US lawmakers see TikTok as China’s tool, even as it distances itself from Beijing

• March 14, 2024

By Didi Tang, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — If some U.S. lawmakers have their way, the United States and China could end up with something in common: TikTok might not be available in either country.

The House on Wednesday approved a bill requiring the Beijing-based company ByteDance to sell its subsidiary TikTok or face a nationwide ban. It’s unclear if the bill will ever become law, but it reflects lawmakers’ fears that the social media platform could expose Americans to Beijing’s malign influences and data security risks.

But while U.S. lawmakers associate TikTok with China, the company, headquartered outside China, has strategically kept its distance from its homeland.

Since its inception, the TikTok platform has been intended for non-Chinese markets and is unavailable in mainland China. It pulled out of Hong Kong in 2020 when Beijing imposed a national security law on the territory to curtail speech. As data security concerns started to rise in the U.S., TikTok sought to reassure lawmakers that data gathered on U.S. users stays in the country and is inaccessible to ByteDance employees in Beijing.

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TikTok’s parent company is following the same playbook as many other Chinese companies with global ambitions: To win customers and trust in the United States and other Western countries, they are playing down their Chinese roots and connections. Some have insisted they be called “global companies” instead of “Chinese companies.”

But for TikTok, this may not be enough. The House bill passed overwhelmingly on a 352-65 vote. Its prospects in the Senate are uncertain, but if it clears both chambers, President Joe Biden said he would sign it into law. The moves in Washington threaten the app’s survival and cast a spotlight on the quandary that many private Chinese companies have found themselves a part of as they seek to engage Western markets at a time of souring U.S.-China relations.

“It’s the most difficult time for Chinese tech companies and private businesses in decades as tensions and rivalry between the United States and China continue to grow,” said Zhiqun Zhu, professor of political science and international relations at Bucknell University.

“These companies and businesses face squeezing from both sides as they struggle to survive,” Zhu said. “While the U.S. and other Western countries have imposed sanctions or restrictions on these companies, China itself has moved to favor state-owned enterprises in recent years, leaving little room for Chinese tech and private businesses to operate.”

Alex Capri, senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore and research fellow at Hinrich Foundation, agreed that companies like TikTok with Chinese roots are “really stuck in two polar extremes” between the heavy-handed communist party and the deeply suspicious West.

“Any Chinese tech company has to operate under a cloud of suspicion, and that’s because there’s a total breakdown of trust,” Capri said.

With the rise of techno-nationalism, by which technological capabilities are deemed a national strategic asset, China’s tech companies are obligated by Beijing’s laws and rules to turn over data and have become “essentially a de-facto representative” of China’s ruling communist party, Capri said.

”That in itself makes it very challenging for companies like TikTok,” he said.

In 2018, Zhang Yiming, the founder of ByteDance, toed the party line after Beijing shut down ByteDance’s jokes app. He apologized publicly for his company’s deviations from socialistic core values and promised to “comprehensively rectify the algorithm” on its news app and add significantly more layers of censoring — a move considered necessary for any company to survive in China.

That explains the oft-repeated claim by Rep. Mike Gallagher, chair of the House Select Committee on China’s communist party, that “there’s no such thing as a private company in China.”

The bill, as approved by the House, seeks to remove applications from app stores or web hosting services in the U.S. unless the application severs its ties to companies — such as ByteDance — that are subject to the control from foreign adversaries, like China.

“This is my message to TikTok: Break up with the Chinese Communist Party or lose access to your American users,” said Gallagher, the bill’s sponsor. “America’s foremost adversary has no business controlling a dominant media platform in the United States. TikTok’s time in the United States is over unless it ends its relationship with CCP-controlled ByteDance.”

Congressional mistrust of TikTok was evident at a Jan. 31 hearing when Sen. Tom Cotton repeatedly asked CEO Shou Zi Chew if he is a Chinese citizen beholden to the Communist party. Chew, who is Singaporean, repeatedly said no.

On Tuesday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi said it’s problematic that ByteDance, which owns the social platform’s algorithm, is subject to Beijing’s control.

Chew, in another congressional hearing last year, told Congress that “we do not remove or promote content on behalf of the Chinese government.”

In a recent interview with Wired magazine, Chew acknowledged that the company’s Chinese origins have given TikTok a “bigger trust deficit than most other companies.”

“Maybe our trust starting line is behind other businesses, but I also think that there are very serious approaches that we’ve taken to try and earn that trust and to close that gap,” Chew said, citing efforts by TikTok to protect U.S. user data, be transparent and “not be manipulated by any government.”

Short of severance from the home country, Chinese companies chasing global ambitions have tried to distance themselves from China by introducing many foreign investors, hiring foreign executives, moving headquarters to outside China and limiting operations to overseas markets, said Thomas Zhang, China analyst at FrontierView, a U.S.-headquartered market intelligence provider. But “the effects are limited as long as the founder in China does not relinquish control,” Zhang said.

For TikTok, the trust is so lacking that even a full divestiture from its Chinese parent company may not work, because complicated ownership structures can obscure potential Chinese ownership, Capri said.

As TikTok fights for survival, it has made a move that is very present in American politics: It’s engaging in heavy lobbying, and appealing to its 170 million U.S. users to contact their lawmakers to say a TikTok ban would infringe on their free speech rights.

It’s won over one powerful critic: Former President Donald Trump, in a reversal, came out against the TikTok legislation. But Trump, for all his sway with congressional Republicans, couldn’t prevent House passage.

If the bill becomes law, Capri said, TikTok could pursue the ultimate American recourse: a lawsuit to challenge the ban.

​ Orange County Register 

Studying use of patients’ own reprogrammed cells to attack cancer as alternative to more chemo

• March 14, 2024

A process of taking patients’ own cells and reprogramming them to fight cancer has been a last-ditch option for blood cancer patients when nothing else worked, but a new study underway in Aurora is trying to determine whether more patients could benefit from trying the procedure sooner.

Chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapy, known as CAR-T, is a type of immunotherapy that involves taking cells from the patient’s body and altering them to attack cancerous cells that have specific proteins on their surfaces. The patient then gets the altered cells by infusion.

A study at University of Colorado’s Gates Institute on the Anschutz Medical Campus is looking at CAR-T in adult patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow, whose first round of chemotherapy either failed or gave a disappointing response that suggests it won’t work for long, executive director Dr. Terry Fry said. (The institute is named for rubber manufacturer Charles C. Gates.)

This specific study is looking for safety and will have preliminary results next year. Assuming it doesn’t find any problems, a larger study would test if patients do better when receiving CAR-T rather than another round of chemotherapy, Fry said.

When a cancer therapy is new and carries unknown risks, typically the first patients who receive it are those who are out of other options, Fry said. If it works well and doesn’t cause unacceptable side effects for patients whose cancer resisted treatment, then researchers start looking into whether offering it earlier could make sense, he said.

“When we see something is successful, we forget that someone had to be that first patient” and take risks, he said.

Generally, people with the type of leukemia CU is studying have two options: chemotherapy or a bone marrow transplant, both of which can be grueling, Fry said. The advantage of CAR-T, when it works, is that the patient only has to take it once, he said.

“It can be advantageous to take a single treatment, get on with their life and have done with it,” he said.

While nothing is certain, people who don’t go into remission after being treated with chemotherapy often don’t do much better with another round, so if studies find that giving them CAR-T earlier is effective, that could spare them another round of ineffective treatment, he said.

“The current (drug) label requires us to force that patient to get another line of treatment so they can relapse, and then we can give them a CAR,” he said.

Immunotherapy carries its own risks, including secondary cancers, and a small number of patients have developed lymphoma after treatment with CAR-T for another blood cancer. Right now, it appears that developing lymphoma after CAR-T is “extremely rare,” and no one is sure if the CAR-T caused it or if the patients’ previous chemotherapy did, Fry said. Roughly 3% of patients who had one type of blood cancer develop a secondary cancer regardless of whether they received CAR-T, he said.

“It’s very rare that a cancer treatment is a free lunch,” he said. “So far, (secondary lymphoma) looks to be extremely, extremely rare.”

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T cells are the part of the immune system that kills infected cells. In CAR-T, they’re altered to recognize and attack cells with selected proteins on their surfaces. Certain types of leukemia and lymphoma are relatively easy targets for CAR-T, because the type of white blood cell that has become cancerous has a protein that isn’t located elsewhere in the body, Fry said.

And since people can live without those cells for a time, so long as they receive antibody drugs to protect them from disease, wiping out healthy cells along with the cancerous ones doesn’t cause much collateral damage.

Developing CAR-T therapies for other cancers has been more difficult, Fry said. To develop a CAR-T that worked for solid tumors, they would have to find a protein on the surface of the cancerous cells that wasn’t widely present in the healthy organ around it, and solve other challenges that aren’t a factor with blood cancers, he said.

“I think we’ll eventually figure it out,” he said.

​ Orange County Register 

The drama in Russia’s election is all about what Putin will do with another 6 years in power

• March 14, 2024

By Jim Heintz, Associated Press

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — As Vladimir Putin heads for another six-year term as Russia’s president, there’s little electoral drama in the race. What he does after he crosses the finish line is what’s drawing attention and, for many observers, provoking anxiety.

The voting that concludes on Sunday is all but certain to allow Putin to remain in office until 2030, giving him a full three decades of leading Russia as either president or prime minister.

The heft of that long tenure and the thorough suppression of effective domestic opposition voices gives Putin a very strong — and perhaps unrestrained — hand.

That position is bolstered by the Russian economy’s surprising resilience despite wide-ranging Western sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine.

FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with his election campaign activists in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. Presidential elections are scheduled in Russia for March 17. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, Pool, File)

It’s also strengthened by Moscow’s incremental but consistent battlefield advances in recent months, flagging support for military aid to Kyiv from the United States and other quarters, and growing skepticism in some Western countries over more progressive social attitudes that echoes Putin’s push for “traditional values.”

Putin, in short, would head into a new term with few obvious restraints, and that could manifest itself quickly in major new actions.

“Russia’s presidential election is not so important as what will come after. Putin has often postponed unpopular moves until after elections,” Bryn Rosenfeld, a Cornell University professor who studies post-Communist politics, said in a commentary.

Probably the most unpopular move he could make at home would be to order a second military mobilization to fight in Ukraine; the first, in September 2022, sparked protests, and a wave of Russians fled the country to avoid being called up. However unpopular a second mobilization might be, it could also mollify relatives of the soldiers who were drafted 18 months ago.

Some in Russia believe it could happen.

“Russian leaders are now talking of ‘consolidating the whole of Russian society around its defense needs,’” Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser at the RAND Corporation think tank told The Associated Press.

“The precise meaning of this phrase is not entirely clear, but it suggests that Russia’s leadership understands that the war Putin describes will go on for a long time, and therefore resources must be mobilized,” he added. “In other words, Russian society must be organized for perpetual warfare.”

FILE – In this image taken from video released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, March 7, 2024, Russian servicemen are at an improvised pooling station during early voting in the Russian presidential elections in the Russian-controlled Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)

But Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, says Putin doesn’t need a mobilization partly because many Russians from poorer regions have signed up to fight in order to get higher pay than what they can earn in their limited opportunities at home.

In addition, Putin’s apparent confidence that the war is turning in Russia’s favor is likely to make him continue to insist that the only way to end the conflict is for Ukraine to sit down at the negotiating table, she said. “Which, in fact, means capitulation.”

While support for Ukraine lags in Washington, both French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski have said recently that sending troops to back Kyiv is at least a hypothetical possibility.

With those statements in mind, Putin may be motivated to test the resolve of NATO.

FILE – A woman walks past a billboard promoting the upcoming presidential election with the words in Russian “Time to vote” in St. Petersburg, Russia, Thursday, March 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

Alexandra Vacroux, executive director of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, posits that Russia within several years will make an attempt to assess NATO’s commitment to Article 5, the alliance’s common defense guarantee under which an attack on one member is considered an attack on all.

“I don’t think that Putin thinks that he needs to be physically, militarily stronger than all of the other countries. He just needs them to be weaker and more fractured. And so the question for him is like … instead of worrying so much about making myself stronger, how can I make everyone else weaker?” she said.

“So in order to do that, it’s like you have to find a situation where you could test Article 5,” and if the response is mild or uncertain “then you’ve shown that, like NATO is just a paper tiger,” Vacroux said.

Russia could run such a test without overt military action, she said, adding, “You could imagine, like, one of the big questions is what kind of cyberattack constitutes a threat to attack?”

FILE – Russian recruits take a train at a railway station in Prudboi, Volgograd region of Russia, Sept. 29, 2022. (AP Photo/File)

Although it is not a NATO member, the country of Moldova is increasingly worried about becoming a Russian target. Since the invasion of Ukraine, neighboring Moldova has faced crises that have raised fears in its capital of Chisinau that the country is also in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.

The congress in Moldova’s separatist Transnistria region, where Russia bases about 1,500 soldiers as nominal peacekeepers, have appealed to Moscow for diplomatic “protection” because of alleged increasing pressure from Moldova.

That appeal potentially leaves “a lot of room for escalation,” said Cristain Cantir, a Moldovan international relations professor at Oakland University. “I think it’s useful to see the congress and the resolution as a warning to Moldova that Russia may get more involved in Transnistria if Chisinau does not make concessions.”

On the Russian home front, more repressive measures could come in a new Putin term, even though opposition supporters and independent media already are cowed or silenced.

FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Yevgenia Gutsul, the head of Moldova’s autonomous region of Gagauzia, pose for a photo during the World Youth Festival at the Sirius Park of Science and Art outside Sochi, Russia, Wednesday, March 6, 2024. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP, File)

Stanovaya suggested that Putin himself does not drive repressive measures but that he approves such actions that are devised by others in the expectation that these are what the Kremlin leader wants.

“Many players are trying to survive and to adapt, and they compete against each other and often they have contradictory interests,” she said. “And they are trying all together in parallel to secure their own priorities and the stability of the regime.”

Russia last year banned the notional LGBTQ+ “movement” by declaring it to be extremist in what officials said was a fight for traditional values like those espoused by the Russian Orthodox Church in the face of Western influence. Courts also banned gender transitioning.

Ben Noble, an associate professor of Russian politics at University College London, said he believes the LGBTQ+ community could face further repression in a new Putin term.

In the Kremlin’s eye, they “can be held up as an import from the decadent West,” he said.

Stephen McGrath in Sighisoara, Romania, contributed to this report.

Correction: This story corrects Noble’s title to associate professor.

​ Orange County Register 

Americans are living farther and farther from their workplaces

• March 14, 2024

Freed, perhaps, from a daily jaunt to the office, the average American worker now lives almost three times farther from their job than they did before the pandemic, research shows.

Workers’ average distance to their employer increased from 10 miles in 2019 to 27 miles in 2023, according to a study released March 3 by Gusto, a payroll software firm, and the Stanford WFH Group, a team studying work-from-home trends.

The study analyzes Gusto’s payroll data from about 5,800 small and midsize businesses from 2018 to 2023. Distances were measured by linking employees’ addresses with employer locations.

The data shows the distance between workers and their employers is most pronounced among people who started in their jobs after the pandemic hit. Workers hired in March 2020 or later lived 35 miles from their employer in December 2023, on average. That’s more than twice the distance of people hired before March 2020.

While the payroll data doesn’t explicitly show that people living farthest from their employer are taking advantage of hybrid or remote work arrangements, the results line up with years of research by the Stanford WFH Group showing the dramatic impact the pandemic had on where work is performed.

Before the pandemic, just about 7% of paid workdays were performed at home. In February, the share of days spent working from home was 28%, according to the group’s most recent Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes released March 5.

Work-from-home trend a factor, researchers say

Because working from home reduces the number of times per week a person has to commute to an office — or eliminates the commute entirely — workers could move farther from their employer or seek a job that might have been impossible before because of the distance, the researchers said.

That’s what happened during the pandemic, as people sought bigger houses with room for a home office, says Jose Maria Barrero, an assistant professor of finance at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM) Business School and a member of the Stanford WFH Group.

Barrero sees the clearest connection in the rise in the number of workers living an “uncommutable” distance from their employer. The study shows 5.5% of workers lived more than 50 miles from their employers at the end of 2023 — up from 0.8% in 2019. The rate is much higher for workers in certain industries. Researchers found that more than 20% of tech workers lived 100 miles or more from their employer.

“Once you have somebody living significantly far away from their assigned work location, it sort of has to be fully remote,” Barrero says.

The study also shows groups that could be assumed to have the most interest in or the best access to work-from-home opportunities are living farthest from their employer. According to the study:

People in their 30s (prime parenting age, the study notes) lived the farthest from their jobs compared with other age groups.
Office workers — specifically those working in tech, finance and insurance, and professional services — lived farther from their employer, on average, than those in industries where working from home is less feasible (like construction).
Higher income earners (those earning $100,000 or more per year) lived farther from their employers compared with other groups based on income.

The article Americans Are Living Farther and Farther From Their Workplaces originally appeared on NerdWallet.

​ Orange County Register 

Catherine Blakespear: Gun laws work – when they are fully implemented

• March 14, 2024

The news organization Cal Matters investigated the effectiveness of California’s gun safety laws in domestic violence cases a few years ago, and it found that many domestic abusers never turn in proof that they had relinquished their firearms as required by law. 

In Orange County, only one out of 25 armed abusers actually submitted proof they turned over their guns. To be clear, this problem was not unique to Orange County, but rather indicative of a systemic issue with how our laws operate.

Since then, the California state Legislature passed Senate Bill 320 (Eggman, 2021), which enhanced the court’s ability to see that their orders are actually followed and allotted an additional $40 million in state funding to ensure abusers turn over their firearms. 

The policy improvement and increased investment have led to promising results. Julia Weber, an expert on firearm relinquishment procedures, testified this week in the California Senate Public Safety Committee that over a seven-month period from July 2023 to February 2024, the Orange County Superior Court handled 77 domestic violence cases involving firearms leading to 246 relinquished guns.

Orange County’s success is the product of hard work and critical investment, but the guiding principle behind the work is relatively simple: laws are only as effective as their implementation. 

From workplace violence restraining orders to automatic firearm prohibitions after a mental health crisis, we have plenty of tools designed to prevent dangerous people from having firearms. But what good is a law if it isn’t enforced? 

California has over 23,000 people listed in its Armed and Prohibited Persons System (APPS), meaning those individuals legally purchased or acquired firearms, later became prohibited from owning or possessing them and still have the weapons. These are people who may have committed crimes or were deemed a danger to themselves, a school, workplace, or person. 

That is why I am working on two bills (Senate Bills 899 & 1002) that expand the proven concepts that have helped Orange County in domestic violence cases to other circumstances involving threats of harm. By providing people information on how to comply with the law in the courts and empowering courts and other stakeholders to follow up to ensure they do, we make sure our laws actually do what was intended. That way, we protect society from harm, but also remove guns from situations where there is an increased risk of suicide, which accounts for over half of California’s gun deaths. 

These aren’t the only gun laws that need more follow up. For the last few years, California has led one of the largest gun buyback programs in the country. Recently, the New York Times reported that, rather than being destroyed as promised, many of the firearms collected in gun buybacks across the country, including Riverside, are recycled and resold online as gun kits.

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Last month, I introduced legislation (Senate Bill 1019) requiring complete destruction of firearms acquired through buybacks or confiscated by law enforcement – scopes, silencers, and suppressors included. That was the idea with gun buybacks, and this ensures it actually happens. 

But perhaps the strongest reason to focus on improving the implementation and effectiveness of current gun laws is to avoid the uncertainty created by the Supreme Court, which has upended many gun laws and undercut new ones across the country. 

This summer, when the court decides US v. Rahimi, we will get a clear indication of whether a fundamental aspect of maintaining a safe society – keeping guns away from people we know to be violent and dangerous – will stand. 

In the meantime, I am focused on making the state safer by improving the outcomes of our existing legal structure. Let’s make sure our current laws are working as intended. That alone can save thousands of lives. 

Catherine Blakespear represents California’s 38th state Senate District.

​ Orange County Register 

Dodgers depart for South Korea and opportunity to expand the brand

• March 14, 2024

GLENDALE, Ariz. — They are missionaries, spreading the gospel of Major League Baseball.

For the second time in the past 11 seasons, the Dodgers will open the regular season with games on a different continent. In 2014, they played the first MLB games in Australia, starting their season with two games at the Sydney Cricket Grounds.

This year, they will play the first regular-season MLB games in South Korea, facing the San Diego Padres twice next week at Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul.

In between, they played regular-season games in Monterrey, Mexico (May 2018). The franchise actually has a long history of international travel. They made a five-game tour of Taiwan and Japan in 1993, played a historic exhibition game in Beijing, China in March 2008 and visited Taiwan again in 2010.

“This is an exciting part of baseball’s effort to expand our reach globally, internationally,” Dodgers team president Stan Kasten said. “As you know we have a lot of different teams going all over the globe. We went to Australia in 2014. Teams go to London every year now, Mexico every year now. This year, we’re also going to have programs in India, France, the DR (Dominican Republic). We’re also going to have games in the DR. It’s all part of that effort. All teams have opportunities. We were lucky enough to be selected for this.”

Yeah, lucky. Or maybe MLB just recognizes the international appeal of the Dodgers brand. And that brand has only become more powerful globally – particularly in Asia, where new Dodgers Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are tremendously popular.

“I just think MLB is going to use that. I think the Dodgers are going to use that,” said pitcher Clayton Kershaw, one of only two players from those Australia games still in a Dodgers uniform (though he won’t be making the trip to South Korea). Miguel Rojas made the trip in 2014 but didn’t play in either game.

“Obviously there’s a lot of financial incentives involved and all that so it makes a lot of sense. I don’t think us as players have to do anything different. But now with Ohtani and Yamamoto, these guys are like Taylor Swift in Japan. We become a bigger deal because we’re associated with them. It just means there’s a lot more eyes on us from different parts of the world – which is cool.”

Speculation has already started that the Dodgers will be making a trip to Tokyo in the near future, bringing Ohtani and Yamamoto back home for a visit.

“If they do that, it’ll be like traveling with a rock group. It will be,” Kershaw said. “It’ll be an experience. It’ll be something.”

Kasten said the Dodgers knew about the trip to South Korea two years in advance, allowing for all of the necessary planning. Earlier this year, Sadayuki Sakakibara, the commissioner of NPB (Japan’s professional league) reportedly confirmed that the league is already in discussions with MLB about bringing a series to Tokyo in 2025. There is also speculation about games at the new stadium in Sapporo, home to the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters.

“We do not know that,” Kasten said when asked if the Dodgers would be going to Japan next year. “I don’t have any expectations of that.”

Games in the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome would be a far cry from the Gocheok Sky Dome, which seats less than 17,000.

“I’ve heard the stadium we’re playing in only seats 16 or 18,000 but it sounds like 40,000,” third baseman Max Muncy said.

“Everyone cheers for baseball differently. You look just here in the United States. Our fans cheer different than a St. Louis Cardinals fan versus the New York Yankees fans. Every fan base is different. It’s just fun to experience. This is going to be something that I don’t think any of us has ever experienced before, with the exception of maybe one or two.”

The Dodgers and Padres are each sacrificing a home game from their schedule – games that would have drawn far more than 16,000 fans. But MLB makes sure they don’t sacrifice anything financially.

The players, meanwhile, face the challenges of a compressed spring training and playing games that count a full week before anyone else – not to mention jet lag after a 14-hour flight there (and 12 hours back). As they did before the trip to Australia, the Dodgers have had a sleep specialist working with the players to prepare them.

“There’s nothing you can do. It’s a long flight,” Kershaw said, recalling the Australia trip. “It’s kind of tough – jet lag and all that stuff. The only good thing now is they’re not trying to build pitchers up to throw – like, I threw 100-and-some pitches (in his Australia start). (Arizona Diamondbacks starter Patrick) Corbin threw seven innings in a spring training game and wound up having Tommy John. I don’t think they’re naive enough to think that’s a good idea now.”

Kershaw did indeed throw 102 pitches over 6⅔ innings in Australia. A week later, he went on the injured list for the first time in his career with a strained muscle in the back of his throwing shoulder. He missed a month – then went on to win both the National League Cy Young and MVP awards.

This time around, the Dodgers’ two starters (Tyler Glasnow and Yamamoto) are not expected to pitch more than four or five innings.

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“I’m looking forward to it,” outfielder James Outman said of the trip, adding that he’s “down for that” if a trip to Tokyo next year happens. “I haven’t really been out of the country. So I’m looking forward to that, seeing a different culture and seeing baseball in a different country. I know it’s huge over there. I’m looking forward to experiencing it there.”

Outman and his teammates have other reasons to be excited. MLB will make it worth their while. Players who participate in “jewel events” like the Seoul Series are eligible for a bonus of $70,000 each.

“It’s a country that I would probably never go to visit on my own – which is what makes this so exciting,” said Muncy, who was one of the Dodgers who traveled to Dubai in 2019 as part of the Dodgers’ partnership with the airline Emirates.

“It’s an opportunity to go somewhere that I probably wouldn’t go otherwise. It’s not that I don’t want to go there. It’s just I would never have a reason to go. So it’ll be super exciting to see just a different place in the world. At the same time, it is the season and we have to play regular-season games and prepare to play.”

​ Orange County Register 

UPS laying off 333 as it eliminates shift at Ontario air hub

• March 14, 2024

UPS plans to eliminate a shift at its regional air hub at Ontario International Airport next month, resulting in 333 layoffs.

In a March 6 notice to the state Employment Development Department, the delivery giant said the cuts, effective April 27, are tied to a “volume loss in our network.”

“We often evaluate our operations and flex our network to meet volume demands,” UPS said in a statement issued Wednesday, March 13. “This allows us to continue delivering industry-leading service while also maintaining competitive prices.”

Also see: Nearly a million US union members got double-digit raises this year

The company’s downturn is reflected in its fourth-quarter 2023 earnings report, which saw average daily domestic volume fall 7.4% below 2022 levels, while international volume was down 8.3%.

That was followed by the UPS’ announced plan to eliminate 12,000 positions — mostly full- and part-time management roles and contract workers — as the company “seeks to align its resources” this year.

In a January earnings call, CEO Carol Tome said the workforce reductions will save the company about $1 billion in costs.

“2023 was a unique and, quite candidly, difficult and disappointing year,” she said. “We experienced declines in volume, revenue and operating profit and all three of our business segments.”

Tome tied some problems to labor disruptions as the company sought to avoid a strike, and higher costs associated with the new contract.

Affected employees at the 775,000-square-foot Ontario facility include non-union workers and union employees represented by Teamsters, Local 63 in Rialto. The layoffs will affect a variety of jobs, including 131 employees who load and unload packages, 26 hub supervisors and scores of others, the company said.

Human Resources Director Lori Cruz said the displaced union workers will have “bumping rights,” meaning they can displace non-union employees under the Local 63’s collective bargaining agreement.

Company spokesman Matt Skeen said union workers on the layoff list will also have the option of filling open positions in Ontario or at other area UPS facilities. The company operates in Rialto, Rancho Cucamonga and Fontana.

“Generally, we always make a good faith effort on the part of the company to place laid off employees in open positions when they become available,” Skeen said. “If I was a package driver, for example, I might have the option of filling another job inside the Ontario facility.”

UPS reported net income of $1.61 billion for the final three months of 2023, well below the $3.45 billion posted a year earlier during the same period. The company also hinted that its Coyote truck-load brokerage business may be put up for sale.

The company had about 495,000 employees as of January, according to Tome. That’s down from a high of 540,000 during peak COVID-era demand.

Amazon now stands as the biggest parcel delivery business in the U.S., and the gap between it and UPS and FedEx is only set to expand, according to a recent analysis by the Wall Street Journal.

Internal Amazon projections estimated the company would log about 5.9 billion U.S. deliveries by the end of 2023, the Journal reported.

Meanwhile, UPS said its 2023 domestic delivery volume was unlikely to top 5.3 billion, while FedEx’s fiscal 2023 delivery volume was just over 3 billion.

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​ Orange County Register 

LA Marathon: Freeway ramps and street closures for the March 17 race

• March 14, 2024

The 39th Los Angeles Marathon on March 17, sponsored by Asics, kicks off at the starting line at Dodger Stadium and ends at the finish line in Century City.

Participants will end their 26.2 mile experience — 40% are first-time marathon runners — at the finish line on Santa Monica Boulevard at Avenue of the Stars.

Here are the numerous freeway ramps and street closures to be aware of on March 16-17 along the L.A. Marathon route. Motorists should anticipate delays, plan ahead and choose alternate routes.

The Freeways

Caltrans is scheduled to close the following freeway ramps and turn lanes of US Route 101, State Route-110 and Interstate 405 (also known as the 101, the 110 and the 405) from 3 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 17. Be aware that the closures may start earlier or end later.

For real-time freeway traffic information, go to the Caltrans Quickmap: quickmap.dot.ca.gov/

Northbound SR-110 closures

– Temple Street offramp

– Hill Street/Stadium Way offramp

Southbound SR-110 closures

– Figueroa Street/Sunset Boulevard offramp

– Stadium Way offramp

– Hill Street offramp

Northbound US-101 closures

– Spring Street offramp

– Grand Avenue offramp

– Glendale Boulevard/Echo Park Avenue offramp

– Sunset/Hollywood boulevards offramp

– Left turn lane of Gower Street offramp

– Right turn lane of Highland Avenue offramp

Southbound US-101 closures

– Broadway offramp

– Temple Street offramp

– Sunset/Hollywood boulevards offramp

– Right turn lane of Gower Street

– Right turn lane of Vine Street

– Highland Avenue offramp

Northbound I-405 closures

– Westbound Wilshire Boulevard offramp

Southbound I-405 closures

– Left turn lane of Santa Monica Boulevard offramp

– Wilshire Boulevard offramp

The Streets

Street closures begin at 4 a.m. Sunday. The marathon’s course is closed to vehicular traffic for 6 hours and 30 minutes beginning after the last runner has crossed the start line at Dodger Stadium.

Street Closures

– 4-9 a.m.: Elysian Park Avenue — between Dodger Stadium and Sunset Boulevard- 4-9:20 a.m.: Sunset Boulevard — between Park Avenue and Figueroa Street- 4-9:32 a.m.: Cesar Chavez Avenue — between Bunker Hill and Alameda Street- 4-9:35 a.m.: Broadway — between Cesar Chavez Avenue and Alpine Street- 4-9:35 a.m.: Alpine Street — between Hill and Alameda streets- 4-9:35 a.m.: Spring Street — between College and First streets- 4-9:50 a.m.: First Street — between Hope and San Pedro streets- 4-9:50 a.m.: Los Angeles Street — between Temple and Fifth streets- 4-9:50 a.m.: Fourth Street — between Los Angeles and Main streets- 4-9:50 a.m.: Main Street — between Fifth and Temple streets- 4-9:50 a.m.: Third Street — between San Pedro and Hill streets- 4-9:50 a.m.: Hill Street — between Fourth and Temple streets- 4-10:05 a.m.: First Street — between San Pedro and Hope streets- 4-10:05 a.m.: Grand Avenue — between Cesar Chavez Avenue and Second Street- 4-10:20 a.m.: Temple Street — between Alameda Street and Glendale Boulevard- 4-10:20 a.m.: Edgeware Road — between Temple and Boston streets- 4-10:20 a.m.: Bellevue Avenue — between Sunset and Glendale boulevards- 4-10:40 a.m.: Glendale Boulevard — between Temple Street and Sunset Boulevard- 4-11:10 a.m.: Sunset Boulevard — between Echo Park and Virgil avenues- 4 a.m.-noon: Hollywood Boulevard — between Hillhurst and La Brea avenues- 4 a.m.-noon: Orange Avenue — between Hollywood and Sunset boulevards- 5 a.m.-12:45 p.m.: Sunset Boulevard — between Highland Avenue and Doheny Drive- 5 a.m.-1 p.m.: San Vicente Boulevard — between Sunset Boulevard and Melrose Avenue- 5 a.m.-1 p.m.: Santa Monica Boulevard — between La Cienega Boulevard and Sierra Drive- 5 a.m.-1 p.m.: Doheny Drive — between Nemo Street and Wilshire Boulevard- 5 a.m.-1 p.m.: Burton Way — between Robertson Boulevard and Rexford Drive- 5 a.m.-1 p.m.: South Santa Monica Boulevard — between Rexford Drive and Moreno Boulevard- 5 a.m.-1 p.m.: Rodeo Drive — between Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards- 5 a.m.-1 p.m.: Wilshire Boulevard — between Beverly Drive and Santa Monica Boulevard- 5 a.m.-6 p.m.: Santa Monica Boulevard (westbound and eastbound lanes) — between Wilshire and Sepulveda boulevards- 5 a.m.-2:45 p.m.: Sepulveda Boulevard — between Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards- 5 a.m.-2:20 p.m.: Wilshire Boulevard (westbound and eastbound lanes) — between Sepulveda Boulevard and Barrington Avenue- 5 a.m.-5 p.m.: San Vicente Boulevard — between Wilshire Boulevard and Saltaire Avenue

Additional closures on March 16-17

– 8 a.m. March 16 to 8 p.m. March 17: Avenue of the Stars between Santa Monica and Constellation boulevards.

– 9 p.m. March 16 to 6 p.m. March 17: Santa Monica Boulevard (eastbound lanes early closure) between Avenue of the Stars and Century Park East

– 8 a.m. March 16 to 8 p.m. March 17: Century Park East between Santa Monica and Constellation boulevards

– 3-8 p.m. March 17: Century Park East between Constellation and Olympic boulevards

Local access street closures — but streets not on the course itself

For residents in local neighborhoods immediately affected in Los Angeles, Hollywood and West Hollywood, check information here: tinyurl.com/52fvc2bz

Details for 2024 LA Marathon Road Closures: www.mccourtfoundation.org/event/los-angeles-marathon/road-closures/

West Hollywood 

Parking will be prohibited along the marathon route. No parking signs will be posted prior to the event. Spectators looking for parking during the marathon in West Hollywood will find a directory of municipal lots and parking structures online. Find parking options here: tinyurl.com/2p9hrh6v

Streets closures, from 4 a.m. to 2 p.m., in West Hollywood include

– Sunset Boulevard — the route enters the city of West Hollywood from the city of Los Angeles, moving west along Sunset Boulevard

– North San Vicente Boulevard

– Santa Monica Boulevard

– Doheny Drive

– The marathon route exits the city of West Hollywood along Doheny Drive at Beverly Boulevard to the city of Beverly Hills

For more information on street closures in West Hollywood, Event Street Closures, 323-848-6503. www.weho.org. Marathon information in West Hollywood: tinyurl.com/kmnmdw87

Beverly Hills

The Beverly Hills segment of the marathon, miles 16-17, enters at Doheny Drive, and participants run west on Burton Way to Rodeo Drive, then south on Rodeo to Wilshire Boulevard, then west to Santa Monica Boulevard.

Streets closed from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Beverly Hills:

– Doheny Drive — between North Santa Monica Boulevard and Burton Way- Burton Way — between Doheny Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard- South Santa Monica Boulevard — between Rexford and Rodeo drives- Rodeo Drive — between South Santa Monica and Wilshire boulevards- Wilshire Boulevard — between Rodeo Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard- South Santa Monica Boulevard — between Wilshire Boulevard and Moreno Drive

Also, there will be a detour in effect until 6 p.m. March 17 on the western border of Beverly Hills at Wilshire and North Santa Monica boulevards and also at Moreno Drive and South Santa Monica Boulevard.

Beverly Hills Police Department and detour message boards will direct motorists around the route in the city (Beverly Hills Facebook: www.facebook.com/beverlyhillspd/). Updates may be posted on the city of Beverly Hills Facebook: www.facebook.com/CityofBevHills

For updates on street closure on race day itself, from 5 a.m.-2 p.m., call the City of Beverly Hills Hotline: 310-550-4680.

Details on the route in Beverly Hills, street closures and a map: tinyurl.com/2xfzfaau

Finish Line for spectators

Family and friends of marathon participants and the public will be entertained musically by a DJ as they sit in the bleacher seating section or first-come, first-served seating on top of double decker Starline buses, from 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Location, Santa Monica Boulevard at the corner of Avenue of the Stars, Century City.

Finish Line Festival

The LA Marathon’s official post-race event, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. A beer garden, presented by Heineken 0.0, is open 10 a.m.-2:30 p.m. (minimum age: 21). Location, Century Park, 2000 Avenue of the Stars, Century City.

Spectator parking includes the Century Park parking garage, 2049 Century Park East (parking garage is only accessible from westbound Olympic Avenue). Check for other parking structure options here: www.mccourtfoundation.org/event/los-angeles-marathon/finish-line/

Details on the finish line for spectators, the festival, a map of the finish line and a map of the festival and beer garden: www.mccourtfoundation.org/event/los-angeles-marathon/finish-line/

Race 2024 results and photos will be posted here: www.mccourtfoundation.org/pages/la-marathon-results-and-photos

Details on the LA Marathon: www.lamarathon.com/pages/la-marathon

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