Jimmy Garoppolo feels Rams are right situation at this point in career

• March 12, 2025

Jimmy Garoppolo had other opportunities as free agency opened Monday. Teams were looking for veteran quarterbacks to come and compete for a starting job. But, making his third career decision in as many offseasons, Garoppolo had a different perspective.

“It’s more about the situation than the opportunity,” Garoppolo said over Zoom on Wednesday. “Yeah, there were some opportunities, but I’ve been in a bad organization and I’ve seen how it can wear on you throughout the year. Just talking to my brothers, my family, didn’t want to go through that. The organization plays such a key role for me, the people, how things are run.”

So, after a year with the Rams as Matthew Stafford’s backup, Garoppolo decided to re-up with the team, agreeing to a one-year contract worth a reported $4.5 million, guaranteed, with $9 million in incentives.

After phone calls from head coach Sean McVay recruiting him back, Garoppolo agreed to the deal within the first hour of the legal tampering period opening Monday.

“I kind of knew where I wanted to be,” Garoppolo explained. “The Rams came with a strong offer. I love the people here, I love the teammates. I’m at that point in my career, those are the little things that make a difference to me.”

There was some thought that Garoppolo could be the Rams’ starter in 2025. He seemed like a potential candidate if Stafford were not to return. As the Rams negotiated a reworked contract with Stafford, Garoppolo said his agent had talks with the team about what would happen if Stafford were instead traded.

“There were some discussions; nothing crazy,” Garoppolo admitted. “Nine’s the guy, man, he steers the ship and he does a helluva job doing it.”

Instead, Garoppolo is back to play a complementary role, working with the scout team in practice while backing Stafford up on Sundays. Prior to last season, Garoppolo hadn’t been a full-time backup since his days in New England.

But he’s happy in the role with the Rams. Happy with his teammates in the locker room, happy with the coaching staff that drew him to Los Angeles in the first place a year ago.

“I’ve been in a couple of good organizations, seen how things are run, and Sean does it top-notch here,” Garoppolo said. “Him and the all the coaches, they’re so well-tied together, they’re all thinking the same way. And I think when you have an organization that does that, it makes everything easier. It’s hard enough to win in this league, so to not have to worry about something like that goes a long way.”

​ Orange County Register 

COVID likely came from a lab, and it matters enormously to prevent another pandemic

• March 12, 2025

As we reflect on five years since the tumultuous start of the COVID pandemic (even if we just wish to forget it ever happened), the most fundamental question is still unanswered: where did SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) come from?

There are two theories: market (or zoonosis) and lab leak. In my mind, neither theory is proven. The bar for proof in science is high, and both theories only have circumstantial evidence in their favor. I won’t “both-sides” this question, though: while absolute proof remains elusive, the available evidence lopsidedly favors a lab leak.

Both theories have two things in common: that SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Wuhan, China, and that it has a viral ancestor that infects bats. The market hypothesis holds that the virus jumped into some animal species from bats, and then, at the Huanan Seafood Market, into humans. A wide variety of wild animals were offered for sale at the market. The argument is that pandemics have always arisen from zoonosis: pathogens jumping from animals to humans. Wild animals as both a food source and the pathway of infection is not strange, and can be seen right here in California, with tularemia (a bacterial infection, named after Tulare County where it was first identified) sometimes infecting small game hunters.

With COVID, the would-be culprit species has not been identified.  SARS-CoV-2 genetic material found at the market is from environmental samples,which could have come from infected humans. Detecting SARS-CoV-2 in wild animal populations isn’t hard; the virus now infects North American white-tailed deer, in which it has been sampled regularly. Not to mention household dogs and cats at high levels. Moreover, scientific journal articles postulating the zoonosis as the last word on COVID origins have technical flaws that render them moot.

The lab leak hypothesis is simpler and explains the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 as an escape from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a research laboratory that is a center of coronavirus research. Insight into the type of research conducted at the WIV comes from its collaborations with scientists in the west, including the United States. The DEFUSE grant proposal of New York City-based EcoHealth Alliance, a nonprofit research organization, and its collaborators at the University of North Carolina and elsewhere, is one example.  This proposal, to DARPA, was not funded — but it shows the nature of experimental virology in the years prior to covid.

The DEFUSE proposal sought to sample wild bat viruses and study them in the lab, using gain-of-function virology, and infection of humanized mice.  Gain-of-function virology, which the US government banned for a time, ostensibly exists as a learn-by-tinkering approach, although successful knowledge acquisition remains elusive.  One curious feature of SARS-CoV-2 is called a furin cleavage site (FCS), something DEFUSE proposed to study, and which is present in SARS-CoV-2 but no other sarbecoviruses, or members of the same subgenus.  We also know from a recent publication that the WIV works with potentially-dangerous bat viruses at biosafety level 2 (BSL-2), which is inadequate and irresponsible.

The lab leak theory in a nutshell: some experiment similar to that proposed in DEFUSE was conducted, and the virus escaped the lab, which is not unusual. This explains why Wuhan, why the FCS, why no infected species of Chinese fauna, as well as the extreme resistance of the scientific establishment to talk about COVID origins.  What is more, use of humanized mice likely explains why COVID started like a house on fire — instead of haltingly, like bird flu. 

The Trump administration recently declassified the CIA’s assessment of COVID origins — under the Biden administration — as being likely a lab origin, with low certainty.  This has been characterized by some as a politicization (from the right) of the scientific debate on COVID origins.  It could just as easily be viewed as a politicization (from the left) by those who kept this assessment classified.  What national-security principles were served by keeping this information from the public?

Who has been standing in the way of getting to the bottom of all this, apart from the Chinese government?  The US National Institutes of Health (NIH), a funder of gain-of-function virology in general and of the WIV in particular (Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, the past directors of the NIH and of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, respectively, were both enthusiastic proponents of gain-of-function). The biotech industry and its allied news outlets, experimental virologists LARPing as epidemiologists. Scientists everywhere, who take offense to the notion that a science experiment gone wrong could have caused the pandemic.  And especially the self-styled “scicomm” community, carrying water for science, and, often, industry.

Studying the origin of COVID is crucial to preventing the next pandemic.  We cannot pretend we “have the tools” if we do not understand the origins of COVID .  We need to keep striving for more information; we can start at the NIH.  Greater transparency about NIH’s role in funding gain-of-function research in the recent past is step one. Those involved in risky virology, who expressed concern themselves, can help with a public accounting of their own.  Public health dodges this question at its own peril.

Andrew Noymer is associate professor in population health & disease prevention at the Joe C Wen School of Population & Public Health at the University of California, Irvine.

​ Orange County Register 

Deadline nears for residents to choose type of Palisades, Eaton fires debris removal

• March 12, 2025

A significant deadline is approaching for residents who lost their homes in the Palisades and Eaton fires to determine how debris will be removed from their properties and officials are urging those impacted to be prepared to make that decision by the end of the month.

Los Angeles County officials gathered on Wednesday, March 12 to give updates on recovery following the Eaton and Palisades fires, sharing progress that has been made on debris removal in the more than two months since the fires and asking residents to make final decisions regarding removal before March 31.

Those affected by the fires have received $86 million total in individual assistance from FEMA and $1.5 billion in Small Business Administration loans have been approved, according to L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

Barger expressed her appreciation for the speed of the recovery process thus far, but says there is more that can be done.

“I want to emphasize that we can and should continue pushing to scale up our efforts,” Barger said. “Residents deserve quick, efficient work by the county so that we can work through the debris removal process and get rebuilding under way.”

L.A. County will increase resources to ramp up the review of right-of-entry forms, which are needed from residents for Phase 2 of debris removal. Residents can opt in to free removal by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers or choose to hire a private company.

Mark Pestrella, the director of L.A. County Public Works, noted that many residents are still looking at both options for debris removal, submitting right-of-entry forms but not finalizing signatures to complete the process.

“I get it, what people are doing is trying to decide who can do this faster, who can do this quicker, because I know that residents want to have this done as quickly as possible, so they’re considering their options, private or public,” Pestrella said. “Whichever way you go, we would like you to make a commitment to that by March 31.”

The county has already processed and sent 4,000 right-of-entry forms to the Corps and plans to send another 1,000 by Thursday, Pestrella said. Roughly 9,000 forms have been submitted by residents so far.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have completed debris removal of 242 parcels and are actively working on another 649 parcels, according to Colonel Eric Swenson of the Corps. The work of Phase 2 includes various processes such as primary debris removal, hydromulching, erosion control, tree removal and final walk-throughs.

If validated ROEs have been received and processed, residents will receive a call 3-5 days out from debris removal at their property.

“We’re building crews every day and so we’ll be making more and more calls every day,” Swenson said.

Over 2,354 properties initially deferred from Phase 1 cleanup to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Phase 2 for safety reasons have now been cleared by the Corps.

Swenson emphasized residents’ options regarding tree removal from by the Corps after many Altadena residents expressed concerns about the future of the city’s much-loved tree canopy.

Swenson said the Corps has further developed a marking system for trees as the agency works with arborists to assess them. Blue dots and barcodes mean a tree has been deemed hazardous. A yellow dot at the base and a yellow ribbon tied around the trunk indicates that a homeowner has waived the removal.

If a tree is reassessed by a higher level of arborist certified by the International Society of Arboriculture, it will be remarked with a brown dot. If trees are waived of removal or reassessed, barcodes placed on them will be removed and the changes will be recorded by the Corps to ensure the trees remain.

Another bout of rain on the forecast this week has prompted some evacuation warnings in burn scar areas, including all of the Palisades and Franklin fire burn areas.

“We do expect that we’re going to have some debris flow in this event, meaning we will see debris in streets at the locations that have already been identified. We expect traffic issues. We expect unsafe conditions for driving and therefore we are shutting down PCH beginning at noon today and local mountain roads will also be closed by 6 p.m. this evening,” Pestrella said.

Pacific Coast Highway will be closed from Chautauqua Boulevard and Carbon Beach Terrace. During previous rains, mudslides were seen on the highway.

“Our fire-impacted communities need to be on alert,” Barger said.

L.A. County Public Works said they have made all necessary preparations for the incoming rains.

Some flows are expected from Sierra Madre Dam, but it will go over a spillway and into channels down below and go into the San Gabriel complex, Pestrella said.

“We do not have any facilities the county maintains that are not ready for this event. They are all ready and have capacity,” Pestrella said.

​ Orange County Register 

Education Department layoffs gut its civil rights office, leaving discrimination cases in limbo

• March 12, 2025

By COLLIN BINKLEY

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs, effectively gutting an office that already faced a backlog of thousands of complaints from students and families across the nation.

Among a total of more than 1,300 layoffs announced Tuesday were roughly 240 in the department’s Office for Civil Rights, according to a list obtained and verified by The Associated Press. Seven of the civil rights agency’s 12 regional offices were entirely laid off, including busy hubs in New York, Chicago and Dallas. Despite assurances that the department’s work will continue unaffected, huge numbers of cases appear to be in limbo.

The Trump administration has not said how it will proceed with thousands of cases being handled by staff it’s eliminating. The cases involve families trying to get school services for students with disabilities, allegations of bias related to race and religion, and complaints over sexual violence at schools and college campuses.

Some staffers who remain said there’s no way to pick up all of their fired colleagues’ cases. Many were already struggling to keep pace with their own caseloads. With fewer than 300 workers, families likely will be waiting on resolution for years, they said.

“I fear they won’t get their calls answered, their complaints won’t move,” said Michael Pillera, a senior civil rights attorney for the Office for Civil Rights. “I truly don’t understand how a handful of offices could handle the entire country.”

Department officials insisted the cuts will not affect civil rights investigations. The reductions were “strategic decisions,” spokesperson Madison Biedermann.

“OCR will be able to deliver the work,” Biedermann said. “It will have to look different, and we know that.”

The layoffs are part of a dramatic downsizing directed by President Donald Trump as he moves to reduce the footprint of the federal government.

Trump has pushed for a full shutdown of the Education Department, calling it a “con job” and saying its power should be turned over to states. On Wednesday he told reporters many agency employees “don’t work at all.” Responding to the layoffs, he said his administration is “keeping the best ones.”

After the cuts, the Office for Civil Rights will only have workers in Washington and five regional offices, which traditionally take the lead on investigating complaints and mediating resolutions with schools and colleges. Buildings are being closed and staff laid off in Dallas, Chicago, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Many lawyers at the New York City office were juggling 80 or more cases, said one staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for reprisals. The branch often mediated cases with New York City schools, the nation’s largest district, and its lawyers were handling a high-profile antisemitism investigation at Columbia University — a priority for President Donald Trump.

The staffer described several pending cases involving students with disabilities who are wrongly being kept out of school because of behavioral issues. With limited oversight from the office, they said, school districts will be less likely to comply with legal requirements.

Pillera, who had said before the cuts that he was leaving the department, said it’s unclear how complaints will be investigated in areas that no longer have offices.

“We have to physically go to schools,” Pillera said. “We have to look at the playground to see if it’s accessible for kids with disabilities. We have to measure doorways and bathrooms to see if everything is accessible for kids with disabilities.”

Even before the layoffs, the civil rights office had been losing staff even as complaints rose to record levels. The workforce had fallen below 600 staffers before Trump took office, and they faced nearly 23,000 complaints filed last year, more than ever.

Trump officials ordered a freeze on most cases when they arrived at the department, adding to the backlog. When Education Secretary Linda McMahon lifted the freeze last week, there were more than 20,000 pending cases.

Historically, most of the office’s work deals with disability rights cases, but it has fielded growing numbers of complaints alleging discrimination based on sex or race. It has also played a prominent role in investigating complaints of antisemitism and Islamophobia amid the Israel-Hamas war and a wave of campus demonstrations that spread across the country last year.

Craig Trainor, Trump’s appointee over the office, directed staff to focus on antisemitism cases as a top priority last week. In a memo, he accused former President Joe Biden of failing to hold colleges accountable and promised tougher action against violators.

At her confirmation hearing, McMahon said the goal is not to defund key programs but to make them operate more efficiently. She vowed to uphold the agency’s civil rights work but said it might fit better being moved to the Justice Department.

An email the Education Department sent to all staff after the layoffs said there will need to be significant changes to how they work.

“What we choose to prioritize, and in turn, not prioritize, will be critical in this transition,” the message said.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

​ Orange County Register 

EPA head says he’ll roll back dozens of environmental regulations, including rules on climate change

• March 12, 2025

By MATTHEW DALY

WASHINGTON (AP) — In what he called the “most consequential day of deregulation in American history,” the head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced a series of actions Wednesday to roll back landmark environmental regulations, including rules on pollution from coal-fired power plants, climate change and electric vehicles.

“We are driving a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion and ushering in America’s Golden Age,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in an essay in The Wall Street Journal.

His actions will eliminate trillions of dollars in regulatory costs and “hidden taxes,” Zeldin said, lowering the cost of living for American families and reducing prices for such essentials such as buying a car, heating your home and operating a business.

“Our actions will also reignite American manufacturing, spreading economic benefits to communities,” Zeldin wrote.

In all, Zeldin said he is rolling back 31 environmental rules, including a scientific finding that has long been the central basis for U.S. action against climate change.

Zeldin said he and President Donald Trump support rewriting the agency’s 2009 finding that planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare. The Obama-era determination under the Clean Air Act is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources.

Environmentalists and climate scientists call the endangerment finding a bedrock of U.S. law and say any attempt to undo it will have little chance of success.

“In the face of overwhelming science, it’s impossible to think that the EPA could develop a contradictory finding that would stand up in court,” said David Doniger, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

In a related action, Zeldin said EPA will rewrite a rule restricting air pollution from fossil-fueled fired power plants and a separate measure restricting emissions from cars and trucks. Zeldin and the Republican president incorrectly label the car rule as an electric vehicle “mandate.”

President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration had said the power plant rules would reduce pollution and improve public health while supporting the reliable, long-term supply of electricity that America needs.

The EPA also will take aim at rules restricting industrial pollution of mercury and other air toxins, as well as separate rules on soot pollution and federal protections for significant areas of wetlands.

“This isn’t about abandoning environmental protection — it’s about achieving it through innovation and not strangulation,” Zeldin wrote. “By reconsidering rules that throttled oil and gas production and unfairly targeted coal-fired power plants, we are ensuring that American energy remains clean, affordable, and reliable.”

University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann called the EPA’s action “just the latest form of Republican climate denial. They can no longer deny climate change is happening, so instead they’re pretending it’s not a threat, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that it is, perhaps, the greatest threat that we face today.”

​ Orange County Register 

Mountain lions could be ‘hazed’ by pursuers with dogs under California proposal

• March 12, 2025

Mountain lions could be pursued by “hazers” with dogs under a new California bill, introduced a day after similar legislation concerning bears.

Senate Bill 818, by Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil (R-Modesto), would establish a pilot program in El Dorado County allowing “permitted private houndspersons to proactively haze mountain lions deemed to be a potential threat to public safety, livestock, or other domestic animals.”

The hazers could use dogs to chase the lion, without the intent of killing or injuring it.

Such “nonlethal pursuit,” or hounding, is currently banned in California under a measure giving mountain lions “specially protected” status that was approved by the state’s voters in 1990.

SB 818 contends that after the ban was implemented, “mountain lion depredation on livestock and attacks on humans dramatically escalated.” It specifically notes the lion attack last year that killed 21-year-old Taylen Brooks in El Dorado County — one of four California deaths attributed to mountain lions since 1994.

The similar bill that would allow dog pursuit of black bears — AB 1038, by Assemblymember Heather Hadwick (R-Alturas) — refers to “dangerous changes” in California bears’ behavior since hounding of the animals was banned in 2013.

Alvarado-Gil, a first-term state senator, changed her affiliation from Democratic to Republican last year, saying she was frustrated by her party’s policies on crime.

​ Orange County Register 

Harvey Weinstein appears in court as judge weighs key rulings for his looming #MeToo retrial

• March 12, 2025

By MICHAEL R. SISAK

NEW YORK (AP) — Harvey Weinstein ‘s #MeToo retrial next month will largely be an abridged version of the original, with one big addition: a charge based on an allegation from a woman who wasn’t a part of the first case.

Just how the reprise of the disgraced movie mogul’s prosecution plays out is coming into focus at a hearing Wednesday, where a judge is set to issue rulings on a variety of issues, including the scope of accuser testimony and potential expert witnesses.

Weinstein, 72, was in court for the hearing, which started more than a hour late after Judge Curtis Farber met with the prosecution and defense behind closed doors to discuss matters still under seal.

Those included a prosecution request that two of the three accusers in the case be allowed to testify about other alleged encounters with Weinstein. They also discussed evidence of the accusers’ sexual history, which prosecutors say should be barred under New York’s Rape Shield Law.

Weinstein’s retrial is scheduled to start April 15 in state court in Manhattan — nearly a year after New York’s highest court overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges.

At his last court appearance, in January, Weinstein implored Farber to start the retrial sooner. He told the judge “I don’t know how much longer I can hold on” with cancer, heart issues and harsh conditions at New York City’s Rikers Island jail complex, where he is locked up.

Weinstein arrived to court Wednesday in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and holding a stack of documents. Before his hearing began, the ex-studio boss watched from behind the defense table as Farber spent a few minutes resolving another matter that had been delayed by their closed-door discussions.

Weinstein is being retried on charges that he forcibly performed oral sex on a movie and TV production assistant in 2006 and raped an aspiring actor in 2013. The additional charge, filed last September, alleges he forced oral sex on a different woman at a Manhattan hotel in 2006.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said in court papers that the woman, who has not been identified publicly, came forward to prosecutors just days before the start of Weinstein’s first trial but was not part of that case.

Prosecutors said they did not pursue the women’s allegations after Weinstein was convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison, but they revisited them and secured a new indictment after the state’s Court of Appeals threw out his conviction last April.

Farber ruled in October to combine the new indictment and existing charges into one trial.

Weinstein’s lawyers contend that prosecutors prejudiced him by waiting nearly five years to bring the additional charge, suggesting they had elected not to include the allegation in his first trial so they could use it later if his conviction were reversed.

Weinstein has denied that he raped or sexually assaulted anyone.

Last month, Weinstein added Jennifer Bonjean, a lawyer who has represented Bill Cosby and R. Kelly, to a legal team that includes defense attorneys Arthur Aidala, Diana Fabi Samson and former judge Barry Kamins.

In vacating Weinstein’s conviction, the Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge, James M. Burke, unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations from other women that were not part of the case. Burke is no longer on the bench and such testimony won’t be part of the retrial.

Weinstein was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape. His 16-year prison sentence in that case still stands, but his lawyers appealed in June, arguing he did not get a fair trial.

​ Orange County Register 

NASDAQ curse? Wall Street troubles might chill California’s economy

• March 12, 2025

It’s been an ugly few days in the stock market as investors suddenly grew nervous about brewing trade wars, federal job cuts, reheated inflation and overall economic anxieties.

As a result, talk about a potential recession is percolating and share prices are tumbling. Could an extended bout of Wall Street turbulence toss California’s healthy economy into reverse?

To see if there are significant links between stock price swings and the California economy, my trusty spreadsheet loaded up 47 years’ worth of data from the NASDAQ composite index, a good barometer of the tech industry’s fortunes that are critical to California’s success. It also looked at the Golden State’s unemployment rate, tracking that as a yardstick of statewide economy.

To smooth out the stock market’s volatility, the spreadsheet tallied an unusual measurement of stock prices – the year-over-year change in monthly NASDAQ readings. The math is similar to how the real estate industry tracks home prices.

For starters, you should know that as of Wednesday, March 12 the NASDAQ remains up 7% from the same time a year ago, despite the recent upheaval. However, that gain contains certain warning signals.

The 12-month gain is half NASDAQ’s 14% average annual gain over 47 years, and it’s the smallest yearly advance since the summer of 2023.

And as recently as October 2024, just before the presidential election, the NASDAQ was surging at a 39% annual pace.

So, here’s what to worry about.

Consider the periods when the NASDAQ was down in any 12 months since 1977, and what the statewide unemployment rate did the following year. On average, joblessness increased from 6.8% to 7.6%.

Conversely, consider when NASDAQ rose since 1977. In the following 12 months, unemployment across California fell on average to 7.2% from 7.5%.

These numbers tell me that extended periods of stock market weakness might chill the California economy. NASDAQ dips tend to occur as the state’s business climate goes from healthy to troublesome. Does this sound like early 2025?

We’re not triggering the “NASDAQ curse” economic alarm yet. It’s down down, year-over-year, yet.

But recent market mayhem is a solid reminder that the stock market matters to California paychecks.

Bosses at publicly held companies are well-compensated to carefully monitor their stock movements. When share prices are down, the corporate cost-cutting mentality often takes over.

And jobs get pruned.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com

​ Orange County Register