Yoshinobu Yamamoto has worst start of season as Dodgers lose to Diamondbacks

• May 9, 2025

PHOENIX — Talking about the start of a four-game series against the NL West rival Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday afternoon, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made this observation.

“We’ve seemed to bring out the best in them.”

And the Diamondbacks brought out the worst in Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

An early (very early) Cy Young Award frontrunner, Yamamoto gave up a grand slam to Gabriel Moreno and a solo home run to Ketel Marte as the Diamondbacks beat the Dodgers, 5-3, on Thursday night at Chase Field.

“Overall, my stuff wasn’t too bad,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter. “But the grand slam, that cost (us) the game.”

Yamamoto came into the game off his best start of the season – one hit in six scoreless innings at Atlanta last week. But he was pitching on five days of rest for the first time this season after being on a one-start-per-week schedule through the first six weeks of the season.

Yamamoto’s command was off along with his calendar. He gave up three hits in the first three innings then walked Pavin Smith to start the fourth.

Josh Naylor hit a ground ball up the middle that Mookie Betts made an outstanding play to get to – but his attempt to flip the ball to Hyeseong Kim for a force at second base went badly. When Yamamoto hit Eugenio Suarez with an 0-and-2 slider, the bases were loaded with no outs.

Moreno emptied them when Yamamoto left a 2-and-0 cutter over the heart of the plate. The opposite-field grand slam was Moreno’s first home run of the season.

“I don’t think he was as sharp as he has been,” Roberts said. “Even the 3-2 breaking ball to Pavin Smith — if he strikes that, I think it’s a different inning, a different game. He has count leverage on Suárez and hits him with a slider to load the bases.

“I honestly thought Moreno took a good swing on a 2-0 cutter. It was behind in the count. To go opposite way, really good swing. … But again, I think the story is he just wasn’t completely sharp tonight.”

Marte played just his 14th game of the season Thursday night due to a hamstring injury. So he hadn’t hit a home run either – until he lined another Yamamoto cutter into the seats for a solo home run in the fifth inning.

Yamamoto’s worst start of the season lasted just five innings. The five runs he allowed doubled his ERA in an evening, from 0.90 to 1.80. The six hits he allowed are a season-high.

Diamondbacks starter Brandon Pfaadt, meanwhile, kept the Dodgers’ offense thin. But the Dodgers did win the exit velocity consolation prize.

The Dodgers hit 10 balls with exit velocities of 100 mph or higher, seven of them as Pfaadt was holding them scoreless (95 mph is the Statcast standard for a “hard-hit ball”). None of the seven hit off Pfaadt was a hit.

Michael Conforto  hit two of those — a 398-foot flyout to center field and a line drive at Marte. He hit another ball 95.2 mph on the ground that Marte turned into a rally-killing double play in the eighth inning.

“I’m definitely frustrated,” said Conforto, mired in the depths of a 1-for-40 stretch. “Happy with a couple hard-hit balls today. Frustrated to be in position to keep a rally going and not being able to beat that ball out. It’s frustrating. It makes me sick.”

Pfaadt allowed just four hits while taking a shutout into the seventh inning.

The Dodgers put runners at the corners with two outs in the first inning but Will Smith grounded out to end the inning. They did the same thing in the sixth but Pfaadt struck out Andy Pages.

“You’ve got to give credit to their defense tonight,” Roberts said. “I thought they really caught the baseball well. Certainly in the outfield. I thought we squared up a lot of baseballs and didn’t get anything to show for it. Overall, I don’t think the line score speaks to how well we swung the bats.

“But you’ve got to give credit to those guys running it down out there. And also that double play ball off Conforto’s bat was a heck of a play by Marte.”

The Dodgers finally broke through in the eighth inning against Diamondbacks reliever Juan Morillo. Singles from Mookie Betts and Smith set up an RBI double by Max Muncy and an RBI single by Pages. But Marte started a nifty double play on Conforto’s ground ball to end the inning.

Ohtani tightened things up with a solo home run in the ninth before Kevin Ginkel closed it out for the Diamondbacks.

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County scores and player stats for Thursday, May 8

• May 9, 2025

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Scores and stats from Orange County games on Thursday, May 8

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THURSDAY’S SCORES

BOYS VOLLEYBALL

CIF-SS PLAYOFFS

DIVISION 1

Pool A

Beckman def. San Clemente, 25-17, 25-19, 19-25, 25-17

Note: Beckman finishes pool play 1-2, San Clemente 0-3.

​ Orange County Register 

Lead, other toxins present on destroyed parcels after Eaton, Palisades wildfire debris, soil removal

• May 9, 2025

Soil collected in a county study from properties in both fire areas showed that even after debris and soil was removed, toxins such as lead and other chemicals could still be present above health screening levels.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Thursday, May 8, announced the findings during a virtual town hall. The county contracted with Roux Inc. which conducted the sampling study.

Results released Thursday evening came from soil collected at 15 parcels in each fire area where Phase-2 debris removal had been completed. At each parcel, 10 samples were collected including portions of the parcel where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers removed soil and debris and where original surface soil remained.

Officials did not provide more specific information about where the parcels were located in each fire area.

According to Adam Love with Roux Inc., in the Eaton fire area, about 27% of samples from areas the army corps removed soil contained lead levels above health screening levels. However, in samples from where original surface soil remained exceedances were in 44% of samples.

“While the U.S. Army Corps doesn’t decrease the risk in the Eaton area down to zero, it does reflect a significant improvement in the risk associated with the soils there,” Love said.

In the Palisades area, while removing soil did not completely remove the presence of heavy metals and chemicals, the percent exceedances were much lower than in the Eaton fire area.

Love said in light of the findings, those rebuilding should consider a soil impact assessment and management plan as part of the rebuilding process. He suggested using an environmental professional and on site mitigation to prevent exposure.

Soil testing on properties being rebuilt, Love said, should focus on soils that will be exposed to high use like play areas, eating areas, gardens or walkways.

According to an U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dashboard, debris removal and final sign-off has been completed on 4,150 properties out of approximately 10,300 eligible properties total in both fire areas.

FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps have come under scrutiny for not conducting soil testing and only removing the top six inches of soil as part of Phase-2 debris removal.

Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Nichole Quick said the county has been conducting weekly observations of debris removal in both fires. Quick said 10 sites have been referred to CalOSHA for unsafe conditions.

She said the most common concerns observed by the county include workers dry cutting debris without water suppression, using heavy machinery near others with no barriers and not having the right protective gear.

“Often these are seen on unpermitted or opt out clean up sites where oversight is limited,” Quick said. “We have seen improvements where agencies are present.”

Last month, the county released the findings of the first two stages of the study which found elevated levels of lead on standing properties downwind of the Eaton fire. In the Palisades area, testing found localized chemical impacts in soil samples but there was not evidence of widespread contamination.

Since those results, the county approved $3 million for additional soil testing for those near the Eaton fire burn area and Pasadena Unified School District began its own soil testing at all school sites.

Quick said a county self-collection testing program is expect to launch the week of Monday, May 19 and will run through December.

About 26,000 eligible homes will receive a postcard invitation to participate. Those who do will receive simple instructions for how to collect soil samples from their own yards and will be able to drop off the samples in Altadena.

Residents should expect results back via email in seven to 10 business days.

Quick said lead is a neurotoxin, which at low levels of exposure can affect learning, development and behavior in young children. Lead exposure to pregnant women can increase the risk of miscarriage, premature birth, low birth weight and developmental issues.

Adults exposed to lead can lead to high blood pressure, kidney damage, mood disorders and problems with memory and concentration.

According to Quick, as of Monday May 5, all but three out of 775 people who have had their blood tested for lead have had results come back below the CDC’s threshold. The three people who tested above the threshold were men in their 70s.

“It is not a safety line but it is a signal that someone’s level is higher than what is seen in most children across the U.S. It helps us identify and respond to potential exposure early,” Quick said. “No amount of lead is considered safe.”

The town hall was streamed on YouTube.

​ Orange County Register 

Long Beach State, UCLA cruise into NCAA men’s volleyball semifinals

• May 9, 2025

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Long Beach State and UCLA men’s volleyball teams moved one step closer to a potential national championship rematch with quarterfinal sweeps at the NCAA tournament on Thursday, while Pepperdine extended its late-season magic.

Top-seeded Long Beach (28-3) defeated No. 8 seed Fort Valley State, 25-21, 25-16, 25-16, while third-seeded UCLA (21-6) dismissed sixth-seeded Belmont Abbey, 25-18, 25-21, 25-19.

LBSU will face fifth-seeded Pepperdine (21-9), which outlasted fourth-seeded Loyola-Chicago in four sets, in a semifinal on Saturday at 2 p.m. PT. Two-time defending national champion UCLA will square off with second-seeded Hawaii (27-5), which defeated No. 7 seed Penn State in four sets, in the second semi at approximately 5 p.m.

Freshman setter Moni Nikolov paced Long Beach to a .367 hitting percentage as he dished out 31 assists. The 6-foot-10 Nikolov added eight kills, eight digs, three aces, and one block, moving three aces from tying the national single-season record.

Senior outside hitter Nato Dickinson had 12 kills, two blocks and five digs while hitting .429, and middle blocker Ben Braun had nine kills while hitting .800. Long Beach hit .450 in the second set and .476 in the third, closing the match on a 5-0 run.

Freshman libero Kellen Larson (seven digs) anchored a defense that held Fort Valley State (16-10) to a .129 hitting percentage.

UCLA hit .455 in its match and three Bruins finished in double-digit kills: Zach Rama had 13, while Cooper Robinson and Sean Kelly each finished with 11. Setter Andrew Rowan paced the offense with 37 assists.

Belmont Abbey (17-9) held leads of 8-5 and 14-12 in the third set, but a Rama service ace sparked a UCLA run. Rowan dumped the ball over the net to tie the score at 16-all, before a block by middle blocker Cameron Thorne and Robinson gave the Bruins their first lead of the set at 17-16. Rama hammered home a kill on the following point, and the Bruins eventually extended their lead to 24-19 with a triple block at the net before closing it out.

Playing in the last match of the day, Pepperdine dropped its first set against Loyola before rallying for an 18-25, 28-26, 25-13, 25-20 win to advance to the semifinals for the first time since 2019.

Ryan Barnett had 17 kills and 2.5 blocks and Cole Hartke had 11 kills, five digs and three aces to pace the Waves, who sprung a pair of upsets against UCLA and USC to win the MPSF Tournament last month.

Pepperdine hit .295 and held MIVA champion Loyola (25-4) to a .218 showing. Parker Van Buren had 15 kills to pace the Ramblers, while Daniel Fabikovic had nine kills and six digs.

Pepperdine lost its only regular-season meeting with Long Beach State this year, dropping a 3-2 decision in Malibu in late January.

Big West Tournament champion Hawaii hit just .238 but defeated the Nittany Lions, 25-19, 21-25, 25-23, 25-23, in its match.

Freshman opposite hitter Finn Kearney led the Rainbow Warriors with 16 kills, 10 digs, four aces and three blocks, but also committed 11 attack errors and two blocking errors on a day when Hawaii played well below its recent level.

Penn State (15-16) took advantage in the second set, but the Warriors did just enough to eke out set wins in the third and fourth frames, with middle blockers Kurt Nusterer (nine kills while hitting .571) and Justin Todd (eight kills, four block assists while hitting .800) helping anchor the attack. Setter Tread Rosenthal had five kills and 38 assists.

Matthew Luoma had 17 kills on .195 hitting to lead EIVA champion Penn State, which hit just .211.

Hawaii and UCLA did not meet during the regular season.

​ Orange County Register 

Angels can’t complete 1st series sweep as Blue Jays rally

• May 9, 2025

ANAHEIM — The first series sweep of the season remained out of reach for the Angels, who pulled off feats of daring and strength in the early going before fading into the night.

Once holding a four-run lead, the Angels let it all slip away in an 8-5 defeat after the Toronto Blue Jays loaded the bases four different times in a four-run sixth inning.

Fresh off of late game-winning rallies with six runs in the eighth inning on Tuesday and three more in the ninth on Wednesday to topple the Blue Jays, there was no more late magic remaining as a potential winning streak turned into the Angels’ ninth loss in the past 12 games.

Early trouble turned into promise when Angels starter Jose Soriano saw the Blue Jays load the bases after four pitches on three consecutive singles. He created his own momentum by striking out George Springer, Daulton Varsho and Alejandro Kirk to construct the rare six-batter, no-run inning.

Taylor Ward and Jo Adell hit much-needed home runs in the first two innings against Blue Jays right-hander Chris Bassitt.

“We knew going in that we had to be stingy with balls and strikes against (Bassitt) and that he’s going to try to attack the zone,” Adell said. “Just try to stay aggressive early and I got a pitch to handle.”

Then the offense went quiet, looking more like the crew that is in the bottom third of MLB in runs scored.

It was far from it in the bottom of the first when Nolan Schanuel hit a one-out double and Ward hit a home run to left. It was Ward’s second home run of the week, but he still began the day on a 3-for-35 downturn over his previous 10 games.

The Angels made it 3-0 in the second inning when Adell hit a one-out home run, also his second of the week but one that came after his own 2-for-32 slide in his previous 11 games. Zach Neto added a second run in the inning when he scored on a fielding error by Toronto shortstop Bo Bichette.

“Anytime you center a ball the way they did, that’s progress,” Manager Ron Washington said of Ward and Adell. “But you’re looking for consistency. At times it looks like it’s coming and then it doesn’t. The time it doesn’t you have to look at the pitcher and see what he’s doing. Pitching does stop hitting and Bassitt is a veteran dealing with an inexperienced lineup and he got into the seventh inning.”

From there, the advantage melted away.

Varsho began to make his presence known in the third on an RBI double, while Kirk had an RBI ground out one batter later. The Blue Jays pulled within a run in the fifth inning against Soriano on Addison Barger’s RBI single.

Then came Toronto’s revenge in the sixth, which started much like the first when they loaded the bases within their first batters against Ryan Johnson. It took on a life of its own when Anthony Sander hit a two-run single on Brock Burke’s first pitch, Varsho had a sacrifice fly and Barger grounded out for a run.

The Angels got a run back in the seventh on a sacrifice fly from Logan O’Hoppe before the Blue Jays matched it in the eighth when Varsho homered for his third RBI of the game.

Soriano gave up three runs on eight hits over five innings with six strikeouts as he failed to build on his six scoreless innings against the Detroit Tigers last Friday. He walked four Blue Jays batters.

“I don’t get frustrated because that’s part of the game,” Soriano said through an interpreter when asked about the walks. “Sometimes I’m going to walk people and other days I’m not going to walk anybody. We’re going to still keep working.”

Johnson (1-1) took the loss for the first time in his 14th major league appearance after he was charged with three runs on two hits and a walk without recording an out. Johnson has been charged with a run in each of his past four outings.

“In games like this, when we’re struggling on the pitching side, we have to pick those guys up, so we have to go back to that early-inning mentality,” Adell said. “Find a pitch and if it’s not your pitch, let the next guy do his job. We’ll get back there, we just didn’t get it done tonight.”

Toronto snapped a four-game losing streak and won for just the fifth time in its past 17 games.

​ Orange County Register 

Alexander: Ducks face questions as Joel Quenneville takes over

• May 9, 2025

ANAHEIM — From a purely hockey standpoint, the Ducks’ hiring of Joel Quenneville to be the 12th head coach in the team’s history is a no-brainer.

Anaheim has a roster of young talent ready to take the next step, and Quenneville has a proven ability to take such a collection of talent to greatness. He’s done it with the Chicago Blackhawks and the Florida Panthers, and he has three Stanley Cup rings as a head coach (and a fourth as an assistant in Colorado) to show for it.

But … 

There is a reason Quenneville has been out of hockey for nearly four seasons. The findings that the Blackhawks mishandled allegations by former player Kyle Beach that video coach Brad Aldrich had sexually assaulted him in 2010 eventually enveloped the coach, who has acknowledged that he didn’t do enough in addressing the situation, as well as general manager Stan Bowman and assistant GM Al MacIssac.

The league banned Quenneville, Bowman and MacIssac in 2021, in addition to fining the organization $2 million for what it termed “inadequate internal procedures and insufficient and untimely response,” and lifted the bans last summer. Bowman became the Edmonton Oilers’ general manager in July, and 10 months later Ducks GM Pat Verbeek hired Quenneville, a former NHL teammate.

Not surprisingly, more than half of Thursday’s introductory press conference concerned the history. Verbeek addressed it at length in his opening statement, and Quenneville was penitent and up front about the incident and what he failed to do, and he seemed determined to use what he’d learned and work with groups within the community that deal with sexual assault and help survivors.

“Joel acknowledged that his response in 2010 was inadequate,” Verbeek said in his opening statement. “He recognizes that failing to ask further questions and that not following up and taking action were serious mistakes. Nearly four years away from the game, he has demonstrated sincere remorse and has bettered himself by participating in a number of programs focused on education, personal growth and improving his understanding of abuse prevention and response.

“Joel has paid a price and has faced the consequences. And after careful deliberation and consultation with so many, we believe he he’s taking the necessary steps to return to the game as the head coach of the Anaheim Ducks.”

Said Quenneville: “As Pat said, what happened to Kyle Beach was horrific and inexcusable. I was sick to my stomach when I learned what had taken place, Had I known what had happened, I would have taken swift action. I own my mistakes. While I believe wholeheartedly the issue was handled by management, I take full responsibility for not following up and asking more questions. That’s entirely on me.

“Over nearly four years, I’ve taken time to reflect, to listen to experts and advocates and educate myself on the realities of abuse, trauma and how to be a better leader. I hope others can learn from my inaction. I’ve spoken to Kyle more than once, including this morning. I’ve apologized to him and express how much I regret not following up and taking action. … I fully understand and accept that those who question my return to the league. I know words aren’t enough.”

Credit the Ducks for addressing the story up front rather than trying to hide from it. There will almost certainly be blowback – there almost always is – but also consider that Henry and Susan Samueli, whose ownership of the Ducks is probably more family- and community-oriented than any in this region, vetted this hiring and did so after their own conversations with Quenneville.

“We spent hours literally going through all the details of (Verbeek’s) due diligence and who he spoke to and what they had to say,” said Henry Samueli, whose own conversations included one with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, as well as a sitdown with Quenneville himself. “I mean, you have good people who make mistakes. You have bad people who make mistakes. So you want to make sure that you’re dealing with a good person who just happened to make a mistake. And I am absolutely convinced Joel is a really good person.”

The owners’ conversation with Quenneville went a long way toward them getting them comfortable with hiring him. “Big difference,” Samueli said.

At some point, let’s hope, the story will be about hockey, and about a veteran coach’s ability to turn a youthful team into a true threat. Quenneville replaced Denis Savard as Blackhawks coach five games into the 2008-09 season, and a team that had missed the playoffs five consecutive seasons – though increasing its point total from 59 to 88 the last four – reached the conference finals in 2009, then won three Stanley Cups the next six years (and took the Kings to overtime in Game 7 of the 2014 conference finals).

Similarly, Quenneville took over the Florida Panthers in 2019-20, a team that had made the playoffs once in the previous seven years. He didn’t stay around long enough to get them to the Cup, for reasons outlined above, but the Panthers are the current defending champs, and Quenneville helped plant some of those seeds.

“One of the best coaches I ever had,” said Frank Vatrano, who played two seasons and the first part of a third for Quenneville in Florida. “His aura when he’s in the room, and just the energy. … On a day-to-day basis, he makes it really fun to come to the rink every day. You can be having a tough stretch as a team or individual going through individual struggles, and he knows how to lift you up and lift the team up at the right times.”

These Ducks intrigued Quenneville the first time he saw them live, in a 4-3 shootout loss at Tampa Bay in January.

“I was thoroughly impressed at the pace of the game and the skill and the speed that Anaheim had,” Quenneville said. “I was surprised and I was impressed. And everywhere I go in hockey lately everybody says, ‘You know, the place to go (is) Anaheim. They’ve got what you had in Chicago.’ And I’m sitting there (thinking), I know I was the most fortunate coach walking in that day in Chicago, but I certainly feel that this team is on the right track of being there.”

Here’s another hint that things are about to get interesting in Honda Center. Verbeek said Thursday that the goal is now to get to the playoffs, period. Samueli stated that “it’s time to take this step to becoming a perennial playoff contender and eventually Stanley Cup contender.” Then he added that he told Verbeek this, after spending a hefty sum on Quenneville’s contract:

“When going out and looking for players, you will have the budget. You need to make this a serious playoff team and you don’t have to pinch pennies anymore. Just do what it takes to make this a good team.”

Maybe it won’t be long before the talk around the Ducks is, again, strictly about hockey.

[email protected]

​ Orange County Register 

Mental competency questioned for man who crashed into Jennifer Aniston’s gate

• May 9, 2025

A defense attorney on Thursday questioned the mental competency of a man accused of ramming his vehicle into the front gate of actress Jennifer Aniston’s Bel Air home.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Keith L. Schwartz suspended criminal proceedings against Jimmy Wayne Carwyle pending a mental competency evaluation and ordered him “not to have any contact with Jennifer Aniston” and to “stay 100 yards away from her residence.”

An attorney representing Carwyle entered a not guilty plea on his behalf just before telling the judge that she was asking the court to declare a doubt about Carwyle’s competency.

Carwyle — who appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom — was charged Wednesday with one felony count each of stalking and vandalism, along with an aggravating circumstance of the threat of great bodily harm.

He was arrested around 12:30 p.m. Monday by officers from the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Los Angeles station after private security guards helped detain him outside Aniston’s home in the 900 block of Airole Way.

Prosecutors said he crashed into the front gate of the home, “causing substantial damage.”

According to the District Attorney’s Office, Carwyle has allegedly been harassing Aniston since March of 2023 by “sending her unwanted social media, voicemail and email messages.”

Carwyle allegedly made multiple social media posts referencing the actress, with some of them referring to her as his wife.

“Stalking is a crime that can quickly escalate from harassment to dangerous, violent actions, threatening the safety of victims and our communities,” District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement. “My office is committed to aggressively prosecuting those who stalk and terrorize others, ensuring they are held accountable.”

Carwyle has remained behind bars since his arrest.

He is set to appear at the Hollywood courthouse May 22 for mental competency proceedings.

Carwyle faces up to three years in prison if he is convicted as charged, according to prosecutors.

​ Orange County Register 

‘JD Vance is wrong’: New Pope Leo XIV has criticized Trump administration online

• May 9, 2025

Pope Leo XIV, who was known as Cardinal Robert Prevost before becoming the first American selected to lead the Catholic Church on Thursday, has reposted online content critical of President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance on immigration and religious issues.

A Chicago native and Villanova University graduate, Leo XIV speaks English, Spanish, Italian, French and Portuguese, and can read both Latin and German. He joined X — then known as Twitter — in 2011, and has sporadically posted and reposted content in several languages on the account @drprevost.

On Feb. 3, Prevost shared a link to a National Catholic Reporter article titled: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.” The article took issue with Vance’s interpretation of “ordo amoris,” a Catholic concept that roughly translates to the “order of love” or “order of charity.”

“There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far-left has completely inverted that,” Vance had said during a Jan. 29 Fox News interview, which was also criticized by Leo XIV’s predecessor, the late Pope Francis.

On April 14, Prevost’s most recent repost linked to Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo’s article denouncing the Trump administration’s “illicit deportation of a US resident” — a reference to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen wrongly deported to from Maryland in March despite being granted “withholding of removal” status and legal working papers by an American judge. The post quoted Salvadoran Bishop Evelio Menjivar: “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed? How can you stay quiet?”

In 2017, Prevost also reposted tweets denouncing the first Trump administration’s policies toward refugees from Syria and other Muslim-majority countries. Pope Leo XIV has also shared messages in support of gun control measures and opposing abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia and so-called “gender ideology” in public schools.

For their part, Trump, Vance and other American leaders have congratulated the new pope.

Of Leo XIV, Trump wrote it was “such an honor to realize that he is the first American Pope” and says he looks forward to meeting him. Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, wrote: “I’m sure millions of American Catholics and other Christians will pray for his successful work leading the Church.”

Have a news tip? Contact Carson Swick at [email protected].

​ Orange County Register