‘El Chapo’ sons charged with pushing cheap fentanyl into US

• May 1, 2023

By Christopher Sherman and Mark Stevenson | Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — With Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán serving a life sentence, his sons steered the family business into fentanyl, establishing a network of labs churning out massive quantities of the cheap, deadly drug that they smuggled into the U.S., prosecutors revealed in a recent indictment.

Although Guzmán’s trial revolved around cocaine shipments, the case against his sons exposes the inner workings of a cartel undergoing a generational shift as it worked “to manufacture the most potent fentanyl and to sell it in the United States at the lowest price,” according to the indictment unsealed April 14 in Manhattan.

Synthetic opioids — mostly fentanyl — now kill more Americans every year than died in the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined, feeding an argument among some politicians that the cartels should be branded terrorist organizations and prompting once-unthinkable calls for U.S. military intervention across the border.

“The problem with fentanyl, as some people at the State Department told me, has to be repositioned. It’s not a drug problem; it’s a poisoning problem,” said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst in Mexico, who died Friday. “Very few people go out deliberately looking for fentanyl.”

Hope predicted fentanyl would probably become an issue in next year’s U.S. elections, but he opposed any threat of U.S. intervention, saying “I don’t think that would be a very good way of addressing a public health issue.”

The groundwork for the U.S. fentanyl epidemic was laid more than 20 years ago, with aggressive over-prescribing of the synthetic opioid oxycodone. As U.S. authorities clamped down on its prescription, users moved to heroin, which the Sinaloa cartel happily supplied.

But making its own fentanyl — far more potent and versatile than heroin — in small, easily concealed labs was a game changer. The cartel went from its first makeshift fentanyl lab to a network of labs concentrated in the northern state of Sinaloa in less than a decade.

“These are not super labs, because they give people the illusion that they’re like pharmaceutical labs, you know, very sophisticated,” said Mike Vigil, former head of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. “These are nothing more than metal tubs and they use wooden paddles — even shovels — to mix the chemicals.”

A single cartel “cook” can press fentanyl into 100,000 counterfeit pills every day to fool Americans into thinking they’re taking Xanax, Percocet or oxycodone. The pills are smuggled over the border to supply what son Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar said are “streets of junkies,” the indictment said.

Fentanyl is so cheap to make that the cartel reaps massive profits even wholesaling the drug at 50 cents per pill, prosecutors said.

The drug’s potency makes it particularly dangerous. The narcotic dose of fentanyl is so close to the lethal dose that a pill meant to ensure a high for a habituated user can easily kill a less experienced person taking something they didn’t know was fentanyl.

Between August 2021 and August of last year, more than 107,000 Americans died from drug overdoses, most from synthetic opioids. Last year, the DEA seized more than 57 million fentanyl-laced counterfeit prescription pills, according to the New York indictment.

To protect and expand that business, the “Chapitos,” as the sons are known, have turned to grotesque violence, prosecutors said.

Enforcers Ivan Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzmán Salazar are the lead defendants among 23 associates charged in the New York indictment. Ovidio Guzmán López, alias “the Mouse,” who allegedly pushed the cartel into fentanyl, is charged in another indictment in the same district. Mexico arrested him in January and the U.S. government has requested extradition. Joaquín Guzmán López is charged in the Northern District of Illinois.

According to the Guzmán Salazar indictment, the cartel does some lab testing on its product but conducts more grisly human testing on kidnapped rivals or addicts who are injected until they overdose.

The purity of the cartel’s fentanyl “varies greatly depending on the method and skill of the particular manufacturer,” prosecutors noted. After a user overdosed on one batch, it was still shipped to the U.S.

When the elder Guzmán and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada led the Sinaloa cartel, it operated with a certain degree of restraint. But with Guzmán serving a life sentence and Zambada believed to be suffering from health issues, the Chapitos moved aggressively to avoid a power vacuum that could fragment the cartel.

“What was really a unique advantage of the Sinaloa cartel and El Chapo was the ability to calibrate violence,” said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Brookings Institute.

The wide-ranging New York indictment against the Guzmán Salazar brothers details their penchant for feeding enemies to their pet tigers and describes how they tortured two Mexican federal agents, ripping through one’s muscles with a corkscrew then stuffing the holes with chile peppers before shooting him.

The indictment also provides context to some recent violence in Mexico.

In August 2022, gunmen shot up Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, Texas. Two prison inmates and nine civilians in the city were killed. U.S. prosecutors say the Chapitos’ security arm ordered their local gang associates to commit the violence, targeting a rival cartel’s businesses.

“This is not their father’s Sinaloa cartel,” Felbab-Brown said. “These guys just operate in very different mindsets than their father.”

The Guzmán Salazar indictment makes an initial attempt at disrupting the cartel’s supply chain, naming four people tied to a China-based chemical company and a broker in Guatemala who allegedly helped the cartel get the chemicals and even instructed them on the best recipes for fentanyl.

“When they talk about labs and you’re trying to focus in on labs, that’s not going to have an impact unless you get the finished product or the precursor chemicals,” Vigil said.

Mexico’s government has stumbled through the mixed messaging of its security forces playing up their decommissioning of labs even while President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has asserted that fentanyl is not being produced in Mexico.

In congressional testimony Thursday, DEA Administrator Anne Milgram was pressed about whether Mexico and China are doing enough to cooperate with U.S.

“We want the Mexicans to work with us and we want them to do more,” Milgram said, adding that the DEA wouldn’t hesitate to go after public officials in Mexico or elsewhere should it find evidence of ties to the cartels.

Experts say López Obrador is one obstacle to slowing the cartels’ fentanyl production. After U.S. prosecutors announced the concerted effort against the Sinaloa cartel, López Obrador reacted angrily. The president accused the U.S. government of “spying” and “interference,” suggesting that the case had been built on information gathered by U.S. agents in Mexico.

The president had already severely reduced Mexico’s cooperation with the DEA, experts said.

Hope, the security analyst, said a fundamental problem is that López Obrador doesn’t appear to understand fentanyl’s threat. The president rails against a deterioration of family values in the United States and paints addiction as a moral failing.

“He’s trapped in a moral universe from 50 years ago,” Hope said.

​ Orange County Register 

Power of One: Disneyland Resort Hotels Cast Member Charts Her Own Course with COMPASS

• May 1, 2023

As part of the Disney100 Celebration at Disneyland Resort and “World of Color – ONE” spectacular, we are highlighting cast members who, like our new show, exemplify how one small idea or action — like a single drop of water — can create a ripple that grows into a wave of positive change. Today, let’s meet Allie Kawamoto Choy, Experience Integration manager for Hotels of the Disneyland Resort. 

By Lisa Greathouse

If you take a walk around the Disneyland Resort with Allie Kawamoto Choy, be prepared to be stopped.

A lot.

That’s because she is one of those cast members every other cast member seems to know – and wants to chat with.

It may be because she’s worked in both theme parks and at the Hotels of the Disneyland Resort over her 16-year career. Or it may be because she attained local celebrity status during her two years (2015-16) as a Disney Ambassador during the resort’s 60th anniversary. Or it might be that you’re likely to run into her at Disney VoluntEARS events in the community. Or maybe it’s her role as a leader in COMPASS, the Business Employee Resource Group (BERG) dedicated to advocating, celebrating and educating on behalf of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.

But most likely, it’s because Kawamoto has taken all of the above and woven her experience and passion with genuine kindness, creativity and a can-do spirit to connect people and create partnerships.

“Disney has a really special company culture, and groups like Disney VoluntEARS and COMPASS have kept me engaged as a cast member all these years,” said Kawamoto, who joined the company through the Disney College Program in 2007. In that first year, a fellow cast member invited her to attend a meeting to learn more about COMPASS, and that one event inspired Kawamoto to get involved and ultimately, to find ways to infuse her Japanese heritage with her passion for Disney.

Since then, Kawamoto counts her work as a co-chair with COMPASS among her proudest accomplishments. One example is her collaboration with the Resort Enhancement team on the Emporium retail display windows this May and last to represent Children’s Day in celebration of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Children’s Day is a public holiday in Japan, and the window display includes Japanese elements like the koinobori carp streamers (seen in top photo) to symbolize willpower and success and toys that represent other Asian and Pacific Islander cultures, as well.

“Having a window display on Main Street, U.S.A., to honor this holiday meant the world to me and to so many fellow cast members,” she said. “Seeing a piece of your culture authentically represented in the park is so meaningful. And being able to bring my [then] 10-month-old son to see it made it even more special.”

Kawamoto’s passion to share her heritage also comes in handy in her current role as Experience Integration manager at the three Hotels of the Disneyland Resort, where she helps to bring the themes and celebrations from the theme parks into the guest experience at the hotels. For instance, during last year’s Lunar New Year celebration at Disney California Adventure park, she worked with various partners to add Lunar New Year artwork to the hotel key card holders.

“The work Allie has done with COMPASS and creating synergies in her own role have made a huge impact,” said Connie McCallon, Kawamoto’s leader and director of Hotel Strategy. “Her ability to forge meaningful relationships benefits the business while also supporting our cast and community.”

Whether she is planning events at the hotels or serving as a cultural consultant, Kawamoto says that working at Disneyland Resort during the 100th anniversary celebration of The Walt Disney Company is a dream come true.

“I’ve been a Disney fan for as long as I can remember, so to be able to work for the company during its 100th anniversary is a little surreal,” she said. “I feel incredibly fortunate.”

​ Orange County Register 

Orange County baseball stat leaders: Final 2023

• May 1, 2023

Support our high school sports coverage by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribe now

Final Orange County baseball stat leaders for the 2023 regular season

To be included, teams must have their stats up to date on the MaxPreps.com leaderboards.

HOME RUNS

Name, school                                                     HR           PA           GP

Chase Brunson, San Clemente                             7           112            28

Lucas Marinelli, Portola                                         6             99            26

Connor Sunderland, Fullerton                               6             99            25

Jake Beauchaine, Capistrano Valley Christian     6            105            28

Aidan Espinoza, Huntington Beach                      5            109            28

Raffaele Velazquez, Huntington Beach                5            111            28

Roman Blaser, Newport Harbor                            4             74            23

Johnny Lopez, Canyon                                         4             84            23

Neil Navarro, Buena Park                                     4             89            27

Logan Kelly, Capistrano Valley Christian              4             92            26

Gavin Grahovac, Villa Park                                   4           116             2

Brandon Winokur, Edison                                      3             44           12

Andrew Grove, Villa Park                                       3             94           25

Bradley Navarro, Huntington Beach                       3            95           28

Isaac Cadena, Valencia                                          3            96           27

Jake Wood, San Clemente                                     3            96           28

Nate Norman, Fullerton                                           3           97           25

Kade Murray, Dana Hills                                          3           97           27

Tyler Holland, Mission Viejo                                    3          101           29

Zach Brown, Villa Park                                            3          104           28

Josiah Hartshorn, Orange Lutheran                        3          105           28

RUNS BATTED IN

Name, school                                                      RBI           PA          GP

Grady Jackson, Costa Mesa                                   35          104          26

Connor Sunderland, Fullerton                                 32            99          25

Rylan Morris, Sunny Hills                                        26            89          22

Lucas Marinelli, Portola                                           26            99          26

Sam Stute, Costa Mesa                                           24            98          25

Brandon Tatch, Aliso Niguel                                     24          101          27

Malachi Meni, Fullerton                                            23            91          25

Anthony De Marco, Woodbridge                              23            99          28

Keenan Anzai, Mission Viejo                                    23          108          29

Peter Mellana, Sunny Hills                                       22             82         22

Nate Norman, Fullerton                                            22             97         25

Josiah Hartshorn, Orange Lutheran                         22           105         28

Raffaele Velazquez, Huntington Beach                    22           111          28

Logan Kelly, Capistrano Valley Christian                  21             92         26

Zach Brown, Villa Park                                             21            104        28

Wylan Rottschafer, Costa Mesa                               21            105        25

Aidan Espinoza, Huntington Beach                          21            109        28

RUNS

Name, school                                                        Runs          PA          GP

Wylan Rottschafer, Costa Mesa                                36           105          25

Chase Brunson, San Clemente                                 32           112          28

Connor Sunderland, Fullerton                                    31            99          25

Sam Stute, Costa Mesa                                             29            98          25

Omar Gutierrez, Costa Mesa                                     27            81          24

Zach Fany, Fullerton                                                  27          101          25

Derek Curiel, Orange Lutheran                                  27          110          28

Chase Quezada, Woodbridge                                    26          100          28

Brandon Abernathy, Woodbridge                               26          104          28

Joey Sangenito, Bolsa Grande                                   25           95          23

Gavin Grahovac, Villa Park                                         25         116          28

EARNED-RUN AVERAGE

Name, school                                                          ERA          IP         ER

Griffin Naess, Laguna Beach                                    0.16        44.0         1

Zack Marker, Edison                                                 0.71        19.2         2

Tyler Bellerose, Huntington Beach                           0.72         29.0         3

Matthew Viveros, La Habra                                      0.76         37.0         4

Beau Schweitzer, Laguna Hills                                 0.83         42.1         5

Tyler Onofre, Kennedy                                              0.83         42.0         5

Andrew Parker, Foothill                                             0.94         59.1         8

Justin Durby, Woodbridge                                         0.98         21.1         3

Matt Carbajal, Fullerton                                             0.99         49.1         7

Jared Day, La Habra                                                 1.01          48.1         7

Matthew Kuromoto, Woodbridge                              1.03          61.1         9

Andrew Grove, Villa Park                                         1.06          26.1          4

Cohen Gomez, Canyon                                            1.08          39.0          6

Hunter Long, Capistrano Valley Christian                 1.10          51.0          8

Mike Erspamer, San Clemente                                  1.11         44.0           7

STRIKEOUTS

Name, school                                                          K              BF             IP

Hunterr Long, Capistrano Valley Christian              87            204           51.0

Brandon Luu, Villa Park                                           78           221           53.1

Landon Martin, Sonora                                            71           287           66.1

Kyler FitzPatrick, Laguna Hills                                 70           227           57.1

Dominic Viglione, Newport Harbor                           69           231           51.1

Will Clark, Costa Mesa                                             69           256          61.1

Andrew Vega, Bolsa Grande                                    68           226          50.2

Michael Joyce, Costa Mesa                                     67           264          59.0

Joon Lee, Irvine                                                        65          258           61.2

Shea Blanchard, Laguna Beach                               62          196           48.2

Carson Lane, Huntington Beach                               61         200            44.1

Matthew Kuromoto, Woodbridge                              59          243            61.1

Cooper Berger, University                                        58          213            55.0

Austen Barnett, University                                        57          240            57.2

Jared Day, La Habra                                                 56          192            48.1

Jonathan Rodriguez, Valencia                                  56          193            37.1

​ Orange County Register 

UCLA spring football energy is proving contagious

• May 1, 2023

LOS ANGELES — Throughout spring football practices, UCLA’s defensive players have boasted about their ability to play with energy. They’ve had catchphrases like, “The more tired we get, the more ‘lit’ we get,” and they practice with bravado during team periods.

The mood is infectious among the defense, but it benefits the offense, too.

“They’re gonna challenge you every day, but also it’s going to be competitive and we came here to strive to get better,” receiver Kam Brown said. “You really can’t take a break for the defense we already know they’re going to come with that energy every day, so we’ve got to come right back with it.”

Monday marked the start of the final week of spring practices. Players came out in helmets and shoulder pads and practice ended a half hour earlier than usual as recovery becomes the focus for the final days of spring.

Practice was just long enough to show the offense’s compete level against the defense. Quarterback Dante Moore, who is a contender for a starting job, hit Braden Pegan with roughly a 40-yard pass during a 7-on-7 drill.

“We were a big running team last year,” Pegan said. “We did throw the ball a lot, but I think this year we’re going to be a big-throwing, deep-threat kind of team. So I think I’m really excited about that.”

Receiver Logan Loya also made a diving catch on a pass from Ethan Garbers in an 11-on-11 live period during Monday morning’s practice and Jeremiah McClure hauled in a 20-yard pass from Collin Schlee.

The Bruins lost their two top receivers of last season to graduation — Jake Bobo led with 817 yards and seven touchdowns and Kazmeir Allen was next with 403 yards and two touchdowns.

Their departure leaves room for experienced players like Brown, who ranked third on the team last season with 362 receiving yards in his redshirt-junior campaign. Transfers J.Michael Sturdivant (Cal) and Kyle Ford (USC) will battle for playing time as well as developing talent like Pegan, who is entering his sophomore season after getting into four games as a freshman.

The depth that’s building in the receiver room gives players almost as much energy as going against the Bruins defense does.

“I’m excited for it,” Brown said. “The more playmakers you can have on the field, that makes everybody’s job easier. It’ll make my job easier, their job easier, everybody and to work collectively as a unit and get everybody on the same page is something that every football player loves.”

Receivers value their position coach

Jerry Neuheisel is in his third season as the wide receivers coach, and players are reaping benefits from working with him.

Neuheisel is one of the youngest people on the coaching staff as a 2016 graduate of UCLA, where he was a backup quarterback and even earned the Charles Pike Memorial Award for Outstanding Scout Team Player his freshman year.

“He tells us what the quarterback sees,” Brown said, “because a lot of times, we may see it from our point of view, but coming from the guy who throws the ball out there and what he’s looking for, he gives us great pointers all the time.”

Last season, UCLA’s offense threw for a total of 3,463 yards and 29 touchdowns and averaged over 500 yards of total offense for the first time.

Back on the field with the receivers this spring, Neuheisel looks and sounds like a quarterback when he coaches, throwing tight spirals and speaking with a firm and quick cadence.

“He’ll throw deep balls and he’ll drop it in,” Pegan said with a laugh.

Related Articles

​ Orange County Register 

Kings’ playoff exit hurt more because team was so close

• May 1, 2023

EL SEGUNDO — As the NHL’s first round crashed to a close with a Game 7 in New Jersey on Monday, the Kings were left to lick their wounds from a fierce battle with the Edmonton Oilers, who eliminated the black and silver in six games on Saturday.

While it’s a familiar feeling – they were eliminated by Edmonton in seven games during last year’s opening round – the Kings spoke of novel coalescence and a bright future at Sunday’s exit interviews, while still healing from a series that featured a pair of overtime games and two one-goal games.

“In the group, this year, the camaraderie in the room was amazing. Every guy would do anything for each other, and you’d feel that every day in practice and every day in games,” center Blake Lizotte said. “When you have a team that’s like that, that has a special bond away from the rink, these losses sting quite a bit more when you’d give the shirt off your back for everyone in the room.”

Lizottte has been a career King, but even newly acquired winger and top point-per-game scorer Kevin Fiala felt the love, despite being disappointed with the Kings’ finish.

“It felt like home, quickly. I’d been in Nashville and Minnesota longer than here, and I feel like I’ve been here the longest,” Fiala said.

Here is a quick glance at the pluses and minuses of what was, by points total, the second-best regular-season in the 55-year history of the franchise.

Special Teams

Plus: The power-play

Minus: The penalty kill

Not only did the Kings make a historic about-face on the power play, which General Manager Rob Blake attributed to a combination of improved personnel and competition between units, they carried their success into the postseason, connecting on one third of their opportunities.

Over a full season, that would have been the best mark in NHL history, edging out this year’s Oilers. Edmonton set the record during the campaign and then exploded for a 57.1% mark in the postseason, which once again exposed a Kings penalty kill that struggled through the bulk of the season.

“Power play was a difference, a huge turning point for us this year, we gained a lot of momentum and we won a lot of games like that, too,” center Phillip Danault said. “We needed to be better on the kill, that was obvious.”

Offense

Plus: Production

Minus: Timely scoring

Where two years ago the Kings could barely muster one scoring line, flanking Kopitar with an aging Dustin Brown and utility man Alex Iafallo, last year they cobbled together a pace-generating second line and this year they often featured their leading scorer and a 20-plus-goal-scorer, Gabe Vilardi, on their third line. The results were tangible as the Kings finally reified the vision of Coach Todd McLellan for a high-tempo, high-chance, high-possession and, now, high-scoring system, all while playing a stingy 1-3-1 trap that flummoxed many attacks.

Yet in the playoffs, the Kings scored their two overtime winners following Edmonton penalties and, in one case, because of an alleged missed high stick as well. After four hermetically sealed affairs to begin the series, Edmonton came up with a decisive win in Game 5 and a late tiebreaker in Game 6 that sealed the Kings’ fate. While the Kings had dominated five-on-five play and mostly been burned by two of the three Edmonton 100-point scorers this season as well as its power play, Game 6 saw Edmonton accumulate four even-strength goals, two of which came from their fourth line.

“We were flat-out a better team this year than last year. We were because of personnel, the players that we had available to us and we improved in a lot of areas. But, to my point, so was Edmonton,” said McLellan, who coached Edmonton for more than three seasons.

Defense

Plus: Depth

Minus: Decisions

The Kings’ went from lacking a serviceable NHL defense corps to burgeoning with options in short order, but they’ve still got pieces of their blue-line puzzle strewn about the dinner table. Sean Durzi played a significant and clear-cut role quarterbacking the second power-play unit and also showed growth as a penalty killer. But his five-on-five role saw him shift sides, change partners and ultimately drop to the third pairing once Vladislav Gavrikov was acquired from Columbus. Durzi appreciated the experience but seemed to hint at a desire for more consistency, much as Fiala did when asked about his linemates.

Though veteran Alex Edler seems like a long shot to return to the Kings and Sean Walker expressed doubts about his being a King next year, despite being under contract, that’s not the extent of their moving pieces on defense. They would like to re-sign Gavrikov, an unrestricted free agent to be, give Durzi a solid evaluation in his upcoming contract year and also integrate some prospects. Jordan Spence mostly bided his time in Ontario this year and prospect Brandt Clarke returned to the OHL to put up nearly two points a game against his peers. Blake said, in so many words, that he’d penciled Clarke into the Kings’ lineup. McLellan added that, much as they’d done with changing some of captain Anze Kopitar’s responsibilities to reduce fatigue, he was ruminating on how to ease some pressure off top defenseman Drew Doughty.

“We’ll have to look at managing him a little bit,” McLellan said. “That’s probably a fight we’ll have because he wants to play 26 minutes a night and he’s very capable of it, but we need to get (80-plus) games out of him.”

Goaltending

Plus: It made it through the season

Minus: Who knows what’s next?

In a puzzling move, former GM Dean Lombardi invested the first pick the Kings had in the 2011 draft into Christopher Gibson, when the organization had a budding Jonathan Quick and the tantalizing prospect Jonathan Bernier. Since that point, the Kings haven’t invested anything higher than a third-round pick into a goalie and their limited commitments have been even more fruitless than they have been sparing.

This season, they cycled through Cal Petersen, who was sent to the minors and fared worse than expected there; Quick, whose potential hall-of-fame tenure came to an abrupt and unceremonious end at the trade deadline; Pheonix Copley, who’d last seen regular NHL duty in 2019; and Joonas Korpisalo, the impending UFA who started all six playoff games.

Copley is signed for next season at a modest cap hit, while Petersen’s carries a whopping $5 million annual average value. On a day where both goalies drew a little attention and praise, there was also talk of re-signing Korpisalo, meaning any quotes might only add to the confusion in net.

Coaching, health and intangibles

Though leading postseason scorer and top goal-scorer Adrian Kempe said the series might have been different if the Kings were fully healthy (three important forwards missed at least one game), they lost significantly fewer man games to injury this season and had their full array of players available for Game 6.

McLellan will return for the fifth season of his five-year contract, and one could expect assistants Jim Hiller and Trent Yawney back. McLellan and Edmonton coach Jay Woodcroft, who remained the closest of friends, paused their relationship again during the series but resumed it immediately at the series’ conclusion. Woodcroft’s theatrics, including requesting a podium rather than a table for the postgame news conference and some braggadocious moments behind said podium, receded as he became highly complimentary of McLellan and his staff following Game 6. McLellan returned the favor Sunday but, in the NHL as in all sports, the players win championships. With Quick gone, Doughty and Kopitar are the last vestiges of the only two Stanley Cups in Kings lore, from 2012 and 2014, as other big-game performers like Kempe and Danault hope to add to the organization’s legacy.

“I’ve seen this group mature now,” Kopitar said. “I think this window, if we’re not quite in there yet, is approaching. We’re taking strides in the right direction, the group is getting tight and I’ve seen that before.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Swanson: Lakers’ Rob Pelinka defied critics and built a contender

• May 1, 2023

Rob Pelinka might make a pretty successful Realtor if he weren’t already a good basketball general manager.

Yes, you read that right.

What did Willy Shakespeare write? Worms turn, man.

O we of little faith: The seventh-seeded Lakers have just easily disposed of the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies in their first-round Western Conference playoff series.

The Lakers became the second team since the play-in tournament was instituted in 2020 to advance in the playoffs, along with the eighth-seeded Miami Heat, who also just did it. And the second team in the NBA’s broader history to start 2-10 or worse and recover to win a postseason series, according to ESPN.

They’ve set up a monumental second-round showdown with the Golden State Warriors, seeded sixth and defending their fourth championship in eight years.

These Lakers, down-on-their-luck protagonists since winning title No. 17 in 2020, are looking again like viable contenders for the crown – a plot twist so contrived it would be panned mercilessly if this wasn’t sports, if it wasn’t the best reality show on TV.

To get here, Pelinka, the Lakers’ director of casting, spent months defying skeptics and eschewing experts. Just continually making assurances, and assuaging no one.

He didn’t ever blink, even with an avalanche of criticism – from you, from me, coming even from inside the house – gaining perilously on where he stood.

There was Pelinka’s proclamation at media day, when the Lakers introduced a head-scratcher of a roster that wasn’t fit to fix last season’s regular-season failure: “We will do everything we can, picks included, to make deals that give us a chance to help LeBron (James) get to the end.”

And then months later, picks still untouched, his rather bold assertion – “the calculus for the Lakers is to win a championship or not” – as he discussed potential moves while introducing Rui Hachimura.

That was on Jan. 24, when the Lakers were in 13th place and 22-26.

But Hachimura, you remember, was the first domino in a succession of deadline-period deals that would scuttle an unhappy Russell Westbrook and his $47 million salary, as well as a few other expendable guys.

That brought back guard D’Angelo Russell and brought aboard defensive wing Jarred Vanderbilt and shooting guard Malik Beasley, quality role players who immediately infused the Lakers’ roster with length and youth and some shooting – the necessary ingredients to pair with James, as everyone knows.

So the Lakers’ future, at least, looked not as bleak – especially because Pelinka pulled it all off without trading the Two Picks the public had been offering up on his behalf since the offseason.

He held onto the 2029 first-round pick, and not only that, arranged for the 2027 first-round pick he relinquished to be top-four protected. That is to say: It stays with the Lakers if they’re drafting in the top four – and, moreover, conveys to a second-round pick if the Lakers are, in fact, in the top four.

Good deals.

“Doing trades is a little bit like the L.A. house market in that you can’t buy houses that aren’t listed,” said Pelinka, a man of many metaphors. “Ultimately sellers will determine if they want to sell a house or not, and which buyers get them. But the last thing you want to do in the housing market is overpay, or spend all your effort and energy trying to buy a house that someone doesn’t want to sell.”

Location, location, location, but what about timing, the everything of it?

James is 38, and playing in his 20th NBA season. Anthony Davis is 30 and oft-injured.

And as of the Feb. 9 trade deadline, the Lakers were three games behind Portland for the 10th and final play-in spot. They’d essentially have just 26 games and scant practice time to incorporate five new players, also including center Mo Bamba.

So better next year. But still. A shame, no? To have squandered this season of the Lakers’ star pairing?

Not to Pelinka. The Lakers’ to-win-a-championship-or-not architect insisted the deals “set us up for hopefully a productive run now.”

Now?

Now.

Remember, in 2019, the summer when Kawhi Leonard spurned the Lakers in free agency, choosing the Clippers instead? How, instead of being able to put a three-star super-squad on the court, Pelinka cobbled together a team of role players long on length or shot-making or defensive skill to complement James and Davis?

Remember what we eventually watched go down on TV that season, in a bubble, far, far away?

Remember that championship, a pro’s title if ever there was, and how the Lakers lived happily, well, not quite ever after … because they hadn’t found their way past the first round again until now.

I don’t know basketball. pic.twitter.com/8YEACyyIgl

— Harrison Faigen (@hmfaigen) February 9, 2023

Don’t know that the Cleanup in Aisle 5 this season warrants a writeup in apology form, necessarily, not when the mess is the result of a shoddily constructed display.

But you do have to hand it to Pelinka – and to team owner Jeanie Buss, who kept the faith in him and even quietly extended his contract – for being a smart shopper, for resisting the pressure to pay more for players he believed would be available for a better price later.

For successfully evaluating the landscape, and then checking all the boxes, getting the Lakers into the playoffs, where now it’ll be up to James and Davis and an improved cast to bring it home.

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​ Orange County Register 

New pediatric guidelines aim to treat obesity without stigma. Critics say they’ll make bias worse

• May 1, 2023

Maya Lora, Angela Roberts | Baltimore Sun

From the time Alexandra Slick was little, she knew that when she went to the doctor’s office, at least one person was probably going to tell her that she needed to lose weight.

She remembers sitting in an examination room as a middle schooler, watching her mother cry as a nurse practitioner asked her if she wanted her daughter to die. At that point, while Slick’s weight was considered obese by the body mass index, she already had been dieting for about four years and practiced karate every week.

“It used to be that if I had a doctor’s appointment in the day, I wouldn’t eat or drink anything until I had gone to the doctor — whether or not that appointment was at 10 a.m. or if that appointment was at 3 p.m.,” she said. “I just wanted to be as small as I could going into the doctor’s office.”

When Slick, a 31-year-old Baltimore resident, heard about the American Academy of Pediatrics’ new guidelines for treating childhood and adolescent obesity, she shuddered.

The guidelines, released in January by the country’s leading pediatricians group, advise primary care doctors to offer families a variety of treatments early for childhood obesity. “Watchful waiting” to see if children with obesity developed into average weight adults — the group’s previous recommendation — would no longer cut it.

The guidelines became an immediate subject of controversy, triggering backlash from nutritionists, eating disorder clinicians and people like Slick, who know what it’s like to live in a larger body.

They worry a focus on weight loss will trigger or worsen disordered eating in children with larger bodies, exacerbate weight stigma in doctor’s offices and lead physicians to overlook the diets and exercise routines of children whose weights are — according to the body mass index — average or low.

Especially controversial was a guideline that doctors consider prescribing weight loss drugs to children as young as 12 and referring 13-year-olds to be evaluated for weight loss surgery.

The guidelines use the body mass index, or BMI, a measure calculated from a patient’s weight and height. While controversial, BMI remains widely used by physicians to determine whether a patients’ weight is healthy.

Supporters of the guidelines say surgical treatment options wouldn’t be offered in isolation. The recommendations also emphasize the need for ongoing lifestyle and behavioral treatments, such as proper nutrition and physical activity.

“This is nothing that pediatricians can or should force on families,” said Dr. Sarah Hampl, a lead author of the guidelines and a pediatrician in Kansas City, Missouri.

Research dating back decades has documented weight stigma among medical professionals. Primary care physicians may be less likely to show empathy, concern and understanding to patients whose bodies the doctors consider overweight or obese, while such patients have reported being mis-diagnosed and may even avoid going to a doctor.

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines explicitly recognize the role weight stigma historically has played in medical care.

At Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Weight Management Program, patients work with their doctors to create unique treatment plans, said Dr. Anton Dietzen, a pediatric physiatrist with the institute’s Fit and Healthy Clinic.

“Every one of these cases is so different,” Dietzen said. “There are so many complex biopsychosocial issues going on — a lot of multigenerational households, and parents working two jobs, and issues of food insecurity, and patients who are eating two of their three meals a day at school.”

But no matter the circumstance, Dietzen said, it’s important to offer early and intensive treatment for childhood obesity.

The condition is a chronic disease, and its effects pile up over time, he said. The longer a child’s weight is elevated, the more likely it is they’ll develop serious diseases like cardiovascular health problems and Type 2 diabetes, he said.

Colleen Schreyer, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who serves as the director of clinical research for the Johns Hopkins Eating Disorders program, has complicated feelings about the guidelines.

“I see the need for treatment of obesity,” Schreyer said. “I also think we need to be thoughtful about how we implement those treatment interventions to prevent the onset of disordered eating.”

Some researchers say people whose weights are considered obese by the BMI can still be healthy. But Schreyer said patients with a BMI above 30 are more likely to have conditions such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, chronic pain and limited mobility.

Schreyer said bariatric surgery can alleviate some of those conditions. She said before adolescents undergo surgery at Johns Hopkins, they receive six months of a behavioral weight loss intervention and meet for six months with a psychologist to identify and treat mental health concerns such as eating disorders, depression and anxiety. Hopkins offers the surgery to adolescents as young as 16.

The guidelines recommend that doctors consider referring children to be evaluated for the surgery if their weight is 120% above the 95th percentile, according to the BMI. Schreyer said her typical adolescent patient weighs well above the 99th percentile for BMI — some around 400 pounds — and typically have other medical issues like high blood pressure and limited mobility.

Deborah Kauffmann is a nutrition counselor who practices a non-dieting approach to weight management and is the former director of nutrition services at The Center for Eating Disorders in Towson. She said the BMI is an inaccurate measure of health.

“Many people are born with a high number of fat cells and that doesn’t determine health,” Kauffmann said. “Even if the BMI did account for body composition, it would still be pretty meaningless and not be an indicator for your health in any way.”

Dietzen said BMI is a useful tool when it comes to screening patients for potential weight management intervention, but doesn’t capture the complete picture.

“Just like anything in medicine, you have to look at the individual and not the numbers,” he said.

Kauffmann strongly objected to the guidelines’ suggestion of considering weight loss surgery consultation for teenagers as young as 13. She said bariatric surgery comes with short and long-term complications, which she’s seen in patients she’s worked with after surgery who have digestive and nutritional issues.

Schreyer defended weight loss surgery as a long-term solution. One option involves removing up to 80% of a patient’s stomach, allowing them to feel full after eating significantly less food.

“We know that 95% of people who start a behavioral weight loss intervention will regain the majority of their weight,” Schreyer said. “Around 60-65% of patients who undergo bariatric surgery keep their weight off five to 10 years later.”

A bigger issue with the guidelines, Kauffman said, is that they treat obesity alone as an elevated health risk. Instead, Kauffman said, physicians need to pay attention to sudden, drastic weight loss or gain, which could be indicative of issues such as eating disorders or insulin resistance.

“To assume that a child isn’t healthy because of a higher weight is just wrong,” Kauffmann said. “There’s no way around it — scientifically and morally, it’s wrong.”

Jane Zeltser, who works at the Eating Recovery Center, has struggled with eating disorders herself. (Karl Merton Ferron/TNS/Baltimore Sun)

Jane Zeltser, the practice manager for the Eating Recovery Center’s east region, said weight loss surgery is like “butchering” children “just so they can fit a mold of looking a certain way.”

Still, Zeltser, 38, said that when she was a teenager struggling with an eating disorder, she would have jumped at the suggestion.

“I would have done anything and everything to make myself smaller,” Zeltser said.

At 4 years old, Zeltser immigrated with her family from what is now Kyiv, Ukraine. She said that while she couldn’t control her secondhand clothing or her accent, she could reject her hometown foods that set her apart from other students.

By the time she got to high school, that restriction morphed with a desire to occupy a smaller body, leading Zeltser to take weight loss pills. She experienced worrying symptoms: an elevated heart rate, insomnia, headaches and even hallucinations.

But because Zeltser never fell into the “underweight” category, help was hard to come by, especially from Zeltser’s pediatrician.

“He would say, ‘Well, you’re in the 75th percentile. So actually maybe you could stand to lose some weight,’” Zeltser said. “I was hospitalized because of the effects of these diet pills on my body.”

According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, fewer than 6% of people with eating disorders are medically diagnosed as underweight.

Hampl said the American Academy of Pediatrics is working with eating disorder organizations to develop better tools to help doctors check their patients for the warnings signs of disordered eating, regardless of their weight.

Research shows that kids who try to lose weight through fad diets are more likely to have an eating disorder, Hampl said. But kids who have a caring medical provider trying to help them “achieve a healthier weight” through a structured program are less likely to develop such disorders, she added.

“There’s really no benefit in trying to pit the eating disorders community against the weight management community. That’s really counterproductive,” Hampl said. “Both of these issues are highly stigmatized. They’re often interrelated.”

Schreyer said that, in her experience, obesity specialists are not primarily interested in making their patients skinnier.

But Zeltser said her pediatrician constantly told her to eat less.

“He fueled my eating disorder,” Zeltser said.

Zeltser said she was sick to her stomach when she read the pediatricians’ new guidelines.

“Children should be able to be children. And I feel like these guidelines are taking away from their childhood,” Zeltser said. “I didn’t even have a childhood because of my eating disorder.”

©2023 Baltimore Sun. Visit baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

CIF-SS baseball polls: Final 2023

• May 1, 2023

The final CIF-SS baseball polls of 2023, released Monday, May 1

CIF-SS BASEBALL POLLS

(Selected by the CIF-SS Baseball Committee)

DIVISION 1

1. Notre Dame/Sherman Oaks

2. Santa Margarita

3. Huntington Beach

4. JSerra

5. Cypress

6. Harvard-Westlake

7. La Mirada

8. Corona

9. San Dimas

10. Pacifica/Garden Grove

DIVISION 2

1. Aquinas

2. South Hills

3. Gahr

4. Mater Dei

5. Crespi

6. Vista Murrieta

7. West Ranch

8. Quartz Hill

9. Crescenta Valley

10. Tesoro

DIVISION 3

1. La Serna

2. Valencia

3. San Marcos

4. Long Beach Poly

5. Centennial/Corona

6. Summit

7. Riverside Poly

8. Aliso Niguel

9. Newbury Park

10 Highland

DIVISION 4

1. Crean Lutheran

2. Linfield Christian

3. Northwood

4. La Habra

5. Arrowhead Christian

6. Glendora

7. Santa Barbara

8. Elsinore

9. El Rancho

10. Brea Olinda

DIVISION 5

1. Bishop Montgomery

2. Shadow Hills

3. Peninsula

4. Apple Valley

5. Windward

6. Estancia

7. Savanna

8. Marshall

9. Montebello

10. St. Anthony

DIVISION 6

1. Bloomington

2. Campbell Hall

3. Norwalk

4. Mayfair

5. Castaic

6. Hesperia Christian

7. Xavier Prep

8. Costa Mesa

9. Riverside Prep

10. Lakeside

DIVISION 7

1. Ganesha

2. St. Genevieve

3. Banning

4. Brentwood

5. Leuzinger

6. Calvary Chapel/Downey

7. Coast Union

8. Fontana

9. Newbury Park Adventist

10. Artesia

​ Orange County Register