Anze Kopitar, Kings tame Sharks for another road win

• December 20, 2023

By ERIC HE The Associated Press

SAN JOSE — Anze Kopitar had a goal and an assist as the Kings beat the San Jose Sharks, 4-1, on Tuesday night.

The Kings improved to 13-1-1 on the road, the best mark in the NHL. Trevor Moore got his team-leading 15th goal, Alex Laferriere also scored and Trevor Lewis added an empty-netter. Kevin Fiala had two assists.

David Rittich made 14 saves in his Kings debut and nearly completed the shutout. The veteran goalie was called up from the AHL after backup Pheonix Copley was placed on long-term injured reserve on Sunday.

The Kings took a 3-0 lead in the second period with goals 67 seconds apart by Moore and Laferriere. Moore’s goal came on a breakaway at 4:07, set up by a spinning pass from Fiala in the neutral zone. Laferriere then tipped in a shot from the point by Jordan Spence.

Kaapo Kahkonen made 35 saves for the Sharks, who dropped their third straight. San Jose had won six of its past eight home games.

Jacob MacDonald scored for the Sharks with just more than a minute left.

Kopitar got his 13th of the season on the power play late in the first to give the Kings a 1-0 lead. The captain found an opening at the side of the net after a shot by Fiala deflected behind the goal. With Kahkonen out of position, Arthur Kaliyev quickly found Kopitar, who tapped in the puck before Kahkonen could recover from the other side.

Related Articles

Anthony Duclair returned to the Sharks’ lineup after he was a healthy scratch Sunday at Colorado for the first time since the 2022 playoffs.

UP NEXT

The Kings host the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

More to come on this story.

​ Orange County Register 

Cal State Northridge stuns UCLA, ends Bruins’ 29-game home winning streak

• December 20, 2023

LOS ANGELES — A public university in Los Angeles walked out of Pauley Pavilion with a historic win Tuesday night, but it was not the host. The UCLA men’s basketball team trailed Cal State Northridge by as much as 19 points in the second half, rallied to get within one then lost, 76-72, as the Matadors brought the Bruins’ nation-best 29-game home winning streak to an end.

Junior guard Dionte Bostick had 18 points and seven rebounds to pace CSUN (8-3), which beat UCLA for just the second time in 11 meetings. Senior guard De’Sean Allen-Eikens added 17 points and four rebounds.

“Our guys really played great,” CSUN coach Andy Newman said. “I’m so excited about how tough they were. Our guys were not scared and they rose to the challenge. We basically played our brand of basketball.”

The Matadors had not beaten any Pac-12 team since Dec. 21, 2012, and they hadn’t won in Pauley Pavilion since November 2000, a season that resulted in a rare trip to the NCAA Tournament.

Reserves Mahmoud Fofana added 13 points and grabbed 11 rebounds and Gianni Hunt – a transfer from Sacramento State making his Matadors debut – scored 12. Keonte Jones added 12 points before leaving late due to injury.

“We’ve got a fragile group. It showed,” UCLA coach Mick Cronin said. “They’re older, more confident. We don’t have anybody when things go bad to rally the troops.”

Freshman guard Sebastian Mack finished with a career-high 27 points and four rebounds to lead UCLA (5-5), which has lost three games in a row and five of its past seven. Sophomore guard Dylan Andrews had a career-high 22 points, junior guard Lazar Stefanovic had 11 points and sophomore forward Adem Bona added eight points and 10 rebounds.

“We came out kind of flat in the beginning, it just felt like CSUN, credit to them but I feel like they want it more than us this game,” Andrews said. “They had fire in their eyes and they shot the ball pretty good and we knew for a fact that they were a drive-and-kick team and we were trying to play the game but it didn’t work out the way we wanted it to.”

The Bruins had a season-high 19 turnovers and shot 37% from the field (20 for 54), including 37.5% from 3-point range (9 for 24), and shot 65.7% at the free-throw line (23 for 35).

“We failed as a coaching staff because when you have two points of emphasis your job as a coaching staff is to make sure your team adheres to them,” Cronin said. “It’s not like we didn’t know that they were going to drive the ball. Obviously, they hit some hard shots.”

CSUN’s biggest lead was 45-26 less than two minutes into the second half. UCLA rallied behind Mack and Andrews and eventually closed within 57-56 on a layup by Mack with 7:48 left, but the Bruins never took the lead down the stretch.

“We can say that once we raised the physicality at the start of the second half, we came back in the game very quickly,” Stefanovic said. “So we showed ourselves the team we can be when we play physical and with high intensity and play together.”

The Matadors responded with a 6-0 run and built the margin back to nine points when senior guard Gianni Hunt made a 3-pointer for a 68-59 lead with 5:18 left. Stefanovic and Andrews hit 3-pointers to get the Bruins within 71-67 with 1:45 left, but a spinning jump shot by Bostick made it 73-67 with about one minute left. A corner 3-pointer from Andrews cut the margin to 75-70 with 10.1 seconds remaining.

“We didn’t just give up,” Andrews said. “We fought back.”

UCLA basketball’s Dylan Andrews and Lazar Stefanovic post game interview after UCLA’s 76-72 loss to Cal State Northridge at Pauley Pavilion Tuesday night. pic.twitter.com/8Acz6TZU3u

— John W. Davis (@johnwdavis) December 20, 2023

CSUN then turned the ball over on the ensuing inbounds pass, giving the Bruins 9.4 seconds to tie the score but Andrews missed a corner 3-point attempt before he was fouled with 4.3 seconds left as he tried to score off of his own miss. Andrews made both free throws to make it a one-possession game, then UCLA fouled Allen-Eikens with 3.5 seconds left. He missed the first free throw but made the second for a 76-72 lead.

The Bruins’ 29-game streak included a perfect 17-0 mark at home last season and dated to January 2022.

UCLA’s only other loss to CSUN was a 78-74 decision on Nov. 21, 2000, at Pauley Pavilion – a Bruins team that included Earl Watson, Jason Kapono and Matt Barnes.

Cronin went with a new starting lineup Tuesday, using just one traditional post player in Bona. Cronin surrounded Bona with Andrews, Stefanovic, sophomore guard Will McClendon and freshman forward Brandon Williams. Mack, the team’s leading scorer, came off the bench, entering less than one minute into the game when McClendon left briefly with an injury.

The Matadors raced to an 18-7 lead before UCLA closed to 20-19 with a 12-2 run in a 2½-minute stretch. CSUN unloaded again by outscoring UCLA 20-7 over the final 7:03 of the first half and the Matadors led 40-26 at halftime.

Bona, Stefanovic and Mack each had six points a piece in the first half. The Bruins shot 29.6% in the first half (8 for 27), including a 2-for-10 showing from 3-point range.

UP NEXT

UCLA will host Maryland (7-4) on Friday at 6 p.m. at Pauley Pavilion.

“We don’t even think about Maryland,” Cronin said postgame. “We just worry about practice (Wednesday). That’s all you can do.”

“You’ve just got to try to get better. … Especially when you’ve got a young team, they need to worry about one thing, try to get better at practice. Because if you don’t get better you’re not going to change your result. You give up 17 layups, you’re not going to change anything.”

Mick Cronin’s post game interview after UCLA’s 76-72 loss to Cal State Northridge at Pauley Pavilion. pic.twitter.com/wwduhtO0ec

— John W. Davis (@johnwdavis) December 20, 2023

CSUN hosts Montana State on Friday at 1 p.m.

“We are going to look at film and see our potential,” Newman said. “We’re going to see how playing basketball 100 percent of the time looks. Also, it’s going to show us how the game of basketball is played when you don’t take plays off. I just have to prepare these guys for our contest on Friday against Montana State.”

​ Orange County Register 

Ex-New York Giants running back arrested in LA robberies

• December 20, 2023

LOS ANGELES — Derrick Ward, a former running back and a member of the 2008 Super Bowl-winning New York Giants team, has been arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of robbery.

Ward, 43, was arrested Monday in the North Hollywood area, police said. He was being held Tuesday on $250,000 bail, according to a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department inmate search website.

Police didn’t immediately provide details of the alleged crime, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether Ward had an attorney who could speak on his behalf.

A call by The Associated Press to the police department seeking information wasn’t immediately returned Tuesday evening.

Police told NBC News that Ward allegedly robbed five businesses, including gas stations, and that the 6-foot-tall, 230-pound ex-player didn’t use a gun during the alleged crimes.

Ward was drafted by the New York Jets in 2004 in the seventh round but was cut without playing a regular season game.

He went on to play for the Giants from 2004 to 2008, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2009 and the Houston Texans from 2010 to 2011 before retiring from the NFL in 2012.

With the Giants, he was part of a fearsome trio of running backs along with Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw that was nicknamed “Earth, Wind and Fire.”

He was with the Giants when they beat Tom Brady’s undefeated New England Patriots 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII in 2008. However, Ward didn’t play in the game because of a broken leg.

Ward’s best NFL season was 2008 when he rushed for 1,025 yards on 182 carries with two touchdowns.

In 2009, Ward was signed to a four-year, $17 million contract by the Buccaneers, but he was cut the next year and went to work for the Texans.

During his 93-game NFL career, Ward had 2,628 rushing yards on 551 attempts and 12 touchdowns

Ward is an L.A. native who attended Valley View High School in Moreno Valley.

​ Orange County Register 

Bronny James helps USC turn aside Alabama State to end 3-game skid

• December 20, 2023

By JOHN ZENOR AP Sports Writer

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Bronny James showed off his shooting touch and USC snapped a three-game losing streak.

Arrinten Page scored 12 points and James provided a second-half spark with two quick 3-pointers in his third college game, helping USC roll to a 79-59 victory over Alabama State on Tuesday night.

A few days shy of five months after suffering cardiac arrest, James had a strong second half to help the Trojans (6-5) get their first win since Nov. 29. The son of Lakers star LeBron James hit a pair of 3-pointers in less than two minutes after Alabama State (4-6) had shaved a 26-point margin to 14.

“He’s a terrific shooter,” USC coach Andy Enfield said of the former Sierra Canyon High standout. “He just needs to be able to shoot when he gets winded. Tonight it was nice to see him because he was able to run up and down the court and was able to make a couple of 3s when he was somewhat tired.

“He’s one of our better shooters on the team and he’s also a very smart player with the ball in his hands.”

Isaiah Collier had 11 points, six assists and five rebounds for USC and Kobe Johnson had 11 points and eight rebounds. Kijani Wright had eight points and four rebounds and Joshua Morgan had seven points, seven rebounds and four blocked shots in 19 minutes off the bench.

TJ Madlock had 17 points and Isaiah Range had 13 to lead Alabama State, which shot just 32.9% from the field and was outrebounded 52-39.

James shot 2 for 5 from behind the arc for six points and had three rebounds, an assist and a steal while playing a season-high 17 minutes, 32 seconds. He also committed three turnovers and was called for a pair of first-half charges, which Enfield said “were a little questionable as far as whether the defense is moving.”

“I feel like he’s only going to get better,” said Collier, also a prized freshman recruit. “We told him he needs to shoot the ball more when he’s open.”

LeBron James, whose Lakers play at the Chicago Bulls on Wednesday night, was not in attendance.

Bronny James entered the game with USC’s lead cut to 43-29 early in the second half. Less than a minute later, he drained a 3-pointer from the right corner for his first points, showing more reaction on the other end protesting that he was fouled.

It has been a gradual road back for James, who had one 3-pointer and nine points in his first two games, losses to Long Beach State and Auburn.

“He has to get in game shape and he is on minutes restriction,” Enfield said. “Bronny’s done a terrific job of just trying to understand what we’re doing as a team, being out for so long, to get his timing back. I thought he played very well tonight.”

USC shot 21 for 28 from the free-throw line while Alabama State was just 5 for 9.

The game was part of a series of games Pac-12 teams are playing at HBCU schools.

​ Orange County Register 

This week’s bestsellers at Southern California’s independent bookstores

• December 20, 2023

The SoCal Indie Bestsellers List for the sales week ended Dec. 17 is based on reporting from the independent booksellers of Southern California, the California Independent Booksellers Alliance and IndieBound. For an independent bookstore near you, visit IndieBound.org.

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Tom Lake: Ann Patchett

2. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store: James McBride

3. Lessons in Chemistry: Bonnie Garmus

4. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: Gabrielle Zevin

5. North Woods: Daniel Mason

6. Prophet Song: Paul Lynch

7. Iron Flame: Rebecca Yarros

8. The Covenant of Water: Abraham Verghese

9. Demon Copperhead: Barbara Kingsolver

10. Small Things Like These: Claire Keegan

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder: David Grann

2. The Creative Act: A Way of Being: Rick Rubin

3. My Name Is Barbra: Barbra Streisand

4. The Woman in Me: Britney Spears

5. Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning: Liz Cheney

6. The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession: Michael Finkel

7. Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism: Rachel Maddow

8. Making It So: A Memoir: Patrick Stewart

9. How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen: David Brooks

10. What the Bears Know: How I Found Truth and Magic in America’s Most Misunderstood Creatures: Steve Searles, Chris Erskine

MASS MARKET

1. The Name of the Wind: Patrick Rothfuss

2. Elvis and Me: Priscilla Presley, Sandra Harmon

3. Dune: Frank Herbert

4. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams

5. Mistborn: The Final Empire

6. A Christmas Carol: Charles Dickens

7. The Color of Magic: Terry Pratchett

8. And Then There Were None: Agatha Christie

9. Good Omens: Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett

10. Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: Taylor Jenkins Reid

2. Trust: Hernan Diaz

3. The Alchemist: Paulo Coelho

4. A Court of Thorns and Roses: Sarah J. Maas

5. The Midnight Library: Matt Haig

6. All the Light We Cannot See: Anthony Doerr

7. Circe: Madeline Miller

8. The Thursday Murder Club: Richard Osman

9. A Little Life: Hanya Yanagihara

10. The Best American Short Stories 2023: Min Jin Lee, Heidi Pitlor (Eds.)

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register 

Rams will get taste of playoff-like football against Saints

• December 20, 2023

THOUSAND OAKS — A prime-time game, an opponent neck-and-neck with the Rams in the NFC playoff race, the winner gets a tiebreaker over the other with two games left to play.

These are the stakes that will greet the Rams (7-7) and the New Orleans Saints (7-7) when they meet Thursday night at SoFi Stadium. And it might only be December, but the Rams are starting to play with stakes that feel straight out of January.

“Every game’s like a playoff game now, right?” defensive tackle Aaron Donald asked Tuesday. “We ain’t got much room for no losses. Obviously, go week to week, but every game’s a big game. That’s what makes it fun, that’s what makes it exciting.”

The Rams, Saints, Minnesota Vikings and Seattle Seahawks are currently tied for the final two NFC wild-card spots. As things stand currently via tiebreakers, the Vikings are in sixth place and the Rams are in seventh.

But a win over New Orleans on Thursday would give the Rams head-to-head tiebreakers over the Saints and Seahawks, as well as a one-game edge in the win column with two games left to play.

That’s a far cry from where the Rams were expected to be during the preseason, pegged by oddsmakers with an over/under win total of 6.5. The Rams have already topped that number, and have the chance to do something more satisfying if they can beat the Saints.

“It’s certainly been gratifying, it’s certainly been fun to be relevant,” defensive coordinator Raheem Morris said. “You want to get into these moments in December when you are in the mix, so to speak, and you’re ready to do those things.”

Complicating matters is the Rams’ short week of preparation. The physical challenges of playing two football games in a span of five days are enough, but the Saints are a relatively unknown entity to the Rams.

It’s one thing to prepare for a division rival on short rest, but learning a new opponent with a fraction of the usual practice time presents its own challenges.

“It’s just a jampacked week of trying to learn everything you can about the New Orleans Saints,” quarterback Matthew Stafford said at a rapid clip as he tried to move on from his weekly press conference as quickly as possible. “A lot of times it’s a race to Sunday, anyways. We’re just shortening it by a few days.”

The Saints’ defense is the biggest area of concern for the Rams. Limiting opponents to 185.4 passing yards per game, New Orleans has a menacing pass rush led by end Carl Granderson and complemented by one of the NFL’s best blitzing linebackers, Demario Davis.

Related Articles

The offense has been more of a mixed bag, but running back Alvin Kamara has provided a boost since returning from a three-game suspension with 1,076 yards of total offense and six touchdowns.

“They’ve got a lot of guys that have played in a lot of big-time games and this is a team that knows how to play winning football in the month of December,” Coach Sean McVay said. “So we’ve got a great challenge and what a cool opportunity that our guys have earned on Thursday night at home.”

An opportunity that could lead to a bigger one come January.

“Obviously, we’re not immune to understanding what the implications are,” Stafford said. “But this is another football game we gotta get prepared for in a short amount of time both physically and mentally. That’s what we’re doing right now.”

​ Orange County Register 

California police must tell drivers why they’re being stopped starting next year under new law

• December 20, 2023

California police will soon be required to tell drivers why they’ve stopped them before they can start asking questions.

The new bill, A.B. 2773, which takes effect Jan. 1, 2024, will also require all police agencies to track whether officers who stop drivers are complying with the law.

During its meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 19, members of the Los Angeles Police Commission asked commanders what the new law would mean for officers making traffic stops.

“This is instead of the officer asking a driver, ‘Do you know why I pulled you over?’” LAPD Captain Steven Ramos told the commission. “Now, the onus is on the officer to tell the individual why they pulled them over.”

On its face, the law written by state Assemblyman Chris Holden of Pasadena and passed in 2022 would require officers to give drivers basic information about the reason they’re being detained.

But the changes to what police are required to tell drivers could also lead to fewer of what are known as pretextual stops: That is, the police practice of stopping drivers purportedly for minor traffic violations with the intent of searching the driver’s car for contraband such as drugs or firearms.

The bill would target “stops whose predicate is mostly discretionary and constitutes a minor infraction like overly tinted windows, dangling objects on a windshield, or broken tail lights,” wrote members of Oakland Privacy, a Bay Area-based civil rights group in support of the law.

Police have used such stops for decades when attempting to break up suspected drug trafficking operations in local communities. And the practice remains legal, with the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the constitutionality of pretextual stops in several rulings.

But in recent years, scrutiny of their use has increased as civil rights advocates have pointed out extreme racial disparities in who police pull over.

In Tuesday’s meeting, LAPD officials noted the department had had already wound down its own pretextual stop policies after a 2020 internal review found they were largely ineffective as well as disproportionality targeting people of color.

That Office of Inspector General report released showed the LAPD was stopping Black and Latino drivers much more often compared to White drivers for minor traffic violations, as well as subjecting them to more intense searches of their vehicles.

The intent of the searches was to suppress violent crime, Inspector General Mark Smith wrote in the report. But the strategy didn’t work: Officers actually found more drugs and guns when they had a reasonable suspicion they might actually find contraband by stopping a vehicle versus when they initiated a pretextual stop.

As a result, since 2022, the LAPD has already been encouraging officers to tell drivers why they were stopping them while recording that interaction on their body-worn cameras, said Lizabeth Rhodes, who directs the department’s Office of Constitutional Policing and Policy.

The change in state law just meant the rule would shift from a strong suggestion to a legal requirement.

“Our pretext stop policy talked about ‘shoulds,’” Rhodes told the commission. “(A.B. 2773) is the Legislature acting. Now, this is a ‘shall.’”

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register 

OC Board of Supervisors to discuss updated conflict of interest policies at later date

• December 20, 2023

The OC Board of Supervisors will circle back in January on a proposal to broaden conflict of interest policies to give Second District Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento more time to work out the potential new language.

Sarmiento proposed the policy updates at Tuesday’s board meeting following reports that First District Supervisor Andrew Do voted on funding for subcontracts with a mental health program without publicly mentioning a close family connection.

“I do believe that there are some items that I do want to make sure we are clear on. There are some implementation issues that I would like to tighten up,” Sarmiento said. “But I do know that for me it’s such an important item that I want to make sure that we get this right.”

In the last two years, Do voted with other members of the OC Board of Supervisors to approve two subcontracts that included the Warner Wellness Center, for which his daughter works, without disclosing the family connection during the votes. One contract was for up to $625,000 and another for up to $2.5 million and were for mental health services, such as for the expansion of the county’s warmline.

The county’s conflict of interest policy follows state law, which says public officials cannot make decisions that would financially benefit their minor children, however, it does not apply to adult offspring.

Sarmiento’s proposed amendment to county policy would require disclosures of family connections before votes and would broaden the definition of family relationship, defining it as by “blood, adoption, marriage, domestic partnership and cohabitation.”

His proposal also extends that requirement to district office employees.

Do did not speak during the supervisors’ discussion and declined to talk with a reporter on Tuesday. In an op-ed Do penned that ran in the Register he said the Viet American Society, of which the Warner Wellness Center is a DBA,  “was already under three previous county contracts during COVID, well before my daughter was hired as an employee to help run its mental health clinic.

“Of note, my daughter was not a director or officer and she did not handle any of the nonprofit’s finances,” he said. “She did, though, have mental health experience (the Steinberg Institute) and is dual-language fluent — essential for Orange County’s Vietnamese-American community.”

Fifth District Supervisor Katrina Foley raised a concern with language in Sarmiento’s proposed policy additions surrounding county staff.

“I just want us to be careful about language that relates to our employees. For my staff, I don’t know what they do in their private lives, I don’t know who their family members work for, etcetera,” Foley said. “So I just think that if you could please look into that, make sure that we’re not forcing the supervisors to invade the privacy of our employees, of our staff. I think that there’s some language tweaking that might need to be done with respect to that section.”

Sarmiento is also proposing new guidelines for district discretionary projects that would address how board members submit funding for approval, including a requirement that organizations can spend no more than 20% of funding on “indirect or administrative costs.”

Foley also asked for more clarification on what constitutes as an indirect cost.

“I try not to have very high administrative costs on any of my grants, I think that’s good practice, but it depends on the grant because maybe it’s for something that has a lot of marketing attached to it,” Foley said. “You might have more than 20% of the grant that would go to marketing. Is that an administrative cost? I don’t know. Those are the issues that I hope that you’ll look at.”

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register