Smokey Robinson ‘appalled’ by sex assault allegations from Chatsworth housekeepers

• May 7, 2025

Motown legend Smokey Robinson said Wednesday he is “appalled” by a lawsuit accusing him of repeated acts of sexual assault and rape against four former housekeepers at his Chatsworth residence.

Speaking by phone to the British newspaper Daily Mail Wednesday morning, the 85-year-old singer/songwriter said only, “I am appalled” when asked about the allegations.

The paper reported that after giving the response, Robinson “began mumbling incoherently” and “did not sound well.” Robinson then added, “I can’t speak about this right now,” then ended the phone call, the Daily Mail reported.

Four former housekeepers sued Robinson and his wife Tuesday, alleging repeated acts of sexual assault and rape by the singer dating back nearly 20 years.

The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit includes allegations of sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, negligence, hostile work environment and intentional infliction of emotional distress, along with alleged labor violations such as failure to pay minimum wage and overtime and failure to provide rest breaks and meal periods.

The lawsuit alleges that Robinson forced himself on the unnamed plaintiffs multiple times, generally while his wife — Frances — was out of the home.

One of the plaintiffs alleges Robinson assaulted her at least seven times between March 2023 until her “forced resignation” in February 2024. She alleges Robinson would summon her to his bedroom at the couple’s Chatsworth home when his wife was out of the home, and he would greet her wearing only underwear, then proceed to sexually assault her despite her protestations.

Another plaintiff said she was sexually assaulted by the singer nearly two dozen times between 2016 and 2020, when she was also forced to resign, according to the suit. A third plaintiff alleges in the suit that she was “sexually harassed, sexually assaulted and raped” during “most of her entire employment” between 2012 and 2024.

The fourth plaintiff said she began working for the Robinsons in 2006, with Robinson allegedly sexually assaulting her in 2007 “when she accompanied him to his Las Vegas home,” according to the suit. The woman contends the assaults continued until her resignation in April 2024.

The suit contends that none of the women reported the attacks to the authorities due to fears of reprisals, public embarrassment, shame and humiliation, along with intimidation due to Robinson’s celebrity status.

The suit seeks a minimum of $50 million in general damages, along with unspecified punitive damages.

Robinson rose to fame as the lead singer and songwriter for the Motown group The Miracles, churning out hits such as “Shop Around,” “I Second That Emotion” and “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me.” As a solo artist, he recorded hits such as “Baby That’s Backatcha,” “Cruisin’,” “Being With You” and “Tell Me Tomorrow.”

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

​ Orange County Register 

South Coast Repertory announces 2025-26 season

• May 7, 2025

South Coast Repertory’s 2025-26 season will feature two world premieres, two Tony Award winners running in repertory and the return of the popular show “Million Dollar Quartet,” the Costa Mesa regional theater announced today, May 7.

Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” and Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” will play in repertory from Jan. 23 through March 21 — an eight-week run that is among the longest in the theater’s history. SCR is hailing the two rotating plays as “The Theatrical Event of the Season” and theater-goers can see both plays in the same weekend or even on the same day.

Other highlights will include the regional theater hit “The Heart Sellers” by Lloyd Suh, pianist Hershey Felder’s portrayal of “Beethoven,” the world premiere of “Fremont Ave.” by Reggie D. White and a second world premiere yet to be announced. The theater’s beloved annual production of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol” will be back for a 45th year.

“By design, each offering in the season converses with the others, providing performance after performance of impactful, moving, transformative theater,” SCR Artistic Director David Ivers said in a written statement, adding that the season’s themes are “family, intimacy, longing and joy.”

Here is a chronological look at SCR’s upcoming season:

“Million Dollar Quartet,” Segerstrom Stage, Sept. 13-Oct. 11: A legendary 1956 jam session featuring Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins is re-created in the Tony Award-winning revue, which is chockfull of iconic hits such as “Blue Suede Shoes” and “Walk the Line.”

“The Heart Sellers,” Julianne Argyros Stage, Oct. 26-Nov. 16: Lloyd Suh’s play tells the story of two immigrant women — one Filipino, the other Korean — who meet in a supermarket on Thanksgiving 1973 and spend the holiday together while their husbands work. The women discuss their lives in America, the families they left behind and how to cook a frozen turkey.

Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol,” Segerstrom Stage, Nov. 29-Dec. 28: The theater’s holiday tradition returns for a 45th year. SCR stalwart Richard Doyle returns to portray Ebenezer Scrooge.

“God of Carnage,” Segerstrom Stage, Jan. 23-March 21: After two 11-year-old boys get into a fight, their parents sit down to resolve the conflict — but the peace negotiations soon devolve into a donnybrook. Reza’s work won the 2009 Tony Award for best play.

Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virigina Woolf?,” Segerstrom Stage, Jan. 24-March 21: When a young couple is invited to an older couple’s home for a nightcap, they find that they have front-row seats for their hosts’ grievances and resentments. “Virginia Woolf” won the Tony Award for best play in 1963.

“Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale,” Julianne Argyros Stage, Feb. 8-20: In this Theatre for Young Audiences and Families production, the classic story of Cinderella is transformed into a bilingual musical featuring salsa and hip-hop stylings as two female basketball players seek to get Coach Prince to choose them to play in the big game.

World premiere to be announced, Julianne Argyos Stage, April 5-26: In advance of the Pacific Playwrights Festival (May 2-4), SCR will debut a new work from its play development program.

“Fremont Ave.,” Segerstrom Stage, April 25-May 23, 2026: Reggie D. White’s play, receiving its world premiere as part of the Pacific Playwrights Festival, chronicles three generations of Black men who live in a suburban house in Southern California from the 1960s into the 2020s and the woman who connects them.

“Hershey Felder, Beethoven,” Segerstrom Stage, June 10-21, 2026: Felder, a pianist known for bringing musical luminaries such as George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein and Frederic Chopin to life in his one-man shows, embodies one of classical music’s most celebrated composers. Felder will also perform a “Great American Songbook Sing-Along” for one night only, on June 14.

Full-season subscriptions, which include all of the productions above except for “A Christmas Carol,” “Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale” and the two Hershey Felder shows, are on sale for $290 to $518. Four-play Segerstrom Stage subscriptions are $200-$352, while two-play Argyros Stage subscriptions are $102-$178. Season subscribers will get early access to buy tickets for “A Christmas Carol,” “Beethoven” and the “Great American Songbook Sing-Along.”

The theater is also offering $40 Family Fun Memberships, which include discounts and early access to single tickets for all of SCR’s 2025-26 season, including, “A Christmas Carol,” “Cinderella: A Salsa Fairy Tale” and the SCR Theatre Conservatory Summer Players musical “SpongeBob Square Pants,” which runs Aug. 2-10.

For more details about subscriptions and other information, call 714-708-5555 or go to scr.org.

​ Orange County Register 

Republican concedes long-unsettled North Carolina court election to Democratic incumbent

• May 7, 2025

By GARY D. ROBERTSON

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Republican challenger for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat conceded last November’s election on Wednesday to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs, two days after a federal judge ruled that potentially thousands of disputed ballots challenged by Jefferson Griffin must remain in the final tally.

In a statement provided by his campaign to The Associated Press, Griffin said he would not appeal Monday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Myers, who also ordered that the State Board of Elections certify results that show Riggs is the winner by 734 votes from over 5.5 million ballots cast in the race.

Griffin’s decision sets the stage for Riggs to be officially elected to an eight-year term as an associate justice.

“While I do not fully agree with the District Court’s analysis, I respect the court’s holding — just as I have respected every judicial tribunal that has heard this case,” Griffin said. “I will not appeal the court’s decision.”

Myers delayed carrying out his order for seven days in case Griffin wanted to ask the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review his decision. Democrats, meanwhile, had called on Griffin to accept defeat.

Riggs is one of two Democrats on the seven-member state Supreme Court, and winning improved the party’s efforts to retake a court majority later in the decade. Griffin is a state Court of Appeals judge whose term ends in 2028.

“I wish my opponent the best and will continue to pray for her and all the members of our court system here in North Carolina. I look forward to continuing to serve the people of North Carolina,” Griffin said.

While the Associated Press declared over 4,800 winners in the 2024 general election, the North Carolina Supreme Court election was the last race nationally that was undecided.

Riggs said in a news release Wednesday that she was “glad the will of the voters was finally heard.”

“It’s been my honor to lead this fight — even though it should never have happened — and I’m in awe of the North Carolinians whose courage reminds us all that we can use our voices to hold accountable any politician who seeks to take power out of the hands of the people,” she said.

Myers ruled that Griffin’s efforts after the Nov. 5 election to remove from the election total ballots that state appeals courts agreed were ineligible under state law would have damaged federal due process or equal protection rights of affected voters had they been implemented.

Griffin filed formal protests that initially appeared to cover more than 65,000 ballots. Ensuing state court rulings whittled the total to votes from two categories, covering from as few as 1,675 ballots to as many as 7,000, according to court filings. Griffin hoped that removing ballots he said were unlawfully cast would flip the outcome to him.

Democrats and voting rights groups had raised alarm about Griffin’s efforts, which in one category of ballots had only targeted six Democratic-leaning counties. They called it an attack on democracy that would serve as a road map for the GOP to reverse election results in other states. Griffin said Wednesday that his legal efforts were always “about upholding the rule of law and making sure that every legal vote in an election is counted.”

Most of the ballots that state appeals courts found ineligible came from military or overseas voters who didn’t provide copies of photo identification or an ID exception form with their absentee ballots. The appeals courts had permitted a 30-day “cure” process for those voters so their ballots could still count if they provided ID information.

Myers, who was nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump, agreed with Riggs and her allied litigants that the “retroactive invalidation” of those ballots violated the rights of service members, missionaries, or others working or studying abroad who cast their ballots under the rules for the 2024 election.

“You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done,” Myers wrote in his order.

The other category of ballots was cast by overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents were declared North Carolina residents. A state law had authorized those people to vote in state elections, but state appeals courts said it violated the state Constitution. Myers wrote that there was no process for people mistakenly on the list to contest their ineligibility, representing “an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.”

Griffin said Wednesday the rulings of state appeals judges still recognized that the state election board failed to follow laws and the state constitution.

“These holdings are very significant for securing our state’s elections,” he said.

​ Orange County Register 

FAA fixing problems at Newark airport while planning overhaul of US air traffic control system

• May 7, 2025

By JOSH FUNK

The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that it plans to upgrade the technology used to get radar data to air traffic controllers directing planes to the troubled Newark, New Jersey, airport, and improve staffing to alleviate problems that have caused hundreds of flights to be canceled there.

At the same time, the agency plans pursue a broader multibillion-dollar plan that will be announced Thursday for long-overdue upgrades to the nation’s air traffic control system.

A January midair collision between a passenger jet and Army helicopter over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people, followed by a string of other crashes and mishaps, raised alarms about aviation safety and prompted officials to reexamine the system.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says flying remains the safest way to travel because of existing precautions, but the problems in Newark demonstrate the desperate need for upgrades.

“We are on it. We are going to fix it. We are going to build a brand new system for all of you and your families and the American people,” Duffy said.

The radar system air traffic controllers in Philadelphia use to direct planes in and out of the Newark airport went offline for at least 30 seconds on April 28. That facility relies on radar data sent over lines from New York that may have failed. Some of those lines are old copper phone lines instead of much more reliable fiber optic lines that can handle more data. The reason the FAA is relying on those lines is because the agency moved the Newark controllers out of the New York facility to Philadelphia last summer to address staffing issues.

The FAA says it plans to replace any old copper wires with fiber optics and add three new data lines between its New York facility and Philadelphia. The agency is also working to get additional controllers trained and certified.

It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly either of those steps will be completed, but Duffy has said he hopes the situation in Newark will improve by summer. Several controllers remain on extended trauma leave after the radar outage.

In the meantime, the FAA has slowed traffic in and out of Newark to ensure flights can be handled safely, leading to cancellations. On Wednesday, Newark led the nation in cancellations with 41 canceled departures and 43 canceled arrivals, according to FlightAware.com. That’s even after United Airlines cut 35 flights a day from its schedule at the airport starting last weekend.

“We’ve slowed down the traffic. Safety is our mission. We love efficiency, but safety is critical for us. And so, if we feel like there’s issues in the airspace, we’ll slow it down,” Duffy said. “We’re looking at bringing in all of the airlines that serve Newark and having all of them with all of us have a conversation about how do we manage the flights out of Newark.”

​ Orange County Register 

Less farmland is going for organic crops as costs and other issues take root

• May 7, 2025

By CAITLYN DAPROZA of Rochester Institute of Technology and PATRICK WHITTLE of The Associated Press

SKANEATELES, N.Y. (AP) — Farmer Jeremy Brown taps the nose of a young calf. “I love the ones with the pink noses,” he says.

This pink-nosed animal is just one of about 3,200 cattle at Twin Birch Dairy in Skaneateles, New York. In Brown’s eyes, the cows on the farm aren’t just workers: “They’re the boss, they’re the queen of the barn.”

Brown, a co-owner at Twin Birch, is outspoken on the importance of sustainability in his operation. The average dairy cow emits as much as 265 pounds (120 kilograms) of methane, a potent climate-warming gas, each year. Brown says Twin Birch has worked hard to cut its planet-warming emissions through a number of environmentally sound choices.

“Ruminants are the solution, not the problem, to climate change,” he said.

Wearing a weathered hoodie and a hat promoting a brand of cow medicine, Brown was spending a windy Friday morning artificially inseminating some of the farm’s massive Jerseys and Holsteins. He stepped over an electric manure scraper used to clean the animals’ barn.

The electric scraper means the dairy doesn’t have to use a fuel-burning machine for that particular job. Twin Birch also recycles manure for use on crops, cools its milk with water that gets recirculated for cows to drink and grows most of its own feed.

Despite all that, the farm has no desire to pursue a U.S. Department of Agriculture organic certification, Brown said. Doing so would add costs and require the farm to forego technology that makes the dairy business, and ultimately the customer’s jug of milk, more affordable, he said.

He raises a question many farmers have been asking: Is organic farming just a word?

Declining enthusiasm for the organic certification

An increasing number of American farmers think so. America’s certified organic acreage fell almost 11% between 2019 and 2021. Numerous farmers who implement sustainable practices told The Associated Press that they have stayed away from the certification because it’s costly, doesn’t do enough to combat climate change and appears to be losing cachet in the marketplace. Converting an existing farm from conventional to organic agriculture can cost tens of thousands of dollars and add labor costs.

The rules governing the National Organic Program were published in 2000, and in the years after, organic farming boomed to eventually reach more than 5 million acres. But that has been declining in recent years.

Any downward trend is significant, as organic farms make up less than 1% of the country’s total acreage, and organic sales are typically only a tiny share of the nationwide total.

Shannon Ratcliff, a farmer and co-owner of organically certified Shannon Brook Farms in Watkins Glen, New York, attributes the decline to a 2018 fraud case in Iowa involving a farmer selling grain mislabeled as certified organic. “The whole thing went crazy — work requirements for farmers ramped up and inspection levels were higher,” she said.

It’s also just a tough business, Ratcliff said.

Her co-owner, Walter Adam, also thinks younger generations’ interest in farming of any kind is also declining.

“It takes six months to learn everything,” Adam said. “We can’t find anybody as willing to work on the farm.”

Adam drives to Manhattan each week to sell their meat and eggs at markets, and spends Sunday mornings helping Ratcliff with business at the Brighton Farmers Market in Brighton, New York.

Frank Mitloehner, a professor in animal science in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at University of California Davis, said lack of flexibility and efficiency are driving farmers away from organic in an era of rising prices for farmers. He said organic standards need to be overhauled or the marketplace risks organic going away completely.

“I am in awe that so many organic farmers were able to produce that way for that long,” he said. “It seems that they are losing consumer base in these financially troubling times.”

But the label still matters to some buyers

Still, there are consumers determined to buy organic. Aaron Swindle, a warehouse employee at a chain supermarket, spends every Sunday morning shopping for organic groceries at the Brighton Farmers Market.

“The taste quality is different when it’s growing nearby,” Swindle said. He calls the Finger Lakes of New York a “trifecta,” a region that contributes dairy, produce, and meat for its residents.

John Bolton, owner of Bolton Farms in Hilton, New York, said he has some reservations about organic certification, but he’s pursuing it for his hydroponic farm, which grows produce in nutrient-rich water instead of soil. It produces greens such as kale and chard and is popular as a supplier for restaurants in western New York, and draws waves of regular customers at the Rochester Public Market on weekends.

Bolton doesn’t use pesticides. On a chilly day this spring, he was at his greenhouse unloading 1,500 ladybugs to do the work of eliminating the operation’s aphids. That’s the kind of practice organic farms use to earn the certification, he said.

He said his operations aren’t immune to the dangers posed by climate change. Abnormally hot days affect their greenhouse, he said: “It’s devastating to not only the people but the plants.”

But Bolton described the organic certification as economically and environmentally beneficial to his farm. Getting the certification will carry an expense, but he is confident it will be worth the price.

“It helps with sales. And you feel good about it – you’re doing the right practices,” Bolton said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is a collaboration between Rochester Institute of Technology and The Associated Press.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental 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 

Federal judge rules Georgetown scholar’s wrongful arrest case will stay in Virginia

• May 7, 2025

By OLIVIA DIAZ

A federal judge has ruled that a Georgetown scholar’s petition challenging the constitutionality of his arrest should be heard in Virginia, denying the Trump administration’s request to move the case to Texas.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said she would hear arguments in mid-May on whether Badar Khan Suri should be returned to Virginia while his deportation case proceeds in Texas, where he’s now detained. His next hearing in the immigration case is in June.

The judge’s late Tuesday memo says that by swiftly moving Khan Suri from Virginia to Louisiana and then Texas within days of his arrest, the government appeared to be trying to thwart his lawyers’ efforts to challenge his detention in the jurisdiction where it happened.

Khan Suri’s lawyers went to court the day after masked, plain-clothed officers arrested him on the evening of March 17 outside his apartment complex in Arlington, Virginia. Officials said his visa was revoked because of his social media posts and his wife’s connection to Gaza as a Palestinian American. They accused him of supporting Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.

By the time Khan Suri’s petition was filed, authorities had already put him on a plane to Louisiana without allowing him to update his family or lawyer, Khan Suri’s attorneys said. A few days later, he was moved again to Texas.

“This atypical movement would make it difficult for any diligent lawyer’s filings to ’catch up’ to their client’s location,” and followed a pattern now evident in multiple efforts to deport students based on their speech, Giles wrote.

The judge noted that Columbia University scholar Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record who was detained in March over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations was moved within 48 hours of his arrest in Manhattan through lockups in New York, New Jersey, Texas and, then, Louisiana.

She also cited the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student who was arrested in a Boston suburb, driven New Hampshire and then Vermont, and then flown to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered ICE to return Ozturk to Vermont.

Each scholar “was arrested on different days and in different regions,” Giles wrote. “What is similar? … the Government attempted to move each outside of their jurisdictions to Louisiana or Texas.”

Unlike the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, the courts in Texas and western Louisiana are dominated by Republican-appointed judges, and any appeals go to the reliably conservative 5th Circuit, where 12 of the 17 full-time appellate judges were appointed by Republican presidents, including six by President Donald Trump.

Khan Suri came from India to the U.S. in 2022 on a J-1 visa. A visiting scholar and postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown, he taught a course on majority and minority human rights in South Asia, and lived with his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and three children.

U.S. attorneys argued that Khan Suri was quickly moved because a facility in Farmville, Virginia, was overcrowded and a nearby detention center in Caroline County had “no available beds and only had limited emergency bedspace.”

But the judge observed that for weeks thereafter, Khan Suri had to sleep on a plastic cot on the floor of an overcrowded detention center in Texas, and that according to his attorneys, he now sleeps on a bed in an overcrowded dormitory with about 50 other people. The government’s representations, she wrote, “are plainly inconsistent and are further undermined by the fact that Prairieland Detention Center, where Petitioner (Khan Suri) is currently held, is overcrowded.”

​ Orange County Register 

LGBTQ+ community watches conclave and hopes Francis’ progressive moves endure

• May 7, 2025

When Dustin Pagan-Peterson and his husband found out Pope Francis had passed, the only thing they could do after confirming it online was hold each other’s hands across the breakfast table and cry.

“It’s still so hard to actually believe,” Pagan-Peterson said Friday, April 25.

Pope Francis was 88 when he died on Easter Monday, April 21. His death was a blow to Catholics around the world, especially those who appreciated Francis’ views on LGBTQ+ people, poverty and immigration.

As the May 7 conclave gets underway in the Vatican to choose a new pope, there’s concern in the LGBTQ+ community over whether a new pontiff’s views will be as progressive as Francis’s.

”I guess for us, the scary part is what comes or who comes next, you know?” Pagan-Peterson said. “And how much will that person, whoever he is, follow in the footsteps of Pope Francis or not? Where does that leave the LGBT community as far as the Catholic church goes?”

Pagan-Peterson, who lives with his husband in Torrance, converted to Catholicism in 2018 through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. He knew that Catholicism wasn’t much more accepting of homosexuality than the Southern Baptist environment he was raised in, but as his relationship with his Catholic partner deepened, so did his faith in the Catholic view of Christianity.

He recalled seeing one of pope Francis’ first news conferences in 2013, when a reporter asked Francis about his stance on the sexual orientation of priests and the freshly-appointed pope had replied, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

“ Then he just expanded from there to say that priests could bless, at least, gay people,” Pagan-Peterson said. “We still can’t get married in the church, but still that blessing, it’s just been such a light.”

Southern California LGBTQ+ Catholics like Jessica Gerhardt, who is bisexual and newly wed to her trans nonbinary partner with a Jesuit officiant, see Pope Francis’ stance on homosexuality as one of the strongest defenses against discrimination in the church.

”Ideally you wouldn’t have to appeal to higher authorities to just be heard,” Gerhardt said. “But in the case of … the hierarchical Catholic church, being able to point to a pope that did have these fairly social-justice-minded, liberation-theology-minded perspectives … all of it was just really inspiring.”

Gerhardt added, ”I just felt like the pope’s spirituality, and very much akin to that Jesuit spirituality, was one that I would try to come back to whenever my inner critical trad voice would be like, ‘You’re not Catholic enough, you’re not Catholic enough.’”

Jamie Garza, a structural engineer in Los Angeles, and a trans woman, said she had been following the pope’s health closely, praying for his full recovery.

Garza began her transition “in earnest” in 2018, and said she’s been very happy ever since, and feels support from her parish and community.

“I’ve been able to deepen my faith and live out my faith honestly,” Garza said. “I think before, it’s hard to live out your faith when you hate yourself, or you’re carrying a burden that you’re not a whole person or that there’s something missing.”

Garza is concerned about how the pope’s death will affect the current state of affairs for trans people in the church.

“ I’m afraid of what’s going to come next,” Garza said. “The pope provided cover and openness and allowed the LGBT community to live, to thrive, to do ministry, not just to partially exist, but to exist fully in our churches. And I’m afraid if you lose that leader, it may be easier for churches to kick us out.”

In October of 2023, Pope Francis signed a letter to the Rev. José Negri in Brazil which stated that a transgender person “can receive Baptism under the same conditions as other believers.” Along with another section that affirmed trans adults could be godparents, the notes are part of Francis’ lasting legacy of creaking the door open for LGBTQ+ people to be more accepted into the church, despite the lack of change in the official doctrine.

“ The Catechism in the Catholic church defines homosexuality as intrinsically disordered, but it also emphasizes the importance of love, compassion, acceptance to people who are homosexual,” said Michelle Loris, director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Sacred Heart University. “Before Francis, that was the main document.”

According to Loris, of the 135 cardinals who will participate in the conclave, 108 were appointed by Francis, and many of those 108 favored an ideology that Francis embraced called synodality. The principle calls church leaders to listen attentively to congregants of all walks of life in order to create a more inclusive, community-centered church.

“Synodality is a way of being heard … in the Greek it means ‘journeying together,’” Loris said. “He brought people together sitting at a round table from different countries, from different ethnicities, clerics, lay people, men, women, all of them together, talking about the important issues.”

The attention to synodality amidst the electing cardinals implies they could elect a pope with similar values. Loris said in that case, it would be likely the pope-elect would continue Francis’ pastoral work, but unforeseeable that he would push LGBTQ+ rights within the church any further than Francis did. The new pope will face the ever-present obstacle of navigating common ground within a church where some cardinals believe LGBTQ+ people are part of the community, and others believe in criminalizing homosexuality.

”What Francis has done is, it’s just amazing. It really is,” Loris said. “The gospel, the work of Jesus Christ, was the work of love and mercy, and that’s what he tried to bring in. For him the Church was in fact the people of God … all of us. Todos todos todos (meaning everyone, everyone, everyone).”

While worried for the future, Garza said she is proud to be visible, and what she called “an easy target.” She wants people within the church to know that she is an example of trans people who want to be a part of the church’s ministry, who want to contribute and “be a part of the family.”

“ Through his leadership and his not only acceptance but interaction and dialogue with the LGBT community, specifically the trans community and the local trans community in Rome, [Pope Francis] has allowed a shift,” Garza said. “It’s allowed pastors locally to be welcoming to everybody.”

​ Orange County Register 

House GOP backing off some Medicaid cuts as report shows millions of people would lose health care

• May 7, 2025

By LISA MASCARO and AMANDA SEITZ

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans appear to be backing off some, but not all, of the steep reductions to the Medicaid program as part of their big tax breaks bill, as they run into resistance from more centrist GOP lawmakers opposed to ending nearly-free health care coverage for their constituents back home.

This is as a new report out Wednesday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that millions of Americans would lose Medicaid coverage under the various proposals being circulated by Republicans as cost-saving measures. House Republicans are scrounging to come up with as much as $1.5 trillion in cuts across federal government health, food stamp and other programs, to offset the revenue lost for some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks.

“Under each of those options, Medicaid enrollment would decrease and the number of people without health insurance would increase,” the CBO report said.

The findings touched off fresh uncertainty over House Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to pass what President Donald Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill” by a self-made Memorial Day deadline.

Lawmakers are increasingly uneasy, particularly amid growing economic anxiety over Trump’s own policies, including the trade war that is sparking risks of higher prices, empty shelves and job losses in communities nationwide. Central to the package is the GOP priority of extending tax breaks, first enacted in 2017, that are expiring later this year. But they want to impose program cuts elsewhere to help pay for them and limit the continued climb in the nation’s debt and deficits.

Johnson has been huddling privately all week in the speaker’s office at the Capitol with groups of Republicans, particularly the more moderate GOP lawmakers in some of the most contested seats in the nation, who are warning off steep cuts that would slash through their districts.

Democrats, who had requested the CBO report, pounced on the findings.

“This non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis confirms what we’ve been saying all along: Republicans’ Medicaid proposals result in millions of people losing their health care,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who sought the review with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

House Republican lawmakers exiting a meeting late Tuesday evening indicated that Johnson and the GOP leadership were walking away from some of the most debated Medicaid changes to the federal matching fund rates provided to the states.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., said those Medicaid changes “are dead.”

Republican Rep. Nick LaLota of New York, reminded that Trump himself has said he would oppose Medicaid cuts. Instead, he said the growing consensus within the Republican ranks is to focus the Medicaid cuts on other provisions.

Among the other ideas, LaLota said, are imposing work requirements for those receiving Medicaid coverage, requiring recipients to verify their eligibility twice a year instead of just once and ensuring no immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal standing are receiving aid.

But the more conservative Republicans, including members of the House Freedom Caucus, are insisting on steeper cuts as they fight to prevent skyrocketing deficits from the tax breaks.

Medicaid is a joint program run by states and the federal government, covering 71 million adults.

Republicans are considering a menu of options to cut federal spending on the program, including reducing the share that the federal government pays for enrollees health care — in some cases it is as much as 90%.

They are also considering and setting a cap on how much the federal government spends on each person enrolled in Medicaid, though that idea also appears to be losing support among lawmakers.

While those changes would bring in billions of dollars in cost savings, they would also result in roughly 10 million people losing Medicaid coverage, the CBO said.

They appear to be off the table.

But other proposed Medicaid changes are still in the mix for Republicans, including imposing new limits on a state’s tax on health care providers that generate larger payments from the federal government. That would bring in billions in savings, but could also result in some 8 million people losing coverage, the report said.

​ Orange County Register