Larry Wilson: King Trump and the oligarchs vs. a free press

• March 15, 2025

Much as they might wish to — and they do, they do — politicians don’t get to choose the members of the press who cover them.

The smart ones play the hands they are dealt. They know how to curry favor with the scribes, feeding them tips that will lead to good stories, walking the tightrope between on the record, on background, off the record.

The unwise common wisdom that because many reporters and editors are more politically liberal than your insurance agent means that the press protects liberal pols and goes after conservative ones is demonstrably untrue. Two words: Barack Obama. “Obama came into office pledging open government, but he has fallen short of his promise. Journalists and transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the press. Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources from speaking to journalists,” according to an investigative report by the Committee to Protect Journalists during Obama’s first term.

But the tension is ancient, even on the short American timeline. Thomas Jefferson said of Federalist editors: “They never utter a truth,” and “Every syllable from me is distorted.”

Which brings us to what would be merely the opera bouffe, if it weren’t so dystopian, present, a time in which President Donald Trump bans reporters from the Associated Press news agency from Air Force One and pool coverage because their editors decline to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America on a whim.

Doesn’t Trump know that this whole thing is just a bit, a parodic idea created by liberal comic Stephen Colbert back when he pretended to be a crackpot conservative?

Doesn’t he know he sounds like the newly created Central American dictator in “Bananas,” who announces to a crowd, “Hear me. I am your new president. … All citizens will be required to change their underwear every half hour. Underwear will be worn on the outside, so we can check”?

Doesn’t he know that his big business buddies are now laughing at him behind his back, even as their own portfolios are withering in the Trump “correction”? That it’s only the California tech bros who will now “stand back and stand by,” because the oligarchs literally want our economy to collapse, so they can snap up assets on the cheap, Moscow-style, once we go fully post-democracy?

Whatever. It’s just no fun anymore, trying to laugh at the current president when his completely insane economic policies are crashing the equities markets, which is nothing like an abstraction when you’re approaching retirement and your 401(k) is in the tank because the president of the United States, the bankruptcy king, doesn’t understand the fundamentals of international finance and trade.

No one in the media, by the way, supports the Trump ban on AP reporters. Dozens of news organizations have signed a letter of protest sent to the president, including, yes, The New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post  — but also Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the far-right Newsmax.

The White House Correspondents’ Association coordinated the letter decrying the ban of  The Associated Press as  “an escalation of a dispute that does not serve the presidency or the public.”

“The First Amendment prohibits the government from asserting control over how news organizations make editorial decisions. Any attempt to punish journalists for those decisions is a serious breach of this constitutional protection.”

Newsmax wrote: “We can understand President Trump’s frustration because the media has often been unfair to him, but Newsmax still supports The AP’s right, as a private organization, to use the language it wants to use in its reporting. We fear a future administration may not like something Newsmax writes and seek to ban us.”

There’s the rub. And yet Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who at the ripe old age of 27 doesn’t yet understand that a tariff is a tax on Americans, says the AP is “insulting” her for pointing that out.

You know what’s really insulting? Oligarchy.

Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. [email protected].

​ Orange County Register 

One day, our morals will be sensitive to animals

• March 15, 2025

A long time ago on an island far, far away, a man by the name of Jeremy Bentham, with his beloved cat by his side (presumably), which he lovingly named, “The Reverend Sir John Langbourne,” wrote about the implications of his utilitarian views. Namely that, because his utilitarianism placed central importance on the minimization of suffering and the maximization of pleasure, and because non-human animals like the venerable Reverend can suffer, that animals deserve substantial ethical consideration. 

According to Bentham, just because they can’t reason doesn’t mean that they can’t suffer. Nowadays, thanks to the work of researchers, we’re starting to understand that not only can many non-human animal species suffer, but many of them can also reason to an astonishing degree. 

We all know that dolphins, orcas, many species of bird, primates, and elephants are highly intelligent, being able to learn, demonstrating complex social and emotional lives, and having the ability to solve difficult problems. Research is now strongly suggesting that animals which we may have thought are “dumb”, may possess similar cognitive capacities, even the ones that we eat. 

Chickens have demonstrated a remarkable ability to tailor their communications to specific contexts. For example, roosters will signal that there is a threat if they are in the presence of females but not in the presence of rival males. This suggests that they think about the social repercussions before they act. They also vary the pitch and frequency of the vocalizations depending on the size and proximity of the predator. Research also suggests that they are able to anticipate desirable or undesirable future events. 

The intelligence of pigs has also been well documented. They have been observed to use tools such as sticks and hard surfaces and play basic video games. Their success at the mirror test indicates that they are very much self-aware.

Cows do well in navigating maze tests, doing better than dogs, pigs, and sheep, demonstrating sophisticated spatial cognition. Not only do cows play – which is an indicator of curiosity, joy, and social cognition – they also show signs of excitement and pleasure when they learn and succeed during tests administered by researchers. 

If you thought fish were essentially just mindless meat torpedoes, I have bad news. Behind those completely dead eyes is an intelligence that uses tools such as rocky surfaces to break the shells of clams and other bivalves. Their social abilities go beyond simply grouping together in schools. They can also watch others fight to learn how much of a threat they are, they can remember individual rivals that they either beat or lost to, and are very picky about what cleaner fish they allow to groom them depending on several factors including whether they have observed them to be good cleaners.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the degree of non-human animal intelligence and research is still lacking. As more studies are performed, we will learn more about how much we have underestimated our fellow earthlings. 

We know all of this, and still we eat their meat and treat them like garbage. 

There’s just something in our clearly superior minds (not sarcasm) that doesn’t care enough to change. We know how much pain and suffering we create for animals and yet, as a society we have mostly found it acceptable. I don’t just refuse to stop contributing to the pain and suffering of these highly intelligent and emotional creatures, I contribute about as much as a single human can to the demand. All of my meals have plenty of meat in them – if there’s no meat then it’s barely even food, I say.

I suspect that many find themselves in a similar position. In the back of our minds, we know that animals are treated inhumanely for our pleasure and yet, we just ignore it. 

The aim here is not to chastise – moral progress is slow and often takes generations, much like the slow historical progress of human rights. It can hardly be said that it’s completely incomprehensible how our ancestors could hold such vicious views – their views were the norm at the time.

Much like we are now beginning to feel that there is something wrong with how we treat animals, perhaps some of our ancestors also had a feeling that what they were doing was wrong, but they simply didn’t have the motivation to change because it was their status-quo. It was up to successive generations – young ones often build on or rebel against the teachings of their parents. 

Like a professor once said to his ethics class, animal rights are the next big step in moral progress, and one day future humans will look back at us, much like we look back at past slave owners and say, “how could they do this?”

Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. He is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Rochester. You can reach him at [email protected]

​ Orange County Register 

If your camellia flowers are being ruined by fungus, you have some options

• March 15, 2025

Q. My camellia flowers are getting eaten at the base as they are opening. I don’t see any bugs and would like to know what is causing it and how to fix it.

Camellia flower blight is caused by a fungus (Ciborinia camelliae). It causes flower petals to turn brown and premature flower drop. Prevention includes the removal of fallen and affected flowers, weed removal, and pruning to improve air circulation inside the plant. Unfortunately, antifungals are not very effective because treatment can’t reach the fungus hiding inside the tight flower buds. 

If flower blight continues to be a problem, you can try growing blight-resistant varieties such as Kanjiro or Debutante.

Q. My houseplants were getting dusty, so I took them outside to hose them off and get some fresh air. After I brought them back inside, I noticed that many of the leaves looked bleached out. What happened?

Indoor plants are not accustomed to direct, unfiltered sunlight and can get sunburned. Think about going to the beach after spending all winter away from the sun, except you can’t put sunscreen on your plants.

If you want to give your plants a rinse, and it’s too cumbersome to use a spray bottle, hosing them off in the shower (be careful not to get potting soil in the drain!) or outdoors is effective, but you must take precautions when putting your indoor plants outside. Pick an overcast day and a sheltered spot. Once you’ve given your babies their rinse, bring them inside promptly. If you want to give them a chance to finish dripping, set a timer for 5 or 10 minutes so you don’t forget them. For my larger plants, I like to rinse them on the driveway, then drag them into the garage to dry off. 

If your plant has a lot of sunburn damage, give it a dilute fertilizer with every watering to help it recover.

Q. When can I plant tomatoes out in my garden? What about peppers, eggplants, and squash?

For tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and any other frost-tender plants, you’ll want to find out the last frost date for your area. For example, for most of the Inland Empire, the last frost date is March 15, but this can vary with altitude, proximity to water or development. I found a handy online map at https://www.plantmaps.com that shows this information in detail.

For direct seeding, wait until the soil has warmed up. This will usually be several weeks after the last frost date. If you plant seeds directly into cold soil, they will most likely rot in place without germinating. 

Los Angeles County

[email protected]; 626-586-1988; http://celosangeles.ucanr.edu/UC_Master_Gardener_Program/

Orange County

[email protected]; http://mgorange.ucanr.edu/

Riverside County

[email protected]; 951-955-0170; https://ucanr.edu/sites/RiversideMG/

San Bernardino County

[email protected]; 909-387-2182; http://mgsb.ucanr.edu

​ Orange County Register 

Governors to laid-off federal workers: We’ll hire you

• March 15, 2025

By Robbie Sequeira, Stateline.org

Among the thousands of federal workers who’ve been forced out or taken buyouts in the past month, surely some would be perfect fits for the many vacancies in Pennsylvania’s state government.

That, at least, is the thinking of Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who recently directed his state to not only offer aid to laid-off constituents, but also to repost some job openings.

He’s catching up to governors in other states — from Hawaii to Maryland — who see opportunity, even as they’re scrambling to help panicked residents. The Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency task force have been culling federal workers across agencies while also threatening anyone who doesn’t list in an email how they’re making good use of their time.

The number of announced terminations tracked by global data company Statista exceeded 16,000 as of Feb. 25. That’s in addition to the 75,000 federal employees who accepted buyouts offered by the administration in its earliest days. And President Donald Trump has directed Cabinet agencies to continue mass layoffs.

States are looking to hire those workers, though officials face challenges, such as offering lower salaries and having slower hiring processes.

In Maryland alone, Democratic Gov. Wes Moore estimates about 10,000 of his constituents could lose work in the shake-up. There are more than 5,000 openings in state government.

Pennsylvania has some 5,600 critical openings, from accountants to registered nurses, now described on a newly created website tailored to federal employees.

“This is an act of self-interest for the people of Pennsylvania, because I believe the commonwealth can benefit from the experience and expertise of these federal workers who have been forced out of their jobs,” Shapiro said.

Officials in New Mexico, New York and Virginia — among the states with the highest numbers of federal workers — say they’re offering a silver lining for all that displaced talent, providing ways to streamline the transition from federal government to jobs at the state and local level.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, made her recruitment pitch clear, stating, “The federal government might say, ‘You’re fired,’ but here in New York, we say, ‘You’re hired.’”

Hawaii’s Operation Hire Hawai’i is working to fast-track former federal employees into state agency jobs. Washington state lawmakers have introduced legislation to prioritize these displaced workers in hiring processes.

In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, launched the Virginia Has Jobs program — a website designed to help laid-off federal workers quickly connect with available state jobs.

Despite these efforts, states face significant hurdles in matching federal workers to state jobs. There are differing skill sets, mismatches in salaries, and the time it takes for a job application to wind its way through a state bureaucracy.

For workers, though, a lot of the difficulty is about coming to terms with the mind-boggling turn of events.

Emotional turmoil

For Victoria, who asked that she be identified by her middle name out of fear of retaliation, working for the federal government wasn’t just a job — it was a commitment to nonpartisan public service.

She worked for three years as a contractor for the Federal Aviation Administration before being hired last year to a permanent federal position.

“The reason I wanted to be a federal employee in the first place is because it’s supposed to be nonpartisan work,” she said. “We’re supposed to serve the public in pursuit of a mission, and for the FAA, that mission is aerospace safety.”

Her probation was to end in April. She didn’t make it.

“I got a call from our office manager at 6 p.m. on a Friday night, telling me I was being let go,” Victoria recalled.

She got her official termination email hours later, minutes before midnight. It included a list of resources she couldn’t access because they were, for her, suddenly behind a government firewall.

For people trying to assist workers such as Victoria, the scale and speed of the firings outpaced even what they figured was coming.

Caitlin Lewis is executive director at Work for America, a nonprofit that runs the new Civic Match initiative to help state governments recruit former federal workers. She foresaw a need for the project following the 2024 election.

“When we launched Civic Match in November, we anticipated about 4,000 political appointees and campaign staff seeking new jobs after the election. But what we’ve seen in the new year is a massive surge in laid-off civil servants looking for work,” said Lewis.

One of the biggest obstacles? State hiring is slow.

“The average time to hire in state government is 90 days. In local government, it’s 136 days. That’s a long process for workers who need jobs now.”

If states don’t act quickly, they risk losing experienced talent to the private sector, which moves faster in recruitment, she said. Many former federal workers are already transitioning into corporate roles, nonprofits and consulting firms rather than waiting for state job openings.

Beyond slow hiring, another challenge is that not all laid-off federal employees want to stay in government.

“I’m not actually 100% sure that every single one of those workers who may be impacted is looking for another job in government,” said Nicole Overley, commissioner of Virginia Works, a state agency focused on reemployment. “Virginia has over 4,500 open state jobs. But I’m not sure every individual who is transitioning from the federal workforce is necessarily looking for a state job.”

Overley added that many federal employees may not even be aware of state job resources available to them.

“In the last 48 hours, we’ve had over 1,000 job seekers register for the March 5th virtual job fair,” she said early this month. “I don’t know if all federal workers who are impacted know about the resources that are out there — and that’s where workforce development comes in.”

Some states are working to speed up the process. Hawaii, for instance, has expedited its state hiring process through an executive order from Democratic Gov. Josh Green. In Pennsylvania, Shapiro has told the state’s hiring office to compare federal work favorably to state work for the purposes of notching experience.

Maryland’s schools desperately need substitute teachers now, Moore said in announcing resources recently, and anyone with an associate’s degree can apply.

New Mexico is launching statewide initiatives that include a resource webpage, recruitment events and access to education and training programs.

In Washington, D.C., Mayor Murial Bowser has encouraged laid-off workers to consider district job openings, but she also wants to ensure they have access to unemployment benefits and housing support. The federal government is the district’s largest employer, and the layoffs could devastate the city’s economy.

Lower salaries

Another key hurdle is pay disparities between federal and state jobs.

In many states, federal workers make, on average, significantly more than state employees. They include Maryland, where federal workers earn 183% of state worker salaries, Virginia (175%), West Virginia (163%) and Idaho (157%), according to a Stateline review of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

In states where federal workers earn less than state employees, such as New York (77% of state workers’ salaries) and California (97%), the transitions might be easier, though the costs of living in those states are among the highest in the nation.

For Hawaii, the challenge is particularly stark. The state has one of the highest concentrations of federal employment outside the District of Columbia and Maryland — and federal jobs in Hawaii pay about three times more than state government positions.

To ensure laid-off federal employees can move quickly into state roles, Hawaii has set up an expedited timeline of 14 days from job application to hiring. That means, for example, passing along résumés from human resources to hiring departments on a daily basis and cutting some processes down to hours or days, Brenna Hashimoto, director of the state’s Department of Human Resources Development, wrote in an email to Stateline.

It’s too early to say how the system is going, Hashimoto wrote, but the state will collect data and report to the governor’s office.

Some success

Despite the hurdles, there are signs of success in transitioning federal employees into state jobs.

Shane Evangelist, CEO of Neogov, which manages hiring software for state and local governments, said the potential scale of transitions is significant.

Evangelist shared examples of successful federal-to-state career transitions, including a former IRS employee to a state internal auditor, a federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employee to a state epidemiologist, and a Census Bureau employee to an IT support analyst.

However, he warned that states risk losing the most skilled workers to the private sector unless they hire right away.

“The most talented workers move first,” said Evangelist. “The ones who are smart, experienced and articulate — the kind of employees the government needs most — will be the first to go.”

There are thousands of potential new job applicants.

On Jan. 19, federal civil servants made up only 8% of Civic Match’s candidate pool. By late February, that skyrocketed to 45.1%. More than 3,300 former federal workers have signed up for Civic Match in just weeks, according to Lewis.

“These are not entry-level employees,” Lewis said. “Many of them have spent over a decade in government roles, gaining deep expertise in policy, finance, environmental management and IT.”

Struggles ahead

Despite state efforts, some former federal employees say they are struggling to find equivalent jobs in both government and the private sector.

“I’ve heard from people with 20 years in government who are being told their experience isn’t transferable,” said Victoria, the laid-off FAA worker.

“It’s a nice gesture that the states are saying all of them want us to work for them, but how many state or private sector jobs actually have an equivalent to what I was doing at the federal level?” she said. “It’s not a one-to-one match.”

Some private-sector employers are undervaluing federal work experience, she noted, forcing federal employees to start at lower levels.

“I’ve heard from people with 20 years in federal government who were told they’d have to start three or four steps behind where they were,” she said. “These companies know we’re desperate, and they’re using it to devalue our skills and pay us less.”

For Victoria and others like her, the hardest part isn’t just losing a job — it’s the way federal employees have been portrayed.

“We’re not some faceless deep-state bureaucrats,” she said. “We’re your neighbors, your friends, and the people you see walking down the street. We got into government because we wanted to serve.

“And if we were in it for the money, we wouldn’t have chosen public service in the first place.”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson contributed to this report. Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at [email protected].

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Susan Shelley: Medi-Cal under growing strain

• March 15, 2025

The Newsom administration just informed the Legislature that it needs to borrow $3.4 billion to pay unexpectedly high costs for Medi-Cal, the state’s safety-net health insurance program for low-income residents that is now open to all undocumented immigrants.

As of Jan. 1, 2024, everyone in California who is in the country illegally is entitled to “full-scope” Medi-Cal: unlimited, unrestricted, full, free health insurance, as long as their reported income is low enough to be eligible.

But wait, there’s more.

Generally, California can seek reimbursement from the federal government for half of its Medi-Cal expenses. Not always. Federal law forbids reimbursement for care provided to illegal immigrants, other than the limited services available to everyone under “emergency Medicaid,” also known as “restricted-scope Medicaid.”

In California, the Medicaid program is called “Medi-Cal,” as if to warn everyone that it’s going to be bad at math.

And it is, like, totally bad at math. In Southern California that’s pronounced “baahd at maath.” Fer sherr.

It’s so bad at math that the government initially calculated it would cost between $2 billion and $4 billion annually to provide full-scope Medi-Cal to every income-eligible undocumented immigrant in the state. By last summer the estimate was $6.4 billion, and most recently Assemblyman Carl DeMaio, R-San Diego, got a Department of Finance official to admit during a budget hearing that it’s $9.5 billion.

In gratitude for this helpful update, Speaker Robert Rivas, leader of the Democratic supermajority in the Assembly, threw DeMaio off the Budget Committee.

We are baahd at maath here. Get away with your accurate assessments.

But then Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Department of Finance sent a letter informing the legislature that it had to borrow $3.4 billion to cover higher Medi-Cal expenses through the end of March.

Like, oh my Gahd. What are they going to do after March?

Borrow more, probably.

At this point you may be wondering, “How will this loan ever be repaid?”

Oh my Gahd, it’s another rilly hard maath question. Like, no way.

No way can the Medi-Cal program pay for unlimited health care services for an unlimited number of people from all over the world for the rest of their lives.

Nearly all of these expenses are billed to the exhausted taxpayers of California. The federal government provides partial funding only for “restricted scope” Medicaid benefits, such as emergency and pregnancy-related services.

California began its Medi-Cal expansion to undocumented immigrants in 2015 with coverage for children up to 18 years old. Young adults ages 19-25 became eligible in 2019, then in 2022 eligibility expanded to include adults 50 and older. Adults ages 26-49 were added in 2024. Participants are covered for everything from neo-natal through long-term care, free.

California doesn’t even have the distinction of being the first state to march off this fiscal cliff. That title belongs to Oregon, where the Healthier Oregon program has been offering full Medicaid-like health coverage to all undocumented immigrants since July 2023. The Oregon Health Authority had previously calculated that there were 55,000 eligible individuals and 80% would enroll. By mid-2024, the OHA reported that more than 100,000 people were on the program.

Only California and Oregon were dippy enough to sing two choruses of “We Are the World” and open their state treasuries without limitation. But other states have offered additional health care benefits to some undocumented residents.

In Illinois, the Health Benefits for Immigrant Seniors (HBIS) program has been providing coverage to undocumented immigrants age 65 and older since December 2020, and the Health Benefits for Immigrant Adults (HBIA) program added adults age 42-64 in 2022.

How’s it going?

The Illinois legislature ordered the state’s auditor to find out. He reported in February that in fiscal year 2023, the HBIS program had 15,831 enrollees, not the 6,700 that had been estimated. The HBIA program serving adults ages 55-64 had 17,024 enrollees, not 8,000 as expected. And the program for undocumented immigrants ages 42-54 had 36,912 enrollees, almost double the 18,800 that state officials had projected.

The costs for the three segments of the program were higher than expected by 84%, 282% and 286%, respectively. HBIS and HBIA have cost Illinois taxpayers $1.6 billion so far.

That’s a cute number, isn’t it? California borrows more than that for breakfast.

Faced with surging costs for the HBIS and HBIA programs, Illinois officials paused new enrollments in 2023, while maintaining coverage for individuals already enrolled.

That’s one way the California government could get out of this situation.

About a dozen states offer full health coverage to undocumented immigrant children up to age 19 or sometimes 21. In Utah, conservative lawmakers agreed to a similar program but put a cap on the spending in advance. The budget is fixed at $4.5 million per year, limiting enrollment to about 2,000 children.

It’s easy to say “health care is a right,” but health care is a service. It has to be provided by skilled and trained people, using facilities and equipment that have to be rented or purchased, maintained and staffed. Somebody has to pay the utility bills, the payroll taxes and the insurance premiums, but Medi-Cal pays very low reimbursement rates.

If the math doesn’t work in the long term, doctors stop accepting Medi-Cal patients, hospitals close, and more than 14 million low-income Californians wait even longer for an appointment, if they ever receive care at all.

What about their rights? Who is in the streets protesting for them?

Write [email protected] and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley

​ Orange County Register 

Dodgers hit 3 home runs in exhibition win over Yomiuri Giants

• March 15, 2025

THE GAME: Shohei Ohtani gave his Japanese fans just what they came to see, hitting a home run in his second time up as the Dodgers beat the Yomiuri Giants 5-1 in an exhibition game Saturday night at the Tokyo Dome.

HITTING REPORT: With the crowd of 42,064 hanging on every pitch, Ohtani walked in his first plate appearance against the Giants. In his second at-bat, he connected on a first-pitch curveball from Giants starter Shosei Togo for a two-run home run. … Michael Conforto had the Dodgers’ first hit in Japan, a home run leading off the third inning. Andy Pages followed with a double and scored on Ohtani’s home run. … Teoscar Hernandez hit the Dodgers’ third home run of the game.

PITCHING REPORT: Before the game against the Giants, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts explained the decision to make it a ‘bullpen game,’ saying the Dodgers want to give their relievers a two-day break before the regular-season games against the Cubs. Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow will take down most of the innings in the second exhibition game against the Hanshin Tigers. … The combined efforts of eight pitchers held the Giants to just five hits Saturday night. … Justin Wrobleski handled the first two innings and retired all six batters he faced, striking out three. Wrobleski had an excellent spring, allowing just two runs on six hits and one walk while striking out 12 in 11⅓ innings. … Kirby Yates allowed the Giants’ only run with a rough inning featuring two hits, a walk and two stolen bases. … Jack Dreyer closed out the game by retiring the side in order in the ninth, striking out two.

UP NEXT: Dodgers (LHP Blake Snell) vs. Hanshin Tigers, 8 p.m. PT Saturday at Tokyo Dome, SportsNet LA, 570 AM

​ Orange County Register 

Short-handed Lakers nearly stun Nuggets in finale of 0-4 trip

• March 15, 2025

DENVER — The nature of the NBA’s 82-game regular season naturally creates situations like the one the Lakers faced on Friday night against the Denver Nuggets.

On the road, down four of five starters. Without six of their top-eight rotation players. All during a stretch of six games in eight days, including three back-to-back sets, with Friday capping the first one.

When the Lakers’ injury report was released on Friday, which revealed that Luka Doncic, Dorian Finney-Smith and Gabe Vincent would join the list of the team’s unavailable players, the matchup against the Nuggets could have been viewed as a schedule loss.

The Lakers didn’t treat it that way.

Austin Reaves, Dalton Knecht and their teammates nearly pulled off an improbable victory at Ball Arena before falling to the Nuggets, 131-126, after Jamal Murray’s tiebreaking 3-pointer with 5.6 seconds left and Russell Westbrook’s exclamation point dunk that sealed the win for Denver (43-24).

“I’m proud of the group for their level of fight and resiliency,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “There’s a lot we could have done better. But the group competed and we gave ourselves a chance to win.”

Reaves (37 points, 13 assists, eight rebounds) and Knecht (32 points) led the short-handed Lakers (40-25), with both players making clutch plays down the stretch that kept the team in the game before eventually suffering their fourth straight loss to close an 0-4 trip.

“You always want to win,” Reaves said. “And regardless of who you take the floor with, we feel like we could win, and we went and put ourselves in a good position to do that. Losing sucks, but I’m happy with what these guys in the locker room did.”

With the Lakers trailing 124-123, Reaves stripped reigning league MVP Nikola Jokic for his third steal of the game and converted a layup on the other end to put the Lakers ahead by one with just over a minute left after they had trailed by 13 in the third.

Knecht helped add to that lead after a Murray turnover led to the rookie dunking in transition to put the visitors up by three – with Knecht cramping up on takeoff and taking a hard fall on his head/shoulders but staying in the game with the Lakers up 126-123 with 52 seconds left.

With little time to go over defensive plans during a timeout as Redick checked on Knecht after his fall, Jokic (28 points, seven rebounds, five assists, three steals) converted an and-1 floater over Christian Koloko, making the free throw to tie the score at 126 apiece with 48 seconds left.

“The play that Jokic got the and-one, I’ll take some ownership of that just because that was a short timeout and I ran on the floor to check on DK,” Redick said. “And then I ran back and I didn’t have time to really get us the right substitutions and matchups that I would have wanted. And that’s not a knock on CK, but I just kind of put him in a tough spot knowing that Jokic was going to go quick.”

After Reaves missed a jumper that would have put the Lakers up by two, Murray (26 points, five assists, four rebounds) sprung free out of a pick-and-roll with Jokic and knocked down a pull-up 3-pointer for a 129-126 Nuggets lead – just the latest big shot he has hit against the Lakers.

“[Jokic and I] were tangled up, trying to get up there when I saw Murray come up,” Knecht said of the play. “And CK told me to go out there and switch. It was kind of hard.”

Westbrook (17 points, seven assists, six rebounds) picked off Shake Milton’s inbounds pass on the Lakers’ ensuing possession, scoring the game-sealing basket.

After leading by 11 in the first and keeping the game close at halftime, trailing 71-67, the Lakers were on the cusp of being blown out before they used a 19-9 run to close the third quarter and cut a 13-point deficit to 102-99.

Knecht, starting near his hometown of Thornton, Colorado, had his highest-scoring game since mid-November.

“I told him in the huddle, I said, ‘Hey, if you want to shoot it, shoot it. I don’t care if you shoot it 35 times, we’re going to need every bucket you can get,’” Reaves said of Knecht. “So he’s a hooper.”

Milton (16 points, five rebounds, three assists) and two-way guard Jordan Goodwin (10 points, six rebounds) both scored in double figures for the Lakers with the increased playing time opportunities.

Koloko (eight points, seven rebounds) impressed with his second-half defense, altering multiple shots at the rim that didn’t end with blocks and denying Jokic the ball late.

“The spirit was great,” said Redick, whose team had an eight-game winning streak before this trip. “It’s been that and will continue to be that. And I think it was a good opportunity for a number of guys to play bigger minutes, Shake, in particular. Christian, defensively, in the second half was awesome. So happy for those guys that they played well.”

Despite feeling under the weather, Bronny James played 16 minutes and contributed five points.

LeBron James missed his third straight game with a left groin strain and returned to Los Angeles along with Rui Hachimura (left patellar tendinopathy) and Jaxson Hayes (bruised right knee) ahead of the Lakers’ game in Denver.

“We went 0-4, so it’s a pretty bad trip,” Reaves said. “But JJ said a week ago, ‘Everybody’s like Lakers in five.’ So we just don’t listen to any of it. We know when we’re fully healthy and got everybody on the team that we have a really good chance to beat anybody.

“I just see this group, coming together, locking in on one common goal and that’s to win. And [Friday] is the biggest testament to that. Very shorthanded and went and played a really good basketball team with probably the best player in the world. And went toe to toe and had an opportunity to win it. Just didn’t execute the last 50 seconds.”

​ Orange County Register 

Amalia Holguin dazzles but Sage Hill girls basketball falls to Carondelet in CIF state Division I final

• March 15, 2025

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SACRAMENTO — It’s been just over five years since Kobe Bryant and eight others died in a tragic helicopter crash. It’s been nine months since four of Bryant’s proteges from his Mambas youth girls basketball team graduated from Sage Hill.

Yet, with his youngest apprentice — Amalia Holguin — still playing for the Lightning and coach Kerwin Walters still at the helm, the influence of the Lakers great remains immense.

“Kobe is always going to be straight in the heart for all of us,” Walters said this week, “especially for myself and Amalia. It’s just really, really a personal thing. But he’s always going to be there.”

Bryant’s vision for Sage Hill continued to unfold Friday night at the CIF State championships.

The Lightning aspired for a second state title in four seasons as they squared off against Carondelet in the Division I final at Golden 1 Center.

With Holguin wowing the crowd with her 3-point shooting and passing, Sage Hill brought the energy. Unfortunately, the Lightning struggled at the foul line, and it cost them.

Sage Hill made 4 of 14 free throws and fell to Carondelet 51-48 in its bid to become a two-time state champion.

Carondelet sank 8 of 11 foul shots, including all four of its chances in the final 45 seconds for the final points of the game.

Walters, in his 13th season, and Holguin, the youngest player on Bryant’s famed youth team, shared a long embrace after the final buzzer as the Cougars (30-6) celebrated their first state title since 2004.

“This one hurts,” said Walters, who led Sage Hill to the state Division II title in 2022. “They hit free throws, we didn’t. If you can see the numbers, that’s where it all falls right now.”

“It’s abnormal for us,” the coach added. “We’re generally in the low 70s, mid 70s in free throw percentage.”

Sage Hill (23-12) missed a 3-pointer in the closing seconds in a chance to force overtime

Holguin, a junior, hit two of her four 3-pointers in the fourth period en route to a game-high 21 points. While her long-range shooting impressed the crowd, so did her spin move and assist to Kamdyn Klamberg (13 points) to give Sage Hill a 48-47 lead with about one minute left.

The play came off one of Holguin’s four steals.

Sage Hill started two freshmen, a sophomore and two juniors.

“(Bryant) always wanted us to look in the mirror every day,” Holguin said. “I’m going to go home and probably watch some film on this and see how we can get better already for next year. … We’re always looking toward the future and I think we have a bright one.”

Carondelet led by as many as seven points in the first half before taking a 24-18 lead into intermission.

Holguin (10 points) and Klamberg (eight points) combined for all of the Lightning’s first-half points while seven players scored for Carondelet.

The Lightning received more contributions in the second half as freshman Addison Uphoff scored eight points and finished with six rebounds. Freshman center Eve Fowler scored four points to go along with four blocks and nine rebounds.

Carondelet opened its largest lead of the game at 42-34 early in the fourth quarter but the Lightning fought back. Holguin made two 3-pointers in the final 2 1/2 minutes. She finished 8 for 22 from the floor, including 4 for 8 from beyond the arc.

“She has game,” Walters said of Holguin. “I know she definitely has Mamba in her. She has that Mamba energy, and she can go after anything but she has some really, really amazing teammates.”

​ Orange County Register