E-scooters are too dangerous to recommend, Consumer Reports says

• September 29, 2026

By Thomas Fitzgerald, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Consumer Reports said it no longer recommends any brand of e-scooter, citing higher top speeds for the popular vehicles and a sharp nationwide increase in rider injuries.

In 2017, about 10,500 people were injured on e-scooters, and by 2024 there were nearly 80,000 injuries — a jump of 662%, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Children account for more than 45% of all e-scooter injuries, according to a study published by Johns Hopkins Children’s Center researchers.

Consumer Reports tested 13 e-scooter models in August, and said they were much faster than in 2022, when it first tested the devices.

“The most common top speed for e-scooters now is 20 mph,” said Bernie Deitrick, a Consumer Reports engineer who oversees e-scooter testing. One model had a top speed of 28 mph, “almost twice as fast as the models we tested in 2022,” he said.

Four years ago, the top speed for the scooters Consumer Reports tested was 15.5 mph.

Some e-scooters on the market today, called hyper scooters, can hit speeds of 75 mph or more. Consumer Reports did not test them and says they shouldn’t be used.

People took 58 million trips on shared e-scooters in 2025, an increase of 29% year over year, the National Association of City Transportation Officials found in a survey of 31 cities where the public can rent the devices per ride, along with shared bicycles and e-bikes.

That doesn’t count the millions of e-scooters sold to private owners, estimated at about 1.4 million last year.

The federal government has not established safety rules for e-scooters sold to consumers. Consumer Reports found that there is no comprehensive voluntary standard from manufacturers of e-mobility devices, and independent industry laboratories have not developed one either.

“Consumers simply cannot trust that manufacturers are putting safety first as long as e-scooters come with such glaring hazards,” William Wallace, CR’s director of safety advocacy, said in a statement.

“If this industry is going to help reduce injuries, they need to agree on a set of strong baseline standards to make sure all e-scooters are designed and built to be safe,” Wallace said.

States have varying regulations for e-scooters and e-bikes and some allow municipal governments to establish stricter rules.

Since electric scooters are not defined in Pennsylvania law, it is illegal to operate them on public highways, including sidewalks, bike lanes, and roads, according to PennDot.

People can ride e-bikes in Pennsylvania as long as they have electric motors smaller than 750 watts and do not exceed 20 mph.

New Jersey rolled out the toughest laws in the nation this summer for e-bikes and e-scooters, requiring licenses for riders based on age, vehicle registration, and even liability insurance for faster models.

Electric scooters that have a top speed of 19 mph are treated as bicycles and do not require licensing or registration under New Jersey law.

©2026 The Philadelphia Inquirer, LLC. Visit at inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

AI faces $6 trillion test to justify data centers, Bain says

• September 29, 2026

By Saritha Rai, Bloomberg News

The global AI industry needs to earn $6 trillion in annual revenue by 2031 to justify the capital being deployed to build data centers around the world, Bain & Co. said.

Existing consumer and enterprise AI services may generate as much as $1.8 trillion of that sum, leaving $4.2 trillion in new revenue that needs to be created, the consulting firm said Tuesday in its annual global technology report. The shortfall likely will come from nascent segments ranging from autonomous machines to robotics as well as emerging fields such as drug discovery, mental health and energy generation, it said.

“What the industry needs is a wave of innovation that will dwarf what mobile and cloud unlocked,” said David Crawford, the report’s lead author and chairman of Bain’s global technology, media, and telecommunications practice. “AI infrastructure is being built well ahead of the demand curve and funding it sustainably will require adding approximately 1% to the annual global GDP growth rate,” he said.

Bain’s report highlights the hurdles ahead to make the current pace of AI development sustainable.

Companies led by Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Amazon.com Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Oracle Corp. are investing trillions of dollars in data centers to quench AI’s demand for computational resources. Data center sizes and costs are doubling roughly every 12 to 16 months, in part due to surging prices of chips from the likes of Nvidia Corp. and SK Hynix Inc., networking equipment and other components.

The report comes as debate intensifies around the as-yet elusive returns for AI service providers. Critics worry about an increasingly interconnected web of dependencies between technology manufacturers and AI developers that help to propel lofty expectations that in turn require bigger sums of money.

While discussions today are fixated on employee productivity, the economics of AI infrastructure will demand trillions in new revenue beyond productivity gains, Bain said.

The consultancy projects $5 trillion to $6.5 trillion of data-center spending by 2030, adding at least 150 gigawatts of capacity that will further strain countries’ energy resources. Annual spending on AI infrastructure — spanning data centers, computing capacity and upgrades in accelerators and memory chips — may reach as much as $1.5 trillion by 2031, it said.

Data center developers already face shortages in transformers and water and power supplies, as well as fierce local opposition that’s blocked or delayed $68 billion worth of projects in the June quarter in the U.S.

©2026 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Suicidal ICE detainees are routinely put in solitary confinement. Experts say that’s inhumane

• September 29, 2026

This story discusses suicide and other acts of self-harm.

If you or anyone you know is in crisis and need immediate help, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or click here to chat with someone online.

This story was produced as part of the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Health Equity Fellowship.

Before 33-year-old Sergo Gambarian was detained by federal immigration agents, he said, he had already tried taking his life four times.

He was diagnosed with anxiety and depression after being sent to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, and his history of suicide attempts was noted, according to hundreds of medical documents obtained by this publication.

In July, he was a day into disciplinary solitary confinement after allegedly throwing a tray at a kitchen worker. Later that day, he would hang a noose in his cell, records show. About a dozen guards burst in and detained him, he said, before he could hurt himself.

Gambarian said he would have tried killing himself had they not found the noose.

“You can’t wait for humanity here,” he said.

This publication reviewed over three hundred 911 call audio files from the Adelanto ICE detention centers from January 1, 2024 through the end of June 2026 from the Consolidated Fire Agencies Joint Powers Authority, a dispatch and emergency medical services agency serving the High Desert region of San Bernardino County.

At least six suicide attempts occurred inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center within six months, between October 2025 and April 2026, the calls show. Like Gambarian, another detained person had tried to kill himself while in solitary confinement.

Since January 2025, at least 57 people have died in ICE detention. At least 10 of those died by suicide between January 2025 and May 2026.

Those suicide deaths are higher than what has traditionally been seen at detention centers. During the 8 year period between 2008-2016 there were 6 total suicides in ICE detention. Then between 2017-2020 there were 9 suicides with 6 in 2020 during the start of the COVID pandemic. Then from 2021 to 2024 there were 2 total suicides. The rate of suicides per 100,000 people were at their highest in both 2020 and now in 2026 at 17.7 and 18, respectively, according to an investigation by the Associated Press.

The unprecedented number of suicides shows that authorities are failing to properly look after the tens of thousands of people taken by the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, experts said. Detention facility staff members ignored signs of distress, delayed mental health treatment and failed to watch detained people who were already thought of as vulnerable, and allowed them to have access to materials they could use to hurt themselves.

“This is the ripple effect of ICE not giving people the proper care,” Esmeralda Santos, the lead organizer with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, told this publication.

Gambarian’s attorney, Mher Cholakhyan, begged for help for his client, who had fled Russia to avoid fighting in the war in Ukraine, emails show. Though the lawyer said Gambarian was suicidal, he said his repeated pleas drew no response from immigration officials.

After the guards found the noose, records show, Gambarian was transferred to a suicide-resistant cell and placed on suicide watch. At one point he allegedly smashed a doctor’s computer monitor and phone and pushed his desk at him. The doctor ordered a 5150 psychiatric hold on Gambarian and he was sent to Anaheim Global Medical Center for nine days, according to medical records.

When he was returned to Adelanto, his medical records and Adelanto officials confirm, he was again placed in disciplinary solitary confinement – this time for 32 days straight.

Solitary confinement and suicide risks

Medical experts say solitary confinement is associated with a higher risk of suicide, with documented effects including psychotic and aggressive symptoms.

It could also lead to an increased need for psychiatric hospitalization, especially when the confinement was used as a disciplinary measure, according to Dr. Sanjay Basu, an internal medicine physician who recently coauthored an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association on deaths in ICE detention centers.

“Solitary confinement is especially harmful for people with preexisting mental illness, where isolation, forced idleness, and lack of intensive therapeutic mental health services exacerbate underlying conditions,” he said.

People in ICE detention have little control over their environment, and being in solitary confinement can exacerbate that feeling, leading to heightened anxiety, agitation, and deterioration, said Dr. Katherine Peeler, an assistant pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School and medical advisor with Physicians for Human Rights. She has researched conditions inside detention centers for about eight years.

“What happens is that the agitation itself is perceived as poor behavior. It’s perceived as even more rational to keep them in solitary and for longer because ‘look how poor this person’s behaving. They’re begging on the door, they’re like yelling at us for water’ or whatever the thing is. And so it’s not recognized as a consequence of solitary environment, but instead as a reason to keep them in it longer,” Peeler said.

The United Nations considers solitary confinement lasting 15 consecutive days or longer to be torture, but the Supreme Court has maintained that solitary confinement doesn’t violate the Constitution and that it can serve a legitimate role in prisons.

Keeping suicidal detained people in an isolated room is in line with ICE’s Performance Based National Detention Standards.

“All suicidal detainees placed in an isolated confinement setting will receive continuous one-to-one monitoring, welfare checks at least every 8 hours conducted by clinical staff, and daily mental health treatment by a qualified clinician,” the standards state.

The Department of Homeland Security maintains that suicides in detention are extremely rare under the Trump administration.

“When there are signs of a detainee self-harming, staff abides by strict prevention and intervention protocol to ensure the detainee’s health and well-being is protected. ICE requires annual suicide prevention training and provides mental health service to detainees,” an unnamed DHS spokesperson said in response to questions about this publication’s findings.

DHS also said that a detained person may be placed in “segregated housing” for health concerns, including medical and mental illness, physical disability, and suicide risk.

“Any incident involving self-harm is taken with the utmost seriousness,” the statement said. “The safety and well-being of those in our care is our highest priority, and we treat suicide prevention as a fundamental responsibility, responding with the respect and compassion every individual deserves.”

GEO Group, the private entity contracted to run Adelanto, said in a statement, “As it relates to significant self-harm and suicide prevention and intervention, we train all staff on GEO’s suicide prevention and intervention program, which is clearly defined in our policies and procedures; and adheres to ICE’s (standards).”

Roughly 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles, the small town of Adelanto has two ICE detention centers: the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and the next-door Desert View Annex. Combined, the facilities can hold 2,690 people. Both are owned and operated by private-prison company GEO Group through contracts.

The Adelanto facilities have faced widespread scrutiny from politicians, watchdog groups, and immigrant rights advocates for years over the substandard conditions people are allegedly subjected to.

In January, a federal lawsuit was filed by two law firms and a Los Angeles nonprofit against federal authorities and agencies, alleging inhumane conditions inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, such as inadequate spoiled food, dirty water, medical neglect, and other issues.

A federal judge ordered widespread immediate improvements to conditions inside Adelanto in mid-July, including 24-hour access to clean potable drinking water, nutritious foods, and free soap. Weeks later, claims of contaminated drinking water surfaced.

At least five deaths in ICE custody have been connected to the Adelanto ICE facilities since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, four of which are allegedly associated with substandard medical care, according to the CA Attorney General’s 2026 report on immigration detention in the state.

Sharp uptick in 911 calls

Five of the six suicide attempts at Adelanto happened during a roughly one-month period between March and April. Two occurred on April 30.

“In a functioning detention mental health system, by the second or third attempt in three weeks, you’d expect escalated monitoring, psychiatric evaluation close to time, ligature restrictions, and open housing for high-risk individuals, not segregation,” Dr. Basu said.

April saw a sharp uptick in overall medical emergency 911 calls, with 36 calls recorded that month in both Adelanto facilities compared to a monthly average of roughly 12 calls in the prior three months.

An average of 1,957 people were detained inside the Adelanto facilities in April, while an average of 2,064 people were detained in the previous three months.

“During March and April, the facility experienced a higher volume of patients arriving with acute medical conditions that required urgent evaluation and treatment. As a result, emergency medical services were contacted more frequently to ensure timely access to a higher level of care when clinically indicated,” said an unnamed DHS spokesperson in response to questions about the increase of calls.

Spikes in emergency calls could show an increase in isolated incidents, but often they’re a reflection of a system’s performance, said Dr. Joseph Bick, who recently retired after spending 32 years leading medical and healthcare services within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

“In well‑run systems, most problems are identified early through routine screening, timely access to clinicians, and consistent monitoring of people with known vulnerabilities. When those elements are working, emergencies tend to be the exception.

“When those systems are strained because of staffing gaps, delays in access to care, inconsistent mental‑health follow‑up, or communication breakdowns, emergencies become the default pathway for people to get attention,” Dr. Bick said.

“Many of (my clients inside Adelanto) have expressed to me their willingness to end their lives, to cease their suffering in detention because their detention has reminded them of their torture and persecution in the past,” Los Angeles-based immigration attorney Kim Luu-Ng said.

Medical and detention staffing levels inside the Adelanto ICE facilities failed to meet the needs of the drastic influx of people in the summer of 2025, according to the CA AG report on ICE detention centers.

“In interviews conducted by Cal DOJ’s staff during the July 2025 site visit, detainees reported that they were unable to access requested medical appointments and did not receive necessary and timely medical treatment, even for emergency medical care,” the report states.

Afraid to return to Russia

Gambarian was detained after cutting off his ankle monitor that immigration officials put on him as a supervision tool. He has no criminal record. The tracking device was embarrassing, he said, and he didn’t want to be seen in it when meeting with work clients. He is being held in ICE detention while his immigration case plays out in court.

As of late September, Gambarian remains in Adelanto. He was no longer in solitary confinement at the time of publication.

He said he wanted his story to be told.

After fleeing Russia, Gambarian said, he legally entered the U.S. with his wife after presenting themselves for asylum at a port of entry along the Mexican border in 2023 using the CBP One app, a mobile application launched by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2020 to enhance border crossing functions, including asylum appointments. The Trump administration rebranded the app to the CBP Home app in 2025 to assist in self-deportations.

“I am very afraid of returning to Russia,” Gambarian said. “I fled from arrest and from the poor conditions in Russia here, and so that I could receive help here, (and) be granted asylum …. I feel like I’ve fallen into a trap.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

See our database of 911 calls:

——————————————————————————————————–

Methodology & sourcing

The 911 calls reviewed for this story were obtained from ConFire, a dispatch and emergency medical services agency serving the High Desert region of San Bernardino County through a contract with the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District, according to records obtained through a public records request. Audio files prior to 2024 were not available due to the ConFire’s retention policy, a representative said.

ConFire did not provide a categorical breakdown of the 911 calls. The Southern California News Group listened to and logged each call into a category based on the reported medical emergency.

Call types were categorized into groupings based on the stated type of emergency. Call types that most frequently occurred were given their own category. Calls for heart attacks, abnormal EKG readings, and other heart issues were logged under “heart-related medical emergencies.” Other call types were put into an “other medical emergency” group.

The calls classified under “self-harm” were logged as such because the 911 caller explicitly stated someone had self-harmed or the actions fit into the category defined by various articles and medical literature.

Calls recorded as “suicide attempt” were done so because either the 911 caller clearly stated that the person had attempted suicide or the actions align with what Columbia’s Suicide Severity Rating Scale describes as a “highly lethal act that is clearly not an accident.” Additionally, two editors reviewed the data and determined that the calls were for acts of attempted suicide.

In instances where one 911 call was made for two people, we logged that call twice to account for the two different medical emergencies.

Sources: ConFire and the Deportation Data Project. 911 data compilation and analysis by Ryanne Mena. Charts and interactive by Daniel Aitken.

​ Orange County Register 

Man exiting Brooklyn subway train dragged to death, witnesses say his bag got caught in door

• September 29, 2026

A man walking with a cane as he exited a Brooklyn subway was dragged to his death after witnesses said his plastic shopping bag got caught in the train door, police said Tuesday.

Yaw Adu Boahene, 57, was getting off a rush-hour A train at the Utica Ave. station in Bedford-Stuyvesant when his blue plastic bag seemed to get caught between the closing doors, cops said.

As the train pulled out of the station about 6 p.m. Monday, Boahene was dragged down the platform, then fell between the train and the platform, police said. He died at the scene.

Sources familiar with the investigation told The News that while witnesses reported Boahene’s bag got stuck in the train door it’s still not clear exactly what happened — and police are looking into whether his foot could have gotten caught in the gap between the platform and the train.

Boahene lived in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, according to cops.

Modern subway trains are designed to stay put if any of the side doors are obstructed or refuse to close.

The specifics of Monday’s fatal dragging were still being investigated Tuesday, but a transit source with knowledge of subway operations told the Daily News that particularly thin or flexible objects — like a bag — might not be substantial enough to trigger the train to stop moving.

Surveillance video from the train shows Boahene standing aboard the subway as it enters the station, police sources told The News. He holds a cane in his right hand and a thin plastic shopping bag in his left.

As the train comes to a stop, Boahene can be seen moving slowly toward the door, using the cane. He was unsteady on his feet and his shoes appeared to be too big, the sources said.

No passengers aboard the train seemed to react as the train then pulled away from the station. The crew aboard the train also appeared not to be aware they were dragging Boahene.

“It was a normal stop,” the train’s conductor told the MTA’s rail control center — according to a preliminary internal report reviewed by the Daily News. “Didn’t see anything unusual, don’t recall anything unusual.”

The train operator similarly told police that the subway was functioning normally and rolling freely as it puled out of the Utica Ave. station.

Surveillance cameras along the Utica Ave. platform did not have a clear view of Boahene as he got off the train, police sources said.

Police were first alerted to the fatal dragging via a 911 call from the station.

The Manhattan-bound A train made it three more stops, to the Jay St. – Metrotech station, before rail control stopped it.

All passengers were discharged before the train was turned around at Chambers St.

The train was sent to Pitkin Yard for an inspection, while the train crew was returned to Utica Ave. to be interviewed by police. No mechanical problems were found with the doors, police sources said.

With Rebecca White

​ Orange County Register 

Trump formally accepts defeat in $5 million E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse lawsuit

• September 29, 2026

Marking a novel development in his years-long legal battle with E. Jean Carroll, President Trump formally accepted defeat on Tuesday, withdrawing a failed effort to claw back some $5 million from the writer whom he was held liable for sexually abusing.

In a one-page order, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Trump’s appeal with prejudice, as agreed to by both sides, and noted he had withdrawn a motion seeking to pause a lower court ruling directing the payout. Trump’s appeal bid had been rendered null and void after he struck out at the U.S. Supreme Court twice this summer.

The July 9 release of funds to Carroll was triggered after the nation’s highest court declined to take up Trump’s appeal at the end of its term in June. Trump tried to claw back the money and asked the justices to reconsider, but they shot him down again in August, rendering moot the matter thrown out on Tuesday.

While a formality, Trump throwing in the towel was a rare sight on the lengthy court dockets covering his litigation with Carroll.

The money — totaling around $5.8 million, with interest — had been locked away in escrow for three years as Trump relentlessly appealed a jury’s May 2023 verdict finding he sexually assaulted Carroll, 82, inside a Midtown department store in 1996.

The former “Elle” columnist is still waiting to be paid the additional $83 million Trump owes her in a separate lawsuit she also won in 2023.

Trump has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the findings in that case holding him liable for repeatedly defaming Carroll after she went public with her allegations, resulting in a torrent of death threats. A jury in January 2024 decided the mammoth sum owed.

In a statement, a spokesman for Trump’s legal team said, “The American People stand with President Trump as they demand an immediate end to all of the Witch Hunts, including the Democrat-funded travesty of the Carroll Hoaxes. President Trump will keep winning against Liberal Lawfare, as he continues to focus on his mission to Make America Great Again.”

Carroll’s lawyer declined to comment.

​ Orange County Register 

Kings 2026-27 season preview: A new era gets underway

• September 29, 2026

EL SEGUNDO –– The 60th year of Kings hockey will get underway Wednesday when the team travels to Denver, seeking to avenge a first-round sweep by the Colorado Avalanche.

Though they’ve had to get up from the poker table early in each of the past five postseasons, the Kings continued pushing more chips into the pot as they signed aging veteran after aging veteran in an attempt to right a ship that went off course after a disastrous 2023 offseason from which they have yet to recover.

The biggest shift for the Kings was behind the bench, with an overhauled coaching staff seeking to shake the doldrums of a stretch where they changed coaches roughly as often as they changed underwear.

In a Western Conference and Pacific Division that are still relatively thin, the Kings will again seek to move forward in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2014. Only the Detroit Red Wings, who last won a series in 2013, are experiencing a longer wait to advance.

New captain, new coach, new weapons

While the Kings neither blew up their roster nor went for broke to add to it this offseason, they hired their first name-brand coach, Peter Laviolette, since Todd McLellan arrived. Then they added winger Mats Zuccarello on a savvy deal whose balance can largely roll into next season’s cap considerations before naming defenseman Drew Doughty as the team captain.

Laviolette not only has one of the highest pedigrees among NHL coaches with the seventh-most victories in league history, but a reputation for making a swift impact. He’ll be reunited with flanker Artemi Panarin, whom the Kings added in February and previously thrived under Laviolette as a New York Ranger. He’ll also guide another offensive savant, Zuccarello, who had 54 points in 59 games for the Minnesota Wild last season.

Doughty, who joined the organization in 2008 and has long been an alternate captain, received the “C” from Anže Kopitar. Kopitar was more of a leader by example that brought the group back to the center from its highs and lows, while Doughty has long been the more fiery and bombastic voice in the room.

“He’s so emotional, he’s so vocal, he wants to win and he’s so open and honest. He doesn’t think he’s the smartest guy in the room; he wants everyone to be involved,” said blue-liner Brian Dumoulin, who played under Kopitar as well as Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh. “When you talk about those other leaders that I’ve had, he fits right into that group.”

Special teams: nowhere to go but up

The Kings sank like a stone in the league standings – they went from sixth to 20th among 32 teams – and on the penalty kill, dropping from eighth to 30th year-over-year. The loss of top defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov on the heels of Matt Roy’s departure may have played a role, but it will soon be known if those declines were aberrations or new norms.

The power play was even more concerning, however, motivating general manager Ken Holland to work the phones in February and again in June. They had ranked 30th in the NHL before the 2025 trade deadline and only improved on that rating marginally last season, when they finished 28th.

Enter Panarin, a beacon of sentience in a formerly somnambulist man-advantage group that dragged his comrades into the fight. He’ll be joined this year by Zuccarello, 39, who shares Panarin’s prescience with the extra man as well as his ability to make deft cross-ice passes. The two will start the year on the top power-play unit, one that looked promising in the preseason.

“He’s great. He’s so smart. He’s a smaller guy and not the fastest guy, but he can still be ahead of the game,” winger Adrian Kempe said of Zuccarello. “He thinks the game so well, and that’s why he’s still producing at this level at the age he is.”

Escaping Round 1

Although making the playoffs was hardly a given after the San Jose Sharks and St. Louis Blues were among the teams that improved over the summer, the Kings could find themselves in the postseason for a sixth consecutive spring.

That will mean trying to avoid a sixth consecutive first-round knockout, with 2022’s seven-game dogfight against the Edmonton Oilers descending into the past two seasons, which have resulted in a reverse-sweep and a plain old sweep, respectively.

While the reacquisition of winger Corey Perry, adding veteran utility forward Erik Haula, a full year of deadline-snag center Scott Laughton, the eventual return of flanker Kevin Fiala from a broken leg, Kempe’s hefty new contract and Zuccarello’s arrival might offer cause for optimism, Panarin still figures to be the biggest needle-mover. Laviolette wasn’t trying to put a saddle on his Russian mustang, who had his most productive season under Laviolette in 2023-24.

“With his creativity, I don’t think you can try to harness that, I think you have to let that go,” Laviolette said. “I’ve coached him before, he’s a competitor, he’s highly skilled and he’s an elite player that can make a difference in a game, and I don’t want to do anything that constrains him from reaching that level.”

​ Orange County Register 

Teamsters warn of countywide strike if labor negotiations continue to stall

• September 29, 2026

More than 400 employees of county departments responsible for roads, parks and waste operations warned Tuesday of a potential strike as union negotiations with county leaders drag on for a new labor agreement — a work stoppage that could disrupt services for roughly 3 million residents.

The last three-year contract workers represented by Teamsters Local 952 had expired June 25.

“We just want to feel valued,” Jacob Thompson, a five-year OC Waste & Recycling employee assigned to the Prima Deshecha Landfill in San Juan Capistrano, said at a press conference ahead of Tuesday’s OC Board of Supervisors meeting. “Many of us are still struggling to put food on the table, gas in our cars and make it from one paycheck to the next.”

Workers said they are asking the county for better benefits and a wage increase that would keep up with the rising cost of living. Members of the bargaining team said negotiations with county leaders have stalled over the past six months.

The union, which represents 465 county workers spanning three departments, has also filed an unfair labor practice complaint alleging the county failed to bargain in good faith.

Bargaining team members said until recently the county offered no wage increase. The Teamsters said it approached the county in December to begin negotiations on the new contract, several months before the previous contract expired.

Union members voted down the county’s latest one-year proposal of a 3% raise with no retroactive pay — an offer workers said “falls short of recognizing the value of their work.”

“The pay is too low, some of our laborers make just above minimum wage,” said Thompson, adding that some employees face a two-hour commute from Riverside County cities such as Hemet, Murrieta and Lake Elsinore because they can’t afford to live where they work.

“We had a laborer leave the county and go back to a job at Disneyland because the pay, benefits and commute made more sense for them,” he added. “Think about that.”

County spokesperson Molly Nichelson said Tuesday the county “is currently in negotiations with labor groups including the Teamsters” and “cannot comment further at this time.”

Represented workers include heavy equipment operators who maintain roads and infrastructure and fleet mechanics who keep county vehicles running for OC Public Works; OC Waste & Recycling crews who process waste at the county’s three landfills in Brea, Irvine and San Juan Capistrano; and OC Community Resources employees who staff the county animal shelter and maintain regional parks and beaches.

This is a developing story; please check back for updates.

​ Orange County Register 

Deesha Philyaw says freedom fuels ‘True Confessions of First Lady Freeman’

• September 29, 2026

Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies,” was rejected by major publishing houses before being picked up by West Virginia University Press. The book would go on to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Story Prize, an LA Times Book Prize for first fiction, and it was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. Now, Philyaw, who is developing her work for the screen and hosting two podcasts, returns with her long-awaited debut novel, “The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman.” Here she responds to the Q&A via email and shares insights into the writing of the novel. 

Q. Congratulations on the publication of “The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman.” Would you please describe the novel for readers who haven’t had the chance to read it yet?

Thank you! The novel follows Scharisse Freeman, who comes from a humble background but lives a very charmed life, having married a powerful and popular megachurch pastor. Her world is upended when a sensational scandal breaks and secrets from her past come to light.

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Q. What makes the church so rich a subject for you? 

For better or worse, the evangelical church’s teachings were foundational for me as a child and into my adolescence. I didn’t always have the language for the contradictions and wrongs I observed, or for the doubts and questions I had back then. But I know now that I was troubled by the religious hypocrisy, abuse, and gendered double standards I witnessed or experienced, all of which have their roots, as the church itself does, in patriarchy and White supremacy.

So I carried my concerns and unspoken questions into adulthood such that when I began writing nearly 30 years ago, I recalled the women and girls of my youth, those in and outside of the church, who bore the brunt of the church at its worst. There’s often so much for us former and current church girls to unlearn, to heal from, particularly around sex. And I was, and still am, drawn to imagining and writing stories about how women get free in this regard.

Q. You’ve been thinking about the character Scharisse Freeman for a long time; is that correct?

 Yes. I started the earliest drafts of her story in 2006.

Q. In “The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman,” you play with the form of the novel by using script-like dialogue, footnotes and emails. Can you talk about your approach to writing the book?

I play with form every chance I get, and in “True Confessions,” so many opportunities presented themselves. I didn’t include the forms when I outlined the novel; they hadn’t yet come to mind. But when I got to those moments while drafting the story, they just felt appropriate, organic, to show up as they did in the narrative. The forms are really a map of how my brain works, how I think, the little asides and detours that are always skipping along beside the main narrative of my thoughts. Scharisse is the same way.

Plus, I get bored easily, and the shifts in form allow me to entertain myself and hold my own interest. From a craft perspective, the different forms are unique ways to reveal character, capitalize on the setting, present backstory, and move the story forward.

22 new books coming in October 2026 to add to your reading list

Q. It’s probably not shocking to say that people enjoy sex and comedy, but a lot of novels don’t include much of either. Were you ever tempted to write your book in a different way?

The sex was always there, but I decided to make the novel satirical at the 14-year mark, in 2020. Originally, Scharisse was very earnest, self-pitying, and passive. I didn’t like that. Leaning into satire, playing with the pageantry, performance, and optics of Black church culture as embodied in the role of the first lady — this gave me the perfect means to make Scharisse less earnest, more real, more self-determining, and more fun to write, while still confronting the tough issues around the church’s failings.

Q. When we last spoke in 2022, you told me that you are “doing what Toni Morrison told us to do, which is to use our power to empower someone else.” Can you talk about how that philosophy has guided you and your work?

It would be so easy to just put my head down and do my work and not think about how other writers are faring in the publishing industry. But instead, I try to mentor, formally and informally, answer questions, make introductions, share opportunities, and also blurb, as much as I am able.

As far as my work, I’m guided more in terms of how I work than what I write. I see myself as part of literary communities, some large, some small, some very personal, some strictly professional. But in all cases, I operate from an ethic of care and community; I don’t see fellow writers as competition.

Q. Are there some authors or books you’d like to recommend?

I’ll recommend one that I’m currently reading to blurb, Monica West’s “Light the Way,” and one that I just finished and blurbed, Dawnie Walton’s “These Girls Out Here.” Both are these authors’ sophomore novels, and both are terrific.

Q. What’s your ideal book or comfort read?

 Something smart, irreverent, and fictional. I’m still laughing and thinking about Andie Davis’ 2024 debut novel, “Let Me Liberate You.”

Q. What’s a question you wish someone would ask you about this book? 

I welcome more questions about Petra, Schar’s best friend. I love Schar, but Petra’s consistently been my favorite character from the outset. She’s deeply principled, but also deeply hilarious and [does not care what anyone else thinks]. I love that. She’s not at all religious, but she behaves more like Christ than any of the Christians in my novel.

Q. Would you tell us something about your book that no one knows?

I finished the final, final draft of this book while sitting in the lobby of a hotel in my hometown of Jacksonville, Florida.

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​ Orange County Register