CIF Southern Section baseball playoff pairings for wild-card round, first round

• May 1, 2023

CIF-SS BASEBALL PLAYOFFS

All games start 3:15 p.m. unless noted

DIVISION 1

First round

Thursday, May 4

Hart at Notre Dame/SO

Bonita at Arcadia

El Dorado at San Dimas

Rancho Cucamonga at Corona

Mira Costa at Cypress

Sierra Canyon at Bishop Amat

Capistrano Valley at Etiwanda

JSerra at Yucaipa

Warren at Huntington Beach

Damien at Villa Park

Orange Lutheran at Arlington

Harvard-Westlake at Palos Verdes

Ayala at La Mirada

Pacifica at Torrance

Millikan at Maranatha

Foothill at Santa Margarita

DIVISION 2

Wild-card round

Wednesday, May 3

A: Dos Pueblos at Moorpark

B: Northview at Citrus Valley

C: Burroughs/B at Lakewood

D: Monrovia at Great Oak

First round

Friday, May 5

Winner A at Aquinas

Temecula Valley at Capistrano Valley Christian

Crescenta Valley at Ocean View

Winner B at Quartz Hill

Crespi at Grace Brethren

West Torrance at Simi Valley

Santiago/C at Kaiser

Oaks Christian at Mater Dei

Newport Harbor at Gahr

Fountain Valley at Fullerton

Norco at Calabasas

Royal at West Ranch

Paloma Valley at Tesoro

Charter Oak at Woodbridge

Winner D at South Hills

DIVISION 3

First round

Thursday, May 4

Long Beach Wilson at La Serna

Walnut at Buena

Newbury Park at Redondo

Corona Centennial at Yora Linda

Temescal Canyon at Edison

La Salle at Flintridge Prep

Beckman at Long Beach Poly

California at San Marcos

Serra at Tahquitz

Segerstrom at Palm Desert

Redlands East Valley at Summit

Sonora at Riverside Poly

South Torrance at Highland

San Clemente at Cerritos

Westlake at Valencia/V

DIVISION 4

First round

Friday, May 5

Crean Lutheran at Pasadena Poly

Los Altos at Nogales

Chino at El Rancho

Burbank at Elsinore

Arrowhead Christian at Orange

Laguna Hills at Sultana

Chaparral at Adelanto

Malibu at La Habra

St. Bonaventure at Northwood

Anaheim Canyon at Oak Hills

Valley View at Citrus Hill

Glendora at Barstow

Santa Barbara at South Pasadena

El Segundo at Brea Olinda

Ramona at Don Lugo

Hemet at Linfield Christian

DIVISION 5

First round

Thursday, May 4

Bishop Montgomery, bye

Oxnard at Santa Paula

La Palma Kennedy at Montebello

Anaheim at Marshall

Century at Windward

Calvary Chapel/SA at Katella

Pasadena at de Toledo

Victor Valley at Apple Valley

Peninsula at Milken

Whittier Christian at Hillcrest

Liberty at Colton

Salesian at Estancia

JW North at Savanna

Schurr at St. Anthony

Ontario at Village Christian

Carter at Shadow Hills

DIVISION 6

Wild-card round

Wednesday, May 3

A: Rialto at Western Christian

B: Paramount at Vasquez

C: Costa Mesa at Desert Mirage

D: Excelsior Charter at Castaic

E: Santiago/GG at Lancaster

F: Sierra Vista at Arroyo

G: Indio at AB Miller

H: Rancho Verde at Xavier Prep

I: St. Monica Prep at Providence/B

First round

Friday, May 5

Winner A at Bloomington

Winner B at Loara

Winner C at Trinity Classical Academy

Winner D at Oxford Academy

Winner E at Jurupa Valley

Garey at Notre Dame/R

Gabrielino at Mayfair

Winner F at Norwalk

Carpinteria at Desert Christian/L

Winner G at Lakeside

Temecula Parep at Hesperia Christian

Winner H at San Marino

Beverly Hills at Alhambra

Los Amigos at Dunn

Winner I at Campbell Hall

DIVISION 7

Wild-card round

Tuesday, May 2

A: Webb at South El Monte

Q: St. Monica Academy at Fillmore

Wednesday, May 3

B: Winner at Don Bosco Tech

C: Coachella Valley at Desert Chapel

D: Lennox Academy at Valley Christian/SM

E: Acad. Career Exploration at Environmental Charter

F: Shalhevet at Thacher

G: Redlands Advent at Cal Lutheran

H: Littlerock at Acad. Academic Excellence

I: Coastal Christian at Brentwood

J: Santa Rosa Academy at Palm Valley

K: Edgewood at Bethel Christian/R

L: Cantwell Sacred Heart at Hawthorne

M: Oakwood at Calvary Chapel/D

N: Pacifica Christian/OC at Rolling Hills Prep

O: Desert Christian Academy at Artesia

P: Hamilton at Loma Linda Academy

R: Winner Q at Gladstone

First round

Thursday, May 4

Winner B at Ganesha

Winner C at Mesa Grande

Winner D at Newbury Park Adv.

Winner E at Fontana

Winner F at Leuzinger

Winner G at Cornerstone Chr.

Winner H at Nuview Bridge

Winner I at New Roads

Winner J at Banning

Winner K at San Bernardino

Winner L at Cobalt

Winner M at United Christian Acad.

Winner N at Coast Union

Winner O at Villanova Prep

Winner P at Animo Leadership

Winner R at St. Genevieve

.

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​ Orange County Register 

LA Mayor Karen Bass opens Milken Conference, which features John Legend, Ashton Kutcher, Reps. Pete Aguilar and Maxine Waters

• May 1, 2023

BEVERLY HILLS — Mayor Karen Bass, entertainer John Legend, actors Ashton Kutcher and Seth Rogan and Sen. Joe Manchin are among Monday’s scheduled participants at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills.

Bass will deliver introductory remarks before Legend participates on a panel on the path to reentry after incarceration. Legend founded FREEAMERICA, a campaign seeking to transform the nation’s criminal justice system.

Kutcher will participate in a discussion titled “Head in the Clouds: Embracing the Potential and Promise of Artificial Intelligence,” in his role as a co-founder of the venture capital firm Sound Ventures.

Rogan and alternative medicine advocate Deepak Chopra will participate in a discussion on “Lifestyle Medicine for the Brain.” Rogan and his wife, Lauren Miller-Rogen, founded Hilarity for Charity, a national nonprofit organization providing care for families coping with Alzheimer’s disease.

Manchin, D-West Virginia, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, will be joined by ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods in a discussion titled, “Fueling the Future,” moderated by David Faber, an anchor of the CNBC program, “Squawk on the Street,” broadcast live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange at the start of each trading day.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, will be interviewed by Blair Smith, the senior director of the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets on “inclusive capitalism.”

Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-Redlands, the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, the No. 3 position in the House Democratic leadership, will be interviewed by Dan Carol, the senior director of the Milken Institute’s Center for Financial Markets, about the topic, “Emerging Market America.”

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin will be interviewed by Wall Street Journal editor-at-large Gerard Baker on the topic “Governing America.”

All of the conference’s public panels will be streamed on the institute’s website, milkeninstitute.org. A complete schedule is available at milkeninstitute.org/events/global-conference-2023/program.

The conference’s theme is “Advancing a Thriving World.”

“As we move away from the pandemic and pivot forward, it’s clear that large portions of the global community do not feel they are thriving,” said Richard Ditizio, the CEO of the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “We are tasking our attending leaders from government, industry, medicine, and the philanthropic community to bring their best thinking toward fixing that — to see advancing as an action verb.

“The willingness of our global constituents to engage so earnestly across a spectrum of issues fuels optimism about the future we can create.”

The Milken Institute bills itself a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank focused on accelerating measurable progress on the path to a meaningful life, with a focus on financial, physical, mental and environmental health.

The conference continues through Wednesday.

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​ Orange County Register 

Do stagnant California credit scores suggest consumer struggles?

• May 1, 2023

”Survey says” looks at various rankings and scorecards judging geographic locations while noting these grades are best seen as a mix of artful interpretation and data.

Buzz: The average credit score was stable last year in California – as well as across the nation – after a string of previous improvements.

Source: My trusty spreadsheet looked at “FICO” credit scores by state as compiled by Experian, reviewing data for September 2022, September 2021, and 2019’s second quarter. These are estimates of bill-paying ability, scored on a scale from 300 to 850.

Topline

California’s 721 average credit score in 2022 ranked 25th among the states. The same score in 2021 ranked 24th best. The U.S. averaged 714 for both years.

Back in pre-pandemic 2019, California’s average score was 208 (No. 27). That 13-point improvement over three tumultuous years tied for eighth-best in the nation. In the same timeframe, the national score was up 11 points from 703.

Details

There’s a decided north-south split in this U.S. bill-paying metric.

Last year’s best credit scores were found in Minnesota, with a 742 average. Then came Vermont at 736, Washington and Wisconsin at 735, and New Hampshire and South Dakota at 734.

Lowest scores? Mississippi at 680, then Louisiana at 689, Alabama at 691, and Oklahoma and Texas at 693. By the way, Florida was No. 37 at 707.

The biggest three-year improvements were in some fast-growth states: Alaska, Arizona, Idaho and Nevada – all up 16 points. Texas and Florida both tied California at No. 8 with 13-point improvements.

The smallest gains were in North Dakota (up 6), South Dakota (up 7) and Connecticut and Nebraska (up 8).

But scores didn’t move much in the past year across the nation.

There were 25 states that had no change in 2022, including California. And 14 states had a mere 1-point gain – including Texas and Florida.

And six states had FICO score drops: Connecticut, off 3 points, and Washington, D.C., Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey and New York off 1 point.

The biggest gains? Alaska, up 6, then South Carolina and Utah, up 3, and Arizona, Arizona, Colorado, and Idaho, up 2.

Caveat

Credit scores are by no means perfect indicators of a person’s financial capabilities. But look at 2022 state credit scores to get a taste of what this yardstick tells you about bill-paying potential.

The best was Minnesota’s 742. Experian’s website says 23% of borrowers nationwide with that same score have late payments on credit reports.

California’s 721 is within a group of borrowers having late payments on 29% of their credit reports.

Then there’s Mississippi’s 680, the national low. That cohort had late payments in 36% of their histories.

Another view

California shopper psyche, as measured by April’s Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Indexes, is at a nine-month low and in a deeper funk than the nation.

The overall statewide confidence yardstick is down 8% in a year vs. just a 4% drop nationwide.

A key reason is that economic expectations are dreary, with the Conference Board’s financial outlook measurement down 12% in a year both in California and the U.S.

And the geographic confidence gap comes from views of the “present situation” – with the sentiment about current finances down 2% statewide since April 2022 but up 2% nationally in the same period.

Bottom line

Last year’s stagnant credit scores are hardly bad news, but they are another sign of a cooling economy.

The end of most of the government stimulus plans plus the pain of high inflation forced many consumers to borrow to maintain their aggressive shopping habits. More debt isn’t often good for credit scores.

In the short run, the ongoing spending spree is an economic boost. And the hot job market is a key catalyst to overall economic oomph and credit-score stability.

But flat credit scores are in line with sagging confidence, suggesting there’s a limit on how far shoppers can go.

Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at [email protected]

​ Orange County Register 

More Joe in 2024: Political Cartoons

• May 1, 2023

Check out our regular cartoon gallery featuring some of the best cartoonists from around the world, and across the political spectrum, covering current issues and figures.

​ Orange County Register 

Senior living: The rate of older Californians dying of malnutrition has accelerated

• May 1, 2023

By Phillip Reese,

KFF Health News

A growing number of California’s oldest residents are dying of malnutrition, a yearslong trend that accelerated during the coronavirus pandemic.

Deaths attributed to malnutrition more than doubled, from about 650 in 2018 to roughly 1,400 in 2022, according to preliminary death certificate data from the California Department of Public Health. The same trend occurred nationwide, with malnutrition deaths more than doubling, from about 9,300 deaths in 2018 to roughly 20,500 in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Malnutrition is particularly common among older people, especially those who are ill, low-income, homebound or lack reliable access to healthy food or medical services. It can result from not eating enough but also from poor eating habits that lead to nutritional deficiencies. The majority of deaths in California from malnutrition last year occurred in residents 85 and older.

Coronavirus lockdowns, several experts said, likely cut off access to healthy food. Because the oldest people were the most likely to die from COVID-19, officials encouraged them to limit their exposure to others who might have the disease.

“People who may have been reliant on public transportation or reliant on others to get to the grocery store — suddenly they’re nervous to take the bus,” said Lindsay Clarke, senior vice president of health education and advocacy at the Alliance for Aging Research, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. “That family member or friend who would have come to pick them up and take them to the grocery store is worried about having them in their car.”

Pandemic lockdowns also hindered safety net programs that feed seniors. Many adult day care centers closed, for example, eliminating places for seniors to go during the day as an alternative to nursing care. Dr. Louise Aronson, a geriatrician and professor at the UC San Francisco, said seniors who used the programs “may rely on the food they get there as their best meal of the day.”

Malnutrition deaths rose in 2022 even as lockdowns faded. The persistence of the trend, experts said, could be because some of the oldest residents continue isolating.

COVID-19 remains a serious danger for that demographic.

About 5,400 Californians 85 and older died from COVID-19 last year, making it the fifth leading cause of death for that age group — responsible for more than twice as many deaths as diabetes, preliminary state data shows.

“For a lot of people who are older adults and people with disabilities, it’s not really over,” said Trinh Phan, who works from California for the nonprofit Justice in Aging.

Phan said many older Californians are afraid of COVID-19, asking themselves, “Do I actually want to risk that for myself given my own risk factors?”

But while the number of California malnutrition deaths jumped during the pandemic, it had been increasing for years. Some of that increase may be because of the overall aging of the population, experts said.

About 678,000 Californians are 85 or older, a number that increased by roughly 59% from 2000 to 2021, census data shows.

Californians 85 or older accounted for almost three in five malnutrition deaths in the state last year. Those 95 or older make up almost one in five malnutrition deaths, even though only about one in 700 Californians fall within that age group.

“Biologically, we do eat less as we grow older,” Aronson said. “You’re just literally less hungry.”

Older people also have slower metabolisms and digestion than younger people.

“When you’re eating less food overall,” Aronson said, “it’s hard to get all the nutrients you need.”

More factors beyond pandemic lockdowns and an aging population may also be causing the steep rise in reported malnutrition among older people. The rate of malnutrition deaths per 100,000 residents in California among those 85 or older rose precipitously around 2013, jumping five-fold by 2019 and from there, doubling during the pandemic.

Complicating the picture is how often malnutrition appears in conjunction with other illnesses. Older adults are more vulnerable to diseases — such as heart failure, cancer, Alzheimer’s and depression — that can reduce their appetites and lead to malnutrition as a secondary cause of death.

Malnutrition was a contributing cause in 5,600 deaths in California on top of the 1,400 deaths for which it was the primary, underlying cause, provisional CDC data shows. The number of deaths for which malnutrition was a secondary cause of death rose by about 1,700, or 43%, from 2018 through 2022.

“You might be admitted with diabetes but at the same time, you’re also malnourished, and so the malnourishment adds to your problems,” said Paul Brown, a professor at UC Merced who has copresented papers on malnutrition in California at an American Public Health Association conference.

There is also an increased push to recognize malnutrition. Two of the nation’s leading nutrition science organizations released updated guidelines in 2012 to better standardize diagnoses.

The highest malnutrition death rates among older Californians from 2020 to 2022 were in rural or semirural counties: Lake, Merced, Butte, Tuolumne and Sutter.

Older residents living in rural counties, Brown said, often live in “food deserts,” which are areas that lack access to healthy food.

Among large, urban counties, Sacramento had the highest rate of malnutrition deaths among those 65 or older from 2020 to 2022. County spokesperson Macy Obernuefemann said the public health agency helps control and manage chronic diseases often accompanied by malnutrition and that several programs help seniors get the food they need.

Several programs in California seek to lower malnutrition among older people. The state’s network of 33 Area Agencies on Aging often offer healthy meals to older adults, according to Sara Eisenberg, a spokesperson for the California Department of Aging. Organizations such as Meals on Wheels do so as well. The agencies also regularly try to make sure seniors are enrolled in CalFresh, the state’s food assistance program for eligible low-income residents, Eisenberg said.

CalFresh benefits increased in late 2021 by 27%, helping many seniors afford food. A bill in the legislature, state Senate Bill 600, would increase the minimum CalFresh benefits from $23 a month to $50. There’s also a push to expand CalFresh benefits to more undocumented immigrants, many of whom face food insecurity.

“I think that there has been really positive movement,” Phan said.

But enhanced CalFresh benefits that gave millions of people more money during the pandemic expired in late March.

Population trends suggest malnutrition will continue to be a problem. The number of Californians 85 and older, the group most prone to malnutrition, is projected to grow by about 420,000, or 54%, from 2020 to 2030, according to state Department of Finance projections.

Phillip Reese is a data reporting specialist and an assistant professor of journalism at Cal State Sacramento.

This article was produced by KFF Health News, which publishes California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism. 

​ Orange County Register 

First Republic Bank seized, sold to JPMorgan Chase

• May 1, 2023

By KEN SWEET | AP Business Writer

NEW YORK — Regulators seized troubled First Republic Bank early Monday and sold all of its deposits and most of its assets to JPMorgan Chase Bank in a bid to head off further banking turmoil in the U.S.

San Francisco-based First Republic is the third midsize bank to fail in two months. It is the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history, behind only Washington Mutual, which collapsed at the height of the 2008 financial crisis and was also taken over by JPMorgan.

First Republic has struggled since the March collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and investors and depositors had grown increasingly worried it might not survive because of its high amount of uninsured deposits and exposure to low interest rate loans.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said early Monday that First Republic Bank’s 84 branches in eight states will reopen as branches of JPMorgan Chase Bank, and depositors will have full access to all of their deposits.

Regulators worked through the weekend to find a way forward before U.S. stock markets opened. Markets in many parts of the world were closed for May 1 holidays Monday. The two markets in Asia that were open, in Tokyo and Sydney, rose.

“Our government invited us and others to step up, and we did,” said Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase.

As of April 13, First Republic had approximately $229 billion in total assets and $104 billion in total deposits, the FDIC said.

At the end of last year, the Federal Reserve ranked it 14th in size among U.S. commercial banks. The FDIC estimated its deposit insurance fund would take a $13 billion hit from taking First Republic into receivership. Its rescue of Silicon Valley Bank cost the fund a record $20 billion.

Before Silicon Valley Bank failed, First Republic had a banking franchise that was the envy of most of the industry. Its clients — mostly the rich and powerful — rarely defaulted on their loans. The bank has made much of its money making low-cost loans to the wealthy, which reportedly included Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Flush with deposits from the well-heeled, First Republic saw total assets more than double from $102 billion at the end of 2019’s first quarter, when its full-time workforce was 4,600.

But the vast majority of its deposits, like those in Silicon Valley and Signature Bank, were uninsured — that is, above the $250,000 limit set by the FDIC. And that worried analysts and investors. If First Republic were to fail, its depositors might not get all their money back.

Those fears were crystalized in the bank’s recent quarterly results. First Republic experienced a modern day bank run as customers rushed to pull out more than $100 billion in deposits following the failure of Silicon Valley and Signature Bank. Unlike bank runs throughout history, First Republic’s demise was fueled by the speed of social media and digital withdrawals that can be made in seconds from a cell phone.

San Francisco-based First Republic said that it was only able to stanch the bleeding after a group of large banks stepped in to save it with $30 billion in uninsured deposits.

First Republic had been looking for a way to quickly turn itself around. The bank planned to sell off unprofitable assets, including the low interest mortgages that it provided to wealthy clients. It also announced plans to lay off up to a quarter of its workforce, which totaled about 7,200 employees in late 2022.

Investors were skeptical, and the devastating quarterly report sent them running for the exits. First Republic shares fell 75% last week and closed Friday at $3.51. Any remaining shareholders are likely to get wiped out. The shares traded at $115 on March 8, right before Silicon Valley Bank failed.

The Fed and FDIC, which regulate the banking industry along with the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, could face renewed criticism over their handling of First Republic. Both acknowledged Friday in separate reports that lax supervision had contributed to the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

For Dimon and JPMorgan, there may be a sense of déjà vu: Back in 2008, Dimon was the go-to banker for Washington to find private solutions for that banking crisis and JPMorgan acquired both Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual.

In a statement, JPMorgan portrayed the First Republic deal as beneficial both to the financial system and the company. As part of the agreement, the FDIC will share losses with JPMorgan on First Republic’s loans. JPMorgan expects the addition of First Republic to add $500 million to its net income per year, although it expects to incur $2 billion in costs integrating First Republic into its operations over the next 18 months.

Associated Press Staff Writer Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.

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​ Orange County Register 

Dementia doubles in Orange County in less than a decade

• May 1, 2023

In some shadowy tangle between past and present, my grandfather would wipe down the walls of our kitchen. “Good?” he’d eagerly ask.

It was the 1970s, but my grandfather was stuck in the 1920s. He had just crossed the ocean on the S.S. Italia and was working as a busboy in New York City, trying so hard to please the boss. Sometimes he’d suddenly snap back to the present, stare at the dishtowel in his hand and cry.

New number crunching from the Orange County Alzheimer’s estimates that the number of folks enduring this sort of heartbreak has essentially doubled since 2014 in the O.C. That’s a startling jump, from 84,000 to 164,000 people, which works out to about 5% of our total population.

Yikes. We’re not statisticians, but that struck us as scary high. Other estimates of how many Americans are affected by dementia have hovered around 2% of the total population. Surely this can’t be right!

But that was before the latest census. And the rapid aging of the Boomers. And new studies examining cognitive impairment by race and ethnicity.

“The new number is believable, especially if a difference from the previous estimate is the inclusion of mild cognitive impairment as a category,” said Dr. Joshua D. Grill, a noted Alzheimer’s researcher at UC Irvine. “Orange County is ‘grayer’ than the rest of the country, so we do expect relatively more people living with cognitive impairment here.”

UCI epidemiologist and demographer Andrew Noymer concurs. An aging population and increased ascertainment — meaning that the comparisons are not really like-for-like, he said.

Gulp

Jim McAleer, chief executive officer for Alzheimer’s Orange County, walked us through the startling new numbers.

“Rather than going door to door and asking who has dementia, we take the population totals from the census, we break it down by age group, and we apply the prevalence numbers found in the studies we decide to use — in this case a very well respected study from Columbia University,” he said by email.

That Columbia study found a disproportionate burden of dementia and mild cognitive impairment among older Black and Hispanic adults, as well as those with lower education levels.

The study — the first nationally representative study of cognitive impairment prevalence in more than 20 years — found that almost 10% of U.S. adults ages 65 and older have dementia, while another 22% have mild cognitive impairment.

That’s 1 of every 3 older Americans. Gulp. Or, about 3.3% of the total population. And, as one might expect, the prevalence is highest in the oldest people.

“Our society has aged greatly in the past eight years — particularly in the O.C.,” said McAleer. “The identification of mild cognitive impairment is much improved. We now know from the study referenced that up to 22% of seniors over 65 experience some form of MCI. We did not have that information 10 years ago. We only knew then the presumed incidence of dementia.”

Plus, the ethnic mix in Orange County has deepened, and communities of color are more at risk of developing dementia, he said.

He estimates that 34,780 Orange County Latinos age 65 and older have dementia, compared to 16,749 Whites and 9,919 Asians.

Grayer

File photo of the OK Chorale singing group for people with dementia and their caregivers in Laguna Woods in 2019. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Within the broader aging boom, the fastest growing cohort is the oldest of the old, people 85 and up. America currently has about 7 million people in that age range; by 2050, it will more than double, to 18.6 million. Within that group, the number of Americans age 100 and older is expected to more than quadruple, from about 90,000 today to nearly 400,000.

My colleague Andre Mouchard has done a lot of jaw-dropping reporting on this phenomenon, which is already reshaping Southern California.

Over the past decade, the number of people aged 65 and older ballooned 34% in Los Angeles County, 41.6% in Orange County, 40% in Riverside County and 45.4% in San Bernardino County. That will keep going up.

The new statistics are alarming and demand our attention, McAleer said, and underscore the urgent need for increased awareness, resources and support for those affected by dementia and their families.

“We face a public health crisis requiring immediate action,” he said in a prepared statement. “The impact of these conditions extends far beyond the individuals themselves, affecting their families, caregivers and communities. It is imperative that we work together to increase awareness, provide support and resources, and advocate for policies that address the needs of those living with dementia and their loved ones.”

There’s a great deal of research on Alzheimer’s happening here in Southern California, and we wish them Godspeed. The next decade promises to be one of great progress, though there most likely will not be one magic bullet, but multiple therapies to address brain toxins and their outfall in multiple ways.

“Once you hit 50 and 60, you’re staring into the mouth of the lion and the research has a little more immediate impact,” McAleer recently told us. “If you can stop the first couple of dominos from falling, you’ll chip away at the larger problem.”

Please, science. Do your stuff.

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​ Orange County Register 

Stagecoach 2023: See photos of performers and fans from Day 3

• May 1, 2023

That’s a wrap on the 15th annual Stagecoach County Music Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio.

The three-day festival officially came to a close on Sunday, April 30 after Chris Stapleton performed on the Mane Stage and EDM artist and producer Diplo delivered his rockin’ Late Night in Palomino set.

RELATED: Stagecoach 2023: Chris Stapleton, Brooks & Dunn and Diplo wrap up the fest

Day 3 saw early day sets by Tyler Braden, Sierra Ferrell, Luke Grimes, Baily Zimmerman, Ryan Bingham, Parmalee, Turnpike Troubadours and more.

Parker McCollum and Brooks & Dunn held it down on the Mane Stage before Stapleton headlined, while Tyler Childers shut down the Palomino and Lost Frequencies played the final DJ set in Diplo’s Honky Tonk. Ahead of her turn on the Mane Stage, singer-songwriter and “Yellowstone” actress Lainey Wilson was joined by the hit TV series’ creator Taylor Sheridan earlier in the day to grill up some big ‘ol tomahawk steaks with Guy Fieri in his Stagecoach Smokehouse.

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​ Orange County Register