Mater Dei and Orange Lutheran girls water polo teams reach CIF SoCal Regional final

• February 28, 2025

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The girls water polo showdown that many expected last weekend will surface this weekend in another championship format.

Mater Dei and Orange Lutheran each won their respective Division I semifinal matches Thursday in the CIF Southern California Regional to advance to Saturday’s 2 p.m. championship at Long Beach City College.

The Monarchs held off Newport Harbor 10-8 at Costa Mesa High while Orange Lutheran handled CIF-SS Open Division champion and host Oaks Christian 12-2.

Last week in the CIF-SS Open Division semifinals, top-ranked Mater Dei was stunned in overtime by visiting Oaks Christian. Orange Lutheran, the two-time defending Open Division champion, was upset in double sudden-death overtime by Newport Harbor.

On Feb. 22, Oaks Christian defeated Newport Harbor 7-5 in the section final.

On Thursday, Mater Dei (26-4) scored the first five goals and led by as many as six in never trailing against Newport Harbor (25-7).

After trailing 8-4 at halftime, the Sailors continued to chip away at their deficit in the second half and had a chance to make it a one-goal game in the final minute of regulation. But with 50 seconds left, Newport Harbor turned the ball for a stalling violation in their backcourt.

The Sailors held Mater Dei scoreless in the fourth period, which made the Monarchs’ buzzer-beating goal to close the third period loom significant. Mater Dei executed a 7 on 6 attack with sharp-shooter Kirra Pantaleon — who missed most of the third with two fouls — as the goalie in the field. Riley Johnson scored to give the Monarchs a 10-6 lead going to the fourth quarter.

Mater Dei went 4 for the 7 on the traditional, power play while Newport Harbor finished 1 for 5.

Both goalies played well. Mater Dei’s Sienna Sorensen had nine saves, including one against a 6 on 4 power play in the opening period. Newport Harbor’s Lydia Soderberg made eight saves.

U.S. national team member Allison Cohen had four goals and five assists and Kyla Pranajaya made 11 saves to lead Orange Lutheran (26-4) in its semifinal. The Lancers finished 4-0 against Oaks Christian this winter.

During the regular season, Mater Dei defeated Orange Lutheran in three of the teams’ four matches. The Lancers won the Trinity League showdown for the league title.

The other regional finals on Saturday at Long Beach City College will pit Clairemont-Valhalla in Division II at 12:30 p.m. and Cathedral Catholic-Birmingham in Division III at 11 a.m.

​ Orange County Register 

UC Irvine routs Cal State Fullerton to keep Big West title hopes alive

• February 28, 2025

FULLERTON — In Thursday night’s game between the UC Irvine and Cal State Fullerton men’s basketball teams, it was apparent early which team was near the top of the Big West standings and which team was at the bottom.

Jurian Dixon had a career-high 21 points, Justin Hohn scored 18 and Bent Leuchten had another double-double (14 points, 10 rebounds) as UCI dominated both ends of the court and handed Fullerton its ninth consecutive loss, 76-51, at Titan Gym.

The Anteaters had a double-digit lead less than six minutes into the game, held a 20-point cushion at halftime and led by as much as 32 points in the second half, holding the lead for nearly 38 minutes.

UCI (24-5 overall, 14-3 Big West) had a season-high 11 blocked shots and held Fullerton (6-23, 1-16) to 38.2% shooting from the floor and a 3-for-16 showing from 3-point range to stay in the hunt for the Big West regular-season title and one of the top two seeds in the conference tournament.

UCI is one game behind first-place UC San Diego (25-4, 15-2) and two games ahead of third-place Cal State Northridge (20-8, 12-5) with three games left. The top two seeds in the 10-team Big West Tournament receive double byes into the semifinals.

Elijah Chol had a team-high five blocks for the Anteaters, matching his career-high from earlier this season against Duquesne. Leuchten added three and Kyle Evans had two.

“Defense is what we know we can do to separate ourselves from other teams,” UCI coach Russell Turner said. “We’ve been good on the road because we’ve had a good defensive mentality. We have some dynamic shot blockers. I feel good about the overall defensive effort.”

Turner’s comments about UCI being good on the road is an understatement. This was the Anteaters’ NCAA-best 12th road win of the season. They also have three wins at neutral sites and their 15 wins away from their home court are tied with UCSD for the most in the nation.

Dixon, a redshirt freshman, shot 9 for 11 from the field while pacing the offense and added three steals.

“Jurian is getting better and better,” Turner said. “I’m really excited for the way he both defends and makes unselfish plays on the offensive end. He’s coming into his own right before our eyes.”

UCI went on a 17-2 run early in the first half and added an 11-2 surge later in the half.

The Anteaters led by as many as 24 points in the first half and shot 58.6% from the field compared to just 25.8% from Fullerton.

UCI shot 6 for 13 from 3-point range in the first half and finished the night 10 for 28. Fullerton was daring UCI to shoot from outside in the first half and the Anteaters gladly accepted the open shots.

“Fullerton was packing the paint against us, challenging us to move the ball, find 3-point shooters with rhythm and knock them down,” Turner said. “That’s probably what I would have done if I were in their position, and we made them. We have guys who shoot at a really high percentage and we create good shots for one another.”

UCI’s dominant defense was even more impressive after the intermission. The Anteaters blocked seven shots and had eight steals in the second half.

Kendrick De Luna (10 points) was the only player to score in double-figures for Fullerton, which has lost its last three games by an average of nearly 31 points. Antwan Robinson added eight points and six rebounds, Donovan Oday had eight points and Kaleb Brown grabbed a career-high 12 rebounds.

UCI hosts Long Beach State on Saturday night in its final home game of the season. LBSU pushed UCI to overtime in their first meeting this season.

“(They) are a team whose record doesn’t indicate how good and dangerous they can be,” Turner said. “We’re going to need to bring it.”

The Titans play at UCSD on Saturday night.

BIG WEST STANDINGS

Through Thursday, Feb. 27

UC San Diego – 25-4, 15-2

UC Irvine – 24-5, 14-3

CS Northridge – 20-8, 12-5

UC Riverside – 19-11, 12-6

UC Santa Barbara – 19-10, 11-7

UC Davis – 15-13, 9-8

CS Bakersfield – 13-17, 7-11

Hawaii – 14-14, 6-11

Cal Poly (SLO) – 11-18, 5-12

Long Beach State – 7-22, 3-14

CS Fullerton – 6-23, 1-16

​ Orange County Register 

Lakers’ Luka Doncic creating off-ball opportunities for LeBron James, Austin Reaves

• February 28, 2025

LOS ANGELES — Lakers coach JJ Redick said last weekend that Luka Doncic would need to be the player who controls the offense.

And through his first five games, it’s not only played out that way, but it’s also allowed LeBron James and Austin Reaves to create offense in other ways.

Since making his Lakers debut in the Feb. 10 home win against the Utah Jazz, Doncic leads the team in usage rate (31.1% entering Thursday’s home game against the Minnesota Timberwolves), just a smidge above James (30.4%) and significantly higher than Reaves (22.2%).

With the way the Lakers stagger the three within different lineup combinations, James and Reaves still get their fair share of on-ball opportunities, leading units on their own but also in scenarios when it’s two of the three are on the court together.

But Doncic’s presence has opened more off-ball scoring opportunities for James and Reaves.

In the five games before Doncic made his debut, Reaves averaged 2.8 catch-and-shoot 3-pointers per game (28.6% shooting), while James averaged 1.8 (42.9%) in the four games he played from Jan. 30-Feb. 9.

Since Doncic’s debut, those catch-and-shoot opportunities have been more present.

Reaves has averaged 4.3 catch-and-shoot 3s since Doncic made his debut (30.8% shooting) while James has averaged 3.8 (56.5%).

But Doncic’s impact on James and Reaves goes beyond allowing them to shoot easier shots.

“The biggest effect of that is with Austin because of how much ball-handling he had to do,” Redick said before Thursday’s game. “It wasn’t even just the shot creation part for himself and others. It was literally just getting the ball across halfcourt.

“He was in the lineup a lot of times without a ball-handler. And now, I think in five games, I there’s been one scenario where we’re in an [out of timeout play] and I’m like, ‘let’s do this’ and we only have one ball-handler out there. Now, we have Gabe [Vincent], Austin, Luka, sometimes [Jordan Goodwin] even, we have four guys that can do it. And that’s what we try to do all year with LeBron is not tax him with just bringing the ball up. We want him obviously to have the basketball, but in his spots and in the halfcourt.”

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch acknowledged the kind of threat James is off the ball.

“I mean such a great downhill player on the catch, so if you’re over helping in the gaps, you’re gonna open a massive like runways for him to get downhill,” he said. “That’s a not going to end well for a defense, generally. That’s probably the biggest thing.”

Finch added: “Generally, you’ll throw double-teams at Luka, but when LeBron’s off the ball and try receiving it quickly, he’s such a great passer, he can pick you apart. It’s funny. We spent a lot of our coaches’ meeting talking about LeBron off-ball and what that does to a defense. So just a whole other threat level.”

​ Orange County Register 

Edison says it acted prudently even if found liable in Eaton fire

• February 28, 2025

By Mark Chediak | Bloomberg

Edison International said transmission operations of its Southern California utility were managed responsibly, even if investigators determine the equipment sparked a deadly fire near Los Angeles.

The company is confident Southern California Edison “would make a good faith showing that its conduct with respect to its transmission facilities in the Eaton Canyon area was consistent with actions of a reasonable utility,” Edison Chief Executive Officer Pedro Pizarro said during the company’s earnings call Thursday.

Edison is facing mounting scrutiny for the possible role its equipment may have played in the Eaton wildfire. California’s utilities have started some of the state’s worst wildfires, pushing one of them — PG&E Corp. — to declare bankruptcy and leaving investors on edge. Edison has lost about a third of its market value since the Eaton Fire erupted Jan. 7, destroying more than 9,000 structures and cause damage estimated at $7 billion to $10 billion.

Under California reforms designed to improve utility wildfire safety practices, a utility can recover from customer damage claims related to a fire tied to its equipment if regulators determine that it acted prudently.

Pizarro said the size and scope of the Los Angeles wildfires have raised investor concerns about the durability of the state’s $21 billion wildfire insurance fund set up to cover claims from blazes started by utility equipment.

The company is certain policymakers will strengthen the fund and make other changes to shore up the financial health of the state’s utilities. Pizarro added the utility would like to see near-term fixes to help reassure its investors.

Edison said it continues to look into the possibility that its transmission facilities started the fire.

​ Orange County Register 

Former LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley appeals her firing by Mayor Bass

• February 28, 2025

Former Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley announced on Thursday, Feb. 27, that she has formally appealed her removal by Mayor Karen Bass, escalating an already contentious political battle.

The uphill fight now shifts to the City Council, where Crowley will need support from at least 10 of 15 council members to be reinstated–an outcome that remains highly uncertain.

“Today I notified the City Council of my appeal as provided for in Los Angeles Charter, Article V, Section 5.08(e), due to Mayor Bass’s removal of me, on February 21, 2025, from the position of Fire Chief of the Los Angeles City Fire Department,” Crowley said in a statement.

Mayor’s spokesperson Zach Seidl said in a statement Thursday that “former Chief Crowley has the right to appeal her dismissal.”

After the firing, the mayor’s office said Crowley had chosen to exercise “her Civil Service rights to stay with the Fire Department at a lower rank.” However, it remains unclear what position she has been assigned, as the mayor’s office did not directly answer that question Thursday.

The move comes less than a week after Bass announced Crowley’s immediate removal and named former Chief Deputy Ronnie Villanueva, who recently retired, as interim fire chief.

Bass cited Crowley’s refusal to submit an after-action report on the Palisades fire as a key reason for her removal. The mayor also criticized her handling of staffing decisions, saying that when the Palisades fires broke out on the morning of Jan.7, up to 1,000 firefighters could have been on duty but were instead sent home under Crowley’s leadership.

“Let me be clear: our firefighters acted heroically during the Palisades fire, and they act heroically every single day. That is without question. Bringing new leadership to the fire department is what they and the people of Los Angeles deserve,” Bass said during a Feb. 21 press conference announcing Crowley’s removal.

Under the City Charter, Crowley has 10 calendar days to appeal her firing to the L.A. City Council. The council could overturn Bass’ action if two-thirds of the governing body – meaning 10 of the 15 council members – vote to reverse the mayor’s decision.

The political turmoil has been building for weeks, with Crowley criticizing the city and Bass firing back. In an interview soon after the Eaton and Palisades fires erupted, Crowley said the city had “failed” her and the fire department by making budget cuts that hampered firefighters’ ability to respond to the recent deadly wildfires.

Bass, meanwhile, has reportedly blamed Crowley and others, saying that if she had been properly informed about the severity of last month’s windstorms, she would not have traveled out of the country just days before the first wildfire erupted.

​ Orange County Register 

Their mosque burned down in the Eaton fire. They’re still determined to gather for Ramadan

• February 28, 2025

By DEEPA BHARATH | Associated Press 

All that remains of Masjid Al-Taqwa is a sign that bears its name.

The mosque in Altadena, which served a tight-knit Muslim community for 42 years, burned to the ground in one of the Los Angeles area’s deadliest fires in January — leaving the congregation heartbroken and without a place to pray and break their upcoming Ramadan fast together.

With that weighing on their minds, about 20 mosque members and a few connected families met on a recent Saturday at a local Islamic school to pray and share a meal, their first together since the fire. Many who came are living in motels or with family after losing their homes in the Eaton fire, which killed 17 people and scorched thousands of homes and over 14,000 acres across Los Angeles County.

With Ramadan just days a way, their volunteer imam, Junaid Aasi, had good news to share. Clad in a white robe, black jacket and prayer cap, he walked onto the plush blue prayer rugs and placed a small karaoke machine in the middle of the multipurpose room at New Horizon Islamic School.

Aasi announced the school was offering this space for four nights each week during Ramadan. There were gasps of relief, and utterances of “Alhamdulillah,” an Arabic phrase that means “praise be to God.”

Aasi said many in the community have been anxious about Ramadan and having this room, even if only for some days each week, is a blessing.

“Ramadan is not only a time when we pray and eat together, but we also help and support each other and others in the community,” he said. “This year, with so many who have lost so much, it’s going to be more important than ever.”

The imam, with a secular job as an IT professional, has volunteered at the mosque for the past 25 years. He has revisited the property since the fire. Sometimes, he says, he can still see everything the way it was when he closes his eyes.

The place where people would perform wudu — the ritual washing of hands, feet and face before coming in to pray. The thick carpets where they prayed. Copies of the holy Quran. A fig tree outside.

“I still can’t believe it’s all gone,” Aasi said.

He said many members are still displaced and hurting emotionally.

“One member just texted me that they were on their way here but stopped to check out their (burned) home,” Aasi said. They were so overwhelmed, he added, that they couldn’t bring themselves to the gathering.

Aaron Abdus-Shakoor, one of the mosque’s founders and current board president, lost his home, the building that housed his real estate business and several investment properties around Altadena. He said the mosque, which began in the 1970s as a meeting place for Nation of Islam members, evolved into a mainstream, multicultural Muslim community. It was called the Pasadena-Altadena Daawa Center until members in 1997 renamed it Masjid Al-Taqwa, which means “pious and god-conscious.”

“All these years, we’ve been good citizens,” Abdus-Shakoor said. “We’ve always kept our doors open and have tried to be a positive influence in the community.”

In the early days, the communal Ramadan celebration only happened on Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month, he said. But for many years now, members have hosted a daily community iftar, the evening meal during Ramadan, which breaks the day-long fast.

For many, the mosque has been a second home.

Salah Eddine Benatia, an Algerian immigrant, has only been in the country three months. He discovered Al-Taqwa online and had been riding the bus from Pasadena for prayers.

“I felt so warmly welcomed by this community,” he said. “I miss home a lot especially around Ramadan. I was so sad when I heard the mosque burned down. Being here gives me a sense of being with family.”

Farzana Asaduzzaman, who has lived in the neighborhood since 2016, said Ramadan at the mosque has always been “a family affair.”

“Everyone brings food, we fast, we break our fast together,” she said. “The kids would play Uno, make arts and crafts, and assemble Eid gift bags. We would put up heaters in the outside area, sit down, sip hot chai and talk for hours.”

Asaduzzaman, her husband and their three children, ages 14, 10 and 3, lost their home in the fire as well. They spent two and a half years renovating the property before it burned down.

“Our masjid may be gone and our neighborhood may be gone, but our community is strong,” she said. “This is our support system. We’ll be together for Ramadan, no matter where it is. We’ll find a place where we can see our kids run around and where we can gather and be together again.”

For Mohammed AlDajani, a second-year medical student, the mosque was a five-minute walk from his condo, which was also lost in the fire. For AlDajani, who had no relatives or friends nearby, the mosque fulfilled the need for social and spiritual nourishment.

“The masjid was actually a nice incentive for me to move here,” he said. “It’s a place that has helped ground me in this community.”

AlDajani said, unlike many mosques he has attended, Masjid Al-Taqwa’s members represent many nationalities and ethnicities — Arab, African American, Afghan, Indian, Bangladeshi, Turkish and North African among them.

“I found that very unique,” he said.

Last year was his first Ramadan in Southern California. The mosque’s youth painted a mural of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a disputed holy site that has become a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a Palestinian American, AlDajani said the community project touched him profoundly at a time when his heart was broken by the suffering of those in Gaza.

He said he learned about the Altadena mosque’s destruction even before he found out his home was gone.

“It’s just like my chest sank when I saw the images,” AlDajani said. “It was difficult because I was there for morning and night prayers every day. It was my little haven. It doesn’t feel right, having that empty space there.”

As he tries to find a place to rent, AlDajani says the mosque community has been “keeping him afloat.”

“Our prayer group still meets on the weekends,” he said. “I was anxious about Ramadan. It’s nice to know we’ll still be able to gather and pray, and this haven will still exist.”

Sakeenah Ali’s children, who attended Elliott Magnet Middle School across the street from the mosque, lost their school in the fire.

“They would hear the afternoon call to prayer from their school, which was very special,” she said, adding that she went out and saw the mosque burn and the parking lot covered in ash.

“Cars were on fire, trees were smoldering,” Ali recalled. “You could hear explosions everywhere – boom, boom.”

But she believes that her community is resilient.

“The key is to keep showing up,” Ali said. “Make sure we have our prayer time, stay connected and be consistent. We are going to rebuild.”

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

​ Orange County Register 

California’s fund to build student housing runs dry — leaving community colleges in the lurch

• February 28, 2025

Larissa Griffith found free housing her first semester, but it came with a catch: She was on call, 24 hours a day, including holidays, at her landlord’s farm.

In the town of Quincy, population 1,580, housing options are sparse for students in this rural community in Northern California. Demand has also grown, especially after the 2021 Dixie Fire, which tore through nearly a million acres of Sierra Nevada mountains and forest — about the size of Rhode Island — and destroyed hundreds of homes across the surrounding Plumas County.

Right after the fire, the state granted the college over $500,000 from the state to design solutions for the worsening student housing crisis, but it was a kind of “false hope,” said Carlie McCarthy, the college’s vice president of student services.

Twice, the school submitted its plans — a $74 million proposal to build over 120 beds for students — and each time, the state Legislature was unable to fund it. The state has promised to help community colleges build housing for their students, but after committing funds to 19 other community college housing projects, the state Legislature tried to delay spending the money in order to close a multi-billion dollar budget deficit. Most of those projects are still moving forward through a new financing mechanism, but the Legislature has effectively run out of money for any other projects.

Feather River College is one of 35 housing proposals that remain in limbo, with no additional state funding available. Those projects include a proposal from Mendocino College, where massive wildfires destroyed hundreds of homes in a community similar to Quincy and Santa Monica College, which submitted its proposal before the Palisades and Eaton fires in Los Angeles County.

Santa Monica College is still gathering data about the scope of the fires’ impact on students, but early estimates based on students’ addresses show that around 600 Santa Monica College students were living in an evacuation zone or within areas directly impacted by those fires, said Susan Fila, who oversees students’ health and wellbeing at the college.

College presidents across the state say the new housing projects are a long-term solution to wildfire recovery and to the state’s enduring affordability crisis, which has hit community college students hard. In study after study, researchers have found that around 20% of California community college students experience homelessness at some point over the course of a year, and many more struggle to pay rent.

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, which oversees the state’s 116 community colleges, is asking for $1.1 billion in bond money from the state Legislature this year for affordable housing projects, though those dollars would fund just half of the outstanding proposals. The governor has until July 1 to finalize the 2025-26 budget.

Other competing budget priorities, such as LA wildfires recovery, could take precedence over affordable housing, said Wrenna Finche, the vice president of administrative services at Ohlone College in Fremont, which has failed to secure state funding for two different affordable housing proposals for its Bay Area campuses. “I wouldn’t expect a lot of movement on it this year.”

Fighting for student housing

A few of California’s rural community colleges have offered housing for decades, mostly as a means to mitigate long commutes to school. In Plumas County, some students drive over an hour — on a good day —  just to make it to Feather River College. Snowstorms and rock slides frequently close mountain roads, delaying travel even more.

Many community colleges were designed for students who live with their parents and commute to school, but those demographics are changing. Fewer students between the ages of 18 and 22 are enrolling in community college, and those who do enroll often live independently. As a result, demand for housing has grown all across the state, including in coastal areas and in other rural regions, such as the Imperial Valley.

Robinson is 36 and enrolled at Feather River College after making a career change. He’s studying ecosystem restoration and applied fire management, the only such program in the state, and wants to continue working on prescribed burns after graduation.

Griffith, 20, is a former foster youth. She moved from the Sacramento area to Quincy in order to follow her dream of running a dude ranch. Feather River College is the only school in the state to offer a bachelor’s degree program in equine and ranch management.

The campus includes horse stables, a fish hatchery and other nods to the Plumas County economy, which relies heavily on logging and outdoor recreation. To meet the needs of students like Robinson and Griffith, the college has multiple dormitories with a total capacity of about 260 students. Unlike the rest of campus, where buildings are carefully designed to blend with the  surrounding forest, most of the dorms are purely utilitarian. The buildings are bare, white rectangles, except for a few hints of student life. Cowboy boots and spurs sit outside many doorways; a dirt trail connects the dormitories to class.

Rent is around $500 a month, including utilities. Signups for the upcoming fall semester opened on Feb. 3, but two days later, registration was already full, said Kevin Trutna, the college president. By putting three beds in a single room, the college can house over 300 people, but even then, there’s a waitlist. This semester, he said over 80 students failed to get a campus housing spot.

“As a former foster youth, it’s sink or swim,” said Griffith, who received one of the coveted housing spots in a bedroom she shares with an equine studies major. “Anything I get, I had to fight for.”

By combining four different state and federal grants, plus a private scholarship, she receives more than $20,000 this year in financial aid, which is more than enough to cover the monthly rent. The housing is a significant upgrade, she said, especially compared to her foster home and the previous “free” housing arrangement.

Robinson wasn’t interested in living in a shared dormitory, which is the only campus housing available, so he found a mobile home off-campus this semester.

“I didn’t feel like I had a choice but to accept the one place that I had found, even though it wasn’t ideal,” he said.

After moving in, he spent hours shampooing the carpets and cleaning up his unit to make it livable, but he said he’s still worried it may be unsafe because of lingering mold and lack of ventilation for the stove. He pays $850 a month, but the landlord wants to move in at the end of April, so he’ll need to find a new place soon.

Finding housing alternatives through RV parks and bond dollars

After Trutna realized the state was unlikely to fund the Feather River College’s next housing development, he called Dayne Lewis, the owner of a local RV park that abuts the campus, to see if the park had additional capacity. Out of the park’s 31 RVs, Lewis said roughly half are students.

“I would fill this place completely with students but the timing doesn’t always work out,” he said. Since the Dixie and North Complex fires tore through Plumas County, many state and federal contractors have moved to Quincy, the largest city in the county, to work on rebuilding the region. Those contractors now compete with students for temporary housing, he said.

Antelope Valley College in Lancaster purchased a $9 million plot of land for its proposed housing project, but it now sits empty since state funding fell through, said Jennifer Zellet, the college president. Like administrators at Ohlone College and Santa Monica College, Zellet said she’s exploring a “public-private partnership,” in which a local nonprofit builds and operates a housing development on that land using a portion of regional bond dollars.

These partnerships are a popular but imperfect solution. In Long Beach, where the community college proposed building over 240 units, President Mike Muñoz said he won’t resort to a public-private partnership. Because housing would be run by a private entity, not a college, he said it’s common for these kinds of projects to charge students higher rent. Instead, he said the college plans to rely entirely on local bond dollars, even if that means delays on other campus projects that need bond money, such as a new training center for police officers and firefighters.

Rural parts of the state, such as Plumas and Mendocino counties, have fewer alternatives. The projects are often smaller since there are fewer residents, and as a result, the profit margins are thin, said Mendocino College President Timothy Karas. Both Trutna, the president of Feather River College, and Karas say that they have no bond dollars available.

​ Orange County Register 

Erewhon collaborates with Kacey Musgraves on smoothie to raise funds for LA Fire Relief

• February 28, 2025

Los Angeles-based luxury grocery store chain Erewhon has partnered with Grammy award-winning country artist Kacey Musgraves on their latest limited-time smoothie.

Erewhon’s smoothies became a social media phenomenon in 2022 when they teamed up with Hailey Bieber on the Strawberry Glaze Skin Smoothie, which has remained on their menu ever since. Part of what has drawn people in is that the price tag for each smoothie is typically around $20.

The Deeper Wellness smoothie is arguably one of the grocery store’s more complex designs, inspired by Mother Earth with the ingredients orchestrating a blend of land and sea.

The smoothie is made with Malk organic almond milk, Host Defense Mushroom Lion’s Mane, KOS organic luminous blue spirulina, Beyond Good pure ground vanilla, Erewhon sea moss, organic spinach, organic banana, organic vanilla collagen, organic chocho plant protein, organic maca, organic lucuma, organic mesquite, astrasalus, tocotrienols, organic almond butter, organic cacao nibs, organic dates, Erewhon superfood chocolate, sky blue coconut cream top, and chlorella powder, a green algae supplement from L.A.-based business Sun Chlorella.

All of that brings the grand total of the smoothie to $21.

The Deeper Wellness smoothie is available at Erewhon for February, with all proceeds being donated to Altadena Girls, a local charity that started in the midst of the devastating Los Angeles fires. Altadena Girls goal is to help teens who were displaced by the Eaton fire. It was a moment turned into a movement created by eighth grader Avery Colvert.

• Also see: Teens are finding ways to help teens after fires: Enter Altadena Girls and Altadena Boys

Culvert attends Eliot Arts Magnet Academy in Altadena, one of the many schools in the neighborhood that burned down during the Eaton fire.

She took to social media to express her gratitude for the donations her community had received. In her post, she noted the community had received many essential items such as food water and household items. She noted that one of the things her peers were missing during this time was items that would help them feel confident and like themselves again, items such as clothes, beauty and hair care products.

The post gained momentum online quickly, with celebrities such as Paris Hilton, Mindy Kaling and Charli XCX all sharing the post with their followers.

Altadena Girls has since transformed from a grass-roots campaign to gather donations for teens in the area to community effort to empower young women who lost their homes, personal items and more in the Eaton fire, noting on their site that “the challenges they face won’t end when the headlines fade.”

As for what’s next for Altadena Girls, the charity has announced that they’re branching out from free store pop-up shop for teenage girls and have found a home in Old Town Pasadena.

In a social media post, they shared that the space will provide mental health services, dance and movement classes, music practice spaces and quiet rooms to do homework in. The will also have event spaces for “connection and empowerment (and PARTIES!)”

​ Orange County Register