Flight attendants call it “#MeToo in the Air,” the incidents of sexual assault and harassment that occur at 30,000 feet.

Law enforcement calls it a growing problem, as increasing numbers of passengers come forward to report these crimes.

When egregious cases make the news, the details are cringe-worthy. In November a man on an American Airlines flight from Charlotte, N.C., to Salt Lake City ended his trip in handcuffs.

Authorities say he groped the woman seated next to him. The pilot diverted the plane to Tulsa, Okla., where the man was arrested and later charged with public intoxication and abusive sexual conduct.

If you’ve been there — trapped on a cramped flight next to someone who’s had too many drinks or doesn’t observe personal space boundaries, you know it’s uncomfortable, but when these situations turn dangerous, then what?

As a person with a disability, I worry about how I would defend and protect myself. I consider my reality: I use a wheelchair for mobility, so once seated on the plane, I can’t easily maneuver out of harm’s way. I’m also a little person and have short arms, so reaching the flight attendant call button above my seat is impossible.

I consider other realities as well: people who are nonverbal, suffer from dementia, those who have limited intellectual function — really, anyone who may not be able to give consent, rebuff a predator or signal for help.

For us and other travelers with physical limitations, the issue of how to deal with threats from other passengers is rarely discussed, but it should be.

Such crimes are trending, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which has jurisdiction over in-flight crimes. In 2017, the FBI opened 63 investigations involving sexual assaults on aircraft; that increased to 84 in 2018. For the 2019 year ending Sept. 30, that number jumped to 119.

“We believe awareness and increased reporting may have contributed to the increased numbers,” FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller wrote in an email. “Obviously, we believe the crime is underreported and encourage anyone who believes they have been victimized to come forward.”

The problem is so widespread that the Department of Transportation launched a special task force to develop strategies to address it.

Meanwhile, we don’t have to be sitting ducks.

I asked the FBI’s leading expert on the matter for advice and the message is clear: If you experience unwanted touching or sexual harassment in-flight, or witness someone being preyed upon, do whatever it takes to draw attention to it.

“These are [crimes] done in private,” said special agent David Gates, who leads the FBI’s office based at LAX and has seen hundreds of such situations play out. “A lot of suspects don’t want an audience,” said Gates.

The best course of action is to alert someone immediately.

If you don’t want to blurt out “This person is touching me!” you could say to the person seated across the aisle from you, “I am unable to get out of my seat. Would you please get a flight attendant for me?”

Asking for help may feel awkward, but it’s your best defense.

“There is a problem that needs to be addressed and that’s going to fix it faster than sitting in your seat for an hour and taking it. Get people working for you on that plane,” Gates said.

Once a flight attendant is aware, he or she can step in and take charge. They are trained to keep peace and can put distance between you and the handsy passenger next to you.

If they try to move you but your disability makes that hard, insist that the offending passenger be moved. Raise a stink if you have to.

“You have no idea how many people said they didn’t want to make a scene,” Gates said. “It’s better to be seen as the problem person than to be the victim. You’ve got to stick up for yourself.”

Ask the crew to alert law enforcement. This step is important.

Federal agents will meet the plane at the gate, interview witnesses and determine whether a crime has been committed.

“Doesn’t matter if it’s over the Pacific Ocean, over the polar ice caps or over Iowa, it’s my team’s job to do an investigation,” Gates said. “We take this incredibly seriously. Disabilities or not, this should not happen to anyone.”

More safety tips:

• About 90% percent of crimes that happen onboard aircrafts involve alcohol or alcohol and prescription medication, according to the FBI. In either case, substances can lower inhibitions — in predators and victims. Speak up if you sense an issue.

• Stay alert on the plane. “Take a nap, have a drink but don’t get into a position where you can’t wake yourself up,” Gates said.

• Discourage unwanted advances right away. Predators will often start with seemingly innocent touches — a hand on your knee or a brush across your hand. Experts say this is to gauge whether you are awake or alert. Turn to the person and say assertively, “Don’t do that” to establish a clear personal boundary.

• If you are being assaulted, forget about being polite. Scream, call for help, make noise by clapping your hands, banging an object on the tray table or kicking the seat in front of you. Act as though your well-being depends on this because, as victims know, it may.

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Move over, IPOs.

Special-purpose acquisition companies, once a last resort for owners looking to exit an investment, have become a popular choice for private companies spooked by the swings in the regular IPO market. The volume of SPAC deals hit an all-time high in 2019.

Instead of a regular initial public offering that would raise funds through a share sale, a small but growing number of IPO candidates are choosing to sell themselves to SPACs instead.

DraftKings Inc. is the latest example. The sportsbook operator agreed to sell to Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp., along with gaming technology firm SBTech, in $3.3-billion deal on Monday. By merging with a SPAC, DraftKings still goes public, but it’s through a reverse merger, or a so-called backdoor listing.

Having well-known backers such as blue-chip private equity firms and former public company CEOs involved also has rehabbed the image of SPACs, or blank-check companies that raise money for acquisitions.

It didn’t hurt that billionaire Richard Branson did a SPAC deal too. Still, Branson’s space company, Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc., which went public after merging with a Silicon Valley-based SPAC, is trading lower than where its shares debuted in October.

One of the largest companies to do a SPAC deal after exploring an IPO is Blackstone-owned Vivint. Blackstone had explored an IPO or sale of the technology company and ended up merging it with a SPAC raised by SoftBank’s Fortress Investment Group, in a deal valued at $5.6 billion including debt.

Merging with a SPAC can save a listing candidate months or even a year compared with a regular IPO, said Ryan Maierson, partner at law firm Latham & Watkins.

The lackluster showings of ride-hailing companies Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. that hurt the IPO market in 2019 have played a big role in the resurrection of SPACs.

“We have a downdraft in IPO activity recently, and SPACs that are looking for a target would be a good fit for companies looking to go public that aren’t finding investors in the IPO market,” Maierson said.

Blank-check companies were created in the 1980s and were associated with fraudulent activity and penny stocks, which gave them a bad reputation. They now have stricter rules.

SPACs have raised $13.5 billion in the U.S. this year so far, the most on record and surpassing 2007’s $11.7-billion total, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. These firms announced $24.6 billion of acquisitions this year, another record.

Goksu Yolac, JP Morgan’s head of SPACs, estimates there is nearly $19 billion of capital raised via SPACs “that is waiting to be deployed via M&A.”

Private equity firms also like buying companies through SPACs to pay down the target’s debt quicker, said Thomas H. Lee Partners co-President Scott Sperling. The firm bought a healthcare technology company called Universal Hospital Services Inc. in January and renamed it Agiliti.

“It makes for a less risky transaction by de-levering with the SPAC capital,” Sperling said.

The average size of a SPAC raised this year is more than $230 million, compared with about $180 million in 2016, the data showed.

To be sure, SPAC listings come with risks. Target companies often give up more control and economics when they sell to a SPAC, which has its own operating team in place. They’re also subject to a vote by the SPAC shareholders. Sometimes this can lead to deals being scrapped before they can close.

The parent company of CEC Entertainment Inc., which runs Chuck E. Cheese and Peter Piper Pizza, canceled a $1.4-billion merger with a Lion Capital-backed SPAC in July, three months after it was announced.

Still, SPACs continue to attract high-profile dealmakers. Michael Klein, a veteran banker who founded boutique investment bank M. Klein and Co., raised $690 million via Churchill Capital Corp II, the biggest deal of its type this year. Churchill has held talks to buy Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications, people familiar with the matter have said.

Big names such as TPG Capital, Apollo Global Management and the investment bank Centerview all have SPACs now.

“You have very high-profile SPAC issuers in the current times versus pre-crisis when it was lesser known sponsors for the most part,” said Paul Abrahimzadeh, co-head of equity capital markets for North America at Citigroup Inc, the fourth-largest SPAC arranger this year. “They’ve become more mainstream.”

For California businesses, 2020 will be a year of reckoning.

Sweeping new laws curbing longtime employment practices take effect, aimed at reducing economic inequality and giving workers more power in their jobs.

Under one, companies could be forced to reclassify hundreds of thousands of independent contractors as employees with broad labor law protections. Under another, bosses could no longer force workers into closed-door arbitration proceedings, a tactic which protects businesses from costly lawsuits.

The new laws are about “job quality — what it means to work in a just workplace,” said California Labor Secretary Julie Su. “California leads the way on labor standards and we’re not going to let employers do end runs around those standards. We want to support businesses who look at their role in a holistic and humane sense.”

Many new measures, she added, are “not big splashy things, but day-to-day things.” She cited a law giving working mothers a place to express breast milk besides a bathroom. And a law making it easier for firefighters and other first responders to gain workers’ compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Other new statutes ban discrimination based on hairstyle, such as Afros, braids, cornrows and dreadlocks; grant organ donors additional guaranteed leave; and extend whistleblower protection to patient rights advocates at county mental health centers.

The California Chamber of Commerce, a leading voice for business, picked its fights. It did not list Assembly Bill 5, the independent contractor bill, on its annual “job killer” list, preferring to help negotiate for a slew of professionals, such as doctors and real estate agents, to gain exemptions.

“We felt it was important to participate in the compromise,” said Chamber President and Chief Executive Allan Zaremberg. “This is a work in progress, and it will continue to be.”

But the chamber, along with the National Retail Federation and other business groups, filed suit against Assembly Bill 51, the first-in-the-nation law preventing companies from making workers sign arbitration agreements as a condition of employment. And it helped defeat other bills favored by the Legislature’s labor-friendly majority, including one extending unemployment benefits to striking workers and another curbing the University of California’s ability to hire temporary workers.

“A lot of employers feel the rules are complex and tough to deal with,” Zaremberg said. “Our job is to make sure laws are reasonable and fair … and they can afford to stay in business. From that perspective, it has been a successful year.”

Here are a few of the changes coming to California workplaces in 2020:

Minimum wages

On Jan. 1, the statewide minimum wage steps up to $13 an hour for employers with more than 26 employees, and to $12 an hour for those with 26 or fewer employees. The increases are mandated by a 2016 law that gradually raises the floor to $15 an hour for nearly all workers by 2023.

Several local jurisdictions have higher minimums including the city and county of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Malibu and Pasadena, all of which will raise them on July 1 to $14.25 an hour for small employers and $15 an hour for large employers.

“People talk about prosperity and GDP growth, but that’s not enough,” Su said. “One in 3 California workers makes less than $15 an hour. That is not how we want to build an economy.”

Some 2.6 million Californians will be due a raise in January under the statewide floor, according to a UC Berkeley study. California will have the nation’s second-highest minimum next year after Washington state’s $13.50.

Meanwhile, several large businesses have already raised their floors to $15 an hour or more, including Costco, Spectrum, Amazon and Disneyland Resort.

Independent contractors

In April 2018, the California Supreme Court dropped a bomb on a vast swath of companies, from Uber and Lyft to yoga studios and hair salons, which have built their businesses on independent contractors. To classify workers as contractors rather than employees subject to minimum wage and overtime laws, companies would have to satisfy a strict three-pronged test.

Under the “ABC test,” a business may only contract with independent contractors who satisfy all three of these conditions: a) they are free from control and direction of the hiring entity; b) they perform work outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and c) they are customarily engaged in an independently established business of the same nature as that of the work involved.

The court decision set off a scramble in the Legislature. Backed by labor unions that see an opportunity to organize newly empowered employees, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) authored AB 5 to codify the decision, expanding it to areas such as workers’ compensation and unemployment and disability insurance.

Even under a previous, looser standard, state officials estimated misclassification was costing California some $7 billion a year in payroll taxes. Companies also avoid paying federal Social Security and Medicare taxes for contractors.

“Structural reform was necessary because more and more companies want to reduce their obligations,” Gonzalez said. “We’re playing whack-a-mole trying to protect workers while companies try to get more profit for shareholders.”

A lobbying frenzy led to exemptions for some professions in which workers have more negotiating power or autonomy than in low-wage jobs. Among them: lawyers, accountants, architects, dentists, insurance brokers and engineers.

But the Legislature declined to exempt app-based ride-hailing or food delivery companies, whose workers complain they often earn less than minimum wage and are subject to arbitrary dismissals. Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates and Instacart, arguing that they are technology companies, not transportation employers like taxi businesses, set aside $110 million to mount a ballot initiative exempting them from the law.

Trucking associations, freelance writers and photographers filed suits to avoid the new law’s strictures.

“AB 5 fundamentally disrupts the right of Californians to have independent working relationships with their clients or employers,” said Sen. Mike Morrell (R-Rancho Cucamonga). By favoring some industries over others, he added, “Sacramento Democrats embrace a slide towards socialism.”

Gonzalez said she is open to changes in the bill next year, including an exemption for musicians — but not for app-based ride-hailing and delivery giants. “We will continue to clarify this law, but rest assured, it won’t be repealed,” she added.

Arbitration

Former Gov. Jerry Brown twice vetoed bills to curb the exploding practice of mandatory arbitration, which allows companies to make employees resolve disputes in a private, closed-door session rather than in public court proceedings.

Brown argued that a U.S. Supreme Court decision allows the practice. And businesses contend that in conflicts over wages, discrimination, disability, harassment and other issues, arbitration saves them, and workers, the needless expense of class-action lawsuits.

But in the last year, allegations of sexual harassment and assaults by serial perpetrators, many of whom were protected by arbitration agreements, fueled public outrage, as in the cases of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein and CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves. At Google, 20,000 workers staged a global walkout demanding an end to forced arbitration. Other tech workers, including at Los Angeles’ Riot Games, followed suit.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new version of the law, which avoids invalidating existing agreements. “AB 51 just prohibits firing or threatening employees who refuse to sign,” said UC Berkeley law professor Catherine Fisk. “Forced arbitration is clearly used as a device to prevent workers from bringing claims. So it allows companies to violate the law.”

But Zaremberg argues: ”Our employment laws are more complex than those in the rest of the country. People make honest mistakes every day trying to comply with them. With arbitration, they can be resolved through an expedited process.”

An estimated 67% of California workplaces had mandatory arbitration policies in 2018, higher than the national average, and the number may have grown this year as attorneys advised companies to get ahead of the new law.

A new activist strategy this year — filing thousands of individual arbitration claims against Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Postmates — hit companies with millions of dollars in processing fees. Companies used to dealing with employee grievances one by one refused to pay. A new law, Senate Bill 707, imposes stiff penalties on businesses that stall payments, and allows workers to then take their grievances to court.

#MeToo

#MeToo scandals lent impetus to other measures besides the arbitration statute.

Under current law, workers have a year to file complaints of discrimination, harassment and retaliation in court. AB 9 extends the deadline to three years. Brown had vetoed the bill in 2018, saying claims should be filed “while memories and evidence are fresh.” Victim advocates contend a year is often insufficient for workers to come to terms with what happened to them and seek counsel.

Often companies will require a worker who gains a financial settlement for harassment or discrimination to quit his or her job. Assembly Bill 749 prohibits “no re-hire” clauses affecting the “aggrieved employee.”

Assembly Bill 547 requires training for janitors to be conducted by their peers. “We’ve seen reports of rape on the night shift,” Su said. “This law means immigrant women with lived experience will make the training real. So companies can’t just pay lip service to training, letting people go through the motions and check a box.”

Child-care workers

Home-based child-care workers are not covered by federal labor law. Now, some 40,000 private family day-care providers, paid by California to service more than 360,000 low-income children, will gain the right to bargain collectively with the state under Assembly Bill 378.

The new law sets the stage for California’s largest union election since 1997, when home-care workers were granted the right to bargain over wages and working conditions. Child-care workers, who are largely Latino and African American, earn close to minimum wage — pushing many out of the industry. The new law will lead to “creating quality jobs, not poverty jobs,” said Assemblywoman Monique Limón (D-Santa Barbara), the bill’s author.

Corporate diversity

Senate Bill 826, enacted last year, requires publicly traded companies headquartered in California to have at least one woman on their boards of directors by January 2020. By the end of 2021, boards with five directors must include two women, and boards with six or more directors need to include three women.

Noncompliant companies could be fined as much as $100,000.

Several European countries have similar laws. But California’s is the first U.S. board diversity mandate. When the law passed, 188 of 650 affected California companies had all-male boards, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission compiled by Clemson University scholars.

Two conservative groups, the Pacific Legal Foundation and Judicial Watch, have filed lawsuits to overturn the statute, but businesses have largely complied. According to Clemson finance professor Daniel Greene, just 32 companies had failed to add any female directors as of Dec. 26.

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Looks like longtime rocker Sammy Hagar will continue to seek a buyer for his Lake Arrrowhead estate into the new year. In the meantime, the French-inspired chateau is also available for lease at $30,000 a month – or just for weekends.

The sales price is $3.9 million, down from $5.25 million when the property was originally listed a few years back. Public records show Hagar bought the property roughly a decade ago for $2.3 million.

The waterfront house, built in 2009, features beamed ceilings, a two-island kitchen, a formal dining room, a family room and a living room anchored by a limestone fireplace. The 6,557 square feet of living space also contains a wood-paneled game room, a wet bar and a soundproof music room.

Including the master suite and detached guest house, there are eight bedrooms and 8.5 bathrooms.

The sloping site leads down to the lake.

Hagar, 72, is a vocalist and songwriter. The Red Rocker, as he is known, fronted the bands Montrose and Van Halen and is an inductee in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

David Vail of HK Lane Real Estate and Shelli Cotriss of Shell Properties are the listing agents. Cotriss is also handling the leasing.

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We all love a good David vs. Goliath story — Ford vs. Ferrari (in 1966, or the 2019 movie version), Steve Jobs vs. Microsoft, Harry Potter vs. Voldemort. Not many, however, feature David going up against two Goliaths.

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Meet Jason Castriota, the global brand director for Ford’s battery electric vehicles.

He and the Ford team just launched the company’s first ground-up, all-new electric crossover, the Mustang Mach-E. It’s a clever, tech-loaded and reasonably priced new entrant (from $36,400 after the $7,500 federal electric vehicle tax credit) to the bustling EV scene. Ford chose to unveil it last month here in Southern California — the largest EV market in the country — in the same space that Elon Musk unveiled his Cybertruck a few nights later.

So his Goliath No 1: Winning against myriad competitors to bring to market an EV that appeals — and steals sales from — the Teslas and Audis of the world, among others. Then there’s the job of persuading buyers to give up their gas-powered cars for a plug-in existence.

For a car company, let alone an executive, that is a high bar. Then there’s Castriota’s Goliath No. 2: hypercars with four-digit horsepower figures and seven-digit price tags.

Before joining Ford in 2016, Castriota spent the better part of his career dreaming up some of the most innovative concept and hypercars on the planet — for example, the 2006 Ferrari P4/5, which he did in conjunction with Pininfarina, the legendary Italian design house that has crafted countless Ferraris over the decades, among other nearly priceless cars. The P4/5 was built as a one-off for film producer, financier and car collector James Glickenhaus.

“Working with Jason was very enjoyable,” says Glickenhaus. “He was able to interpret what I wanted to do — an homage to my Ferrari P3/4, which won 24 Hours of Daytona [in 1967] — yet still keep it from being a replica. It helped launch all the special projects that Ferrari has since done.”

Another Castriota masterpiece: the 2005 Maserati Birdcage 75th concept, a futuristic reimagining of the Italian marque’s iconic Tipo 61, produced between 1959 and 1961. And on the production-car side, he oversaw the still-in-showrooms Maserati GranTurismo. And the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, and so on. Getting the picture?

Castriota’s latest hypercar project, finished before he joined Ford, is the SSC Tuatara. The two-seater has aerospace-inspired engineering, a fighter-jet-like teardrop canopy and a custom-built twin-turbo, 1,750-horsepower V8 engine. (The name comes from a New Zealand reptile that a study has shown to have the fastest-evolving DNA of any living organism.)

Wait: EVs carrying the Mustang name sound reasonably able to compete on a global stage. But million-dollar bullets — why?

There has never been a time when so many seven-figure sports cars have been on the market — from McLaren, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Mercedes-AMG to boutique makers such as Koenigsegg, Pagani and Rimac. SoCal, with its wealth and weather, is a key market.

The SSC Tuatara wants to stand apart by breaking the near-mythical 300-mph mark, which no production road car had ever done until last August, when Bugatti hit 304.77 mph in a heavily modified version of its $2.9 million Chiron. The SSC team will begin top-speed testing in early 2020 at an undisclosed U.S. location, with the hope of besting Bugatti.

If SSC succeeds, it would be the second time the Richland, Wash. based start-up will have beaten Bugatti at the top-speed game. In 2007, the company’s first sports car, the Ultimate Aero, achieved 256.14 mph, breaking the 253.81-mph record Bugatti had set in its previous supercar, the Veyron. (In so doing, SSC also created, in partnership with Guinness World Records, a new testing standard of averaging two high-speed runs within a set time window on the same road.)

Achieving three-digit speeds—with 300 mph being merely the latest barrier broken but certainly not the last—is not for the faint of heart, as any hyper car maker will tell you. First, the cost of the additional horsepower needed to go that fast only gets more expensive the higher you go. Then there’s the incredible balancing act between a car’s weight, its relative slipperiness through the air, heat management, durability and drivability. “Each of those factors presents its own unique challenges and solutions,” explains Castriota. “The right fix for one may cause an issue for another—and you still need to deliver it all in a form that is also visually desirable and comfortable to use.”

The $1.625 million (base) Tuatara, whose bespoke engine is made here in SoCal, is the passion project of Jerod Shelby, an engineer and medical-device company cofounder who has been working on putting his vision for a high-performance sports car into reality for two decades. “Bringing Jason onto the Tuatara project was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” says Shelby. “He accomplished a remarkable feat by penning a striking design with an unmatched aerodynamics package.”

Castriota states it more succinctly. “From an aerodynamic standpoint, we are far superior to all other hypercars,” he says. “Some parts of a car such as the Tuatara are subjective, like design. Aero is most definitely not.”

What makes the Tuatara’s ability to cut through the air so different? “The Tuatara’s exterior form is already more aero-efficient than any of our competitors’, but it’s our internal aerodynamics and heat management where we believe we made leaps and bounds over everyone else,” Castriota says. “That’s had a huge domino effect. We were able to reduce the size of the engine, and we need considerably less horsepower than we have to achieve 300-mph-plus speeds.”

“Jason has always been ahead of the curve in terms of his aerodynamic solutions,” says Winston Goodfellow, Italian car expert, author and longtime Pebble Beach judge. “He’s a bit like Elon Musk: He can assess a billion variables, quickly break them down, and look five steps ahead.”

To quantify such a talent, it’s important to go back to when Castriota began sketching cars at age 5: “My father was very passionate about Italian cars — Ferraris in particular — so many of my bonding experiences with him revolved around going to car shows and watching F1,” he remembers.

His car-sketching hobby quickly turned into a full-blown passion. “It’s Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule; as a child, I would spend massive chunks of time every day studying car design,” says Castriota.

Fast-forward to his 20s. Castriota graduated from Emerson College with a film degree and then got accepted at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, arguably the world’s preeminent transportation design program. He hit the ground running and by his fifth term won a coveted internship with VW/Audi’s Simi Valley design studio.

He then landed an internship with Ford, working under Moray Callum, who today heads the company’s global design efforts. “We quickly saw how talented he was and had him work on a full-size clay model for a production car program, which was very unusual,” says Callum. “Jason always questions the status quo, which is also unusual.”

Both companies offered him jobs, but Castriota instead put his name in the hat for another internship, this time his brass-ring shop, Pininfarina. He got the job, jumped on a plane to Turin and never looked back, putting his education at ArtCenter on pause for his Italian dream.

It took him only five years to become one of Pininfarina’s three chief designers, managing Ferrari and Maserati projects. He had a second role overseeing one-offs and aerodynamic projects.

Castriota eventually set out on his own, creating a consultancy business. During that time, he completed another five ultra-high-end, one-off sports cars for wealthy consignors, most of which the world may never see, due to the extremely private nature of his clients.

Why walk away from the sexy supercar world to go to a mass producer? “I’ve been fortunate to realize my childhood dream and create what are, for most, unattainable exotic cars fueled by my passion,” says Castriota. “By coming to Ford, I’ve fulfilled my other long-term desire — to create vehicles at a more realistic price point that bring out the childhood wonder and excitement that we tend to forget is inside all of us.”

I believe in the rule of three. Within a narrow space of time I suffered Stage 4 lymphoma, beating the odds by surviving, and was strongly encouraged, albeit with financial incentives, to take early retirement. Then, my marriage ended.

Armed with the temporary immunity that comes with the rule of three, it was time to reenter the dating pool. (Spoiler alert: As you start your sixth decade, the water is much colder. Difficult icebreakers replace the easy familiarity of youth.)

Fortunately, the harshness of that reality was buffered by the virtual world of online dating. It turns out I loved the efficiency of Match.com, Plenty of Fish and other online options. I also believe a relationship is based on the two Cs: chemistry and compatibility. Of the two, compatibility is the hardest. After a few minutes, attraction is obvious, but it takes a few dates to determine a possible good fit.

That’s where the efficiency of online dating excels. I could waste a lifetime meeting 500 women, selecting those with mutual attraction and going out on dates with each. By contrast, I could review 500 profiles in the time it would take to read a short novel.

I set about taking my task seriously, setting priorities and moving quickly past anyone who didn’t make the cut.

My criteria started with basic intelligence: Can someone string a couple of coherent sentences together? I wanted someone politically liberal, not religious, socially aware and open to other cultures, both through travel, and locally, by exploring ethnic cuisines. (As a devout carnivore, I had to rule out vegans and vegetarians.) My search narrowed: 500 women quickly became around 30, of which 10 women responded. Ten is a manageable number.

I went on a couple of dates that did not work out. No horror stories, but no magic either.

One profile, though, fired my imagination.

Roslyn checked all the boxes. And she was beautiful. I plodded on the keyboard with as much wit and charm as I could muster. We corresponded for a few weeks and advanced to phone calls.

After about five weeks, she agreed to meet in Thai Town. The food was good, the conversation better. I was amazed at how much a white Jewish boy from the Valley had in common with a black Motown transplant who’d been raised Baptist.

I ended the night looking forward to our second date. But there was just one problem.

Roslyn had two jobs, auditioning as an actress (with the usual percentage of callbacks), and working as a personal assistant. Actually, she had three jobs. Shortly after our first date, her hours were cut back and she began working at a pharmacy.

Each time I called her, the conversation flowed, but she was always too tired to go out.

I tried again and again. It was all testing my persistence, my confidence and, ultimately, my ingenuity. I would suggest dinner, or movies. Nothing moved the needle.

Two months passed, and still no second date with Roslyn.

Maybe I needed to take a hint?

Now, when I was growing up, my family owned a jewelry store. During the busy Christmas season, I worked at the store, sometimes as much as 60 hours a week. Like most retail stores, the floor was concrete covered with linoleum.

Standing all day took its toll, particularly on my feet.

I wondered if Roslyn was feeling the same.

I decided to give it one last try. I called Roslyn and asked her if she wanted to go to the San Gabriel Valley for a foot massage and hot pot.

I had her at foot massage.

We finished the evening with Taiwanese shaved ice, and we never looked back. (I learned to supplement our trips to the SGV with my own, less trained, fingers.)

About a year later, for her birthday, we drove up to Santa Ynez to sample the fruits of the vine and check on a thoroughbred at a horse farm. For the trip, I bought sandwiches at the justly revered Mario’s deli in Glendale (turkey and provolone for her, a spicy soppressata for me). I planned to propose when we stopped for lunch. And plan I did.

I thought she might be on to me, so I tried to gain some element of surprise by pretending I was prepared to stop at any old place and haul out the lunch basket. (Meanwhile, I had carefully charted out romantic locations all up the coast.) Hiding my nerves, I would periodically ask if she was feeling hungry.

By the time her appetite flowered, mine had nearly shriveled.

We finally pulled off at Arroyo Burro Beach in Santa Barbara County. We parked; I retrieved lunch. I also had a box loaded with gag birthday gifts. The ring box was at the very bottom.

I got down on one knee and proposed.

And after she helped me up, she said yes.

The author has been married for six years. He is a writer and retired attorney.

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KABUL, Afghanistan — 

The Taliban targeted a pro-government militia compound in northern Afghanistan before dawn on Monday, killing 14 members of the Afghan security forces, according to a local official. The Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack.

The attack came even as Taliban officials told the Associated Press just hours earlier that a temporary, nationwide cease-fire has been agreed upon among their council leaders. It wasn’t clear when the cease-fire would go into effect.

Of the 14 fatalities in the predawn attack in Jawzjan province, 13 were members of a pro-government militia and one was a policeman, said Abdul Maroof Azer, the governor’s spokesman.

Five other militiamen were wounded and two are missing, according to Azer. He said reinforcements later managed to reach the area and that the compound is now firmly back under government control.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military in its daily report of overnight military operations with Afghan forces said that 30 Taliban fighters were killed across the country and several other insurgents detained.

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The Taliban have intensified their attacks in northern Afghanistan in recent days. They targeted a local militia compound in northern Takhar province on Sunday, killing at least 17 Afghan militiamen. On Friday, at least 10 Afghan soldiers were killed in an attack on a checkpoint in southern Helmand province.

On Dec. 23, an American soldier was killed in combat in northern Kunduz province. The Taliban claimed they were behind a fatal roadside bombing that targeted American and Afghan forces there. Also last week, a Taliban attack on a checkpoint killed at least seven Afghan army soldiers in northern Balkh province. Another six Afghan troops were killed in the same province Thursday in an attack on an army base.

The Taliban today control or hold sway over half of the country and, along with Islamic State, stage near-daily attacks targeting Afghan and U.S. forces and Afghan government officials. Scores of civilians die in the crossfire. The insurgents are at their strongest point in the 18-year war, America’s longest conflict.

A cease-fire had been demanded by Washington before any peace agreement could be signed. A peace deal would allow the U.S. to bring home its troops from Afghanistan and end its engagement there.

The White House said it would have no comment on the cease-fire reports. The Taliban did not specify the duration of the cease-fire, though it was suggested the truce would last for 10 days.

The U.S. wants any peace deal to include a promise from the Taliban that Afghanistan would not be used as a base by terrorist groups. The U.S. has an estimated 12,000 troops in Afghanistan.

CAIRO — 

A court in Sudan on Monday sentenced 27 members of the country’s security forces to death for torturing and killing a detained protester during the uprising against Sudan’s longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir earlier this year.

The death of protester Ahmed al-Khair, a schoolteacher, while in detention in February was a key point — and a symbol — in the uprising that eventually led to the military’s ouster of al-Bashir. Monday’s convictions and sentences, which can be appealed, were the first connected to the killings of protesters in the revolt.

In December 2018, the first rally was held in Sudan to protest the soaring cost of bread, marking the beginning of a pro-democracy movement that convulsed the large African country. That led, in April, to the toppling by the military of al-Bashir, and ultimately to the creation of a joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that has committed to rebuilding the country and promises elections in three years.

The anniversary of that protest this month drew teeming crowds to the streets in several cities and towns across the country, with people singing, dancing and carrying flags. A train packed with exuberant demonstrators, clapping and chanting, arrived in the northern city of Atbara, the birthplace of the uprising, from the capital, Khartoum.

Monday’s verdict in the trial of the security forces took place in a court in Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city, where dozens of protesters had gathered outside the courtroom, demanding justice for al-Khair.

Al-Khair was detained on Jan. 31 in the eastern province of Kassala and was reported dead two days later. His body was taken to a local hospital where his family said it was covered in bruises. At the time, police denied any police wrongdoing and blamed his death on an “illness,” without providing any details.

The court, however, said on Monday that the teacher was beaten and tortured while in detention. The 27 sentenced were policemen who were working in the jail where al-Khair was held or intelligence agents in the region.

Also this month, a court in Khartoum convicted al-Bashir of money laundering and corruption, sentencing him to two years in a minimum security lockup. The image of the former dictator in a defendant’s cage sent a strong message, on live TV for all of Sudan.

The deposed ruler is under indictment by the International Criminal Court on far more serious charges of war crimes and genocide linked to his brutal suppression of the insurgency in the western province of Darfur in the early 2000s. The military has refused to extradite him to stand trial in The Hague.

Amnesty International and other rights groups have called on the new government to hold security forces accountable for killing scores of people in their efforts to stifle protests against military rule, especially those behind a deadly crackdown on a huge sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum in June.

Since December 2018, nearly 200 protesters have been killed in Sudan. The government recently appointed independent judges to oversee investigations into the killings, a major achievement for the protest movement.

Sudan is under heavy international and regional pressure to reform. With the economy on the brink, the new government has made it a mission to get Sudan removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism so that it can attract badly needed foreign aid.

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Here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:

TOP STORIES

Anti-Semitic Hate Fuels More Fears

On Saturday, the seventh night of Hanukkah, a machete-wielding man wounded five people at the Monsey, N.Y., home of a Hasidic rabbi. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the attack “domestic terrorism” and said it was one of 13 acts of anti-Semitism in his state since Dec. 8.

New York is far from alone. Just this month, a gunman targeted a kosher grocery store in Jersey City, N.J., and a Beverly Hills synagogue was vandalized. In April, an attack left one person dead and three others wounded at a synagogue outside San Diego.

The violence has led to growing fears in the Jewish community. “I do not recall any time I’ve been as concerned as I am now,” says Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. ”We’re in uncharted territory. Unless we do something, the results will be horrific and unprecedented in American history.”

The Latest From Washington

— Rep. John Lewis of Georgia says he has Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He vowed to stay in office and fight the disease with the tenacity that he fought racial discrimination and other inequalities since the civil rights era.

— U.S. warplanes struck an Iraqi paramilitary faction in Iraq and Syria that Washington had accused of conducting repeated attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces, including an attack on Friday that killed an American contractor in northern Iraq.

— Former Vice President Joe Biden sought to clarify his assertion that if the Senate subpoenas him to testify in President Trump’s impeachment trial, he will defy the order. But he did not clear up what he would do.

Love in the Time of DACA

Dating is hard enough. Add in the question of one’s legal status, and it can be heartbreaking. Now, with the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program in the air, many so-called Dreamers are struggling with how to start (or end) romantic relationships.

A Silent Threat

Lead-based paint was banned in 1978 after studies linked lead exposure to irreversible brain damage and stunted development in kids. Most homes in L.A. County were built before then, and roughly 2,000 children each year are still diagnosed with unsafe lead levels in their blood. The problem is especially acute in South Los Angeles. A settlement with paint companies means the county will receive $134 million to eliminate hazards, but that money won’t go far enough to pay for all the work needed.

The Year That Was

Homelessness. Natural disasters. Immigration. Impeachment. As we count down the hours to 2019 (and for that matter, the 2010s), we’re looking back at the storylines that shaped this year. In L.A., homelessness truly felt like a crisis in every corner. In California, there were two large earthquakes, power outages and fires. In Washington, it may have been Trump’s most successful year yet for restricting immigration. And in the big picture, the urgency and hysteria of the news often overshadowed rare moments of beauty.

MORE FROM THE YEAR IN REVIEW

— A year of covering Trump in the White House can leave one’s head spinning.

— The most read L.A. Times stories of the year.

— Internet obsessions, from Baby Yoda to “OK, boomer.”

— Our restaurant critics’ picks for the 15 best dishes in L.A.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the year ahead.

OUR MUST-READS FROM THE WEEKEND

— Los Angeles is spending billions of dollars over 10 years in a historic bid to move people from the streets into housing and to ease a worsening homeless crisis. But there are those who have tried to live in the housing and cannot make it. The reasons are complicated.

— Before the deadly Conception boat fire on Labor Day, some captains say, a Coast Guard safety rule regarding nighttime watches was ignored.

— Scientific experts warned Congress more than a decade ago that just four teaspoons of radioactive cesium-137 — if spread by a terrorist’s “dirty bomb” — could contaminate up to 10 square miles. Now, the threat has grown, a Times investigation shows.

— A former Hong Kong police officer says a rift between the force and millions of citizens could be irreparable.

— American retirees are heading to Vietnam for inexpensive housing, cheap healthcare and a rising standard of living. Some are Vietnam War veterans.

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CALIFORNIA

— Authorities say an apartment fire in Hemet that killed a father and two of his children started with a Christmas tree.

— Malibu wants to ban all pesticides, but the state is arguing that such a proposal is against the law.

— Hollywood Hills residents and tour companies are at odds over tour buses and vans. The L.A. City Council is considering new restrictions.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

— You may know of the reality show “Flirty Dancing” from a viral video. The U.S. version, on Fox, comes with a twist.

— The second season of Netflix’s soapy thriller “You” is full of L.A. stereotypes. Here’s why.

— The latest indignity to be suffered by the “Cats” movie? It’s been scratched from Universal’s awards season website.

NATION-WORLD

— Police say congregants at a church near Fort Worth shot and killed a man who had opened fire inside. The attacker killed two people.

— Taliban officials say its ruling council has agreed to a temporary cease-fire in Afghanistan, providing a window in which a peace agreement with the United States can be signed.

— Libya’s civil war has long had an international flavor, with no fewer than 10 countries engaged in proxy battles. Now, as Turkey prepares to send troops, it also appears to have dispatched Syrian rebel militants too.

— Greece has lifted a ban on cremation after decades of opposition to the practice from the country’s powerful Orthodox Church.

BUSINESS

— The California Consumer Privacy Act is rewriting the rules of the internet … and businesses are having a difficult time keeping up.

— The U.S. stock market is poised to close a banner year, but the rally hasn’t helped half of the nation’s millennials, who either lack the means to invest or are wary of doing so.

SPORTS

— The Rams had a bittersweet farewell at the Coliseum with festivities and a victory, while the Chargers lost and face big offseason questions. Both teams finished the season out of the playoffs and will be heading to the new SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

— Paul George of the Clippers wants to “keep kids dreaming” in his hometown of Palmdale. He’s worked to refurbish seven courts at four Palmdale parks.

OPINION

— The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department’s disciplinary system is a mess. In Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s first full year in office, he made it worse.

— It’s been three years since Californians voted to legalize marijuana, but the state is still struggling to figure out the right levels of regulation, taxation and enforcement to apply. Why can’t it find the sweet spot?

WHAT OUR EDITORS ARE READING

— The inside story of Trump’s demand to halt military assistance to Ukraine shows the lengths to which he was willing to go. (New York Times)

— How Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani inserted himself into a shadow effort to force Venezuela’s president to step down, including a 2018 phone call to the president. (Washington Post)

— Remember the Y2K panic? Twenty years ago, it seemed as if the end was nigh. Here’s the real story of what happened. (Popular Mechanics)

ONLY IN CALIFORNIA

Mark Twain once wrote here. Though the articles he put together for the Mountain Messenger newspaper were perhaps not his finest work. “They were awful,” says current editor-publisher Don Russell. “They were just local stories, as I recall, written by a guy with a hangover.” Soon, Twain’s former employer and California’s oldest newspaper — known to the locals in Sierra County as the Mountain Mess — could be closing for good. The operation is for sale, but as Russell says, “Nobody in their right mind would buy this paper.”

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MONSEY, N.Y. — 

A man accused of storming into a rabbi’s home and stabbing five people as they celebrated Hanukkah in an Orthodox Jewish community north of New York City was raised to embrace tolerance but has a history of mental illness, his family said.

“Grafton Thomas has a long history of mental illness and hospitalizations. He has no history of … violent acts and no convictions for any crime,” his family said late Sunday in a statement issued by attorney Michael Sussman. “He has no known history of anti-Semitism and was raised in a home which embraced and respected all religions and races. He is not a member of any hate groups.”

“We believe the actions of which he is accused, if committed by him, tragically reflect profound mental illness,” the statement said.

“Finally, we express our deepest concern and prayers for those injured physically and otherwise deeply affected by the events of Saturday night…. We thank those who rendered medical attention to each of those injured.”

Police tracked a fleeing suspect to Manhattan and made an arrest within two hours of the attack Saturday night in Monsey. Thomas had blood all over his clothing and smelled of bleach but said “almost nothing” when officers stopped him, officials said.

President Trump condemned the “horrific” attack, saying in a tweet Sunday that “We must all come together to fight, confront, and eradicate the evil scourge of anti-Semitism.”

The stabbings on the seventh night of Hanukkah left one person critically wounded, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. The rabbi’s son was also injured, he said.

Thomas, 37, was arraigned Sunday and pleaded not guilty to five counts of attempted murder and one count of burglary. Bail was set at $5 million, and he remains jailed.

Thomas’ criminal history includes an arrest for assaulting a police horse, according to an official briefed on the investigation who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. A lawyer representing Thomas at the arraignment said he had no convictions.

The Greenwood Lake street where Thomas lived with his mother, about 20 miles from Monsey, was blocked with police tape Sunday as FBI agents and police officers carried items from their home.

The FBI was seeking a warrant to obtain his online accounts and was scouring digital evidence, the official said.

The attack was the latest in a string of violence targeting Jews in the region, including a Dec. 10 massacre at a kosher grocery store in New Jersey. Last month in Monsey, a man was stabbed while walking to a synagogue.

Cuomo said Saturday’s savagery was the 13th anti-Semitic attack in New York since Dec. 8.

According to the official briefed on the investigation, authorities do not believe Thomas is connected to recent anti-Semitic incidents in New York City.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center said it wants the FBI to create a special task force.

Monsey, near the New Jersey state line about 35 miles north of New York City, is one of several Hudson Valley communities that has seen a rising population of Hasidic Jews in recent years.

At a celebration in Monsey on Sunday that was planned before the shooting, several members of the community stood guard armed with assault-style rifles. They refused to give their names when approached by an AP journalist, but they said they were there to defend their community.

“The Jewish community is utterly terrified,” Evan Bernstein, the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of New York and New Jersey, said in a statement. “No one should have to live like this.”