Vietnam War pilot reflects on rescue helicopter evacuations during the fall of Saigon

• April 30, 2025

About two dozen Vietnam veterans joined Irvine dignitaries and others Tuesday at Hangar 297 at the Great Park, the future home of the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation in military history.

“This is a deeply emotional time,” said Councilmember James Mai, whose family escaped from Saigon days before the country fell to communist forces. Mai was the first Vietnamese child born in Ohio after the war. “I’m glad we’re recognizing what these veterans did. Families like mine could never repay them.”

On April 29 and 30, 1975, as North Vietnamese forces closed in on Saigon, U.S. Marine Corps pilots evacuated more than 7,000 Americans and Vietnamese allies from the capital.

“It was a frustrating day, but a special day,” recalled Ret. Col. Gerry Berry, who flew a CH-46 helicopter for 18 hours and 20 minutes over those two days to extricate people, including U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin, from the falling embassy.

“I remember the massive crowds around the embassy as tanks were rolling down the streets,” Berry said.

The aircraft he flew to rescue the ambassador, its call sign “Lady Ace 09,” now resides in Hangar 297.

“It’s impressive that we still have it,” he said, pointing to the chopper. “My last flight out of Saigon on that exact aircraft had, I think, 22 people on it and the ambassador.”

“The further we get from the fall of Saigon, the more we forget,” Berry said. “The Vietnam veteran, when he came home, was not treated with glory and respect. The Vietnam veteran will always be the best America had.”

Other veterans shared their reasons for attending Tuesday’s event despite the pain they still feel when remembering the war.

“We have to learn from history,” said former Marine interpreter Joseph Cave, who remembers loading Jeeps into CH-46 helicopters. “We have to learn from our mistakes.”

Retired Major Gen. Bob Butcher echoed that same remorseful sentiment.

“How do I feel about the war? Terrible, bad,” he said. “But if we don’t learn from what we did, we’re going to repeat what we did.”

“I believe very strongly in what we’re doing with the museum,” he added, “to educate the youth of our nation to share how we have kept our country free.”

The Flying Leatherneck museum is set to open in the Great Park in 2027. Various historic aircraft have been arriving in the last year for display and are being worked on and stored at the hangar.

​ Orange County Register 

L.A. City Council moves to cut fees, ease rules to keep film productions local

• April 30, 2025

The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday, April 29, unanimously approved a motion that aims to reverse a sharp decline in film and television production across the city by cutting the red tape that makes it harder for productions to stay in town.

Supporters said the motion, introduced by Councilmember Adrin Nazarian and seconded by Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Nithya Raman, was not just about keeping blockbuster films in L.A., but about protecting workers–ranging from costume designers to carpenters–who depend on local shoots. Productions have increasingly moved to other states and countries in recent years, lured by lower costs and fewer bureaucratic hurdles.

The City Council chamber was packed with about 50 crew workers, union members and advocacy groups who held signs reading, “Support our entertainment industry laborers.” Many cheered and applauded when the motion passed. After the vote, the groups gathered on the steps outside City Hall for a rally, calling for action to stop the loss of local production jobs.

Among those who spoke was Marie Dunaway, a Los Angeles freelance producer who has produced commercials, music videos and other projects. She said the industry’s struggle stems not just from rising costs, but also from a permitting process that has become slow and burdensome.

“We are suffocating from Los Angeles’ rigidity, slowness, endless staffing mandates, special talent requirements, and most of all, costs,” she said. “Other states are saying ‘yes,’ and rolling out red carpet. We are only rolling out red tape.”

The motion directs city staff to return within 30 days with a series of recommendations to make the city’s filming process faster, cheaper and more competitive with rival areas.

Among the proposed changes are reducing filming fees, streamlining the permitting process, reducing security requirements for location shooting, offering discounted or waived fees for city-owned property use, and investigating inflated costs for crew parking and staging areas.

“Simply put, this is about protecting middle-class workers, and also the very industry that established Los Angeles on the world map and made us into the filming hub of the world,” Councilmember Nazarian said.

In recent years, the City of Angels has seen a steady decline in on-location filming as studios increasingly opt for cities including New York, Atlanta, Vancouver and Toronto, drawn by faster permitting timelines and generous tax incentives.

The downturn comes after years of disruption to the industry, including the pandemic, a strike by writers, a strike by actors, layoffs, and growing uncertainty over artificial intelligence’s impact on jobs and storytelling.

Between January and March this year, shoot days in Los Angeles dropped more than 22% compared to the same period last year, according to FilmLA, the official film office for both the city and county. Television production–widely seen as the backbone of the local industry–has been hit especially hard, falling nearly 60% since its 2021 peak.

Although Los Angeles experienced devastating wildfires in January, FilmLA said the wildfires had “only a small effect” on production levels.

“Our industry has lost more than a third of its work in the last half decade,” said Paul Audley, president of FilmLA. “We have 120 other jurisdictions offering money to take the film industry all over the world and all over the country, and California simply has not been competing with that.”

He pointed to global decline in production and fierce competition from Europe, Canada and other U.S. states offering generous financial incentives that California has struggled to match.

“Most of our major studios film all their feature production in Britain now because of the amount of money they’re offered,” Audley said. “A lot of our scoring is now done in Eastern Europe instead of here in L.A. … L.A. really is suffering right now.”

He said the city could take steps to reverse the trend, but it would require adjusting both staffing and fee structures.

“So that’s what they’re looking at: Is there a way for the city to pull back on the fees they charge, and perhaps add staffing in certain (city) departments to move things more quickly,” Audley said. “That’s really the heart of this motion.”

At the state level, Gov. Gavin Newsom last fall proposed expanding the California Film & Television Tax Credit Program from $330 million to $750 million annually. Lawmakers have since introduced several bills aimed to make the program more competitive on a global scale.

In neighborhoods where film crews are part of daily life, some community leaders are backing the city’s push to keep production local.

“We are smack dab in the center of all the studios, Warner Brothers Studios, NBC Universal,” said Tess Taylor, president of the Greater Toluca Lake Neighborhood Council. “There’s so much history here, there’s so much talent here, and this is where the world comes. The world beats a path to Hollywood’s door, and we want to keep it that way.”

​ Orange County Register 

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

• April 30, 2025

The SoCal Indie Bestsellers List for the sales week ended April 27 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. Great Big Beautiful Life: Emily Henry

2. James: Percival Everett

3. Wild Dark Shore: Charlotte McConaghy

4. Audition: Katie Kitamura

5. The God of the Woods: Liz Moore

6. The Dream Hotel: Laila Lalami

7. Broken Country: Clare Leslie Hall

8. Intermezzo: Sally Rooney

9. The Wedding People: Alison Espach

10. Strangers in Time: David Baldacci

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. Notes to John: Joan Didion

2. Abundance: Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson

3. The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About: Mel Robbins, Sawyer Robbins

4. Fahrenheit-182: A Memoir: Mark Hoppus, Dan Ozzi

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

6. Everything Is Tuberculosis (Signed Edition): The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection: John Green

7. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This: Omar El Akkad

8. When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines: Graydon Carter

9. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism: Sarah Wynn-Williams

10. Raising Hare: A Memoir: Chloe Dalton

MASS MARKET

1. Mistborn: The Final Empire: Brandon Sanderson

2. The Way of Kings: Brandon Sanderson

3. 1984: George Orwell

4. Animal Farm: George Orwell

5. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings: Maya Angelou

6. The Well of Ascension: Brandon Sanderson

7. The Wise Man’s Fear: Patrick Rothfuss

8. Words of Radiance: Brandon Sanderson

9. Small Gods: Terry Pratchett

10. Carrie: Stephen King

TRADE PAPERBACK FICTION

1. Martyr!: Kaveh Akbar

2. The Frozen River: Ariel Lawhon

3. Orbital: Samantha Harvey

4. Table for Two: Fictions: Amor Towles

5. The Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood

6. I Who Have Never Known Men: Jacqueline Harpman

7. The Ministry of Time: Kaliane Bradley

8. North Woods: Daniel Mason

9. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: Gabrielle Zevin

10. The Paris Novel: Ruth Reichl

​ Orange County Register 

Angels trying to reduce information overload on struggling hitters

• April 30, 2025

SEATTLE — Angels manager Ron Washington believes in his hitters. Now he wants to make sure they believe in themselves.

Washington said one of the things that could have contributed to the team’s slumping offense is what he described as an overload of information.

“There’s so much information now in baseball,” Washington said on Tuesday. “Sometimes you let that information dictate how you go up there and have your at-bats. You’ve got to know which type of at-bats you’re capable of having to have those at-bats, and add that information to it, instead of allowing that information to dictate how you go about your business.

“I think with all this information, sometimes these kids totally believe in it 100%, so they don’t ever believe in themselves.”

Washington said the Angels cut back on the scouting information they are providing to hitters a couple of weeks ago, during the series against the San Francisco Giants. The Angels won that series, but they still didn’t score many runs. Four of the nine runs they scored in those three games came in one inning.

After that series, the Angels lost five of six games, hitting .168 and scoring 12 runs.

In order to get the lineup going, Washington tried a new lineup on Tuesday, with Zach Neto and Nolan Schanuel hitting in the first two spots.

Washington said during the off day on Monday, he tried about “22 or 23” different lineups.

“I had nothing else to do, so I just grabbed some paper and just started putting down lineups, and that was the one that stuck with me,” Washington said.

DETMERS’ ROLE

Left-hander Reid Detmers seems to have acclimated well to his new role in the bullpen. Detmers has a 2.57 ERA in nine games, with 14 strikeouts and five walks in 14 innings.

“It look like he’s found his niche a little bit,” Washington said. “I think we still look at him as a starter, but it’s nice to see that we can call on him out of that bullpen, and he can come in and give us some quality innings.”

Detmers has been a starter for his whole career until this season, but he had trouble remaining consistently effective.

Detmers said now he’s trying “not to think about,” a return to the rotation, but he’s still willing to go back into the rotation if the Angels ask. For now, he’s probably only able to throw about 50 pitches, so it would take him a few starts to get built back up to the 90 pitches of a normal start.

“I’m having fun,” Detmers said. “I like the role that I’m in. For me, it’s just going out there and competing, trusting all my stuff, and going out there and putting up zeros, which is what my goal has always been. But it’s a little bit different mindset than starting.”

MONCADA UPDATE

Third baseman Yoán Moncada, who is out with a right thumb injury, finally started taking some swings left-handed in the cage. Moncada has been hitting from the right side for more than a week and he’s been doing defensive drills throughout his time on the injured list.

“He said he didn’t feel anything (when swinging left-handed), so that’s a good thing, but with a deep bruise like he has, you never know what’s going to happen,” Washington said. “We’ve just got to keep going and keep ramping it up, checking the boxes, and hope you make it through everything, and then we can get him back on the field.”

NOTES

Right-handed reliever Ben Joyce (shoulder inflammation) is “moving along slowly,” Washington said. “We knew it would be. We just have to wait and how he progresses.” Joyce started playing catch last week. …

The Angels designated infielder J.D. Davis for assignment and called up utilityman Gustavo Campero. Campero was hitting .333 with an .869 OPS at Triple-A Salt Lake. Campero can play the outfield, second base and catcher. Having a third catcher on the roster provides the Angels more flexibility for using catchers Logan O’Hoppe and Travis d’Arnaud. …

The Angels outrighted right-hander Carl Edwards Jr. to Triple-A. Edwards was designated for assignment over the weekend, and then he cleared waivers.

UP NEXT

Angels (LHP Tyler Anderson, 2-0, 2.60 ERA) at Mariners (RHP Emerson Hancock, 1-1, 7.71 ERA), Wednesday, 1:10 p.m., FDSN West, 830 AM

​ Orange County Register 

They learned to fight fires while incarcerated. Now, LA County provides a path back to firefighting

• April 30, 2025

In black uniforms complete with ties, a group of female firefighting trainees — most formerly incarcerated — marched beneath rolling green hills near Las Virgenes Road on a recent Monday.

Among them, Elizabeth Melendez stood out. At 45, she’s older than her peers, and she was a firefighter while serving time.

When she was released in 2018, no programs like the one she is a part of now existed. Finding herself in a similar environment as before she served time, she sought a new path forward.

Last year, she decided to change her life by going back to the job she once knew well. It was a long process, but at the end of March, she began training to be a firefighter again.

“It makes me want to conquer this because they’re doing so much to help us,” she said as a new member of Los Angeles County’s Justice, Care and Opportunities Department firefighter training program, which provides housing, food and a stipend for trainees. “Being the product of my environment, me trying to do this program and still living in the environment that I was living in, I’m telling you I wouldn’t be able to make it.”

Once Camp David Gonzalez, a juvenile detention center, the Santa Monica Mountains campus has been transformed into a fire training center. The trainees, formerly incarcerated people or those impacted by the justice system because of family members’ sentences or homelessness, or former foster youth, were supported at an open house that Monday by a crowd of current women inmates from Malibu Conservation Camp 13 as the trainees demonstrated their firefighting skills.

Seated alongside the inmates were county leaders, including the district attorney and a county supervisor, and the trainees’ families and friends.

The Justice, Care and Opportunities Department, a county division dedicated to a “continuum of care” for those affected by the justice system, has transformed the former detention center into a residential training site for firefighting.

The all-female cohort currently training is the second group to go through the program overall and first all-female group of the department’s firefighting training program. Many of the trainees who were incarcerated fought fires during that period of their lives.

More than a job

One day, Melendez heard from a friend who had been through the Ventura Training Center’s fire academy, a program that inspired L.A. County’s.

“He went and he changed his life. He went into the all men’s Ventura firefighting training center and he called me one day and he’s like, ‘Hey Lizzo, do you still want to do firefighting?’ ” Melendez recalled. “I was like, I’m 45 years old, can I still do it?’ Come to find out, if you’re capable, if you’re still fit, you can still do it.”

Melendez passed the physical fitness portions and got into the program, and now is training every day. She has earned two certifications since the program started, building on everything she learned when she fought fires at the Malibu camp. The program is proof to Melendez that you can change your life at any age, she said, not just an opportunity for younger adults.

The L.A. County training program is residential, providing housing for the trainees, as well as food and a stipend. The total support the trainees receive is one of the factors pushing Melendez to work as hard as possible.

Other trainees spoke of the program as a new beginning and a place of purpose.

“I spent my whole life taking from the communities I lived in, taking from people, taking from my family, I just want to give back,” Tiffany Flint said. “I want to give back to others, I want to be of service to the communities I come from.”

Someone suggested firefighting to Flint on her last day in prison, and she became motivated to look into ways to pursue it, eventually joining the L.A. County program and finding community and a team in the other trainees.

Laquisha Johnson applied to be a part of a fire camp while incarcerated, finding purpose responding to wildfires, medical calls, house fires and motor vehicle accidents, realizing that firefighting was more than a job, but a way to find “discipline, compassion and a deep understanding of how precious and fragile life really is.”

When she was released, she wanted to pursue firefighting, but couldn’t find a position.

“When I was released at 24, I had all my certifications, $200 and a dream. I bought interview clothes, built a resume and caught the bus to the firehouse in Vermont. I was honest about my past, but the answer was no,” Johnson said.

In the 11 years since, she returned to school, volunteered with incarcerated youth and worked in advocacy.

“Now, at 35, I’m becoming a firefighter again, but this time not by chance, but by choice,” she said.

‘A responsibility like no other’

One alum of the first cohort, Cade Dawson, who now works on an engine with Cal Fire in Mendocino, arrived at the training grounds for the demonstration. In his uniform, Dawson exemplified the goal of the program – to produce a fully trained firefighter who gets hired by an agency.

Nearly all of the trainees from the first cohort were hired by Cal Fire.

Dawson, who grew up in Pasadena in foster care, spoke to the current trainees, detailing his experiences responding to calls.

“I take this uniform so seriously,” Dawson said. “This is a responsibility like no other.”

The work of incarcerated firefighters received attention during Los Angeles’ intense January wildfires, igniting debate on social media about the firefighters’ pay and sometimes their inability to get hired as firefighters after serving time in prison.

Inmate firefighters are paid between $5.80 and $10.24 a day and earn an extra dollar an hour when working on an emergency, such as an active wildfire. A bill introduced by California Assemblymember Issac Bryan in the wake of January’s blazes proposed an increase in these firefighters’ pay.

Programs such as the Justice, Care and Opportunities Department’s in L.A. County and the Ventura Training Center’s are the only places outside of incarceration dedicated to teaching firefighting skills to those impacted by the justice system, according to retired LA Superior Court Judge Songhai Armstead, the chair of the department.

On Monday, Captain Ladale Hayes led the trainees in a demonstration of some of the skills they have learned. Also formerly incarcerated, he credits firefighting with saving his life and leading him to his position now, helping others move toward career opportunities in the field.

Hayes now runs Operation Flame, a community organization dedicated to training disadvantaged youth and young adults and people of color, which has partnered with the county’s training program.

“These ladies train all day, they’re built for it,” Hayes said as the trainees displayed how to take hoses off trucks and extinguish fires.

The future of the department’s program includes a new dormitory that will be able to house up to 80 trainees, more trainees applying to Cal Fire and possibly new pathways for trainees to work with the Los Angeles Fire Department and the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

As the trainees donned their fire gear and their captain spoke of the wildland firefighting skills, hand line construction and engine drills they have been practicing, the orange jumpsuit-clad, incarcerated women of the Malibu fire camp gave some of the loudest cheers from the crowd.

“For those of you in orange,” said Avi Bernand, spokesperson for the Justice, Care and Opportunities Department, “I hope to see you at this camp very soon.”

​ Orange County Register 

Mayor proclaims Anaheim a place for all in annual state of the city address

• April 30, 2025

Mayor Ashleigh Aitken, at the annual State of the City address on Tuesday, proclaimed Anaheim as a place for all, recognizing the city’s founding and growth by immigrants who came looking for a better life and the millions from around the world that visit.

“As a visitor city, we welcome everyone,” Aitken said, “from those around the world who have made Anaheim their adopted home to those who come here to visit and enjoy all our city has to offer.”

The annual address is a moment for Aitken to share reflections on the city’s accomplishments over the last year and point to a broader message about its direction. Aitken, drawing on the city’s immigrant roots, said Anaheim is a place that has welcomed the world in, whether as a new home or an escape for a day at Disneyland.

“So to all looking to build their American dream, to inspire their imaginations, to find prosperity and success, to embrace the future and to be part of something bigger than ourselves, you’ve come to the right place,” Aitken said.

The mayor spoke to a sold-out crowd at the Grove of Anaheim made up of the city’s business and community leaders. The event is a fundraiser for the nonprofit Anaheim Community Foundation. It’s the third State of the City address for Aitken since becoming mayor in 2022.

Guided on stage by a quartet of Dapper Dans from Disneyland singing about the mayor and Anaheim, Aitken’s speech went over much of Anaheim’s history and some of what’s to come that make it a visitor destination, including DisneylandForward, OCVibe and the 2028 Olympics.

Aitken said some 25 million people a year visit Disneyland, attend conventions or watch the Angels or Ducks play. Nearly 70% of Anaheim’s revenue — paying for the city’s parks, libraries, police and fire departments — comes from visitors, Aitken said.

Aitken brought up several firsts that took root in Anaheim, some literally. The boysenberry, Disneyland, St. John Knits, Vans, the American Basketball Association and the grocery store chain Northgate Gonzalez Market all have origins in Anaheim.

Northgate is one of the largest Hispanic grocery chains in the nation, Aitken said, and one of the biggest employers for Anaheim.

“And it all started on Anaheim Boulevard after Don Miguel González arrived in search of the American dream,” Aitken said. “Our city’s history and legacy of innovation attract others who want to be part of the Anaheim story.”

Anaheim is celebrating its 168th anniversary this year, and Disneyland’s 70th. The Disneyland Resort is on the cusp of a reinvigoration with the expansion of Avengers Campus and attractions and lands based on the films “Coco” and “Avatar.” And the Honda Center was just confirmed to host indoor volleyball for the 2028 Olympics.

In the coming weeks, the city will receive the first $15 million that Disney pledged to the city for affordable housing as part of the approval for DisneylandForward. This summer, Disney will give $8 million for the city’s parks, Aitken said.

One announcement Tuesday, is that Anaheim is looking to add a third sister city: Guadalajara, Mexico. Anaheim already has the sister cities of Mito, Japan and Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. The city is in the early stages of forging ties with Guadalajara, Aitken said.

“For all our city’s ties to Mexico, with our shared history as part of Spanish America, with half of our residents tracing their roots to Mexico, with millions of yearly Mexican visitors, with friendly exchanges with the consulate in Santa Ana and with federal and state friends across Mexico, I always thought it was curious that we don’t have a sister city in Mexico yet,” Aitken said.

On a more street level, Aitken said the city has so far spent $35 million buying and closing problematic motels along Beach Boulevard. The Rebuild Beach Boulevard initiative will soon hit another milestone when the 39 Commons retail center at Beach and Lincoln Avenue opens and new affordable housing communities are set to be built.

Ending her speech, Aitken highlighted the partnership forged between the city and The Walt Disney Company at the outset of Disneyland, with Walt Disney writing in 1953 that it would be “filled with the accomplishments, the joys and hopes of the world we live in. And it will remind us and show us how to make these wonders part of our own lives.”

​ Orange County Register 

Dodgers’ bullpen has been tasked with a lot of heavy lifting so far

• April 30, 2025

LOS ANGELES — An already taxed Dodgers bullpen was asked to handle nine more innings on Tuesday night, adding to its workload as the busiest in the major leagues this season.

Officially, the innings put in by left-hander Jack Dreyer will count in their total for the team’s starters since the rookie “opened” the game on the mound. But the physical toll will be felt just the same for a pitcher who has delivered his first 13 major-league outings already this season.

Add that to the busy postseason the Dodgers’ relievers had in October and the level of concern is rising for what has proven to be a dependable group of pitchers.

“When you start talking about World Series stuff, or going into the World Series, guys did some really heavy lifting,” pitching coach Mark Prior said. “There’s always concerns when you’re getting to a point where guys are in a fatigued state six, seven months into a season. Then you ask them to increase workloads in different ways. What are the ramifications of that?”

The Dodgers are finding out earlier than expected this season. The bullpen headed into Tuesday’s game with 126 innings and then added even more.

There are some new faces this season who did not go through the rigors of a full three rounds of the playoffs last fall such as right-handers Kirby Yates and Luis Garcia, as well as left-hander Tanner Scott. Add Dreyer to that group as well.

Left-handers Alex Vesia and Anthony Banda are back. Right-hander Blake Treinen has also returned, but he already is dealing with a forearm strain that has him on the injured list. Right-hander Michael Kopech has yet to pitch this season with his own forearm injury after dealing with discomfort in the playoffs.

There is also the unpredictability of a bullpen. Getting the same performance out of a relief pitcher year after year is hardly a sure thing.

Yates had a 1.17 ERA in 61 outings for the Texas Rangers last season with 33 saves. He went into Tuesday’s play with an MLB-high 16 appearances and had a 2.63 ERA. He had a 1.04 ERA after 16 outings last season, and that 16th appearance didn’t come until May 15.

“There are some days where I go out there and I feel it and I’m like ‘Alright, it’s unhittable,’” Yates said about his split-finger pitch that starts as a strike and then dives to the bottom or below the strike zone. “Earlier in the year, it was like that, and it felt really good and I could throw it whenever I wanted and have the confidence to do that.”

The good news is that Yates will get plenty of opportunities to find that A-plus splitter again. The bad news is that rest might be few and far between for all of the relievers as injuries to starters like Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell have transferred a bigger workload on the relievers.

“We thought our starters would be a position of strength for us from a workload standpoint, and unfortunately we lead all of baseball in innings for relievers,” Prior said. “Sometimes that’s a good thing, but this early in the year, it’s probably not a good thing.”

PITCH IMPERFECT

Right-hander Tony Gonsolin is set to pitch for the Dodgers for the first time since 2023 when he takes the mound Wednesday afternoon against the Miami Marlins. A return for other starters on the injured list is less certain.

Left-hander Clayton Kershaw had his rehab start at Oklahoma City washed out by inclement weather on Tuesday. The team is working on rescheduling his next rehab outing.

The return of Snell and Glasnow remains a work in progress. Both veteran starters are out with shoulder inflammation.

“It’s something as an organization, we’ve been trying to wrap our head around, because it’s not a good quality of life for anybody,” Prior said about a rash of injuries to Dodgers starters in recent years. “It’s not (god) for the players who suffer the injuries. Doesn’t help us operate at an optimal level as a ball club.”

HELPING HAND

In order to reinforce the bullpen, the Dodgers recalled right-hander Matt Sauer and optioned right-hander Noah Davis to Oklahoma City. Davis was recalled Monday when Glasnow went on the IL but did not pitch in Monday’s game.

Sauer has made just one appearance for the Dodgers this season when he gave up one run in 1⅔ innings against the Washington Nationals on April 7.

UP NEXT

Marlins (RHP Cal Quantrill 2-2, 7.83 ERA) at Dodgers (RHP Tony Gonsolin, 2025 debut), Wednesday, 12:10 p.m., SportsNet LA, 570 AM

​ Orange County Register 

The US government has a new policy for terminating international students’ legal status

• April 30, 2025

By MORIAH BALINGIT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government has begun shedding new light on a crackdown on international students, spelling out how it targeted thousands of people and laying out the grounds for terminating their legal status.

The new details emerged in lawsuits filed by some of the students who suddenly had their status canceled in recent weeks with little explanation.

In the past month, foreign students around the U.S. have been rattled to learn their records had been removed from a student database maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some went into hiding for fear of being picked up by immigration authorities or abandoned their studies to return home.

On Friday, after mounting court challenges, federal officials said the government was restoring international students’ legal status while it developed a framework to guide future terminations. In a court filing Monday, it shared the new policy: a document issued over the weekend with guidance on a range of reasons students’ status can be canceled, including the revocation of the visas they used to enter the U.S.

Brad Banias, an immigration attorney representing a student whose status was terminated, said the new guidelines vastly expand ICE’s authority beyond previous policy, which did not count visa revocation as grounds for losing legal status.

“This just gave them carte blanche to have the State Department revoke a visa and then deport those students even if they’ve done nothing wrong,” Banias said.

Many of the students who had visas revoked or lost their legal status said they had only minor infractions on their record, including driving infractions. Some did not know why they were targeted at all.

Lawyers for the government provided some explanation at a hearing Tuesday in the case of Banias’ client Akshar Patel, an international student studying information systems in Texas. Patel’s status was terminated — and then reinstated — this month, and he is seeking a preliminary court ruling to keep him from being deported.

In court filings and in the hearing, Department of Homeland Security officials said they ran the names of student visa holders through the National Crime Information Center, an FBI-run database that contains reams of information related to crimes. It includes the names of suspects, missing persons and people who have been arrested, even if they have never been charged with a crime or had charges dropped.

In total, about 6,400 students were identified in the database search, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes said in the hearing Tuesday. One of the students was Patel, who had been pulled over and charged with reckless driving in 2018. The charge was ultimately dropped — information that is also in NCIC.

Patel appears in a spreadsheet with 734 students whose names had come up in NCIC. That spreadsheet was forwarded to a Homeland Security official, who, within 24 hours of receiving it, replied: “Please terminate all in SEVIS.” That’s a different database listing foreigners who have legal status as students in the U.S.

Reyes said the short time frame suggested that no one had reviewed the records individually to find out why the students’ names came up in NCIC.

“All of this could have been avoided if someone had taken a beat,” said Reyes, who was appointed by President Joe Biden. She said the government had demonstrated “an utter lack of concern for individuals who have come into this country.”

When colleges discovered the students no longer had legal status, it prompted chaos and confusion. In the past, college officials say, legal statuses typically were updated after colleges told the government the students were no longer studying at the school. In some cases, colleges told students to stop working or taking classes and warned them they could be deported.

Still, government attorneys said the change in the database did not mean the students actually lost legal status, even though some of the students were labeled “failure to maintain status.” Instead, lawyers said, it was intended to be an “investigative red flag.”

“Mr. Patel is lawfully present in the U.S.,” Andre Watson of the Department of Homeland Security said. “He is not subject to immediate detention or removal.”

Reyes declined to issue a preliminary injunction and urged lawyers from both sides to come to a settlement to ensure Patel could stay in the U.S.

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​ Orange County Register