Pirates run wild with 6 stolen bases in rout of Dodgers

• April 27, 2023

PITTSBURGH — The Dodgers need to get tough on crime.

The Pittsburgh Pirates stole six bases Wednesday night, running at will in an 8-1 rout of the Dodgers that snapped the Dodgers’ three-game winning streak.

The Pirates have plundered away, stealing nine bases in nine attempts over the first two games of this series. But the crime wave goes beyond that. The Dodgers have surrendered an MLB-high 35 stolen bases in 40 attempts over the first 25 games of the season.

“It hasn’t been good,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game of the Dodgers’ inability to control the running game. “We’ve got to figure something out. I might have to do a better job of calling pitch-outs. I don’t know if that will help in certain situations. We’ve got to try to keep these guys off base, these burners. But they’re gonna keep trying us. I know that. Our pitchers know that. Our catchers know that. So we all gotta get better.”

Tony Gonsolin held the Pirates scoreless into the fourth inning in his season debut, allowing two hits and walking three before being pulled after 3⅓ innings and 65 pitches.

“I threw way too many balls today,” said Gonsolin, who had 26 of those to 14 batters. “Not throwing many effective pitches and fell behind in a lot of counts.”

The Pirates got in the starting blocks against reliever Phil Bickford. They used small ball (including a stolen base and a sacrifice bunt) to set up back-to-back RBI singles by Bryan Reynolds and Andrew McCutchen in the fifth inning. Three straight hits – with another stolen base thrown in – resulted in another run in the sixth.

They broke the game open with five runs in the seventh inning, scoring one run when Tucupita Marcano raced home from second base on an infield single. Dodgers catcher Austin Wynns was called for blocking the plate on that play, allowing Marcano to score.

A double steal with Wynns one-hopping the throw to third baseman Michael Busch, who wasn’t even covering the base, set up a two-run double by Jason Delay.

“When you’re putting guys on base by way of walk or base hits or whatever it might be, they’re gonna try to expose us. Right now I don’t know the answer,” Roberts said after the latest round of thievery was done. “The best answer is to try to keep them off first base, but once they get there, they’re taking advantage of us. So I think it’s a combo of the pitchers at times and also I think that the catchers can be guilty at times as well.

“I wish it was a quick fix.”

The Dodgers have another glaring problem in need of repair. The four relievers that followed Gonsolin each gave up runs and the bullpen’s collective ERA rose to 5.32. Only three teams – the Kansas City Royals, Oakland A’s and Chicago White Sox – have been worse. That is not company the Dodgers want to keep.

“Well, I think there’s a lot of factors,” Roberts said. “We’re not doing a good job of getting ahead. The walk is in play – getting into bad counts, not being able to put guys away when we do get leverage counts. Outside of a few guys, they’re all kind of in that category.

“The consistency of these guys hasn’t been there, for the most part. … You look at the track record and the track records are pretty good. So I’m going to keep running them out there and expecting good things when they go out there until ultimately something changes.”

The Dodgers’ offense has not taken advantage of the new rules aiding and abetting a rise in stolen bases across the league this year. They did little else Wednesday night either.

Pirates starter Roansy Contreras walked two in the first five innings but didn’t give up a hit until Wynns led off the sixth with a single.

“I think just the fact that he was able to throw all his pitches for strikes, fastball and slider. To me, that’s the name of it,” Dodgers outfielder Jason Heyward said. “Because if you can only throw one for a strike, it’s going to be kind of easy to sit on it and get some good swings off. He made pitches when he needed to.”

The Dodgers’ only run came on a solo home run by Freddie Freeman in the eighth inning.

Tuesday night’s comeback win was the eighth time this season the Dodgers have scored eight or more runs in a game. But they have suffered a hangover in the overserved aftermath, losing six of the eight games that followed those breakouts and scoring a total of just 23 runs in those games.

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​ Orange County Register 

Hoornstra: Baseball’s biggest changes start on the mound, not the rulebook

• April 27, 2023

If you think it’s difficult to score runs in today’s game, imagine being a baseball fan in the ’70s.

The 1870s, that is.

This was an era when overhand pitches were illegal, batters could request a pitch come in high or low, and professional teams routinely appeared and disappeared from noted metropolises such as Troy (New York) and Middletown (Conn.). And, in the span of a couple of years, teams couldn’t hit their way out of a paper bag.

From 1873 to 1875, the total runs per game in the National Association of Base Ball Players – the first professional baseball league in the world – sank from an average of 21 to 12. One rule change seems especially responsible. Beginning in 1872, pitchers were allowed to “snap” their wrist while delivering a pitch. The curveball, such as it was, became legal.

If you’re still with me, this part will be less difficult to imagine. The game fans grew to love in 1871 came to be dominated by pitching in the span of a few short years. Men reminisced about the bygone days when 11-10 games were the norm and, just maybe, they asked an intelligent question about who was to blame for the change: the pitchers or the rule makers?

This week I received a note from a reader written in the form of an open letter to Major League Baseball. It was 1,684 words long. The author effectively argued that any attempt to deter baseball from its natural evolution amounted to “ruining” the sport altogether. It’s easy to presuppose that rules empower changes to the game, not the other way around, especially when a game is force-fed several new rules at once. But this was only true at the beginning of baseball’s origin story – at the origin of any sport, perhaps.

In 1864, when “professional” and “baseball” were mostly disparate pursuits, something called a “base on balls” had to be introduced as a pace-of-play measure. Without a penalty against throwing the ball out of the strike zone, a pitcher could throw only pitches no batter could hit, theoretically turning nine-inning games into all-day affairs.

The legal introduction of walks and curveballs have something important in common. Each was a countermeasure to the evolution of the game – a response to a disturbance in equilibrium between offense and defense.

I was reminded of how much the equilibrium has shifted in the last decade when an interview with Hall of Famer Chipper Jones on Bally Sports South went viral this week. “I don’t have a problem saying I would hit a solid .200 in today’s game,” said Jones, who retired after the 2012 season with a .303 career batting average.

Jones wasn’t reflecting on any of the new rules. He was reflecting on the brilliance of Atlanta Braves pitcher Spencer Strider. He went on: “Spencer’s a perfect illustration of what the game has come to: incredible arm, incredible secondary stuff. This guy, I’m glad he’s on our squad because he’s going to be a number-1 starter for many years to come.”

Had Rod Carew given an interview during Shohei Ohtani’s start against the Kansas City Royals last Friday, he might have said all the same things. Ohtani would almost certainly appear to the 1872 Middletown Mansfields as a god among men. For our purposes today, he’s a fantastic illustration of the kind of changes to the game Jones was referencing.

In 2018, Ohtani threw 185 pitches that broke at least 10 inches away from the hitter. Already this season he’s thrown 116. In 2021, Ohtani threw 256 pitches at 97 mph or harder. In a little more than one season since, he’s thrown 552.

But let’s not fall prey to making an example of the game’s most extreme talents. In Jones’ final season, 2012, only 0.5% of all pitches were 97 mph or harder and broke 10 inches or more away from the batter. Already, that percentage has more than doubled.

If you (realistically, your great-great-great grandparents) thought it was difficult to hit a baseball 150 years ago, just consider the last decade. Tweaking the rules to make it easier for batters to beat shifts, or for baserunners to steal a base, amounts to bringing a knife to a gunfight against the advances made by pitchers in the last 10 years.

This is an imperfect analogy. Maximizing pitch movement and velocity required the near-extinction of complete games, the proliferation of eight-man bullpens, and turning position players pitching into regular occurrences. It isn’t just that today’s pitchers are gods among men; they’re not being asked to throw nearly as many innings as their 19th-century counterparts.

That’s why one of the rules being tested in the Atlantic League this season will require teams to keep their starting pitchers in the game for at least five innings, or else be forced to sacrifice their designated hitter: MLB has the data. The rule makers know that only by reversing the trends that enabled superhuman pitching performances – not by banning shifts and throws to first base, or instituting pitch-clock penalties – can baseball reverse the biggest changes to the game enough to make someone like Chipper Jones a .300 hitter again.

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​ Orange County Register 

Alexander: With everything else going on, it’s NFL draft night

• April 27, 2023

In a crazily busy sports springtime in the most diverse market on this continent, with the NBA and NHL playoffs and baseball going full tilt and the LPGA tour making a second visit to L.A. within a month on this weekend, among other things … well, of course we’re talking football. The NFL never takes time off, you know.

So, what is there tangible to discuss in the run-up to Thursday night’s draft in Kansas City?

The Chargers have the 21st pick. Most of the mock drafts seem convinced it will be used on defensive help or another target for Justin Herbert. And the last we heard, General Manager Tom Telesco was noncommittal about whether he was going to lug the surfboard that seems to be his lucky draft talisman to the team’s draft party Thursday at the Westfield Century City Atrium.

“I haven’t even thought about that yet,” Telesco said at his pre-draft availability earlier in the week. “I’ve been pretty busy.”

The surfboard made its first appearance during the 2020 proceedings amid the pandemic, when Telesco was working from home and the team-branded board appeared over his shoulder while he was interviewed after picking Herbert with the No. 6 pick overall after the Miami Dolphins had selected Tua Tagovailoa at No. 5. With that success in mind, the board made it to the draft room at the Chargers’ Costa Mesa facility in 2021 and to their draft party at SoFi Stadium last April, both of which have been bountiful drafts.

We’re guessing it’ll somehow find its way to Century City, where the war room will be set up and Telesco and Coach Brandon Staley will be available after Thursday night’s pick is announced.

As for the Rams? They’ve again secured a house to use as their draft “lab,” this time in Tarzana. The 10,000-square foot residence includes a movie theater, putting green, pool, outdoor bar and fire pit, and given that the Rams will be idle on Day 1 barring an unexpected (read: shocking) trade that gets them back into the first round, those amenities might be useful.

The Rams also have a huge gap between their third-round pick, No. 77, and their fifth-round selection, No. 167. They have 11 picks all told, four compensatory selections for the losses of free agents, and all but three come in the final three rounds.

“I think a lot of people on our staff would love for us to at some point move back to cover some of that gap,” General Manager Les Snead said this week. “It’s always a beneficial option based on accumulating more picks, maybe filling that gap. But you can always trade up too from the fifth round into those gaps so there’s many ways to accomplish that.

“And at the end of the day, it’s going to be, ‘Hey, when we get on the clock is there a trade partner? Is there not? Is there a player in that moment that we really feel good about and we want to make a Ram.”

The dilemma: The Rams could be in the market for a quarterback, which sounds funny considering that Matthew Stafford won them a Super Bowl two seasons ago and appears to be back to full health. But Stafford is also 35 and has 14 seasons of tread on his tires. Snead is daring enough to try to get into the first round, but daring enough to trade a batch of future first-round picks to get a shot at, say, former Rancho Cucamonga High and Ohio State standout C.J. Stroud, Florida’s Anthony Richardson, or Kentucky’s Will Levis?

Forget Alabama’s Bryce Young, the former Mater Dei High standout who is expected to be the No. 1 selection. Carolina spent plenty to get that pick – specifically, sending wide receiver D.J. Moore, two first-round picks and two second-rounders to Chicago – and the only way the Rams could wrest that away might be to trade Cooper Kupp, Aaron Donald, and two or three future No. 1’s to the Panthers. Better, maybe, to wait a year and take a run at USC’s Caleb Williams next spring when they’ll have their own first-rounder to spend?

For the Chargers’ Telesco and his staff, at 21 there are options.

A survey of 35 mock drafts – out of, what, hundreds of lists that professional and amateur draft geeks have compiled and will be revising right up to Thursday night’s first pick – revealed a little bit of consensus. Twelve different players were listed as probable/potential/bear-with-me-because-I’m-guessing picks, and Boston College wide receiver Zay Flowers (9), USC’s Jordan Addison (6), and tight ends Dalton Kincaid of Utah and Michael Mayer of Notre Dame (5 apiece) were on the most lists. Penn State cornerback Joey Porter Jr. (3) was the only other player listed more than once.

As to the suggestion that the Chargers might be looking at additional running back help while Austin Ekeler’s trade request plays out, Telesco said at his pre-draft briefing that Ekeler’s situation wouldn’t change the team’s approach. Part of that likely goes back to the idea that running backs – even high-production ones – are replaceable in today’s NFL. And part of it is the idea that some players need a year or two to find their footing, as Ekeler once did.

“We had Joshua Kelley and Larry Rountree (III) here, then we drafted Isaiah Spiller last year,” Telesco said. “Isaiah kind of fits in the category of players from previous drafts having to step up and fill needs.

“Typically, like in this year’s draft, not a lot of these guys are going to come in and (immediately) fill a need. When you look at the draft, when you draft players in the third, fourth, fifth, sixth round, people think that they are going to come in and immediately fill a need. You hope that they come in and earn a role. But you’re really looking for players from previous draft classes to rise up, (for safety) JT Woods, (defensive back) Ja’Sir Taylor, Isaiah Spiller and some other guys, have those guys step into roles. We think that it’s a pretty good room right now, so I wouldn’t necessarily look at it like that.”

It’s worth noting that Kelley was a fourth-round pick in 2020, Rountree a sixth-rounder in ’21 and Spiller a fourth-rounder in 2022. In other words, for Telesco and particularly the Rams’ Snead, the real work will occur Friday and Saturday and the report card likely won’t be filled out until two to three years down the road.

Bottom line, given that strange things can happen in any draft? Be ready. (And, in Telesco’s case, bring the surfboard.)

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​ Orange County Register 

Orange County launches new office to assist immigrants and refugees

• April 27, 2023

Iryna Sobianina arrived in Orange County nine months ago with two bags of personal belongings, her 12-year-old daughter and the anxieties that come with having to build a new life in a foreign country.

When she arrived from her home in Ukraine after the whirlwind of leaving following the Russian invasion, she faced the new challenge of navigating the United States and supporting herself and her daughter. Among other things, Sobianina was worried about how her broken English would affect her ability to find a job.

“We just need a little bit of support and somebody who can show us… where to go,” Sobianina said.

That’s exactly what the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs (OIRA) in Orange County will be designed to do.

Proposed by District 4 Supervisor Doug Chaffee and District 1 Supervisor Andrew Do, the Orange County Board of Supervisors agreed this week to establish the new office, which will connect immigrants and refugees with housing, legal support and other necessary resettlement resources.

The office will be located at the county’s Community Service Center in Westminster.

“When refugees arrive, their most basic needs are missing,” Chaffee said during a press conference Wednesday announcing the new program. “They need food, housing, transportation, education, medical services and jobs. With more than 930,000 of our Orange County residents being foreign-born, our immigrant population is strong, growing and instrumental to our county’s success.”

He said this new office will ensure immigrants and refugees have access to basic services and resources and it will be streamlined under one roof. Collaboration between the county and community organizers will be pivotal, he said.

“We plan on hiring a director for the office with the input of numerous community-based organizations already working with our immigrant and refugee community,” Chaffee said. “We have a draft of a proposed mission statement and vision. We want them, through workshops, to work over and make certain we all agree on where we are going.”

Van Tran, chief of staff for Do, said resettlement programs and resources already exist in the county, but the office is centralizing everything to make it easier and more effective for immigrants and refugees to access.

“I stand here today a former refugee, an immigrant, serving as the chief of staff for Vice Chairman Andrew Do, who, like me, is also a former refugee from Vietnam,” Tran said. “We know what it means to flee a violent and oppressive regime. We understand what it means to live as refugees.”

More than 50 speakers voiced support for creating a centralized office when the Board of Supervisors was deciding on it Tuesday, and they shared what they hope to see, including support for all immigrants regardless of legal status and that the office be independent of other government entities.

“We’re hoping that the office will allow for better coordination and collaboration between the county, local cities and nonprofits,” Masih Fouladi, deputy executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR-LA, said. “We hope that there will be the opportunity for the county to take advantage of federal philanthropic funding to better support immigrant and refugee populations within the county.”

The office will be reporting directly to the County of Orange’s CEO office, which Fouladi said makes sense for the time being, however added, “Ultimately, we would like the office to be an independent office, just like the Social Services Agency.

“The reason for that is immigrants and refugees touch every part of the county, and putting this office in any one particular department would potentially limit its ability, its capacity, its budget, to be able to touch all of those different facets of immigrant and refugee life,” he said. “So for now, being directly under the CEO makes sense because those limitations don’t come with current placement. And then we hope that it either stays under the CEO’s office and outside of other departments, or it eventually becomes its own department when the time allows.”

The cost of the new office is unknown, however Chaffee said his office will be donating $500,000 from his discretionary funds and the county will be applying for grants to help with costs.

For Second District Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, the approval of this office is also personal.

“This is especially significant because when our family arrived back in 1965, (it was a) much different county. No services, no support, a very small immigrant population,” Sarmiento said of his immigration from Bolivia. “The county, like any other place in the country, has had some challenges with immigrants. There is still hostility out there. There is still some negativity toward immigrants.

“I hope this office will rise up and make sure we address (that),” he said, “and we make sure that we’re humane to one another, that we’re civil to one another and provide resources in a way that is befitting of who we are.”

Sobianina, who had been invited by officials to participate in Tuesday’s press conference, said she is thankful for how the local government and community organizations helped her find the resources she needed, including Uplift Charity, an organization dedicated to helping immigrants and refugees where she now works as a digital marketing specialist.

“I’m happy to be very useful,” she said, “and to know I’m making a difference for other people.”

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Amid bans, Black parents seek schools affirming their history

• April 26, 2023

By Cheyanne Mumphrey | Associated Press

DECATUR, Ga. — Every decision Assata Salim makes for her young son is important. Amid a spike in mass killings, questions of safety were at the top of her mind when choosing a school. Next on her checklist was the school’s culture.

Salim and her 6-year-old, Cho’Zen Waters, are Black. In Georgia, where they live, public schools are prohibited from teaching divisive concepts, including the idea that one race is better than another or that states are fundamentally racist.

To Salim, the new rules mean public schools might not affirm Cho’Zen’s African roots, or accurately portray the United States’ history of racism. “I never want to put his education in the hands of someone that is trying to erase history or recreate narratives,” she said.

Instead, Cho’Zen attends a private, Afrocentric school — joining kids across the country whose families have embraced schools that affirm their Black heritage, in a country where instruction about race is increasingly under attack. At Cho’Zen’s school, Kilombo Academic & Cultural Institute in an Atlanta suburb, photos of Black historical figures hang on the walls. And every single student and teacher identifies as Black or biracial.

In recent years, conservative politicians around the country have championed bans on books or instruction that touch on race and inclusion. Books were banned in more than 5,000 schools in 32 states from June 2021 to June 2022, according to free-speech nonprofit PEN America. Instructional bans have been enacted in at least 16 states since 2021.

Even when a topic isn’t explicitly banned, some teachers say the debates have caused them to back away from controversy. The situation has caused more Black families to leave public schools, opting for homeschooling or private schools that embrace their identity and culture. Public school enrollment of Black students between pre-K and 12th grade has declined each year measured in federal data since 2007.

“I think it is important to teach those harsh moments in slavery and segregation, but tell the whole story,” said Salihah Hasan, a teaching assistant at Kilombo Institute. “Things have changed drastically, but there are still people in this world who hate Black people, who think we are still beneath them, and younger children today don’t understand that. But that is why it is important to talk about it.”

Kilombo goes further, focusing on the students’ rich heritage, from both Africa and Black America. “I want him to know his existence doesn’t start with slavery,” Salim said of her son.

The private, K-8 school occupies the basement of Hillside Presbyterian Church just outside Decatur, an affluent, predominantly white suburb. Families pay tuition on a sliding scale, supplemented by donations.

Classrooms feature maps of Africa and brown paper figures wearing dashikis, a garment worn mostly in West Africa. In one class, the students learn how sound travels by playing African drums.

The 18-year-old school has 53 students, up a third since the start of the pandemic. Initially, more parents chose the school because it returned to in-person learning earlier than nearby public schools. Lately, the enrollment growth has reflected parents’ increasing urgency to find a school that won’t shy away from Black history.

“This country is signaling to us that we have no place here,” said Mary Hooks, whose daughter attends Kilombo. “It also raises a smoke signal for people to come home to the places where we can be nourished.”

Notably, the student body includes multiple children of public school teachers.

Simone Sills, a middle school science teacher at Atlanta Public Schools, chose the school for her daughter in part because of its smaller size, along with factors such as safety and curriculum. Plus, she said, she was looking for a school where “all students can feel affirmed in who they are.”

Before Psalm Barreto, 10, enrolled in Kilombo, her family was living in Washington, D.C. She said she was one of a few Black children in her school.

“I felt uncomfortable in public school because it was just me and another boy in my class, and we stood out,” she said.

Racial differences are evident to babies as young as three months, research has shown, and racial biases show up in preschoolers. Kilombo provides a space for kids to talk about their race.

“I’m Blackity, Black, Black!” said Robyn Jean, 9, while spinning in a circle. Her sister, Amelya, 11, said their parents taught them about their Haitian American heritage — knowledge she thinks all children should have. “I want them to know who they are and where they come from, like we do,” Amelya said. “But in some schools, they can’t.”

Last year, Georgia passed a bill known as the Protect Students First Act, which prohibits schools from promoting and teaching divisive concepts about race. Elsewhere, bills that restrict or prohibit teaching about race- and gender-related topics passed in states including Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. In other states, such as Arkansas, restrictions have come via executive orders.

Proponents say the restrictions aim to eliminate classroom discussions that make students feel shame or guilt about their race and the history and actions of their ancestors.

The bills have had a chilling effect. One-quarter of K-12 teachers in the U.S. say these laws have influenced their choice of curriculum or instructional practices, according to a report by the RAND Corporation, a global policy think tank.

At Kilombo, daily instruction includes conversations about race and culture. Founder Aminata Umoja uses a Black puppet named Swahili to welcome her students, ask how they are doing and start the day with morals and values rooted in their African heritage.

The puppet might say: “‘Let’s talk about iwa pele. What does that mean?’ and then one of the children will tell us that it means good character,” said Umoja, who teaches kindergarteners through second graders.

Teaching life skills and values, Umoja said, has its roots in freedom schools started during the Civil Rights Movement, in response to the inferior “sharecropper’s education” Black Americans were receiving in the South.

The school follows academic standards from Common Core for math and language arts and uses Georgia’s social studies standards to measure student success. But the curriculum is culturally relevant. It centers Black people, featuring many figures excluded in traditional public schools, said Tashiya Umoja, the school’s co-director and math teacher.

“We are giving children of color the same curriculum that white children are getting. They get to hear about their heroes, she-roes and forefathers,” she said.

The curriculum also focuses on the children’s African heritage. A math lesson, for instance, might feature hieroglyphic numerals. Social studies courses discuss events in Africa or on other continents alongside U.S. history.

When she was in public school, Psalm said she only learned about mainstream Black figures in history, such as Barack Obama, Martin Luther King Jr. and Harriet Tubman. Now, she said, she is learning about civil rights activist Ella Baker, journalist Ida B. Wells and pilot Bessie Coleman.

Said Psalm: “Honestly, I feel bad for any kids who don’t know about Black history. It’s part of who we are.”

Data journalist Sharon Lurye contributed reporting from New Orleans.

​ Orange County Register 

Asa Hutchinson formally launches 2024 campaign in Arkansas

• April 26, 2023

By ANDREW DeMILLO and MICHELLE L. PRICE

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson formally launched his Republican presidential campaign Wednesday, pledging to “bring out the best of America” and aiming to draw contrasts with other GOP hopefuls on top issues, including how best to reform federal law enforcement agencies.

Hutchinson kicked off his 2024 bid in his hometown of Bentonville, on the same steps where he launched an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign 30 years ago.

“I ran as a conservative Republican when being a Republican was like having a career-ending handicap,” Hutchinson said, adding, “And now, I bring that same vigor to fight another battle, and that battle is for the future of our country and the soul of our party.”

The stalwart conservative, who announced in a television interview earlier this month that he intended to run, has been a rare figure among announced or expected GOP presidential hopefuls in his willingness to criticize former President Donald Trump, calling for him to drop out of the 2024 race instead of seeking another White House term.

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And while Trump has fixated his campaign message around his false claims about the 2020 election he lost, Hutchinson has said voters need a candidate who is not focused on the past.

While some of the other contenders who served in Trump’s administration struggled to carve out distance from Trump, Hutchinson has been able to draw from his lengthy resume in government and roots in America’s heartland. Without mentioning Trump by name Wednesday, Hutchinson offered a contrast to the former president’s derision of federal law enforcement by emphasizing his own background, with previous service as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration and former undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

“There are a few misguided leaders who say we should defund law enforcement, we should defund the FBI. I am here today in support of our law enforcement heroes,” Hutchinson said.

He went on to say, “We should not defund the FBI, but we do need serious reform to refocus the core functions of our federal law enforcement.” He said the FBI needs to be “trimmed down and focused on its No. 1 duty: leading our counterterrorism mission.”

Hutchinson, also a former U.S. attorney and congressman, launched his bid a day after President Joe Biden formally announced his reelection campaign. Hutchinson has argued that neither Biden nor Trump is focused on the future.

“I am confident we will even survive through the destructive policies of the Biden administration, but the time for change is now,” said Hutchinson. “It is time to bring out the best of America.”

On Wednesday, Hutchinson also offered a contrast to the isolationist approach some other Republicans have taken about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, saying he agreed “with those who say we do not want an unending war in Ukraine, and the best way to avoid a long war is to help Ukraine win today.”

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur and “Woke, Inc.” author Vivek Ramaswamy and radio host Larry Elder are also in the Republican race. They, along with expected and potential candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, have largely avoided criticizing Trump and have at times defended him.

Hutchinson’s announcement took place in the tree-lined town square of Bentonville, the birthplace of Walmart. The city of nearly 57,000 people in the northwest part of the state is where Hutchinson first served as a city attorney starting in 1977 and where he first ran for office with an unsuccessful bid for local prosecutor.

Hutchinson’s second gubernatorial term ended in January, but he’s been a defining figure of Arkansas politics for more than four decades. His successor is Trump’s former press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

Elected to the U.S. House in 1996, Hutchinson won a seat his older brother, Tim, had held for two terms. Serving as one of the House managers prosecuting the impeachment case against President Bill Clinton starting in 1998, Asa Hutchinson stayed in the House until 2001, when he resigned to serve in the Bush administration.

After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the National Rifle Association selected Hutchinson to lead a task force to study school safety and recommended putting armed guards at every school in the country.

Elected governor in 2014, Hutchinson signed a series of income tax cuts and restrictions on abortion, including an outright ban on the procedure that became effective when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Hutchinson later said he wished that the measure had included exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest, but didn’t push for lawmakers to add those exemptions after the court ruling.

On Wednesday, Hutchinson steered clear of culture war issues otherwise dominant in some sectors of GOP politics, focusing on his overall commitment to safeguarding America as “democracy’s lighthouse.”

Hutchinson supported many of Trump’s policies but began to break with him over his lies about the 2020 presidential election. He has also criticized Trump for the 2020 peace deal he negotiated with the Taliban and for high government spending in his administration, calling Trump “one of the reasons that we added to our national debt and our deficit.”

Randy Zook, the head of the Arkansas Chamber of Commerce, attended Wednesday’s launch and said Hutchinson found a way to “thread the needle” as governor even as the state moved further to the right. Zook cited as an example Hutchinson’s decision to support keeping the state’s Medicaid expansion, but with changes such as a work requirement that was blocked by a federal judge.

“I think there’s a lane for him,” Zook said. “The country is looking for a reasonable and sensible and positive conservative. Asa fits that bill.”

Hutchinson has also shown a willingness to criticize some of his other rivals, telling The Associated Press he disagrees with the way DeSantis has sparred with Disney after the company opposed legislation DeSantis signed in Florida barring school instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity.

“It seems very Trumpian to me as to how he’s approached it,” Hutchinson said. “I don’t think government ought to be punishing the private sector because we don’t like what they say.”

Kathy Travis, a retired schoolteacher from Bentonville who attended Hutchinson’s launch, said she voted for Biden in 2020 but was leaning toward supporting the former governor. Travis, who wore a shirt that said “#AnyoneButTrump,” said she was pleased with Hutchinson’s handling as governor of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“He’s just a regular guy who’s made his way in politics and maintained his values,” Travis said.

Price reported from New York. Meg Kinnard contributed to this report from Columbia, S.C.

​ Orange County Register 

Santa Monica OKs $122.5M settlement of sex abuse claims against ex-employee

• April 26, 2023

Santa Monica will pay $122.5 million to 124 people who alleged they suffered sexual abuse as children at the hands of a former city employee who volunteered with the Police Activities League, attorneys said on Wednesday, April 26.

The settlement, approved Tuesday night by the Santa Monica City Council, brings to nearly $230 million the amount paid by the city to resolve legal claims brought against the city over the alleged actions of Eric Uller, who killed himself in 2018 after being charged with various molestation counts.

Uller worked with the city as a systems analyst when he was arrested that year on allegations that he had been molesting boys as far back as the late 1980s.

Attorneys representing alleged victims said he volunteered with the city’s Police Activities League, claiming to be a police officer and even showing children a badge and gun to gain their trust.

“My heart goes out to the victims who have experienced so much pain and heartbreak,” Santa Monica Mayor Gleam Davis said in a statement. “The settlement is the city’s best effort to address the suffering of the victims in a responsible way, while also acknowledging that the harm done to the victims cannot be undone.”

Attorney Brian Claypool, who represented many of the plaintiffs, alleged that Uller groomed young children through the PAL program, often giving them food, money or gifts, and sometimes taking them to sporting events. He alleged in lawsuits that city officials were made aware of Uller’s behavior as early as the 1990s, but nothing was done.

“How can so many young kids in the city of Santa Monica have gone through this horrible abuse?” Claypool asked. “Putting aside the money that’s been paid … we need to know that the city of Santa Monica will never let this happen again.”

Uller was placed on leave immediately following his arrest. He was found dead in his apartment later that year, shortly after being charged with felony counts including lewd acts on a child and continuous sexual abuse.

City officials said that following the allegations against Uller, numerous steps were taken in an effort to avoid a repeat of such crimes.

According to the city, it expanded its requirements for Child Abuse Mandated Reporter Training for all employees, volunteers and contractors, and established a child-protection officer position to oversee implementation of child abuse prevention measures.

“The city has remained vigilant by implementing best practices and strict policies to ensure that these unconscionable acts do not occur again,” City Manager David White said in a statement.

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​ Orange County Register 

‘Psycho bouldering’ at the End of the World

• April 26, 2023

As I approach the End of the World, a dark seaside cliff of hardened lava, my gaze pivots between the clifftop and the rolling swell of ocean below. The rocks look a lot higher in person than the photos led me to believe. Adrenaline hits me.

End of the World is on the west side of the Big Island of Hawaii, where my wife, son and our nanny, Sofia, took an eight-day vacation this month. Climbing was merely icing on the cake of what was supposed to be a freediving trip for me, but things didn’t quite turn out as planned.

At the side of the cave we eye potential routes and mime sequences we envision. “You can’t fall in the middle of the cave because the tide will smash you into the rocks,” a local teenager tells us. “I’ve seen people medivacked out of here.”

Great, I think. Just what we need: another trip to the hospital.

On the first one, fie days ago, I went in for what I thought was a sinus infection and ended up COVID positive. So much for freediving. Or much of anything really.

By the last day of our trip I was out of isolation, so we decided to check out the climbing.

“Deep water soloing” is the English term for climbing above the sea without a rope, but I prefer the European name for this crazy climbing style. “Psicobloc,” as they call it, literally means “psycho bouldering.” And it’s no wonder why: It’s easy to fall off uncontrolled and hit the water all wonky, and the currents are unpredictable.

Back in 2009, in Mallorca, Spain, my friend James was on a horizontal roof 30 feet above the waves. He groped for a hold, then tried to move off it when … crack! “Aaaaaaaaaaaahhh!” He screamed as he plummeted, arms and legs flailing. His left hand dropped the broken hold and his back smacked the water with a sickening slap. Then all went quiet.

Sofia Gonzalez climbs bravely through the middle of the cave, just moments before her plunge into the sea. (Chris Weidner / Courtesy photo)

“James!” I shouted. “You OK?”

“Help…” he muttered feebly between gulps of seawater. I stripped my shirt and prepared to jump in, but by then he grabbed our safety line and signaled “OK.” With effort, he slowly hand-over-handed the rope and flopped onto a ledge like a drowned rat. His back was bright purple for days.

“You have to be careful which pockets you put your fingers in,” a Hawaiian kid says, snapping me out of my reverie, “because some will slice your fingers open.”

I downclimb to what looks like the easiest route and start climbing. Indeed, the sculpted rock is the sharpest I’ve ever climbed. The moves feel casual, but I’m nervous. I test every hold before pulling hard, even the ones that look solid. I top out shaky but satisfied.

Sofia and Heather, on the other hand, both float up it, unafraid.

Next, I attempt the belly of the cave but I can’t seem to find a way. I climb up and down to no avail. All I see is wet rock above, and the only possible routes look way harder than they’re graded. Excuses overwhelm my brain, and I retreat. I don’t even earn style points by falling off trying.

Heather Weidner on her successful ascent of “Rip Hide,” the central line in the cave — and a play on words considering what the sharp rock does to skin. (Chris Weidner / Courtesy photo)

Sofia, however, wins big points by going for it and whipping from the middle of the cave (against which we were warned). She takes a thigh-slapping plunge but escapes the tide to safety. Heather, like me, tries to find a way but backs off. Unlike me, she tries again. This time she commits and is upside-down in the roof, grasping for holds she can’t see. The water churns beneath her, white and foamy like the jaws of a hungry beast, yet her focus remains on each move. She pulls the lip — all four limbs spread-eagled — and then her left foot cuts loose. Her audience (me, Sofia and some locals) watches from the side and collectively gasps. She halts the swing, gets her foot back on and rocks over the final bulge.

After a week of vacation COVID, Heather’s success at the End of the World feels like a victory for us all.

Contact Chris Weidner at [email protected]. Follow him on Instagram @christopherweidner and Twitter @cweidner8.

​ Orange County Register