United Airlines flight attendants allege racism on charters for LA Dodgers

• October 27, 2023

Two veteran United Airlines flight attendants claim in a lawsuit they were removed from working charter flights for the Los Angeles Dodgers because they were not young, White and thin.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, Oct. 25, by Darby Quezada, 44, and Dawn Todd, 50, in Los Angeles County Superior Court, accuses United Airlines of racial and religious discrimination. Quezada is of Black, Mexican and Jewish descent and Todd is Black. Both have worked for United for more than 15 years.

“Major American corporations like United Airlines must understand that it is illegal to make staffing decisions based on an employee’s race and looks, even if it is meant to please major clients like the Los Angeles Dodgers,” attorney Sam S. Yebri said in a prepared statement. “United’s blatantly discriminatory staffing decisions allowed the cancer of racism and antisemitism to metastasize on the flights themselves.”

United Airlines denied the accusations.

“United fosters an environment of inclusion and does not tolerate discrimination of any kind. We believe this lawsuit is without merit and intend to defend ourselves vigorously,” said United Airlines spokesman Charles Hobart.

Dodgers management declined to comment.

“We do not comment on any pending litigation,” said Joe Jareck, senior director of public relations for the Dodgers, in an email.

It is the second time in three years that United Airlines has been sued by minority flight attendants for its allegedly discriminating staffing practices on charter flights for collegiate and professional sports teams. The first lawsuit was settled, resulting in the addition of Quezada and Todd to the charter crew, Yebri said.

“United’s charter airline program for professional sports teams has a long, troubled history,” said the latest lawsuit. “For years, United’s Inflight Charter Program has been riddled with allegations of discrimination, racism and sexism.”

Working the Dodgers charter flights is considered a plum assignment. Crew members earn more money for longer flights, receive premium accommodations and higher per diem compensation, and often receive valuable sporting event tickets, field passes and rare sports merchandise, the suit said.

After extensive interviews, Quezada was chosen for the program in 2020 and Todd in 2022. Later that year, several White, female attendants were hired for the program without having to interview, the suit alleged.

“When Todd and Quezada asked United why certain flight attendants were added to the ‘dedicated crew’ or ‘dedicated list’ without having to interview like they did, Todd and Quezada were told that these White flight attendants fit a ‘certain look’ that the Dodgers’ players liked,” the suit claimed.

Quezada and Todd also alleged they were subjected to racist conduct by some of the other charter attendants. Quezada said she was referred by attendants as the “flight maid” because they needed a Mexican to clean the bathrooms. Quezada also was derided for the size of her hips and for being Jewish, the suit said.

Their complaints to United Airlines management went unheeded.

The alleged discrimination caused Quezada and Todd to suffer “severe panic attacks, vomiting, migraines, anxiety, loss of self-esteem, humiliation, the inability to eat, loss of sleep, and emotional distress, which has required psychological treatment,” said the suit.

The attendants are seeking unspecified damages and demanding a jury trial.

“The unrelenting racist and antisemitic comments were demoralizing and dehumanizing,” Quezada said in a prepared statement. “Blatant discrimination like this should not be tolerated in 2023.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Radio host Larry Elder ends Republican presidential campaign and endorses Donald Trump

• October 27, 2023

Conservative talk radio host Larry Elder announced Thursday that he was ending his 2024 Republican campaign for president and endorsing former President Donald Trump.

Elder, who sought to replace California Gov. Gavin Newsom in a failed 2021 recall effort, said in a statement that he had made the “difficult decision” to end his bid after “careful consideration and consultation” with his team and to throw his support behind Trump. Trump’s leadership, he said, was “instrumental in advancing conservative America-first principles and policies that have benefited our great nation.”

He said now was the time to unite behind Trump to beat President Joe Biden. He also said he hoped his campaign had shined a light on the issues important to him, including fatherlessness, fighting crime and opposition to the idea that the U.S. is a racist country.

Elder is the fourth major candidate to suspend or end his 2024 GOP bid, following Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, former Texas congressman Will Hurd and businessman Perry Johnson. Johnson also backed Trump on his way out of the race, while Hurd endorsed former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

He announced his long-shot campaign in April, saying that “America is in decline, but this decline in not inevitable.”

“We can enter a new American Golden Age, but we must choose a leader who can bring us there. That’s why I’m running for President,” he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Elder found little visibility in a primary race dominated by Trump and including other high-profile figures such as Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Elder wasn’t among the GOP candidates on stage for either presidential debate after failing to meet the polling and donor qualifications required by the Republican National Committee to participate. He said he filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission after missing the first one, alleging the rules about debate participation weren’t equally applied to all candidates.

Elder made his first bid for public office in 2021, when he received the most votes out of 46 people who were hoping to replace Newsom in a recall effort. But a majority of voters ended up voting against removing Newsom, making the vote count in the replacement contest irrelevant.

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Some Democrats say Elder’s role as a foil to Newsom helped the Democratic governor inspire voters in liberal California to turn out and reject the recall. Newsom attacked Elder for his support of Trump and his conservative positions, such as opposing abortion rights and restrictions imposed to slow the spread of COVID-19, such as mask mandates.

But Elder said the experience of running for office — and the millions of votes he received — showed he had a message that resonated with voters. A lawyer who grew up in Los Angeles’ rough South Central neighborhood, Elder attended an Ivy League college and then law school. He has a following among conservatives through his radio programs and has been a frequent guest on Fox News and other right-wing media.

Elder, who is Black, has criticized Democrats’ “woke” agenda, Black Lives Matter and the notion of systemic racism, positions that have put him at odds with many other Black people.

​ Orange County Register 

Horse racing notes: Mother Nature makes Santa Anita a safe bet for Breeders’ Cup

• October 27, 2023

SANTA ANITA LEADERS

Through Thursday

JOCKEYS / WINS

Juan Hernandez / 17

Umberto Rispoli / 13

Antonio Fresu / 11

Hector Berrios / 10

Ramon Vazquez / 9

TRAINERS / WINS

Mark Glatt / 10

Philip D’Amato / 8

Peter Eurton / 8

John Sadler / 8

Three tied / 6

WEEKEND STAKES (SANTA ANITA)

Saturday

• $80,000 Lure Stakes, 3-year-olds and up, 1 mile (turf)

DOWN THE STRETCH

• Forty-one of the 205 horses pre-entered for the 40th Breeders’ Cup on Nov. 3-4 hail from Santa Anita, according to Victor Ryan of Santa Anita publicity. This year’s Santa Anita Derby winner – Practical Move – was pre-entered in the Dirt Mile on Nov. 4. The $6 million Classic, which this year will be run as the seventh of nine Breeders’ Cup races on Saturday, will include the Bob Baffert-trained Arabian Knight, Geaux Rocket Ride (Richard Mandella) and Missed the Cut (John Sadler).

• The material for Santa Anita’s new $7 million synthetic training track, which will replace the track’s traditional sand-based training track, will begin arriving on Nov. 13. The all-weather surface, part of 1/ST Racing’s plans to make major financial investments in Southern California racing to enhance safety and wellness for horses, is expected to be popular for training turf horses in addition to horses that have been racing on synthetic surfaces. Track officials expect the project to be completed in mid-January.

• Baffert is pleased that this year’s Breeders’ Cup is at Santa Anita mostly because of Mother Nature. “I like California because of the weather. You know what you’re going to get,” he said. He doesn’t believe there’s a significant home-track advantage for local horsemen when the event is held at Santa Anita or Del Mar. “I think I’ve won more races away from here than I’ve won here,” he said. “It’s the players, the horses. You gotta have the horses. The Lakers and the Rams, they get beat at home.” Baffert’s right. He’s won 10 Breeders’ Cup races outside of California and eight locally.

— Art Wilson

​ Orange County Register 

Photos: Billie Eilish, Vince Vaughn, Pedro Pascal at Halloween Horror Nights

• October 26, 2023

Even celebrities like a good scare.

Since Universal Studios Hollywood’s annual Halloween Horror Nights kicked off way back on Sept. 7, plenty of stars have shown up at the theme park to experience walk-thru attractions based on films like “The Exorcist: Believer” and “Evil Dead Rise” and television shows including “Stranger Things” and “Chucky.”

Actors and actresses like Vince Vaughn, Abigail Breslin, Pedro Pascal, Kumail Nanjiani, Krysten Ritter and Dylan Minnette have all screamed their way through the park. So have rockers and pop stars like Billie Eilish, Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, Metallica bassist Rob Trujillo, Big Sean, Bebe Rexha and Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoada.

Sometimes you need a friend to hold on to through the mazes, which is why pals like actors Michael Rosenbaum and Efren Ramirez stuck together, actor Seth Green and Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz paired up and “Vanderpump Rules” Adriana Madix and “What We Do in the Shadows” star Harvey Guillén clung to one another as they faced the monsters.

Check out this photo slideshow of all the talent that has shown up at this year’s event.

Halloween Horror Nights continues select evenings through Oct. 31 and features original concept attractions including Holidayz in Hell, Universal Monsters Unmasked and Monstruos: The Monsters o Latin America. One of its more popular attractions this year, is a maze based on the popular video game, The Last of Us, which was also turned into a popular HBO television series.

Guests can also take the Terror Tram: The Exterminatorz down to the iconic Universal backlot to walk around the sets from “Psycho,” “War of the Worlds” and Jordan Peele’s suspense-thriller, “Nope.”

Halloween Horror Nights

When: Select evenings through Oct. 31

​ Orange County Register 

Fryer: Division 1 of the CIF-SS football playoffs will include (pick a number) teams

• October 26, 2023

The magic number is 8.

Or 12.

Maybe 4.

Coaches and others (like yours truly) are making semi-educated guesses about how many teams will be selected to Division 1 of the CIF Southern Section football playoffs.

The team ratings at Calpreps.com will be used to place teams into the 14 11-man divisions. The number of teams in Division 1 will be decided Saturday. The playoff brackets will be released Sunday at 10 a.m.

The regular season concludes with Friday’s games.

Last season Division 1 was a 10-team bracket that was made up of Mater Dei, Santa Margarita, JSerra, Long Beach Poly, Los Alamitos, Centennial, Mission Viejo, Edison, Orange Lutheran and St. John Bosco. Six teams had first-round byes into the quarterfinals. The four teams that played in the first round were Edison, JSerra, Orange Lutheran and Santa Margarita.

After handicapping the possibilities for these playoffs, the bet here is that Division 1 will be an eight-team division.

A 12-team division is somewhat possible.

A four-team division is a longshot but still on the board.

If Division 1 is an eight-team division …

Going into this week’s games, those eight teams are (in order of rating): St. John Bosco, Mater Dei, Sierra Canyon, Centennial, Orange Lutheran, Rancho Cucamonga, Santa Margarita and Long Beach Poly.

San Clemente running back Aiden Rubin, center, sprints to the end zone to score a touchdown against Murrieta Valley earlier this season. The Tritons play Mission Viejo this week. (Photo by Paul Rodriguez, Contributing Photographer)

If it holds that those are the top eight teams in the Calpreps ratings after this week’s games, then Division 2 would start with San Clemente as the top seed.

The Calpreps ratings going into this week have Long Beach Poly at No. 8 in the CIF Southern Section with a 59.4 rating and San Clemente at No. 9 at 59.0. Poly (8-1 overall) plays Long Beach Jordan (7-2) on Friday in a game that, according to Calpreps’ projections, Poly has a 99 percent chance of winning. Calpreps gives San Clemente (8-1) a 97 percent chance of beating Tesoro (5-4) on Friday.

If Division 1 is a 12-team division …

After the aforementioned eight teams, the next four in order of ratings are San Clemente, Servite, Serra and JSerra going into Friday.

Los Alamitos is No. 13 in the Calpreps ratings at 55.8, behind No. 12 JSerra’s 57.5.

Before we go further it is important to know that on Friday JSerra plays Servite and Los Alamitos plays Edison.

A JSerra loss to Servite would drop it to 4-6 overall. Teams with an overall record of .500 are the first ones to receive at-large berths if they are available. Teams with a sub-.500 record can’t be selected for an at-large berth over a team with a .500 record. JSerra needs to beat Servite to get to .500.

If Los Alamitos beats Edison and JSerra loses to Servite, perhaps Los Alamitos moves to No. 12 and JSerra drops to No. 13.

If Division 1 is a 12-team bracket and the CIF-SS No. 13 team is JSerra, putting JSerra into Division 2, then JSerra might be out of the playoffs because the No. 1 seed in a division, according to CIF-SS football playoff rules, cannot be an at-large team.

If JSerra beats Servite and Orange Lutheran loses to St. John Bosco that makes JSerra and Orange Lutheran both 2-3 in the Trinity League. Because JSerra beat Orange Lutheran, JSerra would be the Trinity League’s No. 3 team and would receive a guaranteed playoff berth. Orange Lutheran would be No. 4 team and placed in the at-large pool of candidates.

Other possibilities exist. Those are a couple of the most likely ones.

A 12-team division would be popular with many coaches because it likely would encompass all of the Trinity League playoff teams. So would a 13-team bracket, but that doesn’t seem likely.

If Division 1 is a four-team division …

Those four teams for sure would be St. John Bosco, Mater Dei, Sierra Canyon and Centennial. The CIF-SS football No. 5 team after Friday might still be Orange Lutheran. Division 2’s group of 16 teams would start with Orange Lutheran but if Orange Lutheran is in the at-large pool, and because of the rule that no division could have an at-large team as its top-seed, then Orange Lutheran would not be in the playoffs.

NOTES

San Clemente cross country runner Brett Ephraim continued his great season by winning at the Mt. SAC Invitational Division 1&2 sweepstakes race this past Saturday. The senior finished the 2.93-mile course in 14 minutes, 50 seconds to lead the Tritons to a second-place team finish behind Great Oak. Ephraim will be one to watch in the CIF-SS finals Nov. 18 on that course at Mt. SAC. …

Edison’s Rich Boyce is the Orange County Athletic Directors Association’s Athletic Director of the Year. Boyce, who is also one of the county’s better boys basketball coaches, is as busy as any A.D. when it comes to promoting his school’s athletic activities on social media. …

The Canyon-Beckman CIF-SS Division 3 girls volleyball semifinal Saturday at 5 p.m. at Beckman is going to be excellent. Beckman is the No. 1-seeded team in the division. Canyon looked great – quick and strong – in its five-set win over Dana Hills on Wednesday. …

In other girls volleyball semifinals Saturday: Orange Lutheran is at top-seeded Redondo and JSerra is home against Long Beach Wilson in Division 2; and in Division 4 El Dorado is home against West Ranch and Capistrano Valley Christian is at Sunny Hills. …

Division 1 girls volleyball pool play continues Saturday. Mater Dei, which is 2-0 in pool play, is home against Sierra Canyon (1-1 in pool play), Huntington Beach (2-0) is at Mira Costa (2-0) and Los Alamitos (0-2) is at Alemany (0-2). All Division 1 teams qualified for the CIF Southern California Regional that begins Nov. 7. …

Looking way ahead, the Boras Classic South baseball tournament at JSerra and Mater Dei, April 2-5, is worth a look. Among the many great teams in it is Corona, which might be the No. 1 team in preseason national rankings when those are presented. Corona has two great pitchers, junior right-hander Seth Hernandez (6-4, 190), home-schooled the past two school years and who PerfectGame.org calls “the top pitching prospect of the 2025 class by some margin,” and senior lefty Ethan Schiefelbein, who last season had 94 strikeouts in 55 innings. The sons of Dodgers coach Dino Ebel, junior Brady and sophomore Trey, both standout infielders, transferred to Corona from Etiwanda.

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​ Orange County Register 

United flight attendants rally at LAX for higher wages

• October 26, 2023

United Airlines flight attendants staged a rally Thursday, Oct. 26 at Los Angeles International Airport, claiming they’re underpaid and not being compensated for the time they spend boarding, deplaning and waiting between flights.

Wielding signs reading “Pay us or chaos” and “Ground time pay leads the way,” they made their concerns known to travelers coming and going at the airport.

An estimated 1,500 United flight attendants based out of LAX are represented by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. Their labor contract was last amended in August 2021.

Thursday’s LAX protest was part of a national Day of Action that saw thousands of United flight attendants rallying at nearly 20 airports across the U.S., including San Francisco International Airport, George Bush Intercontinental/Houston Airport, Denver International Airport and  Newark Liberty International Airport, among others.

In a statement issued Thursday, United said it’s seeing progress in negotiations, adding that the two sides have reached an agreement on six sections of a proposed labor contract (Photo courtesy of AFA-CWA)

The workers say they’re standing up to “corporate greed” and are calling on management to negotiate “the contract flight attendants deserve.” The protests come on the heels of United posting nearly $15 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2023.

They’re also seeking rules that give more control of their time and compensate them when operations are disrupted by weather or staffing shortages, and they want management to improve their health insurance coverage and other workplace benefits.

In a statement issued Thursday, United said it’s seeing progress in negotiations, adding that the two sides have reached an agreement on six sections of a proposed labor contract.

“We are hopeful that this progress will provide momentum toward our goal of reaching an industry-leading agreement,” the airline said. “All United flights will operate as planned while our flight attendants exercise their right to distribute information and picket while off-duty. “

Timothy Trueman, AFA-CWA’s council vice president for Los Angeles and San Diego, said flight attendants are putting in lots of hours they’re not being paid for.

“Even though their wages might seem high, they only get paid once the door closes on takeoff to when the plane rolls into the gate,” he said. “So at the end of the day they might have worked 13 hours, but only gotten paid for seven.”

New flight attendants average $25,000 to $30,000 a year, Trueman said. Those with five to 10 experience average $40,000 to $50,000, and senior flight attendants with more experience make $65,000 to $70,000 annually.

“We’re looking for an increase to offset what inflation has done,” he said. “We’re trying to get cost-of-living wages and improvements to our benefits.”

The flight attendants also picketed LAX in September 2022, claiming a shortage of crew schedulers, caterers and other service workers often left them stranded for hours waiting to know when they would be headed out for their next flight.

Trueman said morale is low among the workers.

“United has been reducing staffing and tightening up scheduling,” he said. “And we’ve had a lot of disruptions from the weather and staffing issues with air traffic control.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Outlets at San Clemente takes delivery of this year’s Christmas tree

• October 26, 2023

Christmas arrived early Thursday morning for the Outlets at San Clemente.

A truck pulled up to the mall to deliver a 100-foot white fir fresh from the Mt. Shasta area of Northern California.

Crews quickly carted the tree through the mall’s passageways and lifted it with a crane into place in the central courtyard. It will be decorated over the next couple of weeks with more than 18,000 multicolored lights and 10,000 bows and ornaments.

The tree is advertised as the tallest live-cut tree in Orange County.

The switch lighting the Christmas tree will be thrown in a celebration on Nov. 18, launching the holiday season at the outlets.

Not quite ready for yuletide thoughts? The mall still has up its Halloween display for photo ops.

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​ Orange County Register 

Kings seek to build some momentum with trip to Arizona

• October 26, 2023

Seeking consecutive victories for the second time this season, the Kings could even bring their string to three straight with a pair of opportunities on Friday and Saturday.

Already having familiarized themselves with the Arizona Coyotes in Tuesday’s 6-3 home victory, the Kings will confront them again. This time, they’ll meet in Tempe at the NHL’s smallest venue Friday before the Kings welcome its biggest team, the Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights, to Crypto.com Arena on Saturday.

The Kings have leaned hard on their offense this season to get victories or even a point in the standings. They’ve scored 18 times in their three wins and added five more goals in their shootout loss to Carolina. At the opposite end of the ice, they’ve allowed two or fewer goals just once this season, which has raised a familiar question: will the Kings be trading their hockey skates for track spikes?

“We won 5-1 in Winnipeg. We’re capable of doing it. I don’t think that we’re going to score five or six goals every night, I don’t,” Coach Todd McLellan said. “Against Boston, we saw that we couldn’t or didn’t, so there are going to have to be 2-1 and 1-0 wins at some point. But we’re still trying to figure our game out and we’ll take the offense to support the mistakes we’re making and try to put wins in the column.”

One area that has improved markedly thus far for the Kings has been their penalty kill, which has operated at an 87% clip, the eighth-best mark in NHL. That unit surrendered a goal to Arizona’s power play Tuesday, but only after the visitors engineered a high-danger chance with a goal probability of over 60% that whizzed past Pheonix Copley. It was also Arizona’s three top scorers – Logan Cooley and Nick Schmaltz set up Clayton Keller – that connected for the goal.

“We’ve had some breakdowns but when you make changes that’s kind of to be expected. We’re ironing those out. From my perspective, we do give a little bit different looks than the [previous] PK, so it’s adjusting to that,” Copley said. “But so far we’re not really giving up a whole lot of looks or a lot of chances on our PK, so that’s a credit to the guys.”

McLellan had been critical of his team’s net-front coverage and intensity, though he said Tuesday that he saw improvements not only in terms of defending but also in creating traffic at the opposing goalmouth. Though slot and corner coverage plagued the Kings at times Tuesday, McLellan said he felt their net play had come forward, and Copley said the group was also attuned to continually improving in those areas.

“That’s all of us, myself included with rebounds, clearing rebounds and bearing down, all of us, need to bear down in those areas,” Copley said.

Even as the penalty kill evolved and five-on-five defense remained somewhat inconsistent, the Kings continued to present a near-constant threat with the puck, and through a balanced attack. On Tuesday, four skaters turned in multipoint nights, five defensemen contributed assists and six forwards lit the lamp. Although Kevin Fiala’s first goal was workmanlike and both leading sniper Adrian Kempe’s tallies this season have gone into an empty net, the Kings got two goals from their fourth line Tuesday and have gotten five from middle-six utility man Trevor Moore to date.

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Moore had six of his 10 tallies last season in the first month and a half of the campaign, and he finished the prior year on a tear, notching 14 of his 17 goals after the turn of the calendar. A slow start in his first season skating beside Phillip Danault and injuries in his second limited Moore’s totals, but did not diminish his ability, McLellan said.

“If he would have been able to stay healthy last year, he was having a pretty darn good year. I think Christmas rolled around and then, from there, he chased it,” McLellan said.

The Coyotes are having a better year and “darn good” might be an understatement when it comes to Vegas. They won the Stanley Cup last season and started this campaign with seven straight victories. In addition to high-end talent and formidable depth, the Golden Knights are also the heaviest team in the league by the average weight of their players.

The Kings were focused tightly on strengthening the center position this offseason with their pursuit of Pierre-Luc Dubois, and it’s easy to see why. Vegas’ top three scorers are its top three pivots: Jack Eichel, Chandler Stephenson and William Karlsson.

​ Orange County Register