Cypress man gets 144 years to life for fatal shooting in Long Beach of 12-year-old boy

• October 7, 2026

A 24-year-old Cypress man who went out in search of rival gang members to shoot in Long Beach but ended up shooting at three children — killing one and injuring another — was sentenced Wednesday, Oct. 7, to 144 years to life in state prison.

Reshawn Jonae Strother received the sentence after giving a statement of apology to the victims and their families in Long Beach Superior Court.

Strother, his then girlfriend Destenee Scipio and two other men went out the night of May 9, 2023, looking for rival gang members but wound up shooting at three children as they walked near Lewis Avenue and Hill Street.

Killed in the shooting was 12-year-old Eric Gregory Brown III. A then-14-year-old girl was shot in the leg but survived. A 13-year-old girl escaped the gunfire unharmed.

On Wednesday, one of the girls spoke in court while the other had a statement read by Deputy District Attorney David Kwon. They remembered Eric, who they referred to as “Big E,” as a funny, joyful boy who always knew how to make them laugh even when they were going through hard times. They said he had his whole life ahead of him.

They lamented being forced to talk about Eric in the past tense. They also talked about the difficulty of facing Strother in court while testifying on the witness stand.

“I didn’t testify to ruin the defendant’s life,” the girl who was unscathed told the court. “I testified to get Eric justice.

“It makes me so sick that even though he took a child’s life, he showed no remorse,” she said, adding that she still has sleepless nights because of what she saw.

The injured girl loved to play basketball but that was taken away after she was shot in the leg, she wrote in her statement.

“It changed the way I see the world,” she said, adding that the pain in her leg is a “reminder of something we never wished to experience.”

Eric’s grandmother, Sonia Age, also spoke and said she hoped that Strother would “always see (Eric’s) smile, and I hope you find God.”

Scipio, who testified against Strother and took a plea deal to voluntary manslaughter, apologized to the victims and their families in a statement to the court.

“I’m so sorry for the role I played and the action I didn’t take,” Scipio wrote, adding she was sorry for “not protecting your children” and that she “should have been a stronger person instead of a coward.

“I am sick to my stomach with shame,” she said.

Scipio was sentenced on Sept. 30 to six years as a result of the plea deal. She and Strother have been in custody since their arrests two months after the shooting.

Strother had sought retaliation after he was shot at while driving Scipio’s car earlier that day near Orange Avenue and Hellman Street, evidence presented during the case showed. Strother was not hit, but a bullet grazed the car.

Scipio had attempted to keep Strother from using her car to carry out his plan. Surveillance video from a hotel they stayed at shows Strother slam Scipio onto the car and choke her for several seconds before letting her go. They both then got in the car and left, picking up two other men in Downey and Carson before the shooting.

Those men were not involved in the case against Strother and Scipio. It was unclear if they were identified or arrested.

In September, a jury convicted Strother of murder, three counts of attempted murder, assault by means of force, conspiracy to commit murder, and unlawful firearm activity.

Two of the charges stemmed from a shooting in Los Angeles when Strother injured two people, including Scipio, at a recording studio. The other victim in that shooting was left paralyzed.

Judge Laura Laesecke on Wednesday referenced evidence that showed the men in the car had intimidated other people with their guns before firing upon the children.

She said the case involved “a lot of violence, very scary.” She referenced the egregiousness of the crimes and the planning that went into the shooting of the children, including the turning off cellphones and leaving them elsewhere so they couldn’t be tracked.

The judge imposed the harshest penalties on all but one count.

Before the sentencing, Strother was given a chance to speak. He turned toward the victims and their families and apologized, said he wanted to ask for their forgiveness and said he had no excuses.

Strother said he did not know he had killed a child until he turned his phone back on and learned about it through Google. He said Eric’s death was a result of his “compulsive decisions, compulsive behavior.”

He said he sees Eric’s face every night.

At the time of the shooting, he had a three-year-old son and Scipio was pregnant with his other son.

“I will pay my debt to you and society for hurting children,” Strother said. “That wasn’t called for. They were children.”

​ Orange County Register 

Flight attendants’ union flags safety concerns over Trump’s Washington arch

• October 7, 2026

By GARY FIELDS

WASHINGTON (AP) — The union representing thousands of flight attendants said Wednesday it has safety concerns about President Donald Trump’s proposed triumphal arch that will be on final approach to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

Flight Attendants Association-CWA President Sara Nelson said the 250-foot arch compounds multiple safety concerns that she said have gone unaddressed from a deadly January 2025 crash over the Potomac River that killed 67 people. Nelson also criticized Trump’s plan to turn the arch into “a top grade military complex” able to host drones and snipers while storing ammunition.

“DCA is already stretched to its limit, we do not need an obstacle taking up space in our flight path,” said Nelson. “Nor should commercial aviation have to dodge military drones, missiles or snipers while attempting to take off or land at Washington National Airport. Safety first always.”

Nelson’s statement on behalf of the union, which represents 55,000 flight attendants across 20 airlines, joins the voices of an assemblage of veterans’ groups, Congress members and others with safety concerns and complaints about the memorial’s threat to historic and symbolic sightlines between different landmarks in Washington, D.C.

Though the arch has received early approval from the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, whose members were all tapped by Trump, a group of three veterans and an architectural historian sued, saying the project needs to be approved by Congress.

Last month, the Republican president said in a social media post that he had agreed, at the “strong request” of the military, to convert the planned 250-foot-tall memorial arch “into a top grade Military Complex.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said last month before Trump’s announcement on it becoming a military complex that the arch would not pose a hazard to aircraft, but it should be “appropriately marked with a non-standard eternal flame on top of the structure and floodlight projectors pointed towards the arch to make it noticeable for pilots.

An assessment by the National Park Service said the memorial arch could disrupt the historical significance of dozens of nearby sites. The Park Service approved the project despite its assessment.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced early last month that excavation work on the site in Memorial Circle would begin within weeks. The Interior Department did not respond immediately to questions on the status of that work.

The arch is one of several projects around Washington that Trump has undertaken as he remakes the city from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

​ Orange County Register 

Federal appeals judges don’t reveal how they’ll rule on Saudi Arabia’s effort to end 9/11 litigation

• October 7, 2026

By LARRY NEUMEISTER

NEW YORK (AP) — Family members of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks packed a federal appeals courtroom in New York City on Wednesday as three judges heard arguments over whether legal claims against Saudi Arabia can proceed.

The judges revealed through their questions that there are still many legal issues to be decided in the lawsuit even though it has dragged on for almost a quarter-century.

They didn’t say when they might rule on whether claims can proceed to trial alleging that Saudi Arabia provided aid to at least two of the 19 men who hijacked planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field that day.

Still, Terry Strada, whose husband Tom Strada was killed in the attacks, said she was encouraged that more than 100 family members of 9/11 victims turned out and by the judges’ questions.

“It really was a good day for us,” she said afterward. “The judges asked really meaningful questions and hammered the Saudi attorneys and didn’t let up. They weren’t buying what the Saudis were selling.”

In lawsuits, hundreds of victims’ relatives and injured survivors, along with insurance companies and businesses, claim that employees of the Saudi government directly and knowingly assisted the hijackers and other plotters and fueled al-Qaida’s development into a terrorist organization by funding charities that supported them.

Some defendants, including Iran, the Taliban and al-Qaida, already have been found in default.

On Wednesday, lawyers from both sides were questioned repeatedly by the appeals judges who seemed unsure exactly how they would respond to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s claims that it should be dismissed as a defendant on sovereign immunity grounds.

Lawyers for Saudi Arabia say the nation and the U.S. were partners in the 1990s against terrorism, al-Qaida and its founder, Osama bin Laden.

Although 15 of the 19 attackers on 9/11 were Saudis, the Saudi government has long denied any involvement in the attacks.

Lawyers for victims’ relatives claim that a group of extremist religious leaders in Saudi Arabia aided the hijackers.

The appeal by Saudi Arabia stemmed from an August 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels, who decided that the case could proceed in federal court, though he did not rule on the merits of the claims.

​ Orange County Register 

Pope Leo XIV opens status check on Pope Francis’ contentious opening to civilly remarried Catholics

• October 7, 2026

By NICOLE WINFIELD

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday urged Catholic leaders to courageously accompany families in their weaknesses and failures, as he embraced one of Pope Francis’ most contentious teachings about welcoming Catholics in second marriages and otherwise “irregular” unions.

Leo opened a weeklong, closed-door conference assessing the implementation of Francis’ 2016 document “The Joy of Love.” Leo called the text an “important” step in the church’s long tradition of ministering to Catholic families for the sake of passing the faith on to future generations.

The document covers a host of issues relating to how the Catholic Church can better minister to families today as they cope with issues such as poverty, war, LGBTQ+ children and divorce. But when it was released after a yearslong consultation, “The Joy of Love” immediately sparked controversy, because it opened the door to allowing civilly remarried Catholics to receive Communion.

Church teaching holds that unless these Catholics obtain an annulment — a church decree that their first marriage was invalid — they can’t receive the sacraments, since they are seen as living in sin and committing adultery.

Francis didn’t create a church-wide pass for these Catholics, but suggested that bishops and priests could do so on a case-by-case basis after accompanying them on a spiritual journey of discernment.

Leo urges church to accompany people in fragility

In his opening remarks, which reporters were invited to watch, Leo didn’t refer specifically to Francis’ opening to civilly remarried Catholics. Speaking in English, he seemed keen to redirect the conversation to the broader issues facing young people and families today, including how to incorporate sex and intimacy within the Christian “vision” of marriage.

He urged the bishops to pay specific attention to families in their weakest moments, to listen to them, and to look at whether the church is able to respond to them.

“The experience of fragility raises the question of whether we are able to remain close to one another when life no longer corresponds to what had been hoped for, and whether we can recognize the work of grace even in situations marked by limits, wounds and apparent failure,” Leo said.

The pontiff challenged the bishops to consider what kind of church people encounter when they are most fragile.

“Do our communities help them discover that they still have a place, a responsibility and gifts to offer? Can the truth we proclaim be encountered through the patience, closeness and mercy of our pastoral presence?” he asked.

A text prompts claims of heresy

Francis’ 2016 document became one of the most divisive of his pontificate and in many ways became the focal point of conservative opposition to his papacy. Mostly conservative Catholics said that it had sown confusion among the faithful about the church’s teaching on the indissolubility of marriage.

Some even accused Francis of heresy.

Within the first year of publication, four conservative cardinals formally asked Francis to clarify certain questions, or “dubia,” raised by the text. They argued that church doctrine held that Catholics who remarried without a church annulment were living in sin and couldn’t receive the sacraments.

He never replied.

For a variety of reasons, such annulments often can’t be obtained, though Francis issued a separate reform to simplify, facilitate and accelerate the process. The aim was to respond to cases where a spouse wasn’t at fault for the failure of a marriage, such as a woman who experienced abuse at the hands of her first husband and merely wanted to remarry in the church and raise her children in the faith.

Sister Helen Alford, president of the Vatican’s social sciences academy, urged the bishops attending this week’s conference to consider the concept of the “law of gradualness” in applying church law to such difficult family situations. The gradualness concept calls for nuance rather than black-and-white application of rules and norms.

“When social situations are turbulent and changing quickly, it can be necessary to find new ways of putting together both the objective demands of the law and the law of gradualness that many experience,” she said.

Top Francis cardinals, including Americans, among participants

Organizers of the conference insisted that the meeting wasn’t convened to debate or rewrite Francis’ original text, but rather to understand how it had been implemented around the world and what lies ahead. No new document was expected, but a summary text was expected to be released next week wrapping up the points of discussion.

The main participants of the conference were the presidents of 115 national bishops’ conferences from around the world and the heads of eastern rite churches. Joining them were 11 couples, who were to offer their experiences for reflection, as well as theological experts.

Leo also extended 22 personal invitations, including to four of his fellow Americans who were also close advisers to Francis: Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich; Brownsville, Texas Bishop Daniel Flores; Washington Cardinal Robert McElroy and Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin.

Two of Francis’ top Vatican aides, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, also were on Leo’s guest list. Two other close Francis allies, Luxembourg Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich and Spain Cardinal José Cobo Cano, as well as two bishops from China were on his list.

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 

FBI says it thwarted an attack on the Mall of America by a teen it supplied with an assault rifle

• October 7, 2026

By ELLEN SCHMIDT and GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The FBI thwarted an attack on the Mall of America by a teenager after agents supplied him with an assault rifle, authorities announced Wednesday.

The 18-year-old had been under investigation for nearly two years, trading messages with a confidential informant, before agents sold him the rifle and ammunition, they said.

“This was a radicalized young man who needed to be watched,” U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen said as he praised the FBI investigation. Agents “were able to detect a threat, and disrupt it, before the defendant carried out his intention to kill, in his words, maybe 30 to 60 people, as we allege in far greater detail in the complaint.”

Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, was arrested Tuesday in a public park in Richfield, several miles northwest of the Mall of America, after he paid $600 to an undercover FBI employee posing as a member of ISIS for an AK-47 and 200 rounds of ammunition, according to the criminal complaint.

Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, was arrested Tuesday in a public park after he paid $600 to an undercover FBI employee posing as a member of ISIS for an AK-47 and 200 rounds of ammunition, according to the criminal complaint.

In text messages with a confidential FBI source, Mohamud repeatedly affirmed his intent to carry out an attack to kill non-Muslims, the complaint said. It was not immediately known if the teen had an attorney who might speak on his behalf.

​ Orange County Register 

Travel: Easter Island is like no other place on earth

• October 7, 2026

At sunrise, on mega-mysterious Rapa Nui, neon violet skies backlit 15 tiki-like huge-headed behemoths who possibly “walked” miles to this grassy plain centuries ago. The extraordinary hand-chiseled stone moai sternly stared from gouged-out eye sockets, their jutting jaws and furrowed brows shooting out supernatural vibes. Oh, did I feel the “mana” spiritual life force.

To the left of these Tongariki moai, an ancient volcano marked the spot where two human groups — the low-class Short Ears and upper-crust Long Ears — waged a grisly battle that culminated in burnt flesh.That conflict preceded the kooky Birdman cult, which required long clawing fingernails and an insane lethal competition for an egg.

Tiny in size but gargantuan in legend, Easter Island — called Rapa Nui by locals —  is one of the world’s most isolated inhabited islands and epic enigmas. Nearly 1,000 iconic moai statues have been discovered throughout this Polynesian island that is plopped in the South Pacific Ocean and was annexed by Chile in 1888. If the multi-ton moai weren’t stonewalling us, they’d dish all the secrets — how they were created, how the heck they magically traveled distances, why they were deliberately clobbered.

“The more I read and learn about our history, the more questions I have,” said  my informative Rapa Nui-born guide Otea, who is also a traditional tattoo artist and a stage show Polynesian dancer. Indeed, for decades, scientists, scholars, archeologists, 3-D models, drone photographs, and DNA tests have tried to unlock the puzzle with no firm consensus.

Despite its dizzying history, Easter Island is a serene and mesmerizingly beautiful island, some 2,300 miles from Chile’s mainland. The Easter name derives from a Dutch explorer whose fleet briefly landed at Rapa Nui on the Christian holiday in 1722. This was my second trip here after first visiting 11 years ago and amazingly the triangular 63-square-mile island seems unchanged; waves fiercely crashed against black volcanic rocks, brilliant green pastures stretched everywhere, horses freely roamed, and cows wandered. And yes, it’s an island but you don’t come to swig umbrella drinks and sunbathe; with tourism strictly regulated, you come to totally immerse yourself in the moai and a heritage that will boggle your mind forever.

Even my hotel, the shaman-blessed very cool Nayara Hangaroa lodge, was constructed to resemble the Birdman cult’s ceremonial village with grass-roofed circular buildings to keep the good mana flowing. In my suite, I bit the head off a moai (it was an artisanal candy) and admired my other welcome gift, a moai keychain fashioned from recycled plastic washed up on Rapa Nui’s shores. Outside, a large replica moai hovered over Nayara’s ocean-view swimming pool.

My real moai meet-and-greet occurred when I watched the pre-rain sunset dip behind the silhouetted statues at Tahai right on the coast. As my guide Cecilia explained, all of Easter Island’s moai were carved from compressed volcanic ash around A.D. 1000 to the 1650s. Initially, after people died, the Rapa Nui natives made simpler moai that would house their deified ancestor’s spirits and stand about 3 feet tall. But egos exploded and the moai grew more humongous; before death, chieftains and other elites commissioned their own moai, reaching up to 33 feet and weighing over 180,000 pounds.

“The bigger the moai, the better that tribe or spiritual leader was supposed to be,” Cecilia said. Meanwhile, a bottle of chilled sparking wine and a cheese plate awaited in her jeep for my surprise post-sunset snack.

Excursions with Cecilia and Otea were part of Nayara’s all-inclusive package (you need a licensed guide to go to most sites). Days earlier, I had been at sister hotel Nayara Alto Atacama in northern Chile relishing that lodge’s adventure tours. From Chile’s north and Andean culture, I flew to capital Santiago, overnighted, and then took a nearly six-hour flight to Easter Island’s teeny airport where a large sign greeted, “Iorana,” and a floor turtle mosaic, wooden whale sculpture and strumming ukulele player added to the delightful aura.

For sure, I was utterly entranced way before a fragrant flowery lei was draped over my head while wild chickens cutely ran amok in the baggage claim. Plus, I witnessed a hot commodity: dozens of passengers hand-carried boxes of Dunkin’ doughnuts bought at Santiago’s airport; crates of Dunkin’ doughnuts also emptied onto the carousel with checked luggage. Rapu Nui has no chain stores, so Dunkin’ ring-shaped pastries  — such as glazed or strawberry sprinkled — are apparently like crack for locals.

Since the moai were ultimate guardians, almost all had their backs to the sea so from their hallowed platforms (ahu) they could watch over inland villages for as many as 18 tribes. The later moai wore 13-ton red hats (pukao) symbolizing how the superior class tied their lengthy hair into topknots and painted the ‘dos with red dirt. Back then, the statues gazed out with white coral eyes that when inserted supposedly sprung the moai to life.

BIZARRE BIRDMAN

Around the 17th century, tribal warfare erupted, partly due to depleting natural resources. Opposing factions knocked over their rivals’ moai face-first, breaking them, “which was the highest form of disrespect,” Cecilia noted. Eyes were dug out and shattered, further zapping the moai’s power. Interestingly, none of the island’s toppled moai stood upright until archeologists started restoring them from the mid-1950s on.

One of the goriest battles, according to Rapa Nui folklore, happened between the underclass, oppressed Short Ears and the privileged, dominating Long Ears who may have worn heavy ornaments in their lobes. The Long Ears lit a ditch ablaze planning to kill the Short Ears, but the Short Ears snuck behind and flung the Long Ears into the fiery pyre, incinerating almost the whole clan.

Cue the Birdman cult.  After the moai purge, to bring peace and select an overall island leader, wannabe rulers picked athletic proxies to win a treacherous race held annually for about the next 186 years. “These guys were crazy,” Otea said, describing how each contestant had to scramble down a sheer 1,000-foot sea cliff, swim a mile in shark-infested waters, camp out until he obtained the migrating sooty tern’s egg, swim back with the unbroken egg fastened to his forehead, and ascend the perilous cliff. If he survived.

“It was like the ‘Hunger Games,’” Otea said. “And why did they do this? For political control.”

We were ambling in the misty rain through Orongo, the cult’s ceremonial village of squat, elliptical stone houses. These were the honchos’ quarters for feasting and praying until the first competitor brought back an egg to his chief, who was then crowned Birdman, shaving his own head, painting it a sacred mana red, and plunking on a human hair wig. Anointed as the reincarnation of creator god Makemake, the Birdman went into isolation for a year, not bathing or cutting his fingernails.

The cult eventually collapsed after Peruvian slave ships captured roughly 1,500 men — nearly half of Rapa Nui’s population — who were forced into brutal labor in Peru. The few who returned brought smallpox and by 1877, there were only 111 inhabitants on the island.

QUARRIES AND QUESTIONS

I tried to sort this all out in my eco-stylish room at Nayara, furnished with  polished cypress tree pillars, a volcanic rock sink and a handmade clay bathtub baked in a special oven. Sometimes a neighbor’s sweet, graying black Lab slept outside my door. En route to my breakfast, mother hens and their darling chicks pecked along the pathway to the hotel’s Poerava restaurant across from the Pacific. At the entry, a decorative wood-whittled moai supervised muffins and a fruit bowl on the enticing buffet.

Finally, I went with guide Otea to the most fascinating and spine-tingling location on Rapa Nui, the Rano Raraku quarry, birthplace of 95% of the moai and now a necropolis for 400 of them. Some megaliths are half-buried, tilting, incomplete or still attached to bedrock. A rogue moai, isolated on a slope, is inexplicably the island’s only one kneeling and sporting a goatee.

As for all the moai’s production, various theories suggest either scores of craftsmen or, alternately, just six, created each statue chipping away with stone tools. From the quarry moai factory, the figures were transported miles, but how? Different answers abound: perhaps up to 180 people pulled ropes to drag a horizontal moai on a sled over rolling logs, or a divine presence commanded the statues to “walk” themselves, or dozens of islanders used ropes to rhythmically rock a vertical moai side to side “as if you’re moving a refrigerator,” Otea said.

And there’s the question of how the hefty red pukao, carved in a separate quarry about 10 miles from the Rano Raraku one, ended up atop the moai’s noggins. Were the hats rolled on the ground and then up ramps? Maybe. Now you understand why I again became spellbindingly engrossed in this mystical open-air museum, which also includes a magnetic rock believed to increase women’s fertility and the Ahu Nau Nau moai where the island’s first queen might’ve been entombed.

Too soon I was strolling past souvenir moai snow globes in the world’s most remote airport, Easter Island’s Mataveri International. No surprise, feral chickens comically mixed with suitcases and passengers in the departure area. A sculptor’s modern authentic-looking moai statue rose outside in the garden; wait, as I strode toward the tarmac to board my plane, did it smirk?

​ Orange County Register 

Castle Park in Riverside lays off more than 100 employees during makeover

• October 7, 2026

Castle Park has sent out layoff notices to more than 100 ride attendants, restaurant workers and supervisors that will take effect just before Christmas as the Riverside amusement park begins a major expansion and makeover.

Castle Park will lay off 130 employees while operations are paused to create a reimagined experience at the ride park, according to a WARN letter filed with the State of California Employment Development Department.

ALSO SEE: Castle Park to expand amusement park with reimagined ride area

The layoffs were announced in a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) letter sent to state employment officials on Sunday, Oct. 4.

Employees were given 60 days notice with all separations to take place on Dec. 4 during the Christmas holiday season.

“We are committed to Castle Park’s future,” the family entertainment center founded in 1976 wrote in the WARN letter.

Castle Park will temporarily close all of its 21 rides on Nov. 2 while the ride area is expanded at the family entertainment center along the 91 Freeway.

“We’re investing in Castle Park to create a reimagined experience for our guests and the Riverside community,” according to the Castle Park website. “The ride park will pause operations so we can plan and rebuild for the future.”

ALSO SEE: Disneyland raises ticket prices with the smallest increase in years

Castle Park said in the WARN letter that the permanent layoffs would eliminate 18 positions.

The Castle Park layoffs include 55 ride and amusement attendants, 23 food and beverage employees, 13 admissions and guest services associates and 12 managers and supervisors.

“We have advised impacted employees in writing of the upcoming Castle Park facility’s closure and of the layoffs taking place,” Castle Park wrote in the WARN letter.

A reopening date has not been set for the Castle Park ride area.

“Our plans are evolving to create the best experience for our guests,” according to the Castle Park website. “We’re taking the time to plan the right rebuild and will share updates as plans take shape.”

ALSO SEE: Disneyland passholders stood in the way of maximizing profits, Chapek says

Castle Park’s arcade and miniature golf areas will remain open during the makeover of the ride area.

The Castle Dark seasonal Halloween event will continue as scheduled through Nov. 1.

The Buccaneer Cove water park will return in May when seasonal operations resume.

Castle Park went through a series of ownership changes in 2025 with the park changing hands from Palace Entertainment to Herschend to Lucky Strike Entertainment.

The 30-acre amusement park’s ride collection includes classics like the Scrambler, Tilt-a-Whirl and Kings Crown wave swings. Among the rarer rides are a Gravitron centrifugal force flying saucer, a Ring of Fire super looper thrill ride, the dragon-themed flying scooters and a children’s whip turntable ride. Castle Park’s Antique Car Ride used to operate at Knott’s Berry Farm in Buena Park.

​ Orange County Register 

Dan Albano’s Orange County high school football Top 35 rankings

• October 7, 2026

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

Here is how I voted this week in the Orange County football Top 25 poll.

There are three voters each week in the poll:

1. Santa Margarita 6-0

2. Mater Dei 4-2

3. Orange Lutheran 4-2

4. Mission Viejo 5-1

5. JSerra 4-2

6. San Clemente 6-0

7. Servite 3-3

8. Crean Lutheran 4-2

9. Corona del Mar 6-0

10. Huntington Beach 6-0

11. Capistrano Valley 6-0

12. San Juan Hills 5-1

13. Tustin 4-2

14. El Modena 5-1

15. Yorba Linda 0-6

16. Villa Park 5-1

17. Dana Hills 6-0

18. Orange 6-0

19. La Habra 5-1

20. Edison 2-4

21. Laguna Beach 4-2

22. Trabuco Hills 4-2

23. Newport Harbor 4-2

24. El Dorado 3-3

25. Los Alamitos 0-6

Albano’s Next 10

Rank, school, record, previous rank

26. Cypress 5-1 (29)

27. Troy 3-3 (26)

28. Pacifica 5-1 (27)

29. Brea Olinda 4-2 (30)

30. El Toro 4-2 (28)

31. Laguna Hills 5-1 (32)

32. Foothill 2-4 (33)

33. Fullerton 4-2 (not ranked)

34. Segerstrom 3-3 (not ranked)

35. Irvine 4-2 (31)

Also considered: Canyon 5-1, Portola 5-1

​ Orange County Register