There are concerns that this will threaten the global supply of heparin,” Schipp said.

He praised China’s efforts to battle the disease and said the outbreaks would change the way pigs are raised.

“In China, previously they had a lot of backyard piggeries. They’re seeing this as an opportunity to take a big step forward and move to large scale commercial piggeries,” Schipp said. “The challenge will be to other countries without the infrastructure or capital reserves to scale up in those ways.”

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A New Day of Fire Danger

In Los Angeles and Ventura counties, extremely critical fire weather with strong winds and low humidity is expected to continue today

On Wednesday, brush fires broke out across Southern California, sending thousands of people fleeing, closing major freeways and threatening the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. As the winds howled, more than a dozen other smaller fires erupted in communities including Riverside, Santa Clarita, Brea, Whittier, Lancaster, Calabasas, Long Beach, Fullerton, Nuevo and Jurupa Valley. (See our fire map.)

The outlook was brighter in Northern California, where Pacific Gas & Electric Co. started restoring power to most areas and thousands of evacuees began to return home, as firefighters started to gain the upper hand on the Kincade fire. The wine country blaze has scorched more than 76,000 acres and burned dozens of homes, but many residents question whether officials overcorrected, pulling far too many people into the evacuation zone.

More About the Fires

— As firefighters continued to tame the Getty fire in Brentwood, most mandatory evacuations have been lifted.

— Helicopter water drops are challenging in high winds, but pilots are still hitting their targets.

— Inside the battle to save the Reagan Library as fire laid siege to the landmark. Plus, how Times photographer Wally Skalij got the photo with Reagan’s Air Force One below.

The Times is offering fire coverage for free today. Please consider a subscription to support our journalism.

Trumpworld and a Ukrainian Tycoon

Dmytri Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who is an alleged “upper-echelon” associate of the Russian mafia, has spent nearly six years trying to avoid prosecution in the United States on bribery charges tied to mining rights in India. In trying to fight extradition to the U.S., Firtash has aligned his defense closely with President Trump: He has hired lawyers who travel in the president’s inner circle and is pushing theories that he is being targeted for political reasons.

More Politics

— The House is expected to hold its first vote related to the impeachment inquiry of Trump today, on establishing impeachment rules. Senior House Democrats appear to have all but given up on getting much Republican support for their effort and are resigned to the reality that the process will probably continue along largely partisan lines.

— Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan told colleagues he’d be leaving his post today, but as of last night, it was unclear who will be tapped to run the sprawling agency tasked with national security, disaster response and protection of the president and his family.

— Chilean President Sebastián Piñera says he is canceling two major international summits so he can focus on the nationwide protests in his country. Trump had been eyeing to sign a trade deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping at one of them.

Rattlesnake Wrangler to the Stars

Fires. Winds. Floods. Mudslides. Earthquakes. The list of calamities awaiting Californians is long. One of the dangers that shouldn’t be forgotten: rattlesnakes. Sometimes you’ll find them on a trail (as readers like you have shared with us). Other times, you’ll see them in your backyard. What to do? Our latest Column One feature follows the adventures of a rattlesnake wrangler whose clients clients have included Jamie Foxx, Dwayne Johnson, Howie Mandel, Ellen DeGeneres and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

For one L.A. family, the Harrells of Hollywood, Halloween in 1935 looked a lot like Halloween today: parties, pumpkins and costumes. As a caption of a Times photo from their festivities, published in the Nov. 5, 1935, edition, recounted: “When all the masks were removed, the children were entertained by a puppet show before they went into the garden to play around the scarecrow.” Here are more photos of Halloween in 1935, plus one from that year’s Halloween Festival in Anaheim.

CALIFORNIA

— L.A. County supervisors have ordered coroner officials to examine the effects of body-part harvesting from the morgue, after a Times investigation found the practice had complicated some death investigations.

— L.A. could loosen one of the key restrictions in its new rules clamping down on Airbnb-type rentals, letting owners offer some rent-stabilized apartments for short stays as long as they live there. The idea has alarmed tenant advocates.

— But some L.A. tenants facing big rent hikes could get relief under a new program just approved at City Hall.

— LAX is sorry for the “unacceptable” gridlock and wait times that travelers have faced under the new ride-hail and taxi pick-up system.

— A former Solana Beach surfing executive has been sentenced to two months in prison in the college admissions scandal.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

— “Doctor Sleep,” the new sequel to “The Shining,” shows an understanding of the deep emotional underpinnings of Stephen King’s fiction while also being faithful to Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, our critic Justin Chang writes.

— Executives say many current HBO subscribers can get its new Max streaming service at no extra cost. It’s not quite that simple.

— Apple TV+ is here. Can it compete with Netflix and Disney? Apple hopes some freebies will help.

— When Edward Norton persuaded New Line Cinema to buy the rights to “Motherless Brooklyn” 20 years ago, he didn’t know he’d end up directing the sweeping crime epic. “The greedy actor impulse definitely came first.”

— Meet Naomi Ackie, the new face of a more inclusive galaxy as a star of the forthcoming “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.”

NATION-WORLD

— An extraordinary video offers a behind-the-scenes look at what happened when Mexican security forces briefly captured El Chapo’s son, one of the world’s most-wanted cartel leaders.

— In Lebanon, Hezbollah‘s path to power just got rougher.

— Traditional Chinese medicine doctors are secretly helping Hong Kong protesters.

BUSINESS

— A former Juul executive fired this year says the vaping company knowingly shipped 1 million tainted nicotine pods to customers.

— Twitter is banning all political ads, in contrast with Facebook.

— The Fed cut rates again, for the third time in a row, as the trade war and lagging global growth threaten the longest economic expansion in American history.

SPORTS

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— In Game 7, Howie Kendrick sparked the Washington Nationals’ comeback over the Houston Astros leading to the first World Series victory in Nats franchise history.

— Here’s why Arnold Schwarzenegger says Kawhi Leonard could have a future in Hollywood.

— The fastest man in the world — 100-meter dash world record-holder Usain Bolt — wouldn’t mind playing for the Patriots or the Packers.

OPINION

— Despite the blackouts, California is still burning. Are we experiencing fewer fires than we would without them — or are they ineffective because they’re badly thought out or poorly implemented? The Times’ editorial board explores.

— How we treat 44 sick and elderly chimpanzees says a lot about us as a society, NYU professor Jeff Sebo writes.

— “My father despised Halloween. It was only years later that I came to understand what it was about.”

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

— House Speaker Nancy Pelosi drops some hints about the impeachment process ahead. (The Atlantic)

— How Gang Starr, one of hip-hop’s most iconic duos, died and came back to life. (New York Times)

— Why sales of “Baby Shark” products went through the roof during the World Series. (CNBC)

ONLY IN L.A.

It may sound like an “Saturday Night Live” sketch on California living: A famous musician and his actress-designer wife are so hardcore vegan that even silk doesn’t enter their home. But if 2019’s oat-milk shortages are any indication of broader American lifestyles, No Doubt bassist Tony Kanal and his wife, Erin Lokitz, may be ahead of the curve. In renovating their Spanish Revival home in Los Feliz, they kept their furniture vegan. That can mean ditching wool for hemp, goose down for foam, silk for bananas and leather for pineapples.

If you like this newsletter, please share it with friends. Comments or ideas? Email us at [email protected].

SEOUL — 

North Korea on Thursday fired two projectiles into its eastern sea, an apparent resumption of weapons tests aimed at ramping up pressure on Washington over a stalemate in nuclear negotiations, according to officials in South Korea and Japan.

The launches followed statements of displeasure by top North Korean officials over the slow pace of nuclear negotiations with the United States and demands that the Trump administration ease crippling sanctions and pressure on their country.

Analysts say the North could dial up its weapons demonstrations in the coming weeks as it approaches an end-of-year deadline set by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for Washington to offer mutually acceptable terms for a deal to salvage the nuclear diplomacy.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the weapons were fired from an area near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang and flew about 230 miles across the country at a height of up to 56 miles before landing off its eastern coast. The Joint Chiefs of Staff urged the North to “immediately stop actions that do not help efforts to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.”

The military didn’t immediately confirm whether the weapons were ballistic missiles or rocket artillery. The office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in described them as short-range projectiles.

Japan’s Defense Ministry said it believed they were ballistic missiles, but they did not reach Japan’s territorial waters or its exclusive economic zone. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned the launches “as an act that threatens the peace and safety of Japan and the region.”

Seoul’s presidential Blue House said National Security Director Chung Eui-yong presided over an emergency National Security Council meeting where officials expressed “strong concern” and discussed North Korea’s possible intent.

Senior North Korean official Kim Yong Chol on Sunday said his country was running out of patience with the United States over what it described as unilateral disarmament demands, and warned that a close personal relationship between the leaders alone would not be enough to prevent nuclear diplomacy from derailing. He said the administration of President Trump would be “seriously mistaken” if it ignores Kim Jong Un’s end-of-year deadline.

In a speech in Azerbaijan earlier this week, Choe Ryong Hae, considered the second-most powerful official in North Korea, said the deadlocked nuclear negotiations had put the Korean Peninsula at a crossroads between peace and a “touch-and-go crisis,” and demanded that the United States remove its “hostile” policy of sanctions and pressure on the North.

Nam Sung-wook, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Korea University, said more North Korean weapons displays are likely. There’s a possibility that the North will fire some of its powerful midrange missiles over Japan, as it did during a provocative run in weapons tests in 2017, he said.

“North Korea is investing all its strength in a hard-line position against Washington and Seoul,” said Nam, a former president of the Institute for National Security Strategy, a think tank affiliated with South Korea’s main spy agency. “If its missiles fly over Japan, the international impact would be huge because the United States and Japan would find it difficult to let it go,” he said.

Earlier this month, the North test-fired an underwater-launched ballistic missile for the first time in three years. The North has also tested new short-range ballistic missile and rocket artillery systems in recent months in what experts saw as an effort to use the standstill in talks to advance its military capabilities while increasing its bargaining power.

Negotiations have faltered after the collapse of a February summit between Kim Jong Un and Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam, where the U.S. rejected North Korean demands for broad sanctions relief in exchange for piecemeal progress toward partially surrendering its nuclear capabilities.

The North responded with intensified testing activity while Kim said he would “wait with patience until the end of the year for the United States to come up with a courageous decision.”

Washington and Pyongyang resumed working-level discussion in Sweden earlier this month, but the meeting broke down amid acrimony, with the North Koreans calling the talks “sickening” and accusing the Americans of maintaining an “old stance and attitude.”

After the breakdown in Sweden, North Korea released a series of photos showing Kim riding a white horse to a snow-covered Mt. Paektu, a volcano considered sacred by North Koreans and a place where the leader has often visited before making key decisions. Speaking to officials near the mountain, Kim vowed to overcome U.S.-led sanctions that he said had both pained and infuriated his people.

News of the launches came after South Korea said earlier Thursday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un sent a message of condolence to Moon over his mother’s recent death. The two leaders met three times last year and struck a set of deals aimed at easing animosities and boosting exchanges. But in recent months, North Korea has drastically reduced its engagement and diplomatic activities with South Korea, after Seoul failed to resume lucrative joint economic projects held back by U.S.-led U.N. sanctions.

Last week, Kim ordered the destruction of South Korean-built facilities at a long-shuttered joint tourist project at North Korea’s scenic Diamond Mountain resort. South Korea later proposed talks, but North Korea has insisted they exchange documents to work out details of Kim’s order.

“The North Korean leader does not ride a white horse to the top of Paektu mountain because he is satisfied with the status quo,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

“Kim’s year-end threat is as much a deadline for economic progress as it is a diplomatic ultimatum,” Easley said. “This is why Pyongyang is increasing pressure on Seoul and Washington in the form of announcing plans to bulldoze even stalled inter-Korean projects, such as at Mount Kumgang, while continuing provocative missile tests.”

The 25-year-old has won 14 caps for Brazil and arrives at Goodison Park before the close of the transfer window.

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Everton have completed the signing of Brazil winger Bernard on a four-year deal from Shakhtar Donetsk.

The 25-year-old, who has won 14 caps for his country since 2014, links up with new Toffees boss Marco Silva at Goodison Park to become their fourth signing of the summer, and will wear number 20 for the club.

Bernard began his professional career at Atletico Mineiro in 2010 before joining the Ukrainian champions three years later, where he won the Ukrainian Premier League, Ukrainian Super Cup and Ukrainian Cup three times each.

At international level, he was also part of the Brazil team who won the 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup and played for his country at their home World Cup in 2014.

Speaking to evertontv, Bernard said that the chance to join a “great club with great tradition” was the key driving factor behind his decision to sign for the club, vowing to help “make things happen” alongside former Watford manager Silva.

“I chose Everton because of all the things I had heard about Marco Silva and after speaking to him I was happy with what he said to me,” the midfielder said. “The manager made me feel confident about playing here. He has achieved really good things at other clubs.

“Everton is a club with a great structure and a lot of tradition. When I found out about this opportunity and what the manager wanted out of me, I was happy.

“I did not need any convincing to come here. I believe I will be able to show my best as a player here.

“I can promise I will try my hardest and dedicate myself to my work and to trying to make things happen for Everton.”

Speaking on Bernard’s acquisition, Silva added: “Bernard is a quick player, very good technically and he can play on the left or right wings and as an offensive midfield player behind the striker.

“The fact he has 14 caps for Brazil is a further reflection of his quality.”

The signing of Bernard was quickly followed up by the double capture of Colombian defender Yerry Mina and Portuguese midfielder Andre Gomes from Barcelona.

Everton begin their Premier League campaign away to Wolves at Molineux on August 11 before they host Southampton on Merseyside a week later on August 18.

The Chilean forward is among those to have been left disappointed by a lack of transfer activity at Old Trafford during a quiet summer window

Alexis Sanchez admits he was hoping for “more world-class players” to arrive at Manchester United as Jose Mourinho faces up to a frustrating deadline day.

When the Red Devils landed the Chile international in January, his arrival was considered to be quite the coup and a sign of things to come at Old Trafford.

United have, however, struggled to build on that deal, with Mourinho conceding that there may be no more additions on the final day of the summer window.

With only Diogo Dalot, Lee Grant and Fred acquired to this point, Sanchez has revealed that he was looking for more ambition to be shown in the transfer market.

He told ESPN Brasil: “I would have liked that they had signed many more world-class players.

“But it’s the club’s decision.”

While disappointed by a lack of movement, Sanchez is happy to have been joined by fellow South American Fred.

The Brazil international was snapped up in a £52.5 million ($70m) deal and has impressed during his pre-season outings.

More is expected of him when competitive action starts, with United readying to open the new Premier League campaign against Leicester on Friday, with the 25-year-old midfielder being tipped to prove a shrewd addition.

Sanchez added: “The truth is that [Fred] impressed me a lot in his first game.

It’s what the team lacked – someone who plays ‘jogo bonito’, as they say in Brazil. And Andreas Pereira too. I think they are two players who have quality and they could help me a lot.”

Sanchez is looking for somebody to provide him with greater ammunition during the 2018-19 campaign.

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After signing from Arsenal during the winter window, the 29-year-old forward managed just three goals in 18 appearances.

He went on to say: “Today I am more comfortable. I am calm. My team-mates have to be focused. I also have to. I depend on them. If they are well, me too.

“It’s [improving] positively, it goes better. I think it will be seen now in the games when we play with Paul [Pogba], with Fred with [Romelu] Lukaku and with all the rest who are playing. We will understand better which is the best way [to get the most out of the team].”