Republican concedes long-unsettled North Carolina court election to Democratic incumbent

• May 7, 2025

By GARY D. ROBERTSON

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The Republican challenger for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat conceded last November’s election on Wednesday to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs, two days after a federal judge ruled that potentially thousands of disputed ballots challenged by Jefferson Griffin must remain in the final tally.

In a statement provided by his campaign to The Associated Press, Griffin said he would not appeal Monday’s decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Myers, who also ordered that the State Board of Elections certify results that show Riggs is the winner by 734 votes from over 5.5 million ballots cast in the race.

Griffin’s decision sets the stage for Riggs to be officially elected to an eight-year term as an associate justice.

“While I do not fully agree with the District Court’s analysis, I respect the court’s holding — just as I have respected every judicial tribunal that has heard this case,” Griffin said. “I will not appeal the court’s decision.”

Myers delayed carrying out his order for seven days in case Griffin wanted to ask the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review his decision. Democrats, meanwhile, had called on Griffin to accept defeat.

Riggs is one of two Democrats on the seven-member state Supreme Court, and winning improved the party’s efforts to retake a court majority later in the decade. Griffin is a state Court of Appeals judge whose term ends in 2028.

“I wish my opponent the best and will continue to pray for her and all the members of our court system here in North Carolina. I look forward to continuing to serve the people of North Carolina,” Griffin said.

While the Associated Press declared over 4,800 winners in the 2024 general election, the North Carolina Supreme Court election was the last race nationally that was undecided.

Riggs said in a news release Wednesday that she was “glad the will of the voters was finally heard.”

“It’s been my honor to lead this fight — even though it should never have happened — and I’m in awe of the North Carolinians whose courage reminds us all that we can use our voices to hold accountable any politician who seeks to take power out of the hands of the people,” she said.

Myers ruled that Griffin’s efforts after the Nov. 5 election to remove from the election total ballots that state appeals courts agreed were ineligible under state law would have damaged federal due process or equal protection rights of affected voters had they been implemented.

Griffin filed formal protests that initially appeared to cover more than 65,000 ballots. Ensuing state court rulings whittled the total to votes from two categories, covering from as few as 1,675 ballots to as many as 7,000, according to court filings. Griffin hoped that removing ballots he said were unlawfully cast would flip the outcome to him.

Democrats and voting rights groups had raised alarm about Griffin’s efforts, which in one category of ballots had only targeted six Democratic-leaning counties. They called it an attack on democracy that would serve as a road map for the GOP to reverse election results in other states. Griffin said Wednesday that his legal efforts were always “about upholding the rule of law and making sure that every legal vote in an election is counted.”

Most of the ballots that state appeals courts found ineligible came from military or overseas voters who didn’t provide copies of photo identification or an ID exception form with their absentee ballots. The appeals courts had permitted a 30-day “cure” process for those voters so their ballots could still count if they provided ID information.

Myers, who was nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump, agreed with Riggs and her allied litigants that the “retroactive invalidation” of those ballots violated the rights of service members, missionaries, or others working or studying abroad who cast their ballots under the rules for the 2024 election.

“You establish the rules before the game. You don’t change them after the game is done,” Myers wrote in his order.

The other category of ballots was cast by overseas voters who have never lived in the U.S. but whose parents were declared North Carolina residents. A state law had authorized those people to vote in state elections, but state appeals courts said it violated the state Constitution. Myers wrote that there was no process for people mistakenly on the list to contest their ineligibility, representing “an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote.”

Griffin said Wednesday the rulings of state appeals judges still recognized that the state election board failed to follow laws and the state constitution.

“These holdings are very significant for securing our state’s elections,” he said.

​ Orange County Register 

FAA fixing problems at Newark airport while planning overhaul of US air traffic control system

• May 7, 2025

By JOSH FUNK

The Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday that it plans to upgrade the technology used to get radar data to air traffic controllers directing planes to the troubled Newark, New Jersey, airport, and improve staffing to alleviate problems that have caused hundreds of flights to be canceled there.

At the same time, the agency plans pursue a broader multibillion-dollar plan that will be announced Thursday for long-overdue upgrades to the nation’s air traffic control system.

A January midair collision between a passenger jet and Army helicopter over Washington, D.C., that killed 67 people, followed by a string of other crashes and mishaps, raised alarms about aviation safety and prompted officials to reexamine the system.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says flying remains the safest way to travel because of existing precautions, but the problems in Newark demonstrate the desperate need for upgrades.

“We are on it. We are going to fix it. We are going to build a brand new system for all of you and your families and the American people,” Duffy said.

The radar system air traffic controllers in Philadelphia use to direct planes in and out of the Newark airport went offline for at least 30 seconds on April 28. That facility relies on radar data sent over lines from New York that may have failed. Some of those lines are old copper phone lines instead of much more reliable fiber optic lines that can handle more data. The reason the FAA is relying on those lines is because the agency moved the Newark controllers out of the New York facility to Philadelphia last summer to address staffing issues.

The FAA says it plans to replace any old copper wires with fiber optics and add three new data lines between its New York facility and Philadelphia. The agency is also working to get additional controllers trained and certified.

It wasn’t immediately clear how quickly either of those steps will be completed, but Duffy has said he hopes the situation in Newark will improve by summer. Several controllers remain on extended trauma leave after the radar outage.

In the meantime, the FAA has slowed traffic in and out of Newark to ensure flights can be handled safely, leading to cancellations. On Wednesday, Newark led the nation in cancellations with 41 canceled departures and 43 canceled arrivals, according to FlightAware.com. That’s even after United Airlines cut 35 flights a day from its schedule at the airport starting last weekend.

“We’ve slowed down the traffic. Safety is our mission. We love efficiency, but safety is critical for us. And so, if we feel like there’s issues in the airspace, we’ll slow it down,” Duffy said. “We’re looking at bringing in all of the airlines that serve Newark and having all of them with all of us have a conversation about how do we manage the flights out of Newark.”

​ Orange County Register 

Less farmland is going for organic crops as costs and other issues take root

• May 7, 2025

By CAITLYN DAPROZA of Rochester Institute of Technology and PATRICK WHITTLE of The Associated Press

SKANEATELES, N.Y. (AP) — Farmer Jeremy Brown taps the nose of a young calf. “I love the ones with the pink noses,” he says.

This pink-nosed animal is just one of about 3,200 cattle at Twin Birch Dairy in Skaneateles, New York. In Brown’s eyes, the cows on the farm aren’t just workers: “They’re the boss, they’re the queen of the barn.”

Brown, a co-owner at Twin Birch, is outspoken on the importance of sustainability in his operation. The average dairy cow emits as much as 265 pounds (120 kilograms) of methane, a potent climate-warming gas, each year. Brown says Twin Birch has worked hard to cut its planet-warming emissions through a number of environmentally sound choices.

“Ruminants are the solution, not the problem, to climate change,” he said.

Wearing a weathered hoodie and a hat promoting a brand of cow medicine, Brown was spending a windy Friday morning artificially inseminating some of the farm’s massive Jerseys and Holsteins. He stepped over an electric manure scraper used to clean the animals’ barn.

The electric scraper means the dairy doesn’t have to use a fuel-burning machine for that particular job. Twin Birch also recycles manure for use on crops, cools its milk with water that gets recirculated for cows to drink and grows most of its own feed.

Despite all that, the farm has no desire to pursue a U.S. Department of Agriculture organic certification, Brown said. Doing so would add costs and require the farm to forego technology that makes the dairy business, and ultimately the customer’s jug of milk, more affordable, he said.

He raises a question many farmers have been asking: Is organic farming just a word?

Declining enthusiasm for the organic certification

An increasing number of American farmers think so. America’s certified organic acreage fell almost 11% between 2019 and 2021. Numerous farmers who implement sustainable practices told The Associated Press that they have stayed away from the certification because it’s costly, doesn’t do enough to combat climate change and appears to be losing cachet in the marketplace. Converting an existing farm from conventional to organic agriculture can cost tens of thousands of dollars and add labor costs.

The rules governing the National Organic Program were published in 2000, and in the years after, organic farming boomed to eventually reach more than 5 million acres. But that has been declining in recent years.

Any downward trend is significant, as organic farms make up less than 1% of the country’s total acreage, and organic sales are typically only a tiny share of the nationwide total.

Shannon Ratcliff, a farmer and co-owner of organically certified Shannon Brook Farms in Watkins Glen, New York, attributes the decline to a 2018 fraud case in Iowa involving a farmer selling grain mislabeled as certified organic. “The whole thing went crazy — work requirements for farmers ramped up and inspection levels were higher,” she said.

It’s also just a tough business, Ratcliff said.

Her co-owner, Walter Adam, also thinks younger generations’ interest in farming of any kind is also declining.

“It takes six months to learn everything,” Adam said. “We can’t find anybody as willing to work on the farm.”

Adam drives to Manhattan each week to sell their meat and eggs at markets, and spends Sunday mornings helping Ratcliff with business at the Brighton Farmers Market in Brighton, New York.

Frank Mitloehner, a professor in animal science in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at University of California Davis, said lack of flexibility and efficiency are driving farmers away from organic in an era of rising prices for farmers. He said organic standards need to be overhauled or the marketplace risks organic going away completely.

“I am in awe that so many organic farmers were able to produce that way for that long,” he said. “It seems that they are losing consumer base in these financially troubling times.”

But the label still matters to some buyers

Still, there are consumers determined to buy organic. Aaron Swindle, a warehouse employee at a chain supermarket, spends every Sunday morning shopping for organic groceries at the Brighton Farmers Market.

“The taste quality is different when it’s growing nearby,” Swindle said. He calls the Finger Lakes of New York a “trifecta,” a region that contributes dairy, produce, and meat for its residents.

John Bolton, owner of Bolton Farms in Hilton, New York, said he has some reservations about organic certification, but he’s pursuing it for his hydroponic farm, which grows produce in nutrient-rich water instead of soil. It produces greens such as kale and chard and is popular as a supplier for restaurants in western New York, and draws waves of regular customers at the Rochester Public Market on weekends.

Bolton doesn’t use pesticides. On a chilly day this spring, he was at his greenhouse unloading 1,500 ladybugs to do the work of eliminating the operation’s aphids. That’s the kind of practice organic farms use to earn the certification, he said.

He said his operations aren’t immune to the dangers posed by climate change. Abnormally hot days affect their greenhouse, he said: “It’s devastating to not only the people but the plants.”

But Bolton described the organic certification as economically and environmentally beneficial to his farm. Getting the certification will carry an expense, but he is confident it will be worth the price.

“It helps with sales. And you feel good about it – you’re doing the right practices,” Bolton said.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is a collaboration between Rochester Institute of Technology and The Associated Press.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

​ Orange County Register 

Federal judge rules Georgetown scholar’s wrongful arrest case will stay in Virginia

• May 7, 2025

By OLIVIA DIAZ

A federal judge has ruled that a Georgetown scholar’s petition challenging the constitutionality of his arrest should be heard in Virginia, denying the Trump administration’s request to move the case to Texas.

U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles said she would hear arguments in mid-May on whether Badar Khan Suri should be returned to Virginia while his deportation case proceeds in Texas, where he’s now detained. His next hearing in the immigration case is in June.

The judge’s late Tuesday memo says that by swiftly moving Khan Suri from Virginia to Louisiana and then Texas within days of his arrest, the government appeared to be trying to thwart his lawyers’ efforts to challenge his detention in the jurisdiction where it happened.

Khan Suri’s lawyers went to court the day after masked, plain-clothed officers arrested him on the evening of March 17 outside his apartment complex in Arlington, Virginia. Officials said his visa was revoked because of his social media posts and his wife’s connection to Gaza as a Palestinian American. They accused him of supporting Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist organization.

By the time Khan Suri’s petition was filed, authorities had already put him on a plane to Louisiana without allowing him to update his family or lawyer, Khan Suri’s attorneys said. A few days later, he was moved again to Texas.

“This atypical movement would make it difficult for any diligent lawyer’s filings to ’catch up’ to their client’s location,” and followed a pattern now evident in multiple efforts to deport students based on their speech, Giles wrote.

The judge noted that Columbia University scholar Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident with no criminal record who was detained in March over his participation in pro-Palestinian demonstrations was moved within 48 hours of his arrest in Manhattan through lockups in New York, New Jersey, Texas and, then, Louisiana.

She also cited the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University student who was arrested in a Boston suburb, driven New Hampshire and then Vermont, and then flown to a detention center in Basile, Louisiana. A federal appeals court on Wednesday ordered ICE to return Ozturk to Vermont.

Each scholar “was arrested on different days and in different regions,” Giles wrote. “What is similar? … the Government attempted to move each outside of their jurisdictions to Louisiana or Texas.”

Unlike the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, the courts in Texas and western Louisiana are dominated by Republican-appointed judges, and any appeals go to the reliably conservative 5th Circuit, where 12 of the 17 full-time appellate judges were appointed by Republican presidents, including six by President Donald Trump.

Khan Suri came from India to the U.S. in 2022 on a J-1 visa. A visiting scholar and postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown, he taught a course on majority and minority human rights in South Asia, and lived with his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and three children.

U.S. attorneys argued that Khan Suri was quickly moved because a facility in Farmville, Virginia, was overcrowded and a nearby detention center in Caroline County had “no available beds and only had limited emergency bedspace.”

But the judge observed that for weeks thereafter, Khan Suri had to sleep on a plastic cot on the floor of an overcrowded detention center in Texas, and that according to his attorneys, he now sleeps on a bed in an overcrowded dormitory with about 50 other people. The government’s representations, she wrote, “are plainly inconsistent and are further undermined by the fact that Prairieland Detention Center, where Petitioner (Khan Suri) is currently held, is overcrowded.”

​ Orange County Register 

LGBTQ+ community watches conclave and hopes Francis’ progressive moves endure

• May 7, 2025

When Dustin Pagan-Peterson and his husband found out Pope Francis had passed, the only thing they could do after confirming it online was hold each other’s hands across the breakfast table and cry.

“It’s still so hard to actually believe,” Pagan-Peterson said Friday, April 25.

Pope Francis was 88 when he died on Easter Monday, April 21. His death was a blow to Catholics around the world, especially those who appreciated Francis’ views on LGBTQ+ people, poverty and immigration.

As the May 7 conclave gets underway in the Vatican to choose a new pope, there’s concern in the LGBTQ+ community over whether a new pontiff’s views will be as progressive as Francis’s.

”I guess for us, the scary part is what comes or who comes next, you know?” Pagan-Peterson said. “And how much will that person, whoever he is, follow in the footsteps of Pope Francis or not? Where does that leave the LGBT community as far as the Catholic church goes?”

Pagan-Peterson, who lives with his husband in Torrance, converted to Catholicism in 2018 through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. He knew that Catholicism wasn’t much more accepting of homosexuality than the Southern Baptist environment he was raised in, but as his relationship with his Catholic partner deepened, so did his faith in the Catholic view of Christianity.

He recalled seeing one of pope Francis’ first news conferences in 2013, when a reporter asked Francis about his stance on the sexual orientation of priests and the freshly-appointed pope had replied, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

“ Then he just expanded from there to say that priests could bless, at least, gay people,” Pagan-Peterson said. “We still can’t get married in the church, but still that blessing, it’s just been such a light.”

Southern California LGBTQ+ Catholics like Jessica Gerhardt, who is bisexual and newly wed to her trans nonbinary partner with a Jesuit officiant, see Pope Francis’ stance on homosexuality as one of the strongest defenses against discrimination in the church.

”Ideally you wouldn’t have to appeal to higher authorities to just be heard,” Gerhardt said. “But in the case of … the hierarchical Catholic church, being able to point to a pope that did have these fairly social-justice-minded, liberation-theology-minded perspectives … all of it was just really inspiring.”

Gerhardt added, ”I just felt like the pope’s spirituality, and very much akin to that Jesuit spirituality, was one that I would try to come back to whenever my inner critical trad voice would be like, ‘You’re not Catholic enough, you’re not Catholic enough.’”

Jamie Garza, a structural engineer in Los Angeles, and a trans woman, said she had been following the pope’s health closely, praying for his full recovery.

Garza began her transition “in earnest” in 2018, and said she’s been very happy ever since, and feels support from her parish and community.

“I’ve been able to deepen my faith and live out my faith honestly,” Garza said. “I think before, it’s hard to live out your faith when you hate yourself, or you’re carrying a burden that you’re not a whole person or that there’s something missing.”

Garza is concerned about how the pope’s death will affect the current state of affairs for trans people in the church.

“ I’m afraid of what’s going to come next,” Garza said. “The pope provided cover and openness and allowed the LGBT community to live, to thrive, to do ministry, not just to partially exist, but to exist fully in our churches. And I’m afraid if you lose that leader, it may be easier for churches to kick us out.”

In October of 2023, Pope Francis signed a letter to the Rev. José Negri in Brazil which stated that a transgender person “can receive Baptism under the same conditions as other believers.” Along with another section that affirmed trans adults could be godparents, the notes are part of Francis’ lasting legacy of creaking the door open for LGBTQ+ people to be more accepted into the church, despite the lack of change in the official doctrine.

“ The Catechism in the Catholic church defines homosexuality as intrinsically disordered, but it also emphasizes the importance of love, compassion, acceptance to people who are homosexual,” said Michelle Loris, director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Sacred Heart University. “Before Francis, that was the main document.”

According to Loris, of the 135 cardinals who will participate in the conclave, 108 were appointed by Francis, and many of those 108 favored an ideology that Francis embraced called synodality. The principle calls church leaders to listen attentively to congregants of all walks of life in order to create a more inclusive, community-centered church.

“Synodality is a way of being heard … in the Greek it means ‘journeying together,’” Loris said. “He brought people together sitting at a round table from different countries, from different ethnicities, clerics, lay people, men, women, all of them together, talking about the important issues.”

The attention to synodality amidst the electing cardinals implies they could elect a pope with similar values. Loris said in that case, it would be likely the pope-elect would continue Francis’ pastoral work, but unforeseeable that he would push LGBTQ+ rights within the church any further than Francis did. The new pope will face the ever-present obstacle of navigating common ground within a church where some cardinals believe LGBTQ+ people are part of the community, and others believe in criminalizing homosexuality.

”What Francis has done is, it’s just amazing. It really is,” Loris said. “The gospel, the work of Jesus Christ, was the work of love and mercy, and that’s what he tried to bring in. For him the Church was in fact the people of God … all of us. Todos todos todos (meaning everyone, everyone, everyone).”

While worried for the future, Garza said she is proud to be visible, and what she called “an easy target.” She wants people within the church to know that she is an example of trans people who want to be a part of the church’s ministry, who want to contribute and “be a part of the family.”

“ Through his leadership and his not only acceptance but interaction and dialogue with the LGBT community, specifically the trans community and the local trans community in Rome, [Pope Francis] has allowed a shift,” Garza said. “It’s allowed pastors locally to be welcoming to everybody.”

​ Orange County Register 

House GOP backing off some Medicaid cuts as report shows millions of people would lose health care

• May 7, 2025

By LISA MASCARO and AMANDA SEITZ

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans appear to be backing off some, but not all, of the steep reductions to the Medicaid program as part of their big tax breaks bill, as they run into resistance from more centrist GOP lawmakers opposed to ending nearly-free health care coverage for their constituents back home.

This is as a new report out Wednesday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that millions of Americans would lose Medicaid coverage under the various proposals being circulated by Republicans as cost-saving measures. House Republicans are scrounging to come up with as much as $1.5 trillion in cuts across federal government health, food stamp and other programs, to offset the revenue lost for some $4.5 trillion in tax breaks.

“Under each of those options, Medicaid enrollment would decrease and the number of people without health insurance would increase,” the CBO report said.

The findings touched off fresh uncertainty over House Speaker Mike Johnson’s ability to pass what President Donald Trump calls his “big, beautiful bill” by a self-made Memorial Day deadline.

Lawmakers are increasingly uneasy, particularly amid growing economic anxiety over Trump’s own policies, including the trade war that is sparking risks of higher prices, empty shelves and job losses in communities nationwide. Central to the package is the GOP priority of extending tax breaks, first enacted in 2017, that are expiring later this year. But they want to impose program cuts elsewhere to help pay for them and limit the continued climb in the nation’s debt and deficits.

Johnson has been huddling privately all week in the speaker’s office at the Capitol with groups of Republicans, particularly the more moderate GOP lawmakers in some of the most contested seats in the nation, who are warning off steep cuts that would slash through their districts.

Democrats, who had requested the CBO report, pounced on the findings.

“This non-partisan Congressional Budget Office analysis confirms what we’ve been saying all along: Republicans’ Medicaid proposals result in millions of people losing their health care,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who sought the review with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

House Republican lawmakers exiting a meeting late Tuesday evening indicated that Johnson and the GOP leadership were walking away from some of the most debated Medicaid changes to the federal matching fund rates provided to the states.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., said those Medicaid changes “are dead.”

Republican Rep. Nick LaLota of New York, reminded that Trump himself has said he would oppose Medicaid cuts. Instead, he said the growing consensus within the Republican ranks is to focus the Medicaid cuts on other provisions.

Among the other ideas, LaLota said, are imposing work requirements for those receiving Medicaid coverage, requiring recipients to verify their eligibility twice a year instead of just once and ensuring no immigrants who are in the U.S. without legal standing are receiving aid.

But the more conservative Republicans, including members of the House Freedom Caucus, are insisting on steeper cuts as they fight to prevent skyrocketing deficits from the tax breaks.

Medicaid is a joint program run by states and the federal government, covering 71 million adults.

Republicans are considering a menu of options to cut federal spending on the program, including reducing the share that the federal government pays for enrollees health care — in some cases it is as much as 90%.

They are also considering and setting a cap on how much the federal government spends on each person enrolled in Medicaid, though that idea also appears to be losing support among lawmakers.

While those changes would bring in billions of dollars in cost savings, they would also result in roughly 10 million people losing Medicaid coverage, the CBO said.

They appear to be off the table.

But other proposed Medicaid changes are still in the mix for Republicans, including imposing new limits on a state’s tax on health care providers that generate larger payments from the federal government. That would bring in billions in savings, but could also result in some 8 million people losing coverage, the report said.

​ Orange County Register 

Swanson: Angels need more veteran leadership by example

• May 7, 2025

ANAHEIM – Baseball is hard.

Or it can be.

The way the Angels have been playing it.

Baseball is like life, too, we know; you’ve got to go through it to get through it.

Whether the Angels get through it this season, well, we’ll see. The long game is afoot.

Whether they can, well, that is going to depend on the club’s “veteranism,” as Manager Ron Washington dubbed the thing that every team needs but that’s been in short supply so far for the mostly hapless Halos.

After starting the season 8-4, the Angels went on a slide that became a slump that turned into an absolute free fall. They won only five of their next 21 games and two of their previous 12 before showing some inclination that they could pull out of the nosedive, with Tuesday’s 8-3 victory against the Toronto Blue Jays.

The result was astonishing for the Angels’ abrupt offensive onslaught – their six runs in the eighth inning was more than they’d scored in a game since April 10 – and also for the maturity the club displayed, the discipline and demeanor, keeping cool on a chilly spring night at the Big A.

The victory might prove to be a blip, but it didn’t feel like it in the moment. It felt like a hint. Or, a hint of a hint? A taste, a tease. A peek around the corner at what could be possible if the guys on this Angels roster stopped pressing. At the plate, on the mound, overthinking or thinking about it wrong, everyone putting more pressure on each another in the self-defeating cycle.

That’s where the veteranism is supposed to come into play.

Why the Angels need their guys who’ve gone and gotten through it to come through.

Why they needed Taylor Ward, a 31-year-old with seven-plus years of major league experience, to be a teammate-teacher by example. To remind everyone that, more often than not, the work works.

To be a professional hitter who tackles a dismaying 0-for-27 slump by showing up early and take an extra 35 or 40 pitches from a live minor-league arm, replica at-bats and a “skull session” afterward, as Washington coined that, to analyze the batting session.

And, importantly, to show results – so that Washington might, in fact, get “the whole team out here” doing the same.

Gratification came instantly Tuesday for Ward. In the first inning, when he launched a two-run laser 419 feet over the centerfield wall, his longest home run of the season tying the game 2-2. He finished the night with two hits and a walk. “Hopefully,” Washington said, “it’s more to come.”

The Angels need more of that from Ward and the other adults in the locker room, because as impressive as Logan O’Hoppe, 25, and Zach Neto, 24, have been, hitting .294 and .290, respectively, entering play Wednesday – respectfully, the kids aren’t supposed to carry their elders.

The Angels really could use Luis Rengifo – 28, with six-plus years of major league experience and a current batting average of .214 before Wednesday’s game – to work out his issues at the plate. And for 33-year-old Mike Trout to get healthy and get on track; the Angels’ biggest star was hitting .179 in 121 at-bats before a bone bruise in his left knee sat him down for at least 10 days.

They’d love more of the same from Yoán Moncada, the Cuban infielder who will turn 30 later this month and who played his first game Tuesday since going on the injured list with a thumb injury, just before the Angels offense stalled.

Washington was eager to welcome back his “presence,” which is to say, his patient example, the fact that nearly 20% of all his plate appearances result in walks – though on Tuesday night, experience told him he had to go with a different plan: “I was not going to take any pitches, I was going to swing, attack; that’s how you get your timing back.”

Moncada saw only seven pitches in his return to work, including the only one he got in the eighth, when he smashed a four-seam fastball 407 feet off reliever Jeff Hoffman to drive in three runs and build a 7-3 buffer that felt like a small miracle.

The Angels knew they need to arm themselves with some extra savvy in the bullpen too, which is why on Tuesday they called up right-handers Hector Neris and Connor Brogdon to a group of relievers that has, for the past few weeks, seemed to fail every time they were set up for it.

Neris, 35, comes packing 12 seasons of major league experience, including a 4.10 ERA in 59⅓ innings last season for the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros. Brogdon, 30, brings five years of big league experience, and boasted a 3.36 ERA in 101⅔ innings with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2021 and 2022.

“We’ve been using our kids and, you know, I don’t say we’ve been destroying ’em, but we certainly been hurting their hearts and their brains,” said Washington, the Angels’ 73-year-old skipper, taking stock of the residual damage that blowing nine of 15 save opportunities might have wrought.

“Because they’ve been coming up here, and some of them just haven’t been successful. And when you got a kid that has the ability to do something, and then it comes to the big leagues, and he don’t get it done, it destroys him. …

“When you’re young, inexperienced, and you come up here and things don’t happen the way you want it to happen, it can beat you down. You got to be mentally strong, and that’s what Neris and Brogdon brings, because they have been through the war. Now, I’m not saying they’re gonna come up here and be perfect, but the things that they may experience when they touch that rubber, they have experienced quite a few things, a little different than what our young kids have been through.”

Experience, the stuff that can’t be taught, that guys have to learn for themselves.

That intangible ingredient that is supposed to help navigate a way through – and that will have to, if the Angels are going to get through this dry spell and turn the season into something more than a campaign that will make the kids stronger only because it didn’t kill them.

​ Orange County Register 

3 former Memphis officers acquitted in fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he fled a traffic stop

• May 7, 2025

By ADRIAN SAINZ

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Three former Memphis officers were acquitted Wednesday of state charges, including second-degree murder, in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols after he ran away from a traffic stop, a death that sparked nationwide protests and prompted renewed calls for police reforms in the U.S.

A jury, which appeared to be all white, took about 8 1/2 hours over two days to find Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith not guilty on all charges after a nine-day trial in state court in Memphis. After the jury’s verdict was read, the defendants hugged their lawyers as relatives of the former officers cried. One relative yelled, “Thank you, Jesus!”

The three defendants still face the prospect of years in prison after they were convicted of federal charges last year, though they were acquitted of the most serious charges then, too.

Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, fled a traffic stop after he was yanked out of his car, pepper-sprayed and hit with a Taser. Five officers who are also Black caught up with him and punched, kicked and hit Nichols with a police baton, struggling to handcuff him as he called out for his mother just steps from his home. Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating and the incident directed intense scrutiny of police in Memphis, a majority-Black city.

Footage of the beating captured by a police pole camera also showed the officers milling about, talking and laughing as Nichols struggled.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who represents Nichols’ family, issued a statement expressing outrage at the verdict.

“Today’s verdicts are a devastating miscarriage of justice,” the statement reads. ”The world watched as Tyre Nichols was beaten to death by those sworn to protect and serve.”

Memphis District Attorney Steve Mulroy said he respects the jury but thinks the evidence was there for every charge that prosecutors brought. He said he spoke to Nichols’ family briefly and, “They were devastated. … I think they were outraged, and we can understand why they would be outraged, given the evidence.”

Prosecutors said the officers beat Nichols out of frustration

Former Memphis officer Desmond Mills Jr., who was also charged in Nichols’ death, testified as a prosecution witness.

Mills and another officer involved in the beating, Emmitt Martin, have agreed to plead guilty to the state charges and did not stand trial under deals with prosecutors. They also pleaded guilty in federal court, where sentencing for all five officers is pending.

The officers had been charged with second-degree murder, aggravated assault, aggravated kidnapping, official misconduct and official oppression.

The officers were accused of using unnecessary force during the arrest of Nichols. They were frustrated, angry and full of adrenaline after Nichols fled the traffic stop, prosecutor Paul Hagerman said in opening statements.

They were “overcome by the moment,” the prosecutor said.

“Nobody is going to call them monsters,” Hagerman said. “It doesn’t take monsters to kill a man.”

Prosecutors argued that the officers used excessive, deadly force in trying to handcuff Nichols and were criminally responsible for each others’ actions. They also said the officers had a duty to intervene and stop the beating and tell medical personnel that Nichols had been hit repeatedly in the head, but they failed to do so.

Defense attorneys said Martin was responsible for the most violence

Defense attorneys attempted to refute accusations that the officers used excessive force to subdue Nichols and followed police policies and standards. Defense attorneys have said the officer who acted with the most violence was Martin, who kicked and punched Nichols several times in the head but is not standing trial.

The defense also seemed to score points with their use-of-force experts, who testified that officers on trial acted in compliance with police department policies and widely accepted law enforcement standards. Attorneys for Bean and Smith called character witnesses who testified that the men were good men and officers who did their job the right way.

Mills testified that he regrets his failure to stop the beating, which led to Nichols’ death from blunt force trauma. Nichols suffered tears and bleeding in the brain, Dr. Marco Ross, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy, said in court testimony.

As Nichols struggled with Bean and Smith, who were holding him on the ground, Mills tried to pepper-spray Nichols, but he ended up spraying himself, he said.

After stepping away to try to recover, Mills then walked up to Nichols and hit his arm three times with a police baton. Mills told prosecutor Paul Hagerman that he hit Nichols with the baton because he was angry over the pepper spray.

The defense argued that Nichols was resisting arrest

Mills acknowledged on the stand that he had a duty to intervene to stop the beating, but didn’t.

But Mills also said Nichols was actively resisting arrest and not complying with orders to present his hands to be cuffed.

During the trial, defense attorney John Keith Perry asked Mills if he would have struck Nichols with the baton if Nichols had just put his hands behind his back. Mills said no.

Martin Zummach, Smith’s attorney, asked Mills if an officer is safe if a suspect is not handcuffed and searched for a weapon. Mills said they were not safe in that circumstance. Nichols was not searched before he ran from the traffic stop.

Mills acknowledged that the officers were afraid and exhausted, but said some of the methods used on Nichols complied with police department policies, including using wrist locks and hitting with a baton.

Zummach noted in closing arguments that credit and debit cards that did not belong to Nichols were found in his car when it was searched after the beating and said it was likely why Nichols ran from the traffic stop. Defense lawyers have argued that the fatal beating would not have taken place if Nichols had just allowed himself to be handcuffed.

“This is Emmitt Martin’s and Tyre Nichols’ doing,” Zummach said.

The defense also suggested Nichols was on drugs, giving him the strength to fight off five strong officers. Some mushrooms containing the hallucinogenic psilocybin were also found in his car, a TBI agent testified. However, a toxicology report showed Nichols only had alcohol and a small amount of marijuana in his system.

Mills admitted Nichols never punched or kicked any of the officers.

Defense lawyers also claimed Bean and Smith could not see the strikes to Nichols’ head because they were blinded by pepper spray and they had tunnel vision as they tried to restrain Nichols.

But prosecutors sowed doubt on that claim by pointing to comments the defendants made after the beating. According to footage from the scene, Bean said Nichols was “eating” the blows and Smith said they hit Nichols with “so many pieces,” or punches. Smith also said “hit him” and Haley said “beat that man,” prosecutor Tanisha Johnson said.

In December, the U.S. Justice Department said a 17-month investigation showed the Memphis Police Department uses excessive force and discriminates against Black people.

​ Orange County Register