This year’s biggest trend is to break all the rules.

In a sea of uncertainty, risk, and challenge, there’s at least one bright spot for U.S. foreign policy: India. Fueled by affinities of principle and practice, the U.S.-Indian partnership is on a sure yet smooth upswing — just at the sort of moment it’s needed most.

Strategic conditions elsewhere in the world have become unfavorable on even deeper levels than are commonly considered. In addition to the relatively obvious geopolitical advantage to closer collaboration between the United States and India, there are more complex and significant cultural benefits touching on the most powerful trends in commerce and technology. Some of these benefits make it easier for the U.S. to go on offense in areas of primary concern. Some of them, perhaps even more importantly, beef up America’s strategic defense capabilities.

To begin with, a firmer and more enduring U.S.-India alliance helps move American policymakers and strategists away from two equally shaky models. Both the “pro-European” model favored by those on the left of center and the “Anglosphere” favored on the right have pronounced weaknesses.

In the first case, the differences between the U.S. and Europe are so much more significant than the similarities that the Continent can no longer be treated as the stable point in the international order that liberals have assumed, right up to the end of the Obama presidency, that it must be. Nor is the U.S. about to close the gap. Even if Trump is completely repudiated at the end of his term, the U.S. is not going to port over Scandinavian-style social democracy or wind up facing the same sorts of structural economic and cultural challenges as the continental Europeans.

While close working relations with Europe must not be abandoned, the full weight of U.S. world policy cannot be placed on the shoulders of that relationship. American policymakers must be prepared for that relationship to bear even less weight in the future. In the search for an alternative, India looms large.

In the second case, the Anglosphere is clearly no longer a viable substitute for Europe as a partner in organizing world power and economics on terms stably favorable to the United States. While Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain itself of course remain core U.S. allies, the truth is that India is America’s linchpin English-speaking ally, without which the rest of the former British Empire is very likely too weak to be counted on in the sort of crisis the U.S. is most likely to face in the immediate to short term.

Britain especially is in a weak spot, torn between a desire to disappear into Europe and to withdraw into its own political attic. The right is divided and confused, while the left is increasingly united under the fantasy that a defunct strain of socialist labor ideology can break open a window onto new forms of solidarity and justice. While Britain will probably not completely collapse as a regional power any time soon, in its diminished state it is no competition for India — not the India of today, and certainly not the India of tomorrow.

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi knows these things. “In an uncertain global economic landscape, our two nations stand as mutually reinforcing engines of growth and innovation,” Modi wrote in a high-profile Wall Street Journal editorial. “Confidence in each other’s political values and a strong belief in each other’s prosperity has enabled our engagement to grow. A vision of joint success and progress guides our partnership.”

Although these considerations underscore the significance of a deepening political partnership, Modi’s eye is fixed — as that of U.S. policymakers should be — on commerce and culture.

“The logic of our strategic relationship is incontrovertible,” Modi noted. “It is further underpinned by faith in the strength of our multicultural societies that have defended our values at all costs, including the supreme sacrifices we’ve made in distant corners of the globe.”

In conclusion, Modi avowed, “the next few decades [will] be an even more remarkable story of ambitious horizons, convergent action and shared growth.”

What is only implicit in Modi’s remarks, however, and what Americans should closely bear in mind going forward, is that, while both U.S. and Indian strains of liberal democracy have come under recent criticism for tending more toward executive prerogative and the power of personality, the ongoing transformation of democracy by digital technology and digital habits of life will show the leadership style of a Trump or a Modi (or, perhaps, a Macron) to be more compatible with freedom protections than the changes to come.

Neither rights language nor constitutionalism issues forth from the habits of digital life — a reality that gives a potentially dramatic global advantage to, for instance, China, the most powerful competitor faced by India and the United States alike.

While neither the U.S. nor India should have any interest in a direct general war with Beijing — such a confrontation would, in fact, mark a horrible failure of policy — both allies do want to demonstrate that English-speaking liberal democracies are able to work in concert to manage the transition into digital civilization more fruitfully than the world’s most powerful autocratic regime.

James Poulos is a columnist for the Southern California News Group.

It was Aristotle who first ruminated over which came first, the chicken or the egg. “There could not have been a first egg to give a beginning to birds,” he declared, “or there would have been a first bird which gave a beginning to eggs; for a bird comes from an egg.”

Leaving aside how little Donald J. Trump resembles the “philosopher-kings” envisioned by Aristotle’s protégé Plato in “The Republic,” a similar question vexes us today. It, too, initially sounds frivolous, while actually carrying significant implications: In our modern republic, MSNBC’s audience leans left, while Fox News’ leans right. Here’s the question worth contemplating: Which came first, the partisan programming or the ideologically minded audience?

The answer helps us to understand President Trump’s latest self-inflicted controversy, his “Mean Girl”-style attacks Thursday on MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-hosts and power couple Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski:

I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017

…to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017

Trump’s critics zeroed in on his gross reference to Brzezinski’s cosmetic surgery. He invoked similar imagery, in an even less appropriate way, while sniping at debate moderator Megyn Kelly in 2015. Focusing on the sexist aspect of the attack made it easy for Trump’s enemies to ignore something pretty basic: Why did the president boil over in the first place?

The answer was not hard to find, and is known by every MSNBC viewer. Joe and Mika have called The Donald similar names for four months. The very format of their show consists of a daily barrage of insults directed at Trump from the hosts, who then solicit regular panelists and guests to rephrase these anti-Trump slurs — or add their own. I’ve never been on that program myself; perhaps my views are too nuanced to fit the format. But I watch it, with increasing discomfort.

The go-to topic is Trump’s mental health. A few other cable shows question it as well. Together it’s a sustained personal attack on a sitting U.S. president without precedent since the dawn of television. Does it excuse Trump’s un-presidential response? Not in my mind. But it helps explain it. Let’s go to the tape.

March 6: “I think we reached a new low this weekend,” Scarborough says in response to Trump’s claim that Trump Tower was wiretapped by the Obama administration.

“I had hope and an open mind and I have lost hope completely and my mind is closed,” Brzezinski adds. “This presidency is fake and failed.”

May 1: “Morning Joe” puts up a screenshot of a Scarborough tweet: “Though it seems impossible, this is getting worse by the day. Is the president spinning even more out of control?” The topic is Trump’s uninformed rambling about the Civil War and Andrew Jackson. Scarborough quoted historian Douglas Brinkley saying the president has had “a confused mental state.” Scarborough then adds, “My mother’s had dementia for 10 years. That sounds like the sort of thing my mother would say today.”

May 5: Guest Rob Reiner rips Scarborough and Brzezinski for going too easy on Trump during the 2016 primaries. “The words that have been flung out from his mouth are insane,” Reiner says. “If Donald Trump was not a celebrity, the words that come out of his mouth, you’d see a guy in a park. A lunatic in a park on a soap box, and you’d walk right by him.”

May 15: “There is not a sane, rational human being who would have tweeted what he tweeted yesterday,” intones Scarborough. “If any CEO, in a Fortune 500 company, was behaving this way, he or she would be removed immediately. … They would take him out, he would have psychiatric evaluation and he would no longer be the CEO.”

May 23: Referring to Trump allegedly passing sensitive Israeli intelligence to Russian diplomats and then discussing it publicly, Scarborough calls Trump “stupid” and a “jackass.”

June 1: Brzezinski prompts Scarborough to share the metaphor he told her off-camera. He doesn’t seem to remember what he said until she reminds him: “Like a kid pooping their pants, and then saying I meant to do that!”

June 6: Characterizing Trump’s primary campaign strategy as “evil” and “cynical,” Scarborough says that at least Trump was doing things that were in his own interest, but that he no longer “think[s] rationally.” Joe throws it to guest Donny Deutsch, who doesn’t miss his cue. The “self-destructive” Trump “clearly has a personality disorder,” Deutsch says before adding the phrases “mental disorder,” “self-destructive personality disorder” and “borderline personality” disorder. “I’m not a clinician,” he allows, which is an almost comic understatement: He’s a marketing and branding expert.

“I kind of want to dispense with political correctness for a bit and just say what everyone is thinking,” chimes in guest commentator Elise Jordan: “This behavior is crazy. He needs to get a grip on it. He’s president of the United States, he’s commander-in-chief and he’s acting unhinged from the Oval Office.”

June 7: “Donald Trump, again, being a schmuck, thinking he can buy people’s integrity by inviting them over to the White House and wowing them,” Scarborough says when discussing a dinner party at the White House. “That’s how he thinks. I know that first-hand.”

June 8: “I think … it is possible that he’s mentally ill in a way” is Brzezinski’s take on this morning. “He’s not well. At the very least he’s … so narcissistic he does not believe the rules apply to him.”

June 28: Brzezinski: “Phony. A phony, fake, pathetic, made-up cover of Time magazine. That’s your boss. That’s needy. Nothing makes a man feel better than making a fake cover of a magazine about himself, lying every day and destroying the country.”

In her own “Mean Girl” voice, Mika then flashes an image of the magazine in question and squeals, “He’s covering his hands here because they’re teensy.”

This childish slur about Trump’s manhood is apparently what prompted his response. Obviously, he shouldn’t have taken the bait, but considering what set him off, MSNBC’s hand-wringing corporate response — that it’s a “sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks” — was disingenuous.

When the NBC suits join the on-air talent in such loaded characterizations, the rules of the game become clear: MSNBC bashes Donald Trump because it’s what their audience expects, and it’s good for ratings. As Salon magazine noted caustically in March when Mika pronounced a seven-week-old presidency “fake and failed,” it had taken “Morning Joe” some 45 days to “catch up to the audience of their show.” Salon didn’t mean this as a compliment.

Scarborough and Brzezinski gave a wink and a nod to this point in their Washington Post rebuttal to Trump’s Thursday tweet. It was a curious response. They accused Trump of lying when he said Mika had a facelift, before adding, “She did have a little skin under her chin tweaked.” They also beseeched Trump to stop watching “Morning Joe,” saying, “We are both certain that man is not mentally equipped” to keep watching it. Given its content, how could he be?

Carl M. Cannon is executive editor and Washington Bureau chief of RealClearPolitics.

Santa Monica’s yearly minimum wage increase went into effect on July 1 and reached as high as $15.66 per hour for hotel workers. But at least one group of employees didn’t feel the benefit: Hotel employees represented by UNITE HERE Local 11. This isn’t a quirk in the city’s minimum wage law, but rather an intentional omission designed to grease the proverbial skids of Local 11’s organizing efforts.

The story starts in 2015, when the Santa Monica City Council was debating whether to follow Los Angeles’ lead on a $15 minimum wage. Los Angeles has two minimum wage ordinances; one passed in 2014 that applies specifically to hotels, and another passed in 2015 that applies to all other businesses in the city.

One key difference between the two ordinances is how they apply to employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement. The hotel ordinance excludes these employees, and unions attempted to insert similar language into the citywide ordinance. This labor loophole generated national outrage — the Los Angeles Times editorial board described it as “hypocrisy at its worst” — and both the council and mayor tossed cold water at the idea.

But the City Council in Santa Monica isn’t so easily shamed. The final ordinance passed by the city matched Los Angeles’ city-wide and hotel-specific wage mandates, but carved out union members from the entire ordinance. Ironically, an organization designed to bargain for better pay ensured that, as of July 1st, non-union hotel employees in the city were guaranteed an hourly rate that’s 46 percent higher than their union counterparts.

Prior to the law’s passage, Councilwoman Sue Himmelrich used anecdotes to justify her support for the union member exclusion, pointing to conversations she’d had with hotel employees who “would prefer to have a union negotiating on their behalf for better benefits in different aspects of their lives.” The Los Angeles Times interviewed other Local 11 employees across the region who weren’t hand-picked by the union, and received a very different response. “The union isn’t really doing anything for us,” one employee said. “It’s completely upside-down. They want to pay us less than the minimum wage.”

It’s not just union members who find this strategy unseemly and divisive — other union leaders do, too. Dave Regan, the president of a powerful SEIU local in California, told the Times that “unions should not be in the business of carving out lower wage standards for ourselves.” He added: “We don’t help ourselves with anybody — with our members or the public — by the defending the indefensible.”

Local 11 does seem to be helping its own bottom line, though. Since the Santa Monica ordinance took effect on July 1st, 2016, Local 11 has successfully organized employees at the JW Marriott Le Merigot and DoubleTree hotels. These employees, who are now paying dues for the “privilege” of being excluded from the city’s wage law, might be interested to know how their dollars are being spent. For instance, Local 11 spent more than $10,000 in fiscal year 2016 for a directors’ retreat at the “luxury” Riviera Palm Springs, and another $12,700 on Christmas gifts for its staff.

The real tragedy of the $15 wage experiment isn’t that some employees lose out on a raise — it’s that they lose out on a job entirely. Recent studies of wage increases in San Francisco and Seattle confirm the folly of experimenting with minimum wage levels far above the historical standard. But even if Santa Monica residents support their city’s fight for $15, their consciences should be shocked at the Local 11 loophole that keeps this raise from union members.

Michael Saltsman is managing director at the Employment Policies Institute.

Senate Bill 349 is being sold as a patient protection measure for those undergoing dialysis but, in reality, it puts the health of unions above the health of patients.

The legislation, introduced by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, who also coauthored the now defunct single-payer health care bill, would require dialysis centers to maintain rigid minimum staffing ratios at all times, including no more than eight patients per nurse and three patients per certified hemodialysis technician. In addition, it would mandate that chairs remain empty for at least 45 minutes between patients, supposedly to allow for better cleaning of equipment, and would increase the frequency of facility inspections.

For those with damaged or failing kidneys, dialysis filters the blood to remove waste and prevent the buildup of excess water. Patients typically must undergo treatment three times a week for three or four hours at a time. There are currently more than 63,000 patients on dialysis in California.

Proponents of SB349 claim it is needed to improve dialysis patient safety, but there is little to no evidence that it would actually do so. The true motivation seems to be to advance an effort to unionize employees at dialysis centers. Not surprisingly, the bill is cosponsored by SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West and the United Nurses Association of California/Union of Health Care Professionals.

The bill is opposed not only by dialysis operators, but also by a broad coalition of patients, health care providers, health care advocates, and business and taxpayers groups, including California Dialysis Council, Renal Support Network, Chronic Disease Coalition, Renal Physicians Association, American Nurses Association of California, California Hospital Association and California Association of Rural Health Clinics. Opponents have characterized SB349 as “a solution in search of a problem,” and point to Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services data which shows that patients’ satisfaction with dialysis center staff and facilities is already higher than both the national average and the average of the eight states that have imposed similar staffing ratio requirements.

“[T]here is no evidence that regulations with specific nurse-to-patient staffing ratios, or technician staffing ratios, have led to greater safety or improved outcomes in states where those regulations exist,” said Michael D. Shapiro, president of the Renal Physicians Association.

Even worse, the added costs SB349 would impose will prompt clinics that are already barely getting by financially, particularly in rural and low-income areas, to cut shifts — and, thus, patient slots — or close altogether. The requirements would likely be particularly damaging for those who utilize evening dialysis appointments or nocturnal dialysis, a slower and longer treatment that takes place overnight for six to eight hours while patients are sleeping, as fewer staff are needed to monitor these patients. This would create significant difficulties for those who need later treatment times to accommodate their work schedules.

According to a California Dialysis Council survey, SB349 could cause more than 15,000 patients (about one in every four) to lose their current access to dialysis care, as 63 percent of evening and overnight shifts would be at risk of elimination and 121 of the state’s 570 dialysis clinics (21 percent) would be at risk of closing.

The reduction in patient slots would force some patients to seek treatment at hospital emergency rooms, which will result in much greater costs to both patients and taxpayers (in the cases of those patients on Medi-Cal).

Unions have every right to try to organize, but to use their political clout to impose costly, arbitrary, one-size-fits-all staffing standards that will likely result in the closure of medical facilities and reduce dialysis patients’ access to life-sustaining care is appalling. This bill should be DOA.

California’s economic revival has sparked widespread notions, shared by Jerry Brown and observers elsewhere, that its economy — and policy agenda — should be adopted by the rest of the country. And, to be sure, the Golden State has made a strong recovery in the last five years, but this may prove to be far more vulnerable than its boosters imagine.

The driver of the latest California “comeback,” the Silicon Valley-San Francisco tech boom, is beginning to slow in terms of both job growth and startup activity. The most recent job numbers, notes Chapman University economist Jim Doti, show that employment growth in the information sector has slowed over the past year from almost 10 percent to under 2 percent. Particularly hard-hit is high-tech startup formation, which is down by almost half from just two years ago.

This slowdown extends also to the professional business services sector, which has become increasingly intertwined with tech. In a recent survey of professional business service growth for Forbes magazine, economist Mike Shires and I found that last year Silicon Valley and San Francisco growth rates were considerably lower than those in boomtowns such as Nashville, Tenn.; Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas; Orlando, Fla.; Salt Lake City and Charlotte, N.C. With the exception of Orange County, the rest of Southern California performed below the national average.

The historical perspective

Historically, California’s great strength was the diversity of its economy, stretching from high-tech and aerospace to finance, entertainment, energy, basic manufacturing and homebuilding. Yet, during the most recent boom, the growth of high-wage job growth largely took place in one region — the Bay Area — while other sectors generally stagnated or shrank.

Silicon Valley and its urban annex, San Francisco, have brilliantly expanded the scope of the digital revolution. Google and Apple have become the world’s most valuable companies, and the Valley, along with Puget Sound in the state of Washington, account for four of the 10 wealthiest people on the planet, and virtually all of the self-made billionaires under 40.

This success has masked greater problems in the rest of the state. Southern California, home to over half the state’s population, has seen only modest high-wage job growth, both in tech and business services, since 2000.

The dangers of consolidation

We tend to see the growth of tech companies in California, notably the Bay Area, as the ultimate expression of both entrepreneurial drive and technical skill. Yet, the current tech boom, unlike those in the past, is largely defined by a few large firms, including the occasional megastartups like Uber and Lyft. Overall, the National Venture Capital Association reports that the number of startup deals is now at the lowest level since 2010.

These trends may explain the slowing growth rates. The Valley’s elite is fat and happy, and expanding their purview into virtually every crevice of the economy, including business services, entertainment, automobiles and aerospace, all of which are expensive to enter and retain formidable competitors. Yet, with this growing power, there also seem to be fewer opportunities for new entrepreneurs. As one recent paper demonstrates, these “super platforms” depress competition, squeeze suppliers and reduce opportunities for potential rivals, much as the monopolists of the late 19th century did.

The dominant firms, unchallenged by friendly regimes of both parties in Washington, now operate at a scale in terms of cash reserves and market power that other firms, even long established ones, do not enjoy. It is becoming a self-sustaining aristocracy which makes out like bandits even when they fail. Marissa Mayer, who recently stepped down as Yahoo’s CEO, earned $239 million over her five-year tenure — almost a million a week — as she drove one of the net’s earliest stars into oblivion.

The prognosis for the rest of us

The “boom” has left most Californians in a precarious position. Even in Silicon Valley, the working and middle class have, if anything, done worse economically than before the boom. Housing prices, in part driven by state and regional regulations, are gradually sending the seed corn — younger families — to more affordable places.

If Silicon Valley falters, who can pick up the slack? The Inland Empire, one of the less expensive areas of the state, which should be a prime location for expanding firms, was one of the very few areas to lose business and professional service jobs since 2011. Southern California, by blending its genius in content creation with technology, could perhaps emerge as a major source of high-wage jobs, but it faces tremendous headwinds in terms of regulation, congestion and a massive poverty population.

Perhaps most damaging of all, the allure of the tech boom has been used to justify Sacramento’s crushing regulatory and tax regime. The state’s strong performance since 2010 has convinced many in the political class and the media that business climate does not matter. It has made apologists able to ignore some 10,000 businesses that have left or expanded outside of the state, many of them employing middle- and working-class people.

High-tech and entertainment are great industries to have, even at slower growth rates, but they cannot long carry such a diverse state with the highest poverty rate in the country and severe affordability challenges. California has been largely lulled to sleep by a now fading boom. We could experience a very rude awakening that will cause havoc to the state budget, produce a potential housing correction and challenge communities across the state.

Joel Kotkin is the R.C. Hobbs Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange and executive director of the Houston-based Center for Opportunity Urbanism (www.opportunityurbanism.org).

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J.J. Redick is leaving the Clippers on the first full day free agents can negotiate with other teams, agreeing to sign a one-year contract worth $23 million with the Philadelphia 76ers, according to an ESPN report.

The 6-foot-4 outside-shooting specialist became the Clippers starting shooting guard after arriving via trade in the summer of 2013 and averaged 15.8 points in four seasons while shooting 44 percent from 3.

With Chris Paul already gone, traded to Houston, Redick’s departure guarantees the Clippers will field an entirely new backcourt when the season opens in October. For now, that looks to be point guard Patrick Beverley and, perhaps, career sixth man Lou Williams, both acquired on Tuesday in the trade with Houston for Paul.

On Saturday, Redick tweeted, “Trust the process,” a nod to former executive Sam Hinkie’s mantra about the Sixers slow but deliberate rebuild. With Redick in place, joining budding superstar Joel Embiid and the No. 1 picks in the last two drafts, Ben Simmons and Markell Fultz, Philadelphia could be poised to make a run at the postseason in the Eastern Conference.

Redick had been a critical piece of the Clippers efforts to break through in the Western Conference, and a fine complement next to Chris Paul in the backcourt. However, as free agency approached it became increasingly clear that Redick was not in the Clippers’ plans and that he was no longer interested in them.

The former Duke star, who previously played for the Orlando Magic and Milwaukee Bucks, struggled this year in the playoffs. In a seven-game series loss to the Utah Jazz Redick averaged just 9.1 points and shot just 9-of-26 from 3 while being bullied and outplayed by Joe Ingles, who was cut by the Clippers in training camp two years earlier.

Redick was linked most heavily to either Philadelphia or Brooklyn, where he has a home, although Houston and Minnesota reportedly entered the fray after adding superstars via trade, Paul for the Rockets and Jimmy Butler for Timberwolves.

But Philadelphia won out, with Redick telling ESPN: “It’s where I wanted to be.”

He could have signed a contract for as many as four years, but opted to take more money up front and re-enter the free agent pool again in 2018.

Once Paul informed the Clippers he intended to leave as a free agent if they did not trade him to Houston, the franchise accomplished its next top objective: agreeing on a new contract with All-Star power forward Blake Griffin on Friday evening. The maximum contract, which cannot be signed until the NBA’s moratorium is lifted on July 6, will pay Griffin $173 million over five season.

With Griffin on board, the Clippers were expected to address their hole at small forward. Entering the weekend, their top priorities were Denver forward Danilo Gallinari, Utah’s Ingles and San Antonio’s Jonathan Simmons.

The team only has the $8.4 million mid-level exception left to spend although they could potentially shed salary to sign someone to a heftier contract.

Fire today damaged a Burger King restaurant in Garden Grove, which sustained a total of $25,000 worth of damage.Firefighters dispatched shortly before 8 a.m. to 12372 Brookhurst St. had the fire out within 20 minutes of their arrival, said Capt. Thanh Nguyen of the Garden Grove Fire Department.

Firefighters dispatched shortly before 8 a.m. to 12372 Brookhurst St. had the fire out within 20 minutes of their arrival, said Capt. Thanh Nguyen of the Garden Grove Fire Department.

Firefighters dispatched shortly before 8 a.m. to 12372 Brookhurst St. had the fire out within 20 minutes of their arrival, said Capt. Thanh Nguyen of the Garden Grove Fire Department.“Crews were able to isolate the fire to cooking equipment and ducting,”

“Crews were able to isolate the fire to cooking equipment and ducting,” Nguyen said. “A search of the structure confirmed all occupants made it out safely.”

The restaurant will be closed until further notice, he said. The fire caused $20,000 worth of damage to the structure and $5,000 to
its contents.The cause of the fire was under investigation.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

In Orange, firefighters extinguished a 2-alarm fire in a one-story commercial building on North Batavia Street near West Katella Avenue on Saturday morning after a passerby reported seeing black smoke and flames.

The building was unoccupied at the time, said Orange Fire dispatcher Joshua Lee. The cause of the blaze and the name of the company using the building were not immediately available.

Don Napolitano, 74, of Brea, was introduced to what would become a lifelong passion at 11 years old when his parents bought him a Lionel steam locomotive freight train set.

Now he’s making a business out of what he loves: Napolitano has opened Annabelle’s Collectibles, offering all manner of goods for model railroad enthusiasts both new and veteran.

At the front of the store is a full train set with multiple electric powered trains positioned around a constructed town. Horns blow, conductors holler, smoke billows and a distinct “chugga chugga” resounds, all at a press of a button and the turn of a dial as the trains begin to move.

Opened in February, the shop is one of a handful of stores in Orange County authorized to carry goods from Lionel, which historically has been one of the biggest model railroad companies, credited with popularizing the electric model train in America. The instantly recognizable orange boxes of Lionel goods can often fetch a premium price with collectors, Napolitano said.

Throughout Annabelle’s, enthusiasts can shop for trees, people, structures, tracks or other miniatures to spruce up their own railroad scenes. The store also carries a selection of art and books by local residents, including a collection of novels by Napolitano himself.

Ask Napolitano about the origin of the Annabelle name, and you might be pointed to her “office” in the back, replete with kibble and a doggie bed. The three-year-old collie is the store’s mascot, and often greets customers at the door and walks with them as they browse.

Model railroads are a highly customizable hobby, Napolitano said. Prices for sets range from $95 to $5,000; selections range from starter trains for children to high-end sets for avid collectors.

For many people, the appeal of railroad building will be something that leaps out when they go hands-on with the trains, Napolitano said. Especially with children, seeing their first trains can be a start of a hobby that lasts a lifetime, he said.

“There has to be a spark there, something that they like,” Napolitano said. “If I can get them to play with the trains and see everything there is to choose from – get that spark going – then we’ve got them.”

***New Anaheim business offers digital mail service

Freedom Mailbox, a digital mailbox service with a new location in Anaheim, offers small business owners a chance to simplify their mail management while upping their professional appearance.

First opened in Santa Ana in 2016, Freedom Mailbox opened its second location in Anaheim four months ago.

A purely digital service, Freedom Mailbox offers two main perks: a mailing address and mail management. Owner Tim Paulino said the mailing address can be especially appealing to young businesses and those run from home, to give a more professional appearance while avoiding having a home address spread around.

On the mail management side, the service starts by having customers give the company the right to handle their mail. From there, Freedom Mailbox will collect and upload pictures of each piece of mail to an online service. Customers can see the mail online or have it mailed to their home.

Scanning in the mail takes less than 24 hours and allows customers to read their mail, in full, from most internet-enabled devices, Paulino said.

Paulino said most customers sign up for the separate mailing address, but later find convenience in going hands-off with their mail.

Pricing depends on how much mail must be managed.

Moving forward, Paulino said the company is looking to expand into Irvine. The company is also pursuing new methods that will speed up the uploading of mail, he said.

Send north Orange County business news and tips to jwinslow@scng.com.