This week’s bestsellers at Southern California’s independent bookstores

• December 20, 2023

The SoCal Indie Bestsellers List for the sales week ended Dec. 17 is based on reporting from the independent booksellers of Southern California, the California Independent Booksellers Alliance and IndieBound. For an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.org.

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Tom Lake: Ann Patchett

2. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: James McBride

3. Lessons in Chemistry: Bonnie Garmus

4. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: Gabrielle Zevin

5. North Woods: Daniel Mason

6. Prophet Song: Paul Lynch

7. Iron Flame: Rebecca Yarros

8. The Covenant of Water: Abraham Verghese

9. Demon Copperhead: Barbara Kingsolver

10. Small Things Like These: Claire Keegan

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder: David Grann

2. The Creative Act: A Way of Being: Rick Rubin

3. My Name Is Barbra: Barbra Streisand

4. The Woman in Me: Britney Spears

5. Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning: Liz Cheney

6. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession: Michael Finkel

7. Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism: Rachel Maddow

8. Making It So: A Memoir: Patrick Stewart

9. How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen: David Brooks

10. What the Bears Know: How I Found Truth and Magic in America’s Most Misunderstood Creatures: Steve Searles, Chris Erskine

MASS MARKET

1. The Name of the Wind: Patrick Rothfuss

2. Elvis and Me: Priscilla Presley, Sandra Harmon

3. Dune: Frank Herbert

4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams

5. Mistborn: The Final Empire

6. A Christmas Carol: Charles Dickens

7. The Color of Magic: Terry Pratchett

8. And Then There Were None: Agatha Christie

9. Good Omens: Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett

10. Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: Taylor Jenkins Reid

2. Trust: Hernan Diaz

3. The Alchemist: Paulo Coelho

4. A Court of Thorns and Roses: Sarah J. Maas

5. The Midnight Library: Matt Haig

6. All the Light We Cannot See: Anthony Doerr

7. Circe: Madeline Miller

8. The Thursday Murder Club: Richard Osman

9. A Little Life: Hanya Yanagihara

10. The Best American Short Stories 2023: Min Jin Lee, Heidi Pitlor (Eds.)

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​ Orange County Register 

Rams will get taste of playoff-like football against Saints

• December 20, 2023

THOUSAND OAKS — A prime-time game, an opponent neck-and-neck with the Rams in the NFC playoff race, the winner gets a tiebreaker over the other with two games left to play.

These are the stakes that will greet the Rams (7-7) and the New Orleans Saints (7-7) when they meet Thursday night at SoFi Stadium. And it might only be December, but the Rams are starting to play with stakes that feel straight out of January.

“Every game’s like a playoff game now, right?” defensive tackle Aaron Donald asked Tuesday. “We ain’t got much room for no losses. Obviously, go week to week, but every game’s a big game. That’s what makes it fun, that’s what makes it exciting.”

The Rams, Saints, Minnesota Vikings and Seattle Seahawks are currently tied for the final two NFC wild-card spots. As things stand currently via tiebreakers, the Vikings are in sixth place and the Rams are in seventh.

But a win over New Orleans on Thursday would give the Rams head-to-head tiebreakers over the Saints and Seahawks, as well as a one-game edge in the win column with two games left to play.

That’s a far cry from where the Rams were expected to be during the preseason, pegged by oddsmakers with an over/under win total of 6.5. The Rams have already topped that number, and have the chance to do something more satisfying if they can beat the Saints.

“It’s certainly been gratifying, it’s certainly been fun to be relevant,” defensive coordinator Raheem Morris said. “You want to get into these moments in December when you are in the mix, so to speak, and you’re ready to do those things.”

Complicating matters is the Rams’ short week of preparation. The physical challenges of playing two football games in a span of five days are enough, but the Saints are a relatively unknown entity to the Rams.

It’s one thing to prepare for a division rival on short rest, but learning a new opponent with a fraction of the usual practice time presents its own challenges.

“It’s just a jampacked week of trying to learn everything you can about the New Orleans Saints,” quarterback Matthew Stafford said at a rapid clip as he tried to move on from his weekly press conference as quickly as possible. “A lot of times it’s a race to Sunday, anyways. We’re just shortening it by a few days.”

The Saints’ defense is the biggest area of concern for the Rams. Limiting opponents to 185.4 passing yards per game, New Orleans has a menacing pass rush led by end Carl Granderson and complemented by one of the NFL’s best blitzing linebackers, Demario Davis.

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The offense has been more of a mixed bag, but running back Alvin Kamara has provided a boost since returning from a three-game suspension with 1,076 yards of total offense and six touchdowns.

“They’ve got a lot of guys that have played in a lot of big-time games and this is a team that knows how to play winning football in the month of December,” Coach Sean McVay said. “So we’ve got a great challenge and what a cool opportunity that our guys have earned on Thursday night at home.”

An opportunity that could lead to a bigger one come January.

“Obviously, we’re not immune to understanding what the implications are,” Stafford said. “But this is another football game we gotta get prepared for in a short amount of time both physically and mentally. That’s what we’re doing right now.”

​ Orange County Register 

California police must tell drivers why they’re being stopped starting next year under new law

• December 20, 2023

California police will soon be required to tell drivers why they’ve stopped them before they can start asking questions.

The new bill, A.B. 2773, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2024, will also require all police agencies to track whether officers who stop drivers are complying with the law.

During its meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 19, members of the Los Angeles Police Commission asked commanders what the new law would mean for officers making traffic stops.

“This is instead of the officer asking a driver, ‘Do you know why I pulled you over?’” LAPD Captain Steven Ramos told the commission. “Now, the onus is on the officer to tell the individual why they pulled them over.”

On its face, the law written by state Assemblyman Chris Holden of Pasadena and passed in 2022 would require officers to give drivers basic information about the reason they’re being detained.

But the changes to what police are required to tell drivers could also lead to fewer of what are known as pretextual stops: That is, the police practice of stopping drivers purportedly for minor traffic violations with the intent of searching the driver’s car for contraband such as drugs or firearms.

The bill would target “stops whose predicate is mostly discretionary and constitutes a minor infraction like overly tinted windows, dangling objects on a windshield, or broken tail lights,” wrote members of Oakland Privacy, a Bay Area-based civil rights group in support of the law.

Police have used such stops for decades when attempting to break up suspected drug trafficking operations in local communities. And the practice remains legal, with the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of pretextual stops in several rulings.

But in recent years, scrutiny of their use has increased as civil rights advocates have pointed out extreme racial disparities in who police pull over.

In Tuesday’s meeting, LAPD officials noted the department had had already wound down its own pretextual stop policies after a 2020 internal review found they were largely ineffective as well as disproportionality targeting people of color.

That Office of Inspector General report released showed the LAPD was stopping Black and Latino drivers much more often compared to White drivers for minor traffic violations, as well as subjecting them to more intense searches of their vehicles.

The intent of the searches was to suppress violent crime, Inspector General Mark Smith wrote in the report. But the strategy didn’t work: Officers actually found more drugs and guns when they had a reasonable suspicion they might actually find contraband by stopping a vehicle versus when they initiated a pretextual stop.

As a result, since 2022, the LAPD has already been encouraging officers to tell drivers why they were stopping them while recording that interaction on their body-worn cameras, said Lizabeth Rhodes, who directs the department’s Office of Constitutional Policing and Policy.

The change in state law just meant the rule would shift from a strong suggestion to a legal requirement.

“Our pretext stop policy talked about ‘shoulds,’” Rhodes told the commission. “(A.B. 2773) is the Legislature acting. Now, this is a ‘shall.’”

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​ Orange County Register 

OC Board of Supervisors to discuss updated conflict of interest policies at later date

• December 20, 2023

The OC Board of Supervisors will circle back in January on a proposal to broaden conflict of interest policies to give Second District Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento more time to work out the potential new language.

Sarmiento proposed the policy updates at Tuesday’s board meeting following reports that First District Supervisor Andrew Do voted on funding for subcontracts with a mental health program without publicly mentioning a close family connection.

“I do believe that there are some items that I do want to make sure we are clear on. There are some implementation issues that I would like to tighten up,” Sarmiento said. “But I do know that for me it’s such an important item that I want to make sure that we get this right.”

In the last two years, Do voted with other members of the OC Board of Supervisors to approve two subcontracts that included the Warner Wellness Center, for which his daughter works, without disclosing the family connection during the votes. One contract was for up to $625,000 and another for up to $2.5 million and were for mental health services, such as for the expansion of the county’s warmline.

The county’s conflict of interest policy follows state law, which says public officials cannot make decisions that would financially benefit their minor children, however, it does not apply to adult offspring.

Sarmiento’s proposed amendment to county policy would require disclosures of family connections before votes and would broaden the definition of family relationship, defining it as by “blood, adoption, marriage, domestic partnership and cohabitation.”

His proposal also extends that requirement to district office employees.

Do did not speak during the supervisors’ discussion and declined to talk with a reporter on Tuesday. In an op-ed Do penned that ran in the Register he said the Viet American Society, of which the Warner Wellness Center is a DBA,  “was already under three previous county contracts during COVID, well before my daughter was hired as an employee to help run its mental health clinic.

“Of note, my daughter was not a director or officer and she did not handle any of the nonprofit’s finances,” he said. “She did, though, have mental health experience (the Steinberg Institute) and is dual-language fluent — essential for Orange County’s Vietnamese-American community.”

Fifth District Supervisor Katrina Foley raised a concern with language in Sarmiento’s proposed policy additions surrounding county staff.

“I just want us to be careful about language that relates to our employees. For my staff, I don’t know what they do in their private lives, I don’t know who their family members work for, etcetera,” Foley said. “So I just think that if you could please look into that, make sure that we’re not forcing the supervisors to invade the privacy of our employees, of our staff. I think that there’s some language tweaking that might need to be done with respect to that section.”

Sarmiento is also proposing new guidelines for district discretionary projects that would address how board members submit funding for approval, including a requirement that organizations can spend no more than 20% of funding on “indirect or administrative costs.”

Foley also asked for more clarification on what constitutes as an indirect cost.

“I try not to have very high administrative costs on any of my grants, I think that’s good practice, but it depends on the grant because maybe it’s for something that has a lot of marketing attached to it,” Foley said. “You might have more than 20% of the grant that would go to marketing. Is that an administrative cost? I don’t know. Those are the issues that I hope that you’ll look at.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Donald Trump’s vile attack on immigrants pushes GOP further into a white nationalist party

• December 20, 2023

Former President Donald Trump is continuing his push to solidify the Republican Party as nothing more than a far-right, white nationalist party.

The former president recently spoke at a campaign rally in New Hampshire, where he railed against immigrants: “They’re poisoning the blood of our country … They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world. Not just in South America, not just the three or four countries that we think about, but all over the world they are coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, all over the world. They’re pouring into our country, nobody’s even looking at them. They just come in. The crime is going to be tremendous. The terrorism is going to be … We built a tremendous piece of the wall and then we’re going to build more.”

While that reads as if an AI prompt was asked to generate an intoxicated and incoherent rant from Joseph Goebbels, that is indeed what Trump said.

Compare, for a moment, Donald Trump’s way of speaking about immigrants with how President Ronald Reagan spoke about immigrants:  “Other countries may seek to compete with us; but in one vital area, as a beacon of freedom and opportunity that draws the people of the world, no country on earth comes close. This, I believe, is one of the most important sources of America’s greatness.”

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There is no doubt a serious problem at the southern border. Migrants and asylum seekers are trying to get to the United States by the millions in order to seek a better life for themselves and their families. Given the highly restrictive and limited avenues for people to legally migrate to the United States, and the inadequate resources to process migrants as they come, we get the scenes we get at the southern border.

The far right, including Donald Trump, want Americans to be fearful of these migrants in order to stifle any talk of opening up our immigration system. Donald Trump wants his supporters to judge  migrants as a threat to be rooted out and stopped, rather than given a fair chance at integrating into our nation.

Trumpism has poisoned the blood of the Republican Party, the American conservative movement and American political discourse.

​ Orange County Register 

San Clemente doctor accused of strangling his wife convicted of second-degree murder

• December 20, 2023

A fertility doctor accused of strangling his wife in 2016, and then staging the body to make it look like she took a fatal fall down the stairs at their San Clemente home, was convicted Tuesday of murder.

An Orange County Superior Court jury deliberated for roughly three hours before convicting Dr. Eric Scott Sills of second-degree murder for the slaying of 45-year-old Susann Sills, after finding he was not guilty of a more serious count of first-degree murder. Dr. Sills, who had been free on bail, was handcuffed and taken into custody immediately after the verdict.

Eric and Susann Sills worked together at the Center of Advanced Genetics, a fertility clinic in Carlsbad. He handled the medical work, according to testimony during the trial, while she ran the business side of the practice. The couple and their twin children — a boy and girl who were 12 years old at the time of their mother’s death — lived in an upscale San Clemente neighborhood.

On the morning of Nov. 12, 2016, Dr. Sills called 911 to report that he and his daughter had woken up to find his wife’s injured body at the bottom of the stairs of their home. Dr. Sills told authorities that his wife, who had been suffering from migraines that weekend, had suffered an apparent fall.

But pathologists and investigators suspected that Susann Sills’ extensive injuries — particularly marks on her neck — did not match up to such a fall. Her death was eventually attributed to strangulation. And after a lengthy investigation that included multiple rounds of DNA testing, Dr. Sills was arrested in April 2019.

Dr. Sills attacked his wife during an early morning argument while their children slept in another room, strangling her with either his hands or a scarf and leaving blood on curtains, a wall, a nightstand and both of their shirts, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Walker told jurors during closing arguments on Monday in a Santa Ana courtroom. He was then left with the question of how to cover up the slaying, the prosecutor said.

“Now he has got to figure out in a short amount of time what to do,” Walker said. “He knows what medications she is taking, knows about the migraines, is a doctor. So, literally the only thing available is the staircase.”

The couple’s son at the time of his mother’s death told investigators he had woken up early that morning to his parents arguing in another room. And the prosecutor noted that during the 911 call Dr. Sills appeared detached and seemed to avoid performing CPR despite the urging of the dispatcher.

“He wants to delay doing something he knows is unnecessary,” the prosecutor said. “He is the doctor who helps people create life, he knows he has taken it.”

Walker said investigators hadn’t determined a specific motive, but pointed to several signs of strife in the marriage. The couple were under financial strain, she was frustrated over her relationship with his older children from a previous marriage and he was “fixated” with a topless photo she had posted in a chat room after losing a bet over whether Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination for president, the prosecutor alleged.

Dr. Sills , who did not testify, previously denied any responsibility for his wife’s death. His attorney, Jack Earley, described it as a tragic accident.

The defense attorney argued that a combination of medications Susann Sills was taking for her migraines impacted her balance, leading her to fall down the stairs and suffer a spinal injury that left her unable to breathe.

“We don’t know how she fell, we don’t know if she fell backwards or if she fell into a railing and hit the stairs,” Earley told jurors during his closing arguments. “She hit something very hard.”

The defense attorney told jurors that the marks on Susann Sills’ neck were caused by the family’s two large, playful dogs tugging on a scarf she was wearing, “strangling” her as she lay slumped unconscious.

Earley accused investigators of focusing solely on Dr. Sills and argued the pathologist changed her findings to match the police theory about the death.

“They say they don’t know what happened, so lets throw this theory up,” Earley said of police and prosecutors. “But (they) do want to argue there was some horrible fight.”

“He is not guilty, he is not responsible for the death of his wife,” the defense attorney added.

The couple’s children, who are now 19 years old, both testified during the trial. The son backed away from his previous comments to police about hearing a loud argument between his parents. The daughter backed the defense contention that the family dogs pulled on the scarf that was around her mother’s neck.

The prosecutor noted that both the son and daughter remain close to Dr. Sills, and attacked the theory that the dogs tugging a scarf had caused the apparent strangulation marks, questioning why there weren’t any bite marks on the scarf or rips in the fabric.

Dr. Sills, now 58, is scheduled to return to court on March 15, when he faces up to 15 years to life in prison.

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​ Orange County Register 

Israel raids Gaza hospitals, kills dozens in airstrikes

• December 20, 2023

By NAJIB JOBAIN, SAMY MAGDY and JACK JEFFERY

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — The Israeli army has raided and detained staff at two of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza’s north, where the defense minister said Tuesday that troops were working to completely clear out Hamas militants.

Israel bombarded towns across southern Gaza Tuesday with airstrikes, killing at least 45 Palestinians and pressing ahead with its offensive with renewed backing from the United States, despite rising international alarm. The Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, warned the campaign in Gaza’s south will persist for months.

In a hospital in the southern town of Rafah, Mahmoud Zoarab bid farewell to his two children — a 2-year-old boy, and a girl born two weeks ago — killed in a predawn strike on their home.

Wounded in the strike, he winced as he peeled back the shrouds to look at their faces as his wife and mother stood by his bed.

“Just two weeks old. Her name hadn’t even been registered,” said the children’s grandmother, Suzan Zoarab. Addressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, she cried, “Does he think that by killing these children he will achieve something? Have they succeeded now? Has he achieved what he wants?”

Defense Minister Gallant said Israeli forces were entering Hamas’ tunnel network in northern Gaza as part of a “final clearing” of militants from the region. The densely built urban north, including Gaza City, has seen ferocious fighting between troops and militants, with Palestinian health officials reporting dozens of people killed in bombardment in recent days.

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Israeli troops have raided a series of hospitals and shelters in the north, detaining men in a search for militants and expelling others taking refuge there.

Gallant said that in southern Gaza, operations will take “months,” including the military’s assault on Khan Younis, the territory’s second largest city. “We will not stop until we reach our goals,” he said.

After meeting with Israeli officials Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin urged Israel to protect civilians but reiterated America’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas, saying he was “not here to dictate timelines or terms.”

Austin’s remarks signaled that the U.S. would continue shielding Israel from growing international calls for a cease-fire as the U.N. Security Council again delayed a vote — and would keep providing aid for one of the 21st century’s deadliest military campaigns.

Suzan Zoarab said her family was asleep when their home was hit before dawn.

“We found the whole house had collapsed over us.” Twenty-seven people were killed in the strike, along with at least three others in a separate strike in Rafah, according to Associated Press journalists who saw the bodies arrive at two local hospitals early Tuesday.

Rafah, which is in the southern part of Gaza and where Israel has told Palestinians to seek shelter, has been repeatedly bombarded, often killing large numbers of civilians. Israel said Tuesday it had killed a prominent Hamas financier in an airstrike on Rafah, without specifying when it occurred.

In central Gaza, at least 15 people were killed in strikes overnight, according to hospital records. Among the dead were a mother and her four children, who were killed as they sat around a fire, according to an AP reporter who filmed the aftermath.

Fierce battles also raged in northern Gaza, which has been reduced to a wasteland seven weeks after Israeli tanks and troops stormed in. The military said Tuesday its forces took “operational control” of the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya. Israel has killed hundreds of Hamas militants there and detained another 500 suspected militants, according to a statement from division commander Brig. Gen. Itsik Cohen.

The claims could not be independently confirmed.

Footage online showed a scene of devastation after a strike that hit a local charity in Jabaliya, with several torn bodies near a donkey cart on a street filled with rubble and twisted metal. At least 27 people were killed in that strike and others in the district Tuesday, according to Munir al-Bursh, a senior Health Ministry official.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Tuesday the death toll since the start of the war had risen to more than 19,600. It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

Hamas has continued to put up stiff resistance and lob rockets at Israel. The militants said they fired a barrage toward Tel Aviv on Tuesday, and air raid sirens went off in central Israel. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The war began after Hamas and other militants killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and abducted 240 others.

Israel’s military says 131 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive. Israel says it has killed some 7,000 militants, without providing evidence, and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, saying it uses them as human shields when it fights in residential areas.

Israeli forces raided the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City overnight, according to the church that operates it, destroying a wall at its front entrance and detaining most of its staff.

The facility was the scene of an explosion early in the war that killed dozens of Palestinians, and which an Associated Press investigation later determined was likely caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket.

Don Binder, a pastor at St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, which runs the hospital, said the raid left just two doctors, four nurses and two janitors to tend to over 100 seriously wounded patients, with no running water or electricity.

Binder said an Israeli tank was parked on the rubble at the hospital’s entrance, blocking anyone from entering or leaving.

Israeli troops seized northern Gaza’s Al Awda hospital on Sunday after besieging it for 12 days, the international aid group Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday. The troops stripped, bound and interrogated all males over 16, including six of the group’s staff, it said. Most were sent back into the hospital, which the troops still hold, with dozens of patients inside but no essential supplies, it said.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about the hospital raids.

Forces have raided other hospitals across northern Gaza, accusing Hamas of using them for military purposes. Hospital staff have denied the allegations and accused Israel of endangering critically ill and wounded civilians.

U.N. Security Council members continued intense negotiations on an Arab-sponsored resolution to spur desperately needed humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza during some kind of a halt in the fighting. A vote on the resolution, first postponed from Monday, was pushed back again until Wednesday as talks continued to get the U.S. to abstain or vote “yes” on the resolution after it vetoed an earlier cease-fire call.

France, the United Kingdom and Germany — some of Israel’s closest allies — joined global calls for a cease-fire over the weekend. In Israel, protesters have called for negotiations with Hamas to facilitate the release of scores of hostages still held by the group.

CIA Director William Burns met in Warsaw with the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and the prime minister of Qatar on Monday, the first known meeting of the three since the cease-fire and the release of some 100 hostages in a deal they helped broker.

But U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the talks were not “at a point where another deal is imminent.”

Hamas and other militants are still holding an estimated 129 captives.

Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will keep fighting until it ends Hamas rule in Gaza, crushes its military capabilities and frees all the hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attack.

Magdy and Jeffery reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed.

​ Orange County Register 

Chargers ‘playing to win’ under interim head coach Giff Smith

• December 20, 2023

COSTA MESA — It’s a three-week season, Giff Smith said after conducting his first practice as the Chargers’ interim coach Tuesday. He also said the final three games of the 2023 season should not be viewed as meaningless because there’s plenty at stake for the coaches and players alike.

So, he asked the team captains, including running back Austin Ekeler and safety Derwin James Jr., to lift the energy at practice if they believed it was falling. Smith asked them to raise the spirits of their teammates if it seemed like they were bottoming out on the field, in the locker room or in meetings.

It seemed like a tall order given all that’s happened since the season began Sept. 10, but particularly since Chargers coach Brandon Staley and general manager Tom Telesco were fired Friday, only hours after a 63-21 loss to the AFC West rival Raiders on Thursday night in Las Vegas.

“It’s a team game and it’s a player-driven league and the teams that have been successful that I’ve been a part of, you have great leaders,” said Smith, who was elevated from outside linebackers coach. “In times of adversity, those are the guys who’ve got to lead. Even if it’s out of your nature to step up and be aggressive, this is what this team needs for these three weeks. We’ve got a three-week season and we’re going to play to win.”

Smith and the Chargers do not have an easy route to the season’s finish line. They face the Buffalo Bills, the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs, three teams either fighting for AFC playoff spots or to improve their postseason seeding. None of the three will hold a pity party for the Chargers, in other words.

As embarrassing as the loss to the Raiders might have been, and it was impossible to find anyone in the Chargers’ headquarters the past few days who would argue the point, Smith said it was time to move on. He was thrilled to be elevated to the head coaching position, but it wasn’t a time for personal reflection.

“Well, I wish I would have lost some weight a few weeks back,” Smith joked. “That would have been a positive. I wasn’t expecting this, in all seriousness. I’ve been in this game a while and there are always new things that come up. I’ve been around a lot of great coaches through the years. You just roll with it. You give to these players, you give to this organization then whatever happens, happens.”

Smith said he got some pearls of wisdom from an old friend, a former NFL coach.

“I thought Chan Gailey had a great one,” Smith said. “He said, ‘All of those suggestions and thoughts that you had are now decisions. Good luck.’”

COACHING ASSIGNMENTS

Defensive coordinator Derrick Ansley will call the plays, taking over for Staley. Offensive coordinator Kellen Moore will continue in his role as offensive play caller. John Timu will replace the fired Jay Rodgers as defensive line coach, a promotion from assistant defensive line coach.

Robert Muschamp, who was a defensive quality control coach, will slot into Smith’s old position for the final three weeks of the season. Smith also said he would likely oversee the outside linebackers and the defensive linemen, as well.

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WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Giff is short for Gifford, of course, but Smith revealed there’s more to the story of his first name.

“I created a story to kind of make it cool, that my mom was in labor and ‘Monday Night Football’ was on and they saw Frank Gifford (on TV),” Smith said, breaking into a wry smile. “But I’m just making that up.”

ROSTER MOVES

The Chargers signed quarterback Will Grier to the active roster from the New England Patriots’ practice squad to serve as Easton Stick’s backup for the rest of the season, and they also waived quarterback Max Duggan. … The team also placed center Will Clapp on injured reserve, signed center Cameron Tom to the active roster from the practice squad and signed center Brent Laing to the practice squad.

​ Orange County Register