Five Things You Need To Know Today

WARMER DAY: I suspect we’re all hoping it’s warmer today than it has been the last few days. The National Weather Service predicts it will be mostly sunny with a high near 70 degrees. So we’ll be a bit better off. Winds could gust as high as 20 miles per hour. Tonight should be mostly clear with a low around 51 degrees. Winds could gust as high as 30 miles per hour.

SUPPORT MEETING: The Vet to Vet Group: Life After Loss Workshop is scheduled to meet at noon at the VA Loma Linda Medical Center Room 2A-34. The VA is at 11201 Benton St. Information: (909) 825-7084 ext. 1081 or ext. 2341.

NO FIRE HERE: From the mouths of babes. My husband and I took our 4-year-old to the Children’s Day at the Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital yesterday. It was a lot of fun. My little one and I went into the Loma Linda Fire Department’s fire safety trailer. It had three stations, a mock kitchen, living room and bedroom. At one point, the very patient firefighter in the living room area had my son feel a door and ask if it was hot or warm or cold. “Warm, yeah,” my son said. The firefighter then had my son look through a small window next to the door. “Do you see a fire?” the firefighter asked. My son’s answer: “I see … I see daddy.” Turns out through the little window, he could see through to a back window of the trailer. As we burst out laughing, my son had this, “What’s so funny?” look on his face. I think the family will be talking about that one for a few months.

HISTORIC BUILDING: The Redlands Conservancy reports the Redlands City Council was receptive to their pleas that the city preserve the Mutual Orange Distribution, or MOD, packing house. The group is lobbying the city renovate the building, converting it to another use instead of selling it. According to a letter written by members of the conservancy, the city is considering selling the packinghouse to George Krikorian of Krikorian Theaters. “After consulting with architects who have successfully adaptively reused a similar Claremont packing house and turned it into a thriving retail center, we also believe the MOD can be adaptively reused to become an economic engine for downtown Redlands,” according to the letter. The group is now in a wait and see mode.

CHILD ON TRIAL: A judge on Wednesday ordered a psychiatric evaluation of a 10-year-old Riverside boy accused of killing his neo-Nazi father because he was “tired of his dad hitting him and his mom,” according to court papers. The boy is charged with murder and a sentence-enhancing allegation of using a firearm during a felony in the May 1 shooting death of 32-year-old Jeff Russell Hall, the Southwest regional director of the Detroit-based National Socialist Movement, which advocates racial segregation, according to a City News Service report. The mental exam was ordered during a detention hearing in Riverside County Juvenile Court. The boy, who's being held at Riverside Juvenile Hall, is due back in court on July 22. If convicted, he could be incarcerated in a juvenile detention facility until he's 25, according to City News Service.