Florida woman charged with killing her Black neighbor

• June 27, 2023

Associated Press

A white woman accused of firing through her door and fatally shooting a Black mother in front of her 9-year-old son in central Florida was charged Monday with manslaughter and assault.

Susan Lorincz was arrested earlier this month following the fatal shooting of Ajike Owens in Ocala, Florida. She was formally charged with one count of manslaughter with a firearm and one count of assault.

State Attorney William Gladson said his office contemplated filing a second-degree murder charge but that prosecutors concluded there was insufficient evidence that Lorincz had “hatred, spite, ill will or evil intent” toward Owens.

“As deplorable as the defendant’s actions were in this case, there is insufficient evidence to prove this specific and required element of second-degree murder,” Gladson said in a statement. “I am aware of the desire of the family, and some community members, that the defendant be charged with second-degree murder. My obligation as State Attorney is to follow the law in each case that I prosecute.”

If convicted, Lorincz faces up to 30 years in prison. Amanda Sizemore, Lorincz’s attorney from the public defender’s office, said she had no comment at this time.

Anthony Thomas, an attorney for Owens’ family, said the decision against filing a second-degree murder charge was disappointing.

“We firmly believe that justice demands nothing less,” Thomas said in a statement. “The failure of the prosecutor to charge Susan with what truly reflected her wanton, reckless behavior undermines our ability to even get real accountability.”

Owens was killed June 2 in Ocala, about 83 miles (133 kilometers) north of Orlando.

After the shooting, Lorincz told investigators she had problems for two years with being disrespected by children in the neighborhood — including Owens’ children, who are ages 12, 9, 7 and 3.

According to an arrest report from the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, Lorincz said she had a headache the day of the shooting and that children were running and yelling outside her apartment. That night, while a few children were playing basketball, Lorincz threw a pair of roller skates at them, hitting one on the feet.

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Owens then came over and knocked on her door. Lorincz told investigators that Owens threatened to kill her and banged on the door so hard she feared Owens would break it down.

Lorincz fired a single round from her .380-caliber handgun, the sheriff’s report says, which went through the closed door and fatally struck Owens.

A judge has granted Lorincz a $154,000 bond while ordering her to wear an ankle monitor and to stay away from Owens’ family.

​ Orange County Register 

Jo Adell returns to Angels for another cameo

• June 27, 2023

ANAHEIM — Jo Adell is back with the Angels for what could be another cameo, providing another opportunity to wonder when he’ll be up to stay.

The Angels recalled the outfielder from Triple-A on Monday because infielder Eduardo Escobar was placed on the restricted list so he could take his test for United States citizenship back in Florida.

Escobar is expected back either Tuesday or Wednesday, which means Adell’s second trip to the majors this year could be just one or two games. He was up for three days earlier this month when Hunter Renfroe was on the paternity list.

General Manager Perry Minasian said on Monday that Adell is showing improvement.

“Jo’s been outstanding,” Minasian said. “He’s made some strides in all areas. Defensively he’s really really improved. I give a lot of credit to him for putting in the work, and our staff for putting together a plan and helping them reach the point where he is right now, which is a pretty good defender.”

Adell, 24, has hit .277 with 21 home runs and a .944 OPS at Triple-A. He has struck out in 27.6% of his plate appearances and walked in 10.6%.

For comparison, last season Adell had a .920 OPS in Triple-A, including a 31.1% strikeout rate and an 11.1% walk rate. That translated to a major league average of .224 with a .637 OPS.

“Obviously he’s swung the bat well in Triple-A,” Minasian said. “He came up for a short period of time, will be up today. He’ll have his chance at some point, and I look forward to seeing what he does with it.”

Players can be optioned up to five times once the season begins. Adell’s next option will be his second.

NEW INFIELDERS

Addressing the weekend trades for Eduardo Escobar and Mike Moustakas for the first time, Minasian said he felt it was important to make moves to help bolster the roster because the players have remained in contention so well throughout adversity.

“The players put themselves in a position to where we’re in contention for a playoff spot, and I don’t take that lightly,” Minasian said. “They’ve worked really hard to be at this point, especially with some of the challenges we’ve gone through over the course of the season. So now I look at it as my turn to help, to continue adding talent to the roster, like we try to do day in and day out from a baseball operation standpoint. We felt like both players would help us, not only on the field but off the field.”

Both Escobar and Moustakas can play multiple infield positions, but Manager Phil Nevin said the lineup that makes the most sense is Moustakas at first base and Escobar at third.

Nevin said he wants to try to keep Brandon Drury at second as much as possible.

“Guys moving around, I just don’t want to do that,” Nevin said. “I’d rather have one guy out of position than three guys playing positions they haven’t played a lot. I think all around that’s our best defensive look.”

INJURY UPDATES

Third baseman Anthony Rendon (bruised wrist) did some baseball work, including taking ground balls on Monday. Nevin said “today seems to be the best day yet,” but he wouldn’t commit to when Rendon will be able to play, beyond saying “I think we’re close.”

Left-handed reliever Matt Moore (oblique) still needs to have another simulated game or two before he’s ready, Nevin said. The Angels hoped that Moore might be ready after one simulated game on Saturday, but they determined that he needs more work.

Right-hander Ben Joyce (ulnar neuritis) played catch inside the cage, the first time he had thrown since he went on the injured list. Joyce said he no longer feels any more symptoms, but it’s still too early to have a timeline for his return.

“They’re putting the ball in my hand,” Joyce said. “We’ll see how it goes and take it from there.”

Shortstop Zach Neto (oblique) has not yet begun any baseball activity, but he is hoping that on Friday he’ll be able to begin some light throwing. Neto said he no longer feels any symptoms, but he feels “a good soreness” from returning to workouts after a couple of weeks off. There is no timetable for him to return.

NOTES

Infielder Kyren Paris and catcher Edgar Quero were both selected from the Angels’ Double-A team to participate in the Futures Game next month in Seattle. Paris, 21, has a .760 OPS and Quero, 20, has a .719 OPS. “We’ve challenged both with the assignments they’re at,” Minasian said. “They’re very young for that level. And they’ve taken that challenge and run with it and says a lot about them. They’re both well worthy of that honor and will represent us really well.” …

Catcher Chris Okey cleared waivers and accepted an outright to Triple-A. Okey had been designated for assignment to clear a 40-man roster spot over the weekend. …

Nevin said the Angels had no reluctance to allow Escobar to leave the team temporarily to complete the lengthy process of becoming a citizen. “When he talked about it, his eyes lit up,” Nevin said. “This is something he’s looked forward to for a long time and we certainly wouldn’t take that away from him. Some things are more important than baseball and this certainly is.”

UP NEXT

White Sox (RHP Michael Kopech, 3-6, 4.06 ERA) at Angels (RHP Shohei Ohtani, 6-3, 3.13 ERA), Tuesday, 6:38 p.m., Angel Stadium, Bally Sports West, 830 AM

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​ Orange County Register 

Alexander: Former baseball scouts’ age discrimination suit was inevitable

• June 27, 2023

When 17 former baseball scouts filed a class action lawsuit against Major League Baseball in U.S. District Court in Denver last week, claiming age discrimination and charging that older scouts were not only pushed out but were subsequently blacklisted … well, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Rick Ingalls said nearly two years ago that this was coming.

Ingalls, 71, a Long Beach resident who scouted for the Angels, Chicago White Sox, Toronto Blue Jays, Seattle Mariners and Cincinnati Reds before he was let go by the Reds in 2018, talked to me then about how, among other things, analytics and technology had become a far higher priority in baseball front offices than the eye test and instincts and assessment of character that were at the heart of traditional scouting.

The sport has retrenched from a player development standpoint, with the reduction of the draft from 60-some rounds to 20 and the pruning of the minor leagues. And as the old ways were left behind, many veteran scouts – like Ingalls – were shoved aside as well.

“All the years I’ve been in this business, and I’ve been in it a long time, and I saw guys (get let go) and they just went away,” Ingalls said in a phone conversation Monday. “There was never, ‘Hey, wait a second. What happened here? Why? Why?’ So I always remembered that, and I thought when it finally happened to me, I said, you know what? I’m not the guy. I’m not going away.

“… We have a lot of guys (who were let go) that absolutely are in dire straits because they’re 50, middle-50s, you know. Where are you going to get another job when you work 25 or 30 years in one industry? Guys are driving Uber to pay for insurance. Guys have lost their houses. … They (the clubs) devastated a lot of lives here for whatever their reasoning is.”

And so here we are. The 17 individuals (including Ingalls) named as plaintiffs in the initial filing averaged 29 years in scouting, and even that average is deceptive. Paul Runge, a former Atlanta Braves player and not the former umpire, was just a scout for three years but had spent decades as a minor league coach, field coordinator and manager. Most of the men on that list had scouting tenures of between 25 and 39 years. The youngest is 55.

So what happens when you give your life to something and then find out it has no more use for you?

“These are employees that have sacrificed their lives for this, who have been in this game their whole life,” said Rick Ragazzo, 63, a scout for the San Francisco Giants, Dodgers and Braves during his 35-year career, in a video disseminated by Kilgore & Kilgore LLC, the Dallas law firm handling the scouts’ case.

“We played, we coached, we scouted. Some of us were in the front office making decisions. That track record should mean something, but I guess it doesn’t. I don’t know if we were allowed to, or if I was allowed to, adapt and become part of the new system, or if it was just something they thought I wasn’t able to do.”

Ted Lekas, 67 and a scout for multiple clubs for 34 years, told the Boston Globe that when he was released by Atlanta last October he was told the rationalization was that “the Braves’ payroll in 2023 was going to be so big, that they needed all the money they could get to finance the salary for the big leaguers.” And he said on a Kilgore & Kilgore video he’d earlier been told on “three different occasions” that he’d be back in 2023.

For what it’s worth, the Braves – part of a publicly traded company – reported income of $588 million in 2022, between the ballclub and the Battery development surrounding Truist Park. Their current 40-man payroll for luxury tax purposes, $242,219,167, is around $28 million higher than it was last year.

All that, and they can’t find a way to keep a scout that might make $100,000 a year?

Lekas also talked in his video about how there’d never been any established criteria for evaluating scouts, and “if you ever ask why you’re let go, the answer is, ‘We’re going in a different direction.’” That has happened a lot; he estimated that since 2015, at least 75 to 100 older scouts have been let go, and maybe 5% found work elsewhere in baseball.

And while there are 17 names in this suit right now, the suit estimates that more than 100 older scouts are part of the affected class. Ingalls said Monday the initial estimate of scouts who might join the suit was anywhere from 50 to 100, and “within a two- or three-day period, we got 20 more guys already.”

The suit alleges that MLB and its clubs, acting in concert, “engaged not only in systematically bringing about the separation from Clubs of Older Scouts to build a workforce of Younger Scouts, but in denying re-employment of Older Scouts by Clubs … based on a false stereotype that Older Scouts lacked the ability to use analytics and engage in video scouting with the same acumen as Younger Scouts.” It claims that the pattern “constitutes unlawful age discrimination” under the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act as well as state anti-discrimination statutes.

MLB’s response to the lawsuit last week was a terse statement: “We do not comment on pending litigation. However, we look forward to refuting these claims in court.”

The prediction here? There will be a settlement, and you can likely use as a measuring stick the $185 million that MLB will pay minor league players to settle a suit alleging violations of federal minimum wage laws, though that disbursement to some 24,000 players has been held up because of an appeal over the percentage to be paid in legal fees.

“Part of me wants a lot of this stuff exposed, but the other part of me wants to get (unemployed scouts) the money as quickly as possible because they need it,” Ingalls said. “They lost salaries. They lost time on their pensions. You know, there’s a lot that went down the tubes. It was gone.

“These are baseball guys that had their baseball identities taken away. And you’re just supposed to go away and say, oh, okay, you know, career’s over? Because of what? Why is your career over when you can still work?”

Why, indeed?

[email protected]

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​ Orange County Register 

Leaders urge President Biden to expand the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument

• June 27, 2023

With the picturesque San Gabriel Mountains in the backdrop, local and national leaders converged on Eaton Canyon Nature Center in Pasadena on Monday, June 26, to urge President Joe Biden to expand the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument an additional 109,000 acres to the west.

“The San Gabriel Mountains are among the most pristine and beautiful public lands in the country, and they are right here next to one of the nation’s densest and most park-deprived population centers,” said Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, who was joined by several elected leaders at all levels. “I’m so grateful to the diverse, vibrant group of leaders of this more than 20-year movement to protect the San Gabriel Mountains, and I hope that President Biden will recognize the importance of these lands by designating the western Angeles National Forest as part of the National Monument. “

The call for an expanded monument included U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla; Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Panorama City; L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger; Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo; and Tongva Gabrieleno Chief Anthony Morales.

They called on the Biden administration to make use of the Antiquities Act, a 1906 law that allows the president to designate federal public lands, waters, and cultural and historical sites as national monuments via Presidential Proclamation.

The move would add-in regions of the western Angeles National Forest – from the Placerita Canyon Nature Center in the northwest, southwest to the Monrovia area — that were not included in the original 346,177 acres of federal land designated as a national monument by then-President Barack Obama in 2014.

The proposed expansion area is considered the “gateway” to the Angeles National Forest, making it one of the most visited parts of the forest.

“For Angelenos, the San Gabriel Mountains have been a lifelong connection to nature,” Padilla said. “For many low-income families in the Los Angeles area, this is the only access they have to green space and the educational and health benefits that come with it. And it is critical that we protect these public lands to promote environmental justice in our communities.”

Padilla said an order by the president would fulfill the “complete vision of permanently protecting the San Gabriel Mountains and all of their natural wonders.”

In May, both Padilla and Chu introduced legislation that would expand the San Gabriel Mountain National Monument, with Padilla’s PUBLIC Lands Act protecting more than 1 million acres of public land in California, and incorporating provisions of Chu’s San Gabriel Mountains Protection Act, which expands the monument by 109,00 acres, designates 31,000 acres as new or expanded wilderness areas, and adds 45.5 miles to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System.

On June 8, they sent sent a letter to the White House urging the administration to take executive action and outlining the roadblocks similar bills faced in previous attempts to expand the monument, clearing the House five times in the last three years without ultimately being passed.

“As hopeful we are, we also have to be realistic,” Padilla said. “There’s a Republican majority in the House of Representatives that’s not giving us too much hope that we can get it done legislatively this year.”

Democratic presidents have long argued designating large swaths of land is needed to protect certain areas. Obama himself, propelled by an effort led by Chu and also a Republican-led House of Representatives, used the Antiquities Act in 2014 to do what two members of Congress and thousands of supporters could not do during the 11 years prior to his signature.

And even then, the designation did not come without controversy.

At the time, more than 150 protesters held signs in front of the park where Obama signed his executive order, saying they did not want the federal government to impose its will on the land or on its people. The bone of contention stems from the president’s use of the Antiquities Act, first used by President Teddy Roosevelt.

Last year, the state of Utah and two Republican-leaning rural counties sued the Biden administration over the president’s decision last year to restore two sprawling national monuments on rugged lands sacred to Native Americans that former President Donald Trump had downsized. Trump’s decision opened parts of the monuments up for mining, drilling and other development.

In the Utah lawsuit, plaintiffs argued the Biden administration interpreted the Antiquities Act in an overly broad manner and disregarded its original intent: protecting particular historical or archaeological sites. It cites provisions of the act that say designations should encompass “the smallest area compatible” with preservation goals.

Supporters of an expanded San Gabriel Mountains National Monument say the expansion will help address the climate and biodiversity crises by protecting important habitat and wildlife corridors for black bears, mountain lions, coyotes, bighorn sheep, and mule deer, as well as contribute to state and federal goals to conserve 30% of public lands and waters by 2030.

“Los Angeles County is one of the most densely populated areas in the nation and millions of our region’s residents have limited access to the outdoors,” said Belén Bernal, executive director for nonprofit environmental coalition Nature for All. “We know that lack of access to nature has negative health implications and is linked to higher rates of obesity and diabetes. That’s why it is so important that we ensure the permanent protection of the San Gabriel Mountains. This is one of the few places Angelenos can go to enjoy the outdoors close to home.”

Related links

Bill to expand San Gabriel Mountains National Monument could draw in Biden
At long last, adding front range back into San Gabriel Mountains National Monument
Adding acres back to monument in the San Gabriel Mountains
Pasadena Casting Club’s fight to protect San Gabriel Mountains National Monument: Larry Wilson
San Gabriel Mountains National Monument helps bring nature to children, chilren to nature: Guest commentary

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

​ Orange County Register 

Chargers sign edge rusher Tuli Tuipulotu, their 2nd-round pick

• June 27, 2023

The Chargers on Monday signed Tuli Tuipulotu, an All-America edge rusher from USC who was their second-round pick in the 2023 draft. Tuipulotu started three seasons with the Trojans and earned first-team All-Pac-12 honors twice. He grew up in Hawthorne and starred at Lawndale High.

Tuipulotu, 20, led the Pac-12 and was third in the nation with 12½ sacks during the 2022 season. He was named to the All-America team and was the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year. He was credited with 114 tackles (65 solo) during his collegiate career at USC.

It’s anticipated that he’ll add significant depth to the Chargers’ edge rusher position behind Joey Bosa and Khalil Mack and under new defensive coordinator Derrick Ansley, who was promoted from secondary coach after the departure of Renaldo Hill to the Miami Dolphins during the offseason.

“He has a lot of the characteristics that we think translate to playing championship defense,” Chargers coach Brandon Staley said after Tuipulotu was selected 54th overall on April 28. “He’s really tough and rugged at the point of attack. He can rush from the outside and from the inside. He has versatility that way. He has the play style that we’re really attracted to.”

Tuipulotu was the only remaining unsigned player from the Chargers’ seven-player draft class.

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​ Orange County Register 

College World Series: LSU hammers Florida to win its 7th national title

• June 27, 2023

By ERIC OLSON AP Sports Writer

OMAHA, Neb. — A day after giving up the most runs ever in a College World Series game, LSU cranked up its offense and won its first national title since 2009 with an 18-4 victory over Florida on Monday night in the third and deciding game of the championship series.

LSU (54-17) staved off elimination three times in bracket play and bounced back from the humiliating 24-4 loss in Game 2 to claim its seventh championship, second to USC’s 12.

“Right people, right place, right time,” Tigers coach Jay Johnson said. “This is the way it was supposed to go.”

The Tigers wiped out an early 2-0 deficit with a six-run second inning against Jac Caglianone (7-4). The runs kept coming until they finished with the most in a title game since USC’s 21-14 victory over Arizona State in 1998. The 14-run margin was the largest ever in a final. Their 24 hits were the most in a CWS game.

“It wasn’t our day, all the way around,” Gators catcher B.T. Riopelle said.

Thatcher Hurd (8-3) allowed Wyatt Langford’s two-run homer in the first and then allowed no hits or runs while retiring 18 of the next 21 batters. Riley Cooper took over to start the seventh and gave up Ty Evans’ CWS-record fifth homer, and Gavin Guidry finished the combined five-hitter.

There was speculation after Sunday’s blowout loss about the Tigers bringing back ace Paul Skenes for a third start in Omaha. He threw a combined 243 pitches over 15⅔ innings in two spectacular appearances, and he would have been working on three days of rest.

It turned out Skenes was able to watch from the dugout in the comfort of his sneakers while LSU poured on the runs and Hatcher kept dealing. Skenes headed to the bullpen to do some stretching in the seventh inning, but he went back to the dugout after the eighth and stayed there until he and his teammates rushed the mound when Guidry struck out Cade Kurland to end it.

Skenes was named the Most Outstanding Player of the CWS.

The overwhelmingly partisan LSU crowd included Kim Mulkey, coach of the national champion women’s basketball team and the mother of Kramer Robertson, who played shortstop on the 2017 team that lost to Florida in the CWS finals.

The Tigers had been pointing toward a title run since their first team meeting last August. Johnson brought back Southeastern Conference Player of the Year Dylan Crews and the rest of the core of his team’s 2022 lineup.

Three key transfers took LSU to a higher level. Skenes was the first college pitcher in 12 years with 200 strikeouts and could be the No. 1 pick in the amateur draft. Tommy White hit 24 homers and drove in a nation-leading 105 runs. Hurd was solid as a starter and reliever and matched his longest outing of the year in the title game.

The Tigers were the consensus No. 1 team in the polls from the preseason until the first week of May, when they were overtaken by Wake Forest. They finished the season well enough to be the No. 5 national seed in the NCAA Tournament, and they swept through regionals and super regionals in Baton Rouge to make it to Omaha for the first time since they were national runners-up six years ago.

LSU joined Mississippi, Mississippi State and Vanderbilt in a line of four straight national champions from the SEC.

“Oh my gosh, this is what I dreamed of since I was a freshman, holding this trophy,” Crews said. “We’re champions, baby, bringing it back to LSU. It’s been a long journey for us. We dealt with a lot of stuff. Just to finally say we’re national champions … I cannot wait to put another flag over the field. It’s going to be awesome.”

Florida (54-17) won the SEC regular-season title, was the No. 2 national seed and set school records for wins and home runs – the Gators hit 17 of the 35 homers by all teams in the CWS. But the Gators were unable to carry over the momentum from their record-setting production Sunday.

Caglianone, Florida’s two-way star, struggled with his command for a second straight start and was done on the mound after 1⅓ innings. He remained in the game as the designated hitter.

LSU got on the board when Jordan Thompson, who had been 1 for his last 30, singled in a run. It was tied after Caglianone hit Cade Beloso – his fifth hit batter in his 5⅔ CWS innings – and a walk to Crews put LSU in front. Cade Fisher relieved and gave up a couple of RBI singles and a sacrifice fly.

Josh Pearson’s fourth homer of the season highlighted the Tigers’ four-run fourth inning.

More to come on this story.

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​ Orange County Register 

Out-of-state abortion seekers in Orange, San Bernardino counties doubled since Dobbs decision

• June 27, 2023

In the year since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a constitutional right to abortion, more than twice as many out-of-state patients have come to Orange and San Bernardino counties seeking abortions, according to Planned Parenthood.

“Often, when patients call us, we have an appointment in the next few days, but they will ask for an appointment two weeks out,” said Jon Dunn, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, “because they recognize that it’s going to take them that long to organize childcare, find a way to get away from their job, and organize transportation.”

Dunn made the comments Monday morning, June 26, at an event outside Planned Parenthood’s health center in San Bernardino, alongside Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-San Bernardino.

In June 2022, with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision, granting a federally recognized right to an abortion. The Dobbs decision threw the issue back to the states, opening the door for states to ban abortion outright. In the year since, 14 states have made abortion illegal while 11 have expanded access. And members of Congress on both sides of the issues have expressed a desire for national legislation on the matter.

“Republicans from California say one thing when they’re at home, and then they give their voting cards to the extremists in Washington when we’re working,” Aguilar said. “When given a chance, not a single Republican from California voted to protect women from traveling across state lines to get abortion care. Not a single California Republican voted to protect the right of women to get contraception.”

According to Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, in the year since the Dobbs decision, 451 out-of-state abortion patients have been seen in their clinics, as compared to 180 out-of-state abortion patients in the year prior.

Of the patients seen in the past year, 142 received services in San Bernardino County health centers, including 81 at the health center in the city of San Bernardino.

Out-of-state patients, who have to arrange for travel and often make child care arrangements, are getting abortions later than local patients are. According to Planned Parenthood, only 55% of out-of-state abortion patients were seen by Planned Parenthood in time for a medication abortion, which must be used within 10 weeks of conception. Local patients are able to get medication abortions 82% of the time.

According to Dunn, out-of-state patients come to Planned Parenthood in Orange and San Bernardino counties from 32 states, mostly Texas and Arizona, but also from states as far away as Florida. And patients from further west, including states where abortion remains legal, like in Nevada and Colorado, have also been coming to California.

“There’s such a surge coming from places like Texas and Arizona” at Nevada and Colorado clinics that “their own local patients can’t get in the door, so they look further and further west, until they can get an appointment,” Dunn said.

Out-of-state abortion patients requiring a surgical abortion are almost three times as likely to be in their second trimester as local patients are, according to Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood has helped out-of-state abortion patients with an average of $488 in subsidies for travel and medical expenses.

Aguilar warned that the Dobbs decision wasn’t the end of restrictions on abortion.

“This is no longer the Republican Party (of) states’ rights. This is about a nationwide ban,” he said. “That means extremists like (Georgia representative) Marjorie Taylor Greene will write our laws and decide what’s best for our communities. That’s not the future we want. That’s not the future we want to share with our children.”

And Aguilar — the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives — vowed that things would be different with Democrats in control of the House in the future.

“When Democrats take back the House, we look forward to passing abortion rights and making sure we enshrine those, the Women’s Health Protection Act, into law,” he added.

H.R. 3755, the Women’s Health Protection Act, introduced by Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, would make it legal for doctors to provide abortions across the United States. The bill passed in the previous session of Congress before stalling out in the Senate. A second version of the law is currently in limbo, and Chu has filed a petition to get the House to vote on the bill.

Aguilar wasn’t alone among Southern California Democrats marking the Dobbs anniversary — others commemorated the occasion with events in their districts. On Saturday, Chu participated in a similar event with Planned Parenthood Pasadena & San Gabriel Valley.

“In the year since (the Dobbs decision), we have seen what this new reality looks like, from patients in Texas driving through the night to arrive here in California to get the care they need to women being denied lifesaving medical treatment for miscarriages because they lived in states with abortion bans,” Chu said.

On Saturday, Rep. Norma Torres, D-Ontario, put out a statement condemning the Dobbs decision.

“A year ago, the Supreme Court decided women are second-class citizens who do not have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. By eliminating women’s right to self-determination, this conservative-majority court betrayed the ideals of our nation,” Torres is quoted as saying in a news release issued by her office. “I refuse to let today’s young girls grow up with fewer rights than I did, and I will not allow our country to backslide to the days of back-alley abortions. A woman’s decisions about her body are hers and hers alone.”

In June, a Gallup poll found that a record 69% of Americans believe abortion should be legal the first three months of pregnancy.

More on abortion in Southern California

Rep. Judy Chu’s abortion rights bill faces uphill struggle in the US Senate
Temecula won’t pursue abortion ban
Gov. Newsom says California will stockpile pills for abortion following Texas judge ruling
Rep. Judy Chu’s abortion rights bill faces uphill struggle in the US Senate
Ontario man faces 11 years for BB gun attacks on Pasadena Planned Parenthood
Can license plate data from California lead to criminal charges in Texas?
A year after the fall of Roe, San Gabriel Valley leaders reflect amid ongoing political battle

​ Orange County Register 

Anaheim receives $5 million in federal funding for new bridges, trails around Honda Center

• June 26, 2023

Anaheim will get $5 million in in federal funding to support building new pedestrian bridges and trails near the Honda Center, officials announced Monday, June 26.

The funding will go to five projects planned to connect the OCVibe development that will be starting construction around the Honda Center, the Santa Ana River, Anaheim’s ARTIC train and bus station and a future river park next to Angel Stadium.

“In years to come, Anaheim’s riverfront will be the place to connect with nature and enjoy new entertainment and fun around Honda Center,” Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said in a news release.

Two of the five projects include a bridge that will carry pedestrians and bicyclists – but no cars – over the Santa Ana River and a new lane to separate bicycle traffic from pedestrians along the Santa Ana River Trail in Anaheim.

The pedestrian bridge will be north of Katella Avenue and will lead directly from the east side of the Santa Ana River into The Gardens park planned in front of the Honda Center.

There have been “multiple bicycle‐pedestrian collisions” on the Santa Ana River Trail, according to the grant application. In 2012, there was a fatal collision between a bicyclist and a pedestrian on the trail in Huntington Beach.

The money will also fund a nearly one mile extension of the Santa Ana River Trail from Katella Avenue to the Anaheim Coves. Currently, a dirt path links the two sections.

The Honda Center will also connect to Anaheim’s ARTIC station via a new pedestrian bridge over Katella Avenue, allowing people to bypass the wide road they would normally have to cross when there’s an event.

The fifth project the money will fund is an elevated pedestrian pathway that will lead people from that new Katella Avenue bridge to ARTIC. AMTRAK and Metrolink already stop at ARTIC, and the site is a planned station for California’s high-speed rail system.

The areas surrounding the projects in Anaheim are all in the top 10% in pollution levels for the state so the projects intend to get more cars off the road, according to the grant application.

Funding for the projects comes from a Department of Transportation grant program, which is a part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act Congress passed in 2021.

The city expects to complete planning on these projects by 2025.

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​ Orange County Register