Royal Drama: King’s fractious family on stage at coronation

• April 29, 2023

By Danica Kirka | Associated Press

LONDON — King Charles III lives in a palace, travels in a chauffeur-driven Bentley and is one of Britain’s richest men, but he’s similar to many of his subjects in one very basic way: His family life is complicated — very complicated.

There’s a second wife, an embarrassing brother, and an angry son and daughter-in-law, all with allies who aren’t shy about whispering family secrets in the ears of friendly reporters.

The new king will hope to keep a lid on those tensions when his royally blended family joins as many as 2,800 guests for Charles’ coronation on May 6 at Westminster Abbey. All except Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are attending.

How Charles manages his family drama over the coming weeks and years is crucial to the king’s efforts to preserve and protect the 1,000-year-old hereditary monarchy he now embodies. Without the respect of the public, the House of Windsor risks being lumped together with pop stars, social media influencers and reality TV contestants as fodder for the British tabloids, undermining the cachet that underpins its role in public life.

Royal historian Hugo Vickers says people should look past the sensational headlines and focus on what Charles accomplishes now that he is king.

“In a sense, he sort of becomes a new man when he becomes king,” said Vickers, author of “Coronation: The Crowning of Elizabeth II.”

“Look at him as he is now, look at him the way he is approaching everything, look at his positivity and look at how right he’s been on so many issues,” he added. “Unfortunately, he had those difficult times with his marriages and some of the other issues, but we live in a very tricky era.”

The horror show came back to haunt Charles last week, when the king’s estranged younger son, Prince Harry, dropped a new round of allegations Tuesday about the royal family into the middle of the coronation buildup.

In written evidence for his invasion of privacy claim against a British newspaper, Harry claimed his father prevented him from filing the lawsuit a decade ago. The prince said Charles didn’t want to dredge up graphic testimony about his extramarital affair with the former Camilla Parker-Bowles when he was married to the late Princess Diana.

Diana was the mother of Harry and his elder brother and heir to the throne, William, the Prince of Wales. Camilla, now the queen consort, went on to marry Charles in 2005 and will be crowned alongside her husband at Westminster Abbey.

If the past is any indication, attention will now shift to body language, seating plans and even wardrobe choices during the coronation, as royal watchers look for any signs of a thaw in the family tensions.

But Joe Little, managing editor of Majesty magazine, doesn’t expect Harry to have a lot of contact with the rest of his family. In any case, Harry won’t be in the U.K. for long, so there’s not much time for fence mending.

“The stuff that we discovered (Tuesday) is really not going to help his cause,” Little said. “But, you know, will there be time to go over all that with the king and the Prince of Wales? Unlikely.”

The royal soap opera didn’t begin with the current generation of royals. After all, Edward VIII sparked a constitutional crisis in 1936 when he abdicated the throne to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.

Charles’ grandfather, George VI, is credited with saving the monarchy with a life of low-key public service after he replaced his flamboyant elder brother. The late Queen Elizabeth II burnished the family’s reputation during a 70-year reign, in which she became a symbol of stability who cheered the nation’s victories and comforted it during darker times.

But Charles grew up in a different era, under the glare of media attention as deference to the monarchy faded.

He has been a controversial figure ever since the very public breakdown of his marriage to Diana, who was revered by many people for her looks and her compassion.

Diana alleged that there had been “three people” in the marriage, pointing the finger at Charles’ longtime love Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Camilla, initially reviled by Diana’s fans, has worked hard to rehabilitate her image. Her ex-husband and their children are expected to attend the coronation, with her grandsons serving as pages of honor.

She supports a raft of causes, ranging from adult literacy to protecting the victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. But even that effort has sparked tensions.

Harry claimed in his memoir “Spare” that the senior royals leaked unflattering stories about him to the news media in return for more favorable coverage, particularly to improve Camilla’s image.

At the time of their marriage in 2018, Harry and Meghan were celebrated as the new face of the monarchy. Meghan, a biracial American actress, brought a touch of Hollywood glamour to the royal family and many observers hoped she would help the Windsors connect with younger people in an increasingly multicultural nation.

Those hopes quickly crumbled amid allegations that palace officials were insensitive to Meghan’s mental health struggles as she adjusted to royal life.

Harry and Meghan walked away from frontline royal duties three years ago and moved to California, from which they have lobbed repeated critiques at the House of Windsor.

In a 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey they hinted at racism in the palace, alleging that one unidentified member of the royal family had inquired about the color of their unborn son’s skin before his birth.

Harry, i n a Netflix series broadcast last year, said the episode was an example of unconscious bias and that the royal family needed to “learn and grow” so it could be “part of the solution rather than part of the problem.”

The repeated attacks led to months of speculation about whether the couple would be invited to the coronation. The palace finally answered that question two weeks ago when it announced that Harry would attend but Meghan would remain in California with their two children.

And then there is Charles’ brother Prince Andrew, who became a toxic time bomb inside the royal family when the world learned about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the financier’s long-time girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Epstein, who was convicted of sex crimes in 2008, died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on a second set of charges. Maxwell was convicted last year of helping procure young girls for Epstein and is serving a 20-year sentence at a federal prison in Florida.

Andrew gave up his royal duties in 2019 after a disastrous interview with the BBC in which he tried to explain away his links to Epstein and Maxwell. He was stripped of his honorary military titles and patronages as he prepared to defend a civil lawsuit filed by a woman who said she was forced to have sex with the prince when she was a teenager.

Andrew denied the allegations but settled the suit last year before it came to trial. While terms of the agreement weren’t released, The Sun newspaper reported that Charles and the late queen paid the bulk of the estimated 7 million pound ($8.7 million) settlement.

“I think it was inevitable that when Charles became king, a lot of the personal stuff would come back to haunt him,″ Little said. “I think as far as the king is concerned, he just has to shrug his shoulders and get on with the job in hand.”

Follow AP’s coverage of King Charles III at https://apnews.com/hub/king-charles-iii

​ Orange County Register 

CIF-SS Division 1 softball playoff bracket creates challenging road for O.C. teams

• April 29, 2023

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Huntington Beach might have its best team under veteran softball coach Jeff Forsberg.

Pacifica has found its stride again after a couple of stumbles in league.

But if either team is going to make a deep run in the CIF-SS playoffs, they will have to navigate the early challenges of a very different Division 1 bracket.

Get ready for a 16-team bracket in the premier group of the section playoffs.

The CIF-SS on Saturday released a 16-team, Division 1 playoff bracket, a major break from its traditional 32-team bracket. The schedule features eight wild-card round games Tuesday.

Huntington Beach (22-5) and Pacifca (19-8), ranked third and 10th in the final coaches’ poll for Division 1, will play host to Westlake (18-8-1) and Bonita (18-9), respectively, in wild-card games.

If the county teams win, they will play at Torrance (23-4) and La Mirada (18-7), respectively, in the first round Thursday. Neither Torrance or La Mirada plays in the wild card round, so Huntington Beach and Pacifica face the extra hurdle of managing aces Zoe Prystajko and Brynne Nally.

Forsberg said his team is going after the title regardless of the draw.

“We got to win the games anyway,” said Forsberg, whose squad was ranked No. 1 in the section last week before falling in eight innings at Los Alamitos in the Sunset League title game. “But I’m surprised we’re playing Tuesday.”

Three county contenders avoided the wild-card round: league champions Los Alamitos (24-3), Orange Lutheran (21-5) and Esperanza (19-6). Those three teams will be home in the first round Thursday.

The Griffins and Lancers are seeded second and third, respectively, behind Norco (24-3). Huntington Beach is seeded fourth.

The reason for the 16-team bracket, section assistant commissioner and spokesperson Thom Simmons confirmed, was that the section received 24 playoff entries, one shy of the threshold needed for a 32-team bracket.

The 24 entries came from a pool of 27 teams placed in Division 1 for this season. That means only three teams missed the playoffs in Division 1. They were Mater Dei, La Habra and Upland, all of whom didn’t earn automatic playoff berths from their league and lacked the .500 overall record to apply for at-large spots.

Mission Viejo (14-13-1), the Division 2 champion last year, and Villa Park (17-11), an at-large entry, also will play in the Division 1 wild-card round Tuesday. The Diablos play host to Camarillo (16-5) while Villa Park plays at Chino Hills (15-8).

The remaining six divisions for the playoffs all feature 32-team brackets.

Three Orange County Top 10 teams — Marina (20-7), JSerra (17-10) and Canyon (17-10) — were placed in the upper-half of Division 2. If Canyon and JSerra win home games Thursday, they would meet in the second round May 9.

The county is well-represented in Division 3. Empire League champion Cypress (19-3-1), South Coast League champion Aliso Niguel (22-4) and Trinity League No. 3 Santa Margarita (16-11-1) are seeded first, second and third, respectively.

In Division 4, Fullerton (19-6) is seeded fourth as it makes its first postseason appearance since 2016-17. The Freeway League’s No. 3 entry opens at San Jacinto (14-7) on Thursday.

Pacific Coast League rivals Irvine (16-10) and Northwood (10-7) are seeded first and second in Division 5.

Trabuco Hills (14-11) finished as the No. 1-ranked team in Division 5 but missed the playoffs because the division didn’t have room for any at-large teams and the Mustangs failed to secure an automatic berth in the four-team Sea View League.

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​ Orange County Register 

Orange County scores and player stats for Saturday, April 29

• April 29, 2023

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

Scores and stats from Orange County games on Saturday, April 29

Click here for details about sending your team’s scores and stats to the Register.

SATURDAY’S SCORES

BOYS VOLLEYBALL

CIF-SS PLAYOFFS

Round 2

DIVISION 4

El Dorado def. Mark Keppel, 25-19, 26-24, 25-22

DIVISION 5

Samueli Academy def. Temescal Canyon, 25-18, 25-23, 25-22

BOYS LACROSSE

NONLEAGUE

Corona del Mar 6, St. Ignatius College Prep 5

​ Orange County Register 

Search area widened for man who killed 5 in Texas after family complained about gunfire

• April 29, 2023

By JUAN A. LOZANO and PAUL J. WEBER

CLEVELAND, Texas — A Texas sheriff said Saturday that authorities have widened the search area for a man suspected of killing five of his neighbors near Houston.

San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers told reporters the search area for 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza could now be as large as “10 or 20 miles” as the gunman remained at large more than 15 hours after the shooting Friday night.

The shooting happened near the town of Cleveland, about 45 miles north of Houston. Capers said Oropeza may still have a weapon.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

CLEVELAND, Texas — A Texas man went next door with a rifle and fatally shot five of his neighbors, including an 8-year-old boy and a teenage girl, after the family asked him to stop firing rounds in his yard because they were trying to sleep, authorities said Saturday.

The suspect, identified as 38-year-old Francisco Oropeza, remained at large more than 12 hours after the shooting that began just before midnight Friday near the town of Cleveland, about 45 miles north of Houston. Some residents who live on the street said it was not uncommon to hear neighbors unwind at the end of the work week by firing off guns.

San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said Oropeza used an AR-style rifle and that all the victims were believed to be from Honduras.

“All of his rounds were from the neck up, so basically in the head,” Capers told The Associated Press.

The attack was the latest act of gun violence in what has been a record pace of mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, some of which have also involved semiautomatic rifles.

The mass killings have played out in a variety of places — a Nashville school, a Kentucky bank, a Southern California dance hall, and now a rural Texas neighborhood inside a single-story home.

Capers said authorities were using scent-tracking dogs and an overhead drone in the search for Oropeza, who they believe was intoxicated at the time of the shooting and then fled toward a heavily wooded forest a few miles from the scene.

Capers said there were 10 people in the house — some of whom has just moved there earlier in the week — but that that no one else was injured. He said two of the victims were found in a bedroom laying over two children in an apparent attempt to shield them.

Authorities did not immediately release the names of the victims. Three were female, including a 15-year-old girl, said Rob Freyer, a prosecutor in San Jacinto County. He did not know the ages of the adult victims, which included one male.

Two of the victims were found by the front door and the slain 8-year-old boy was in the front room, according to Capers. He said three other “blood-covered” children in the home were taken to a hospital but did not have injuries.

“The Honduran ladies that were laying over these children were doing it in such an effort as to protect the child,” Capers said.

The confrontation followed family members walking up to the fence and asking the suspect to stop shooting rounds, Capers said. The suspect responded by telling them that it was his property, according to Capers, and that one person in the house got a video of the suspect walking up to the front door with the rifle.

The shooting took place on a rural pothole-riddled street where single-story homes sit on wide one-acre lots and are surrounded by a thick canopy of trees. A horse could be seen behind the victim’s home, while in the front yard of Oropeza’s house a dog and chickens wandered

Rene Arevalo Sr., who lives a few houses down, said he heard gunshots around midnight but didn’t think anything of it.

“It’s a normal thing people do around here, especially on Fridays after work,” Arevalo said. “They get home and start drinking in their backyards and shooting out there.”

Capers said his deputies had been to Oropeza’s home at least once before and spoken with him about “shooting his gun in the yard.” It was not immediately clear whether any action was taken at the time.

Capers said the new arrivals in the home had moved from Houston earlier in the week, but he did not know whether they were planning to stay there.

Across the U.S. since Jan. 1, there have been at least 18 shootings that left four or more people dead, according to a database maintained by The Associated Press and USA Today, in partnership with Northeastern University. The violence is sparked by a range of motives: murder-suicides and domestic violence; gang retaliation; school shootings and workplace vendettas.

Texas has confronted multiple mass shootings in recent years, including last year’s attack at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde; a racist attack at an El Paso Walmart in 2019; and a gunman opening fire at a church in the tiny town of Sutherland Springs in 2017.

Republican leaders in Texas have continually rejected calls for new firearm restrictions, including this year over the protests of several families whose children were killed in Uvalde.

A few months ago, Arevalo said Oropeza threatened to kill his dog after it got loose in the neighborhood and chased the pit bull in his truck.

“I tell my wife all the time, ‘Stay away from the neighbors. Don’t argue with them. You never know how they’re going to react,’” Arevalo said. “I tell her that because Texas is a state where you don’t know who has a gun and who is going to react that way.”

Weber reported from Austin, Texas. Associated Press writer Ken Miller contributed to this report.

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​ Orange County Register 

Stagecoach 2023: Trixie Mattel slays Late Night in Palomino performance

• April 29, 2023

“I’m probably the only person on the Stagecoach lineup who has like 45 different careers,” country-pop star and drag queen Trixie Mattel, the persona of Brian Michael Firkus, said during a phone interview just days before her Late Night in Palomino performance at the Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio on Friday, April 28.

“When I’m not doing a million other things, it’s so great to be back on stage,” she continued. “And for Stagecoach, I’m probably going to be the nastiest, most naked person in drag there, but that’s a good thing.”

Performance by performance, Mattel’s taken over the world, one stage and wig at a time.

During her set over at the Diplo-curated Late Night in Palomino after-party on Friday, Mattel made sure to give fans a slew of original songs and fun covers, including “Venus” by Bananarama, “Blister in the Sun” by Violent Femmes and she whipped out the autoharp for Lana Del Rey’s “Video Games.”

“If you go on Wikipedia for autoharp players, it’s literally June Carter Cash and me, and I’m very proud of that,” she said, gleaming to the audience with her harp. “But putting this thing on is like wearing underwear, don’t be fooled. It’s difficult.”

The performance is also Stagecoach history-making as Mattel is the first drag queen booked to play the three-day festival. For Mattel, country music has consistently played a crucial part in her character archetype since living in rural Milwaukee during her adolescence, nodding to women like Dolly Parton and June Carter Cash as influences. Her style evokes a retro-tinged ’60s glamour midcentury housewife with a dash of Barbie pink.

“You know, you’d be surprised, but a lot of queer people like country music,” Mattel said during our interview. “They just don’t play it at gay clubs usually, but that type of community does exist. But also, you don’t have to be gay to like us. It’s irrelevant.”

Fans that left Friday headliner Luke Bryan’s set a little early to catch Mattel in the Palomino were seemingly star-struck by the queen, who changed into at least six different pink fits with glitter and fringe.

It wasn’t a packed house, but the crowd she did have were die-hard fans holding up pink or LGBTQ+ flags and screaming, “Trixie, I love you!”

The show was a nice blend of comedy and glamour as the queen spun around the stage, laughing, singing and occasionally speaking to fans about “important matters,” which included a chat on the recent Bud Light controversy that’s taken social media storm.

“Do you like my hair? Do you like my body? Do you like my face? You know I had one sip of Bud Light, and this is what happened. You gotta be careful,” she said to the crowd.

In April, Bud Light sent Dylan Mulvaney, a well-known transgender influencer, a pack of beer to post in a promotional video where Mulvaney is seen dressed like Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The video shows Mulvaney celebrating her first year of womanhood with the cans featuring her face. When the video appeared online, some more conservative country artists took to their social media accounts to bash the company for supporting LGBTQ+ names and even went as far as wanting to boycott the beer. The company is also a sponsor of this year’s Stagecoach, so for artists like Mattel, it was necessary to note that the issue at hand is something she doesn’t appreciate.

“I’m not offended by somebody supporting trans people with a product, and I’m not offended by people choosing not to support trans people,” Mattel said. “But I find it very offensive when you show support for a community and a marginalized group, and at the first sign of pushback, you not only don’t say anything or even change your tune and backpedal. Instead, you just put up a big, fancy corporate PR word salad and call it a day.”

But that’s as serious as Mattel wanted to get because for her, the Stagecoach performance means connecting with fans and a new crowd.

Since her appearance on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” back in 2015 and winning the all-stars season in 2018, it’s been a non-stop stream of success for the 33-year-old artist. Now, the multi-hyphenate Mattel operates Trixie Cosmetics, co-hosts the widespread YouTube series UNHhhh alongside drag superstar Katya Zamolodchikova, is a New York Times bestselling author and co-owns Wisconsin’s oldest running gay bar.

And coming to the desert feels right at home for Mattel given her other business venture, the Trixie Motel, located in Palm Springs, just a few miles from the Empire Polo Club in Indio. The Motel opened its doors in April 2022 and has now been selling out months in advance, cementing itself as a mainstay in the LGBTQ+ scene in the city. Mattel adds that she built the business in Palm Springs to have somewhere to go that was campy and summer-like.

“Everything I put out is from my own money, my own investment,” she said. “So I don’t go into anything without 100 percent knowing it’s going to be a great idea.”

Her motel, which sports bubble gum pink walls, is also hosting events during the Stagecoach weekend.

“If anybody is in town for Stagecoach, we’ll be doing events all weekend long,” she said. “I’m literally cocktail waitressing in drag which will be a ticketed event where you can drink by the pool. So I’ll be running around in drag serving people. I mean, tell me how many celebrities are willing to do that.”

She’ll also be serving drinks on Sunday morning and made sure to park her tour bus in front of her motel so fans could come and hang out. When asked about what she was looking forward to the most with her Stagecoach performance, she said it wasn’t so much about that particular show, but allowing her fans to connect with something even bigger than herself, a character that’s now connected with millions worldwide.

“Trixie means a lot to me, but it means a lot to other people,” she shared. “And when you build a brand for fans to basically worship, it’s a way for people to connect with Trixie without breaking into my house.”

 More Stagecoach Country Music Festival news

Stagecoach 2023: See photos of performers and fans from Day 1

Stagecoach 2023: Country music fans, performers brave the heat and cut loose during Day 1

Stagecoach 2023: How to livestream the country music festival from home

Stagecoach 2023: Brooks & Dunn return to the desert and they’re ready to party 

Stagecoach 2023: Everything you need to know about the country music fest 

Stagecoach 2023: Guy Fieri’s barbecue, sushi and lots of drinks on the menu 

Stagecoach 2023: When to see Luke Bryan, Kane Brown, Chris Stapleton and more 

Stagecoach 2023: See who will be grilling with Guy Fieri

Stagecoach 2023: Girl Talk, Dillon Francis, Lost Frequencies hit the Honky Tonk 

Stagecoach 2023: Trixie Mattel, Nelly and Diplo host Late Night in Palomino 

Stagecoach 2023: Luke Bryan, Kane Brown and Chris Stapleton will headline the country fest in Indio 

​ Orange County Register 

UCLA football inspired by Bruins in the NFL draft

• April 29, 2023

LOS ANGELES — As UCLA football alumni are answering phone calls during the NFL draft, current players are doing whatever they can to put themselves in that same position.

Zach Charbonnet, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, Antonio Mafi and Jon Gaines II were each selected in the NFL draft Friday or Saturday. As spring football practice continues in Westwood, players use draft updates as reason for celebration as well as motivation.

“I get the chills for them,” Bruins linebacker Kain Medrano said. “They’re for sure role models to me because that’s where I want to be. Just seeing Zach and all the hard work he put in; he was here grinding every single day, and just shows you what it takes to get to that level.”

Charbonnet was selected by the Seattle Seahawks in the second round as the No. 52 overall pick Friday. Gaines was picked in the fourth round Saturday, followed by Thompson-Robinson and Antonio Mafi in the fifth round.

The Bruins have the opportunity to not only learn from the habits of former teammates who made it to the NFL, but also from coaches with NFL experience.

Medrano said working with inside linebackers coach Ken Norton Jr. is energizing physically and mentally. Norton was the linebackers coach as well as the defensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks, winning a Super Bowl with the team in 2013. He also served as defensive coordinator for the Oakland Raiders from 2015-2017.

“The confidence that he brings and gives off, that just comes right into our group,” Medrano said. “We get a lot of confidence and he’s yelling, screaming. That energy that he brings every day just helps us accelerate practice.”

Norton is an orchestra of demanding yet motivational coaching phrases during practices (on Saturday morning, “hit with a punch” was a favorite). The dry-erase board in the linebacker meeting room is lined with Norton-isms.

Each phrase is connected to an instruction for the linebackers. So when Norton yells “linebackers 100,” his position group knows what to do. Players learn from him how to balance the chaos of being a linebacker with the intelligence on and off the field.

“You want to be in (meetings),” linebacker Choè Bryant-Strother said. “That’s one thing I can really appreciate about Coach Norton. When you walk into that meeting room … you know you’re going to learn something that you’ve never even thought about before because Coach Norton just has so much experience and so much knowledge about the game.”

Tired but ‘lit’

The defense has had a recurring saying throughout spring practices:

“The more tired we get, the more lit we get,” Bryant-Strother said. “When we get tired, that’s when we want to play our best. So the louder we get, just know we’re coming.”

The last 11-on-11 live period of practice Saturday was certainly the most “lit.” The defense forced a false start from the offense on the first play of the period. Defensive back Alex Johnson broke up a pass early on and multiple players broke through to get to the quarterback.

Defensive end Laiatu Latu broke up a pass toward the end of the period and linebacker Jalen Woods hauled in an interception.

Officials were on hand to monitor plays and hand out penalties when necessary, but the Bruins were also playing by Chip Kelly rules. The head coach lightheartedly doled out a 15-yard penalty to the offense for complaining and issued multiple sideline warnings.

“It’s about how we respond to everything,” Medrano said. “Some of that is to try and get us prepared because some of those calls are gonna come in the game … and we can’t react with emotion. We can’t let emotion play with us.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Trump ups competition with DeSantis in planning trip to Iowa

• April 29, 2023

By Thomas Beaumont | Associated Press

DES MOINES, Iowa — The competition between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis is intensifying as the former president is scheduling a return trip to Iowa on the same day that the Florida governor was already going to be in the state that will kick off the Republican contest for the White House.

A Trump campaign official said Saturday that the former president plans to be in Iowa on May 13 to headline an organizing rally at a sprawling park in downtown Des Moines. That’s when DeSantis was already slated to headline Iowa Rep. Randy Feenstra’s annual summer fundraiser in northwest Iowa and speak at a party fundraiser later that evening in Cedar Rapids.

The Trump campaign official, who requested anonymity to discuss the trip before it was announced, said the Des Moines organizing rally has been in the planning stage for weeks and is aimed at identifying caucus supporters and volunteers.

The move is a sign of the escalating competition between the two men who, at least for now, are leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump and his allies have become increasingly emboldened in their efforts to attack and marginalize DeSantis, who is expected to announce his White House bid sometime after the Florida Legislature wraps up its work in the coming week.

But Trump’s trip is also notable for its emphasis on the type of ground-level organizing that is vital in Iowa politics and was often missing during his 2016 campaign, when Texas Sen. Ted Cruz overtook him and won the state’s GOP caucuses.

Trump has been almost singularly focused on swinging at DeSantis, whom he has attacked for policy positions on entitlement reform, his loyalty to conservative causes, even his character. While DeSantis has largely ignored Trump’s jabs, a pro-DeSantis super political action committee, Never Back Down, began to respond in paid ads this month.

Meanwhile, the super PAC promoting DeSantis is hiring Iowa staff to begin organizing support for the governor before he enters the race.

The stakes for both men are particularly high in Iowa, where the caucuses in February offer opportunities for them to cement their status atop the GOP. A poor performance, however, would give an opening for other Republicans to mount an upstart campaign.

Trump’s 2016 Iowa campaign was a seat-of-the-pants operation disparately managed by campaign newcomers who, including the candidate, had little idea what the caucuses are. The roughly 1,700 precinct-level Republican political meetings, vestiges of prairie civic life, include a presidential preference question but require in-person participation on a typically frigid winter evening.

Eight years ago, Trump’s Iowa team had left contact information for roughly 10,000 Iowans interested in supporting him unprocessed before the caucuses, where Trump had led in lead-up polls, but fell short against Cruz’s more organized campaign.

Armed with not just refined 2016 caucus data but information collected during two national campaigns, Trump’s advisers says they are building a data and digital engagement strategy they say would put him in position to win the caucuses. It’s an expectation Iowa GOP strategists say is an absolute must for the former president, who carried Iowa comfortably in the 2016 and 2020 general elections.

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Meantime Never Back Down, run by DeSantis’ 2022 Florida re-election campaign senior strategist, Phil Cox, has named Iowa Republican operatives to its roster as it seeks to tap into interested GOP activists as the Iowa 2024 campaign gets underway. Among them are Ryan Koopmans, the former chief of staff to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The group has been airing TV advertisements in Iowa and other early-voting states, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, for weeks, and plans to launch a new one Monday.

​ Orange County Register 

US conducts first evacuation of its citizens from Sudan war

• April 29, 2023

By ZEKE MILLER, COLLEEN LONG, MATTHEW LEE and ELLEN KNICKMEYER

WASHINGTON — Hundreds of Americans fleeing two weeks of deadly fighting in Sudan reached the east African nation’s port Saturday in the first U.S.-run evacuation, completing a dangerous land journey under escort of armed drones.

American unmanned aircraft, which have been keeping an eye on overland evacuation routes for days, provided armed overwatch for a bus convoy carrying 200 to 300 Americans over 500 miles to Port Sudan, a place of relative safety, U.S. officials said.

The U.S., which had none of its officials on the ground for the evacuation, has been criticized by families of trapped Americans in Sudan for initially ruling out any U.S.-run evacuation for Americans who wanted out, calling it too dangerous.

U.S. special operations troops briefly flew to the capital, Khartoum, on April 22 to airlift out American staffers at the embassy and other American government personnel. Several thousand U.S. citizens were left behind, many of them dual-nationals.

More than a dozen other nations had already been carrying out evacuations for their citizens, using a mix of military planes, navy vessels and on the ground personnel.

A man walks by a house hit in recent fighting in Khartoum, Sudan, April 25, 2023. The U.S. conducted its first organized evacuation of citizens and permanent residents from Sudan, the State Department said Saturday, April 29, two weeks into a conflict that has turned Khartoum into a war zone and thrown the country into turmoil. (AP Photo/Marwan Ali, File)

A wide-ranging group of international mediators — including African and Arab nations, the United Nations and the United States — has only managed to achieve a series of fragile temporary cease-fires that failed to stop clashes but created enough of a lull for tens of thousands of Sudanese to flee to safer areas and for foreign nations to evacuate thousands of their citizens by land, air and sea.

Since the conflict between two rival generals broke out April 15, the U.S. has warned its citizens that they needed to find their own way out of the country, though U.S. officials have tried to link up Americans with other nations’ evacuation efforts. But that changed as U.S. officials exploited a relative lull in the fighting and, from afar, organized their own convoy for Americans, officials said.

Without the evacuation flights near the capital that other countries have been offering their citizens, many U.S. citizens have been left to make the dangerous overland journey from Khartoum to the country’s main Red Sea port, Port Sudan. One Sudanese-American family that made the trip earlier described passing through numerous checkpoints manned by armed men and passing bodies lying in the street and vehicles of other fleeing families who had been killed along the way.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the convoy carried U.S. citizens, local people employed by the U.S. and citizens of allied countries. “We reiterate our warning to Americans not to travel to Sudan,” he said.

From Port Sudan, away from the fighting, the Americans in the convoy can seek spots on vessels crossing the Red Sea to the Saudi port city of Jeddah. U.S. officials also are working with Saudi Arabia to see if one of the kingdom’s naval vessels can carry a larger number of Americans to Jeddah.

U.S. consular officials will be waiting for the Americans once they reach the dock in Jeddah, but there are no U.S. personnel in Port Sudan, officials said.

Two Americans are confirmed killed in the fighting that erupted April 15. One was a U.S. civilian whom officials said was caught in crossfire. The other was an Iowa City, Iowa, doctor, who was stabbed to death in front of his house and family in Khartoum, in the lawless violence that has accompanied the fighting.

In all, the fighting in the east African country has killed more than 500 people.

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