The Torah scrolls lay strewn on the floor of Nessah Synagogue, some wrinkled and unraveled, others thrown on chairs alongside shredded prayer books. Piles of blue and white tallits and kippahs littered the floor, pulled from their cubbies by a vandal who had broken into the house of worship during Shabbat.

Around 7 a.m., an employee arrived to discover the chaos and called the police. By midday, word of the destruction had spread throughout the congregation.

“When my husband came home and told me what happened, I was shocked. The whole community was shocked,” said Simin Imanuel, a longtime congregant.

The vandalism at one of the country’s most prominent Iranian synagogues on Dec. 14 has stunned congregants who said they never thought the anti-Semitic graffiti and intolerance they saw happening at other temples and schools would reach their doorstep.

“Our worst nightmare basically came to light,” said Farzad Rabbany, who has been a member of the Beverly Hills synagogue for years. “This particular synagogue is very dear to the Jewish Iranians that fled the 1979 revolution in Iran, and this is what we call home. It is the largest Persian synagogue in the United States, and perhaps the world.”

The attack comes at a time when the community is especially alert to anti-Semitic violence. Earlier this month, two shooters killed three people at a Jewish grocery store, in addition to a police officer at a cemetery about a mile away. In April, a shooting at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in San Diego County came exactly six months after 11 worshipers were killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

Rabbany is grateful, he said, that the crime at his synagogue stopped at vandalism.

The synagogue was founded by Rabbi David Shofet, who immigrated to the United States in 1980 from Tehran in the aftermath of Iran’s Islamic Revolution. Shofet aimed to create a place in which Iranian Jews could pray together, maintain the traditions they followed back home and teach the next generation.

“This is the stuff that you don’t think is going to come and affect you personally, but it is unfortunately becoming a fact of life,” said Rabbany, who moved to Southern California in 1987 after fleeing Iran. “As Persian Jews, we have been through it all, and we know what anti-Semitism is. We know the danger of it.”

Hate crimes in Los Angeles County have reached their highest point in nearly a decade, according to an annual report by the L.A. County Commission on Human Relations. Although religious crimes overall declined slightly, anti-Jewish crimes rose 14% and constituted 83% of religion-motivated crimes.

But most anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. do not happen at large events or through deadly violence.

Last year, the Anti-Defamation League reported that “4.2 million anti-Semitic tweets were shared or re-shared in English on Twitter” over a yearlong period ending in January 2018.

At a community town hall at the Beverly Hilton on Wednesday evening, Beverly Hills police announced that authorities had arrested a suspect in connection with the vandalism — news that was met with a standing ovation.

Anton Nathaniel Redding of Millersville, Pa., has been charged with vandalism of a religious property and commercial burglary, charges that include a penalty enhancement for a hate crime, police said.

Sitting in one of the back rows at the town hall, Beverly Hills Planning Commissioner Farshid Shooshani described the wreckage at his synagogue as “a shock to our system.”

“Our community has been here 40 years. This is the first time we’ve had such an incident,” said Shooshani. “It’s psychologically very devastating because being in Los Angeles, being in Beverly Hills, we are living in one of the safest cities in the area. Fortunately, the damage was not much, but I think people have realized that there’s danger everywhere.”

Shooshani’s wife and father-in-law were among the first members of the synagogue, he said.

“Our connections to the synagogue are very deep,” he said. “In a way, this is the center of the community … our history began here. This is the mother synagogue and from this, people went to other synagogues in different places.”

Iranian Jews began immigrating to the United States in earnest amid the chaos of the 1979 revolution and the rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s regime. Khomeini’s revolution drove about half of Iran’s 80,000 Jews into exile. Some moved to New York or Israel, but many of those immigrants have settled in or near Beverly Hills.

“Our city was one of the first places of refuge for a large portion of the Jewish Persian community,” Beverly Hills Mayor John Mirisch said. “This has been their home for more than 30 years.”

When Mirisch walked into Nessah Synagogue the morning of Dec. 14, he said, he cried at the sight of the damage.

“The images evoke something that is terrible because it goes to the heart of the disease that is Jew hatred, that has been around almost from time immemorial,” he said. “A painting thrown down, a clock broken and stopped, shattered glass — it brings back images of Kristallnacht.”

The synagogue has bound generations of families together. Rabbi Shofet’s father, Hakham Yedidia Shofet, was the chief rabbi of Tehran. Many congregants and their family members were married by the elder Shofet in Iran, while his son led their children’s wedding or bar mitzvah in Beverly Hills.

“Everyone in our community knows people who go there, whether it’s cousins or friends or fellow Iranian Jews,” Siamak Kordestani, assistant director of the American Jewish Committee’s Los Angeles office, said of Nessah. “When we are in a synagogue where Farsi is spoken or understood by so many people, you automatically feel like you are taken back to your country of origin.”

Kordestani, who had his bar mitzvah at Nessah, said that many fear anti-Semitic attacks or vandalism are becoming commonplace. Nessah’s main Torah scrolls were locked up and spared from the crime, he said, but the community is “definitely on edge.”

“I think there’s certainly a sense that our community has been targeted to a great extent throughout history, but also at the present moment — globally and around the country,” he said.

Thursday afternoon, hundreds of worshipers packed into Nessah’s pews for the conclusion of a rare public fast, praying to restore the Torah that was desecrated in the attack. The service began with cycles of whispered psalms, followed by the booming prayers of penitence that are recited on fast days and in the early mornings ahead of the autumn High Holidays.

When the Torah service finally arrived, the faithful rushed to the aisle as a group of longtime members removed a scroll from the ark and paraded it through the synagogue. Many wiped away tears as they strained to touch and kiss its silver cover.

Men embraced the sacred text. Women bowed before it and drew their cupped hands over their faces as though drawing the light from Sabbath candles, their normal veneration imbued with extra energy.

“Seeing it whole, now you feel your soul is whole,” congregant Desiree Kesherim said. “It’s like, you’re OK now.”

As community leaders opened the Torah scroll and held it aloft, hundreds of women broke into sudden, joyful ululations.

Good morning, and welcome to the Book Club newsletter.

Join us on Jan. 27 when the book club launches its 2020 season by welcoming Ocean Vuong, award-winning poet and author of the bestselling “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.”

Vuong’s debut novel takes the form of a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. “‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ is a book of sustained beauty and lyricism, earnest and relentless, a series of high notes that trembles exquisitely almost without break,” says reviewer Steph Cha.

Tickets are now available for the Jan. 27 evening with Vuong at the Montalbán Theatre in Hollywood. Get tickets.

P.S. Book club tickets make a great gift!

Keep reading

The book club’s February pick is “From Our Land to Our Land” by Los Angeles author and former poet laureate Luis J. Rodriguez. It’s a new collection of stories and essays about race, culture, identity and belonging. Rodriguez joins book club readers on Feb. 20.

On March 11, we’ll welcome Jeanine Cummins, author of the much-talked-about “American Dirt.” Her upcoming novel is the story of an Acapulco bookstore owner who tries to cross the U.S. border with her young son after a drug cartel guns down her family. It has earned early praise from Sandra Cisneros, Don Winslow, Stephen King, Ann Patchett and John Grisham. Here’s an excerpt.

Tickets for both events are coming soon.

The power of kinship

Father Gregory Boyle says he believes in the power of a good diagnosis.

That outlook framed his response to a question from a reader at our Dec. 16 breakfast event. Her question: “The two crises I see that just burden me are the homelessness crisis we have in L.A. and how immigrants are being treated right now. What hope can you offer us on those two things?”

“No treatment plan worth a damn was ever born of a bad diagnosis,” Boyle told members of the sold-out crowd, who came to hear him talk about his latest book, “Barking to the Choir.”

“If you just think the solution to homelessness is a house, then I think it’s a bad diagnosis in the same way that jail is the solution to people who color outside the lines … and then you discover everybody is born wanting the same thing, which touches upon the immigration issue.”

In a conversation with author Héctor Tobar, Boyle talked about his three decades providing jobs and counseling to L.A. gang members and how his work offers daily inspiration — and often humorous anecdotes — for writing two books. A third is in progress.

Thank you

We started our community book club earlier this year, and the enthusiastic response from readers has exceeded all expectations.

Thank you to everyone who bought tickets, who brought a friend along to an event, who wrote to tell us what we got right and what you’d like to read next. Thank you to the brilliant authors who shared their work and the audience members who shared their stories, too. Thank you to the reader who raced up to the stage to share a shawl with Laila Lalami, and thank you to the book clubbers who took the time to meet and listen to former gang members at Homeboy Industries.

The L.A. Times Book Club is about so much more than the remarkable books we’ve been reading. It’s also about bringing people together to share a common read, a common experience, and to explore stories and ideas that bring Los Angeles together. I’m excited that we’ll be growing in 2020 with more events and more conversations every month. Stay tuned!

Thank you for reading this newsletter from the Los Angeles Times. Invite family, friends and colleagues to sign up here.

Not a subscriber? Get unlimited digital access to latimes.com. Subscribe here.

When director Robert Eggers set out to make his mind-bending 19th century drama “The Lighthouse,” starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson as a pair of lighthouse keepers descending into madness, he chose to shoot the film in black-and-white using an aspect ratio dating to the days of silent movies. Eggers knew that format, known in cinematography circles as 1.3:1 or 4:3, yields a square image that would give the film a distinct look and would help transport audiences back in time.

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“It’s an old-timey aspect ratio, so on a very surface level, it helps make the movie look old,” said the filmmaker, who wrote the script with his brother Max Eggers. But there were other advantages too. “It’s also a better shape for photographing vertical objects, like a lighthouse tower, and it’s better for conveying cramped interiors and claustrophobia,” Eggers said. “Sometimes when Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are in a two-shot, it is cramped. It’s tight, and I liked that.”

Although “The Lighthouse” might be the most obvious example of the 4:3 aspect ratio onscreen this awards season, other filmmakers are using the format to tell a range of visually inventive, globe-spanning tales—everything from powerful contemporary dramas to intimate character studies — rendered through an old-fashioned lens.

It’s not the first time in recent memory that the boxier aspect ratio has enjoyed a resurgence: Best picture winner “The Artist” (2011) was shot using the classic format; the following year, Pablo Larraín’s 1980s-set “No” earned an Academy Award nomination for foreign-language film. Wes Anderson’s 2014 “The Grand Budapest Hotel” featured three different aspect ratios, including the “Academy” ratio, or 1.375:1, which earned its name when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences designated it as the standard for films shot between 1932 and 1952.

“Hotel” won four of the nine Oscars for which it was nominated, though it lost in the cinematography category to that year’s best picture winner, “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance).”

First-time feature director Melina León chose the 4:3 ratio for her 1980s-set Peruvian drama “Song Without a Name” (Canción sin nombre), about a poor young woman who turns to a journalist for help finding her infant after the baby is stolen. A festival favorite that premiered at Cannes and recently screened in Los Angeles at AFI Fest, the black-and-white film, which León co-wrote with novelist Michael J. White, is based on child-trafficking cases that León’s journalist father covered decades earlier.

“The aspect ratio owes to the fact that in the ’80s we had 4:3 TVs — it was another way to bring you to the ’80s,” León explained. “The main character, Georgina, is a very humble character, and I felt that 4:3 is a humble format. It doesn’t expand too much. It occupies just enough space in the world.”

Similarly, for this season’s “Lucy in the Sky,” director Noah Hawley and cinematographer Polly Morgan used the 4:3 aspect ratio to help viewers connect with the subjective experience of Natalie Portman’s Lucy Cola, an astronaut who struggles to readjust to life on Earth following a mission to space.

“With Lucy, [Noah] really wanted to use the [aspect ratio] to contrast her feeling of claustrophobia and the feeling of being trapped when returning to Earth and then also her feeling of freedom and the feeling of wonder when she was up in space — when she was just feeling part of her experience, we chose to frame that wide-screen,” Morgan said. “I really enjoyed the process of approaching the script in a very intellectual way.”

Eggers also worked closely with his “Lighthouse” cinematographer, Jarin Blaschke, to find the best ways to visually capture the mania that takes hold of Dafoe and Pattinson’s lighthouse keepers — and to highlight the stars’ best features: “It’s a fantastic aspect ratio for close-ups,” Eggers said. “Why would you want room on either side of the frame interfering with two of the greatest faces and four of the finest cheekbones that have ever been born?”

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The renovated haunt of early Hollywood star Errol Flynn is available for lease above the Sunset Strip for $25,000 a month. 

(Cody Baggett)

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The house overlooks the Comedy Store from its perch in the Hollywood Hills. 

(Cody Baggett)

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Various patios and balconies create additional living space outdoors. 

(Cody Baggett)

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The Hollywood Hills property includes a swimming pool. 

(Cody Baggett)

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Updates have given the home a modern flair. 

(Cody Baggett)

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Light flows into the dining room of the Spanish-style house, which comes fully furnished. 

(Cody Baggett)

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Colorful risers brighten the entryway. 

(Cody Baggett)

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A balcony sits off one of the home’s five bedrooms. 

(Cody Baggett)

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A freestanding tub and bright tile accent a bathroom. 

(Cody Baggett)

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The Hollywood Hills property includes an office/den. 

(Cody Baggett)

Set above the Sunset Strip, this Spanish-style residence has had flirtations with fame stretching back decades when it was once home to Hollywood leading man Errol Flynn. A recent renovation has freshened up the multilevel house, which boasts colorful tile risers and new wide-plank wood floors. Balconies on multiple levels survey several patios, a swimming pool and the city lights below.

The details

Location: 8425 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 90069

Asking price: $25,000 a month

Year built: 1923

Living area: 3,084 square feet, five bedrooms, five bathrooms

Lot size: 0.21 of an acre

Features: High ceilings, wide-plank wood floors, tiled fireplaces and stairs, vaulted-ceiling living room, office/den, expanded master suite, multiple patios, swimming pool

About the area: In the 90069 ZIP Code, based on 20 sales, the median price for single-family home sales in October was $2.725 million, a 40.8% increase year over year, according to CoreLogic.

Agents: James Nasser, (310) 860-8894, Westside Estate Agency

To submit a candidate for Home of the Week, send high-resolution color photos via Dropbox.com, permission from the photographer to publish the images and a description of the house to [email protected].

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For walkers who love the convenience of Pasadena but don’t want to join the stream of walkers and joggers circumnavigating the Rose Bowl, this route is a great alternative. Quiet, uncrowded and almost completely shaded, even at midday, it’s a cool way to explore the upper end of the arroyo. The walk borders Brookside Golf & Country Club, and if the weather has been wet, you’ll see where the club got its name. Wear shoes that can get wet and be prepared for a stream-crossing if there has been a lot of rain.

1. Start your walk just north of the Rose Bowl, at the intersection of West Washington Boulevard and West Drive, parking on the soft shoulder in the redwood chips. Then walk north, away from the stadium, on a path at the far side of the parking lot. Use the crosswalk to cross West, and step into the shady arbor.

2. You may see some duffers as you parallel the fairways at Brookside Golf & Country Club, and the path leads you under the shade of oak trees.

After a half-mile or so, the trail will climb a slight, rocky rise. Then it crests and drops gently down the other side, bringing you to the brook that gives Brookside its name.

3. If the weather is wet, choose any of several log crossings to get to the right side of the stream.

Walk north a little farther, then cross the stream again to the left, just under the 210 Freeway overpass, to get to a sandy beach on the other side. Continue up the canyon, keeping the stream on your right.

4. As you round a bend, stop at the cove where the walls are decorated with urban art. This is Devil’s Gate, so named because of what some see as the profile of Satan in the rocks. Upstream is Devil’s Gate Dam. Across from you is a gated portal and a metal staircase, all part of the flood control system. People go in there, and up there, to explore. I didn’t and wouldn’t. Instead, turn around and head back. If the weather is very rainy, cross the stream again and head back to your starting point.

5. Instead of retracing your steps, and only if there is little or no water in the brook, cross the dry stream bed and aim for a tall, wooden exercise structure said to have been a training facility for utility workers. Walk under this and find a broad pathway that climbs a slight rise and goes under the high overpass.

Continue through more shade provided by oak and pepper trees.

6. Follow the broad path along, keeping the golf course on your right as the pathway descends and joins Rosemont Avenue.
Turn right where Rosemont meets West Washington. Walk to West Drive and find the parking lot.

By the numbers

Distance: 2 miles round trip

Difficulty: 2, on a scale of 1 to 5

Duration: 1 hour

Steps: 4,500

Details: Free street parking. Bicycles and dogs on leashes OK. Take Pasadena Transit bus 52 or 51 (weekends only) to the Rose Bowl.

LONDON — 

A mysterious figure who used a rare narwhal tusk to help subdue a knife-wielding extremist on London Bridge last month has been identified as a civil servant in Britain’s Justice Ministry.

Darryn Frost broke his silence Saturday, telling Britain’s Press Assn. that he and others reacted instinctively when Usman Khan started stabbing people at a prison rehabilitation program at Fishmongers’ Hall next to the bridge Nov. 29.

Frost used the rare narwhal tusk that he grabbed from the wall to help subdue Khan even though the attacker claimed to be about to detonate a suicide vest, which turned out to be a fake device with no explosives. The intervention of Frost and others helped keep the death count to two. He said another man used a chair as a weapon in the struggle.

“When we heard the noise from the floor below, a few of us rushed to the scene,” the 38-year-old said. “I took a narwhal tusk from the wall and used it to defend myself and others from the attacker. Another man was holding the attacker at bay with a wooden chair.”

He said Khan had two large knives, one in each hand, and pointed at his midriff.

“He turned and spoke to me, then indicated he had an explosive device around his waist,” Frost said. “At this point, the man next to me threw his chair at the attacker, who then started running towards him with knives raised above his head.”

The confrontation quickly moved onto London Bridge, where Frost and others — including one man who sprayed Khan with a fire extinguisher — managed to fight the attacker to the ground until police arrived.

The extremist, who had served prison time for earlier terrorism offenses, was shot dead by police moments later after he threatened again to detonate his vest.

There had been much speculation in the British media about the identity of the man who used the narwhal tusk in such a dangerous situation. Video of the event showed him helping to keep the attack from being much more lethal.

He was one of a handful of people who defied danger to help keep Khan from doing even more damage in the crowded hall and on the bridge.

Frost said he was “eternally grateful” to the former prisoners and the members of the public who were taking part in the meeting and ran to help.

“Not only do I want to thank those who confronted the attacker, but also those who put themselves in danger to tend to the injured, relying on us to protect them while they cared for others,” he said.

Frost said he was withholding many details out of respect for the victims and their families and because of the ongoing investigation. He paid tribute to Saskia Jones and Jack Merritt, the two young people stabbed to death when the attack started.

“In reading about their lives and work, I am convinced they represent all that is good in the world, and I will always feel the deep hurt of not being able to save them,” he said.

Frost praised those wounded in the attack and said some had refused treatment until the more severely hurt were cared for.

“That consideration and kindness filled me with hope on that dark day,” he said.

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TORONTO — 

The son of a Russian spy couple who lived clandestine lives in Canada and the United States says he wants a future in Canada after the country’s Supreme Court ruled he can keep his Canadian citizenship.

Alexander Vavilov was born in Toronto, which would typically qualify him for Canadian citizenship. But authorities had ruled that Vavilov didn’t qualify because his parents were part of a Russian spy ring in North America that was broken up by the FBI in 2010.

The high court rejected that finding on Thursday, meaning Vavilov can reside permanently in the country where his parents once lived clandestine lives as deeply embedded spies who were the models for the TV show “The Americans.”

“It’s a huge relief,” Vavilov said at a news conference Friday after flying to Toronto from Russia. ”I am happy to be back in Canada, to be here without this constant doubt in my head, with the ability to finally put down roots and build a life for myself. It’s going to take time. But I’m happy I can move forward with my life and put these problems behind me.”

Vavilov, 25, said he works in finance but said it’s been difficult to find work because companies don’t want to be associated with his espionage story. “It’s been difficult, a lot of anguish and stress,” he said.

He said that, though he flew in from Russia, he’s been bouncing around countries in the Middle East and Asia and it’s “hard to say” where he now resides. Vasilov declined to comment on life in Russia under Vladimir Putin.

The Canadian government argued he wasn’t entitled to citizenship and appealed to the Supreme Court to annul the passport granted to him by a lower court. But the top court upheld that ruling.

Vavilov’s supporters said a son shouldn’t pay for the sins of his parents, while critics contend his claim to be a Canadian by birth was based on fraud since he and his parents lived under stolen identities in the Toronto area, and later Massachusetts, as they collected intelligence for Moscow.

He said he has mended his relationship with his parents.

“I understand their decisions now. They did what they did for patriotic reasons. They wanted to help their country to fight for peace and better understanding between the countries,” he said. ”Although I suffered through the result of all this, but I have a understanding of why they did what they did. In their position maybe they shouldn’t have had children, but that’s not say I’m not happy to be alive and be here.”

Canada, like the U.S., grants citizenship to anyone born within its territory with limited exceptions, such as the children of diplomats. The government argued that Vavilov’s parents were employees or representatives of a foreign government and thus ineligible. Vavilov’s lawyer argued that they were not official representatives and that all that matters in this case is their physical birthplace.

The parents came to Toronto in the 1980s and took the names Donald Heathfield and Tracey Ann Foley. Two sons were born — Timothy in 1990 and Alexander in 1994 — before the family moved to Paris in 1995 and then Cambridge, Mass., in 1999.

In 2010, the FBI arrested a ring of sleeper agents for Russia that it had been following for years in the United States. All 10 pleaded guilty and were returned to Russia in a swap.

Alexander Vavilov said he had no idea his parents were spies and that he’d never been to Russia before. ”I thought the FBI had the wrong house,” he said. “I did not believe it.”

The family’s story became the inspiration for “The Americans.” He said he and his parents have watched the show.

“My parents said they enjoyed watching it because it at least portrayed the sense of patriotism and the sense of connection. It’s a good show,” he said.

The FBI agent who oversaw the arrests said in 2010 that Timothy Vavilov may have found out about his parents’ secret life before they were arrested.

Alexander called that nonsense and said his parents would have never have put them in jeopardy by telling them. The brothers weren’t charged. “He’s over the moon,” he said of his brother.

Their lawyer said no evidence had ever surfaced suggesting the sons knew their parents were Russians or were spies.

Alexander Vavilov wanted to return to Canada for university but was denied. The government ruled Canada would no longer recognize him as Canadian because his parents were “employees or representatives of a foreign government.”

After losing in a lower court, Vavilov won support from the Federal Court of Appeal, which ruled in 2017 that the law applies only to foreign government employees who benefit from diplomatic immunity or privileges. Vavilov was given his citizenship back.

In its decision, the Supreme Court said the citizenship registrar’s decision was unreasonable. Although the registrar knew her interpretation of the provision was novel, she failed to provide a proper rationale, the court said.

Although it involves the same central issue, Timothy Vavilov’s case proceeded separately through the courts and was not directly before the Supreme Court. However, in a decision last year, the Federal Court of Appeal said its 2017 ruling on Alexander Vavilov equally applied to his brother, making him a citizen.

Former FBI agent Richard DesLauriers, who oversaw the arrest of the couple, Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova, and the other eight sleeper agents criticized the high court’s decision. DesLauriers called it ridiculous.

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PERTH, Australia — 

Australia’s most populous state was paralyzed by “catastrophic” fire conditions Saturday amid soaring temperatures, while one person died as wildfires ravaged the country’s southeast, officials said.

“Catastrophic fire conditions are as bad as it gets,” New South Wales Rural Fire Services Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons told reporters. “Given we have a landscape with so much active fire burning, you have a recipe for very serious concern and a very dangerous day.”

Areas in western Sydney were forecast to hit 115 degrees. Cooler air was expected to move through New South Wales late Saturday, although authorities warned that strong winds could push fires in dangerous new directions.

New South Wales is in a seven-day state of emergency, with about 2,000 firefighters battling 100 wildfires.

Two firefighters died Thursday battling blazes southwest of Sydney. Geoffrey Keaton, 32, and Andrew O’Dwyer, 36, were in a truck convoy southwest of Sydney when a tree fell and caused their vehicle to roll off the road.

Authorities confirmed Saturday that one person died and 15 homes were destroyed in South Australia as a wildfire ravaged the Adelaide Hills on Friday, just 25 miles from the state capital, Adelaide. Another person was critically injured after fighting to save his home from the fires.

That follows the death of a 24-year-old man in a road crash in South Australia on Friday, which sparked a fire in the area of the Murraylands.

Authorities said 23 firefighters and several police have also suffered injuries, as more than 98,842 acres burned across South Australia.

“It is going to be a real scene of devastation, especially for those people in the Adelaide Hills who have been most affected,” South Australia Premier Steven Marshall said. “We know that in addition to the buildings and vehicles lost, there are very significant losses in terms of livestock, animals, crops, vineyards.”

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The annual Australian fire season, which peaks during the Southern Hemisphere summer, started early after an unusually warm and dry winter. About 7.4 million acres of land have burned nationwide in the last few months, with nine people killed and more than 800 homes destroyed.

The devastation has put pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has received criticism for going on a family vacation in Hawaii during the wildfire crisis. He apologized on Friday for any offense “caused to any of the many Australians affected by the terrible bushfires by my taking leave with family at this time.”

Morrison cut short his vacation and returned home Saturday night. He was due to visit the New South Wales Rural Fire Service headquarters on Sunday.

Debate has reignited on whether Morrison’s conservative government has taken enough action on climate change. Australia is the world’s largest exporter of coal and liquefied natural gas.

Fatih Birol, International Energy Agency executive director, believes Australia has missed opportunities to mitigate the impact of coal.

“I find the Australian energy debate far too emotional, far too nervous and far too hot. It is hotter than the climate change itself,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age.

Protesters on Thursday camped outside Morrison’s Sydney residence demanding urgent action on climate change.

Morrison, who critics have deemed a climate change skeptic, conceded this month that “climate change along with many other factors” has contributed to the wildfires.

In a county jail in central Texas, an inmate on suicide watch begins strangling himself with a phone cord. The guard watching him does not rush in because of security rules that prohibit him from going into a cell alone, leading to an agonizing 10-minute wait before another staffer arrives to provide backup.

Derrek Monroe, who died the next day in a hospital, was among the first of 48 jail suicides since the 2017 launch of a sweeping Texas law aimed at reducing such deaths through better screening and monitoring. That law hasn’t made a dent in the number of suicides, and experts blame its failure to address one of the most significant factors: the lack of staff to watch troubled inmates.

“Jails are understaffed and often very understaffed,” said Diana Claitor, executive director of the Texas Jail Project, which advocates for inmates and their families. “You know you have to check a suicidal inmate, but at the same time, another crisis or fight occurs down the hall, and you have to go there. If you don’t have any extra personnel because someone is sick, you’re doing everything alone.”

In a joint reporting effort, the Associated Press and the University of Maryland’s Capital News Service compiled a database of more than 400 lawsuits in the last five years alleging mistreatment of inmates in U.S. prisons and jails. Close to 40% involved suicides in local jails — 135 deaths and 30 attempts. All but eight involved allegations of neglect by the staff.

“It’s not always maliciousness,” Claitor added. “We’re talking about people who are doing a very tough job.”

Texas became a national focus in the debate over jailhouse suicides and treatment of mentally ill inmates after the highly publicized 2015 case of Sandra Bland, a black activist who died in a county jail three days after her arrest in a contentious traffic stop. Her death was ruled a suicide.

Her death led to protests, debate and ultimately an ambitious law in her name that sought to be a national model. It included policy changes that required mentally ill inmates to be diverted toward treatment, independent investigation of jail deaths, deescalation training for police, and funding for electronic sensors or cameras for accurate and timely cell checks.

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But critics note that the law had no requirement or money for additional guards, and jailhouse suicides remain a stubborn problem in Texas. The 22 suicides in the state’s jails this year through November already surpass the 17 in all of last year, a nearly 30% increase.

Since the Sandra Bland Act went into effect in September 2017, state figures show staffing levels at Texas’ 239 local jails have remained largely unchanged at around 25,000 jailers. Jails are still only required to meet state standards that mandate a minimum of one jailer for every 48 inmates in a single-story jail. In multistory jails, a guard is required for each floor with 10 or more inmates.

At the time of Derrek Monroe’s video-recorded suicide attempt on Oct. 1, 2017, the Coleman County Jail met state standards with a single guard overseeing nine inmates and two floors, even though Monroe was on a suicide watch because of an attempt the day before.

Details of Monroe’s case have emerged as part of his family’s lawsuit against the county. The guard and the sheriff acknowledged in a deposition last year that the guard could have stopped the 28-year-old Monroe, who was being held on unspecified drug or alcohol charges, if more than one guard had been working in the jail that day.

Brandon Wood, executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, said another staffing-related challenge for jails is failing to carry out face-to-face checks of suicidal inmates every 30 minutes — the standard set by Texas administrative code even before the Bland Act.

The commission regularly inspects the state’s 239 jails for compliance with state inmate safety requirements and fails jails if there are one or more violations. The agency carried out 3,752 inspections since 2006, and jails failed one of every four inspections. When a jail fails, it is listed on the commission’s web page until it passes reinspection and ultimately could be shut down if it keeps failing.

Waller County Jail — where Bland died 4½ years ago — appeared on the list last December for violating five standards, including the 30-minute check requirement. A month later, Evan Parker, 34, hanged himself there while in custody on murder charges.

Sheriff R. Glenn Smith said the 30-minute check violation was caused by an error in the software system the jail used to track jailer rounds and had no bearing on Parker’s death.

Smith said the biggest issue in Waller County is keeping trained staff, noting that he often loses guards to larger jails in other counties where there are more opportunities for advancement. Other guards leave because they are burned out working hard hours for little pay.

“They’re incarcerated every day along with the inmates,” Smith said. “They just don’t want to do that 20 years.”

Texas state Rep. Garnet Coleman, a Democrat who introduced the Sandra Bland Act, explained that cameras and tracking equipment are one-time expenditures but that staffing requires a sustained commitment that would be too costly for the state. He said local governments have primary responsibility for funding jails and the wherewithal to do so with their own tax revenues.

“Nothing forbids governments from increasing taxes to improve our jails,” Coleman said. “But how can they convince people that it’s necessary? That comes only with educating people and with the rise of awareness. It is happening, but not fast enough.”

Neil McGowan’s play “Disposable Necessities,” having its premiere at Rogue Machine in Venice, is part sci-fi yarn, part comic farce and part timely social commentary. It’s hard to pin down its style, but one thing is certain: McGowan’s rich imagination challenges our expectations at every twist of its deliciously disturbing plot.

The action is set in the not-so-distant future, when the privileged of society become essentially immortal, able to download their identities into new “modules” — bodies of the recently deceased. Those enormously expensive bodies aren’t available to the have-nots, who must content themselves with providing carcasses for the affluent. Gender fluidity has taken on a whole new meaning in this brave new order, with people swapping sexes according to what is available. Youth and beauty, as always, drive the marketplace.

Once celebrated author Daniel (Darrett Sanders) is now a has-been supported by his wife, Al, nee Alice (Billy Flynn), who opted for a male module to advance her stalled career. (It worked.) Daniel got a new module way back when, but he’s clearly showing his age, so Al is nagging him to re-up and get a shiny new self. Their son, Chadwick (Jefferson Reid), went African American this time around — a cultural appropriation made all the more hilarious by Chadwick’s clueless attempts to adapt.

When Daniel’s old friend Phillip (Claire Blackwelder) arrives in the body of a nubile young woman, the sexual politics among the characters grow ever more complex and comical. Despite Al’s hectoring, however, Daniel is resistant to change, as is his estranged daughter Dee (Ann Noble), who has a particularly pressing reason for wanting to get out of her old body, pronto.

David Mauer’s scenic design has the right touch of the high-tech without veering into parody, as do Christine Cover Ferro’s shrewdly updated costumes. Matt Richter’s lighting, Christopher Moscatiello’s sound and Michelle Hanzelova’s projections all lend to the subtly futuristic ambience.

Director Guillermo Cienfuegos and a lively cast tear into their material with brio. As women play men, and vice versa, the actors could be accused of occasionally slipping into caricature, but what matter? They serve the piece’s comic rhythms and nail down the laughs — or, conversely, the pathos. Just don’t lay bets on where the story ends up. You’ll lose.

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