Huntington Beach baseball will be in spotlight at National High School Invitational

• March 29, 2023

Eight of the 10 teams that have won the National High School Invitational baseball tournament in Cary, North Carolina, have been California teams.

Huntington Beach won it in 2016 and is in the NHSI again this season. Like the other three California teams in the NHSI that begins Wednesday, Huntington Beach is a targeted team.

“You’re representing more than just your school,” said Huntington Beach coach Benji Medure.”You’re representing your state. And all those teams from other states, they want to knock off the California teams that are out here.”

JSerra and Santa Margarita are also in the NHSI, as is Aquinas of San Bernardino.

Orange County teams have done well in the 16-team tournament that is played at the USA Baseball complex in Cary. Mater Dei won the first two NHSI tournaments, in 2013 and ‘14. San Clemente won it in 2015, Huntington Beach in ‘16, and Orange Lutheran won it three years in a row, 2017-19.

Huntington Beach has been on a roll lately. The Oilers were 2-6 before winning six in a row. Some of those losses were to outstanding teams like South Hills, which is the No. 1 team in the CIF Southern Section Division 2 Top 10. Other losses were to Aquinas in extra innings, to Orange County No. 8 Foothill by one run and to CIF-SS Division 1 No. 4 Corona 2-0.

Seniors Aidan Espinoza, Colby Turner and Ralphie Velazquez have propelled the offense. Medure said seniors Brad Gindlinger, Carson Lake and Wyatt Thomas and junior Nate Aceves have led the pitching corps.

“We played some tough teams and played well enough to win some of those games,” Medure said, “but it just didn’t work out. Then we got into a rut where we couldn’t do much right but I think we’ve hit our stride lately.”

NOTES

The National Classic tournament begins April 6. Orange County teams in the 16-team bracket include four teams in the Orange County Top 10: No. 4 Villa Park, No. 6 Cypress, No. 9 El Dorado and No. 10 Servite. …

Trinity League teams do not play league games this week. Santa Margarita is in first place at 8-1. Mater Dei is second at 7-2 with JSerra and Orange Lutheran tied for third at 4-5. …

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Rain is in the forecast for Wednesday and Thursday but could clear out in time to allow games to be played Friday. These games are currently on the schedule for Friday: Ayala at Cypress, 11 a.m.; two games in the tight Freeway League at 3:15 p.m. are Sunny Hills at Fullerton and Troy at La Habra; and Tesoro at Trabuco Hills, 3:45 p.m. …

The Anaheim Lions Tournament continues. Through Monday teams that were undefeated in the 60-team tournament included Kennedy, La Habra, Pacifica and Sunny Hills. The tournament started March 7 and is scheduled to conclude Saturday.

​ Orange County Register 

Dodgers’ Miguel Rojas is the healthy, vocal surprise of spring training

• March 29, 2023

ANAHEIM ― Maybe the writing was on the wall early in camp, from the time Dodgers shortstop Gavin Lux underwent season-ending knee surgery and his replacement, veteran Miguel Rojas, committed to staying in spring training rather than departing to play for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic.

Since then, Rojas’ leadership emerged as the most pleasant surprise of spring training in the opinion of Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. The 34-year-old is regularly engaged with teammates on the field and in the clubhouse, a surprise social butterfly as well as an unlikely starting shortstop on a team with championship aspirations.

Rojas has eased fears about the loss of Lux (and validated his recent contract extension) with his performance at the plate. He entered the Dodgers’ final exhibition game with a .273 batting average and .810 on-base plus slugging percentage and added a two-run single to tie the score in the fifth inning on Tuesday. His home run Monday against Angels pitcher Tyler Anderson was his second of spring training – not too shabby considering Rojas hit just six homers in 140 games for the Miami Marlins in 2022.

Perhaps most impressively, Rojas entered Tuesday’s Freeway Series finale having struck out only twice in 44 at-bats, even as coaches are encouraging him to take a more aggressive two-strike approach. His home run Monday came on a 1-and-2 count.

“I used to be really protective,” Rojas said. “I describe it as playing defense with two strikes. Now I have a little more freedom being in this lineup. A lot of guys in this lineup are going to do damage. We’re going to score runs. I don’t have to be as protective as I used to be.”

Being healthy helps.

Rojas had separate minor surgical procedures on his right wrist and hand over the offseason. He reiterated that having a strong upper hand has made a big difference at the plate. Last year, his batting average fell to .236. Rojas said a fly ball that ordinarily would carry over the fence would be an out. His wrist would hurt after making contact.

Now?

“It’s a little stiff still and I can feel it when I dive – when I have to dive into a base and I use my hands to pop up,” he said. “With more time, playing, doing whatever I need to do to keep strengthening, I feel the range of motion is going to come back. Other than that, swinging has been fine.”

OUTFIELD PUZZLE SOLVED

The Dodgers will begin the season with five outfielders capable of playing the two positions (left field and center field) not occupied by All-Star Mookie Betts.

Tuesday, Roberts described in detail how he plans to use his two right-handed hitting outfielders (Trayce Thompson and Chris Taylor) and the three lefties (David Peralta, Jason Heyward and James Outman).

“Trayce and CT are going to take the brunt of those at-bats (against left-handed pitchers), and then vs. right(-handed pitchers), I think it’s a combo of James, Peralta and (Heyward),” Roberts said. “James is going to get the lion’s share of those right-handed at-bats in center field.”

Outman was the standout offensive performer of the group in camp. The rookie entered Tuesday hitting .294 with three home runs and 11 RBIs in 22 spring games. That somewhat eased the challenge Roberts faces in dividing playing time fairly.

“You’re trying to play both sides eventually and keep everyone more involved,” Roberts said. “But I think that if it works – which I believe it can and will work – it keeps everyone feeling like they’re contributing on a nightly basis.”

NEARLY FULL NELSON

Reliever Jimmy Nelson will start the season on the injured list despite pitching a 1-2-3 inning against the Angels – his first game action in nine days.

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Nelson walked seven batters and recorded just one out between his previous Cactus League outings, March 16 and 19. Tuesday, the right-hander needed only 12 pitches (seven strikes, five balls) to retire the side in the sixth inning.

“Trying to get back so quickly from this big process of the (elbow and flexor tendon) surgery and rehab and recovery, I think he wants it all right now,” Roberts said. “For me, it’s just slowing things down, which tonight I thought he did a good job of and didn’t let it spiral out.”

Nelson will remain with the team through at least Opening Day, Roberts said. There is no target date for Nelson, 33, to complete his rehab process.

UP NEXT

The Dodgers have an off-day on Wednesday before opening the season on Thursday night against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium.

​ Orange County Register 

Apple rolls out buy now, pay later service, with guardrails

• March 28, 2023

Apple is getting into the buy now, pay later space with a few tweaks to the existing model — including no option to pay with a credit card. The company will roll out the product to some consumers this spring, and will begin reporting the loans to credit bureaus in the fall.

Here’s what you need to know.

Since the start of the pandemic, the option to “buy now, pay later” has skyrocketed in popularity, especially among young and low-income consumers who may not have ready access to traditional credit.

If you shop online for clothes or furniture, sneakers or concert tickets, you’ve seen the option at checkout to break the cost into smaller installments over time. Companies like Afterpay, Affirm, Klarna, and Paypal already offer the service, typically with late fees for missed payments and the option to use a credit card or bank account to make installment payments.

Apple’s version, which is integrated with Apple Pay and facilitated by MasterCard, will require the consumer use a debit card and a bank account to make those payments, the company said, and will not charge flat or percentage late fees. Instead, missed payments will eventually result in the consumer losing access to these kinds of loans.

Apple said its buy now, pay later product will also offer fraud and consumer protections through MasterCard’s existing pay-by-installment model, and will charge merchants fees that “are competitive to other installment products in the market,” according to Mastercard spokesperson Raul Lopez.

How does buy now, pay later work?

Branded as “interest-free loans,” buy now, pay later services require you to download an app, link a bank account or debit or credit card, and sign up to pay in weekly or monthly installments. Some companies, such as Klarna and Afterpay, do soft credit checks, which aren’t reported to credit bureaus, before approving borrowers. This is how Apple’s product will operate as well. Most users are approved in minutes. Scheduled payments are then automatically deducted from one’s bank account or charged to one’s card.

The services generally don’t charge more than a customer would have paid up front, meaning there’s technically no interest, so long as one makes the payments on time.

But if a customer pays late, they may be subject to a flat fee or a fee calculated as a percentage of the total owed. These can run as high as $34 plus interest. If a customer misses multiple payments, they may be shut out from using the service in the future, and the delinquency could hurt their credit score.

In Apple’s case, the company said there will be no late fees, either flat or as a percentage — only the possibility of missed payments reported to credit bureaus, and a loss of access to the loans. If a user wishes to defer payments, or set up a different payment plan, Apple said they can contact support. Several services allow users to defer payments in this way.

Are my purchases protected?

In the U.S., buy now, pay later services are not currently covered by the Truth in Lending Act, which regulates credit cards and other types of loans (those paid back in more than four installments).

That means you could find it more difficult to settle disputes with merchants, return items, or get your money back in cases of fraud. Companies can offer protections, but they don’t have to. Apple’s protections are offered through Mastercard.

Lauren Saunders, associate director at the National Consumer Law Center, advises borrowers to avoid linking a credit card to buy now, pay later apps whenever possible. If you do, you lose the protections you get from using the credit card while also opening yourself up to owing interest to the card company.

“Use the credit card directly and get those protections,” she said. “Otherwise, it’s the worst of both worlds.”

Apple’s decision not to permit consumers to link a credit card to its buy now, pay later product means the consumer avoids stacking debt in this way.

​ Orange County Register 

Elvis Costello & The Imposters’ summer tour is coming to The Greek Theatre

• March 28, 2023

Elvis Costello & The Imposters will be stopping by The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles with its We’re All Going on a Summer Holiday Tour on Friday, June 16.

Costello and the band will also be joined by Nick Lowe & Los Straitjackets on the 23-date tour.

Tickets for the show will be available to the general public at 10 a.m. Friday, March 31 at ticketmaster.com. There’s also a special presale starting at 10 a.m. Wednesday, March 29. Pre-sale for Citi Card members at citientertainment.com.

In February, Costello played the highly-acclaimed “100 Songs and More,” a 10-evening engagement at the Gramercy Theater in New York where he played more than 230 original songs, repeating only three titles. Additionally, Costello released the compilation “The Songs of Bacharach & Costello” on March 2. It’s a double album celebrating his nearly 30-year songwriting collaboration with Burt Bacharach.

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​ Orange County Register 

Orange County’s only cancer specialty hospital will open in 2025

• March 28, 2023

In November, Heidi Paolone received a heart-wrenching diagnosis: She had a rare form of stage 3 ovarian cancer.

Paolone was referred to City of Hope, a cancer research and treatment hospital, and had surgery at its Duarte facility, about 60 miles from her home in Cota de Caza. But with City of Hope set to open Orange County’s only cancer specialty hospital in Irvine in the fall of 2025, she is excited at the prospect of care a shorter distance from home.

City of Hope unveiled to-scale replicas of some of the planned hospital’s rooms and features on Tuesday, March 28, in an effort to solicit feedback about the design, layout and functionality from stakeholders, patients, doctors and the community at large. That’s in line with its “philosophy of wanting to be a neighbor,” said Annette Walker, president of City of Hope Orange County.

The replicas included the care team station, patient rooms, a pharmacy, a laboratory, a CT scan suite and fluoroscopy procedure area.

The design layout was intended to be less of a “sterile environment” and more comforting and welcoming, Cynthia Powers, vice president and associate chief nursing officer at City of Hope Orange County, said.

For example, she said, medical paraphernalia is tucked away out of sight in patient rooms to declutter and “really focus on the aesthetics.” Counters at care team stations are low so nurses and physicians can speak and acknowledge patients, she said, rather than have them go unnoticed.

Walker said City of Hope did extensive research on Orange County to determine the cancers that had the greatest need in choosing specialists in gynecology, hematology-oncology, dermatology, breast cancer and bone marrow. An integrated medicine specialist was also hired.

“We do have some Eastern methodologies that will be incorporated in our supportive care departments such as acupuncture, meditation,” Walker said. “We are doing some clinical trials on CBD and the effect of CBD on eliminating some of the symptoms of chemotherapy.”

The experience of walking through the mock design was “unique and special,” said Irvine Mayor Farrah Khan.

The new cancer campus will be “a groundbreaker not only for Irvine but for all of Orange County,” Khan said, because residents will not have to travel for care.

“Seeing the growth of not only the hospital industries but also the MedTech in Irvine really goes to show that people here care about the community,” Khan said.

According to data provided by City of Hope, before its cancer center opened, nearly 20 percent of cancer patients left the county for advanced cancer care.

City of Hope is investing more than $1.5 billion, some of that funding coming from philanthropy, in the 73-bed cancer campus that will span over 122,000 square feet, adjacent to the City of Hope’s outpatient cancer center that opened in August. Prior to the opening of the outpatient center, the hospital brought in more than 500 people to provide feedback on the design.

“As soon as I walked into the lobby here, I just felt like I could breathe,” Paolone said. “It’s not how it looks; it’s how it made me feel. I didn’t feel like I was in this scary, sterile place. It just felt warm.”

​ Orange County Register 

Fed official: Bank rules under review in wake of SVB failure

• March 28, 2023

The Federal Reserve’s bank supervisors warned Silicon Valley Bank’s management as early as the fall of 2021 of risks stemming from its unusual business model, a top Fed official said Tuesday, but its managers failed to take the steps necessary to fix the problems.

The Fed official, Michael Barr, the nation’s top banking regulator, said during a Senate Banking Committee hearing that the Fed is considering whether stronger bank rules are needed to prevent a similar failure in the future.

Silicon Valley Bank’s management was deficient, Barr said. In particular, he said, the interest rate model the bank used “was not at all aligned with reality.”

The timeline that Barr laid out for when the Fed had alerted Silicon Valley’s management to the risks it faced is earlier than the central bank has previously said the bank was on its radar screen.

Tuesday’s hearing was the first formal congressional inquiry into the March 10 collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and the subsequent failure of New York-based Signature Bank, the second- and third-largest bank failures in U.S. history.

The failures set off financial tremors in the U.S. and Europe and led the Fed and other government agencies to back all deposits at the two banks, even though nearly 90% of both banks’ deposits exceeded the $250,000 insurance threshold. The Fed also established a new lending program to enable banks to more easily raise cash if needed.

Late Sunday, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said that resolving the two banks, including reimbursing depositors, would cost its insurance fund $20 billion, the largest such impact in its history. The FDIC plans to recoup those funds through a levy on all banks, which will likely be passed on to consumers.

Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat who leads the committee, suggested that the government’s rescue of SVB’s depositors, which included wealthy venture capitalists and large tech companies, had caused “justified anger” among many Americans.

“I understand why many Americans are angry — even disgusted — at how quickly the government mobilized, when a bunch of elites in California were demanding it,” Brown said.

Republican members of the committee focused their fire on the Fed and other regulators for failing to prevent SVB’s failure. The Fed has been criticized by advocacy groups for not adequately responding to red flags about the bank’s management.

“I hope to learn how the Federal Reserve could know about such risky practices for more than a year and failed to take definitive, corrective action,” said Sen. Tim Scott, Republican from South Carolina. “By all accounts, our regulators appear to have been asleep at the wheel.”

Several senators have introduced bills that would tighten bank regulation or raise the FDIC’s $250,000 threshold. But given the partisan divisions in Congress on those issues, few expect such proposals to become law.

Silicon Valley’s deposits were heavily concentrated in the high-tech sector, which made it particularly vulnerable to a downturn in a single industry. It had bought long-term Treasurys and other bonds with those funds.

The value of those bonds fell as interest rates rose. When the bank was forced to sell those bonds to repay depositors as they withdrew funds, Silicon Valley absorbed heavy losses and couldn’t pay its customers.

Barr said that depositors withdrew $42 billion — equal to about a quarter of the bank’s assets — on the Thursday before the bank failed. On Friday morning, it faced an additional $100 billion in withdrawal requests.

Barr said the Fed’s review of Silicon Valley’s collapse will consider whether stricter regulations are needed, including whether supervisors have the tools needed to follow up on their warnings. The Fed will also consider whether tougher rules are needed on liquidity — the ability of the bank to access cash — and capital requirements, which govern the level of funds a bank needs to hold.

​ Orange County Register 

Police: Nashville shooter bought 7 guns before school attack

• March 28, 2023

By JONATHAN MATTISE

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The shooter who killed three students and three staff members at a Christian school in Nashville legally bought seven weapons in recent years and hid the guns from their parents before carrying out the attack by firing indiscriminately at victims and spraying gunfire through doors and windows, police said Tuesday.

The violence Monday at The Covenant School was the latest school shooting to roil the nation and was planned carefully. The shooter had drawn a detailed map of the school, including potential entry points, and conducted surveillance of the building before carrying out the massacre, authorities said.

The suspect, Audrey Hale, 28, was a former student at the school. Hale did not target specific victims — among them three 9-year-olds and the head of the school — but did target “this school, this church building,” police spokesperson Don Aaron said at a news conference Tuesday.

Hale was under a doctor’s care for an undisclosed emotional disorder and was not known to police before the attack, Metropolitan Nashville Police Chief John Drake said at the news conference.

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If police had been told that Hale was suicidal or homicidal, “then we would have tried to get those weapons,” Drake said. “But as it stands, we had absolutely no idea who this person was or if (Hale) even existed.”

Hale legally bought seven firearms from five local gun stores, Drake said. Three of them were used in Monday’s shooting.

Hale’s parents believed their child had sold one gun and did not own any others, Drake said, adding that Hale “had been hiding several weapons within the house.”

Hale’s motive is unknown, Drake said. In an interview with NBC News on Monday, Drake said investigators don’t know what drove Hale but believe the shooter had “some resentment for having to go to that school.”

Drake, at Tuesday’s news conference, described “several different writings by Hale” that mention other locations and The Covenant School. There also was a map of the school and a drawing about how Hale would potentially enter the school.

“There’s quite a bit of writing to it,” he said.

Police have released videos of the shooting, including edited surveillance footage that shows the shooter’s car driving up to the school, glass doors being shot out and the shooter ducking through one of them.

Additional video, from Officer Rex Engelbert’s bodycam, shows a woman greeting police outside as they arrive at The Covenant School on Monday and telling them that all the children were locked down, “but we have two kids that we don’t know where they are.”

The woman then directs officers to Fellowship Hall and says people inside had just heard gunshots. Three officers, including Engelbert, search rooms one by one, holding rifles and announcing themselves as police.

The video shows officers climbing stairs to the second floor and entering a lobby area, followed by a barrage of gunfire and an officer yelling twice: “Get your hands away from the gun.” Then the shooter is shown motionless on the floor.

Police identified Engelbert, a four-year member of the force, and Michael Collazo, a nine-year member, as the officers who fatally shot Hale.

Aaron said there were no police officers present or assigned to the school at the time of the shooting because it is a church-run school.

Police response times to school shootings have come under greater scrutiny after the attack in Uvalde, Texas, in which 70 minutes passed before law enforcement stormed the classroom. In Nashville, police have said 14 minutes passed from the initial call to when the suspect was killed, but they have not said how long it took them to arrive.

Surveillance video shows a time stamp of just before 10:11 a.m., when the attacker shot out the doors. Police said they got the call about a shooter at 10:13 a.m. but have not said precisely what time they arrived, and the edited bodycam footage didn’t include time stamps. A police spokesperson didn’t respond to an email Tuesday asking when they arrived or whether any version of the video includes time stamps.

During the news conference, Drake did not answer a question directly about how many minutes it took police to arrive. At about 10:24 a.m., 11 minutes after the call was received, officers engaged the suspect, he said.

“There were police cars that had been hit by gunfire. As officers were approaching the building, there was gunfire going off,” Drake said.

“We feel, our response right now, from what I’ve seen, I don’t have a particular problem with it. But we always want to get better. We always want to get there in two or three minutes,” he said, adding that traffic was “locked down” at the time.

Traffic was indeed stopped along a nearby two-lane road with a turning lane as police tried to weave their way to the school.

Police have given unclear information on Hale’s gender. For hours Monday, police identified the shooter as a woman. Later in the day, the police chief said Hale was transgender. After the news conference, Aaron declined to elaborate on how Hale identified.

In an email Tuesday, police spokesperson Kristin Mumford said Hale “was assigned female at birth. Hale did use male pronouns on a social media profile.” Later Tuesday, at the news conference, Drake referred to Hale with female pronouns.

Authorities identified the dead children as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. The adults were Cynthia Peak, 61, Katherine Koonce, 60, and Mike Hill, 61.

The website of The Covenant School, a Presbyterian school founded in 2001, lists a Katherine Koonce as the head of the school. Her LinkedIn profile says she has led the school since July 2016. Peak was a substitute teacher, and Hill was a custodian, according to investigators.

The Covenant School, founded as a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church, is in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood just south of downtown Nashville. The school has about 200 students from preschool through sixth grade, as well as roughly 50 staff members.

President Joe Biden said he had spoken to the police chief, mayor and senators in Tennessee. He pleaded with Congress to pass stronger gun safety laws, including a ban on “assault weapons.”

“The Congress has to act,” Biden said. “The majority of the American people think having assault weapons is bizarre, it’s a crazy idea. They’re against that.”

Before Monday’s violence in Nashville, there had been seven mass killings at K-12 schools since 2006 in which four or more people were killed within a 24-hour period, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today in partnership with Northeastern University. In all of them, the shooters were males.

The database does not include school shootings in which fewer than four people were killed, which have become far more common in recent years. Just last week alone, for example, school shootings happened in Denver and the Dallas area within two days of each other.

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia, John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia, and Stefanie Dazio in Los Angeles.

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​ Orange County Register 

Seven dead, dozens missing in Ecuador landslide

• March 28, 2023

By Patricia Oleas and Cesar Olmos | Associated Press

ALAUSI, Ecuador — A huge landslide swept over an Andean community in central Ecuador, burying dozens of homes, killing at least seven people and sending rescuers on a frantic search for survivors, authorities said Monday.

Earlier in the day, officials had reported 16 deaths, but President Guillermo Lasso put the confirmed toll at seven as he arrived Monday night at the scene of the disaster in Alausí, about 137 miles south of the capital, Quito. Officials also raised the number of people reported missing to 62.

Lasso lamented the tragedy and promised people in the town that “we will continue working” on the search effort.

Ecuador’s Risk Management Secretariat said more than 30 people were rescued after the mountainside collapsed around 10 p.m. Sunday. It said 23 people were injured.

“My mother is buried” under the mud, said Luis Ángel González, 58, who also lost other family members Sunday. “I am so sad, devastated. There is nothing here, no houses, no anything. We are homeless (and) without family.”

The risk management agency estimated 500 people and 163 homes were affected by the disaster, which also destroyed a portion of the Pan-American Highway.

The governor of Chimborazo, Ivan Vinueza, told The Associated Press that some of the injured were taken to area hospitals. He said officials had urged people to evacuate the area after landslides and cracks began to develop about two months ago. Some followed the advice, and by Saturday, as tremors intensified, others fled.

Area residents told local media they heard tremors on the mountain before the landslide, which was estimated to be about 150 meters (490 feet) wide and nearly a half mile (700 meters) long. It swept away trees, homes and other buildings. More than fifty houses were buried under tons of mud of debris.

The emergency response agency said 60% of potable water service in the area was affected by the landslide. The communication’s office of the presidential office said some schools would be switching to online classes.

Firefighters from a half dozen cities were dispatched to the area to help. Rescuers focused on the flanks of the landslide where they found traces and debris of houses.

Rescuer and paramedic Alberto Escobar said it was unlikely more survivors would be found because of the time that had elapsed.

He said the search would continue as long as it did not rain.

Video from cameras connected to the country’s emergency service network showed people fleeing their homes with help from neighbors. It also showed people transporting appliances and other belongings in vehicles.

Survivors, many housed in temporary shelters, cried over their misfortune.

Among them was the Zuña family, who were staying at the Iglesia Matriz de Alausí, where rooms for catechism or parish meetings were adapted with bunk beds days ago after authorities declared an emergency in the area due to the risk of landslides.

Sonia Guadalupe Zuña said her mother was reluctant to leave what they had built over the years.

“We went to the shelter, but my mother didn’t want to,” Zuña said. “Later, my daughter went to convince her. When they walked along the rails, everything collapsed. They arrived covered in dirt and crying.”

Save for the clothes they had on, Zuña’s family lost everything.

“I don’t know where, but we’re all leaving,” she said crying. “My parents taught us that by working hard, you get material things, but being together is priceless.”

Associated Press writers Gonzalo Solano in Quito and Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register