Chargers sign TE Tyler Conklin to 1-year contract

• March 21, 2025

The Chargers on Friday added to their tight-end depth by signing Tyler Conklin, formerly of the New York Jets, to a one-year contract.

Conklin, a seven-year veteran, will likely compete for the starting position with Will Dissly and Tucker Fisk when training camp begins in late July in El Segundo.

Tight end was one of the thinnest spots on the roster before the Chargers signed Conklin, one of the NFL’s top possession receivers at his position. Conklin, 29, has had 50 receptions or more in each of the past four seasons, including a career-high 61 in 2023 with the Jets and 2021 with the Minnesota Vikings.

Last season with New York, Conklin caught 51 passes for 449 yards and a career-high four touchdowns.

He spent four seasons with the Vikings, who drafted him in the fifth round of the 2018 draft out of Central Michigan. He began his college career as a basketball player before switching to football.

​ Orange County Register 

Lakers happy to put grueling stretch of schedule behind them

• March 21, 2025

LOS ANGELES — When the NBA made the schedule adjustments to accommodate the Lakers’ games that were postponed in January because of the Southern California wildfires, they knew this past week would be challenging.

Six games in eight days.

Three consecutive back-to-back sets, which started with road losses to the Milwaukee Bucks and Denver Nuggets on March 13 and March 14, respectively, to close a four-game trip.

With Thursday’s home loss to the Bucks, in which the Lakers were without four of their regular starters, the Lakers sealed a 3-3 record in the stretch of consecutive back-to-backs – something the team felt good about within the context of the schedule.

The Lakers were originally scheduled to host the Bucks on Tuesday.

But after the postponed Jan. 11 matchup against the San Antonio Spurs was moved to Monday – a game the Lakers won on the second night of a back-to-back after hosting the Phoenix Suns on Sunday afternoon – the game against the Bucks was also moved to later in the week.

“Big picture … feel good that you go 3-3 in this stretch,” Redick said. “It was going to be tough no matter what. The added game made it harder. I don’t think the game that exists today in the NBA and the modern NBA player is like [built to do this]. I wouldn’t be either if this was what I came up in and this was the game that I had to play every night. It’s different than when I first started.

“You’re not built to play six games in eight nights. The game doesn’t allow you to play six games in eight nights. It’s just impossible. That’s why we, I don’t think, have four in five anymore.”

The NBA stopped scheduling four games in five nights beginning with the 2022-23 season.

But with the NBA needing to shift around the schedule during an already compact time of the season, the Lakers dealt with a scheduling rarity.

“What our guys just went through, it’s difficult,” Redick added. “And the old-heads are gonna talk about how physical it was in the [1980s] and [1990s] and that’s fine. But the level of physicality in our game and the way that the court has to be covered and all the movement, it’s tough. And I’m just glad to be on the other side of it and hopefully going forward we are healthy and can make a push here.”

Making this stretch worse was the Lakers’ lack of available players.

Only rookie wing Dalton Knecht and two-way contract guard Jordan Goodwin played in all six games since March 13.

Austin Reaves sat out Thursday’s game and Luka Doncic missed two of the previous six games.

Starting forwards LeBron James (strained left groin) and Rui Hachimura (left patellar tendinopathy) were already sidelined before the six games in eight days. Hachimura has missed 10 consecutive games while James has missed seven.

The Lakers close their five-game homestand on Saturday night against the Chicago Bulls.

“We did good,” Knecht said. “Some of us got banged up during that road trip and all these back-to-backs. But I think all of us were going out there fighting every single game.”

BULLS AT LAKERS

When: Saturday, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Crypto.com Arena

TV/radio: Spectrum SportsNet/710 AM

​ Orange County Register 

OC district attorney ordered to turn over documents to ACLU in racial bias case

• March 21, 2025

A judge has ordered Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer to turn over certain office policies and training manuals to civil rights groups that sued as part of an effort to determine if there is racial bias in his prosecutions.

Superior Court Judge Walter Schwarm made the ruling Thursday, March 20, in a 2022 public records lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundations of Northern and Southern California as well as the activist group Chicanxs de Unidxs de Orange County.

“The judge’s order exposes what Spitzer had long denied: that his office operated with a policy of violating transparency laws, which concealed evidence of racial disparities in prosecutions,” said Emi MacLean, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California and attorney for the plaintiffs.

The district attorney’s office responded that much of the data the ACLU has been seeking already is posted on the office’s website.

The groups sought the court order to scrutinize Spitzer’s enforcement of the state Racial Justice Act, which prohibits arrests and prosecutions based on race. Spitzer was said by a judge in June to have violated the act by making racist comments in a double-murder case against a Black defendant.

The lawsuit also pointed to an ACLU report in February 2022 that revealed 5.8% of the criminal defendants charged in Orange County are Black, although the group makes up only 2.1% of the population. The district attorney’s office also is more likely to charge Black and Latino defendants with felonies and sentencing enhancements than White people, and less likely to offer Black and Latino people diversion as an alternative to jail, the report said.

The study was largely based on the years before Spitzer took office in January 2019.

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County scores and player stats for Friday, March 21

• March 21, 2025

Support our high school sports coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribe now

Scores and stats from Orange County games on Friday, March 21

Click here for details about sending your team’s scores and stats to the Register.

The deadline for submitting information is 10:45 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 p.m. Saturday.

FRIDAY’S SCORES

SOFTBALL

BISHOP GORMAN KICKOFF CLASSIC

At Las Vegas, NV

Rosary 6, Coronado (NV) 0

Reed (NV) 11, Trabuco Hills 1

Lehi 6, Trabuco Hills 2

Douglas (NV) 2, San Clemente 0

San Clemente 8, Christian (El Cajon) 4

Mission Viejo 9, Reno (NV) 3

Salpointe Catholic (AZ) 3, Rosary 2

Carson 3, Mission Viejo 2

​ Orange County Register 

Under threat from Trump, Columbia University agrees to policy changes

• March 21, 2025

By JAKE OFFENHARTZ, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Under threat from the Trump administration, Columbia University agreed to implement a host of policy changes Friday, including overhauling its rules for protests and conducting an immediate review of its Middle Eastern studies department.

The changes, detailed in a letter sent by the university’s interim president, Katrina Armstrong, came one week after the Trump administration ordered the Ivy League school to enact those and other reforms or lose all federal funding, an ultimatum widely criticized in academia as an attack on academic freedom.

In her letter, Armstrong said the university would immediately appoint a senior vice provost to conduct a thorough review of the portfolio of its regional studies programs, “starting immediately with the Middle East.”

Columbia will also revamp its long-standing disciplinary process and bar protests inside academic buildings. Students will not be permitted to wear face masks on campus “for the purposes of concealing one’s identity.” An exception would be made for people wearing them for health reasons.

In an effort to expand “intellectual diversity” within the university, Columbia will also appoint new faculty members to its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies department. It will also adopt a new definition of antisemitism and expand programming in its Tel Aviv Center, a research hub based in Israel.

The policy changes were largely in line with demands made on the university by the Trump administration, which pulled $400 million in research grants and other federal funding, and had threatened to cut more, over the university’s handling of protests against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

The White House has labeled the protests antisemitic, a label rejected by those who participated in the student-led demonstrations.

A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for the Education Department.

As a “precondition” for restoring funding, federal officials demanded that the university to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years.”

They also told the university to ban masks on campus, adopt a new definition of antisemitism, abolish its current process for disciplining students and deliver a plan to ”reform undergraduate admissions, international recruiting, and graduate admissions practices.”

Historians had described the order as an unprecedented intrusion on university rights long treated by the Supreme Court as an extension of the First Amendment.

On Friday, freedom of speech advocates immediately decried Columbia’s decision to acquiesce.

“A sad day for Columbia and for our democracy,” Jameel Jaffer, the director of Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a social media post.

​ Orange County Register 

Angels tie Rangers, lose to Rockies to finish Cactus League schedule

• March 21, 2025

THE GAMES: The Angels finished the Arizona portion of spring training with a 4-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies in Scottsdale and a 3-3 tie against the Texas Rangers in Tempe. The Angels are 10-16-4 as they head back to Southern California for the three-game Freeway Series, which starts on Sunday at Dodger Stadium.

PITCHING REPORT: In Tempe, right-hander Kyle Hendricks gave up one run in five innings, with four strikeouts and no walks. Hendricks has a 2.41 ERA in 18⅔ innings in Cactus League games. … Left-hander Reid Detmers gave up two runs in 3⅔ innings. Detmers, who is in the running for the No. 5 starter job, finished the Arizona portion of spring training with a 2.79 ERA in 19⅓ innings, with 17 strikeouts and four walks. … In Scottsdale, left-hander Yusei Kikuchi gave up one run in five innings in his final tune-up before taking the ball on Opening Day, next Thursday in Chicago. Kikuchi struck out five and walked two. … Right-hander Ben Joyce gave up one run and struck out three. Joyce has struck out 13 and walked three in seven innings this spring. … Left-hander José Quijada gave up one run on two hits and a walk in his inning. … Left-hander José Suarez worked a scoreless eighth but then threw gave up the winning run on a wild pitch in the ninth inning.

HITTING REPORT: In Tempe, Mike Trout doubled and struck out. Trout is 8 for 30 (.267) with a .996 OPS this spring. He has hit two homers and two doubles. … The Angels did not have a hit against Rangers right-hander Nathan Eovaldi until the fourth, when Nolan Schanuel singled. The Angels scored a run that inning on a Mickey Moniak sacrifice fly. … Joswa Lugo, the Angels’ 17-year-old shortstop prospect, drove in two runs with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game. Lugo had played in just one previous Cactus League game, but this was the first game in which he got to the plate. … In Scottsdale, Jo Adell hit his fourth homer of the spring. After an 0-for-22 slump, Adell went 5 for 7 with two homers in his last three games.

DEFENSE REPORT: In Tempe, Trout misjudged a line drive to right field hit by Corey Seager. Trout turned the wrong way and the ball dropped for a double. It was the first misplay of the spring for Trout, who has moved to right from center. … Third baseman J.D. Davis made a sliding catch of a foul pop-up.

UP NEXT: Angels (RHP José Soriano) at Dodgers (TBD), Sunday, 5:10 p.m. PT, FDSN West, 830 AM

​ Orange County Register 

Small Business Administration to reorganize, cut about 2,700 jobs

• March 21, 2025

By MAE ANDERSON, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The Small Business Administration said it will cut its workforce by 43%, or about 2,700 jobs, as part of a reorganization.

The SBA was established in 1953 to offer resources to small businesses and helps administer small business and disaster recovery loans. It played a crucial role during the pandemic, helping distribute small business aid. Now the goal is to return to pre-pandemic staffing levels and cut some programs started during the Biden administration, said the new head of the SBA, Kelly Loeffler.

“By eliminating non-mission-critical positions and consolidating functions, we will revert to the staffing levels of the last Trump Administration,” Loeffler said Friday in a statement.

The SBA said its loan guarantee and disaster assistance programs, as well as its field and veteran operations, won’t be affected. The staffing reductions, which will cull 2,700 jobs from the agency’s workforce of 6,500, will be a combination of voluntary resignations, the expiration of COVID-era and other term appointments, and some job cuts.

The layoffs at the federal agency are part of a larger campaign by the Trump Administration to shrink the federal workforce, an effort has been led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Separately on Friday, Trump announced student loans would be handled by the SBA as part of a plan to shift Education Department responsibilities to other federal agencies. The SBA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

​ Orange County Register 

Betty Martinez Franco, Irvine City Council District 5 candidate, 2025 special election questionnaire

• March 21, 2025

Ahead of the special election for the Irvine City Council District 5 seat, the Orange County Register compiled a list of questions to pose to the candidates who wish to represent you. You can find the full questionnaire below. Questionnaires have been edited for spelling, grammar, length and, in some instances, to remove hate speech and offensive language.

Name: Betty Martinez Franco

Other political positions held: Immediate past Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee vice-chair for the city of Irvine

City where you reside: Irvine

Also read: As voting begins for Irvine’s Fifth District election, here’s where the candidates stand on issues

In your opinion, what are the biggest issues facing Irvine? And, what do you plan to do about them?

Irvine is a beautiful city, but the cost of living pushes out the very people who keep it running, like our teachers, nurses, firefighters and students. More than 53% of Irvine residents are renters, yet skyrocketing housing costs leave many struggling. I support Mayor Agran’s idea of setting aside more existing apartments at below-market rates, ensuring our workforce can live in the city they serve. I will advocate for housing solutions that work for both renters and homeowners, keeping Irvine’s economy strong and its neighborhoods thriving.

Small businesses are the heart of our community, but many face high operational costs and limited resources. As a small business owner myself, I understand the challenges entrepreneurs face. That is why I will push for business-friendly policies, streamline permit processes and create more incentives for local businesses to set up shop in Irvine. Investing in small businesses means more jobs, a stronger local economy, and a vibrant city.

Traffic congestion and public safety remain major concerns. We need better public transportation options and safer bike and pedestrian pathways to ease traffic. I will also work closely with law enforcement and community leaders to enhance safety measures that protect all residents.

What is your vision for the city as undeveloped land becomes scarcer but its population continues to grow?

As Irvine continues to grow, we must be proactive in planning for our future. Growth is inevitable, but it must be managed responsibly to preserve our city’s quality of life. Irvine’s master plan has served us well, but it must evolve to meet the demands of a growing population without overburdening our existing infrastructure.

That means developing new housing in strategic locations, such as near shopping centers, public transportation and recreational spaces, so that residents can live, work and enjoy their community without adding unnecessary congestion to our roads. We must also ensure new developments include the schools, parks and services needed to support them so that our classrooms don’t become overcrowded and our neighborhoods remain vibrant.

Responsible growth means avoiding overdevelopment in already dense areas and ensuring that any expansion is paired with the necessary infrastructure — better roads, reliable public transit and well-funded schools.

What do you think the city should do to address homelessness? Are you in support of building and operating a city-run shelter?

Homelessness is a growing challenge in Irvine and across California. We need a compassionate, long-term strategy that prioritizes housing, mental health services, and job opportunities to help people get back on their feet.

I support expanding transitional and permanent supportive housing options so that individuals experiencing homelessness can find stable, safe places to live while receiving the resources they need. This includes partnering with local nonprofits and county agencies to provide wraparound services like mental health care, addiction treatment, and workforce training.

While a city-run shelter could be part of the solution, it cannot be the only answer. Shelters provide temporary relief, but they don’t solve the root causes of homelessness. We need to focus on creating more affordable housing options, especially for individuals at risk of becoming homeless.

Additionally, Irvine should work regionally with surrounding cities and Orange County to ensure that homelessness is addressed in a coordinated way rather than placing the burden solely on one community.

Irvine set a goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030, but staff said last year the city won’t hit that target in time. What are your ideas to make Irvine more energy-efficient and greener?

One of my top priorities is expanding renewable energy adoption. I support increasing incentives for homeowners and businesses to install solar panels and invest in energy-efficient upgrades. We should also explore community solar programs to make clean energy accessible to renters and lower-income households.

Transportation is one of the most significant contributors to emissions. We must improve public transit options, invest in safer biking and walking infrastructure and push for expanded EV charging stations throughout the city. Encouraging businesses to adopt green commuting incentives, like subsidizing transit passes or providing bike-friendly amenities, can also make a difference.

Irvine’s Master Plan has helped keep our city green, but we need to expand urban tree canopy coverage and invest in more sustainable landscaping, such as increasing the use of drought-resistant native plants.

What makes you a good leader, and how would you represent the diverse communities of your district and city?

I am a leader who listens, builds bridges and takes action to create meaningful change. As a longtime Irvine resident, I have spent years working to uplift diverse communities. I served on Irvine’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee for nearly three years, collaborating with city leaders to ensure all residents feel heard and valued.

Through my multicultural public relations agency, I help industries authentically connect with diverse communities. My job is to find solutions, bring people together and amplify the often overlooked voices. I will bring this same approach to the Irvine City Council, ensuring every resident has a seat at the table, regardless of background.

As the first Latina (woman) ever to run for Irvine City Council, I understand firsthand the importance of representation. Latinos are the third-largest demographic in our city and District 5, yet we have never had a voice in City Hall that reflects our perspective. Representation matters, not just for Latinos, but for every resident who wants a city government that genuinely understands and serves its people.

My leadership is rooted in inclusivity, collaboration and problem-solving. I will work tirelessly to address our city’s most pressing challenges, from housing affordability to economic development while ensuring Irvine remains a welcoming, thriving and forward-thinking community for all.

​ Orange County Register