Pierre-Luc Dubois calls Kings trade ‘a dream come true’

• June 28, 2023

In a whirlwind offseason, the Kings’ tornado of trades, made ostensibly to create cap space in order to re-sign a defenseman and finally nail down a legit No. 1 goaltender, all led to general manager Rob Blake’s biggest investment yet in … a center?

With only one rostered goalie, Blake prioritized an extension for defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov and then exchanged three roster players, including the emergent three-zone force Gabe Vilardi, and a high second-round pick for the privilege of signing former Winnipeg Jets center Pierre-Luc Dubois to a weighty eight-year, $68 million contract.

Dubois augments a cadre of pivots that already included captain and leading scorer Anze Kopitar; 2022 team MVP and alternate captain Phillip Danault; spark plug and emotional charge Blake Lizotte; and 2020’s No. 2 overall pick Quinton Byfield, who spent the stretch run of last season as a left wing.

“You’ve got to be deep. You see the top teams in the West, and to be able to have to match them, you have to be deep through (the middle),” Blake said. “Those four centermen will be key for that lineup.”

The opportunity to snag Dubois, a 25-year-old who combines prototypical size with uncommon puck skills but has yet to fully materialize his potential, leapfrogged the house-on-fire urgency of a No. 1 goalie.

“I’m hopefully going to play my 500th game in the NHL this upcoming season, but I have so much to learn still,” said Dubois, adding that he was hoping to build on his consistency of a point-per-game pace for more than half of last season before his production fizzled during Winnipeg’s wild-card push.

“To be the complete player I want to become, it takes time, and I think I’m getting closer and closer to that,” he added.

Perhaps most notably, the Kings have now effectively unloaded vast assets from the trade deadline through Tuesday – Jonathan Quick, a first-round draft choice, a third-rounder, Cal Petersen, Sean Walker, Helge Grans, a second-round selection, over $3.5 million in salary retention over two seasons, Vilardi, Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari, Sean Durzi and another second-rounder they acquired for him –– to add Dubois (eight-year extension), Gavrikov (signed for two years after a portion of last season) and what to this point was the short-term rental of goalie Joonas Korpisalo.

The situation was complicated considerably by what turned out to be strikingly misplaced faith in Petersen, whose $5 million cap hit was a wrench in the engine that was to propel the Kings’ sprint from also-rans to short-list contenders.

Gavrikov and Korpisalo were present for last year’s postseason, which resulted, as 2022’s did, in an elimination at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers in the first round.

On Tuesday, Dubois, Blake and Kings president Luc Robitaille suggested the massive investments would bring the team forward in spring-into-summer runs to come.

“You’re not trying to make the playoffs, you’re trying to win the playoffs,” Robitaille said.

“I do think we have to be ready. We’ve been through a rebuild in the last few years, so I think it’s important right now to make sure we’re ready, that we can compete for a long time,” he added.

Dubois echoed that sentiment, saying his contract’s eight-year term gave him and the Kings a broad competitive window in which he hoped to hoist the Stanley Cup multiple times. He described joining the Kings as a “dream come true.”

He played with Gavrikov previously, in Columbus before Dubois was traded to Winnipeg, and Gavrikov video-called him to fill him in about the organization and region. Dubois also said he admired Kopitar immensely as a young player, and that Danault had already endeared himself to him both on and off the ice as a fellow francophone center.

“I haven’t been around Phil as a person a lot, but I feel like every time I’ve seen him, I feel like it’s a friend I haven’t seen in a long time,” Dubois said. “As a player, I think he’s one of the most underrated two-way centers in the NHL.”

Blake always maintained that he would break from his close-to-the-vest approach only to mobilize assets for players in their 20s entering their primes who were going to be in L.A. long-term. He has executed that plan in consecutive offseasons, having added prolific winger Kevin Fiala via trade last year and locking him down for seven seasons.

“Both (Dubois) and Fiala are at ages where they walk in and add production to our lineup right away,” Blake said.

Dubois had already played for two teams in his young career and had successfully requested a trade from both as his contractual situation reached any sort of impasse. Blake said he and his staff communicated with Dubois and his agent Pat Brisson to better understand those situations and Dubois’s desires. In the end, Blake rejoiced that Dubois settled on Los Angeles, just as a beaming Dubois felt fortunate to land in a city he said charmed him across many visits before and after turning pro.

Yet it won’t be all coastal sunsets and red carpets for Dubois or the Kings, as his hefty cap hit and the gymnastics involved in obtaining the right to spend that money have left the Kings in something of a precarious position, at least for the coming season.

They still need to acquire a goalie and fill out a roster that will likely not be able to carry the standard roster size and configuration for much or possibly all of the upcoming campaign. The salary cap increased rather modestly to $83.5 million, the NHL confirmed Wednesday, though a larger increase and some relief for the Kings individually both appear on the horizon for next summer. For now, with some extrapolation, the Kings are essentially brushing up against the upper limit, with significant needs remaining unaddressed.

Blake said sacrifices had been made and more would be necessary.

“I would imagine we’re light on our roster for a lot of the time during the season. A lot of the time you want to carry 23 (players), but you need cap space to do it,” Blake said. “There is going to be lots of juggling with the cap situation.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Game Day: Kershaw and Ohtani all at once

• June 28, 2023

Editor’s note: This is the Wednesday, June 28, 2023, edition of the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

Good morning. L.A.-area baseball fans have experienced a rare pleasure the past six years, getting to watch Clayton Kershaw and Shohei Ohtani pitch at the same time. Occasionally, like last night, literally at the same time.

In other news: The Kings made a bold move on the eve of the NHL draft, acquiring long-time trade target Pierre-Luc Dubois from Winnipeg in exchange for three players and a future pick. Andrew Knoll writes about how the Kings look going into the draft tonight without a first-round pick. Lisa Dillman says the Ducks’ options with the No. 2 overall pick include trading it. Lakers draft picks Jalen Hood-Shifino and Maxwell Lewis are thinking about how they’ll fit in, while the team stayed in the running to sign Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura by making qualifying offers. U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski, preparing for his first Women’s World Cup in charge, said he likes the team’s mix of new faces (including Angel City FC’s Alyssa Thompson) and familiar names (like Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan).

If you’re like me, you try not to miss any game pitched by Kershaw, one of the greatest Dodgers ever, or Ohtani, two of the greatest Angels ever, considering his pitching and hitting.

Last night that required having either multiple screens or a nimble finger on the TV remote. Kershaw and the Dodgers played the Colorado Rockies in Denver at 5:40 p.m. Pacific time, and Ohtani and the Angels hosted the Chicago White Sox at 6:40 p.m.

It was the fourth day this season that Kershaw and Ohtani pitched on the same day, but in the first three they weren’t actually on the mound at the same time. Credit the quirks of time zones, starting times and game flow. Or, if you will, credit some kind of knack the two men have, like great comedians working together, for not stepping on each other’s lines.

Even last night, the Dodgers usually were batting while Ohtani was pitching and the Angels usually were batting when Kershaw was pitching, so they were on the mound at the same time only briefly. But the moment made watching two games at once a worthwhile chore.

At 6:42, on Ch. 68, Kershaw faced the Rockies’ Jurickson Profar to begin the bottom of the fourth inning, while, over on Ch. 30, Ohtani faced the White Sox’s Luis Robert with two out in the top of the first. Kershaw got Profar to fly out to left field on an 0-2 curveball, at the same time as Ohtani struck out Robert on a 1-2 split-finger fastball.

At that point Ohtani (7-3) was just beginning a signature performance that would see him hold the White Sox to one run and four hits while striking out 10 in 6⅓ innings and hit his major-league-leading 27th and 28th home runs, becoming the first player to strike out at least 10 and hit at least two homers since Cleveland’s Pedro Ramos in a 1963 game against the Angels.

The Angels beat Chicago 4-2 to retake sole possession of second place in the American League West, five games behind first-place Texas, reaching the schedule’s midpoint with a 44-37 record.

At the same time, Kershaw (10-4) was pitching perfect ball, not allowing a baserunner until the fifth inning or a hit before Brenton Doyle’s clean single to left with two out in the sixth. After six, Kershaw told manager Dave Roberts he was finished for the night. And turned your TV over to Ohtani.

The Dodgers beat Colorado 5-0, remaining third in the National League West, three games behind first-place Arizona, getting back to 10 games over .500 at 44-34.

The concurrent games last night were a reminder in another way that we should cherish having Ohtani and Kershaw in the L.A. area at the same time, this baseball take on “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw throws to first base to force out the Colorado Rockies’ C.J. Cron during the second inning on Tuesday night in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

It’s not going to go on forever, or even much longer. Ohtani’s contract is up after this season (you might have heard) and he’ll be the most valuable free agent ever. Kershaw is on a one-year contract and has flirted with returning to his native Texas.

And you worry about injury anytime either of them leaves a game abruptly, as both did last night.

Kershaw said he asked out because he “just didn’t feel great overall” in the sixth inning, declining to get specific with reporters about what bothered him. Robert said, not quite reassuringly, “Right now, I’m not concerned.”

Ohtani left the mound – in the middle of an inning for the first time this season – after the trainer came out to check on him. But his problem turned out to be only a cracked fingernail; he stayed in as a batter and hit his second home run.

Assuming both make their next scheduled starts, that will create another of these Kershaw-Ohtani virtual duels, on Monday, July 3, when the Dodgers open a three-game series at home against the Pittsburgh Pirates at 7:10 p.m. while the Angels open a three-game series against the Padres in San Diego at 6:40.

They will be what they were last night, two baseball greats deserving our undivided attention at the same time.

TODAY

• Dodgers probably will go with a bullpen game in Colorado (5:40 p.m., SNLA), the last time they’ll have to do that before Julio Urias’ expected return Saturday.

• Angels are 5-0 with Jaime Barria starting on the mound as he faces the White Sox’s Lucas Giolito (6:38 p.m., BSW).

• Sparks seek their first three-game win streak this season as they open a trip at Chicago (9 a.m., NBA TV). Sparks update.

• Angel City FC, hosting San Diego, tries to get out of last place in its NWSL Challenge Cup division (7 p.m.,  CBSSN). Angel City update.

• The NHL draft, tonight and tomorrow, will begin with Chicago taking 17-year-old center Connor Bedard (4 p.m, ESPN).

BETWEEN THE LINES

While Connor Bedard is a lock to go No. 1 in the NHL draft, Michigan center Adam Fantilli is a heavy favorite (-700, meaning bet 700 to win 100) over Swedish center Leo Carlsson (+480, bet 100 to win 480) to be taken with the No. 2 pick, currently held by the Ducks. Those odds are from FanDuel.

280 CHARACTERS

“Right this second … Shohei Ohtani: BA: .299. ERA: 2.99.” – Angels beat writer Jeff Fletcher (@JeffFletcherOCR) tweeting in the fifth inning last night, before Ohtani finished the game with a .304 batting average and 3.02 ERA.

1,000 WORDS

Encore: Shohei Ohtani celebrates in the dugout – as do fans in the stands on the Angels’ Japanese Heritage Night – after hitting his second home run of the game in the seventh inning of a 4-2 victory over the White Sox last night in Anaheim. Photo is by Mark J. Terrill for AP.

YOUR TURN

Thanks for reading. Send suggestions, comments and questions by email at [email protected] and via Twitter @KevinModesti.

Editor’s note: Thanks for reading the “Game Day with Kevin Modesti” newsletter. To receive the newsletter in your inbox, sign up here.

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E-cigs are still flooding the US, addicting teens with higher nicotine doses

• June 28, 2023

Liz Szabo | KFF Health News (TNS)

When the FDA first asserted the authority to regulate e-cigarettes in 2016, many people assumed the agency would quickly get rid of vapes with flavors like cotton candy, gummy bears, and Froot Loops that appeal to kids.

Instead, the FDA allowed all e-cigarettes already on the market to stay while their manufacturers applied for the OK to market them.

Seven years later, vaping has ballooned into an $8.2 billion industry, and manufacturers are flooding the market with thousands of products — most sold illegally and without FDA permission — that can be far more addictive.

“The FDA has failed to protect public health,” said Eric Lindblom, a former senior adviser to the director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. “It’s a tragedy.”

Yet the FDA isn’t the only entity that has tolerated the selling of vapes to kids.

Multiple players in and out of Washington have declined to act, tied the agency’s hands, or neglected to provide the FDA with needed resources. Former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump both have prevented the FDA from broadly banning candy-flavored vapes.

Meanwhile, today’s vapes have become “bigger, badder, and cheaper” than older models, said Robin Koval, CEO of the Truth Initiative, a tobacco control advocacy group. The enormous amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes — up 76% over five years — can addict kids in a matter of days, Koval said.

E-cigarettes in the U.S. now contain nicotine concentrations that are, on average, more than twice the level allowed in Canada and Europe. The U.S. sets no limits on the nicotine content of any tobacco product.

“We’ve never delivered this level of nicotine before,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, which opposes youth vaping. “We really don’t know the long-term health implications.”

Elijah Stone was 19 when he tried his first e-cigarette at a party. He was a college freshman, grappling with depression and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and “looking for an escape.” Store clerks never asked for his ID.

Stone said he was “hooked instantly.”

“The moment I felt that buzz, how was I supposed to go back after I felt that?” asked Stone, now 23, of Los Angeles.

The e-cigarette industry maintains that higher nicotine concentrations can help adults who smoke heavily switch from combustible cigarettes to vaping products, which are relatively less harmful to them. The FDA has approved high-nicotine, tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes for that purpose, said April Meyers, CEO of the Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association.

“The goal is to get people away from combustible products,” said Nicholas Minas Alfaro, CEO of Puff Bar, one of the most popular brands with kids last year. Yet Alfaro acknowledged, “These products are addictive products; there’s no hiding that.”

Although e-cigarettes don’t produce tar, they do contain harmful chemicals, such as nicotine and formaldehyde. The U.S. Surgeon General has warned that vaping poses significant risks: including damage to the heart, lungs, and parts of the brain that control attention and learning, as well as an increased risk of addiction to other substances.

More than 2.5 million kids used e-cigarettes in 2022, including 14% of high school students, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Most U.S. teen vapers begin puffing within an hour of waking up, according to a survey of e-cigarette users ages 16 to 19 presented at the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in March.

The potential for profits — and lax enforcement of vaping laws — has led to a gold rush. The number of unique vaping products, as measured by their bar codes, quadrupled in just one year, rising from 453 in June 2021 to 2,023 in June 2022, according to a Truth Initiative review of U.S. retail sales data.

FDA officials say they’ve been overwhelmed by the volume of e-cigarette marketing applications — 26 million in all.

“There is no regulatory agency in the world that has had to deal with a volume like that,” said Brian King, who became director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products in July 2022.

The agency has struggled to stop e-cigarette makers who continue selling vapes despite the FDA’s rejection of the products, as well as manufacturers who never bothered to apply for authorization, and counterfeiters hoping to earn as much money as possible before being shut down.

In 2018, public health groups sued the agency, charging that the delay in reviewing applications put kids at risk. Although a court ordered the FDA to finish the job by September 2021, the FDA missed that deadline. An estimated 1.2 million people under the legal age of 21 began vaping over the next year, according to a study published in May in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Recently, the FDA announced it has made decisions on 99% of e-cigarette applications, noting that it had rejected millions and authorized 23. All authorized products have traditional tobacco flavors, and were deemed “appropriate for the protection of public health” because tobacco-flavored products aren’t popular with children but provide adult smokers with a less dangerous alternative, King said.

The agency has yet to make final decisions on the most popular products on the market. Those applications are longer and need more careful scientific review, said Mitch Zeller, former director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products and a current advisory board member for Qnovia, which is developing smoking-cessation products.

The FDA said it would not complete reviewing applications by the end of June, as it previously forecast, but would need until the end of the year.

Before the FDA can announce new tobacco policies, it needs approval from the president — who doesn’t always agree with the FDA’s priorities.

For example, Obama rejected FDA officials’ proposal to ban kid-friendly flavors in 2016.

And in 2020, Trump backpedaled on his own plan to pull most flavored vapes off the market. Instead of banning all fruit and minty flavors, the Trump administration banned them only in “cartridge-based” devices such as Juul. The flavor ban didn’t affect vapes without cartridges, such as disposable e-cigarettes.

The result was predictable, Zeller said.

Teens switched in droves from Juul to brands that weren’t affected by the ban, including disposable vapes such as Puff Bar, which were allowed to continue selling candy-flavored vapes.

After receiving its own warning letter from the FDA last year, Puff Bar now sells only zero-nicotine vapes, Alfaro said.

When the FDA does attempt bold action, legal challenges often force it to halt or even reverse course.

The FDA ordered Juul to remove its products from the market in June 2022, for example, but was immediately hit with a lawsuit. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided with Juul and issued a temporary stay on the FDA’s order. Within weeks, the FDA announced it would hold off on enforcing its order because of “scientific issues unique to the JUUL application that warrant additional review.”

E-cigarette makers Logic and R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. both sued the FDA after the agency ordered them to stop selling menthol vapes, a flavor popular with teens. In both cases, court-imposed stays halted the FDA’s orders pending review and the companies’ menthol products remain on the market.

Luis Pinto, a spokesperson for parent company Reynolds American, said, “We remain confident in the quality of all of Reynolds’ applications, and we believe that there is ample evidence for FDA to determine that the marketing of these products is appropriate for the protection of public health.”

Under the Biden administration, the FDA has begun to step up enforcement efforts. It fined 12 e-cigarette manufacturers more than $19,000 each, and has issued more than 1,500 warning letters to manufacturers. The FDA also issued warnings to 120,000 retailers for selling illegal products or selling to customers under 21, King said. Five of the companies that received warning letters made vapes decorated with cartoon characters, such as Minions, or were shaped like toys, including Nintendo Game Boys or walkie-talkies.

In May, the FDA put Elfbar and other unauthorized vapes from China on its “red list,” which allows FDA agents to detain shipments without inspection at the border. On June 22, the FDA announced it has issued warning letters to an additional 189 retailers for selling unauthorized tobacco products, specifically Elfbar and Esco Bars products, noting that both brands are disposable e-cigarettes that come in flavors known to appeal to youth, including bubblegum and pink lemonade.

In October, the Justice Department for the first time filed lawsuits against six e-cigarette manufacturers on behalf of the FDA, seeking “to stop the illegal manufacture and sale of unauthorized vaping products.”

Some lawmakers say the Justice Department should play a larger role in prosecuting companies selling kid-friendly e-cigarettes.

“Make no mistake: There are more than six e-cigarette manufacturers selling without authorization on the market,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in a March letter. Children are “vaping with unauthorized products that are on store shelves only because FDA has seemingly granted these illegal e-cigarettes a free pass.”

___

(KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)

©2023 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Dave White is the defensive coordinator at Edison

• June 28, 2023

Dave White will serve as the defensive coordinator for Edison football this season.

White confirmed this on Monday.

White was the Chargers head coach for 31 seasons, leading them to 14 Sunset League championships and two CIF Southern Section championships. In recent seasons he has served as receivers and defensive backs coach at Edison where he was a star quarterback for Coach Bill Workman. Current Edison head coach Jeff Grady played for White at Edison.

Edison on Saturday is host of the annual Battle at the Beach passing tournament, annually one of the top football events of the summer.

​ Orange County Register 

Hajj pilgrims brave intense heat to cast stones at the ‘devil’

• June 28, 2023

By Riazat Butt | Associated Press

MINA, Saudi Arabia — Hundreds of thousands of Muslim pilgrims on Wednesday braved intense heat to perform the symbolic stoning of the devil during the Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia.

With morning temperatures rising past 42 degrees Celsius (107 degrees Farenheit), huge crowds of pilgrims walked or took buses to the vast Jamarat complex just outside the holy city of Mecca, where large pedestrian bridges lead past three wide pillars representing the devil.

Using pebbles collected the night before at a campsite known as Muzdalifa, the pilgrims stone the pillars. It’s a reenactment of the story of the Prophet Ibrahim — known as Abraham in Christian and Jewish traditions — who is said to have hurled stones at Satan to resist temptation.

The ceremony was marred by tragedy on a number of occasions in the 1990s and 2000s, when hundreds died in stampedes during the stoning ritual. Saudi authorities have since built an expanded network of massive pedestrian bridges and redesigned the site to make it safer for pilgrims.

This year, the biggest danger might be the heat.

Temperatures soared past 45 degrees Celsius (113 F) on Tuesday, as Muslims marked the spiritual high point of the pilgrimage by spending the day praying at Mount Arafat, where there was no breeze and almost no shade.

Pilgrims huddled under umbrellas, dousing themselves with bottled water. Cellphones were almost too hot to hold and shut down after just a few minutes of use.

Saudi authorities have deployed tens of thousands of health workers for the pilgrimage and volunteers were handing out water. The Health Ministry said late Tuesday that it had treated 287 cases of sunstroke and heat exhaustion.

The annual Hajj pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all Muslims are required to undertake it at least once in their lives if they are physically and financially able. For the pilgrims it is an unrivalled religious experience that wipes away sins, bringing them closer to God and face-to-face with fellow Muslims from all corners of the earth.

The last three days of the Hajj coincide with Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of the Sacrifice, a joyful occasion in which Muslims around the world sacrifice sheep or cattle and distribute some of the meat to the poor. The holiday commemorates Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael on God’s command. In Christian and Jewish traditions, Abraham is willing to sacrifice his other son, Isaac.

The holiday, which is held according to Islam’s lunar calendar, depending on the sighting of the moon, began Wednesday in several Middle Eastern countries and will begin Thursday in some Asian countries.

The Saudi royal family has invested billions of dollars in infrastructure to maintain Islam’s holiest sites and to hold the annual pilgrimage, which is a major source of its legitimacy. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, traveled to Mecca on Tuesday to oversee the pilgrimage, according to state-run media.

This is the first Hajj to be held without COVID-19 restrictions since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Authorities had expected some 2 million pilgrims, but official figures released late Tuesday showed that around 1.8 million were taking part in the pilgrimage. That’s considerably fewer than the nearly 2.5 million who came in 2019. Worldwide economic woes may have been a factor.

​ Orange County Register 

Afro Pride weekend brings ballroom dancing, music and more to Belasco Theater

• June 28, 2023

Following the festivities of Pride Month in June and LA Black Pride Week on June 28-July 3 — both of which celebrate the vibrant Los Angeles LGBTQ+ community with concerts, exhibitions, parades and wellness events — Afro Pride is coming to The Belasco Theater in Downtown Los Angeles on July 8-9.

Afro Pride stems from the intersections of Pride Month and Black Music Month and serves as a two-day bash for the Black LGBTQ+ community. Presented by Live Nation Urban’s Houses of Luv, an event series for Black and LGBTQ+ culture, and the Haus of Basquiat, one of ballroom’s leading houses, Afro Pride brings together music, ballroom dance and Black activism.

“As a Black Queer L.A. native I’ve always sought for spaces that Black Queer creative freedom could exist without being reduced to some sort of spectacle or meme,” Houses of Luv co-curator Zuhura shared in a statement about Afro Pride.

“Afro Pride is the physical manifestation of our spatial imaginaries coming to life with a communal effort to pick up the baton as a young generation of Black queer folks who are actively fighting anti-Black and anti-LGBT power systems. We will not submit to the false idea that our dehumanization is some sort of normalcy. We’re extending Pride beyond June and I can’t wait for the community and allies to experience more than a party, but a radical and memorable experience.”

The evening will kick off with Ballroom Honors and The Exhibition Life Imitates Art as a full ballroom performance, a well-known subculture within the Black and Latin LGBTQ+ communities in which participants dance, lip-sync and model for trophies and the bragging rights of being crowned the winner.

Curated by the Haus of Basquiat’s founding members Miss Shalae and Dashaun Wesley of the Emmy-nominated HBO Max ballroom competition series “Legendary,” the show will feature performances by Kidd Kenn, Lolit Leopard, Cookiee Kawaii and Sevendeep.

The following day will be a concert event filled with rising LGBTQ+ artists in the neo-soul and experimental dance music genres, with sets by Abra, Bbymutha, Alemeda, Shy Lennox, Bmajr, Naygod and Black Bass Collective.

Tickets for both nights are on sale at afropride.com. Tickets for Ballroom Honors and The Exhibition Life Imitates Art on July 8 start at $45. Tickets for the Afro Pride concert event on July 9 start at $37.

​ Orange County Register 

Concert in the Park series rocks Orange

• June 28, 2023

The summer is rockin’ in Orange with the city’s Concerts in the Park series.

Concerts are Wednesday nights through Aug. 9 and start at 6:30 p.m. Take a picnic or food will be for sale.

Coming up at Hart Park are:

July 12: Fabulous Yachtmen

July 19: Echo Love Chamber

July 26: Amanda Castro Band

Aug. 2: ’90s Rock Show

At Grijalva Park:

Aug. 9: Stone Soul

Information: cityoforange.org

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​ Orange County Register 

What if you can’t afford long-term care?

• June 28, 2023

As many as 8 in 10 older Americans couldn’t afford more than four years in an assisted living facility or two years in a nursing home, according to a 2023 analysis by the National Council on Aging and the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston.

This is particularly hard for people in the monetary middle, defined by Pew Research Center as “those with an annual household income of about $52,000 to $156,000 annually in 2020 dollars for a household of three.” They don’t have enough to pay for long-term care, but they have too many assets to qualify for government assistance. Medicare also doesn’t cover long-term care. What are the options for the 47 million households with older adults who will face this scenario?

From reverse mortgages to hybrid insurance policies, here are some avenues available to people who can’t afford the care they need.

Consider a reverse mortgage

If you have significant equity in your home and you’re at least 62 years old, a reverse mortgage can provide a helpful stream of income. A reverse mortgage is a loan or line of credit based on your home’s equity. You tap the equity now and pay the loan off when the home is sold.

“What most people do, especially in a situation like a long-term care issue — once they’re out of the house, you sell it and use the proceeds to pay it off,” says Nicholas Bunio, a certified financial planner in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.

A reverse mortgage has downsides — closing costs are expensive, similar to taking out a traditional mortgage, and you’ll leave less to heirs — but if you’re planning to receive home care or there’s a spouse still at home, it can be a solid option. (Once there’s no one living in the home for a year or more, the home must be sold to pay back the loan.)

Price out insurance

If you have no major health issues, get quotes for long-term care insurance. Although experts recommend purchasing by age 65, you may be insurable up to age 79. Premiums can be pricey, but note that a semiprivate room in a nursing home costs more than $94,000 per year, according to the 2021 Cost of Care Survey by Genworth, an insurance company.

“In many cases, long-term care insurance is a lot less expensive than the actual cost of care,” says Michelle Gessner, a certified financial planner in Houston. “So $1 of premium gives you multiple dollars of benefits, and that’s not the case with paying for it out of pocket.”

Another option may be a permanent life insurance policy with a long-term care rider, often called a hybrid policy. Arrangements vary, but typically you can use some or all of your death benefit to pay for long-term care during your lifetime, and anything you don’t use will be paid to your estate when you die.

“People complain that they’re expensive,” Gessner says, but she points out that nursing home care can cost $6,000 to $7,000 a month (or more). “What I tell people is just get what you can afford,” she says. “It’s not all or nothing.”

Look into facilities with benevolent funds

Some nursing homes or assisted living communities offer benevolent care, meaning they’ll take someone in who doesn’t have enough money to pay full freight or who can’t pay full price for long. When someone runs out of money, the benevolent fund covers the difference for as long as they need care. (They’ll typically collect Social Security and pension payments that may come in to help cover costs.)

“They can be a good alternative for people who think they won’t have enough financial assets,” says Diane Pearson, a certified financial planner in Wexford, Pennsylvania.

Benevolent care funds are often connected to faith-based communities. A search for faith-based facilities in your area might yield some options.

Ask about a life settlement

If you have a life insurance policy and you’re considering letting it lapse or taking the cash value from it, a life settlement may be the better option. In a life settlement, a third party buys your insurance policy, and you typically receive between 5% and 25% of the value of the death benefit.

“There are investors out there who will basically make the premium payments on your behalf, but they keep the policy proceeds when you pass away,” says Christopher Lyman, a certified financial planner in Newtown, Pennsylvania. You might make this choice in a financial crisis. “The only reason you would do that is kind of like a last option,” he says.

This article was written by NerdWallet and was originally published by The Associated Press. 

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