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Elliott: Simone Biles is right on time to shine at Tokyo Olympics

https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2021-06-07/simone-biles-national-champion-tokyo-olympics

Simone Biles’ fearlessness and unmatched skills created little doubt that she would win the women’s all-around title at the U.S. gymnastics championships. But Biles, who’s trying to repeat as the Olympic all-around champion in Tokyo and lead the U.S. to another team gold medal, left nothing to chance in Sunday’s national finale, bringing the power and sizzle that make her the best gymnast who has graced a mat. Biles put on a show in the finale for an adoring crowd at Dickies Arena, topping her first-day score while wrapping up her seventh national all-around title and setting herself up nicely for the Olympic trials June 24-27 in St. Louis. She controlled the overexuberance that had carried her out of bounds three times during her floor exercise routine on Friday, stepping out once but otherwise preserving her trademark strength and amplitude. This woman — and her spirit — can soar. “It’s so crazy because in training I never go out of bounds and I never have this much power, but adrenaline is where it comes, so we just have to focus on working with that,” she said. “It’s not a bad thing, but it could be if I keep going out of bounds.” The only misfortune she experienced was minor: she snapped a fingernail on her first vault. “I’m very upset about it because they’re pretty cute this time,” she said, holding her fingers toward the camera during her post-event webinar. She couldn’t be too upset. Discomfort that resulted from jamming her ankles on Wednesday led her to skip the daring Yurchenko double pike vault she pulled off last month — she’s the only woman in the world to land it — but the vaults she did instead were effortless and stunning. She racked up 60.10 points on Sunday and 119.65 overall, ahead of dynamic Sunisa Lee (114.95), who had the meet’s top uneven bars score. “I feel like I’m on the correct road for the trials,” Biles said, adding that she plans to do the Yurchenko double pike vault at least once in the two-day trials. Olympics Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles hasn’t been flawless at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships on Friday, but she still finished with the top score on Friday. June 4, 2021 Jordan Chiles, who trains alongside Biles in Spring, Texas, and is set to enter UCLA in the fall, was third with 114.45 points. Emma Malabuyo, also an incoming Bruins freshman and in her ninth year on the national team, finished a strong fourth with 110.45 points and was deemed “very, very impressive” by U.S. high performance team coordinator Tom Forster. “It’s great to see Emma Malabuyo back in her international form that she was in a couple years ago. She’s wrestled with a couple injuries here and there,” he said. “That was really what I need to see. That was probably the biggest surprise that I had.” Leeanne Wong was fifth (110.15). Sixth-place finisher Jade Carey has earned an individual Olympic berth based on her World Cup performances. Another UCLA commit, Emily Lee, was 13th (108.25). Eighteen women were named to the U.S. national team and were invited to the Olympic trials, but others can petition to join them. The top two in the all-around standings at the trials will get Olympic berths. The U.S. can send a four-woman team to Tokyo, plus two other individual competitors whose scores won’t count toward the U.S. team score. If Carey has a top-two finish at the trials and gets an automatic berth she could give up her individual spot and the U.S. would lose it. Lee, who finished second to Biles at the 2019 U.S. championships, fought through injuries to compile the best two-day uneven bars score and second-best (to Biles) on the balance beam. “I think this is a really good confidence booster because I wasn’t even at my full potential on floor, my vault could have been a little better, and today my bars was a little rough,” said Lee, who is from St. Paul, Minn., and is of Hmong descent. “It definitely helped my confidence going in because I know that I don’t have to be at 100% to be able to still be in the top with Simone …. I feel people kind of doubted me because I have been injured for a little bit and I wasn’t doing my full potential on floor and vault.” Chiles, 20, credited her move from the Pacific Northwest to train at World Champions Centre with Biles’ coaches, Laurent and Cecile Landi, for putting her on an upward trajectory in every possible way. She called them “the dopest people I’ve ever met in my life,” her ultimate compliment. “After I moved to WCC I had the worst lack of confidence throughout my whole gymnastics career,” she said, “and I think just having the proper coaching and the proper teammates that can support you through everything definitely helps throughout your whole gymnastics and just in your life in general. “It’s crazy to see how I was in the past, to now, and definitely my confidence is way better than it was back in the day. I’ve been at this for a while.” Biles, 24, has been at this long enough to win a mind-boggling 25 medals at the world championships to go with the four Olympic gold medals and one bronze (balance beam) that she won in Rio in 2016. She’s moving powerfully and purposely toward the next challenge. “I feel like every single championship stands out for a reason,” she said, “but this one stands out specifically because it’s the road to Tokyo.” A road paved with triumphs and gold.

Op-Ed: The complex link between population decline and a warming planet

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-07/population-growth-fertility-declining-climate-change

It’s time to stop blaming overpopulation for our environmental woes and start looking at the factors that really matter — resource consumption and toxic exposure as population growth and fertility rates show downward trends. U.S. and global populations are both growing at slower rates. In the period between July 2019 and July 2020 alone, the growth rate in the U.S. had slowed to just 0.35%, the slowest recorded since at least 1900. And this isn’t just because of a COVID-19 baby bust. Rather, this is a part of a long-term trend, decades in the making. In 2010, births had fallen 3% from 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The total fertility rate (number of births over the course of a woman’s lifetime) was down 4%, and teen birth rates fell 10%, the sharpest drop in more than 70 years. Global population growth, which has stabilized, is also heading toward decline. According to the United Nations population division, the world’s population is growing at a slower rate than at any time since 1950, and will level off around 2100. A 2020 study suggests that global population will probably reach its peak four decades earlier than what the U.N. projected. In any case, age structures are already shifting markedly. As of 2018, people over 65 outnumbered children under 5 worldwide for the first time in history. While the pace is uneven, the population story of the 21st century will be one of global graying, rather than significant global growth. Yet despite slower growth, we are still speeding toward environmental catastrophe. At the same time that human fertility rates were decreasing, greenhouse emissions all over the planet were rising steadily, hitting record levels in 2019. A U.N. report on global greenhouse gas emissions found that the richest 1% of people on Earth were responsible for more than double the number of greenhouse gas emissions of the poorest 50%. To comply with the Paris agreement, the ultra-rich would need to decrease their greenhouse gas emitting behaviors by a factor of 30. The link between population and climate change is broken. In both China and the U.S. — the top two emitters of greenhouse emissions — the average woman gives birth to 1.6 children in her lifetime, below the 2.1 children needed to replace herself and her partner. There are several factors behind the fertility slowdown. Women’s voluntary access to contraceptives — alongside other reproductive health services — plays a major role, as well as formal education and opportunities to earn an income outside of the household. But researchers also point to another concern: Infertility may be on the rise. The rate of pregnancy loss due to miscarriage, stillbirth and ectopic pregnancy among women of all ages in the U.S. has been rising at a rate of 1% per year between 1990 and 2011. Further, an analysis of 185 studies looking at close to 43,000 men between 1973 and 2011 found that total sperm counts had decreased by almost 60%. Researchers aren’t entirely certain why — and some researchers question whether sperm count even impacts fertility —but some evidence demonstrates that exposure to hormone-disrupting chemicals, like phthalates (which make plastics flexible), play a role in disrupting fertility. There’s something else to consider: Young people are simply having less sex, with fewer partners, and are having sex for the first time at later ages compared with earlier generations. Some applaud this change for reducing teen pregnancy in the U.S. But it could signal a waning desire to have children on a warming planet. Multiple surveys have found this phenomenon, showing that climate anxiety is on the rise, and with it, a fear of bringing babies into a world whose future isn’t so rosy. My own interviews with diverse young people between the ages of 22 and 34 reveal that racial violence and climate change compete as the two main reasons they cite for being either deeply ambivalent about or outright opposed to becoming parents in the future. These very real social and environmental problems have intensified as population growth rates have declined. This alone demonstrates that stabilizing population size isn’t a panacea. Social and environmental problems won’t solve themselves, regardless of the number of people on Earth. Jade S. Sasser is an associate professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at UC Riverside. She is the author of “On Infertile Ground: Population Control and Women’s Rights in the Era of Climate Change.”

Letters to the Editor: Fine, call it the 'Trump vaccine' — anything to get stragglers inoculated

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-07/call-it-the-trump-vaccine

To the editor: From now until July 4, let us rename COVID-19 shots the “Trump vaccine.” (“Beer, guns and money: COVID shot incentives are gimmicky, but that’s OK,” editorial, June 4) Let Trump supporters announce the numbers every day. Let them brag about getting not the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but the Trump vaccine. Make receiving the shot an act of resistance to the Biden administration and its admirable, responsible, orderly and nonpolitical vaccination campaign. That will protect the nation and allow us to resume activities more quickly and safely. President Biden will never get the votes of these people, but he will get credit for magnanimity and creativity for calling it the Trump vaccine. Ultimately, healthy Americans who can view the pandemic in the rearview mirror will give the current administration the credit it so rightly deserves. Michael Berenbaum, Los Angeles .. To the editor: The powers that be are now offering cash prizes and other incentives for people to get vaccinated. I understand the reasons and the urgency for doing so, but this shows the ugly truth that saving lives and having regard for others aren’t enough for many people to do the right thing. It always seems to boil down to “what’s in it for me?” What a terrible and feeble example of greediness. We must look in the mirror and see exactly who we are as a nation; right now, the reflection is disappointing. Human nature isn’t so pretty sometimes, is it? Life shouldn’t be about stuff, it should be about caring for others. Frances Terrell Lippman, Sherman Oaks .. To the editor: Please publish more pictures like the one showing the smiling gentleman with his beer glass after getting his shot. That sort of picture will do more to convince others instead of the ones showing jabs in the arm. William Sharpe, Santa Monica .. To the editor: No shoes? No shots? No service. Kim Righetti, Upland

Op-Ed: My daughter fell off the mental health care cliff, and I have to jump after her

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-07/mental-health-system-failure

Our mental health system has failed my daughter. Again. Actually, that’s not true. There is no system, no real help for her. My 20-year-old daughter tried to kill herself three weeks ago. She took a lot of pills all at once and, afraid that wouldn’t do the trick, drove toward the American River to drown herself. Her boyfriend happened to drive past her car and waved her down. That serendipity is the only reason she’s alive today. My family isn’t alone in being affected by the failures of a non-system. Of our rising mental health problems — suicides, homelessness — doctors use the word “tsunami.” On average, says the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one person dies by suicide in the U.S. every 11 minutes. This latest horror with my daughter isn’t a surprise. There were years of red flags. As a toddler, she stiffened if you hugged her, could focus for hours on something like a handful of rocks. She was clearly wired differently, but at first her eccentricities seemed harmless, even charming. She started cutting around the same time she started to grow breasts. Our search for help began. Her insurance-covered crisis counselor explained that she had sensory sensitivities and anxiety coupled with mild autism that left her unable to process emotions the way others might. The cutting worsened. Crippling anxiety and panic attacks that lasted a day or two became the norm. We did what we could with what our healthcare provider offered, but she was stuck in a horrible middle: Not OK enough to be helped much by once-a-week therapy, not an addict fit for rehab. I called every helpline and hotline. Weeks and months and years went by, as we begged for appointments and assessments, and searched for programs that fit. In her late teenage years, she spoke often of suicide, not because she was depressed, but because she felt like a burden to us. When she was good she was great and really not when she wasn’t. She needed holistic care — individualized, intensive therapy; life skills development; constantly calibrated meds to subdue what was not yet unmanageable. But the programs were bursting at the seams, available mostly to the farthest-gone. In early November 2020, a few days after she turned 20, my daughter locked herself in her room and stopped eating. She destroyed her possessions and wiped her laptop. Didn’t want to leave a trace, she told me later. We got her admitted into an intensive outpatient program. For one month, her days were filled with group and individual therapy sessions. It helped, and when it ended we were told she would be connected with a therapist, a psychiatrist to oversee her meds, and a group therapy program that would teach her coping skills for her inevitable dips. We spent weeks pestering our healthcare provider about getting her assigned to doctors and a group. She had her first follow-up therapy session at the end of month two. We’re still waiting for the group therapy to begin. By mid-April, her meds needed to be refilled. I know, because I was giving them to her. But since she is legally an adult, only she could get the prescriptions renewed. The bottles ran empty. The impact was almost immediate. She went from manic to depressive and back again. She took off, started living in her car. Kept a roll of disinfectant wipes in her glove compartment for bathing. Obtained blackout curtains to wedge into her windows. She eventually refilled her prescriptions, and then she emptied the bottles. When I got to the ER, I couldn’t get past the guard; they would not release any information. I left not knowing if my daughter was still alive. The next day, my phone rang. But the woman just wanted to fill in my daughter’s contact information; she didn’t know where or how my daughter was. She did, however, know there was an $8,000 copay, and would I like to pay for that over the phone? That evening a doctor from the ICU called. My daughter was in a coma and on life support. I could see her. Three days later, she wiggled her toes. She was seizing, and her fever was 104. High, but not brain-damage high. When she could, she asked everyone, nurses, doctors, me, her boyfriend: Why am I here? What happened? We told her, again and again. She remembered nothing. Not sleeping in her car, not taking pills. Why did I do it? she asked. No one knew how to answer that one. When she was medically stable, the doctors moved her to a regular hospital room, waiting for an opening at our provider’s inpatient psych facility. That care would last one week, we were told, two tops. When I asked what we should do then, the doctor shrugged. I am writing this while I search for whatever comes next. My daughter is not an addict or an alcoholic or a criminal. She isn’t homeless now, but if she comes home, I am sure she will land back on the streets, and the cycle will begin again. Why do we make it so hard to find a place for those who are mid-fall, who need more than once a week with a therapist, less than an intervention on the street? Why do we wait for them to hit rock bottom? The provider still wants its money, and I must also find a way to pay for help beyond what the provider provides — if, when, I can locate that help. My daughter tumbled off a cliff, and I have to jump after her. We’re still falling, calling for help. So far, no one is answering. Jasmin Iolani Hakes is a novelist based in California.

Letters to the Editor: When the going got tough, Tito Ortiz resigned. Some fighter

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-07/tito-ortiz-resigned-some-fighter

To the editor: Tito Ortiz claims to be a patriot and an American who will always fight for his country and the Constitution. But when the going got tough serving on the Huntington Beach City Council, the former MMA fighter resigned. His 15 minutes are finally over. Joseph Garcia, Yorba Linda .. To the editor: After only six months into his four-year term in office, Ortiz left thousands of voters in the lurch by abruptly resigning as mayor pro tem of Huntington Beach. He ran for office to make the city safe, yet by his simple action of not wearing a face mask, he put others at risk of catching a deadly virus. It’s too bad that the job didn’t work out for him, but sadly, he is not the only public official who receives threats and criticism. Huntington Beach is indeed at a fork in the road. We have an excellent City Council and city staff moving ahead to address issues of food and housing insecurity among our residents, climate change and human rights. Hopefully, the council will appoint a resident who already serves on one of the city’s many boards and commissions and who represents a part of the community that has historically lacked representation in government. Patricia Goodman, Huntington Beach

Ditch the bottled water. MWD, Santa Ana win prizes for best-tasting tap water in U.S.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-07/mwd-southern-california-wins-tap-water-prize-tasting-contest

In victories that make the state’s drought even crueler, two Southern California water districts have won the top prizes for best tap water in the U.S. at an international tasting contest. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California finished first and Santa Ana took second place for the nation’s Best Municipal Water on Saturday at the 31st annual Berkeley Springs International Water Tasting in West Virginia. Those two competitors finished first in the category in 2008 and 2018, respectively. Third place went to the Southwest Water Authority of Dickinson, in North Dakota. Judges based their rankings on taste, odor, mouth feel and aftertaste. Nine judges chose from among entries from 19 states, three Canadian provinces and 14 other countries. Rossarden, a town in Australia’s Tasmania state, was selected as the best municipal water in the world. The MWD, which is looking for a new general manager and battling a scandal over sexual misconduct allegations, took the tasting crown from 2019 winner Eldorado Springs, Colo. The 2020 championships were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The top award for bottled water was given to Ulunom in Shizuoka prefecture, Japan. Eldorado Natural Spring Water of Eldorado Springs finished second, and Jasa Spring Water of Gorham, in Canada, was third.

Democrats brace for 2022 elections with 'little margin for error'

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-07/democrats-brace-for-2022-elections-with-little-margin-for-error

Democrats are at high risk of losing control of Congress next year, and the perilous outlook is shaping party strategy on every level, a modern illustration of the old saw: Nothing focuses the mind like the sight of the gallows. Defending fragile House and Senate majorities in the 2022 midterm elections, Democrats are scrambling to pass high-impact elements of President Biden’s agenda as quickly as possible. Vulnerable incumbents are building their campaign war chests and heading home to claim credit for economic and health benefits flowing from Washington. For the record: 1:35 p.m. June 7, 2021An earlier version of this article said Republicans had an advantage in redistricting in North Carolina because the GOP had “trifecta” power — control of both legislative chambers and the governor’s mansion. The governor, Roy Cooper, is a Democrat. In North Carolina, however, the governor is not allowed to veto redistricting legislation. “What we have to do is actually do good things that help people, make a difference in their lives,” said John Lapp, a Democratic strategist who worked for House and Senate campaign committees. “If people feel better in their lives, Democrats will do better.” Biden ditched his penchant for bipartisanship and caution to push through a sweeping pandemic-relief bill with no Republican support earlier this year. Now, a sense of urgency is building as negotiations with Republicans over infrastructure spending are faltering, and some Democrats are clamoring to go it alone again. More-ambitious Biden proposals to spend billions for child care, paid family leave and more are waiting in the wings. Democrats’ hope a robust legislative record would help overcome a multi-front threat to their majority in Congress. “Voters are in an incredibly transactional mood right now,” said John Anzalone, a Biden pollster. “Who’s getting things done for them?” Republicans take over if they pick up just five seats in the House and one in the Senate. Democratic retirements in competitive districts add to their challenge. Reapportionment of the House after the 2020 Census takes away seats from blue states such as California. Republicans are poised to dominate the redrawing of district lines in growing states including Texas and Florida. “There is little margin for error,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Elk Grove), a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee official. “We have to run perfect races.” Republicans will try to turn Democrats’ support for Biden’s agenda into a political liability by casting it as too far left. “This is a warning to every vulnerable Democrat in the Northeast: Their socialist agenda will cost them their jobs in 2022,” Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said as he unveiled an early round of attack ads targeting a swath of competitive districts from Pennsylvania to Maine. Republicans are bullish about their prospects but worry that Democrats will have a big fundraising advantage, as they did in 2020. “We stand at a great opportunity to win back the majority, but this is far from a shoo-in,” said Dan Conston, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC supporting House Republicans. With midterm stakes looming large, Democrats are under intensifying pressure to pass voting rights legislation that could undercut some of Republicans’ advantages in redistricting, and override a recent spate of red-state laws that will restrict voting in ways Democrats believe disproportionately affect Black voters and others key to their coalition. The fight over the voting rights bill, which has already passed the House, may come to a head at the end of June, when it is expected on the Senate floor. With Republicans united in opposition and threatening to filibuster, Democrats will confront a momentous decision about whether to abolish the filibuster, a maneuver that allows a minority party to block legislation, to get it passed — or suffer the political consequences. “This is an existential threat, a fundamental threat not only to democracy but to any chance the Democrats can hold onto the slim majority they have,” said Nsé Ufot, CEO of the New Georgia Project, a voting rights group whose political arm is backing the legislation. Politics The court has freed Texas and other Southern states to add voting restrictions, and has given the GOP an edge in the battle to control Congress. June 4, 2021 HistoryThe president’s party usually loses seats in Congress midterm. Among the big wipeouts: Under President Obama in 2010, Democrats lost control of the House in a wave fueled by the tea party movement. In 1994, under President Clinton, Republicans took control of the House and Senate for the first time in 40 years. In midterms over the last century, the president’s party gained House and Senate seats only twice, both in times of national distress — in 1934, during the Depression under Franklin D. Roosevelt; and in 2002, when President Bush was enjoying post-Sept. 11 popularity. Some Democrats hope for a 2002-like scenario if Biden succeeds in leading the country out of the pandemic. RetirementsRepublicans see opportunity to expand the 2022 battleground as five House Democrats have already announced they will not run for reelection. That’s not an unusually large number of retirements this far in advance, and fewer than the number of Republicans who have called it quits. But the Democratic departures come from battleground states with increased risk of a GOP takeover — including Florida, where Rep. Charlie Crist is running again for governor, and Ohio, where Rep. Tim Ryan is running for Senate. Among the Republicans who have announced they are retiring, all but one come from solidly red districts. Redistricting Disruption always follows the post-Census redrawing of congressional district lines to reflect population shifts. The uncertainty is compounded this year because completion of the Census was delayed by the pandemic and by the Trump administration’s unsuccessful efforts to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count, both of which may have affected the response rate. Both parties, given a chance, gerrymander districts to their advantage, but Republicans’ dominance of state legislatures 10 years ago gave them a huge advantage. This year, the process is somewhat less vulnerable to partisan gerrymandering because more states have, like California, taken the map-making job out of the hands of elected officials. According to the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, 173 House districts will be drawn by states with an independent commission or other nonpartisan process — up from 88 a decade ago. But Republicans still dominate redistricting in many places, including four battleground states: Florida, Texas, Georgia and North Carolina. Taken together, those states are picking up four additional House seats because of reapportionment. Some analysts believe redistricting alone could clear the way for Republicans to pick up the five seats they need. In the Senate, the outlook for Democrats is challenging but somewhat less dire. Redistricting is not an issue in statewide elections. Retirement announcements so far have been more to the GOP’s disadvantage. Five Republicans have announced their retirement; three are in the battleground states of North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio. No Democrats have announced plans to leave. Politics The U.S. Census Bureau released apportionment data, but the pandemic-induced lag has already caused ripple effects on redistricting and 2022 races. April 26, 2021 Arming early for battle, Democrats are trying to rack up legislative achievements, make sure voters know who’s responsible and get a jump on fundraising. With former President Trump no longer center stage, lawmakers in swing districts hope it will be easier to focus on local issues and away from divisive national politics. “We have a real chance and opportunity ... to continue to center the work that I’m doing on the needs of our community, to reject the real hyperbolic style of politics,” said Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), one of Republicans’ top targets. Rep. Antonio Delgado, a Democrat in upstate New York who last week held his first in-person town hall meeting since the pandemic began, set an upbeat tone and bragged on provisions of the Biden pandemic relief law that channeled more aid to rural localities. “We made that happen,” said Delgado, who already raised more than $1 million in the first quarter of 2021, far more than this time two years ago. Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who narrowly won reelection in 2020, also spelled out what was at stake for his district in the pandemic relief bill and other Biden proposals to come, speaking at a remote town hall last week. “We have to deliver for you. We have to deliver for the voters who sent us there. Otherwise, what’s the point of having an election?” said Malinowski, target of a new GOP ad attacking him for lucrative stock trades made during the pandemic. Malinowski denies there was anything improper in the trades. No one at the town hall asked about it.

Magnitude 3.6 earthquake shakes near Brawley

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-06/magnitude-3-6-earthquake-shakes-near-brawley

A magnitude 3.6 earthquake was reported Sunday at 10:44 p.m. 14 miles from Brawley, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The earthquake occurred 25 miles from Imperial, 28 miles from El Centro, 36 miles from Calexico and 38 miles from Blythe. In the last 10 days, there have been 33 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby. California Imperial County was hit by a swarm of earthquakes beginning Saturday morning, the largest one measuring magnitude 5.2, the U.S. Geological Survey said. June 5, 2021 An average of 234 earthquakes with magnitudes between 3.0 and 4.0 occur per year in California and Nevada, according to a recent three-year data sample. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 4.3 miles. Did you feel this earthquake? Consider reporting what you felt to the USGS. Even if you didn’t feel this small earthquake, you never know when the Big One is going to strike. Ready yourself by following our five-step earthquake preparedness guide and building your own emergency kit. This story was automatically generated by Quakebot, a computer application that monitors the latest earthquakes detected by the USGS. A Times editor reviewed the post before it was published. If you’re interested in learning more about the system, visit our list of frequently asked questions.

UCLA baseball's season ends in regional final loss to Texas Tech

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-06/texas-tech-beats-ucla-advances-to-super-regional

Easton Murrell went 3 for 3 with a walk, two RBIs and two runs, Mason Montgomery had eight strikeouts in five innings and Texas Tech beat UCLA 8-2 on Sunday night to win the Lubbock Regional. No. 8 overall seed Texas Tech (39-15) advances to its third consecutive Super Regional. Montgomery (5-3) gave up two hits and two runs with four walks before Andrew Devine, Derek Bridges and Micah Dallas combined for four scoreless innings of relief for the Red Raiders. UCLA Sports Rachel Garcia hits a three-run homer but is chased in the sixth inning of a 10-3 loss to Oklahoma, which advances in the Women’s College World Series. June 5, 2021 Braxton Fulford walked and Jung Jung singled down the right-field line before Cole Stilwell hit a two-run double and then scored on a single through the left side by Murrell to give Texas Tech a 4-2 lead in the top of the third inning. Kurt Wilson, who was named the regional’s most outstanding player, went 2 for 3 with two RBIs for the Red Raiders. Kevin Kendall scored on a sacrifice fly by Matt McLain to give UCLA (37-20) a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning.

Christian Pulisic scores in extra time to lift U.S. past Mexico for Nations League title

https://www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/story/2021-06-06/christian-pulisic-united-states-mexico-concacaf-nations-league

Christian Pulisic converted a penalty kick in the 114th minute, backup goalkeeper Ethan Horvath stopped Andrés Guardado’s penalty kick in the 124th, and the United States overcame an early defensive blunder to beat Mexico 3-2 on Sunday night in a final of the first CONCACAF Nations League that turned on three video reviews. Gio Reyna and Weston McKennie scored as the 20th-ranked U.S. twice overcame deficits against No. 11 Mexico, which led after just 63 seconds. Pulisic, fresh off of winning the Champions League with Chelsea on May 29, cut inside the penalty area and was pulled down by Carlos Salcedo in the 108th minute. Panamanian referee John Pitti did not initially signal a penalty but consulted a video review and then pointed to the spot. Mexico coach Tata Martino appeared to receive a red card for putting a hand on an official during the review, and Hirving Lozano was given a yellow card for arguing after the decision. Olympics As American colleges begin to cut some sports, the effects could be seen on future Olympic medal stands. June 6, 2021 Pulisic sent the ball to the upper corner past the left arm of goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa for his 16th international goal. Pitti again did not make a call in the 119th minute when Luis Romo’s header went off the left arm of McKenzie, whose arm was perhaps only slightly outstretched. Horvath, who replaced injured starter Zack Steffen in the 69th minute, waited to the last moment and dived right to bat away the penalty by Mexico’s captain. The U.S. had to survive an extended 11 minutes of stoppage time following the second extra period. In a testy match, Reyna scored the first U.S. goal and had been subbed off when he appeared to be hit on the face by an object thrown from the stands following Pulisic’s goal. The match had been halted for about three minutes during second-half stoppage time because of discriminatory chants at Empower Field. Jesús Corona put Mexico ahead 63 seconds in after a sloppy giveaway by McKenzie, who made a poor pass in his own penalty area right into the path Corona, who dribbled in alone on Steffen and sent an angled shot over the goalkeeper’s right shoulder for his ninth goal. It was the earliest goal conceded by the U.S. since at least 1990. Olympics The first Olympics to include surfing was a big topic of discussion for surfers competing at the ISA World Surfing Games, but will the Olympics go forward? June 6, 2021 Mexico appeared to go up 2-0 in the 24th minute when Héctor Herrera played a short corner kick to Lozano, who gave the ball back, and Herrera made a long cross that unmarked Héctor Moreno headed in. After a brief delay for the video review, the goal was disallowed for offside. Reyna scored his third international goal when Pulisic’s corner kick was headed by McKennie off the far post and bounded in front of the goal, where Reyna kicked it in from about four yards with his left foot. He followed his father, who scored against Mexico in a 4-0 exhibition win at Washington, D.C., in June 1995. Steffen appeared to hurt his left knee while coming out for a rolling ball and was replaced by Horvath in the 69th minute.

Two suspects arrested in alleged road rage shooting of 6-year-old Aiden Leos

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-06/two-suspects-arrested-in-alleged-road-rage-shooting-of-6-year-old-aiden-leos

Two people have been arrested in the shooting death of 6-year-old Aiden Leos, who lay dying in his mother’s arms on the 55 Freeway in Orange last month in what officials have called a road rage incident. Marcus Anthony Eriz, 24, and Wynne Lee, 23, were taken into custody at their home in Costa Mesa on Sunday. The California Highway Patrol said in a statement that the agency expects the pair will be charged with murder. Eriz and Lee were being held in county jail on $1-million bail each. They are scheduled to be in court Tuesday. The CHP recovered at least one bullet at the shooting scene. The agency has publicly said the bullet came from a pistol of unknown caliber. California Aiden Leos was fatally shot while riding in his mother’s car on the 55 in Orange. Two people have been arrested in the alleged road rage incident. June 7, 2021 A law enforcement source told The Times that Eriz, an auto detailer, is shown in one of his social media accounts with a type of weapon capable of discharging the round that killed Aiden. Officials on Sunday were executing search warrants for possible evidence connected to the crime. Another law enforcement source told The Times that the suspects were under surveillance before their arrests, which followed by a day a memorial for Aiden. There has been an outpouring of public grief in the aftermath of the death of Aiden, who was on his way to kindergarten with his mother when the shooting occurred. The reward for information about the shooting quickly grew to $500,000, with donations coming from politicians, a local cafe owner and many others. On the morning of May 21, Aiden was riding in a booster seat in the back of his mother’s car, a silver Chevrolet Sonic, heading northbound on the 55 Freeway in Orange. His mother, Joanna Cloonan, later told another motorist, Reyes Valdivia, that she and her son were in the carpool lane when another car cut her off as she started switching lanes to exit. She made an obscene gesture toward the people inside and continued trying to get off the freeway. Officials believe the driver of the car that cut off Cloonan then maneuvered the vehicle behind her car, and one of the people inside aimed a gun and fired. A bullet entered Cloonan’s car from the rear, striking her son through his back. She pulled over and took the bleeding boy into her arms. California Hundreds of people attended a memorial service at Calvary Chapel Yorba Linda, where Aiden Leos was remembered for his ability to empathize with others. A reward for information about the fatal shooting grew to $500,000. June 5, 2021 The California Highway Patrol released photos of a white 2018 or 2019 Volkswagen Golf SportWagen that investigators said the suspects were using. A law enforcement source said the two who were arrested Sunday fit the description of the pair in the white car. Witnesses reported hearing a gunshot from a white sedan right before the child’s mother pulled over to the shoulder. In an interview last month, Valdivia recounted how he and his wife, Joanna, had just dropped their children off at school when they spotted the mother pulling her son out from the car. The boy was bleeding. Valdivia looked at the car and realized a bullet had entered the left side of the trunk and hit the boy seated in the back in his booster seat. “It went through the boy’s back,” he said. Valdivia, who said he served in the U.S. military, said seeing a child shot was especially hard to take. “There was no reason, no justification to shoot a child,” he said. “That shouldn’t happen.” During the memorial Saturday, which was livestreamed for the public, Aiden’s mother, sister Alexis and grandmother recalled memories of the young boy, whom they described as a “little empath,” mature beyond his years. Alexis said her little brother was an “angel, too pure and innocent for this world.” Her voice trembled when she recalled how Aiden would call her “beautiful” or “so lovely.” The California Highway Patrol Border Division’s chief, Omar Watson, thanked the public for hundreds of tips that he said helped officials identify the suspects. “The family and our community deserve closure to this horrific event,” Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner said in a statement. California A Swiss Army knife has about as much in common with an AR-15 as a tricycle does with an Indy 500 race car, columnist George Skelton writes. June 7, 2021

Vice President Kamala Harris' plane forced to return due to technical problem

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-06/vice-president-kamala-harris-plane-forced-to-return-due-to-technical-problem

A technical problem that involved “no immediate safety issue” forced Vice President Kamala Harris’ plane to return to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland about 30 minutes after she had left Sunday on a trip to Guatemala and Mexico. Air Force Two landed safely, and she gave a thumbs-up when she got off. “I’m good, I’m good. We all said a little prayer, but we’re good,” she said. Politics We answer why Harris has made Guatemala and Mexico her destinations for her first trip out of the U.S. as vice president, and other questions posed by the two-day visit. June 6, 2021 The vice president departed in another plane about 90 minutes later. Her spokesperson, Symone Sanders, told reporters traveling with Harris that shortly after takeoff the crew of the original aircraft noticed that the landing gear was not storing as it should, which could have led to further mechanical issues. “While there was no immediate safety issue, out of an abundance of caution they returned to JBA where they have all the parts and mechanics they need to fix the issue,” she said.

Plaschke: The 37-year reign of the Clippers Curse is on course for an NBA Finals demise

https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2021-06-06/clippers-curse-game-7-win-dallas-mavericks-nba-finals

Seventh heaven. Kawhi Leonard drives the baseline for a vicious two-handed slam and the building fills with chants of “M-V-P, M-V-P!” Marcus Morris Sr. nails one, two, three, four, five, six, seven three-pointers — seven! — and fans are pounding their Thunderstix into plastic pulp. Luke Kennard makes three straight shots and suddenly heard is a dirge of “Luuuuke.” You read that right. Luke Kennard. Three straight shots. Somebody saying his name. It was that crazy. It was that perfect. For once the Clippers were not cursed, they were blessed, playing their best game of the season on their most important day of the season Sunday in a game that was uproariously loud and eminently lovable. Clippers Kawhi Leonard was an assist shy of a triple-double, Paul George had 22 points and 10 assists and Clippers role players were big in series’ first home win. June 6, 2021 In the same arena where three days earlier the Lakers collapsed, the Clippers flew, walloping the Dallas Mavericks 126-111 in the deciding Game 7 of their first-round playoff series in front of 7,342 at Staples Center. You sure you’re ready for this, L.A.? There’s one local team left in the NBA playoffs, and it’s the team in black, not purple. Staples Center will continue to host playoff games, but they will be inhabited by Chuck the Condor, not Lawrence Tanter. This is the first time in 15 years that the Clippers have lasted longer than the Lakers in a postseason that contained both teams. The Clippers not only have the town to themselves now, but a bit of NBA history after becoming only the fifth team to win a series after losing the first two games at home. Said Kennard: “This was a big-time win.” Said Reggie Jackson: “We’re still chasing what we’re chasing.” What they’re chasing, first and foremost, is that Clippers Curse, which is epitomized in the franchise’s inability to advance past the playoffs’ second round once in the team’s 37-year Los Angeles history. To clear that defining hurdle, they now must play the team with the league’s best record, the Utah Jazz, beginning Tuesday in Salt Lake City. History is against the Clippers. Home-court advantage is against the Clippers. Likely more than 90% of Los Angeles basketball fans are against the Clippers. You know what? Bet on them anyway. Bet on them big. It says here, this first-round fright was the series — and this Game 7 brilliance was the win — that will eventually catapult them into the NBA Finals. “We are battle-tested now,” coach Tyronn Lue said. “We are going into where they have a tough fan base and it’s tough to play there but our guys are locked in.” Locked into teamwork. Locked into toughness. As they showed Sunday, this is a deep and resilient group that does not blink. Remember, this is a team that, trailing two games to none after home losses in this series, fell behind by 19 points in the first quarter of Game 3 in Dallas and rebounded to win four of the next five games. Video highlights from the Los Angeles Clippers’ Game 7 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on June 6, 2021, at Staples Center. “We … were ready to almost get swept,” Nicolas Batum said. “And we find something in us like resiliency and some toughness like, ‘OK, we can’t go down like that.’” This is also a team that was chasing the ghosts from last season’s Game 7 defeat to the Denver Nuggets in a second-round series that once again made the Clippers a national laughingstock. But this time, they did the haunting, whisking the Mavericks into the summer with a Game 7-record 20 three-pointers, perfect 24-for-24 foul shooting, 30 assists on 41 baskets, and seven players in double figures. “We show who we are,” Batum said. Their attack began with a Leonard floater, his first two of 28 points, their leader immediately picking up from where he left the Mavericks in ruins with 45 points in Game 6. Their attack ended four quarters later with three-point daggers from Jackson and Morris resulting in separate joyous celebrations. Jackson danced down the court with a huge grin. Morris held his shooting pose for what felt like an entire minute. “We wanted this moment,” Lue said. They officially seized that moment midway through the third quarter. Trailing 81-76, they roared back with a 24-4 run to end the quarter and essentially win the game. Morris three. Leonard dunk. Morris three. Morris three. And so on. They complemented the offense with a defense that held Luka Doncic, who scored 46, to six points in the quarter with three misses on his three long-range shots. “Game 7 is the toughest game,” Doncic said afterward. The Clippers were the tougher team, and they might have started a run that Clipper fans have been waiting for since Leonard and George joined the team two summers ago. “We’ll continue to grind,” Morris said. “We’re just getting started.” It was also a moment that Laker fans have been dreading, as they must now watch their hated neighbors steal their usual summer spotlight. Markieff Morris watched Sunday’s game from a baseline seat, even giving his twin brother Marcus tips at halftime. Sports The Lakers and Clippers open the NBA playoffs on May 22-23. Here’s a guide to the Los Angeles Times’ complete coverage. May 21, 2021 LeBron James might not have been watching at all, as, during the furious first quarter, he audaciously tweeted a commercial for his new movie. To further insult the Lakers, if this second round is extended, Game 6 would be at Staples Center on June 18, three days after all local pandemic restrictions are lifted. This means the Clippers would be the first Los Angeles basketball team to play in front of a full house in more than a year. If nothing else, it will be great to see the organization trash all those cardboard cutout fans that the Lakers never used and that have looked so silly during these playoffs. Two weeks ago, the Clippers were as stiff as some of those spectators. Today they’re alive, dancing, posing, celebrating, the last L.A. team standing.

MLB cracks down on illegal substances, Trevor Bauer's spin rate drops, Dodgers lose

https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2021-06-06/mlb-cracks-down-illegal-substances-trevor-bauers-pin-rate-drops-dodgers-lose

Trevor Bauer was on the mound for the first six innings of the Dodgers’ 4-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park on Sunday, but the ace that the Dodgers made one of the highest paid pitchers in Major League Baseball was missing. This version of Trevor Bauer wasn’t the version that won the 2020 National League Cy Young Award. It wasn’t the version the Braves encountered in Game 1 of the wild card series last September. That one was dominant, striking out 12 without a walk over seven scoreless innings for the Cincinnati Reds. This version of Trevor Bauer labored. This one gave up six hits, walked four — setting a season high for baserunners allowed — and yielded three runs. He threw 100 pitches, 38 fastballs. Those fastballs averaged a spin rate of 223 revolutions per minute (rpm) lower than his league-leading average entering the day. The Braves (28-29) sat on the pitch and had success, cracking their first three hits off it. Coincidentally, it was Bauer’s first start since MLB informed team owners of its plan to begin enforcing the rules against pitchers using illegal substances to doctor baseballs for increased spin rates. After the game, Bauer did not deny the two developments are linked. Dodgers The Dodgers were looking to bounce back against the Braves in the series finale, but Trevor Bauer gave up three runs and the bats couldn’t offset the damage. June 6, 2021 “I don’t know,” Bauer said. “Hot, humid day in Atlanta. I just want to compete on a fair playing field. I’ll say it again. That’s been the whole point this entire time. Let everyone compete on a fair playing field. So if you’re going to enforce it then enforce it. And if you’re not then stop sweeping it under the rug, which is what they’ve done for four years now. “So, I’d just like to see everyone be able to compete on a fair playing field so we can see who the best players are and who the best team is, according to the given rules and the given enforcement of the rules.” Bauer wouldn’t say if he was checked for foreign substances more than usual Sunday. He said MLB hasn’t been clear with its plans to police pitchers and criticized the league for not being proactive on the matter sooner. “We’ve heard a whole bunch of stuff and it always changes day to day,” Bauer said. “No one knows what the rules are right now, apparently, including MLB and the commissioner, so it’d be nice as players to know what rules we’re competing by and what rules are going to be enforced because, as everyone knows, a rule that’s written down that is never enforced is not a rule. Highlights from the Dodgers’ 4-2 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Sunday. “So it’d be nice just to have some clarity on what the rules of the game are that we’re playing under so it’s changed about four times in the past week or so.” Bauer left Sunday’s game with the Dodgers (34-25) trailing 3-1. Albert Pujols drove in the Dodgers’ first run in the fourth inning with a two-out bloop single to right field that traveled 68.4 mph off his bat. He then clubbed a solo home run to lead off the ninth inning. It was his ninth homer of the season, fourth as a Dodger and 671st as a major leaguer. With it, he passed Barry Bonds for third place on the all-time total bases list. But the Dodgers failed to score with runners in scoring position in the sixth and seventh innings. They’ve scored seven runs in 22 innings since their eight-run fifth inning in Friday’s series opener. They dropped the series and have lost six of nine games. They’ll lose more than expected for the rest of the season if Bauer isn’t a top-tier starter. High spin rates have been treasured across the majors in recent years. Front offices seek pitchers with elite spin rates and compensate accordingly. Fastballs with higher spin rates create a rising effect on hitters and cross the plate inches higher than a fastball at the same velocity with a lower spin rate. Bauer was the first major leaguer to publicly challenge MLB to enforce the rules against pitchers using sticky substances. He began his crusade in 2018 on Twitter. He implied that the Houston Astros cheated to increase spin rates and the only way he knew to drastically increase his fastball’s spin rate was with pine tar. Dodgers Major League Baseball informed owners that it will enforce rules on using foreign substances on baseballs. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is fine with that. June 5, 2021 He didn’t stop there. In an essay in the Players’ Tribune in 2020, he wrote that, after eight years of trying to improve his fastball’s spin rate, he concluded it could only happen by using foreign substances. On HBO’s “Real Sports,” he estimated that 70% of major league pitchers use illegal substances. He said he didn’t use illegal sticky stuff because he has “morals.” The data suggests that changed in September 2019. His fastball’s average spin rate dramatically increased that month and rose again in 2020 to 2,779 rpm, per Baseball Savant. He finished with a 1.73 ERA in the regular season for the Reds before shutting down the Braves in the postseason. Bauer converted the performance into a three-year, $102 million contract — with opt-outs after the first and second seasons — with the Dodgers in February. His fastball’s spin rate reached new heights over his first 12 starts, averaging of 2,835 rpm, per Baseball Savant. That changed Sunday. His four-seam fastball’s spin rate maxed out at 2,762 rpm, not even reaching his previous average. After the game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he isn’t worried about Bauer’s performance should MLB start cracking down on sticky stuff. Bauer referred to the 2018 season, when he posted a 2.21 ERA in 28 games for Cleveland, as evidence that he can remain elite if policing begins. He wasn’t Sunday.

After memorable surfing championships in El Salvador, focus shifts to Olympics

https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2021-06-06/olympics-qualifying-surfing-el-salvador-tokyo-games

The wait is over for Yolanda Sequeira, who finished second Sunday in the ISA World Surfing Games, grabbing one of the final seven women’s berths in this first-ever Olympic surfing competition. Now another one begins as Sequeira waits to find out whether the Tokyo Games, the first to include surfing, will go forward next month. The Olympics, originally scheduled for 2020, were postponed a year by COVID-19, and now, with much of Japan under a state of emergency because of the pandemic, the delayed Games are again in doubt less than seven weeks from the Opening Ceremony. “It is not fair, but we’re living in a weird world,” said Sequeira, 23, who competes for her father’s native Portugal but speaks English with a heavy accent she picked up from her British mother. “I just hope everything starts going back to normal and we can learn how to live with this problem we have.” Travel & Experiences A stretch of Salvadoran shoreline called Surf City is the location for the final qualifying rounds for surfing’s debut as an Olympic sport this summer. June 4, 2021 Surfing’s inclusion in the Tokyo Games caps a two-decade-long push by Fernando Aguerre, the president of the International Surfing Association. The competition will include 20 women and 20 men — “perfect gender equality,” Aguerre said Sunday — who qualified in four competitions, ending with the eight-day World Surfing Games at La Bocana and El Sunzal beaches in El Salvador. The final 12 Olympic spots — seven for women and five for men — were decided in the eight-day competition, which drew 256 athletes from 51 nations. However, the best surfer in the event, Joan Duru, did not qualify for Tokyo despite claiming the men’s world championship Sunday. Each country is allowed to send no more than two male and two female surfers to the Olympics, and Duru surfs for France, which had already qualified Jeremy Flores and Michel Bourez, both of whom Duru beat in El Salvador. Ryan Huckabee, who finished 22nd, was the top-placing American male, while Alyssa Spencer, in seventh, was the top U.S. woman. Neither was chasing Olympic berths because the U.S. has already qualified Kolohe Andino and John John Florence on the men’s side and Carissa Moore and Caroline Marks on the women’s side. Moore is ranked No. 1 in the world. Olympics The Olympic trials for surfing are being held in El Salvador. The seeds for this were planted decades ago by young Californians looking for good waves. June 5, 2021 The women’s world championship went to Australia’s Sally Fitzgibbons, 30, who is ranked second to Moore. She had earlier assured herself a spot in Japan and came to El Salvador chasing a world title. “It was so tough this weekend. It was a credit to all the Olympians going to Tokyo,” she said. “I’m so stoked for them, and I can’t wait to compete against them again in a couple months. “My dream’s always been to win that world title, and now to win a gold medal for Australia. I know I’ve got what it takes.” But now she too must wait for the opportunity to prove. “It’s not that you deserve anything for hard work,” she said. “A lot of people say you put in all these years, you deserve a certain this or that. But really I think it’s all for us to just show up and experience. So no matter what’s in front of me, I’m really grateful for that opportunity. “I don’t know when the next one will come.” Olympics As American colleges begin to cut some sports, the effects could be seen on future Olympic medal stands. June 6, 2021

Kyle Larson wins at Sonoma as Hendrick continues month of NASCAR dominance

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-06/kyle-larson-wins-again-hendrick-nascar-sonoma

Kyle Larson beat teammate Chase Elliott in overtime at Sonoma Raceway on Sunday to win his second consecutive race as Hendrick Motorsports continued a month of dominance. Hendrick drivers have won four straight races dating to Alex Bowman’s May 16 victory. Larson’s win a week ago in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway made Rick Hendrick the winningest owner in NASCAR history. So it was expected that one of Hendrick’s four drivers would win again Sunday, when NASCAR returned to the California wine country for the first time since 2019 because of the pandemic. But the win was supposed to go to reigning Cup champion Chase Elliott, the current king of the road with six victories on road courses including a victory over Larson two weeks ago in the rain-shortened debut at Circuit of the Americas in Texas. Sports Floyd Mayweather Jr. showed more technical skill, but Logan Paul avoided a knockout during an eight-round exhibition match in Miami Gardens, Fla. June 6, 2021 Instead the win went to Larson, the local racer from Elk Grove who was an infant the first time he attended a NASCAR race at Sonoma. And even though it was in overtime, it wasn’t close. Larson, who had led just 11 laps in six previous races at Sonoma, won all three stages Sunday and led a race-high 58 of the 92 laps. The eighth caution sent the race to overtime for a two-race sprint shootout, but he easily cleared Elliott on the restart and pulled away for his first career victory on the 12-turns, 2.52-mile course. Larson has three Cup wins this season; Hendrick Motorsports has seven among its four drivers and Bowman at ninth Sunday gave them three in the top 10. Elliott finished second as Hendrick tied Carl Kiekhaefer in 1956 with four consecutive 1-2 finishes. Sonoma welcomed roughly 15,000 fans — the first time in 714 days spectators have been permitted at the raceway — for NASCAR’s first trip to California since the start of the pandemic. It was likely the last race with limited spectators as nearly all the upcoming venues on NASCAR’s calendars have announced plans to open all seats for sale. With the reopening came a return of dignitaries including Michael Jordan’s first appearance in the garage as co-owner of 23XI Racing. Although NASCAR has permitted the team owner to return to the infield since the start of the year, Jordan watched from a suite at the Daytona 500 and had not been seen at the track since. San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan was the grand marshal and mingled with drivers before the race. Food Network star Guy Fieri drove the ceremonial pace car and 15-year-old U.S. Skateboarding champion Minna Stess from Petaluma performed an exhibition. Shanahan was impressed with his first NASCAR race. “I had no idea what goes into it,” he said. “I’ve seen ‘Talladega Nights’ and I thought that’s where it ended. I just thought you drive fast.”

Yuka Saso matches record for youngest U.S. Women's Open champion with playoff win

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-06/yuka-saso-wins-us-womens-open-on-3rd-playoff-ole

Yuka Saso birdied the third playoff hole to beat Nasa Hataoka on Sunday and become the second teenager to win the U.S. Women’s Open after Lexi Thompson collapsed down the stretch. Saso overcame back-to-back double bogeys early in the round to make the playoff. She then won it with a 10-foot putt on the ninth hole to become the first player from the Philippines to win a golf major. Saso matched 2008 winner Inbee Park as the youngest U.S. Women’s Open champion at 19 years, 11 months, 17 days. Both players made pars at Nos. 9 and 18 in the two-hole aggregate playoff, sending the tournament to sudden death back at the ninth hole. That set the stage for Saso to win it just up the road from Daly City, dubbed the Pinoy Capital of the United States for its large population of Filipinos. Thompson, who had a five-stroke lead after the eighth hole, played the final seven holes in five over to finish a stroke back. Sports Patrick Cantlay delivered a clutch birdie late in the round and a 12-foot par putt in a playoff to win the Memorial. June 6, 2021 “I really didn’t feel like I hit any bad golf shots,” she said. “That’s what this golf course can do to you, and that’s what I’ve said all week.” The only other players to finish under par on the Lake Course at Olympic Club were Megan Khang and Shanshan Feng, who both were at two under. High school junior Megha Ganne played in the final group but shot 77 and finished three over as the low amateur for the tournament. “I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life,” Ganne said. “It’s everything I’ve wanted since I was little, so it’s just the best feeling.” Saso overcame a rough start to the final round with double bogeys on the second and third holes that seemed to knock her out of contention but she managed to steady herself with a birdie at No. 7. Saso then made back-to-back birdies on the par-five 16th and 17th holes to get to four under and join Hataoka in the playoff. Hataoka used a run of three birdies in a four-hole span on the back nine that put pressure on Thompson. Thompson wilted down the stretch, making this the seventh straight LPGA Tour major won by a first-time winner. Olympics Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles hasn’t been flawless at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships on Friday, but she still finished with the top score on Friday. June 4, 2021 The first U.S. Women’s Open on the fabled Lake Course at the Olympic Club ended up like so many of the previous five times the men competed for the national championship here. The 54-hole leader didn’t win any of those five U.S. Opens played by the men, helping the Olympic Club earn the moniker of the “Graveyard of Champions.” Previous winners Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Tom Watson, Payne Stewart, Jim Furyk and Graeme McDowell all got caught on the final day at Olympic and were denied their titles. Thompson had a five-stroke lead when she walked off the eighth green but she squandered it all on the back nine. She made a double bogey at No. 12, a bogey at 14 and then a bogey six on the par-five 17th that was reachable in two shots based on the tee location. But Thompson drove into the rough and came up short of the green on her third shot before two-putting for bogey to fall into a three-way tie for first when Saso made her second straight birdie to join Hataoka at four under. “I didn’t hit a bad drive,” Thompson said. “The wind just never got it and then it tried to bounce right, and I’ve never seen a lie that bad. That’s what this course can do. Just got the wind wrong on a few shots coming in.” Her approach shot on the par-four 18th ended up on the bunker and then she missed a 10-foot putt to make the playoff. Sports Serena Williams’ run at the French Open ends when she loses in straight sets to 21st-seeded Elena Rybakina in the fourth round on Sunday. June 6, 2021 That left her winless in 15 tries at the U.S. Women’s Open that she first competed in as a 12-year-old in 2007. She appeared in control when she birdied No. 5 to take a five-shot lead. She walked the front nine course with a quiet confidence, breaking into a few smiles when she heard the “Go Lexi!” cheers from the fans in the galleries who were a welcome site in the first LPGA tournament open to the public since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But that all disappeared down the stretch as Thompson was unable to add a second major to the one she won at the ANA Inspiration in 2014. It was another final day disappointment to go with the one that happened at that same tournament in 2017 when she was penalized four strokes during the final round for misplacing her marked ball the previous day and lost in a playoff. “It’s hard to smile, but it was an amazing week,” Thompson said. “I played not so good today with a few of the bogeys coming in on the back nine, but the fans were unbelievable, hearing the chants and just gives me a reason to play.”

Shareholders are pushing companies to make good on diversity promises

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-06/ibm-corporate-diversity

The year 2021 is shaping up to set records for diversity proposals at U.S. companies’ annual meetings. Nine in 10 investors backed a call last month for International Business Machines Corp. to produce an annual diversity report. Five other companies, including renewable energy firm First Solar Inc. and chemical giant DuPont de Nemours Inc., saw more than 80% of shareholders backing diversity proposals. A year after the death of George Floyd galvanized protests against racial injustice, the same cultural pressures that prompted hundreds of the largest companies to pledge changes in their business operations to support racial equity are now fueling an unprecedented number of boardroom proposals designed to ensure they keep their word. “We’re seeing a shift in investor sentiment” said Kristin Hull, founder of Nia Impact Capital, an investment fund that initially filed the IBM proposal. The decision at IBM was a result of many conversations, she said. Having that agreement in hand with a larger company such as IBM, which is seen as progressive, makes it easier to persuade other companies to take initiatives more seriously, Hull said. Shareholders submitted a record 37 diversity-related proposals, and they got an average 43% of support as of Friday, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Two proposals at Union Pacific Corp. each garnered more than 80% of shareholder support, while one at American Express Co. got 60%. The ratio may shift even more during the remainder of the so-called proxy season, when public companies face additional shareholder votes in the coming months. Business For entrepreneurs of color and women of all races, venture funding remains a nearly impenetrable barrier to success. New players are trying to change that. June 5, 2021 Corporate efforts on diversity had until June 2020 been focused mostly on gender. Now the pressure has ratcheted up on companies to racially diversify their workforces — from the C-suite to rank-and-file workers. Asset management giants BlackRock Inc. and Vanguard Group Inc. last year said they would vote against corporate directors who fail to act. Leading proxy-advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services said that next year it will recommend voting against directors of all Russell 3000 or S&P 1500 companies whose boards aren’t diverse enough. Institutional Shareholder Services has already recommended a vote against key directors at boards without female directors — one of many initiatives that helped improve the number of women on boards, said Marc Goldstein, head of U.S. research at ISS Governance. He said Institutional Shareholder Services estimates there are about 894 boards on the Russell 3000 and 28 among the S&P 500 that still lack a diverse member. Although most of the diversity proposals are still failing to get a majority vote, when support hits 30%, corporate boards will often start to engage with investors to avoid a voting defeat. “There’s a new sense of urgency,” Goldstein said. Just two years ago, some companies didn’t understand they were being asked about their corporate diversity and why it was important, said Meredith Benton, founder of Whistle Stop Capital in San Francisco. Benton, a sustainable-investment advisor who has been involved in shareholder engagement for two decades and has coordinated several of this year’s diversity proposals, said many companies are scrambling to catch up. “These conversations came fast and furious, more than any other ESG issue,” she said, citing Ulta Beauty Inc. and Capital One Financial Corp. as being more forthcoming than others. “Many companies are willing to engage, and they also understand that this is an issue that needs to be discussed at the board level.” An early sign of shifting sentiment came last year. A diversity report proposal at network security company Fortinet Inc. received 70% approval June 19, auspicious because it’s the holiday known as Juneteenth, which marks the anniversary of a Union general’s order in 1865 that freed slaves in Texas. IBM publicly reported diversity data in the first half of 2020 and in October told employees that it will report the information annually, the company said in a statement. This year’s report was released in April, shortly before the annual meeting, and thus there was no reason to oppose the Nia Impact proposal, IBM said. The company will release more details in 2022 after it completes the spinoff of a unit, IBM said in the statement. Another major shift has been the number of companies willing to publicly share detailed workforce data by race and gender that they report annually to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This information, known as EEO-1, is private unless it’s voluntarily disclosed. In a Bloomberg survey of S&P 100 companies in June 2020, only 25 agreed to disclose their EEO-1. By October, that number had increased to 68 companies that already had or were willing to disclose either this year or shortly thereafter. At the shareholder meetings this year, three companies got proposals to disclose their EEO-1 data. The resolutions received a majority of votes at two companies. Racial audits emerged as a new shareholder proposal. They are an independent analysis into a company’s business model to see if, and how, it causes or perpetuates racial discrimination. Although they didn’t pass, those filed at companies including Johnson & Johnson and JPMorgan Chase & Co. got more than a third of votes. That’s high enough that companies are likely to face increased pressure to agree to future reviews. A racial audit proposal filed with BlackRock Inc. was withdrawn after it agreed to perform one. Most companies are still resisting diversity proposals. Among the reasons why is some data cast them in an unfavorable light, said Natasha Lamb, managing partner at Arjuna Capital, which is seeking detailed pay data on median pay gaps for women and people of color from large U.S. companies. So far, only Citigroup Inc., Starbucks Corp. and five other companies have agreed to such proposals in the U.S., she said. The same disclosure is mandated in Britain. “I think some topics are harder than others, frankly,” Lamb said, adding that a report or audit that is more general can be easier to release than specific information about pay and race that shows broad disparity. This month, Nike Inc. asked regulators to block a shareholder proposal asking the sportswear manufacturer to publish annual reports on its diversity measures. The filer, As You Sow, a nonprofit shareholder advocacy group, said Nike has faced allegations of harassment and discrimination based on gender and race, and doesn’t provide sufficient data on how effective its diversity programs are. It also doesn’t publicly release its EEO-1 data. Nike said that it publishes “extensive materials” about its diversity efforts on its website, that diversity was one of three focus areas for its corporate targets last year, and that it aims to have racial and ethnic minorities make up 35% of its U.S. corporate workforce by 2025. As more of the diversity information sought in proxy votes becomes public, the next challenge will be to process all the data so that they are comparable across companies, industries and geographies, said Paul Washington, head of ESG at the Conference Board, a research group in New York. “And that’s going to take a while to digest,” he said.

Last of Soviet soldiers who liberated Auschwitz dies at 98

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-06/last-of-soviet-soldiers-who-liberated-auschwitz-dies-at-98

David Dushman, the last surviving Soviet soldier involved in the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, has died. He was 98. The Jewish Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria said Sunday that Dushman had died at a hospital in Munich, Germany on Saturday. “Every witness to history who passes on is a loss, but saying farewell to David Dushman is particularly painful,” said Charlotte Knobloch, a former head of Germany’s Central Council of Jews. “Dushman was right on the front lines when the National Socialists’ machinery of murder was destroyed.” As a young Red Army soldier, Dushman flattened the forbidding electric fence around the notorious Nazi death camp with his T-34 tank on Jan. 27, 1945. He acknowledged that he and his comrades didn’t immediately realize the magnitude of what had happened in Auschwitz. “Skeletons everywhere,” he recalled in a 2015 interview with Munich newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung. “They stumbled out of the barracks, they sat and lay among the dead. Terrible. We threw them all of our canned food and immediately drove on, to hunt fascists.” More than a million people, most of them Jews deported there from all over Europe, were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1940 and 1945. Dushman earlier took part in some of the bloodiest military encounters of World War II, including the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk. He was seriously wounded three times but survived the war, one of just 69 soldiers in his 12,000-strong division. His father — a former military doctor— was meanwhile imprisoned and later died in a Soviet punishment camp after falling victim to one of Josef Stalin’s purges. After the war, Dushman helped train the Soviet Union’s women’s national fencing team for four decades and witnessed the attack by eight Palestinian terrorists on the Israeli team at the 1972 Munich Olympics, which resulted in the deaths of 11 Israelis, five of the Palestinians and a German policeman. Later in life, Dushman visited schools to tell students about the war and the horrors of the Holocaust. He also regularly dusted off his military medals to participate in veterans gatherings. “Dushman was a legendary fencing coach and the last living liberator of the Auschwitz concentration camp,” the International Olympic Committee said in a statement. IOC President Thomas Bach paid tribute to Dushman, recounting how as a young fencer for what was then West Germany he was offered “friendship and counsel” by the veteran coach in 1970 ”despite Mr Dushman’s personal experience with World War II and Auschwitz, and he being a man of Jewish origin.” “This was such a deep human gesture that I will never ever forget it,” Bach said in a statement. Dushman trained some of the Soviet Union’s most successful fencers, including Valentina Sidorova, and continued to give lessons well into his 90s, the IOC said. Dushman’s wife, Zoja, died several years ago.

Patrick Cantlay wins Memorial for second time in three years

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-06/patrick-cantlay-wins-pga-memorial-jon-rahm

Patrick Cantlay delivered a clutch birdie late in the round and a 12-foot par putt in a playoff to win the Memorial on a Sunday filled with drama, a little rain and no Jon Rahm. Cantlay closed with a one-under 71 and won the Memorial for the second time in three years, and he said he felt the same range of emotions in the final hour at Muirfield Village in his duel with Collin Morikawa. But it wasn’t the same. Only a day earlier, Cantlay walked off the 18th green six shots behind Rahm, whose 64 ranked as one of the great rounds at the course Jack Nicklaus built and tied two Memorial records, including largest 54-hole lead. But he tested positive for the coronavirus — Rahm had been in the contact tracing protocol — and was withdrawn from the tournament. Just like that, Cantlay and Morikawa went from six shots behind to tied for the lead. Sports Jon Rahm tested positive for the coronavirus and was withdrawn from the PGA Tour’s Memorial tournament after he had taken a six-stroke lead Saturday. June 5, 2021 And for so much of the final round, it stayed that way. Morikawa surged ahead with an eight-foot birdie putt on the par-five 15th, while Cantlay missed birdie putts from eight feet to tie him on the 15th, and then on the par-three 16th. The round was halted for about five minutes because of a pop-up downpour while they were on the 17th green. When it resumed, Cantlay holed a 25-foot birdie putt to tie, and Morikawa stayed in the game with a 12-foot par. Cantlay had a 25-foot birdie putt for the win on the 18th in regulation that grazed the right side of the cup, leaving he and Morikawa (71) at 13-under 275. Rahm finished his 54 holes at 18-under 198, tying the Memorial record. No one had ever lost a lead that large in the final round at Muirfield Village, though it has happened six times on the PGA Tour, most recently by Dustin Johnson in Shanghai in 2017. Nicklaus figured the awkward situation for Cantlay and Morikawa would be one more element for them to battle. “It was such a weird situation, so unfortunate,” Cantlay said. “Everyone, me included, knows it would be totally different today if that hadn’t happened. But there’s nothing I could do about it. I tried as hard as I could to reset and refocus.” It led to the fourth victory of his PGA Tour career, and second this season. Cantlay also won the ZoZo Championship in California last October, rallying from a three-shot deficit to beat Rahm and Justin Thomas. Sports Serena Williams’ run at the French Open ends when she loses in straight sets to 21st-seeded Elena Rybakina in the fourth round on Sunday. June 6, 2021 He becomes the seventh player to win multiple times at the Memorial, a list that starts with Tiger Woods winning five times and even Nicklaus, the tournament founder, winning twice. Morikawa won at Muirfield Village last year, just not the Memorial. He won in a playoff against Thomas at the Workday Charity Open, a one-time event when the pandemic forced the John Deere Classic to be canceled. In that tournament, Morikawa twice had to watch as Thomas had a putt on the 18th green to win, and he survived to win on the third extra hole. This time, he escaped one birdie chance by Cantlay in regulation. On the 18th in the playoff, Morikawa had a small piece of mud on his ball and came up well short from the fairway into deep rough. He chipped out to six feet. Cantlay was well right and hacked it out into a bunker, but his shot from the wet sand rolled out 12 feet. It was on the same line as his 25-foot birdie attempt in regulation, and this time he poured it in for par. Moments later, Morikawa missed his six-footer and Cantlay let out a big exhale before going over to shake hands with Nicklaus. Scottie Scheffler, who started three shots behind after Rahm was knocked out of the tournament, was tied for the lead with a birdie on the 15th. His last chance ended when he missed a six-foot par putt on the 18th. That gave him a 70, and he finished alone in third, two shots behind.

Palisades overcame uncertainty and doubt to win another volleyball title

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-07/high-school-volleyball-pandemic-palisades-city-section-title

Winning the City Section girls volleyball championship is hardly news at Palisades High. The Dolphins have done so 31 times since the CIF sanctioned the sport in 1973. Palisades’ latest title came Saturday in a three-set sweep of Granada Hills, and what made it unique from all the others is that the Dolphins got to celebrate on their home floor, even if the gym was just one-fourth full. Before this year the City final was played in late November at a neutral site, but the girls season did not start until early April because of the pandemic and matches were played outdoors. As with all other sports the higher-seeded team got to host all the way through the playoffs. Palisades certainly seemed to benefit from home-court advantage, dropping only one set in its three playoff matches. In the end, though, players were happy they got to have a season, which was up in the air for much of the 2020-21 school year. “Overall, outside it’s a whole different game,” Palisades junior setter Kaia Kanan said. “It’s harder to jump, harder to move, the ball’s lighter and you have to deal with the sun and wind. A lot of us play beach, but it’s still way different than the grass.” The uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and whether high school sports would be played at all was another challenge for athletes. Not to mention that many sports were overlapping, creating scheduling conflicts and limited practice time. “There were so many difficulties,” Kanan admitted. “When are we going back to the gym? What days do we have to get tested? What days the boys [volleyball] get to use the gym, what days basketball gets to use it. There was a lot being thrown at us that we had no control of, lots of things messing with our season, but we didn’t let any of it shut us down.” Palisades suffered its only setback early in the season outdoors at Woodland Hills Taft and Kanan said the turning point was when teams were allowed to start playing indoors. In fact, the Dolphins closed the season winning 42 of their last 43 sets. “We’re a really good team indoors and we’re a young team but we also have some older players and with a younger team it was a lot harder to mesh outside,” Kanan said. “I’ve played this sport a long time, but never experienced playing indoor volleyball outdoors. So when we finally went back inside we were all used to the environment and we pushed ourselves to make the most of the time we had.” Senior middle blocker Alexa Hogan remembers where she was the moment she found out that there would be a season: “We were on Zoom and I was half-asleep in my bed!” Hogan, who will head to UC Davis on a full scholarship in the fall, also lamented about playing outside. “Even though Kaia is a great setter sometimes I’d go to hit the ball and the wind would push it way over here to where I had to adjust my swing in midair,” Hogan said. “Honestly, winning City has made my whole senior year. Prom was yesterday and I told my coach I’m getting my hair done, I’m getting my nails done so I’m not coming to practice.” The hardest part for Palisades coach Carlos Gray, who also assists with the boys program, was not practice but getting players to practice. “The kids weren’t on campus, they had virtual studies, then had to hustle over here for random practices — it was tough,” Gray said. “Also, not having JV this year meant I’d have 18-24 girls coming at a time and it was a real challenge getting everyone enough court time.” For Granada Hills senior opposite Nikki Eaves, who graduated days earlier, the season was a success even though it ended in defeat. “It was so sad thinking we wouldn’t have a season,” Eaves said. “Playing on grass is a lot different … you worry about rolling your ankles when you dive and it’s harder to control passes. Also it felt weird coming to their house for the finals, but I’ve been in the program since my freshman year, so winning our league and making the finals with all of my teammates one last time was very special.”

Clippers win Game 7, eliminate Mavericks despite Luka Doncic's 46 points

https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2021-06-06/clippers-win-game-7-mavericks-luka-doncic-kawhi-leonard

As the Clippers left Staples Center last week, trailing again in this first-round playoff series and unsure whether they would return, Paul George called the third quarter when so much had gone wrong something “that’s going to haunt us.” It was an off-the-cuff remark by an All-Star. It also happened to be the perfect description of another imperfect game for a franchise that, for 50 years, has been defined by such postseason shortcomings. All season, the Clippers have called that a thing of the past and last season’s second-round collapse against Denver a non-factor. They believed that winning short-handed throughout the season had steeled them, and that their shooting would sustain them. Offered a chance to add another ignominious chapter to their history Sunday, nine months after crumbling in their previous Game 7, the Clippers instead continued their redemption tour into the second round following a 126-111 win against the Dallas Mavericks, their most forceful declaration yet that this roster is not haunted by the past. The top-seeded Utah Jazz now await. Game 1 is Tuesday in Salt Lake City. Kawhi Leonard had 28 points with 10 rebounds, Marcus Morris scored 23, Paul George contributed 22 points and six rebounds, and Reggie Jackson had 15 points for the Clippers, who shot 50%. Leonard is only the fourth player in NBA history to score at least 200 points while shooting at least 60% in a playoff series, joining Shaquille O’Neal (2000), Bernard King (1984) and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1977). The mental mistakes that lost the Clippers’ first three home games of this series, particularly the way Game 5 unraveled, were gone amid a 24-4 run over the final six minutes of the third quarter. When Dallas cut a 19-point lead to seven with two minutes to play, behind Luka Doncic’s 46 points, their resilience could have finally wobbled. But Jackson and Morris answered with three-pointers on consecutive possessions and fans gripped one another in almost stunned celebration. The Clippers’ 20 three-pointers are the most made in Game 7 history. One game after making one of 10 shots, Morris made eight of 15, including seven three-pointers. Instead of a cringe, this ended in catharsis. Consultant and Hall of Famer Jerry West walked over to team owner Steve Ballmer’s seat and shook his hand with 41 seconds left in a celebration that didn’t always feel inevitable. The Clippers are only the fifth team to lose the first two games at home and rally to win the series. “This team forced us to play on a nightly basis a full 48-minute game,” George said. “Let’s not again even get into last year. We’re on to a whole other season. We hung in there and stuck together and knew what it took to win tonight. “Again, Kawhi stepped up big for us. Reggie stepped up huge for us, Marcus, I mean, everybody just brought it and played for one another, played hard, and we collectively got the win.” Before tipoff, coach Tyronn Lue said he had not delivered a soaring message at the morning walk-through because Game 7s come down to “trust.” It had built behind the scenes throughout the series during film sessions, when Leonard said teammates realized they had left one another alone “on islands” defensively. Doncic was brilliant, again, adding 14 assists, but the Clippers’ rotations contributed to the Mavericks’ 27% three-point shooting, with Tim Hardaway Jr. making just one of nine from deep. Nine months before, the Clippers’ offense sagged when their stars couldn’t score in the deciding game against Denver. On Sunday, George (10 assists) and Leonard (nine) pinged the ball around to open teammates, trusting a balanced attack could overcome Doncic’s one-man magic. Terance Mann finished with 13 points. Luke Kennard, virtually stuck to the bench through five games, scored 11. “These games are not won with just one or two great players,” Leonard said. “You need a whole 17 or 16 players that you have. Video highlights from the Los Angeles Clippers’ Game 7 victory over the Dallas Mavericks on June 6, 2021, at Staples Center. “I think we had trust at the beginning, but we just had to dial in on what we were doing.” The official record will show that this series began May 22, but that is not quite right. For the Clippers, it did not truly begin until six days later. Down 19 points only seven minutes into the third game in front of Dallas’ howling crowd, the Clippers appeared to be staggering toward a second consecutive offseason hearing jokes at their expense and renewed questions about how a roster reconstructed last fall to win a championship could not advance past the first round. “Down 30-11, we were one or two plays away from almost getting swept,” forward Nicolas Batum said. “And we find something in us like resiliency and some toughness, like, ‘OK, we can’t go down like that.’ We are a good team. We are a good team and we have to show it.” Sports The Lakers and Clippers open the NBA playoffs on May 22-23. Here’s a guide to the Los Angeles Times’ complete coverage. May 21, 2021 They showed it in Game 3 with a rally, then in Game 4 with a change to a small-ball lineup. In Game 6, back on the road facing elimination, they evened the series again behind Leonard’s bravura performance. And their two-week test of will was capped Sunday. Instead of reviewing how another series had gone wrong, Lue, who is now 4-0 coaching in Game 7s, left his postgame videoconference preparing for Utah. “We can’t keep looking behind at what happened,” Lue said. “That s—’s over.”

Serena Williams loses to Elena Rybakina in fourth round of French Open

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-06/serena-williams-loses-french-open

Serena Williams turns 40 in September. Roger Federer hits that milestone the month before. No one knows how many more French Open appearances each will make, and this year’s tournament ended for both Sunday. Williams fell way behind and could not put together a comeback against a much younger and less-experienced opponent in the fourth round at Roland Garros, losing 6-3, 7-5 to Elena Rybakina — who wasn’t even born when the American made her tournament debut in 1998. Asked whether that might have been her last match at the clay-court major, Williams responded: “Yeah, I’m definitely not thinking about it at all. I’m definitely thinking just about other things, but not about that.” Her defeat came hours after Federer withdrew, saying he needed to let his body recover ahead of Wimbledon after a long third-round victory that ended at nearly 1 a.m. on Sunday. Wimbledon — which Federer has won eight times and Williams seven — begins June 28. Olympics As American colleges begin to cut some sports, the effects could be seen on future Olympic medal stands. June 6, 2021 “I’m kind of excited to switch surfaces,” Williams said. “Historically I have done pretty well on grass.” She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles; Federer has won 20. They are two of the sport’s greatest and most popular players, so it was quite a blow to the tournament, its TV partners and tennis fans to see both gone from the French Open field one after the other — and a week after Naomi Osaka pulled out, citing a need for a mental-health break. Williams has won the French Open three times. But the American hasn’t been past the fourth round in Paris since she was the runner-up in 2016. Rybakina is a 21-year-old from Kazakhstan who is ranked 22nd. This was just the seventh Grand Slam appearance for Rybakina — and the first time she ever made it so much as past the second round. “When I was small, of course, I was watching her matches on TV. So many Grand Slams,” Rybakina said. Against Williams, whose right thigh carried a heavy tape job, Rybakina hit big, flat serves. She dealt with, but managed to steady, her nerves. She even produced the occasional return winner off Williams’ speedy and spectacularly gifted serve, breaking her five times, including in the next-to-last game. “I knew that the serve was going to be difficult for me to return. She’s powerful, but I was ready,” Rybakina said. “Then, after few points, I felt comfortable.” Repeatedly one sort of mistake or another undid Williams. She ended up with 19 unforced errors and only 15 winners. Sports Roger Federer has withdrawn from the French Open to give himself a chance to recover after a long third-round match. June 6, 2021 “I’m so close. There is literally a point here, a point there, that could change the whole course of the match,” Williams said. “I’m not winning those points. That, like, literally could just change everything.” Since winning the 2017 Australian Open while pregnant for her most recent major singles title — No. 23 set a record for the professional era — Williams has come close to tying Margaret Court’s all-time mark of 24. That includes four runner-up finishes at Grand Slam tournaments, most recently against Bianca Andreescu at the 2019 U.S. Open. Rybakina next will meet Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova with a semifinal berth on the line; they’re playing doubles together and are scheduled to play a third-round match in that event Monday. Pavlyuchenkova advanced with a 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 victory over two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka. The other quarterfinal on that side of the women’s draw is going to be Paula Badosa against Tamara Zidansek. Neither has been this far at a major tournament, either. One of those four players will become a first-time Grand Slam finalist next weekend. Stefanos Tsitsipas is still looking for his first major final, too, and he reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros for the second year in a row by eliminating 12th-seeded Pablo Carreno Busta 6-3, 6-2, 7-5. Tsitsipas next faces No. 2 Daniil Medvedev, who has won six of their previous seven meetings. Medvedev is a two-time Grand Slam finalist — at the 2019 U.S. Open and this year’s Australian Open — but was 0-4 for his career in Paris until now. He advanced Sunday by eliminating No. 22 Cristian Garin 6-2, 6-1, 7-5. The other quarterfinal on that side of the field will be No. 6 Alexander Zverev of Germany against unseeded 22-year-old Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain. Davidovich Fokina beat Federico Delbonis 6-4, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 to reach his first Grand Slam quarterfinal, before Zverev made quick work of Kei Nishikori 6-4, 6-1, 6-1 at night in a matchup between two past U.S. Open runners-up.

How to watch the track and field, gymnastics and swimming U.S. Olympic trials

https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2021-06-06/how-to-watch-us-olympic-qualifying-gymnastics-swimming-track-and-field

Olympic qualifying for the three highest-profile sports are set for June after COVID-19 pandemic delays. Check out how to watch Americans push to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics in swimming, gymnastics and track and field: Dates: June 13-20 (Top-seeded swimmers) Location: Omaha June 13 Men’s 400 Individual Medley, Women’s 100 Butterfly, Men’s 400 Freestyle, Women’s 400 Individual Medley, Men’s 100 Breaststroke Qualifying heats: 2:30 p.m. PDT on NBC (tape delay) Finals: 5 p.m. PDT on NBC June 14 Women’s 100 Butterfly, Men’s 200 Freestyle, Women’s 100 Breaststroke, Men’s 100 Breaststroke, Women’s 400 Freestyle, Men’s 100 Backstroke, Women’s 100 Backstroke Qualifying heats: 3:30 p.m. PDT on NBC (tape delay) Finals: 5 p.m. PDT on NBC June 15 Women’s 200 Freestyle, Men’s 200 Freestyle, Women’s 100 Backstroke, Men’s 100 Backstroke, Women’s 100 Breaststroke, Men’s 200 Butterfly, Women’s 200 Individual Medley Qualifying heats: 3:30 p.m. PDT on NBC (tape delay) Finals: 5 p.m. PDT on NBC June 16 Men’s 100 Freestyle, Women’s 200 Freestyle, Men’s 200 Butterfly, Women’s 200 Butterfly, Men’s 200 Breaststroke, Women’s 200 Individual Medley, Women’s 1500 Freestyle Qualifying heats: 3:30 p.m. PDT on NBC (tape delay) Finals: 5 p.m. PDT on NBC June 17 Men’s 800 Freestyle, Men’s 200 Backstroke, Women’s 100 Freestyle, Men’s 200 Backstroke, Women’s 200 Butterfly, Men’s 100 Freestyle, Women’s 200 Breaststroke, Men’s 200 Individual Medley Qualifying heats: 3:30 p.m. PDT on NBC (tape delay) Finals: 5 p.m. PDT on NBC June 18 Women’s 200 Breaststroke, Men’s 200 Backstroke, Women’s 200 Backstroke, Men’s 200 Individual Medley, Women’s 100 Freestyle, Men’s 100 Butterfly Qualifying heats: 3 p.m. PDT on NBC (tape delay) Finals: 6 p.m. PDT on NBC June 19 Men’s 100 Butterfly, Women’s 200 Backstroke, Women’s 800 Freestyle, Men’s 50 Freestyle, Women’s 50 Freestyle Qualifying heats: 3:30 p.m. PDT on NBC (tape delay) Finals: 6 p.m. PDT on NBC June 20 Men’s 50 Freestyle, Women’s 50 Freestyle, Men’s 1500 Freestyle Finals: 5:15 p.m. PDT on NBC Dates: June 18-27 Location: Eugene, Ore. June 18 Qualifying, 4 p.m. PDT, NBCSN Men’s 10,000 / shot put, 7 p.m. PDT, NBC June 19 Qualifying, 4 p.m. PDT, NBCSN Women’s 100 / discus, 7 p.m. PDT, NBC June 20 Men’s and women’s 400 / women’s 100 hurdles / men’s 100, 6 p.m. PDT, NBC June 21 Qualifying, 4 p.m. PDT, NBCSN Women’s 1500 / women’s 5,000 / men’s 800, 5 p.m. PDT, NBC June 24 Women’s 3,000 steeplechase / shot put, 6 p.m. PDT, NBCSN June 25 Men’s 3,000 steeplechase / discus, 2 p.m. PDT, NBCSN June 26 Men’s 400 hurdles / men’s 110 hurdles / women’s 10,000 / women’s 200, 6 p.m. PDT, NBC June 27 Women’s 400 hurdles / women’s 800/ men’s 5,000/ men’s 1,500, men’s 200, 4 p.m., NBC Dates: June 24-27 Location: St. Louis June 24 Men’s Day 1, 3:30 p.m. PDT, NBCSN June 25 Women’s Day 1, 5 p.m. PDT, NBC June 26 Men’s Day 2, 1 p.m. PDT, NBC June 27 Women’s Day 2, 5:30 p.m. PDT, NBC Click here for a comprehensive list of NBC’s Olympic qualifying livestreams.

Authorities investigate two shootings on the 605 Freeway. One man was wounded

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-06/605-freeway-shootings-investigation

The California Highway Patrol is investigating two shootings that occurred within hours and a few miles of each other Saturday on the 605 Freeway, including one that wounded a man in his 30s. The incidents took place on the same stretch of the southbound 605 Freeway in Irwindale, about 15 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, but it remains unclear whether they are related. In the first shooting, reported about 5:12 p.m. Saturday on the southbound 605 north of Lower Azusa Road in Irwindale, two women in a 2011 BMW 528i reported that a black sedan traveling behind them in another lane fired several rounds at their vehicle, according to the California Highway Patrol. One round struck the right side and another the right-side rearview mirror of the BMW, and the driver lost control of the vehicle. The BMW then veered left, struck the center median wall and became disabled in the center median, according to the CHP. No injuries were reported to the driver, 21, or the passenger, 18, who were both from Pasadena. California Hundreds of people attended a memorial service at Calvary Chapel Yorba Linda, where Aiden Leos was remembered for his ability to empathize with others. A reward for information about the fatal shooting grew to $500,000. June 5, 2021 The second incident was reported about 11:23 p.m. Saturday, when officers responded to a call of a shooting victim on the southbound 605 north of Arrow Highway in Irwindale. The suspect was described as a man “wearing a black vest, riding a black motorcycle” who used a handgun, according to the CHP. The victim, an Azusa resident, was taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center with a single gunshot wound. Few other details on the second incident were released. “At this time, there is minimal descriptions of both the suspect and the suspect vehicle,” the CHP said. Authorities have encouraged anyone who witnessed either incident or has information pertaining to their investigations to call the CHP’s Baldwin Park office at (626) 338-1164.

Merkel's party fends off far-right challenge in German state vote

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-06/merkels-party-fends-off-far-right-challenge-in-state-vote

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives handily batted away a challenge from the far right in a state election Sunday that was seen as the last big test for Germany’s political parties before a national vote in September. Projections by public broadcaster ARD put Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union at 36.2%, a gain of more than 6 percentage points compared with the last election five years ago in the sparsely populated state of 2.2 million inhabitants. The far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, was projected to get 22.5% of the vote, a slight drop compared with 2016’s vote. The party has moved steadily further to the right in recent years, and its chapter in Saxony-Anhalt has come under increased scrutiny from Germany’s domestic intelligence service for its ties to extremist groups. California Hundreds of people attended a memorial service at Calvary Chapel Yorba Linda, where Aiden Leos was remembered for his ability to empathize with others. A reward for information about the fatal shooting grew to $500,000. June 5, 2021 Although elections in Germany’s 16 states are often influenced by local issues and voting sentiments, they are also seen as important bellwethers for the national mood. A strong win for the CDU would be seen as a sign that the party’s new leader, Armin Laschet, could hope for support from both conservatives and centrists on Sept. 26, when it aims to hold on to power at the federal level despite four-term chancellor Merkel not running again. The election result, if projections based on partial counts are confirmed, would be a strong endorsement for incumbent governor Reiner Haseloff of the CDU, who now has the comfort of being able to pick from three possible coalitions with smaller parties. The 67-year-old Haseloff, whose popularity in the state was a strong pull for voters, ruled out any cooperation with AfD or the ex-communist Left party, who were projected to get 10.9% of the vote — a record low in the state. The center-left Social Democrats also fared worse than five years ago and were expected to get about 8.4%, while the environmentalist Greens made modest gains to take 6.2%. Projections also showed that the pro-business Free Democrats entered the state assembly again after missing out five years ago, receiving 6.5%. Haseloff expressed relief that voters backed centrist parties at the expense of the political fringes, saying the outcome showed a “big, big majority had made a democratic choice and drawn a clear demarcation line to the right.” AfD campaigned strongly against pandemic restrictions, and its election posters urged voters to demonstrate their “resistance” at the ballot box.

States rebound from bleak forecasts amid COVID-19 to pass record budgets

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-06/states-rebound-record-budgets

Just a year ago, the financial future looked bleak for state governments as governors and lawmakers scrambled to cut spending amid the coronavirus recession that was projected to pummel revenue. They laid off state workers, threatened big cuts to schools and warned about canceling or scaling back building projects, among other steps. Today, many of those same states are flush with cash, and lawmakers are passing budgets with record spending. Money is pouring into schools, social programs and infrastructure. At the same time, many states are socking away billions of dollars in savings. “It’s definitely safe to say that states are in a much better fiscal situation than they anticipated,” said Erica MacKellar, a fiscal analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures. Spending plans for the budget year that begins July 1 are up 10% or more in states spanning from Florida and Maryland to Colorado, Utah and Washington. California Los Angeles County’s director of public health wonders whether she could have better protected people living in the county’s poorest neighborhoods, which bore the brunt of the pandemic. June 5, 2021 In Oklahoma, pandemic uncertainties last year prompted lawmakers to trim $1.3 billion from their anticipated general revenue. That resulted in across-the-board cuts for public education and most state services. This year, the new budget is up nearly 18%. That includes money to reduce class sizes in kindergarten and first grade, funding for a new children’s behavioral health center and new incentives for businesses to make movies in Oklahoma. The Republican-led Legislature even set aside money to cut individual and corporate income tax rates and expand tax credits for a school choice program. “Last year: shaky foundation. This year: solid foundation,” said Republican state Sen. Roger Thompson, chairman of the chamber’s budget-writing committee. Many states experienced a similar turnaround. Fiscal analysts cite a variety of reasons. The federal government poured billions of dollars into state coffers through a series of pandemic relief packages. Federal aid also sent billions more to U.S. households and businesses that, in turn, pumped money into the economy. State finances also fared better than feared. Consumer spending rebounded to shore up sales tax revenue, and state income taxes were bolstered by a strong stock market and high-wage earners who kept working remotely while others were laid off. The result is that states now face “a very promising fiscal and economic outlook over the next couple of years,” said Justin Theal, a state fiscal research officer at the Pew Charitable Trusts. A recent Pew report found that after an initial sharp plunge in tax revenue, 29 states recovered to take in as much or more during the peak pandemic period of March 2020 through February 2021 than they did during the same 12 months before the pandemic began. Idaho, Utah, Colorado and South Carolina posted some of the biggest revenue gains along with South Dakota, which was one of the few states never to shut down. The Pew report also noted modest revenue gains for some states that imposed more aggressive coronavirus precautions on their economy, including California, Massachusetts and New York. The $212-billion budget enacted earlier this year in New York is up almost 10% over the previous one. Federal COVID-19 relief provided the bulk of that growth. But state spending alone still is up by 3.8% in the new budget, according to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration. New York’s bigger budget includes a mixture of ongoing and one-time spending, including a $1.4-billion boost in basic aid for schools and a $1.3-billion plan to overhaul Penn Station. Florida’s record $101.5-billion budget is up roughly 11%, with bonuses for teachers, police and firefighters, and new construction projects at schools and colleges. Lawmakers decided they had money to spare, expanding sales tax breaks for school and hurricane supplies and creating a new tax-free week to buy museum and concert tickets and recreational gear for camping, fishing and surfing. Florida is among several states that amplified their 2021-22 budgets with at least part of their share of a $195-billion state aid package from the recent American Rescue Plan Act signed by President Biden. Shortly after that plan passed, Moody’s Investors Service upgraded the outlook for states from negative to stable, citing stronger state finances and continued federal aid. It said the new federal aid equaled nearly 16% of states’ own revenue for the 2019 fiscal year. Many Republicans in Congress had criticized the Biden relief plan as excessive, especially in the amount of money going to state governments. Many states already had been seeing better-than-expected tax revenue even before the plan was signed into law in March. Some states, such as Colorado, are waiting until later to decide how to use the latest COVID-19 relief funds because they have until the end of 2024 to spend it. Even without the latest federal aid, Colorado’s budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 is up more than 12% from the previous one, which had been pared back because of pandemic concerns. Sen. Bob Rankin, a Republican member of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, said he is concerned about how that additional $3.8 billion of federal aid will be spent. “I’m afraid that we are spending money and making commitments that we will not be able to sustain once that one-time federal money goes away,” Rankin said. In many states, lawmakers are devoting federal COVID-19 relief money to one-time purposes, such as additional aid to workers, expanded access to high-speed internet or replenishing depleted unemployment trust funds. Missouri is among the states that has yet to decide what to do with the latest federal aid. The general revenue portion of its budget has rebounded from a fiscal 2021 cut to exceed pre-pandemic levels. And Missouri is on pace to shatter a record set in 1998 for its largest end-of-year cash balance. “Revenues have performed much, much better than I would have ever anticipated during a pandemic,” said state Budget Director Dan Haug. He said he thinks Missouri would have been able to weather the pandemic without this year’s Biden relief package. Lawmakers in Maryland used words like “stunning” and “unique” to describe how federal aid helped reshape their budget situation. The state’s record $52.4-billion budget for its new fiscal year provides bonuses to state workers, boosts payments to the poor, builds parks and playgrounds in every county, and still sets aside about $2 billion for savings. “After spending almost the entire part of last year in sleepless nights trying to figure out what in the world we were going to do, to find yourselves in that position was pretty amazing,” said Democratic state Sen. Guy Guzzone, chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee.

Corona Centennial in position to win boys and girls basketball titles

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-06/high-school-basketball-championships-set-this-week

It could be a big week for Corona Centennial. The Huskies are in position to win the Southern Section Open Division boys and girls basketball championships. The 20-2 boys’ team, led by guards Kylan Boswell, Donovan Dent and Jared McCain, will play unbeaten Chatsworth Sierra Canyon (15-0) on Friday at Sierra Canyon. The unbeaten girls team (22-0) will play host to unbeaten Santa Ana Mater Dei (19-0) on Thursday. Wednesday is the day for all Southern Section boys’ basketball championship games except the Open Division. The boys’ schedule: Division 1: No. 2 Chaminade at No. 4 Capistrano Valley Division 2AA: No. 3 Rolling Hills Prep at Los Altos Division 2A: Agoura at No. 1 Crean Lutheran Division 3AA: No. 2 Aquinas at King Division 3A: No. 3 Glendora at Marina (Thursday) Division 4AA: No. 1 Pasadena Poly at Arcadia Division 4A: No. 1 Linfield Christian at No. 3 Pilibos Division 5AA: Costa Mesa at No. 1 Santa Ana Calvary Chapel Division 5A: Faith Baptist at Desert Hot Springs Thursday’s girls’ schedule: Division 1: Esperanza at LB Poly/Fairmont Prep winner Division 2AA: Cajon at No. 1 Alemany Division 2A: Eisenhower at No. 2 Paloma Valley Division 3AA: No. 1 Ontario Christian vs. Sage Hill/La Quinta winner Division 3A: San Dimas at Ayala Division 4AA: No. 2 Agoura at No. 4 Mary Star Division 4A Rancho Christian at No. 2 Newport Harbor Division 5AA: Faith Baptist at No. 2 Trinity Classical Division 5A: Louisville/Capistrano Valley Christian winner at No. 1 Newport Beach Pacifica Christian The City Section holds its basketball semifinals on Wednesday, with the championship games Saturday. In Open Division boys, King/Drew will be at Westchester while Fairfax is at Birmingham. In Division I, it’s Palisades at Chatsworth and Crenshaw at Venice. Here he goes again. Kosy Akametu with the slam. King/Drew 33, Narbonne 26. Late third. pic.twitter.com/TGUU1oQpUY For Open Division girls, it’s El Camino Real at Palisades and Hamilton at Birmingham. The Southern Section baseball playoffs resume on Tuesday with second-round games. San Juan Capistrano JSerra, seeded No. 1 in Division 1, makes its tournament debut at home against Mission Viejo Capistrano Valley. Ace Gage Jump is expected to start on the mound for JSerra. The Southern Section softball playoffs will hold quarterfinal games on Tuesday. Norco, seeded No. 1 in Division 1, travels to Los Alamitos. The City Section begins its Open Division baseball playoffs on Wednesday, while softball begins on Monday.

High school boys’ volleyball: Southern California Regional pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-06/high-school-boys-volleyball-southern-california-regional-pairings

CIF BOYS’ VOLLEYBALL SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA REGIONAL DIVISION I Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 6 p.m. #1 Mira Costa, bye #5 Carlsbad Sage Creek at #4 Newport Harbor #6 Loyola at #3 Clovis East #7 Corona del Mar at #2 Poway DIVISION II Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 6 p.m. unless noted #8 St. Francis at #1 San Diego Torrey Pines #5 Clovis Buchanan at #4 Long Beach Wilson, 4 p.m. #6 Carlsbad La Costa Canyon at #3 Huntington Beach #7 Chatsworth at #2 Santa Barbara DIVISION III Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 6 p.m. unless noted #8 Palisades at #1 Marina, 5 p.m. #5 Cerritos Valley Christian at #4 San Diego Parker #6 King at #3 Carlsbad, 7 p.m. #7 Taft at #2 Fresno Sunnyside DIVISION IV Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 6 p.m. #1 Westminster La Quinta, bye #5 Santa Maria St. Joseph at #4 South Gate #6 Van Nuys at #3 San Diego County Ramona #2 Capistrano Valley Christian, bye DIVISION V Semifinals as noted #4 Orange at #1 Oceanside El Camino, Tuesday, 5 p.m. #3 San Diego Morse at #2 Los Angeles University, Wednesday, 6 p.m. NOTES: Semifinals in all divisions, Thursday, 6 p.m. Championships, Saturday, 2 or 6 p.m.

Manchin says he'll vote against Democrats' elections bill

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-06/manchin-vote-against-democratic-elections-bill

A key Democratic senator says he will not vote for the largest overhaul of U.S. election law in at least a generation, defying his party and the White House and virtually guaranteeing the failure of the legislation after a near party-line approval in the House. “Voting and election reform that is done in a partisan manner will all but ensure partisan divisions continue to deepen,” Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia wrote in a home-state newspaper, the Charleston Gazette-Mail. He wrote that failure to bring together both parties on voting legislation would “risk further dividing and destroying the republic we swore to protect and defend as elected officials.” The bill would restrict partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, strike down hurdles to voting and bring transparency to a murky campaign finance system that allows donors to anonymously bankroll political causes. Among dozens of other provisions, it would require states to offer 15 days of early voting and allow no-excuse absentee balloting. Politics Mike Broomhead, a talk radio host in Phoenix, used to support a local audit of the 2020 election. Now he’s urging fellow Republicans to reconsider. June 6, 2021 In appearances on two Sunday news shows, Manchin stressed his reasons for opposing the bill, including his view that it is too broad. “I think it’s the wrong piece of legislation to bring our country together and unite our country and I’m not supporting that because I think it would divide us further,” Manchin said. He also said he believes Republicans will see the need for a bipartisan deal. “And if they think they’re going to win by subverting and oppressing people from voting, they’re going to lose. I assure you they will lose,” he said. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) told colleagues that he would bring the elections measure to a vote the week of June 21, in effect testing where senators stand. But without Manchin’s support, the bill is unlikely to garner even a majority. Republicans are united against it. Manchin said lawmakers should instead focus their energies on revitalizing the landmark Voting Rights Act, which was weakened by a Supreme Court decision in 2013. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has joined him in calling for that approach. Manchin’s opposition to the broader elections bill is just the latest challenge facing Democrats as they enter the summer work period under rising pressure to deliver on their promises to voters. Manchin reiterated he would not vote to “weaken or eliminate the filibuster,” a route that many Democrats see as the only realistic path forward. The filibuster rule requires 60 votes to pass most bills, and in today’s Senate, which is split 50-50, that means many of the Democrats’ biggest priorities, including voting rights and gun control, are dead on arrival. Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have frustrated their party by their defense of the filibuster. But they aren’t alone, with as many as 10 Democratic senators also reluctant to change the rules. President Biden this past week used the 100th anniversary of Tulsa, Okla.’s race massacre to make a plea for legislation to protect the right to vote, which comes as Republican-led administrations in Texas and other states pass new restrictions making it tougher to cast ballots. Biden also seemed to call out Manchin and Sinema for stalling action on voting measures, though he has not said he wants to end the filibuster. Biden said the right to vote was “precious” and must be protected, and pledged that June would be a “month of action” on Capitol Hill. “We’re not giving up,” Biden said. “I’m going to fight like heck with every tool at my disposal for its passage.” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky has promised to block the elections bill, which he characterizes as undue government overreach into state election systems. He said no GOP senators support it. “I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act,” Manchin wrote. “Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster.” In March, House Democrats passed the voting bill by a near party-line 220-210 vote. The legislation would restrict partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts, eliminate hurdles to voting and bring transparency to a campaign finance system that allows wealthy donors to anonymously bankroll political causes. The measure has been a priority for Democrats since they won their House majority in 2018. But it has taken on added urgency in the wake of former President Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, which incited the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Manchin was interviewed Sunday on “Fox News Sunday” and “Face the Nation” on CBS.

Prince Harry and Meghan welcome their new baby: Lilibet 'Lili' Diana

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-06/prince-harry-meghan-markle-gives-birth-lilibet-lili

Her name is Lilibet “Lili” Diana Mountbatten-Windsor. The second child of Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, was born at 11:40 a.m. Friday at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, the press secretary for the couple said. Mother and child are well and “settling in at home,” the announcement said. Lili, who weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces, is named after her great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, whose family nickname is Lilibet. The middle name, Diana, honors Harry’s mother, the late Princess of Wales. On their website, the couple posted a statement about their new daughter: “On June 4th, we were blessed with the arrival of our daughter, Lili. She is more than we could have ever imagined, and we remain grateful for the love and prayers we’ve felt from across the globe. Thank you for your continued kindness and support during this very special time for our family.” The baby will be eighth in line to the British throne after her 2-year-old brother, Archie Harrison. The Duke and Duchess announced in February that they were expecting by posting a black-and-white photo of the couple with Meghan’s hand resting on her bump. That news followed the November announcement that the Duchess had suffered a miscarriage in July. Both spoke to Oprah Winfrey about tensions within the royal family in March in a blockbuster interview that was watched by at least 17 million viewers. The couple has remained in the headlines since, appearing in April news stories after Prince Philip’s death and the May coverage of the new Apple TV+ mental-health docuseries “The Me You Can’t See,” in which Harry recounted the trauma of Diana’s death, calling it “a nightmare time in my life.”

What’s on TV This Week: 'CMT Music Awards,' 'Pose,' 'The Kardashians' and more

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-06/whats-on-tv-this-week-country-music-pose-kim-kardashian

SUNDAY The finale of “The Story of Late Night” profiles relative newcomers James Corden, Seth Meyers and Samantha Bee. 6 and 9 p.m. CNN For the record: 1:35 p.m. June 7, 2021An earlier version of this article referred to ”the late, great pro wrestler Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart.” Hart is alive. Dick Van Dyke, Debbie Allen, Joan Baez, Garth Brooks and violinist Midori have their praises sung at “The 43rd Annual Kennedy Center Honors.” 8 p.m. CBS Rob Lowe’s team literally goes up against Terrence Howard’s squad on the season premiere of “Celebrity Family Feud.” 8 p.m. ABC She’s bringing more than just orange slices in the TV movie “Soccer Mom Madam.” With Jana Kramer. 8 p.m. Lifetime In this corner: Boxing greats Thomas “The Hitman” Hearns, Roberto Durán, Sugar Ray Leonard and “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler are profiled in the docuseries “The Kings.” 8 p.m. Showtime “The Chase” is back on in a second season of this competition series hosted by “The View’s” Sara Haines. 9 p.m. ABC It’s Earth versus the flying saucers, Round 2, in new episodes of the sci-fi drama “War of the Worlds.” With Gabriel Byrne. 9 p.m. Epix Previous winners get in gear for the spinoff series “The Great Food Truck Race: All Stars.” Tyler Florence hosts. 9 p.m. Food Network A New York socialite (“Ted Lasso’s” Juno Temple) takes a walk on the wild side in 1950s Tangier in the drama series “Little Birds” based on the writings of Anaïs Nin. 9 p.m. Starz The wife of Caesar Augustus is dressed to empress in the historical drama “Domina.” Kasia Smutniak stars. 10 p.m. Epix Billy Porter and Mj Rodriguez strike a “Pose” one last time in the finale of this LGBTQ drama. 10 p.m. FX Awards As Season 3 winds down toward the series finale, its stars look back on its heroic portrayal of the trans community. May 25, 2021 MONDAY Groovy, baby! The 1960s-set series “Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries” returns for Season 2. With Geraldine Hakewill. Anytime, Acorn TV The saga of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán is retold on the return of “American Greed.” 7 and 10 p.m. CNBC “The Bachelor’s” Katie Thurston gets to be “The Bachelorette” this time around as the reality series returns. 8 p.m. ABC The “Cartel Crew” clocks in for a third season of this Miami-set reality series. 9 p.m. VH1 Those for whom the ick factor is no laughing matter share their stories in the special “Germophobia.” 10 p.m. TLC R&B singer Monica is your guide for the true-crime series “Infamy: When Fame Turns Deadly.” 10 p.m. VH1 TUESDAY You’re in for the ride of your life in the 2019 restoration of George A. Romero’s long-lost 1973 horror fable “The Amusement Park.” Anytime, Shudder Fore! Pro golfers prepare for this year’s edition of the prestigious U.S. Open in the docuseries “From Many, One.” 6 p.m. Golf Channel Efforts to improve economic outcomes in Tulsa’s African American community are explored in the conclusion of “The Legacy of Black Wall Street.” 9 p.m. OWN WEDNESDAY “Jane the Virgin’s” Gina Rodriguez is wide “Awake,” she’s wide awake, she’s not sleeping in this 2021 sci-fi thriller. Anytime, Netflix If it’s “Fresh, Fried & Crispy,” your hungry host Daym Drops will scarf it down in this foodie travelogue. Anytime, Netflix “Loki” is anything but low-key in this new series that finds Tom Hiddleston reprising his MCU role as Thor’s mischievous kid brother. Anytime, Disney+ Movies ‘The Eternals’ trailer drops, Kevin Feige talks whitewashing and the star of ‘Shang-Chi’ battles trolls as the Marvel Cinematic Universe springs to life May 24, 2021 Lisa Vanderpump lets the “Vanderpump Dogs” out in this series about the reality TV star’s canine-rescue operation in West Hollywood. Anytime, Peacock Country music’s finest bring the twang at the “CMT Music Awards 2021.” Kane Brown and Kelsea Ballerini cohost. 8 p.m. CMT; also Logo, Paramount Network “Tyler Perry’s Sistas” are still doin’ it for themselves in Season 3 of this comedy drama. 9 p.m. BET Female R&B stars from the 1990s-2000s are doin’ it for each other when they form a supergroup in the reality series “BET Presents: The Encore.” 10 p.m. BET The aforementioned ick factor is also a factor in the special “Filth Fighter.”10 p.m. TLC Teresa, we hardly knew ye: The telenovela-style crime drama “Queen of the South” starring Alice Braga concludes its five-season run. 10 p.m. USA THURSDAY Summer’s here and the time is right for dancing “In the Heights” in Jon M. Chu’s 2021 adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hit Broadway musical. With Jimmy Smits. Anytime, HBO Max The series “Weekend Getaway With Michelle Buteau” sends the comic out on a series of misadventures with funny folks like Tig Notaro and Sasheer Zamata. Anytime, Discovery+ Liza, we hardly knew ye: The comedy “Younger” starring Sutton Foster wraps its seven-season run. Anytime, Paramount+; also Hulu Kim and company call it a day in the finale of the game-changing reality series “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” 8 p.m. E! If you go down to the woods today, you won’t live to regret it in the 2021 horror-franchise reboot “Wrong Turn.” 8 p.m. Showtime The drama “Rebel” starring Katey Sagal runs out of road after a single 10-episode season. 9 and 10 p.m. ABC Don’t want no “Scrubs”? How ’bout “All My Children”? The stars from classic TV shows reunite to reminisce in the series “Reunion Road Trip.” 9 p.m. E! Contestants square off against a virtual taskmaster in the game show “The Cube.” NBA star Dwyane Wade hosts. 9 p.m. TBS He couldn’t sing, he wasn’t pretty and his legs were thin, but Fleetwood Mac cofounder Peter Green is still remembered fondly in a star-studded concert on “Great Performances.” 10 p.m. KOCE FRIDAY Our hunky high-school hero is back in action in a second season of the LGBTQ comedy “Love, Victor.” With Michael Cimino. Anytime, Hulu Anna Paquin returns as an American publicist in London in Season 2 of the comedy “Flack.” Anytime, Amazon Prime Our tenacious tween detective (Brooklynn Prince) is back on the case in new episodes of “Home Before Dark.” Anytime, Apple TV+ They were just skater girls ... and yet, they persisted, so the comedy-drama “Betty” is back for a second season. 11 p.m. HBO Television Creator Crystal Moselle explains how the once-nonprofessional cast of her skater girl series ‘Betty’ became equal partners in one of TV’s best shows. May 27, 2021 SATURDAY A teenage girl survives a terrifying ordeal in the fact-based TV movie “Left for Dead: The Ashley Reeves Story.” With Jennie Garth. 8 p.m. Lifetime “Castle’s” Stana Katic trains women to be secret agents during WWII in the 2019 drama “A Call to Spy.” 8 p.m. Showtime SoCal’s LGBTQ community is ready for its close-up in “ABC7 Presents: Thrive With Pride Celebration.” 9 p.m. KABC Nothing says lovin’ like something from the oven in the TV movie “The Baker’s Son.” With Eloise Mumford. 9 p.m. Hallmark Channel Somebody bring her some water! “Melissa Etheridge: This Is M.E. Live in LA” captures the rocker in concert at the Orpheum Theatre in 2014. 10 p.m. KOCE Television Movies on TV this week: June 6: ‘The Diving Bell And The Butterfly” on Cinemax; ‘Taxi Driver’ on TMC; ‘The Crying Game’ on Showtime and more June 4, 2021 Movies on TV for the entire week, June. 6 - 12 in interactive PDF format for easy downloading and printing June 4, 2021 TV Grids for the entire week of June. 6 - 12 in downloadable and printable PDF files June 4, 2021 Television Looking for what to watch on TV? Here are the television listings from the Los Angeles Times in printable PDF files. June 18, 2021

Sergio Perez wins Azerbaijan GP after Max Verstappen crashes from lead

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-06/sergio-perez-wins-azerbaijan-gp-max-verstappen-crashes

Sergio Perez won the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in a two-lap shootout after championship leader Max Verstappen crashed while leading with a tire failure and Lewis Hamilton went off course trying to seize the win on the standing restart. Verstappen was four laps away from a second consecutive victory Sunday when his Red Bull suddenly slammed hard into the wall with a puncture to his left rear tire. The Dutchman climbed from his car, inspected the tire and kicked it in anger before stomping off in disgust over the race-changing failure. “Is he OK?” radioed rival and seven-time champion Hamilton. Verstappen was fine but Red Bull was furious over a second Pirelli failure and asked for a race stoppage to allow tire changes for safety reasons. Lance Stroll had crashed earlier after his own unexpected tire failure. Formula One red-flagged the race and brought the field to pit lane, then decided to resume with a standing start for a two-lap sprint to the finish. Perez was the leader but Hamilton shot past him in his attempt to win the race and reclaim the points lead from Verstappen. But he failed to brake in the first corner and his Mercedes slid off track. Hamilton dropped to 15th, snapping a streak of 54 consecutive races of earning a points position finish. “So sorry, guys,” he told the team. Mercedes principal Toto Wolff told German broadcaster Sky Sport that the front brakes were unresponsive and the team did not yet know why. Four-time champion Sebastian Vettel took second to give Aston Martin its first ever F1 podium in an impressive drive after qualifying 11th. It was Vettel’s highest finish since 2019. Pierre Gasly was third for AlphaTauri as all three drivers made their first trip to the podium this season. The red-flag Sunday was the second of the season following a crash between Valtteri Bottas and George Russell at Imola in April, and the longest suspension since Romain Grosjean’s fiery crash in Bahrain in November caused a stoppage of more than an hour. It was the second career win for Perez, who is in his first season with Red Bull. It somewhat salvaged the race for the team that had been headed toward a 1-2 finish before Verstappen’s tire failed. Verstappen retained a four-point lead over Hamilton in the standings; Perez climbed to third. The 2016 Spanish Grand Prix was the last time the top two drivers in the championship standings failed to score points. “I am so, so happy. First of all I have to say I am very sorry for Max because he had a tremendous race,“ Perez said. “We were going to have a 1-2 together, but in the end it was still a fantastic day for us and luckily we were still able to finish the race.” Charles Leclerc started on the pole for Ferrari but couldn’t replicate his qualifying pace and was quickly passed by Hamilton and both Red Bull cars. A slow pit stop for Hamilton — held up by the team because Gasly was passing his pit box — allowed Verstappen and Perez to both come out ahead of Hamilton. Verstappen then retained control and was cruising toward the victory until he was blindsided by the tire failure. Leclerc eventually finished fourth after losing a fight with Gasly for the last podium place. Lando Norris took fifth for McLaren, hours after the team announced longtime investor Mansour Ojjeh had died at age 68. Fernando Alonso was sixth for Alpine and Gasly’s teammate Yuki Tsunoda took a career-best seventh. Carlos Sainz was eighth for Ferrari after recovering from going off the track and Daniel Ricciardo was ninth to give McLaren a double points day. Kimi Raikkonen’s 10th place for Alfa Romeo was his first points finish since Nov. 1. Hamilton’s teammate Bottas was never in contention after qualifying 10th and finished 12th after being overtaken by both of the Alfa Romeo cars. Mercedes failed to score a point for the first time since 2018.

Roger Federer chooses rest, withdraws from French Open

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-06/roger-federer-chooses-rest-withdraws-from-french-open

Roger Federer withdrew from the French Open on Sunday to give himself a chance to recover after emerging from a tight third-round victory that lasted about 3 1/2 hours. “After two knee surgeries and over a year of rehabilitation it’s important that I listen to my body and make sure I don’t push myself too quickly on my road to recovery,“ the 20-time Grand Slam champion said in a statement released by the French tennis federation. “I am thrilled to have gotten 3 matches under my belt. There is no greater feeling than being back on court.” Federer, who turns 40 on Aug. 8, was competing in his first major tournament since the 2020 Australian Open. Shortly after that event, he had the first of a pair of operations on his right knee. He had played just three matches this season before arriving in Paris for the clay-court Slam, which he won in 2009. Federer had made clear last month that he did not see himself as ready to contend for the French Open title this time and instead had his sights on Wimbledon, the grass-court major he has won a men’s-record eight times. Play begins at the All England Club on June 28. Sports Defending champions Rafael Nadal and Iga Swiatek each won Saturday to advance to the fourth round at the French Open. June 5, 2021 Federer edged 59th-ranked Dominik Koepfer 7-6 (5), 6-7 (3), 7-6 (4), 7-5 in the third round, a match that began Saturday night and ended as 1 a.m. approached Sunday. The No. 8-seeded Federer was supposed to play No. 9 seed Matteo Berrettini of Italy in the fourth round Monday. The winner of the match will face either No. 1 Novak Djokovic or unseeded Lorenzo Musetti in the quarterfinals. “The Roland Garros tournament is sorry about the withdrawal of Roger Federer, who put up an incredible fight last night,“ tournament director Guy Forget said in a statement. “We were all delighted to see Roger back in Paris, where he played three high-level matches. We wish him all the best for the rest of the season.”

Recipes that make the most of summer's best berries

https://www.latimes.com/food/newsletter/2021-06-06/blueberries-raspberries-muffins-cobbler-biscuits-cooking-editorial

A tour through the farmers market last Sunday left me gobsmacked with the abundance of berries currently spilling out — quite literally at some stands — into the streets. Strawberries, the beauty queens of berries, are the obvious draws for tourists and citrus-weary Angelenos, but the blueberries and raspberries — slightly tart — are also delicious this time of year. Not to mention, the blackberries and all their cousins like boysenberries, olallieberries and other hybrids can be found in certain stands that appreciate their unique attributes. Get our Cooking newsletter. Your roundup of inspiring recipes and kitchen tricks. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. To make the most of the baskets I bought, staining my tote bags and shirt a deep purple or magenta, I will bake up a storm to stock up my freezer with fruit-packed pastries and desserts. Blueberries will pull double duty: In these buttery biscuits, which I’ll make and stash in my freezer so I can bake them off when I need them and enjoy for months, and then in my easy muffins that, as the name implies, are mostly berries with just enough batter present to shape them into said muffins. Those will keep fresh for days at room temperature, and due to my predilection for eating two at a time for breakfast and another as an afternoon snack each day, mine won’t last long on the counter. This raspberry semifreddo is the perfect kind of chilled, tart dessert to keep on hand in the freezer for when guests come over, when I need a last-minute dessert for a dinner party, or for when the craving hits just before bed. (It also, blessedly, doesn’t require an ice cream maker, the bowl of which I always forget to freeze for when I need it.) Similarly, I’ll keep this blackberry cobbler on hand in the freezer for last-minute dessert needs when only something baked and bubbly will do. It’s insanely easy to whip together and consists of only six ingredients (Use regular milk if you don’t have half-and-half.) Then finally, my partner loves strawberry shortcakes, so I’ve been making a lot of iterations lately, from the split biscuit-style to a crumbly sponge cake baked in the shape of those “dessert shells” you buy at the grocery store. For the former, though, I love this rye biscuit version that spoons halved strawberries, brightened with slices of tender citrus, over the top and dolloped with sour labneh or yogurt. It’s a showcase for the most beautiful berries of the season, when all you want is a great excuse to eat something sweet and decadent any time of day. These biscuits are craggy and crisp outside and bursting with berries inside. Feel free to substitute raspberries or blackberries here, but not strawberries — they’re too watery. This recipe makes fantastic use of any frozen fruit you need to use up too.Get the recipe.Cook time: 30 minutes. These muffins are as easy as making pancakes, and maybe even easier because they’re all done at once. Small amounts of cinnamon and almond extract bolster the aroma of blueberries, and even though these muffins are packed with the fruit, the cornstarch ensures they’re incredibly light.Get the recipe.Cook time: 40 minutes. Enjoying this newsletter? Consider becoming a Times subscriber. This easy ice cream dessert is not too sweet, just a little tart and creamy and crunchy at the same time. If you don’t feel like turning on the oven, it’s the best option and plays up the raspberry’s bright character beautifully.Get the recipe.Cook time: 25 minutes. Probably the simplest fruit dessert there is, fresh blackberries are topped with a plain, sweet and creamy dough, then baked until bubbly and fragrant. Prep this dish then keep it in your freezer to pull out and bake when the craving hits, And always — always — serve it with vanilla ice cream.Get the recipe.Cook time: 40 minutes. When strawberries are small and young, their leaves are still tiny and tender. Keep them on the berries for both aesthetics and the earthy taste they impart that balances the sweet fruit and rich biscuit. If you’re using kumquats, thinly slice them just like the mandarinquats because their skin is edible too. But if you’re using another citrus with a bitter, thick rind, peel the rind from the citrus and slice the fruit into thin wheels or segments.Get the recipe.Cook time: 1 hour 10 minutes. Los Angeles Times Food Bowl returns this month with a series of events and celebrations (some will be in person; others will be virtual). Events include celebration meals at Phenakite and Guelaguetza; a panel on women in food led by Jenn Harris; and, in commemoration of Juneteenth, an exploration of Black foodways hosted by newly arrived Times reporter Donovan X. Ramsey. Have a cooking question? Email us.

Commentary: Mayweather vs. Paul is boxing’s latest cash grab, but better days are ahead

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-06/floyd-mayweather-x-logan-paul-advance

“This is supposed to be an exhibition!” Apollo Creed’s trainer helplessly screamed seconds before the fighter succumbed to a fatal beating at the hands of Ivan Drago in “Rocky IV.” Whether it be in real life or movies, boxing exhibitions have been regular billings since the first recorded prize fight in 1681. Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis and George Foreman have engaged in the theatric form of fighting. Even Oscar De La Hoya once mixed it up with Shaquille O’Neal on national television for the sake of entertainment. During the past year, high-profile exhibitions seem to be all of the rage again in sweet science, and another high-profile sparring session will unfold in Miami Gardens on Sunday night when Floyd Mayweather Jr. returns to the ring to fight social media star Logan Paul. The cash king nicknamed “Money” is back for another heist because he’s selling the bout with the equally brash Paul as a “legalized bank robbery.” Sports The significance of Canelo-Saunders might be getting lost in the hype around other gimmicky fights, but the matchup still holds substantial weight. May 7, 2021 There will be no judges scoring the eight-round event, an official winner will not be announced, but knockouts will be legal when the pugilistically inept Paul faces the greatest fighter of his generation without any headgear. Former NFL star Chad Johnson is adding to the attraction and spectacle by making his boxing debut. Showtime will produce the fight on pay-per-view for $49.99. Welcome to boxing’s revived trend, when people with star power can strap on a pair of gloves for a quick cash grab. “I get paid the biggest bucks because I kick a— and I beat the biggest names out there. We’re talking about real fighters. This is a YouTuber. C’mon now,” said Mayweather, his braggadocio still in prime form. “Logan is working hard, like the Russian in ‘Rocky IV.’ Keep training like Ivan Drago, it’s not going to work.” Mayweather was always a No. 1 mainstay as Forbes’ highest-earning athlete during his heyday. The longtime Las Vegas resident said he already hit the jackpot against Paul with a $30 million minimum. More money will materialize once the final PPV buys are calculated. Not a paltry purse for a 44-year-old grandfather who hasn’t beaten a boxing world champion since 2015. Paul is best known for creating slapstick YouTube videos. Ugly offenses have included him filming a suicide victim in a forest. Mayweather promises to punish Paul for all of his wrongdoings by using his “Z” game. The 26-year-old Paul will be primarily tasked with bringing his Gen Z audience of nearly 50 million to watch him put up a hapless fight against a boxer who beat Canelo Álvarez, Manny Pacquiao and De La Hoya during a Hall of Fame career that reached a perfect 50 wins and zero losses. Mayweather has remained semi-retired after his last professional boxing match in 2017, a drubbing of former UFC champion Conor McGregor that generated more than 4.3 million domestic PPV buys and $600 million. The clash perhaps offered a preview into the current craze of crossover events, and the cash cow it presents when two transcendent personalities converge. After the McGregor beatdown, Mayweather returned in 2018 for a one-round, New Year’s Eve mauling of Japanese kickboxer Tenshin Nasukawa for a reported $9 million payday. Outside of Paul making his pro boxing debut in a loss to fellow YouTuber KSI, 2019 was mostly a quiet year of combat sideshows. Then 2020 happened, when everything went haywire. The pandemic proved that when fans are starved of live sporting events, they can become fiends looking for a quick fix. Many people got lost in nostalgia during the doldrums of lockdown and eventually found alternative forms of entertainment. Sports Canelo Alvarez blew it with his match against Callum Smith on Saturday. He should have sought out a more worthy opponent. Dec. 20, 2020 For sports, “The Last Dance” documenting the 1990s Chicago Bulls arrived at the most opportune time for those looking for a TV lifeline. The series reminded everyone of Michael Jordan’s demigod status. Soon after another demigod named Mike resurfaced to rekindle the interest of masses. After an explosive workout video went viral, Mike Tyson seized the momentum and returned to the ring at age 54 to fight the retired Roy Jones Jr. during an entertaining exhibition that netted nearly 1.6 million PPV purchases and $80 million. Logan’s younger brother Jake Paul, however, took social media by storm that night when he viciously knocked out former three-time NBA Slam Dunk champion Nate Robinson. The floodgates have opened ever since for crossover bouts, celebrity boxing and senior circuit tours. Evander Holyfield wants to fight Tyson in a trilogy. De La Hoya announced he was coming back for a since-delayed bout. Long-retired greats like Erik Morales, Marco Antonio Barrera, Juan Manuel Marquez and Miguel Cotto all threw their gloves in the exhibition ring. In a more uncomfortable and perhaps exploitative PPV, former Lakers star Lamar Odom and entertainer Aaron Carter will engage in a June 12 exhibition for a company that promises stars a 16th minute of fame. Although many may decry the quality and volume of these events and the health and safety concerns of the participants — Odom and Carter are both recovering addicts — there still appears to be an appetite across the board. “It was almost inevitable that social media stars would break into sports,” said Showtime Sports president Stephen Espinoza. “Celebrity today clearly means something very different than years before. There is a long history of celebrities competing in athletic events, like with ‘Battle of the Network Stars.’ We’re now in version 2.0. “We recognize a good party when we see it … There needs to be a level of quality and seriousness that we’re going to adhere to put our brand on it. Our credibility is paramount to us.” The Harris Poll recently surveyed 2,072 American adults to see if fans had heard about boxing matches before they’d unfolded. Forty percent of respondents were already aware of the Mayweather-Paul fight, while 30% knew of Jake Paul’s knockout of former MMA champion Askren in April. In comparison, the 2020 heavyweight rematch between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder drew a 29% response, and Canelo Alvarez’s recent KO of Billy Joe Saunders garnered 23% awareness. Mayweather’s knack for reality TV and entertainment throughout the years with WWE, “Dancing With The Stars” and unapologetically showing off his lavish lifestyle makes him a natural fit for his upcoming assignment. The proof is in the pudding that the pair of Pauls are the perfect dance partners. They move the needle and reach a new audience boxing wants to reach — digital native cord cutters who are looking for thumb-stopping content. UFC president Dana White, on the other hand, refuses to participate in the hullabaloo and prefers to only promote MMA. He labeled the last event headlined by Jake as a “mind-boggling ... freak-show circus.” Jake is now 3-0 as a pro with all three fights ending in KOs worthy of garnering hundreds of millions in impressions. His next boxing match is yet another intriguing one, an Aug. 28 fight with former UFC champion Tyron Woodley on Showtime PPV. Jake is already considered a favorite to win by most sportsbooks. Jake inserted himself into his sibling’s exhibition storyline by stealing Mayweather’s hat during a recent press conference. A WWE-like brawl mirroring a Royal Rumble broke out between both camps, and the histrionics somewhat got serious when Mayweather threatened to kill Jake. “Anytime there is an event with my brother, or myself involved, it’s going to go down, unfortunately,” said Logan. “Shoutout to my brother for selling the fight for me.” What appeared to be perfect promotion was played up as a much more punishable offense by Mayweather. “I’m going to tighten his a— up for disrespecting,” said Mayweather. “Somebody can seriously get hurt by disrespect. I ain’t nothing to play with. I’m not for jokes. Keep f— with me and next time you’ll end up in a neck brace. … I know how to fight. I know how to entertain. I kick a— for a living. After this fight, they are going to call me a Paul-bearer.” The Rated-R script is fitting for premium cable programming. With HBO out of the boxing business, Showtime is one of the principals tasked with being a tastemaker for what’s considered purchase-worthy, crème de la crème combat. The network with 35 years in the sport now competes exclusively with ESPN, FOX, DAZN and boxing’s latest upstart in Triller, the purveyor of Tyson’s comeback as well as Jake’s previous two fights. The summer schedule of real boxing fights is undoubtedly beginning to heat up after the Mayweather and Paul circus leaves town. Fury and Wilder will fight on July 24. Pacquiao will continue his legendary career against top champion Errol Spence Jr. on Aug. 21. The pound-for-pound king Álvarez will look to become an undisputed super middleweight champion against Caleb Plant by September. Later this month, Showtime will feature Mayweather-protégé Gervonta Davis during a separate PPV bout. In what presented itself as a perfect platform for Mayweather to promote his pupil, Davis was missing from the stage and spotlight all week and lost an opportunity to boost his own profile. “This is not a fair fight. I’m six, seven inches taller than Floyd. Thirty pounds heavier. Eighteen years younger,” Paul said. “Saying I fully intend on beating the greatest boxer of our generation, it can’t be computed. They hear that and say, ‘This kid is a moron.’ Hey, I agree with y’all. I’m a delusional optimist.” Logan will likely be asked to absorb Mayweather’s beating until a Brink’s truck is backed up and ready to haul away the money. “[Exhibitions are] a new niche of the sport, which may or may not be a niche for the long term. It may be bigger than a niche, but there is clearly a demand and interest in the audience, and financial viability in the events,” said Espinoza. The real boxing event on Sunday, however, follows the fight when “The Kings” premieres on Showtime. The four-part docu-series details the revered 1980s rivalries between the quartet of Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard. One can only hope the nostalgic presentation of boxing’s golden era inspires the present pool to deliver fights that will merit documentaries, decades-long discussions and “Rocky” like movies down the line. The desire for the previous generation to engage in lukewarm competition won’t exist if fighters in their prime command an audience by consistently fighting archrivals, much like their predecessors.

A conservative talk radio host once backed the Arizona GOP election recount. Now he's warning Republicans against it

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-06/conservative-radio-host-pivots-arizona-election-audit-stance

Mike Broomhead talks for a living, but for a moment last week, all he could do was sigh. With that flash of wordless exasperation behind him, he continued with his work: delivering the latest update on the Maricopa County election recount to listeners of his eponymous morning talk radio show. That day’s news was of a forthcoming conspiracy-theory-riddled documentary on what organizers call an audit — but Broomhead soon turned his attention to the officials overseeing this unfolding spectacle. “You’re turning this into the clown show that you’ve been accused of. ... You’re turning this into the sideshow at the state fair,” he said. This is the type of criticism one might expect from Democrats, who opposed the recount effort from the beginning, or from one of the many election experts who raised alarms at the stark departure from established audit practices, or from a Never-Trump Republican trying to wrest the party from the former president’s grip. But Broomhead is a two-time Trump voter, a staunch conservative and a onetime supporter of this recount. In recent weeks, he has fashioned himself as a reality check for fellow Republicans. Politics Officials have quietly deployed a mobile app relying on facial recognition technology to collect data on asylum seekers before they cross the border. June 6, 2021 As the recount of 2.1 million ballots cast seven months ago drags on, Broomhead and others are contemplating just how this saga will end. The recount’s most ardent supporters believe former President Trump will be reinstated in the White House (despite there being no legal mechanism for that to occur). Its fiercest critics predict a damaging precedent that will embolden others to baselessly challenge results of elections they don’t like. An increasingly vocal share of Arizona Republicans see the recount as an act of self-sabotage, creating an albatross for statewide candidates in the run-up to a pivotal election year. Broomhead is in this camp, with another lingering concern. “No matter where you stand, the one thing we can all agree on is it has put a great big wedge in this community,” he told listeners earlier in the week. “That to me is the worst part of this. It’s one more reason for us to stand on opposite sides of the streets and complain about each other.” :: Seated at his microphone, wearing a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, Broomhead, 54, put in his earbuds, fixed his gaze straight ahead and gesticulated as he talked. The unnatural pantomime translated as natural conversation on-air, as he took his listeners on another recount riff. “Here’s where we stand. It is June,” he said. “It is June. We have less than a year and a half before another election.” Proponents of the recount, however, are keeping their eyes firmly fixed on the last election. Joe Biden won the state with a wafer-thin margin, a result immediately contested by Trump and his allies, although they never presented evidence of ineligible or altered votes. The Board of Supervisors in Maricopa County, comprising mostly Republicans, commissioned two independent audits to quell fears of fraud. Both reports said the vote count was accurate. But Republicans in the state Senate demanded a broader recount and hired an obscure firm, Cyber Ninjas, which did not have experience with audits of this scale and whose leader had promoted baseless theories of rigged voting machines robbing Trump of votes. Since the recount began at Phoenix’s aging Veterans Memorial Coliseum, it has been beset with snafus, including ballot security lapses, opaque procedures and technical errors. Then there are the conspiracy theories — the search for nonexistent watermarks or bamboo fibers in the ballots, sparked by unfounded rumors of ballots flown in from Asia. Organizers granted preferential media access to far-right network OAN, whose personalities are leading grass-roots fundraising drives for the recount that do not disclose donors. The more the effort veered away from expert-sanctioned best practices and toward groundless speculation, the less Broomhead had faith in its integrity. He tried to imagine if the parties were reversed, if liberal Democrats were pushing an identical process. It’s only fair to admit, he said in an interview, that “Republicans would lose their minds.” Senate GOP President Karen Fann has said the recount is not intended to overturn the 2020 election results but to simply put to rest any question about the results and perhaps find ways to improve elections. (Broomhead said his initial support for the recount was similarly to restore voters’ faith in the system, and that he never believed the election was stolen from Trump.) “Whether they are legitimate concerns or not, our voters — our constituents — deserve to have answers,” Fann told The Times in February. Her spokesman did not respond to an interview request last week. Bill Gates, a Republican Maricopa County supervisor, said the shambolic nature of the proceedings has thoroughly undermined that purported goal. “I don’t see how anyone in their right mind can argue what’s been going on at the coliseum is instilling any voter confidence,” he said. The review has no authority to change the 2020 results — and Trump, who frequently praises the recount, would have come up short of the presidency even if he had won Arizona’s 11 electoral votes. Nevertheless, at least some supporters, and the former president himself, see the recount as a step in restoring Trump to power, according to reporting in the New York Times and Washington Post. Kelly Johnson, a former lawyer from Huntington Beach, doesn’t just hope that’s the case; he’s certain it will be. Arizona would be the “first domino to fall” in overturning the 2020 results, he said, echoing a prediction promoted by believers of QAnon, an amorphous pro-Trump conspiracy theory. “I’m not looking at 2024” for Trump to win back the White House, Johnson said. “I’m looking at 2021. I think something will happen by the end of this year.” Johnson, 60, has driven three times to Phoenix to show support. In triple-digit heat, he arrayed his collection of Trump flags on extendable flagpoles, while other supporters relaxed in camping chairs under a canopy, surrounded by handmade pro-recount signs. Johnson intends to come back midsummer, when the final report is expected to be released, he said, taking a break from the sun in the taco shop across the street. “I think a lot of us kind of know what the result’s gonna be,” he said, but stated he would believe the Senate Republicans if they say no fraud was found. Among the recount’s harshest critics, few think that conclusion is likely. “There is no scenario I can anticipate where Cyber Ninja’s audit report says, ‘There is no fraud in Arizona,’” said Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat. “The way they’ve set it up is primed for cooking the books.” :: Broomhead is not shy about his opinions — that’s the whole point of being a talk radio host. But anytime he starts to talk about the recount’s backers, his tread becomes notably lighter. “I don’t want to make the people that believe this angry,” he explained during a commercial break. “I don’t think they are crazy. I think that these are people that genuinely believe the election was stolen.” Every time he talks about those involved, be it officials like Fann or Ken Bennett, a former GOP secretary of state who has largely been the recount’s public face, or the volunteer ballot inspectors at the coliseum, he takes pains to praise their intentions. Nevertheless, he catches heat from some listeners who accuse him of being biased against the effort. Politics The state has always had an ornery streak. Now many Republicans are denying reality for Trump’s sake. May 21, 2021 Bitter GOP infighting is hardly new in the state; party activists constantly clashed with the late Republican Sen. John McCain for not being sufficiently conservative. To Broomhead, this rift is resurfacing at the worst time, right before the 2022 election, when Arizonans will vote in six statewide races, including for governor and U.S. senator. “That division is coming to a head right now,” he told his audience, warning that the state party’s all-in support for the audit is leaving moderate Republicans and independents out of the fold. “And if you don’t get everybody on board ... we are going to watch the Democrats win the majority of those six important races.” For state legislators in safe GOP districts, backing the recount is good politics. A poll by HigherGround, an Arizona consulting firm, found that more than three-quarters of Republicans support the audit. Winning over that base of voters ensures a primary victory, and effectively, reelection. But the same poll found that 55% of Arizonans overall oppose the effort, which means it could drag down statewide and swing district candidates come November 2022. The recount has already rippled into next year’s governor’s race, which Hobbs jumped into last week. Days earlier, OH Predictive Insights, a Phoenix-based pollster, had put Hobbs at the top of its power rankings of Arizona officials, based in part on her growing name recognition and favorability. Mike Noble, the firm’s director of research, tied her surge to her high-profile challenge to Cyber Ninjas and the state Senate. “The GOP keeps providing their chin to Hobbs in a proverbial political sense, and she keeps capitalizing each time they stick their chin out, which seems quite often in the audit,” Noble said. Most Republican hopefuls for statewide office have largely stayed mum on the topic, fearful of alienating either their party’s base or the broader electorate. Also quiet is termed-out GOP Gov. Doug Ducey, even as Trump continues to blast him for certifying the election last fall. “The fact this is not being called out by other Republican elected officials is mind-numbing to me,” said Gates, the Maricopa County supervisor. As the recount drags on, some Arizona Republicans are losing patience. The Maricopa County Board, which had long opposed the recount, has ratcheted up its pushback with uncommon vehemence. Former GOP Gov. Jan Brewer said auditors should “call it quits,” speaking in an interview on “The Gaydos and Chad Show,” Broomhead’s afternoon counterparts on KTAR 92.3 FM. Two GOP state senators have signaled varying degrees of discomfort with the proceedings. In the best-case scenario, said Rebecca Rios, the state Senate Democratic leader, those legislators would “come to their senses and work with Democrats to shut the audit down.” All indications, though, are that this drama is set to dominate Arizona’s political landscape for some time. There are reports the state Senate is considering yet another digital recount. The Maricopa County Board is primed to sue the state Senate, while American Oversight, a nonpartisan anticorruption nonprofit, has gone to court seeking public records regarding the recount. And the question of the total price tag remains unknown, particularly after Hobbs told the county it should obtain new voting machines because those turned over to the state Senate may have been compromised. This is what Broomhead fears — months more of preposterous headlines. It may make for great radio, but it might not be great for his party, or his state. And so he keeps talking about the recount, bemoaning the debacle it has become and hoping its officials will listen.

Will this be the last time Americans dominate the Olympics?

https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2021-06-06/will-american-olympic-dominance

The story goes back a ways, back to the mid-1980s, when Michael Johnson was still in high school. The famous sprinter was years away from winning gold medals at three consecutive Summer Olympics. He wasn’t yet known for those glittering golden spikes. A nerdy kid, Johnson was running track at a small magnet school in Dallas. The team’s coach, Joel Ezar, who taught health class during the day, knew only a little about technique but could spot raw talent. “No one was paying attention to me,” Johnson recalls, “until he started writing letters to all these colleges.” Baylor University offered the unpolished athlete a chance to hone his skills with a coaching staff versed in speed and strength training. “It was a critical moment for me,” says Johnson, who wonders whether he might otherwise have fallen through the cracks and never become an Olympian. “I made a huge leap when I got to college.” Olympics The latest Virtual Medal Table from Gracenote shows the U.S. leading all nations with an estimated 43 golds and 114 overall medals at the Tokyo Olympics. April 14, 2021 This story might sound quaint but it shows how college sports have served as a vast feeder system, helping the Americans dominate every Summer Games for the past 25 years and making them favorites to again win a lion’s share of medals at the Tokyo Olympics. People need to know how it works, Johnson says. They need to understand because the U.S. winning streak could be history — no more piles of gold, silver and bronze — by the time the 2028 Los Angeles Games come around. :: Countries such as China, Russia and Germany follow a different method, identifying a relatively small number of prospects at an early age and funneling them into specialized training academies. The U.S. relies instead on its broad network of colleges to serve as a kind of minor leagues. Casting a wide net, this system has a history of identifying and developing talent such as sprinter Carl Lewis and volleyball great Misty May-Treanor. It has given late bloomers such as Johnson, with his awkward, upright style, a few more years to mature. “College allowed me to grow up as a young man. I had dreams of being an Olympian but I needed to understand my goals.” — Quincy Watts, a USC alumnus and a two-time gold medalist in sprints As a result, the American team can choose from thousands of candidates to restock its roster every four years. But that pipeline is now in danger of slowing to a trickle, in large part because of the COVID-19 pandemic and its financial impact, with scores of universities cutting costs by downsizing their athletic departments. Football, a non-Olympic sport, and basketball, a prominent Olympic sport, but one that yields few medals, have been spared because they generate tens of millions through ticket sales and broadcast rights. The ax has fallen instead on such sports as the Summer Games trinity of track, swimming and gymnastics, which operate at a deficit. So far, hundreds of teams have been eliminated nationwide. Prominent NCAA schools such as Iowa, Minnesota and Connecticut have made cuts, as have many smaller Division II and Division III campuses. A few universities, including Brown and Clemson, have backed down in the face of public pressure. Stanford, which ranks with USC and UCLA in sending athletes to the Olympics, reinstated 11 teams it planned to drop. Still, officials see a worrisome trend. “Eighty percent of our Summer Olympics teams come from college,” says Sarah Wilhelmi, a U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee executive. “When college programs are cut, there are dominoes related to those cuts.” A smaller talent pool means fewer athletes to choose from, fewer chances to strike gold. If the trend continues, Americans could soon be knocked off their perch atop the medals table, the unofficial scorecard that fans watch so closely at every Games. Olympics Painful memories will endure from Misty Hartung’s year fighting for Stanford athletes in their battle with university leaders who chose to turn their backs on them. June 6, 2021 The U.S. squad headed for Tokyo won’t be affected — one forecast has the team winning 114 medals, comfortably ahead of all other countries. But officials worry about the 2024 Paris Games and Los Angeles beyond that. They have created a think tank, inviting dozens of university administrators, coaches and former athletes to brainstorm solutions. “This effort will take a village,” USOPC chief executive Sarah Hirshland told members during a recent videoconference. “We will not solve all of the issues all at once … but certainly we can start to chip away.” Their agenda ranges from the practical (bottom-line economics) to the esoteric (discussions about how sports align — or should align — with higher education). These diverse issues intersect with America’s love for the Games and the unusual, often shifting, path the country has followed in nurturing athletes. It’s all about the quest for gold. :: The first time French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin invited the world to his new-fangled athletic festival, modeled after ancient Greek competitions, only a dozen or so nations showed up. From this 1896 debut, the modern Olympics slowly grew. Americans never approached the Games like other countries where governments select and fund their teams. Early on, the U.S. sent a mishmash of college and private clubs, everyone wearing different uniforms. Two medals from the 1900 Paris Games belonged to a University of Pennsylvania student who was actually Canadian. Then, in 1908, the American Athletic Union assumed control of organizing the roster. “The AAU was a very big deal at the time,” says Mark Dyreson, an Olympic historian at Penn State University. “It was running every amateur sport in the country.” For nearly five decades, the AAU remained the key to assembling squads that often led the medals table because of the U.S.’s population, prosperity and cultural affinity for playing games. But in the 1950s, as college sports became more prominent, the NCAA muscled in. The rival organizations began squabbling over money, each hungry for a slice of appearance fees that American athletes earned at foreign events. They soon wrestled for control of the Olympic roster. Into this drama barged the USSR, which had focused on sports as a means of boosting its international profile. The effort paid off with a victory in the medals count at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and in Rome four years later, the U.S. relegated to second place. “There had to be a change,” Dyreson says. “We were losing to the Soviets.” Congress eventually got involved and, in 1978, passed the Amateur Sports Act, giving the U.S. Olympic committee authority over the American squad. Olympic historian Bill Mallon says this forced the AAU into the background and shifted more influence to the NCAA. Olympics An estimated 600,000 Tokyo Olympics ticket holders outside of Japan are fighting to get elusive refunds after they were banned from attending the Games. April 1, 2021 By the mid-1990s, the USSR had dissolved and Americans once again prevailed. It did not matter that the medal count wasn’t really official or that it made traditionalists cringe — fans liked to see the U.S. on top with colleges supplying much of the talent. “You’ve got that element of a pipeline,” says Rick Adams, USOPC chief of sport performance. NCAA teams offer “coaching, facilities, nutritionists, sports psychologists … all of the things we provide for Team USA but the college system provides it at hundreds of campuses.” Nowhere else in the world are college sports played so avidly, in such numbers. This mechanism has continued to outpace the state-run model, with the Americans winning 121 medals in Rio de Janeiro five years ago, their most-ever for a widely attended, non-boycotted Games. “There’s a lot of competition you have to go through” in college, wrestler Kyle Dake says. “I think it gives us an advantage as a country.” :: College is not the only path to the Olympics. In sports such as gymnastics and swimming, athletes often peak as teenagers, honing their skills at elite private clubs. It’s the American version of the academy system. Janet Evans took this route, earning three gold medals as a teenage swimmer at the 1988 Seoul Games. Still, upon returning home to Southern California, she enrolled at Stanford. “It was appealing to me,” says Evans, who now works for the LA 2028 organizing committee. “I thought I would swim better.” Coaching and facilities were only part of her decision. Evans and others talk about the benefits of maturing in ways that have nothing to do with sport. “College allowed me to grow up as a young man,” says Quincy Watts, a USC alumnus and a two-time gold medalist in sprints. “I had dreams of being an Olympian but I needed to understand my goals.” The list of Olympic greats who emerged from the NCAA includes Lewis, a University of Houston sprinter before he won nine golds, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee, who starred at UCLA on her way to six medals in heptathlon and long jump. May-Treanor helped Long Beach State to a collegiate title before joining with Kerri Walsh Jennings to form the most-decorated beach volleyball duo in history. “You learn how to win, how to lose and how to compete during these very formative years,” USOPC executive Adams says. “By the time you reach the international level, you can fall back on that.” As a senior at the University of Minnesota, Shane Wiskus has parlayed his college experience into a spot on the national gymnastics squad. With his school dropping the sport, he worries about the next generation. “I think there will be an aspect of the competitive edge that will be lost,” he says. “It’s concerning and I don’t know if there’s an answer right now.” :: Not everyone cringes at the prospect of NCAA schools cutting Olympic sports. As founder of the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, Tom Farrey believes football and basketball have co-opted the college model, encouraging athletic departments to behave like NFL or NBA franchises, blindly chasing after television dollars. “Colleges need to ask themselves, ‘What is the purpose of sports on campus?’” Farrey says. “’What will promote participation by the broadest swath of students at the lowest cost, in a form that promotes a healthy outcome?’” Politics The U.S. would consider a joint boycott with other countries of the 2022 Winter Olympics in China over human rights abuses, the State Department says. April 6, 2021 Nonrevenue teams might better operate as student clubs supported by the university’s general fund, Farrey says. They might not have lavish facilities or athletic scholarships, but could hire coaches and compete in leagues organized by national governing bodies, such as USA Volleyball or USA Wrestling, that oversee each amateur sport. The idea sounds reasonable to Travis Nitkiewicz, a Michigan State swimmer whose team will be cut this summer. “Some athletes need the scholarship, but a lot of us just love to compete,” Nitkiewicz says. “I’m sure we’d be there regardless of the format, whether it’s NCAA or not.” So far, the USOPC appears to be focused on less-radical changes. Think tank members would like to see national governing bodies supply funding to college programs and establish regional training centers for teams that need facilities. There has been talk of holding NCAA events in conjunction with youth championships, splitting the venue cost and attracting more spectators. Nonrevenue teams that escaped the latest cuts are looking to gird themselves by trimming budgets and raising outside funds. If anything, the pandemic has taught coaches to recruit by Zoom rather than fly around the country. “We had a lot of coaches who thought their jobs were just using a stopwatch,” says Greg Earhart, executive director for a national swimming and diving association. “Now it’s about being an effective CEO.” With the pandemic’s economic impact expected to linger, the clock is ticking. College teams must fight to survive while the U.S. Olympic program looks over its shoulder at new rivals. Olympics The USOPC says U.S. athletes can raise a fist or kneel in protest on the medals stand. The International Olympic Committee has a rule against demonstrations. Dec. 10, 2020 “Take China, for example,” sprinter Johnson says. “They have a huge budget.” Twenty-five years have passed since he made history by winning the 200 and 400 meters — wearing those golden spikes — at the 1996 Atlanta Games. He now consults nations hungry for that kind of glory. His clients can build facilities, hire coaches and develop training programs, but he believes they lack a key ingredient. “I see it firsthand,” he says. “They can only go so far.” Johnson is talking about a network of colleges working just beneath the elite level. If the NCAA continues to drop nonrevenue teams, the U.S. might become a little more like other countries in the way they identify and prepare Olympians. They might slip down the medals table. “My fear is that you’re going to have athletes who have potential but get left behind,” he says. Like the kid from Dallas who ran with his shoulders high, head thrown back. The one who got a second chance in college and ended up as one of the greatest Olympians in history.

Fox News declines to air ad about Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-06/fox-news-ad-jan-6-insurrection-capitol

Fox News declined to broadcast an ad Sunday about the violence that law-enforcement members faced as they tried to stop the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, according to the creators of the political commercial. “We couldn’t have fathomed in our wildest imaginations that even a Fox News would reject an ad that simply condemns the insurrection, and condemns people who support the insurrection,” said Ben Meiselas, one of the co-founders of MeidasTouch, the liberal Political Action Committee that created the 60-second ad. “What Fox has really become is a fascist echo chamber gatekeeper for their base.” Broadcast and cable networks have discretion in refusing to air ads by political campaigns and advocacy groups. A Fox News spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday. Meiselas and his two brothers, Brett and Jordan, said they placed the ad buy as they have in the past, but were informed over the phone on Friday that the cable network would not air the ad and were not given a reason. Fox News has never before refused to air one of their ads without offering suggestions for edits, they said. Politics New details reveal more about the state of fear and panic on the Capitol during the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection. April 10, 2021 The commercial features law-enforcement officers testifying in Congress and speaking to the media about their experiences during the insurrection, including getting sprayed with bear mace, engaging in hand-to-hand combat and being called “traitors.” “It’s been very difficult seeing elected officials and other individuals whitewash the events of that day or downplay what happened,” DC Metropolitan Police Officer Michael Fanone says in a clip from a CNN interview as images of House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other GOP elected officials are shown on screen. The ad ends with block letters that say” “The GOP Betrayed America. We Will Never Forget.” The ad has gone viral on social media, racking up more than 1 million views on Twitter. Get our Essential Politics newsletter The latest news, analysis and insights from our politics team. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Fox News is the target of multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuits by voting system and software makers over its coverage of the integrity of the 2020 presidential election. Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic accused Fox News of irresponsibly broadcasting falsehoods that their technology and equipment were used to rig the election. The fraud claims are among the factors that led to the insurrection as lawmakers were voting to certify the election results. Fanone, who suffered a heart attack after rioters beat him with a flagpole and repeatedly stunned with him with his Taser gun on Jan. 6, is among the law-enforcement members who have been vocal critics of Republican lawmakers who blocked the creation of a commission to study what happened that day. The House of Representatives approved a plan to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the insurrection on a 252-175 vote; but in the Senate, it received 54 votes in late May, six shy of the number required to bring the proposal up for debate. A spokeswoman for President Biden on Thursday ruled out creating a presidential commission to study the matter, aligning the White House with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the belief that such an inquiry needed to be instigated by Congress. MeidasTouch booked nearly $185,000 of air time to play the ad on Fox News between June 6 and 15, starting with Chris Wallace’s Sunday show and continuing for seven days on “Fox and Friends” as well as two spots on daytime programs and one more on Wallace’s show next weekend. Brett Meiselas noted that many shows on the network routinely talk about “cancel culture.” “The fact they want to cancel and censor the voices of law enforcement who bravely guarded the Capitol. It’s the height of hypocrisy, and it’s un-American,” he said. MeidasTouch is a liberal political action committee formed in 2020 by the three brothers, who have notable ties to Hollywood. Their father is a prominent attorney who represents musicians including Lady Gaga. Ben Meiselas is a lawyer whose clients include former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Brett Meiselas was an editor on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show. Jordan Meiselas, a former marketer, is now working full time on the PAC. The PAC made anti-Trump videos during the 2020 presidential race and supported Democrats during the special Georgia Senate races earlier this year. The PAC did not receive as much attention as anti-Trump groups such as the Lincoln Project; it spent about $4.2 million last year.

Ticks on a 'quest' for blood at California's beaches. Is Lyme disease a rising risk?

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-06/ticks-california-beaches-lyme-disease-unknown-carrier

Millions of people enjoy hanging out at California beaches in the warmer months. So do ticks carrying Lyme disease. That’s one finding from four years of field work in California’s San Francisco Bay Area and nearby wine country involving the collection of some 3,000 Western black-legged ticks. The abundance of the blood-sucking arachnids surprised some tick biologists and experts, in part because it is unclear what animals may be spreading them around. How these ticks survive, feed and breed in coastal areas remains somewhat of a mystery, said Dan Salkeld, an ecologist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, who led the study. The ticks’ favorite mammalian host, the western gray squirrel, does not frequent seaside grass-scapes. While the research is not yet published, it could be important in evaluating whether Lyme disease — a potentially debilitating tick-borne infection — is on the upswing in the Bay Area and statewide. Linda Giampa, president of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation, said she has little doubt the disease has taken a stronger hold. “It’s definitely increasing in ticks,” said Giampa, whose organization funded the research. “It’s basic ecology.” Others, including Salkeld, say it’s difficult to determine a long-term trend. “Looking at patterns of human cases across years isn’t straightforward — there may well be yearly variations, and the picture can be complicated by climate change, changes in awareness or surveillance of Lyme disease, et cetera,” he said. “It’s hard to determine a particular trajectory of human cases.” Still, California has a far lower incidence of disease-carrying ticks than other parts of the country, particularly the East Coast, where up to half of all ticks can be carriers. By contrast, surveys in Mendocino, Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties indicate a 4% incidence of the bacteria causing Lyme disease in ticks found in woodlands, grasslands and beach scrub. Giampa said there are also hot spots farther south — in Malibu, Manhattan Beach and Newport Beach. “I know it’s down there,” said Giampa, citing an ongoing study her organization is funding in Southern California. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that roughly 476,000 people contract the disease every year. Most of the cases occur in the Northeast, Middle Atlantic states and Upper Midwest. Early symptoms of the disease, caused by a bacteria known as Borrelia burgdorferi, include fever, chills, fatigue and muscle aches and swollen lymph nodes. If left untreated, it can cause arthritis, swollen joints, facial palsy, heart irregularities, brain inflammation and nerve pain. The disease is generally treated via a standard course of antibiotics. It is so common in the East Coast that physicians regularly prescribe antibiotics for patients reporting tick bites. In California, however, where the disease isn’t as well studied or encountered, recognition lags. That’s where Giampa’s group is trying to make a difference, funding research such as Salkeld’s to both better understand the Western black-legged tick’s behavior and ecology, and to survey the incidence of the Lyme-causing bacteria in them. The organization sponsored a citizen-science study, published in 2019, for which people across the nation collected and sent in ticks to a laboratory in Arizona for analysis. Between 2016 and 2018, the team analyzed more than 21,000 ticks from 49 states and found ticks capable of harboring Lyme disease in 24 states, including some unknown to have populations of either Western black-legged ticks or deer ticks — the common host in the East and Upper Midwest. Science & Medicine Ticks carrying the bacterium responsible for Lyme disease are infesting Northern California’s birds and may be hitching rides on them into suburban settings, according to a new UC Berkeley study. Feb. 25, 2015 And in January, a study showed that along the West Coast, the Western black-legged tick is likely to expand its range as the population grows and the climate changes. Seemay Chou, a biochemist at UC San Francisco, is now working with Salkeld and others to examine other diseases in ticks, including viruses. “We’re really trying to more fully canvass the Northern California regions,” for other microbes in ticks — attempting to uncover less-recognized tick-borne diseases. As the footprint of these infectious ticks expands, it’s critical to know how and where it does so, say researchers and advocates — some of whom have a certain vernacular, describing how the arachnids are “questing,” in search of a “blood meal.” Richard Ostfeld, an ecologist with the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies based in Millbrook, N.Y., said humans often create environments where ticks, and their hosts, thrive. On the East Coast, where Ostfeld conducts most of his research, the ideal host for deer ticks is mice; and they love the suburbs. Along the West Coast, black-legged ticks favor lizards and squirrels — and, as this new research indicates, an as-yet unidentified host that frequents beach scrub. Ostfeld and Salkeld say lizards are unlikely to be that host, because they carry a biological agent that neutralizes the bacteria. Ostfeld said he was not surprised to find the ticks beside the ocean, noting they prefer moist or humid environments. Other researchers say they’ve heard anecdotal reports that ticks are becoming increasingly prevalent across the state, even with current drought conditions. Said Salkeld: “I don’t know what that’s about.”

Commentary: Stanford saga shows Pac-12 may no longer champion Olympic sports

https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2021-06-06/impact-pac-12-stanford-cut-sports

Painful memories will endure from Misty Hartung’s year fighting for Stanford athletes in their battle with university leaders who chose to turn their backs on them. First, there was Hartung’s son, men’s volleyball player Kyler Presho, telling her the news in July 2020 the school was cutting his program along with 10 other varsity sports virtually out of nowhere. “The look in my son’s eyes the day he got cut is just something I will never forget,” Hartung says. Olympics As American colleges begin to cut some sports, the effects could be seen on future Olympic medal stands. June 6, 2021 Stanford gave the affected coaches and players zero notice. Other schools had announced cuts in the months prior, using the pandemic as cover for budgetary slashes that may have felt inevitable for some time. But this was Stanford, long the emblem of what the “student-athlete” experience should be, and now the West Coast’s Ivy League peer with a $28 billion endowment was saying there wasn’t enough money to save sports that routinely bred U.S. Olympians? Hartung, who lives in San Clemente and works in sales, soon found herself playing the role of fraud investigator, joining parents from each of the discarded programs on the front lines. While putting together the vision and funding for a lawsuit against the school, she heard stories of Stanford’s administrative indifference straight from the confused athletes and absorbed their heartbreak over a Zoom screen. “We know where our bread is buttered. We’re focused on the revenue sports and winning in football and men’s basketball.” — New Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff “They looked defeated and helpless,” Hartung says. “They weren’t sure what to do. They would send messages saying, ‘We’re still competing for a school that doesn’t want us.’ ” On May 18, the same athletes shared their elation with Hartung when Stanford announced it was reversing course and reinstating all 11 programs, keeping the Cardinal “36 Strong,” the alumni’s proud label for all the school’s sports programs. Whatever the reason for the about-face — Stanford certainly was not going to cite the oncoming lawsuit from attorney Jeffrey Kessler, one of the titans of sports and antitrust law, in its explanation — Hartung was simply relieved the efforts from all corners of the affronted Stanford community had somehow prevailed in the end. Sports The Pac-12 hires George Kliavkoff, an MGM Resorts International executive, as its commissioner. He has no college sports experience. May 13, 2021 Still, she can’t unsee the last 10 months. “I learned a lot about the underbelly of college sports,” Hartung says. “When you talk about college sports, we think about the athletes a lot, and the teams, but from the university perspective, they don’t see it that way. These aren’t kids with dreams fulfilling their college athletic experience. These kids are just numbers on a spreadsheet, and they’re running a business. That athletic department model is broken.” Within the unrelenting college sports news cycle that defined the 2020-21 pandemic school year — from return-to-play machinations to big-name coaches contracting COVID-19 to name, image and likeness debates to athletes beginning to organize for their rights — it would be easy to forget the Stanford saga. Especially now that justice has been restored at the 11th hour. But if we care about the future of college sports, we should not forget what this episode taught us about higher education’s priorities and the standing of the “student-athlete.” All year, I’ve been asking why. I could not accept that Stanford did not have the money to run these programs, particularly after hearing that the cut sports had no problem raising millions of dollars straight from the pockets of their successful and passionate alumni bases in the weeks after the announcement. Yet Stanford athletic director Bernard Muir would not meet with the teams or theorize possible solutions for sustainability? Sports The Pac-12’s dominance in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is helping the conference restore its credibility with a national audience. March 23, 2021 I came across an interview that then-Dartmouth athletic director Harry Sheehy did with the student newspaper, The Dartmouth, last summer about the Ivy League school’s decision to cut five sports. Sheehy said he had been told by Dartmouth president Phil Hanlon before the pandemic that he was considering reducing the number of athletes on campus by 10 percent “due to admissions priorities.” “Because of what President Hanlon desired to have us give back to the admissions process, even without the budget problem, we might very well be sitting here today having done the same thing,” Sheehy admitted. “The budget problem simply exacerbated that it needed to be done.” Stanford has made no such admission, but if it had, it would have actually made more sense than blaming it on the costs of running a squash program. Stanford was ready to hand 240 coveted undergraduate admissions slots back to the university’s general pool, choosing future Nobel prize winners or the children of foreign billionaires over highly motivated athletes, some of whom would not have had the grades or test scores to be admitted without their athletic prowess. It’s not surprising that Stanford’s president would think along the same lines as Dartmouth’s. Many of America’s top universities were mortified by the Varsity Blues scandal, which used athletic admissions slots to create a “side door” for undeserving non-athletes to get into elite schools. Stanford’s sailing program, which was one of the sports cut, was implicated in the scandal. Dartmouth saying it wanted fewer athletes on campus was one thing. Stanford, a Pac-12 school that has harbored the ideals of the Olympic movement, was quite another. “It’s super disappointing to me because I think of Stanford people as so well-rounded,” said Matt Fuerbringer, a Stanford men’s volleyball alumni who went on to a pro career. Sports Rick Singer’s pitch: For a fee he could help get children of affluent parents onto USC, UCLA teams, even if they didn’t play the sport. Most didn’t. Jan. 18, 2020 “One of the first parties I went to, another freshman had climbed Mount Everest. One was the son of a diplomat who had barely lived in the U.S.A. Then you meet a guy that was up at 4 a.m. to do a sport there’s no glory in while excelling in the classroom. I’m sure they’ll find 240 people, but I don’t know if you get as well-rounded of students.” Hartung says that some of the early pieces of evidence that the plaintiffs requested in their lawsuit against Stanford were documents relating to the school’s admissions priorities. “I don’t think any university wants its admissions goals known,” Hartung says. “That would be embarrassing for any university, especially with the PR nightmare [Stanford] has gone through. That was definitely not something they were willing to open up.” Stanford backed down because big donors threatened to pull support — and because tens of millions had been committed to keeping these 11 sports. It became easier to see a path forward for non-revenue sports to be self-endowed and no longer a drain on the more important pursuit of success in football and men’s basketball. Monetizing those two sports is now all that matters to university higher-ups — another reality that was reinforced by Stanford’s actions. Sports The “We Are United” movement showed unpaid college athletes without a union could speak up for themselves and be heard while asked to play during a pandemic. Dec. 26, 2020 George Kliavkoff, the Pac-12’s new commissioner, affirmed as much in his introductory news conference. “We know where our bread is buttered,” Kliavkoff says. “We’re focused on the revenue sports and winning in football and men’s basketball.” Depending on who you are, that notion could be seen as either inspiring or foreboding. If you’re a coach or athlete in a non-revenue sport in the “Conference of Champions,” it is, at a minimum, fully revealing. The members of 34 Stanford sports already learned it. Wrestler Shane Griffith won a national championship this year while wearing a singlet with no Stanford logo, an unmistakable statement of what’s been lost. The women’s synchronized swimming team won the national title under the assumption it was the team’s last season. Men’s volleyball players I spoke with did not wear their Stanford gear this year unless they had to. Misty Hartung’s son, Presho, has the option of an extra year like all NCAA athletes who competed during the pandemic. Even though he can now use that year in Palo Alto thanks to Stanford’s reversal, he has decided to spend it playing for Hawaii.

Horse racing newsletter: Essential Quality wins Belmont Stakes

https://www.latimes.com/sports/newsletter/2021-06-06/essential-quality-belmont-stakes-horse-racing

Hello, my name is John Cherwa and welcome back to our horse racing newsletter, as you have to congratulate Hot Rod Charlie for running his heart out and finishing second in the Belmont. Saturday’s Belmont Stakes was really a good race, and while Essential Quality was the clear winner, a lot of credit has to be given to Hot Rod Charlie’s performance running second. Make no mistake, the best horse won, but Essential Quality had to earn it. There is a longer story on the race that we had on the web and print. Just click here. Rather than me trying to tell the story, let’s do it through the eyes of the first two finishers. Brad Cox (Essential Quality trainer): “It was a long way around there for a mile and a half, but it was exciting. “I thought it [the pace] benefitted our horse. Hot Rod Charlie ran a tremendous race and I thought, with the hot pace, we were in a good spot where they’d come back. He [Luis Saez] did a fantastic job putting him in position turning for home and he really showed his stamina late. “It looked like the horse on the inside still had run left, so I knew it was going to be a battle down the lane. “He broke well, but it took four or five strides to get position going into the first turn. I was a touch shocked. I thought we’d be a little closer on our own. When we saw the opening quarter, I felt good. And then the 46 he was laying mid pack and on the outside. “At that point, even going the distance, he should be closing at this pace. Luis did a good job of getting him into position. Turning for home, we were pretty much on even terms with the leader. Hot Rod Charlie ran a tremendous race to hang around that late after doing most of the dirty work. Our horse really showed his talent and stamina. Luis Saez (Essential Quality jockey): “In the Kentucky Derby, we were confident and thought he was going to win. But we had a little unlucky start breaking from there. [Saturday], the big thing was to try to break cleanly. For the rest, I knew he was going to do it. “It was a pretty nice trip. That’s what I was expecting, we knew there was going to be a lot of speed, so we tried to get a clean break and be right there. I knew he was going to run his race at the top of the stretch. On the backside, he picked up the bridle and was moving pretty well, so I’m not going to try to take him back and go inside when he was running pretty well. “I had a lot of horse and the good thing about Essential [Quality] is that he always fights. He doesn’t care who it is, he’s going to want to beat them, so I knew he was going to show up at the top of the stretch.” Doug O’Neill (Hot Rod Charlie trainer): “It was such a great stretch duel and he ran against the 2-year-old champ. This may sound cocky, but I wasn’t that surprised when they went as fast as they did early and he kept fighting on the inside. I knew Flavien [Prat] is so confident in this colt, and this colt is so confident in Flavien. He rode with a lot of confidence and I wouldn’t second-guess him and I wouldn’t do anything different. We just got beat by a better horse [Saturday]. “The heart this horse has in him is unbelievable. He’s got so much try in him it’s crazy. So does the winner, of course. Those are two top horses and hopefully, they both stay injury-free and we get a good rivalry for a long time. That would be really cool. “Our horse told us today that he’s a gamer. He got pushed. He did all the dirty work. Essential Quality ran a huge race and I think Charlie showed he was trying every step of the way from gate-to-wire. He just couldn’t hold off a champ.” Flavien Prat (Hot Rod Charlie jockey): “We had a good race. He was traveling well on the lead and he was really game. It was a great effort. We had a lot of pressure, but I don’t think it would have mattered [Saturday]. I’m really proud of my horse. I was travelling well the whole way around there. I wish we could have gone a little slower, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. He was very game.” OK, let’s also check in with the jockeys on the other two Santa Anita-based horses. John Velazquez (Rombauer’s jockey, finished third): “He broke good. We saved all the ground. He tried his best, couldn’t get there. I had a good trip. I went behind the winners and the winning move was on the outside, a little too soon for me, so I waited a little longer and was a good third. Two fresh horses, that’s why the Triple Crown is so difficult to win. When you have fresh horses going into the races it’s really hard.” Joel Rosario (Rock Your World’s jockey, finished sixth): “I was in a good spot. I thought I was going to go to the lead, but the other horse decided to send, so I was laying in second. He was there for a little while and then he just got a little tired.” Enjoying this newsletter? Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times. The feature on Saturday was the Grade 2 $200,000 Monrovia Stakes for fillies and mares going 6 ½ furlongs on the turf. The deserved favorite was Venetian Harbor, running her first race since the Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Sprint, who went to the lead and never looked back. The winning margin was 3 ½ lengths. She paid $6.40, $3.60 and $2.60. Constantia was second, followed by Superstition, Never for Money, Gypsy Spirit, Trickle In, She’s So Special and Nasty. Baltazar Marroquin (assistant to winning trainer Richard Baltas): “She ran the way we thought she would. Yes, we expected her to go to the lead. She’s run against some of the best fillies and Mario [Gutierrez] has worked her a couple times, so he knows her.” Mario Gutierrez (winning jockey): “I had the opportunity to work her in the mornings, so I already knew a lot about her. I knew she carried the speed, that was never the question. I just let her break and right away try to not ask her too much, she did the rest. She put herself in the race, after that it was just wait for the time to kick home and she got the job done.” Santa Anita is back with a nine-race card starting at 1 p.m. And, it is back with its odd-race turf races. After only three on Saturday, it has five on Sunday. The field size struggled in some races, with four having only five starters. But, there are two races with eight. There is a minor stakes with three allowance/optional claimers. The feature is the $75,000 Desert Code Stakes for 3-year-olds going six furlongs on the turf. Whatmakessammyrun is the 8-5 morning-line favorite for trainer Mark Glatt and jockey Prat. He moved from the barn of George Weaver to Glatt’s for the last race, an allowance the colt won by 2 ¼ lengths. He has won two-of-seven lifetime. Missy P. is the second choice at 9-5 for Richard Mandella and Tyler Baze. He won his debut convincingly and finished second in the Angel’s Flight last out. Here are the field sizes, in order: 7, 5, 5, 5, 8, 5, 6, 7, 8. NINTH RACE: No. 3 Freedom Flyer (8-1) Freedom Flyer is my value pick to end the Sunday card. Losing by a closing head last out on the all-weather track and a closing nose in the race prior, Sunday we get a major jockey upgrade to the best turf rider around, Umberto Rispoli. Dropping in class at 8-1 I hope we get this great price! Saturday’s result: Gypsy Spirit sat mid-pack and simply ran around the track. Ciaran Thornton is the handicapper for Californiapick4.com, which offers daily full card picks, longshots of the day, best bets of the day. A look at stakes worth $100,000 or more on Saturday. Belmont (3): Grade 1 Woody Stephens Stakes, 3-year-olds, 7 furlongs. Winner: Drain the Clock ($17.00) Belmont (4): Grade 2 $400,000 Brooklyn Stakes, 4 and up, 1 ½ miles. Winner: Lone Rock ($8.90) Belmont (5): Grade 1 $500,000 Acorn Stakes, fillies 3-years-old, 1 mile. Winner: Search Results ($3.80) Belmont (6): Grade 1 $400,000 Jaipur Stakes, 3 and up, 6 furlongs on turf. Winner: Casa Creed ($23.60) Belmont (7): Grade 1 Ogden Phipps Stakes, fillies and mares 4 and up, 1 1/16 miles. Winner: Letruska ($4.40) Belmont (8): Grade 1 $500,000 Just A Game Stakes, fillies and mares 4 and up, 1 mile on turf. Winner: Althiqa ($16.80) Belmont (9): Grade 1 $1 million Metropolitan Stakes, 3 and up, 1 mile. Winner: Silver State ($13.40) Monmouth (12): Grade 3 $150,000 Monmouth Stakes, 3 and up. 1 1/8 miles on turf. Winner: Devamani ($6.60) Belmont (10): Grade 1 $750,000 Manhattan Stakes, 4 and up, 1 1/14 miles on turf. Winner: Domestic Spending ($5.00) Churchill Downs (11): $110,000 Mighty Beau Overnight Stakes, 3 and up, 5 furlongs on turf. Winner: Just Might ($10.00) Belmont (11): Grade 1 $1.5 million Belmont Stakes, 3-year-olds, 1 ½ miles. Winner: Essential Quality ($4.60) Santa Anita (7): Grade 2 Monrovia Stakes, fillies and mares 3 and up, 1 1/18 miles on turf. Winner: Venetian Harbor ($6.40) A look at stakes worth $100,000 or more on Sunday. All times PST. 1:08 Belmont (7): $150,000 Jersey Girl Stakes, fillies 3-years-old, 6 furlongs. Favorite: Miss Brazil (8-5) 1:52 Monmouth (10): $100,000 Lady Secret Stakes, fillies and mares 3 and up, 1 1/16 miles. Favorite: Altaf (6-5) EIGHTH RACE: No. 1 Off And On (6-1) He broke the maiden rather impressively in his career debut after working decently (B - grade) prior. In that quality effort, this grey got a tad rambunctious in the gate before breaking near the lead at the gate opening. Off And On followed his nice start with a big run nearing the wire to hold on for the win while earning a solid number for Sunday’s endeavor. He should improve big time in his second career start. A final thought I love getting new readers of this newsletter, and you certainly can’t beat the price. If you like it, tell someone. If you don’t like it, you’re probably not reading this.Either way, send this along to a friend, and just have them click here to sign up. Remember, it’s free, and all we need is your email address, nothing more.Any thoughts, you can reach me at john.cherwa@latimes.com. You can also feed my ego by following me on Twitter @jcherwa. And now the stars of the show, Saturday’s results and Sunday’s entries. Santa Anita Charts Results for Saturday, June 5. Copyright 2021 by Equibase Company. Reproduction prohibited. Santa Anita, Santa Anita Park, Arcadia, California. 72nd day of a 81-day meet. Clear & Fast FIRST RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $33,000. Starter Allowance. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $50,000. Time 22.17 44.90 56.83 1:09.65 Winner–I Got No Munny Ch.g.4 by Munnings out of Island Love Song, by Dehere. Bred by Stonestreet Thoroughbred Holdings LLC (KY). Trainer: Mark Glatt. Owner: Ferro Family Trust, Deberdt, Bruno, Connor, Larry and Glatt, Mark. Mutuel Pool $68,912 Exacta Pool $22,266 Trifecta Pool $11,044. Scratched–Albizu, Galloping Uno. I GOT NO MUNNY set the pace in the two path into the turn, remained unchallenged while off the rail into the stretch, then padded the winning margin under mild urging. THE RULE OF KING'S chased three wide to the stretch and could not threaten then winner in the late stages. SEA TO SUCCESS chased outside a rival early, went four wide around the turn, moved inside in the stretch and tired. HAND-TIMED. SECOND RACE. 6½ Furlongs. Purse: $61,000. Maiden Special Weight. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Time 22.06 45.78 1:11.13 1:17.61 Winner–Wishtheyallcouldbe Grr.f.3 by Grazen out of Cielo Dulce, by Cahill Road. Bred by Stormy B. Hull (CA). Trainer: Mike Puype. Owner: Paymaster Racing LLC and Slugo Racing. Mutuel Pool $169,653 Daily Double Pool $24,050 Exacta Pool $68,393 Superfecta Pool $25,844 Trifecta Pool $45,768. Scratched–V Bucks. WISHTHEYALLCOULDBE stalked the pacesetter on the inside, waited behind the top pair through the turn, gained a clear path along the rail at the top of the stretch, was driven inside FEELING GRAZEFUL and drew clear in the final sixteenth. FEELING GRAZEFUL set the pace from inside, pressured midway around the turn, led two wide into the lane, held a narrow lead with a furlong to go, could not match strides with the winner in the final sixteenth but was clearly second best. PISTACHIO PRINCESS was forwardly placed from outside, bid alongside on the turn but weakened in the lane. MEASUREOFDEVOTION was up close outside the leader while between, started to weaken on the turn and faded. PATRIOT MISSILE chased two wide into the turn, came out into the stretch and weakened. HAND-TIMED. THIRD RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $24,000. Claiming. 4 year olds and up. Claiming Prices $12,500-$10,500. Time 22.07 45.30 57.68 1:10.46 Winner–Reedley B.h.5 by Paynter out of Elusive Horizon, by Elusive Quality. Bred by Hunter Valley Farm (KY). Trainer: Jeff Mullins. Owner: Blake, Les and Mullins, Jeffery C.. Mutuel Pool $272,893 Daily Double Pool $13,875 Exacta Pool $140,923 Superfecta Pool $64,321 Trifecta Pool $96,499. Scratched–none. 50-Cent Pick Three (3-2-3) paid $2.10. Pick Three Pool $29,122. REEDLEY sent early and cleared the field, showed the way under confident handling around the turn, asked right-handed into the stretch and drew away in deep stretch. KIDMON chased along the inside, crept closer around the turn, drifted out in the final furlong and finished willingly for the place. FACTS MATTER chased three deep into the turn, put in a mild bid three wide into the lane and flattened out nearing the furlong grounds. SEVEN OXEN unhurried in the beginning, saved ground into the lane and passed tired rivals. MALAKAI MOXIE traveled widest while in range early on, went four deep into the turn, three wide into the lane and weakened. WHATSITTOYA chased off the rail up the backstretch, between rivals into the turn, could not keep pace two wide around the bend and faded. FOURTH RACE. 1 Mile. Purse: $47,000. Claiming. Fillies. 3 year olds. Claiming Prices $50,000-$45,000. Time 23.14 46.77 1:12.19 1:25.41 1:39.29 Winner–Varoma Dbb.f.3 by Vancouver (AUS) out of Aroma de Mujer, by Trippi. Bred by George Louis Doetsch Jr (MD). Trainer: Manuel Ortiz, Sr.. Owner: Tim M. Bankers. Mutuel Pool $204,689 Daily Double Pool $13,944 Exacta Pool $86,870 Superfecta Pool $36,378 Trifecta Pool $59,013. Claimed–Varoma by Acker, Tom, Becker, Barry, Becker, Judith and Becker, Jeffrey. Trainer: William Spawr. Claimed–Big Andy by Biggleague Racing, LLC. Trainer: Andrew Lerner. Scratched–none. 50-Cent Pick Three (2-3-6) paid $9.70. Pick Three Pool $17,681. VAROMA had speed three deep into the first turn then dropped back into stalking position, bid three wide and took over at the five-sixteenths, kicked clear approaching the quarter pole, drew away in upper stretch and was geared down nearing the wire. MUCHA WOMAN angled to the inside and vied inside a pair entering the first turn, cleared to take control around the bend, showed the way on the inside up to the far turn, lost command at the five-sixteenths and stayed on well to prove second best. BOLD ARTICLE settled along the inside, angled four wide leaving the far turn and gained the show. SIMMER DOWN vied between rivals into the first turn then ceded the lead to MUCHA WOMAN around the bend, chased in the two path to the stretch and weakened. MAMA SUPERIOR went three then two wide around the first turn, came out in upper stretch and lacked further response. BIG ANDY angled out on the first turn, went three wide into the second bend, moved in path then angled out into the stretch, steered out further in the lane and had little left. FIFTH RACE. 6 Furlongs Turf. Purse: $36,000. Starter Optional Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $50,000. Time 21.84 45.07 57.01 1:08.93 Winner–McWherter Ch.g.4 by Goldencents out of Orientatious, by Orientate. Bred by W C Racing (KY). Trainer: Doug F. O'Neill. Owner: Glenn Sorgenstein WC Racing Inc.. Mutuel Pool $341,934 Daily Double Pool $12,571 Exacta Pool $171,894 Superfecta Pool $59,331 Trifecta Pool $102,814. Scratched–Enough Nonsense, Johnny Podres. 50-Cent Pick Three (3-6-2) paid $14.85. Pick Three Pool $29,876. 50-Cent Pick Four (2/4-3-6-2) 2273 tickets with 4 correct paid $32.00. Pick Four Pool $95,435. 50-Cent Pick Five (1/2/3-2/4-3-6-2) 7945 tickets with 5 correct paid $32.45. Pick Five Pool $299,953. MCWHERTER was up close early outside the pacesetter, headed the NICHIREN at the quarter pole and grabbed the lead soon after, held a short lead over ARMOUR PLATE through the stretch and would not be denied. ARMOUR PLATE chased off the rail, bid three deep at the quarter pole, came four wide into the stretch, pressured the winner through the final furlong but could not summon the needed late kick. MANDO steered to the rail and chased from inside to the stretch, moved off the rail in the lane and was along for the show. HAMMERING LEMON jumped the track crossing surfaces early, angled down to the two path, remained two wide to the stretch and could not rally. NICHIREN controlled the pace along the rail, asked when headed at the quarter pole, lost command shortly after and weakened inside. CAPO MAFIOSO stumbled at the start, jumped the track crossing surfaces and almost unseated the rider, angled to the inside and saved ground through the turn and could no summon the needed response. SIXTH RACE. 1 1/16 Mile. Purse: $63,000. Allowance Optional Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $40,000. Time 23.89 47.81 1:12.03 1:37.73 1:44.51 Winner–Desmond Doss Grr.h.5 by Grazen out of Malley Girl, by Malek (CHI). Bred by Nick Alexander (CA). Trainer: Steven Miyadi. Owner: Nicholas B. Alexander. Mutuel Pool $297,510 Daily Double Pool $20,734 Exacta Pool $120,683 Superfecta Pool $37,727 Trifecta Pool $76,669. Scratched–Wrecking Crew. 50-Cent Pick Three (6-2-4) paid $22.30. Pick Three Pool $19,819. DESMOND DOSS stumbled a bit leaving the gate, stalked outside a rival, bid alongside at the quarter pole, put a head in front in upper stretch, cleared at the furlong pole and inched away. TIZHOTNDUSTY angled out on the first turn, went three to four wide around the second bend and finished willingly. MAJOR CABBIE took control and set the pace inside, coaxed along at the five-sixteenths, held a short lead in the two path entering the drive, relinquished the lead in upper stretch and flattened out in the final furlong. ROYAL INSIDER was closest to the leader in the two path, drew alongside at the seven-sixteenths, entered the far turn between runners, lost ground leaving that bend, came out in upper stretch and weakened. BACK RING LUCK pulled on the first turn near the inside, saved ground into the lane and tired. SEVENTH RACE. 6½ Furlongs Turf. Purse: $200,000. 'Monrovia Stakes'. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Time 22.48 44.96 1:08.79 1:15.06 Winner–Venetian Harbor B.f.4 by Munnings out of Sounds of the City, by Street Cry (IRE). Bred by Colts Neck Stables LLC (KY). Trainer: Richard Baltas. Owner: Ciaglia Racing LLC, Highland Yard LLC, River Oak Farm and Savides, Domenic. Mutuel Pool $470,364 Daily Double Pool $32,809 Exacta Pool $205,968 Superfecta Pool $89,788 Super High Five Pool $9,079 Trifecta Pool $144,106. Scratched–none. 50-Cent Pick Three (2-4-7) paid $12.70. Pick Three Pool $30,851. VENETIAN HARBOR away quickest in the beginning and established the front, set all the pace from inside to the stretch, drew away under a few taps of the right-hand and was geared down late. CONSTANTIA trailed the field early, went inside a rival into the turn, swung widest into the lane, drifted in through the stretch and rallied for the place. SUPERSTITION was forwardly placed outside a pair of rivals, went two wide through the turn, lacked a serious bid and held the show. NEVER FOR MONEY chased between rivals up the backstretch, was in tight and shuffled at the seven-sixteenths, took the turn two then three wide, moved out a bit further in the lane and kept on to earn minor award. GYPSY SPIRIT (GB) reserved in the early going along the inside, shifted to the two path on the turn and failed to rally. TRICKLE IN sat off the pace, trailed two wide into the stretch, steered out in the lane and passed tired rivals. SHE'S SO SPECIAL tracked off the rail, checked behind NEVER FOR MONEY at the seven-sixteenths, came four wide into the lane and weakened. NASTY chased the speed from inside, cut the corner into the drive and also weakened. EIGHTH RACE. 1 Mile. Purse: $63,000. Allowance Optional Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $20,000. Time 23.75 47.67 1:12.61 1:25.33 1:38.35 Winner–Betito B.g.4 by Heat Shield out of Lovefromafar, by Pleasantly Perfect. Bred by Kristin Mulhall (CA). Trainer: Kristin Mulhall. Owner: Twilight Racing LLC. Mutuel Pool $328,791 Daily Double Pool $24,127 Exacta Pool $153,473 Superfecta Pool $73,030 Trifecta Pool $111,926. Scratched–Unmasked. 50-Cent Pick Three (4-7-1) paid $15.95. Pick Three Pool $32,770. BETITO dictated the pace on the inside, roused at the top of the lane, urged left-handed mid-stretch and held gamely. SIGNOFTHECROSS raced in range off the rail, angled to the fence inside a pair of rivals on the far turn, shifted back to the two path loomed into the stretch, finished well under left-handed urging but could not get by the winner. LIGHTNING FAST was off a bit slow to begin, tucked inside on the first turn then moved into the two path, moved back inside on the backstretch, entered the stretch two wide and was along for the show. ASARO came away a bit slow, raced outside a rival at the back of the pack, angled four wide into the stretch, steered inside rival upper stretch and got outfinished for the show honors. WITHOUT MALICE stalked outside a rival, drifted out into the lane and weakened. AUDACE stalked inside then moved into the two path, came three wide into the stretch and tired. NINTH RACE. 6 Furlongs Turf. Purse: $61,000. Maiden Special Weight. 3 year olds and up. Time 22.43 45.39 57.65 1:10.09 Winner–Finally Here Dbb.g.5 by Uncle Mo out of Northern Netti, by City Zip. Bred by Shadow Pond Stable (KY). Trainer: Brian J. Koriner. Owner: Cahill, James F., Koriner, Brian and Lyons, Janet. Mutuel Pool $434,808 Daily Double Pool $109,063 Exacta Pool $220,178 Superfecta Pool $112,760 Super High Five Pool $27,700 Trifecta Pool $164,801. Scratched–none. 50-Cent Pick Three (7-1-3) paid $67.95. Pick Three Pool $91,167. 50-Cent Pick Four (1/4-7-1-3) 2840 tickets with 4 correct paid $116.00. Pick Four Pool $431,751. 50-Cent Pick Five (2-1/4-7-1-3) 568 tickets with 5 correct paid $378.60. Pick Five Pool $281,789. 20-Cent Pick Six Jackpot (6-2-1/4-7-1-3) 99 tickets with 6 correct paid $764.06. Pick Six Jackpot Pool $140,873. Pick Six Jackpot Carryover $411,484. FINALLY HERE broke slow and got shuffled back at the start, checked off heels early, continued to pull up the backstretch, angled out and came four wide into the stretch, rallied outside the top pair with a sixteenth remaining and proved best late. LANSDOWNE (GB) chased off the rail, outside a rival into the turn, three wide into the stretch, rallied between rivals in the final sixteenth and got outclosed by the winner. MAGIC MAN sped to the front, dueled for the lead from outside, cleared rival in upper stretch and was overtaken inside the sixteenth pole. JEDI MASTER settled inside, moved off the rail on the turn, swung out into the lane, raced five wide in upper stretch and finished willingly to fill out the superfecta. AHIMAAZ got bumped early, pulled behind rivals up the backstretch, raced along the inside to the stretch, tipped out in the drive and failed to rally. GRANDCONCOURSE GUY broke inward, came in and bumped AHIMAAZ early, went up to duel for command from inside into and around the turn, then faded in the lane. SIROCCO tracked off the rail, entered the stretch three wide and weakened. MAUI ROAD lagged behind early, raced on the inside into the turn, came out into the stretch and was never involved. Santa Anita Entries for Sunday, June 6. Santa Anita, Santa Anita Park, Arcadia, California. 73rd day of a 81-day meet. FIRST RACE. 6 Furlongs Turf. Purse: $63,000. Allowance Optional Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $40,000. SECOND RACE. 1 Mile. Purse: $22,000. Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 4 year olds and up. Claiming Price $10,000. THIRD RACE. 1 1/8 Mile Turf. Purse: $36,000. Starter Optional Claiming. Fillies. 3 year olds. Claiming Prices $50,000-$40,000. FOURTH RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $35,000. Maiden Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Prices $50,000-$45,000. State bred. FIFTH RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $35,000. Maiden Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Prices $50,000-$45,000. SIXTH RACE. 1 Mile. Purse: $63,000. Allowance Optional Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $20,000. State bred. SEVENTH RACE. 6 Furlongs Turf. Purse: $75,000. 'Desert Code Stakes'. 3 year olds. EIGHTH RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $36,000. Starter Optional Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $50,000. NINTH RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $63,000. Allowance Optional Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $40,000.

Roadside bombing kills at least 11 in Afghanistan, official says

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-06/roadside-bombing-kills-at-least-11-in-afghanistan-official-says

A minivan carrying civilian passengers in northwest Afghanistan was hit by a roadside bomb, leaving at least 11 passengers dead, including three children, an Afghan official said Sunday. The minivan fell into a valley with the shock of the explosion Saturday, said Badghis provincial Gov. Hesamuddin Shams, adding that rescuers were still searching for bodies in the valley. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, but the provincial government accused the Taliban of placing the bomb to target security forces. There was no immediate response from the Taliban. Large swathes of war-ravaged Afghanistan are littered with bombs and land mines. Many were planted by insurgents to target government military convoys, but they often kill civilians instead. The United Nations has repeatedly demanded both government forces and the Taliban take more precautions to protect civilians. In the first three months of this year, the U.N. mission in Afghanistan said that 1,783 civilians had been killed or wounded in Afghanistan, an increase of 29% over the same period last year. World & Nation As U.S. forces pull out from Afghanistan, the Taliban is in the ascendant — and threatening to retake the city that was its former spiritual capital. The violence came as U.S. peace envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad and a delegation from the National Security Council and Department of Defense traveled to the region to start a new series of talks between the Taliban and the government. They were to meet in Kabul and Doha in Qatar to urge the sides to reach a political settlement. Negotiations between the Taliban and Afghan representatives began last September in Doha and continued earlier this year. But the Taliban announced on April 13 that it would not take part in any conference intended to decide the future of Afghanistan until all foreign troops were gone. President Biden had announced a day earlier that all U.S. troops would leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11. In northern Faryab province, provincial officials said Sunday the district of Qaisar had fallen to Taliban fighters after a weeks-long fight between the two sides. Politics As U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, efforts against a diminished Al Qaeda are in flux. Officials say the terrorist group could threaten the U.S. again. Provincial council chief Mohammad Tahir Rahmani told the Associated Press that provincial police chief Saifulrahman was killed in the fighting along with seven other police officers. Like many Afghans, Saifulrahman went by one name. According to Rahmani, the district had already fallen, but officers at police headquarters were resisting. He said the Taliban took 37 officers hostage. A provincial police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, said that, besides police headquarters, the main market and municipality office fell to the Taliban. The Taliban did not comment immediately upon taking control of Qaisar district, but both the Taliban and the Afghan government defense and security forces have increased their operations against each other. Also on Sunday, Kabul police spokesman Ferdaws Faramarz said a roadside bomb explosion in eastern Kabul had targeted a civilian car, wounding three people.

Clippers will try to beat Dallas at home with new outlook and game plan

https://www.latimes.com/sports/clippers/story/2021-06-06/clippers-mavericks-game-7-preview

As soon as Kawhi Leonard’s work was over Friday, more began for statisticians turning to basketball’s annals to find precedent for his performance. In franchise history, only Bob McAdoo in 1975 has scored more in a single postseason game than the 45 Leonard produced to stave off elimination in Game 6 of this first-round series in Dallas. Since the institution of the NBA’s shot clock, Leonard is just the sixth player to score at least 45 points in a playoff game while shooting at least 72%. His performance, coupled with his earlier output, has made him the first player in NBA postseason history to score at least 29 points while shooting at least 66% in four games in a single series. And it still wasn’t his most memorable postseason moment. Clippers Kawhi Leonard did for the Clippers what LeBron James could not do for the Lakers by dominating on both ends of the court when most needed in Game 6. June 5, 2021 Two seasons ago, in the waning seconds of Game 7 in a second-round series against Philadelphia, Toronto’s championship season hinged on four bounces of the basketball that danced around the rim after Leonard fired a three-pointer while sprinting toward the corner. The shot, when it finally fell through, capped his 41-point night and sent Toronto to the Eastern Conference finals. When the Clippers host Dallas in Game 7 on Sunday at Staples Center, Leonard’s teammates “are going to lean on Kawhi a lot because he’s been through it and he understands what it takes,” coach Tyronn Lue said. “So just his poise and his approach, we are going to be fine.” Yet Leonard, 2-3 all-time in Game 7s, said he won’t be dispensing wisdom from his past. “I don’t live in the past, I don’t think about stuff like that,” Leonard said Friday. “It’s about tomorrow. That’s all it’s about, taking what I see from tonight’s game and try to bring it into the next one.” The Clippers might be wise to follow Leonard’s lead. Only nine months ago, their season ended in a Game 7 loss to Denver that they led by 12 points before being outscored 50-33 in the second half. Six players who earned minutes in Friday’s season-saving win in Dallas were part of that roster, along with Lue, then an assistant. The Clippers are 3-5 all-time in Game 7s, though 3-1 in the first round. Sports The Clippers are famous for their second-round Game 7 failures, but their first-round Game 7 history has produced far different results. June 4, 2021 There is also the tipoff time to consider. The Clippers are 3-4 this season when playing before 1 p.m. at home, and players routinely describe not feeling sharp because of the early tipoff. One of those losses was December’s 51-point rout at the hands of the Mavericks. If the Clippers should remember anything entering Game 7, Leonard said, it is the urgency they played with to win Game 6. “We have got to bring this same energy again and even more,” guard Reggie Jackson said Friday. “It is a Game 7. Unfortunately we haven’t won one yet at home in the playoffs, so we feel like we are due one and they feel confident in our building.” The Clippers who return to Staples Center are different than the roster that fell behind by 50 to Dallas in the season’s third game, just as they are also different than the team that lost Game 5 at home last week. During that most recent defeat, Lue continued to play center Ivica Zubac when Mavericks star Luka Doncic was on the court, and in the 17 minutes they overlapped the Clippers were outscored by 23 points. In Game 6, however, Lue never allowed Zubac’s minutes to overlap with Doncic’s, taking away one of the guard’s easy targets for a one-on-one matchup out of their pick-and-roll plays. Lue played backup guard Luke Kennard rotation minutes for the first time in the series to add spacing offensively and to prevent Jackson from guarding Doncic by himself as the game progressed, instead blitzing a second defender in hopes of getting the ball out of his hands. Doncic recorded just one fourth-quarter assist. And more than ever in previous games, Leonard guarded Doncic after asking for the assignment, according to Lue. On the 65 possessions he has been guarded by Leonard in the series, Doncic has made nine of 24 shots, including four of 13 on three-pointers, according to NBA tracking data. Lue’s own experience in Game 7s, coaching Cleveland to the 2016 NBA championship on the road, is one reason why players have described him as unflappable amid high stakes. Jackson described the coach as “cool as a satin pillow, smooth as peanut butter.” Video highlights from the Clippers’ 104-97 victory over the Dallas Mavericks in Game 6 of their playoff series on June 4, 2021, in Dallas. But Lue won’t be playing Sunday, requiring his players to stay composed with their season on the line for the second time in three days. Marcus Morris Sr. made just one of his 10 shots in Game 6, and for as much as Paul George praised his running mate Leonard, he criticized his own play, when he scored 20 points and had 13 rebounds but committed five turnovers that Dallas turned into six points. “[Leonard] was doing everything to stop, making it tough on the other end. You saw one of the best, if not the best two-way players at his best, and so it was fun to watch,” George said. “But you know, I’ve got to do more. I’ve got to be better. We can’t put that pressure on him on a nightly basis.” Since the collapse against Denver that ended last season, Lue described witnessing an evolution in the team’s resilience. Sunday will put those changed ways to the test. “We just found ways to win when guys went down, and you can kind of see this carrying over now throughout the course of the playoffs and just finding a way to come back and win games,” Lue said. “Even we don’t shoot the ball great, finding ways to win. We’ve done it three times on their home floor, which their crowd was amazing. We were able to fight through that. And now we go home for Game 7.”

Op-Ed: How work will change permanently after the pandemic

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/employment-remote-work-pandemic-labor-shortage-wages

Last spring, the COVID-19 pandemic caused perhaps the worst job losses since the Great Depression. The decrease in the labor force participation rate — from 63.3% to 61.3% — has been steeper than that seen in the Great Recession and is among the largest 12-month declines in the post-World War II era, according to the Pew Research Center and federal labor data. But for all the pain, this terrifying year could augur potentially positive changes in the workplace. Pandemics change economies, a truth going back centuries. The post-COVID period may well see a transformative, long-lasting effect on employers. The shifting balance between employers and workers was evident before the pandemic, with wages for the first time in decades rising for lower-income laborers. While the unemployment rate is over 6% and the country had 8 million fewer positions in March than before the pandemic, there’s still a growing shortage of workers and 7.4 million unfilled jobs. Some of this is due to demographic shifts caused by lower birthrates; U.S. population growth for ages between 16 and 64 has dropped from 20% in the 1980s to less than 5% in the last decade. Some conservatives blame the stimulus package and extended unemployment for workers for the current labor shortage. Others, such as former Obama chief economist Jason Furman, also blame wariness connected to the virus. But whatever the causes, the tighter labor market gives workers more leverage with employers, allowing even lower-end service workers to demand signing bonuses, higher wages and more humane working conditions. White-collar workers also face a new reality. Once dragooned into offices often far from affordable homes, they have adapted to new hybrid models, with remote work being done from home, dispersed offices and coffee shops. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom suggests 20% of work will be done from home even after the pandemic ends, up from 5% in 2019. Various studies also show that remote workers have been more productive — a result business executives welcome along with lower office space costs. However, others — people at the top of the corporate ladder, leasing agents, owners of commercial office space — are already pushing people back to the cubicle. JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon thinks workers should go back to the office, but this may not be so appealing to workers who have finally ditched their long commutes. Some human resources managers fear large-scale resistance to attempts to force workers back into the office full time. When the CEO of the Washingtonian magazine suggested that those working at home would be “less valuable” and easier to “let go,” the workers went on daylong strike. No surprise there; a recent survey of 5,000 employed adults found that 4 out of 10 expected some remote work flexibility after the pandemic. For many millennials, the hybrid and dispersed model of work, including suburban satellite offices, addresses issues like “life-work balance,” something important to millennials and particularly to women with children who are trying to return to the labor force once schools reopen. The pandemic has also altered the geography of jobs. One recent report from Upwork suggests that between 14 million and 23 million Americans are seeking to move to a less expensive and less crowded place. Los Angeles and San Francisco have been losing newcomers at an accelerating rate, but some areas, like parts of the Central Valley and the Inland Empire, have enjoyed both higher population growth and better job growth. Between September 2019 and September 2020, the biggest job losses — nearly 10 % — have been in big cities, followed by their close-in suburbs, according to the American Communities Project and based on federal data. Job losses in rural areas and exurbs were far less severe. Many leading tech firms now expect a large proportion of their workforce to work remotely after the pandemic. Some three-quarters of venture capitalists and tech firm founders, notes one recent survey, predict their ventures to operate totally, or mostly, online. Since the pandemic began, according to a study by Big Technology, tech growth has been most evident in Madison, Wis., Cleveland and Sacramento, while New York, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago have taken hits. In terms of industries, the skilled trades may offer the biggest opportunities for middle- and working-class people. Today manufacturing employment is expanding more rapidly than in almost four decades; job openings in the industrial sector are up more than 50% since February 2020. Companies such as John Deere are struggling to keep pace with new orders because of a persistent shortage of workers willing to take jobs in its Iowa factories, a phenomenon common across the industrial economy. Overall, there are an estimated 500,000 manufacturing jobs unfilled right now. The current shortage of welders alone is expected to grow to 400,000 by 2024. Much the same can be said about logistics and shipping, which kept the country running during the pandemic lockdowns. A shortage of tank truck drivers could restrict gas deliveries this summer. The shortfall is now so severe that Amazon has set up its own incubator for new trucking companies. The pandemic has also sparked an entrepreneurial revival. Across the U.S., about 4.4 million applications for new businesses were filed last year, compared with roughly 3.5 million in 2019, according to an analysis of data from the Census Bureau. In California, 442,324 were filed in 2020, a 21.7% increase from 2019. We may be seeing the rise of a whole new set of startups that remain dispersed in their operations, saving money on rent and locating in more affordable places. This is not to minimize the pandemic’s devastating effect on countless workers and companies. The empty malls, creaking Main Streets and abandoned storefronts, even in Manhattan, showed the depth of struggles in some parts of the economy well before the pandemic, which makes recovery for them that much harder. Overall, though, the post-pandemic economy could produce shifts helpful to workers. The resurgent economy may push up wages for workers with skills — not just for programmers, but cooks, machinists, truck drivers, electricians and carpenters. The labor shortage also offers a chance to improve work structures, particularly for people of color, who by 2032 will constitute half the U.S. working class, and for the entire beleaguered middle class. After 2020’s pain and dislocation, we need to focus on ways to make employment conditions and the economy better for all Americans. Joel Kotkin is the presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University and executive director of the Urban Reform Institute. He is the author of “The Coming of Neo-Feudalism.” @joelkotkin

Op-Ed: Love is love is love: How two Supreme Court decisions changed my life

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/loving-virginia-gay-marriage

After three years of marriage, my writer husband, Julius Lester, and I had worked out a good arrangement: He wrote in our grimy New York apartment, taught a few guitar students and cared for baby Rosa while I attended City College graduate school. My fellowship funded it all. But late one January night he stood in our kitchen, stirring diapers boiling on the stove, and told me he’d decided to move south. He wanted to be a cultural worker for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. I looked at him in disbelief. “We said we’d never be apart,” I told him while I rocked Rosa, asleep in her carriage. When he said he had to go, I responded, “Take me with you.” Our baby could come too. But he said he couldn’t take a white wife; it was too dangerous. We might be arrested or killed. For him, the South was home. I would be a tourist. He said it was his revolutionary duty. “I’m called to go,” he said. “By myself.” Two days later he picked up his suitcase, hugged me and walked out the door. For the next two years, except for brief visits home, Julius remained in shoot-on-sight Mississippi, where, if we were seen together, our lives wouldn’t be worth a nickel. Our marriage wouldn’t protect us. When Julius and I were married in New York in 1962, Mississippi and 20 other states still outlawed interracial marriage. No way could I accompany my Black husband to the South. But a legal case working its way through the courts gave me hope: Loving vs. Virginia contested the state of Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act, criminalizing sex or marriage between “white” and “colored” people. The plaintiffs, Mildred Jeter Loving and Richard Loving — childhood sweethearts described as a Black woman and a white man — had traveled in 1958 to Washington, D.C., where they married. Upon their return to Virginia, a sheriff burst into their bedroom at 2 a.m. and reportedly asked Richard, “What are you doing in bed with that woman?” “I’m his wife,” Mildred protested, and when Richard pointed to their marriage license on the wall, the sheriff told them, “That’s not good here,” the couple often recounted. They were taken to jail. After pleading guilty to violating the Virginia law, their one-year prison sentences were suspended on the condition they leave the state. At Mildred’s insistence, they filed a class-action suit in a U.S. District Court in Virginia but lost when the judge ruled that when God created the races “he placed them on separate continents,” demonstrating his segregationist intent. In 1964, Mildred wrote to Robert F. Kennedy, then U.S. attorney general, and asked for help. She was referred to the ACLU, which took on the case. When the Lovings’ lawyers asked Richard what message he wanted to send the U.S. Supreme Court, he said, “Tell the court I love my wife.” On June 12, 1967, nine years after the Lovings’ arrest, the Supreme Court ruled that state bans on interracial marriage were unconstitutional. Mildred and Richard, with their three children, could return to Virginia, the state they both called home. When I heard the news on my kitchen radio, I yelled, “Yes!” startling Rosa, asleep on my lap, bulging with a second child. “Baby,” I whispered to my daughter, “we just became legal.” I thought this meant we could join Julius in the South, but on the phone that night he remained frightened by that prospect. Considering how many murdered civil rights workers we knew, I had to agree that his fear was real. I never did join him in Mississippi, and our marriage eventually collapsed. Decades later, I found myself rooting for marriage equality of a different sort. By then I had been committed for 25 years to a wonderful woman, another civil rights advocate, Carole Johnson. While closely following the same-sex marriage debate, we read Mildred Loving’s statement, released June 15, 2007, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the decision, which said in part: “Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the ‘wrong kind of person’ for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. ... That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.” Carole and I shouted, “Yes!” just as I had so many years before. Once more I felt hopeful that the courts would validate my love and allow me to marry — and we did during a brief legal window in California in 2008. Seven years later, Carole and I clasped hands as we watched the news on June 26, 2015. When Justice Anthony M. Kennedy delivered the historic 5-4 Supreme Court majority opinion on marriage equality, we wept with relief. Our marriage would be nationally recognized. We could file joint federal tax returns and enjoy so many other legal rights. The Supreme Court decision had repeatedly cited the Loving decision as establishing constitutional protection for the right to marry. Every June 12, I pay homage to the bravery of Mildred and Richard Loving, who, by insisting on their right to love, opened doors for millions of others, far beyond what any of us imagined then. This year, as Carole and I celebrate our 40th anniversary as a couple, we honor those who paved the way for our joy — especially the Lovings, whose emblematic name blazed a message to the world: Love is love is love. Joan Steinau Lester is the author of six books, including the memoir “Loving Before Loving: A Marriage in Black and White.”

Editorial: There's no going back on sentencing and prison reform

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/theres-no-going-back-on-sentencing-and-prison-reform

The novel coronavirus seeped easily into jails and prisons. It entered along with newly arrived prisoners, and with the officers and others employed in those facilities. When the people locked inside paid their bail or completed their sentences, and when the work shifts ended, the virus went home along with the formerly incarcerated and the employees, and spread to their families, friends and neighbors. Jails and prisons are ideal disease incubators because they are locked, crowded and often in poor repair, with spotty sanitation and less than stellar health services. That’s a particular problem in California, with its 35 adult state prisons and correctional medical, training and rehabilitation facilities; its four state youth correctional facilities; its 12 federal penitentiaries, correctional institutions, prison camps and detention centers; its 116 county jails; its 21 juvenile halls and probation camps; its eight U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers; its five state hospitals (which house, among others, people locked up while receiving psychiatric treatment so they can then stand trial); and its numerous city jails, police jails, inmate reception centers and temporary holding cells. California has been through multiple reimaginings of its criminal justice system, and together those political and philosophical shifts have built the complex of lockups that pepper the state and have through the years housed millions of prisoners (the notorious population peak of 173,000 in 2006 included only adult state prisoners, not all those accused or convicted people in county, federal and other institutions). In the final quarter of the 20th century, this state was the nation’s criminal justice thought leader, and the thought was overwhelmingly this: Lock up more people, for less cause, and for longer. Staggering under the weight of the now-exploded jail and prison population, California more recently has led in the opposite direction, focusing on shrinking the incarceration footprint and treating more people for the underlying health or social conditions (psychiatric problems, substance use, trauma, poverty) that put them on the path to criminality, rather than for the crimes themselves, at least in those cases in which the crimes were less serious. After all, there is something particularly daft about putting punishment, which satisfies an emotional demand in those of us with few serious troubles in life, ahead of treatment, which addresses the needs of those with severe health, psychiatric, emotional and financial burdens to bear. The change began almost exactly a decade ago, mostly because it was forced by a federal court that found California’s prisons to be actually criminogenic — more likely to turn people toward crime instead of away from it — and that in any event the overcrowding and lack of sufficient medical and mental health services violated the 8th Amendment guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment. Change began in earnest with “realignment,” a policy and legal framework that sent people to county jail who otherwise would have gone to state prison. But really, all that meant was a difference in which set of bars a person sat behind. There were also winning ballot measures to blunt the most onerous aspects of the “three strikes” law, to turn drug possession felonies into misdemeanors, and to give more people in prison incentives to participate in rehabilitation programs. The state has begun to reestablish those programs in the last 10 years, now that prison classrooms and clinic space formerly filled with triple bunks have been emptied to serve their original purposes, and resources formerly used to manage people struggling with the psychic injuries caused by severe overcrowding can again be used to hire teachers and other experts. But the new era of California criminal justice that these changes signaled — the one in which the state’s prison gulag locks up hundreds of people instead of hundreds of thousands, and resources are spent on healing the wounds of crime victims and survivors instead of on decades-long prison terms, and people who leave prison are given the tools to make a fresh start at living productive, responsible lives instead of carrying, by virtue of their felony records, everlasting punishment that prevents them from going to college, earning a living, even coaching their child’s soccer team or serving as an officer of their homeowners association — that new era never quite came into focus. Until COVID. The virus changed everything. Because it spread so quickly behind jail and prison walls but could not be contained there, state and county justice officials took extraordinary steps to reduce the number of people locked up. The Judicial Council (the leaders of the state’s judicial branch) essentially swept aside all the county court bail “schedules” that assign monetary amounts for people accused of various crimes, and set most of them to zero. In other words, for all practical purposes they temporarily ended bail. District attorneys and police union leaders expressed a great deal of consternation, and there were a few reported cases of car thieves arrested, booked, released and arrested again on the same day. But for the most part, the program worked with no negative impact on public safety, and it forced policymakers to ask: Why have we been locking up people for days, weeks, months, just because they don’t have the money to pay their bail? State prisons quickly released medically vulnerable prisoners, prompting the question: Why were we keeping them locked up in the first place, if they posed no risk to the outside world? Wardens released prisoners with less than a year to run on their sentences, forcing state officials to ask: What was the point of keeping them inside? And what about the elderly prison residents, who may well have committed horrid crimes 20, 30, even 40 years earlier, but were now well into their 70s and 80s and a risk to no one? Did these people really need to stay in prison, with or without a deadly pandemic? Meanwhile, Los Angeles County was moving ahead with a program of Alternatives to Incarceration — a health-based set of principles meant to create a decentralized network of services for people with challenges and conditions that, left untreated, could send them careening toward a criminal justice system that tends to grab people and compound their problems to such a degree that they can never truly get out. The Board of Supervisors adopted the program, called Care First, Jails Last, as one of its final actions before California virtually closed down for COVID-19. Now the state is on the verge of reopening and getting back to normal. But what should normal be? There has been a disturbing jump in violent crime, although it does not appear to have anything to do with zero bail (ended by the Judicial Council but kept in place, in one form or another, by some Superior Courts), or with release of elderly or medically vulnerable prisoners. It may well have more to do with a still-unbuilt system of care and an overbuilt system of punishment that keeps much of the nation’s population disconnected, dispossessed, frightened and angry. We’ve seen precipitous jumps in crime before, and we responded then with more police and more prisons. A generation was lost. But for the current generation of Californians we have a shot at a do-over — a care system based on health, protecting people not just from COVID-19 but from all manner of ills that put them on a downward spiral of failure. We will still need prisons, and we will still include punishment as part of the mix of responses to crimes that inflict serious damage on people and communities — but in measured, appropriate doses, enough to keep people safe, yet not so excessive as to forever condemn the perpetrators who can make amends and be brought back into the fold. The other path is to reopen, or keep open, the complex of prisons in which tens of thousands of people can nurse their hopelessness and remain vulnerable to pandemics. Even with the reduced prison population, California has more than 50,000 prisoners who have tested positive for the coronavirus and hundreds who have died from it. But we’ve walked that path. It’s time to turn around and try a different one. Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 7, 2021 Opinion June 8, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 10, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 11, 2021

Editorial: Want single-payer? California needs a public option first

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/health-insurance-employer-plans-obamacare-pandemic-lessons

You couldn’t design a better stress test for the healthcare system than the COVID-19 pandemic. And on some fundamental levels, the system failed — witness, for example, the racial and ethnic disparities in outcomes that the virus laid bare. Most fundamentally, the disease and the resulting shutdowns caused millions of Californians to lose their jobs, and in many cases, their employer-sponsored health insurance. And there couldn’t have been a worse time to lose one’s coverage than in the midst of a deadly pandemic. Solving the insurance problem won’t fix everything that’s wrong with the healthcare system, but it’s a prerequisite to almost every other needed improvement. That’s because for all but the wealthiest Americans, insurance is key to care in this country. It’s simply too expensive otherwise. Unfortunately, insurance itself is rapidly becoming unaffordable too. The solution seems clear to many progressives: Replace the hodgepodge of public and private insurance coverage with one government-provided plan that covers everyone, financed by taxpayers. This “single-payer” approach would guarantee that everyone could afford the care they needed. It also would slash the billing, collection and paperwork costs that are an albatross in the current system, while giving the government the power to cap overall healthcare spending as it strives to match resources to needs. And it would prevent private insurers from acting as gatekeepers to care and siphoning profits out of the system. Converting to a single-payer system would cause enormous upheaval, however, and the Legislature has balked at bills to mandate it. Instead, in 2019 it created the Healthy California for All Commission to study its feasibility. That work is starting to bear fruit. A recent analysis for the commission by Rick Kronick of UC San Diego concluded, as many other researchers have found, that a single-payer system would cost less overall than the current system. That’s not to say that the transition would be painless; having the government pick up the tab for all the costs now borne by individuals and employers would require an enormous increase in taxes, even as premiums and out-of-pocket costs would evaporate. The same report by Kronick, however, identified an insurmountable hurdle: A single-payer system in California would almost certainly require an act of Congress to let the state funnel Medicare and Medicaid dollars, veterans’ health benefits and other federal and corporate health insurance contributions into a new, unified insurance system. And single-payer advocates don’t have enough votes among Democrats to overcome unified Republican opposition. The division among congressional Democrats reflects the tradeoffs a single, government-run insurance plan would create, such as how hard it may be to address the biggest factor behind high and growing healthcare costs: not the profits made by insurers, but the prices charged by doctors and hospitals for care, which are far higher here than in other countries. When politicians take steps to rein in those costs — for example, as in the Medicare “cuts” in the Affordable Care Act that slowed the growth of payments to providers — they take a pounding from the voters. That helps explain why Medicare spending per enrollee is projected to grow more than 50% this decade. As countries around the world have shown, however, there are ways to make a single-payer plan work, and we need to keep exploring how to do that. In the meantime, though, California should focus on the steps it can take to close the insurance gaps that COVID-19 revealed. In the year before the pandemic, a little less than half of Americans and Californians were covered by employer-sponsored insurance, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report. One benefit of this kind of coverage, particularly when it’s from a large employer, is that it groups individual consumers into pools, with risks and costs spread out among people of varying ages and conditions. That holds down premiums for people who need expensive care, which at some point in our lives is pretty much all of us. And under federal law, people covered by employer plans can’t lose their coverage or be charged higher premiums because of their health problems. But this coverage is fragile because it’s tied to your job, not to you. The Affordable Care Act — which created state marketplaces where people without employer-sponsored insurance could shop for policies, aided by federal subsidies for low- and moderate-income households — was a big step forward. Crucially, it requires insurers to treat these markets the same way they treat large employer plans: No one can be turned away, all major health conditions have to be covered and no one’s premiums can be affected by their preexisting conditions. Instead, enrollees are pooled by geographic area, with risks and costs spread across everyone in the market. Coverage has been expensive, however, in part because the policies are comprehensive; for many moderate-income Americans, especially families, the combination of premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket costs has rendered care unaffordable. The response by state and federal lawmakers has been to provide more premium subsidies, but the boost is temporary at this point and doesn’t help with the increase in deductibles, which have risen to $4,000 for the benchmark “silver 70” plan in California’s marketplace, Covered California. Beyond that, subsidies treat the symptoms of high healthcare costs instead of the problem itself. A better, more sustainable answer is to confront the forces pushing up healthcare spending, most notably the lack of competition. Consolidation among hospitals and some medical groups and a shortage of healthcare professionals have given too many providers the power to set high prices in too many regions. The state needs tools to counter that excessive power. One possibility is for the state to compete with private insurers by providing a public option: opening Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid, to all state residents. The state pays doctors and hospitals much less to care for Medi-Cal patients than private insurers and even Medicare does, so expanding Medi-Cal could pressure insurers and healthcare professions to lower prices, improve services and innovate. It would also take some doing — and no small amount of dollars — to make Medi-Cal an attractive alternative to employer-sponsored insurance and the private plans offered through Covered California. For starters, the state may have to bump up the rock-bottom fees it pays for care in order to attract more doctors, while also finding a way to let workers shift their employer’s financial contribution from the company’s group policy into the state’s plan. But the enormous amount of money the state spends on healthcare — including about $120 billion per year on Medi-Cal — gives it leverage when trying to persuade providers to get on board. Opening Medi-Cal to all could be enormously disruptive, which is why much of the healthcare industry opposes a public option. But if ever a system needed disrupting, it’s this one. Another possibility is for the state to use its regulatory power to try to make insurance and care more affordable. Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for a new state Office of Healthcare Affordability that would set healthcare spending goals for regions across the state, then apply increasing amounts of pressure to insurers and providers to meet those goals. Less draconian than simply dictating what prices doctors, hospitals and insurers could charge, this approach would encourage the industry to attack wasteful and unnecessary treatments, tests and procedures. The catch, however, is that political leaders would need to show the courage of the office’s convictions. And historically, elected officials have wilted in the face of opposition from the hospitals, drugmakers and healthcare companies that are major employers in their districts. There’s at least one other difficulty that California lawmakers have to confront. The biggest group of uninsured Californians — by one estimate, nearly 40% of the state’s roughly 3.2 million uninsured — are immigrants who are in the country illegally and are ineligible for Medi-Cal and Covered California subsidies. Although there is a powerful moral argument for insuring all Californians regardless of immigration status, doing so would be expensive for state taxpayers — the Legislative Analyst’s Office recently put the cost at $2.1 billion annually. But failing to insure these Californians is costly in its own way. They’re left to rely on expensive, inefficient treatment at emergency rooms, whose costs are borne by taxpayers and people with insurance. And their untreated illnesses take a toll on public health and productivity. A public option, spending goals and expanded eligibility for subsidies aren’t perfect substitutes for a well-designed single-payer system, but they have one clear advantage: They’re doable. With the pandemic exposing deep flaws in how Californians are insured, it’s time not just for bold steps, but also achievable ones. Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 7, 2021 Opinion June 8, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 10, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 11, 2021

Op-Ed: How Boyle Heights, on L.A.’s Eastside, became a model for grass-roots American democracy

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/boyle-heights-american-democracy

Fourteen-year-old Mollie Wilson was furious that her four best friends were being taken away from her just before they were scheduled to start high school together in 1942. The precocious African American teenager had just heard that the U.S. government had decided to send her Japanese American classmates, along with their families, to incarceration camps in the interior of the country and away from their Boyle Heights neighborhood. Mollie vowed to write each of them every week they were away as her own form of protest against this unfair decision. The letters she received back are now in the hands of the Japanese American National Museum. They’re historically significant for their descriptions of the wartime incarceration — but also because they attest to the profound cross-racial friendships that were common in the Boyle Heights community of Los Angeles’ Eastside throughout most of the 20th century. Unlike most of the rest of Los Angeles, Boyle Heights did not maintain racially restrictive covenants but was open to anyone willing to work hard at nearby factories or businesses fueling the industrial growth of the region. If you were a working-class newcomer to the city in the first half of the 20th century, chances are you lived in or spent spent significant time in Boyle Heights, just across the river from downtown L.A. Mollie lived on Boulder Street, on a block with families from 10 different ethnic backgrounds, all living harmoniously together. “My mother learned to cook from Jewish people because she had not been taught by her own mother,” Mollie later remembered. “It often amazed me how my mother could communicate with Mrs. Koris or Mrs. Akashi, because neither of them could speak English and my mother couldn’t speak Greek nor Japanese.” This unique history, and the friendships and coalitions it generated, makes Boyle Heights a model for the kind of grass-roots democracy and cross-cultural cooperation needed today to heal a divided nation and to combat inequality. While newcomers from Mexico, Eastern Europe, Japan, Italy and the American South all made Boyle Heights home, their different languages and backgrounds had to be overcome if they were to fight side by side for survival in a neighborhood of working-class families at a time when elite Anglo Americans ran all of Southern California. The challenges they faced were many. They lost jobs during the economic collapse of the Great Depression. Mexican immigrant and Mexican American families were targeted for deportation and repatriation back to Mexico. Japanese Americans were incarcerated in camps during World War II. Jews faced antisemitism, including from Nazi agents and sympathizers in Los Angeles itself. Over the two decades after the war, the community was transformed by public housing projects that replaced single-family homes and rental units and was divided by five freeways that took up 15% of the land — including the Golden State Freeway, which was built right up against the edge of Hollenbeck Park. Yet this widespread targeting of the Boyle Heights population was met with stoic resistance and impassioned counter-organizing. Jewish immigrants — who made up about 40% of Boyle Heights in the 1920s and 1930s — brought with them an East Coast labor-organizing tradition and a radicalism from Eastern Europe that led Los Angeles-based trade unions to set up shop in Boyle Heights, where they organized Mexicans and Italians as well as Jews. The International Ladies Garment Workers Union spearheaded cross-racial efforts among Mexican and Jewish women to fight for higher wages in the 1930s. Those were followed by organizing drives for improved conditions by unions of cannery workers and carpenters. After World War II, the Community Service Organization was created by grass-roots activists in the Mexican American and Jewish communities to fight discrimination in housing, schools and employment. In 1949, the CSO helped elect Los Angeles City Councilman Edward Roybal, the first Mexican American to sit on the council since the 19th century. Roybal fought to bring basic services to the Eastside, as well as to combat police abuse of residents and fight against efforts at urban renewal that did not consider the needs of Boyle Heights locals. Even as the Jewish community increasingly moved away from Boyle Heights in the 1940s and 1950s, the Soto-Michigan Jewish Community Center — located on the corner of Soto Street and Michigan Avenue — became a site of innovative multiracial programs, some of the first ever institutionally in Los Angeles. This tradition of activism continued in the 1960s, when local students organized the 1968 Chicano walkouts from high schools to protest educational inequities, demand the hiring of Mexican American teachers and encourage the implementation of culturally relevant college preparatory education. As the demographics began to change again, this time with more undocumented residents coming to live in the neighborhood in the latter half of the 20th century, new organizations were created to incorporate them. Mothers of East Los Angeles organized women and men from Catholic parishes to fight state efforts to place prisons and environmentally hazardous factories in or near Boyle Heights. Homeboy Industries was formed by Father Gregory Boyle to present alternative ways of life to gang-affiliated young people from the neighborhood. Today, as Boyle Heights (like other urban neighborhoods in L.A.) struggles with gentrification pressures, it has a rich and diverse history of local organizing and community engagement to draw upon. As the United States more broadly becomes a majority-minority country over the next 25 or so years, it needs to look to solutions at the neighborhood level that places like Boyle Heights can proudly speak to. George Sánchez, a history professor at USC, is the author of “Boyle Heights: How a Los Angeles Neighborhood Became the Future of American Democracy.”

Editorial: The pandemic let us imagine a world without waste

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/la-ed-reduce-reuse-recycle-reimagine-california

To wrap your mind around the vast problem of waste, it helps to start by thinking about the disposable dental flosser. If you’re not familiar with this particular oral health implement, picture a plastic fork with two tines connected by a length of dental floss. It is designed for a single occasion of between-the-teeth cleaning. People with working fingers don’t need them; floss alone will do the trick. But, dang, these little guys are so convenient and affordable. Amazon sells a stash of 540 for less than $15. And when the day’s teeth cleaning is finished, the flosser is thrown away. It might be recycled, but odds are good it will be taken to a landfill and outlive its users as well as many generations of their descendants. I don’t mean to pick on disposable dental flossers as singularly pernicious. They are no better or worse than a million other products Americans buy and use every day. But they are a useful stand-in to illustrate the unsustainability of our current economic model, which relies on extracting resources and then sending them on an inexorable one-way journey from manufacturing facility to trash heap. The so-called linear economy — or a “take, make, waste” system — that has been the basis of our industrialized society for the last 150 or so years has wrought so much damage to the environment that we might just consume ourselves out of existence unless something changes soon. Fortunately for us, there is a better way, and one that recently has begun to gain real traction outside the world of economists and environmentalists. It’s called the circular economy because it envisions a system in which every product, building, vehicle — every thing — is designed to have a long and useful life and afterlife. This is not about recycling bottles and cans better or using a plastic bag more than once, though recycling on a massive, industrywide scale is part of it. In their 2020 book “The Circular Economy Handbook,” Peter Lacy, Jessica Long and Wesley Spindler explain it as “keeping products and resources in use for as long as possible and, at the end of use, cycling (or ‘looping’) their components and materials back into the system in zero-waste value chains.” It’s a fundamental shift in the way we make and consume everything, whether it’s food, clothes, buildings or vehicles, with the goal of reducing or even eliminating waste and, in the process, substantially cutting greenhouse gas emissions as well. Backyard composting provides a model for how the circular economy works at its most basic level. Food scraps and tree trimmings go into a compost bin, decompose and eventually transform into nutrient-rich soil to help grow more food and trees. It’s an infinitely repeating loop of production and consumption, with no waste or toxic byproduct that must be buried in a deep hole. But this concept can be applied to just about any industry. Imagine it, a world without waste. It sounds impossibly utopian. How could we live without generating trash every time we clean our teeth? But it is doable. In fact, we have done it. Humans relied on a circular model for the vast majority of their time on this planet — until the Industrial Revolution ushered in the exploitative, dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship with resources that we have today. Also, we no longer have much choice. Energy-efficient homes and electric cars and trucks will get us only partway to our climate change goals, Ellen MacArthur said at a recent net-zero virtual discussion hosted by the New York Times. MacArthur is a former competitive sailor who gave up the sport more than a decade ago to begin the eponymous foundation that functions as a sort of circular-economy think tank. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions to livable levels will require changing how we use land and manufacture things such a metals, plastics, cement and food. “We won’t reach the climate target that we’ve set without changing the way that those products are made,” she said. That’s a big order, but there may be no better time to undertake such significant structural changes than in the post-pandemic recovery over the next few years, according to Mayuri Wijayasundara, a circular economy scholar at Deakin University in Australia. People have already been forced to accept massive disruptions in their habits and expectations, she said, and may be open to the permanent changes that would be required to transition to a circular economy. Supply chains are likely to continue to be strained, opening the door to more small, local manufacturing and a growth in the repair economy. Indeed it was a major disruption in the plastic recycling market in 2018 — when the world’s largest importer of plastic trash, China, shut the door to most plastic from other countries — that primed the public and policymakers to begin embracing the circular economy in a significant way, she said. What does a circular economy look like in practical terms? Food systems that recapture all scraps and turn them into compost for the next harvest. Sewer lines tapped to produce heat. Product packaging that can be composted along with yard scraps. A reusable plastic soda bottle shared among beverage companies that can be used again and again. Clothes rental services that give users the same benefits of “fast fashion” without having the same wasteful result. These aren’t pie-in-the-sky ideas. They are happening, albeit in small-scale ventures. Denver is experimenting with a sewer-heat-recovery project. Coca-Cola is using a universal bottle program in Brazil. California lawmakers are considering a landmark plastic packaging reduction law that is built on circular economic principles. Several clothes rental services, such as Nuuly and Rent the Runway, already exist. These are hopeful signs, but a few scattered programs may not be enough to make the rapid shift the world needs. Frustratingly, there’s not much an individual consumer can do to usher change along other than support companies that adopt a circular economic model and eschew those than don’t. “The fact is, we can’t change it individually,” MacArthur said, adding that “the system has to evolve to make the changes for us so that we have the choices that we need to become circular. We need to redesign the system. We need to redesign the packaging. Then the consumer choice becomes more straightforward.” Ultimately, the circular economy is not about changing consumer behavior, an approach that has been the bedrock of waste-reduction efforts for decades and clearly isn’t working. The change must start at the top, and that will likely require some governmental intervention to shift responsibility for waste from consumers to the companies that make and distribute products. Extended producer responsibility, as it is called, is the basis for California’s proposed plastic packaging reduction law. “Right to repair” laws, which several U.S. states are exploring, are useful too because they require that manufacturers build products, devices and gadgets in such a way that consumers can have them fixed when they malfunction, rather than tossing them out and buying newer versions. Targeted “sin” taxes have been useful in reducing cigarette smoking while helping to pay the societal costs of products that are harmful; they could be employed to reduce waste as well. California may soon experiment with that concept if voters adopt a proposed plastic tax on the 2022 ballot. If we want to reimagine California, and the world, without the waste of 540 disposable dental flossers and millions of other things we use and discard every day, someone has to take the first step. Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 7, 2021 Opinion June 8, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 10, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 11, 2021

McManus: Want a different U.S. Senate? Elect different senators

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-06/want-a-different-u-s-senate-elect-different-senators

The Democratic-led Senate is heading toward showdowns on two critical pieces of legislation: President Biden’s ambitious infrastructure plan and a bill to stop state legislatures from making it harder to vote. But there’s a roadblock in the Democrats’ way, and it’s not Republican leader Mitch McConnell. It’s Joe Manchin III, the maverick Democrat from West Virginia, who insists that laws must be the product of bipartisan compromise, even when bipartisanship is in painfully short supply. It’s an understandable stance for a politician whose positions are often midway between the two parties’ and whose state has turned thoroughly Republican. But in a polarized 50-50 Senate, where almost every issue has become a zero-sum battle, his old-fashioned appeals to comity sound increasingly anachronistic — and they’re driving other Democrats to distraction. Even Biden, who once believed bipartisanship would blossom as soon as Donald Trump left town, flashed a little frustration last week. “I hear all the folks on TV saying, ‘Why doesn’t Biden get this done?’ Well, because Biden only has a majority of effectively four votes in the House and a tie in the Senate, with two members of the Senate who vote more with my Republican friends,” he said, referring to Manchin and another centrist Democrat, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Biden has been trying to negotiate a deal with Republicans on infrastructure, but after weeks of meetings the two sides are still far apart. The president has cut his initial request by more than half and is asking for about $1 trillion in new spending; GOP leaders have countered with an offer of $307 billion, less than one-third as much. Democratic political strategists are beginning to sound desperate; they want to pass big legislation now, so they can campaign on it for next year’s congressional election. But Manchin, who isn’t up for reelection until 2024, is unhurried. Politics The court has freed Texas and other Southern states to add voting restrictions, and has given the GOP an edge in the battle to control Congress. June 4, 2021 “These [things] take time,” he said last week. Even if Manchin agreed to abandon the quest for GOP support, to win his vote Democrats would have to settle for half a loaf on infrastructure, and may not be able to get a voting rights bill at all. If progressives want to change these outcomes, criticizing Manchin won’t help; they need to go out and elect more Democrats. And that actually might be possible — at least in the Senate. The main reason is the peculiar arithmetic of the 2022 congressional election: Twenty Senate seats currently held by Republicans will be on the ballot, compared with only 10 held by Democrats. The Democrats’ best opportunities appear to be in two states Biden took last year: Pennsylvania, where Republican Sen. Patrick J. Toomey isn’t running again, and Wisconsin, where Trumpite Sen. Ron Johnson has hinted he may retire. Of course, Democrats will have challenges, too, including in Ohio, where Rep. Tim Ryan, a moderate with union backing, may face Republican J.D. Vance, author of “Hillbilly Elegy” and a protégé of Silicon Valley’s Peter Thiel. Democratic Sens. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Mark Kelly of Arizona will also face tough battles in states Biden won by a whisker. Even if Democrats increase their margin in the Senate, they face a bigger challenge holding on to their majority in the House of Representatives. A GOP gain of only five seats would oust Nancy Pelosi as speaker and put a Republican, possibly Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield, in her seat. In both chambers, Democrats face a headwind: In a midterm election, the party of the incumbent president usually loses seats. That’s because a congressional election is partly a referendum on the president, and critics normally turn out more readily than fans. Democratic strategists are hoping to turn that factor upside down next year by making the election a replay of the 2020 presidential election — in effect, a referendum on both Biden and Trump. But other factors will be important, too. “The real world could have an impact,” Democratic strategist Mark Mellman told me. “If the pandemic continues to ease and the economy keeps expanding, Democrats could be in pretty good shape.” Plus a wild card: If the Supreme Court strikes down the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision that established a nationwide right to abortion, that could send Democratic voters flooding to the polls. It’s far too early to forecast the outcome of a congressional election 17 months away. But it’s not too early to note how big the stakes are. Biden’s prospects of enacting most of his ambitious agenda depend almost entirely on the choices voters will make in 2022.

Letters to the Editor: The Queen Mary wasn't built to sit in seawater for 87 years. This is how to save it

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/how-to-save-the-queen-mary

To the editor: RMS Queen Mary was launched in 1934 from the John Brown and Co. shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland. My grandfather was the yard detective then. (“After decades of rocky seas in Long Beach, Queen Mary in danger of sinking. Can it be saved?” June 1) My parents and I sailed on her in June 1952 from New York and returned on her that September. My husband and I stayed aboard her in Long Beach at least three times for Scottish events. Steel hulls weren’t meant to last 87 years. Repairing the Queen Mary’s would be hugely expensive. Why not hoist the ship onto the dock, cut off the bottom and leave a few of the passenger decks so she can continue to be a hotel, tourist attraction and historic site? It would preserve the silhouette we love, and we could still walk the top deck and breathe the sea air. Kay Devonshire, Santa Monica .. To the editor: The Queen Mary and I are of an age when dancing jazz was still the rage. We both began our maiden voyages in 1936, although her “gestation period” of two years was longer than mine. I was a passenger on one of her Atlantic crossings and have shared “birthday” dinners with her in Long Beach. Now that we are both in our 80s and need repairs, I hope the Queen will be taken care of and continue to delight future generations. Janet Cameron Hoult, Culver City

Second Opinion: Big Food wants us addicted to junk food. New brain science may break their grip

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/food-processed-addictions-fat-sugar-psychology

Robert Goldstein, a hedge fund manager in New York, was getting huge cravings for sweets when he came across a tropical plant called Gymnema sylvestre that works a little like methadone for heroin addicts. Compounds extracted from the woody vine keep the brain from getting overly excited for sugar by disabling the sweet receptors on the tongue. For an hour or so, brownies and doughnuts and Oreo cookies all taste like putty, which helped Goldstein control his cravings so well that he put the plant’s extract into little white pills, which he named Sweet Defeat. Said one review: “It’s like willpower in a bottle!” Unplugging your senses to curb a desire might seem a bit extreme for something like food, but there is growing evidence that much of what’s being sold at the grocery store and fast-food restaurants is more seductive than we knew. It’s designed to make us want to eat more, and in ways that impede our ability to say no. Processed-food makers do this in part by perfecting their use of additives to maximize the appeal of their products. Sugar, for instance, which many people cite as a trigger for cravings, is now being added to an estimated two-thirds of the items in the supermarket. And new research by Dana Small, a neuroscientist at Yale University, shows that we’re even more vulnerable to the combination of sugar and fats in things like milkshakes and chocolate chip cookies. In tandem they excite the area of the brain called the striatum, which is associated with compulsive behavior. But Big Food, a $1-trillion industry, is even more cunning in shaping our eating habits by taking advantage of our deepest instincts when it comes to food. We are by nature drawn to food that is easily obtained (that is, cheap), so food manufacturers use chemical laboratories called flavor houses that search for the cheapest formulations, knowing that we’ll get excited by a box of toaster pastries that costs 10 cents less than it did last week. We are also drawn to variety, and thus the cereal aisle has 200 versions of sugary starch to excite our brain with the illusion of nutrition. Most critically, we have evolved to seek maximum calories for fuel. We have sensors in the gut and possibly in the mouth that tell us how many calories we’re eating, and the more calories there are, the more excited the brain gets, which makes us vulnerable to the processed-food industry’s snacks, jam-packed as they are with a day’s worth of calories we can eat in one sitting. These industry tactics, which are used to exploit our biology, has made overeating an everyday thing, with the obesity rate pushing past 42% even before the pandemic. In my research, I found that hyperprocessed, convenient food products can be as addictive as cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, if not more so, using the industry’s own definition. In 2000, when Philip Morris was both the largest maker of cigarettes and processed food (through its acquisition of General Foods, Kraft and Nabisco), the company’s CEO said, “Addiction is a repetitive behavior that some people find difficult to quit.” But when it comes to reducing our dependence on processed foods, there is a bright spot in this. We can draw guidance from our experience in dealing with other habit-forming substances. If your trouble is the 3 p.m. craving for cookies, drug experts who now study food have learned that cravings destroy willpower. So it’s critical to get ahead of the craving. If your strategy is standing up to stretch, calling a friend or eating something better for you, you need to be doing that at 2:55, before the craving sends you dashing in search of cookies. The go-to strategy for drug addicts is abstention, but that can’t work with food. Dieting to lose weight is a form of abstention, and full of treachery, from quick-fix hucksters to the unsettling circumstance that many of the most popular dieting methods came to be owned by the processed-food industry itself. One of the strategies addiction scientists are focusing on involves changing how we value food. Instead of letting food manufacturers dictate what we want, we need to figure out what matters in eating habits. The problem, of course, is the deluge of processed-food advertising that has shaped our thinking for the past 50 years. Eric Stice, a professor at Stanford University, has discovered that merely gaining weight makes us more vulnerable by increasing our sensitivity to food advertising, or “cues.” Stice is now researching ways to help us rewire our brains to change the balance between the part that compels us to act compulsively and the part that considers the consequences of our actions. One technique involves playing computer games with pictures of food to train the attention region of the brain to get less excited by high-calorie foods like, say, French fries, and more interested in steamed broccoli. In one trial, this helped people lose body fat; in another, each hour spent playing this game was associated with a 2.3% reduction in body fat. The hope is that more hours, combined with other strategies, will produce better results. In England, researchers at the University of Exeter who have turned this technique into an app called FoodT say it reduces cravings and helps users eat less. They are now testing a personalized option in which you can upload pictures of the foods that give you the most trouble. Regaining control of our eating habits is tough business. But given how effectively the processed-food industry has learned to manipulate our desires and habits, we have to find ways to defend ourselves against unhealthful eating, which drives much of the chronic illnesses that plague nearly half of all Americans. Michael Moss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, is the author, most recently, of “Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions.”

Editorial: COVID-19 exposed truths that America and California can no longer ignore

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/covid-19-pandemic-labor-work-health-care-homelessness

Since the magnitude of the threat from a new strain of coronavirus became apparent early in 2020, California, the nation and the world have endured a massive upending of daily life. More than 170 million coronavirus cases, a likely undercount, have been confirmed globally, and more than 3.7 million people have died of COVID-19 — nearly 1 in 6 of them in the United States and more than 62,000 here in California. The virus has devastated families; the economic shock from the pandemic and the resulting stay-home orders put more than 20 million people out of work and cost more than $17 trillion in economic activity. Then there are the psychological tolls of financial insecurity, tens of millions of parents pressed into service as adjunct schoolteachers, and people enduring significant life events — marriages, births, deaths of loved ones — without the close embrace of family and friends. There is no silver lining in this cataclysmic event. But to move forward, America must recognize the fractures, weaknesses and inequalities in many of our systems. We must move from toxic individualism toward collective uplift. We need to recognize the role of genocide and slavery in perpetrating systemic racism, while also pursuing policies that help all vulnerable families, who disproportionately bore the brunt of the pandemic. We must renew faith in expertise and science, which enabled the lifesaving vaccines that now must be distributed worldwide. It is imperative that the nation address — not merely acknowledge — the realities we cannot afford to ignore. Opinion New math guidelines for California could make the subject more engaging and help many students succeed — but may hold back those who learn more quickly. June 3, 2021 There’s a lot to analyze. Members of the Los Angeles Times editorial board, each of whom has expertise in specific areas, have delved into some of these issues in signed editorials below that offer insights, suggestions and prescriptions for reimagining how California and the nation do certain things. A major lesson driven home by the pandemic is that our economic system disproportionately rewards wealth while treating workers as disposable parts of a business plan rather than as people with inherent dignity and value. Our unemployment insurance system needs to be broadly re-thought, and instead of doling out fractions of income to those thrown out of work, we should devise plans to help businesses keep workers attached to their jobs during short-term downturns while better positioning workers whose jobs are gone for good to pivot to new hiring opportunities. About half of Americans get their health insurance through their employers, feeding a system of vast inequality and leading to a dark irony of the pandemic: Millions of suddenly unemployed people lost the employer-provided health insurance they would need if they caught the virus that tossed them out of work in the first place. Universal coverage is essential, though we recognize that getting there will require moving through a particularly thorny political briar patch; the state ought to at least start by offering a public option for health insurance. We need a healthcare system that people can count on, that does not impoverish them just because they fall ill, and that does not keep them tethered to their jobs. Access to healthcare should be a fundamental human right, and we need to search for models that are cheaper and more comprehensive than the current one, in which profit margins and motives are built into nearly every level of care. But there is far, far more to be considered, and to be done. We need comprehensive access to affordable child care so that parents aren’t forced to choose between a paycheck and their child. We need to better prepare for the next pandemic by knitting a stronger and a more reliant social safety net. We need to craft stronger preparedness plans, including stockpiling critical materials such as personal protection devices for healthcare providers, and then follow them. We need to reimagine criminal justice not solely as a system of vengeance and punishment but to help our fellow Californians to live better, healthier and safer lives while protecting society from those whose problems and behaviors make them too dangerous. We need to address the disproportionate impact of the virus — as well as broad environmental risks — on people based on their economic status and living and working conditions. Opinion Did COVID-19 escape from a lab? It’s worth exploring that possibility, but the U.S. needs also to examine its own pandemic failures. June 2, 2021 We need to recognize that old models of work life are propelled more by inertia and corporate culture than by the needs of businesses or workers. We have been reminded of what the skies can look like when our commuter cars collectively spew fewer of the lung-irritating particulates and the greenhouse gases that are fueling the rise of global temperatures. Our pollution problems, of course, don’t begin and end with air. Our consumer economy has also become an economy of disposability, where the convenience of single-use plastics outweighs their environmental impact, consumer goods are excessively packaged, household products seem planned for premature obsolescence and marketers exhort us constantly to toss out what we have in favor of next year’s model. We need to produce less linearly — raw material into goods sold to consumers then sent to landfills or, occasionally, recycled — and focus more on a circular approach, with less waste and longer-term support for still usable products. Our educational system has bowed under the stresses of the past 18 months, an experience that reinforced how unequal the system can be. As schools return to in-class instruction, we should look at how to better align educational practices and expectations with the world in which we all live, including reassessing our reliance on college degrees both as an end result of education and as an expectation in the workforce. People should not have to drive themselves into debt for educations that exceed their needs and those of employers. At the same time, people who want those advanced educations should be able to access them at less onerous costs. Even before the pandemic, Los Angeles in particular faced a dismayingly persistent problem with homelessness that only worsened as more people lost work and housing. We must find better ways to ensure that people in good times and bad have safer options at night than a piece of cardboard under the stars. Recognizing a right to housing is a good place to start. Overall, the nation has learned a lot from confronting some uncomfortable truths during this pandemic, and we are continuing to learn. It is a daunting task, to be sure, to remake significant portions of society and governance, particularly in an era in which facts too often are seen as malleable, faith in government is weak, and too many political leaders traffic in lies, manipulations and gamesmanship instead of the business of governing. But it is a task we must undertake nonetheless. We will be a better country for it. The pandemic opened possibilities. Let’s embrace them. COVID-19 exposed truths that America and California can no longer ignore We’ve discovered we can work from home. There’s no turning back Want single-payer? California needs a public option first Post-pandemic, let’s make capitalism more equitable The pandemic let us imagine a world without waste There’s no going back on sentencing and prison reform You shouldn’t need a college degree to have a decent life in America To solve homelessness, California should declare a right to housing

Editorial: To solve homelessness, California should declare a right to housing

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/homelessness-right-to-housing-human-right-reimagine-california

Housing should be a human right, ideally one enshrined in the United States Constitution. But that shouldn’t stop the city of Los Angeles from adopting such a right. In fact, the City Council has asked city agencies to research the idea. It’s an idea whose time has come. Across Los Angeles, homeless encampments sprawl on sidewalks not far from million-dollar condos. Among the people in the city who do have housing, most are renters and 50% of those spend more than half their income on rent and utilities. A right to housing has a simple but powerful underpinning: The government should ensure that everyone has an adequate home. Housing, healthcare and food should all be human rights guaranteed under the law. What would this housing look like? Gary Blasi, a UCLA law professor emeritus who has spent most of his career advocating for homeless people, describes it as a place where you can have “autonomy, dignity and privacy.” Specifically, that looks like an apartment — a room in an apartment, house or hotel or motel, with a door, a lock on the door and a window. In fact, it’s time to stop talking about “beds” for homeless people — unless they need a bed in a hospital or a residential mental health facility. Homeless people need homes. In January 2020, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority estimated that there were about 66,000 homeless people in the county and around 41,000 in the city. A right to housing won’t completely alleviate the need for temporary shelter for homeless people. But as permanent housing becomes more available, the less time people will need to spend in shelters. This is not a right to shelter. In fact, a right to shelter would siphon off money, time and energy all better spent creating and preserving housing for poor people, including homeless individuals. Shelter is not cheap. Even setting up a safe campground for homeless people with security, food, restrooms and service providers can cost more than $2,500 a person per month. You could get an apartment for that. Nor is this a revolutionary idea. President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke of it in his 1944 State of the Union address. The United Nations has recognized a right to housing for decades. The treaty into which it was codified was signed by the U.S. — but never ratified. Finland, Scotland and South Africa all have implemented a right to housing, with worthy if varying results. A right to housing doesn’t mean that the government gives everyone free housing. A right to housing would offer protection against forced eviction and legal counsel to people facing eviction. It should be used to incentivize the creation of affordable housing — and to prioritize the provision of housing over parochial land-use and unnecessary environmental impact reviews and arguments, grounded in NIMBYism, that are often used to block the development of multifamily residences and housing for homeless people. And it should guarantee the right to a housing subsidy if a person qualifies for it — the same way people get assistance buying food in Los Angeles County under the CalFresh program (food stamps) if they need it. That kind of assistance is, indeed, expensive and could come only from expanding the housing voucher program known as Section 8 that is administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. A Section 8 voucher holder pays 30% of his or her income, whatever amount that may be, toward monthly rent, and the voucher covers the rest. There are maximum caps on rental amounts that the vouchers will cover. (Homeless people usually receive county general relief — a pittance at $221 a month — and pay 30% of that.) Nationally, about 1 in 4 people who qualify for federal housing assistance receive a voucher. The need here is even more desperate — as few as 1 in 10 city residents who qualify actually get vouchers. The city’s Housing Authority holds 58,000 Section 8 vouchers. In 2017, when the long-closed waiting list for the vouchers reopened, 188,000 people applied. The city held a lottery and chose 20,000 to put on a waiting list. About 7,000 remain on the list, which is once again closed to new applicants. President Biden declared in his campaign platform, “Housing should be a right, not a privilege.” His platform also included a commitment to fully fund federal rental assistance. He should work to make that happen. His administration has already proposed that an additional 200,000 vouchers be distributed across the nation. But the city of Los Angeles could use three times that. Douglas Guthrie, chief executive of the Housing Authority, estimates that about 600,000 households would qualify today for a Section 8 voucher, meaning they earn no more than 50% of the area median income. The city is already getting $780 million this year in Section 8 funds. If the federal government fully covered Los Angeles — which gets the second-largest allocation of Section 8 vouchers in the country — that would mean about $6 billion to $8 billion in new vouchers. Large as that is, it would also be one of the most worthwhile investments the federal government could make. For decades, federal housing policy has benefited homeowners — through the mortgage interest deduction, for example — far more than renters. Why shouldn’t renters get help from the federal government? Support for renters is one thing. Housing supply is another. Of those who’ve made it through the Section 8 gantlet, about 45% are still looking for either a willing landlord or an affordable unit. So, officials have to find ways to incentivize the creation of more housing. For example, the city could offer nonprofit developers of affordable housing the right of first refusal to buy properties in foreclosure. The authorities should also open neighborhoods zoned for single family homes to more multi-unit developments — and perhaps abolish single-family zoning altogether. That doesn’t mean high-rises next to ranch houses. It means small apartment buildings and town home developments. One promising approach is outlined in California Senate Bill 679, which would establish a Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency to fund renter protections and the production of new affordable units. Among the tools the agency could use would be parcel taxes, bond measures and a document transfer tax. Some of those measures would have to be put before voters but, unlike Proposition HHH, these measures would protect renters and low-income people, not just those who’ve already lost their homes. Under a right to housing, the city should institute a vacancy tax on landlords who keep apartments and whole buildings vacant when they can’t get tenants at high rental rates. The city should make it clear that landlords will have to pay to keep their units from being occupied. The city also needs to find properties it can rehabilitate and turn into housing quickly and less expensively than building from the ground up. Last year the state launched the Homekey program, under which housing authorities applied for funding to purchase hotels, motels and apartment buildings and turn them into housing for homeless individuals. The city of L.A. acquired more than 20 properties. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed budget for the coming fiscal year calls for putting $7 billion into Homekey. The city should aggressively look for properties and apply for Homekey funding to turn them into housing. No doubt implementing a right to housing would be challenging. What if it were to draw in homeless people from other places? “People moving around in search of services is a myth,” says Eric Tars, legal director at the National Homelessness Law Center. But the lack of supply and the urgent need for it only underscore that housing should be a right. Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 7, 2021 Opinion June 8, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 10, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 11, 2021

Editorial: You shouldn't need a college degree to have a decent life in America

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/editorial-reimagine-california-education

A young person who wants to go into hotel management typically needs a bachelor’s degree. Or at least, that’s true here. Not so in Switzerland, where a high school student would attend classes part time while also working at a paid apprenticeship for a hotel, take one more year of training after high school and be set in a well-paid career. The University of California and California State University campuses bulge with more students each year. Meanwhile, the cost of attending college surges upward, and there is pressure in Washington to spend a trillion dollars forgiving student loan debt. High school students find their studies irrelevant and unengaging while the workplace is rife with “education inflation,” in which jobs that used to require a high school education and maybe a little bit more now require a four-year college degree. The COVID-19 pandemic made clearer than ever the inequities in our education system, as some students learned online with the help of tutors and well-resourced parents while others lacked even reliable broadband. It laid bare the stresses of college students who couldn’t afford their tuition and of graduates without the money to pay off their college debts. What if the problem with college education isn’t that we don’t have enough of it, but that in some ways, we have too much? The college-for-all movement began with the worthy goal of greater educational equity — more lower-income students, more Black and Latino students, attaining the same levels of education and opportunity as white and Asian students. Not everyone, regardless of race or socioeconomics, wants or should need a four-year college degree. Education inflation not only leaves graduates (and even more, college dropouts) with crippling debt loads, but contributes to inequality and hampers the ability of many a bright student to enter the middle class. The Swiss apprenticeship model is a particularly ripe avenue for exploration in California, which is unparalleled nationally in its public higher-education system, has many large employers in a wide range of fields, especially in technology and biotech, and where a progressive statewide culture could lend itself to broader public-private partnerships. In order to do that, a few things would need to happen. Companies would have to stop demanding degrees that aren’t strictly necessary. They would have to participate in the training of a workforce and know that if they do, it would be far more likely to provide them with employees who have the skills they seek. And California would need to put considerable effort into improving public education for all students, making major inroads on erasing the achievement gap for Black and Latino students. The reason many employers use a college degree as a proxy for skills is that they don’t trust high schools to produce graduates who can read, do math and think. A few years ago, intrigued by what little I’d heard about the Swiss educational system, I interviewed some parents there about their experiences for a column that appeared in the Sacramento Bee. It turns out that about 30% of Swiss students enroll in full-time, college-prep courses; they must pass a rigorous test to be accepted into the college track. Most of the rest attend high school part time and work as apprentices part time in their chosen fields. They might need an extra year or even two of schooling after high school, or might go right into full-time jobs. Tracking is, of course, a problematic educational model in the United States, where Black and Latino students have historically been funneled into vocational rather than college-prep classes and often emerge into poorly paid fields where their skills are too easily replaced by cheaper workers overseas. But because of the more rigorous Swiss high school education and the real-life work experience they obtain, Swiss students move seamlessly into their well-paid careers of choice. Flexibility is built into the system. Students can switch apprenticeships if they are drawn to a different career. They also can switch to college track, even after starting jobs post-graduation, by taking a one-year course of education to catch them up on college-oriented studies. By that time, many of them have gained the maturity and perspective, as well as experience using their academic skills on the job, to succeed in college — which, by the way, is tuition-free. Switzerland can afford that, by not trying to provide college for all or even most students. The Swiss system also provides more motivation for succeeding in high school. Students see how various studies are connected with the real world. Their weeks are more varied and less tedious. And for courses where there is no obvious connection — well, they know there’s a job ahead that they will have if they put in the effort on their schoolwork. One woman in my interviews talked about how her husband, a banking executive, had never felt the need for a college degree before he started working with American banks. He knew they would look down on his lack of formal education despite his successful longtime career. And that’s something we need to change if we want to cut back on the ever-increasing public and private cost of college education and the burden it places on students who feel they have to attend college to have a future. A Harvard Business School report on education inflation outlines how it harms American workers as well as employers. “Degree inflation hurts the average American’s ability to enter and stay in the workforce,” the report says. “Many middle-skills jobs synonymous with middle-class lifestyles and upward mobility — such as supervisors, support specialists, sales representatives, inspectors and testers, clerks, and secretaries and administrative assistants — are now considered hard-to-fill jobs because employers prefer candidates who are college graduates.” It’s a bad deal for employers in the end. They pay significantly more for college graduates, the Harvard report says, and then often find that less educated workers with relevant job experience do as good a job or better, while graduates leave those jobs faster, which then requires the time and expense of hiring and training someone new. Sometimes the nature of the jobs has changed, calling for more education. But often, it’s the requirement that’s been inflated, not the work. Education inflation exacerbates social inequity because marginalized groups, such as low-income Black and Latino students, are less likely to attend or complete college. Certainly, it’s important to make college more accessible so that all talented students have an equal shot at jobs in the professions. But to the extent that we fail to train students for good careers while they are still in high school, and require degrees that might say less about their ability to do a job than their apprenticeship experience does, we rob too many of the chance to enter fulfilling careers and the middle class. Less than two-thirds of U.S. college students graduate within six years. Imagine the waste of educational resources, and the students’ money and time, when they come out unable to qualify for a good job or work in the field they’d chosen. For that matter, education inflation doesn’t just affect students at this level. More jobs that used to require a bachelor’s degree now additionally require a master’s degree. Ironically, one of the reasons for the degree inflation was that more high school students were attending college, leading employers to feel that they no longer were hiring the cream by hiring college graduates. Some of the graduate degrees indicate crucial training, such as in specific engineering or healthcare-related fields. But they have been adopted more as requirements for jobs in public policy or international relations or working in a museum and so forth. It’s been fine for employers and terrific for universities, which fill seats and rake in more tuition money. But it’s been hard financially on students; professional degrees come with less financial aid so the net price is higher than for undergraduate school. And it cuts into their earning years. The Swiss model might not translate perfectly to U.S. soil — a voluntary model would work better than Switzerland’s tough testing system for college-prep track, and there would have to be strict monitoring to ensure that Black and Latino students are well-represented among those headed for college — but it shows us some of what we’re missing in our educational system: Robust, quality public schools starting with preschool; a concerted effort to bring employers into the education mix; a college system that might enroll a smaller percentage of high school graduates but that grants far more of them a degree, and at low or no tuition cost; an apprenticeship system that gives high school studies more relevance and prepares students with empowering real-life skills for jobs that now require a college degree. Tech companies such as Apple already have shown themselves to be more willing to forgo a bachelor’s degree; it makes sense for a company founded by a college dropout. If California can turn that kind of job-sector goodwill into a partnership with academic studies, at least in model programs around the state, it could narrow social inequities, excite more students about their high school studies and spend less on four-year college education while graduating just about as many students. What we’re doing now — trying to push kids into all-college-prep courses that they may not want, divorcing education from their adult futures, and raising costs — isn’t working well. Time to stop doubling down on the same model. Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 7, 2021 Opinion June 8, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 10, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 11, 2021

How we can reimagine California

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/reimagine-california

Since the magnitude of the threat from a new strain of coronavirus became apparent early in 2020, California, the nation and the world have endured a massive upending of daily life. More than 170 million cases of COVID-19, a likely undercount, have been confirmed globally, and more than 3.5 million people have died — nearly 1 in 5 of them in the United States and 63,000 here in California. Read More >>> Last spring, the shift to remote work appeared to be one of the few bright spots in a landscape of sorrow and fear. The state was a few months into sheltering in place, and if you weren’t an essential worker or unemployed, you were told to work at home. Read More >>> You couldn’t design a better stress test for the healthcare system than the COVID-19 pandemic. And on some fundamental levels, the system failed — witness, for example, the racial and ethnic disparities in outcomes that the system laid bare. Read More >>> The sudden COVID-19-driven shutdown of workplaces early last year cost more than 33 million people their jobs over a seven-week span. Governments rushed to try to help, partly by funneling cash to keep countless households afloat, but the damage was severe, especially to nonwhite workers and those already on the low end of the income spectrum. Even now, as jobs come back, the pain continues for people left with higher personal debt, deferred rent payments and other financial problems. Read More >>> To wrap your mind around the vast problem of waste, it helps to start by thinking about the disposable dental flosser. Read More >>> The novel coronavirus seeped easily into jails and prisons. It entered along with newly arrived prisoners, and with the officers and others employed in those facilities. When the people locked inside paid their bail or completed their sentences, and when the work shifts ended, the virus went home along with the formerly incarcerated and the employees, and spread to their families, friends and neighbors. Read More >>> A young person who wants to go into hotel management typically needs a bachelor’s degree. Or at least, that’s true here. Not so in Switzerland, where a high school student would attend classes part time while also working at a paid apprenticeship for a hotel, take one more year of training after high school and be set in a well-paid career. Read More >>> Housing should be a human right, ideally one enshrined in the United States Constitution. But that shouldn’t stop the city of Los Angeles from adopting such a right. In fact, the City Council has asked city agencies to research the idea. It’s an idea whose time has come. Read More >>>

Editorial: We've discovered we can work from home. There's no turning back

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/editorial-weve-discovered-we-can-work-from-home-theres-no-turning-back

Last spring, the shift to remote work appeared to be one of the few bright spots in a landscape of sorrow and fear. The state was a few months into sheltering in place, and if you weren’t an essential worker or unemployed, you were told to work at home. Three of California’s thorniest challenges are housing, transportation and the environment. Remote work seems like the magical solution to all of them. With fewer people commuting, there was less traffic and fewer tailpipe emissions. Untethered to an office and a daily commute, employees could move further from their jobs to cheaper homes. Plus, analyses showed workers were just as productive at home, and the shift allowed caregivers, more often than not women, to keep working and earning during the pandemic when schools and day care providers shut down. Remote work appeared to be a win-win-win. As time passed and the pandemic dragged on, some of the shine came off remote work. Yes, there was still a glorious freedom in being able to work in pajamas and avoid the hustle of reporting to the office every day. But some surveys have found that workers kept up the pace by putting in more hours on the job, including evenings and weekends. When the line between home and work blurred, people tended to work more rather than less, leading to burnout. Younger, less experienced employees felt disconnected from their virtual colleagues and bosses. For every news article extolling the benefits of remote work, there was another praising the perks of the office. Not surprisingly, then, employees overwhelmingly say they want a hybrid schedule with some days at home and some days at the office. But what they’re really saying is that they want the flexibility and freedom to choose where they do their jobs. Of course, it makes sense: Every worker is an individual with his or her own needs and work habits. That fact, however, has largely been ignored by the vast majority of employers. Until now. The pandemic radically infused the white-collar working world with enormous flexibility. Let’s be clear: This is largely an option for a segment of the workforce; employees who perform hands-on jobs or must physically show up for work largely did not have this option. Still, remote work is now a proven concept for many jobs, including many that seemed impossible to shift to telework before. Based on the pandemic experience, it is estimated that 1 in 3 workers could do their jobs entirely from home. A larger portion of the workforce could do some of their job remotely if we, the users of services, are willing to incorporate more virtual medicine, education and other activities into our lives. The real question is whether employers and society at large will evolve and allow employees to continue to work remotely at least some of the time. Or will the working world snap back to life pre-pandemic and pro-office? Given the history of telecommuting in the U.S., the outlook is not promising without some intervention. :: The idea of telework or telecommuting has been around since the early 1970s, when it was first pitched as a way to reduce traffic congestion, air pollution and energy consumption. The idea began to gain steam, particularly in Southern California, in the 1990s, when leaders were desperate for solutions to the region’s bumper-to-bumper traffic and sickening smog. Los Angeles city and county set up pilot projects that allowed public employees to work from home. The region’s transportation and air quality agencies spent $10 million to set up telecommuting centers — the predecessors to today’s co-working spaces — where employees could travel just a few miles to an office setting with high-speed internet connections and fax machines. Regional planners set a goal of having 20% of the workforce telecommuting by 2010. Well, it didn’t happen by 2010. It didn’t even happen by the beginning of 2020. Remote work remained a niche perk, embraced by some employers, shunned by others. Before 2020, about 8% of workers in Southern California telecommuted on any given day. Then COVID-19 hit. There are no regional numbers, but an MIT survey last spring found that about half the nation’s workforce was working remotely. The biggest barrier to telecommuting is company culture, explained Jack Nilles, an expert in remote work who coined the term “telecommuting.” Some managers believe employees have to be in the office to be productive. There’s a tendency to focus on the hours employees work, rather than what they produce. And companies often lack creativity and willingness to experiment with remote work arrangements. An employee may need to be in the office part of the time but could easily perform aspects of his or her job at home. While some bosses may be sold on the benefits of telecommuting now, company executives have short memories. And other bosses still buy in to the idea that the best employees — the hustlers and the “uber-ly engaged,” as two CEOs recently described them — will choose to work in the office. That outdated thinking locks the workforce into rigid commuting and housing patterns. If you have to be in the office for set hours every day, that’s going to affect how you get there and where you choose to live. It also penalizes parents, caregivers and others trying to balance life and work, not to mention the workers who thrive when they are untethered to their office desk. :: As long as corporate America remains fickle, the future of remote work will depend on whether employees demand the continued flexibility of telework or vote with their feet if employers refuse to adapt. One recent survey found that 1 in 3 employees would look for a new job if they were required to come to the office full time. That should send a powerful message to employers. But not all workers have that kind of leverage or can afford to quit and find a new job. There are larger societal benefits to workplace flexibility. It can help keep parents and caregivers, especially women, in the labor force. It can reduce workers’ expenses for things like child care, commuting and office attire. Telecommuting cuts down on traffic and vehicle emissions, which is good for air quality and for fighting climate change. It can decouple opportunity from location, allowing companies to hire from a broader labor pool and employees to live farther from their jobs, in communities that have lower housing costs or are closer to their families. There are good reasons for government policies to support remote work and to prod employers to do so as well. Employers tend to oppose mandates. Last year, companies in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area railed against a proposal to require that employees from larger companies work remotely three days a week to cut climate-warming emissions from commutes. The proposal was dropped in favor of requiring that more workers arrive at the office by bike, transit or other environmentally sustainable commute. There are ways to encourage companies to embrace remote work. There are financial incentives, tax breaks and other regulatory perks that can be offered for employers that allow telecommuting. Investments in universal broadband would help too, ensuring workers in all communities can do their jobs without being hindered by unreliable, slow internet connections. In some cases, it’s actually illegal for companies to allow flexible working conditions. Business groups have lobbied for a change in state labor law to allow employees to work four 10-hour days and other flexible schedules without triggering overtime. Two such bills introduced this year by Republican lawmakers didn’t even get a hearing. The Democratic-controlled Legislature should at least allow the idea to be debated. When COVID-19 hit California, employees and companies scrambled to take work from the office to home and keep the economy rolling to the best of their ability. And it worked. If we want workplaces that are humane, that support caregivers and allow individuals to live their best lives, we must not turn back the clock on remote work. The pandemic opened possibilities. Let’s embrace them. COVID-19 exposed truths that America and California can no longer ignore We’ve discovered we can work from home. There’s no turning back Want single-payer? California needs a public option first Post-pandemic, let’s make capitalism more equitable The pandemic let us imagine a world without waste There’s no going back on sentencing and prison reform You shouldn’t need a college degree to have a decent life in America To solve homelessness, California should declare a right to housing

Editorial: Post-pandemic, let's make capitalism more equitable

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-06/reimagine-california-labor-unions-capitalism-covid-pandemic

The sudden COVID-19-driven shutdown of workplaces early last year cost more than 33 million people their jobs over a seven-week span. Governments rushed to try to help, partly by funneling cash to keep countless households afloat, but the damage was severe, especially to nonwhite workers and those already on the low end of the income spectrum. Even now, as jobs come back, the pain continues for people left with higher personal debt, deferred rent payments and other financial problems. Unfortunately, this financial meltdown was the second time in just over a decade that millions of people have been thrown out of work. Those shocks to the economy have cast in sharp relief just how tenuous some jobs can be, particularly in a consumer-driven economy. Yet, for better or worse, we’re stuck with our capitalist system. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find ways to make it work more equitably for everyone, particularly those most vulnerable to layoffs and financial hardship. As the gap in income equality widened over the past few decades — and put a drag on social mobility — it became imperative that we find ways to shore up the fortunes of those benefiting the least, or only sporadically, from our economic system. Notably, people who lose jobs during a downturn are often the same people who don’t fully share in the wealth generated during upturns. Jobs and careers and the ability to accumulate wealth are part of a complicated set of relationships weighted by class, race, gender, geographic regions, educational levels and access to capital. It’s no coincidence that income inequality worsened as union membership and power dwindled under shifting federal protections, the spread of “right to work” laws in the South and Midwest, concerted anti-union efforts by employers, and the transition of the economy away from manufacturing to services. California is a relatively strong labor state with protections for collective bargaining and other workers’ rights augmenting federal standards under the Depression-era National Labor Relations Act, yet union membership here, driven by the public sector, is still about 15% of the work force — higher than the national average of about 10% but well below the peak of 70 years ago. when about a third of the non-farm workforce nationwide was in a union. Nevertheless, two-thirds of workers support unions. We can do more to shore up collective bargaining and reimagine the role played by unions, which historically have been a democratizing force for workers and a counterweight to the cultural deification of CEOs. Our union system is enterprise-based — unions organize workers for a specific company. In Europe bargaining often is done by sector, so unions are able to negotiate basic contract terms across an industry, a lift-all-boats approach. Federal law recognizes workers’ rights to organize unions, but the laws and regulations guiding how that is done are stacked in favor of companies. Employees active in organizing campaigns often are fired or dismissed for pretextual causes, then left with an often years-long legal fight to right the wrong. Fear of getting fired is a palpable thing, and a hurdle for trying to persuade workers to band together to fight for their own interests. The need for strong unions is most pronounced in workplaces where labor abuses are more prevalent, and retaliation more likely. We need much stronger protections and faster decisions — with real penalties for employers — for workers who try to exercise their right to collective bargaining. But unions also face cultural headwinds. Relatively few people understand labor history and its role in defining the contours of working life even for nonunion workers, including the norms of an eight-hour day and two-day weekend. Shoring up that knowledge could help enhance unions’ image. Many unions also have largely aligned themselves with liberal political positions beyond labor issues, putting them at odds with a large share of their members. Many also have become contract-negotiating, rules-enforcing mini-bureaucracies (with their own internal turf battles) that can lose sight of the fundamental role of empowering workers themselves. Organized labor needs to do a better job making the case for its own (significant) relevance. There are ways to improve union support. Under the Ghent system (named for the Belgian city where it began), unions deliver some government work-related services, such as handling unemployment claims and payouts, which gives unions a revenue stream as contractors while enhancing their image among workers. A related concept: economic democracy, expanding corporate and workplace decision-making to include workers and communities with seats for labor on boards of directors. And union-contracted profit-sharing. Beyond strengthening unionization, our economic system must better address the needs of workers as they lose jobs and seek new ones. Before the pandemic struck, the economy had reached what economists call “full employment,” but that is a misnomer for the slack necessary in the labor market to keep wage growth from overheating. By definition “full employment” means 5 to 6 million people out of work at any given time, a count that does not include the underemployed. Nor does it measure those working at poverty wages. Clearly we need to explore better approaches, including reviving New Deal-style government jobs programs to provide employment to people working part-time for lack of a full-time opportunity and to those whose jobs have disappeared completely, while also providing a continued connection to working life for those who face long-term unemployment or who have simply given up looking. Another model: Many states — including California — have adopted “work share” programs patterned after European initiatives in which the government temporarily underwrites lost wages from short-term cuts in paid work hours. That lets companies reduce labor costs during a downturn without the trauma of laying off workers, effectively putting the business into semi-hibernation until things pick up. That’s a good cushion for workers as well as employers, who are then better positioned to weather downturns without the expenses associated with severance packages and the eventual hiring and training of new workers. (Disclosure: The Times used the California work share program to avoid layoffs of NewsGuild-represented employees from mid-May 2020 through late July). Of course, not all layoffs are temporary. What happens when a layoff becomes permanent — when there is no job to go back to? In a robust sector of the economy, lateral moves are possible. But when an entire industry is crumbling, workers need help transitioning to new careers, something the nation has grappled with — often unsuccessfully — during prior recessions that saw collapses in the steel and auto industries. We’re seeing something similar happening now in the retail sector as more customers shop online, and in the oil-and-gas sector as future demand for fossil fuels will drop and the need for more renewable energy sources will surge. Retail clerks and oil rig workers tend not to have the skill set to move into, say, building solar or wind farms, a fast-growing sector of the economy. So we need a flexible and reliable system for helping workers transition into a different field of work, such as more robust training and apprenticeship programs. Many jobs and careers are fluid. The median amount of time workers spent with their current employer before the pandemic was 4.6 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but that varied widely by age. For workers between the ages of 55 and 64, the median tenure was 10.1 years; for workers between ages 25 and 34, the median was 2.8 years. Union contracts tend to protect the tenure of longer-serving workers during layoffs, leaving workers who have less tenure, and who often are younger, more at risk for layoff. Younger workers have more time to recover financially from a job loss though they risk derailed career trajectories. Older laid-off workers often have trouble landing a comparable new job at a time in their lives when they should be maximizing earnings and savings for retirement. We need to find ways to both keep younger workers on an upward trajectory and help older workers remain in the work force, while shoring up retirement income options for all. Will we have the will to make these and other changes? To craft a more supportive safety net for workers and businesses, for more flexibility regarding when and where the work gets done? The pandemic and resulting economic jolt have been disastrous, but also illuminating. We as a society should take this opportunity to improve the way we do things and affix our own silver lining to this particular dark cloud. Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 7, 2021 Opinion June 8, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 10, 2021 Opinion June 6, 2021 Opinion June 11, 2021

Why is Vice President Kamala Harris going to Guatemala and Mexico?

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-06/why-is-vice-president-kamala-harris-going-to-guatemala-and-mexico

When Vice President Kamala Harris leaves Sunday night for her first official trip out of the country, she won’t be going far or for long. Guatemala and Mexico are closer to Washington than her home in California, and she’ll spend just a day in each country. But the stakes are big, for Harris and the country. The trip will be her most high-profile act yet on the first international assignment President Biden gave her, in March, to tackle the root causes of migration from the Central American countries in what is known as the Northern Triangle — Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. “This is a historic moment,” said Sergio Gonzalez, who advised Harris on immigration issues when she was a senator from California. “This is going to be the first time that other nations receive a vice president of the United States who is a woman of color.” Mexico is crucial to Harris’ portfolio as the transit route for migrants heading to the U.S. Martha Bárcena, former Mexican ambassador to Washington, said the vice president will help define U.S. relations with its southern neighbor. “It will be the first impression of a high-level official of the new U.S. administration to Mexico,” Bárcena said Friday in a discussion held by the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. Soon after Harris returns Tuesday, Biden will take his maiden overseas trip as president, for summits with allies in Britain and Belgium, followed by his first meeting as president with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Switzerland. Here is a primer on the issues Harris will be confronting in her diplomatic debut. Harris has said repeatedly that people don’t want to leave their homes unless they feel they have no choice. Increasingly large numbers of families and children without their parents have been driven to make dangerous and expensive journeys north because of poverty, crime, drug cartels, destructive hurricanes, the COVID-19 pandemic and loss of faith in their governments, she argues. Ana Maria Mendez, who is based in Guatemala City as Central America director for the nonprofit Oxfam, agreed and said families that have less than $100 in savings borrow from loan sharks to pay $10,000 to smugglers because they feel they have no alternative. For those who remain behind, seeing off their relatives is “almost like burial,” she said, given migrants’ risks of rape, abuse and death, and the reality that they may never return. “It’s a desperate march toward the north, and it’s unstoppable because people are literally suffering of hunger, severe malnutrition,” Mendez said. Many Republicans place the blame elsewhere. They say lax border security and the belief that Biden is softer on illegal immigration than former President Trump have spurred migrants north. Chronic poverty and violence have been years in the making, partly due to past decades’ proxy wars in the region between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union. Drug trafficking dates to that time. More recently, Trump embraced regional leaders despite their opposition to anti-corruption programs. Harris has emphasized that none of this will be fixed quickly. She told reporters Wednesday that she wants to discuss what the U.S. can do to “support the folks who need help in terms of hunger, the economic development piece, the extreme weather.” The administration has begun several actions, including recruiting businesses such as Nespresso, Microsoft and MasterCard to start investment programs with federal subsidies, and ramping up aid that Trump cut. Harris in April announced an additional $310million for the region. Additionally, the U.S. vaccine-sharing program gives priority to Northern Triangle countries as part of a tranche of 6 million doses for South and Central America. To reduce corruption, the administration is channeling as much aid as possible through third-party groups. Yet most nongovernmental groups lack the capacity to handle billions of dollars in assistance. Harris has said that in meeting with leaders in the region, she’ll have “very frank and honest discussions about the need to address corruption, to address crime and violence, and in particular against some of the most vulnerable populations.” The administration also wants to send additional border enforcement officers to the region and has begun building “migrant resource centers” — the first is set to open in Guatemala — to allow people to apply to migrate or seek asylum from their home countries without making the perilous trek north. She will have face-to-face meetings with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and will visit with U.S. embassy staffs as well as local entrepreneurs and labor representatives. Stephen Johnson, who advised the George W. Bush administration on the region, said corruption will probably be mentioned obliquely in public statements when Harris meets with Giammattei, but “in the private conversations, I think it will be a bit more pointed.” It’s difficult to meet many average citizens on these trips, given the time limits and protocol and security requirements. But it’s possible Harris will make one or two unannounced stops in places where she can meet la gente for photo ops and build some goodwill with local populations. Good question, and it underscores her challenge. Harris has avoided direct talks with the increasingly authoritarian Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, whose brother was recently sentenced to life in prison by a federal judge in Manhattan for drug trafficking in a case that implicated the Honduran president. Lower-level administration officials have met with their counterparts in El Salvador and Honduras. But the leaders are still off-limits. That’s not to sanctify Guatemala and Mexico. López Obrador regularly attacks the free press and independent watchdogs, and Guatemala in 2019 abolished an internationally backed agency that fought corruption. No. Harris has avoided the U.S.-Mexico border, and her staff has pointed out that her task does not include fixing conditions there or in the overburdened immigration system. Republicans have been critical, seeing immigration as one of Democrats’ political liabilities. Some Democrats and experts on the region also say Harris ought to consider going. Noah Gottschalk, Oxfam America’s head of global policy, said Harris’ work on the underlying causes of migration underscores the White House’s “deeply hypocritical” border policy. While the administration recognizes the bleak and dangerous conditions in the Northern Triangle, he said, it has been sending back people who flee, citing an obscure 1944 public-health law known as Title 42. The administration wants more help from Mexico in turning away Central Americans before they reach the U.S. But that’s controversial for López Obrador, a populist who doesn’t want to be seen as America’s enforcer. Also, he likely will be preoccupied with the results of his country’s provincial and congressional election Sunday, a day before Harris arrives. Anyone who has read this far knows she’s got a tough assignment. Harris has avoided outlining what success means. Biden had a similar job when he was vice president under President Obama, and, well, here we are. Still, the effort is giving Harris some prominence in the foreign policy arena — which is important for anyone with aspirations to the presidency.

As political tensions spike in Israel, Netanyahu — Trump-style — accuses rival of 'fraud'

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-06/al-jazeera-reporter-hospitalized-after-being-detained-by-israeli-police

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unleashed a harsh verbal attack Sunday against his potential replacement, rightist rival Naftali Bennett, declaring it would constitute the “greatest election fraud” in Israel’s history if his own reign as the country’s longest-serving leader were ended. With a parliamentary vote of confidence in a prospective new Israeli government to take place as early as Wednesday, Bennett, 49, retorted that it was time for the 71-year-old prime minister, his onetime mentor, to “let go and allow Israel to move forward.” In the wake of four inconclusive national elections, political passions are running high in advance of the showdown between Netanyahu and a diverse coalition arrayed against him, which is drawn from Israel’s political left, right and center. Israel’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet, issued an unusual warning over the weekend that rising political incitement could lead to violence, and security has been tightened for several members of the “change coalition” seeking to unseat Netanyahu, who is being tried on corruption charges. In an address to members of his conservative Likud party on Sunday, Netanyahu lambasted Bennett over earlier pledges that he would not join forces with centrist politician Yair Lapid, the coalition’s leader, or with other participants in the new political grouping seeking to oust him. Under an accord struck last week, Bennett and Lapid would share the prime minister’s job on a rotating basis, with Bennett taking the first turn. World & Nation The 11-day war between Israel and Hamas delivered a hammer blow to Gaza, where the pandemic and a blockade make recovery seem a distant prospect. Denouncing that alliance, Netanyahu told party allies, “We are witnesses to the greatest election fraud in the history of the country and, in my opinion, the history of democracies.” “People justifiably feel deceived,” he told the gathering in remarks that were broadcast nationwide. Critics swiftly pointed out that the accusations hurled by Netanyahu were reminiscent of rhetoric employed by former President Trump, a loyal booster over the past four years. In addition to excoriating Bennett as dishonest, Netanyahu characterized his rivals as radical leftists whose lack of resolve would leave the country vulnerable to external security threats. The prime minister also sought to deflect accusations that his supporters were creating a dangerous climate with virulent threats against some members of the coalition. Instead, he painted his own camp as the victim, asserting that “incitement toward us runs rampant.” In a complaint that further echoed the airing of Trump-stye grievances, Netanyahu railed against what he called attempts to “silence” his supporters on social media. Those include his son Yair, some of whose social media accounts were temporarily suspended after he shared a post providing the home address of a lawmaker the prime minister’s allies were pressuring to vote against the coalition. World & Nation As the latest cease-fire continues to hold, competing claims to Jerusalem by Israel and Palestinians will likely fuel new fighting, both sides say. The outbreak of political turmoil comes only a little over two weeks after a cease-fire that ended a deadly 11-day exchange of fire by the Israeli military and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip. Fallout from that cross-border violence continued to be felt in Jerusalem, where Sunday saw fresh confrontations between Israeli authorities and protesters in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. Palestinians have been struggling to stave off property seizures by Jewish settlers who have been laying claim to a number of Palestinian homes that the new arrivals say were previously Jewish-owned. Israeli law allows for such assertions of property rights by Jews but prohibits Palestinians from making similar claims on land and homes they were forced to relinquish decades earlier in Jewish West Jerusalem. Activists and family members said Israeli police earlier Sunday arrested a 23-year-old woman, Muna al-Kurd, from one of the Palestinian families fighting eviction, who has helped lead weeks of protests that at times have been harshly suppressed by police. A day earlier, Israeli police in Sheikh Jarrah forcefully detained Givara Budeiri, a well-known journalist with the TV network Al Jazeera. Both women were released after hours in custody. Adding to tensions in Jerusalem, Jewish nationalists have unveiled plans to march Thursday through sensitive parts of the Old City. Previously, their planned parade through Muslim areas was rerouted just before the eruption of Gaza hostilities on May 10. It was not yet clear whether the police and government would allow the new march to proceed. In Tel Aviv, Bennett and Lapid held a meeting of all eight parties participating in the coalition, with police guarding the seaside hotel where the gathering convened. Outside, a few dozen demonstrators shouted their support for the coalition to remove Netanyahu, who has been prime minister for the past dozen years, in addition to a three-year tenure in the mid to late 1990s. Netanyahu and his camp have been seeking to delay or derail the parliamentary vote, whose timing is in large measure controlled by the speaker of the Knesset, Yair Levin, who is a supporter of the prime minister. Levin, addressing the same Likud party event that Netanyahu did, denounced the prospective new government as “based on abysmal hatred.” Israeli media reports said Levin could allow a parliamentary vote of confidence as early as Wednesday, but only if the prime minister and his allies believe they could prevail against the new coalition. Lapid last week told Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, that he had secured the backing of a razor-thin majority in the 120-seat Knesset. The vote could be put off until June 14, a week after the coalition is expected to be formally introduced to lawmakers. World & Nation Past fighting between Israel and Hamas offers a window into current conflict — and how it could end

El Salvador president wants Bitcoin as legal tender

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-06-05/el-salvador-president-wants-bitcoin-as-legal-tender

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced in a recorded message played at a Bitcoin conference in Miami on Saturday that next week he will send legislation to the country’s congress that would make the cryptocurrency legal tender in the Central American nation. The 39-year-old president, who has been criticized for his anti-democratic maneuvers but has maintained approval ratings above 90%, characterized it as an idea that could help El Salvador move forward. “Next week I will send to congress a bill that will make Bitcoin a legal tender in El Salvador,” Bukele said. “In the short term this will generate jobs and help provide financial inclusion to thousands outside the formal economy, and in the medium and long term we hope that this small decision can help us push humanity at least a tiny bit into the right direction.” The U.S. dollar is El Salvador’s official currency. About one-quarter of El Salvador’s citizens live in the United States, and last year, despite the pandemic, they sent home more than $6 billion in remittances. Bukele’s New Ideas party holds a supermajority in the new congress seated May 1, giving any legislative proposal from the president a strong likelihood of passage. World & Nation With his carefully crafted social media presence and populist politics, Nayib Bukele has become one of the most popular politicians on Earth. Now just one question remains: What does he want? Additional details of the plan were not released. But Bukele in subsequent messages on Twitter, his preferred mode of communication, noted that Bitcoin could be “the fastest growing way to transfer 6 billion dollars a year in remittances.” He said that a big chunk of those money transfers were currently lost to intermediaries and with Bitcoin more than a million low-income families could benefit. He also said 70% of El Salvador’s population does not have a bank account and works in the informal economy. Bitcoin could improve financial inclusion, he said. Riding his high popularity and his party’s dominant performance in Feb. 28 elections, Bukele has concentrated power, raising concerns internationally about his authoritarianism. His party’s supermajority in congress ousted the justices of the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court on May 1, and then replaced the attorney general. Podcasts El Salvador’s meme-loving, press-hating autocratic president, Nayib Bukele The justices and attorney general had been critical of some of Bukele’s measures during the pandemic, including a mandatory stay-at-home order and containment centers where those caught violating the policy were detained. While enjoying a good relationship with former President Trump, who similarly was criticized for authoritarian tendencies, Bukele has had a much more tense relationship with the administration of President Biden. Last month, the White House special envoy for the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, Ricardo Zúñiga, said during a visit to El Salvador that the U.S. government would like to see the Salvadoran government reverse the moves against the court and the attorney general. Bukele said that would not happen. Bukele’s concentration of power, attacks on critics and open disdain for checks on his power have raised concerns about El Salvador’s path. However, Bukele has a wide base of support in part due to the failures of the country’s traditional parties who ruled during the last 30 years and to his ability to provide short-term benefits. Bukele has been praised for aggressively obtaining COVID-19 vaccines and running an efficient vaccination program, far more successful than El Salvador’s neighbors.

High school basketball: City boys’ and girls’ playoff results and updated pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-05/high-school-basketball-city-boys-girls-playoff-results-pairings-saturday

CITY BOYS’ BASKETBALL OPEN DIVISION Quarterfinals, Saturday unless noted Westchester 64, El Camino Real 45 (Friday) King/Drew 61, Narbonne 52 (Friday) Fairfax 72, Granada Hills 34 Birmingham 101, Grant 75 Semifinals, Wednesday, 7 p.m. #5 King/Drew at #1 Westchester #3 Fairfax at #2 Birmingham NOTES: Championship, June 12, 7:30 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION I Quarterfinals, Saturday Chatsworth 68, Sun Valley Poly 56 Palisades 52, Gardena 50 Crenshaw 79, Los Angeles University 57 Venice 54, Taft 43 Semifinals, Wednesday, 7 p.m. #5 Palisades at #1 Chatsworth #3 Crenshaw at #2 Venice NOTES: Championship, Friday, 7 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION II Quarterfinals, Saturday Arleta 57, Verdugo Hills 52 Los Angeles Hamilton 65, South East 62 Granada Hills Kennedy 65, Los Angeles Roosevelt 61 Los Angeles Marshall 60, San Pedro 54 Semifinals, Wednesday, 7 p.m. unless noted #4 Los Angeles Hamilton at #1 Arleta #7 Los Angeles Marshall at #6 Granada Hills Kennedy, 4:30 p.m. NOTES: Championship, June 12, 3:30 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION III Quarterfinals, Saturday Bell 51, San Fernando 40 Los Angeles CES 71, Rancho Dominguez 34 Monroe 45, North Hollywood 33 Los Angeles Wilson 57, Bravo 53 Semifinals, Wednesday, 7 p.m. #4 Los Angeles CES at #1 Bell #11 Monroe at #7 Los Angeles Wilson NOTES: Championship, Friday, 4 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION IV Quarterfinals, Saturday Legacy 48, Maywood CES 29 Larchmont 59, Huntington Park 49 Franklin 57, Los Angeles Kennedy 43 Marquez 46, Harbor Teacher 37 Semifinals, Wednesday, 7 p.m. #5 Larchmont at #1 Legacy #3 Franklin at #2 Marquez NOTES: Championship, June 12, 12 p.m. at higher seed. CITY GIRLS’ BASKETBALL OPEN DIVISION Quarterfinals, Friday unless noted Palisades 85, Garfield 41 (Thursday) El Camino Real 47, Crenshaw 39 (Saturday) Los Angeles Hamilton 52, Narbonne 35 Birmingham 69, Westchester 52 (Saturday) Semifinals, Wednesday, 7 p.m. unless noted #4 El Camino Real at #1 Palisades #3 Los Angeles Hamilton at #2 Birmingham, 5 p.m. NOTES: Championship, June 12, 7 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION I Quarterfinals, Saturday Los Angeles CES 37, North Hollywood 22 Taft 42, Legacy 41 King/Drew 50, Fairfax 25 Los Angeles Marshall 51, Venice 32 Semifinals, Wednesday, 7 p.m. #4 Taft at #1 Los Angeles CES #3 King/Drew at #2 Los Angeles Marshall NOTES: Championship, Friday, 7 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION II Quarterfinals, Saturday San Pedro 44, Bell 41 Sun Valley Poly 56, Bravo 42 South Gate 35, Arleta 22 San Fernando 54, Los Angeles Roosevelt 42 Semifinals, Wednesday, 7 p.m. #4 Sun Valley Poly at #1 San Pedro #3 South Gate at #2 San Fernando NOTES: Championship, June 12, 3:30 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION III Quarterfinals, Saturday Los Angeles Wilson 55, Reseda 24 Marquez 37, Central City Value 36 Verdugo Hills 67, Mendez 19 Granada Hills Kennedy 59, Los Angeles Kennedy 25 Semifinals, Wednesday, 7 p.m. #4 Marquez at #1 Los Angeles Wilson #3 Verdugo Hills at #2 Granada Hills Kennedy NOTES: Championship, Friday, 4 p.m. at higher seed. DIVISION IV Quarterfinals, Saturday Franklin 73, Hawkins 3 Maywood CES 39, Huntington Park 31 North Valley Military 62, Larchmont 27 Animo Bunche 23, Roybal 14 Semifinals, Wednesday, 7 p.m. #5 Maywood CES at #1 Franklin #6 North Valley Military at #2 Animo Bunche NOTES: Championship, June 12, 12 p.m. at higher seed.

UCLA's season and Rachel Garcia's storied career end with WCWS loss to Oklahoma

https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2021-06-05/uclas-season-rachel-garcias-storied-career-end-loss-to-oklahoma-wcws

It took six years and an all-time great career, but the emotions finally overwhelmed Rachel Garcia. The pitcher known for her stoic demeanor broke down in tears after leaving the field for the last time as a UCLA player Saturday. Garcia exited the game after giving up a seventh run in a 10-3 loss to No. 1 Oklahoma and cried with coach Kelly Inouye-Perez in the dugout. “She was put in a position again to have to do it all, but nobody blames her,” Inouye-Perez said. “I told her, ‘This is not about something you have to prove. You have left your mark on the game.’ … I will take Rachel Garcia any day.” Garcia overcame a two-hour weather delay and drove in No. 2 UCLA’s only runs with a three-run home run in the third inning but couldn’t hold down the potent Sooners offense. Making her third start in as many days, the Tokyo-bound 24-year-old gave up nine hits, eight runs (six earned) and three walks with seven strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings. Highlights from Oklahoma’s win over UCLA in the Women’s College World Series on Saturday. Along with being a rematch of the 2019 national final that UCLA won, the titanic No. 1 vs. No. 2 clash showcased opposing styles. The Sooners (52-3) boast one of the most explosive offenses in NCAA history. The Bruins (47-7) had a pitching staff that entered the tournament with the nation’s second-best earned-run average. A pitcher did star in the game, but it wasn’t Garcia. Oklahoma’s Giselle Juarez held the Bruins scoreless after entering with a three-run deficit. The redshirt senior who pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings of Oklahoma’s six-inning, 8-0 win over Georgia on Saturday morning enacted her revenge after losing to the Bruins in the 2019 championship by limiting UCLA to three hits in five innings with one walk and four strikeouts. UCLA Sports Montana Fouts had a 21st birthday to remember, pitching a perfect game with 14 strikeouts in a 6-0 win over UCLA in the Women’s College World Series. June 4, 2021 After the Bruins failed to get on base against Alabama on Friday, they bounced back with nine hits Saturday, but also left nine on base. Garcia, who was 0 for 5 at the plate in the first two games, got UCLA on the board with a three-run shot to right field. It was a final highlight of a career that Inouye-Perez believes belongs to the best two-way player. Ever. “Lisa, you were pretty good,” Inouye-Perez said, referring to a conversation she had with assistant coach Lisa Fernandez, “but Rachel has come up clutch offensively more than you ever did.” Garcia was one of UCLA’s five NFCA All-Americans, and the stacked roster was a key reason why winning another national championship seemed like a foregone conclusion for the Bruins. Then it unraveled. A hand injury sustained by Megan Faraimo diminished UCLA’s elite pitching staff entering the Women’s College World Series and left Garcia to fend for herself against hitters who had studied her over four appearances in Oklahoma City. UCLA’s defense made mental mistakes. Two UCLA errors in the fourth inning resulted in two unearned Oklahoma runs that gave the Sooners the lead. It has been quite a ride this season. Ups. Downs. But we were a TEAM all year long. LOVE. THIS. TEAM!Thank you for following us this season. 💙💛#GoBruins pic.twitter.com/J3E0GBWGFw After the Sooners plated two more with one out in the sixth to extend the lead to four runs and chase Garcia from the circle, the Oklahoma crowd behind the team’s dugout chanted, “We aren’t done yet.” The Sooners, who scored three more runs, weren’t done, but Garcia is.

High school girls’ basketball: Southern Section playoff results and updated pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-05/high-school-girls-basketball-southern-section-playoff-results-saturday

SOUTHERN SECTION GIRLS’ BASKETBALL OPEN DIVISION, Saturday unless noted POOL A Corona Centennial (3-0) 92 (Monday), Orangewood Academy (0-3) 54 (Monday) Windward (2-1) 76, West Torrance (1-2) 58 POOL B Mater Dei (3-0) 61, Harvard-Westlake (2-1) 58 (Friday) Etiwanda (1-2) 72, Lynwood (0-3) 71 DIVISION 1 Semifinals, Saturday unless noted Long Beach Poly 66, Anaheim Fairmont Prep 41 (Monday) Esperanza 61, Rosary 56 DIVISION 2AA Semifinals, Saturday Alemany 74, Leuzinger 57 Cajon 69, Burbank Burroughs 59 DIVISION 2A Semifinals, Saturday Eisenhower 78, Sonora 66 Paloma Valley 61, Westlake 45 DIVISION 3AA Semifinals, Saturday unless noted Ontario Christian 62, Chaparral 43 #2 Sage Hill at #3 La Quinta, Tuesday, 7 p.m. DIVISION 3A Semifinals, Saturday San Dimas 66, South Pasadena 60 (OT) Ayala 62, Cerritos Valley Christian 49 DIVISION 4AA Semifinals, Saturday Mary Star 57, Immaculate Heart 40 Agoura 47, Burbank Providence 37 DIVISION 4A Semifinals, Saturday Rancho Christian 45, Pilibos 33 Newport Harbor 75, Santa Ana Calvary Chapel 43 DIVISION 5AA Semifinals, Saturday Faith Baptist 33, Ramona 25 Trinity Classical 63, Avalon 41 DIVISION 5A Semifinals, Saturday unless noted Newport Beach Pacifica Christian 54, St. Bernard 31 Louisville 70, Capistrano Valley Christian 40 (Monday) Championships, Thursday, 7 p.m. unless noted Open Division: #2 Mater Dei at #1 Corona Centennial, 5:30 p.m. Division 1: Esperanza at #1 Long Beach Poly Division 2AA: Cajon at #1 Alemany Division 2A: Eisenhower at #2 Paloma Valley Division 3AA: #1 Ontario Christian at #2 Sage Hill OR #3 La Quinta at #1 Ontario Christian Division 3A: San Dimas at Ayala Division 4AA: #2 Agoura at #4 Mary Star Division 4A Rancho Christian at #2 Newport Harbor, Wednesday, 7 p.m. Division 5AA: Faith Baptist vs. #2 Trinity Classical at Master’s U. (Santa Clarita), Friday, 5 p.m. Division 5A: #3 Louisville at #1 Newport Beach Pacifica Christian

High school wrestling: Southern Section dual-meet championships

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-05/high-school-wrestling-southern-section-dual-meet-championships

SOUTHERN SECTION BOYS’ WRESTLING Dual meet championships, Saturday Division 1: Temecula Valley 34, St. John Bosco 23 Division 2: Santa Ana Calvary Chapel 37, Northview 21 Division 3: San Clemente 52, Roysl 21 Division 4: South Torrance 42, Millikan 28 Division 5: Mayfair 37, El Modena 33 Division 6: Western 40, Corona del Mar 21 SOUTHERN SECTION GIRLS’ WRESTLING Dual meet championship, Wednesday Corona 42, Northview 40

Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw are bruised by bad inning in loss to Braves

https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2021-06-05/dodgers-and-clayton-kershaw-are-bruised-by-bad-inning-in-loss-to-braves

A downpour spattered Truist Park on Saturday evening, forcing the grounds crew to roll out the detested white tarp less than two hours before first pitch of the Dodgers’ 6-4 loss to the Atlanta Braves. Thunder rolled. Lightning struck. But the elements didn’t impede Corey Seager. He emerged to play catch in shallow left field anyway. “I don’t want to get behind a day, you know?” Seager said. The Dodgers shortstop is still in recovery mode after fracturing the fifth metacarpal, the bone at the base of his pinky finger, in his right hand when he was hit by a pitch three weeks ago. He started playing catch and gripping exercises recently, but he hasn’t been cleared to take two-handed swings. Batting practice is the final step before going on a rehabilitation assignment. He said doesn’t know when he’ll reach it. He said he could ultimately miss eight weeks before returning to the Dodgers. He said he hasn’t set a target date. Patience is key. “I try to not do that, to be honest with you, because you’re just going to get mad one way or the other,” Seager said. “So I’ve just tried to be a good boy so far. Just let them tell me when I can do things.” Seager followed the team’s direction by staying back in Los Angeles to rehab the last time the Dodgers were on the road. But he wanted to join the team for this trip, to just be around the team. On Saturday, he watched, after the rain delayed the start of the game 20 minutes, Clayton Kershaw give up five two-out runs in the third inning on five hits and a costly walk to Ronald Acuña Jr. Ozzie Albies and Dansby Swanson both contributed two-run doubles as Kershaw yielded at least five runs in consecutive starts for the first time since June 2011. “Not what you want to do,” Kershaw said. “Frustrating for me. Battled as best I could. Got through six, which I guess was somewhat of a positive, but just a frustrating inning.” The left-hander shut down the Braves (27-29) otherwise — he recorded nine strikeouts to one walk and threw 95 pitches in six innings — but the Dodgers (34-24) couldn’t overcome the Braves’ outburst. A night after scoring nine runs on four hits in a win, the Dodgers produced a run against Charlie Morton in the first inning on a hit by pitch, a fielder’s choice and two of the Braves’ four errors. They broke up Morton’s no-hitter in the fourth inning, adding three runs with four hits to cut the Braves’ lead to one. But they didn’t score again without Max Muncy in the lineup because of a sprained right ankle. The Dodgers could’ve used Seager in the two-hole, working behind Mookie Betts in the leadoff spot. A setback is never easy, but he said his experience with significant injuries — he missed most of the 2018 season after Tommy John surgery and a chunk of the 2019 campaign because of a hamstring strain — has helped him deal with the frustration that’s accompanied the broken hand. The last time the Dodgers faced the Braves, in the NLCS last October, Seager was in the middle of everything and was named NLCS MVP. He followed that up by earning World Series MVP. It was a glimpse into his potential as an elite hitter, and ideal timing ahead of his final season before hitting free agency. Then he got off to a slow start at the plate — he has a .265 batting average, four home runs and a .783 OPS in 37 games — and made unusual defensive lapses on balls in the hole. Then he broke his hand. Does Seager, who has played in just over half of the Dodgers’ games the last four seasons, worry that he’ll hit free agency with the injury-plagued label on him? Highlights from the Dodgers’ 6-4 road loss to the Atlanta Braves on Saturday. “No, because everything in the past was a surgery-based, and I haven’t had those problems since,” Seager said. “It’s not like a muscle where you could’ve stretched, you could’ve drank more water, you could’ve done something to be ready. This is just kind of, you play a game and stuff like this can happen, and that’s what happened.” The Dodgers put reliever Brusdar Graterol on a rehab assignment with triple-A Oklahoma City last week presumably because they planned on placing him on their roster once he was ready to come off the injured list. That didn’t happen. Instead, the Dodgers ended the 22-year-old Graterol’s rehab assignment Friday night by activating him from the injured list and optioning him to Oklahoma City. “He’s healthy,” manager Dave Roberts said. “The ball is coming out [fine], but the slider is not as consistent as it needs to be.”

High school boys’ volleyball: Southern Section championship results

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-05/high-school-boys-volleyball-southern-section-championship-results

SOUTHERN SECTION BOYS’ VOLLEYBALL CHAMPIONSHIPS Saturday unless noted Division 1: Mira Costa def. Newport Harbor, 25-15, 23-25, 25-13, 25-21 (Friday) Division 2: Santa Barbara def. Huntington Beach, 25-21, 25-18, 29-31, 21-25, 15-9 Division 3: Long Beach Wilson def. St. Francis, 25-13, 25-14, 20-25, 26-24 Division 4: Marina def. Cerritos Valley Christian, 28-26, 25-21, 25-23 Division 5: King def. Westminster La Quinta, 25-14, 25-11, 24-26, 25-19 Division 6: Capistrano Valley Christian def. Orange, 25-15, 25-13, 25-19

High school softball: Southern Section playoff results and updated pairings

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-05/high-school-softball-southern-section-saturday-playoff-results-pairings

SOUTHERN SECTION SOFTBALL DIVISION 1 Second round, Saturday Norco 10, Orange Lutheran 0 Los Alamitos 5, La Mirada 0 Murrieta Mesa 1, Crescenta Valley 0 (8) Esperanza 13, La Serna 0 Garden Grove Pacifica 5, Vista Murrieta 3 Eastvale Roosevelt 4, Ayala 0 Chino Hills 10, South Torrance 0 Mater Dei 3, Huntington Beach 2 Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 3:15 p.m. #1 Norco at Los Alamitos Murrieta Mesa at #4 Esperanza Eastvale Roosevelt at #3 Garden Grove Pacifica Chino Hills at Mater Dei DIVISION 2 Second round, Saturday Camarillo 2, La Habra 0 Riverside Poly 4, Rio Mesa 2 San Dimas 3, Warren 2 Upland 8, Glendora 2 Westlake 5, South Hills 4 Grand Terrace 8, Etiwanda 5 Downey 9, Diamond Ranch 1 Villa Park 6, St. Paul 0 Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 3:15 p.m. unless noted #1 Camarillo at Riverside Poly #4 Upland 6, San Dimas 0 (Monday) #3 Westlake at Grand Terrace #2 Villa Park at Downey DIVISION 3 Second round, Saturday unless noted Whittier Christian 10, Highland 1. Cerritos 12, Chino 1 Culver City 2, North Torrance 1 Sultana 2, Louisville 1 (Monday) Beckman 9, Ramona 1 Arcadia 4, Aquinas 3 Redondo 12, Quartz Hill 6 Don Lugo 7, Charter Oak 3 Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 3:15 p.m. Cerritos at #1 Whittier Christian Culver City at Sultana Beckman at Arcadia Redondo at Don Lugo DIVISION 4 Second round, Saturday Summit 6, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 2 Hemet 5, Temple City 4 Sunny Hills 16, Santa Ana Calvary Chapel 1 Segerstrom 4, Newport Harbor 3 Arlington 8, La Canada 6 Oxnard 3, Temescal Canyon 2 Citrus Valley 4, Coachella Valley 0 Rosary 6, Long Beach Poly 1 Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 3:15 p.m. Hemet at Summit #4 Segerstrom at Sunny Hills #3 Arlington at Oxnard Citrus Valley at #2 Rosary DIVISION 5 Second round, Saturday unless noted Western Christian 14, Riverside North 4 Colton 7, Canyon Springs 3 Santa Clara 7, Burbank 3 Heritage Christian 9, Fillmore 4 San Marcos 2, Schurr 0 University Prep 7, Carter 4 (Monday) Ocean View 13, Ontario Christian 2 Capistrano Valley 12, Apple Valley 2 Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 3:15 p.m. #1 Western Christian at Colton Santa Clara at #4 Heritage Christian San Marcos at University Prep Ocean View at #2 Capistrano Valley DIVISION 6 Second round, Saturday unless noted St. Bonaventure 14, Sacred Heart 0 Lancaster 3, Twentynine Palms 2 (10) Alhambra 9, Rancho Alamitos 4 Arroyo 15, Downey Calvary Chapel 1 Lompoc 19, Faith Baptist 0 Rio Hondo Prep 2, Bloomington 1 (Friday) Azusa 10, Victor Valley 5 Orange Vista 3, Monrovia 1 Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 3:15 p.m. #1 St. Bonaventure at Lancaster #4 Arroyo at Alhambra Rio Hondo Prep at #3 Lompoc #2 Orange Vista at Azusa DIVISION 7 Second round, Saturday unless noted Southlands Christian 8, Lennox Academy 1 St. Monica 16, Academy of Careers & Exploration 6 Alverno 12, Riverside Bethel Christian 5 Glenn 10, Magnolia 0 Lakeside 11, Orangewood Academy 1 (Monday) Viewpoint 8, Riverside Prep 2 Cobalt 11, Da Vinci 9 Burbank Providence 11, Rim of the World 1 Quarterfinals, Tuesday, 3:15 p.m. unless noted St. Monica at #1 Southlands Christian Alverno at #4 Glenn, 5 p.m. #3 Lakeside at Viewpoint #2 Burbank Providence at Cobalt NOTES: Semifinals, Thursday. Championships, June 18-19 at Barber Park (Irvine).

Brody Malone wins first U.S. gymnastics title, with Tokyo Olympics in sight

https://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/story/2021-06-05/brody-malone-wins-us-gymnastics-title-tokyo-olympics

Brody Malone‘s summer calendar might be filling up quickly. The 21-year-old won his first U.S. men’s gymnastics title on Saturday night, shaking off an early miscue on parallel bars to post a two-day total of 170.700. The two-time NCAA champion’s victory gives him plenty of momentum heading into the U.S. Olympic Trials in St. Louis later this month. Malone acknowledged Thursday he didn’t feel much pressure, calling competing for Stanford at the NCAA championships far more nerve-wracking. Staked to a sizable lead after a polished performance on opening night, he appeared ready to give it away after ending up on the mat in the middle of his parallel bars set, his first event during finals. No matter. He responded by drilling his high bars set, where his 15.050 score was the best of the meet and the second-highest on any event. Olympics Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles hasn’t been flawless at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships on Friday, but she still finished with the top score on Friday. June 4, 2021 Yul Moldauer, the 2017 national champion, overcame a mistake on pommel horse to finish second. Six-time national champion and two-time Olympian Sam Mikulak atoned for an uncharacteristically sloppy performance by surging from seventh to third. Still, another fall on pommel horse during the second rotation ended any shot at cracking the top two. Mikulak’s all-around score of 167.400 included an 84.950 on Saturday that served as the best of the night. The Olympic selection committee is relying strictly on the performance at the trials to determine the five-man team. Malone has spent the last five months making a pretty compelling argument. He helped the Cardinal capture the NCAA team title in April and added an all-around title to bookend the one he earned as a freshman in 2019. Brody Malone is officially a U.S. all-around national champion. 🥇@brody1700 // #USGymChamps pic.twitter.com/SZa5DhMv0B Brody, however, has had the luxury of a regular schedule thanks to the NCAA season. Moldauer, Mikulak and Shane Wiskus not so much. Mikulak hadn’t competed in nearly 15 months before he stepped onto the podium on Thursday. The 29-year-old said he ran out of gas during his final two events and stressed he would use Friday to regroup. He was brilliant on floor exercise to start the night before losing steam late in his pommel horse set and hopping off. It would be Mikualk’s only major misstep, a positive development for the lone constant in the U.S. men’s program since he made his first Olympic team in 2012. Mikulak saved his best moment for last, sticking the dismount on his high bar routine before roaring while pumping his fists. Sports Defending champions Rafael Nadal and Iga Swiatek each won Saturday to advance to the fourth round at the French Open. June 5, 2021 Wiskus, who moved from the University of Minnesota to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado last fall, was poised to push for one of the top four spots before a nightmarish turn on high bar in his last event. Wiskus saw his hands slip off three times to drop to ninth. Brandon Briones, Malone’s teammate at Stanford, finished fourth. Allan Bower, who put off going to medical school for a year after the Olympics were pushed back to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, came in fifth.

Los Angeles County reports 15 COVID-19 deaths, 285 new cases of the virus

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-05/los-angeles-county-reports-15-covid-deaths-285-new-cases

Two months ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom declared that California would be able to reopen its economy on June 15. Statewide, increasing vaccination rates and low hospitalization numbers seem to guarantee his prediction. But even with the prospect of lifted restrictions less than two weeks away, COVID-19 continues to spread in Los Angeles County with 15 new deaths and 285 new cases of the virus reported Saturday. Although life seems far different for many Angelenos than it did a few months ago, the weekly average of deaths and new cases prove that the virus remains a threat, especially for the elderly and infirm. In May, an average of 13 people died and 283 new cases of COVID-19 were reported each week. Those numbers are significantly lower than in January, when the county was reporting more than 15,000 cases and more than 200 deaths daily. But the toll is still significant. “With every death we report each day there is a grief and sorrow for the family and friends who must now cope with the loss of a loved one; to those we send our deepest condolences and wish you healing,” said Barbara Ferrer, L.A. County’s public health director, in a statement. California Los Angeles County’s director of public health wonders whether she could have better protected people living in the county’s poorest neighborhoods, which bore the brunt of the pandemic. June 5, 2021 The deaths are occurring among primarily unvaccinated individuals, said Ferrer, who emphasized the need for each person in the county 12 years and older to get vaccinated. To assist the effort, mobile vaccination teams have been deployed at 188 neighborhood sites for people who are unable to get to the established sites located in pharmacies, clinics, community sites and hospitals throughout the county. Each mobile clinic can vaccinate 200 people a day. Mobile teams have set up at the Antelope Valley Swap Meet and the Lancaster Flea Market, as well as the Palmdale Metrolink Station and the Del Amo Metro Station in Compton. Working with employers and community organizations, the teams are also at markets, schools, churches and senior centers. The county is also holding a vaccination sweepstakes. Those who are eligible have an opportunity to win season tickets to the 2021-22 home games for either the L.A. Football Club soccer team or the L.A. Dodgers. On Friday, Newsom drew winners of the first cash prizes in California’s COVID-19 vaccine lottery. Nearly $117 million will be paid out by June 15 in prizes that range from $50 gift cards to cash awards of $1.5 million. The incentive program is part of an effort to boost immunizations. Although more than 70% of the adult population in California has received at least one dose, vaccination rates have slowed and total immunizations are still below levels that experts say are necessary to achieve herd immunity.

Boy killed in freeway road rage shooting is mourned: 'Too pure and innocent for this world'

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-05/boy-killed-in-road-rage-shooting-on-55-freeway-is-mourned

At 6 years old, Aiden Leos had an uncanny ability to empathize with others. One day at the playground, a boy with autism flung himself to the ground. Most of the boys around him ran away. Aiden knelt down eye to eye with the boy, who had said he didn’t want to talk. “It’s OK. You don’t have to talk,” he said in a gentle voice, extending a hand to help the boy up. Then, the two played together. That was just one example of the kindness Aiden exuded during his short life, his mother, Joanna Cloonan, told the hundreds who attended a memorial service Saturday at Calvary Chapel Yorba Linda. Two weeks earlier, a gunman fatally shot Aiden during a suspected road rage incident on the 55 Freeway in Orange as his mother was driving him to kindergarten. Perhaps it was the sheer randomness of it — the everyday nature of a family’s morning commute, combined with the youth and innocence of the victim — that has garnered worldwide interest. The reward for information about the shooting quickly grew to $500,000, with donations coming in from politicians, a local cafe owner and many others. “If Aiden would like for anything to be transformed as he left this world and made his way to heaven, he would want all of us to love one another and be kind,” Cloonan said. “Violence is an unacceptable way to settle our differences. There is currently so much hurt and pain within our world. It’s become so apparent, and because of this, my son lost his life.” California A man accused of firing a BB gun at a car on the 91 Freeway vehemently disputed that charge in a jailhouse interview, saying authorities were “trying to get me to confess to things I didn’t do.” May 30, 2021 On the morning of May 21, Aiden was riding in a booster seat in the back of his mother’s car. According to what his mother later told another motorist, they were in the carpool lane when she started switching lanes to exit and another car cut her off. She gestured at the people inside and continued trying to get off the freeway. A bullet entered her car from the rear. She pulled over and took the bleeding boy into her arms. The California Highway Patrol has released photos of a white 2018 or 2019 Volkswagen Golf SportWagen suspected to be involved in the shooting. The driver was female, and investigators believe a man in the passenger seat fired the gun. During the memorial, which was streamed live for the public, Aiden’s mother, sister Alexis and grandmother recalled memories of the young boy they described as a “little empath” who was mature beyond his years. Alexis said her little brother was an “angel, too pure and innocent for this world.” Her voice trembled when she recalled how Aiden would call her “beautiful” or “so lovely.” She described a gleeful kid who liked to hum, tell jokes and make up silly dances. But there were some things that made him different from other children his age. For instance, she said, Aiden regularly came into her room to sit down on the floor next to her while she was on her computer. He would hold his teddy bear and just watch her. “Aren’t you bored just watching me type on my computer?” she’d ask him. “No. I’m OK. I just want to be with you,” he told her. Alexis described her brother’s death as the “worst pain I’ve ever gone through in my life” and lamented what would never be. “I don’t get to play ‘Mario Kart’ with my brother or take him to the park ever again because of the monster who took Aiden’s life,” she said. In her address, Cloonan urged viewers to look within themselves “for the world to become safe and harmonious for our children and their children to come.” On his sixth birthday, Cloonan said, Aiden made a wish as he blew out his candles. He looked at his family and said: “I just wish for everyone to be happy.”

Trump to GOP: Support candidates who 'stand for our values'

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-05/trump-to-gop-support-candidates-who-stand-for-our-values

Donald Trump on Saturday pushed Republicans to support candidates who are loyal to him in next year’s midterm elections as the former president launched a new more active phase of his post presidency. Trump, 74, teased the prospect of another presidential bid of his own in 2024, but vowed first to be an active presence on the campaign trail for those who share his values in next year’s fight for control of Congress. “The survival of America depends on our ability to elect Republicans at every level starting with the midterms next year,” Trump charged early in a rambling speech that spanned nearly an hour and a half. Trump’s speech to hundreds of Republican officials and activists gathered for the North Carolina GOP convention was the opening appearance in what is expected to be a new phase of rallies and public events. Out of office for more than four months and banned from his preferred social media accounts, the former president hopes to use such events to elevate his diminished voice ahead of another potential presidential run. His advisors are already eyeing subsequent appearances in Ohio, Florida, Alabama and Georgia to help bolster midterm candidates and energize voters. California Los Angeles County’s director of public health wonders whether she could have better protected people living in the county’s poorest neighborhoods, which bore the brunt of the pandemic. June 5, 2021 Some party leaders worry that a rise of pro-Trump candidates in the coming months could jeopardize the GOP’s fight for control of Congress in 2022. While Trump remains a dominant force within his party, he is deeply unpopular among key segments of the broader electorate. He lost the last election by 7 million votes after alienating Republican-leaning suburban voters across the country. In contrast to the mega rallies that filled sports arenas when Trump was president, he faced a crowd that organizers estimated at 1,200 seated at dinner tables inside the Greenville convention center Saturday night. Tens of thousands more followed along on internet streams. Invited to the stage briefly during his remarks, Trump daughter-in-law and North Carolina native Lara Trump announced she would not run for the Senate because of family obligations. “I am saying no for now, not no forever,” Lara Trump said. Minutes later, Trump announced his endorsement of loyalist Rep. Ted Budd in the crowded Republican primary, adding a slap at former Gov. Pat McCrory, who has been critical of Trump’s falsehoods about the 2020 election. “You can’t pick people who have already lost two races and do not stand for our values,” Trump said. McCrory served as the North Carolina governor from 2013 to 2017, but lost elections before and after his term. The former president waited more than an hour to advance falsehoods about the 2020 election, which he described as “the crime of the century.” Since leaving the White House, Trump has regularly made baseless claims that the last presidential election was stolen. The claims have triggered a wave of Republican-backed voting restrictions in state legislatures across the country, even though Trump’s cries of voting fraud have been refuted by dozens of judges, Republican governors and senior officials from his own administration. Trump focused his early remarks on President Biden, who he said was leading “the most radical left-wing administration in history.” “As we gather tonight our country is being destroyed before our very eyes,” he said. Democratic National Committee spokesman Ammar Moussa took a shot at Trump in a statement released ahead of his speech. “More than 400,000 dead Americans, millions of jobs lost, and recklessly dangerous rhetoric is apparently not enough for Republicans to break with a loser president who cost them the White House, Senate, and House,” Moussa said.

Burkina Faso says at least 100 civilians killed in attack

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-05/burkina-faso-says-at-least-100-civilians-killed-in-attack

Gunmen killed at least 100 people in a northern Burkina Faso village, the government said Saturday, in what was the country’s deadliest attack in years. The attack took place Friday evening in Solhan village, in the Sahel region’s Yagha province, government spokesman Ousseni Tamboura said in a statement blaming jihadists. The local market and several homes were also burned down in the area toward the border of Niger, he said. President Roch Marc Christian Kabore called the attack “barbaric.” This is the deadliest attack recorded in Burkina Faso since the West African country was overrun by jihadists linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State about five years ago, said Heni Nsaibia, senior researcher at the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. “It is clear that militant groups have shifted up gears to aggravate the situation in Burkina Faso, and moved their efforts to areas outside the immediate reach of the French-led counter-terrorism coalition fighting them in the tri-state border region,” he said. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. World & Nation A top officer says Mali’s military has released the transitional president and prime minister from detention. May 27, 2021 Despite the presence of more than 5,000 French troops in the Sahel, jihadist violence is increasing. In one week in April, more than 50 people were killed in Burkina Faso, including two Spanish journalists and an Irish conservationist. More than 1 million people in the country have been internally displaced. A local who did not want to be named, fearing for his safety, was visiting relatives in a medical clinic in Sebba town, approximately seven miles from where the attacks occurred. He said he saw many wounded people enter the clinic. “I saw 12 people in one room and about 10 in another. There were many relatives caring for the wounded. There were also many people running from Solhan to enter Sebba. ... People are very afraid and worried,” he told the Associated Press by phone. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed outrage over the killings and offered the world body’s full support to authorities in efforts to overcome the threats to the peace and stability in Burkina Faso, according to spokesman Stephane Dujarric. “He strongly condemns the heinous attack and underscores the urgent need for the international community to redouble support to member states in the fight against violent extremism and its unacceptable human toll,” Dujarric said in a statement. Islamic extremists have been increasingly staging assaults in Burkina Faso, especially in the region that borders Niger and Mali. Last month, gunmen killed at least 30 people in eastern Burkina Faso near the border with Niger. Burkina Faso’s ill-equipped army has been struggling to contain the spread of jihadists. The government enlisted the help of volunteer fighters last year to help the army, but the volunteers have incurred retaliation by extremists who target them and the communities they help. Mali also is experiencing a political crisis that has led to the suspension of international support. France has said it is ceasing joint military operations with Malian forces until the West African nation’s junta complies with international demands to restore civilian rule.

Brad Cox-trained Essential Quality rallies to win Belmont Stakes

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-05/brad-cox-trained-essential-quality-rallies-to-win-belmont-stakes

In the summer of last year at Keeneland, Brad Cox had just seen Essential Quality complete a strong workout when the trainer made a proclamation. “That’s my Belmont Stakes horse,” Cox said. And he was right. You can forget the fact that Cox has made that statement about other horses and that Essential Quality was his first Belmont starter. The way the 3-year-old colt looked Saturday, there was no doubt he was a Belmont Stakes horse. He ran patiently mid-pack through the opening half of the 1½-mile race under a strong hold from jockey Luis Saez. Entering the far turn he started picking off horses, and at the top of the stretch he had drawn even with leader Hot Rod Charlie. Hot Rod Charlie, based at Santa Anita and trained by Doug O’Neill, ran a winning race. He just didn’t win, instead finishing second by 1¼ lengths in the final leg of the Triple Crown. Essential Quality paid $4.60, $3.00 and $2.60. Rombauer, trained by Michael McCarthy, was third, followed by Known Agenda, Bourbonic, Rock Your World, Overtook and France Go De Ina. “I thought the [fast pace] benefitted our horse,” Cox said. “Hot Rod Charlie ran a tremendous race, and I thought, with the hot pace, we were in a good spot where they would come back. [Saez] did a fantastic job putting him in position turning for home, and he really showed his stamina late.” It was also Saez’s first Triple Crown victory. “It was so special,” Saez said. “I’m so proud to be here and come out with a victory. The [2019 Kentucky] Derby was a little tough, but you know, stuff happens, so I’m OK.” Saez was aboard Maximum Security when he finished first but was disqualified for interference in that Derby. O’Neill was obviously pleased with Hot Rod Charlie’s performance. “I thought he was going to come back, honest,” O’Neill said. “And in my mind, he did come back. He gave everything he had today. There was definitely a part of me where I was saying they are going to be bobbing heads and we are going to get the bob. Essential Quality had more today. Thank [goodness] they don’t run mile-and-a-half races every day.” Flavien Prat was the winning rider on Rombauer in the Preakness but elected to go back to Hot Rod Charlie, whom he rode in the Derby. He too was happy with the colt’s effort. “We had a good race,” Prat said. “He was traveling well on the lead, and he was really game [Saturday]. … I’m really proud of my horse.” Essential Quality’s path to this win started last September at Churchill Downs and then at Keeneland. He won his first two races and then took the biggest race for 2-year-olds, the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile. That win in November earned him the Eclipse Award for best 2-year-old colt. He then took a couple of months off before winning the Southwest at Oaklawn Park and the Blue Grass at Keeneland. He went into the Kentucky Derby as the favorite, but right out of the gate he collided with Rock Your World and it appeared to doom his chances to win the race. He did make up a lot of ground and finished fourth, behind Hot Rod Charlie. It was his first, and still only, loss. This might turn out to be Cox’s second Triple Crown victory, but for now, it’s just his first. He trained Mandaloun, who finished second in the Kentucky Derby behind Medina Spirit. The Bob Baffert-trained Medina Spirit tested positive for a legal medication, just one that’s not legal on race day. Both samples came back positive for betamethasone, an anti-inflammatory. Baffert says the horse was being treated with an ointment for a rash and that’s how it got in his system. Essential Quality wins the 153rd running of the Belmont Stakes on Saturday. The Kentucky Horse Racing Commission is expected to disqualify Medina Spirit, which will be followed by a hearing and eventually litigation. Only one other time was a Kentucky Derby winner disqualified for medication, and that was in 1968 when Dancer’s Image was taken down and Forward Pass made the winner. It took four years to settle the case. And if horse racing has not had enough controversy this year, Essential Quality is owned by Godolphin, which is controlled by Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. He is under scrutiny for alleged human right violations, including the disappearance of his daughter. A complaint was filed to try to keep Essential Quality out of the Kentucky Derby. It failed. One of his daughters said she is being held against her will in Dubai, and another daughter hasn’t been seen since 2000 after being taken while in England. Shiek Mohammed said his second daughter has been found. Last year, a judge in England ruled Sheikh Mohammed was behind both abductions. But the controversies that seem to follow horse racing seemed to take a back seat on this hot day on Long Island with 11,238 fans in attendance. For about 2½ minutes, all that seemed to matter was the race and a great stretch dual by two talented colts. And they might both come back to New York and go against each other at Saratoga in the Travers.

Mira Costa rallies three times to beat Birmingham for soccer title

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-05/boys-soccer-regional-final-mira-costa-beats-birmingham

Friends since they were 5 years old while playing AYSO soccer together in Manhattan Beach, Thomas Crawford and Thomas Southey locked their sweaty arms around each other while listening to their coach on a hot Saturday afternoon in Lake Balboa. “You guys refused to lose,” Al Brown told the players. It was their final high school game for Mira Costa High, a team of neighborhood kids that knocked off the top-seeded team last month to win the Southern Section title, and somehow rallied three times from one-goal deficits to defeat Birmingham 4-3 in overtime on a golden goal from Tanner Mendelsohn to win the Southern California Division I regional championship. Jack Crawford and Thomas Southey. Mira Costa toughness. pic.twitter.com/krmSS2ClRT “From where we started, it’s crazy,” Southey said. “We came together as a team and look where we are now. They were the No. 1 team in California and I guess we are now.” Birmingham (18-1-1) held a 1-0 lead at halftime. The second half was wild. Mira Costa tied it, then Birmingham went up 2-1. Mira Costa tied it, then Birmingham went up 3-2. Elias Kraus tied it, and the physicality of Mira Costa wore down the Patriots in overtime. Crawford’s throw-ins caused Birmingham problems all day. The fact he was even playing was a surprise. He said he might have ligament damage in his knee and had missed the last two games. From AYSO to best in California. Mira Costa. pic.twitter.com/OfGf1I7k6Y “I felt I needed to play,” he said. “This is my last high school game ever. I wanted to play until I could not.” Michael Crisera had two goals for the Mustangs. Diego Nava, Enrique Pineda and Anthony Miron scored for the Patriots. Anthony Miron the goal of the year on a direct free kick. Birmingham takes 3-2 lead. pic.twitter.com/CWHH7Zqrqe “I’ve known these guys for my whole life,” Crawford said. “Public schools don’t really win these things because we don’t recruit. We all play for each other and that’s what won us this. We knew we could beat them, but being down by a goal three different times it shows we have a ton of resiliency.” Crawford, wearing a knee brace, and the other seniors were headed to the Mira Costa prom Saturday night. Bad knee or not, Crawford said, “I’ll be dancing tonight.” In Division 3 boys, Salesian won the championship with a 1-0 win over Norte Vista. Ernesto Vergara scored the game’s only goal. No. 1 from start to finish. Unbeatable from start to finish. That’s the best way to describe the girls’ soccer season for Studio City Harvard-Westlake, which won its 19th consecutive game with a 6-1 defeat of Garden Grove Pacifica in the Division 1 regional final. Harvard-Westlake Girls’ Soccer are the 2021 CIF State Regional Champions. They defeated Pacifica 6-1. Alyssa Thompson scores 4 and Giselle Thompson netted 2 for the Wolverines, who completed a perfect season with 19 wins and 0 defeats. Congratulations @hwgirlssoccer pic.twitter.com/8BhvqAfP6D The Thompson sisters were spectacular. Sophomore Alyssa Thompson scored four goals, giving her 48 on the season. Freshman Gisele Thompson scored two goals.There were a couple of close games this season, but Harvard-Westlake’s speed and skill left the Wolverines in a class by themselves. There were no girls’ volleyball playoffs in the Southern Section because of COVID-19 restrictions. The City Section decided to delay its season until the spring, and that enabled Palisades to win the Open Division championship Saturday with a 25-17, 25-15, 25-18 sweep of Granada Hills. BOYS VOLLEYBALL Open Division Final: 🏐Chatsworth 3 Taft 123-25, 25-18, 25-23, 25-18 Congratulations to the Chancellors who win their 9th City title and first in the Open Division! 🏆👏Still UNDEFEATED! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/45VaswfAA6 Chatsworth won the Open Division boys’ title with a 3-1 win over Taft. William Wright led Chatsworth with 18 kills. Van Nuys won its first Division I boys’ championship by defeating Sylmar 3-1. University defeated Verdugo Hills 3-0 to win the Division II boys’ championship. Chino Hills 10, South Torrance 0: Mykenzie Hanna hit a three-run home run to end the game in the fifth inning via mercy rule. Whittier Christian 10, Highland 1: Brooklyn Carreon struck out 14 and allowed one hit. Villa Park 6, St. Paul 0: Sydney Somerndike had 14 strikeouts. Norco 10, Orange Lutheran 0: Top-seeded Norco (26-1) got a grand slam from Mya Perez. Stevie Hansen allowed one hit. Murrieta Mesa 1, Crescenta Valley 0: In the eighth inning, Kaylee Oh hit a walk-off home run. Birmingham 101, Grant 75: The No. 2-seeded Patriots advanced to the City Section Open Division semifinals behind David Elliott, who scored 47 points. They will face Fairfax, a 72-34 winner over Granada Hills. Barry Wilds scored 26 points. Chatsworth 68, Sun Valley Poly 56: The top-seeded Chancellors advanced in the Division I playoffs. Crenshaw 79, University 57: The Cougars, led by Kevin Bradley, cruised in Division I. Bradley scored 25 points and William Lawson 20. Palisades 52, Gardena 50: The Dolphins held on in the Division I quarterfinals. Arcadia 64, Paramount 60: The Apaches have reached the championship game in 4AA. Esperanza 61, Rosary 56: The Aztecs advanced to the Division 1 championship game. Village Christian 13, Vista Murrieta 9: The Crusaders won the Division 3 girls’ championship in only their second year of existence. 🎉🏆CONGRATULATIONS TO VILLAGE CHRISTIAN!! Your FIRST EVER CIF-SS FORD Division 3 Girls Lacrosse Champions!!! 🥍@VCSCrusaders @SoCaliFord pic.twitter.com/IywfJKvk9I Delaney Konjoyan scored five goals, giving her 61 on the season. Layla Cates scored five goals, giving her 54 goals this season.

Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving lead Nets past Bucks in Game 1 after James Harden is hurt

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-05/nets-james-harden-reinjures-hamstring-game-1-vs-bucks

Kevin Durant knew something was wrong when the Brooklyn Nets were trying to run a play and James Harden wasn’t in the right spot. Moments later, Harden wasn’t even in the game, forced to leave with a right hamstring injury less than a minute into the Eastern Conference semifinals. “That was tough,” Nets coach Steve Nash said. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving made sure it wasn’t a knockout blow. Durant scored 29 points, Irving had 25, and the two superstars carried Brooklyn to a 115-107 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night in Game 1 of the second-round playoff series. Sports Lakers assistant Jason Kidd has surfaced as a leading candidate for coaching vacancies, and Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard wants him in Portland. June 5, 2021 Harden’s injury is the same one that forced him to miss two losses to the Bucks in May. But the Nets beat Milwaukee when it mattered most without him, getting 19 points from Joe Harris and 18 points and 14 rebounds from Blake Griffin. “We try not to be too emotional out there, but losing one of your leaders like that on the first play of the game, we had to regroup for a couple of minutes and figure out what was next, but I think the coaches, the coaching staff did a great job of moving forward,” Durant said. “Guys came in and just tried to play extremely hard. We didn’t care about anything else but playing and executing the game plan and just leaving it all out there.” Highlights from the Brooklyn Nets’ 115-107 win over the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday in Game 1. And they got a solid defensive effort despite giving up plenty of size, limiting the Bucks to 13 points below their NBA-leading average. Durant grabbed 10 rebounds and Irving had eight assists, throwing some spectacular passes as the Nets moved the ball around quickly and had the Bucks a step or more behind all night. “We’ve got to guard defensively together, especially against this team,” Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo said. Game 2 is Monday night. “Our guys got to execute defensively regardless of who’s on the court, execute offensively regardless of who’s on the court,” Bucks coach Mike Budenholzer said. “We’ve got to be better. We’ll be better Monday.” Sports Letters to the Los Angeles Times’ sports department for June 6. June 5, 2021 Antetokounmpo had 34 points and 11 rebounds, but the Bucks were just six for 30 from three-point range and lost for the first time in the playoffs after storming past Miami in a first-round sweep. Brook Lopez scored 19 points for the Bucks, and Jrue Holiday had 17 points and nine rebounds. Khris Middleton finished with 13 points and 13 rebounds but was six for 23, missing all five three-point tries. A series that had talent all over the rosters started on a down note when Harden had to come out of the game after just 43 seconds, walking to the back after the Nets called a timeout before they had even scored. “When you prepare for a game and he’s such a big part of the game plan, that can throw you off. But I was proud of the guys that they didn’t get rattled, they hung in there and got the win,” Nash said, adding that he had no update on Harden’s status. Harden predicted a day earlier this series would be a showdown. His show might already be over. Sports The Los Angeles Sparks (2-3) swept back-to-back home games, earning a win over the Chicago Sky (2-6) on Saturday. June 5, 2021 The right hamstring forced Harden to miss 18 straight and 20 of 21 games late in the season. He missed games April 1 and April 4 with what was called tightness, then returned April 5 but made it through just four minutes before leaving again, with that injury termed a strain. He didn’t play again until May 12. The Bucks gave P.J. Tucker his first start of the playoffs. He had seven points. Milwaukee was four for 19 on threes in the first half. Bryn Forbes missed all four of his attempts before making one late in the game. Brooklyn remained without forward Jeff Green for a fourth straight game because of a left foot injury. Nets coach Steve Nash said Friday he would be considered day to day after Game 1. The Nets announced a sellout of 15,750 — featuring Beyonce and Jay-Z — with 98% fully vaccinated. Mike James had 12 points after playing less than 10 minutes in the first round against Boston.

Op-Ed: A nutty court ruling on California's assault weapons ban makes us less safe

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-06-05/assault-weapon-ban-california-unconstitutional-second-amendment

Would anyone really compare an AR-15 assault rifle, which has been used in so many recent mass killings, to a Swiss Army knife? Such a comparison is ludicrous, yet that is exactly what a federal judge in San Diego did on Friday in striking down California’s 32-year-old ban on assault weapons. Judge Roger Benitez began his decision by declaring, “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment.” This is the most extreme gun rights ruling yet from a federal court. Every other court in the country has upheld bans on assault weapons. This ruling is wrong as a matter of constitutional law and of common sense. Unfortunately, though, a majority of the current Supreme Court justices are very likely inclined to expand gun rights. But I hope they will not go so far as to declare that the Constitution protects a right to have an assault weapon. The 2nd Amendment says: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” From 1791, when it was ratified, until 2008, not one law — local, state, or federal — was struck down as violating the 2nd Amendment. When dealing with 2nd Amendment cases, the Supreme Court has repeatedly said that the provision meant what it said: It was solely a right to have guns for the purpose of militia service. In June 2008, the court, in a 5-4 decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller, took a very different approach and said that the 2nd Amendment protected a right of people to have guns in their homes for the sake of security. Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the opinion for the court and declared unconstitutional a 1976 ordinance in Washington that prohibited private ownership or possession of handguns. But the court was clear that this right is not absolute and the government can regulate who has guns, where they have them and what type of weapons are allowed. In fact, Justice Scalia’s opinion stated that the right to possess arms was limited to weapons that “were in common use at the time” the 2nd Amendment was ratified. He said this “limitation is fairly supported by the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’” No one can argue that AR-15 style weapons existed, let alone were in common use, in 1791. Nor can it be denied that they are very dangerous weapons. This type of semi-automatic weapon has been used in many of the worst mass shootings in the United States, including the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, the 2015 San Bernardino attack, the 2017 Las Vegas shooting, the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting, the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting and the shooting at a Colorado grocery store in March that killed 10 people. Judge Benitez argued that the 2nd Amendment protects a “muscular” constitutional right and the California ban is “about average guns used in average ways for average purposes.” He added, “In California, murder by knife occurs seven times more often than murder by rifle.” This attempt to minimize the danger of assault weapons fails to recognize that they are banned by California and other states (and for a time by the federal government) because of their ability to kill a large number of people in a short amount of time. Judge Benitez described California’s law as a “failed experiment” because there have been mass killings with assault weapons since its enactment in 1989. But by that analysis, every criminal law would be a failed experiment because they are repeatedly violated. This argument makes no sense because there is no way to know how many more mass shootings would have occurred without California’s ban. Clearly, the United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit should reverse this ruling and allow the assault weapons ban to stand. Eleven judges on the 9th Circuit will soon hear another decision by Judge Benitez striking down California’s ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines. I fear the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will soon go much further in expanding gun rights. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito already have urged this. The three newest justices — Neil Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — are also seen as likely to expand 2nd Amendment rights. This fall, the court will hear a case challenging a New York law limiting carrying of concealed weapons. Still, even a Supreme Court that expands gun rights is likely to impose some limits. No right in the Constitution is absolute. And these limits must include the ability of states to outlaw weapons of mass murder, like assault rifles. A Swiss Army knife might be used to stab one person, but an AR-15 can be used to kill dozens of people in the same amount of time. Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law and a contributing writer to Opinion. He is the author of a forthcoming book, “Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights.”

Coronavirus knocks Jon Rahm out of Memorial after he built six-shot lead

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-05/leader-jon-rahm-tests-positive-coronavirus-withdrawn-from-memorial

Jon Rahm walked off the 18th green after tying the 54-hole record and building a six-shot lead in Dublin, Ohio, leaving him on the cusp of joining Tiger Woods as the only repeat winners of the Memorial. Moments later, he doubled over behind the green and said in anguish, “Not again!” Rahm was notified he tested positive for the coronavirus, knocking him out of the tournament. A command performance, which included a hole-in-one Saturday morning to complete his second round followed by an eight-under-par 64 to tie two tournament records, went to waste. The PGA Tour said the Spaniard had come in close contact with a person who was COVID-19 positive, meaning Rahm could play provided he was tested daily. Every test since he arrived Monday came back negative except the one after his second round, which was completed Saturday morning. The positive test was confirmed as Rahm was playing the 18th hole, knowing nothing except no one was close to him on the leaderboard. “This is one of those things that happens in life, one of those moments where how we respond to a setback defines us as people,” Rahm said in a statement he posted to Twitter. His immediate response was to put on a mask and head to the scoring room to sign his card, knowing he would not be playing the final round. Sports Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving carried Brooklyn after James Harden’s early injury in a 115-107 win over Milwaukee in Game 1 of their playoff series. June 5, 2021 The tour said Rahm remained asymptomatic. Andy Levinson, the tour’s senior vice president who has overseen its COVID-19 protocols, could not say whether Rahm had been vaccinated, and Rahm didn’t mention that in his statement. Players who are fully vaccinated — 14 days past the full vaccination cycle — are not subject to testing as a result of close contact. Levinson said “north of 50%” of players have been fully vaccinated. By tour policy, Rahm was withdrawn from the Memorial. That left Patrick Cantlay and Collin Morikawa tied for the lead at 12-under 204. “It’s kind of the worst situation for something like that to happen, and he played awesome today and it’s just, it’s really a shame,” Cantlay said. Cantlay and Scottie Scheffler, who played with Rahm in the third round, both said they already have tested positive for the coronavirus, though it was more than 90 days ago. They were interviewed Saturday night to determine whether they would be subject to contact tracing protocols. Based on the interview, Levinson said none of Rahm’s playing partners Saturday were cleared. Dodgers Major League Baseball informed owners that it will enforce rules on using foreign substances on baseballs. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is fine with that. June 5, 2021 It was a shocking turn of events given the timing. Rahm was close to perfect on the back nine, running off six birdies in an eight-hole stretch to turn a one-stroke lead into a six-shot cushion, tying the Memorial record for largest 54-hole lead set by Woods in 2000. His 18-under 198 tied the record set by Scott Hoch in 1987. Now he can’t go any further, and the ramifications go beyond the Memorial. The No. 3 player in the world is required to go into self-isolation for 10 days. That ends June 15, the Tuesday of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, where Rahm captured his first PGA Tour victory four years ago. That would leave him time for only one practice round on the U.S. Open-conditioned course. Not even the chance of a false positive test could spare Rahm. Under the tour’s CDC-guided protocols, players would have to return two negative tests 24 hours apart to end the 10-day isolation. That rules out Rahm playing Sunday. “I feel very bad for Jon Rahm. He’s played absolutely brilliant golf this week,” tournament founder Jack Nicklaus said on social media. “On behalf of the Memorial Tournament, our hearts go out to Jon and his family, as well as all the patrons who witnessed a spectacular round by Jon — only to be negated by this horrible pandemic our world continues to endure.” I feel very bad for Jon Rahm. He’s played absolutely brilliant golf this week. Jon knew as early as Monday that he had come in close contact with an individual who tested COVID positive, and he followed all PGA TOUR protocols as it relates to contact tracing. The second round did not finish until Saturday morning because of rain delays earlier in the week. Rahm returned to make a hole-in-one on the 16th hole to take the lead, and he finished off a 65 to build a two-shot lead. The tour said his test came back positive at 4:20 p.m., about the time Rahm began to pull away. The tour’s medical advisor asked for a confirmation test on the original sample, and that was returned shortly after 6 p.m. Two officials were waiting for him as he walked off the green, and Rahm’s reaction left thousands of fans around the green wondering what was going on. Scheffler didn’t see Rahm behind the green and wasn’t sure what was going on when he walked into the scoring room to sign his card. He said Rahm looked frustrated. “He just goes, ‘Good luck tomorrow,’ and I’m like, ‘Thanks, man. You play good too.’ I was just really confused,” Scheffler said. “He’s like, ‘No, man, I just tested positive.’ My heart just sank. It’s terrible that happened. I think it’s terrible they told him in front of the cameras. It just stinks for him.” Sports Essential Quality holds off Hot Rod Charlie to win the 153rd running of the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, delivering trainer Brad Cox his first Triple Crown race win. June 5, 2021 Rahm was the fourth player to test positive during a tournament since the tour returned to competition one year ago in Texas. He was the first positive asymptomatic case as part of the tour’s contact-tracing protocols. It was not clear with whom Rahm had contact that led to the tracing. Levinson said only the tour found out about the contact through someone else who had tested through its program. Rahm lives in Scottsdale, Ariz., where his wife in April gave birth to their first child. Rahm has not played since the PGA Championship two weeks ago. While playing in the pro-am on Wednesday, Rahm was walking toward the 16th tee when a spectator asked for an autograph. “I’m sorry, I can’t,” he said. “I’m in contact tracing.” He did not mention it the rest of the week while building his six-shot lead. With a victory, Rahm could have moved closer to recapturing No. 1 in the world, along with earning over $1.67 million. Lexi Thompson shot a bogey-free five-under 66 to take the lead into the final round of the U.S. Women’s Open for the first time in her career with a one-shot edge over teenager Yuka Saso in San Francisco. Thompson played a nearly flawless round in search of her first U.S. Women’s Open title in her 15th try after first competing as a 12-year-old amateur in 2007. She made three birdies on the front nine and two more on the back nine to overcome a four-stroke deficit heading into the day and take the lead at seven under. She was the first player all week to make par or better on every hole in the round. She said she needed to get her mind right before she could get her golf game back and now is in position to win her first second career major. “I haven’t played to my standards and what I need, and I just realized that I needed to change my mindset,” Thompson said. “It was only hurting me. Obviously, I needed to work on some technical things in my game and everything, but the mental side was really getting to me. I was just taking it way too seriously and thinking that Lexi depended on my score.” Saso made back-to-back bogeys on the back nine to fall out of the lead before recovering with a birdie at the par-five 17th to get back to seven under. She missed a 12-foot par putt on No. 18 and ended the day a stroke back. New Jersey high school amateur Megha Ganne shot a 72 and was tied for third at three under with 2019 champion Jeongueun Lee6 of South Korea. China’s Shanshan Feng was fifth at two under, with Japan’s Nasa Hataoka and American Megan Khang the only other players under par at one under. Thompson, 26, hasn’t won an LPGA Tour tournament in nearly two years and won her only major was at the ANA Inspiration in 2014. She has four-top 10 finishes at the U.S. Women’s Open, including a runner-up to Lee6 two years ago in Charleston, S.C. This marks the first time the women have come to the Olympic Club Lake Course overlooking the Pacific Ocean for a major. But this venue has a rich history for the men, hosting five U.S. Opens and three U.S. Amateurs among other events. Tim Herron shot a nine-under 63 to take a four-stroke lead in the PGA Tour Champions’ Principal Charity Classic in Des Moines, Iowa. Trying to win for the first time on the 50-and-over tour, Herron birdied the par-four 18th for a back-nine 30 and 14-under 130 total at Wakonda Club. The 51-year-old from Minnesota, a four-time winner on the PGA Tour, birdied three of the first five holes, then birdied Nos. 10-12, 15, 16 and 18 tp pull away. Shane Bertsch and Rod Pampling were second after 67s. Doug Barron was nine under after a 69. First-round leader Thongchai Jaidee followed his opening 65 with a 71 to drop into a tie for fifth at eight under with Mike Weir (66), Tom Gillis (69) and Dicky Pride (70).

Letters: Everyone has an opinion on the fall of the Lakers

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-05/letters-everyones-thoughts-on-the-fall-of-the-lakers

After Bill Plaschke’s May 26 column declaring “the Lakers are back,” they dropped three straight games by a total of 51 points en route to an embarrassing postseason exit. It’s nice to know that although Sports Illustrated continues to lose relevance, their cover jinx role has been embraced by one of your longest-serving writers. Westwood, Ho! Mark BackstromNewport Coast :: It is completely unfair to place even a scintilla of blame in the Lakers’ season with either LeBron or Anthony Davis. They played like heroes down the stretch. LeBron’s 29-9-7 line and A.D. doing his best Willis Reed imitation to give the team all he had was heroic, not questionable. The rest of the team was put together like the land of misfit toys. Particularly at the center position, the team was matched poorly. I can’t think of any two players in the league who could have carried the Lakers any further. Bob GoldstoneCorona Del Mar Sports Lakers assistant Jason Kidd has surfaced as a leading candidate for coaching vacancies, and Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard wants him in Portland. June 5, 2021 :: Not really a surprise, but Bill Plaschke got it wrong again. The question is not, “Can LeBron carry a team at an NBA ‘old’ ” 36? Nor is the question, “Can AD become more consistent?” Bill, do you understand that both players were injured? The real question is can NBA owners smarten up and become less greedy and give the finalists more than two months off before the start of a new season. Did the players association really go along with this? I suppose Golden State did, as they and the like had plenty of rest. Lakers lose in six in first round and the Heat get swept in the first round. The NBA is following directly in the footsteps of the NFL, where playoff football is more a battle of attrition than anything else (especially next season with a 17-game schedule). Axel HubertSanta Monica :: The Lakers’ untimely demise can be left directly at the door of Rob Pelinka, their “genius” GM. Rich Paul, not Pelinka, was responsible for bringing LeBron James and Anthony Davis to L.A. After winning a title in the bubble, Pelinka proceeded to ditch Rajon Rondo, JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard, the role players who were critical to their success. Good news, Pelinka has a long offseason to work on Paul to restock the team. Mark S. RothLos Angeles Lakers Alex Caruso, one of the Lakers’ most popular and versatile players, talks about the season ending short of the team’s goal and his upcoming free agency. June 4, 2021 :: Lots of Lakers questions going forward and one I can’t let go of is, what happened to Kyle Kuzma? I see ex-Lakers like Ingram, Randle, Clarkson and Russell flourish in the NBA, then I see Kuzma disappear in the playoffs. Of all the players that should have stepped up with AD out, and Kuzma was silent. Could this be a coaching thing? While on that possibility, what on earth happened to Montrezl Harrell, one of the best sixth men in the league? They needed his energy, and yet he barely played in the recent games. Maybe it’s time for Coach Vogel to speak the truth, or would that come from LeBron, the other coach? Steve LaRochelleSimi Valley :: With the arrival of Andre Drummond, an excellent addition, Montrezl Harrell, the reigning sixth man of year and team energizer along with Alex Caruso and Talen Horton-Tucker, was relegated to DNPs with Marc Gasol taking crucial minutes from both Drummond and Harrell and using it to create toll-free lanes to the basket by opponents involving him in the high pick and roll as soon as he enters the game. Montrezl will flourish next year with Golden State, and who knows where Drummond will next call home. Not to worry, Marc Gasol will still be available, more stationary than ever. Ed PoliteLaguna Niguel Lakers The Lakers’ biggest priority this offseason will be deciding what to do at center, with Marc Gasol under contract for next season, Montrezl Harrell holding a player option and Andre Drummond a free agent. June 5, 2021 :: Now that the Lakers are looking at a short postseason and the unraveling of their title defense with a team of aging veterans built around one superstar in his twilight and another who is injury-prone, one can’t help but wonder what could have been. Imagine a starting lineup including Julius Randle, Brandon Ingram, Lonzo Ball, Jordan Clarkson and even Ivica Zubac, out from under the shadow of Kobe Bryant and coached by someone like Frank Vogel. The kids have turned out all right — and could have been Lakers for years. The price for that one championship is now looking really high. Peter MaradudinSeattle :: Bill “The Sky is Falling” Plaschke might be correct about LeBron’s future — but I doubt it. This is the same Plaschke who after every single Lakers playoff loss last season wrote about the disasters that surely awaited the team. What Bill seems to have forgotten is that during the first half of this season, before the cavalcade of Lakers injuries commenced, LeBron was considered a strong MVP candidate. So while it is possible that Father Time has caught up with LeBron, if I were a betting man, given the entire offseason for LeBron to rest and recuperate, my money would be on LeBron coming back as strong as ever next season, not on the position taken by our very own Chicken Little. Sherwin RootTarzana Lakers During a stunningly sordid playoff exit Thursday in Game 6, the Lakers future is in doubt with LeBron James aging and Anthony Davis appearing frail. June 4, 2021 It seems the Clippers miscalculated with their end-of-season “coasting” games. Clearly, they should have tanked it for a few more to get the fifth seed rather than the fourth. That way, they could advance in their opening series with Dallas without needing to win a home game. Clipper Curse? How about Fan Frustration! Ken VermillionSanta Barbara So, the young champ who had the guts, stamina and talent to overpower the great Serena Williams is undone by news conferences? Lynn DuPrattQuartz Hill :: Part of the price of being a high-paid professional athlete is being accessible to the media. If speaking to the press has caused “mental illness” for Naomi Osaka, she has had three years and $100 million to deal with the problem. Perhaps she should seek another line of work. Harris LeveyVenice Sports Defending champions Rafael Nadal and Iga Swiatek each won Saturday to advance to the fourth round at the French Open. June 5, 2021 :: If Naomi Osaka really had mental health issues, she wouldn’t have shown up in the first place. She created her own problem by skipping out on the required media session. She’s acting like a spoiled brat. It’s so easy to cop out by saying it’s a mental health issue, when it’s just frustration at getting fined. She’ll be back on the court soon after she realizes the mistake she’s made. Robert BubnovichIrvine :: So, after Naomi Osaka makes it known that in order to protect her mental health she needs to decline media interviews while competing at the French Open, the “powers that be” at all four Grand Slam tournaments gang up and threaten her with stiffer fines, disqualification or even suspension if she refuses to speak to the press. For the love of God and tennis, please leave her alone and respect her wishes. Galen ColwellAliso Viejo Sports Naomi Osaka revealing her struggles with depression and anxiety shows why her decision to withdraw from the French Open deserves understanding. June 1, 2021 I am normally against drastic changes in the rules of baseball. For example, I hope that the NL never adopts the DH. The only reason I am at all sympathetic to the idea of runner-on-second rule is the inability of baseball to play a nine-inning game under 3½ hours. I am old enough to remember going to twi-night doubleheaders on Tuesday nights at Dodger Stadium. They started at 5 and would end in time for me to get to bed at a reasonable time on a school night. Baseball can’t even get one game in like that anymore. Mark TempleHuntington Beach As beloved by the players as he may be, Dave Roberts is primarily responsible for the Dodgers’ shortcomings. Sure, injuries have plagued the team this season, but it’s Roberts who is mismanaging the pitching staff. Last Saturday against the Giants, Julio Urías arguably had his worst performance of the year. In only five innings of work, he yielded seven runs and 11 hits. I could see Urías laboring throughout. Yet Roberts left him in as his team fell into a 7-2 hole. In essence, the game was over. Afterword, Roberts’ only comment regarding Urías’ horrible outing was, “He needed to give us five innings, and he did that.” What? Since when has the quantity of innings pitched surpassed quality? Why even play the game in that case? Why not forfeit the game to rest the players? Brian GuraRedondo Beach :: I move that Dave Roberts be under oath and asked this question before every game: “Dave, is today’s goal to win the game or preserve the bullpen?” Bob YatesMalibu Dodgers Major League Baseball informed owners that it will enforce rules on using foreign substances on baseballs. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is fine with that. June 5, 2021 :: The Dodgers could have used Rich Hill as a fifth starter as he concluded May with an 0.78 ERA in six starts. What’s also amazing is that he did not encounter any blisters on his pitching hand. Jeff HershowWoodland Hills :: Wood, Hill, Ryu, Maeda! Impressive rotation. It proves just how good the Dodgers are this year. William BergmannHollywood :: Jim Bouton’s “Ball Four,” arguably the best sports book ever, did not rate a mention in the L.A. Times’ piece about knuckleballs even though Bouton became a knuckleballer late in his career and devoted much of his book to the pitch. Bouton believed that most knuckleballers, including himself, were inconsistent from one appearance to the next: On any day, either the ball would “knuckle” or not. If not, the pitcher would get shelled. This inconsistency might be a reason that even the great knuckleballers had only a handful of seasons when their ERA didn’t hover around 4. Perhaps there are no knuckleballers today because management can’t stand the excitement of a pitcher giving up a lot of hits, stolen bases and passed balls. Oh, yes, they injure catchers. Thomas A. ButterworthTustin :: To paraphrase, “It was the best of Times” (Sports) to read two outstanding columns by the “other” Bill. Both of Bll Shaikin’s articles were a refreshing take on today’s baseball. He made several valid points in the report of the Dodgers’ willful decision to make a punching bag out of Julio Urías — whatever happened to “a win in May is as good as a win in September?” — to say nothing of not prioritizing a game for fans paying hundreds of dollars to watch. Shaikin’s other column on the knuckleball was well researched, documented and included a point-of-view on current thinking regarding the lost pitching art. With all the potential positives awaiting, it’s hard to understand why more of the zillions of wannabes don’t attempt to master something that doesn’t require a howitzer for an arm. It must be Bill week as the “other” Bill got some nice mentions in today’s letters. Ralph MartinezArcadia :: Sports Jon Rahm tested positive for the coronavirus and was withdrawn from the PGA Tour’s Memorial tournament after he had taken a six-stroke lead Saturday. June 5, 2021 Thanks to Jack Harris for telling us that Astros fans are OK with their team cheating in 2017. First, let me say I am sorry about the hurricane and the flood. If I were put together a top 10 list of the people who suffered because Astros players did not play by the rules, it would include everyone involved with the two teams they eliminated in the American League playoffs on their way to getting to the World Series and everyone involved with the 2017 Dodgers team including their fans. I would highlight the players and the clubhouse guys and everyone else who either did not get a chance to get a World Series share or in the case of the Dodgers were robbed of their winners share. But I would reserve these top three for special consideration. 3. The American people for having their national pastime tarnished. 2. Major League Baseball and Commissioner Rob Manfred, who now have to live under the dual disclaimers that not only is there no crying in baseball but there is also no integrity in baseball. 1. Houston Astros fans who have to live forever with their tainted World Series championship. Astros fan: Where is your sense of decency? Larry WeinerCulver City As a 40-plus-year subscriber of the L.A. Times and avid sports fan, I am shocked and disappointed that the paper devoted just three shortened columns of writing to the biggest event in sports, the Indianapolis 500. When you think about it, this race commemorates the return of spectator sports. As a country that’s turned the corner on the pandemic, The Times could have celebrated this by allocating at least the entire back page today to feature driver profiles, take the rightful opportunity to pay deserved tribute to the event, and as such honor those who’ve given their lives to their country. For subscribers who’ve had to see their beloved Times Sports page on most days reduced to the back of the California Section, again today could have been a great day for the paper, but no, baseball and tennis won the front page, not The Greatest Spectacle In Racing. Jon BucciRedondo Beach Sports Essential Quality holds off Hot Rod Charlie to win the 153rd running of the Belmont Stakes on Saturday, delivering trainer Brad Cox his first Triple Crown race win. June 5, 2021 If he wins like Lance Armstrong, lies like Armstrong, cries foul like Armstrong, it must be horse trainer Bob Baffert. A new annual sports event should be inaugurated — The Running of the Investigators. Mario ValvoVentura :: The Los Angeles Times welcomes expressions of all views. Letters should be brief and become the property of The Times. They may be edited and republished in any format. Each must include a valid mailing address and telephone number. Pseudonyms will not be used. Email: sports@latimes.com

In war-ravaged Gaza, it's no business, as usual

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-05/gaza-recovery-difficult-israel-hamas-war

In the Karni Industrial Zone on Gaza’s eastern edge, the Maatouq factory churned out big plastic tubs of ice cream that made their way to the company’s five stores sprinkled throughout the city. Just behind the plant, the Harir factory made its own contribution to compulsive snacking by cranking out salted potato chips, which could be washed down with one of the hundreds of thousands of bottles of Coca-Cola manufactured and stored nearby. Those businesses are now mostly scorched husks of singed metal and melted plastic, casualties of the latest bout of violence last month that pitted Israel against Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules over this Mediterranean wedge of territory between Israel and Egypt. The sights and sounds of active combat are absent now in Gaza, with a May 21 truce still holding. While life has quickly returned to normal in Israel, the business owners in this industrial zone — once billed as a showcase project designed to strengthen Israeli-Palestinian ties — and in Gaza at large see little hope for a swift recovery. The 11-day war killed more than 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel. During the fighting, Hamas fired more than 4,000 rockets, the majority of which were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system; those that got through damaged 1,325 buildings, Israeli media reported. For its part, the Israeli military said its air and artillery strikes on Gaza hit more than 1,500 targets, a wave of devastation that has left hundreds of buildings as well as more than 1,800 commercial units destroyed or damaged, according to initial estimates from the economy and public works ministries in Gaza. World & Nation June 1, 2021 That is fewer than the approximately 6,500 commercial units partially or completely destroyed over 50 days in the 2014 confrontation between Hamas and Israel. But Gaza was already reeling from the compound effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the stringent blockade imposed by Egypt and Israel after Hamas took power in the territory in 2007. Now, fully 70% of the enclave’s 2 million people are struggling with food insecurity and require assistance, World Food Program officials say. Unemployment hovers around 69%. Coming on top of all that, the war’s disastrous impact on Gaza’s business community, with Israeli assaults reducing entire commercial towers to rubble and chopping up major commercial thoroughfares, is so great that recovery will be harder than ever. Trade has been disrupted just when it’s needed most. Israel blames Hamas for embedding its bases and infrastructure near civilian areas. Even so, in the past, Israeli forces spared areas like the Karni Industrial Zone, said Wadee Masry, who heads PADICO Holding, the company involved in creating the zone. Indeed, that formed part of the attraction for businesses to move there. Before, even if Hamas fighters snuck in, the Israeli side would communicate with the business owners, who made Hamas pull the fighters back without firing a shot, Masry said. “This was supposed to be a safe area. According to Oslo, the industrial zones at the border should be outside any equation,” Masry said, referring to the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords negotiated in the Norwegian capital in the 1990s. “But this time it was a message, I believe, that there would be no red lines.” World & Nation May 12, 2021 Mohammad Ghazali, the 65-year-old owner of Maatouq Ice Cream, moved his factory from the upscale Al-Rimal neighborhood to the Karni zone because it provided reliable electricity and security. Three years ago, “there was nothing but four walls here,” he said of the warehouse, which sits a few hundred yards from the border fence with Israel. He soon filled it with equipment, including churning machines for making ice cream and rollers for toasting pistachios, almonds and peanuts for sprinkling. At 4 a.m. on May 17, Ghazali received word of a fire in his factory sparked by an Israeli attack nearby. Flames had already devoured whatever was in the factory by the time he and family members arrived. Oxygen tanks used for freezing blew up; plastic rolls melted. Ghazali couldn’t check if a dust-blackened mixer still worked because the wiring had melted and short-circuited the power supply. Stepping through the charred remains of his factory, he heaved open the door of a walk-in freezer, then recoiled from the sickly sweet miasma of burned plastic, explosive material and the 14 flavors of ice cream — a strange jumble of banana, chocolate and passion fruit, among others — his factory used to produce. “I want to understand why. Why did Israel do this?” Ghazali said. “They had no bank of targets, so they just struck the economy. It was just to humiliate us.” World & Nation June 4, 2021 On Rimal Street, the Al Shorouq tower and its environs were home to dozens of smaller businesses, including Mutaz Khaled Ismail’s dental clinic. Believing in the power of location, the 27-year-old Egyptian university graduate bought an office unit in Hasniya, the building adjacent to Al Shorouq. “I watched missiles bring down the first two parts of Shorouq. Then I went to take a shower, came back and saw the middle was destroyed,” he said. When Al Shorouq collapsed, it sheared off the wall of the Hasniya building, like a knife cutting through a layer cake. Ismail thought of the brand-new 600-pound dentist’s chair he had bought and would never use. “I took a risk, and now the war destroyed everything,” he said. “I don’t know if I’ll stay or not. I think I’ll have to leave. In any case, people have no money. Why should I sacrifice myself?” There are also longer-term effects. Before the war, the quartet of companies run by the Khdeir family was set to provide some 40% of the fertilizer, pesticides and other farming supplies for local farmers. Their warehouses, set in a large dirt yard in Atatra, in the northern part of the strip, were now a horror show of toxic pink goop, still-smoking piles of refuse and an evil-looking ooze pool. The smell was nauseating. “It’s too expensive for us to do this — the agricultural ministry has to clean this up. We have no solution for it,” said Suhail Khdeir, head of the Midor company, which works in agricultural projects. He added that some parts of the site had begun to spew smoke again overnight. “Thirty-five years we’ve been doing this. It went in an instant. And there’s no way we can do anything to help anyone at this point,” he said. News Alerts Get breaking news, investigations, analysis and more signature journalism from the Los Angeles Times in your inbox. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. Standing nearby was Adham Basyooni, a spokesman for the agricultural ministry, who said the materials damaged here had been allowed in by Israel in the first place. “There’s simply nothing here that is dual use,” he said, meaning that none of the materials could be used for military purposes. “The Israelis targeted this place specifically. It makes you wonder why. This must be economic punishment and environmental destruction.” Questions on how to rebuild Gaza center on how to break the Sisyphean cycle of recovery and destruction while ensuring that no aid benefits Hamas. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist and is considered a terrorist group by the U.S., Israel and other Western nations. “Hamas is a terrorist organization — we’ve recognized that,” President Biden said after the cease-fire deal last month. “But that doesn’t mean we should not be in Gaza, rebuilding Gaza for all those innocent people who in fact have been hurt and had been collateral damage, including loss of homes and a whole range of other things.” At a news conference late last month, Hamas’ political head in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, said the group had sufficient financial resources from Iran and various donors and had no need to touch any of the aid money. “We will make the task easier for everyone,” he said, “and we will make sure that the process is transparent and fair, and let everyone be sure that no penny [from reconstruction funds] will go to Hamas.” World & Nation May 18, 2021 Egypt, which was instrumental in brokering the cease-fire, has taken the lead, with its officials engaging in shuttle diplomacy not just between Hamas and its adversary, Israel, but also between Hamas and its political rival, the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. This week, dozens of Egyptian trucks bearing aid containers entered Gaza, and Cairo has already pledged $500 million for reconstruction, with Egyptian firms expected to take part. That would require at least a partial lifting of the blockade, and would allow Egypt to monitor where materials were being used. Right now, entry of construction materials is restricted by the Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism, a temporary United Nations-brokered agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel in 2014. The mechanism allows Israel to work with the U.N. in supervising the entry of construction materials and ensuring “they reach their intended destination,” according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. But critics say the conditions are too onerous and have effectively hobbled previous reconstruction efforts. Hamas officials insist that the blockade must be fully lifted for the cease-fire to become permanent. “If this happens, then calm and stability could return,” Khalil Haya, a top Hamas official, told reporters late last month. It can’t come fast enough for Ibrahim Hassouneh, who heads the Siksek plastic pipe factory. He estimates that he has lost some $1 million as a result of the war, including what one factory executive said was 350 tons of raw materials burned in the Israeli attacks. “Now we can’t export or import. There’s been no mention as to when the crossing might reopen,” Hassouneh said, referring to the Kerem Shalom crossing between Gaza and Israel, which normally allows a limited amount of goods to flow through. Hassouneh added that he would normally export 25 tons of his products to the West Bank on top of fulfilling Gaza’s own demand. At the moment, that’s literally a pipe dream. “I can’t fulfill any of my orders now,” he said. Bulos is a Times staff writer and Salah a special correspondent.

Earth Wind & Fire headlines drive-in concert at Rose Bowl to raise money to fight MS

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-05/photos-drive-in-concert-raises-money-to-fight-ms-heres-what-it-looked-like

In 1993, Nancy Davis founded the organization Race to Erase MS after being diagnosed with the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis. The purpose of the organization was to spread knowledge and raise funds to allow doctors and researchers to aggressively combat the disease. Riding on the heels of a successful 2020 drive-in event, Drive-in to Erase MS kicked off the opening of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on Saturday with a headlining performance by Earth Wind & Fire as well as an Alice + Olivia by Stacey Bendet fashion show. Scroll to see photos by our photographer Myung Chun, who documented the event.

Rafael Nadal and Iga Swiatek advance to fourth round of French Open

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-05/rafael-nadal-iga-swiatek-advance-fourth-round-french-open

Iga Swiatek closed out her latest French Open victory and raised a triumphant right fist. Rafael Nadal won less than half an hour later and celebrated with a left uppercut. The two defending champions make for a potent one-two combination at Roland Garros, where both won going away Saturday to reach the fourth round. Swiatek rallied from a break down in the opening set to beat Anett Kontaveit 7-6 (4), 6-0. Nadal was unfazed at losing serve twice in a row in the second set and eliminated Cameron Norrie 6-3, 6-3, 6-3. Nadal, 35, advanced to the round of 16 at a Grand Slam for the 50th time. He’s trying to add to his record 13 French Open crowns and seeks his 21st major title, which would break the men’s record he shares with Roger Federer. As Nadal spoke to the crowd after the match, fans reminded the Spaniard of his title total by shouting “treize!” — 13 in French. “Can you repeat that?” he responded in English with a smile. Sports Serena Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam champion, reminds herself what it takes to win after falling behind early in her third-round match at the French Open. June 4, 2021 Nadal will next play 19-year-old Italian Jannik Sinner, who is seeded 18th. “He’s young, he’s improving every week, he has big shots,” Nadal said. “I need to be solid. I need to be aggressive too. I need to make him play from tough positions. It’s the fourth round — you can’t expect an easy opponent.” Nadal knows that from experience. Federer and Novak Djokovic are the only other men to reach the fourth round at 50 major events. Swiatek, 20, has won 20 consecutive sets at Roland Garros and that streak was in jeopardy when she trailed Kontaveit 4-2. The title holder dominated from there and lost only 12 points in the second set. “It’s good to have matches like that, because it keeps you down to earth, and you have to be careful on every point,” Swiatek said. “I’m just happy that I’m able to play really solid in really important moments.” The eighth-seeded pride of Poland next faces 18-year-old Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk, who has reached the round of 16 at a major event for the first time. Sofia Kenin advanced to the fourth round for the third consecutive year by winning a seesaw all-American match against Jessica Pegula, 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. Kenin is the highest-seeded player left in the women’s draw at No. 4, and she has shaken a slump with her return to Roland Garros, where she was the runner-up to Swiatek in October. “This whole year hasn’t been so great in terms of my tennis,” Kenin said. “I’ve had some early round exits. I’m just happy that I’m finally finding my rhythm and playing some good tennis again.” The top-seeded Djokovic didn’t face a break point en route to a 6-1, 6-4, 6-1 victory over unseeded Ričardas Berankis. Sinner beat Mikael Ymer 6-1, 7-5, 6-3 and was joined the round of 16 by another Italian 19-year-old, Lorenzo Musetti, who outlasted Marco Cecchinato — also from Italy — 3-6, 6-4, 6-3, 3-6, 6-3. Another teen, 17-year-old American Coco Gauff, advanced to the fourth round in Paris for the first time. She led 6-1 when her opponent, Jennifer Brady, stopped playing due to a left foot injury. Gauff next faces No. 25 Ons Jabeur with a shot at her first berth in a major quarterfinal. “When I first came on tour I felt like I had pressure to win,” Gauff said. “I realized I’ve just got to be myself and have fun on the court, and I will say, I’m having fun even in the pressure moments.” Kenin blew a 3-0 lead in the opening set against the No. 28-seeded Pegula, but then began stepping into the court to take charge of rallies, especially with a backhand that produced two dozen winners. She hit 48 winners overall to 18 for Pegula. Kenin had 10 double faults and was broken five times but held her final four service games to close out the win. The 2020 Australian Open champion, who was sidelined by an appendectomy in February, improved to 10-8 this year. Sports Naomi Osaka revealing her struggles with depression and anxiety shows why her decision to withdraw from the French Open deserves understanding. June 1, 2021 “I’m happy it’s clicking during the French Open,” the 22-year-old Kenin said. “I love the court, I love the clay. It’s a good surface for me. My game is not where it was at the Australian Open in 2020 but we’re getting there.” American Sloane Stephens, who is ranked 59th and out of the top 50 for the first time since 2017, advanced by beating 18th-seeded Karolina Muchova 6-3, 7-5. Stephens, the runner-up in 2018, will next face Barbora Krejcikova, who upset fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina 6-3, 6-2. Djokovic advanced to the round of 16 at the French Open for the 12th consecutive year and said he made necessary adjustments on a cool, cloudy afternoon. “Maybe for those watching it looked simple, but it wasn’t,” he told the crowd in French. “The conditions were different. How do you say in French ... the bounce was lower. I think I coped well.” Djokovic next faces Musetti, who is playing in his first Grand Slam event. “He is a big challenge to me,” Djokovic said. “He will not have much to lose. I’m sure he’s going to come trying to play the tennis of his life.” Jan-Lennard Struff, a 31-year-old German, matched his best Grand Slam effort by advancing to the fourth round when he beat 18-year-old qualifier Carlos Alcaraz 6-4, 7-6 (3), 6-2.

Turkey's leader vows to cure Marmara of 'sea snot' flare-ups

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-05/turkeys-leader-marmara-sea-snot-flare-ups

Turkey’s president promised Saturday to rescue the Marmara Sea from an outbreak of “sea snot” that is alarming marine biologists and environmentalists. A huge mass of marine mucilage, a thick, slimy substance made up of compounds released by marine organisms, has bloomed in Turkey’s Marmara, as well as in the adjoining Black and Aegean seas. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said untreated waste dumped into the Marmara Sea and climate change had caused the sea snot bloom. Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city with some 16 million residents, and five other provinces, factories and industrial hubs border the sea. California Los Angeles County’s director of public health wonders whether she could have better protected people living in the county’s poorest neighborhoods, which bore the brunt of the pandemic. June 5, 2021 Marine mucilage has reached unprecedented levels this year in Turkey. It is visible above the water as a slimy gray sheet along the shores of Istanbul and neighboring provinces. Underwater videos showed suffocated coral covered with sea snot. Erdogan said he instructed the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization to coordinate with relevant institutions, municipalities and universities. Teams are inspecting waste water and solid waste facilities, along with other potential sources of pollution, he said. “We will save our seas from this mucilage calamity, leading with the Marmara Sea,” Erdogan said. “We must take this step without delay.” Marine experts say that human waste and industrial pollution are choking Turkey’s seas. They say the rise in water temperatures from climate change is contributing to the problem.

After judge overturns California assault weapons ban, state officials vow to fight back

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-05/after-judge-overturns-california-assault-weapons-ban-state-officials-vow-to-fight-back

Families of mass shooting victims, gun control advocates and California officials condemned a federal judge’s decision to overturn California’s 30-year-old ban on assault weapons, largely because of the manner in which he justified his ruling. In declaring the ban unconstitutional late Friday, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez compared the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to a Swiss Army knife, calling it “good for both home and battle.” Benitez, who was nominated by former President George W. Bush and serves in the Southern District of California, issued a permanent injunction against the law’s enforcement but stayed it for 30 days to give the state a chance to appeal. California is one of seven states, plus Washington, D.C., that ban assault weapons, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. In his 94-page ruling, Benitez wrote that it was unlawful for California to prohibit its citizens from possessing weapons permitted in most other states and allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Advocates for the right to bear arms hailed the ruling. “This is by far the most fact-intensive, detailed judicial opinion on this issue ever,” said Dave Kopel, an adjunct professor of constitutional law at the University of Denver and adjunct scholar at libertarian think tank the Cato Institute. State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta called the decision “fundamentally flawed” and said he would appeal. “There is no sound basis in law, fact, or common sense for equating assault rifles with Swiss Army knives — especially on Gun Violence Awareness Day and after the recent shootings in our own California communities,” Bonta said in a statement. Last month, a gunman opened fire at a light rail yard in San Jose, killing nine co-workers and dying of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. California Authorities are still searching for a motive in the shooting, although early indications point to a work-related issue for a man with a troubled past. May 27, 2021 Officials said he was armed with three semiautomatic 9-millimeter handguns and 32 high-capacity magazines loaded with additional ammunition. AR-15s have been used in some of the nation’s deadliest mass shootings, including the attack at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub that killed 49 people in 2016, and one in Las Vegas that killed 58 people in 2017. “I can assure you — if a Swiss Army knife was used at Pulse, we would have had a birthday party for my best friend last week,” Brandon Wolf, who survived the Florida attack, wrote on Twitter. “Not a vigil.” Kris Brown, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said the ruling made her do a double-take. “I have two daughters, and they read dystopian fiction, like the ‘Hunger Games,’ and it was kind of like that,” she said. “It can’t be real. Nobody, ever, who is a thinking human being with a heartbeat, could possibly liken a Swiss Army knife to an AR-15.” In response to several mass shootings on his watch, President Biden announced in April that his administration would take steps toward greater gun regulation. They include a proposal to require background checks for self-assembled firearms — so-called ghost guns — and a law that would allow family members or law enforcement agencies to request a court order to take guns away from a person who is a danger to themselves or others. Nineteen states, including California, have already passed such laws. “Today’s decision is a direct threat to public safety and the lives of innocent Californians, period,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday in a statement. “The fact that this judge compared the AR-15 — a weapon of war that’s used on the battlefield — to a Swiss Army knife completely undermines the credibility of this decision and is a slap in the face to the families who’ve lost loved ones to this weapon.” The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed in August 2019 by pro-gun groups, including the San Diego County Gun Owners Political Action Committee, California Gun Rights Foundation, Second Amendment Foundation and Firearms Policy Coalition. The plaintiffs also included three San Diego County men who said they own legal rifles or pistols and want to use high-capacity magazines in them but can’t, because doing so would turn them into illegal assault weapons under California statutes. In cases in which the government seeks to limit people’s constitutional rights, such as those guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment, the government has the burden of proving the limitation is helping to advance an important public interest, like reducing mass shootings, Kopel said. “You’re essentially weighing how much of a burden you are inflicting on law-abiding people versus how much you are reducing whatever problem you’re trying to deal with,” he said. In this case, he said, the judge found that “we’re not getting any reduction in mass shootings, and it’s imposing quite a severe burden on innocent people, like people who want to have these types of firearms for protection in the home.” Other legal experts found the judge’s reasoning less compelling. “The judge in this case, in declaring the ban on assault weapons to be a failed policy experiment and therefore unconstitutional, was engaging in his own policy judgment,” said Susan Estrich, professor at the USC Gould School of Law. “His very reasoning undercuts his own conclusion.” California became the first state to ban the sale of assault weapons in 1989 in response to a shooting at a Stockton elementary school that left five students dead. The ban, signed into law by Republican Gov. George Deukmejian, has been updated multiple times since then to expand the definition of what is considered an assault weapon. Each time, those who owned the firearms before they were prohibited were required to register them. There are an estimated 185,569 such weapons registered with the state, Benitez said. In response to the ban soon after it was enacted, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found the 2nd Amendment applied only as a limitation on the federal government, not state governments, Kopel said. But in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling saying the 2nd Amendment applies to cities and states, which helped pave the way for this decision, he said. In the current case, the state attorney general’s office argued that assault weapons are more dangerous than other firearms and are disproportionately used in crimes and mass shootings. Similar restrictions have previously been upheld by six other federal district and appeals courts, the state argued. But the judge said the firearms targeted by the ban are most commonly used for legal purposes. California In a recent 25-year period, nearly a quarter of all mass workplace shootings nationwide took place in California, according to researchers. May 29, 2021 “This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of 2nd Amendment protection,” he wrote. “The banned ‘assault weapons’ are not bazookas, howitzers, or machine guns.” “In California, murder by knife occurs seven times more often than murder by rifle,” he added. The state is also appealing two other rulings by Benitez: one from 2017 that overturns a ban on buying and selling magazines that hold more than 10 bullets, and another from April of last year that blocks a 2019 law requiring background checks to buy ammunition. In the case of the assault weapons ban, the decision will almost certainly be stayed beyond 30 days, pending an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and there’s an excellent chance the court will issue a reversal, given its liberal tendencies, Estrich said. “Ultimately,” she said, “the question may be whether the United States Supreme Court, with its new conservative appointees, sees this as an opportunity to dig into assault weapons bans.” That could imperil gun control laws that are on the books across the country, Brown said. “The Supreme Court overturning these kinds of laws that are designed to promote public safety has huge negative implications, not only for assault weapons bans but for every public safety law that we have ever crafted to regulate guns, including the Brady law.” she said, referring to the 1994 requirement that firearm purchasers undergo federal background checks. “So yes, I’m very concerned about it.”

Dave Roberts says he's not worried about MLB cracking down on doctored baseballs

https://www.latimes.com/sports/dodgers/story/2021-06-05/dodgers-mlb-plan-enforcement-foreign-substances-baseballs

Major League Baseball, after turning a blind eye in recent years, this week informed team owners that it plans on enforcing rules to curb pitchers’ application of foreign substances on baseballs in the coming weeks. The decision is spurred by rampant use across the majors, which is viewed as a significant reason for offensive struggles this season. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and catcher Will Smith said Friday that the team hasn’t heard from the league on the matter. Dodgers After a Cardinals pitcher had to change his cap because it was sticky, Dave Roberts discusses the widespread use of substances that enhance grip. May 27, 2021 “I guess you see it across the league where some guys are blatantly using it,” Smith said. “But as far as it goes for me, I mean, I don’t know. It doesn’t really affect me that much, I feel like, as a hitter. So, yeah, it’d be interesting to see what they do with it.” A quick glance at Major League Baseball’s spin rate leaderboards — accessible for anyone with a computer and an internet connection — is all that’s needed to know that the Dodgers’ pitching staff spins baseballs better than any other. Proof of anyone on the Dodgers’ roster using foreign substances hasn’t surfaced, at least publicly. Does Roberts expect a drop-off in performance if MLB polices sticky stuff? “I think that, certainly, Major League Baseball is trying to clean some things up,” Roberts said. “I’m just not as educated in how much of an enhancement it is. I really am not. So I think that, at first look, it probably will affect performance. “But it’s across the board. And I believe that with the guys that we have on our pitching staff and the position players’ side, we will be big-time beneficiaries.” The Dodgers’ main four starting pitchers this season — Trevor Bauer, Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw and Julio Urías — rank in the top nine for average four-seam fastball spin rates among qualified pitchers entering Saturday, according to Baseball Savant. Bauer is first, Buehler second, Kershaw eighth and Urías ninth. Dodgers Clayton Kershaw gave up five runs in the third inning in a 6-4 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Saturday. Corey Seager is doing everything he can to come back. June 5, 2021 Zoom out to pitchers who have faced at least 50 batters and the Dodgers’ bullpen enters the mix. Bauer still tops the list, but Jimmy Nelson ranks seventh and Dennis Santana is 14th. As for cutters, Bauer is first, Buehler is third and Kenley Jansen is fifth. Sliders? Nelson is third, Bauer fourth and Buehler sixth. Bauer is also ahead of the pack in average slider spin rate. Sports Illustrated took it one step further in a report this week, calculating that the Dodgers have increased their spin rate by 7.04% from last season to this season, more than any other team. The report referred to Los Angeles as “Spin City.” Roberts said he understood “the dig,” but defended his team. He pointed out that the Dodgers added pitchers with histories of high spin rates and lost pitchers with low rates (Pedro Báez, Dylan Floro and Adam Kolarek, who ranks last in four-seam fastball average spin rate this season). “It was a shorter look and an easier look at it versus a deeper dive, which Major League Baseball is going to do that, which I’m in favor of. I think it’s great,” Roberts said. “And once things are implemented, then we’ll adhere to the rules. That’s the way we should all look at it.” Nelson, Alex Vesia and Garrett Cleavinger are among the new additions with high spin rates. But nobody stands out more than Bauer. His presence is ubiquitous atop the spin rate leaderboards this season. It wasn’t two years ago. Bauer’s average four-seam fastball spin rate of 2,410 revolutions per minute (rpm) in 2019 ranked 15th among qualified starters. The pitch’s average spin rate, however, increased nearly 400 rpm — from 2,358 to 2,755 — in September. His fastball hovered around the same number for the 2020 season, leading the league at 2,779 rpm. He finished the 60-game campaign with a 1.73 ERA and won the National League Cy Young Award. Dodgers Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer accused the commissioner’s office of leaking a story it was inspecting baseballs to determine whether he doctored them. April 8, 2021 This season, Bauer’s four-seam average spin rate of 2,835 rpm is 235 rpm ahead of all other qualified starters. The drastic change is amplified by Bauer’s history as a candid critic of MLB ignoring the use of foreign substances. In a tweet in 2018, Bauer implied the Houston Astros doctored baseballs to increase spin rates. Bauer that year also tweeted that he could increase his spin rate on his four-seam fastball by 400 rpm if he used pine tar. In an essay published in the Players’ Tribune in 2020, he wrote that, after eight years of trying to improve his fastball’s spin, he determined it could only happen using foreign substances. In an episode on HBO’s “Real Sports,” he later estimated that 70% of major league pitchers “use some sort of technically illegal substance on the ball.” He said he didn’t use illegal sticky stuff because he has “morals.” In February, Bauer rode his success in 2020 to a three-year, $102-million contract with opt-outs after the first and second seasons. He was given a $10-million signing bonus and will make a base salary of $28 million this season, making him one of the highest-paid players in the majors. “All I know is that — I’m not trying to claim ignorance — but I haven’t seen anything,” Roberts said. “And, to be quite honest, I don’t get involved in that stuff. Trevor is a grown man who is very intelligent. But as far as that, again, once it kind of all comes out in the wash on how they’re going to handle it, I have no concern that we will all follow the protocols.”

Microsoft says 'tank man' image blocked from search results due to human error

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-05/microsoft-says-tank-man-image-blocked-from-search-results-due-to-human-error

Microsoft Corp. blamed “accidental human error” for its Bing search engine briefly not showing image results for the search term “tank man” on the anniversary of the bloody military crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989. Users in different parts of the world, including the U.S., said Friday that no image results were returned when they searched for the term “tank man.” “Tank man” refers to the iconic image of a standoff between an unidentified civilian and a line of military tanks leaving Beijing’s Tiananmen Square after a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. The photo has become a symbol of defiance around the world. After being alerted by reporters, Microsoft said in a statement that the issue was “due to an accidental human error and has been resolved.” Hours later, images of “tank man” photographs were returned by the search engine. California Ecologist Jim Cornett is as fascinated with California’s driest places as ever. But the signs of stress brought on by climate change terrify him. June 5, 2021 The company did not elaborate on what the human error was or how it had happened. Nor did it say how much of its Bing development team is China-based. The company’s largest research and development center outside the United States is in China, and it posted a job opening in January for a China-based senior software engineer to lead a team that develops the technology powering Bing image search. Chinese authorities require search engines, websites and social media platforms operating within the country to censor keywords and results deemed politically sensitive or critical of the Chinese government. References to the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 are blocked in China, as are images relating to the event, such as “tank man.” Microsoft’s Bing is one of the few international search engines that operate in China, where it abides by local censorship laws and competes with larger Chinese search engines such as Baidu and Sogou. Bing has a 2.5% market share in China, according to data site Statcounter. Rival Google exited the Chinese market in 2010 after four years of operation following disputes over censorship and a major hacking attack that Google believes originated in China.

Column: Harvard-Westlake's Jason Thompson is improving as a track star by leaps and bounds

https://www.latimes.com/sports/highschool/story/2021-06-05/jason-thompson-harvard-westlake-soaring-triple-jump

At the end of football games, receiver Jason Thompson of Studio City Harvard-Westlake breaks away from teammates and makes his way to the end zone alone. “I’ll go to the goal posts. I’ll say a prayer,” he said. It’s his moment to honor his father, Bobby, who died at the age of 42 when Thompson was 5. Bobby was Arizona State’s all-time basketball assist leader and used to take his son to the park to shoot baskets. Thompson’s mother, Shelitta, used to run track at Playa del Rey St. Bernard. His grandfather, Robert, is a member of Arizona’s Hall of Fame for his exploits in football and track in the 1960s. Jason clearly has the genes to do great things in athletic competition, and it’s happening. On May 1, only two weeks after football season ended, he went 45 feet 7 inches in the triple jump, breaking a 29-year-old school record. On May 8, he won the Arcadia Invitational with a school-record leap of 47-2. Not bad for someone who competed in two triple jumps last year because of COVID-19 restrictions and continues to learn the meaning of hop, step and jump. Today I Triple Jumped 47’2” in my 4th ever meet and am now an Arcadia Invitational Champion🥇 and New State Leader‼️Much more to come💪🏽 pic.twitter.com/xhBA7UAf5t “It’s spectacularly amazing,” track coach Jonas Koolsbergen said. “No one does that. No one goes from never having done it to Arcadia champion in two years, especially when one year didn’t exist and the second year he played football half the [track] season. It’s sort of unprecedentedly impressive, especially for an event that is as technical as the triple jump.” Thompson will get to add to his growing list of track accomplishments when he competes next Saturday at the Southern Section Division 3 championships at Estancia High in Costa Mesa. It’s a full day of track and field, with the Division 1 finals at Mission Viejo Trabuco Hills, Division 2 at Moorpark and Division 4 at Carpinteria. Thompson’s improved speed and strength from working out for football have boosted him in the triple jump. In football, the 6-foot, 175-pound junior had eight touchdown catches and averaged 20.2 yards a catch in a six-game season. Then he joined the track team, for whom his sister, Jessica, is a sophomore pole vaulter and discus thrower. She was 3 when their father died from an asthma attack after a hike. After a great conversation with @Coach_KC84, I am grateful to announce I have received an offer from my Grandfather’s alma mater, at which he’s in the Hall of Fame, the University of Arizona! 🐾🔴 #beardown @hwfootball @premiumsportsla @adamgorney @TomLoy247 @GregBiggins pic.twitter.com/7YAeJ8Psxd “Me and my sister, we grew a lot closer relying on each other,” Thompson said. “My mom has done everything for us. Him passing away sucks. It always sucks, but me and my sister, we developed together.” Thompson’s athleticism can be seen when he runs the 200 or helps Harvard-Westlake in the 400-meter relay. But what he has done in the triple jump — his rapid improvement — continues to amaze. “It’s one thing to come out and say, ‘I’m fast,’ but then working on your craft, doing the best you can — it’s tremendous,” Koolsbergen said. “We hope there’s a lot more. If you watch him jump, there’s things you can say, ‘That can be better.’ So the notion he can jump farther is very real.” There’s no doubt Thompson’s mother will be the loudest fan. “She’s a big sports person,” he said. “Sports is our thing. Half the time, she’s the one, ‘Hey there’s a game on TV. Let’s watch.’” Thompson has a big summer ahead trying to finalize a college choice for football. His success in the triple jump has added to his sports options. And he feels at peace knowing what his father would have told him after winning the Arcadia Invitational. “I think he’s up there looking at me now really proud,” he said.

Earthquake: Swarm of temblors, including magnitude 5.2 quake, hits Imperial County

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-05/earthquake-hits-imperial-county

Imperial County was hit by a swarm of earthquakes Saturday, the largest one measuring magnitude 5.2, but there were no immediate reports of injuries or major damage. Quake swarms are not unusual for this border region. But the magnitude 5.2 quake caught the attention of residents. Lilia Gonzales, 40, was at home in Brawley when the earthquake hit and at first thought that her children were fighting. When she realized it was an earthquake, she wasn’t worried. “It was nothing out of the ordinary for us,” she said, but added that it was a big rumble. “I could hear my house shaking.” The magnitude 5.2 earthquake was reported at 10:55 a.m. nine miles from Brawley and was felt across Imperial County, in San Diego and in parts of the Inland Empire. The U.S. Geological Survey said some people as far away as Los Angeles felt it. “Quakes in the Imperial Valley often come in swarms. Which continue until they stop,” earthquake expert Lucy Jones said on Twitter. A “potentially bigger quake is ALWAYS possible to be triggered by any quake. Happens 5% of the time.” Elizabeth Valdivia, 46, of Brawley was also at home when the earthquake hit. By the time she came on shift as a front desk clerk at the Brawley Inn that afternoon, the aftershocks had stopped. They had brought a little light rocking, now and again, after the initial shake. Their out-of-town guests, who had not been through an earthquake, were unnerved by the experience, she was told, and the hanging light in the lobby was swinging like a pendulum. According to the Brawley Police Department, no damage was reported. The earthquake occurred 18 miles from Imperial, 22 miles from El Centro, 30 miles from Calexico and 45 miles from Coachella. There have been scores of aftershocks, including several measuring 4.0 and greater. The earthquake swarm appeared to strike in the southern end of the Brawley Seismic Zone, a seismically active region where tectonic plates are moving away from each other. Jones added that the quake appears to be along the Westmorland fault. The area sees regular seismic activity including swarms of hundreds of quakes. The Brawley Seismic Zone is particularly important to watch because it is the region that connects the San Andreas and Imperial faults, both of which can produce damaging earthquakes. “The Imperial County Fire Department and Office of Emergency Services is currently monitoring and assessing recent earthquake activity in our region,” a tweet on Imperial County’s Twitter account said Saturday. “There has not been any report of damages yet and our crews are conducting damage assessments.” In the previous 10 days, there had been 11 earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby. An average of five earthquakes with magnitudes between 5.0 and 6.0 occur per year in California and Nevada, according to a recent three-year data sample. The earthquake occurred at a depth of 3.6 miles. Did you feel this earthquake? Consider reporting what you felt to the USGS. Find out what to do before, and during, an earthquake near you by reading our five-step earthquake preparedness guide. This article was originally generated by Quakebot, a computer application that monitors the latest earthquakes detected by the USGS. A Times editor reviewed the post before it was published. If you’re interested in learning more about the system, visit our list of frequently asked questions.

New England's success against COVID-19 could be a model

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-05/new-englands-success-against-covid-19-could-be-a-model

For Dr. Jeremy Faust, the moment he realized the pandemic no longer dominated his workday came over Memorial Day weekend, when he didn’t see a single coronavirus case over two shifts in the emergency room at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Kerry LaBarbera, an ER nurse a few miles away at Boston Medical Center, had a similar realization that same weekend, when just two patients with COVID-19 came through her unit, one of the busiest in New England. “The past year and a half has been like going through a tornado or something terrible,” she said. “You’re holding on for dear life, and then you get past it and it’s like, ‘What just happened?’” Massachusetts and the rest of New England — the most heavily vaccinated region in the U.S. — are giving the rest of the country a possible glimpse of the future if more Americans get their shots. World & Nation Motorcyclists have formed a group to escort emergency vehicles through some of the worst traffic in the world. Their task has only gotten harder since the pandemic. June 5, 2021 Coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and related deaths in the region have been steadily dropping as more than 60% of residents in all six states have received at least one dose of the vaccine. The Deep South states of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi, in comparison, are the least vaccinated at around 35%, and new cases relative to the population are generally running higher there than in most of New England. States such as California and Nebraska are doing as well as if not better than some New England states when it comes to new cases relative to population. Nationally, about 50% of Americans have received at least one shot. In Massachusetts, health officials this past week determined that none of the state’s cities and towns is at high risk for the spread of COVID-19 for the first time since they started issuing weekly assessments in August. In Rhode Island, COVID-19 hospitalizations have hit their lowest levels in about eight months. New Hampshire is averaging about a death a week after peaking at about 12 a day during the virus’ winter surge. And Vermont, the most heavily vaccinated state in the U.S. at more than 70%, went more than two weeks without a single reported coronavirus-related death. “It’s an incredible change over such a short period of time,” said Dr. Tim Lahey, an infectious disease physician at the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington. Public health experts say the rest of the country could take some cues from New England as President Biden pushes to get at least one vaccine dose into 70% of American adults by July 4, dangling the promise of free beer and other goodies. One thing the region appears to have done right: It was generally slower than other parts of the country to expand vaccine eligibility and instead concentrated more on reaching vulnerable groups of people, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, a former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director under President Obama. New England leaders for the most part also embraced the recommendations of public health experts over economic priorities throughout the pandemic, said Dr. Albert Ko, who chairs the epidemiology department at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Conn. That parts of the region were among the hardest hit in the early days of the outbreak also played a significant role. “We really went through it in those early moments,” Ko said. “That’s left a big imprint on the population generally.” To be sure, some of the improvements in coronavirus numbers can be attributed to warmer weather that is allowing New Englanders to socially distance outdoors more, experts say. And racial disparities in vaccinations persist in the region, as they do in many other corners of the country. In a series of tweets last weekend, Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health in Providence, R.I., contrasted the relatively low vaccination rates in Springfield, Mass., one of the region’s largest, poorest and most racially diverse cities, with the near-complete vaccination of Newton, an affluent, largely white Boston suburb. “So if you are in a high vaccination state, your job is not done,” Jha wrote. “Because across America, there are too many people and communities for whom vaccines still remain out of reach.” Nationwide, new coronavirus cases are down to about 15,000 per day on average, while deaths have plummeted to around 430 a day — levels not seen since late March 2020, during the very early stages of the crisis. The overall U.S. death toll is just short of 600,000. Even with cases down dramatically, New England hospitals are in many ways busier than ever, as patients return in droves after postponing medical care for more than a year. Dr. Katherine Gergen Barnett, head of the family medicine department at Boston Medical Center, said it has been “energizing” to reconnect with regular patients but also taxing, as many have a year’s worth of mental trauma to work through, on top of their neglected physical ailments. “There’s definitely a little bit of exhale happening,” she said. “We ran that marathon, but now there’s this other long race ahead of us in terms of getting people back to healthy.” Paul Murphy, an emergency department nurse at Brigham and Women’s, said some of his colleagues are feeling tired and burned out as frustrated patients can face wait times lasting hours these days. A hospital spokesperson said the median wait time is an hour or less. Still, the 54-year-old Warwick, R.I., resident said it has been refreshing to step away from the work grind as the region comes back to life. Gone are the 50-hour-plus workweeks of the pandemic, with time now for his children’s sports practices and other commitments, Murphy said. Faust, the emergency physician at Brigham, said he clocked in nearly an entire day of guilt-free sleep recently, something he couldn’t have dreamed of during the throes of the pandemic. But like other health experts, he worries that the slowing pace of vaccinations could leave the nation vulnerable to newer, stronger virus mutations. “We’re playing roulette if we continue to let the virus infect so many people,” Faust said. “That’s what keeps me up at night now.”

Cruise ships restart in Venice; protesters decry their risks

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-05/cruise-ships-restart-in-venice-protesters-decry-their-risks

The first cruise ship since the pandemic took hold wended its way Saturday through the heart of Venice, escorted by triumphant water-spouting tugboats and elated port workers as it traveled down the Giudecca Canal but also protested by hundreds on land and a small armada of wooden boats waving “No Big Boats” flags. The battle for Venice’s future was stark as the MSC Orchestra set sail with some 1,000 passengers. The voyage heralded the return of cruise ships to the historic city of canals after more than 18 months, but the vessel reignited an anti-cruise movement that for more than a decade has opposed the passage of the enormous ships through the fragile lagoon due to environmental and safety concerns. Italian Premier Mario Draghi’s government pledged this spring to get cruise ships out of the Venice lagoon, but reaching that goal will take time. Even an interim solution rerouting larger ships away from the Giudecca Canal is not likely before next year. Ridding the lagoon of the ships, which run more than 250 yards in length and weigh more than 90,000 tons, could take years. Venice has become one of the world’s most important cruise destinations over the last two decades, and in 2019 served as a lucrative turnaround point for 667 cruise ships carrying nearly 700,000 passengers, according to the association Cruise Lines International. Passengers arriving Saturday for the week-long cruise aboard the 92,409-ton, 16-deck MSC Orchestra, with stops in southern Italy, two Greek islands and Dubrovnik, Croatia, were greeted at the port with signs reading “Welcome Back Cruises.” Antonella Frigo from nearby Vicenza had her departure date delayed multiple times due to the pandemic and was excited to finally be leaving on vacation. But she also sympathized with activists who want the huge ships moved out of the center of Venice. “I have always said that they should be moved, but I’m sorry, I need to depart from Venice, since I am from nearby,” Frigo said after being dropped off with a companion at the cruise terminal. “But I hope they can be rerouted. I ask myself, ‘Is it not possible to come up with another solution, so they don’t pass where they shouldn’t?’” The message for passengers taking in Venice from the ship’s decks was mixed as the ship navigated the Giudecca Canal, past St. Mark’s Square and the Doges Palace. Hundreds of Venetians gathered at a noisy canal-side protest to demand an immediate halt to cruise ships moving through the lagoon, citing a series of past decrees they say were never enforced. The MSC Orchestra responded with noisy blasts of its horn, while two dozen boats filled with port employees and VIPs motored alongside, celebrating the renewal of cruises and the return to work for hundreds of port workers. According to the Venice Works Committee, more than 1,700 workers deal directly with cruise ships, from tugboat drivers to baggage carriers, while another 4,000 jobs depend on cruise traffic. The long battle over cruise ships in Venice ramped up after the Costa Concordia cruise ship sank off Tuscany in 2012, killing 32 passengers and crew members. And it sharpened after the MSC Opera struck a dock and a tourist boat, injuring five people, while maneuvering through the Giudecca Canal two years ago this week. In all those years, no viable alternative has ever gotten off the drawing board. The Venice Environmental Assn., one of the groups against the ships, is demanding that Italian cultural and Venice port officials immediately ban ships from the lagoon, threatening legal action if there is no action within 15 days. “It is a great provocation that a ship has passed,” Andreina Zitelli, an environmental expert and member of the association, said. “You cannot compare the defense of the city with the defense of jobs in the interest of big cruise companies.” The cruise industry’s trade association said it supports moving bigger ships to other areas to avoid traversing the Giudecca Canal but maintains that cruise ships still need access to Venice’s lagoon. “We don’t want to be a corporate villain,” said Francesco Galietti of Cruise Lines International Italy. “We don’t feel we should be treated as such. We feel we are good to the communities.” Galietti said cruise ships account for only a small percentage of the tourism to Venice, somewhere around 5%, and that many passengers stay in the city before or after their cruises, contributing an average of $200 a day to the tourism-dependent economy. Prior to the pandemic, Venice struggled with over-tourism, receiving 25 million visitors a year. It was about to impose a tax on day-trippers before the pandemic struck, bringing tourism to an abrupt halt. In Rome, the Italian government said it is organizing bids for a viable alternative outside the lagoon, and the request for proposals should be posted any day now. Still, even an interim alternative route to the Giudecca Canal — moving larger ships to an industrial port west of Venice — won’t be ready until next year, Italy’s Ministry for Infrastructure and Sustainable Mobility told the Associated Press. Preparing the port of Marghera, which is still within the lagoon, requires lengthening piers to accommodate larger vessels as well as dredging a canal on the approach, cruise industry officials say. Under current plans, ships over 250 meters, representing about 70% of cruise traffic, would be rerouted. While some cruise companies have experimented with Trieste to the east or Ravenna to the south as drop-off points for those visiting Venice during the pandemic, industry officials say the lagoon city with 1,600 years of history remains a key port of call for cruises in the Adriatic Sea and eastern Mediterranean. But environmentalists say the cruise industry must change. “Venice is at water level. There are days when Venice is below water level,” said Jane da Mosto, executive director of We Are Here Venice who was also representing the Global Cruise Activist Network. “We need ships that use renewable energy. We need ships that don’t bring thousands of people into our narrow alleyways at one time. We need visitors that are interested in learning about Venice.”

Jason Kidd leaving Lakers? Damian Lillard wants him in Portland

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-05/lakers-jason-kidd-damian-lillard-portland-trail-blazers-coach

Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard, who hinted after getting eliminated from the playoffs that big changes were in order, made an open pitch to hire Lakers assistant Jason Kidd as the next Trail Blazers head coach. Kidd was one of the first people cited in reports to be a candidate for the Boston Celtics’ head coaching vacancy when Brad Stevens was moved into the front office. It appears Portland will be a destination for another job interview. “Jason Kidd is the guy I want,” Lillard told Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports. Longtime coach Terry Stotts and the Trail Blazers mutually agreed to part ways Friday, a day after Portland was eliminated from the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets in a first-round playoff series. Reports quickly surfaced of the usual suspects as candidates: Mike D’Antoni, Jeff Van Gundy and Kidd as well as Clippers assistant coach Chauncey Billups. Others included Michigan coach Juwan Howard and former Portland assistant David Vanderpool. Lakers The Lakers’ season comes crashing down amid a flurry of injuries and problems in a first-round playoff loss to the Phoenix Suns. Here’s a look at why. June 4, 2021 In the Lakers’ exit interviews Friday, coach Frank Vogel gave Kidd a thumbs-up as a candidate for any coaching position. “I can’t say enough about Jason Kidd, and his impact on this year’s team,” Vogel said. “… He’s one of those guys that, there’s guys who study the game hours upon hours upon hours that don’t have the natural basketball instinct that Jason Kidd has.”

Charges, communism, COVID-19 and a controversial name in Peruvian politics define an election

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-06-05/peru-election-castillo-fujimori-covid-19-corruption-communism

The country folk came to cheer their presidential candidate — Pedro Castillo, a teacher-turned-left-wing-populist lauded by supporters as a savior in hard times. “We want a man of the people, a campesino, a president for us all,” said Maria Pinto, 45, a homemaker at a raucous pro-Castillo rally in this historic mountain town. “Pedro will return the country’s wealth to the people.” His opponent fails to generate similar excitement. Keiko Fujimori, a two-time loser in presidential races and the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, the former president serving a 25-year prison sentence for crimes against humanity, stands accused of taking bribes and laundering money. But supporters, especially in the business class, battered during the pandemic, view her as a safer choice. “With COVID-19, tourism died, we were all thrown out of work, and we now need stability to come back,” said Victor Hugo Quispe, who runs a tour company here and plans to cast his vote for Fujimori. “This is not a time for more uncertainty.” The election Sunday featuring a pair of candidates from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum comes as many Peruvians are losing hope for their economy and their democracy. Six of the last seven presidents have either been forced from office amid allegations of wrongdoing or have faced charges upon completing their terms. The country had three different presidents in a week last November amid fierce street demonstrations against the dysfunctional political class. COVID-19 brought a different kind of misery, hobbling the healthcare system, killing at least 184,000 of Peru’s 32 million people — the highest death rate in the world — and shrinking the once-robust economy by 11.1 % last year. The World Bank estimates that 2 million people were driven into poverty. “So much of what we are seeing in this election comes down to the devastation of COVID-19,” said Gustavo Gorriti, a well-known Peruvian journalist. “There was so much loss, so much suffering, both on a personal level and to the economy.” Polls show a near draw as Fujimori cuts into the lead that Castillo held following his first-place finish in an initial round of balloting in April. She finished second. Each garnered fewer than 20% of the votes in a fragmented field of 18 candidates. The contest has bared some of the geographic, socioeconomic and ethnic factors that divide the country. Castillo, 51, who has never held public office and was a political unknown before this year, draws much of his support from the poor, Indigenous population in the Andes. Fujimori, 46, who would become the country’s first female president, runs stronger in the capital, Lima, and other coastal areas that have benefited from the longstanding export-oriented, free-market economic policies she has championed. A sense of uncertainty and foreboding precedes election day, as each campaign portrays the opposing candidate as an extremist — Castillo a communist and a terrorist who would scare off investors, Fujimori a thief and dictator-in-waiting. Adding to the tension was the massacre of 16 people last month in a remote jungle region known for illicit cultivation of coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine. The assailants left leaflets warning people not to vote June 6 and denouncing Fujimori supporters as “traitors.” Authorities attributed the strike to remnants of the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla group, which waged a bloody insurgency against the government in the 1980s. After Alberto Fujimori became president in 1990 — a milestone for the tiny minority of Peruvians who trace their ancestry to Japanese immigrants — he made his reputation as a no-holds-barred foe of the insurgents. At one point, he dissolved Congress while alleging that legislators were blocking his efforts to fight terrorism and institute free-market economic reforms to tame hyper-inflation. His style of rule became known as fujimorismo — assailed by critics as authoritarianism, but hailed by his daughter’s backers as robust leadership. “Fujimori lifted Peru out of the economic crisis and at the same time defeated terrorism,” said Carmen María Carranza, 38, a marketing executive for a beauty-products firm. “Those who didn’t live through those years don’t even know. But I saw how my parents suffered. … God save us from communism.” In 2009 — nine years after he resigned and Congress found that he was “morally unfit” to serve — Fujimori was convicted of ordering a military squad to carry out a pair of massacres that left 25 dead while he was in office. The unabashed champion of her 82-year-old father’s checkered legacy, Keiko Fujimori has vowed to pardon him if elected. She was just 19 when her parents separated in 1994 and her father made her first lady. After studying business administration in the United States, she was elected to the Peruvian Congress in 2006, proceeding to lose presidential runs in 2011 and 2016. In March, after a two-year investigation, prosecutors charged her and associates with money laundering and corruption, most notably alleging that she received $1.2 million in bribes from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht for her 2011 campaign. Prosecutors called for the dissolution of her party, Popular Force, and recommended she be imprisoned for 30 years. A judge is reviewing the evidence. Fujimori denies the charges and calls them a political hit job. She spent 13 months in detention on related charges in 2018 and 2019. Being elected — with attendant presidential immunity — could keep Fujimori out of jail. For his part, Castillo has vowed to eliminate corruption, a rallying cry for his base. “Pedro is for the people, Keiko is a criminal!” chanted Julián Rojas, 40, a taxi driver who attended a Castillo rally recently in Lima’s central Plaza San Martín, where he helped hoist up an effigy of Keiko Fujimori in a mock jail cell and parade it around the square. Castillo, who dons a wide-brimmed peasant hat and plays up his rural roots, has said that he would rewrite the constitution to give more economic power to the government. That would include raising taxes and royalties on Peru’s crucial mining sector. He has accused multinationals of “plundering” the country’s wealth of copper and other minerals. His motto — “No more poor in a rich country” — has resonated in the countryside and among the urban working class and fueled a torrent of criticism that he would turn Peru into the “next Venezuela.” Castillo has vowed that he would protect private property and individual savings, and rejects any ideological affinity with Hugo Chavez, the late socialist leader whom critics hold responsible for economic ruin in Venezuela. “We aren’t communists, we aren’t chavistas, we aren’t terrorists,” he told a crowd in April in the northern Peruvian city of Máncora. “We are workers, just like any of you.” For her part, Fujimori has endeavored to soften her right-wing image, vowing to implement measures to help the poor — including raising the minimum wage, bolstering aid for students and pensioners, and providing “oxygen bonus” grants of about $2,500 to each family that lost somebody to COVID-19. She also recently conceded that she and her party had committed “errors” and vowed to run a clean government. Among Fujimori’s improbable supporters are Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian Nobel laureate who lost the 1990 presidential election to her father and has been a scathing critic of both father and daughter. In a column for the Spanish daily El País, Vargas Llosa, a resident of Madrid, labeled Castillo a threat to democracy and called Keiko Fujimori “the lesser of two evils.” Nonetheless, many have questioned her commitment to democracy, given her father’s history and what critics call her hostility to criticism and free speech. “I would never vote for the return of fujimorismo,” wrote columnist Ernesto de la Jara in La República newspaper. “To vote for her would be to betray myself.” For many, there may be no good choice at the polls. Voting is mandatory for most, but it’s unclear how much the pandemic will dampen turnout — or how many voters may file spoiled or blank ballots in rejection of both candidates. “Both Fujimori and Castillo and their parties have a lot of support, and both have unleashed a lot of passion, but both have also been discredited and rejected for many reasons,” said Eduardo Dargent, a political scientist in Lima. “For many voters, especially in the middle classes, this election presents a difficult, even tragic moment.” Special correspondent Adriana León in Lima contributed to this report.

Whittier police shoot and kill man they say was armed with a gun

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-05/whittier-police-shoot-and-kill-man-allegedly-armed-with-gun

A Whittier police officer shot and killed a man who was allegedly armed with a handgun on Friday afternoon. Officers responded to a dog park on Philadelphia Street north of Whittier Boulevard shortly after noon for a report of a man with a gun, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a news release. The man wasn’t there when officers arrived, but they broadcast his description and the direction he was reported to be headed over the radio, said the Sheriff’s Department, which is investigating the deadly use of force. A Whittier police officer caught up with a man fitting the suspect’s description on a bike path near Mar Vista Street and Whittier Boulevard, according to authorities. The man allegedly pulled a handgun out of his pocket, and the officer shot him, the Sheriff’s Department said. Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene. His identity was not immediately released.

Gavin Newsom's wheel of vaccine fortune: When a game show is as good a metaphor as any

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2021-06-05/california-vaccine-lottery-governor-gavin-newsom-game-show-metaphor

Our perceptions of risk, as many insurance adjusters and sports teams with comfortable leads know, could be better. Academics study this. For a 2013 Assn. for Psychological Science paper, 101 college students, in exchange for extra credit, were placed in a room with a tarantula (American research universities are the envy of the world) and tried to guess how far away the spider was. The students who were afraid thought the spider was much closer. Fear messes with our perceptions. On the other hand, one of the most terrifying sentences you will ever read appears in an academic synopsis for a 2011 Current Biology article, which concluded that humans “exhibit a pervasive and surprising bias: when it comes to predicting what will happen to us tomorrow, next week, or fifty years from now, we overestimate the likelihood of positive events, and underestimate the likelihood of negative events.” The risk of divorce, car accidents, getting cancer, our life expectancies, our career success, how smart our kids are — you know what? Maybe it’s better not to think about it. As George Orwell put it, “Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.” So as this awful COVID-19 pandemic crawls to its conclusion, perhaps there is no better symbol for our maladjustment than Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom standing in front of a lotto ball dispenser and a prize wheel Friday at the headquarters of the California State Lottery to talk about handing out $50,000 cash prizes to random state residents who get vaccinated. “We’re here with their expertise, borrowing some of their equipment,” Newsom said of State Lottery officials, carefully noting that the so-called Vax for the Win was not an official lottery program, presumably for a good legal reason. The real money, the cash prizes of $1.5 million, are still to come. But at this press conference, it was the wheel of fortune that draws the eye. The balance of pain and prosperity is an ancient one, represented often by the wheel. The lyrics in Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” moan that “the wheel of Fortune turns: I go down, demeaned; another is raised up; far too high up sits the king at the summit — let him fear ruin!” Though it’s more likely the king at the summit has optimism bias. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, facing a recall election, draws the names of the first winners of California’s COVID-19 vaccine lottery in an upbeat event. June 4, 2021 The idea of the vaccine prize lottery — designed to entice the vaccine-hesitant to get poked — emerged from the administration of Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, and the only thing more notable than some of the scoffing is the fact that the whole concept seems to be working really well. Vaccination rates have picked up in the Buckeye State. “The rest of us assumed that reason, science, and study would eventually carry the day,” the Cleveland Scene alt-weekly concluded. “We were morons. DeWine held a keener grasp of human nature.” And why not? We live in a lottery reality, whose probabilities and outcomes in some fields right now seem influenced occasionally by actual material conditions, but sometimes more often by whether people think the vibes feel good or very, very bad. The meme-hyped stock for the struggling movie theater chain AMC is one of the hottest things out there, for some reason, leading Bloomberg financial writer Matt Levine to conclude this week that “the way to understand AMC is to abandon your conscious mind for a while and just float on a sea of vague associations.” The coronavirus ... seemed to operate with a similar lottery-ball marriage to chaos and misfortune. ... Many Americans will never understand how or where they contracted the world’s most famous illness. Whether people understand what’s happening seems irrelevant to whether they’re getting famous on TikTok, or making lots of money or suddenly losing it on some cryptocurrency you’ve never heard of. You can be fortune’s fool or have a fool’s fortune. The current official use of the lottery seems biased toward the elective — toward the nice — by historical standards. Older Americans remember one of the country’s previous uses of lotteries as public policy, selective service, to choose which young people would kill and die in Vietnam. One World War II soldier reportedly won a “Why I’m Fighting” essay contest with the answer, “I was drafted.” At the time, in the days before all-volunteer service, in eras of mass death, it must have felt fairer to pick men at random if anyone had to be picked at all. In some ancient depictions of Fortuna, the Roman goddess of fortune, she wore a blindfold, like Lady Justice. The coronavirus, especially in the early days, seemed to operate with a similar lottery-ball marriage to chaos and misfortune. How the virus even traveled was poorly understood for a great deal of time, leading to infection that felt nearly random. Many Americans will never understand how or where they contracted the world’s most famous illness, if they were symptomatic and aware of their infection at all. Acute illness became a similar biological game of chance in which many of the hundreds of millions of infected would basically turn out fine, while an overwhelming fraction were felled horrifically. It was a major scientific and political struggle — the world’s biggest tarantula distance experiment — to figure out how scared, or not scared, or kind of scared, people should be. Many people, in the din of voices of experts and objectors, got through it by gut feeling. So maybe some optimism bias, the hope for the wonderfully improbable, is just what the doctor ordered. “Each one of these balls represents a $50,000 check that an individual will receive — when they get their second shot,” Newsom said, as he waited to call the winners Friday, adding gravely, “There’s always stipulations.” He then reached down to pick up the first ball, ready to announce whose life was going to change.

Justice Department says it will no longer seize reporters' records in leak probes

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-06-05/justice-dept-says-itll-no-longer-seize-reporters-records

The Justice Department said Saturday that it no longer will secretly obtain reporters’ records during leak investigations, a policy shift that abandons a practice decried by news organizations and press freedom groups. The reversal follows a pledge last month by President Biden, who had said it was “simply, simply wrong” to seize journalists’ records and that he would not permit the Justice Department to continue the practice. Though Biden’s comments in an interview were not immediately accompanied by any change in policy, a pair of statements from the White House and Justice Department on Saturday signaled an official turnabout from an investigative tactic that has persisted for years. Democratic and Republican administrations alike have used subpoenas and court orders to obtain journalists’ records in an effort to identify sources who have revealed classified information. But the practice had received renewed scrutiny over the past month as Justice Department officials had alerted reporters at three news organizations — the Washington Post, CNN and the New York Times — that their phone records had been obtained in the final year of the Trump administration. World & Nation Motorcyclists have formed a group to escort emergency vehicles through some of the worst traffic in the world. Their task has only gotten harder since the pandemic. June 5, 2021 The latest revelation came Friday night when the Times reported the existence of a gag order that had barred the newspaper from revealing a secret court fight over efforts to obtain the email records of four reporters. That tussle had begun during the Trump administration but had persisted under the Biden Justice Department, which ultimately moved to withdraw the gag order. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Saturday that no one at the White House was aware of the gag order until Friday night, but that more broadly, “the issuing of subpoenas for the records of reporters in leak investigations is not consistent with the President’s policy direction to the Department.” In a separate statement, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said that “in a change to its longstanding practice,” the department “will not seek compulsory legal process in leak investigations to obtain source information from members of the news media doing their jobs.” He added: “The department strongly values a free press, protecting First Amendment values, and is committed to taking all appropriate steps to ensure the independence of journalists.” In ruling out “compulsory legal process” for reporters in leak investigations, the department also appeared to say that it would not force journalists to reveal in court the identity of their sources. The statement did not say whether the Justice Department would still conduct aggressive leak investigations without obtaining reporters’ records. It also did not define who exactly would be counted as a member of the media for the purposes of the policy and how broadly the protection would apply. Even so, it marked a startling reversal concerning a practice that has persisted across multiple presidential administrations. The Obama Justice Department, under then-Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, alerted the Associated Press in 2013 that it had secretly obtained two months of phone records of reporters and editors in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering activities. After blowback, Holder announced a revised set of guidelines for leak investigations, including requiring the authorization of the highest levels of the department before subpoenas for news media records could be issued. But the department preserved its prerogative to seize journalists’ records, and the recent disclosures to the news media organizations show that the practice continued in the Trump-era Justice Department as part of multiple investigations. Separately on Saturday, the Justice Department said it was withdrawing its subpoena that demanded USA Today provide information to identify readers of a story about suspect in a child pornography case who fatally shot two FBI agents in February. The subpoena was issued in April but came to light this past week when USA Today and its parent company, Gannett, filed documents in federal court asking a judge to quash it. The subpoena sought the IP addresses and mobile phone identification information of readers who clicked on the article for a period of about 35 minutes on the day after the shooting. The government hadn’t provided details about the case or why it was specifically interested in the readers who clicked on the USA Today story during that brief period. Officials had said only that the subpoena was connected to an ongoing federal criminal investigation. But a federal prosecutor notified lawyers for USA Today on Saturday that the FBI was withdrawing its subpoena because authorities had been able to identify the subject of their investigation — described in an email as a “child sexual exploitation offender” — by “other means.” The prosecutor’s email was included in a court filing by Gannett.

Jose Ortiz to replace brother as jockey of Known Agenda for Belmont Stakes

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-06-05/jose-ortiz-to-replace-brother-on-known-agenda-for-belmont-stakes

An injury to Irad Ortiz Jr. on Thursday left a lot of trainers scrambling to find a new jockey to ride their horse. But none more than Todd Pletcher, who had the meet’s leading rider on Known Agenda in the Belmont Stakes. On Saturday morning, Pletcher found his new rider by keeping it in the family. Jose Ortiz, Irad’s younger brother by a year, was named to ride Known Agenda in the 1½-mile race. Irad Ortiz was injured when his horse took an awkward step and he was unseated. He was then clipped by one of the trailing horses and stayed on the ground for a couple minutes before he was strapped to a backboard and taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital. He didn’t suffer any serious injuries but can’t immediately return to racing. He was treated and released the same day. “The doctors wanted him to take at least a week,” Steve Rushing, his agent, told Horse Racing Nation. “He was cleared to ride when he’s able to, but they want him to take time for the stitches to heal to avoid infection.” Sports None of the horses in the Belmont Stakes will be contending for the Triple Crown, but some of the Kentucky Derby and Preakness favorites will be running. June 5, 2021 Friday and Saturday had the potential to be big paydays for the jockey. He was scheduled to ride in 13 graded stakes races. Among Irad Ortiz’s other scheduled Friday rides, Jose Ortiz picked up the mount on Firenze Fire, who won the Grade 2 True North. Using the standard 10% formula, the win was worth $16,500 for the younger Ortiz. Also, on Friday, Chub Wagon scratched from the Grade 3 Bed O’ Roses, Virginia Joy finished fourth in the Grade 2 New York (Flavien Prat replaced and earned $5,000) and Conviction Trade finished seventh in the Grade 2 Belmont Gold Cup (Jose Ortiz, $266). On Saturday, in addition to Known Agenda in the Belmont Stakes, Irad Ortiz was supposed to ride Drain the Clock in the Grade 1 Woody Stephens (replaced by Jose Ortiz), Moretti in the Grade 2 Brooklyn (Javier Castellano), Search Results in the Grade 1 Acorn (Castellano), Fast Boat in the Grade 1 Jaipur (John Velazquez), Letruska in the Grade 1 Ogden Phipps (Jose Ortiz), Pocket Square (Flavien Prat) in the Grade 1 Just a Game, Mischevious Alex in the Grade 1 Met Mile (Jose Ortiz) and Colonel Liam in the Grade 1 Manhattan (Luis Saez).

Essential Arts: What Europe's Gothic architecture took from Islamic design

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/newsletter/2021-06-05/essential-arts-diane-darke-investigates-architectures-islamic-roots-essential-arts

I’ve been studying up on the first episode of “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” because it’s important to know our culture’s origin stories. I’m Carolina A. Miranda, arts and urban design columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and now that I’ve delivered that critical Kardashians update (with many thanks to my colleague Yvonne Villarreal) it’s time to move on to the artsy fartsies: It began with a tweet. On April 16, 2019, a day after the Notre Dame Cathedral had been engulfed by flames in Paris, Middle East scholar Diana Darke noted on Twitter that the great icon of French nationhood was in fact inspired by Syrian architecture. “Notre-Dame’s architectural design, like all Gothic cathedrals in Europe, comes directly from #Syria’s Qalb Lozeh 5th century church,” she wrote. “Crusaders brought the ‘twin tower flanking the rose window’ concept back to Europe in the 12th century.” She followed the tweet up with a blog post titled “The heritage of Notre Dame — less European than people think.” The article went more in depth on Qalb Lozeh (which means “Heart of the Almond” in Arabic). She also noted that some of the design elements prevalent in Gothic architecture can trace their origins to the buildings of the Umayyad dynasty, a Damascus-based caliphate whose descendants later ruled Moorish Spain. (Known as the first great Muslim dynasty, their rule began in the 7th century.) Darke has expanded that fascinating post (which garnered international media attention) into an equally fascinating book, “Stealing From the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe,” which was released by Oxford University Press in the United States last November. And it is revelatory. In it, she charts the influence of structures such as the 7th century Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, also known as the Dome of the Rock (and recently the site of crackdowns against Palestinian protesters by the Israeli military). Some European crusaders mistook Al Aqsa as the biblical Temple of Solomon, looking to it for inspiration in their own religious architecture. Among the influences derived from Islamic design was the pointed arch. While not specifically a Muslim innovation (isolated examples existed in locations around Persia and Syria prior to the advent of Islam), its use was spread far and wide via Muslim religious shrines such as Al Aqsa. There are practical reasons for its spread, too. A pointed arch is stronger than the rounded Roman arch, therefore allowing for the construction of taller buildings. Your essential guide to the arts in L.A. Get Carolina A. Miranda's weekly newsletter for what's happening, plus openings, critics' picks and more. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times. These innovations came partly from advancements in mathematics during the Islamic Golden Age (which ran from about the 8th to the 13th century). As Darke writes, it was a scholar of Turkic origin, Al-Khwarizmi (c. 780-846), “whose name was Latinised as Algoritmi, from which we get the Western word ‘algorithm.’” The book details countless other points of influence that emerged out of Middle Eastern and Islamic architecture and centuries later became design staples in Europe. Among them: the rose window, the trefoil arch, as well as sophisticated dome construction and stained glass fabrication techniques — not to mention the minaret, which was likely repurposed as a bell tower by Christians. Darke tracks how some of these influences were absorbed into European design — via returning Crusaders, roving guilds of masons, Islamic rule in Spain and through cosmopolitan sites of trade such as Venice, where lacy constructions bear the imprint of Middle Eastern influence. In one particularly startling juxtaposition, she shows the architectural similarities between London’s iconic Big Ben and the minaret from the Great Mosque of Aleppo in Syria (an Umayyad building). Both are squared off towers that rise in four sections, and both are decorated with similar elements, such as trefoil arches. (The minaret, sadly, collapsed during clashes in Syria’s civil war in 2013). A particularly exciting episode (Hollywood, please take note) details the treacherous odyssey made by the 20-year-old Abd Al-Rahman, grandson of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham, to Spain in the 8th century. It was a cinematic escape from political opponents that led to the establishment of eight centuries of Islamic rule in Spain. Though dense in parts, “Stealing From the Saracens” ultimately reveals the countless ways in which Western culture has been shaped by Islamic thought — including here in the United States. (Gothic architecture has inspired plenty of religious and academic architecture all over the U.S. Just look at all the pale facsimiles of the style currently planted all over campus at USC.) And in that regard, Darke’s book serves a vital purpose. “Are we ready, in the current climate of Islamophobia,” she writes in the introduction, “to acknowledge that a style so closely identified with European Christian identity owes its origins to Islamic architecture?” Darke is unsure of the answer to question. But her eye-opening book is a solid first step. For the price of a McMansion in Brentwood, writes classical music critic Mark Swed, Inglewood got itself a new concert hall. Well, not entirely new. The Beckmen YOLA Center occupies what was once a dilapidated bank building on South La Brea Avenue, which has now been reconfigured by Frank Gehry and his team into a new practice and performance space for the LA Phil’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles. The hall isn’t open yet. But Swed got in for an early sound check. In other Gehry-related news: Philly Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron has a look at his firm’s redo of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a renovation project that has been 15 years in the making. It’s a design that defers to the building’s original design, executed in the 1920s by a collaborative team that included Horace Trumbauer, Julian Abele, Paul Cret, C. Clark Zantzinger and Charles Borie Jr. “Instead of wreaking havoc,” writes Saffron, “the 92-year-old architectural radical has played against type and given museum officials precisely what they wanted: clarity, light, and space.” And the Venice Architecture Biennale has opened its doors in Italy. The show was already in the works when the pandemic hit, but it nonetheless was set to address global issues such as climate change, mass migration and inequity. “The pandemic will hopefully go away,” curator Hashim Sarkis told the New York Times. “But unless we address these causes, we will not be able to move forward.” Culture reporter Ashley Lee talked with filmmaker Jon M. Chu about the making of the cinematic version of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical “In the Heights” and the ways in which he was inspired, early on in his career, by movie musicals. “There’s a truthfulness of why music and dance exist in these stories in the first place,” Chu tells Lee. “It’s not because a melody is catchy but because just saying the words isn’t sufficient to communicate whatever that character wants to express.” Jessica Gelt writes about the Geffen Playhouse‘s new virtual musical for kids, “The Door You Never Saw Before.” The show, whose themes explore the isolation of the pandemic, literally brought her to tears. “Along the way, children choose which door to open or not open, and whether to visit the overpass or underpass, the lost and found or the library,” she writes. The actors play “a variety of characters whose songs gently tap into deep emotions children may have dealt with during an isolating year.” As the USC Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena reopens, it will be with a new lens on the collections, reports Times contributor Scarlet Cheng. This includes a reevaluation of the nature of the objects (such as those that exoticize Asian cultures), as well as their provenance. Plus, the museum is looking to integrate more contemporary artists into the program. “The Asian experience and the Asian American experience is so flattened by the way we typically talk about it,” says curator Rebecca Hall. “As a curator, I know artists can fill that out in a rich way.” A frequent trope about Los Angeles is that it is not a philanthropic city (one repeated in a recent story in the New York Times). Well, I looked into the numbers and found that the assertion simply isn’t grounded in fact. Not only does L.A. score above average on giving, it is several notches ahead of New York. But, ultimately, megadonor philanthropy is not something a city’s art scene should rest on. As I argue this week, it’s time to “retire the outmoded idea that the most important factor in a city’s cultural landscape is the presence of some white knight bearing a checkbook.” Enjoying this newsletter? Consider subscribing to the Los Angeles Times Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Become a subscriber. Which reminds me, D.J. Waldie published this excellent assessment of Eli Broad‘s legacy early last month: “Often the buildings he fretted over reflect Broad’s image more than the city’s, particularly the cheerless museum he named for himself.” This week, the L.A. City Council voted to approve historic-cultural monument status for the building that once harbored the studio of Corita Kent, who made a name for herself in the 1960s as the “Pop Art Nun,” producing work that pushed the boundaries of convention. I write about why the designation is a big deal: It’s a rare case of a solo female visual artist being honored in the city’s landscape. Plus, the Huntington Library has acquired a cache of images that depict daily life in L.A.’s old Chinatown. Sort of related: the National Trust for Historic Preservation has issued its yearly list of the 11 most endangered historic places. Among them, the Trujillo Adobe in Riverside and Summit Tunnels 6 and 7 and the Summit Camp Site in Truckee, important Transcontinental Railroad links built by Chinese railroad labor. The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra on June 26 will be the first group to take the stage at Walt Disney Concert Hall since it was shuttered by the pandemic more than a year ago. Among the invited guests will be 200 winners of a ticket giveaway (for those who are fully vaccinated). Plus, there will be plenty of rules governing everything from staging to audience seating. “It’s been an exercise in organizational agility and fluidity,” Executive Director Ben Cadwallader tells The Times’ Deborah Vankin. The Music Center has also returned from its somnolent state with its outdoor Dance at Dusk shows. Jessica Gelt attended a tap extravaganza featuring a performance by queen of tap Dormeshia. The show, she writes, awakened “L.A.’s cultural nerve center.” A survey sponsored by the American Alliance of Museums shows that damage from the pandemic may not be as severe as originally anticipated. Last year, it was reported that nearly a third of U.S. museums might permanently shut down as a result of COVID-19. That number has now been revised to 15%. As LGBTQ Pride Month kicks off, The Times’ Matt Cooper rounds up the best things to do, including an outdoor exhibit organized by the ONE Archives Foundation and a virtual benefit featuring performances by Lil Nas X, Dolly Parton and Ricky Martin. The Natural History Museum has created a worthwhile online exhibition component for Barbara Carrasco‘s portable mural, “L.A. History: A Mexican Perspective,” which it recently acquired. This includes the ability to zoom in on key details and read background on the histories and historical objects that shaped the work. If you’re looking to see something IRL, make time for “When I Remember I See Red: American Indian Art and Activism in California” at the Autry Museum of the American West. This group exhibition captures a period in which increased Indigenous activism over issues related to civil rights and federal termination policies (which sought to put an end tribal autonomy) brought together Indigenous communities from around the country in potent ways. The show includes some stunning paintings by Tony Abeyta, Dalbert Castro, Frank LaPena and Rick Bartow, as well as a set of wry sculptures by Mooshka (born Kevin Cata) that riff on kink and kachinas. Also in the show: the logbook employed during the Indigenous occupation of Alcatraz in the 1960s and ‘70s, described by one scholar as that protest’s “holy grail.” (I wrote about it late last year.) “When I Remember I See Red” is on view at the Autry through Nov. 14, autry.org. Raimund Hoghe, a German dancer and choreographer who served as a dramaturge to Pina Bausch and later incorporated his physical disabilities into his work, has died at 72. Chi Modu, a photographer who helped chronicle rap’s ascendancy, making portraits of figures such as Eazy-E, Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., is dead at 54. Sophie Rivera, a photographer known for her elegant portraits of Puerto Rican New Yorkers and other inhabitants of the city, is dead at 82. Jay Belloli, an independent Los Angeles curator who was intrigued by the ways in which art intersected with space (the galactic kind), and who served as interim director of the Pasadena Museum of California Art from 2016 to 2017, has died at 76. — A report that is equal parts chilling and enlightening on how robots are being used to mitigate isolation among the elderly.— How a group of dancers confronted state violence in Colombia with some well-timed vogueing. A remarkable piece about dance as resistance.— Urban design often overlooks the needs of teenage girls, writes critic Alexandra Lange. A new movement is trying to change that.— Some execs at L.A. Metro want to keep widening freeways, despite what the residents around those freeways or the EPA have to say about it. — The Mexican government sent troops to seize land next to the ruins of Teotihuacán, where authorities have reported that bulldozers were wrecking part of the outlying parts of the ancient city.— Good recycling: A New York City art project repurposed plywood that was used to shutter storefronts during last year’s protests.— “The Hiroshima Panels,” a series of famous paintings made by Iri and Toshi Maruki in reaction to the atomic bombing of Japan, are set to receive needed conservation work for the very first time. (Contributor Jeff Spurrier wrote about these singular works for The Times last summer.)— John Yau digs into the mysteries of Jasper Johns’ “Green Angel” motif.— Jillian Steinhauer on the art world’s fetish of “rediscovering” old women artists.— In Wisconsin, Mary Louise Schumacher reports on Art Preserve, a unique exhibition site that marries an art museum with an art storage facility for unique works by folk and self-taught artists. Highly intriguing!— Emily Colucci is not having the wall text for the Alice Neel show at the Met. I’ve really been enjoying the poetry of “Lost Notes,” culture critic Hanif Abdurraqib’s music history podcast for KCRW.

Real Estate newsletter: A gold palace chases a record price

https://www.latimes.com/business/newsletter/2021-06-05/real-estate-record-gold-palace-tony-gonzalez-sugar-ray-leonard-taix-hot-property

Welcome back to the Real Estate newsletter. In Southern California’s luxury market, not all that glitters is gold — but sometimes it is. This week, a newly built mansion outfitted with Swarovski crystals and 24-karat gold surfaced for sale in Newport Beach at $69.8 million — a price that would smash the home sale record in Orange County. Some houses aim for subtlety. This one doesn’t. Up in L.A. County, two athletes made big moves off the field. NFL legend Tony Gonzalez found a billionaire buyer for his Georgian-inspired home, and boxing great Sugar Ray Leonard put his longtime estate in the Palisades up for grabs at $46.5 million. A battle is brewing for the future of Taix, the decades-old Echo Park restaurant set to turn into a six-story complex with housing and retail. The tug of war pits historic preservationists and longtime patrons against the owner himself, who supports the redevelopment. If you’re brave enough to buy or crafty enough to build in this historic seller’s market, we have you covered. The Times dove into the recent archives and came out with 18 inspiring homes that boast both high-end design and a small footprint. While catching up on the latest, visit and like our Facebook page, where you can find real estate stories and updates throughout the week. In Newport Coast, one of Southern California’s glitziest mansions is aiming for the highest price in Orange County history: $69.8 million. Dubbed Palais de Cristal, the newly built Palladian-style stunner is a celebration of wealth — a 15,500-square-foot concoction of gold, onyx and glass filled with over-the-top spaces and ostentatious amenities. It’s owned by Amini Innovation Corp. founder Michael Amini, who grew his furniture company into a lifestyle brand that sells products through more than 3,000 retailers in 80 countries. He’ll own the Orange County home sale record if he gets his price; the current mark belongs to a 19,000-square-foot mansion in the same neighborhood that traded hands for $61 million last year. Amini outfitted the fully furnished estate with one-of-a-kind pieces and made sure all the home’s hardware — door handles, stairway railings, etc. — was coated in 24-karat gold. In the foyer, a stained glass dome named the “Eye of the Phoenix” draws the eye with gold pendants and a Swarovski crystal-encrusted eye at the center. Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard is trying to knock out a near-record sale in Pacific Palisades, listing his grand villa in the Riviera neighborhood for $46.5 million. The current record was set this year when media mogul Shane Smith sold his Mediterranean-style compound for $48.67 million. The listing marks Leonard’s second attempt at selling the prized property. He first offered it up for $52 million in 2019, The Times previously reported. Spanning 1.8 acres, the leafy spread centers on a 16,700-square-foot house built by Richard Landry, the architect whose mega-mansions have been lived in by stars such as Michael Jackson and Sylvester Stallone. He took inspiration from Florentine villas for the design, and the Italian-style architecture includes grand public spaces with arched doorways, dramatic beams and custom art. NFL legend Tony Gonzalez found a deep-pocketed buyer in Beverly Hills, selling his 13,000-square-foot mansion to billionaire investor Wayne Boich for $21.15 million. Boich, who serves as chairman and chief executive of Boich Investment Group, got a decent discount on the property. Gonzalez and his wife, former “Beat Shazam” DJ October Gonzalez, originally sought $30 million for the mansion last summer and trimmed the price to $28 million a few months later. The star tight end paid $7.1 million for the property in 2016 and quickly tore down the 1950s traditional-style home, replacing it with a Georgian-inspired showplace designed by architect Philip Vertoch. Taix French Restaurant has been an Echo Park standby for decades, an old-school gathering place for cocktails and “country French” cuisine that has seen generations of birthday parties, meetings and gatherings after Dodgers games, writes Emily Alpert Reyes. But a debate has been sparked by a real estate developer’s planned project on Taix’s Sunset Boulevard site that would replace the longtime building with a new complex that would rise to six stories and include housing and retail. Holland Partner Group says the new project would house a smaller version of the restaurant, which has been dubbed “New Taix” by its owner. Historic preservationists and Taix fans want to protect the building. Owner Michael Taix said doing so would jeopardize the cherished business itself. Small-space living doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice style or succumb to clutter. It just requires creative thinking, writes Lisa Boone. Whether you live in an apartment, loft, bungalow, accessary dwelling unit — or even a trailer — living small can be an empowering opportunity for you to think big while living with less. Southern California homes are known for their architectural variety — Craftsman, Spanish and Midcentury Modern among them. Here are some inspiring homes from our archives that are noteworthy not just for their design, but for their small footprint. By now, everyone knows there’s a housing shortage, but this report from the New York Times found that California’s real estate market — at least in terms of supply — has remained relatively stable. Of the nation’s top 50 metropolitan areas, only Riverside saw a dramatic drop-off, losing 64% of its listings year over year. Austin, Texas, topped the list with a loss of 73%. In such a seller’s market, landing a home over all your competitors might mean making an all-cash offer. According to CNN, 25% of home sales were all-cash deals in April, up 10% compared with last year. Some agents said even an all-cash offer sometimes won’t be enough.

Column: Their Venice home feels unsafe. They blame public officials, not homeless Angelenos

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-05/venice-homeless-public-officials

When Arthur and Rini Kraus bought their condo 19 years ago in Venice, every day was a postcard from paradise. They took long walks, enjoyed gazing across open sea from their patio, and strolled to nearby restaurants for dinner. The neighborhood was funky, and even a bit sketchy, but their four sons and grandchildren were happy to drop by, and the beach was their playground. A little over a decade ago, things began to change. The neighborhood took on some harder edges, more people began camping along the boardwalk, and the Krauses no longer felt as safe as they once had. “I’d say it really exploded about three years ago,” said Arthur. Tents multiplied, and the beach became an open-air clinic for the poor, the addicted and those in physical or mental distress. “I see people wake up, lower their pants and go to the bathroom,” Rini said. “The beach is supposed to be for everybody.” “I can’t even have my grandchildren here now,” said Arthur. Opinion Last week, after an emotional public debate, the L.A. Planning Commission approved a housing project on a beachside parking lot June 2, 2021 I visited the Krauses on Memorial Day, and Arthur agreed to take a walk with me, but Rini decided to stay home. She doesn’t like to venture south on the boardwalk any longer, because the scene is so disturbing. “This is not civilization,” Arthur said about the sprawl of tents and trash. When I described the Krauses’ situation to Va Lecia Adams Kellum, chief executive of the nearby St. Joseph Center, which does homeless outreach, she expressed sympathy. “My heart goes out to that family and I want to make it better,” she said, noting that a “failed investment in affordable housing and years of the wealth gap just being ignored” have led to this collapse. “The oceanfront walk can’t be what it is today. It’s not good for the residents and it’s not good for the unhoused,” said Adams Kellum. In recent months, Coley King, a physician and director of homeless healthcare at the Venice Family Clinic, says he’s seen the mental and physical health of Venice’s homeless population deteriorate. “It’s kind of a perfect storm of a long pandemic and a lot of emotional stress from there not being enough housing,” he said. One of the Krauses’ sons, Mitchell, told me he still visits his parents with his son. But they are more likely to stay in the house than they used to be. “My parents are very socially liberal,” he told me. “They just want people taken care of, and they want the neighborhood to be nice for everybody.” In the late ’90s, I lived several blocks inland and often rode my bike past the Krauses’ property. In the time since, the area has become both more gentrified and more of an epicenter of social collapse, two forces in natural conflict. “Venice Beach, where I live, is on edge these days,” my colleague Robin Abcarian wrote just a few days ago, reporting on opposition — in the traditionally liberal stronghold — to a proposed affordable housing project that would sit one block from the beach. City Councilman Mike Bonin, who represents the area, is one of the most persistent local officials in trying to address homelessness, and one of the most polarizing. His recent proposals to set up temporary campsites at beaches and parks have been both praised and attacked, and a recall movement is underway. The Krauses intend to sign the petition, and when I asked what they’d tell Bonin if he had joined our conversation, Arthur was blunt. “I could not even have a conversation with Mike Bonin,” he said, telling me he has sent numerous emails and photos to the councilman’s office without a response. From the Krauses’ patio, during my visit, we looked out at dozens of tents and tarps, and at mounds of trash that were being stockpiled near the public restrooms. People were beginning to poke their heads out of tents. One homeless woman, barefoot and in obvious mental distress, was caked in dirt. Another sat below the Krauses’ patio and bit into some pizza she fished out of the trash. A middle-aged man scratched himself as if he was under attack from bed bugs. The Krauses have developed a habit of sitting low enough in their patio chairs to block their view of what’s just a few feet away. Instead, they look out on open water, with the Santa Monica Pier in the distance and the mountains wrapping an arm around Malibu. They can fool themselves into believing that Los Angeles has finally tackled its homelessness challenge, at least until they stand up, and L.A.’s greatest failure is spread out before them, as enduring as the pounding surf. The Krauses’ condo is flush against the beach path, not far from the sand, and I told them there would be those who say that if you want to live that close to the beach, you ought to expect some company, for better and worse. Some readers, I told them, won’t have much pity for the poor people living in valuable beachfront property who don’t have the greatest view anymore. Arthur, a financial planner and a Democrat, said his problem is not with the homeless people, but with elected officials who have the power to offer relief to both the housed and the unhoused, but have lost control. Every part of the city has people “who are for the homeless or against the homeless,” Arthur said, but there’s no consensus, or middle ground, or leadership. “It’s gotten to the point where it’s not democracy anymore,” he said. “It’s anarchy.” Does he have all the solutions? No. More housing, for sure, he said. But not at $500,000 per unit. What’s wrong with dormitory-style housing, he asked, at least transitionally, so more people can move indoors more quickly? “We need to get all the people in one room and say, look, we have to come to some decisions … and figure out what are we going to do with the sick people, what are we going to do with the veterans. There are veterans sleeping outside the VA,” he said. “You have to have a plan and you have to have markers. I don’t know what the markers are, but every month you need a report saying what progress has been made…. You have to keep score, and feet have to be held to the fire.” Twice, the Krauses have listed their condo for sale but didn’t get any offers to their liking. Prices are depressed because of what’s happened to the neighborhood, Arthur said, and they’re not yet fully committed to leaving a place they fell in love with almost 20 years ago. Maybe, with the right leadership, the neighborhood will be what it once was. Maybe. On Monday, I plan to ask Mike Bonin what that leadership might look like. steve.lopez@latimes.com