Festival Pass: All of the concerts coming to the annual OC Fair

• July 6, 2023

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Happy Thursday!

We’re in a bit of a music festival lull for the next couple of weeks as some massive tours prepare to roll through Southern California and the annual OC Fair kicks off in Costa Mesa on Friday, July 14.

Looking at the calendar, our next major music festival isn’t until Sad Summer Fest takes over FivePoint Amphitheatre in Irvine on Saturday, July 29. Reporter Charlie Vargas is lining up some interviews with a few of the artists on that lineup, so look for that in the near future.

However, there’s still plenty going on.

Speaking of the OC Fair, there’s a ton of live entertainment that comes along with all the carnival-style rides and games and insane fair food.

Reporter Holly Alvarado has roundups of the concerts coming to The Hangar inside the OC Fair and at the adjacent Pacific Amphitheatre’s Toyota Summer Concert Series. While The Hangar features mostly tribute acts, tickets start at just $20 and includes fair admission. Get the full lineup of concerts in The Hangar here.

The lineup at Pacific Amphitheatre, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, includes a wide variety of artists like Beck and Phoenix, Dwight Yoakam, Yung Gravy, Ramon Ayala, Rebelution, Cheap Trick and more. Tickets to the shows happening during the run of the OC Fair (July 14-Aug. 13) include same-day fair admission. Get the full list of concerts and post-OC Fair shows at Pacific Amphitheatre here.

The Bellwether makes its debut

Holly was able to check out a new venue opening in Downtown Los Angeles next week. The 1,600-capacity room dubbed The Bellwether will host its grand opening with synth-pop duo Phantogram on Tuesday, July 11.

The owners spoke with Holly about their plans for the new concert hall, which also boasts an impressive bar space, restaurant lounge and an open-air seating area with stunning city views. The concert lineup, so far, includes acts like Wilco, Porter Robinson, Carly Rae Jepsen, Silversun Pickups, Isaiah Rashad, Drama, Haim and more. Find out more information on The Bellwether here.

Drake Loves Hot Chicken 

Canadian rapper Drake has teamed up with 21 Savage for the massive It’s All a Blur Tour that includes stops at Kia Forum in Inglewood Aug. 12-13 and 15-16 and Cypto.com Arena in Los Angeles on Aug. 21-22.

Tickets sold fast, but fans can try to score some through Dave’s Hot Chicken’s Frequent Fryer loyalty program. It seems like an odd pairing, but Drake’s an investor in the Pasadena-based chain, so the collaboration makes sense. Reporter Fielding Buck has all of the details on how fans can sign up to try to win tickets to the L.A. area shows here.

More Music News 

Beach Boys deliver Fourth of July ‘Fun, Fun, Fun’ at Hollywood Bowl 

Orange County rock band Robert Jon & The Wreck get boost from KLOS FM

Neil Young delivers a gorgeous, intimate solo show in Los Angeles 

Lyle Lovett discusses fatherhood, new music ahead of Southern California shows 

Until next week, thanks for reading and keep rockin’!

Get Festival Pass delivered to your inbox weekly.

Read previous editions of the Festival Pass newsletter

Festival Pass: Odesza, Vintage Culture and Chris Lake top Splash House’s August lineups

Festival Pass: Darker Waves Fest will bring ’80s rock to the beach

Festival Pass: Discounted Coachella 2024 tickets go on sale this week

Festival Pass: Splash House, LA Pride in the Park and more fests this weekend

Festival Pass: Top 5 summer tours coming to Southern California 

Festival Pass: Yee-haw! The BeachLife Ranch Festival dropped its lineup

​ Orange County Register 

Angels’ Jo Adell has opportunity to finally deliver on his potential

• July 6, 2023

LOS ANGELES — For the past several years, there have been two versions of Jo Adell.

There is the Jo Adell who consistently crushes monster homers in the minors, while flashing elite speed, all in the package of a chiseled 6-foot-3, 215-pound mountain of an athlete.

And there is the Jo Adell who has a career big-league average of .217 and has struck out in 35% of his plate appearances, a guy who at times seemed lost in the outfield.

Now 24 years old and in his final season in which he can be optioned to the minors, Adell is back in the majors with the Angels. Mike Trout’s injury has given him at least a month of opportunity to show the baseball world that his time is now.

Adell, however, doesn’t quite see it that way.

“To be quite honest with you, I think I’ve had enough moments now to where you could say that I’m a factor,” Adell said. “I can be in a lineup and play and help a team win. I don’t really think it’s ‘Can I be here?’ It’s not a ‘happy to be here’ thing. I’m more than ready to help and do my job.”

The proof will emerge over the next four to eight weeks, with Trout recovering from surgery to remove a fractured hamate bone.

Adell will go into the outfield mix with Taylor Ward, Mickey Moniak and Hunter Renfroe. Manager Phil Nevin said Adell will play against lefties and righties, and he’ll get time in center field and left.

So far Adell has nine plate appearances in the big leagues this season, including four last month when Renfroe was on the paternity list. Adell is 3 for 8, with a double, triple and homer. He’s struck out three times and walked once.

The homer, on June 8, was a 451-foot rocket that left his bat at 117.2 mph. That’s the hardest any Angels player – including Shohei Ohtani – has hit a ball this season.

At Triple-A this season, Adell hit 23 homers, tied with Salt Lake teammate Trey Cabbage for the most in the minor leagues. On June 20, Adell crushed a ball 514 feet, which was the longest homer recorded by StatCast at any level of professional baseball. StatCast has been tracking homers in the majors since 2015, but only since 2021 in the minors.

“I have the type of power where I don’t necessarily have to square it completely to hit it out,” Adell said. “But I squared that ball completely.”

The blast was yet another example of the kind of power that led to Adell being the 10th overall pick in the 2017 draft. By 2020, he was a consensus top five prospect throughout the sport.

But the shine began to fade once Adell reached the big leagues as a 21-year-old in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. He hit .161 with a .478 OPS, and earned a lifetime spot on blooper reels when a ball hit off his glove and went over the fence for a rare four-base error.

Ever since then, there has a been a distinct split between Adell’s potential and what he’s actually produced in the majors.

There are always supporters who insist that Adell is on the verge of “figuring it out,” and this year has been no different.

Adell arrived in spring training with significant muscle added to his frame. He had also spent just about every day of his winter working out at the Angels’ complex in Arizona, with an emphasis on his defense. He was noticeably better even last summer in the majors, and by all accounts he’s no longer a defensive liability. Nevin said he wouldn’t need to replace him for defense late in games.

“He’s proven himself as a quality major-league outfielder,” Nevin said. “I’m looking forward to seeing it.”

Adell said part of that transition has been gaining a better understanding of what plays he shouldn’t even be trying to make.

“The big thing is, knowing when the play is a routine play,” he said. “Every once in a while, there’s a time to be a hero, but for me it’s about keeping runners out of scoring position.”

There is a notion around Adell that clearing the defensive stress from his mind can help unlock some of what’s hindered him offensively. One of the issues he’s had at the plate, according to one person who has followed him closely, is trying too hard to make up for certain perceived deficiencies by hitting the ball 500 feet every time.

While Adell has hit 94 minor-league homers, leading to a career .549 slugging percentage, he’s also struck out in 26.8% of his plate appearances.

This season, Adell’s strikeout rate was exactly the same as his career rate. Adell responded to a question about strikeouts by saying that he doesn’t want to change too much of who he is with two strikes.

“When you get into two-strike counts, or down in the count or whatever it is, what I found out is if I try to over-shorten my approach, what I end up doing is I end up expanding the zone,” Adell said. “So it’s important for me to stay as aggressive as I would 0-0 in two strikes and still look for those pitches that I can drive.”

Adell added that he wants to “treat 0-2 like it’s 2-0, still looking for a pitch to handle. Obviously you’re going to have to hit some pitches and foul off some pitches you don’t want to, but I’m still looking for a pitch I could do damage on.”

That mindset is fine with Nevin.

“I still want him to take an aggressive swing, whether it’s 2-0 or 0-2, with a chance to hit the ball in the seats,” Nevin said.

The Angels and Adell seem less concerned with him striking out by taking a huge cut with two strikes as they are with him getting into those two-strike counts by swinging at pitches out of the zone. They’ll keep the strikeouts if they can add walks. Besides getting on base more, that means he’ll be swinging at better pitches, which means more damage when he does make contact.

To that end, the results over the past month have been encouraging. Adell drew 17 walks – with 17 strikeouts – over his 100 Triple-A plate appearances since June 1. It’s also worth remembering that Adell has a chance to turn any walk into a “double” with his speed.

“The walks have gone up over the past couple of weeks for me, which is something that’s been big,” Adell said. “Getting pitches that I can drive. That’s going to be something that I’m going to continue to focus on, getting that pitch and getting that ‘A’ swing off, putting the ball in the air.”

A rival scout who watched Adell this season at Triple-A said via text there are still some “major issues” recognizing and tracking offspeed pitches. He added that Adell’s power makes him “dangerous,” and that he played “good defense.”

Overall, the scout said he is firmly in the same place as just about everyone else on Adell, dazzled by the potential but apprehensive about the holes in his game.

“I’m still concerned if he will ever make the overall adjustments to be a daily impact player at the major-league level,” the scout said. “He’s the ultimate tease with risk, but one cannot ignore the potential and he’s still relevant.”

All of the ideas about what Adell can be will evolve quickly over the next month or two. Playing under the bright lights of the majors, and facing the best pitchers in the world, will provide more clarity about which Adell is the real one.

“You’re going to see a lot of Jo,” Nevin said, “and I think he’s ready for this opportunity.”

UP NEXT

Angels (RHP Griffin Canning, 6-3, 4.29) vs. Dodgers (TBD), 7:10 p.m. Friday, Dodger Stadium, Bally Sports West,  830 AM.

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register 

Thief breaks into Venice wine shop through its roof and steals $500,000 worth of rare booze

• July 6, 2023

Police in Venice are investigating a theft at a high-end wine shop where, according to the store, a burglar drilled a hole into its roof, descended via rope and stole around 600 bottles of wine and liquor worth over $500,000.

After descending into the wine cellar of Lincoln Fine Wines in Venice around 12:30 a.m. Friday, the burglar – clad in a mask, black hoodie and red baseball cap – could be seen on surveillance footage covering the lens of the cellar’s security camera, according to store manager Nick Martinelle.

“It was like something out of ‘Ocean’s Eleven.’ We just couldn’t believe it,” Martinelle told CNN. The tape from the back of a “Smile: You’re on Camera” sign stuck to the cellar’s door was used to conceal the camera, he said.

During the theft, which lasted for an estimated four hours, the thief looted the wine cellar of some of the store’s rarest and most expensive wines and liquors.

The owner of the shop, Nazmul Haque, said he has been unable to sleep soundly since the incident.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars in wines and liquors were stolen from a store in Los Angeles’ Venice neighborhood Friday, the store said.(Courtesy Lincoln Fine WInes)

“It is very hard for me to digest. All my hard work snatched within a couple hours,” Haque said.

When the thief exited the wine cellar to begin stealing from the store’s main shelves at around 4 a.m., the store’s sensors alerted Haque, he says, who was at home and asleep. The burglar fled as an alarm went off.

Haque arrived at the store at 4:50 a.m. and says a shaft of early morning light streamed in from the hole in the rooftop, illuminating a scene of empty shelves and shattered glass.

“I used to always think they can break in the door and windows. Now, they come through the walls, they come through the roof,” Haque said. “You never know.”

Many of the stolen bottles are irreplaceable, according to Martinelle, including their collection of Quintarelli wines. Other pilfered bottles include The Last Drop – a rare Scotch whisky whose 1971 edition is worth $6,000 – and a bottle of Chateau Petrus 2016, which sells for as much as $4,500, according to the store.

Every bottle on the cellar’s French wall, with an average worth of $1,000 each, was taken, according to Martinelle. The store is assembling a list of missing bottles to distribute to local buyers and auction houses in hopes of narrowing down the identity of the thief or thieves.

Martinelle called the theft “creepy” in that the thief knew the location of the cellar from the roof and targeted particularly expensive wines, some of which were in drawers rather than on display. Other wine shops near Los Angeles that have experienced burglaries have reached out, he said.

“I’m still in shock and in disbelief,” Martinelle said. “It was really surreal.”

Haque describes receiving an outpouring of love and support from customers and vendors since the theft. Some customers who Haque hadn’t seen since before the Covid-19 pandemic came to visit this week, buying “three or four bottles more” than they normally would, he said.

“They’re here to support me. That’s a very strong message to me,” Haque said. “That helped me a lot to recover from the emotional stress.”

The incident is under investigation, Los Angeles police told CNN.

​ Orange County Register 

4 vacation destinations for music lovers

• July 6, 2023

Ebony Williams | (TNS) The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Why not plan your next vacation around your love of music?

Plenty of vacation destinations cater to specific interests, from national parks and museums, to food tours. For music lovers, part of a great vacation is finding the local hotspot or hidden gem where you can enjoy some live music. That’s a whole lot easier if you choose a destination where music is king.

Here are four vacation destinations that are perfect for music lovers:

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City has many intimate concerts venues spread throughout the city, from small mom-and-pop restaurants to large concert halls.

The city has a rich jazz history, and it’s jazz district, centered around 18th and Vine, is still home to some legendary venues, including The Blue Room at the American Jazz Museum, which offers free jazz jam sessions many times throughout the week.

People gather at the annual Africa in April festival in downtown Memphis, Tennessee. (Dreamstime/TNS)

Memphis, Tennessee

Music is like air in Memphis — all around you and absolutely necessary. The city birthed the careers of everyone from B.B. King and Johnny Cash to Three 6 Mafia and Justin Timberlake.

Memphis offers many musical attractions, live music and concert venues, festivals, and interactive events. While the city can be a lot for music lovers to explore, Memphis Travel has created a music lovers’ itinerary mapping out must-see spots in this musically rich city.

Portland, Oregon

While Hollywood tends to make fun or Portland, for it’s hippie-dippy vibes, the city’s music scene is thriving, with live indie rock, jazz, classical, pop music and more. For music lovers who want to take the stage themselves, Portland also offers a thriving open mic culture.

The Oregon city offers free live music and comedy nights throughout the week.

Vienna, Austria

Austria has plenty beautiful architecture and loads of historic sites, but Vienna is first and foremost the City of Music.

Classical music lovers can stroll in the footsteps of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, Mahler, and everyone in between. Concert Vienna is your one-stop shop for performances around the city.

©2023 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Visit at ajc.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Misinformation obscures standards guiding gender-affirming care for trans youth

• July 6, 2023

Helen Santoro | (TNS) KFF Health News

Almost three weeks after Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed a bill making it a felony for doctors to provide gender-affirming care to transgender minors, a judge issued a preliminary injunction preventing enforcement of the law for three children whose parents are part of an ongoing lawsuit.

Florida is one of at least 20 states that have limited gender-affirming treatment for minors. The legislators sponsoring some of these bills say their intent is to protect children and families from pressure “to receive harmful, experimental puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and to undergo irreversible, life-altering surgical procedures,” as a new Montana law puts it.

“Gender transitions involving major surgeries not only result in sterility, but other irreversible negative biological effects,” said Montana state Sen. John Fuller, the Republican who introduced the bill.

Such laws and policies, and statements — such as Fuller’s — used to justify them, reflect misconceptions and misinformation that conflate treatments and strip trans youth of essential care.

Gender-affirming care is a broad term for many distinct treatments provided to children, teens, and adults. Puberty blockers, for example, are medications that inhibit puberty by suppressing the body’s production of sex hormones, while hormone therapy is the administration of testosterone or estrogen to alter secondary sex characteristics.

One common misbelief heard when legislation is discussed is that gender-affirming medical interventions are provided immediately to any trans or nonbinary kid who walks into a gender clinic.

The reality is that the process informing these treatments is a long and intensive one. Before any medical or surgical interventions, kids must first be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, which involves experiencing significant distress for at least six months from at least six of a set of causes including a strong desire to be of the other gender and a strong dislike of one’s sexual anatomy.

Providers also abide by the standards of care set by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. These standards encourage health care professionals to perform a comprehensive assessment of a child’s or teen’s “strengths, vulnerabilities, diagnostic profile, and unique needs” before providing any medical or surgical interventions. Without this assessment, other mental health issues “that need to be prioritized and treated may not be detected.”

The time it takes to perform this assessment varies from patient to patient, said Jack Turban, an assistant professor of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of California-San Francisco. Turban may see someone who is 12 years old and asking for puberty blockers. This hypothetical patient has known they are trans since they were 5 years old and has already adopted a new name and pronouns that match their gender identity.

“That’s going to be a much shorter assessment to know that they are ready for treatment when compared to somebody who has only understood their trans identity for six months” and has other complex mental health conditions like schizophrenia, Turban said.

To receive puberty blockers, kids must also have experienced the onset of puberty, or Stage 2 on the Tanner scale of developmental change. This is marked by physical changes like the development of breast buds or testicle growth and tends to happen between the ages of 9 and 14 in kids with testes and 8 and 13 in those with ovaries. By pausing puberty, these drugs buy children more time to explore their gender identity before undergoing permanent and potentially unwanted pubertal changes.

The age at which trans minors receive gender-affirming hormone therapy depends on the patient’s ability to provide informed consent for the treatment, which can happen when they’re as young as 12 or 13 years old. The Endocrine Society notes that most adolescents have “sufficient mental capacity” to consent by the time they’re 16.

“We offer hormones to patients who are experiencing gender incongruence when patients and families are ready. This may be at an earlier age so that patients can go through puberty alongside their cisgender peers, or later, if they choose to,” said Mandy Coles, co-director of the Child and Adolescent Transgender Center for Health at Boston Medical Center. “If someone says, ‘I’m interested in estrogen,’ I say, ‘Great. What are the things that you are hoping to get out of that?’ Because it’s incredibly important to speak to patients and families about what medications can do, and what they can’t do.”

Coles said she also makes sure to talk continuously about consent with both the child and parents throughout the treatment process and lets her patients know they can stop taking hormones at any time.

Some physical changes brought about by gender-affirming hormone therapy are reversible. For example, decreased muscle strength and body fat redistribution caused by estrogen can reverse once a person stops taking the hormone — though these changes become more fixed the longer someone stays on the hormone. However, breast growth from estrogen or a deepening of the voice caused by testosterone are not reversible.

If a trans person decides to receive gender-affirming surgery, clinics require that the individual receive letters from one or more providers stating they have persistent and well-documented gender dysphoria, any significant mental health concerns they have are sufficiently controlled, and they can consent to the surgery. For genital, or “bottom,” surgery, the letter may also need to state that the individual has been living full time in their “identified gender” for at least 12 months.

Most medical centers require individuals to be at least 18 years old for bottom surgery and chest, or “top,” surgery, though some do perform top surgery on younger teens if the patient, their parents, and health care providers agree the procedure is appropriate.

Much of the confusion is over puberty blockers, drugs that have been used for decades for children who enter puberty too early. A common assertion anti-trans groups and legislators make is that puberty blockers are dangerous and lead to infertility. This is not the case, said Coles. “Puberty blockers are fully reversible medications. They work like a pause button on puberty.”

Fertility may be impaired, however, in those who go straight from puberty blockers to hormone therapy, which is why the current medical guidelines require fertility counseling prior to any gender-affirming medical care, said Turban.

The FDA has not approved the use of puberty blockers for gender-affirming care. However, 10 to 20% of prescriptions across all medications are for “off-label,” or unapproved, use — and the rate is even higher for prescriptions to children.

“We know that taking away the decision to use blockers from parents and providers leads to poor health outcomes for patients,” said Coles.

A study by Turban and colleagues found that trans adults who received puberty blockers during adolescence were less likely to have suicidal thoughts than those who wanted puberty blockers but did not receive them.

The same benefits have been found with gender-affirming hormone therapy.

In a study of data from nearly 28,000 trans adults who responded to the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, Turban and fellow researchers found that people who received gender-affirming hormone therapy during adolescence had more favorable mental health outcomes than those who didn’t take hormones until they were adults.

Additionally, a study of 104 young trans and nonbinary patients at the Gender Clinic of Seattle Children’s Hospital found those who had started on puberty blockers or hormone therapy had 60% lower odds of depression and 73% lower odds of self-harm or suicidal thoughts than peers who hadn’t received those treatments.

There is so much misinformation claiming that providers of gender-affirming care are permanently harming vulnerable children, said Coles. “Denying access to care harms transgender and gender-diverse kids,” she said. “Gender-affirming care is not new. It’s the attacks on care that are new.”

___

(KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2023 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Looking for the cheapest weeklong Disney vacation? Consider this

• July 6, 2023

By Sally French, NerdWallet

For budget-conscious fans, options for taking a Disney vacation are slim. Disney ticket prices can add up quickly, and paying extra for line-skipping privileges like Lightning Lane and Genie+ is practically imperative for a memorable trip.

Then, there’s food, hotels and other inevitable add-ons, from Mickey Mouse ears to princess makeovers. Yet hidden within the realm of Disney’s offerings lies a surprisingly accessible option: the Disney cruise.

While the notion of a Disney vacation may evoke thoughts of pricey indulgence, embarking on a Disney journey at sea ranks among the best examples of how to do Disney on a budget.

NerdWallet analyzed total average trip costs across hundreds of sample itineraries for the following U.S. destinations:

Walt Disney World Resort in Florida
Disneyland Resort in California
Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa in Ko Olina, Hawaii
Disney Cruise Line voyages departing from U.S. ports

NerdWallet also broke down trips into three price tiers — Value, Moderate and Deluxe — to represent travelers’ range of frugality versus luxury (e.g., Value cruise cabins were inside with no windows, while Deluxe cabins faced outside and included a balcony).

For seven-night trips, here were the average prices per person (assuming double occupancy) across each Disney destination:

Assuming double occupancy, weeklong Disney cruises cost less than $2,000 per person, on average. Even a cruise with all the frills (like port excursions, spa treatments and upgraded meals) still costs less than a value trip to Aulani.

What’s included in a Disney cruise

While cruises have a high price tag upfront, most everything is included on board. And for folks who take advantage of it all — meaning the all-you-can-eat buffets, the kids clubs and the shows — the net cost of a Disney cruise often turns out lower than that of any other Disney trip.

It makes sense that travelers are turning to Disney cruises. In the second quarter of 2023, The Walt Disney Co.’s domestic revenue increased by 14% year over year, which the company attributed to Disney Cruise Line, according to its second-quarter earnings report.

Though results at Disney’s domestic parks and resorts were slightly unfavorable to the prior-year quarter, the company’s cruise arm stood apart “due to an increase in passenger cruise days,” which included the addition of the newest ship, the Disney Wish, which took off with its first passengers in 2022.

For what it’s worth, a Disney cruise isn’t necessarily the experience that comes to mind when most travelers think “Disney vacation.” There are no rides — unless you count something like the AquaMouse on the Disney Wish, which is billed as Disney’s first attraction at sea (but is more like a waterslide on steroids).

The AquaMouse on the Disney Wish, the newest ship from Disney Cruise Line. (Photo courtesy of Disney)

But many other aspects of Disney parks exist on the cruises, including meet-and-greets with characters and stage shows. And sometimes, the cruise experience outperforms the theme parks. For example, there’s typically shorter lines to meet characters (and more time to spend with them when you do).

Why a Disney cruise might not be as expensive as you think

On a nightly basis, the average seven-night Disney cruise starts as low as $279 per person — just under the $293 nightly price to spend seven nights at Disney World on a value budget.

To calculate the estimated trip costs above, NerdWallet aggregated and analyzed trip costs across four categories:

Park tickets (and add-ons, such as Genie+)
On-property hotel room rates or cruise cabins
Food at Disney-owned restaurants
Add-on activities, such as spa treatments and tours

Because Disney cruises are mostly all-inclusive, the analysis accounted only for room rates and add-on activities. Sure, cruises command a high “room rate,” but final costs are lower because there are no park tickets to buy and standard meals are included (the additional food costs are optional extras, like alcohol and bottled water).

Yet fewer categories contributing to the sum total doesn’t necessarily guarantee lower costs. Just look to Aulani, Disney’s resort in Hawaii. While free amenities include pools, Aunty’s Beach House (a club for kids ages 4-12), Disney character photo ops and nighttime stories around a campfire, most other things are a la carte — and an expensive cart at that.

Room rates start at about $760 per night, on average, and it’s unlikely travelers would go without experiencing the Ka Wa’a luau, which begins at $175 for guests ages 10 and up. Spa treatments, snorkel rentals, yoga classes and excursions cost extra, too.

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It’s true that trips to Disney’s theme parks aren’t quite as expensive as Aulani: Meals and park tickets can average $154 per day at Disneyland and $160 per day at Walt Disney World.

Even cheaper family vacation options

If your heart isn’t set on Disney, there are cheaper ways to cruise. At Carnival Cruise Line, passengers spend, on average, $219 per person, per day, according to Carnival Corp. revenue and passenger data from its 2023 first-quarter earnings report. That’s far lower than NerdWallet’s estimated $293 daily spend for Disney cruises.

For folks seeking a Disney trip, specifically, there are other ways to take a Disney vacation on a budget. NerdWallet’s calculations assumed theme park guests stayed at Disney owned-resorts, but plenty of other, cheaper hotels (often bookable on points) are within walking distance of Disney properties. And for visitors who still want to experience Disney without buying theme park tickets, there are plenty of free or cheap things to do at Disney World.

And as is the case with any type of trip, be flexible with your travel dates. Sometimes even shifting departure dates by a few days can result in hundreds of dollars in savings. Usually, traveling during the shoulder season or the offseason means even deeper discounts.

Sam Kemmis and Carissa Rawson contributed to this report.

More From NerdWallet

5 Ideas for a Barbie Dream Vacation This Summer
What’s Keeping Rental Car Prices so High?
Should You Fly on International Budget Airlines?

Sally French writes for NerdWallet. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @SAFmedia.

The article Looking for the Cheapest Weeklong Disney Vacation? Consider This originally appeared on NerdWallet.

​ Orange County Register 

Will the doctor see you now? The health system’s changing landscape

• July 6, 2023

Julie Appleby, KFF Health News, Michelle Andrews | (TNS) KFF Health News

Lucia Agajanian, a 25-year-old freelance film producer in Chicago, doesn’t have a specific primary care doctor, preferring the convenience of visiting a local clinic for flu shots or going online for video visits. “You say what you need, and there’s a 15-minute wait time,” she said, explaining how her appointments usually work. “I really liked that.”

But Olga Lucia Torres, a 52-year-old who teaches narrative medicine classes at Columbia University in New York, misses her longtime primary care doctor, who kept tabs for two decades on her conditions, including lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, and made sure she was up to date on vaccines and screening tests. Two years ago, Torres received a letter informing her that he was changing to a “boutique practice” and would charge a retainer fee of $10,000 for her to stay on as a patient.

“I felt really sad and abandoned,” Torres said. “This was my PCP. I was like, ‘Dude, I thought we were in this together!’”

The two women reflect an ongoing reality: The primary care landscape is changing in ways that could shape patients’ access and quality of care now and for decades to come. A solid and enduring relationship with a primary care doctor — who knows a patient’s history and can monitor new problems — has long been regarded as the bedrock of a quality health care system. But investment in primary care in the U.S. lags that of other high-income countries, and America has a smaller share of primary care physicians than most of its European counterparts.

An estimated one-third of all physicians in the U.S. are primary care doctors — who include family medicine physicians, general internists, and pediatricians — according to the Robert Graham Center, a research and analysis organization that studies primary care. Other researchers say the numbers are lower, with the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker reporting only 12% of U.S. doctors are generalists, compared with 23% in Germany and as many as 45% in the Netherlands.

That means it’s often hard to find a doctor and make an appointment that’s not weeks or months away.

“This is a problem that has been simmering and now beginning to erupt in some communities at a boil. It’s hard to find that front door of the health system,” said Ann Greiner, president and CEO of the Primary Care Collaborative, a nonprofit membership organization.

Today, a smaller percentage of physicians are entering the field than are practicing, suggesting that shortages will worsen over time.

Interest has waned partly because, in the U.S., primary care yields lower salaries than other medical and surgical specialties.

Some doctors now in practice also say they are burned out, facing cumbersome electronic health record systems and limits on appointment times, making it harder to get to know a patient and establish a relationship.

Others are retiring or selling their practices. Hospitals, insurers like Aetna-CVS Health, and other corporate entities like Amazon are on a buying spree, snapping up primary care practices, furthering a move away from the “Marcus Welby, M.D.”-style neighborhood doctor. About 48% of primary care physicians currently work in practices they do not own. Two-thirds of those doctors don’t work for other physicians but are employed by private equity investors or other corporate entities, according to data in the “Primary Care Chartbook,” which is collected and published by the Graham Center.

Patients who seek care at these offices may not be seen by the same doctor at every visit. Indeed, they may not be seen by a doctor at all but by a paraprofessional — a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant, for instance — who works under the doctor’s license. That trend has been accelerated by new state laws — as well as changes in Medicare policy — that loosen the requirements for physician supervisors and billing. And these jobs are expected to be among the decade’s fastest-growing in the health sector.

Overall, demand for primary care is up, spurred partly by record enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans. All those new patients, combined with the low supply of doctors, are contributing to a years-long downward trend in the number of people reporting they have a usual source of care, be it an individual doctor or a specific clinic or practice.

Researchers say that raises questions, including whether people can’t find a primary care doctor, can’t afford one, or simply no longer want an established relationship.

“Is it poor access or problems with the supply of providers? Does it reflect a societal disconnection, a go-it-alone phenomenon?” asked Christopher Koller, president of the Milbank Memorial Fund, a foundation whose nonpartisan analyses focus on state health policy.

For patients, frustrating wait times are one result. A recent survey by a physician staffing firm found it now takes an average of 21 days just to get in to see a doctor of family medicine, defined as a subgroup of primary care, which includes general internists and pediatricians. Those physicians are many patients’ first stop for health care. That runs counter to the trend in other countries, where patients complain of months- or years-long waits for elective procedures like hip replacements but generally experience short waits for primary care visits.

Another complication: All these factors are adding urgency to ongoing concerns about attracting new primary care physicians to the specialty.

When she was in medical school, Natalie A. Cameron said, she specifically chose primary care because she enjoyed forming relationships with patients and because “I’m specifically interested in prevention and women’s health, and you do a lot of that in primary care.” The 33-year-old is currently an instructor of medicine at Northwestern University, where she also sees patients at a primary care practice.

Still, she understands why many of her colleagues chose something else. For some, it’s the pay differential. For others, it’s because of primary care’s reputation for involving “a lot of care and paperwork and coordinating a lot of issues that may not just be medical,” Cameron said.

The million-dollar question, then, is how much does having a usual source of care influence medical outcomes and cost? And for which kinds of patients is having a close relationship with a doctor important? While studies show that many young people value the convenience of visiting urgent care — especially when it takes so long to see a primary care doctor — will their long-term health suffer because of that strategy?

Many patients — particularly the young and generally healthy ones — shrug at the new normal, embracing alternatives that require less waiting. These options are particularly attractive to millennials, who tell focus groups that the convenience of a one-off video call or visit to a big-box store clinic trumps a long-standing relationship with a doctor, especially if they have to wait days, weeks, or longer for a traditional appointment.

“The doctor I have is a family friend, but definitely I would take access and ease over a relationship,” said Matt Degn, 24, who says it can take two to three months to book a routine appointment in Salt Lake City, where he lives.

Patients are increasingly turning to what are dubbed “retail clinics,” such as CVS’ Minute Clinics, which tout “in-person and virtual care 7 days a week.” CVS Health’s more than 1,000 clinics inside stores across the U.S. treated more than 5 million people last year, Creagh Milford, a physician and the company’s senior vice president of retail health, said in a written statement. He cited a recent study by a data products firm showing the use of retail clinics has grown 200% over the past five years.

Health policy experts say increased access to alternatives can be good, but forgoing an ongoing relationship to a regular provider is not, especially as people get older and are more likely to develop chronic conditions or other medical problems.

“There’s a lot of data that show communities with a lot of primary care have better health,” said Koller.

People with a regular primary care doctor or practice are more likely to get preventive care, such as cancer screenings or flu shots, studies show, and are less likely to die if they do suffer a heart attack.

Physicians who see patients regularly are better able to spot patterns of seemingly minor concerns that could add up to a serious health issue.

“What happens when you go to four different providers on four platforms for urinary tract infections because, well, they are just UTIs,” posed Yalda Jabbarpour, a family physician practicing in Washington, D.C., and the director of the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies. “But actually, you have a large kidney stone that’s causing your UTI or have some sort of immune deficiency like diabetes that’s causing frequent UTIs. But no one tested you.”

Most experts agree that figuring out how to coordinate care amid this changing landscape and make it more accessible without undermining quality — even when different doctors, locations, health systems, and electronic health records are involved — will be as complex as the pressures causing long waits and less interest in today’s primary care market.

And experiences sometimes lead patients to change their minds.

There’s something to be said for establishing a relationship, said Agajanian, in Chicago. She’s rethinking her decision to cobble together care, rather than have a specific primary care doctor or clinic, following an injury at work last year that led to shoulder surgery.

“As I’m getting older, even though I’m still young,” she said, “I have all these problems with my body, and it would be nice to have a consistent person who knows all my problems to talk with.”

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KFF Health News’ Colleen DeGuzman contributed to this report.

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(KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2023 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Anaheim briefs: Organic waste trash sorting began in Anaheim on July 1 

• July 6, 2023

To meet state goals of reducing methane emissions from landfills and extending their lifespan, Anaheim residents are now required to discard food and organic waste differently.

Residents will need to separate their organic from the main trash bin and dispose of it in the yard waste bin. Organic waste includes: food scraps such as uneaten food, overripe fruit or vegetables, bones, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags; landscaping clippings such as leaves, weeds, plants, shrubs;  food-soiled paper such as greasy pizza boxes and paper plates; wood and lumber.

Residents living in apartment, condominium or townhome communities should contact property managers to understand how the new rules apply to them.

For more information visit Anaheim.net/organics

Entertainment under the star

Summer is here and that means the Pearson Park Summer Nights Under the Stars series is here.

Shows are at the Pearson Park Amphitheatre and cost $3 per person, with children 8 and young as well as military and Anaheim veterans free (plus three guests for veterans). Coming up are:

July 7: Mark Wood and The Parrothead Band, a tribute to Jimmy Buffet

July 14: Le Polynesia

There are also some free shows coming up:

July 21: Anaheim Ballet performance

July 28: Baile y Canto Under the Stars free performance

Shows continue into August! Find out more and buy or reserve tickets at anaheim.net.

Music at the Muzeo

The Muzeo Museum and Cultural Center is presenting its first summer concert series, with the intention of it becoming an annual thing.

The series features free, outdoor performances in a family friendly environment.

Performances are scheduled in the Muzeo courtyard with Deke Dickerson next on July 28 and Sean Oliu on Aug. 25.

All concerts are at 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The public is invited to bring lawn chairs and picnic dinners to the show. There will be a free arts and crafts booth offered for the children.

For more information, sponsorship opportunities and other programs visit muzeo.org.

Concerts in the parks

More free concerts for the community will be hosted at Ronald Reagan Park and Maxwell Park.

Future performances in the Concerts in the Canyon series at Ronald Reagan Park include:

Kings of 88 on July 13

Undercover on July 20

The Trip on July 27.

At Maxwell Park, the Concerts to the Max series will include:

The Smokin’ Cobras on Aug. 3 and 4

Alarm Band on Aug. 10.

Information: anaheim.net.

Getting together

The Savanna High Class of 1970 wasn’t able to have its 50th reunion because of the coronavirus pandemic. The group is now reaching out to find classmates interested in a reschedule of the reunion.

Interested Savanna 1970 alumni are asked to contact Charlie Ross at [email protected] or at 714-457-2685 with name, phone number and email address.

Decisions must be made on size of venue, catering and such.

Opportunity to exhibit your art

The Center Gallery located in the Downtown Community Center, 250 E. Center St., provides local artists an opportunity to exhibit.

The center is open to the community from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sundays.

There is an online Fine Arts Gallery application that can be completed and submitted at anaheim.net/205/Center-Gallery for consideration for the revolving display.  All mediums are welcome and group exhibits are acceptable.

For more information contact Robert Zavala, program specialist at [email protected].

Andrea Manes shares with her neighbors events and news about the Anaheim community. If you have an event to share, contact her at [email protected] or 714-815-3885.

​ Orange County Register