Trinity League Football Podcast: Mater Dei-Bishop Gorman takes spotlight after Santa Margarita’s stunning win

• September 6, 2024

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One of the biggest weeks of the nonleague season is here for Orange County football.

It’s Mater Dei-Bishop Gorman, St. Frances-Orange Lutheran and St. John Bosco-Sierra Canyon.

That’s three intriguing games on the heels of Santa Margarita’s stunning victory against Corona Centennial last week.

Get ready for Friday’s national showdowns and Saturday’s St. John Bosco-Sierra Canyon clash by listening to this week’s episode of the Trinity League Football Podcast witth OCVarsity’s Dan Albano and insider Scott Barajas.

You can listen to the show here, and subscribe in Apple Podcasts and Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts to catch every episode as they publish. Please like and subscribe to the show.

Please send feedback to Dan Albano at [email protected] and follow show at @TrinityFBPod on X

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​ Orange County Register 

Treasury recovers $1.3 billion in unpaid taxes from high-wealth tax dodgers

• September 6, 2024

By Fatima Hussein | The Associated Press

The IRS has collected $1.3 billion from high-wealth tax dodgers since last fall, the agency announced Friday, crediting spending that has ramped up collection enforcement through President Joe Biden’s signature climate, health care and tax package signed into law in 2022.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel traveled to Austin, Texas, to tour an IRS campus and announce the latest milestone in tax collections as Republicans warn of big future budget cuts for the tax agency if they take over the White House and Congress.

Yellen said in a speech in Austin that in 2019, the top one percent of wealthy Americans owed more than one-fifth of all unpaid taxes, “leaving ordinary Americans to shoulder the burden.”

“To fix this, we’ve channeled IRS funding toward significant investments to combat tax evasion,” she said.

In 2023 and 2024 the IRS launched a series of initiatives aimed at pursuing high-wealth individuals who have failed to pay their tax debts. The IRS said the campaign is focused on taxpayers with more than $1 million in income and more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt.

Agency officials said since the program’s launch, almost 80% of the 1,600 millionaires targeted by the IRS for failing to pay a delinquent tax debt have now made a payment, leading to over $1.1 billion recovered. And in the first six months of a new February 2024 initiative, the IRS collected $172 million from 21,000 wealthy taxpayers who have not filed tax returns since 2017.

Republicans have called for funding for the IRS to be cut.

Donald Trump’s campaign for president said he would drastically reduce spending on federal agencies — and that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris “cast the tiebreaking vote to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to go after your tip income.”

That debunked claim comes from a plan the Treasury Department proposed in 2021 to bring on that many IRS employees over the next decade if it got the money. At least 50,000 IRS employees are expected to retire over the next five years.

The National Taxpayer Advocate, the independent IRS watchdog, issued a 2023 annual report stating that the IRS employs roughly 681 armed agents.

In its efforts to modernize, the agency this year also launched a program called Direct File, which allows people with very simple W-2s to calculate and submit their returns directly to the IRS. The IRS said in April that those using the program claimed more than $90 million in refunds.

While the program included 12 participating states in the 2024 tax filing season, more states have joined in for the 2025 tax season, including Maryland, Oregon, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Connecticut, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Maine.

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​ Orange County Register 

Sluggish US jobs report clears way for Fed to cut interest rates

• September 6, 2024

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON — Hiring by America’s employers picked up a bit in August from July’s tepid pace, and the unemployment rate dipped for the first time since March in a sign that the job market may be cooling but remains sturdy.

Employers added a modest 142,000 jobs, up from a scant 89,000 in July, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2% from 4.3%, which had been the highest level in nearly three years. Hiring in June and July, though, was revised sharply down by a combined 86,000. July’s job gain was the smallest since the pandemic.

“The labor market is weakening,” said Eugenio Aleman, chief economist at Raymond James Financial. “It is not falling apart, but it is weakening.”

The cooling jobs figures underscore why the Federal Reserve is set to cut its key interest rate when it next meets Sept. 17-18, with inflation falling steadily back to its target of 2%. Still, Friday’s mixed jobs data raises the question of how large a rate cut the Fed will announce. It could decide to reduce its benchmark rate by a typical quarter-point or by a larger-than-usual half-point. In the coming months, the policymakers will also decide how much and how fast to cut rates at their subsequent meetings.

Construction workers work at a residential building site in Chicago, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Christopher Waller, an influential Fed policymaker, suggested in a speech Friday that the central bank is leaning toward a quarter-point reduction this month. But he left the door open for larger rate cuts, if necessary, later this year.

“I do not expect this first cut to be the last,” Waller said in a speech at the University of Notre Dame. “With inflation and employment near our longer-run goals and the labor market moderating, it is likely that a series of reductions will be appropriate.”

“I am open-minded,” he added, “about the size and pace of cuts, which will be based on what the data tell us about the evolution of the economy.”

Waller also said the economy and job market are still growing, “and the prospects for continued growth and job creation are good,” a sign that for now, he thinks a quarter-point reduction is appropriate for the Fed’s first rate cut.

FILE – Lexia Smith stocks product while working in The Cottage Farm Stand & Baking Co. vendor booth set up at the Owensboro Regional Farmers’ Market in Owensboro, Ky., on Aug. 31, 2024. (Greg Eans/The Messenger-Inquirer via AP)/The Messenger-Inquirer via AP, File)

Collectively, Friday’s figures depict a job market slowing under the pressure of high interest rates but still growing. Many businesses appear to be holding off on adding jobs, in part because of uncertainty about the outcome of the presidential election and about how fast the Fed will reduce its benchmark rate in the coming months.

Daniel Zhao, lead economist at the career website Glassdoor, said some of the details in the August jobs report indicate that businesses’ demand for workers is slowing. The number of Americans who are working part time but would prefer full-time work rose, extending a year-long trend.

“When you look under the hood, you’re seeing numbers that confirm that the job market is on that cooling trajectory,” Zhao said.

FILE – A linesman works on power lines under the morning sun, July 12, 2024, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Matt York, File)

America’s labor market is now in an unusual place: Jobholders are mostly secure, with layoffs low, historically speaking. Yet with the pace of hiring having weakened, landing a job has become harder.

Christopher Millan, an out-of-work operations manager in Miami, has found the job market to be much more unforgiving than it was when he last looked for work in 2022. Millan, 34, who was laid off in February from an interactive-kiosk company, has since applied for more than 1,000 jobs. He has landed just a few interviews and received no offers.

Two years ago, he said, it took just a few months for him to find a new position.

He recently heard of an open job in his field from a friend. But after applying, he was told that the company had instituted a hiring freeze until fall. Millan said he thinks many companies are reluctant to fill their open jobs because they’re uncertain about the economy’s outlook.

“I feel like everyone is battening down the hatches,” he said. “It’s very frustrating.”

Over the past three months, job growth has averaged only 116,000 a month, down sharply from an average of 211,000 a year ago. Over time, that may not be enough to keep up with growth in the number of people looking for work, economists say. An influx of immigrants in the past three years has enlarged the nation’s workforce.

And August’s job gains were concentrated in just a few industries, with health care adding 44,000 jobs, restaurants, hotels and entertainment companies gaining 46,000, and construction 34,000. Steady hiring by restaurants and hotels could reflect ongoing gains in consumer spending, which rose last month even after adjusting for inflation. Manufacturers and retailers cut jobs in August.

In a major speech last month, Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the Fed’s policymakers have all but tamed inflation through high interest rates and don’t want to see the job market weaken further. The central bank is trying to achieve a “soft landing,” in which it succeeds in driving inflation down from a 9.1% peak in 2022 to its target level without causing a recession. A lower Fed benchmark rate will lead eventually to lower borrowing costs for a range of consumer and business loans, including mortgages, auto loans and credit cards.

For now, companies are posting fewer job openings and adding fewer workers, while Americans are far less likely to quit their jobs now than they were soon after the economy rebounded from the pandemic. In a strong job market, workers are more likely to quit, usually for higher-paying opportunities. With quits declining, it means fewer jobs are opening up for people out of work.

Becky Frankiewicz, North American president of the staffing firm ManpowerGroup, said that uncertainty around the presidential election and the Fed’s next moves are causing many companies to hold back on new investments and hiring.

“There’s a whole world waiting to see what happens with our election,” she said. “We have this great waiting game. No one wants to make big moves yet.”

Still, Frankiewicz said the job market appears to be stable for now.

“The bottom isn’t falling out, and we’re not seeing a rocket ship,” she said. “It’s stability.”

A slower pace of hiring is often a precursor to layoffs — one reason why the Fed’s policymakers are now more focused on sustaining the health of the job market than on continuing to fight inflation.

The Fed’s Beige Book, a collection of anecdotes from the 12 regional Fed banks, reported that many employers appeared to have become pickier about whom they hired in July and August. And a survey by the Conference Board in August found that the proportion of Americans who think jobs are hard to find has been rising, a trend that has often correlated with a higher unemployment rate.

At the same time, consumer spending, the principal driver of economic growth in the United States, rose at a healthy pace in July. And the economy grew at a solid 3% annual pace in the April-June quarter.

​ Orange County Register 

Trump vows to ban mortgages for undocumented immigrants

• September 6, 2024

Former President Donald Trump plans to ban mortgages for undocumented immigrants, he said in a speech at the Economic Club of New York on Thursday.

Trump claimed the measure would help address housing affordability because a “flood” of people entering the country illegally are pushing up housing costs, but undocumented immigrants only make up a tiny portion of the mortgage market.

Also see: Newsom vetoes controversial housing bill meant to help undocumented immigrants

In 2023, only 5,000 to 6,000 mortgages were made to holders of Individual Tax Identification numbers, according to a recent Urban Institute report. Those who are not legally authorized to work in the US obtain ITINs to file taxes, since they are not eligible for Social Security numbers. Most ITINs are issued to those from Latin American countries.

Some 4.3 million first mortgages were originated in 2023, according to Equifax.

It’s often very difficult for undocumented immigrants to obtain home loans, even though the USA Patriot Act of 2021 allowed banks to accept ITINs as a form of identification.

“A small yet growing set of lenders offer mortgage products to ITIN holders, often at higher interest rates and with stricter lending requirements, despite anecdotal evidence that this type of lending does not pose additional risk to the housing finance system,” the Urban Institute report states.

The former president said he would make housing more affordable by getting rid of regulations that increase costs and by opening up some federal land available for large-scale housing construction in low-tax, low-regulation zones.

He also said falling interest rates will send mortgage rates down to 3% or even lower, which will make financing less expensive for homebuyers.

Trump’s broader views on undocumented immigrants — and his insistence that he would deport millions of them — could also hamper the push to lower home prices. The residential construction industry, which is suffering from a labor shortage, has long pushed for an increase in the number of immigrants allowed to work legally in the US to bolster its workforce and enable it to build more homes. A lack of housing supply is a major factor driving up prices, especially as demand has grown in recent years.

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​ Orange County Register 

Harvey Weinstein’s U.K. indecent assault charges dropped before NYC retrial

• September 6, 2024

The U.K. has dropped indecent assault charges against Harvey Weinstein, just months after the disgraced producer’s 2020 New York City rape conviction was overturned.

The Crown Prosecution Service is no longer pursuing the two charges a woman brought against the 72-year-old Miramax founder in June 2022 — concerning alleged assaults in London in 1996 — due to there no longer being “a realistic prospect of conviction,” Variety reports.

“Following a review of the evidence in this case, the CPS has decided to discontinue criminal proceedings against Harvey Weinstein,” said Frank Ferguson, head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, per the outlet. “The CPS has a duty to keep all cases under continuous review, and we have decided that there is no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.”

Ferguson said the decision has been explained “to all parties.

“We would always encourage any potential victims of sexual assault to come forward and report to police, and we will prosecute wherever our legal test is met,” continued Ferguson.

Back in April, the State of New York Court of Appeals. overturned the movie tycoon’s 2020 convictions for raping aspiring actress Jessica Mann in 2013 and criminal sex act for assaulting film assistant Miriam Haley in 2006. At the time of the decision, Weinstein was serving a 23-year sentence.

Days later, Manhattan prosecutors vowed to retry its case against the Oscar winner — who was also sentenced to 16 years in prison for his October 2022 Los Angeles conviction of three counts of rape and sexual assault. At the time, it was reported Weinstein would remain in custody in New York and that California was not currently “in a position to extradite” him.

In July, they confirmed Weinstein could face new sexual assault charges during the retrial tentatively set for Nov. 12.

​ Orange County Register 

Why public EV chargers almost never work as fast as promised

• September 6, 2024

Kyle Stock | Bloomberg News (TNS)

For EV drivers traversing the great state of Wyoming, the Smith’s grocery store in Rock Springs is an oasis. It’s just off I-80, there’s a Petco across the street, and it has six plugs promising to charge at 350 kilowatts. At that rate, a Tesla Model 3 could go from empty to full in the time it takes to hit the bathroom and grab a Snickers.

But when I limped up to the station last month — in a Rivian R1S crammed with one dog and two kids — that 350 kW may as well have been a mirage. Rivian’s SUV charges at 220 kW at best, and the charger itself crimped the hose to just 50 kW. With one pit stop, our carefully planned seven-hour road trip got two hours longer.

This isn’t a Wyoming-specific problem, or a Rivian one. At U.S. public stations promising charging speeds of 100 kW or higher, the average delivered charge was only 52 kW in 2022, according to Stable Auto, which helps networks decide where to build new infrastructure. That disconnect — largely a reflection of battery power’s idiosyncrasies — is leaving many U.S. drivers guessing as to when, why and by how much their charge is being throttled.

“The reality is we really don’t have a fast-charging infrastructure today,” says David Slutzky, chairman and founder of Fermata Energy, a startup that builds vehicle-to-grid charging systems. “They almost all ratchet down the charge pretty quickly.”

There are many good reasons why even the slickest public chargers rarely run at maximum capacity. The chemical wizardry of battery power is more complex than pouring liquid in a tank, and both internal and external factors take a toll on charging speed.

For starters, an EV itself can only suck up electrons so quickly. Of the 55 electric models now available in the U.S., half charge above 200 kW and only five can charge at 350 kW. Those speeds are further compromised when it’s very hot or very cold. Temperature extremes can damage a lithium-ion battery, so automakers program their cars to slow a charge in certain temperatures.

Trickier still, EV charging slows naturally as the car’s battery approaches full, in order to keep it from overheating. (Smartphones and laptops do the same thing.) The specifics of this charging curve are unique to each car, though brands are cagey about sharing those specifics, even with the people buying their products. Tesla vehicles, for one, have relatively steep charging curves, meaning the “fast” part of the charging doesn’t last long.

Finally, charging networks themselves crimp electron flow. On a hot day, the local grid might be maxed out by thirsty air conditioners, or the plugs’ hoses may be close to overheating. Many stations split power between cars, allowing them to install more cords with the same electricity. In other words, a 200 kW charger becomes a 100 kW charger when someone uses its second cord. (The U.S. Department of Energy classifies plugs 50 kW and up as “fast.”)

“There’s sort of this complicated handshake between the vehicle and the charger, so I think there’s an education gap for sure,” says Sara Rafalson, executive director of policy at EVgo.

That gap risks hurting EV adoption in the U.S., where charging speed has become a marketing metric. Automakers like to trumpet how quickly their cars can go from 10% or 20% full to 80%, while public charging stations tend to display maximum charge rate — not average or expected — right on the machines. Some 17% of U.S. public chargers are rated 100 kW-plus, according to BloombergNEF, compared with 10% in the UK and 2% in the Netherlands.

“We still see a lot of discrepancy between what the customer is expecting and what they’re seeing at the site,” says Anthony Lambkin, vice president of operations at Electrify America, which operates almost 1,000 U.S. stations. “The great news is we have a lot of new drivers and this is just one of those learning-curve things.”

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Consumers are a little less sanguine. One snapshot of 103,000 Tesla charging sessions found average charging speeds of 90 kW — less than half of the maximum, according to Recurrent Auto, a startup that tracks battery health. And in a recent JD Power survey, EV owners scored public charging speeds near the bottom of 10 categories studied. Brent Gruber, executive director of JD Power’s EV practice, says consumers develop false expectations “when you plaster those [kilowatt] numbers on the charger itself.”

Charging executives concede that they could do more to educate consumers, particularly those new to electric cars. “That is still a challenge,” Lambkin says. “But there’s a real tech aspect to this that seems to draw people in. People get very, very excited when they see that they’re getting their maximum charge rate.”

Charging’s inherent complexity means the speed gap will never close entirely — but it should narrow in the near future. Charging networks are building faster and larger stations in the U.S., which will ease the need for power dilution across plugs. Since the end of 2022, every station built by Electrify America has been capable of 350 kW, and a couple of its sites now have 20 charging slots.

Carmakers have also realized that max charging rate is a deciding factor for car buyers, and are dialing it up on coming models. “There will be a catch-up on the technology side that should meet that catch-up on the learning-curve side,” Lambkin says.

But for the time being, the best way to cope with the unpredictability is to prepare for it — sometimes doggedly. Before Jacob Espinoza sets off on any road trip from his home in New Mexico, he goes through a three-part checklist: Plug his destination into a route-planning app; check the charging network apps; and check Plugshare, a platform for crowdsourced charger reviews.

“When you do those three things, it’s really not that hard to take long trips in an EV,” says Espinoza, who chronicles his battery-powered road trips on YouTube.

Back in Rock Springs, I was paying the price for having skipped Espinoza’s steps two and three. After about 15 minutes of 50 kW charging, we cut our losses and drove another 100 miles north to Pinedale, Wyoming, where two cords idled in a dusty lot behind Stockman’s Saloon and Steakhouse. The “Frontier Days” festival was in town, so we wandered by to catch a folk concert.

With a maximum charging speed of 120 kW, the Pinedale plug should have been far slower than our 350 kW machine in Rock Springs. But we only had 90 miles to go and it covered that in just a few minutes. Frontier days, indeed.

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Want to be an ‘influencer’? Texas university launches new degree for digital influencing

• September 6, 2024

Sarah Bahari | The Dallas Morning News (TNS)

DALLAS — A Texas university is launching a new degree dedicated to the art and business of influencing.

Beginning this fall, the University of Texas at San Antonio is offering a bachelor’s in digital media influencing for aspiring content creators. The program, which is available online and in-person, will cover technical aspects like photo editing and website development, but also audience psychology and data analytics.

“We want to take the idea media influencing and bring it into the 21st century,” said Chad Mahood, an associate communication professor who developed the program.

The so-called “content creator industry” has exploded in recent years, aided by TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms. Now valued at roughly $250 billion, the industry could reach $480 billion by 2027, according to an estimate by financial firm Goldman Sachs.

Worldwide, some 50 million people have ditched traditional jobs to work as content creators, Goldman Sachs said. Their content varies widely, from hair and makeup tutorials and restaurant reviews to diet and exercise advice and do-it-yourself home projects. And they get paid to do so, largely through partnerships with brands.

Earlier this year, Dallas content creator Victoria Jameson told The Dallas Morning News she went from making barely $30,000 a year as a makeup artist to a “comfortable, six-figure salary.” But only about 4% of creators make more than $100,000 a year, according to Goldman Sachs.

UT San Antonio is among the only universities in the country to try to meet demand for influencing. So far, eight students have enrolled in the program, and 80 more are in the process of enrolling.

While students can develop influencing skills on their own, earning a degree offers hands-on experience and greater credibility with brands and employers, Mahood said. In the final year of the program, student influencers will develop capstone projects to test and analyze with target audiences.

Graduates could work as social media influencers, Mahood said, but they can also land jobs for corporations seeking in-house content creation, advertising and public relations agencies.

“Becoming an influencer is largely based on selling your own brand,” Mahood said. “But it’s about more than a good video or website. It’s about understanding, analyzing and connecting with an audience.”

©2024 The Dallas Morning News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Rams CB Decobie Durant (hamstring) expected to play vs. Lions

• September 6, 2024

LOS ANGELES — Rams cornerback Decobie Durant is expected to play in Sunday’s season opener against the Detroit Lions after fully participating in practice Friday, head coach Sean McVay said. Durant had been limited in the Rams’ last four practices.

Durant’s availability is a big break for the Rams after the team had to put starting cornerback Darious Williams on injured reserve on Thursday with his own hamstring injury.

McVay had been confident about Williams’ recovery as recently as Wednesday before practice, but he said Friday that Williams felt another pull in his hamstring Wednesday and wasn’t able to open up and run fully in practice. After an MRI, the decision was made to put him on injured reserve.

“You’re kind of feeling it and sometimes you’re saying, ‘OK, am I breaking up scar tissue or is there still something there?’ And the MRI revealed there’s still something there,” McVay said. “Felt like giving him that month of time was important to not put an unnecessary deadline on getting him back.”

McVay said the Rams hope Williams will be back after the four weeks, but, “I wouldn’t have anticipated us to be having this conversation based off of where we were at.”

There’s a possibility the Rams add a cornerback to the roster, McVay said, but it’s not an imminent decision.

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Right tackle Rob Havenstein was slated to be limited Friday, and the Rams will use that practice to determine whether the veteran is ready to play against the Lions.

Havenstein hasn’t practiced in full since his ankle injury in early August as Warren McClendon Jr. has filled in at right tackle in his place. But the Rams feel comfortable with the idea of him jumping into action Sunday if he’s physically ready, McVay said.

“I think it’s a unique circumstance because he’s so experienced,” McVay said. “It wouldn’t be a situation that you would even look into if it wasn’t from an experienced player.”

​ Orange County Register