Horse racing notes: Santa Anita resumes racing; Cal Cup is Saturday

• January 17, 2025

SANTA ANITA LEADERS

(Through Wednesday)

Jockeys / Wins

Juan Hernandez / 12

Flavien Prat / 11

Umberto Rispoli / 8

Tiago Pereira / 5

Frankie Dettori / 5

Kazushi Kimura / 5

Trainers / Wins

Bob Baffert / 7

Mark Glatt / 6

Phil D’Amato / 5

Michael McCarthy / 5

Jeff Mullins / 4

UPCOMING STAKES

SANTA ANITA

Saturday

• $175,000 Unusual Heat Turf Classic, 4-year-olds and up, 1⅛ miles (turf)

• $175,000 California Chrome California Cup Derby, 3-year-olds, 1-1/16 miles

• $175,000 Leigh Ann Howard California Cup Oaks, 3-year-old fillies, 1 mile (turf)

• $125,000 Don Valpredo California Cup Sprint, 4 and up, 6 furlongs

• $125,000 Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint, fillies and mares, 4 and up, about 6½ furlongs (turf)

Sunday

• $100,000, Grade III La Canada Stakes, fillies and mares, 4 and up, 1-1/16 miles

• $100,000, Grade III Las Cienegas Stakes, fillies and mares, 4 and up, about 6½ furlongs (turf)

DOWN THE STRETCH

• Santa Anita resumed racing Thursday after calling off three cards last week amid the fires. The Arcadia track will run nine out of 11 days because of two added Thursdays and the Martin Luther King holiday card Monday. The California Cup races were pushed back a week to this Saturday and the La Canada Stakes delayed a week to this Sunday.

• Horses were re-entered and post positions drawn again for the five Cal Cup races, resulting in some lineup changes. In the Don Valpredo Cal Cup Sprint, unbeaten Smiling Beast (Armando Ayuso riding) gets post 3 after originally having the tricky post 1 but still must overcome Big City Lights (Kazushi Kimura) and Clovisconnection (William Antongeorgi III). In the Sunshine Millions Filly and Mare Turf Sprint, Safa (Tiago Pereira) joined the field and rates a chance.

• Sunday’s two stakes shape up well for Flavien Prat. Coming off American records for stakes wins (82) and graded-stakes wins (56) in 2024, Prat is the new rider for Alpha Bella in the La Cañada and stays with Toupie in the Las Cienegas.

• Santa Anita, whose parking lot became a site for charity dropoffs and a base for utility repair crews after the nearby Eaton fire started Jan. 7, is staying in the giving mood by encouraging fans to give. The track is suggesting contributions to the California Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Foundation, Foothill Unity Center Food Bank and Support Services, Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation, Eaton Fire Relief and Recovery Fund and Pasadena Humane Society, and calling for volunteers for the Hansen Dam Horse Park.

• Johannes, California’s top turf horse and an Eclipse Award contender in the division, will miss a scheduled start in the $1 million Pegasus World Cup Turf Invitational Jan. 25 at Gulfstream Park after coming out of his San Gabriel Stakes win Dec. 26 with bone bruising. “Watch out summer, he’ll be back,” trainer Tim Yakteen tweeted.

• Fans in Florida – nationwide, really – face a new worry after the owners of Gulfstream Park hinted at closing the Miami-area track unless horsemen support state legislation allowing the trackside casino to operate without the current requirement that racing be held too. According to reports, a track owners’ representative said racing would continue at Gulfstream until 2028 (though not necessarily longer) if a so-called “uncoupling” bill passes, but could stop sooner if it doesn’t. The Gulfstream property could be redeveloped and a new track built elsewhere. Gulfstream is run by 1ST/Racing and Gaming, which owns Santa Anita and shut down Golden Gate Fields.

— Kevin Modesti

​ Orange County Register 

Billie Eilish, Green Day, Joni Mitchell, Jelly Roll and Sting among stars on lineup for FireAid shows at Intuit Dome and Kia Forum

• January 17, 2025

Organizers announced the first names in a star-studded lineup of a benefit show for wildfire relief, though the biggest surprise is that the previously announced FireAid is now two concerts taking place simultaneously at Intuit Dome and the Kia Forum on Thursday, Jan. 30.

The lineup announced Thursday includes Billie Eilish and Finneas, Green Day, Joni Mitchell, Jelly Roll, and Sting. Other performers include Earth, Wind & Fire, Pink, Rod Stewart, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Dave Mathews and John Mayer performing together for the first time.

Additional performers include Stevie Nicks, Stephen Stills, Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Katy Perry, Tate McCrae, Gracie Abrams, Lil Baby, and Tate McRae.

Most of the artists on the bill have ties to Southern California, where the Palisades and Eaton fires have caused the deaths of at least 25 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses in Pacific Palisades.

Stills and Mitchell hark back to the ’60s and the Laurel Canyon singer-songwriter scene, with Nicks part of the ’70s crowd. Red Hot Chili Peppers and Stefani represent the late ’80s and ’90s alternative rock crowd.

Billie Eilish, her brother Finneas O’Connell, and Abrams are younger artists from the L.A. region. Others, like Sting, Stewart and Lady Gaga, are from the East Coast or England but have long had homes here.

More artists and special guests, and information on specific lineups for Intuit Dome and the Kia Forum, which are just blocks apart in Inglewood, will be announced soon, organizers said in a news release.

Tickets will go on sale at noon Pacific on Wednesday, Jan. 22 through Ticketmaster.

FireAid will also be broadcast at some AMC Theatres in 70 different markets. It will also be live-streamed through a plethora of platforms that normally are competitors, including Apple Music and the Apple TV app, Max, iHeartRadio, KTLA+, Netflix/Tudom, Paramount+, Prime Video and the Amazon Music Channel on Twitch, SiriusXM, Spotify, SoundCloud. Veeps, and YouTube.

Fans anywhere can donate to the wildfire relief efforts during the live streams on the platforms listed above.

Funds raised by FireAid will be distributed in consultation with the Annenberg Foundation and will target both short-term relief efforts and long-term projects to prevent future fire disasters. All proceeds from the concerts will go to relief efforts thanks to the Los Angeles Clippers, whose home is Intuit Dome, will cover expenses related to the benefit.

FireAid is being produced by Shelli and Irving Azoff and the Azoff family, with Live Nation and AEG Presents.

For more information, see FireAidLA.org.

​ Orange County Register 

Lyft rider jumped from car window, and driver denies responsibility because he was unconscious

• January 17, 2025

A Lyft Inc. driver is seeking dismissal of all claims against him in a lawsuit brought by a passenger who alleges that she jumped out of a car window moments before her unconscious driver crashed into a parked vehicle, saying he suffered a diabetic emergency just before the crash and cannot be liable.

Lal Finci’s Santa Monica Superior Court lawsuit alleges negligence on the part of driver Christian Denis Cooper. Lyft also was originally sued but was dropped by the plaintiff as a defendant in February 2024.

On Tuesday, Cooper’s lawyers filed court papers with Judge Mark A. Young in advance of an April 29 hearing in which they will urge him to grant their motion to eliminate the driver as a defendant, saying he could not have breached any obligation regarding Finci’s safety while he was incapacitated.

The lawyers also contend that Finci caused her own injuries when she jumped from Cooper’s car.

“He was transporting her as a passenger under the Lyft rideshare platform when, for the first time in his life, he suffered a medical emergency due to acute hypoglycemia,” Cooper’s lawyers said of their Type 1 diabetes client in their court papers.

Finci was responsible for her own injuries, according to Cooper’s attorneys’ court papers.

“She became hysterical and thought she was being kidnapped, so she rolled down her window, hung her body out the window and dropped to the asphalt while the car was moving and suffered physical injuries,” Cooper’s attorneys state in their court papers.

Finci left before the police arrived, called a friend to get her and later went to a nearby police station to report what happened, telling them she was kidnapped by someone who may have been a “psychopath,” Cooper’s attorneys further state in their pleadings.

“The sole alleged nature of his negligence was his failure to deliver her safely to her destination,” Cooper’s attorneys further state in their pleadings.

According to Finci’s complaint, she had summoned a Lyft ride in the early afternoon of July 16, 2021, to travel from Santa Monica to Rodeo Drive. Cooper told Finci that his spouse had cancer and that he needed to stop to buy some things from a 7-Eleven store on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, the suit filed in July 2023 states.

The driver returned 15 to 20 minutes later and asked Finci, “Are you ready for the ride?” according to the suit.

But the driver did not immediately leave until after Finci asked him if he was feeling all right and able to drive, the suit states. However, he drove unsafely and one passerby driver yelled at him, the suit states.

According to Cooper’s lawyers’ court papers, the driver bought some Red Bull drinks at the 7-Eleven to alleviate his low blood-sugar sensations and remembers nothing after that until he saw police and emergency workers tending to him.

According to Finci, when Cooper returned from the store, his face was “very scary and creepy” and that after he began driving erratically along Wilshire Boulevard, sometimes on the sidewalk, he ignored her demands to stop and let her out.

The suit states that a few moments later, Finci saw that the driver’s eyes were shut, so she reached over and tried to awaken him after he appeared to be unconscious.

“He momentarily woke up and then passed out again,” the suit states.

Finci thought the car might crash soon, and so she tried to open the back door of the car, but because it was locked, she rolled down the window and jumped out, the suit states.

Moments after Finci hit and rolled on the ground, she heard a loud crash from the driver’s car striking a parked vehicle a few hundred feet ahead of her, the suit states.

Finci suffered severe physical and emotional harm, according to her suit.

​ Orange County Register 

Lakers looking to give two-big lineups another shot

• January 17, 2025

EL SEGUNDO — Just one month after saying he didn’t feel like the Lakers’ lineups featuring two big men were a direction they were looking to move forward with, first-year coach JJ Redick appears to be reversing course.

Redick said after Thursday’s practice ahead of Friday’s home game against the Brooklyn Nets that the team will get back to using lineups featuring two bigs for “small stretches of games.”

“It doesn’t mean we won’t play small ever,” Redick said. “But that’s something that when we can get some practice time, we can really work on those small-ball looks.”

The Lakers used a two-big lineup featuring Anthony Davis and Jaxson Hayes for nearly three minutes late in the third quarter of their home win against the Miami Heat on Wednesday night. It was the first time they had done so since Nov. 26 against the Phoenix Suns – the last game Hayes played before missing 15 games because of a sprained right ankle.

They had a neutral plus/minus in the 2:49 when Davis and Hayes were on the court together against the Heat.

“Just the defense trending in the wrong direction,” Redick responded when asked what he saw that made him want to go back to lineups featuring two big men.

The Lakers had a 129.2 defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) in the three games previous their victory over Miami, which was the league’s worst mark during that stretch after having a 108.2 defensive rating from Dec. 8-Jan. 3.

“If it’s not broke, don’t fix it,” Redick elaborated. “If it is broke, let’s try to fix it type thing. Just more size. More rebounding. Again, teams are trying to get A.D. away from the basket. Well, maybe we can mix it up a little bit and have some more size out there for stretches of the game.”

Redick said that Trey Jemison, the 6-foot-10, 260-pound big man the Lakers signed to a two-way contract late Wednesday night, could factor into those two-big lineups, too.

“First of all, a big body. And plays extremely hard,” Redick said of Jemison. “With Christian [Koloko] and what we’ve asked of him, some because of Jaxson’s injury, we have to sort of manage his days. And Trey gives us another body, another physical player.

“For Trey, I think he’s gonna have an opportunity at times to be out there with A.D. He’s gonna have an opportunity, at times, to play solo big, depending on who’s available. Obviously, Jaxson’s our backup center. Not saying he’s gonna play over Jaxson. But getting him in the program was important for us. We obviously did intel on him. He’s high character, high energy, smart player, too. High basketball IQ. Super humble. We’re excited to have him.”

RUSSELL’S RETURN

Friday will be D’Angelo Russell’s first game against the Lakers since the franchise traded him, along with Maxwell Lewis and three second-round draft picks, to Brooklyn for Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton.

Finney-Smith missed Wednesday’s game because of personal reasons. His fiancée announced the birth of their child on Wednesday morning on Instagram. Finney-Smith’s status for Friday wasn’t known as of Thursday afternoon.

Russell averaged a career-low 12.4 points in 26.3 minutes, which was his lowest minutes average since his third season, before the Lakers traded him.

He averaged 16.6 points and 5.9 assists during his entire second stint with the franchise.

“I expect him to come out and try to have a great game,” Redick said of Russell. “He does not have a lack of competitiveness. He takes a lot of pride in who he is as a player. I’m expecting him to try to go at us.”

NETS AT LAKERS

When: Friday, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Crypto.com Arena

TV/radio: Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM

​ Orange County Register 

California workers plan a long battle to keep AI tech from taking their jobs

• January 17, 2025

By Khari Johnson | CalMatters

The current frenzy around artificial intelligence has spread like a shockwave.

It started among engineers inspired by a 2017 research paper. Next came venture capitalists eager to profit from a new boom. They were followed by government officials racing to impose regulations.

Now it’s labor’s turn.

More than 200 trade union members and technologists gathered in Sacramento this week at a first-of-its-kind conference to discuss how AI and other tech threatens workers and to strategize for upcoming fights and possible strikes.

The Making Tech Work for Workers event was convened by University of California labor centers, unions, and worker advocates and attracted people representing dock workers, home care workers, teachers, nurses, actors, state office workers, and many other occupations.

A key takeaway from the proceedings: Workers of all stripes are determined to fight — during contract negotiations and amid day to day operations — for the right to negotiate more control over how AI is deployed within companies. Union representatives detailed ways AI threatens jobs, from screenwriting to driving taxis to ringing people up as a cashier.

It takes a toll on your physical and mental health when tech tracks your every movement, said Luis, an Amazon worker from California’s Inland Empire who asked CalMatters not to use his last name due to fear of retribution. He felt like he couldn’t stop moving or get help from coworkers when lifting heavy objects. That led to back pain that made it hard to sleep at night, and feelings of depression and diminished self-worth.

“I just couldn’t deal with being a robot,” he said, describing why he quit. Later he returned to the job because he had no other opportunities.

Amazon spokesman Steve Kelly responded that “employees are encouraged to work with intention, not speed and can take short breaks at any time to use the restroom, grab water, stretch, or step away from their screen. In addition, there’s nothing unusual about using cameras to help ensure employee safety, inventory quality, or protect against theft—this is common practice at nearly every major retailer in the world. Employees who have questions or concerns about any aspect of this technology or their jobs generally aren’t just permitted, but encouraged on a regular basis, to bring them to their managers and they’re provided several tools to support them in that process.”

The gathering comes as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to begin his second administration and shortly before a Feb. 21 deadline to propose bills for the current session of the California Legislature. Precisely how Trump will respond to issues related to tech and workers is unclear. He has made some promises that seem favorable to big tech, like vowing to cut regulations he sees as harmful to innovation and promising to repeal an executive order signed by his predecessor that put safeguards on AI.

But he has also positioned himself as an advocate for blue-collar workers left behind by tech elites: Just last month he called automation harmful to workers. Observers have also been left baffled by where, exactly, the incoming president stands on issues like H-1B visas for foreign tech talent or how he might be swayed by high-profile adviser Elon Musk, the omnipresent tech billionaire.

Participants at the conference did not focus much on Trump. Instead, they centered discussions on how to protect workers from tech that can exploit them or automate discrimination. Union representatives unanimously urged workers to negotiate how AI and other forms of tech are used in the workplace when bargaining. Many also urged workers to engage more on tech issues by considering how to use tech for organizing, or pushing for the establishment of committees where management must discuss tech with workers before implementation.

The roughly 150,000 United Food and Commercial Workers union members — folks who work at stores like Kroger and Albertsons — and the 100,000 National Nurses Union members will both face key fights related to automation this year as they bargain new contracts. The grocery workers will challenge the role of self-checkout stands while nurses contest AI tools they say can influence their duty to care and prioritize profits for health care and insurance companies over patient health.

Corporations have long marketed AI to consumers and investors as a technology that will transform the world for the better. But gatherings like the conference in Sacramento show that unions are also using AI as a way to galvanize workers to organize their workplace.

Unions have a steep hill to climb to grow membership and worker power, said AFL-CIO Tech Institute executive director Amanda Ballantyne, but including AI in collective bargaining negotiations is key, because there are so many use cases for AI in the workplace and workers tend to have strong opinions about them since they are experts in their own jobs and know best the safety implications of a new tool.

A number of union representatives argued at the conference that workers need to gain and exercise power to push back against the rollout of technology with the potential to exploit them, visit indignity upon them, or take their jobs.

A report released earlier this year by the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute found that 4.5 million Californians are in 20 industries labeled at high risk of job loss due to automation, and that more than half of high-risk workers are Latino.

Automation that takes jobs away is a major concern for three out of four Americans, according to a Gallup poll taken last year, but AI that makes predictions about workers, manages workers, or attempts to track and quantify their every move is also a major risk, said UC Berkeley Labor Center director Annette Bernhardt.

She previously told CalMatters she’s less concerned about AI taking jobs than she is about algorithms used in the workplace treating people like machines.

AI has the potential to reduce discrimination and improve worker health and safety but it also has the potential to drive job losses, help suppress worker organizing efforts, and intensify demands placed on workers, a phenomenon that led to higher injury rates at Amazon warehouses.

SAG-AFTRA executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said that AI underscores why it’s important for workers to organize, because doing so can force employers to negotiate their use of AI during contract bargaining rather than unilaterally deciding to introduce the technology in the workplace. But obtaining such contract clauses  requires foresight by union leaders, who must craft a message that can resonate with workers and the public.

“We’re up against the biggest corporate interests and the biggest political interests that you can imagine, and working together in unity is absolutely where our power comes from,” he said. “Especially because we’re going to have so many challenges on the federal level, in California, we can use public policy to advance collective bargaining and use collective bargaining to advance public policy.”

A lot of tech getting introduced in the workplace is just surveillance of workers, advocates said, and that’s nothing new. “It’s the old boss with new tools,” said California Labor Federation president Lorena Gonzalez. Three years ago, as an assemblymember, Gonzalez coauthored a law that prevents algorithms from denying workers break time or worker safety violations.

Amid uncertainty of how the Trump administration will address union concerns around tech, Gonzalez told CalMatters last week that she is working with counterparts in other states, including Oregon, Massachusetts, and Washington, and Wisconsin to pass legislation to protect workers’ privacy in spaces like break rooms and bathrooms and ensure that they know when an employer is collecting data about them or monitoring job performance.

The California Privacy Protection Agency is currently drafting rules that would require businesses to inform job applicants and workers when AI is in use and allow them to opt out of data collection on the job without consequence. California would become the first state to enact such rules but that regulation is still under negotiation. The California Civil Rights Department is also drafting rules to protect workers from AI that can automate discrimination.

Gonzalez said she doesn’t like to rely on such rules because they  can take a long time to finalize and enforce, pointing to the fight to keep workers safe from hot workplaces, a battle that’s gone on for the better part of a decade.

Meanwhile, people like Amba Kak see opportunities for gains by workers against technological threats but said that it may require strategically picking the right battles. Kak previously advised the Federal Trade Commission and is executive director of the AI Now Institute, a nonprofit that researches the human rights impact of the technology.

Seizing those opportunities requires paying attention to issues that can build bridges between labor and other actors in the tech justice movement. For example, the activity of data centers can bring together people concerned about the climate and labor and people in local communities who see data centers consume vast amounts of water and energy.

Kak told CalMatters she plans to pay more attention to activity in state legislatures in places like California and New York, where lawmakers are already considering a bill that protects people from AI in a manner similar to California’s to Senate Bill 1047, a controversial bill requiring AI safeguards that Newsom vetoed last year.

“Labor has been at the forefront of rebalancing of power and asserting that the public has a say in determining how and under what conditions this tech is used,” she said.

​ Orange County Register 

Fryer: Great boys basketball games a nightly occurrence in Crestview League

• January 17, 2025

All five of the Crestview League’s teams this season are in the Orange County boys basketball Top 15.

Every team has at least one sure-thing All-County player. Four of the league’s coaches have been the O.C. coach of the year.

The average margin of victory in the league has been five points. Four games have been decided by one point, one has gone into overtime and one went to double overtime.

The Crestview League is behind only the Trinity League on the list of best collection of teams in Orange County boys basketball.

Canyon is in first place with a 2-0 league record. Then comes Crean Lutheran at 2-1, La Habra at 2-2 and Foothill at 1-1. Cypress is 0-3, with an asterisk.

A look at the five Crestview League teams:

Canyon (17-4 overall, 2-0 in league): Canyon is No. 5 in the county rankings and is second to No. 4 Los Alamitos among O.C. public school teams. Canyon beat Cypress 63-61 in overtime and has the only double-digit win in the league this season with its 81-64 win over La Habra. Senior forward Brandon Benjamin is among the leaders for county player of the year honors. (Santa Margarita guard Kaiden Bailey and Mater Dei guard Luke Barnett are also in the current mix. Senior guards Staf Yilmazturk and Noah Kim have been top contributors, too.

Crean Lutheran (9-9, 2-1): The Saints, No. 10 in the O.C. Top 25, lost to La Habra 56-55 on a last-second shot, beat Foothill 61-60 and beat Cypress 69-68 in double overtime. Jacob Majok, a 6-7 junior, has vastly improved over last season and is a factor at both ends of the court. Sophomore guards Caden Jones and Hunter Caplan are key players.

Cypress (14-9, 0-3): The hard-luck Centurions, No. 15 in the county rankings, lost to Canyon 63-61 in overtime, to Crean Lutheran 69-68 in double overtime and to La Habra 74-65. High-energy junior point guard Ryan Gov is one of more entertaining players around. Senior guard King Birdsong is an outstanding shooter and defender.

Foothill (14-7, 1-1): The Knights, No. 14 in the O.C. rankings, lost to Crean Lutheran 61-60 and on Tuesday, with two starters out, beat La Habra 61-55. Danny Kennard, a 6-11 senior, is a much smoother player this season and now uses his weak (left) hand as well his strong hand inside, making him much more difficult to guard. Junior guard Braeden Davidson and senior Lorenzo Turner are fine shooters, and this team gets better as soon as senior point guard Kai Nixon shakes off the flu.

La Habra (18-6, 2-2): The Highlanders, who are No. 7 in the county rankings, beat Crean Lutheran 56-55 on junior guard Acen Jimenez’s buzzer-beating jump shot, beat Cypress 74-65 and then lost its last two league games to Canyon 81-64 and to Foothill 61-55. La Habra has shooters galore, including seniors Jaedon Anderson and Sebastian Esparza, and has plenty of depth. The Highlanders’ zone defense can perplex their opponents.

In Friday’s league games Canyon plays at Crean Lutheran and Foothill plays at Cypress; La Habra’s next league game is at Cypress on Tuesday.

From the looks of it, all could be outstanding games.

NOTES

In two huge Trinity League boys basketball games next week, JSerra is at St. John Bosco on Monday, and Santa Margarita is home against St. John Bosco on Friday, Jan. 24. …

JSerra’s boys basketball win over Mater Dei on Wednesday was the Lions’ third straight victory over the Monarchs in the sport. JSerra last season beat Mater Dei in a league game at JSerra and beat the Monarchs in a CIF-SS playoff game at Mater Dei. Santa Margarita is the only other Orange County team with three wins over Mater Dei during Gary McKnight’s 42 seasons as coach, but those did not occur consecutively. …

The Celebration of Life for longtime county boys basketball coach Jerry DeBusk this past Saturday at Santa Margarita was like a veteran coaches convention, with so many men who coached with and against DeBusk at Costa Mesa, Newport Harbor and Santa Margarita. Ex-Lakers player and current radio broadcaster Mychal Thompson spoke at the event in the Santa Margarita gym about how important it was to have a coach with DeBusk’s knowledge and integrity mentor Thompson’s sons, including NBA great Klay Thompson. …

CIF Southern Section competitive cheer championships are Jan. 24 and 25 at ML King High in Riverside. There are 12 divisions including four coed divisions. …

Veterans Stadium in Long Beach, the football home of Los Alamitos and others, is about to undergo a full makeover. Among the many updated features of the project is that seating, now on only the west side of the stadium, will be on both sides. It will take at least two years for completion. …

Jordon Davison and Nasir Wyatt of Mater Dei, Julius Gillick and Matt Lopez of Edison, Vanden Dugger of Dana Hills and Max Mapstone of Portola were named CIF Southern Section football players of the year in their divisions for the 2024 season. Raul Lara of Mater Dei, Jeff Grady of Edison and Peter Abe of Portola were named CIF-SS football coaches of the year. …

Football coaching news: Former Kennedy and Loara coach Mitch Olson is the new coach at Fountain Valley; David Prieto resigned as coach at Buena Park after his four seasons there; Brett Brown resigned at Huntington Beach where he was the coach for nine seasons; and Connor McBride was hired at Woodbridge. …

Incredible but true – baseball and softball seasons are a month away. Those sports can play their first games on Feb. 17. Boys tennis can also start Feb. 17; lacrosse can have its first games Feb. 10 and boys volleyball can play its first contests Feb. 15.

​ Orange County Register 

Over $400,000 worth of stolen Nike products recovered from train burglary

• January 17, 2025

Two teens were arrested and over $400,000 worth of stolen Nike products were recovered from a train burglary in the Amboy area Wednesday, January 15, officials said.

Around 6:40 p.m. deputies responded to the area of Amboy and National Trails Highway after BNSF police reported multiple suspects burglarizing a train, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement. Deputies later attempted to stop an unmarked white van headed west on Amboy Road near Zelda Lane in Wonder Valley that led to a brief pursuit. The van became disabled on a dirt berm and two occupants fled on foot, according to the statement.

Two teens, ages 16 and 17, were later apprehended.

The California Highway Patrol assisted and stopped an additional vehicle believed to be related as it traveled northbound on South Old Woman Springs Road near Butte Street in Landers. The driver, whose details were not released, fled on foot and has not been arrested, officials said.

Investigators recovered all 218 cases of stolen Nike products worth approximately $408,000. Details on where exactly the products were found or what charges the teens faced were not released.

In Nov. 2023, the California Highway Patrol seized roughly $200,000 worth of Nike products stolen from a train in the Amboy area.

​ Orange County Register 

Attorney General Rob Bonta says price gougers will be ‘held accountable’ during LA wildfire emergency

• January 17, 2025

Amid the deadly Los Angeles County wildfires, some landlords have decided to raise the prices of housing due to the high demand.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta warned price gougers that they will be “held accountable” for their unlawful conduct and said he is taking these crimes seriously, during a press conference on Thursday, Jan. 16.

Price gouging refers to sellers trying to take unfair advantage of consumers during an emergency or disaster by greatly increasing prices for essential consumer goods and services, according to the attorney general’s website.

“These predators are looking at the disaster with dollar signs in their eyes, instead of kindness in their hearts,” Bonta said. “That is unconscionable, despicable, and unacceptable, and most importantly, it is illegal.”

California law generally prohibits increasing rent or prices more than 10% after an emergency is declared, the attorney general said. For items a seller only began selling after an emergency declaration, the law generally prohibits charging a price that exceeds the seller’s cost of the item by more than 50%.

This applies to long- and short-term rental housing, hotel accommodations, transportation, emergency cleanup services, and repair or reconstruction services. It also applies to food, emergency supplies, medical supplies, building materials, and gasoline.

Violators of price gouging are subject to criminal prosecution that can result in a one year in jail and/or a fine of up to $10,000, the attorney general said. Violators are also subject to civil enforcement actions including civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation.

“You can’t exploit victims and break the law for the sake of turning a profit and get away with it,” Bonta said. “There will be consequences.”

Protections have been in effect since Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency on Jan. 7.

Since then, the California Department of Justice has already opened multiple active investigations into price gouging reports and will be prosecuting any crimes found, Bonta said.

“We have redistributed, deployed and moved our resources into L.A. to tackle the price gouging that we’re seeing,” he added. “We have boots on the ground, conducting investigations as we speak, building the criminal cases against price gougers. We will continue to pressure those cases and others and prosecute to the full extent of the law.”

Bonta also announced the creation of DOJ’s Disaster Relief Task Force – which will be responsible for uncovering, investigating and prosecuting price gouging and other crimes targeting disaster victims – as well as the launch of a website dedicated to its response at OAG.ca.gov/LAFires.

“There is increased demand because people have lost their homes and they’re looking for a place to stay,” Bonta said. “They’ve been suffering from perhaps the worst tragedy they’ll ever face in their lives and they deserve support, compassion, services and resources. They deserve their community to wrap their arms around them not predators to take advantage of them.”

Those who believe they have been the victim of price gouging are encouraged to report it to their local authorities or to the attorney general’s office at OAG.ca.gov/LAFires or by calling the hotline at 800-952-5225.

​ Orange County Register