NFL draft: Rams determined to restock with several picks

• April 25, 2023

THOUSAND OAKS — The Rams say the bills have come due for their years of high living, and general manager Les Snead has elected to pay them all instead of putting it off for another season.

To remain remotely competitive this fall, the Rams will rely heavily on an old friend they’ve taken a bit for granted: The draft.

After years of a bold, swashbuckling approach to building a championship team, Los Angeles made no dramatic personnel additions and lost numerous key veterans this spring — up to 17 starters and specialists as of the week before the draft, depending on the final results of free agency.

Finally low on draft capital and salary cap room after using it aggressively for the entirety of their return tenure in Los Angeles, the Rams are fully remodeling their roster around Aaron Donald, Matthew Stafford and Cooper Kupp.

With no room or inclination to sign any veteran free agents, the Rams apparently expect the majority of their personnel losses to be filled by acquisitions in the draft. To reset their payroll, the Rams say they need more players on rookie contracts, which means everybody chosen by Los Angeles with its 11 picks will have a strong opportunity to play early and often for coach Sean McVay.

“What the big picture is this year, different than probably the past five years for us, we definitely have to engineer a healthier cap situation,” Snead said earlier in the offseason. “Our DNA is to attack. Hit the gas. We’re going to hit the brakes a little bit. That does not change how we’re going to approach the season, how we’re going to approach the day to day, but it will definitely change how we approach constructing the roster.”

The Rams still have to take it easy on Thursday of draft week, as usual for a team that hasn’t made a first-round selection since grabbing Jared Goff in 2016. The Rams’ first pick Friday is the 36th overall, which is the highest selection Los Angeles has made since Goff arrived.

And the Rams will be open to almost anything on draft day.

The top six players on last season’s defense by snap count are gone, while the Rams added nothing except backup tight end Hunter Long to their offensive roster. The Rams also don’t have a kicker, a punter, a long snapper or a kick returner.

PICK ‘EM

The Rams traded their first-round pick to Detroit to get Stafford, but they kept their own second-round pick and third-round pick for a change this year, and they’re getting a compensatory pick in the third for trading Jalen Ramsey. The rest of their picks are 167th overall and higher, which means they’ll have to hit on some long shots.

NEEDS

Every level of the defense needs replenishment with the departures of Ramsey, both starting safeties, star linebacker Bobby Wagner, edge rusher Leonard Floyd and defensive line starters Greg Gaines and A’Shawn Robinson (a free agent). None of those departures has yet been addressed.

The Rams also have done nothing to improve an offensive line that allowed Stafford to be sacked 29 times in nine games before he was sidelined for the season with an apparent concussion and a bruised spinal cord.

Third-round pick Logan Bruss will be ready to contribute after an injury kept him out for all of his rookie year, but the Rams need more linemen — and better linemen.

The Rams likely need another receiver to play alongside Kupp, Van Jefferson and Tutu Atwell after trading Allen Robinson to Pittsburgh and losing Brandon Powell to Minnesota.

It’s probably time for Los Angeles to draft a backup quarterback after being forced to plug in waiver-wire acquisition Baker Mayfield last season after Stafford was injured.

Drafting a kicker in the late rounds seems to be a consideration as well after allowing Matt Gay to walk.

DON’T NEED

Stafford is set as their starting quarterback and Tyler Higbee is back at tight end, but the Rams could use depth at practically every position, not to mention starters on the defense.

RECENT HISTORY

The Rams’ past few drafts are not encouraging for fans who hope Snead can find immediate impact players, particularly in the lower rounds. Backup cornerback Cobie Durant was the only one of last season’s eight draft picks to make an impact in 2022, while linebacker Ernest Jones and seventh-round backup receiver Ben Skowronek are the biggest contributors from the 2021 class.

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The 2020 draft class included Cam Akers, Jefferson and once-and-future starting safety Jordan Fuller, but also had costly third-round misses Terrell Lewis and Terrell Burgess.

FIRST PICK

The Rams’ second-round pick is high enough to get an immediate contributor. They are thought to be looking at the likes of Oklahoma offensive tackle Anton Harrison, South Carolina cornerback Cam Smith, Georgia cornerback Kelee Ringo and a slew of edge rushers including Kansas State’s Felix Anudike-Uzomah.

​ Orange County Register 

Gap cutting hundreds of jobs in new layoff round

• April 25, 2023

By Olivia Rockeman and Kim Bhasin | Bloomberg

Gap Inc. is starting a new round of corporate job cuts, according to an internal memo reviewed by Bloomberg, as it struggles to turn around performance without a permanent chief executive officer.

Meant to trim management layers and speed up decision-making, the reduction will be larger than the 500 corporate positions the San Francisco-based company eliminated in September, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier Tuesday. The company expects to save about $300 million in annual expenses as part of a broader restructuring plan, interim CEO Bob Martin has said.

READ MORE: How coupons backfired on Bed Bath & Beyond

Cuts are occurring in three phases, beginning with the international sourcing division this month, according to the memo. Roles across brands in headquarters will be next, followed by layoffs in finance in May.

“This might be the last step in an overhaul before the company names its new CEO, which we expect any day,” Mary Ross Gilbert, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in a note to clients.

Gap has yet to hire a new CEO since Sonia Syngal was ousted last July. Last month, the company announced several executive changes in an effort to “optimize” its corporate structure as performance declined across the company’s business units. Comparable sales fell at all four of the apparel maker’s biggest brands: Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta.

OTHER JOB CUTS: EV-maker Rivian lays off 239 Orange County workers

The company had about 95,000 employees as of January, largely in retail positions.

Shares had fallen 11% this year through Monday’s close. The stock was down 7% at 1:10 p.m. Tuesday in New York.

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​ Orange County Register 

‘Excessive wealth disorder’: Should the ultra-rich pay more to help solve America’s problems?

• April 25, 2023

Boosting taxes on America’s wealthiest people could bring in trillions of dollars to help the country solve its most pressing problems, according to Gabriela Sandoval, executive director of the non-profit Bay Area think tank Excessive Wealth Disorder Institute.

Sandoval, a former sociology professor at UC Santa Cruz, was hired in January at the San Francisco-based think tank founded last year and named after a concept coined by Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman. She previously worked at the Insight Center for Community Economic Development in Oakland and became steeped in issues around wealth inequality. “No one wanted to talk about decreasing wealth at the higher end,” says Sandoval.

The think tank promotes adding special surtaxes for ultra-wealthy people, imposing a “wealth tax” on assets such as real estate, yachts and luxury vehicles, and increasing IRS enforcement on the super-rich.

The institute takes aim at the richest .1% of Americans — people holding $50 million or more in wealth. Taxing them what the institute considers to be appropriately and effectively would generate up to $10 trillion over 10 years, Sandoval says.

Q: When you look at a $20-million house, what goes through your head?

A: Nobody needs this.

Q: Why shouldn’t people make a billion dollars if they have good ideas, work hard and make smart business decisions?

A: Most of the people that we are concerned about didn’t themselves work hard and make a billion dollars. A lot of that is intergenerational wealth. I live in California, so a lot of my neighbors are millionaires. They’re not who I’m concerned with. I’m concerned with the people who have hoarded … amounts of wealth that cannot be spent in a lifetime. They’ve taken our government hostage with their lobbyists and their attorneys. That’s where the disorder comes in, when you have people who have so much money that they’re controlling our democracy.

Q: Given the political power of the ultra-wealthy, why do you think you could succeed in making them pay more taxes — are you tilting at windmills?

A: We have an opportunity right now. An increasing majority of people in this country support raising taxes on the wealthy — all the major polls show this. We are seeing actual political will and movement in this space with legislators … introducing wealth, estate, income and capital gains tax legislation and gaining traction. Why would we not commit to working on something that could literally save us? This is a real way we could address the climate crisis, and lots of other crises, but if we don’t work on climate soon and fast, the other crises will be moot.

Q: Americans for Tax Fairness says the number of U.S. billionaires grew from 66 in 1990 to 614 in 2020 — how did we get here?

A: Lobbyists are working around the clock to make sure that the ultra-wealthy continue to get wealthier. On the other side of the spectrum you’ve got the 50% of Americans who don’t have any wealth. They can’t even weather an illness. They can’t weather a broken-down car. It’s upside down. Citizens United (the U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations to spend unlimited cash on elections) didn’t help. We’re talking about a plutocracy disguised as a democracy. When the ultra-wealthy want something, 90% of the time they get it, even if the rest of us who are voting don’t want it.

Q: How do you respond to the assertion that super-rich people are creating wealth and jobs?

A: First I ask, “What kinds of jobs are they creating?” What we’ve seen in the last 50 years in this country has been wage stagnation, it’s been jobs that don’t provide for families.

Q: What are the effects on ordinary people of this concentration of wealth?

A: Most people you would talk to would say they value accessible education … accessible high quality health care … green space, clean air, clean water. We could really move the needle on the most pressing issues of our time if we just broke up those concentrations of wealth.

Q: What does America stand to gain through higher taxation of the very rich?

A: This country was built on the idea of access to opportunity for everyone. The very soul of our nation’s ethos is at stake here. The game is rigged; the vast majority of people don’t have access to opportunity.

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There’s no reason our communities should be struggling right now. By taxing the wealthy … we get our democracy back and we get a clear pathway to thriving communities.

Q: What does the IRS need to do under existing tax laws to ensure ultra-wealthy people pay what the tax code says they should?

A: The IRS needs resources in order to enforce properly. We see money that’s been appropriated to fund the IRS and Republicans immediately start working to take that back. If you have a creative accountant at that level of wealth there are so many gray areas, there are loopholes, there are ways to move your money. Regular people say, “Well, we don’t want the IRS to have funds because we’re the ones getting audited.” We have to make sure that the IRS is empowered to actually go after the folks who are evading taxes. There is also a problem of equitable distribution of enforcement. Black families are audited at a much higher rate than White families.

Gabriela Sandoval profile

Job title: Executive director, Excessive Wealth Disorder InstituteAge: 48Education: PhD in sociology, and master’s in regional planning from Cornell University; bachelor’s in psychology and ethnic studies from UC San DiegoBorn in: Santa Paula, CaliforniaLives in: Los AngelesFamily: Daughter, 15; domestic partner with daughter, 11

Five things to know about Gabriela Sandoval1: Performs bachata, a dance style from the Dominican Republic2: Narrowly avoided being trampled by a herd of wildebeest in Namibia3: Drives an almost 20-year-old Jeep Wrangler4: Has a 20-pound chihuahua/terrier mix named Waffle, “had pit bulls in the past that were less vicious.”5: Considers Argentine suffragist and former First Lady Eva Perón a role model

​ Orange County Register 

2024 bid: Why did Biden announce now, and what changes?

• April 25, 2023

By Will Weissert | Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has formally announced he’s seeking reelection. But he’s also still the president, with roughly 20 months left in his term regardless of whether he wins a second one on Election Day 2024.

With Tuesday’s campaign video release, Biden is following through on months of saying he intended to seek reelection. Top Democrats have remained solidly unified behind the president, despite his low approval ratings and many Americans saying they’d rather not see the 80-year-old Biden try for four more years in the White House.

But all that has meant Biden faced relatively little pressure to make his 2024 bid official. Here’s a look at why he announced now and how things will, and won’t, change for him going forward:

WHY NOW?

A formal reelection announcement means the president is now allowed to raise money directly for his campaign. It’s a change from his speeches at donor events benefiting the Democratic National Committee or other outside political groups that he has given since entering the White House.

Biden will spend campaign funds on salaries and logistics building out a 2024 staff and holding events outside his official presidential business. He plans to have dinner in Washington on Friday with leading Democratic donors and DNC leaders, paying special attention to those who write big checks to ensure his reelection campaign stays well funded.

Some party donors and organizers had begun grumbling about a lack of movement on the reelection front, and the announcement, followed by Friday’s gathering, will allow the president to reassure them.

Another reason why Biden waited until April was that it allowed him to avoid releasing publicly how much his reelection campaign raised during the year’s first quarter. That’s when donors typically slow down their contributions — and some top Democratic givers wanted a break after a busy election season during last fall’s midterms and before next year’s presidential race kicks into high gear.

President Barack Obama waited to announce his 2012 reelection bid until early April of the previous year. Tuesday also marks the fourth anniversary of Biden’s announcement of his 2020 presidential campaign.

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, first filed for reelection on Jan. 20, 2017, the day of his inauguration, and held his first campaign rally in February 2017. But his second White House campaign didn’t formally kick off until June 2019 with an Orlando, Florida, rally that fell roughly four years after he first entered the 2016 presidential race.

WHAT ABOUT HIS AGE?

Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history and would be 86 by the end of a second term. He has acknowledged that age is a “legitimate” concern but scoffed at questions about whether he will have the stamina for another campaign, much less four more years in the White House. “Watch me,” he has repeatedly declared.

Voters will now get the chance to do just that — but that is unlikely to make such questions go away.

Republicans have often highlighted Biden’s age, and even some Democrats have questioned whether the president is living up to promises he made during the 2020 campaign to be a “bridge” to a new generation of leadership.

One Republican running for president, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, has called for mental competency testing for candidates over 75 — a category that would include both Biden and Trump, who announced his own 2024 campaign in November. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre brushed aside such testing, noting that Biden helped lead Democrats to a surprisingly strong midterm showing.

“Maybe they’re forgetting the wins the president got over the past few years, but I’m happy to remind them anytime,” Jean-Pierre said in February.

WILL SEEKING REELECTION CHANGE HOW BIDEN HANDLES BEING PRESIDENT?

There won’t be big changes, Biden aides insist, at least for now.

The president is still hosting South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the White House for a state dinner on Wednesday and planning overseas travel later this summer. As he has done in recent months, Biden also will continue to hit the road domestically to highlight legislation his administration helped push through Congress.

Biden has already visited many parts of the country, highlighting how a bipartisan public works package will help repair roads, highways, bridges, ports and train tunnels and how increased federal spending approved as part of other legislation will bolster U.S. manufacturing, lower prescription drug prices and improve broadband internet access in rural areas.

Such events often blur the line between official business and promoting the president and his party politically, and the distinction will only get murkier going forward.

Since the weeks leading up to the midterms, Biden has frequently denounced “extreme” Republicans loyal to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement as posing a threat to America’s core democracy. It’s a message he will continue to champion as the 2024 race begins heating up.

WILL BIDEN HAVE TO COMPETE FOR THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION?

Probably not much.

Self-help author Marianne Williamson and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are the only Democrats to challenge the president. Neither of them presents the type of primary opposition that wounded previous incumbents, such as Sen. Ted Kennedy’s campaign against President Jimmy Carter in 1980 or Pat Buchanan’s run against President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

The DNC is so fully committed to Biden this year that it is not planning to schedule primary debates, sparing the president from sharing a stage with Williamson, Kennedy or any other potential challenger.

Also benefiting Biden is the fact that South Carolina’s primary is set to replace Iowa’s caucuses in leading off the Democratic primary voting next year. Biden revived his 2020 campaign after losing the first three contests with a resounding South Carolina primary victory, and he personally directed that the state go first in 2024 — solidifying his popularity among Democrats there. That may counterbalance Democrats’ deep ambivalence to Biden elsewhere.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll last week found that only 26% of Americans — and only about half of Democrats — said they wanted to see Biden run again. But the poll found that 81% of Democrats said they would at least probably support the president in a general election.

WHO WILL BIDEN’S REPUBLICAN OPPONENT BE?

Trump is the 2024 Republican presidential field’s early leader, setting up a potential general election rematch with Biden.

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Although Trump announced his bid back in November, the rest of the 2024 Republican primary field has been slow to form around him. The only other declared GOP candidates in the race include Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison, businessman Perry Johnson, “Woke, Inc.” author Vivek Ramaswamy and radio host Larry Elder.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is widely expected to be a leading Trump alternative but is in no hurry to announce his campaign. Also expected to join the race but not officially in yet are former Vice President Mike Pence and U.S. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.

Biden’s political team has for months been preparing to face Trump again. But even if an alternative like DeSantis wins the GOP nomination, Biden’s aides argue, many of the same criticisms about adherence to MAGA extremism apply since so many top Republicans agree with Trump on key policy and social issues.

​ Orange County Register 

Paul George frustrated, optimistic as short-handed Clippers try to stave off elimination

• April 25, 2023

PHOENIX –  Though frustrated, Paul George said he’s determined to remain optimistic.

In his first interview with reporters since he suffered a frightening right knee sprain in a March 21 loss to Oklahoma City, George bemoaned being unable to contribute on the court to a Clippers team that found itself trailing the heavily favored Phoenix Suns 3-1 – without its two best players

Kawhi Leonard joined George on the sideline last week, out with what’s also being characterized as a sprained right knee. He played in the first two games of the Western Conference first-round series, leading the Clippers to a Game 1 victory, before being ruled out.

The team is calling Leonard day to day, but there’s been little indication he’s close to returning. He was ruled for Game 5 on Monday evening.

George has been spotted going through basketball drills at Clippers’ practices and shootaround, but he said he’s been eyeing a six-week minimum timeframe for a possible return: “It’ll ultimately be me fighting the medical on being cleared or can I play or can I give it a go. But … just from a standpoint of the minimum time that I needed to recover, if I feel good right at that six-week mark, I’m lacin’ ‘em up.”

That hope, of course, might be moot if the Clippers lose Tuesday at Footprint Center.

“Praying,” George said, “these guys extend it for me and buy me a little more time and be able to be back full strength.”

Paul George suffered a knee sprain exactly five weeks ago: “If I feel good right at that six-week mark, I’m lacin’ ‘em up.”

The Clippers play an elimination Game 5 in Phoenix without both PG and Kawhi Leonard tonight. pic.twitter.com/yNk0bvqbZu

— Mirjam Swanson (@MirjamSwanson) April 25, 2023

If the Clippers’ season ends before George can return, he was philosophical about the team’s future prospects, despite several seasons of disappointment since he and Leonard teamed up in 2019, both homegrown Southern California talents hoping to bring a championship to a team that has yet to win one. Ill-timed injuries have been at the root of most of the team’s shortcomings since then.

After the Clippers blew a 3-1 series lead in their Western Conference semifinals matchup with the Denver Nuggets in the bubble in 2020, George and Leonard’s first season together on the team, they’ve had injuries thwart any serious title contention.

In 2021, the Clippers lost Leonard to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the second round and advanced to the Western Conference finals, pushing the Suns to six games before petering out.

Without Leonard for all of last season and George for most of it – including when he was out because of COVID-19 health and safety protocols in their final fateful play-in game defeat to the New Orleans Pelicans – the Clippers missed the playoffs.

And this season, the Clippers have had to play the past 12 games without George – before being hit with the news of Leonard’s knee injury when this first-round series was knotted, 1-1.

“It’s super frustrating,” George said before Clippers’ shootaround Tuesday. “To put so much into the season, put so much into this group, and (for) the organization to put so much into making a team that could compete and again, year after year, just getting zapped by injuries, it’s frustrating.

“That wasn’t the reason I came here, I know it wasn’t the reason (Leonard) came here. We obviously had big plans to win and do something special for Clipper Nation, but I’m a big believer of everything happens for a reason and you just pick up the pieces and try to make a hand out of what you dealt with. So that’s just how I remain positive. I’m very optimistic that our time will come.”

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George also vouched for Leonard, whose injury designation, announced just hours before Game 3 at Crytpo.com Arena was a surprise to those outside of the organization.

“What people don’t understand is Kawhi is a trooper, man,” George said. “Kawhi is willing to put it on the line. The fact that he got hurt Game 1, tried to play through it Game 2 and people think that he’s out ’cause he doesn’t want to play – it just attacks his character, where people don’t understand: It’s got to be a reason why he’s out.

“He wants to be out there with us and he wants to be out there to lead. And at the end of the day, all of this is a part of our legacy and at the end of the day we want the best legacy that we can create for ourselves and for family. So I know it hurts him not be able to be on that floor and continue to lead how he was.”

Paul George on injury frustrations: “I’m a big believer in everything happens for a reason. You just pick up the piece and try to make a hand out of what you’re dealt.” pic.twitter.com/Ayr4Q79074

— Mirjam Swanson (@MirjamSwanson) April 25, 2023

​ Orange County Register 

COVID-sniffing dogs can help detect infections in K-12 schools, new California study suggests

• April 25, 2023

Elementary students lined up behind a white curtain in the middle of a grand gymnasium at their school in Northern California. They stood still as a dog handler walked a yellow Labrador along the other side of the curtain.

Hidden from the children’s view, the 2-year-old female pup sniffed each child’s shoes from beneath that curtain barrier. After each sniff, the dog looked back up at the handler. Then the handler brought the dog to the next tiny pair of feet beneath the curtain, and the dog curiously brought her snout close to those toes, then a young girl’s lavender tennis shoes and then another child’s white high-tops.

The dog was smelling for what are called volatile organic compounds that are known to be associated with Covid-19 infections.

While watching the Covid-sniffing dog in action, Dr. Carol Glaser saw her vision come to life.

Months prior, Glaser and her team were implementing the school’s Covid-19 testing program, using antigen nasal swab tests. Around that same time, Glaser heard about reports of dogs being used to screen for Covid-19 infections in sports venues, airports and other public settings.

That’s when Glaser had her “aha” moment — incorporating canines into Covid-19 testing programs at schools, nursing homes or other public facilities could help save time, personnel, possibly even costs, and “would be a lot more fun,” she said.

“I thought if we had dogs in schools to screen the students it would be so much faster and less burdensome for schools,” said Glaser, assistant deputy director in Central Laboratory Services and medical officer for infectious disease laboratories at the California Department of Public Health.

COVID-sniffing dogs Scarlett and Rizzo at a skilled nursing home in California.(Courtesy California Department of Public Health)

“Remember when an antigen test is done at school, as opposed to home, there’s a whole bunch of rules and regulations that run under that. It’s not as simple as just handing those things out at school and having the kids do them,” said Glaser, who oversaw antigen testing programs at some California public schools.

For now, Glaser and her colleagues described in a new study the lessons they learned from the COVID-19 dog screening pilot program that they launched in some California K-12 public schools.

In their research, published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, they wrote that the goal was to use dogs for screening and only use antigen tests on people whom the dogs screened as positive — ultimately reducing the volume of antigen tests performed by about 85%.

They wrote that their study supports the “use of dogs for efficient and noninvasive” COVID-19 screening and “could be used for other pathogens.”

Letting the dogs out for screening

The dogs used in the pilot program — two yellow Labradors named Rizzo and Scarlett — trained for a couple of months in a laboratory, sniffing donated socks that were worn by people who either had COVID-19 or didn’t. The dogs alerted their handlers when they detected socks that had traces of the disease — and received a reward of either Cheerios or liver treats.

“The one thing we do know for sure is when you’re collecting a sample off of a human being, you want to go where the most scent is produced. That is the head, the pits, the groin and the feet. Given those options, I went with feet,” said Carol Edwards, an author of the study and executive director of the nonprofit Early Alert Canines, which trains medical alert service dogs, including Rizzo and Scarlett.

“We collected some socks from people willing to donate socks, and we taught the dogs, by smelling the socks, which ones were the COVID socks and they picked it up very quickly,” Edwards said. “Then we moved into the schools and started sniffing the kids at the ankles.”

Last year, from April to May, the dogs visited 27 schools across California to screen for COVID-19 in the real world. They completed more than 3,500 screenings.

Rizzo acted as an energized worker, performing tasks with eagerness, Edwards said, while Scarlett tended to have more of a mellow and easygoing personality.

The screening process involves people — who voluntarily opted in to participate — standing 6 feet apart while the dogs, led by handlers, sniff each person’s ankles and feet. The dogs are trained to sit as a way of alerting their handlers that they detect a potential COVID-19 infection.

To protect each person’s privacy, sometimes the people face away from the dogs and toward a wall or behind a curtain, so that they can’t see the dogs or when a dog sits. If the dog sits in between two people, the handler will verbally ask the dog, “Show me?” And the dog will move its snout to point toward the correct person.

“Our dogs can come in, they can screen 100 kids in a half hour, and then only the ones the dog alerts on have to actually do a test,” Edwards said. “There’s no invasive nasal swab unless the dog happens to indicate on you.”

The researchers found that the dogs accurately alerted their handlers to 85 infections and ruled out 3,411 infections, resulting in an overall accuracy of 90%.

However, the dogs inaccurately alerted their handlers to infections in 383 instances and missed 18 infections, which means the dogs demonstrated 83% sensitivity and 90% specificity when it came to detecting COVID-19 infections in the study.

“Once we stepped into the schools, we saw a drop in their specificity and sensitivity due to the change,” Edwards said, referring to the distractions that children in a school setting can bring. However, Edward said, accuracy improved as the dogs spent more times in schools.

In comparison, COVID-19 BinaxNOW antigen tests have been shown in one real-world study to demonstrate 93.3% sensitivity and 99.9% specificity. That study was conducted in San Francisco and published in 2021 in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

“We never said the dogs will replace the antigen. This was a time for us to learn how they compared,” Glaser said. “We will always plan on doing some amount of backup testing, but the idea would be that the actual antigen testing would be a fraction of what it would currently be because of the dogs.”

“To run these antigen testing programs at school, it’s taking a lot of school personnel resources, test cards as well as biohazard waste. So, I have no doubt in the long-run once it can be perfected, dogs will be cheaper, but I don’t have a great cost comparison,” she said.

This isn’t the first time that dogs’ abilities to detect traces of COVID-19 infections in real-time have been studied in the scientific literature.

“What we have learned in this work is that the dogs in general are capable of discriminating samples from individuals testing,” said Dr. Cindy Otto, professor and director of the Penn Vet Working Dog Center at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the new study.

Regarding the new research, Otto said, “On the surface their results are encouraging and with the appropriate selection of dogs, rigorous training and impeccable quality control, there is the potential for dogs to be incorporated in threat monitoring.”

Nursing homes could be next

Now that Glaser and her colleagues have published research about their COVID-19 dog screening pilot program, she is eager to implement the approach in nursing home settings.

“Honestly, schools aren’t that interested in testing anymore. The outbreaks just aren’t what they used to be, but what we have done is we’ve transitioned to nursing homes, because there is a tremendous need in nursing homes,” Glaser said, adding that many residents may prefer to undergo screening with a dog than with uncomfortable nasal swabs. “What would you rather have: A swab in your nose or something that just maybe tickles your ankle at most for testing?”

In skilled nursing homes, the dogs visit each resident’s room to sniff their feet, calmly smelling for COVID-19 volatile organic compounds as the resident lies in bed or sits in a chair.

“Thinking about where dogs would be deployed, I do really think nursing homes and residential care facilities and even schools — if they were ever to have a big outbreak — would be the natural next fit for this,” Glaser said.

“We think we’ll probably end up primarily using them in nursing homes,” she said. “But we’re still doing a little bit of both — there was a school that asked us to come back last week.”

The pilot program within California public schools also has left Edwards with hope for future opportunities in which canines can help detect disease in humans.

“I really do think it’s the tip of the iceberg. This is the door swinging wide open, and now we need to collaborate with those in the science world and figure out where we can take this,” Edwards said.

“There’s been a lot of chatter, even in the very beginning of this project, talking about what other diseases they could do. We’ve talked about TB, we’ve talked about flu A and B, possibly for this next flu season, seeing if we can get the dogs to alert on that,” she said, as volatile organic compounds are also produced by people with influenza. “It’s just a matter of being able to figure out how to collect samples, how to train the dogs, and then to be safe and effective around those diseases too.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Cravont Charleston upstages Michael Norman at Mt. SAC Relays

• April 16, 2023

WALNUT — As soon as Michael Norman, the reigning world champion at 400 meters, announced he would be focusing on the 100 in 2023 his season opener at the 63rd Annual Mt. SAC Relays Saturday took a circle the date spot on the sport’s calendar.

The race took on even greater significance when Christian Coleman, the 2019 100 World champion, Georgia’s Matthew Boling, the two-time NCAA indoor 200 champion, and Oregon rising star Micah Williams were added to the field.

When the sprinters settled into the starting blocks Saturday, Coleman and Williams were scratches from a field that also included former North Carolina State runner Cravont Charleston, who was as oblivious to the pre-race hype surrounding Norman & Company as he was an afterthought.

“I just focus on myself,” Charleston said later “and the finish line.”

By the time Charleston, representing Tracksmith, hit the finish line at the world’s largest track meet he had ruined Norman’s coming out party with an emphatic if wind-aided 9.87 second victory.

Kyree King was was second in 9.98 followed by Norman, the former USC star, at 10.02. Boling was eighth in 10.20.

“I’ve got a lot of work to do,” Norman said. “But it was a good opener.”

Rai Benjamin, Norman’s former Trojan teammate and the Olympic and World Championship silver medalist, clocked a world-leading 47.74 seconds in his first 400 hurdles race of the season. Vashti Cunningham, the former World indoor champion, won the high jump with a world lead-equaling leap of 6-feet, 6 inches.

Norman has a lengthy history at Mt. SAC. He won the meet’s high school 100 as a Vista Murrietta senior in 2016. He ran a 400-personal best of 43.45 at the 2019 meet, a race that made Norman seem destined to break the world record of 43.03.

“He’s going to be the first man under 43,” Ato Boldon, a four-time Olympic medalist and now an NBC analyst, said at the time. “It’s not matter of if, it’s only a matter of when.

Instead Kerley knocked Norman off at the U.S. Championships later that summer and then suffered a hamstring injury in the semifinals of the 2019 Worlds.

He was still the Olympic favorite in Tokyo only to finish fifth.

Norman finally won the World 400 title last summer in Eugene was his victory was largely overshadowed by Sydney McLaughlin’s Beamon-esque world record shattering, mind blowing 50.68 triumph in the 400 hurdles.

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Having claimed a global title, Norman shifted his attention to the 100.

“That’s the main focus this season,” he said. He will run the 100 at the U. S. Championships in Eugene in June and if he makes the team at the World Championships in Budapest later this summer.

“When you finish the 400, it hurts,” Norman said. “When you finish the 100 it’s like that’s it?”

Kerley has been hugely successful making a similar move. The former Texas A&M standout took the Olympic 100 silver medal and then led a U.S. sweep of the medals of the Worlds 100 last summer in Eugene.

Asked Saturday if Kerley’s success in dropping down had inspired him, Norman responded “No, not at all.”

This isn’t the first time Norman has experimented with the 100. He ran a personal best 9.86 in Fort Worth in July 2020 when the sport was basically on lockdown due to the pandemic. He ran three 100s after the Tokyo Olympic Games, a 9.97 win in Padova, Italy on September 5, 2021, his last attempt at the distance until Saturday.

Charleston, 25, has often shown potential if not consistency in recent years. He ran a personal best 9.98 in winning a meet in Geneva last year yet failed to make it out of the semifinals at the U.S. Championships.

Saturday he was smooth all the way as he rode the 3.0 meters per second tailwind to upstage his more well-known rivals.

“We’re all human,” he said. “so I just ran a race.”

​ Orange County Register 

This family-owned eatery at Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will delight you

• April 16, 2023

Whether you like the classics, such as tacos and nachos, or contemporary combinations, including birria ramen and asada fries, this family-owned business dishes it out — and it’s delightful.

And for the first time, it’s serving fans at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach this weekend.

Mexican Delights, a small business based out of Riverside, is owned by Maria Gonzalez, who said her eatery is driven by gratitude and positive energy.

She is certain that customers will take one bite of her high-quality Mexican food — and delight.

“The quality is what makes everything taste good,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t sell anything I won’t eat.”

Mexican Delights’s premiere at the Grand Prix has added to the growing culinary diversity of the event, which draws at least 180,000 people to downtown Long Beach during its three-day run.

On the second day of race weekend, Saturday, April 15, business was steady — though Mexican Delights was ready for the crowds to gain an appetite.

Gonzalez and her husband, Juan, started Mexican Delights in 2019. Soon after, the coronavirus pandemic hit. But rather than collapsing the business, it motivated them to grow the eatery.

And now, it partners with different vendors that help offer their food to various large events — such as the Grand Prix.

“I’m a very blessed person so the pandemic was just a push for me to start this,” Gonzalez said on Saturday, “because that’s when I lost my job and then I had to find something to do.”

Fans can find Mexican Delights running two stands at the Grand Prix.

One is near the entrance of Hospitality Village, where Mexican Delights offers ramen birria, cream corn cups, fresh fruit trays, aguas frescas, and tostilocos.  Tostilocos is a popular Mexican street food that consists of Tostitos tortilla chips topped with pickled pork rinds, cucumber, jicama, lime juice, Valentina hot sauce, chamoy, Tajin chili powder, salt and cracker nuts.

This location was where 19-year-old Vanitee Mata, Gonzalez’s daughter, was stopping people on their way to the circuit with small, free samples of the aguas frescas.

She grabbded their attention with a smile and warm greeting, and then gave them a taste — a taste, she said, of what they will surely want more of.

The other stand is by the grandstands near the starting line across Shoreline Drive, where Mexican Delights offers their more traditional plates, which include shrimp, birria, chicken and asada tacos. That spot also serves up asada fries, nachos and aguas frescas.

Despite the myriad food vendors at the Grand Prix, Mata said, Mexican Delights are getting their fair share of customers.

“I think it’s good competition,” she said. “I think this event has more options than they need but the sun shines for everyone.”

Although this is the family’s first time at the Grand Prix, Mexican Delights is no stranger to big crowds.

The vendor recently served music fans at the Rolling Loud and Beyond Wonderland music festivals. In only its second year serving big events, Mexican Delights has now added the Grand Prix to the list of events that draw in thousands of fans — which means thousands of hungry customers.

“Really anything you put your mind to and envision yourself doing, it’ll come,” said Gonzalez. “You just have to put in the work.”

Gonzalez added that she’s proud of what Mexican Delights has accomplished in such a short amount of time.

But she and her family do have to put in the work.

Preparing for large events, including the Grand Prix, is such a labor that they only get a few hours of sleep the night before, Gonzalez said.

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“Yesterday, at one point, I couldn’t keep my eyes open and I was laying on the ground,” she said, “and my husband was laying on the ground at the other location because we were both so tired.”

Still, she said, Mexican Delights is looking forward to coming back and being a regular vendor at the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

“We definitely want to do this event every year; this is just the beginning,” Gonzalez said. “This is our step in the door and by next year, people will already know our food and come back.”

​ Orange County Register