Senate ready to stay up all night to pass GOP budget over objections from Democrats

• February 21, 2025

By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senators are ready to stay up all night, having launched a budget “vote-a-rama” late Thursday in a crucial, if dreaded, step toward unleashing a $340 billion package President Donald Trump’s team says it needs for mass deportations and security measures that top the Republican agenda.

If ever there was a time to watch Congress in action, this might be it. Or not. Senators will be voting in rapid fashion for hours on one amendment after another diving into intricate policy details, largely from Democrats trying to halt the package. The result will be a final push by the Republicans, expected in the early hours of the morning, to use their majority power to pass it on a party-line vote.

“What we’re doing today is jumpstarting a process that will allow the Republican Party to meet President Trump’s immigration agenda,” Senate Budget Committee chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said while opening the debate.

Graham said Trump’s top immigration czar, Tom Homan, told senators that the administration’s deportation operations are “out of money” and need more funding from Congress to detain and deport immigrants.

With little power in the minority to stop the onslaught, Democrats will instead use the all-night debate to force GOP senators into potentially embarrassing votes — including the first one, on blocking tax breaks to billionaires. It was turned back, on procedural grounds.

“This is going to be a long, drawn out fight,” warned Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer.

“Days like today, where we vote on amendments late into the night, go a long way in revealing where each party stands and who each party is fighting for,” the New York senator said. “Democrats are glad to have this debate.”

The package that senators are pushing forward is what Republicans view as a down-payment on Trump’s agenda, part of a broader effort that will eventually include legislation to extend some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and other priorities. That’s being assembled by House Speaker Mike Johnson in a separate budget package that also seeks up to $2 trillion in reductions to health care and other programs.

Trump has preferred what he calls one “big, beautiful bill,” but the White House is open to the Senate’s strategy of working on the border package first, then turning to tax cuts later this year.

As voting began, the president posted a thank you to Senate Majority Leader John Thune “and the Republican Senate, for working so hard on funding the Trump Border Agenda.”

What’s in the Senate GOP package

The Republican Senate package would allow up to $175 billion to be spent on border security, including money for mass deportation operations and building the U.S.-Mexico border wall, in addition to a $150 billion boost to the Pentagon and about $20 billion for the Coast Guard.

But even if the Senate pushed the package to approval in the all-night session, there won’t be any money flowing just yet.

The budget resolution is simply a framework that sends instructions to the various Senate committees — Homeland Security, Armed Services, Judiciary — to hammer out the details. Everything will eventually be assembled in another package, with another vote-a-rama, down the road.

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the No. 2-ranking Senate Republican, said GOP lawmakers are acting quickly to get the administration the resources they have requested and need to curb illegal border crossings.

“The budget will allow us to finish the wall. It also takes the steps we need toward more border agents,” Barrasso said. “It means more detention beds… It means more deportation flights.”

Republicans insist the whole thing will be paid for, rather than piled onto debt, and they are considering various options with both spending cuts and new revenues.

The committees may decide to roll back the Biden administration’s methane emissions fee, which was approved by Democrats as part of climate change strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act, and hoping to draw new revenue from energy leases as they aim to spur domestic energy production.

Democrats are ready for battle

First up from Democrats will be a vote to prevent tax breaks for billionaires, according to a person familiar with the planning and granted anonymity to discuss it.

Democrats argue that the GOP tax cuts approved in 2017 flowed to the wealthiest Americans, and extending them as Trump wants Congress to do later this year would extend the giveaway.

Schumer launched a strategy earlier this week to use this first budget debate to focus on both the implications of the tax policy and also the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, which is slashing across the federal government.

It’s a better approach for Democrats than arguing against tougher border security and deportations, which divides the party.

Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the single biggest driver of the national debt since 2001 has been a series of Republican-led tax cuts.

“And you’ll never guess what our Republican colleagues on the other side of the aisle are focused on right now, nothing to lower the cost of eggs, it’s actually more Republican tax cuts,” Murray said.

She called the budget plan a “roadmap for painful cuts to programs families count on each and every day, all so they can give billionaires more tax cuts.”

Congress is racing itself

The budget resolution is setting up what’s called the reconciliation process, which used to be rare, but is now the tool often used to pass big bills on party-line votes when one party has control of the White House and Congress, as Republicans do now.

But Republicans are arguing with themselves over how to proceed. The House is marching ahead on its “big, beautiful bill,” believing they have one chance to get it right. The Senate views its two-bill strategy as more practical, delivering on border security first, then turning to taxes later.

Budget rules allow for passage by a simple majority vote, which is key in the Senate where it typically takes 60 votes to break a filibuster on big items. During Trump’s first term, Republicans used the reconciliation process to pass GOP tax cuts in 2017. Democrats used reconciliation during the Biden presidency era to approve COVID-19 relief and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Trump appears to be stirring the fight, pitting Republicans in the House and Senate against each other to see which one delivers fastest.

Associated Press writers Matt Brown and Darlene Superville contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

3 accused of Southern California robbery spree that ended in a shooting face slew of charges

• February 21, 2025

Two San Fernando Valley residents and a Long Beach man face a slew of charges in connection with a two-week crime spree across Los Angeles and Orange counties that ended with a doughnut shop employee firing his gun at the suspects.

A federal grand jury charged the defendants — a 36-year-old man and 49-year-old woman from North Hollywood and a 23-year-old man from Long Beach — with one count each of conspiracy to commit interference with commerce by robbery (the Hobbs Act), three counts of Hobbs Act robbery and one count of attempted Hobbs Act robbery, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced on Thursday, Feb. 20.

The men have also been charged with an additional count of Hobbs Act robbery and four counts of brandishing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, and the North Hollywood man also faces charges for reportedly being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

Between Jan. 29 and Feb. 14, the defendants are accused of robbing 12 businesses, including a smoke shop in Tustin; nine 7-Eleven stores in North Hollywood, Burbank, Torrance, Van Nuys, Long Beach, Glendale and Pasadena and two doughnut shops in Los Angeles and Downey.

Prosecutors allege many of the robberies happened late at night, when the men would enter each business, and, in some of the robberies, the North Hollywood woman would outside as a getaway driver.

During the crime spree, the North Hollywood man and woman allegedly fled to Las Vegas on Feb. 6, where they were married before they returned to California and committed another robbery on Feb. 8, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The spree ended after the trio attempted to rob a doughnut shop in Downey in the early hours of Valentine’s Day, according to court documents.

An employee told authorities he saw one of the men had a handgun in his front waistband, ran to the back kitchen area and grabbed his own firearm to defend himself. The employee fired at least one shot, hitting the wall behind the men and getting them to run out of the shop, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

Police witnessed the attempted robbery and pulled over a car with the three defendants and later found a firearm in the vehicle, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The defendants, who have been in federal custody since last year. will be arraigned in coming weeks. A trial is scheduled to begin on May 6.

If convicted of all charges, the defendants face up to 20 years in federal prison for each violation of the Hobbs Act. The men face a minimum sentence of seven years in federal prison for each count of brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence, and the charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition carry up 15 years in federal prison each.

The charges are part of a superceding indictment following some initial charges that were filed against the trio in May 2024.

​ Orange County Register 

Texas AG asks court to require NCAA to begin gender testing as part of new transgender policy

• February 21, 2025

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — The Republican attorney general in Texas wants the NCAA to take its transgender policy a step further and require gender testing for athletes who compete in women’s sports.

AG Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit in December in state district court and on Thursday added a filing that seeks a court order requiring gender screening for athletes and an injunction intended to prevent the NCAA from “falsely and deceptively claiming that only biological women may participate in female-specific competitions.”

Earlier this month, the NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes, limiting competition in women’s sports to athletes who were assigned female at birth. The move came a day after President Donald Trump signed an executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from women’s and girls’ sports.

Paxton doesn’t think the NCAA move goes far enough because, saying the NCAA has no mechanism for screening the sex of athletes.

“In practice, the NCAA’s lack of sex-screening has allowed (and will continue to allow) biological men to surreptitiously participate in ‘women’s’ sports categories,” the lawsuit claims.

Over the past year, transgender athletes have become a target of critics who say their participation in women’s sports is unfair and a potential safety risk. The topic became a major talking point in Trump’s re-election campaign even though there is believed to be a very small number of transgender athletes; NCAA President Charlie Baker in December said he knew of only 10 transgender athletes out of more than 500,000 across the NCAA.

The NCAA’s revised policy permits athletes assigned male at birth to practice with women’s teams and receive benefits such as medical care. An athlete assigned female at birth who has begun hormone therapy can practice with a women’s team but cannot compete on a women’s team without risking the team’s eligibility for championships.

Paxton also said the NCAA has left “ample opportunity for biological men to alter their birth records and participate in women’s sports,” a claim the organization said is not true.

“The policy is clear that there are no waivers available, and student-athlete assigned male at birth may not compete on a women’s team with amended birth certificates or other forms of ID,” the NCAA said in an emailed response to The Associated Press.

Member schools — there are 1,100 in the NCAA — are responsible for certifying athlete eligibility for practice and competition. Local, state and federal legislation can supersede NCAA rules.

Paxton’s filing refers to last week’s announcement by World Athletics that part of its new recommended guidelines would bring back gender testing, a practice that hasn’t been part of track and field since the 1990s. Most of the screenings can be done by swabbing the inside of an athlete’s cheek.

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports

​ Orange County Register 

Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani exploring options with pitching mechanics

• February 21, 2025

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Something will look different about Shohei Ohtani when he goes back to pitching in games and it won’t just be the Dodgers uniform.

During his first two bullpen sessions this spring, Ohtani has thrown primarily out of the windup. During his days pitching for the Angels, Ohtani almost exclusively pitched out of the stretch.

“Traditionally, I’ve been throwing from the stretch a lot,” Ohtani said through his interpreter on Thursday. “But as part of being a baseball player, I do want to explore different options, different avenues, to see if I could grow as a player. I do that on the pitching side as well as as a hitter.”

Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said it was not something suggested by the team “but I imagine he’s just trying to get some rhythm and feeling for his arm stroke in a better way.”

Ohtani said he plans to continue using the windup and take it into games when he reaches that stage.

“But again, with increasing the intensity, I do want to see how the body responds, how I respond to it,” he said. “So yes, as of now, that’s the plan.”

Ohtani is not expected to make his post-surgery pitching debut with the Dodgers until some time in May and the only games he will participate in before then are likely to be simulated games. The Dodgers do not plan to have Ohtani pitch in Cactus League games or go on a minor-league rehab assignment before he returns to MLB as a pitcher.

“There’s some complicating factors,” Gomes said. “Looking at the schedule, we have a general sense of what we’d like to do right now. But obviously once we get there, (we will) continue to talk to Sho and build him up so that – he’s not going to be able to go on a rehab assignment – he feels as prepared as possible when he goes into a regular game.”

Ohtani actually could go on a rehab assignment as a pitcher while staying in the Dodgers’ lineup at DH. MLB added that rule for two-way players when Ohtani was returning from his first Tommy John surgery in 2020. The pandemic led to the cancellation of the minor-league season and the Angels never put it to use.

Gomes said the Dodgers have not even looked into using the rule because they anticipate using simulated games alone to get Ohtani ready to return.

“I think a lot of that will be conversations with Sho,” Gomes said. “But I think understanding that these (sim) games will be treated as your rehab games, there will be an inherent uptick in effort. And if he isn’t getting out of those what he needs, then we can pivot. But that will be the plan right now and we’ll see how it’s landing with him, how he’s feeling and if we need to make an adjustment we certainly will.”

SHO STARTER

Mookie Betts batted first in Thursday’s Cactus League opener against the Chicago Cubs, but Roberts said Ohtani will go back to the leadoff spot once the DH is ready to hit in games.

Betts started last season as the Dodgers’ leadoff hitter with Ohtani second. But Ohtani moved into the leadoff spot when Betts was hit by a pitch and suffered a fractured hand in mid-June. Ohtani stayed there for the rest of the season.

This year, Roberts said he plans to go with Ohtani, Betts, Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez, in that order, at the top of the lineup.

“I think it just makes the most sense and is the hardest to navigate (for opposing teams),” Roberts said. “It gives Shohei five at-bats a night.”

KERSHAW CONTRACT

When Clayton Kershaw re-signed with the Dodgers last week, it was a one-year deal with a base salary of only $7.5 million. But Kershaw could earn up to $16 million in 2025 if he reaches the bonus levels included in the contract, according to The Associated Press.

Kershaw will get $1 million each for making 13, 14, 15 and 16 starts. The three-time Cy Young Award winner will receive an additional $2.5 million for being on the active roster for 30 days and an additional $1 million each for being on the active roster for 60 and 90 days.

Kershaw had surgery on his left foot and knee in November and is not expected to make his season debut until May at the earliest. Last year, he didn’t pitch for the Dodgers until July after undergoing shoulder surgery the previous fall. He made only seven starts before the pain in his foot ended his season at the end of August.

He averaged 27 starts per season in the 15 full seasons before last year.

​ Orange County Register 

Kids’ disability rights cases stalled as Trump began to overhaul Education Department

• February 21, 2025

By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, COLLIN BINKLEY and ANNIE MA

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was obvious to Christine Smith Olsey that her son was not doing well at school, despite educators telling her to leave it to the experts. The second-grade student stumbled over words, and other kids teased him so much he started to call himself “an idiot.”

Though her son had been receiving speech and occupational therapy, Smith Olsey said his Denver charter school resisted her requests for additional academic support. She filed a complaint with the state and then, in September, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.

In January, her son’s case came to a halt.

“I have to postpone meetings with you to discuss the case,” a department mediator wrote to her on Jan. 23, three days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. “I am sorry for the inconvenience. I will be in touch as I am able.”

As Trump began to reshape the Education Department, investigations and mediations around disability rights issues came to a standstill.

Standing up for children with disabilities has been a primary role of the department’s civil rights office, which enforces protections guaranteed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Historically, most complaints to the department have involved disability discrimination — parents saying their disabled child is not receiving accommodations they need to learn, which schools must provide under federal law.

It’s not unusual for new presidential administrations to freeze cases while they adjust priorities, but exceptions typically are made for urgent situations, such as a child’s immediate learning situation. The freeze on pending cases and Trump’s calls to dismantle the department altogether left many parents worrying about the federal government’s commitment to disabled students’ rights.

In the first weeks of the Trump administration, the Education Department has launched investigations of complaints involving antisemitism and transgender athletes allowed to compete in women’s sports, delivering on Trump’s vow to use federal funding as leverage to assail perceived “wokeness” in schools.

It’s worrisome the administration has said so little about responding to complaints from families of students with disabilities, said Catherine Lhamon, who led the Office for Civil Rights under former presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

“If it is not aggressively engaged in protecting those rights, the office is not doing its job,” Lhamon said in an interview.

An Education Department spokesperson said the Office for Civil Rights ended the pause on its review of disability complaints Thursday, after The Associated Press asked for comment on the findings of reporting for this story. The Trump administration lifted its pause on disability cases sooner than the Biden administration did in its first months in office, spokesperson Julie Hartman said.

Progress stalled for families relying on federal intervention

The freeze had upended progress for families like Smith Olsey’s, whose children’s special education services may hinge on the outcomes of the department’s dispute resolution process.

“It’s a scary time right now to be a parent of special needs kiddos,” Smith Olsey said.

Her son has been diagnosed with attention-deficit / hyperactivity disorder, autism, dyslexia, and dyscalculia, a learning disorder caused by differences in parts of the brain involved with numbers and calculations. Since preschool, he has had an individualized education program for a developmental delay.

This month, the school agreed her son needs extra academic help, but she is seeking compensatory services to make up for time he went without adequate support. She also is seeking reimbursement for money she spent out of pocket on therapy, tutoring and testing.

When families believe their child is not receiving adequate services for their disability, filing a complaint with the Education Department is one way of prompting districts to provide additional help. Parents may also file a complaint with state agencies or pursue litigation.

Education Department serves as referee of disability rights cases

Between 2021 and 2024, the department’s Office for Civil Rights received 27,620 complaints related to disability rights. The office is required to process all complaints it fields, but politics can play a role in setting priorities and choosing which cases to pursue.

Typically, more than half of the complaints to the department have involved disability discrimination, but last year accusations of sex discrimination surged to account for a majority of them, according to an annual report. Disability discrimination accounted for 37%, while discrimination over race or national origin accounted for 19%.

In recent years, the office has seen a significant decline in its staffing, even as the number of cases it must look into has increased.

Parents and advocates say they are concerned about the future of the department’s oversight role as Trump and his nominee for education secretary, Linda McMahon, outline a vision for a dramatically reduced footprint for the agency.

At her confirmation hearing, Democrats pressed McMahon on whether she would support the department’s enforcement role in disability rights. She suggested the Department of Health and Human Services could take over that work.

“There is a reason the Department of Education exists, and it is because educating kids with disabilities can be really hard,” Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., said during the hearing. “It takes national commitment to get it done.”

The freeze leaves families feeling outraged and adrift

In the fall, DarNisha Hardaway was relieved when an Education Department mediator found her son’s school needed to reevaluate him and provide tutoring. She had filed a complaint with the department after a series of suspensions that she said stemmed from her son being overwhelmed and not getting enough academic help. The 12-year-old has an intellectual disability, autism and epilepsy.

The Education Department, Hardaway said, “made the school system do what they’re supposed to do.”

If the school district broke the mediation agreement, she was told to contact the Office for Civil Rights again. This month, after her son had an outburst in class, his suburban Detroit school told her he would need to learn online for the rest of the year — a ruling Hardaway saw as a violation of his disability accommodations. On Tuesday, an Office for Civil Rights representative told her they could not respond with any substantive information.

Every day she waits, her son learns in front of a computer. “He can’t learn online, and DarNisha is not a teacher,” said Marcie Lipsitt, who is working with the family. “The OCR is just closed for business, and I’m outraged.”

Complaints about racial discrimination in schools are also pending.

Tylisa Guyton of Taylor, Michigan, filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights on Jan. 20 over her 16-year-old son’s repeated suspensions from a suburban Detroit school district, alleging a white administrator has been targeting him and a group of other Black children.

The teen has been out of school since Dec. 4 with the latest suspension, and she has heard nothing about when he might be allowed to return or be placed in an alternative school. Since missing so much school, she doubts he will be able to graduate on time.

“I just feel lost,” she 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 

Santa Ana Unified settles lawsuit over allegedly antisemitic ethnic studies courses

• February 21, 2025

The Santa Ana Unified School District agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by several Jewish advocacy groups for allegedly violating open meeting laws by secretly developing ethnic studies courses that the organizations said were “infected with antisemitism.”

As part of the settlement, SAUSD schools will stop teaching the ethnic studies courses after the current school year until they are redesigned with public input. The district is also required to acknowledge that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a “controversial” topic, per the settlement.

The settlement reads, “Materials that, for example, teach, state, or imply that the Jewish people do not have a right to self-determination (e.g. by claiming the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavor) or teach, describe, or refer to double standards by requiring of Israel a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation shall not be used unless taught through an appropriate critical lens.”

District spokesperson Fermin Leal declined to comment on the settlement.

The SAUSD school board approved ethnic studies courses in 2023 that taught about colonialism and cultural appropriation, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In September 2023, a group of Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, filed a lawsuit against the school district, alleging that the approved curriculum taught “false and damaging narratives about Israel and the Jewish people.”

The lawsuit alleges that SAUSD’s ethnic studies courses “include one-sided anti-Israel screeds and propaganda that teaches students — falsely — that Israel is an illegitimate, ‘settler colonial,’ ‘racist’ country that ‘stole’ land from a pre-existing country called Palestine and engages in unprovoked warfare against Palestinian Arabs.”

The suit also alleged that the ethnic studies courses were developed behind closed doors by a committee handpicked by the superintendent, violating the state’s open meeting laws. The Ralph M. Brown Act gives the public the right to attend and participate in the meetings of public entities.

“The public was deprived of its legal opportunity to address the content of these courses before the Board approved them, because the Board failed to give the community the legally required opportunity to learn about the content and comment on it at public meetings of the Board,” the lawsuit alleged.

Carly Gammill, director of legal policy at the nonprofit StandWithUs said the settlement is important to ensure that Jewish students do not become targeted and “generations of students are not indoctrinated with false and hateful information.” StandWithUs, a nonprofit Israel education organization, provided legal support in the lawsuit.

“My hope is that they will do what ethnic studies is actually intended to do, which is to promote multiculturalism, not to promote bias, favoritism or disfavor views regarding one group or another, but in fact, to talk about the ways in which different communities have contributed to various aspects of life in California,” Gammill said.

Acknowledging that the Israel-Palestine conflict is controversial, Gammill said, ensures that SAUSD will include all voices and multiple perspectives and narratives.

“This is very meaningful to me to know that antisemitism isn’t being secretly brought into our local classrooms, you know, under the guise of ethnic studies,” said Marci Miller, director of legal investigations at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. “We entirely support ethnic studies. It should be told from all of the perspectives that it needs to be told from. It shouldn’t be used as a cover for biased materials.”

Miller said she hopes other districts learn from this suit that transparency is important and will be enforced.

“When future courses are developed, there will be full transparency, and the public and parents and any groups who have a stake will be included in the development of the curriculum before it’s approved,” Miller said. “What’s done in the dark allows for a lot more bias and inappropriate material to come in, and that’s why it’s so important that we have these laws like the Brown Act, which requires everything to be done in public.”

CAIR-LA Legal Director Amr Shabaik said he is concerned that SAUSD will cease to teach ethnic studies courses that highlight the stories and histories of marginalized people, most specifically the experiences of the Palestinian people.

“Anytime anyone mentions Palestine, there are these targeted attacks. This is just another example of that, unfortunately,” Shabaik said. “The Nakba, the displacement of Palestinians in 1948, the history leading up to the displacement of Palestinians and how that continues to this day with the genocide and exile or apartheid systems put in place, or illegal occupation of Palestinian lands — those are real, actual experiences and events, and that’s really what ethnic studies is intended to center and tell the stories of, to discuss the systems of oppression and marginalizing.”

It is crucial, Shabaik added, that school districts, including SAUSD, continue to center the voices of communities that have been historically oppressed and marginalized in their ethnic studies curriculum.

“Especially here in Orange County, there is a large Arab American population,” Shabaik said. “What is the message you’re sending to your students when you continue to sideline them, not include their stories, tell them impliedly or explicitly that they are less than, that their stories aren’t important? That is devastating and damaging to a student, especially given the fact that ethnic studies is intended to address much of that.”

The settlement is an attack on education, truth and justice, said Rashad Al-Dabbagh, executive director of the Arab American Civic Council.

“At a time when Palestinians are experiencing a genocide, it is more important than ever for students to learn about their history and struggles,” Al-Dabbagh said. “Our schools should foster critical thinking, not bend to political pressure that seeks to silence marginalized communities.”

​ Orange County Register 

Lakers without Luka Doncic, Jarred Vanderbilt tonight in Portland

• February 20, 2025

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Lakers will be without one of their star players and one of their better defenders for tonight’s road game against the Portland Trail Blazers.

The Lakers listed Luka Doncic (left calf injury management) and Jarred Vanderbilt (right foot surgery management) as out against the Blazers at Moda Center, which was the second night of a back-to-back following Wednesday night’s home loss to the Charlotte Hornets.

Doncic was sidelined for 6½ weeks because of a strained left calf before making his return and his Lakers debut in the Feb. 10 home win over the Utah Jazz.

He had his minutes restrictions eased against the Hornets, playing 33 minutes after playing 23 and 24 minutes in his first two games with the Lakers.

Vanderbilt was sidelined for nearly a year because of foot ailments and had surgery on both feet during the offseason. He made his return to the floor in the Jan. 25 road win over the Golden State Warriors. Vanderbilt hasn’t played in both games of a back-to-back set since returning.

The Lakers listed star forward LeBron James as questionable because of left foot injury management.

He played against the Hornets, recording 26 points, 11 assists, seven rebounds and a pair of blocked shots in 38 minutes after sitting out of Sunday’s All-Star Game because of lingering left foot/ankle soreness, which he’s been listed on the team’s injury reports with consistently since December.

More to come on this story

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​ Orange County Register 

Scottish Highland bull on the loose in Connecticut’s rural hill country

• February 20, 2025

KENT, Conn. (AP) — A Scottish Highland bull is the talk of the town in the rural hills of western Connecticut, where it has been roaming for over a month in the frigid winter weather after escaping from its confines.

Local residents have reported sporadic sightings, including a few over the past week, said Lee Sohl, the animal control officer in Kent. It was recently seen just over the town line in New Milford.

“People keep spotting it and they don’t know that people are looking for it,” Sohl said in a phone interview Thursday. “If somebody calls me about a sighting, then I tell the owner and they’ve been doing their best. They run right out and try to get to it. But it’s hard. It’s hard in this weather, and it’s very scared.”

The owner, Jo Ann Joray, said there have been people out looking for the bull, but they haven’t been able to catch it.

Photos posted on social media by people who have spotted the bull have drawn a range of comments, from ones expressing sympathy for its plight, to others saying the bull is adorable to one saying it would produce good steaks.

Stray farm animals are nothing new in the area. Cows, horses and goats get loose on occasion, Sohl said.

“That’s just where we live,” she said.

The bull’s story evoked memories of Buddy the beefalo, a bison hybrid who roamed the woods in central Connecticut for months in 2020 and 2021 after escaping on the way to the slaughterhouse. Buddy was eventually caught and moved to a Florida animal sanctuary.

Scottish Highland cattle are known as a hardy breed that can live outside all year, according to the Highland Cattle Society in Scotland. That’s good for the Connecticut bull because temperatures have been below freezing for several days.

​ Orange County Register