$2.75 DESIGNATED AREAS HIGHER © 2021 WSCE D WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021 latimes.

com

State 34,000
weighs LAUSD
water KIDS
waste LACK
fines SHOTS
As West tips toward
crisis, California could In January, students
usher in a wave of without the jab face
usage regulations. independent study or
leaving the district.
By Hayley Smith
By Howard Blume
As California descends Andriy Dubchak Associated Press
deeper into drought, offi- RUSSIA’S military buildup at its border with Ukraine has sparked fears about an invasion. Above, a About 34,000 students
cials are growing increas- Ukrainian soldier on the front lines of the conflict with pro-Russia rebels in the Donetsk region. have not yet complied with
ingly troubled by dwindling the COVID-19 vaccine man-

Biden presses Putin on

water supplies and the
public’s lackluster response
to calls for conservation,
with residents in recent
months falling short of Gov.
Gavin Newsom’s request
for a voluntary 15% reduc-
tion in usage.
Now, as the West tips
toward crisis, state water
regulators are considering
adopting emergency regula-
tions that will prohibit cer-
tain actions in an attempt to
curtail water waste and help
conserve supplies.
If approved, the proposal
could usher in a wave of
water regulations that
hearken back to previous
droughts while underscor-
ing the seriousness of the
current one.
On Tuesday, Lake Mead
— the nation’s largest reser-
voir and a lifeline for water in
Los Angeles and the West —
was at 1,065 feet, or about
34% of its capacity, a near-
historic low. Much of Califor-
nia on the U.S. Drought
Monitor map was painted in
worrisome shades of red.
“These regulations are
kind of no-brainers at this
point,” said Doug Parker,
director of the California In-
stitute for Water Resources
at UC Davis. “They probably
should have been done a lit-
tle while ago.”
Among the activities that
may be prohibited are wash-
ing vehicles with hoses that
diplomacy with Ukraine
Russia, which has mobilized troops, wants guarantees on NATO
By Eli Stokols
WASHINGTON — President
Biden warned Russian counterpart
Vladimir Putin during a videocon-
ference Tuesday that invading
Ukraine would result in stiff econo-
mic sanctions from the U.S. and sev-
eral European allies.
The virtual meeting, the second
time the two leaders have held di-
rect talks since their June summit in
Geneva, arose after Putin mobilized
about 100,000 Russian forces on the
country’s border with Ukraine,
sparking new fears about an inva-
sion.
“President Biden voiced the
deep concerns of the United States
and our European Allies about Rus-
sia’s escalation of forces surround-
ing Ukraine and made clear that the
U.S. and our Allies would respond
[See Russia, A4]
date in the Los Angeles Uni-
fied School District — and
there’s no longer enough
time for students who have
not gotten their first shot to
be fully vaccinated by the
Jan. 10 start of the second se-
mester, portending signifi-
cant disruption to their edu-
cation as they will be barred
from campus.
The high number of stu-
dents who will not be able to
meet the full inoculation
deadline is likely to force dif-
ficult decisions on leaders of
the second-largest U.S.
school system, which has en-
acted among the strictest
vaccine mandates in the na-
tion. Students who are not
fully vaccinated — or exempt
— will be forced into the dis-
trict’s independent study
program or will have to leave
the Los Angeles public
school system.
Shifting 34,000 students
12 and older into independ-
ent study would be challeng-
ing — especially as the dis-
trict’s independent study
program, called City of An-
gels, has been beset by
staffing shortages and
confusion after it was inun-
dated at the start of the
Mikhail Metzel Sputnik school year with about 10,000
AT THEIR meeting, President Biden urged Russian leader Vladi- students, a number that
mir Putin to consider the U.S. response to an invasion of Ukraine. grew to 16,000. The 34,000 to-
tal by itself would make up
one of the 25 largest school
systems in California.
There’s no indication

Spray of bullets cut off young life

do not have shut-off nozzles;
hosing down sidewalks,
driveways or patios “except
in cases where health and
safety are at risk”; watering
landscapes in a manner
that causes excessive runoff;
and watering lawns within
48 hours after measurable
rainfall.
For many, the measures
feel like déjà vu as California
again faces the prospect of
dwindling water supplies.
In 2014, then-Gov. Jerry
Brown introduced similar
bans on watering at the start
of an impending drought.
Within a year, Brown had in-
stituted mandatory water-
use cuts statewide — a move
[See Water, A6]
A shooting Monday
left a 12-year-old boy
dead and kids on a
playground fleeing.
By Cindy Carcamo,
Kevin Rector,
Richard Winton
and Maria L. La Ganga
Alexander Alvarado did
not live to see his teens. A
blast of gunfire Monday
afternoon saw to that.
Had he made it to Christ-
mas week, Alexander would
have turned 13. Instead, the
boy was shot to death out-
side an elementary school in
Wilmington, a port neigh-
borhood filled with industry,
working-class families and
gang problems that ebb and
flow like the tides.
His stepmother was in-
jured too. A fourth-grade
girl also received a gunshot
wound in the late-afternoon
incident; she was hit by a
stray bullet as she watched
her brother play kickball on
the playground of Wilming-
ton Park Elementary during
an after-school program
called Beyond the Bell.
Law enforcement offi-
cials have not identified the
woman, who is in her 30s, or
the 9-year-old girl. Both
were taken to hospitals,
where they remained Tues-
day. No suspects are in cus-
tody and no motive has been
offered — though the Los
Angeles Police Department
has suggested that the sheer
volume of shell casings re-
covered from the scene indi-
cated a purposeful attack.
“At first I thought it was
fireworks,” said Jackcel Fon-
seca, a classmate of the
wounded girl who is also 9.
Jackcel was on the play-
ground near the girl when a
bullet slammed into her lit-
tle back. Teachers told the
children “to run inside the
cafeteria and use your
Chromebook,” Jackcel said
Tuesday. “I was scared, so I
went on my Chromebook
and watched YouTube.”
Alexander’s death com-
[See Shooting, A6]
that L.A. Unified is backing
down — with no leniency or
extended deadlines under
public discussion.
“Our schools have some
of the strongest safety
standards in the nation and
we plan on keeping it that
way,” interim Supt. Megan
Reilly said in a video broad-
cast during Tuesday’s
school board meeting. De-
spite the determined state-
ment, the video message
was mostly a soft-sell, with
smiling students urging
their peers to be vaccinated
“like me,” as they said, one
after another.
The L.A. school system is
one of the few in the nation
[See Schools, A9]

COLUMN ONE Afghans adjust

to life on bases

Their best trick of all: Bonding on boards Refugees at U.S. mili-

tary facilities learn
English and Zumba on
the way to being reset-
tled. PERSPECTIVES, A2
We could learn from skaters, Council district
whose culture makes diversity remap approved
After weeks of debate,
and inclusiveness totally cool L.A. finalizes its politi-
cal boundaries for the
next 10 years.
CALIFORNIA, B1
By David Wharton
Melrose area to
he women keep their distance. At first. Dressed install cameras

T in T-shirts and sneakers, skateboards in hand,

they stand by a chain-link fence, talking,
laughing, waiting to make their move.
The Aunt Skatie crew, as they call themselves,
has traveled east of downtown Los Angeles to convene just
outside a community skate park outfitted with all manner of
concrete stairs, banks and ledges for doing tricks. On a gray
Neighborhood raised
$30,000 for license
plate readers to help
combat rise in crimes.
CALIFORNIA, B1

Weather
Sunday morning, they can see the space is filled mostly with Mostly sunny.
guys. L.A. Basin: 65/53. B6
Killing a few minutes on an adjacent tennis court, the
Printed with soy inks on
women ride in lazy circles as a portable speaker blasts rap partially recycled paper.
music, its heavy beat mixing with the scuffle of urethane
wheels. One of the men inside the park stops to peer
through the fence at them; Maggie Bowen, the Aunt Skatie Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times
leader, is used to this. MAGGIE BOWEN of the Aunt Skatie crew rides at the South Pasadena Skate
“Going into a skate park as a [See Skateboard, A7] Park. Skateboarding has attracted more women and the LGBTQ community. 7 85944 00200 5

BUSINESS INSIDE: West Hollywood aims to be a global destination for pot tourism. A8
A2 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
Pull the plug on Cadiz water project
MICHAEL HILTZIK
Desperation
over water
scarcity has
produced any
number of
schemes to
relieve the
crisis. But few
are as
chuckle-
headed as a plan to pump
groundwater from beneath
the Mojave Desert and
transport it 200 miles to
urban Southern California.
This is the Cadiz water
project, which has been
percolating since the turn of
the century.
I’ve been following this
scheme almost since its
inception, starting with an
investigative article in 2002
that made the case for the
Metropolitan Water District
of Southern California to
bail on a proposed partner-
ship with its promoter,
Cadiz Inc. The MWD did so,
which should have killed the
plan.
But it has continued to
stalk water policy ever since.
Now, finally, the Biden ad-
ministration may have
driven a stake through its
heart for good.
On Friday, officials at
Biden’s Interior Depart-
ment petitioned a federal
judge to throw out project
approvals issued in 2020 by
the same agency under
President Trump; a hearing
on the petition is set for
March.
Even if Cadiz is killed, the
problem of ill-conceived
solutions to water scarcity
won’t go away. The best
illustration of how despera-
tion affects water policy is
the More Water Now ballot
initiative, which I described
a few days ago as a danger-
ously ill-conceived measure.
The proposal’s backers are
now collecting signatures to
place it on the November
2022 ballot.
The Cadiz plan is, if
possible, even worse. The
proposal has remained alive
Afghans adjust
to temporary
lives on bases
By Andrea Castillo
JOINT BASE MC-
GUIRE - DIX - LAKE-
HURST, N.J. — A new father
stopped Col. Soleiman Ra-
hel as he walked through the
old soldiers’ barracks, now
dormitories for thousands of
people evacuated after the
U.S. withdrawal from Af-
ghanistan.
“I want you to know I
named my son after you,”
the man told him.
The gesture stands out
for Rahel as a symbol of the
significance of his work as-
sisting the largest U.S. reset-
tlement effort in half a cen-
tury. For Rahel, it’s personal
— 35 years ago, he too ar-
rived from Afghanistan as a
refugee.
When the Taliban
stormed Kabul in August,
Rahel temporarily left his
wife and home in Sacra-
mento and moved across the
country to Joint Base Mc-
Guire-Dix-Lakehurst.
Afghans there know him
as “the governor” of their
new village.
Flights of up to 300
Afghans arrive at the base a
couple of times a week.
Three housing complexes
make up Liberty Village. It is
the largest of seven “safe ha-
vens” on military bases
around the country where
the federal government is
working to process some
35,000 evacuees — and the
only one still accepting new
arrivals.
During the facility’s first,
closely supervised media
tour, Department of De-
fense and Homeland Securi-
ty officials showed reporters
a children’s English class, an
impromptu soccer game, a
dining hall serving halal
meals and a sprawling
tented medical facility with
capacity to see 400 patients
per day.
“We have built a small
city,” said Gen. Adrian
White, who is in charge of the
Cadiz Inc. stock price
Dollars per share
500
400
300
200
100
0 Trump put in place with the
1990 2000
NASDAQ
up to now not because it has
any practical value. It
doesn’t.
As proposed by Cadiz
Inc., the idea was to store
surplus Colorado River
water under a desert tract
owned by the company,
pump it out during dry
spells and transport it by
pipeline or canal to South-
ern California urban users.
Among the problems is
that there isn’t any surplus
water in the Colorado. The
basin is in a long-term
drought, and for the foresee-
able future California will be
lucky to get its full statutory
apportionment of river
water.
Furthermore, there’s
considerable disagreement
over how much ground-
water could be pumped
before neighboring aquifers
become contaminated with
carcinogenic minerals.
Then there’s the diffi-
culty of transporting the
water, which would require
pipelines crossing delicate
desert ecosystems.
No, what has kept the
scheme alive has been polit-
ical pull. This was exerted
chiefly by Cadiz’s conceiver,
2,000 personnel who operate
the village of 11,100 Afghans
— referred to as “guests” —
awaiting resettlement. “Our
unwavering goal has been to
make their life in this tempo-
rary location better every
day.”
The federal government
has evacuated 83,000 people
from Afghanistan to the
U.S., including nearly 75,000
Afghans and 8,000 U.S. citi-
zens and green card holders.
An additional 3,200 evacuees
are waiting for U.S.-bound
flights at military bases in
the Middle East and Europe,
according to Homeland Se-
curity.
Homeland Security Sec-
retary Alejandro N. May-
orkas told lawmakers last
month that the timeline to
complete resettlement is be-
tween December and Febru-
ary. The short-term spend-
ing bill that President Biden
signed last week to keep the
government running into
February includes $7 billion
for Afghan resettlement ef-
forts.
The refugees are desper-
ate to get off the bases and
find jobs so they can start
sending money back home.
Afghanistan’s economy is
collapsing and people are
facing starvation. Many of
those who have arrived want
to end up in places with large
Afghan communities, such
as Washington, D.C., and
California, but those regions
have high rents.
On Thursday, many fam-
ilies were out for a brisk
morning walk, several push-
ing strollers. Six boys in tra-
ditional tunic shirts and
pants kicked around a soc-
cer ball, cheering when one
scored a goal. Those on the
base can also opt for daily
legal counseling sessions,
Zumba sessions, English
classes and cultural orienta-
tion classes with topics in-
cluding sexual consent and
how to navigate police inter-
actions.
At a conversational Eng-
PERSPECTIVES
Dec. 1, 2021:
$3.89
2010 2020
Los Angeles Times
an investment promoter
named Keith Brackpool,
who — as I reported in 2002
— came to the U.S. after
pleading guilty to criminal
charges relating to securi-
ties trading in Britain.
While he was pushing the
deal at the MWD, Brackpool
served as a contributor and
fundraiser for then-Gov.
Gray Davis, a political ad-
versary of the MWD who
named his friend to two
statewide water commit-
tees.
Former Rep. Tony
Coelho of California, an
important Democratic
Party fundraiser, served on
the Cadiz board.
In 2005, the company
paid then-Public Utilities
Commissioner Susan Ken-
nedy, soon to become Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s
chief of staff, a $120,000
consulting fee. In 2009, while
Kennedy was working for
Schwarzenegger, he en-
dorsed the Cadiz scheme as
“a path-breaking, new,
sustainable groundwater
conservation and storage
project.”
Despite all that, the
project kept running into
AFGHAN children play soccer last week with U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Scott Nussel, a cultural awareness
specialist, outside temporary housing in Liberty Village at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J.
lish class, two Afghan volun-
teer teachers stood before a
few dozen children. On a
whiteboard, they had writ-
ten the vocabulary words of
the day: stand, sit, hot, cold,
table, chair.
In unison, the students
chanted sentences using
their new words. “This is a
chair. That is a table.”
Jeff Drumtra, who leads
social programming for the
refugees at McGuire, said
some children are working
though their trauma and
loss in drawings.
“You see the colors of the
Afghan flag, either as a flag
or in a heart. Some drawings
have blood droplets coming
from the heart,” he said.
Among those young art-
ists is Sana Khairi, 18, who
had been at the base for 47
days. In that time, she had
finished 15 pieces in ink, col-
ored pencil and oil paint.
Her favorite depicted four
Afghan soldiers struggling
to raise their country’s flag.
“We never want to let any-
body think that we’re going
to let the Afghan flag drop on
the floor,” she said in Dari
through an interpreter.
Khairi said her father was
in the Afghan military and
worked with U.S. troops.
When she and her parents
arrived at the Kabul airport,
he couldn’t make it safely
through Taliban check-
points and was left behind.
Now he is in hiding.
roadblocks, in part because
of the opposition of Sen.
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.),
who was determined to
protect the desert ecology.
Cadiz also has faced law-
suits from environmental
groups, as well as adverse
rulings by the Bureau of
Land Management, an arm
of the Interior Department
with oversight of federal
lands, including those the
proposed pipelines would
cross.
Enter the project’s most
recent patron: Donald
Trump’s Interior secretary,
David Bernhardt, one of
several Cabinet secretaries
evident purpose of under-
mining the agencies they
were supposed to run.
Bernhardt came to the
Interior Department from
the law firm Brownstein
Hyatt Farber Schreck,
which represented a sheaf of
clients in the natural re-
sources industry that had
paid the firm “millions of
dollars in legal and lobbying
fees,” as my colleague Bet-
tina Boxall reported.
(Among Bernhardt’s goals
at Interior was the eviscera-
tion of the Endangered
Species Act, a bête noire of
some of those clients.)
Cadiz had paid the
Brownstein firm $2.75 mil-
lion in lobbying fees and
200,000 shares of stock while
Bernhardt was there. One of
Bernhardt’s partners at the
firm, Scott Slater, serves as
the Cadiz chief executive.
Bernhardt is now back at
the firm, serving as a senior
counsel in its Washington
office.
When Bernhardt was
initially appointed as depu-
ty Interior secretary in
August 2017, he committed
to recusing himself from
matters related to those
clients for one year after his
appointment, which ran out
in mid-2018. He was nomi-
nated to the top job in Feb-
ruary 2019, succeeding Ryan
Zinke. The BLM decision
now being disavowed by the
Though she loves art and
writing, Khairi said she
dreams of being a surgeon —
something that felt impos-
sible in Afghanistan because
of limited education and op-
portunities for women.
At Liberty Village, a lin-
guist helped her translate
some of her poems into Eng-
lish to share with military
personnel. One, written
Sept. 1 at a military base in
Germany, is called “I Am a
Refugee.”
“O motherland, your sea-
son changed. Your treas-
ures, unseen. Your children,
buried. Your flag, lowered.
You have been abandoned.
O motherland, you are for-
gotten. I packed for a jour-
ney. I don’t know its destina-
tion. My dreams like torn
pages fall from your sky, and
you fell in the hands of un-
kind.”
Families like Khairi’s are
screened before they arrive.
Homeland Security reviews
fingerprints, photos and bio-
metric and biographic data
for all Afghans before they
are permitted to board a
flight to the U.S. Upon ar-
rival, guests are taken for
medical screening and vac-
cinated against COVID-19
and other illnesses. Dari,
Pashto, Persian, Tajik and
Urdu interpreters are on
hand.
Just 3,500 of the 14,000
people housed at Liberty
Village since it opened have
agency came in December
2020.
During all this time,
Cadiz has been notable
chiefly as a stock-trading
device, rather than as an
operating company. In 2020,
Cadiz Inc. lost $37.8 million
on revenue of $541,000,
mostly from some agricul-
tural operations on its land
holdings. From 2017 through
last year, its losses came to
$127.5 million. The company
says its future is tied up with
the “ultimate implementa-
tion of the Water Project.”
Meanwhile, Brackpool
has continued to pull down
an annual salary of $275,000,
plus bonuses ranging from
$200,000 to $300,000 and
stock awards. Slater re-
ceived $600,000 in salary and
bonus last year, plus about
198,000 shares of stock.
The company’s share
price doesn’t seem to be
associated with any actual
business performance, since
for the most part it doesn’t
have much of that. Indeed,
after the price slid by about
35% from $14.55 on Aug. 17 to
$9.42 on Sept. 13, Cadiz
issued a news release stat-
ing that it couldn’t explain
the activity, as there had
been “no new material
developments nor pending
announcements.” On Tues-
day, the shares closed at
$4.18.
That brings us back to
the government’s court
petition.
The specific issue raised
in the BLM petition was the
agency’s approval for Cadiz
to convert an old 200-mile
natural gas pipe right of way
to carry water across the
desert. Under Trump and
Bernhardt, BLM came up
with a series of excuses to
avoid performing an envi-
ronmental analysis required
by federal law, the agency
now says.
In their court petition,
the current BLM officials
charitably stop short of
calling their predecessors’
prior approval dishonest.
They settle, instead, for
been resettled, said Katy
Swartz, an acting team lead
with the State Department.
Among all evacuated
Afghans, more than 40% are
eligible for special immi-
grant visas that are given to
those who worked directly
with the U.S. government,
she said.
The others, who got out
amid the chaotic U.S. with-
drawal, will face a case-by-
case determination of their
eligibility to stay. Many will
seek refugee status or asy-
lum, while others will seek
green cards through imme-
diate relatives who are U.S.
citizens or residents. All ar-
riving Afghans were tempo-
rarily admitted to the U.S.
with protection from depor-
tation for two years.
More than 100 babies —
including baby Rahel —
have been born since the
first Afghans arrived at Mc-
Guire on Aug. 24. Just under
half of the guests are chil-
dren younger than 14.
Each housing complex is
overseen by a lieutenant col-
onel who is identified as the
“mayor” and holds weekly
town halls with residents.
Two “governors,” including
the elder Rahel, oversee the
entire village.
Rahel came to the U.S. at
age 15 after the Soviet inva-
sion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Assisting Afghans in a simi-
lar position feels like his life’s
purpose, he said.
L AT I M E S . C O M
advising the court it was
incompetent, erroneous
and illegal.
“This is not a case where
BLM conducted an appro-
priate level of analysis, in
which the court might find
some technical legal errors,”
they wrote. “Instead, BLM
failed to prepare the re-
quired analyses altogether.”
Most egregiously, they
observed, Trump’s BLM
approved the pipeline right
of way without establishing
the source of Cadiz’s water;
therefore it could not have
assessed “the potential
impacts on the environment
or historic properties of
drawing down the water at
its source.”
Cadiz said Sunday that it
will fight in court to pre-
serve the old BLM approv-
als and that the process of
converting the pipeline for
water will continue in the
meantime.
The company continues
to exploit the California
drought to push a project
that experts have long held
to be useless as a drought-
fighting measure.
Last week, after state
water authorities advised
Central Valley farmers that
they shouldn’t expect any
water next year from the
State Water Project, Cadiz
issued a statement calling
the pipeline plan “an imme-
diate opportunity” to ad-
dress “supply inequalities
and infrastructure chal-
lenges.”
The Cadiz plan was
never likely to work, and
notwithstanding the com-
pany’s claims about the
current drought, it’s more
fatuous today than ever. It’s
time to bury it in the desert
grave where it belongs, and
with any luck, the BLM’s
new court filing will finish a
long-overdue job.
Keep up to date with
Michael Hiltzik. Follow
@hiltzikm on Twitter, see
his Facebook page or
email michael.hiltzik
@latimes.com.
Barbara Davidson Pool Photo
Villagers ask if they could
someday join the military
like he did. (Of course, he
tells them.) Children ask if
he is Afghan or American.
(He explains he is both.) The
hardest questions are from
people asking how to bring
over additional family mem-
bers who are stuck in Af-
ghanistan, including thou-
sands of Afghan government
workers, teachers, journal-
ists and others at risk of per-
secution under Taliban rule
and unable to move freely.
“It’s heartbreaking be-
cause there isn’t much we
can do,” he said. He tries to
get people to focus on re-
building their lives — the
quicker they can transition
to normality after resettle-
ment, the quicker they can
get jobs and assist their
loved ones.
After Liberty Village goes
back to just being Joint
Base McGuire-Dix-Lake-
hurst, Rahel said, his work
on Afghan resettlement will
continue.
Rahel’s wife recently took
in three Afghan women after
her husband met two of
them at the base and they re-
located to California. He
connected a 12-year-old boy
who was a gifted soccer play-
er to a team in the Bronx,
N.Y. The couple plan to be-
come foster parents for
Afghan children who were
evacuated without parents
or guardians.
L AT I M E S . C O M
Merkel’s
16-year
era ends
neatly
German leader wins
praise for deft crisis
management, defense
of Western values.
By Geir Moulson
BERLIN — Angela
Merkel was assured of a
place in the history books as
soon as she became Germa-
ny’s first female chancellor
Nov. 22, 2005.
Over the next 16 years,
she was credited with rais-
ing Germany’s profile and
influence, working to hold a
fractious European Union
together, managing a string
of crises and being a role
model for women.
Now she is ending her
near-record tenure, leaving
office at age 67 amid praise
from abroad and enduring
popularity at home. Her des-
ignated successor, Olaf
Scholz, is expected to take
office Wednesday.
Merkel, a former scientist
who grew up in communist
East Germany, is bowing out
about a week short of the
record for longevity held by
her onetime mentor, former
Chancellor Helmut Kohl,
who reunited Germany dur-
ing his 1982-98 tenure.
While Merkel perhaps
lacks a spectacular signa-
ture achievement, the cen-
ter-right Christian Demo-
crat came to be viewed as an
indispensable crisis man-
ager and defender of West-
ern values in turbulent
times.
She served alongside
four U.S. presidents, four
French presidents, five
British prime ministers and
eight Italian premiers. Her
chancellorship was marked
by four major challenges: the
The John Nelson Collection, Part II
www.andrewjonesauctions.com
(213)748-8008
2221 S. Main St.,
Los Angeles, CA 90007
GERMAN CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel watches a farewell ceremony at the
Defense Ministry in Berlin, including a military parade and marching band.
global financial crisis, Eu-
rope’s debt crisis, the arrival
of vast numbers of refugees
in Europe in 2015-16 and the
COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s undeniable that
she’s given Germany a lot of
soft power,” said Sudha
David-Wilp, the deputy di-
rector of the Berlin office of
the German Marshall Fund
of the United States. “Un-
doubtedly, she’s elevated
Germany’s image in the
world.
“When she first came
onto the scene in 2005, a lot
of people underestimated
her, but she grew in stature
along with Germany’s role in
the world,” David-Wilp add-
ed. Others in Europe and be-
yond “want more of an active
Germany to play a role in the
world — that may not have
been the case before she was
in office necessarily.”
At Merkel’s final Europe-
an Union summit in Octo-
ber, former President
Obama thanked her via vi-
deo for “taking the high
ground for so many years.”
“Thanks to you, the cen-
ter has held through many
storms,” he said.
Appreciation from her
counterparts over the years
was genuine, although there
was plenty of friction as well.
Merkel always sought to
keep the EU as tightly knit as
possible but strongly de-
fended Germany’s interests,
clashing with Greece during
Preview by appointment
Thursday-Saturday, 9, 10 & 11 December, 10am - 5pm
Auction Sunday, 12 December, 10am
THE WORLD
the euro debt crisis and disa-
greeing with Hungary, Po-
land and others over their
refusal — unlike Germany —
to host migrants arriving in
Europe.
At home, her record is
also a mixed bag. She leaves
Germany with lower unem-
ployment and healthier fi-
nances, but also with well-
documented shortcomings
in digitization — many
health offices resorted to fax
machines to transmit data
during the pandemic — and
what critics say was a lack of
investment in infrastruc-
ture.
After announcing in 2018
that she wouldn’t seek a fifth
term, Merkel failed to secure
a smooth transition of power
in her own party, the CDU,
which slumped to defeat in
September elections.
The incoming governing
coalition under Scholz, a So-
cial Democrat, says it wants
to see “more progress” for
Germany after years of stag-
nation.
But Germans’ overall
verdict on Merkel appears to
remain favorable. During
the September election
campaign, from which she
largely was absent, Merkel’s
popularity ratings out-
stripped those of her three
would-be successors. Unlike
her seven predecessors in
postwar Germany, she is
leaving office at a time of her
choosing.
Odd Andersen Pool Photo
Merkel’s body language
and facial expressions some-
times offered a glimpse of
her reactions that went be-
yond words. She once la-
mented that she couldn’t
put on a poker face: “I’ve giv-
en up. I can’t do it.”
She was never the most
glamorous of political op-
erators, but that was part of
her appeal. Merkel contin-
ued to take unglamorous
walking holidays, was occa-
sionally seen shopping at
the supermarket and lived in
the same Berlin apartment
as she did before taking the
top job.
Named “the World’s Most
Powerful Woman” by Forbes
magazine for the last 10
years, Merkel steps down
with a legacy of breaking
through the glass ceiling of
male dominance in politics
— although she also has
faced criticism for not push-
ing harder for more gender
equality.
“Angela Merkel brought
class and dignity to a very
important position and
made very hard decisions ...
and did so based upon prin-
ciple,” former President
George W. Bush told Ger-
man broadcaster Deutsche
Welle in July. He described
her as “a compassionate
leader, a woman who was
not afraid to lead.”
Moulson writes for the
Associated Press.
WSCE W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
Lawmakers’ visit
to shrine raises ire
China and the Koreas
decry Japanese group’s
trip to site honoring
the nation’s war dead.
associated press
TOKYO — A group of
about 100 Japanese lawmak-
ers prayed Tuesday at a
controversial Tokyo shrine
viewed by China and the
Koreas as a symbol of Japa-
nese wartime aggression,
80 years after Japan’s attack
on Pearl Harbor.
Many of the lawmakers,
including nine vice ministers
and special aides in the Cab-
inet of Prime Minister Fu-
mio Kishida, are members of
Kishida’s conservative rul-
ing party.
Japan’s attack on Pearl
Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941,
brought the United States
into World War II. In Japan,
the date was Dec. 8.
Victims of Japanese ag-
gression during the first half
of the 20th century, espe-
cially those from China and
Korea, see the Yasukuni
Shrine as a symbol of
Japan’s militarism because
it honors its war dead, in-
cluding convicted war
criminals.
Visits and donations to
the shrine by Japanese polit-
ical leaders are seen by crit-
ics as a sign of a lack of re-
morse over the country’s
wartime actions.
Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesperson Zhao Lijian
said the lawmakers’ visit was
a “deliberate move and prov-
ocation.”
“The Japanese digni-
taries’ visit to the shrine
again shows Japan’s wrong
attitude towards the history
of aggression,” Zhao said.
South Korea’s Foreign
Ministry expressed “deep
concern and regret” Tues-
day over the “large-scale”
visit to a shrine that “beauti-
fies Japan’s colonial pillage
and war of aggression.” It
A3
K. Fukuhara Kyodo News
ABOUT 100 prayed at
Yasukuni Shrine, seen as
a symbol of militarism.
said in a statement that
Japan instead should show
“humble reflection and sin-
cere remorse” about its
wartime past to win back the
trust of the international
community.
Hidehisa Otsuji, a senior
member of Kishida’s party,
said the group prayed to the
spirits of the war dead to
protect Japan from the
COVID-19 pandemic.
It was the first time the
group has prayed at Ya-
sukuni since the pandemic
began early last year.
The lawmakers are mem-
bers of a parliamentary
group that has regularly
paid tribute at the shrine on
the anniversary of the end of
World War II on Aug. 15 and
during the shrine’s spring
and autumn festivals.
Otsuji told reporters that
he wished Kishida would vis-
it the shrine soon.
Kishida and Cabinet
ministers did not join the
group visit Tuesday. The
prime minister donated
religious offerings called
masakaki to observe the
shrine’s autumn festival.
Japanese leaders have
avoided visiting the shrine
while in office after China
and the Koreas reacted
with outrage to a visit by
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
in 2013.
Earlier this year, Defense
Minister Nobuo Kishi, who is
Abe’s younger brother, vis-
ited the shrine.
A4 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 WSCE L AT I M E S . C O M

Biden urges Putin to de-escalate tensions

[Russia, from A1]
with strong economic and
other measures in the event ‘Things we did
of military escalation,” ac-
cording to a readout of the
not do in 2014
call released by the White
House after the conference.
we are prepared
During their two-hour
meeting, Biden reiterated
to do now.’
his support for Ukraine’s — Jake Sullivan,
sovereignty and called for U.S. national security advisor,
de-escalation and a return suggesting a Russian invasion
to diplomacy. “The two pres- of Ukraine would incur more
idents tasked their teams to severe sanctions than the
follow up, and the U.S. will do seizure of Crimea
so in close coordination with
allies and partners,” the
statement said.
The two world leaders but so far has not attempted
also discussed U.S. and Rus- to halt. Noting that “gas
sian long-term work on arms is not currently flowing”
control, ransomware and through the pipeline, Sulli-
joint efforts on regional is- van even hinted that the U.S.
sues such as Iran. could still sanction the proj-
Putin has sought assur- ect, which allows Russian
ances that NATO won’t gas to flow directly to Eu-
make Ukraine a member of rope, if Putin were to invade
the long-standing alliance, Ukraine.
which has 30 member coun- “If Putin wants to see
tries, including the United gas flowing through that
States. Membership would pipeline, he may not want to
essentially guarantee the take the risk of invading
former Soviet republic’s mil- Ukraine,” Sullivan said.
itary defense. Several Republicans, in-
“President Biden was di- cluding Sen. Ted Cruz of
rect and straightforward Texas, have called for sanc-
with President Putin, as he tions against the pipeline.
always is,” said Jake Sulli- President Trump soft-
van, Biden’s national securi- Andriy Dubchak Associated Press ened America’s posture
ty advisor, after the meeting. UKRAINIAN soldiers walk at the line of separation in the Donetsk region, where they are fighting pro-Russia toward Putin, who U.S. intel-
“There was no finger-wag- rebels. The mobilization of Russian troops has fueled fears that President Vladimir Putin is planning to invade. ligence officials say con-
ging, but the president was ducted a misinformation
crystal clear about where sia, since it is NATO that is appeared wary of the U.S. ments changing?” Pifer said. et Union in 1991. It has since campaign to help Trump in
the administration stands.” making dangerous attempts taking on additional global “And how does the Kremlin sought to strengthen ties the 2016 election. In 2019,
He added: “We still do not to conquer Ukrainian terri- defense responsibilities as portray the call, and do the with Europe. After the oust- Trump pressured Zelensky
believe that President Putin tory and is building up its he focuses on shoring up the Russians tone down the er of Russia-friendly Ukrain- to announce a corruption in-
has made a decision” about military potential at our bor- American economy and re- really over-the-top rhetoric ian President Viktor Yanu- vestigation into Hunter Bid-
whether to launch an inva- ders.” Moscow, the readout orienting alliances around they’ve been issuing about kovich, Putin seized the en’s business dealings in
sion. “We will see in the days continued, “is seriously in- the containment of China. Ukraine in recent days?” Black Sea peninsula of Kyiv, in an attempt to smear
ahead through actions, not terested in obtaining reli- But he is hoping to dis- Before the discussion Crimea in 2014, and tensions his father, the eventual
through words, what course able, legally fixed guaran- suade Putin from escalating with Putin, Biden conferred have remained high. Democratic nominee. That
of action Russia chooses to tees excluding the expan- the simmering military with top European allies Sullivan suggested the effort led to Trump’s first
take.” sion of NATO in the eastern conflict along the Russia- Monday evening about the economic sanctions could impeachment by the House
The Kremlin’s official direction and the deploy- Ukraine border. far-reaching economic sanc- be more far reaching than in 2019.
readout of the meeting ment of offensive strike “This is one of the last, tions any invasion would those imposed after the an- Since taking office, Biden
blamed Ukraine for the weapons systems in the best chances to affect Krem- trigger. nexation of Crimea, al- has sought to return U.S. for-
buildup of Russian forces states adjacent to Russia.” lin thinking,” said Steven And Biden spoke again though he declined to go into eign policy to its more tradi-
and offered a defensive re- Although Biden has pub- Pifer, a former U.S. ambas- with the top four European specifics publicly. tional position of skepticism
sponse to Biden, whom it licly rejected any of Putin’s sador to Ukraine who is now leaders on another call “Things we did not do in toward Russia and support
characterized as having “red lines” and expressed the William Perry fellow at Tuesday afternoon to up- 2014 we are prepared to do for the fledgling democra-
emphasized “the allegedly support for Ukraine’s terri- Stanford University. Putin’s date allies on the nature of now,” he said. cies that emerged after the
‘threatening’ nature of the torial sovereignty, he has response in the coming his talks with Putin, the He also challenged the Soviet Union was dissolved.
movements of Russian shown little interest in fully weeks and months, he con- White House said. He is idea that Russia’s leverage He welcomed Zelensky at
troops,” and his threat of backing its potential mem- tinued, will make it clear scheduled to speak with had increased from the near the White House in Septem-
sanctions. bership in the North At- whether Biden made any in- Ukrainian President Volo- completion of the Nord ber and has reaffirmed the
Putin, the Kremlin said, lantic Treaty Organization. roads. dymyr Zelensky on Wednes- Stream 2 natural gas pipe- importance of NATO while
“stressed that the responsi- The president, even as he “The big questions to be day. line between Russia and still hedging on the question
bility should not be shifted has sought to strengthen answered are: Do we see the Ukraine won independ- Germany, a project the Bid- of Ukraine’s potential mem-
onto the shoulders of Rus- democratic alliances, has Russian military deploy- ence after the fall of the Sovi- en administration opposed bership.

How to contact us
Home Delivery and
Membership Program
(800) LA TIMES
latimes.com/mediakit or call
(213) 237-6176.
China slams U.S. on Olympics
the perspective of national
For questions about delivery,
billing and vacation holds, or Reprint Requests
For the rights to use articles,
Diplomatic boycott interests, taking into consid-
for information about our eration the significance of
Membership program, please photos, graphics and page of the Winter Games the Olympic Games and the
reproductions, e-mail
contact us at (213) 283-2274 or
membershipservices@ reprint@latimes.com or call violates spirit of the significance of Japan’s di-
(213) 237-4565. plomacy.”
latimes.com. You can also
manage your account at Times In Education
event, Beijing says. Tokyo hosted the Sum-
myaccount.latimes.com. To get the digital mer Olympics in July.
associated press
Letters to the Editor Los Angeles Times at no Japanese Chief Cabinet
Want to write a letter to be cost (along with our Secretary Hirokazu Mat-
published in the paper and newspaper–based teaching
materials), contact us at BEIJING — China on suno said it remained un-
online? E-mail Tuesday accused the U.S. of clear what the U.S. diplo-
letters@latimes.com. latimes.com/tie, or email
For submission guidelines, Heidi.stauder@latimes.com violating the Olympic spirit matic boycott means and
see latimes.com/letters. The Newsroom after the Biden administra- that a decision on Japanese
Readers’ Representative Know something important tion announced a diplo- officials attending would be
If you believe we have we should cover? Send a matic boycott of February’s made “at an appropriate
secure tip at
made an error, or you have
latimes.com/tips. To send a
Winter Games in Beijing time.”
questions about our over human rights concerns. “In any case, Japan hopes
journalistic standards press release go to the
and practices, our readers’ newsroom directory at Rights groups have that the Beijing Winter
representative can be latimes.com/staff. pushed for a full-blown boy- Games will be held as a
reached at Media Relations cott of the Games, accusing celebration of peace in line
readers.representative For outside media requests China of abuses against eth- with the principles of the
@latimes.com, (877) 554-4000 and inquiries, e-mail
or online at nic minorities. The U.S. deci- Noel Celis AFP/Getty Images Olympic and Paralympic
commsdept@latimes.com.
latimes.com/readersrep. sion falls short of those calls A STATUE celebrates the Olympics in Beijing. The Games,” Matsuno said.
L.A. Times Store but comes at an exception- 2022 Winter Games are subject to a U.S. diplomatic South Korean Foreign
Advertising Search archives, merchandise
For print and online ally turbulent time for rela- boycott, which elicited a fierce Chinese reaction. Ministry spokesperson Choi
and front pages at
advertising information, go to latimes.com/store. tions between the power- Young-sam declined to com-
house nations and was met flicts. The U.S. has accused Even the ruling Commu- ment on the U.S. decision
with a barrage of criticism China of human rights nist Party’s notoriously and said the ministry had
from China. abuses against Muslim opaque Central Commis- not received any request
Founded Dec. 4, 1881 The Biden administra- Uyghurs in the northwest re- sion for Discipline Inspec- from its ally not to send offi-
Vol. CXLI No. 5
tion’s decision not to send gion of Xinjiang, suppress- tion issued a response in the cials.
LOS ANGELES TIMES Print-only rates: officials was made “out of ing democratic movements form of a lengthy screed on South Korea hopes the
(ISSN 0458-3035) Seven-day $1,144 annually. Thursday–Sunday
is published by the Los Angeles Times, $884 annually. Thursday & Sunday $468 ideological prejudice and in Hong Kong and commit- its website titled “The Spirit Beijing Olympics will “con-
2300 E. Imperial Highway, El Segundo, CA annually. Saturday & Sunday $468 annually.
90245. Periodicals postage is paid at Los Sunday $468 annually. Monday–Saturday
based on lies and rumors,” ting military aggression of the Olympic Charter Can- tribute to peace and pros-
Angeles, CA, and additional cities. $936 annually (also includes Sundays, Chinese Foreign Ministry against the self-ruled island not be Tarnished.” perity in Northeast Asia and
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the except 2/16, 4/12, 9/6, and 10/25).
above address. Monday–Friday $884 annually. spokesperson Zhao Lijian of Taiwan and more. “Some Western anti- the world and help improve
Home Delivery Subscription Rates (all rates Pricing for all subscriptions includes the
include applicable CA sales taxes and apply Thanksgiving 11/26 issue.
told reporters. The boycott Other major countries China politicians” have relations between South
to most areas) All subscriptions may include up to eight “seriously violates the prin- have yet to say if they will fol- shown a “defensive Cold War and North Korea,” Choi said.
Print + unlimited digital rates: Premium issues per year. For each Premium
Seven-day $21/week, $1,092 annually. issue, your account balance will be charged an ciple of political neutrality of low the American lead. mentality aimed at politiciz- New Zealand said Tues-
Thursday–Sunday $16/week, $832 additional fee up to $4.49, in the billing period
annually. Thursday & Sunday $7/week, when the section publishes. This will result in
sports established by the Beijing has denounced ing sport,” the article said, day that it would not be at-
$364 annually. Saturday & Sunday shortening the length of your billing period. Olympic Charter and runs U.S. criticisms and punitive calling that a “clear violation tending the Games at a dip-
$9/week, $468 annually. Sunday $9/week, Future Premium issues scheduled to date:
$468 annually. Monday–Saturday Hikes 3/14/2021, Envelope 4/25/2021, counter to the Olympic sanctions as interference in of the Olympic spirit and a lomatic level, but that it had
$16/week, $832 annually (also includes Earthquakes 6/13/2021, Olympics 7/18/2021,
Sundays, except 2/16, 4/12, 9/6, and Making Hollywood History 9/12/21, Holiday Gift
motto ‘More united.’ ” its internal affairs and challenge to all people who made the decision earlier
10/25). Monday–Friday $16/week, $832 Guide 11/7/2021, 101 Restaurants 12/12/2021, As he did the previous slapped visa bans on Ameri- love the Olympic move- mostly because of pandemic
annually. Year in Review 12/26/21. Dates are subject to
change without notice. day, Zhao vowed that China can politicians whom it re- ment.” travel restrictions.
Printed with soy-based ink on recycled newsprint from wood byproducts. would respond with “reso- gards as anti-China. People on the streets of The country told China in
lute countermeasures” but Zhao warned the U.S. to Beijing were dismissive of October about its plans not
offered no details. “stop politicizing sports” the U.S. move. to send government min-
“The U.S. will pay a price and to cease what he said “I don’t think it matters isters, Deputy Prime Min-
for its practices. You may were actions undermining at all if they would come or ister Grant Robertson said.
stay tuned for follow-ups,” the Winter Olympics. “Oth- not. The Olympic Games are “But we’ve made clear to
Zhao said. erwise, it will undermine the not about one country or a China on numerous occa-
On Monday, White House dialogue and cooperation couple of countries,” said sions our concerns about
Press Secretary Jen Psaki between the two countries in coffee shop employee Deng human rights issues,” Rob-
told reporters that the Bid- a series of important areas Tao. ertson said.
en administration would and international issues,” he “Such remarks from Australia, whose rela-
fully support U.S. athletes said. someone we never invited tions with China have grown
competing at the Games but The Chinese Embassy in are simply a farce. And I increasingly tense, has yet to
An outdoors newsletter would not dispatch di- Washington tweeted that don’t think it will have much say whether it will send dig-
The Wild newsletter brings Southern California’s
plomats or other officials to politicians calling for a boy- impact on the holding of the nitaries.
outdoors right to your inbox. Get inspired to attend. cott were “doing so for their Winter Olympics,” said Lu The dispatching of high-
explore everywhere from secret local parks Psaki said that the U.S. own political interests and Xiaolei, who works in trade. level delegations to each
to 10,000-foot peaks. There’s a lot to do out has a “fundamental commit- posturing.” It wasn’t clear whom Olympics has been a tradi-
there and we’re eager to be your guide. There’s ment to promoting human “In fact, no one would Washington might have sent tion among the U.S. and
no better way to discover the region’s natural rights” and that the U.S. care about whether these in an official delegation to other leading nations. Then-
world and plan your next outdoors escape. “will not be contributing to people come or not, and it the Games, and Zhao on President George W. Bush
the fanfare of the Games.” has no impact whatsoever Monday said no invitations attended the opening of the
Sign up now at latimes.com/the-wild
The diplomatic boycott on the #Beijing2022 to be had been extended by 2008 Beijing Summer
comes as the U.S. attempts successfully held,” the em- China. Games. First Lady Jill Biden
to thread the needle be- bassy said. Amid the calls for a boy- led the American contingent
tween stabilizing difficult re- China’s mission to the cott, Japanese Prime Min- to the Tokyo Olympics, and
lations with Beijing and United Nations called the ister Fumio Kishida on Second Gentleman Doug
maintaining a tough stance boycott a “self-directed po- Tuesday said Japan would Emhoff led a delegation to
on trade and political con- litical farce.” make its own decision “from the Paralympic Games.
L AT I M E S . C O M WSCE W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 A5

THE NATION

Harris seeks better maternal care

White House points
to racial disparities in
high U.S. death rates
linked to childbirth.
By Erin B. Logan
and Marissa Evans

WASHINGTON — Vice
President Kamala Harris
urged Congress on Tuesday
Evan Vucci Associated Press to provide $3 billion more for
PRESIDENT BIDEN and the first lady pay their maternal healthcare and ex-
respects at the National World War II Memorial. pand postpartum Medicaid
coverage to one year as part
of the proposed social safety

Pearl Harbor fallen net and climate package

now before the Senate.
Harris’ entreaty came at Jim Watson AFP/Getty Images

are not forgotten the White House’s first Ma-

ternal Health Day of Action
event, held to draw attention
to the U.S. maternal mortal-
VICE PRESIDENT Kamala Harris, at the White House’s Maternal Health Day
of Action event, called for more money for maternal and postpartum care.

ing that coverage would en- pressure and pulmonary the nation of how to de-
ity rate, which is more than sure mothers have access to embolisms. crease maternal deaths.
touched a wall, where she double that of most other care during the crucial one- Black women had the The rate of maternal
Bidens visit World and the president spent a developed nations. year postpartum period. highest maternal mortality deaths in California in 2006
moment. The bouquet was “In the United States of States are now required rates in the nation, with was 16.9 per 100,000 live
War II Memorial on in honor of her father, Don- America, in the 21st century, to provide only 60 days of around 42 deaths per 100,000 births, according to the
the 80th anniversary ald Jacobs, who served as a being pregnant and giving postpartum coverage under live births between 2014 and California Maternal Quality
U.S. Navy signalman in the birth should not carry such Medicaid. 2017, according to the CDC. Care Collaborative, which
of the attack. war, the White House said. great risk,” Harris said. The $1.7-trillion social Latinas had the lowest was formed that year to
The Bidens then paused Black mothers are three safety net and climate pack- rates, with about 12 deaths bring state agencies, hospi-
associated press
at the Pacific arch on the to four times more likely age being negotiated in the per 100,000 live births in the tals and health provider
southern side of the memo- than white mothers to die Senate would require states same period. groups together to find pre-
WASHINGTON — Presi- rial plaza for one last mo- of pregnancy complications. to provide a year of postpar- Black mothers with ventive solutions for preg-
dent Biden and First Lady ment of reflection before de- Native American women are tum coverage under Medi- health insurance and above- nancy complications and
Jill Biden on Tuesday parting. twice as likely as white wom- caid. The House passed a average incomes who re- deaths.
marked the 80th anniversa- Joe Biden, in a White en to die before, during or version of the bill last month. ceive timely medical care By 2016, California’s
ry of the Japanese attack on House proclamation issued after childbirth. Harris urged states to ex- can even encounter prob- maternal mortality had de-
Pearl Harbor with a somber last week to recognize Na- Harris said investing in tend coverage on their own lems. The issue gained clined by 65%.
visit to the National World tional Pearl Harbor Remem- pregnant women and new rather than waiting on Con- heightened attention in 2018, In October, Gov. Gavin
War II Memorial in the na- brance Day, gave “thanks to mothers would stimulate gress, saying that doing so when tennis star Serena Newsom signed into law an
tion’s capital. the Greatest Generation, the economy. The direct “will save lives, and it will Williams and Grammy-win- extension of new parents’
The Dec. 7, 1941, attack on who guided our nation medical and indirect non- change lives.” ning singer Beyoncé publicly benefits to 12 months after
Pearl Harbor and other loca- through some of our darkest medical costs of poor mater- The Democrats’ package spoke about nearly dying in birth under Medi-Cal, the
tions in Hawaii killed 2,403 moments and laid the foun- nal healthcare amount to would also provide $3 billion childbirth. state’s Medicaid program.
service members and civil- dations of an international more than $30 billion a year in funding to expand the Allyson Felix, an Olympic The law also adds doulas
ians and was a defining mo- system that has trans- in the U.S., according to the perinatal workforce, im- track star who participated as eligible Medi-Cal pro-
ment that led to the U.S. en- formed former adversaries Commonwealth Fund, a pri- prove collection of maternal in Tuesday’s White House viders; maternal health ad-
try into World War II. into allies.” vate healthcare foundation. health data and address the event, said in a statement vocates have long promoted
Joe Biden touched a Biden made the Tuesday “A healthy economy re- social factors that contrib- that her pregnancy compli- the benefits of doulas’ extra
wreath and saluted. The morning visit just hours be- quires healthy mothers and ute to poor maternal health cations risked her and her emotional and physical sup-
wreath contained a wild sun- fore he was to hold a highly healthy babies,” Harris said. outcomes. daughter’s lives. port for mothers before, dur-
flower, the state flower of anticipated video confer- The maternal health Nationally, nearly 700 “After my traumatic ex- ing and after birth.
Kansas, in honor of former ence call with Russian Presi- event is part of the Biden ad- women die each year of perience, I decided to use my In addition, the law up-
Sen. Bob Dole, a war veteran dent Vladimir Putin. ministration’s effort to call pregnancy complications, voice to call out racial injus- dates data collection and
who was a driving force in Biden used the call to ex- out healthcare inequities according to the federal tice in our healthcare sys- protocols for counties par-
getting the memorial built press concern about Rus- and racial health disparities Centers for Disease Control tem,” said Felix, who is also ticipating in the Fetal and
on the National Mall and sia’s troop buildup near its as well as to push more and Prevention. Black. “I am proud to fight ... Infant Mortality Review
who died Sunday at age 98. borders with neighboring states to extend Medicaid In recent years, the CDC to make sure maternal Process and establishes a
The first lady laid a bou- Ukraine and to make clear to coverage for mothers up to a has found that common health equity is a reality for fund for midwife training
quet of flowers at the base of Putin that an invasion would year after they give birth. complications include infec- all women and girls.” programs that prioritize ad-
the memorial below the New lead to economic sanctions Maternal health experts tions, cardiovascular issues, Experts have long seen mitting underrepresented
Jersey pillar and softly against Russia. and advocates say extend- bleeding out, high blood California as an example to groups.

LEGAL NOTICE
NOTICE OF PUBLIC SALE
On December 23, 2021, at 11:00 a.m. (CST) at the offices of Vedder Price P.C., 222 North LaSalle Street, Suite 2600, Chicago, Illinois 60611, and via
videoconference, Sloan Valve Company, as lender and holder of the Secured Note (“Secured Party”), will hold a public auction of Collateral of MODUS
SYSTEMS, LLC (“Debtor”) as described herein pursuant to UCC § 9-610 and certain financing documents by and between Debtor and Secured Party.
GOURMET MEAL DELIVERY
Collateral: Secured Party will hold the Auction to offer for sale all of Debtor’s right, title and interest in, to and under certain personal property,

for
tangible and intangible, and all proceeds, substitutions, products, rents or profits thereof pledged by Debtor to Secured Party under the financing

SENIORS
documents: (A) any and all Intellectual Property (as defined in the IP Security Agreement), including: (1) Patents, including without, limitation, (a) patents
and patent applications, including those listed on the Schedules to the IP Security Agreement, and (b) all continuations, divisionals, continuations-
in-part, reexaminations, reissues, and renewals thereof and improvements thereon; (2) Copyrights and works of authorship, including without,
limitation, (a) copyrights and moral rights, and (b) copyright registrations and recordings thereof and all applications in connection therewith,
including those listed on the Schedules to the IP Security Agreement; (3) Trademarks, including without, limitation, (a) any and all trademarks, trade
names, registered trademarks, trademark applications, service marks, registered service marks and service mark applications, including (b) the
trade names, registered trademarks, trademark applications, registered service marks and service mark applications listed on the Schedules of the
IP Security Agreement, (c) all renewals thereof, and (d) the goodwill of Debtor’s business symbolized by the foregoing or connected therewith; (4)
trade secrets, knowhow, inventions (whether or not patentable), algorithms, software programs (including source code and object code), processes,
product designs, industrial designs, blueprints, drawings, data, customer lists, URLs (uniform resource locators) and domain names, specifications,
documentations, report, catalogs, literature, and any other forms of technology or proprietary information of any kind, including all rights therein and
all applications for registrations or registrations thereof; (5) all income, royalties, damages and payments now or hereafter due and payable under
and with respect thereto, including payments under all licenses entered into in connection therewith and damages and payments for past, present, or
future infringements thereof; (6) the right to sue for past, present, and future infringements thereof; and (7) all of Debtor’s rights corresponding thereto
FRESH, HEALTHY MEALS. DELIVERED.
throughout the world; (B) all payments under insurance or any indemnity or warranty payable in respect of any of the Intellectual Property; and (C) all
inventory of goods purchased under the Manufacturing Supply Agreement, including, without limitation, Goods, Nonconforming Goods and Tooling
(each as defined in the Manufacturing Supply Agreement), wherever located, and whether now existing or hereafter arising or acquired from time to
time, and in all accessions thereto and replacements or modifications thereof, as well as all proceeds (including insurance proceeds) of the foregoing.
Goods include, without limitation, those Goods set forth in the Manufacturing Supply Agreement, and Tooling, includes, collectively, all tooling, dies,
Customized to meet your needs
test and assembly fixtures, gauges, jigs, patterns, casting patterns, cavities, molds, and documentation (including engineering specifications and
test reports) used by Secured Party in connection with its manufacture and sale of the Goods, together with any accessions, attachments, parts,
accessories, substitutions, replacements and appurtenances thereto (each as defined in the UCC) (together with all rights, contracts, litigation,
w Healthy Lifestyle w
Diabetic w Renal
engagement agreements, privileges, work product, information, and records relating to same, “Collateral”).
Terms and Conditions of Sale:
1. The Collateral will be sold at public auction (the “Auction”) to the bidder with the highest or otherwise best bid, for cash except as otherwise

w Heart Healthy w
provided herein, and on other such commercially reasonable terms as Secured Party may determine in Secured Party’s sole discretion on an “AS IS,
WHERE IS BASIS, AND WITH ALL FAULTS”, without recourse or any express or implied representations or warranties whatsoever, whether
express, implied or statutory, including, without limitation, warranties of merchantability, quiet enjoyment, possession or fitness for a
particular purpose. Secured Party does not claim title to the Collateral being sold and disclaims any warranty of title, possession, quiet ALL
enjoyment, value or quality of the Collateral and the like.
2. Any party interested in bidding at the Auction must (i) disclose its identity (including shareholders, members and/or managers), (ii) present
financial information to evidence an ability to consummate the purchase, (iii) enter into a confidentiality agreement with the Secured Party so as to be
Gluten Sensitive MENUS ARE
LOW
considered as a qualified bidder, which decision shall be made by the Secured Party in the Secured Party’s sole discretion, (iv) provide for a starting
cash bid that exceeds $1,150,000 (“Qualified Bid Amount”), and (v) pre-register for attendance at the Auction not later than 5:00 p.m. (CST) on
December 21, 2021.
w Diverticulitis w SODIUM

Vitamin K Restrictive
3. To pre-register for the Auction, and for additional information regarding the terms of any sale, the Auction or the Collateral, or other inquiries,
please contact counsel for Secured Party: David L. Kane, Vedder Price P.C., 222 North LaSalle St., Ste. 2600, Chicago, IL 60601; (312) 609-7778;
dkane@vedderprice.com.

w Dairy Free w
4. Any cash bid for the Collateral at the Auction must exceed the Qualified Bid Amount and be made payable to Secured Party in U.S. dollars within
24 hours of the Auction date. Secured Party reserves the right to bid at the Auction and to offset or credit bid all or any part of the total amount of its
secured claims in satisfaction of the purchase price.
5. Secured Party reserves the right to withdraw any or all of the Collateral from the Auction, at any time, and to modify, waive or amend any terms
or conditions of any sale or impose any other terms or conditions on any sale and, if Secured Party deems appropriate, to reject any bids or to continue
or adjourn any sale, all without prior notice. Secured Party may elect to cancel the sale at any time prior to its commencement. All terms of the sale
and Auction are at the Secured Party’s discretion.
HEALTHY LIFESTYLE MENU SAMPLE:
SA C L
SKYLIGHT LE H A
S
EN AN T
REPLACEMENT D C
S
SAVE $50 + BUNDLE PRICING SO E
O
N
!

BEFORE

AFTER

BUY
4 DAYS
GET THE 5TH
F complete
For
FREE m
menu visit our website:
Learn more!
BEST PRICE OF THE YEAR! ww
ww.MarthasSeniorGourmet.com
$50 OFF + MORE 562-228-0141
SolatubeHome.com/LAT (800) 621-8966
LIMITED TIME OFFER - ENDS 12/31/2021

Low payment options available. Call for details.

Lic.# 847890 // ©2021 Solatube Home

FREE Consultations • #1 Skylight Company in Southern California

A6 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
Boy’s killing is latest tragedy in L.A.
[Shooting, from A1]
pounds the horror and anger
already roiling Los Angeles
after a high-profile homicide
in Beverly Hills on Dec. 1 and
other recent crimes. And it
lays bare the deep inequities
that plague urban America
today, as the country strug-
gles through the second year
of a global health crisis and
the economy zigs and zags
its way back to health.
When philanthropist
Jacqueline Avant was shot
to death in her Trousdale
Estates home last week, for-
mer President Clinton,
Oprah Winfrey and Magic
Johnson, among others,
tweeted their condolences.
Avant’s death followed a
rash of smash-and-grab rob-
beries at upscale boutiques
and celebrity home-invasion
robberies. Those incidents
received national attention
and sparked an outcry over
rising crime.
The reaction to Alexan-
der’s death has been far
more subdued. It was fol-
lowed by another double ho-
micide just two hours later in
an equally beleaguered
neighborhood about 14 miles
away, according to LAPD
Chief Michel Moore. Two 25-
year-old men who had been
living in a homeless encamp-
ment were shot to death at 7
p.m. Monday.
Mike Lansing, executive
director of the Boys & Girls
Clubs of the Los Angeles
Harbor, said crimes commit-
ted in the neighborhoods his
organization serves too
often do not get the same
outrage and attention. The
group runs an after-school
program at Wilmington
Park Elementary.
“They get short shrift,”
Lansing said.
After the attack, Lansing
said, a Boys & Girls Club
staff member rushed to the
young girl’s side on the
school playground and ap-
plied pressure on her gun-
shot wound to help stop the
bleeding until paramedics
arrived.
On Tuesday, Moore said
“easily dozens” of bullet cas-
ings were recovered from the
scene in front of the school
from at least two different
caliber firearms, indicating
multiple gunmen opened
fire and a level of intent on
their part to cause substan-
tial harm.
“This was a brazen as-
sault in the middle of the
day,” he said.
During a news confer-
ence from his L.A office,
Moore also said one of the
guns “was a very powerful
one by the nature of the cas-
ings we’ve recovered,” but he
declined to specify the type
of weapon. Moore said Al-
California considering fines for water wasters
[Water, from A1]
widely seen as successful,
with water use dropping by
nearly 25%. Amid the cuts,
desiccated lawns and short-
er showers became com-
monplace across the region.
“Moving forward with
these prohibitions now
makes sense,” said Eric
Oppenheimer, chief deputy
director of the State Water
Resources Control Board. “I
think it’s the right next
step.”
Under the proposed
rules, violators could face
fines of up to $500 a day. En-
forcement would come from
cities, counties and local
water agencies.
Notably, the regulations
would prevent homeowners
associations and local gov-
ernments from taking ac-
tion against residents who
do not comply with land-
scaping policies, such as
those that require lush
lawns.
Calling the proposed pro-
hibitions “common-sense
measures,” Oppenheimer
said the activities under
consideration simply “don’t
make sense during the
drought.”
“I think most people
would agree we shouldn’t be
watering lawns when it’s
raining,” he said.
Experts said the new
regulations could follow the
same pattern as those of the
previous drought, leading to
further restrictions if condi-
tions do not improve.
“I think it’s a matter of
timing, and I think we will
be asking more of people be-
yond this,” Parker said, not-
ing that even a rainy winter
may not be enough to end
the drought.
The proposed restric-
tions would save an esti-
mated 100,000 acre-feet of
water, but a residential ur-
WILMINGTON RESIDENTS and elected officials gather for a candlelight vigil after a shooting Monday that left a 12-year-old boy dead,
his mother wounded, and a 9-year-old girl with serious injuries. Police said they recovered dozens of rounds at the scene.
exander’s stepmother was
shot in the stomach, and
that he believed the 12-year-
old was shot in the head.
Moore said he could not
share more information
about how the family was
positioned in the black
Dodge Durango, the mo-
tives of the gunmen or if
there was any sort of interac-
tion or familiarity between
the woman and the gunmen
before the shooting.
“The amount of vi-
olence,” Moore said, “it bog-
gles your mind, when you
think about an afternoon
outside of a school.” He said
he expected more informa-
tion on the case to be made
available Wednesday.
Wilmington and the sur-
rounding area have long
been haunted by gang vi-
olence.
In 2016, more than two
dozen members and associ-
ates of the Wilmas street
gang, who were named in a
federal racketeering indict-
ment, were arrested on sus-
picion of murder, attempted
murder, narcotics traffick-
ing, robbery and witness in-
timidation. They were also
REGULATORS are weighing measures such as a prohibition on watering lawns within 48 hours after rainfall.
ban area like Los Angeles
uses about 7 million acre-
feet per year, he said.
More restrictions are
likely, Parker added, but “it’s
easier to sort of implement
them in stages rather than
hit everybody too hard, too
fast.”
Yet even incremental re-
strictions are not always
welcome. The latest propos-
al spells out a potential $100-
million revenue loss for state
water agencies. Many of
those losses trickle down to
consumers in the form of
surcharges or extra fees, offi-
cials said.
In 2016, water suppliers
successfully campaigned for
the relaxation or removal of
Brown’s restrictions after
the arrival of rain and snow,
with some arguing that a
one-size-fits-all approach
doesn’t work in a state where
regional sources and sup-
charged in a series of armed
attacks on law enforcement
officers dating to 2008.
Gang violence in the re-
gion, which is part of the
LAPD’s Harbor Division,
has declined markedly over
the last three decades. How-
ever, as in other areas
throughout the country, vi-
olent crime has increased in
recent years.
There have been 21 homi-
cides so far in 2021 in the divi-
sion, compared with 17 last
year, a jump of 23%, accord-
ing to the LAPD. Violent
crime is up 8.2%, while prop-
erty crime has dropped by
4.4%.
When Guadalupe Meza
heard about the shooting
just blocks away from her
Wilmington home Monday,
she couldn’t help but think
of her 18-year-old grandson,
who was shot to death near
his home in September of
last year. The young man
also lived in Wilmington.
“The violence continues,”
she thought to herself.
Meza, 74, said her grand-
son, Jesse Adrian Meza, was
studious and had just grad-
uated from high school. He
plies vary vastly.
But most California
water agencies are on board
with the latest proposal, ac-
cording to Dave Eggerton,
executive director of the
Assn. of California Water
Agencies, which represents
more than 460 organiza-
tions. Eggerton said many
local agencies and munici-
palities have voluntarily im-
plemented some of the pro-
posed standards or taken
them even further. Some
areas never removed the
previous restrictions in the
first place.
“Measures like this are
pretty straightforward and
make sense in this context,”
he said.
Officials at the Los Ange-
les Department of Water
and Power said their emer-
gency water conservation
plan, first enacted in 1990,
includes nearly all of the
was shot while he was in a
parked vehicle with his cous-
in — who was also killed.
“Why does this keep hap-
pening?” she asked in Span-
ish.
Meza said her communi-
ty is largely forgotten and
blames “government offi-
cials who don’t help the
neighborhood.”
“They need to do some-
thing to stop all of this,” she
said.
Meza has lived in Wilm-
ington since 1978 and said
Tuesday that she has wit-
nessed its slow decline.
“We’ve been abandoned,”
she said.
Assemblyman Mike Gip-
son (D-Carson) was touring
a Boys & Girls Club facility
across the street from Wilm-
ington Park Elementary
School just two hours before
gunmen opened fire there.
Gipson’s district includes
Wilmington, Watts and
Compton, among other
areas. Eighteen months ago,
his son and his son’s fiancee
were shot while visiting fam-
ily in the Gramercy Park
neighborhood of Los Ange-
les.
Frederic J. Brown AFP/Getty Images
regulations in the state’s
proposal.
“LADWP has a long-
standing history of requiring
our customers to use water
efficiently,” agency spokes-
woman Ellen Cheng said.
When asked whether rev-
enue losses would be passed
to consumers, Cheng said
those who save water should
see a reduction in their bills.
While the measures are a
logical first step, Eggerton
and others said the state
needs continued investment
in “a full suite of actions” be-
yond conservation efforts,
including the development
of water storage systems
and conveyance facilities.
“The reality is, the im-
pacts of climate change are
here, and we need state and
federal partnership in in-
vesting, in really strength-
ening our systems,” he said.
A recent study found that
“They were innocent by-
standers,” said Gipson, who
has held anti-gun violence
rallies and written legisla-
tion targeting so-called
ghost guns. “To be at the
Boys & Girls Club hours be-
fore this happened brings up
those vivid memories as a
parent, the horror. Your
world stops.”
Gipson said he was en-
raged to hear about Mon-
day’s shooting.
“Some people say, ‘Well, it
happens to that community
all the time,’ ” he said. “I
want to say, I cannot get
used to it.... We have too
many guns on our streets,
and we have to do something
to reduce the guns that peo-
ple have access to.”
Mayra Zamora, who lives
a block from Wilmington
Park Elementary, said crime
in her community had de-
clined through the years, but
recently it has escalated
again.
“In the past three to four
years, in Wilmington and
San Pedro and Harbor City,
more and more shootings
are happening,” the 36-year-
old said. “It’s been exacer-
snowpack — one of Califor-
nia’s primary sources of
water — could significantly
diminish in the state in as
little as 35 years.
“We can’t conserve our
way out of our challenges,”
said Adel Hagekhalil, gen-
eral manager and chief exe-
cutive of the Metropolitan
Water District of Southern
California, which declared a
drought emergency in No-
vember. “We need bold ac-
tions and investments in re-
cycling and reuse, local wa-
ter supplies, rain-capture
systems and storage, reme-
diation and recharge of
groundwater basins and
projects to build connectiv-
ity and flexibility in how we
move water.”
In September, Newsom
allocated more than $5 bil-
lion of his $15-billion climate
package toward drought re-
sponse and water resilience.
L AT I M E S . C O M
Luis Sinco Los Angeles Times
bated by COVID. More peo-
ple are home.”
Criminals, she said, “are
getting more brazen. It’s
happening in the afternoon.
People are getting stabbed
and shot in broad daylight....
“The neighborhood
wasn’t like this a few years
ago.”
During a candlelight vigil
at Wilmington Park Elemen-
tary on Tuesday evening, the
crowd was filled with fam-
ilies and children.
Alicia Baltazar, who at-
tended the event, said she
knew the young boy who was
killed; he went to the same
middle school as her son,
Jeremy Hill.
Jeremy has been taking
classes online, she said, for
which she is eternally grate-
ful.
“I can’t imagine how this
is impacting the rest of the
students,” Baltazar said,
“boys and girls who had to be
in class with [the victim]
yesterday and not tomor-
row.”
Times staff writer Christian
Martinez contributed to
this story.
The governor this year also
called on all residents to vol-
untarily reduce their water
usage by 15%, but early re-
sults indicated a sluggish
response to that request.
Californians in Septem-
ber decreased water use by
3.9% compared with the
same month in 2020. The
numbers improved in Octo-
ber, with residents saving
13.2% more water than in the
same month last year, offi-
cials said during a Tuesday
meeting of the state water
board. But cumulative sav-
ings are still far from where
they need to be, conserva-
tion supervisor Charlotte
Ely told the board, adding,
“We have to stay vigilant,
and we ask for Californians
to keep on conserving.”
Ellen Hanak, vice presi-
dent and director of the
Water Policy Center at the
Public Policy Institute of
California, said voluntary
calls to reduce water use this
year have been more chal-
lenging than in the past, in
part because “this time
around, people have a lot of
other things on their mind
besides drought.”
Hanak noted that recent
surveys found that the
state’s residents are most
concerned about the
COVID-19 pandemic, hous-
ing costs and homelessness,
among other issues.
“So if it ends up being the
case that this coming year
does turn out to be a dry
one,” Hanak said, “you can
be sure that there’s going
to be a lot more public mes-
saging about [the drought]
— because there’s going to
need to be.”
The state water board is
accepting written public
comments on the proposed
regulations until Dec. 23
and will vote on the measure
Jan. 4.
L AT I M E S . C O M
Skaters solving the problems of the world
[Skateboard, from A1]
woman can be kind of intimi-
dating,” she says. “Especially if
you’re a beginner, guys look at you
weird.”
Their sport is not immune to
cultural issues of race, gender and
sexual orientation, and Bowen
says “for women and queer peo-
ple, it’s easier if you skate as a
group.” Still, the increasing popu-
larity of crews like hers has sociol-
ogists wondering whether skaters
might teach the rest of us some-
thing about inclusivity.
The Tokyo Olympics helped
show the world that skating is not
just for white kids in the suburbs.
People of color have risen to the
highest levels of competition and
the vibe is distinctly urban, fueled
by hip-hop music and street fash-
ion. Now more women and the
LGBTQ community are joining
in.
“No one owns skateboarding, it
is not made up of institutions that
formulate policies,” says Neftalie
Williams, a USC scholar and
visiting fellow at Yale. “It just
happens organically with people
who come together to do this
thing they love.”
Skating legend Tony Hawk
calls it “safety in numbers.”
The recent Aunt Skatie meet-
up puts this notion to a test as the
crew ventures — a bit nervously —
inside El Sereno Skate Park. This
might be the best way to under-
stand the culture, through tales of
people and places around South-
ern California, the birthplace of
skateboarding.
The Scholar
The kid noticed something
different. Growing up in Massa-
chusetts — years before he be-
came an academic — Williams
saw that skateboarding didn’t
have rules or coaches like Little
League and youth soccer.
“Nobody was in charge,” he
recalls. “It was just everyone
deciding they wanted to learn this
thing on their own.”
Becoming an avid skater in his
teens, Williams attended USC, in
part because Southern California
weather allowed for more days
outside on his board. Public di-
plomacy classes got him viewing
his passion through a different
lens.
If you showed up at a skate
park or a street spot with a new
trick, or merely an eagerness to
learn, strangers tended to accept
you. Cooperation was the best
way to improve and this, he real-
ized, fostered diversity.
“Young people were building
communities,” he says. “It was
such a great way to be social as an
individual or a collective.”
By then, the sport had experi-
enced a series of evolutions in its
relatively brief history. Surfers
started the whole thing around
the 1950s, looking for something to
do when the ocean lay flat. Down-
hill cruising morphed into trick
riding inside empty pools and
skate parks and big jumps off vert
ramps. The 1990s brought a return
to the streets with an emphasis on
using curbs and stairs as props.
People of color had long been
part of the scene in small num-
bers — Williams recalls Black
kids, whites and Latinos skating
together in his hometown — but
Hawk says urbanization super-
charged this dynamic: “That’s
where you saw more kids from
different backgrounds.”
Black people and Latinos now
account for nearly a third of an
estimated 9 million skaters in the
U.S., according to Sports Market-
ing Surveys, an international
research agency. The number of
female skaters has similarly risen
to about 2.7 million and an esti-
mated 7.4% of respondents who
identify as LGBTQ are skate-
boarders.
This diversity has brought
more attention to the work
Williams and his colleagues are
doing at USC. Their 2019 survey of
nearly 6,000 skaters nationwide
found that race, gender and sexu-
al orientation don’t seem to mat-
ter as much when kids skate.
With his dreadlocks and per-
petually excited demeanor,
Williams is writing a book on
“skateboard diplomacy” and
working with the Smithsonian
Institution to bolster its archives
on the sport. He believes the more
we know about skating, the more
we can build inclusion into all
types of shared environments.
“Skaters are working through
the problems of the world,” he
says.
The Explorer
Before Tony Alva made a name
for himself as a Latino member of
the famed Z-Boys, before Nyjah
Huston became a Black superstar
on the pro circuit, Marty Grimes
was a kid getting up early on
Saturday mornings, leaving his
Midtown home to go exploring.
It was the early 1970s and there
weren’t many skaters of color like
him. Grimes, his brother and
some friends would catch a bus to
West Los Angeles, then start
pushing up Bundy Drive. They
embodied a fundamental truth in
skating: Mobility equals diversity.
The same boards used for
tricks also serve as transporta-
tion from one spot to another, a
AUNT SKATIE crew member Daze Cornejo, top, turns off the rim on a halfpipe at South
Pasadena Skate Park, where she and other young people met up last month to ride. Many are
beginners. Aunt Skatie crew member Dan Haase, bottom, rolls down a quarterpipe.
way for kids of different ethnicities
and socioeconomic backgrounds
to interact.
In those days, skaters wanted
to emulate the feel of surfing,
looking for gently curved banks
that could be ridden like concrete
waves. This suited Grimes, who
learned to surf at an early age but
switched sports because he had no
reliable transportation to the
beach.
Old photographs show him as a
spindly teenager in T-shirt and
shorts, crouched super low on his
board, carving graceful cutbacks.
He and his crew would start in
Brentwood, switch to Kenter
Canyon Elementary and then to
Bellagio Road Elementary School
across the 405 Freeway.
“We were going to neighbor-
hoods where the adults didn’t
want to see us,” Grimes says.
“Grown men would be leaning out
of their cars, saying ‘Hey, N-word,
get the hell out of here.’ ”
White skaters often were sur-
prised to see Black kids roll up but
treated them well enough, espe-
cially when Marty and Clyde
Grimes showed their stuff. Marty
recalls: “They were like, ‘These
guys are ripping. Let’s see what
they can do so we can do it too.’ ”
Jay Adams, a star in those
days, spotted the brothers riding
outside the Santa Monica Civic
Auditorium and recruited them
for his pro team — an unusual
move in a sport dominated by
whites at the time.
Fifty years later, Grimes is a
member of the Skateboarding Hall
of Fame and founder of Hood-
Wood skateboards, one of a grow-
ing number of Black-owned busi-
nesses in the industry. He thinks
back to those formative years, a
weekend routine that included
stopping along Sunset Boulevard
and at Paul Revere Middle School,
then circling back to Pico Boule-
vard for the bus home.
“Nothing could stop us,” he
says. “We just kept skating and
skating and our world kept getting
Photographs by
larger and larger.”
Church in session
You can hear it from a block
away, the echo of rattling wheels
and thwacking boards, shaking
Koreatown’s drowsy streets on a
Sunday morning.
Skaters flock to this plaza in
front of an office building because
of its checkerboard of granite
ledges — like planter boxes with-
out foliage — perfect for grinding.
The official name is Liberty Park
but regulars call it “JKwon.” Or,
more simply, church.
“This is it,” Don Cooley says.
“You have reached the spot.”
Standing beside the plaza,
dressed in a stylish black-and-red
sweatsuit, Cooley serves as unoffi-
cial host. With specks of gray in his
beard and a tiny skateboard tat-
tooed above his right eyebrow, he
welcomes new arrivals, trading
jokes and stories.
“There’s enough room for
everybody,” he says, with a sweep
of his arm. “You can pick up a
board and start skating around
and you are part of it.”
This is another of the sport’s
advantages — boundless re-
sources.
Pick-up basketball players
must win to stay on court and
surfers compete for a finite num-
ber of good waves. With countless
parking lots and school yards and
public squares at their disposal,
skaters face no such limitations.
Though Hawk’s Skatepark Project
has raised more than $10 million to
build hundreds of skate parks
across the country, he says, “The
urban landscape can be a skate
park. You can do it anywhere.”
For every spot that might be
crowded or guarded by territorial
locals, there are a dozen more
nearby. Most skaters observe an
unwritten etiquette, taking turns
on ledges and ramps. Beginners
ride the easy sections, leaving the
tougher stuff to veterans.
That is how it works at JKwon.
The spot has been popular for
W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times
decades because of its embarrass-
ment of riches, all those ledges and
a few gentle ramps and curved
columns for wall rides. The prop-
erty owners cracked down for a
while, but things opened up during
the coronavirus shutdown.
Now, the action begins early,
everyone hoping to clock a few
hours before security guards
arrive to shoo them away at noon.
The crowd is diverse, including a
few women and a transgender
regular. “Nobody messes with
him,” Cooley says. “It’s all love.”
As team manager for DGK, a
skateboard brand whose name is
short for “Dirty Ghetto Kids,” the
43-year-old carries enough weight
to keep everyone in line, talking
rapid-fire, punctuating his
thoughts with a quick laugh or tap
on the shoulder.
“Nobody has to fight over a
ledge they want to skate; it ain’t
going anywhere,” he says. “Of
course we get some jerks, but we
also have people like me, so they
get scolded.”
The rules are important to a
man who showed promise as a
young skater, then fell into trouble
with the law and served prison
time. Returning to the sport, he
says, “literally saved my life.” When
security guards come on duty, he
urges skaters to leave without a
fuss.
“Treat people like you want to
be treated,” he says. “I get the
security coffee at Starbucks. Oh,
you want a latte this morning?”
The Teacher
It took awhile before the boys
let a girl skate with them. Briana
King was 12 years old, skinny and
inexperienced, but obsessed with
riding a board she got at a swap
meet. Eager to prove “valid
enough,” she took on a set of
stairs.
“Broke my leg,” she says.
That pretty much ended her
first try at skating.
In the decade that followed, her
willowy figure and striking looks
A7
led to a career in modeling, taking
her from Boyle Heights to Austral-
ia, then New York. She fell in with a
group of friends — other Black
women — who coaxed her back
onto a board after 12 years away.
“I was scared of the experience
boys had given me,” King says.
“Then I saw people like me and
thought, ‘OK, here’s my time.’ ”
Within a year, a major skate-
board company was paying her to
travel the country and hold clinics
for women and LGBTQ skaters,
most of them beginners.
“I just tell them that we’re in a
safe place when we’re together,”
she says.
This new chapter in her life
owes to yet another development
in skating — the influence of social
media and the “meet-up.”
In a sport where online content
is king, YouTube and Instagram
are crucial in giving skaters a
chance to post videos, get seen
and attract sponsors. For people
of color, women and gays, these
outlets serve an additional role.
Underrepresented skaters can
find one another, arrange meet-
ings and form crews. At Skate Like
a Girl, an Oregon nonprofit, execu-
tive director Kristin Ebeling says
fledgling groups can quickly ac-
complish what used to require
years of networking and publi-
cizing. “Throw a couple of hash-
tags on it and, right there, you can
connect with 100 people in your
community,” she says.
A few shy, nervous beginners
usually show up at King’s sessions
and she gravitates toward them,
happy to start slowly, holding their
hands as they grow accustomed to
standing on a board.
Some old-timers complain
about skipping a rite of passage —
the awkward, frightening part of
starting alone. But the sport is still
grappling with misogyny and
reports of sexual assault in the pro
ranks. Meet-ups have helped
nurture diverse crews such as
Board 2 Tears and GRLSWIRL in
Los Angeles, froSkate in Chicago
and the Skate Kitchen in New
York.
The new way suits King, who
learned to use Instagram in her
modeling career. Seeking to at-
tract women and LGBTQ skaters,
she asked skateboard companies
for funding and went online to
promote her meet-ups.
“There are usually like 60 peo-
ple minimum,” she says. “The
majority feel very comfortable
being around women and nonbi-
nary or queer people.”
This sense of security works
both ways. Though King’s reper-
toire now includes enough tricks
to hang around the pros, she feels
jittery when skating on her own,
especially if she is the only Black
woman.
“I need a bigger gang of
friends,” she says. “I’ll have more
girls to skate with.”
Aunt Skatie
The Aunt Skatie crew files
through a gate in the chain-link
fence, leaving the tennis court
behind and entering the El Sereno
Skate Park. Bowen asks them:
“What’s your goal for today?”
The 22-year-old began skating
as a teenager in Michigan — “I’d
bomb the hills in my neighbor-
hood” — and needed a new crew at
USC. She decided to start her own,
handing out fliers, posting invita-
tions on social media, even chas-
ing down other women who rode
their boards on campus.
Many of the Aunt Skatie mem-
bers are beginners, sticking to
basics at first, riding flat spaces
and easy obstacles. Isabelle Sher-
man ponders trying the perimeter,
negotiating the up-and-down of
ramps in each corner.
“I’m probably overthinking
this,” she says.
Bowen tells her: “You’ve defi-
nitely got the vibe.”
“It’s just so much harder than it
looks.”
“OK,” Bowen says. “I’m going.”
No one pays much attention as
the pair works on technique, and
that’s a good thing. For women,
dirty looks from men are not the
only bad part about skating alone;
there’s also the unsolicited advice.
Lily Alonso says some guys “try to
slide in and make conversation in
a flirty way. Or they start
mansplaining.”
The different factions at El
Sereno keep to themselves ini-
tially, falling into a quiet, familiar
rhythm. Groups stand along the
edge, waiting for a chance to go,
then do their tricks and reconvene
at the other side.
But as time passes, they begin
to interact. Someone yells “Nice!”
in response to a well-executed
trick. Someone else needs to bor-
row a tool to adjust the trucks on
their board. People start chatting.
“It’s friendly,” Alonso says. “It’s
honest.”
By early afternoon, gray skies
have turned blue and El Sereno is
crowded. The temperature is just
warm enough that everyone works
up a good sweat.
The Aunt Skatie crew has
logged a couple of hours and some
are getting tired. Bowen and Sher-
man don’t want to leave just yet.
They make a few more runs, navi-
gating those ramps, growing more
confident with each loop around
the park.
A8 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
West Hollywood has sky-high aspirations
Tiny city aims to be
the Amsterdam of the
far West. Its pot push
has A-list backers.
By Hugo Martín
During the days of Pro-
hibition, West Hollywood
hosted speakeasy bars and
gambling joints.
During the rock revolu-
tion of the 1960s, the night-
clubs on the Sunset Strip
welcomed groundbreaking
bands such as the Doors and
Led Zeppelin.
And when the AIDS epi-
demic hit in the 1980s, the
city opened some of the na-
tion’s first medical marijua-
na dispensaries.
Now West Hollywood is
aiming for a new distinction,
as a sort of Amsterdam of
the far West, fusing Califor-
nia’s recreational weed cul-
ture with the city’s own fun
and creative vibe.
Home to six cannabis dis-
pensaries, the tiny city plans
to approve as many as 40
cannabis permits over the
next year or so, part of a
drive by a group of cannabis
operators to promote the
city as a global destination
for pot tourism under the
moniker Emerald Village.
Bolstering the effort is
the star power of a handful of
A-list investors, including
rapper Jay-Z, actors Patri-
cia Arquette and Woody
Harrelson, and comedian
Bill Maher.
“People who wouldn’t
otherwise come to West Hol-
lywood will come for the ce-
lebrity factor,” said Scott
Schmidt, executive director
of the trade group behind
the project.
Part of the distinction
will come from the city’s
highly concentrated ambi-
tion: With only 35,000 resi-
dents in less than two square
miles, West Hollywood is ex-
pected to have one of the
highest numbers of canna-
bis businesses per capita in
the world, Schmidt said.
Today, the city has one
cannabis retailer for every
5,959 residents, according to
a Times calculation based
on city data. By comparison,
Los Angeles has one canna-
bis retailer for every 18,528
residents.
The Parent Co., a canna-
bis enterprise backed by
Jay-Z, recently purchased
Calma, a West Hollywood
dispensary. Arquette is an
investor in a cannabis
lounge set to open soon, and
Harrelson and Maher are
backing a dispensary and
lounge that is under con-
struction, city officials said.
Celebs aren’t the only
ones jumping into the pot
mecca campaign.
“Applicants have been
lining up for these licenses,”
said John Leonard, commu-
nity and legislative affairs
manager for West Holly-
Amazon deliveries idled by AWS outage
Setback could cause
lasting logjams. Sites
of Netflix, Disney and
others are affected.
bloomberg
An Amazon Web Services
outage wreaked havoc on
the e-commerce giant’s de-
livery operation, preventing
drivers from getting routes
or packages and shutting
down communication be-
tween Amazon and the
thousands of drivers it relies
on, according to four people
familiar with the situation.
Three delivery service
partners said an Ama-
zon.com Inc. app used to
communicate with delivery
drivers was down.
Vans that were supposed
to be on the road delivering
packages sat idle with no
communication from the
company, one person said.
Amazon Flex drivers, inde-
pendent delivery people
who carry parcels in their
own cars, couldn’t log in to
Amazon’s app to get assign-
ments, another person said.
Amazon said late Tues-
day afternoon that much of
its web service was working
again. “We have mitigated
the underlying issue that
S L AT I M E S . C O M
THE ARTIST TREE in West Hollywood is a cannabis dispensary and art gallery. The city has six dispensa-
ries and plans to approve up to 40 more permits in hopes of becoming a global destination for pot tourism.
wood. The city received
more than 300 applications
for eight licenses to operate
retail dispensaries in 2018, he
said.
There has been almost no
opposition by residents,
West Hollywood Mayor Lau-
ren Meister said in an inter-
view. “We have always been a
little edgy, and I think this
fits in with our personality,”
she said.
Eric Avila, a historian of
urban culture at UCLA, said
the city’s “permissiveness,
experimentation and some
would say progressiveness”
are features that “play into
West Hollywood becoming
the new Amsterdam of the
U.S. in terms of cannabis.”
City and business leaders
hope the brand refresh will
draw big-spending tourists
and upscale locals to the
planned businesses, where
visitors will be able to smoke,
eat or imbibe their weed of
choice in a range of settings.
MedMen Enterprises, a
publicly traded company
headquartered in Culver
City, hopes to add a lounge to
its West Hollywood store,
which was one of the city’s
first retail outlets, said Chief
Financial Officer Tracy Mc-
Court.
Barely a mile away on
Santa Monica Boulevard, in
a three-story building be-
tween a bank and a sand-
wich shop, the Artist Tree
looks more like an art gallery
than a pot shop from its en-
trance. Dramatic lighting il-
SOME drivers were unable to make deliveries. Above,
an Amazon facility in Moreno Valley in September.
caused some network devic-
es in the US-EAST-1 Region
to be impaired,” the com-
pany said on its AWS
dashboard just before 6 p.m.
Eastern time. “We are seeing
improvement in availability
across most AWS services.”
The company didn’t
comment on the issues with
its delivery operation.
The problems came amid
Amazon’s crucial holiday
shopping season, when the
company can ill afford de-
lays that could potentially
create lasting logjams. One
delivery business owner on
the West Coast said the com-
pany halted deliveries Tues-
day and planned to regroup
BUSINESS
California collects from cannabis
Cultivation tax
$200M
150
100
50
2018
Q1
Combined excise and cultivation taxes are $817 million for the last fiscal year.
California Legislative Analyst's Office
luminates art that is dis-
played on the walls and
hangs from the ceiling, a
gallery curated to be enjoyed
best while under the influ-
ence of cannabis.
The store, among the
first to open as an Emerald
Village destination, is also a
dispensary: Among the art,
display cases and cabinets
offer 850 cannabis-related
products, including balms,
edibles, pipes, tinctures and
cannabis plants.
The Artist Tree is in the
process of opening an open-
air patio lounge, with a food
and cannabis menu, said co-
founder Lauren Fontein.
The business already has a
VIP lounge where clients can
Genaro Molina Los Angeles Times
Wednesday.
Two delivery partners in
earlier time zones said driv-
ers who already had routes
were instructed to put their
phones in airplane mode
and not log out of the Ama-
zon routing app so they
could continue making
stops, but drivers who
hadn’t already been as-
signed routes were side-
lined.
The outage began about
10 a.m. Eastern time, accord-
ing to DownDetector. At the
height of the outage, the web
monitoring site reported
more than 20,000 com-
plaints for Amazon and
more than 11,000 for the com-
Excise tax
2019
Q1
2020
Q1
2021
Q1
Los Angeles Times
learn about the latest canna-
bis brands in a private set-
ting.
“If people know about it,
they will come and benefit all
of us,” Fontein said of the
city’s cannabis-capital aspi-
rations.
West Hollywood was one
of the first cities in the state
to approve licenses for retail
cannabis outlets after Cali-
fornia voters in 2016 ap-
proved Proposition 64, al-
lowing the sale and use of
cannabis for recreational
purposes.
The proposed new addi-
tions will be high-end busi-
nesses tailored to fit in with
the city’s trendy restaurants
and boutique shops, said
pany’s cloud computing
arm, Amazon Web Services.
By 1:45 p.m., the reported
outages had declined by
about half for AWS and two-
thirds for Amazon.
Multiple popular web-
sites were also affected, in-
cluding those operated by
Coinbase, Robinhood, Dis-
ney and Netflix, according
to DownDetector.
Disney said that al-
though people were able to
get into its theme parks,
they were having difficulty
checking in online and pay-
ing for purchases. Webcast
presentations from Com-
cast and Altice USA at UBS’
Global TMT Conference ex-
perienced disruptions Tues-
day, and the Charter Com-
munications presentation
was rescheduled for
Wednesday.
Some Amazon services,
including music and video
streaming, the voice-acti-
vated Alexa platform and se-
curity arm Ring were af-
fected too.
Just after 1 p.m. Eastern
time, Amazon said it had
identified the root cause of
the issue and was working to
fix it. Meanwhile, the com-
pany directed customers to
alternative servers in its
western region that weren’t
experiencing problems. The
increased errors were in the
Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times
West Hollywood Chamber of
Commerce President Gene-
vieve Morrill.
“We are bringing in some
really high-end, wonderful
concepts,” she said, adding
that Arquette’s proposed
lounge will host gatherings
for the LGBTQ community,
among other events.
The timing seems right:
Cannabis sales in California
have been on the rise since
pandemic lockdowns began
last year and the state de-
clared dispensary staff “es-
sential workers.” The state
collected $817 million in
taxes from cannabis busi-
nesses in fiscal year 2020-21,
55% higher than the total for
the previous year.
The number of licensed
distributors, growers and re-
tailers in the state has more
than doubled in the last two
years, from 5,715 in the fall of
2019 to 12,169 today, accord-
ing to the state Department
of Cannabis Control.
Cannabis businesses
now generate about $2.2 mil-
lion a year in taxes for West
Hollywood. City officials ex-
pect to collect up to $6 mil-
lion once all 40 licensed busi-
nesses open.
“It should also be noted
that the city has not seen a
significant decrease in tax
receipts from existing [can-
nabis] businesses as new
ones have opened, indicat-
ing that there is capacity in
the market for continued
growth,” according to a city
report issued in April.
eastern North America re-
gion.
Amazon, in an update on
its AWS dashboard, said it
still hadn’t completely fixed
the issue by 6 p.m. Eastern
time, although “many serv-
ices have already recovered.”
Multiple Amazon cloud-
computing services had
been affected, including Am-
azon DynamoDB and Ama-
zon Elastic Compute.
Streaming service Net-
flix experienced a 26% drop
in traffic after the AWS prob-
lems were reported, showing
how quickly outages can rip-
ple outward, said Doug
Madory, an analyst at the
network monitoring firm
Kentik in San Francisco.
“It gets more and more
complicated with software
running these services, so
when something goes side-
ways it can take a long time
to figure out what went
wrong and fix it,” he said.
“Complexity has risks. You
introduce unknown errors.”
AWS is the leading cloud-
computing provider, en-
abling companies to pur-
chase computing power and
software services on de-
mand rather than maintain-
ing their own data centers
and teams in-house. Its cus-
tomers include a wide range
of industries and the federal
government.
Federal law still consid-
ers cannabis an illegal sub-
stance, which means most
banks are staying clear of
working with marijuana
businesses for fear of run-
ning afoul of the federal gov-
ernment. Still, many canna-
bis businesses are now able
to use new financial proc-
esses such as Point of Bank-
ing, also known as cashless
ATMs, and Automated
Clearing Houses to allow
customers to pay with credit
and debit cards.
“We are miles ahead of
where we were a few years
ago,” said Elizabeth Ash-
ford, a spokesperson for
Eaze, the state’s largest can-
nabis delivery company.
State cannabis laws pro-
hibit advertising on bill-
boards and anywhere near
schools, among other re-
strictions, making any ad-
vertising blitz a challenge.
For now, the cannabis op-
erators in West Hollywood
have tried to promote Emer-
ald Village through social
media influencers, an Insta-
gram account and at large
gatherings such as the Palm
Springs Pride Festival.
Mara Stusser, general
manager of Calma, the all-
female-run dispensary that
Jay-Z’s company bought,
said opening more dispen-
saries in West Hollywood
will help eliminate the
stigma still attached to can-
nabis. Tour buses loaded
with tourists already stop at
the store on a regular basis.
“When they come in, they
are overwhelmed by how
much products we have,”
Stusser said.
Banking
oversight
nominee
pulls out
Facing harsh attack,
Saule Omarova asks
not to be considered
for comptroller post.
bloomberg
President Biden’s pick to
lead a key U.S. banking regu-
lator has withdrawn her
name from consideration,
according to a statement
from the White House.
Biden accepted Saule
Omarova’s request to no
longer be the nominee to
lead the Office of the Comp-
troller of the Currency, ac-
cording to a statement
Tuesday.
Although Biden’s choice
of an outspoken Wall
Street and cryptocurrency
critic delighted progressive
groups and lawmakers such
as Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.), the choice ap-
peared to be too controver-
sial to win backing from
moderate Democrats that
the candidate would need in
the evenly divided Senate.
Omarova’s detractors
have highlighted her origin
in Soviet Union-era Kaza-
khstan, her studies in Mos-
cow and her academic re-
search advocating for a fun-
damental overhaul of the fi-
nancial system.
Her defenders say that
the personal attacks on
Omarova are unfair and that
she’s a well-qualified nomi-
nee. Omarova would have
been the first woman and
nonwhite person to hold the
job.
At her confirmation
hearing, moderate Demo-
crats such as Jon Tester of
Montana and Mark R. Warn-
er of Virginia expressed con-
cerns about Omarova’s
views.
For her part, Omarova
has said that she rejects
communism as “deeply
flawed” and called herself a
“free-market idealist.” She
said she was surprised by
the “depravity” of the at-
tacks on her nomination.
She has also praised the U.S.
banking system as the best
in the world and insisted
that her academic writings
were thought experiments
that weren’t necessarily
meant as a practical blue-
print.
L AT I M E S . C O M
DOLORES GUZMAN, center, of Los Angeles protests LAUSD’s vaccine mandate at district headquarters
last month. Protesters said they want more trials for the COVID vaccines before inoculating their children.
District isn’t backing down
[Schools, from A1]
with a student vaccine man-
date — and also among a
small number with an em-
ployee vaccine mandate.
The employee mandate has
already taken effect, with
relatively modest disrup-
tion, because an overwhelm-
ing majority of workers com-
plied. Employees could re-
quest an exemption for per-
sonal beliefs; students will
not have that option.
The compliance rate, so
far, of nearly 85% for stu-
dents has improved since
Nov. 22, when it was 80% and
about 44,000 students were
not on track. The district
has waged an intense public-
awareness campaign and
there is widespread avail-
ability of vaccines on cam-
pus. About 450,000 pre-kin-
dergarten through 12th-
grade students are enrolled
in L.A. Unified.
“We have to give credit to
the district for taking on the
vaccination mandate and
embracing the challenges
that came with offering vac-
cinations at schools,” said
Ana Ponce, executive direc-
tor of Great Public Schools
Now, a locally based advo-
cacy group. “And I think we
need to be fair and not hold
the district completely ac-
countable for vaccine hesi-
tancy.”
All the same, she said,
“What’s the Plan B?”
Principals and other ad-
ministrators posed that
same question after a dis-
trict presentation Monday
night to their union, Associ-
ated Administrators of Los
Angeles. What will happen
after an exodus of students
move to an online setting?
How many teachers would
have to follow them? Would
MARKET ROUNDUP
Stocks have biggest rally in 9 months
Optimism about the
Omicron variant’s
effect on the global
economy fuels gains.
bloomberg
U.S. stocks staged the
biggest rally in nine months,
with major averages climb-
ing on optimism the co-
ronavirus’ Omicron variant
won’t derail global growth.
Treasuries fell, sending two-
year yields to their highest
level since March 2020.
Technology shares that
led last week’s decline paced
the rebound. The Nasdaq
100 index surged 3%, an ETF
that tracks newly public
companies jumped 5% and
small-cap stocks climbed
2%.
The Standard & Poor’s
500 index erased all the
losses suffered after Fed
Chair Jerome H. Powell’s
hawkish tilt a week ago and
was just 0.3% below its last
close before the Omicron
variant rocked markets. The
CBOE Volatility Index
plunged 5 points to 22. The
dollar fell and crude oil rose
above $71 a barrel in New
York.
Risk assets are recover-
ing this week after initial
data showed the surge in
Omicron cases hasn’t over-
whelmed hospitals and as
China moved to expand sup-
port for the economy.
Among the riskiest assets, a
Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
basket of nonprofitable tech
firms jumped nearly 6% on
Tuesday, clawing back al-
most half of last week’s
losses.
“The market mood has
campus classes and sched-
ules have to be reshaped
overnight?
“Do we have a hard dead-
line as to when we’re going to
get answers on this?” an ad-
ministrator asked senior
district managers. “When
are we going to know, re-
spectfully?”
The answer was: Maybe
by Friday.
Parents opposed to the
mandate have similar ques-
tions.
“It would be a significant
equity issue for thousands of
students to be forced back
into the distance learning
that has already been prov-
en to be a failure,” said Shar-
on McKeeman, founder of
Let Them Choose, a San Di-
ego County-based group
that is spearheading litiga-
tion against student COVID
vaccine mandates. “Even af-
ter asserting both pressure
and rewards, LAUSD does
not seem to be on track to
meet its accelerated vacci-
nation deadline.”
Two lawsuits against the
L.A. Unified student man-
date are pending. So far, liti-
gation against San Diego
Unified’s student mandate
has not prevailed. But the
mandates in the two dis-
tricts are not identical. The
requirement in San Diego
Unified, the second-largest
district in California, for ex-
ample, applies only to stu-
dents 16 and older.
Parents and students op-
posed to the mandate have
called in to every recent
school board meeting —
pleading their cause, threat-
ening litigation. But a qui-
eter pro-vaccine majority
might be just as upset to see
the district back down from
its deadline.
Major stock indexes
Index Close
Dow industrials 35,719.43
S&P 500 4,686.75
Nasdaq composite 15,686.92
S&P 400 2,802.06
Russell 2000 2,253.79
EuroStoxx 50 3,748.86
Nikkei (Japan) 28,455.60
Hang Seng (Hong Kong) 23,983.66
Associated Press
been notably more upbeat
this week after several
health experts across the
globe, including the U.S.’ Dr.
Anthony Fauci, have said
Omicron symptoms appear
milder, so far,” said Fiona
Cincotta, senior financial
markets analyst at City In-
dex. “Whilst it is still early
days, the encouraging news
sparked bargain hunters
into action. Who would want
to miss out on the possibility
that a milder variant could
accelerate natural immunity
to COVID?”
On the data front, the
U.S. trade deficit narrowed
while third-quarter produc-
tivity fell. Private consump-
tion was the largest contrib-
utor to the euro area’s most
recent economic expansion.
United Kingdom house
prices hit an all-time high.
And China’s exports grew
faster than expected to a
record on external demand
and an easing power crunch.
Additionally, research
showed that a COVID-19
vaccine from GlaxoSmith-
Kline and Canada’s Medi-
cago Inc. was effective
against multiple variants of
the disease. Congress also
reached a deal to raise the
nation’s debt ceiling.
The teachers union
wants the district to hold
firm.
“It is simply the right
thing to do,” union Vice Pres-
ident Juan Ramirez told the
school board Tuesday. “It is
the responsible thing to do.”
He added that the man-
date should be extended to
privately operated, district-
authorized charter schools,
which serve about 1 in 5 L.A.
Unified students. Charters
have to abide by the student
mandate only when they op-
erate on a district campus
shared with a district school.
It is unclear how much
higher the student compli-
ance numbers will grow.
It could be that many
families have simply not yet
uploaded documentation.
When that happens, thou-
sands more students could
be on track. On the other
hand, the current student
compliance rate of nearly
85% is based on students
who have received at least
one shot. Many students will
need to follow through and
get a second shot on a timely
basis to remain on track.
Students are considered
in compliance if they get the
vaccine, receive a medical
exemption or obtain a rare
deadline extension based on
extenuating circumstances.
As the district braces for
a surge of independent-
study students, one source
for needed teachers would
be those who declined to
comply with the district’s
employee vaccine mandate.
The district has held on to
808 instructors “with a quali-
fying medical condition or
sincerely held religious be-
lief eligible for reasonable
accommodation,” as the dis-
trict puts it. The district has
Daily Daily % YTD %
change change change
+492.40 +1.40 +16.71
+95.08 +2.07 +24.78
+461.76 +3.03 +21.71
+46.16 +1.67 +21.48
+50.31 +2.28 +14.12
+85.75 +2.34 +20.61
+528.23 +1.89 +3.69
+634.28 +2.72 -11.93
“This morning’s rally is
being fueled by the belief
that the Omicron variant
will not create many prob-
lems for the global economy
and that China has pledged
measures to support econo-
mic growth,” said Matt Ma-
ley, chief market strategist
for Miller Tabak & Co. “If
those were the reasons why
the market has seen such a
big increase in volatility
since Thanksgiving, we’d
agree the worst is likely over
and that investors should
jump back into the market
with both feet.”
However, equity markets
could still be in for further
turbulence amid new re-
strictions to stem the spread
of Omicron and resurfacing
geopolitical tensions. The
threat of sanctions still
looms if Russia invades
Ukraine, after a call between
U.S. and Russian leaders
Tuesday. China threatened
the U.S. with retaliation for
its decision to declare a dip-
lomatic boycott of the Win-
ter Olympics. And Treasury
Secretary Janet L. Yellen
said that U.S. reliance on for-
eign supply chains has
proved a vulnerability,
boosting policies that may
be considered protectionist.
W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
Striking Kellogg
workers reject
contract offer
Company proposes
3% raises. The main
sticking point is a
two-tiered pay system.
By Josh Funk
Kellogg Co. workers
turned down a contract offer
Tuesday that would have
provided 3% raises, so 1,400
workers at the company’s
Gary Coronado Los Angeles Times four U.S. cereal plants will
remain on strike.
The Bakery, Confection-
ery, Tobacco Workers and
Grain Millers International
Union said an overwhelming
majority of workers voted
down the five-year offer that
would have also provided
cost-of-living adjustments
terminated few, if any, class- in the later years of the deal
room teachers for refusing to and preserved workers’ cur-
get vaccinated. rent healthcare benefits.
Employees in other jobs The workers have been
or members of other unions on strike since Oct. 5 at
have not been so lucky. The plants in Battle Creek,
district on Tuesday said Mich.; Omaha; Lancaster,
that 496 employees — out of Pa.; and Memphis, Tenn.
about 73,000 — have lost They make all of the compa-
their jobs. Those released in- ny’s well-known brands of
cluded seven with a teaching cereal, including Apple
credential, although it was Jacks and Frosted Flakes.
not immediately clear if they “The members have spo-
are classroom teachers. ken. The strike continues,”
“Vaccinations are a term union President Anthony
or condition of employ- Shelton said. “The Interna-
ment,” the district said in tional Union will continue to
a statement. “If separated provide full support to our
employees do get vacci- striking Kellogg’s mem-
nated, they may be eligible bers.”
for reemployment.” Kellogg said it would
“We care deeply about all move forward with plans to
of our employees,” Reilly start hiring permanent re-
said. “Parting ways with in- placements for the striking
dividuals who choose not to workers. The company has
be vaccinated is an ex- already been using salaried
tremely difficult, but neces- employees and outside
sary decision to ensure the workers to keep the plants
safety of all in our school operating during the strike.
communities.” “While certainly not the
Already, about 515 of the result we had hoped for, we
unvaccinated teachers have must take the necessary
been transferred to City of steps to ensure business
Angels to oversee the 16,000 continuity,” said Chris
students currently enrolled. Hood, president of Kellogg
The Pfizer-BioNTech North America. “We have an
vaccine is the only one avail- obligation to our customers
able to students 12 and older. and consumers to continue
The second shot is not ad- to provide the cereals that
ministered until at least they know and love.”
three weeks after the first. Rutgers University pro-
Maximum immunity is fessor Todd Vachon, who
achieved about two weeks teaches classes about labor
after the second shot — a relations, said he was not
five-week time frame. Stu- sure the company would be
dents who are 18 or older able to hire enough workers
have the option of taking the in the current economy to re-
one-dose Johnson & John- place the ones who are out
son vaccine, followed by a on strike, and Kellogg may
two-week period to achieve have a hard time finding
maximum immunity. people willing to cross a
L.A. Unified also is offer- picket line.
ing vaccines to students 5 “By voting ‘no,’ the work-
and older, but not mandat- ers are making a strong
ing them. statement that they are not
satisfied by the agreement,
but they are also signaling
they believe they have the
leverage that’s needed to win
more,” Vachon said.
One of the sticking points
in the negotiations has been
the company’s two-tiered
system of wages that gives
newer workers less pay and
With possible head winds fewer benefits. As much as
ahead, George Pearkes, 30% of the workforce at the
global macro strategist at cereal plants has been re-
Bespoke Investment Group, ceiving the lower wages.
said the tech rally “feels The Battle Creek-based
really extreme.” company said the new con-
“Mostly this just feels like tract would allow all workers
a counter-trend move after with at least four years’ ex-
some big negative catalysts perience to move up to the
and sentiment challenges higher legacy pay level im-
hit the market over the past mediately, and some addi-
couple of weeks, but I’m sur- tional workers would move
prised it’s as large as it is,” he up in later years of the con-
said. tract.
ADVERTISEMENT
Deposit & Loan Guide
Int Chking Money 3 mo 6 mo 12 mo
Acct Mkt Acct CD CD CD
Institution Min Min Min Min Min
NA NA 0.05 0.15 0.40
NA NA 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000 100,000
Community
0.58% APY 30 mos. CD Special - $100K Minimum to open - Member FDIC
Commerce Bank
0.05 0.30 0.10 0.15 0.20
100 50,000 2,500 2,500 2,500
Tustin Community Bank
Savings Update
How dollar-cost averaging can help you sleep at night
Sabrina Karl
An age-old piece of investment advice is to buy low and sell
high. This would be all well and good if any of us had a crystal
ball. But since we don’t, the more modern advice to not bother
trying to time the market is more useful.
Timing the market refers to carefully deciding when precisely
to buy a stock, bond, or mutual fund. The problem is that the
markets are wildly unpredictable over short terms, so the timing
decision you choose could easily turn out poorly.
Dollar-cost averaging is one solution, as it spreads out the risk
of buying high while increasing the odds of buying low. Let’s
say you have $5,000 to invest. Instead of investing all at once,
which would put all your eggs in one basket based on the price
that day, dollar-cost averaging instead has you invest, say, $500
a month until you’ve invested the full $5,000.
What’s advantageous about this is that, because you’re always
Rate Criteria: Rates effective as of 12/06/2021 and may change without notice. RateSeeker, LLC. does not guarantee the accuracy of the information appearing above
or the availability of rates in this table. Banks, Thrifts and credit unions pay to advertise in this guide. NA means rates are not available or not offered at the time rates
were surveyed. All institutions are FDIC or NCUA insured. Yields represent annual percentage yield (APY) paid by participating institutions. Rates may change after
the account is opened. Fees may reduce the earnings on the account. A penalty may be imposed for early withdrawal. To appear in this table, call 773-320-8492.
A9
Dan Osborn, president
of the local Omaha union,
said the company’s offer
wouldn’t let enough workers
move up to the higher pay
level quickly, so some newer
workers might have to wait
as many as nine years to
reach the higher legacy pay
level.
The proposed contract
would have limited the num-
ber of workers who could
move up in pay each year to
3% of a plant’s total head-
count.
“Ultimately, we don’t
want to leave anyone be-
hind. And we want a secure
future,” Osborn said.
Union members would
also like to see the company
offer bigger raises to its me-
chanics and electricians so
Kellogg can better compete
for those workers, Osborn
said.
Victor Chen, a sociologist
at Virginia Commonwealth
University who studies la-
bor, said he understands
why the union is taking a
stand against the two-tiered
wage system, because it is a
divisive issue within its
ranks.
“A union depends on the
solidarity of its members,”
Chen said. “When you have
two-tiered systems — which
have become popular in cor-
porate America — you’re
weakening that solidarity. It
turns workers against each
other.”
At times during the
strike, the disagreements
between the company and
the union have been bitter.
Kellogg went to court in
Omaha in November to se-
cure an order that set guide-
lines for how workers be-
haved on the picket line be-
cause the company said
striking workers were block-
ing the plant’s entrances
and intimidating replace-
ment workers.
Union officials denied
any improper behavior dur-
ing the strike and said police
never cited workers for caus-
ing problems.
Employees have been
holding out for higher wages
because they believe worker
shortages across the coun-
try give them an advantage
in the negotiations.
Workers at the cereal
plants have said they de-
serve significant raises be-
cause they routinely work
more than 80 hours a week,
and they kept the plants
running during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
This year, about 600 food
workers went on strike at a
Frito-Lay plant in Topeka,
Kan., and 1,000 people
walked off the job at five Na-
bisco plants across the U.S.
At meatpacking plants
across the country, labor
unions have been success-
fully negotiating significant
raises for employees.
In another recent strike,
more than 10,000 John Deere
workers secured 10% raises
and improved benefits, but
those gains came after work-
ers remained on strike for a
month and rejected two of-
fers from the company.
The offer that Kellogg
workers rejected was the
first one they’ve voted on
since the strike began.
Funk writes for the
Associated Press.
LA Times
Check rates daily at
www.rateseeker.com/savingsrates
18 mo 24 mo 36 mo 60 mo
CD CD CD CD
Min Min Min Min Phone / Website
0.45 0.55 0.60 0.75
909-450-2050
www.ccombank.com
0.25 0.30 0.50 0.70
2,500 2,500 2,500 2,500 714-730-5662
www.tustincmtybank.com
investing the same amount each month, when the stock or asset
you’re buying is expensive, you’ll buy fewer of the expensive
shares. In contrast, when the price is lower, your $500 goes
further and you acquire more of the bargain shares.
The result is that your average share price is blended to
essentially smooth over the major market swings, because
you’re buying over time and at different prices.
While it’s true that if you invest all $5,000 at once and prices
later move higher, you would earn more by investing all at once.
But the odds are just as likely that prices could move lower, in
which case all your shares are in the red.
Dollar-cost averaging is an excellent method for many investors
to sleep peacefully at night, knowing their strategy minimizes
the risks and market bumps.
A10 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 L AT I M E S . C O M / O P I N I O N

OPINION

EDITORIAL OP-ED
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fix Justice Dept. oversight Texas gerrymandering is about

Lawyers serving under the
attorney general should be subject
Nonsense. That’s like arguing that only
politicians can investigate politicians or
only police can investigate police. What the
keeping a grip on white power
current and previous attorneys general
to independent investigation, too. really object to is outside scrutiny. And who LZ GRANDERSON predominantly Latino. Since 2010, Latino
wouldn’t do without someone looking over growth has outpaced that of white resi-
their shoulder if they could get away with Whenever I find myself dents 11 to 1, and this new map is Abbott’s
n the post-Watergate era, Con- it? thinking, “I can’t believe response. Or how about this: Texas is

I gress shored up the integrity and

transparency of the executive branch
by creating inspector general offices
and charging them to ferret out mis-
conduct and abuse and report it to the pub-
lic. The offices were correctly deemed an es-
sential supplement to the traditional
But accountability demands an inde-
pendent investigator. The Office of Profes-
sional Responsibility is no such thing. It re-
ports directly to the attorney general, who
can direct an investigation or squelch it. Its
conclusions are rarely made public. It is
more akin to an advisor than a watchdog.
Texas would do that,” I
remember that former Gov.
Rick Perry used to invite
lawmakers to his family’s
hunting camp. A place
fondly known by some
locals as “N—head.” According to the
home to the largest Black population in
the country, and not one of the 38 congres-
sional districts in the state will be predom-
inantly Black. What’s happening in Texas
isn’t underrepresentation by happen-
stance, it is deliberate suppression.
State Sen. Joan Huffman, who oversaw
checks and balances engrafted by the Inspectors general are appointed by the Washington Post, the name was painted the redistricting, said, “We drew these
founders into American democracy, in that president and confirmed by the Senate, “in block letters across a large, flat rock maps race-blind.”
they could bring to light abuses that the leaving them perhaps not wholly independ- standing upright at its gated entrance.” Yes, Huffman wants you to believe that
president or his appointees might other- ent, but far more so than an office like OPR. As you may recall, this piece of informa- in a year when Texas lawmakers intro-
wise cover up. Presidents are not often fond of inspectors tion became a bit of a sore spot in 2011 for duced and passed two bills targeting criti-
The U.S. Department of Justice was ar- general. President Reagan fired 16 upon en- Perry, who, you know, was running for cal race theory — one of which initially
guably the agency most in need of inde- tering office, but because of political pres- president at the time. sought to remove the history of slavery
pendent scrutiny, but it took 10 years before sure was forced to relent on some of them. A decade later we have another Texas from the list of required classroom learn-
the law was updated to include it. Even President George H.W. Bush tried to fire his governor, Greg Abbott, whose name is ing — these same lawmakers drew up a
then, the department’s new inspector gen- inspectors general, but he too backed off. being mentioned as a potential candidate map without considering race.
eral’s purview did not extend to key agen- Obama fired the AmeriCorps inspector for the White House. And similarly, he And even if you gave such a preposter-
cies under the department’s umbrella, such general, and Trump fired five IGs. Still, it is faces accusations of racism, too. ous claim the benefit of the doubt, the
as the Drug Enforcement Administration a rare enough event that it makes head- On Monday, the Department of Justice lawmakers were repeatedly informed of
or the Federal Bureau of Investigation. lines, giving inspectors general a layer of in- sued Texas over its new the racist implications of
The Aldrich Ames spy scandal of the dependence and administrations a degree redistricting plan, accus- the maps and Abbott
1990s motivated Congress to include the
DEA and the FBI. But still, to this day, In-
of accountability.
Attorneys general dislike inspectors
ing the state of illegally
undermining minority
The new political signed them into law
anyway.
spector General Michael E. Horowitz lacks general even more — “like the Devil hates groups’ voting rights. map intentionally White Texas lawmak-
jurisdiction over Justice Department law-
yers, which includes the 93 U.S. attorneys ,
holy water,” U.S. Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-
Ill.) said last year at a hearing on the bill.
The result of the latest
U.S. census has Texas
weakens the power ers want all the political
power that comes from
the more than 300 lawyers who work under They hate them because they are effective gaining two seats in the of voters of color, being the nation’s third
them, and all the other lawyers who work and bring scrutiny and accountability. We House because of popu- fastest growing state but
directly under the attorney general or the need more of that in government, not less. lation growth, 95% of who make up 95% none of the political
various other offices of his department.
That’s a huge loophole. It unwisely al-
Earlier this year, Rep. Adam B. Schiff
(D-Burbank) reintroduced a bill to correct
which is attributable to
people of color. However,
of population changes from being the
nation’s second most
lows the attorney general to shield his legal some of the government structures that al- the map Abbott signed growth in Texas. diverse.
staff — and himself — from independent in- lowed Trump to abuse his power, and it in- into law increases the So in Texas you have
vestigations into their suspected miscon- cludes a requirement for the attorney gen- number of districts with the enslavement of Afri-
duct. The result is a Justice Department, eral to maintain a log of communications majority white voters while intentionally can Americans until after the Civil War,
ostensibly independent, that is too subject between the Justice Department and the diminishing the power of Latino and Black Confederate Heroes’ Day, N—head. In
to the political machinations of either the White House and to produce information to voters by attaching their communities to 1998, three white men in Jasper kidnapped
attorney general or the president who ap- independent oversight authorities. It’s im- heavily white districts. For example, 60% of James Byrd Jr., a Black man, chained him
points him. portant legislation, but it is polarizing be- new state Senate districts are majority to a pickup truck and dragged him to
That potential for politicization exists in cause of abiding loyalty to Trump among white despite white residents making up death. His body was buried at the Jasper
any administration, Republican or Demo- many Republican members of Congress. less than 40% of the population. City Cemetery, near the bottom of the hill.
cratic. Perhaps that’s why bills to close that The Inspector General Access Act by There really is no other way to say this: Only white people were buried up top.
gaping loophole have been embraced by contrast has bipartisan support, and has Texas’ current governor is engaged in a “We have the same cemetery, but we
most members of both parties during mul- passed in the House and could clear the brazen attempt to increase white power don’t mix the white and the Black graves.
tiple administrations, including those of Senate — if only Garland lifts his ill-consid- after the previous one had to explain why a They’re separate. Put a Black up here? No,
Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden. ered objections. racist slur greeted visitors to his family’s no, we wouldn’t do that. That would be
But the legislation always seems to hit a Two companion pieces of legislation are property. against our custom, against our way of
roadblock — erected by the attorney gen- likewise worthy. The Securing Inspector And while Democrats have certainly doing things.” That was a 2012 quote from
eral, again, regardless of party or adminis- General Independence Act of 2021 would done their share of gerrymandering — for a white retired schoolteacher, who was also
tration. And besides, attorneys general (in- limit a president’s ability to replace inspec- example, some new districts that progres- a member of the cemetery board.
cluding current Atty. Gen. Merrick Gar- tors general with temporary appointees sives in Illinois recently drew up look more Yes, a retired teacher.
land) argue, we’re talking about lawyers, not subject to Senate confirmation. The IG like a satellite image of an oil spill than a And Abbott and company want you to
who because of complex rules of profes- Testimonial Subpoena Authority Act community — they don’t give the middle believe those redistricting maps are color-
sional responsibility require special han- would eliminate ex-employees’ exemptions finger to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. blind. They just happen to fortify white
dling by an Office of Professional Responsi- from subpoena, so that they could not Consider this: Latino Texans make up power by accident.
bility that understands their particularly avoid testifying by quitting their jobs. All nearly 40% of the population, but just
difficult jobs. three bills deserve approval. seven of the 38 congressional districts are @LZGranderson

LETTERS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

party, because the other two would not pay me for the suspend their businesses
have made a mess of things. first 45 days of electricity without compensation? If
Marty Foster after its go-ahead. we check on nations of the
San Francisco We home solar producers European Union and China,
are still liable for monthly the governments there are
:: connection charges, which assisting in the transition
in my case average about away from carbon produc-
I am socially progressive, $30 per month. At the end of ing energy.
but I think it’s wrong to each 12-month cycle, Edison It is no surprise that our
classify “smash and grabs” is supposed to compensate capitalist economy is so
and “follow-home rob- us for the excess power. The inflexible as to be indifferent
beries” as simply “property last time I saw a check, the to the benefit of society. The
crimes.” They are destroy- rate was about two cents U.S. has not caught up with
ing the lives of business per kilowatt hour. modern times. President
owners and citizens. Any changes that are Biden’s “Build Back Better”
When many businesses made to net energy meter- agenda would address many
are begging for workers, it’s ing will effectively legalize of these issues.
disingenuous to blame theft by the utilities on a Lillian Laskin
“economic desperation” or a wide scale. Mar Vista
lack of jobs. When mobs of Burt Hermey
people conspire to attack Costa Mesa

MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI and LAPD Chief Michel Moore, seen in 2019, put
Mel Melcon Los Angeles Times stores, show up in fancy
SUVs and take off in 30 ::
Rep. Nunes’
some of the blame for a recent spate of thefts on justice reforms. seconds, this is more akin to
terrorism. Thank you for your edito-
risky decision
Beating up on bail reform Michael Schaller
Temple City
rial supporting urban solar.
Along with residential
property, Los Angeles has
Re “Nunes to resign and join
Trump,” Dec. 7

Re “Arrests made in rash of retail heists,” Dec. 3, and “Brazen crimes step up debate over acres upon acres of rooftops Did Rep. Devin Nunes
policies,” Dec. 4 Don’t steal from on warehouses, parking
lots, convention centers,
(R-Tulare) talk to Michael
Cohen about what might
t amazes me that even L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti seems to confuse bail with actual
solar customers airports, stadiums, mini- happen before he sold his

I
malls, schools and busi- soul to former President
imprisonment of a guilty person. Bail exists for one reason: to ensure that the ac- Re “Don’t undermine nesses. Most could support Trump? Being a media boss
cused will show up in court. rooftop solar,” editorial, solar panels. for a serial liar doesn’t come
As The Times has reported, most of the suspects arrested in connection with Dec. 6 We have no need to string across as a particularly
recent robberies in Los Angeles posted bail or were later released without bail. What massive transmission lines smart career move.
difference is there between those who posted bail or those who were released? There is I installed a rooftop solar through our tinderbox Rep. Nunes, just make
none. They are all capable, if they wish, to commit crimes, bail or not. system in January 2019 and forests to bring electricity to sure the check has cleared
I agree with Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón that our system of money have enjoyed the benefits the city from faraway power before you jump ship.
bail is broken. Take a situation where an innocent person with few assets is arrested and since. It hasn’t always been plants. We could use some of Bob Duncan
easy, though. the state’s $31-billion sur- Diamond Bar
given a bail amount. This person must give 10% of that amount to a bondsman, which they
It took Southern Cali- plus to bring Los Angeles to
will never get back. If even this 10% cannot be procured, this person sits in jail and likely
fornia Edison more than net-zero emissions and save ::
loses employment. three months after it signed the desert tortoise too.
Meanwhile, a person of means can post bail without a bondsman. Upon showing up to off on my installation to Sarah Starr My response regarding
court or dismissal of charges, the entire amount is returned. How is such a person less begin net energy metering Los Angeles the decision by Nunes to
dangerous than someone who cannot afford bail and is stuck in jail awaiting trial? (paying me for the excess resign and work for Trump
Garcetti wants to look tough on crime, but associating bail with justice is foolish. energy I send back into the :: is this: How will we know the
Chris Pisano, Rancho Palos Verdes grid). Ultimately, I had to go difference?
to the state Public Utilities The problem we have Stu Bernstein
Commission in order to get transitioning to rooftop Santa Monica
Addressing her 43 mil- Jacqueline Avant, Oprah fornia already being upside some action. solar and other forms of
lion followers on Twitter Winfrey said that the “world down on crime prevention All that time, I was pro- green energy is not the
about the recent rash of is upside down.” for decades now, we’re all viding free electricity to consumer. The government HOW TO WRITE TO US
violent smash-and-grab Well, that certainly sums left to live with one eye in Edison that it could sell at needs to help subsidize the Please send letters to
robberies and other horrible it up quite succinctly. front of us, the other looking premium rates. The PUC’s cost. letters@latimes.com. For
violent crimes, including the With seemingly no end in back. actions got Edison to come How can we expect exist- submission guidelines, see
home-invasion killing of sight and nary a nod from Maybe it’s time for Cali- up with a reimbursement, ing utility companies to latimes.com/letters or call
81-year-old philanthropist Washington, and with Cali- fornia to switch to a third but even then the utility unilaterally curtail and 1-800-LA TIMES, ext. 74511.

Executive Chairman Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong

News: Executive Editor Kevin Merida • Managing Editors Shani O. Hilton, Scott Kraft • Deputy Managing Editors Shelby Grad, Julia Turner • Creative Director Amy King •
Executive Sports Editor Christian Stone • Assistant Managing Editors John Canalis, Angel Jennings, Loree Matsui, Samantha Melbourneweaver • Opinion: Acting Editorial Page Editor
Terry Tang • Deputy Editorial Page Editor Mariel Garza • Business: President and Chief Operating Officer Chris Argentieri • Chief Human Resources Officer Nancy V. Antoniou •
FOUNDED DECEMBER 4, 1881 Chief of Staff; Head of Strategy and Revenue Anna Magzanyan • Chief Information Officer Ghalib Kassam • General Counsel Jeff Glasser • V.P., Communications Hillary Manning
L AT I M E S . C O M / O P I N I O N
Unfair travel bans for
Africa didn’t stop Omicron
The variant has reached
dozens of countries, yet the
U.S. is barring entry only
from some.
By April L. Raphiou
W
hile the world’s
scientists are
scrambling to un-
ravel the inner
workings of the
Omicron variant, not enough peo-
ple are talking about the elephant
in the room: the southern Africa
travel ban that remains in place.
When South African scientists
identified a new coronavirus var-
iant in their country, the Biden ad-
ministration’s immediate response
was to ban travel from eight Afri-
can countries: South Africa, Leso-
tho, Eswatini, Botswana, Namibia,
Malawi, Mozambique and Zimba-
bwe. At that time, only two of the
countries — South Africa and
Botswana — had confirmed cases.
And a week after South Africa’s re-
port, news broke that Europe had
confirmed cases before South Afri-
ca identified the variant.
Last week, Biden announced
A MAKESHIFT memorial to the four students who died in a school shooting in Michigan.
No child kills in a vacuum
T
he latest school
shooting tragedy, in
Michigan on Nov. 30,
shares many common
traits with those that
came before it. The suspect was a
young male student at the school
in the midst of a noticeable crisis.
He had communicated intent to do
harm. He got a firearm from a fam-
ily member who had failed to store
it securely.
But one crucial thing is different
— the suspect’s parents have been
criminally charged for their role in
the crime. This decision is a power-
ful reminder that no child kills in a
vacuum, and it might be key to un-
locking legislative action that could
help prevent school shootings.
The 15-year-old boy’s father pur-
chased a semiautomatic pistol four
days before the shooting as a gift
for his son. Over the weekend, the
boy and his mother both posted
about the gun on social media. Af-
ter the boy was caught at school
Monday searching for ammunition
on his phone, his mother texted,
“LOL I’m not mad at you. You have
to learn not to get caught.”
The Tuesday morning of the
shooting, the suspect drew a pic-
ture of a gun pointing at the words
“the thoughts won’t stop. help me.”
He also drew a bullet with the
phrases “blood everywhere,” “my
life is useless” and “the world is
dead.” When his parents were sum-
moned to the school and told to
send their son to counseling, they
allegedly resisted the idea of im-
mediately taking him out of school
and left without him — and the gun
in his backpack. The gun had been
kept in an unlocked drawer in their
bedroom.
Their son is now accused of
killing four students and injuring
seven other people at Oxford High
School, about 45 miles north of De-
troit. His parents have been
charged with four counts of invol-
untary manslaughter, which
means there was no premeditation
or intent to kill, only that they
acted in a reckless manner. The
couple pleaded not guilty and face
up to 60 years in prison if convicted.
It’s rare for adult gun owners to
be charged in relation to school
shootings because parents of
shooters have a constitutional
right to own a firearm and most
states don’t have laws requiring
gun owners to secure their weap-
new travel rules to help protect
Americans, but there was no men-
tion of lifting the travel ban from
southern Africa, even though the
variant has now been detected in
dozens of countries, including the
U.S. The ban also exempts U.S. citi-
zens and permanent residents,
which is clearly discriminatory to
Africans. On Sunday, Dr. Anthony
Fauci, President Biden’s chief med-
ical advisor, admitted that he feels
“very badly” about the restrictions,
which the U.S. is reviewing and he
hopes will “be able to lift … within a
quite reasonable period of time.”
This overreach in the pandemic
response was a fruitless effort to
keep out the Omicron variant —
the first U.S. case was reported in
California on Dec. 1. And it shows
again the pernicious and persist-
ent stereotypes of Africa that can
do enormous damage.
For generations, many outsiders
have viewed the continent as one
homogenous land of people whose
lives are plagued with famine, war
and disease — stereotypes perpetu-
ated by Western media emphasiz-
ing African conflict and corruption.
Only in recent decades has there
been a shift toward a new “Africa
rising” narrative, with Africans re-
claiming their stories and owner-
ship of their economic growth.
How charging a
suspect’s parents
could help prevent
future school
shootings
By James Densley
and Jillian Peterson
ons when children are in the house-
hold. In some mass school shoot-
ings, there have been no parents to
prosecute because their children
had also killed them with guns the
parents owned.
The Michigan attack was the
first mass shooting at a school
since 2018, when 17 people were
killed in Parkland, Fla., and 10 were
fatally shot in Santa Fe, Texas. In
our database of mass public
shootings in the U.S., it is the 12th
school shooting with four or more
fatalities since 1966.
School shooters are nearly al-
ways too young to legally own a
weapon or take it outside the
home. Of all the common-sense
gun laws typically proposed after
school shootings — universal back-
ground checks, extreme-risk pro-
tection orders, an assault weapons
ban — safe storage is the most di-
rectly applicable. In our research,
around 60% of the 37 guns brought
to the scene of the 12 school mass
shootings came directly from fam-
ily members. Only four of the 14
shooters didn’t get a gun from
home.
Proposals requiring secure
storage at home are generally
popular among gun owners and
non-gun owners alike. Research
shows they can help prevent gun
thefts, suicides and accidental
shootings, in addition to school
shootings. One study found that
keeping firearms locked up can re-
duce shootings in the home by 75%.
Thirty-one states have child ac-
cess prevention laws, but only 11
states have any sort of safe storage
legislation. Michigan isn’t one of
them. In California, parents can be
criminally charged if they keep an
unlocked firearm on their property
where children can get hold of it,
but it is nearly impossible to en-
force without going door to door
OP-ED
Yet now, South Africa has be-
come a scapegoat in the latest
chapter of COVID-19.
Outside the U.S., countries in
Europe, the Middle East and Asia
closed their borders to southern
African travelers. South Africa’s
president, Cyril Ramaphosa,
quickly rebuked global leaders for
their discrimination. Instead of ac-
knowledging the ingenuity of
South African scientists who iden-
tified the new variant, the U.S. and
others chose to isolate the south-
ern Africa region.
Banning travel from a wide
swath of Africa feeds the single
story that novelist Chimamanda
Adichie warned about in her fa-
mous speech about the dangers of
telling a simplified narrative about
the continent. Many still think of
Africa as one country, defined by
having the poorest people in the
world. Despite African nations’ re-
cent economic growth and positive
portrayals in popular culture, the
travel bans reinforce old views that
Africa is an inferior place that
should be avoided.
From the outset, the pandemic
has been laced with nationalism
and racism, from Trump stoking
fears of the “China virus” to local
authorities in Guangzhou, China,
forcing Africans from their homes,
Paul Sancya Associated Press
with a search warrant.
The Oxford school shooting
case could be a catalyst for federal
legislation to sew up this patch-
work quilt of policies. A majority of
gun owners admit they do not
safely store all of their firearms. Ac-
cording to a 2015 national study,
about 1 in 5 gun-owning house-
holds with children under 18 stores
at least one weapon in the least
safe manner — loaded and un-
locked.
And that was before record gun
sales and the rise of homemade
“ghost guns,” like the one used last
week by a 13-year-old who allegedly
trafficked in ghost guns and acci-
dentally shot and killed his sister. A
16-year-old also used such a gun in
2019 to kill two students at Saugus
High School in Santa Clarita.
An estimated 4.6 million Ameri-
can children live within reach of a
loaded gun. But the charges in the
Oxford shooting case are about
more than firearm safety. They are
about shining a light on the sys-
temic failure to take the warning
signs of violence seriously.
Time and again, our research
shows, adults have denied that an
eventual school shooter is capable
of serious violence or have failed to
act on warning signs — and a
child’s explicit cries for help.
Shootings and threats of shootings
in schools are only rising. Our chil-
dren are under fire.
One painful lesson from the
Michigan attack: Cameras, securi-
ty guards and active-shooter drills
don’t prevent school shootings. We
need a nationally funded mandate
that would create multi-agency
threat assessment and crisis re-
sponse teams in every school and
community so that children in cri-
sis feel seen and heard, and can be
immediately connected to the help
and support they need.
We also need to make sure those
children can’t grab a gun left lying
around — or worse, use one that an
adult handed to them.
James Densley is a professor of
criminal justice at Metropolitan
State University. Jillian
Peterson is a professor of
criminology and criminal justice at
Hamline University. They are
co-founders of the Violence Project
research center and coauthors of
“The Violence Project: How to
Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic.”
W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
TRAVELERS at Los Angeles International Airport.
reportedly amid COVID fears. The
Biden administration could have
set a good example in working pro-
ductively with South Africa, Afri-
ca’s third-largest economy, and its
neighbors, in sharing valuable pub-
lic health information globally.
Instead, our leaders missed a
prime opportunity to give South
Africa its due credit while changing
the stereotypical narrative.
As the pandemic has shown the
world, we are all in this together.
Rather than distancing ourselves
with each new case or variant,
countries need to team up to devel-
op a coordinated global response
that provides quicker and equita-
ble access to vaccines, combined
with adequate tracing and vaccine
mandates — particularly since
large populations of unvaccinated
people make it easier for COVID to
mutate into new variants like Omi-
The perfect job for a
loyal Trump flunky
ROBIN ABCARIAN
Oh, this is
going to be fun.
U.S. Rep.
Devin Nunes,
the thin-
skinned dairy
farmer who has
filed defama-
tion lawsuits against the Washing-
ton Post, CNN, Hearst, NBC,
McClatchy and someone pretend-
ing to be his cow on Twitter, is
quitting Congress to run former
President Trump’s new social
media company.
“Recently,” wrote the man who
co-sponsored the “Discouraging
Frivolous Lawsuits Act, “I was
presented with a new opportunity
to fight for the most important
issues I believe in.”
What might those be? He didn’t
bother to say.
My guess is there are only two:
1) the restoration of the Trump
administration; and 2) maintain-
ing employment, since he may be
redistricted out of his comfortable
Republican seat and actually have
to work for votes, something he
has not had to do much in recent
years.
“You are more likely to be sued
by Devin than see him at a town
hall,” Andrew Janz, his 2018 Demo-
cratic challenger, once told me.
Nunes has not held a town hall for
more than a decade. When he is
home in his district, which in-
cludes parts of Tulare and Fresno
counties, he appears on the radio
with right-wing talk show host
Ray Appleton, or makes private
appearances before friendly audi-
ences.
The Trump company’s primary
venture will be a Twitter-like plat-
form called Truth Social, which,
according to its website, aspires to
be “America’s ‘Big Tent’ social
media platform that encourages
an open, free and honest global
conversation without discrimi-
nating against political ideology.”
You know, just like Trump did
when he was in office.
Tim Miller, a GOP strategist
and fierce Trump critic, noted that
if Republicans win back the House
in 2022, Nunes was forsaking the
chance to chair the powerful
House Ways and Means Commit-
tee just so he could run “Friend-
ster for bigots.”
Other critics pounced on Truth
Social’s terms of service, which
include a weird ban on one of
Trump’s favorite orthographic
styles: “excessive use of capital
letters.”
Now, it may seem odd to put a
man with no real corporate experi-
ence in charge of a company that
claims to have raised a billion
dollars from unnamed investors
and is already under investigation
by the Securities and Exchange
Commission. But inexperience
has never been a hurdle on Planet
Trump.
After all, he came very close to
putting his daughter Ivanka, a
onetime model and handbag
purveyor, in charge of the World
Bank.
He charged his son-in-law,
Jared Kushner, with overseeing
the U.S.-Mexico border wall, man-
aging the country’s medical stock-
pile in the early days of the
COVID-19 pandemic and finding
A11
Ashley Landis Associated Press
cron. Currently, only 11% of the
population in Africa has received at
least one dose of vaccine, com-
pared with 72% in the U.S. and Can-
ada and 63% in Europe.
Now that the variant has
reached America, it is incumbent
upon the U.S. to set the record
straight by lifting the senseless
southern Africa travel ban immedi-
ately. Help tell a new story — one re-
jecting racism to praise South Afri-
cans for their efforts to protect not
only their country, but all of hu-
manity. That’s an attitude other
countries would do well to emulate
amid a global crisis.
April L. Raphiou is
communications director at the
Duke Center for International
Development in the Sanford
School of Public Policy at Duke
University.
peace in the Middle East. Kushn-
er’s stunning success in executing
his portfolio — not! — should put
to rest any notion that Trump
prizes competence above loyalty.
Nunes, whose qualifications for
a top media job include refusing to
speak to reporters who do not
work for Fox News and an unfail-
ingly poor grasp of the 1st Amend-
ment, is merely formalizing the
employment arrangement he has
had with Trump for years: chief
lackey.
After a promising start as
a rational, moderate Republican
who denigrated tea party extrem-
ists as “lemmings in suicide vests,”
Nunes discovered his inner rodent.
He spent most of the Trump
years aiding and abetting the
president’s impeachment-worthy
shenanigans.
Most famously, he repeatedly
slammed “as a hoax” Russia’s
well-documented efforts to help
Trump’s 2016 campaign and
stepped down as head of the
House Intelligence Committee’s
Russian interference inquiry
because, in his zeal to defend
Trump and undermine the FBI, he
was accused of revealing classified
information obtained during his
infamous “midnight run” to the
White House. (He was cleared
after an ethics investigation.)
In 2019, during the first success-
ful Trump impeachment, Nunes
and his fellow future Medal of
Freedom recipient, Ohio Republi-
can Rep. Jim Jordan, attempted to
turn the proceedings into a clown
show as they tried in vain to dis-
tract the world from Trump’s
scandalous behavior by attacking
Democrats.
Nunes, in particular, became
obsessed with Alexandra Chalupa,
a Democratic political staffer he
falsely accused of working with
Ukrainian Embassy officials “to
spread dirt on the Trump cam-
paign.” (And then I became ob-
sessed with his obsession because
“chalupa” is also a Mexican snack
popularized in the U.S. by Taco
Bell. But I digress.)
For my “Irony is Dead” file,
which I began compiling as soon
as Trump announced his 2016
presidential campaign, I will be
watching to see how Trump and
Nunes talk about their bête noire,
Section 230 of the Communica-
tions Decency Act. The law shields
websites from being held liable
for what users post. It has been
called “the most important law
protecting free speech online.”
(For the record, my first entry
dates to Oct. 17, 2016, when
Trump promised to “drain the
swamp.”)
Naturally, Trump abhorred it
because it meant he couldn’t sue
any social media companies,
which kicked him off their plat-
forms after he encouraged the Jan.
6 insurrection amid efforts to
overturn the 2020 election.
I am sure Nunes realizes that
Trump is a litigious executive with
a record of stiffing creditors, and
that he is going to work for a guy
whose post-presidency blog,
“From the Desk of Donald J.
Trump,” flamed out after a month
because no one read it.
Good luck, Devin. You’re going
to need it.
@AbcarianLAT
A12 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021 WSCE LOS ANGELES TIMES

- EDUCATIONAL ADVERTISEMENT -

There’s money buried in your backyard.

And you don’t need a shovel to ind it.
Learn how home equity can help you fund a better retirement.
It’s a well-known fact that for
many older Americans, the home
is their single biggest asset, often
accounting for more than 45% of
their total net worth. And with
interest rates near all-time lows
while home values are still high,
this combination creates the
perfect dynamic for getting the
most out of your built-up equity.
But, many aren’t taking
advantage of this unprecedented
period. According to new
statistics from the mortgage
industry, senior homeowners in
the U.S. are now sitting on more
than 8.05 trillion dollars* of
unused home equity.
Not only are people living
longer than ever before, but there
is also greater uncertainty in the
economy. With home prices back
up again, ignoring this “hidden
wealth” may prove to be short
sighted when looking for the best
long-term outcome.
All things considered, it’s not
surprising that more than a
million homeowners have
already used
government-insured Home
Equity Conversion Mortgage
(HECM) loan to turn their home
equity into extra cash for
retirement. low, a huge blessing for seniors
It’s a fact: no monthly mortgage living on a ixed income.
payments are required with a Unfortunately, many senior
government-insured HECM loan; homeowners who might be
however the borrowers are still better of with a HECM loan don’t
responsible for paying for the even bother to get more
maintenance of their home, information because of rumors
property taxes, homeowner’s they’ve heard.
insurance and, if required, their In fact, a recent survey by
HOA fees. American Advisors Group (AAG),
Today, HECM loans are simply an the nation’s number one HECM
efective way for homeowners 62 lender, found that over 98% of
and older to get the extra cash their clients are satisied with
they need to enjoy retirement. their loans. While these special
Although today’s HECM loans loans are not for everyone, they
have been improved to provide can be a real lifesaver for senior
even greater inancial protection homeowners - especially in times
like these.
1%62%54 / :1;; +,$* &34 The cash from a HECM loan can
8 ?)? -*(/.> be used for almost any purpose.
!/00 @##='9<=7"9' Other common uses include
making home improvements,
paying of medical bills or helping
for homeowners, there are still other family members. Some
many misconceptions. people simply need the extra cash
For example, a lot of people for everyday expenses while
mistakenly believe the home others are now using it as a safety
must be paid of in full in order to net for inancial emergencies.
qualify for a HECM loan, which is If you’re a homeowner age 62 or
a not the case. In fact, one key older, you owe it to yourself to
advantage of a HECM is that the learn more so that you can make
proceeds will irst be used to pay the best decision - for your
of any existing liens on the inancial future.
property, which frees up cash

Homeowners who are

interested in learning more can
FREE request a FREE Reverse
Mortgage Information Kit and
DVD by calling toll-free at

855-319-2613
USA’s #1 Reverse
The #1 Reverse Mortgage
Lender in the United States
Mortgage Company
National Reverse Mortgage
Lenders Association

As Featured on:
Our new Reverse Mortgage information guides & DVD are now available featuring award-winning actor and paid
ABC, CBS, CNN & Fox News
AAG spokesman, Tom Selleck.

*https://inance.yahoo.com/news/senior-housing-wealth-exceeds-record-154300624.html
Reverse mortgage loan terms include occupying the home as your primary residence, maintaining the home, paying property taxes and homeowners insurance. Although these costs may be
substantial, AAG does not establish an escrow account for these payments. However, a set-aside account can be set up for taxes and insurance, and in some cases may be required. Not all
interest on a reverse mortgage is tax-deductible and to the extent that it is, such deduction is not available until the loan is partially or fully repaid.
AAG charges an origination fee, mortgage insurance premium (where required by HUD), closing costs and servicing fees, rolled into the balance of the loan. AAG charges interest on the
balance, which grows over time. When the last borrower or eligible non-borrowing spouse dies, sells the home, permanently moves out, or fails to comply with the loan terms, the loan
becomes due and payable (and the property may become subject to foreclosure). When this happens, some or all of the equity in the property no longer belongs to the borrowers, who may
need to sell the home or otherwise repay the loan balance. V2020.12.22
NMLS# 9392 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). American Advisors Group (AAG) is headquartered at 18200 Von Karman Ave, Suite 300, Irvine CA 92612.
Licensed in 49 states. Please go to www.aag.com/legal-information for full state license information.
These materials are not from HUD or FHA and were not approved by HUD or a government agency.
 B

CALIFORNIA W E D N E S D A Y , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 2 1 :: L A T I M E S . C O M / C A L I F O R N I A

Redistricting
map gets final
approval from
City Council
After contention,
unanimous vote sets
political boundaries
for the next 10 years.
By David Zahniser
The Los Angeles City
Council voted Tuesday to
finalize its new set of district
maps for the next 10 years,
bringing a quiet end to a
frequently contentious re-
districting process.
On a 13-0 vote, council
members approved a redis-
tricting ordinance that
places Koreatown in a single
council district, reworks
Photographs by Mel Melcon Los Angeles Times political boundaries in the
KARLA STINE, her husband, Anthony, and daughter Byrdie, 15 months, shop for a Christmas tree at a lot San Fernando Valley and en-
in Sherman Oaks. The lot owner expects to sell most of his inventory even after raising prices 5% to 10%. sures that USC and Expos-
ition Park remain in the
South Los Angeles district
African American Museum
— moved out of Price’s dis-
trict and into his own. On
social media, Harris-Daw-
son said his district lacks
major economic assets, de-
scribing the issue as a mat-
ter of “Black equity, repre-
sentation and fairness.”
Harris-Dawson’s district,
which also takes in a portion
of South Los Angeles, is the
only one in the city with a
voting population that is
majority Black. On Tuesday
morning, he urged his
constituents on Instagram
to call in to the council
meeting, saying he was
“fighting for the future of all
of South LA.”
Once the redistricting
plan came up, however,
Harris-Dawson voted with
his colleagues to approve
the ordinance. No one on the
council brought up Expos-

It’s the nightmare before

represented by Councilman
Curren Price.
Councilman Marqueece
Harris-Dawson has pushed
without success in recent
weeks to have Exposition
ition Park or any other facet
of the redistricting map.
Councilman Joe Buscaino
was absent.
Harris-Dawson did not
respond to The Times’ in-

Christmas for shoppers Park — which includes the

Los Angeles Memorial
Coliseum, Banc of California
Stadium and the California
quiries about his “yes” vote.
Price, whose district
stretches from Staples Cen-
[See Districts, B4]

Prices for trees (artificial and real) and holiday decorations

head north. Blame a familiar grinch: supply chain issues. Melrose group set
By Christian Martinez

It was late Thursday morning

and Aldik Home was bustling with
dozens of shoppers perusing the
showroom decked out with thou-
sands of Christmas lights and doz-
ens of trees hung with all manner of
ornaments and ribbons.
The six-decade-old Van Nuys
retailer’s Christmas displays have
gained some notoriety in the past,
with the Kardashian family filming
a holiday episode of its reality TV
show inside.
(In a tense exchange at the
store, Kim accused Kris of at-
tempting to copy her Christmas
decorations purchased at Aldik.)
But this year, Aldik customers
will have to open their wallets wider
to purchase a 7.5-foot-tall Deluxe
Flocked Arctic tree or a 32-foot
strand of cool white LED lights.
Prices for some items have in-
creased by as much as 25%, as the
retailer has run into a mix of supply
chain issues, said store owner
Larry Gold.
The store has faced increased
[See Decorations, B4]
to install cameras
Neighborhood raised
$30,000 for license
plate readers to help
combat rise in crimes.
By Christian Martinez
Spurred by a series of
robberies, shootings and
other crimes in the Melrose
Avenue area in recent
months, a neighborhood
group has raised $30,000 for
license plate readers that
will be installed beginning
this week.
Melrose Action, a group
that tracks crimes and
breaking news in the busy
shopping corridor and sur-
rounding neighborhoods
between La Cienega Boule-
vard and La Brea Avenue,
CHARLES ELLIS helps Stephen Clark and Melissa Enright. A “tree spearheaded the fundraiser,
doesn’t make or break the holiday ... but it is nice to have,” Clark said. which was launched in
August.
City Councilman Paul
Koretz, who represents the
area, donated $10,000 from
his discretionary accounts
to the project.
Peter Nichols, a Melrose
Action co-founder, said he
has been disturbed by the re-
cent crimes in the area.
“We went through a ho-
micide cycle. Then we went
through an armed robbery
cycle that lasted for several
months,” Nichols said. “Now
the latest is the smash-and-
grabs.”
As of Nov. 27, total violent
and property crimes in the
LAPD’s Wilshire Division,
which includes the Melrose
area, were down 12.4% year
to date from 2019 and up 2%
from 2020, according to
police statistics. Property
crimes, including burglaries
and vehicle thefts, were
[See Readers, B5]

Desalination firm seeks gusher of public money

Critics slam $1.1-billion request
for Huntington Beach plant
STEVE LOPEZ
We all know
we’re in the
midst of a
terrible
drought in
California.
And we all
know we’ve
got an 1,100-
mile coast-
line.
Is desalination the an-
swer to our problems?
No. It comes after water
conservation and recycling,
and is just one tool among
many that might prevent
the state from going dry.
But not all desalination
plants are created equally,
nor do all of them maximize
environmental protection.
And there may be no more
controversial project than
the one proposed for Hunt-
ington Beach.
If we know anything by
now about Poseidon Water,
whose parent is a Canadian
company that controls $650
billion in assets globally, it’s
that these people are not
shy about asking for public
financial incentives to build
desalination plants in Cali-
fornia.
It happened with the
company’s Carlsbad plant,
to the tune of several hun-
dred million dollars, and it’s
happening in Huntington
Beach.
But critics are aghast at
Poseidon’s nerve in request-
ing $1.1 billion — from a bond
fund used largely to finance
affordable housing in Cali-
fornia — to help finance the
company’s controversial
attempt to pump 500 million
gallons a day out of the
ocean.
“I’d like to highlight the Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times
[See Lopez, B2] POSEIDON WATER wants to build a desalination plant in Huntington Beach and is seeking state money.

SPORTS ON THE BACK: Lakers’ Big Three lead them to big win over Boston. B10
B2 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
Chutzpah is firm’s request for $1.1 billion
[Lopez, from B1]
level of entitlement these
[company] officials seem to
have,” said Marce
Gutiérrez-Graudinš, found-
er of Azul, a marine conser-
vation and environmental
justice nonprofit with em-
phasis on Latino communi-
ties.
Susan Jordan, of the
California Coastal Protec-
tion Network, called the
sum “outrageous,” saying it
would constitute more than
25% of a pool of funds that
would be better spent on the
state’s catastrophic housing
crisis.
The obscure California
Debt Limit Allocation Com-
mittee — made up of the
state treasurer, state con-
troller and state director of
finance — is scheduled to
meet Wednesday in Sacra-
mento to discuss how to
allocate roughly $4 billion
next year in tax-exempt
private activity bonds.
The point is to jump-
start “private projects that
have a qualified public
benefit.” The committee
lists intended beneficiaries
in this order: residential
rental programs, first-time
home-buyer programs,
waste/recycling facilities
and pollution control facili-
ties.
It might be a stretch to
file a desalination plant
under one of those head-
ings, but another obscure
state entity — the Pollution
Control Financing Author-
ity — recommended approv-
al of Poseidon’s $1.1-billion
request in December 2019.
Meanwhile, Poseidon
has asked the Metropolitan
Water District for a $400-
million subsidy, and it got
$585 million in credit assist-
ance through a low-interest
loan from the Trump ad-
ministration.
A pedestrian passes a painted storefront at the San Fernando Mall on Tuesday. A weak storm brought
light rain and lower temperatures to the Southland. The high in downtown Los Angeles was 64 degrees.
Human skull is linked to
grisly guillotine death
Police say a squatter
tampered with human
remains in a house.
By Hayley Smith
A human skull found in a
Santa Rosa garden has been
linked to a grisly guillotine
death and an alleged squat-
ter accused of tampering
with human remains, the
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
reported.
The case unfolded after a
woman in the Luther Bur-
bank neighborhood found
the skull in her bushes this
year.
The skull was confirmed
to be that of Robert Enger, a
longtime resident of the area
who lived in an unassuming
house on Hendley Street.
Enger was last seen in July
2019, when he was 62.
Police determined that
Enger — who was described
in the Press Democrat as a
friendly, helpful person who
suffered from mental health
issues — had killed himself
using a makeshift guillotine.
Instead of a sliding blade,
the device had a large metal
spike, about 10 inches long,
which he used to impale
himself, police said.
After his death, the house
sat dark and abandoned un-
til Robert Melvin Ross III,
25, moved in toward the end
of 2020, authorities said.
SS
CRITICS argue that the proposed desalination plant in Huntington Beach is bad for the environment and a misuse of public money.
And there’s been all this
panhandling despite the
fact that there is no specific
water shortage in northern
Orange County, which has
ample groundwater re-
serves.
Which might explain why
no water agency has raised a
hand and said, we really
can’t wait to buy your water.
Poseidon, to put it another
way, hasn’t lined up a cus-
tomer.
I’m no financial wizard,
but if the plant’s cost is
estimated at $1.4 billion, why
the requests for roughly $2
billion in taxpayer-funded
R EAL CHILL, FAKE SNOW
Ross allegedly spent
months living with Enger’s
remains — on occasion invit-
ing others to the house to
party and take metham-
phetamine.
“It was just absolutely
filthy and just filled with de-
bris, trash, foods, piles of
stuff,” Santa Rosa Police
Det. Anthony Turner told
the Press Democrat. “There
were buckets of urine and fe-
ces inside the house.”
Police were called to the
house multiple times begin-
ning in late 2020, mostly by
neighbors reporting the
squatters. The house, which
sits behind a white wooden
fence, was becoming in-
creasingly run-down and
overgrown.
Santa Rosa Police De-
partment spokesman Chris
Mahurin said officials never
had cause to enter the home,
and no one knew that En-
ger’s body was lying inside
beneath a pile of debris.
But one person who had
attended a party at the
house later told police that
he had seen the decompos-
ing remains and that Ross
had at one point “proceeded
to remove the skull” from the
body and scrape it with a
knife, according to the Press
Democrat.
By the time the skull was
discovered in the neighbor’s
garden, Ross was already in
custody on separate
charges, Mahurin said.
During an interview with
support?
“No decision has been
made on how the project
will be financed,” Poseidon
executive Scott Maloni told
me by email. “Some (but not
all) of the programs you
listed that the project is
eligible for might be pur-
sued.”
Poseidon has touted the
jobs the project would cre-
ate, but Maloni framed the
project in more existential
terms.
“The realities of climate
change make seawater
desalination a must in Cali-
fornia,” he said.
police, Ross described the
guillotine and how he had
found Enger’s body. An ex-
amination of the device was
consistent with his descrip-
tion.
“Robert Enger placed
himself under that contrap-
tion, manipulated it, was
killed, and then his body was
manipulated later by Robert
Ross and others,” Turner
said.
Ross was charged with
unlawful handling of human
remains, removal or pos-
session of a memento from
human remains and un-
authorized entry into a
dwelling, according to the
Sonoma County district at-
torney’s office.
An attorney for Ross did
not respond to a request for
comment Tuesday.
A court-ordered psychol-
ogical exam this year found
that Ross was mentally com-
petent, according to court
records.
In November, he pleaded
no contest to possession of a
memento from human re-
mains, but he later asked to
rescind his plea. He is sched-
uled to appear for sentenc-
ing and a hearing to with-
draw his plea Dec. 20.
Ross remains in custody
in lieu of $30,000 bail, accord-
ing to Sonoma County Sher-
iff ’s Office records.
The cause of Enger’s
death is still listed in the cor-
oner’s report as “undeter-
mined,” officials said.
I will say there is a lot of
support for this project
across the political spec-
trum, and from labor, de-
spite its many negatives.
Why is that?
Hard to say, but if you
recall Gov. Gavin Newsom’s
French Laundry gaffe —
when he dined in style while
telling people to stay home
and take cover from
COVID-19 — you may re-
member that the dinner was
for a buddy of his who has
been a Poseidon lobbyist.
And you may recall that
when thoughtful questions
about the need for the desa-
Myung J. Chun Los Angeles Times
THE ZZYZX Road overpass, looking south along I-15
in Baker, Calif., about 60 miles from Primm, Nev.
Wider I-15 will ease
jam south of Nevada
The freeway will gain
a third lane 5 miles
from the state border.
associated press
LAS VEGAS — The gov-
ernors of Nevada and Cali-
fornia said Sunday that they
have a plan to bring some
immediate relief to traffic
congestion on Interstate 15
at the border of the two
states.
In a joint announcement
with Nevada Gov. Steve
Sisolak, California Gov. Gav-
in Newsom said the shoulder
about five miles south of the
‘I’d like to
highlight the level
of entitlement
these [Poseidon
Water] officials
seem to have.’
— Marce Gutiérrez-
Graudinš,
founder of an
environmental nonprofit
lination project were raised
by a member of the Santa
Ana Regional Water Quality
Control Board, Newsom
tossed the skeptic over-
board.
There are more than
16,000 desalination plants in
the world, and the technol-
ogy is improving all the
time, helping to bring down
air pollution and mitigate
harmful impacts on marine
habitats.
But Jordan and a slew of
other environmentalists
have argued that given the
proposed design of the
Huntington Beach plant,
thousands of microscopic
organisms will be killed off
daily and the food chain
damaged. Much of which
could be avoided if the in-
take was beneath the ocean
floor, as it is with some
desalination projects.
Andrea León-Grossman
of Azul said drought is
caused in part by air pollu-
tion, and building huge
desalination plants pow-
ered by fossil fuels doesn’t
help. She also called the
proposal “a $1.1-billion boon-
doggle that privatizes wa-
ter” and would benefit a
wealthy company while the
Gary Coronado Los Angeles Times
border will be made into a
third lane for use during
peak hours.
The Las Vegas Review-
Journal reports that the
project will cost about
$12 million.
Newsom said existing
money will be used to com-
plete the project and it will
be done by next summer.
Newsom said a more per-
manent solution to I-15 traf-
fic woes is still needed, how-
ever.
According to the Review-
Journal, Las Vegas Mayor
Carolyn Goodman has been
calling on California and fed-
eral officials to step in to de-
velop a fix to I-15 traffic back-
ups.
L AT I M E S . C O M
Allen J. Schaben Los Angeles Times
housing crisis continues to
burden low-income commu-
nities of color.
And she added that San
Diego, part of which drinks
desalinated water from the
Carlsbad plant, “has one of
the most expensive water
rates in the country.”
Is there any state author-
ity that can put a stop to
this, or at least show the
gumption to require modifi-
cations of the design?
Yes. The California
Coastal Commission.
But on Oct. 16, Posei-
don’s Maloni posted a link
on his Facebook page to an
effort to gather 1 million
signatures for a snake oil
ballot measure called the
Water Infrastructure Fund-
ing Act of 2022, whose back-
ers include Poseidon desali-
nation proponents.
My colleague Michael
Hiltzik described the
measure as a water and
money grab primarily by
Big Ag. He argued that it
would shred regulatory
authority and environmen-
tal protections and stick
taxpayers with the bills for
water projects that benefit
agribusiness, among other
interests.
It would also neuter the
Coastal Commission.
Developers of a desalina-
tion plant could ignore a
permit denial and go
straight to the governor’s
secretary of natural re-
sources to request an over-
rule.
Did I mention that Posei-
don has applied for a permit
from the Coastal Commis-
sion to build its desalination
plant but has refused to pay
the $326,000 permit fee, even
as it grabs whatever public
funds it can get its hands
on?
The word is chutzpah.
The governor and his
minions can roll over, but
the rest of us don’t have to.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
Lottery results
Tonight’s SuperLotto Plus
Jackpot: $9 million
Sales close at 7:45 p.m.
Tonight’s Powerball Jackpot:
$291 million
Sales close at 7 p.m.
For Monday, Dec. 6, 2021
Powerball
Powerball number is bold
3-21-38-50-59—Powerball 6
Jackpot: $280 million
California winners per category:
No. of Amount
winners of prize(s)
5 + P-ball 0 —
5 0 —
4 + P-ball 3 $10,445
4 28 $559
3 + P-ball 86 $189
3 2,269 $8
2 + P-ball 1,977 $8
1 + P-ball 15,903 $5
P-ball only 38,665 $3
Winning jackpot ticket(s) sold in other
states: None
For Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021
Mega Millions
Mega number is bold
1-7-40-43-68—Mega 1
Jackpot: $122 million
Fantasy Five: 1-21-23-33-37
Daily Four: 5-2-1-3
Daily Three (midday): 8-3-4
Daily Three (evening): 9-6-3
Daily Derby:
(10) Solid Gold
(5) California Classic
(2) Lucky Star
Race time: 1:48.34
Results on the internet:
www.latimes.com/lottery
General information:
(800) 568-8379
(Results not available at this number)
L AT I M E S . C O M
PUSHING BACK AGAINST VACCINE
Rosalba Villanueva, an elementary school teacher with the L.A. Unified School District, joins a demon-
stration against the district’s vaccination mandate at LAUSD headquarters Tuesday in downtown L.A.
Cool temperatures, rain on tap
After dry November,
forecasters say more
precipitation could
be coming to L.A.
By Hayley Smith
Angelenos on Tuesday
received a much needed bit
of rain after one of the driest
Novembers in recent memo-
ry.
“We opened the door and
can confirm very light sprin-
kles here at our office!” the
National Weather Service in
Los Angeles said in a tweet.
“Let’s keep those good vibes
for more of that liquid gold
this week!”
Downtown Los Angeles
received zero inches of pre-
cipitation in November, offi-
cials said. The last time that
happened was 1992.
The area has received a
scant 0.71 inches since the
water year began Oct. 1,
compared with the normal
1.68 inches for this time of
year, according to David
Sweet, a meteorologist with
the weather service in Ox-
nard.
The rain marks the start
of a pattern shift that will
bring cooler, wetter weather
through at least Thursday,
Sweet said.
Tuesday’s light rain was
delivered by a weak storm
that was expected to drop
‘Antifa’ counterprotesters charged
At least seven are
accused of conspiracy
to riot at pro-Trump
rally in San Diego.
By Alex Riggins
SAN DIEGO — Prose-
cutors charged at least sev-
en people, whom they de-
scribed as self-identified
anti-fascists, in connection
with eight alleged assaults
that occurred in January
during a San Diego “Patriot
March” organized by sup-
porters of then-President
Trump.
Those arraigned Monday
in San Diego County Superi-
or Court were among a
group arrested Thursday in
raids by police officers and
sheriff ’s deputies across
Southern California.
Prosecutors allege the
defendants “are self-identi-
fied to be affiliated with
Anti-fascists or Antifa,” ac-
cording to a criminal com-
plaint, and began organizing
themselves — with one
group originating in San Di-
ego and the other in Los An-
geles — a week before the
pro-Trump rally in the Pa-
cific Beach neighborhood.
The case is believed to be
one of the first to use con-
spiracy charges — in this
case conspiracy to commit
riot — to target people with
ties to “antifa,” a term often
used to describe the anti-
fascist movement.
The Center for Strategic
and International Studies
describes antifa as a “decen-
tralized network of far-left
militants who oppose what
they believe are fascist, rac-
POLLY AURITT AND CLEO take a run through Burton Chace Park in Marina
del Rey Tuesday, as a weak storm sprinkled the Southland with precipitation.
about 0.15 inches of precipi-
tation, with snow possible at
elevations above 9,000 feet.
A second, stronger storm
slated for Thursday will
bring additional rain and
snow, with forecasts calling
for up to half an inch of
rain in some areas, and snow
levels dropping to 5,000
feet.
The weather system,
which is moving in from the
Pacific Northwest, is also
ist, or otherwise right-wing
extremists” and whose ad-
herents “frequently blend
anarchist and communist
views.” Anti-fascists typi-
cally don’t shy away from
clashes, instead using what
they call “direct action” to
confront the systems,
groups and individuals they
view as their political ene-
mies.
According to a criminal
complaint, the defendants
charged Monday began their
criminal conspiracy “by lik-
ing and sharing” a Jan. 2 so-
cial media post that called
for a counterprotest against
the pro-Trump rally, “in es-
sence agreeing to take part
in the ‘direct action.’ Others
agreed by showing up in Pa-
cific Beach on January 9th,
2021 and participating in
the violence” detailed in
the complaint, prosecutors
said.
They’re accused of using
pepper spray, small flag-
poles, sticks and other items
to attack the pro-Trump
crowd on the streets and
boardwalk near Crystal Pier.
Demonstrators at that rally
held signs and flags adorned
with “Stop the Steal,”
“Trump 2020” and other
similar messages just days
after the Jan. 6 insurrection
at the U.S. Capitol.
Several of the attacks de-
tailed in the complaint ap-
pear to match incidents that
were recorded and shared
online, such as a video of an
anti-fascist counter-
protester pepper-spraying a
dog and its owner.
Prosecutors said that act
was committed by Jeremy
Jonathan White, 39, one of
the defendants who re-
mained jailed Monday in
CITY & STATE
bringing cooler tempera-
tures that are expected to
linger through the weekend.
Daytime temperatures in
the Los Angeles area will
hover in the high 50s and low
60s for several days.
Sweet said another
storm is possible next week.
Officials reminded resi-
dents to be wary of winter
hazards that could come
with the incoming rain and
snow, including slippery
lieu of $200,000 bail. White
faces charges of conspiracy,
assault with a deadly weap-
on, use of tear gas not in
self-defense and animal cru-
elty.
A Los Angeles-based vi-
deographer captured a
nearly two-minute-long at-
tack by counterprotesters
involving the use of pepper
spray, a wooden folding
chair, sticks, punches and
kicks. Prosecutors detailed
an identical attack in the
complaint.
Those arraigned Mon-
day, according to the San Di-
ego County district attor-
ney’s office, were White; Luis
Francisco Mora, 30; Joseph
Austin Gaskins, 21; Faraz
Martin Talab, 27; Bryan Ri-
vera, 21; Brian Lightfoot, 25;
and Jesse Merel Cannon, 31.
Also facing charges, ac-
cording to a spokesperson
for the office, are Alexander
Akridge-Jacobs, 31; Chris-
tian Martinez, 23; and Sam-
uel Howard Ogden, 24.
A $250,000 arrest warrant
has been issued for Erich
Louis Yach, 37, according to
the district attorney’s office
and county Sheriff ’s Depart-
ment records.
Information about de-
fense attorneys for the de-
fendants was not available
Monday. An attorney who
represents one of the de-
fendants in two other crimi-
nal cases did not immedi-
ately return phone and
email messages seeking
comment.
Though reporters and
bystanders also docu-
mented violence committed
by the pro-Trump rally-go-
ers — one video showed a
group attacking a barefoot
man in a George Floyd T-
Gary Coronado Los Angeles Times
Al Seib Los Angeles Times
roads.
Though the storms won’t
make a dent in the region’s
ongoing drought, many lo-
cals posted on social media
to celebrate the arrival of
even the smallest bit of mois-
ture.
“I feel so happy to wake
up to beautiful rain, fog and
cool weather,” one person
wrote on Twitter.
Another summed it up
more simply: “RAIN!”
shirt, including one man
who spit on him and sucker-
punched him — the district
attorney’s office said most of
the violence was carried out
by the counterprotesters.
“Video evidence analysis
shows that overwhelmingly
the violence in this incident
was perpetrated by the An-
tifa affiliates and was not a
mutual fray with both sides
crossing out of lawful First
Amendment expression into
riot and violence,” Dist. Atty.
Summer Stephan’s office
said in a news release.
Stephan’s office said in
the release that prosecutors
file charges when evidence
supports the allegations be-
yond a reasonable doubt, re-
gardless of the political affili-
ation of victims, because
“the right to peaceful protest
must be protected.”
Stephan’s spokesman
Steve Walker noted that in
August of last year two men
were charged in connection
with an attack on Black
Lives Matter protesters in
Imperial Beach. During the
June 2020 demonstration, a
Black man who was record-
ing the event was sucker-
punched, and protesters
were insulted and had eggs
thrown at them.
One of the defendants
pleaded guilty to felony as-
sault and the second
pleaded guilty to felony bat-
tery.
Both men also pleaded
guilty to hate crime allega-
tions. They were sentenced
to probation in April.
Riggins writes for the San
Diego Union-Tribune. U-T
staff writer David
Hernandez contributed to
this report.
W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
Huge cache of
knockoffs seized
Officials find more
than 13,000 fake
Gucci, Chanel, other
goods in a shipment.
By Gregory Yee
Federal authorities
seized more than $30 million
in counterfeit designer
handbags, backpacks and
other goods at the ports of
Los Angeles and Long
Beach.
U.S. Customs and Border
Protection officers inter-
cepted 13,586 counterfeit
items that arrived in a ship-
ment from China. The prod-
ucts included handbags,
tote bags, shoulder bags,
cross-body bags, backpacks,
shirts and pants being
passed off as genuine items
from Gucci, Chanel, Fendi,
Yves Saint Laurent and
Louis Vuitton, officials said
Thursday.
Customs officers and
U.S. Homeland Security In-
vestigations special agents
seized the shipment Nov. 9,
officials said. If the items
were genuine, they would
have a total estimated value
of $30.4 million.
“CBP commits substan-
tial law enforcement re-
sources to keep counterfeit
and pirated goods out of U.S.
supply chains, markets and
streets,” said Carlos C. Mar-
tel, the agency’s director of
field operations in Los Ange-
les. “Now more than ever,
CBP officers remain vig-
ilant, committed and fo-
cused on disrupting these
smuggling operations.”
Counterfeit products
have historically been sold
on illegitimate websites or in
underground markets, but
Costa Mesa salutes
WWII vet, 100
By Sara Cardine
For many, turning 100
years old may be a quiet
event. But not for Costa Me-
sa’s Merl Cornelius, who was
never the quiet type to begin
with.
Cornelius who goes by
the nickname “Bus,” after
the early 1900s comic strip
character Buster Brown,
was honored Saturday in an
outdoor ceremony at his
Tanana Place residence by
city officials and employees,
who turned out to celebrate
a World War II veteran and
local legend.
Members of the Costa
Mesa Police and Fire depart-
ments joined in the festiv-
ities, and a shiny red fire en-
gine was joined by four vin-
tage jeeps — a reminder of
Cornelius’ service in the U.S.
Army Ordnance Corps —
courtesy of the nonprofit
Noble Cause Foundation.
From 1941 to 1946, Corne-
lius kept vehicles and equip-
ment running like well-oiled
machines. During his serv-
ice, he reportedly adapted a
jeep for use by President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, was
in the presence of Gen.
George Patton on three oc-
casions and once bunked
with actor Mickey Rooney in
Paris.
Costa Mesa Mayor John
Stephens and Councilman
Loren Gameros spoke to the
small audience and pre-
sented an official city procla-
mation to mark the occa-
sion.
“He worked for South
Coast Plaza, and he’s been a
member of the Orange
County Freedom Commit-
tee for decades, so he’s been
very involved in the veterans
community,” he said of Cor-
nelius. “He’s a terrific guy —
he’s a World War II vet, he’s
got all kinds of stories, and
he’s a character, still crack-
ing jokes.”
Scott Williams, president
of the Freedom Committee,
joined in Saturday’s event to
honor longtime member
Cornelius, a friend of Pearl
Harbor survivor and former
Costa Mesa Mayor Jack
Hammett.
Cornelius has deep ties to
Southern California land-
marks.
In his decades overseeing
the construction of large-
scale structures, including
the landmark Zenith Build-
ing on Los Angeles’ Wilshire
Boulevard, a key project was
B3
officials said the rise of e-
commerce has made it eas-
ier for sellers to hide behind
what look like legitimate
listings on well-known web-
sites.
“Bad actors exploit e-
commerce operations by
selling counterfeit and un-
safe goods through online
platforms, particularly dur-
ing the holiday season when
shoppers are looking for
deals,” said Donald R.
Kusser, CBP’s port director
at the Los Angeles-Long
Beach port complex.
“If the price of the prod-
uct seems too good to be
true, it probably is. Counter-
feit goods are often of poor
quality and can even be
unsafe for you and your fam-
ily.”
The agency recommends
shoppers take the following
steps to protect themselves
from counterfeit goods:
8 Make purchases di-
rectly from the trademark
holder or from authorized
retailers.
8 Read seller reviews
and check for a working
U.S. phone number and ad-
dress that can be used to
contact the seller if shopping
online.
8 Review CBP’s E-Com-
merce Counterfeit Aware-
ness Guide for Consumers.
Common signs that an
item is not legitimate are
poor or uneven stitching,
and fragile fabric and logos
that aren’t the right size or
don’t match the official
brand design, authorities
said.
In the fiscal year that ran
from Oct. 1, 2019, to Sept. 30,
2020, CBP seized 26,503 ship-
ments of counterfeit goods,
officials said. If genuine, the
items would have been
worth about $1.3 billion.
City of Costa Mesa
MERL CORNELIUS
gets a proclamation from
Mayor John Stephens.
the 1973 expansion of Costa
Mesa’s South Coast Plaza.
An associate of the Seger-
strom family, Cornelius was
employed by C.L. Peck and
tasked with completing the
work on a tight timeline.
A European firm estimated
the center’s signature
stained-glass dome would
take a year. But that wasn’t
an option.
“I said, we don’t have a
year to give away — we’ll do
the plaza, the dome and the
fountains all at the same
time,” recalled Cornelius,
who would go on to become
operations manager.
Cornelius found another
subcontractor and person-
ally guaranteed the work,
said Nate Wendt, his live-in
caregiver.
“He got it done in six
months and under price,
and that dome is still the
cherry on top of South Coast
Plaza,” Wendt said.
Daughter Bette Bell, 70,
started organizing her
father’s celebration well in
advance of his Dec. 4 birth-
day, working with city offi-
cials to pull off the big day
and organizing a birthday
card campaign that netted
more than 100 greetings.
The event went off with-
out a hitch, she said Monday.
“He absolutely had a
blast,” Bell said. “It was
amazing — everybody
stayed around for a while
and shared stories.”
Though he understands
the symbolic importance of
reaching the personal mile-
stone, Cornelius said being
100 doesn’t feel too much dif-
ferent from being 99.
When asked what advice
he’d give youngsters today,
given his long and varied life
experience, the ordinarily
talkative Costa Mesan an-
swered matter of factly.
“Work hard,” he said.
B4 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
Christmas
decorations
more costly
than ever
[Decorations, from B1]
shipping and import costs,
with rates jumping as high
as 600% and months-long
delays stemming from on-
going issues at the Port of
Los Angeles.
Prices at Aldik are 10%
higher on average over last
year’s, Gold said.
The issues have rocked
nearly every industry in the
country, with price increases
and delays on everything
from toys and video game
consoles to clothing and ex-
tension cords.
And the price increases
are not just hitting decora-
tions and artificial trees: A
variety of factors including
fires and extreme heat have
upped the prices on domes-
tically produced natural
trees as well.
Gold’s customers, how-
ever, don’t seem to mind, at
least not yet, with the park-
ing lot full and Gold expect-
ing a busy December.
Dressed in a button-
down shirt and a mask, Gold
oversaw his sales floor
Thursday morning. As busy
as it seemed, he hoped the
weekend would bring lines
out the door.
But as good as business
was, managing the supply
chain issues has become the
nightmare before Christ-
mas.
“I’ve never seen disrup-
tions like this,” said Gold,
who has run Aldik for more
than 30 years. His father,
Richard Gold, started the
shop as Aldik Artificial
Flowers in 1951.
When not dressed up as a
winter wonderland, the
store specializes in artificial
plants and flowers and
home decor.
But the store’s holiday is-
sues are exemplified by the
Mexican kidnapping ring indicted
Group abducted nine
people and killed six,
including U.S. citizens,
prosecutors say.
By Gregory Yee
Members of a violent kid-
nap-for-ransom ring based
in Tijuana were indicted
Tuesday by a federal grand
jury after they were accused
of abducting nine people
and killing six of them, in-
cluding three U.S. citizens.
All six defendants face
one count each of conspiracy
to commit hostage taking
resulting in death, conspira-
cy to commit extortion and
extortion, according to the
U.S. attorney’s office for
the Central District of Cali-
fornia.
All six are Mexican citi-
zens, prosecutors said. They
were arrested in Mexico and
also face charges filed by
local authorities.
German Garcia Yera
Hernandez, 37, was named
MARKETPLACE
JOBS · REAL ESTATE · MORE
Employment
Mechanical Engineer for
Precision Cutting Tools,
LLC. (Jobsite: La Palma, CA)
to design & develop high
performance cutting tools.
Mail resume & ad: HR Mgr,
PCT, LLC 5572 Fresca Dr., La
Palma, CA 90623
ongoing saga of its artificial
Christmas trees.
Aldik imports about
2,000 trees from China,
transporting them in 10 40-
foot shipping containers.
Usually, the store books the
containers during summer
for about $3,000 each. The
store begins its Christmas
preparations, building out
displays and setting out
merchandise, months be-
fore the holiday season kicks
off.
This year, Gold said, it
took six weeks to book the
shipping containers at a
price of $18,000 apiece.
“Not only was it six weeks
to try and get them booked,
they all got on different ships
and when they got here, the
harbor was crowded so the
ships had to sit out in the wa-
ter for a couple of weeks,”
Gold said.
“When they finally got in,
the harbor was a mess and
containers got put in re-
stricted areas.”
“We have two containers
still that we have not re-
ceived,” he said, adding that
one was put in a restricted
area of the harbor.
“I don’t know when I’m
getting that one,” he said.
Gold has increased the
prices of his Christmas trees
by 10% to 12%, although that
has done little to dampen
demand for trees that can go
for as much as $1,850. Most of
the trees that do get deliv-
ered to the store are spoken
for by the time they get off
the truck.
Trisha Williams of Bur-
bank examined one of
Aldik’s trees Thursday,
thoughtfully turning over
the tag in her hand and
touching the branches. She
was trying to decide between
investing in an artificial tree
as the alleged ringleader of
the group, prosecutors said.
The other defendants are
Gilberto Omar Avila Lopez
(also known as Luis Enrique
Avila Moreno and Omar), 27;
Aylin Estrada Reyes, 24; Joel
Eduardo Mascorro Delgado,
22; Victoria Camila Es-
pinoza Ballardo, 22; and
Oscar Bautista Valencia, 30.
Yera, Lopez and Ballardo
each face an additional
count of hostage taking re-
sulting in death and an addi-
tional count of extortion,
prosecutors said.
According to the indict-
ment, the ring was active
last year from January to
April. Ballardo, Valencia
and other members would
arrange to meet the victims
under false pretenses so that
they could be taken hostage,
according to the indictment.
The defendants held the vic-
tims at gunpoint, tied them
up and often brutally beat
them, prosecutors said.
After each abduction,
members of the ring would
contact the victim’s family
and demand ransom pay-
latimes.com/placead
To place an ad call 1.800.234.4444
CRYSTAL SOLORZANO of North Hollywood shops for Christmas decorations at Aldik Home in Van Nuys.
The store’s owner says he has faced increased shipping and import costs, with rates jumping as high as 600%.
‘Usually we
forget, then it’s
mid-December
and it’s only up
for 15 days, so we
keep it up until
February.’
— Melissa Enright,
shopper, on her annual
Christmas tree hunt
or buying a real one.
Williams was accompa-
nied by her sister, Kesha
Williams, and Kesha’s 3-
year-old daughter, Marie,
who was dressed for the sea-
son with a mask featuring
Elsa from Disney’s “Frozen.”
Artificial trees “do last
forever,” Trisha noted.
She said she felt a sense
of urgency to make a deci-
sion within the next few
days, but wasn’t concerned
with low inventory as much
as high prices.
ments, according to the in-
dictment. Once payment
was set up, prosecutors said,
Yera would instruct an un-
named co-conspirator to go
to one of several set loca-
tions in the U.S. to collect the
money. A second unnamed
co-conspirator would help
with processing the ransom
payments.
Three of the victims did
not have family members
who could pay ransom, and
they were killed, prosecutors
said.
In other cases, ransom
payments were made. Three
of the remaining six kidnap-
ping victims, including one
from San Diego, were killed
despite relatives sending
money, according to the in-
dictment.
Members of the ring
surveilled one victim, a
Norwalk resident who was
visiting a relative in Tijuana,
because they believed he
had a large amount of mon-
ey, the indictment said.
After kidnapping him, the
group forced the victim to
call his mother, tell her he
Your exclusive guide
to SoCal real estate
listings.
Advertise Today
LA Times
Classified
(800) 234-4444
Unscramble these Jumbles,
one letter to each square,
Get the free JUST JUMBLE app • Follow us on Twitter @PlayJumble
to form four ordinary words.
BHAIT
UEQNE
CENRHD
RUYPIF
©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
All Rights Reserved.
“ ”
Jumbles: EJECT
Yesterday’s
Answer: He wanted to change the channel to watch the
game but didn’t have a — REMOTE CHANCE
“I haven’t noticed short-
ages in Christmas trees, but
I have noticed that the
prices are higher,” she said.
For Williams’ family, in-
cluding her mom and sister,
Christmas decorations, and
Christmas trees specifically,
are important.
“It’s very important to
have it done beautifully and
done how we’d like to have it
done,” she said.
“Don’t touch my Christ-
mas tree,” Kesha said.
But that commitment to
a handcrafted tree can add
up.
“It’s getting kind of pricey
this year,” Trisha said.
“Demand is great and
sales are up,” Gold said.
“There’s pent-up demand
because they couldn’t do
anything” last year.
“The challenge is getting
stuff out on the floor.”
A few miles away, in a
parking lot at Los Angeles
Valley College, hundreds of
real trees stood under tarps
at the Santa & Sons Christ-
mas tree lot, ready to be tied
to the roofs of cars or tossed
was in trouble and call an-
other person to arrange for a
$25,000 ransom payment,
the indictment said.
The victim’s mother sent
$400 and eventually negoti-
ated to pay $1,000 and give
the kidnapping ring her
son’s vehicle as a final pay-
ment, the indictment said.
The first unnamed co-
conspirator traveled to a
Lowe’s home improvement
store in Norwalk on April 13,
2020, to collect the payment
and vehicle but got a mes-
sage from the second co-
conspirator saying the vic-
tim’s parents “weren’t well,”
according to the indictment.
“I think that they are
going to kill him,” the first
co-conspirator wrote.
“Well yes, looks like they
don’t want him,” the second
replied.
The victim was killed lat-
er that day, according to the
indictment.
If convicted of all charges,
the defendants face manda-
tory life sentences or the
death penalty, prosecutors
said.
THAT SCRAMBLED WORD GAME
By David L. Hoyt and Jeff Knurek
Now arrange the circled letters
to form the surprise answer, as
suggested by the above cartoon.
(Answers tomorrow)
MATCH CRABBY NOODLE
into the backs of pickups, or
even delivered.
Los Angeles residents
Stephen Clark and Melissa
Enright shopped the lot
Thursday for a tree for their
apartment. A few years ago,
the New York state trans-
plants were living in a studio
apartment with little room
for a tree.
They discovered the
Santa & Sons lot in 2017
when they bought a wreath.
Now in an apartment with a
little more space, Clark and
Enright have opted for the
tree.
The pair were hoping to
get their tree early — not out
of fear that inventory would
run out, although Clark had
heard news reports of short-
ages, but simply to enjoy it
longer.
“Usually we forget, then
it’s mid-December and it’s
only up for 15 days, so we
keep it up until February,”
Enright said.
“If they ran out it would
be a shame, but it’s not the
end of the world. A Christ-
mas tree doesn’t make or
break the holiday season,
but it is nice to have,” Clark
said.
Lot owner and tree
grower Mark Rohlfs said he
expected to sell most of his
inventory even after increas-
ing prices by 5% to 10% be-
cause of inflation and an in-
crease in labor costs. Rohlfs
L.A. City Council
approves final
redistricting map
[Districts, from B1]
ter south to 95th Street, said
he wasn’t surprised that the
vote went so smoothly, given
the calls from his constitu-
ents for Exposition Park to
stay in his district.
“My constituents worked
very hard to express their
points of view, and I think my
colleagues recognized that,”
said Price, whose district is
overwhelmingly Latino and
considered the city’s most
impoverished.
Tuesday’s unanimous
vote may have been a reflec-
tion of the council’s recess
schedule. Had any member
cast an opposing vote, a sec-
ond vote on the redistricting
ordinance would have been
required next week, when
the council is scheduled to
be on its holiday recess.
The new maps are ex-
pected to go into effect in
the coming weeks. Sophie
Gilchrist, a spokeswoman
for Council President Nury
Martinez, said her boss had
been prepared to schedule a
special meeting for next
week if the redistricting vote
was not unanimous.
The council creates new
boundaries for its 15 districts
every 10 years, following the
release of U.S. census data.
To ensure equal representa-
tion, each of L.A.’s council
districts must have around
260,000 constituents.
The tug of war over Ex-
position Park was a subplot
of this year’s redistricting
process, but it was fre-
quently overshadowed by
debates over how to recon-
figure council districts in
the Valley.
In October, a 21-member
citizens commission recom-
mended a map that would
place five and two-thirds
council districts within the
L AT I M E S . C O M
Mel Melcon Los Angeles Times
said he increased wages for
his staff by about 20%.
Rohlfs’ business is verti-
cally integrated: He farms
his trees in Oregon, then
harvests them specifically
for his lot in Los Angeles,
which has insulated him
from many of the supply-
chain concerns that his big-
box and non-grower com-
petitors may be facing this
season, despite the fact that
his crop is still recovering
from fires and extreme heat
in the Pacific Northwest this
summer.
“In a normal situation,
there’s some surplus that
gets generated when you’re
farming,” he said, explaining
that the surplus would be
wholesaled to other retail-
ers.
“That’s sort of vanished
with the [2020 Holiday Farm
fire], and then the heat wave
this year damaged about
half the crop.”
But even the trees and
seedlings damaged in the
summer heatwave, which
brought temperatures of 117
degrees to Oregon in July,
are expected to recover
within a year.
“I liken it to getting a bad
sunburn at the beach. You’ll
be fine, but you’ll be ugly for
a while,” Rohlfs said.
The trees “are tough,
they’re resilient. They can
endure these kinds of
things.”
Valley, a change aimed at
giving that region’s voters
more political clout.
As part of that proposal,
the commission recom-
mended major changes to
districts represented by
council members Paul Kre-
korian, Bob Blumenfield
and Nithya Raman.
Neighborhood leaders in
the Valley quickly rebelled.
Martinez led the coun-
cil’s effort to rework the com-
mission proposal, restoring
portions of those three dis-
tricts. Still, even with those
changes, Raman is expected
to lose about 40% of her cur-
rent constituents as her dis-
trict moves deeper into the
Valley and takes in all or a
portion of Encino, Studio
City and Reseda.
Like Harris-Dawson,
Raman voted against the re-
districting plan last month.
On Tuesday, however, she
sided with the rest of her col-
leagues.
“The councilmember
had made her objections to
the map clear in previous
meetings,” Raman spokes-
woman Stella Stahl said in
an email. “As we head into
the new year, she is excited
to meet her new constitu-
ents who can expect a knock
on their door very soon!”
The new map also consol-
idates Koreatown into a sin-
gle district — whose voters
elected Councilman Mark
Ridley-Thomas, who is cur-
rently suspended while he
fights corruption charges.
On Tuesday, Koreatown
civic leaders praised council
members for working to
keep the area from being po-
litically divided.
Koreatown’s boundaries
were also a major issue dur-
ing the city’s redistricting
decisions of 2002 and 2012.
L AT I M E S . C O M W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 B5

R ICHARD LERNER , 1938 - 2021

OBITUARY NOTICES
Place a paid notice latimes.com/placeobituary
Search obituary notice archives: legacy.com/obituaries/latimes

ADLER, Dr. Louis

Mount Sinai Memorial Parks -
Hollywood Hills 800-600-0076
www.mountsinaiparks.org
BUDGOR, Lidia
Mount Sinai Memorial Parks -
Hollywood Hills 800-600-0076
www.mountsinaiparks.org

LEIB, Charlotte Ruth MCBAY, Shirley M

May 8, 1929 - December 6, 2021
Charlotte Leib
May 8, 1929 – December 6, 2021
Charlotte Leib (nee Munitz) passed
San Diego Union-Tribune
away at the age of 92. Born in Los
Angeles and raised in Milwaukee,
‘HE WAS A VISIONARY’ Wisconsin she returned to California
Richard Lerner helped turn the La Jolla institute he led into a biomedical titan. and graduated from Fairfax High
COHEN, Robert Neil School in 1947. Charlotte was a well-
August 2, 1947 - December 1, 2021 trained pianist and was a piano teacher
May 4, 1935 - November 27, 2021
Shirley Ann Mathis (McBay) was
born in 1935 in Bainbridge, GA, the
daughter of Annie Bell Washington
(Stevens Williams Pringley).
She attended Hutto Elementary
and excelled in Mathematics early on
(including beating older students in
Math competitions). For the 4th grade,
she attended A.O. Sexton Elementary
in Chicago, IL while staying with her

Biochemist who raised

Robert Neil Cohen passed away on
December 1, 2021, at the age of 74.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
he was raised in Longview, Texas and
attended Longview High School where
in her 20’s. She married Norman Leib
in 1948 (divorced 1972) after briefly
attending UCLA. Their union brought
four sons which became her world.
She was an excellent den mother,
grandmother’s niece Alberta Smith
(Norman) returning to Bainbridge
because she was homesick. For the
7th grade, she attended Kalamazoo
Junior High while staying with her

Scripps institute’s profile

western University and as a medical student
By Gary Robbins at Stanford. He considered becoming a neu-
rosurgeon, but he changed his mind in 1965,
ichard Lerner, the masterful bio- accepting a position as a postdoctoral scien-
he was Vice-President of the Class
and President of the Key Club. Upon
graduation, he attended Northwestern
University where he graduated in 1969
and went into the Peace Corps in South
Korea.
Following his time in Asia, Bob
returned to Texas where he met the
love of his life, Nancy Sher Cohen,
and obtained his M.A. degree in Film
carpool organizer, PTA volunteer, cook,
Halloween costume maker and piano
teacher. She became an accredited
Medical Records Technician, working
at Sherman Oaks Community Hospital
and The Los Angeles Jewish Home
in Reseda. Charlotte believed in
self-sufficiency, respect for others and
loved nature. She encouraged all four
of her boys to be Boy Scouts and to live
uncle Tom Washington in East Lansing,
MI again returning to Bainbridge being
homesick. She graduated from Hutto
High School at age 15. From there, she
attended Paine College in Augusta, GA,
which she graduated as a Chemistry
major at age 19. She immediately
attended Atlanta University where
she earned Masters degrees in both
Chemistry and Mathematics. After

R
chemist who helped build the
Scripps Research Institute into
an elite center for biomedical sci-
ence and helped develop the
breakthrough drugs Humira and Benlysta,
has died at age 83.
Lerner died Thursday at his home in San
Diego’s La Jolla neighborhood, the private
nonprofit announced.
The news comes at an eventful time for
Scripps, where Lerner nearly tripled the size
of the institute during his 24 years as presi-
dent, partly through ties with the pharma-
ceutical industry that helped produce Hu-
mira, which fights rheumatoid arthritis, and
Benlysta, a treatment for lupus.
Benjamin List, one of Lerner’s former
postdoctoral researchers, and Ardem Pat-
apoutian, one of the institute’s current schol-
ars, won Nobel Prizes this fall.
Patapoutian will receive the prize for
physiology or medicine Wednesday in Irvine;
some laureates are being honored there be-
cause COVID-19 issues have mostly shut
down the traditional ceremonies in Stock-
holm. List, who is German, will pick up the
Nobel in chemistry in his home country.
“Richard had a tremendous influence on
science, the institute, and the lives and work
of many of us at Scripps Research,” Peter
Schultz, the institute’s president and chief
executive, said in a statement. “He was truly
a giant and his vision, leadership and pas-
sion for science will be deeply missed.”
In 2017, the journal Nature described the
institute as the most innovative center of its
kind in the world.
Lerner was a self-described “lab rat”
whose career spanned more than 55 years. In
that time, he developed a reputation as
something of a wizard for manipulating mol-
ecules and DNA for medicinal purposes.
Born Aug. 26, 1938, in Chicago, Lerner be-
came interested in chemistry early in life,
pursuing it as an undergraduate at North-
tist at Scripps Clinic and Research Founda-
tion, which became Scripps Research.
He briefly left for a job in Philadelphia,
then returned to Scripps in 1970, where he
served on the faculty for the rest of his life. He
became the institute’s president in 1987 and
decided to make Scripps as big a power in
chemistry as it was in biology.
Biologists routinely figure out how health
problems develop in humans. The entrepre-
neurial Lerner reasoned that many chemists
spend their lives trying to create substances
to fight afflictions. So he created a chemistry
department to move things forward.
Colleagues say Lerner had a gift for spot-
ting and recruiting talent, pointing to the
moment in 1991 when he hired chemist Barry
Sharpless, who a decade later won a Nobel
Prize for his insights about the nature of mol-
ecules, work that is key to drug discovery.
Lerner’s own research heavily focused on
the immune system and involved making the
most of antibodies and DNA to treat or de-
tect such things as arthritis, cancer and dia-
betes. This fundamental research led others
to create Humira, which generated $20 bil-
lion in revenue last year, and Benlysta.
“He was a visionary,” Sharpless said in a
statement. “He saw what chemistry could do
for medicine and biology.”
Lerner stepped aside as president in 2011,
but he continued doing research, following a
single-minded belief in original work to im-
prove the human condition.
“There are scientists, some successful,
some not, who run after the latest hot thing,”
Lerner told the San Diego Union-Tribune in
2016. “My attitude is, if somebody else is do-
ing it, I cheer them on. I sure as hell don’t
want any part of it.”
Lerner is survived by his wife, Nicky, and
three children, Danica, Arik and Aaron.
Robbins writes for the San Diego
Union-Tribune.
from the University of Texas in Austin
in 1974. Bob and Nancy were married
in 1973 and together in 1974 went to
Japan for two years where Bob became
the Museum of Modern Art Film Center
scholar and studied Japanese cinema.
Upon their return to the United
States, Bob received a Ph.d from
UCLA in Film, specializing in Japanese
cinema, a subject upon which he
wrote extensively and whose work
was continued to be published even in
recent years.
Bob spent several years as an
academic teaching at UCLA and UC
Santa Barbara and ultimately as the
first resident scholar at the American
Film Institute. But he yearned to enter
the film business in Los Angeles, first as
the development director for Lawrence
Schiller Productions and ultimately as
a screenwriter when he won the Nichol
Fellowship in Screenwriting from the
Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and
Sciences for his screenplay “The Good
Ole Boy,” the story of the relationship
of a black musician and Jewish boy
growing up in East Texas.
After working on multiple
screenplays, Bob ultimately decided
to follow another life-long passion:
photography. Bob’s photographs
were featured in shows in Los Angeles
and Kansas City and his photographs
of Jewish cemeteries is part of the
permanent collection at the Briscoe
Center for American History at the
University of Texas at Austin.
Bob was an amazing father of Aaron,
now 37 years of age, spending years
when Aaron was young as the only
Dad in the car pool line and involving
himself in Aaron’s education and
serving on the Board of Trustees of the
Valley Beth Shalom Day School during
Aaron’s school years. He was a member
of the Henry and Emma Rogers Society
at Northwestern University and
remained in contact with other Nichol
winners over the years.
Bob is preceded in death by his
parents, Rosalie Harris Cohen and Dr.
Ralph Cohen, his stepmother, Lucy
Cohen, and his sister, Patty Cohen.
He is survived by his sisters and their
husbands, Nan Gold and Bo Von Der
Ahe, Dr. William Meyers and Lynn
Meyers, and Dr. Armond Schwartz and
Cindy Schwartz, along with 8 loved
nieces, nephews and 7 great nieces
and nephews.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be
made in Bob’s memory to Valley Beth
Shalom.
GENDELMAN, Gennadiy
Mount Sinai Memorial Parks -
Simi Valley 800-600-0076
www.mountsinaiparks.org
GRANT, Jane
Mount Sinai Memorial Parks -
Hollywood Hills 800-600-0076
www.mountsinaiparks.org
a life of honesty, integrity and service
to others.
Charlotte was a longtime member
of Valley Beth Shalom and was a
proud member of the VBS Counseling
Center and Sisterhood. Charlotte’s
greatest joys were relishing in the
accomplishments of her children,
daughters in law and grandchildren.
She loved her trips to Israel,
participating in Jewish life, music,
reading, and gardening. She will be
deeply missed by all who she touched
through her 92 years. Charlotte is
survived by her brother Richard Munitz
of Agoura Hills, son Robert (Felice)
of Mequon, Wisconsin, son Samuel
(Rosalie) Leib of Bayside, Wisconsin,
son Mitchell (Stacy) Leib of Malibu,
son Daniel (Judy) Leib of Beverly Hills;
11 grandchildren; Melissa (Brian),
Rebecca, Stephen, Ted (Elizabeth),
Brenden, Andrew, Rachel (Joe),
Matthew, Mason, Jordan, Kate, and 5
great grandchildren, niece Risa (Don)
and nephew Benjy (Nicky). Charlotte
is preceded in death by sister in law
Judith Munitz and daughter in law
Barbara Leib. In lieu of flowers, please
make a donation in Charlotte’s name
to Jewish Home and Care Center
Foundation 1400 N. Prospect Ave.
Milwaukee, WI 53202. Services will
be held Thursday December 9, 2021
at 2:00 p.m. at Hillside Memorial Park
6001 Centinela Ave. Los Angeles, Ca.
90045 (310) 641-0707. Vaccination
and mask required. Live stream upon
request; charlotteleibfuneral@gmail.
com
LIPTON, Millicent Audrey
Mount Sinai Memorial Parks -
Hollywood Hills 800-600-0076
www.mountsinaiparks.org
MALTSEVA, Danielle
Frances
Mount Sinai Memorial Parks -
Hollywood Hills 800-600-0076
www.mountsinaiparks.org
To place
marrying Professor (of Chemistry)
Henry McBay and starting a family,
she began pursuing a Ph.D. at the
University of Chicago but transferred
to the University of Georgia to be closer
to home. At UGa, she became the first
Woman to earn a Ph.D. in Mathematics
and the first African-American to earn
a Ph.D. of any kind at the school.
She was Professor of Mathematics
at Spelman College for many years
and also served in the Administration,
ultimately rising to be Chair of the
Division of Natural Sciences. In
1975, she began working for the
National Science Foundation (N.S.F.)
in Washington, DC reviewing grant
proposals. In 1980, she became Dean
of Students at Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (M.I.T.) in Cambridge,
MA where she spearheaded an
institution-wide self-study of the
obstacles Minority students were
having in allowing them to be
successful. From that report came
recommendations that led to the
creation of the QEM (Quality Education
for Minorities) project at M.I.T. In
1990, she left M.I.T. to found QEM
Network in Washington, DC for which
she served as President to further the
aims of promoting the achievement
and development of Women and
underrepresented Minority students,
faculty and institutions nationwide.
She retired in 2016 and moved
to Las Vegas, NV as the housemate
of her lifelong best friend, Audrey
Forbes (Manley). In 2018, due to
deteriorating health, she moved to
Los Angeles, CA and lived with her first
son, Michael McBay.
She died peacefully on November
27th. She was 86. She is survived
by her eldest son Michael McBay of
Los Angeles, CA and her youngest
son Ronald McBay of Atlanta, GA
and “daughter from another mother”
Laura-Lee Davidson of Washington, DC
as well as caregiver Suzanne Slayton of
Los Angeles, CA.
Condolences may be left at
Westwood Mortuary in Los Angeles, CA
( https://www.dignitymemorial.
com/obituaries/los-angeles-ca/
shirley-mcbay-10468556 ).
In lieu of flowers, please donate
to the Shirley McBay Fund at QEM
Network in Washington, DC ( https://
www.qem.org/shirleymcbayfund ).
ROSKOWICK, Michael
James
Mount Sinai Memorial Parks -
Hollywood Hills 800-600-0076
www.mountsinaiparks.org
SALAZAR, Sister Regina
Clare
January 5, 1928 - November 30, 2021
Sister Regina Clare
Salazar, C.S.J. age 93,

KELTUS, Joan
December 25, 1928 - October 19, 2021
Keltus, Sister Joan, SSS (93)
Sister Joan died of natural causes on
October 19, 2021. Born in Torrance, she
was first employed by the U.S. Army
in post-war Germany as a Recreation
Director, then as a Refugee Worker
by the National Catholic Welfare
Conference. Upon her return to the
U.S., Joan taught elementary school
for the next eight years.
Sister Joan began her 60 years as a
Luis Sinco Los Angeles Times Sister of Social Service in 1961, with
MELROSE AVENUE has been hit with a series of robberies, shootings and other the majority of those years of ministry
spent in Southern California. She
crimes in recent months, leading a neighborhood group to look for solutions.
began by coordinating the religious
education program at St. Gerard
an obituary passed away on Tuesday
November 30, 2021 in
Los Angeles, CA. Born January 5, 1928
ad please go in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a Sister of St.
Joseph of Carondelet since March 19,
online to: 1946. Her early years in ministry were
dedicated to education at all levels and
then she was asked to go into hospital
administration. Beginning in 1983
as President/CEO of Daniel Freeman
latimes.com/ Hospital, Sister Regina Clare served
in many capacities for the hospital,
President of Carondelet Health Care
placeobituary Corporation, Corporate Vice President
of Sponsorship/Mission and Vice
President for Mission and Philosophy,
until 2007. Regina Clare was always
able to make people feel welcomed
and valued. Her sense of presence was
tangible.

Amid crimes, Melrose area Majella Parish, and eventually served She is survived by her cousins Diana,
as a pastoral minister in two other Charotte and Clara Baca and other
parishes in Los Angeles – Assumption family members.
and St. John. In the mid-1980’s Joan’s Funeral arrangements are:
ministry turned to teaching once or call Graveside Service at Burial at Holy

to get license plate readers again, when she began teaching

[Readers, from B1]
down 17% from 2019 and up
less than 1% from 2020, al-
though vehicle thefts have
surged 70% over numbers
seen in 2019 and 25% over
2020 figures.
Violent crimes were up
12.3% from 2019 and up 6.8%
from 2020.
The division saw 13 homi-
cides as of Nov. 27, up from
five in 2020 and one in 2019.
Nichols said he and other
members of Melrose Action
wanted to find a method of
helping investigators that
went beyond doorbell and
security cameras and wit-
ness statements.
“I give everybody credit
that we’re all thinking that
our cameras installed on our
houses, in front of our
houses or at our doors are
going to help catch a crimi-
nal and that the police want
this stuff,” Nichols said, “un-
til we research and simply
realize they’re just being in-
undated.
“And then that leads to
disappointment from the
residential reporter or the
merchant who said some-
one’s harassing them and
they’ve got pictures. Every-
one wants a police car to
come out and take their re-
port,” he said. “It’s statisti-
cally impossible.”
Nichols was told by offi-
cials with the San Francisco
Police Department that li-
cense plate readers were
helpful in identifying vehi-
cles.
“Part of what also at-
tracted us to it is that
they don’t use facial recogni-
tion. These cameras are
aimed at the rear of the car,”
he said.
But license plate readers,
and the data they capture,
have come under fire as they
have gained prevalence
among law enforcement
agencies.
Last year, the California
state auditor said that the
Los Angeles Police Depart-
ment and three other Cali-
fornia law enforcement
agencies had not provided
sufficient privacy protec-
tions for the millions of im-
ages captured by their read-
ers and shared with other
agencies.
Melrose Action has con-
tracted with Flock Safety for
its cameras, which will be
mounted on private proper-
ty, including residences and
businesses, Nichols said.
According to Flock Safe-
ty’s website, the company
provides license plate reader
equipment and services to
neighborhoods and law en-
forcement agencies and
stores information for 30
days before deleting it.
The recordings can be ac-
cessed by an administrator
who must submit a reason
for the search, such as a
crime or warrant, according
to Flock.
English as a second language (ESL) to
adult learners.
Sister Joan earned a Bachelor of
1-800-234-4444 Cross Cemetery on December 14th
at 10 AM. Service of Remembrance
will be January 5th at 2PM on zoom.
Zoom links will be sent to anyone who
requests a link and provides an email.
Arts in Education from Cal. Berkeley
in 1952, and a Master’s Degree in You can do this by notifying sharon@
Religious Studies from Immaculate csjla.org.
Heart College in 1978. She also served Donations in memory of Sister
her SSS community in a variety of Regina Clare Salazar may be sent to:
settings, including formation of new Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet,
members and teaching ESL at the 11999 Chalon Road, Los Angeles, CA
90049. Please visit the mortuary’s
Sisters’ residence in Zacapu, Mexico.
Her religious community will website, www.LAfuneral.com to send
especially miss Sister Joan’s down-to- the family messages, share memories,
earth personality and care for those or to obtain directions to the services.
in need.
Viewing and remembrance service
will begin at 10:00 a.m. on Friday
December 10th, and Funeral Liturgy
to follow immediately. Both services
will be held at the Sisters of Social
Service, 4316 Lanai Road, Encino. YAMADA, Emiko “Em”
Following a light lunch, a graveside
service will be held at 1:30 at Calvary Emiko “Em” Yamada passed away
peacefully on November 19, 2021.
Cemetery. To assist with planning, we
ask that you respond to 818.285.3364 She was beloved wife of late husband
by noon Monday, December 6th with Henry “Tak” Yamada. Mother of
your name and the number of persons Merilynn and Ron (Emiko) Yamada.
coming with you. Grandmother of Donji T. Yamada-
Dessert and Jacob “JT” Yamada.
Sister-in-law of Jean Tomiko Urushima
In lieu of flowers, donations may be
made to the Sisters of Social Service. and Akiko Kato. She is also survived
Bastian & Perrott, Oswald Mortuary by many nieces, nephews, and other
relatives.
Due to Covid, there are no plans for
To place an obituary ad
services at this time.
please go online to:
www.fukuimortuary.com
latimes.com/placeobituary (213) 626-0441
or call Ms. Phillips
1-800-528-4637
latimes.com/placeobituary
Ext. 77242
B6 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 L AT I M E S . C O M

Today in Southern California Today in North America

Turning out mostly sunny: A weak offshore flow will limit the marine influence today, but there will be areas Stormy in the Southeast: Heavy rain and thunderstorms will drench
of low clouds and fog briefly this morning before sunshine prevails the rest of the day. A storm system drop- areas from the Carolinas to northern Florida. To the north, areas of light
ping down from the north will bring several hours of intermittent rain and drizzle late tonight and Thursday snow will reach from Michigan to New England. Heavier snow will blan-
morning before pushing to the south of L.A. County early Thursday afternoon. ket the Cascades and northern Rockies.
▲

◗
5-day forecasts Pressure: L Low H High Warm Front Cold Front Jet Stream Trough
High/low temperatures are average forecasts for entire zone.
Temps –0 0s 10s 20s 30s 40s 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 100+ Rain T-storm Snow Ice
L.A. Basin Valleys Beaches Mountains Deserts
Today 65/53 64/51 61/53 49/25 75/54
Mostly sunny Mostly sunny Mostly sunny; cool Mostly sunny Mostly sunny
Thursday A little rain 57/42 Morning rain 54/40 Morning rain 56/44 Snow, 1-3” 33/15 Showery 63/46
Friday Mostly sunny 59/41 Mostly sunny 57/40 Mostly sunny 58/39 Cold 37/10 Mostly sunny 65/45
Saturday Mostly sunny 60/42 Mostly sunny 58/39 Mostly sunny 59/40 Mostly sunny 43/16 Mostly sunny 66/44
Sunday Partly sunny 58/47 Partly sunny 60/41 Partly sunny 57/46 Partly sunny 46/17 Mostly sunny 69/47

Air quality Good Moderate Unhealthful for: Sensitive people All Not Available
SANTA VENTURA CO. Santa Clarita South Coast Air Quality Management District forecasts air quality
BARBARA CO. Santa Paula 66/49 Hesperia
Santa Ojai 62/51 LOS ANGELES CO. 66/46
Barbara 62/49 Simi Valley
Chatsworth SAN BERNARDINO CO.
61/48 64/50 Burbank Monrovia
Ventura Camarillo 64/52
66/52 65/51
58/51 64/51 Pomona/ Yucca Valley
UCLA 65/49
Oxnard
Westlake 63/54 L.A. Downtown Fairplex Ontario San Bernardino
61/52 Woodland 65/53 64/52 64/50
Village 65/52
Hills Whittier
62/50 Chino
66/50
Santa Monica Hills 67/53 Riverside RIVERSIDE CO.
61/53 64/54 Fullerton 65/50
Surf and sea Torrance 64/54
POINT CONCEPTION TO MEXICO 66/54 Santa Ana U.S. cities
Inner waters: Wind variable, becom- Long 67/57 ORANGE CO. Hemet Palm
ing west 10 knots. Wind waves 1-2 Beach Newport Irvine 66/49 Springs High 86 in Tamiami, Fla.
feet. Swell west 1-4 feet. 64/55 Beach 65/57 75/54 Low –22 in Babbitt, Minn.
Surf zone: The potential for strong Mission Viejo
63/57 Temecula Tuesday Today Tuesday Today
rip currents is moderate at Ventura Laguna 65/56 City Hi Lo Prcp. Hi Lo Sky City Hi Lo Prcp. Hi Lo Sky
County beaches and low at and Los 66/51
Beach San Albany 37 33 Tr 37 26 Sn Seattle 48 43 .13 45 37 Cy
Angeles, S.B., Orange and San Diego 62/58 Clemente Albuquerque 53 38 -- 56 35 Pc Tampa 80 67 -- 80 68 Fg
county beaches.
64/56 SAN DIEGO CO. Anchorage 32 31 .10 14 14 Cy Tucson 76 46 -- 74 47 Su
Oceanside Aspen 37 26 Tr 40 28 Sf Tulsa 47 28 -- 59 50 Su
Atlanta 52 36 -- 59 40 R Washington, D.C. 45 34 -- 45 30 Cy
County Height Period Direction Temp Sun and moon 66/55 Austin 69 40 -- 77 57 Su Wichita 44 30 -- 56 40 Su
Santa Barbara 1-3’ 8 sec W 60 Baltimore 43 31 -- 45 26 Cy
Today’s rise/set
Ventura 2-4’ 10 sec W 60 Escondido Ramona Boise 44 33 .09 49 27 Cy World
Los Angeles 1-3’ 8 sec W 62 Los Angeles Co. Orange Co. Ventura Co. 65/51 64/46 Boston 43 38 .16 40 30 Cy Acapulco 86 72 -- 87 73 Su
Orange 1-3’ 8 sec W 63 Sun 6:46a/4:44p 6:45a/4:43p 6:51a/4:47p Buffalo 30 27 .02 33 25 Sf Amsterdam 42 36 .88 43 37 Cy
Moon 11:11a/9:44p 11:09a/9:43p 11:16a/9:47p Poway
San Diego 1-3’ 8 sec W 63 Burlington, Vt. 35 31 Tr 31 23 Sn Athens 60 54 .24 59 49 Su
64/52 Charleston, S.C. 62 58 Tr 65 42 Ts Bangkok 86 70 -- 87 71 Su
Charlotte 53 40 Tr 55 33 R Barcelona 59 43 .03 56 43 Sh
Tides San Diego Chicago 24 13 Tr 36 24 Pc Berlin 32 28 -- 34 28 Cy
L.A. Outer Harbor, in feet. 65/57 Cincinnati 29 21 .01 43 25 Pc Cabo San Lucas 82 62 -- 82 61 Pc
Dec. 10 Dec. 18 Dec. 26 Jan. 2
Today 1:10a 3.9 Hi 5:24a 2.8 Lo Cleveland 28 22 Tr 35 23 Cy Cairo 67 61 -- 66 54 W
11:33a 5.8 Hi 7:11p -0.5 Lo Columbia, S.C. 58 51 -- 57 36 R Dubai 80 61 -- 85 64 Su
Thu. 2:22a 4.1 Hi 6:54a 3.0 Lo
Almanac Columbus 28 20 -- 38 22 Cy Dublin 47 36 .45 43 37 R
Tuesday Downtown readings Dallas/Ft.Worth 59 35 -- 66 55 Su Havana 86 67 -- 87 65 Su
12:42p 5.1 Hi 8:13p -0.1 Lo Denver 53 27 Tr 58 35 Pc Ho Chi Minh City 88 72 -- 90 74 Pc
Temperature Los Angeles Fullerton Ventura Precipitation Los Angeles Fullerton Ventura Detroit 25 20 Tr 34 22 Cy Hong Kong 73 61 -- 73 64 Hz
UV index High/low 64/57 67/57 66/55 24-hour total (as of 4 p.m.) 0.01 0.01 0.01 El Paso 70 39 -- 67 44 Su Istanbul 64 56 .29 54 46 Sh
Minutes to burn for sensitive people Normal high/low 68/49 68/46 67/45 Season total (since Oct. 1) 0.72 0.52 0.79 Eugene 59 48 .13 49 36 Sh Jerusalem 64 54 -- 56 49 W
High/low a year ago 76/46 80/46 76/50 Last season (Oct. 1 to date) 0.11 0.18 0.21 Fort Myers 84 62 -- 83 67 Pc Johannesburg 78 57 .56 73 57 Ts
Las Vegas, 60 Phoenix, 60
Record high/date 88/1940 84/2006 85/1979 Season norm (Oct. 1 to date) 1.74 1.57 2.30 Hartford 43 34 .12 38 27 Sn Kuala Lumpur 91 77 .03 94 74 Cy
Los Angeles, 60 San Francisco, 60 Record low/date 32/1978 32/2017 30/1953 Humidity (high/low) 83/57 83/58 89/64 Honolulu 78 56 7.31 80 71 R Lima 72 63 -- 68 64 Cy
Houston 65 54 Tr 74 63 Fg London 46 36 .35 45 39 Sh
California cities Indianapolis 26 17 -- 41 25 Pc Madrid 54 34 .18 49 37 Sh
Tuesday Today Thursday Tuesday Today Thursday Tuesday Today Thursday Jacksonville, Fla. 74 57 -- 78 54 Ts Mecca 91 64 -- 88 66 Cy
Kansas City 42 27 -- 51 41 Su Mexico City 75 48 -- 75 48 Su
City Hi Lo Prcp. Hi Lo Hi Lo City Hi Lo Prcp. Hi Lo Hi Lo City Hi Lo Prcp. Hi Lo Hi Lo Knoxville 45 29 -- 54 30 Pc Milan 46 28 -- 37 30 R
Anaheim 68 56 .02 66 56 58 44 L.A. D’ntown/USC 64 57 .01 65 53 57 42 San Diego 62 59 Tr 65 57 61 53 Las Vegas 60 54 .05 67 51 Su Montreal 25 21 .05 24 17 Sf
Avalon/Catalina 64 56 -- 57 49 54 45 L.A. Int’l. Airport 65 57 .01 63 55 58 46 San Francisco 60 52 .07 58 50 58 45 Louisville 36 29 .01 47 30 Pc Moscow 32 23 .58 17 5 Cy
Bakersfield 59 44 Tr 63 49 52 39 Laguna Beach 64 58 -- 62 58 59 50 San Gabriel 65 55 .02 65 53 56 44 Medford 46 41 .10 46 34 Cy Mumbai 91 71 -- 92 76 Su
Barstow 64 53 .01 69 51 58 35 Lancaster 68 51 Tr 66 48 54 31 San Jose 58 52 .03 59 49 55 38 Memphis 48 33 -- 57 43 Su New Delhi 75 49 -- 72 50 Hz
Big Bear Lake 47 36 .03 49 25 33 15 Long Beach 64 56 .02 64 55 59 45 San Luis Obispo 67 51 Tr 64 49 60 40 Miami 85 69 -- 83 69 Pc Paris 46 37 .16 44 37 Pc
Bishop 62 48 Tr 63 37 52 20 Mammoth Lakes 43 32 -- 52 27 38 9 Santa Ana 66 61 .01 67 57 63 49 Milwaukee 24 10 Tr 32 24 Pc Prague 34 28 .08 31 29 Cy
Burbank 65 56 .03 66 52 58 43 Mission Viejo 62 54 .01 65 56 58 46 Santa Barbara 64 54 .01 61 48 58 39 Minneapolis 17 3 .12 25 21 Pc Rome 54 37 -- 60 46 R
Camarillo 65 55 .02 64 51 58 41 Monrovia 63 53 -- 65 51 54 42 Santa Clarita 64 49 .02 66 49 55 38 Nashville 45 29 -- 53 33 Pc Seoul 54 31 -- 53 34 Pc
Chatsworth 65 55 .03 64 52 54 39 Monterey 68 53 .10 60 50 56 41 Santa Monica Pier 64 56 .02 61 53 56 44 New Orleans 65 59 .30 68 61 Ts Singapore 87 77 .03 87 77 R
Chino 64 51 .02 67 53 57 42 Mt. Wilson 51 40 -- 52 37 40 31 Santa Paula 65 52 .01 62 51 57 40 New York 42 36 .09 42 31 Sf Taipei City 71 63 -- 74 65 Pc
Compton 64 57 -- 66 54 58 42 Needles 69 57 -- 73 52 64 45 Santa Rosa 59 46 .01 56 41 56 33 Norfolk 46 42 -- 46 36 R Tokyo 59 52 1.24 53 49 R
Dana Point 62 56 .01 63 58 60 50 Newport Beach 61 59 -- 63 57 60 47 Simi Valley 65 53 .02 64 50 56 35 Oklahoma City 49 24 -- 61 47 Su Vancouver 44 37 .18 44 34 W
Death Valley xx xx xx 74 52 61 38 Northridge 65 54 .01 66 51 55 42 Tahoe Valley 46 34 .13 47 27 34 9 Omaha 44 16 -- 45 35 Pc Vienna 37 32 .02 38 30 W
Del Mar 62 57 .01 62 55 60 49 Oakland 60 50 .06 57 49 57 40 Temecula 59 53 .01 66 51 53 37 Orlando 81 62 -- 83 66 Fg
Escondido 60 54 .02 65 51 56 44 Oceanside 65 57 .01 66 55 60 45 Thousand Oaks 61 53 .02 62 51 56 36 Philadelphia 44 36 Tr 43 31 Sf Key: Su sunny; Pc partly cloudy; Cy cloudy; Fg
Eureka 57 47 .02 51 41 50 38 Ojai 66 50 -- 62 49 56 39 Torrance 66 55 .04 66 54 62 43 Phoenix 75 53 -- 71 52 Cy foggy; Prcp precipitation; Dr drizzle; Hz;hazy Sh
Fallbrook 62 54 -- 65 50 57 41 Ontario 61 53 .02 65 52 54 42 UCLA 67 56 .02 63 54 56 43 Pittsburgh 29 22 -- 36 25 Cy showers; Ts thunderstorms; R rain; Sn snow; Sf
snow flurries; I ice; Rs rain/snow; W windy; Tr
Fresno 53 46 -- 60 49 53 41 Palm Springs 68 55 -- 75 54 63 46 Van Nuys 65 55 .03 66 52 59 44 Portland, Ore. 52 44 .12 49 38 Sh trace. Notes: National extremes exclude Alaska
Fullerton 67 57 .01 64 54 58 44 Pasadena 65 54 .04 64 52 53 43 Ventura 66 55 .01 58 51 57 44 Providence 45 36 .16 42 29 Cy and Hawaii. Missing data indicated by “xx”.
Hemet 57 50 -- 66 49 52 39 Paso Robles 63 49 .01 64 48 55 32 Whittier Hills 68 56 .01 64 54 55 43 Raleigh/Durham 51 41 Tr 49 29 R
Hesperia xx xx xx 66 46 52 31 Redding 71 42 .09 55 44 57 32 Woodland Hills 66 53 -- 66 50 58 40 Reno 53 42 .06 55 35 Pc
Huntington Beach 68 58 .01 63 56 59 46 Riverside 59 45 Tr 65 50 54 35 Wrightwood 54 38 .01 52 35 36 27 Richmond 49 33 -- 43 27 R Forecasts by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2021
Idyllwild 47 38 .05 55 45 50 32 Sacramento 54 47 .06 56 48 55 34 Yorba Linda 64 54 -- 65 54 56 42 St. Louis 32 24 -- 50 37 Su
Irvine 66 58 .01 65 57 59 47 San Bernardino 61 52 -- 64 50 52 40 Yosemite Valley 58 39 -- 52 35 42 19 Salt Lake City 52 34 -- 52 35 Cy

Medina Spirit legacy rife with controversy

[Medina, from B10]
thing is covered. But, we’ll
also be sending samples out
to other labs, just for a sec-
ond and third set of eyes.”
One of those will be at the
University of Minnesota,
which has a specialty in
cardiovascular diagnosis.
Though the likelihood is
that the initial diagnosis was
correct, it’s not a certainty. A
2011 study of sudden deaths
on almost 300 horses
showed that the cause of
death was definitively deter-
mined in 53% of the cases,
and presumed in 25% more.
Of the 53% of definitively di-
agnosed sudden death
cases, a cadiovascular or
cardiopulmonary cause oc-
curred 56% of the time.
“We just have to rely on
the science and the process,”
Blea said.
There is no timetable for
the results, but sudden
death necropsies can take
two to three months or long-
er.
Medina Spirit was not
the first Kentucky Derby
winner to experience a sud-
den death in the same year
as his win. In 1984, Swale col-
lapsed and died nine days af-
ter winning the Belmont
Stakes and a month after
winning the Derby. Immedi-
ately, there was unfounded
speculation of foul play, but Michael Conroy Associated Press
it was determined the colt MEDINA SPIRIT , with John Velazquez aboard, leads the field around the first turn on the way to a surprise win in the Kentucky Derby.
died of heart failure.
While the answers will
rest with the science, the fu-
ture of the sport may well
‘He’s a fighter. ... Every time I asked him for more, he kept for more, he kept going more
and more. That’s all you can
ask for a horse.”
rest with finding a definitive
cause of death as the indus-
going more and more. That’s all you can ask for a horse.’ The jubilation of the
Derby win was loud and long
try and fans wrestle with the — J OCKEY J OHN V ELAZQUEZ , until a week later when Baf-
loss of one of its biggest before Medina Spirit was the unexpected winner of the Kentucky Derby in May fert was informed that the
stars, albeit one draped in colt tested positive for be-
controversy. tamethasone, a legal anti-in-
Baffert, who told The down there and we just tonico, whose stud fee was training, he was gaining ning against older horses. flammatory that is not al-
Times on Tuesday that he talked for two hours while he only $5,000. By comparison, more attention than such a He earned a little more than lowed on race day. What has
had nothing to add beyond was waiting for his flight. He Authentic, Baffert’s 2020 low-purchase horse nor- $3.5 million. ensued has been challenges
Monday’s statement of said, ‘I was thinking, maybe Kentucky Derby winner, was mally gets. He was an unexpected to the testing, challenges to
“deeply mourning his loss,” I’ll get back in and maybe we sired by Into Mischief, who “I have him down at Los winner of the Kentucky the rules, lots of lawyers and
has talked in the past about can get together and win the goes for $250,000 a mating. Alamitos,” Baffert recalled. Derby, with most of the pre- a Kentucky Horse Racing
the Cinderella stories that Derby.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, It’s partly because of an un- “My assistant down there race attention going to Es- Commission that still has
can come from racing. Amr right, sure.’ dervalued sire that Medina says, ‘You know that horse sential Quality, Hot Rod not set a hearing for Baffert
Zedan, Medina Spirit’s “Then all of a sudden, he Spirit was still in training they didn’t give much for? I Charlie and Rock Your or addressed the issue of
owner, was an owner in hooks up with Gary Young, and not retired after his 3- think he’s OK.’ And sure World. Medina Spirit went to whether Medina Spirit will
search of a miracle when he the [bloodstock] agent, and year-old career, as was Au- enough he broke his maid- the lead and was expected to remain the winner of the
had an unexpected meeting Taylor Made [Farm] and thentic. Medina Spirit was en.” give it up in the stretch of the Kentucky Derby.
with Baffert. Frank Taylor. … They find being pointed to the San An- Medina Spirit won five of 1¼-mile race, but he How this plays out, and
“I ran into him at an air- this little horse. We looked tonio Stakes on Dec. 26 at his 10 lifetime races includ- wouldn’t yield. how Medina Spirit is re-
port in Dubai on my way to at him, and, hey, we liked Santa Anita. The goal was to ing the Grade 1 Awesome “He’s a fighter,” his jockey membered, most likely will
the Saudi Cup,” Baffert said him.” run him in the $20-million Again and, of course, the John Velazquez said in May. be decided by scientists and
in May. “[I hear someone That horse was Medina Saudi Cup on Feb. 26 in Kentucky Derby. His last “I know he was going to fight lawyers. How the public will
say] ‘Hey. Bob,’ in the air- Spirit, a $35,000 Florida- Saudi Arabia. race was a second in the anybody who would come to view things is much more
port and it was him. We sat bred purchase sired by Pro- After the horse started Breeders’ Cup Classic run- him. Every time I asked him complicated.
L AT I M E S . C O M S W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 B7

STANDINGS
Standings have been arranged to reflect how the teams will be
determined for the playoffs. Teams are ranked 1-15 by record. Divi-
sion standing no longer has any bearing on the rankings. The top six
teams in each conference qualify for the playoffs. Teams seven
Big Three lead a win over Celtics
through 10 will participate in a play-in tournament with the top-
seeded team playing the lowest qualifying play-in team. The next- [Lakers, from B10]
lowest qualifying team would play the second, etc. Head-to-head him seem like he was still at his
competition is the first of several tiebreakers, followed by conference
record. (Western Conference divisions:S-Southwest; P-Pacific; N- peak instead of starting to fall from
Northwest; Eastern Conference divisions: A-Atlantic; C-Central; S- it. Westbrook had 24 points and 11
Southeast).
assists, helping the Lakers lead by
WESTERN CONFERENCE as many as 20.
Team W L PCT GB L10 Rk. “The energy he plays with is al-
1. Golden State 20 4 .833 8-2 P1 ways good for your group,” coach
1. Phoenix 20 4 .833 9-1 P2 Frank Vogel said.
3. Utah 16 7 .696 31⁄2 8-2 N1 Even a bad start from Anthony
4. Memphis 14 10 .583 6 7-3 S1 Davis, in which the Lakers’ third
5. CLIPPERS 13 12 .520 71⁄2 4-6 P3 star spent more time on the wrong
5. LAKERS 13 12 .520 71⁄2 5-5 P4 end of Robert Williams III high-
7. Dallas 11 12 .478 81⁄2 2-8 S2 lights than posting his own, turned
7. Denver 11 12 .478 81⁄2 2-8 N2 in the second half. Davis finished
9. Minnesota 11 13 .458 9 6-4 N3 with 17 points and 16 rebounds, and
10. Portland 11 14 .440 91⁄2 4-6 N4 the Lakers outrebounded the Celt-
ics 51-34.
It started offensively for the
11. Sacramento 10 14 .417 10 4-6 P5
Lakers as James matched Jayson
12. San Antonio 8 15 .348 101⁄2 4-6 S3
Tatum (34 points) shot for
13. Houston 7 16 .304 121⁄2 6-4 S4
shot early, showing that he still
13. Oklahoma City 7 16 .304 121⁄2 2-8 N5
could get to that place where it
15. New Orleans 7 19 .269 14 5-5 S5 didn’t matter who stood between
EASTERN CONFERENCE him and the basket. Tatum’s 14
Team W L PCT GB L10 Rk. quick points were outdone by 16
1. Brooklyn 17 7 .708 7-3 A1 from James.
2. Chicago 17 8 .680 1
⁄2 7-3 C1
It was much needed for the Lak-
ers, a team that traded its best and
3. Milwaukee 16 9 .640 11⁄2 9-1 C2
most consistent defensive players
4. Miami 14 11 .560 31⁄2 4-6 S1
for more firepower. Still, scoring
4. Washington 14 11 .560 31⁄2 4-6 S2
has been a challenge, the Lakers
6. Philadelphia 13 11 .542 4 5-5 A2
struggling to find the right spacing
7. Charlotte 14 12 .538 4 5-5 S3 and right lineups to play with
8. Atlanta 13 12 .520 41⁄2 7-3 S4 James, Davis and Westbrook.
8. Boston 13 12 .520 41⁄2 6-4 A3 Defensively, things still have
8. Cleveland 13 12 .520 41⁄2 4-6 C3 been a struggle, the Lakers rein-
serting Avery Bradley into the
11. New York 12 12 .500 5 4-6 A4 starting lineup for defense and the
12. Toronto 11 13 .458 6 4-6 A5 Celtics quickly scoring 20 points in
13. Indiana 10 16 .385 8 4-6 C4 the first seven minutes.
14. Orlando 5 20 .200 121⁄2 1-9 S5 It was Tatum doing the dam-
15. Detroit 4 19 .174 121⁄2 1-9 C5 age, forced into an even bigger role
with the Celtics’ No. 2 scorer,
Jaylen Brown, still out nursing a
TUESDAY’S RESULTS hamstring injury. Like James,
at LAKERS 117, Boston 102 Brooklyn 102, at Dallas 99 Tatum cooked whichever defender
New York 121, at San Ant. 109 tried to stop him, too tall and too
smooth for Bradley, Westbrook or
TODAY’S GAMES Talen Horton-Tucker.
Favorite Line Underdog Time Needing him more off the ball
at CLIPPERS OFF Boston 7:30 p.m. than on it, the Lakers started the
at Indiana 41⁄2 New York 4 p.m. game hiding James on Al Horford
Philadelphia 7 at Charlotte 4 p.m and letting him be a key part of ro-
at Cleveland 21⁄2 Chicago 4 p.m tation. After the slow start, the
Washington 51⁄2 at Detroit 4 p.m Lakers’ defensive energy picked
at Toronto 7 Oklahoma City 4:30 p.m
up, James squatting low to guard Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times
at Miami OFF Milwaukee 4:30 p.m
at Memphis OFF Dallas 5 p.m.
former teammate Dennis ANTHONY DAVIS holds on to a rebound against Boston’s Josh Richardson and Grant Williams.
at Minnesota OFF Utah 5 p.m. Schroder before forcing an offen- Davis overcame some early struggles to help the Lakers win the rebounding battle 51-34.
Denver 21⁄2 at New Orleans 5 p.m. sive foul and getting the turnover.
Brooklyn 61⁄2 at Houston 5 p.m. With the ball headed the other
at Golden State OFF Portland 7 p.m. way, James celebrated the stop,
at Sacramento 7 Orlando 7 p.m. pointing toward the offensive end
as he slowly walked down the floor LAKERS 117, CELTICS 102 Knicks 121, Spurs 109 Nets 102, Mavericks 99
BOSTON NEW YORK BROOKLYN
into the next possession. Min FG-A FT-A OR-T A P T Min FG-A FT-A OR-T A P T Min FG-A FT-A OR-T A P T
It’s a scene that’s not been too Horford..............................30 3-9 0-0 1-8 2 0 7 Barrett...............................38 11-20 3-4 1-5 2 3 32 Bembry .............................14 2-3 0-0 0-1 0 4 4
frequent, James keying a defensive Tatum................................33 13-22 3-5 2-8 3 2 34 Randle ..............................35 5-12 2-2 0-7 7 3 15 Durant...............................40 10-22 3-3 2-7 3 1 24
CLIPPERS stop. And it’s been not too frequent
Williams III.........................24 5-7 3-4 3-4 1 1 13
Schroder............................31 1-6 8-10 0-1 5 2 10
Noel..................................25 1-1 0-0 5-9 3 4 2
Burks ................................36 6-15 3-3 0-4 5 3 18
Aldridge.............................23 7-12 1-1 1-5 1 3 15
Harden ..............................41 7-13 6-7 0-9 12 2 23
TONIGHT for a few reasons. One, James was Smart................................33 2-7 2-3
Langford ............................16 2-3 1-1
1-4 6 3 6
0-1 1 1 5
Fournier.............................20 3-8 0-0 0-3 1 2 7
Quickley ............................26 5-12 4-4 0-5 2 3 16
Mills .................................33 4-11 0-0 0-4 2 0 10
Johnson.............................25 5-7 0-0 0-4 4 5 12
playing in just his 13th game this Richardson.........................15 4-9 2-4 0-0 2 2 11 Robinson ...........................22 4-6 3-4 8-14 0 1 11 Claxton..............................20 3-4 0-2 2-9 1 4 6
VS. BOSTON season. And two, the defenders Nesmith.............................14 4-8 0-0 0-0 0 3 9 Rose .................................21 4-11 2-2 1-2 2 0 12 Thomas .............................17 3-8 0-0 1-5 0 0 6
Williams ............................13 0-2 1-2 0-1 0 2 1 Toppin ...............................12 4-6 0-0 2-3 0 0 8 B.Brown.............................14 1-2 0-0 1-3 2 3 2
When: 7:30 he’s starred around are mostly in Pritchard............................12 2-6 0-0 0-1 5 0 6 Grimes ................................0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Carter .................................5 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0
different uniforms. Freedom..............................8 0-0 0-0 0-3 1 0 0 Totals 43-91 17-19 17-52 22 19 121 Millsap ................................3 0-1 0-0 1-3 2 0 0
On the air: TV: Bally Sports The results have been some Hernangomez .......................5 0-3 0-0 0-3 1 0 0 Shooting: Field goals, 47.3%; free throws, 89.5% Totals 42-83 10-13 8-50 28 22 102
SoCal; Radio: 570, 1330 ugly numbers for James. With him
Totals 36-82 20-29 7-34 27 16 102 Three-point goals: 18-38 (Barrett 7-8, Randle 3-5, Burks 3-8, Shooting: Field goals, 50.6%; free throws, 76.9%
Shooting: Field goals, 43.9%; free throws, 69.0% Rose 2-2, Quickley 2-8, Fournier 1-6, Toppin 0-1). Team Rebounds: Three-point goals: 8-26 (Harden 3-6, Johnson 2-3, Mills
Update: Paul George’s on the court, the Lakers’ defensive Three-point goals: 10-33 (Tatum 5-7, Pritchard 2-5, Nesmith 1-3, 4. Team Turnovers: 1. Blocked Shots: 5 (Robinson 3, Noel, Randle).
2-8, Durant 1-4, Aldridge 0-1, Bembry 0-1, Thomas 0-3).
shot-making late during Richardson 1-4, Horford 1-5, Williams 0-1, Smart 0-2, Hernangomez Turnovers: 10 (Barrett 2, Fournier 2, Noel 2, Burks, Randle, Rob-
rating (points allowed per 100 pos- 0-3, Schroder 0-3). Team Rebounds: 7. Team Turnovers: None. inson, Rose). Steals: 7 (Barrett 2, Robinson 2, Quickley, Randle, Team Rebounds: 4. Team Turnovers: None. Blocked Shots:
Monday’s win in Portland didn’t sessions) entering the game was a Blocked Shots: 4 (Freedom, Tatum, Williams, Williams III). Turnovers: Rose). Technical Fouls: None. 4 (Bembry, Durant, Harden, Johnson). Turnovers: 12 (Hard-
surprise the Clippers (13-12). In 13 (Tatum 5, Smart 3, Williams 2, Pritchard, Schroder, Williams III). SAN ANTONIO en 5, Durant 3, Aldridge, Carter, Claxton, Millsap). Steals:
team-worst 112.3. Among all NBA Steals: 8 (Smart 3, Horford 2, Schroder, Tatum, Williams III). Techni- 3 (Bembry, Durant, Johnson). Technical Fouls: None.
36 “clutch” minutes — games Min FG-A FT-A OR-T A P T
players averaging more than 30 cal Fouls: None. Johnson.............................15 2-5 1-4 2-5 1 1 5 DALLAS
when the score is within five minutes, only nine were worse. LAKERS McDermott.........................25 5-11 0-0 0-0 3 3 13 Min FG-A FT-A OR-T A P T
points in the last five minutes — Two years ago, when the Lakers
Min FG-A FT-A OR-T A P T Poeltl ................................29 6-11 1-3 4-8 5 4 13 Finney-Smith ......................37 5-10 1-2 2-6 2 2 15
Horton-Tucker .....................34 5-14 2-3 0-6 4 3 12 Murray...............................34 6-15 1-1 0-7 7 1 15 Porzingis ............................31 6-17 4-4 2-12 5 2 17
George has turned the ball over
won the NBA title, James also was James ...............................36 13-19 2-2 2-4 5 2 30 White ................................34 9-18 5-5 0-6 7 2 26 Powell ...............................22 3-3 4-4 2-6 0 1 10
only twice while making 11 of 21 Davis ................................35 7-13 3-4 4-16 3 3 17 Forbes...............................20 4-9 2-2 1-1 1 1 12 Bullock..............................28 3-10 0-0 1-2 0 0 6
among the Lakers’ best-rated de-
shots. The new starting lineup Bradley..............................24 2-6 0-0 1-3 0 1 5 Walker IV ...........................16 1-7 0-0 1-2 2 0 3 Doncic ..............................36 9-21 7-8 1-6 9 5 28
used Monday that included guard fenders. Westbrook..........................35 9-16 5-6 1-3 11 2 24 Bates-Diop.........................15 3-7 3-3 2-5 1 1 9 Hardaway Jr. .......................27 5-14 1-1 1-3 1 1 11
Vogel largely dismissed those Anthony .............................21 4-11 1-2 3-8 0 3 9 Eubanks ............................15 2-4 0-0 3-7 0 1 4 Brunson.............................23 4-8 1-1 0-1 3 0 10
Luke Kennard has played Monk ................................19 4-6 0-0 0-2 2 3 10 Primo ................................15 0-1 0-0 0-1 2 1 0 Kleber ...............................13 0-3 0-2 1-1 0 3 0
together 32 minutes this season early numbers before the game. Ellington ............................13 2-4 0-0 0-1 0 3 6 Jones ................................12 1-2 2-2 0-1 1 2 4 Ntilikina.............................11 0-3 0-0 0-2 1 0 0
and outscored opponents by “He’s giving his all. He’s been in Howard..............................12 2-4 0-0 2-8 0 1 4 Landale ...............................2 2-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 5 Green..................................6 1-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 2
Bazemore ............................3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Wieskamp............................2 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 Totals 36-90 18-22 10-39 21 15 99
three points on 45% shooting. … and out of lineups. Like our team, Reaves ................................3 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 Totals 41-92 15-20 13-43 30 18 109 Shooting: Field goals, 40.0%; free throws, 81.8%
Since a season-low eight-point, had some strong nights and some Totals 48-93 13-17 13-51 25 21 117 Shooting: Field goals, 44.6%; free throws, 75.0% Three-point goals: 9-46 (Finney-Smith 4-9, Doncic 3-
two-for-16 shooting night Nov. 28, nights where it wasn’t there,” Vogel Shooting: Field goals, 51.6%; free throws, 76.5% Three-point goals: 12-31 (White 3-6, McDermott 3-7, Murray 2-5, 11, Brunson 1-3, Porzingis 1-5, Kleber 0-2, Ntilikina 0-3,
Three-point goals: 8-27 (Monk 2-3, Ellington 2-4, James 2-5, Forbes 2-6, Landale 1-1, Walker IV 1-5, Primo 0-1). Team Rebounds: Bullock 0-6, Hardaway Jr. 0-7). Team Rebounds: 9. Team
Boston’s Jayson Tatum was said. “But he’s been great for us.” Bradley 1-2, Westbrook 1-4, Anthony 0-4, Horton-Tucker 0-5). Team 7. Team Turnovers: None. Blocked Shots: 4 (Poeltl 3, Eubanks). Turn-
Turnovers: None. Blocked Shots: 2 (Bullock, Porzingis).
averaging 31.3 points, 10.7 Tuesday, James really was — Rebounds: 12. Team Turnovers: 2. Blocked Shots: 4 (Davis 2, Horton- overs: 10 (White 3, Walker IV 2, Eubanks, Forbes, Johnson, Jones,
Turnovers: 4 (Porzingis 2, Doncic, Finney-Smith). Steals: 6
Tucker, Howard). Turnovers: 14 (Westbrook 4, Davis 3, Horton-Tucker McDermott). Steals: 5 (Bates-Diop, Eubanks, Forbes, Johnson, Mur-
rebounds and 3.7 assists in his playing with a pace, energy and 3, James 3, Bradley). Steals: 7 (Davis 2, Horton-Tucker 2, Anthony, ray). Technical Fouls: None. (Finney-Smith 3, Green, Hardaway Jr., Porzingis). Technical
last three games entering spirit that the Lakers have cap- Monk, Westbrook). Technical Fouls: None. New York 28 34 33 26— 121 Fouls: Doncic, 3:24 third.
Tuesday’s matchup against the tured in their championship past Boston 33 22 20 27— 102 San Antonio 28 28 25 28— 109 Brooklyn 21 29 25 27— 102
LAKERS 31 29 31 26— 117 Dallas 27 35 24 13— 99
Lakers. and are chasing to add title No. 18 A—14,698. T—2:03.
— Andrew Greif A—18,997. A—19,559. T—2:22.
to their future.

Ducks NHL STANDINGS

Pacific
WESTERN CONFERENCE
W L OL Pts GF GA
EASTERN CONFERENCE
Metropolitan W L OL Pts GF GA

bounce
Calgary 15 6 5 35 84 56 Washington 16 4 6 38 92 65
DUCKS 14 8 5 33 89 78 NY Rangers 17 4 3 37 74 59
Edmonton 16 8 0 32 87 74 Carolina 17 6 1 35 79 54
San Jose 14 11 1 29 71 71 Pittsburgh 12 8 5 29 75 68

back Vegas
KINGS
Seattle
14
10
9
10
10
14
0
4
2
28
24
20
81
64
73
73
67
90
Columbus
New Jersey
Philadelphia
13
9
8
11
9
11
0
5
4
26
23
20
80
67
56
80
79
79

with win
Vancouver 9 15 2 20 64 80 NY Islanders 6 10 5 17 43 64
Central W L OL Pts GF GA Atlantic W L OL Pts GF GA
Minnesota 18 6 1 37 96 72 Florida 17 4 4 38 96 71
St. Louis 13 8 4 30 84 73 Toronto 18 7 2 38 85 66
Nashville 14 10 1 29 73 70 Tampa Bay 16 5 4 36 84 67
Colorado 13 7 2 28 92 76 Detroit 13 10 3 29 73 83
Zegras earns his 16th Dallas
Winnipeg
13
12
7
9
2
4
28
28
64
76
59
72
Boston
Buffalo
12
8
8
14
1
3
25
19
61
70
56
92
assist and Anaheim Chicago 9 14 2 20 56 81 Ottawa 7 16 1 15 63 93
extends point streak Arizona 5 18 2 12 44 93 Montreal 6 18 3 15 61 96
Note: Overtime or shootout losses worth one point.
to five games a night
after shootout loss. RESULTS
DUCKS 2 Trevor Zegras flipped a pass over the net to set up the
DUCKS 2 AT BUFFALO 0 go-ahead goal, and Anthony Stolarz made 25 saves.
BUFFALO 0 AT TORONTO 5 Auston Matthews scored twice, and defenseman Morgan
COLUMBUS 4 Rielly set up four goals for the Maple Leafs.
associated press
TAMPA BAY 3 Ondrej Palat scored with 38 seconds left in the third
AT MONTREAL 2 period, giving the Lightning a win over the Canadiens.
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Trev- N.Y. ISLANDERS 5 Anders Leehad had two goals and the Islanders ended an
or Zegras flipped a pass over AT OTTAWA 3 11-game losing streak with a win over the Senators.
the net to set up the go-
ahead goal, Anthony Stolarz Jeffrey T. Barnes Associated Press NASHVILLE 5 Predators’ Roman Josi beat four Detroit defenders for a
made 25 saves, including 15 DUCKS CENTER Trevor Zegras passes the puck from behind the net during the AT DETROIT 2 first-period goal; Ryan Johansen scored on a power play.
in the final period, and the second period against Buffalo. Sonny Milano batted the puck in for a goal. AT ST. LOUIS 4 Pavel Buchnevich scored a wrap-around goal 53 seconds
Ducks beat the Buffalo Sa- FLORIDA 3 (OT) into overtime and the Blues beat the Panthers.
bres 2-0 Tuesday night. 16 assists. The 20-year-old night of a back-to-back set DUCKS 2, SABRES 0 CAROLINA 4 Martin Necas and Vincent Trocheck scored power-play
Zegras scooped the puck was drafted ninth overall in opening their five-game DUCKS ....................................0
1 1 — 2 AT WINNIPEG 2 goals, leading the Hurricanes to a victory over the Jets.
onto the blade of his stick be- 2019 by the Ducks and has Eastern trip. Buffalo ....................................0
0 0 — 0
hind the net and lobbed it eight assists in four Decem- Luukkonen stopped 21 FIRST PERIOD—Scoring: None. Penalty—Carrick,
N.Y. RANGERS 6 Artemi Panarin had two goals and two assists, passing
over goalie Ukko-Pekka ber games, most in the shots in his season debut for DUCKS (tripping), 9:50. AT CHICAGO 2 500 career points and helping the Rangers to victory.
SECOND PERIOD—1. DUCKS, Milano 8 (Zegras,
Luukkonen’s head. Sonny league for the month. the Sabres. Buffalo has lost Rakell), 5:14. Penalty—Dahlin, BUF (hooking), MINNESOTA 4 Cam Talbot made 38 saves against his former team and
10:10. the Wild earned their seventh straight victory.
Milano was waiting on the Sam Carrick also scored five in a row and fell to 1-8-1 THIRD PERIOD—2. DUCKS, Carrick 5 (Manson), AT EDMONTON 1
right edge of the crease and for the Ducks, who extended over its last 10 games. 17:52. Penalties—Shattenkirk, DUCKS (hooking), AT SAN JOSE 5 Tomas Hertl had his fourth career hat trick and the Sharks
1:48; Terry, DUCKS (tripping), 10:21.
batted the feed past their point streak to five Carrick deflected in Josh SHOTS ON GOAL—DUCKS 6-9-8—23. Buffalo 7- CALGARY 3 scored three goals in the second period.
Luukkonen’s glove for his games (3-0-2), responding Manson’s shot from the 3-15—25. Power-play conversions—DUCKS 0 of 1;
Buffalo 0 of 3.
eighth goal 5:14 into the sec- from a 4-3 shootout loss in point for the Ducks’ second GOALIES—DUCKS, Stolarz 4-2-1 (25 shots-25 TODAY’S GAMES
ond period. Washington on Monday. goal with 2:08 left in the third saves). Buffalo, Luukkonen 0-1-0 (23-21).
Att.—8,133 (19,070). T—2:18. Colorado at N.Y. Rangers, 4 p.m. Philadelphia at New Jersey, 4 p.m.
Zegras leads rookies with They won on the second period.
Boston at Vancouver, 6 p.m. Dallas at Vegas, 7 p.m.
B8 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 S L AT I M E S . C O M

Two months of
London’s best
better than rest
Despite missing a
month of the season,
the USC receiver wins
Pac-12 offensive player
of the year honors.
By Ryan Kartje
USC receiver Drake
London was in the midst of
his star turn when an Arizo-
na defender rolled over his
right ankle during a game in
late October, stopping an ex-
traordinary season in its
tracks with four games left
to play.
Yet even a broken ankle
and a month away wouldn’t
keep London from being rec-
ognized by the Pac-12 as the
Ringo H.W. Chiu Associated Press conference’s offensive player
USC FORWARD ISAIAH MOBLEY , shooting against Eastern Kentucky forward Jannson Williams during of the year, an honor that ne-
the first half, scored a season-high 23 points and added 13 rebounds. Mobley said he was feeling it early. ver has gone to a player who
missed as much of a season
as London.
lected as a return specialist.
They were joined on the sec-
ond team by two Trojans:
linebacker Drake Jackson
and kicker Parker Lewis.
No Pac-12 player was as
crucial as London, who
carried USC’s offense over
his eight games as the Tro-
jans’ lead target. In spite of
missing the final month,
London was the only Pac-12
receiver to exceed 1,000
yards (1,084). His 88 catches
also paced the conference
while ranking 12th in the na-
tion. His total contested
catches (19) led the nation,
according to Pro Football
Focus.
At the time of his injury,
he led all Power Five receiv-
ers in yards and receptions
and seemed assured of run-
ning away with the Bilet-
nikoff Award, given to the
nation’s top receiver.
London wound up only a
semifinalist for that award.
Yet the conference’s

Trojans off to perfect start London is the eighth

[USC, from B10]
“I had to slide my feet to-
day so I didn’t get any cheap
fouls,” said Mobley, who was
a career-best five of six from
long range. “I was feeling it
early, I saw a couple go down
and we got on a run. We fig-
ured out how to attack their
full-court pressure and as
time went on we got to our
spots to beat the trap and
that led to easy dunks.”
USC began the night as
one of only 12 unbeaten
teams remaining in Division
I college basketball this sea-
son and was determined to
keep its perfect record intact
in the Trojans’ first-ever
meeting against the Colo-
nels, who were playing their
first game in California since
a 98-83 loss at Cal State Ful-
lerton in 1999. The Trojans
(9-0) are off to their best
start since winning their
first 14 games to begin the
2016-17 campaign.
“Tonight was my night
but we’re building chemistry
and sometimes it’ll be me or
Boogie or Ethan or Max or
Drew,” Mobley added. “Com-
USC player to receive the
honor and first since Mar-
qise Lee in 2012.
London was one of two
USC players to be selected to
coaches, who vote on the All-
Pac-12 teams, still believed
London to be the best offen-
sive player in the conference.
Only three other receiv-
ers have won the award. Of
their outside shooters.” the All-Pac-12 first team Washington’s Mario Bailey
NO. 16 USC 80, E. KENTUCKY 68 Eastern Kentucky ended along with defensive line- (1991) and USC’s Keyshawn
PAC-12 E. KENTUCKY
Min FG-A FT-A OR-T A P T up 10 of 39 from three-point man Tuli Tuipulotu. UCLA Johnson (1995) and Lee,
STANDINGS Moreno.............22 1-7 0-0 0-4 1 1 3 range (25.6%) and stayed in had three players chosen: none played fewer than 11
Williams............22 3-6 2-2 2-5 1 3 10 the game in part by shooting wideout Kyle Philips, tight games.
Conf. Overall Beverly .............25 5-15 2-2 1-2 4 2 16
Robb ................30 3-11 0-0 2-5 2 2 8 12 of 12 from the free throw end Greg Dulcich and offen- No conference player,
TEAM W L W L Blanton.............32 1-7 4-4 2-5 2 1 6 line and getting 11 steals. sive lineman Sean Rhyan. however, had a more out-
Lewis................25 3-12 4-4 2-6 1 1 11
USC 2 0 9 0 Cruickshank.......19 4-7 0-0 0-1 0 2 8 USC outrebounded the Col- Five Bruins made the sized offensive impact in
UCLA 2 0 8 1 Wardy ...............18 3-3 0-0 2-3 1 2 6 onels 47-32. second team: quarterback such a limited amount of
Jackson ..............7 0-3 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Arizona 1 0 7 0 Totals 23-71 12-12 11-31 12 14 68
Off the bench, Morgan Dorian Thompson-Rob- time.
Shooting: Field goals, 32.4%; free throws, 0.0% had eight points and Reese inson, running back Zach With London the lone
Utah 1 1 6 2 Three-point goals: 10-39 (Beverly 4-9, Williams Dixon-Waters had six for Charbonnet, defensive line- bright spot in an otherwise
Washington State 1 1 6 2 2-4, Robb 2-9, Moreno 1-5, Lewis 1-6, Blanton 0-1,
Jackson 0-2, Cruickshank 0-3). Team Rebounds: 2.
USC, which was outscored man Mitchell Agude and de- dark season, USC didn’t win
Colorado 1 1 6 3 Team Turnovers: None. Blocked Shots: None. Turn- 43-39 in the second half. Al- fensive backs Quintin Lake again after his injury, finish-
overs: 7 (Cruickshank 2, Beverly, Blanton, Jackson, though Beverly had the hot and Qwuantrezz Knight, ing the season on a four-
California 1 1 4 5 Lewis, Robb). Steals: 11 (Beverly 3, Lewis 3, Moreno
Arizona State 1 1 3 6 2, Blanton, Jackson, Wardy). Technical Fouls: None. hand, two other Colonels fin- while Philips also was se- game losing streak.
USC ished in double figures —
Oregon 0 1 5 4
Min FG-A FT-A OR-T A P T Curt Lewis with 11 and Jann-
Stanford 0 1 4 3 Agbonkpolo .......30 5-11 1-3 1-4 5 2 12
Goodwin ...........21 6-6 2-6 1-7 2 1 14 son William with 10.
Washington 0 1 4 5 Mobley .............34 8-10 2-2 3-13 5 0 23 “We knew they would give
Ellis..................26 0-10 0-0 0-5 5 3 0 us issues with their three-
Oregon State 0 2 1 8 Peterson ...........31 6-11 1-1 1-6 2 0 15
Anderson ..........22 1-2 0-0 0-1 3 4 2 point accuracy — and they
TUESDAY’S RESULT Morgan .............16 4-4 0-0 1-5 1 0 8 did,” Enfield said. “They’re a
Dixon-Waters .....11 2-3 1-1 0-1 0 3 6
at No. 16 USC 80, Eastern Kentucky 68 Johnson ..............7 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 very dangerous team, they
WEDNESDAY’S GAMES Thomas...............1 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 like to spread you out, we’re
Totals 32-59 7-13 7-42 23 13 80
Eastern Washington at Colorado, 5 p.m. big and long and were chas-
Shooting: Field goals, 54.2%; free throws, 53.8%
Utah at Texas Christian, 5 p.m. Three-point goals: 9-25 (Mobley 5-6, Peterson 2-5, ing their guards. We got four
Wyoming at No. 11 Arizona, 7 p.m. Dixon-Waters 1-2, Agbonkpolo 1-5, Ellis 0-7). Team or five charges which is un-
Rebounds: 4. Team Turnovers: None. Blocked Shots: 3
Weber State at Washington State, 7 p.m. (Johnson, Morgan, Peterson). Turnovers: 19 (Anderson characteristic for us, but on
Idaho State at Cal, 7 p.m. 3, Ellis 3, Goodwin 3, Mobley 3, Peterson 2, Thomas 2, the plus side we ended up
Agbonkpolo, Dixon-Waters, Morgan). Steals: 5 (Ellis 2, with 23 assists and four guys
THURSDAY’S GAME Agbonkpolo, Dixon-Waters, Johnson). Technical Fouls:
None. had at least three, so we
Grand Canyon at Arizona State, 6:30 p.m.
Eastern Kentucky 25 43— 68 shared the ball.”
FRIDAY’S GAME USC 41 39— 80

ing off an Elite Eight appear-
ance last season we have
high expectations again, but
we understand it takes time.
I’m always looking for ways
to impact the game anyway I
can.”
Though more of the hype
in the Southland this season
has centered on the Trojans’
crosstown rivals in West-
wood, USC is ranked No. 16
in the country in the Associ-
ated Press poll. The Trojans
resume their three-game
homestand Sunday after-
noon against Long Beach
State. They resume Pac-12
TOP 25 MEN’S BASKETBALL ROUNDUP
Milwaukee at Colorado, 6:30 p.m.
action Dec. 30 when they
host Arizona State.
Braxton Beverly led the
Colonels (5-5), who had
made 13 or more three-point-
ers in seven of their first nine
games, including a season-
high 18 at Western Kentucky
on Dec. 4. Three consecutive
three-pointers with under
five minutes cut Eastern
Kentucky’s deficit to 12 and
prompted USC coach Andy
Enfield to call timeout. The
Colonels crept to within 10
with 1:30 left but got no
A—2,608 (10,258). UP NEXT
Sunday, vs. Long Beach
closer. State, 2 p.m., Galen Center,
“Isaiah was playing great Pac-12 Networks — The Tro-
tonight. He was hitting jans will play Big West Con-
everything,” Peterson said. ference opponents in their Young Kwak Associated Press
“We don’t have a centerpiece next two games, starting DRAKE LONDON, celebrating a touchdown, led the
like Evan was last year, but with the 49ers (2-6). They Pac-12 with 88 catches and 1,084 yards in eight games.
anyone can step up on any are led by 6-foot guard Joel
given night. We have so Murray, who plays 30 min-
many weapons on this team utes a game and averages 17.1
and everyone’s getting bet- points on 49.5% shooting.
ter. They were something
like four of 30 from three at
one point. Besides that
Forward Joe Hampton and
guard Colin Slater also score
in double figures at 11.7 and
Five players, a coach
stretch at the end where [the
Colonels] caught fire we did
a pretty good job defending
11.5 points, respectively. USC
then plays UC Irvine on
Dec. 15.
plan to leave USC
under Lincoln Riley, as the
After Riley is hired, new coach works to rebuild
the roster of a team that fell
some announce intent to 4-8 this season, its worst

Texas Tech upsets Tennessee to enter the transfer

associated press
Texas Tech might want
to petition to play in the
Jimmy V Classic every sea-
son. The unranked Red
Raiders make a habit of
rankling the ranked teams
in New York.
Terrence Shannon Jr.
had 18 points and 12 re-
bounds, and Texas Tech
continued its run of Jimmy V
Classic shockers in an offen-
sively anemic 57-52 overtime
win over No. 13 Tennessee on
Tuesday night.
“In OT, we knew the
tougher team was going to
win,” Shannon said.
The Red Raiders (7-1)
were also unranked when
they knocked off No. 1
Louisville in 2019 at Madison
Square Garden.
Tuesday’s game was clas-
sic in title only. Want of-
fense? You wouldn’t find it at
MSG, where the Vols (6-2)
missed a whopping 34 of 40
three-point attempts overall
and shot only 27% overall
from the floor. John Fulker-
son led the Vols with 10
points. The Vols went eight
for 16 from the free-throw
line.
“I don’t know if we can be
any worse on offense and we
were in the game,” coach
Rick Barnes said. “One or
two more and maybe we
would have got the lid off it
it.”
Those one or two makes
never became the three or
TEXAS TECH guard Terrence Shannon Jr. is fired
up during his team’s victory over No. 13 Tennessee.
four needed for a run to pos-
sibly hold off the Red
Raiders.
Tennessee missed 14
straight shots over a 10-min-
ute stretch in the second half
and had missed 27 three-
point attempts until Santia-
its first 23 three-point at-
tempts overall.
No. 6. Villanova 67, Syra-
cuse 53: Justin Moore scored
18 points, Collin Gillespie
had 14 and the Wildcats beat
the Orange in the Jimmy V
Classic. Jermaine Samuels
added 13 for Villanova (7-2)
in its 22nd win at Madison
Square Garden since 2014.
Jimmy Boeheim led Syra-
cuse (5-4) with 21 points and
Joe Girard III had 11.
No. 8 Kansas 78, Texas El
Paso 52: Ochai Agbaji
scored 23 points, Christian
Braun added 20 and Kansas
tuned up for this weekend’s
return of the Border War
with a blowout of UTEP in
Kansas City, Mo.
at No. 10 Kentucky 76,
Southern 64: Oscar
Tshiebwe scored 18 of his 23
points after halftime despite
being in foul trouble, TyTy
Washington Jr. added 14
points and both Wildcats
keyed small runs to help
Kentucky top Southern for
its seventh consecutive vic-
Adam Hunger Associated Press tory.
at No. 12 Arkansas 86,
Charlotte 66: J.D. Notae re-
go Vescovi buried the tying corded his first career dou-
three-pointer with 1:55 left to ble-double and Arkansas
make it 41-41. Josiah-Jordan rolled over Charlotte. Notae
James hit another tying finished with 23 points and
three-pointer with 31 sec- 10 rebounds as the Razor-
onds left and sent the game backs (9-0) took control of
into overtime tied at 44. the game in the first half and
Tennessee missed 20 of never let up.
portal or declare for
the NFL draft.
record in 30 years.
An entirely new staff
could also be in the works, as
Riley had already brought a
defensive coordinator (Alex
By Ryan Kartje Grinch) and receivers coach
(Dennis Simmons) with him
from Oklahoma. Tulsa of-
The inevitable exodus fensive line coach Zach Han-
has begun at USC. son is likely to join the group
Edge rushers Hunter as a tight ends coach, while
Echols and Juliano Oklahoma outside lineback-
Falaniko, defensive tackle ers and defensive ends
Jake Lichtenstein and coach Jamar Cain is also ex-
kicker Alex Stadthaus en- pected to join USC’s staff.
tered the NCAA transfer So’oto is the first of sev-
portal on Monday, while of- eral assistants expected to
fensive tackle Jalen part ways with USC in the
McKenzie announced he coming days. In a post on so-
would forgo an extra season cial media, the defensive line
of eligibility to enter the NFL coach wrote that he was “ex-
draft. tremely excited for the next
Defensive line coach Vic chapter of my career and the
So’oto also announced on challenges that lie ahead.”
Monday in a social media “I am disappointed I will
post that he would not be re- not be able to finish the last
tained as part of USC’s new year of my contract as a USC
staff. Trojan,” So’oto wrote. “The
The five departing play- peaks and valleys of this pro-
ers are likely just the begin- fession are what make it spe-
ning of major turnover cial.”
SOUTHLAND
MEN
Loyola Marymount 60, at Tulsa 55: Eli Scott had 19 points
and 11 rebounds for the Lions (6-3), who’ve won four of five.
Dameane Douglas added 18 points and 11 rebounds.
Boise State 74, at Cal State Northridge 48: The Matadors
(3-5) shot 34%, missed nine of 10 three-pointers and were out-
rebounded 37-16 in their second straight lopsided loss.
at California Baptist 89, North Dakota 71: Daniel Akin
scored 16 points and Taran Armstrong had 15 assists as the
Lancers (8-1) improved to 8-0 at home.
MEN TONIGHT
Cal State Fullerton at San Diego State........................................ 7
Bethesda at Long Beach State........................................................7
L AT I M E S . C O M
THE DAY IN SPORTS
Bueckers out 6 to 8 weeks
wire reports
Connecticut star Paige
Bueckers suffered a fracture
just below her left knee and
will be sidelined for up to two
months, the school said
Tuesday.
Last season’s women’s
college basketball player of
the year was dribbling up the
court with under 40 seconds
left in Sunday’s 73-54 victory
over Notre Dame when she
stumbled and came down
awkwardly. She had to be
carried off the court.
The school said an MRI
and CT scan showed she suf-
fered a tibial plateau frac-
ture, which is a break of the
tibia bone that extends into
the knee joint. It has a recov-
ery time estimated at be-
tween six and eight weeks.
Connecticut coach Geno
Aureimma said the school
will not rush Bueckers back
to the court.
Bueckers is averaging
21.2 points, 6.2 assists and 5.5
rebounds for No. 3 Connecti-
cut.
ETC.
Finalists for NFL
man of the year
Tennessee Titans run-
ning back Derrick Henry
and Kansas City Chiefs safe-
ty Tyrann Mathieu, 2020 All-
Pro players, are among the
32 men chosen as finalists
for the Walter Payton NFL
Man of the Year award.
BROTHERS Trevin (4) and Kaden (5) Adams watch from the sideline during California School for the Deaf’s
playoff win on Nov. 6. The Cubs lost 74-22 in the Southern Section Division 2 eight-man title game.
Historic season comes to end
[CSDR, from B10]
said of watching the team’s
first game Tuesday night.
“Seeing them all on the field,
and now I’m sitting back.
Doing nothing.”
It’s a small school, so all
but two of the football play-
ers are also on the basketball
team, Adams said. Practice
started two days after that
Saturday loss in the title
game. The world keeps turn-
ing.
::
There was a line of cars
with media members every
day over the last two weeks
of the season, Adams said.
CNN. ESPN. NBC. CBS.
They all started blending to-
gether. Adams knew it was
good PR for the school but
said his players were getting
a little tired of the redun-
dancy of interviews.
With the exposure came
recognition. Adams’ son
Trevin, the team’s gritty
quarterback who accounted
for 75 — not a typo — touch-
downs on the season, said
strangers would ask for pic-
tures with him.
“We would go out to eat,
and people would recognize
us, and they would be like,
‘Oh, let me pay for your
meal,’ ” Trevin said. “It’s a
little weird to have random
people act like they know
you.”
Heading into the final
week of the season, the Cubs
were 12-0. CSDR last had a
Jessica Hill Associated Press
PAIGE BUECKERS (5)
suffered a tibial plateau
fracture Sunday.
Each of the teams nomi-
nated one player for the hon-
or named for the late Pay-
ton, a Hall of Fame running
back for the Bears.
The award recognizes a
player for community serv-
ice and excellence on the
field. It has been given annu-
ally since 1970 and will be pre-
sented at NFL Honors, the
TV show during which the
Associated Press reveals its
individual seasonal award
winners.
Previous winners among
active players are Seattle
quarterback Russell Wilson
in 2020; Baltimore defensive
linemen Calais Campbell
(2019 with Jacksonville) and
Arizona’s J.J. Watt (2017 with
Houston).
The Chargers nominated
center Corey Linsley, and
the Rams nominated offen-
sive tackle Andrew
Whitworth.
winning record in 2011 and
never made it to a champi-
onship game. It was a dream
story, and one the team was
happy to embrace, given its
goal of trying to dispel the
hearing community’s oft-bi-
ased or unfavorable percep-
tion of the deaf.
But that attention led to
distraction, Adams says. He
told his players to ignore it,
but they really couldn’t.
“I think they were feeling
more pressure in their
championship game,” Ad-
ams said.
Trevin doesn’t really
agree with his dad on that.
What was most frustrating,
that Saturday, were the in-
juries.
::
In the third quarter
against Faith Baptist,
Trevin pulled the ball down
for a run and took a hard
shot to the head. Off the
field, he was evaluated for a
concussion and ruled out for
the rest of the game.
The Cubs had gotten
punched in the mouth to
start the game. Faith Bap-
tist jumped out to a 28-0 lead
as CSDR made a ton of mis-
takes, Adams said. But he
was optimistic the team
could come back, and told
the players so. In the second
quarter, they’d cut the Con-
tenders’ lead to 28-22.
But as the game went on,
players started dropping
like flies. Jory Valencia, one
Cleveland Browns tight
end David Njoku was placed
on the COVID-19 reserve list
and could miss Sunday’s
crucial matchup against
AFC North-leading Balti-
more. Njoku leads Cleveland
with 407 yards receiving and
he scored the Browns’ only
touchdown in a 16-10 loss to
the Ravens on Nov. 28.
Ohio State hired defen-
sive coordinator Jim
Knowles away from Okla-
homa State. ... Pittsburgh
offensive coordinator Mark
Whipple resigned after three
seasons.
Roy Jones Jr., Miguel
Cotto and James Toney
were elected to the Interna-
tional Boxing Hall of Fame
along with three-division fe-
male champions Regina
Halmich and Holly Holm.
Also selected for induc-
tion were publicist Bill Cap-
lan in the nonparticipant
category and journalist Ron
Borges and historian-pro-
ducer Bob Yalen in the ob-
server category. Post-
humous inductees an-
nounced include junior-
lightweight champion Tod
Morgan in the old-timer cat-
egory and ring announcer
Chuck Hull in the nonpar-
ticipant category.
Because of the cancella-
tions of the two previous in-
duction weekends because
of the COVID-19 pandemic,
the Classes of 2020 and 2021
also will be honored June 9.
Toronto Maple Leafs for-
ward Jason Spezza was sus-
of the team’s top receivers,
was knocked out. So was
backup quarterback Kaden
Adams, also the coach’s son.
Any spark of a comeback
quickly was snuffed out.
As time ran out, hands
went to foreheads or to
runny eyes and players were
left to pick up the pieces of
broken hearts.
“It was really hard to sit
there and just watch,”
Trevin said of being injured.
“Especially when you’re on
the outside, knowing what
you could be doing. It was
hard — it was quite the dis-
appointment.”
::
After the game, CSDR el-
ementary, middle and high
school students came over
to congratulate the players
on their season.
All year long, as wins
piled up, they’d been chasing
the goal of a championship.
To have a concrete title that
would stand forever — to
make the deaf community
proud.
“We were that close,”
coach Adams said.
The basketball team lost
its first game 54-44 to Loma
Linda Academy and has
started the season 1-3.
Watching the Loma Linda
game from the stands, Ad-
ams said, his players didn’t
look healed after the quick
turnaround.
“I felt bad for the play-
ers,” Adams said. “I wish
pended for six games with-
out pay by the NHL for knee-
ing Winnipeg Jets defense-
man Neal Pionk. ... The
Dallas Stars sent goalie Ben
Bishop on a conditioning as-
signment in the minor
leagues as their former
starter continues a long re-
covery from a knee injury....
Chicago Blackhawks for-
ward Jujhar Khaira was
stretchered off the ice after
he was leveled by Jacob
Trouba in the second period
of the New York Rangers’ 6-2
victory. The Blackhawks
said Khaira suffered an “up-
per-body blow.”
Ash Barty’s Wimbledon
title and hold on the No. 1
ranking helped her win WTA
player of the year for the sec-
ond time. ... French Open di-
rector Guy Forget, whose
contract was to expire at the
end of the year, has resigned,
citing communication is-
sues with the new head of
the French tennis federa-
tion.
The Minnesota Lynx’s
Cheryl Reeve will be the
next USA Basketball na-
tional team coach, a person
with knowledge of the situa-
tion told the AP. ... The GMS
Racing majority purchase of
Richard Petty Motorsports
will be called Petty GMS
Motorsports going into
next season and NASCAR
Hall of Famer Richard Petty
will be chairman of the new
two-car Cup Series team. ...
Amanda Cromwell was
hired as coach of the Or-
lando Pride.
Luca Evans For The Times
[they] would’ve had no
game this week … the energy
was just not there.”
The fact that CSDR
made it so deep into the foot-
ball playoffs — where no
Cubs had gone before — cre-
ated the short turnaround.
Trevin said most of the
schools for the deaf around
the country reached out to
CSDR to offer their support.
The season might’ve ended
in disappointment, but the
overall body of work served
as inspiration. The Cubs lost
a battle, but they won a war.
“Hearing families with
deaf family members were
able to see our example, and
that was probably the
coolest thing, being able to
really be a representative for
the deaf community,” Trevin
said. “I definitely feel like we
have changed the perspec-
tive of realizing, like, ‘Deaf
can do it.’ ”
The quarterback said
he’s actually grateful the
basketball season started so
soon after the loss, so there
wasn’t much time to stew
without an outlet. Basket-
ball coach Matt Cerar said
he hasn’t felt the loss hang-
ing over the team’s head,
even though the players
might still be hurting.
Instead, they’re using it
as fuel.
“Right now, they’re un-
satisfied,” Cerar said. “The
chip on their shoulder as a
result of the championship
— OK, so bring that with
you.”
W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 B9
PRO CALENDAR
WED
8
THU
9
FRI
10
SAT
11
SUN
12
NEXT: MONDAY AT ARIZONA, 5:15 P.M., ESPN
RAMS
N.Y. GIANTS
1
CH. 11
CHARGERS
at at
ORLANDO
Memphis Okla. City
6:30
5 5
SpecSN SpecSN
SpecSn
LAKERS
BOSTON ORLANDO
7:30 12:30
BSSC BSSC
CLIPPERS
DALLAS MINN.
7:30 7:30
BSW BSW
KINGS
at at
Columbus Pittsburgh
4 4
BSSC BSSC
DUCKS
Shade denotes home game.
TODAY ON THE AIR
TIME EVENT ON THE AIR
BASKETBALL
4:30 p.m. Milwaukee at Miami TV: ESPN, ESPND
7 p.m. Portland at Golden State
7:30 p.m. Boston at Clippers
TV: ESPN, ESPND
TV: BSSC R: 570,
1330
COLLEGE BASKETBALL
3:30 p.m. Ball State at Xavier TV: FS1
4 p.m. Connecticut at West Virginia TV: ESPN2
4 p.m. North Florida at Florida TV: SEC
4 p.m. Women, Iowa at Iowa State TV: ESPNU
4 p.m. Indiana at Wisconsin TV: Big Ten
4 p.m. Lipscomb at Miami TV: ACC
5 p.m. Eastern Washington at Colorado TV: Pac-12
5:30 p.m. Maryland Baltimore County at Georgetown TV: FS1
6 p.m. Marquette at Kansas State TV: ESPN2
6 p.m. Towson at Ohio State TV: ESPNU
6 p.m. Michigan State at Minnesota TV: Big Ten
6 p.m. Cornell at Virginia Tech TV: ACC
7 p.m. Wyoming at Arizona TV: Pac-12
HOCKEY
4 p.m. Colorado at New York Rangers TV: NHL
7 p.m. Dallas at Vegas TV: TNT
HORSE RACING
9 a.m. Trackside Live! TV: TVG
SOCCER
9:45 a.m. UEFA Champions League, Zenit vs. Chelsea TV: KFTR, TUDN,
UniMas
9:45 a.m. UEFA Champions League, Juventus vs. Malmo FF TV: Gala
Noon UEFA Champions League, Bayern Munich vs. TV: TUDN, Univision
Barcelona R: 1330
4 p.m. CONCACAF Champions League, Motagau vs. TV: FS2
Comuniciones
6 p.m. Friendly, Mexico vs. Chile TV: TUDN, Univision
TENNIS
3 a.m. Florianopolis, Maia ATP challengers, early rounds TV: Tennis
11:30 a.m. Florianopolis ATP Challenger, early rounds TV: Tennis
E-NEWSPAPER BONUS:
Subscribers get free access to the daily digital replica
of The Times print edition that includes a bonus
sports page. Today, Kevin Baxter covers a milestone
in women’s soccer. latimes.com/enewspaper.
U.S. water polo
coaches retained
through 2024
Krikorian, Udovicic
back to lead women,
paved with our coaches re-
maining in place.”
Krikorian, 47, a former
player and coach at UCLA,
men at Paris Games. has built the women’s pro-
gram into a juggernaut since
taking over in 2009. In addi-
By Kevin Baxter tion to the three consecutive
Olympic titles, the U.S.
Adam Krikorian, who has women have won four FINA
coached the U.S. to an un- World Championships
precedented three consecu- (2009, 2015, 2017, 2019), three
tive Olympic gold medals in FINA World Cups (2010, 2014,
women’s water polo, will go 2018), three Pan American
for a fourth in Paris after Games titles (2011, 2015, 2019)
USA Water Polo extended and 11 FINA World League
his contract through the Super Final crowns (2009 to
2024 Summer Games. 2012, 2014 to 2019, 2021). The
Men’s coach Dejan team also set the modern-
Udovicic also had his con- day record for consecutive
tract extended through Par- wins in women’s water polo
is. The men finished sixth in with 69.
Tokyo last summer, equal- “The opportunity to
ing their second-best finish coach these remarkable
in an Olympic tournament women and the honor I feel
in the last 25 years. in helping lead this program
“USA Water Polo is ex- forward is not something I
cited to announce the return take for granted,” Krikorian
of our two national team said in a statement. “With
head coaches. Stability is the shortened time frame to
important in team building, Paris 2024 and an eye on Los
and keeping the leaders of Angeles 2028, the work
our programs intact will ahead will be extensive and
only help build from the ef- undoubtedly stimulating.”
forts of the last quadren- Udovicic, 51, a former Ser-
nial,” John Abdou, USA Wa- bian player and coach, will
ter Polo’s chief sport per- be looking to give the U.S. its
formance officer, said in a first men’s water polo medal
statement Tuesday. since 2008. In eight years in
“Professionally, they are charge, he has taken the
experts and leaders in their team to gold medals at the
field and deeply tied into our 2015 and 2019 Pan American
game internationally. Per- Games and silver medals at
sonally, they are men of in- the 2016 and 2021 FINA
tegrity and character who World League Super Final.
have taught me a great deal The next major events for
and have made themselves the men’s and women’s
available as a resource to teams are the FINA World
coaches and athletes all Championships, set for May
across the country. The 2½- 13-29, 2022, in Fukuoka,
year road to Paris is well Japan.
 B10

D
SPORTS
W E D N E S D A Y , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 2 1 :: L A T I M E S . C O M / S P O R T S

Derby
winner’s
legacy
up in air
Necropsy will reveal
Medina Spirit’s cause
of death. Uncertain is
how his death will
affect the sport.
By John Cherwa

Few horses have had as

short yet newsworthy a ca-
reer as Medina Spirit. And, a
day after his sudden death
following a workout at Santa
Anita, many are wondering
how his story eventually will
be told.
Will he be the underdog
horse that brought trainer
Bob Baffert his record-set-
ting seventh Kentucky
Derby win? Or will he be the
second horse ever disquali-
fied post-race in the 147-year
history of the Derby? Photographs by Brian van der Brug Los Angeles Times
Regardless of the out- AVERY BRADLEY, reinserted into the starting lineup to slow Boston’s Jayson Tatum, had little success early against the star.
come, his 3-year-old life
started with an unexpected

Fueled by green energy

meeting and ended with a
tragic and unforeseen out-
come.
Up next will be a necrop-
sy, an autopsy performed on
animals, which will zero in
on the cause of his death
Monday morning. Indica-
tions point to a cardiovascu-
lar event, but in this case,
nothing will be left to guess-
work.
Scott Chaney, executive
director of the California
Horse Racing Board, says
this might be the most im-
portant necropsy the CHRB
has commissioned, but he
says it with a qualification.
“It certainly will be the
most scrutinized, but every
fatality is important,”
Chaney said. “Sudden
deaths are always more
complicated and difficult
than musculoskeletal ones.”
The body of Medina Spir-
it was shipped to the UC
Davis laboratory in San Ber-
nardino on Monday, while
tissue, blood and urine sam-
ples were sent to the Maddy
Lab at the main campus of
UC Davis.
The necropsy will be re-
ceiving heightened atten-
tion including additional
samples sent to labs outside
of California, according to
Jeff Blea, equine medical di-
rector of the CHRB.
“The Maddy Lab is the
gold standard in this coun-
try, if not the world,” Blea
said. “So, we are very lucky
to have it here. And we will be
using multiple departments
at Davis to make sure every-
[See Medina, B6]
James and Westbrook star as Lakers’ Big Three lead win over Celtics
LAKERS 117
BOSTON 102
By Dan Woike
These franchises, maybe
more than any other two in
the NBA, take the court
with the ghosts of the pasts
surrounding their iconic
colors.
It’s why veteran public-
address announcer
Lawrence Tanter stretched
out the last syllable of “sev-
enteen” when talking about
the championship banners
the Lakers were playing
under Tuesday night at Sta-
ples Center.
That is, after all, the
same number of titles won
by the hated Boston Celtics
— their green uniforms
beautifully clashing against
the Lakers’ purple and gold.
But since the Lakers as-
sembled their roster full of
yesterday’s biggest stars in
an attempt to win tomor-
row’s championship, the
balance between who they
were and what they need to
be has been impossible to
strike.
Like everything, getting
LeBron James back to do-
ing as much as what he’s
used to will be the key. And
having this version of Rus-
sell Westbrook?
That was always the
hope.
“I just like the way we
competed tonight on both
sides of the floor. A lot of in-
tensity,” James said, calling
the 117-102 win maybe the
Lakers’ best performance of
the season.
The Lakers got the best
versions of James and West-
brook, the veteran Lakers
slicing through the Boston
defense and bulldozing the
Celtics if someone tried to
stand his ground.
James set the tone early,
keeping the Lakers from
falling behind by a lot, and
Westbrook dominated the
third quarter, slamming
home dunks, dancing after
threes and dishing out as-
sists.
James finished with 30
points, five assists, four re-
bounds and plenty of defen-
sive energy and attention,
the kind of game that made LeBRON JAMES helped offset the early offense by Tatum, coming out
[See Lakers, B7] aggressively en route to 30 points, and provided energy on defense.

Flexing Trojans CSDR didn’t win

remain perfect
Mobley leads way
with 23 points, 13
rebounds against
Eastern Kentucky.
NO. 16 USC 80
E. KENTUCKY 68
By Steve Galluzzo
Figuring the opponent’s
best chance was to bomb
away from behind the three-
point line, the USC men’s
basketball team employed
tight perimeter defense and
pounded the ball inside at
every opportunity for easy
layups to build a comfort-
able halftime lead before set-
tling for a sloppy 80-68 non-
conference victory over visit-
ing Eastern Kentucky on
Tuesday at Galen Center.
Eastern Kentucky made
just three of 17 attempts
from beyond the arc (17.6%)
in the first half while USC
outscored the Colonels 22-6
in the paint and won the bat-
tle of the boards 26-14 in the
first 20 minutes. The Tro-
jans enjoyed a 41-25 lead at
intermission.
Isaiah Mobley led the way
with a career-high 23 points
and 13 rebounds, Drew
Peterson added 15, Joshua
Morgan had 14 and Max Ag-
bonkpolo scored 12 for the
Trojans, who won by double-
digits despite 18 turnovers.
Morgan’s alley-oop dunk
off a perfectly timed lob pass
from Memphis transfer Boo-
gie Ellis ballooned USC’s
lead to 18 early in the second
half and the margin grew as
wide as 24 points with 10
minutes left.
[See USC, B8]
a title, only hearts
Cubs came up short
of Southern Section
championship but
proved ‘deaf can do it’
in historic season.
By Luca Evans
The football field lights
turned off for the last time
this season. The cameras,
shutters chirping through-
out game nights like an army
of crickets, are gone. The re-
porters went home. The
pads and the helmets are
tucked away in storage.
No fuss. California
School for the Deaf in Riv-
erside had its greatest
Ringo H.W. Chiu Associated Press season in program history,
USC’S DREW PETERSON shows who is the big drawing national attention
man after dunking against Eastern Kentucky. along the way in a storybook
season, undefeated through
12 games. CSDR lost in the
Southern Section eight-
man Division 2 champi-
onship game 74-22 to Can-
oga Park Faith Baptist on
Nov. 27. Heartbreak. The
narrative ran out of words,
one chapter short.
The stream of articles
and television crews has run
dry. It’s basketball season
now at CSDR.
Keith Adams doesn’t
stand on the sidelines any-
more, eyes popping out of his
sockets as his hands craft
deft instruction through
American Sign Language to
his players. The football
coach sits in the school gym-
nasium’s stands now, watch-
ing his players trade green
grass and pigskin for hard-
wood and leather. Passive.
“It was bizarre,” Adams
[See CSDR, B9]

We could learn from skateboarders USC’s London wins Pac-12 award Ducks extend point streak to five
The sport’s mostly young practitioners have created a Receiver is recognized as the offensive player of the Trevor Zegras gets his 16th assist, the most among
culture of inclusiveness, kids bonded by boards. A1 year despite missing the last third of the season. B8 rookies in the NHL, in 2-0 victory over Buffalo. B7
L AT I M E S . C O M / S P O RT S
SAM KERR, right, led the Chelsea women’s team to a 3-0 victory over Jennifer Beattie and Arsenal in the Women’s FA Cup final in London’s Wemb-
ley Stadium on Sunday, on the 100th anniversary of the English Football Assn. ban on women playing in its stadiums. The ban lasted 50 years.
A WIN FOR WOMEN
Kerr and Chelsea helped smash soccer gender bias on a historic day in England
KEVIN BAXTER
ON SOCCER
Australian Sam Kerr, who is
on the shortlist of the best
women’s soccer players in the
world, led Chelsea to a 3-0
victory over Arsenal in front of
a crowd of 40,942 at Wembley
Stadium in the FA Cup final on
Sunday with a pair of second-
half goals. It was Chelsea’s first
domestic treble — FA Cup,
League Cup and Women’s
Super League titles.
But there’s a much bigger
reason why Sunday’s game
was important.
The final, originally set to
be played last spring, was
delayed by the COVID-19 pan-
demic. And in an attempt to
right a century-old wrong, the
English Football Assn. — the
FA — rescheduled the game in
London’s iconic stadium for
Dec. 5, a date which has long
lived in infamy in European
soccer.
On that day 100 years ago,
the FA banned women’s soccer
from being played in its stadi-
ums. Because virtually every
team in England was governed
by the FA, the ban essentially
forced women to play in
smaller venues outside the
media spotlight. The women’s
clubs, not long able to support
themselves through ticket
sales, quickly disbanded.
The FA justified the sta-
dium ban with sexist and
misogynistic tropes that
claimed kicking was too jerky a
movement for women and
women were too frail and
delicate for the rigors of the
sport.
Others, however, believe
the reason was far more sinis-
ter.
In her 2017 documentary
“When Football Banned Wom-
en,” Clare Balding suggests the
FA — which was run by men for
men — was motivated more by
fear of the women’s game
becoming too popular and
challenging the dominance of
the men’s game.
In 1920, a Boxing Day game
at Everton’s Goodison Park
drew a crowd of 53,000, a record
for a women’s club match. An
additional 14,000 fans were
turned away.
The FA responded to the
threat almost immediately,
releasing a draconian list of
restrictions that ostensibly
were meant to protect the
women but, in reality, were
designed to stop them from
playing. When the women
refused to take the hint, the FA
locked its stadiums and
quickly got what it was looking
for.
The rest of Europe soon
JILL ELLIS, the former U.S. coach, couldn’t play soccer in her native England
while growing up. She didn’t get the chance until her family moved to the U.S.
followed with Germany, the
Netherlands, Italy and France
all stopping women from
playing soccer. The language
differed slightly by country,
but the justification generally
was the same: The game was
too tough for girls and would
make them masculine.
Many of those bans, which
weren’t lifted until the 1970s,
went well beyond the profes-
sional game. Jill Ellis, who
coached the U.S. to two Wom-
en’s World Cup titles, grew up
in England at a time when even
organized youth soccer was
unavailable for girls. After her
parents moved the family to
the U.S., Ellis captained her
Virginia high school team to a
state title and won a U-19 na-
tional championship with her
SOCCER
Kamil Krzaczynski Associated Press
club team.
Chelsea coach Emma
Hayes said her thoughts Sun-
day were with players like Ellis
and others whose dreams were
dashed by the FA. That made
the match far more meaning-
ful than the final score.
“I said to the girls before the
game, ‘Today we play for ev-
eryone who’s made the wom-
en’s game what it is,’ ” she told
reporters. “Women’s football is
our livelihood, but it’s also our
passion and today that win
was for every woman who’s
been involved in women’s
football in this country.”
Only now is the women’s
game in Europe beginning to
regain the popularity and
respect it had in the days just
after World War I. Consider
W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
that the five countries that
banned women’s soccer in the
first half of the 20th century —
England, France, the Nether-
lands, Italy and Germany — all
made the quarterfinals of the
last Women’s World Cup.
There are thriving pro
leagues in France, Spain and
England. In Italy, the Serie A
will become fully professional
next season, a designation
Spain’s women’s league re-
ceived this year.
Irene Lozano, president of
Spain’s Sports council, said
the government recognition
will allow the league to become
independent and make it
eligible for better resources
while “put[ting] an end to this
injustice.”
At its top level, the women’s
DD1
Richard Heathcote Getty Images
game is attractive, entertain-
ing, competitive and well
played and the public is again
embracing it. FIFA says 1.12
billion viewers watched broad-
cast coverage of the last wom-
en’s World Cup in 2019. More
than 260 million viewers tuned
in for the final between the U.S.
and the Netherlands, the
highest live audience for a
women’s match.
In September, England’s
Women’s Super League signed
a three-year television deal
worth more than $30 million,
largest for a women’s soccer
league. Sky Sports and the
BBC immediately were re-
warded when the league drew
a record cumulative audience
of more than 1.5 million for the
three matches broadcast live
on the weekend of Nov. 13-14.
Other major companies are
lining up to get involved. Bar-
clay’s bank, which paid $5.2
million a year to become the
WSL’s title sponsor in 2019, is
also funding a program to
entice girls to get involved in
the sport at the grassroots
level. Toolmaker Stanley is a
major sponsor of Barcelona’s
women’s team while the
NWSL, the top U.S. league, has
deals with MasterCard, Bud-
weiser, Nationwide, Verizon
and Secret Deodorant.
Given how quickly the
things have advanced in the
last few years begs the ques-
tion of where the women’s
game would be if it hadn’t been
set back by the FA a century
ago. It’s unlikely it would be
equal to the men’s game in
terms of popularity but, given
the fact the men had a five-
decade-long monopoly on the
sport, it’s not inconceivable
the women would be a worthy
rival.
In sports from gymnastics,
tennis and figure skating to
surfing, track and field and
swimming, women often draw
a larger TV audience than their
male counterparts. Who can
say definitively that wouldn’t
have happened in soccer?
After all, the largest domestic
TV audience for a soccer game
in the U.S. was for a women’s
game, the 2015 World Cup final.
English international Fran
Kirby, who scored Chelsea’s
first goal in the FA Cup final,
acknowledged the significance
of the game and the progress
of her sport.
“It’s a massive day for wom-
en’s football,” she told report-
ers.
“Today was about not
forgetting the trailblazers who
helped us get here. Hopefully
the performance today made
everyone proud and hopefully
more people want to get in-
volved in women’s football.”
DD2 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021 LOS ANGELES TIMES

Written, edited and designed by members of the Latinx

community, this newsletter takes a fresh look at culture,
news, sports and politics.

Every week, author Fidel Martinez will bring you everything

from music recommendations to underappreciated moments
in Latinx history as he explores, with the help of our readers,
what it means to be Latinx in the United States.

We’re shining a spotlight on our community. From a city

where almost half the population is Latinx, we know the
nation is ready for this newsletter.

Sign up now at latimes.com/latinxfiles

 E

CALENDAR W E D N E S D A Y , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 2 1 :: L A T I M E S . C O M / C A L E N D A R

THE WIDE SHOT

Spotify
versus
comics
gets
serious
Streamer removes a
few stand-ups’ albums
over a royalty issue.
So what’s the deal?
By Ryan Faughnder

To take a page from

Spotify Wrapped — the
audio streaming giant’s
year-end viral marketing
campaign — one of The
Wide Shot’s top genres is
“copyright disputes.”
So, of course, I’m fasci-
nated by the recent beef
between Spotify and a num-
ber of famous comedians
whose recordings were
taken off the platform amid
an effort by artists to ex-
tract more money from
Daniel Ek’s Swedish
streamer.
Albums by Jim Gaffigan,
John Mulaney, Kyle Kinane
and Kevin Hart have disap-
peared from Spotify as a
group of comics seeks roy-
alties for the words under-
lying their recordings. In
other words, they want to be
paid for their material itself,
as well as their recordings of
it.
To understand what
exactly the comedians want
from Spotify, it helps to
know a bit about how music
compensation works. There
are two main types of roy-
Photographs by Francine Orr Los Angeles Times alties in recorded music —
MARTIN CHALIFOUR , the Philharmonic concertmaster, is soloist for a concerto by Julia Adolphe, below. Xian Zhang conducts. those for performers and
those for songwriters and
composers.
MUSIC REVIEW The go-to illustrative
example is that when you

Reach out and connect

stream the Whitney Hous-
ton version of “I Will Always
Love You” on Spotify, the
[See Comedians, E4]

In its final concert of 2021, the L.A. Philharmonic shares hopeful messages
BY MARK SWED MUSIC CRITIC >>> Sunday was commissioned for the occasion and fea-
afternoon the Los Angeles Philharmonic gave tured concertmaster Martin Chalifour as so-
its last concert of a very confusing year. Janu- loist, as well as violist and composer
ary 2021 produced the pandemic’s most trou- Nokuthula Endo Ngwenyama — who is of
bling surge in L.A., but by the beginning of De- Zimbabwean and Japanese descent — have
cember, the L.A. Phil in Walt Disney Concert been nurtured over the years by the orchestra Neon

Hall was seemingly in its comfort zone. and its players. The Chinese conductor, Xian A portrait of
Most remarkable of all, what to the rest of Zhang, has been a familiar presence since displacement
the orchestra world would seem a notable ef- 2015. Afghan refugee Amin,
fort in promoting diversity is simply L.A. Phil Comfort zone doesn’t necessarily mean above, confronts his
traumatic past and
business as usual. The program included new comforting. The ambitious new concerto, ti-
finds healing in the
and recent music by women and featured a tled “Woven Loom, Silver Spindle,” wasn’t ex- doc “Flee.” Review, E3
ADOLPHE acknowl-
woman conductor, not to mention a composer edges applause at
actly that, despite Adolphe’s stated intention
What’s on TV .......... E5
of color. Julia Adolphe, whose violin concerto Sunday’s performance. of evoking “the delica- [See L.A. Phil, E5] Comics ................... E6-7

MOVIE REVIEW

Get thee to this nunnery, go BTS ARMY’s

Paul Verhoeven’s
‘Benedetta’ is sexy,
scatological and
wickedly satirical.
JUSTIN CHANG
FILM CRITIC
In the first five minutes of
“Benedetta,” Paul Verho-
even’s winking biographical
fiction about the life and
transgressions of a 17th cen-
tury Italian nun, a bird defe-
cates on a man’s eyeball and
a street performer merrily
lights his farts on fire. It’s
gross. It’s funny. It’s oddly re-
assuring.
Different directors have
different kinks, and Verho-
even’s taste for the scatologi-
cal has been one of his au-
teurial signatures; he is, af-
ter all, the filmmaker who in-
[See ‘Benedetta,’ E5]
style statement
The K-pop band’s fans
showed their love for
the group with fashion
at recent L.A. shows.
By Christine Terrisse
Lailani Manimbo draws
plenty of inspiration in her
life from BTS — even when it
comes to her fashion sense.
Several times throughout
the year, the 32-year-old
neurosurgery registered
nurse from Torrance hosts a
cup sleeve event (with
COVID-19 precautions in
place), called Boba With
Luv, named after the popu-
lar BTS song “Boy With
Luv.” In K-pop culture, cup
Guy Ferrandis SBS Productions sleeve events are typically
VIRGINIE EFIRA plays “Benedetta,” who beholds visions of a studly Jesus but hosted at a boba teahouse.
ultimately surrenders herself to the pleasures of the flesh with a young novitiate. With a drink purchase,
you receive a commemora-
tive cup sleeve and other
freebies, while socializing
with other fans and shop
vendors and showing off
your BTS style. Manimbo’s
latest event, held at Almond
Haus Café in Garden Grove,
celebrated the anniversary
of the “Permission to Dance”
single ahead of the group’s
sold-out, four-night run at
SoFi Stadium, which con-
cluded Thursday night. Fri-
day, the band ended its L.A.
stint with a performance
during the iHeartRadio Jin-
gle Ball tour at the Forum.
Whether making their
own high-end, unofficial
merch or just dressing like
the band’s members, BTS
fans from across the world
converged on L.A. to show-
case their style. Manimbo
said being a part of the BTS
[See BTS, E4]
E2 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
FIRST PERSON
Immersed in rhythm of light and space
Finding a sliver of
Hanukkah in Strokes
drummer Fabrizio
Moretti’s installation.
By Deborah Vankin
I guess I was searching for
Hanukkah. Somewhere
between March 2020 and
November 2021, I seem to
have misplaced my Jewish-
ness. I’d long ago tired of
Zoom Seders and holiday
light drive-throughs, even
religious services in back-
yards and parks. With family
back east and still working at
home 21 months into the
pandemic, I’d fallen into
something of a social slump;
my world had gotten uncom-
fortably small.
“Who were my Jewish
friends, again?” I thought,
scrolling through my phone.
“There must be something
going on for Hanukkah,”
(which had admittedly snuck
up on me the Sunday after
Thanksgiving).
It was dusk and the view
looking into my backyard felt
symbolic: worn string lights
tangled in the trees, with
bulbs burnt out or shattered.
But then I found a little
sliver of Hanukkah — the
lights, at least — visiting with
the Strokes’ drummer, Fab-
rizio Moretti. At Sotheby’s in
Beverly Hills, of all places.
Moretti, who accepted a
Grammy with his bandmates
this year for rock album, is
also a visual artist — he stud-
ied sculpture at the State
University of New York at
New Paltz for three years
before dropping out to pur-
sue music full-time. He cre-
ated an immersive sculptural
installation now on view at
Sotheby’s. It’s part of a larger
exhibition featuring work by
Light and Space artists such
as Robert Irwin, Helen Pash-
gian, Mary Corse, Peter
Alexander, Larry Bell and
Gisela Colon.
The work is a 9-foot-tall
hollow cube — or “Kube,” as
it’s titled — made of polished
steel and glass, with two
corners cut out and tipped on
its side. It looks like a glowing
spaceship that has crash-
LISTEN. FEEL. TRANSFORM.
ANNOUNCING OUR TENTH ANNIVERSARY SEASON
10TH ANNIVERSARY
EVENT
Danny Elfman
Percussion Concerto
with Paciic Symphony
Sunday, April 24
North American
premiere of percussion
concerto co-
commissioned by Soka
University. With Colin
Currie on percussion.
Brian Greene,
Theoretical Physicist
“Beyond Einstein: The
Fundamental Nature of
Space and Time”
Saturday, February 19
CHAMBER MUSIC
Hub New Music
Saturday, January 22
Andrew Janss
Project Music Heals Us
Saturday, February 12
Escher & Dover Quartets
Sunday, February 27
Ray Chen
Saturday, March 19
GREAT PIANISTS
Emanuel Ax
Sunday, January 9
1 UNIVERSITY DR., ALISO VIEJO, CA 92656 SOKA.EDU/PAC | 949.480.4278
STEP INSIDE Fabrizio Moretti’s sculptural installation, “Kube,” with the artist at Sotheby’s in Beverly Hills. “It’s a melted cube,” he says.
landed inside Sotheby’s
clinically white gallery. It’s
mirrored on the inside, the
glass a patchwork of squares
and elongated triangles, and
it’s lined with fluorescent
tubing. Viewers on the out-
side can peer in, but not vice
versa. Resting inside, in the
eye of a storm of angular
reflections and shadows, is a
work by Anish Kapoor, a
lacquered, stainless steel disc
glowing gold and green.
“It’s a melted cube,” the
Brazil-born, New York-raised
Moretti, 41, says of his work.
As he tours the gallery, his
tone becomes increasingly
hushed the more excited he
gets, until he’s speaking in a
barely audible whisper under
his face mask, punctuating
thoughts with long pauses.
“The mirror can be a
source of vanity,” he says
For ten years we have
celebrated the power
and beauty of live
performance.
Join us to
Yeim Bronfman
Friday, January 21
Stephen Kovacevich
Sunday, January 30
Garrick Ohlsson/
Kirill Gerstein
Friday, March 4
Conrad Tao
Sunday, April 10
PSOC
Academy of St Martin in
the Fields: Joshua Bell
Friday, March 11
Edgar Meyer with
Scottish Ensemble
Saturday, April 9
BLUES
Booker T Jones
Saturday, January 15
Elvin Bishop &
Charlie Musselwhite
Saturday, January 29
JAZZ
Mike Garson with Hubert
Laws
Sunday, January 23
Delfeayo Marsalis
& the Uptown Orchestra
Saturday, March 12
softly. “But it can also be a
point of self-reflection. You
kind of see yourself outside
yourself, one of many per-
haps. [Pause.] And being
able to see yourself and the
relationship you have with
the artwork kind of sanctifies
that moment — I’m hoping.”
With his narrow frame,
shaggy curls and blazer over
skinny pants, there’s a
schoolboy eagerness to
Moretti. His celebrity is no
doubt a way to draw foot
traffic to the space, where all
the works are for sale. But
Moretti’s installation is none-
theless thoughtful and lively.
The work, Moretti says, is
inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s
Infinity Mirror Rooms, which
he discovered at the Broad
museum; it’s also informed
by Bruce Nauman’s work,
with which he was smitten at
Grant Stewart Quintet
with Carl Saunders
Saturday, March 26
OPERA
Parnasses Opera
“Love, Betrayal, and
Vengeance”
Sunday, March 27
LEGENDS
Judy Collins
Sunday, February 13
Los Lobos
Saturday, February 26
Paul Williams
Sunday, April 3
Karla Bonof/David
Lindley
Saturday, February 5
SUNDAYS AT SOKA
Paciic Symphony
Chamber Orchestra
Sunday, January 16 and
March 20
WORLD
Rocky Dawuni
Saturday, March 5
Angelique Kidjo
Saturday, April 2
New York’s Dia Beacon.
“I was going for a kaleido-
scopic effect, not just infinity
on three planes, I wanted the
vectors to change,” he says.
“In terms of Light and
Space, it’s a homage — in the
way the Light and Space
movement was an attempt
at harnessing the effects of
physics through an artistic
lens. It’s really about har-
nessing the environment.”
Moretti has always been
obsessed with art, he says —
he “drew everything” as a kid
growing up in Manhattan.
He was making sculptural
assemblage works in his 20s
when the Strokes took off.
He often sketches his band-
mates on tour, and he always
makes a point of visiting
museums in other cities.
He was inspired to create
“Kube” during a 2019 exhib-
ition at Sotheby’s New York,
“Fabrizio Moretti x Fabrizio
Moretti: In Passing,” for
which the Strokes drummer
partnered with an Italian art
dealer of the same name (no
relation — Sotheby’s paired
them). For that show, the
elder Moretti, then 45, se-
lected Renaissance paint-
ings and sculptures to exhib-
it and the younger Moretti
created immersive installa-
tions, which played with light
and physical space, to guide
the viewer through the ex-
hibition.
The younger Moretti
conceived of “Kube” for the
2019 show, but it required
intricate wiring and was too
complicated to get off the
ground at the time, he says.
Instead, he worked with a
friend, welder and artist
Franco V, and his artist
girlfriend, Gabriella Corey,
over the last two years to
finish the piece.
Peering into “Kube,”
Moretti says he sees light
Weinstein suit dismissed
A federal judge made
the call against actor
Rose McGowan’s
RICO lawsuit.
By Stacy Perman
A federal judge dis-
missed actor Rose Mc-
Gowan’s racketeering law-
suit against disgraced movie
producer Harvey Weinstein
and his team of high-pow-
ered lawyers on Monday.
In October 2019, Mc-
Gowan filed a RICO suit
against Weinstein — who is
currently serving a 23-year
prison sentence for rape and
sexual assault — and his at-
torneys David Boies and
Lisa Bloom, as well as Black
Cube, a private investiga-
tion firm that was allegedly
hired to dig up dirt on Mc-
Gowan in order to silence
her.
The 72-page complaint,
filed in U.S. District Court in
Los Angeles, alleged Mc-
Gowan’s career as an actor
and author, as well as her
mental health, “suffered tre-
mendously” because of We-
instein’s efforts. It sought
unspecified damages for an
array of offenses, including
allegations of fraud and con-
spiracy.
L AT I M E S . C O M / CA L E N DA R
THE WORK was partly inspired by Yayoi Kusama’s
Infinity Mirror Rooms at the Broad, the artist says.
and recurring patterns as
rhythms.
“Punctuation is what
notes are,” he says. “In pat-
terns, you see the similarities
and the distortions.”
At this — as if embodying
a staccato drum solo —
Moretti gestures around the
room, pointing out some of
his favorite works, his voice
still hushed but mounting
with intensity. There’s De
Wain Valentine’s sea foam-
green resin circle, from 1970
— boom; Laddie John Dill’s
early-’70s fluorescent instal-
lation — swoosh; and his
favorite, a recent three-
dimensional painting by Lita
Albuquerque, a cobalt blue-
encased white circle — bada
boom — that toys with per-
ception.
“It urges you to look
closer,” Moretti says. “Your
eye is tricking you.”
So what does all this have
to do with Hanukkah? Noth-
ing, really.
“Oh, snap! Of course,”
Moretti says, when reminded
that the show would be
opening on the sixth night of
the holiday.
But art is nothing if not
McGOWAN had sued Harvey Weinstein, his lawyers
and Black Cube on RICO and fraud allegations.
“Harvey Weinstein was
able to perpetrate and cover
up decades of violence and
control over women because
he had a sophisticated team
working on his behalf to sys-
tematically silence and dis-
credit his victims,” Mc-
Gowan said in a statement
at the time. “My life was up-
ended by their actions.”
The lawsuit focused
mainly on a series of events
over several months in 2017
as McGowan prepared to
publish a memoir, in which
she says Weinstein raped
her in 1997. Weinstein has de-
nied the allegation.
Last December, Judge
Otis D. Wright dismissed
Photographs by Sotheby’s
‘Kube’ in ‘Light
& Space’
Where: Sotheby’s, 350 N.
Camden Drive, Beverly
Hills
When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
weekdays; noon to 5 p.m.
Saturdays; Sundays by
appointment. Ends Jan.
29.
Info: sothebys.com/en/buy
-sell/private-sale/sothebys
-los-angeles
interpretive. And a festival of
lights may be found even via
an indie rock drummer at a
tony auction house gallery,
where the streets outside are
lined with Christmas decora-
tions shimmering in the
76-degree sun.
I stood inside Moretti’s
work, a million fractured
versions of myself shrinking
into infinity until they disap-
peared, swallowed up by that
milky white light.
Somehow, this version of
my Hanukkah, this year, felt
appropriate.
View Press / Corbis via Getty Images
most of McGowan’s claims
in the 2019 lawsuit but al-
lowed her to pursue two
fraud complaints and
amend her RICO allega-
tions.
However, on Nov. 9, the
judge ruled that the
amended complaint did not
reach the standard for rack-
eteering or organized crime.
Two weeks later, Mc-
Gowan’s attorney informed
the court that the actor had
fired her and withdrew from
the case.
After McGowan, who
represented herself in court,
missed a Dec. 3 deadline,
Judge Wright dismissed all
claims.
L AT I M E S . C O M / CA L E N DA R W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 E3

Thomas Guide
returns, driven
to succeed
Hate your traffic app?
Check out the paper
map book that many
Angelenos relied on.
By James Bartlett
The Thomas Guide

For decades a Thomas THE 2022 Thomas

Guide was a driver’s well-
thumbed tool for survival in
the freeway-heavy, ever-ex-
Neon panding sprawl of Southern
THE HYBRID Danish documentary “Flee” explores Amin Nawabi’s past traumas as an Afghan child refugee. California — as essential as a
spare tire, at least until traf-
MOVIE REVIEW fic apps made paper books
seemingly obsolete.
Guide is due Dec. 15.
Thomas Guide had seven or
eight distributors in Califor-
nia alone and printed a
Spanish-language edition
too.
Only the L.A./Orange

Poignant refugee portrait

Younger Angelenos may County and San Diego/Im-
never have heard of them, perial counties guides are
but the Thomas Guide lives still produced today, but
on. The 2022 editions — the Thomas is expecting good
first in three years — are due sales.
out next week. “Private car owners are a
was placed into foster care as Guidebooks and fold-out very small part of our busi-
A gay Afghan faces his a teenager — that fuel some maps were first published by ness now,” he said. “But Cali-
of the most urgent and indeli- ‘Flee’ For your safety three Thomas brothers in fornia state legislation says
past and finds healing ble images, including a Oakland in 1915. Their first that every police and fire ve-
in this animated doc, shocking display of cruelty on
Rated: PG-13, for thematic The Times is committed to city map, Los Angeles, came hicle must have a Thomas
a march through snowy reviewing theatrical film in 1946. San Francisco and Guide on board. Fire roads
a winner at Sundance. woods and a gutting memory
content, disturbing images
releases during the other California cities fol- often aren’t on GPS, and am-
and strong language
involving a boat filled with COVID-19 pandemic. lowed a few years later, and bulances can’t get lost, as ev-
By Jen Yamato Running time: 1 hour, 30
hopeful refugees and a pass- Because moviegoing the operation expanded to ery second could be life-sav-
minutes
ing cruise ship. carries risks during this cover regions across Ameri- ing. They often buy lami-
Amin Nawabi sits for the “Flee” is a work of great Playing: AMC Sunset 5, time, we remind readers to ca and Canada. nated copies too, as they get
West Hollywood; the follow health and safety
camera and closes his eyes in empathy for the refugee ex- L.A.’s Central Library has so beat up.”
Landmark, West Los guidelines as outlined by
the Danish hybrid documen- perience, bringing audiences the only known complete col- That accounts for 1,000 to
Angeles the Centers for Disease
tary “Flee” — an intimate close up to the fears of vi- lection of the rectangular, 1,500 sales a year. As a distrib-
portrait of the lasting trau- olence and repression that Control and Prevention ring-bound guides. Recently utor for Rand McNally and
mas of displacement and one drove Nawabi’s family from recognize his own handwrit- and local health officials. retired map librarian Glen other map and atlas brands,
of the most humane films of their home and the abuse ing in his native language as Creason recalled how the li- Thomas also supplies cus-
the year. He breathes in and apathy he describes that he revisits the detailed ac- camera captures silent fis- brary offered free photo- tom maps with “extreme de-
deeply and the distant mem- they faced once they left. count he wrote of the family sures in the otherwise loving copies of the Hollywood and tail” for transit agencies, hos-
ories start trickling out, More poignantly it illustrates he lost in Afghanistan, al- home life that Nawabi shares downtown pages because pitals, animal control and
punctuated in long-ago feel- how deeply the invisible scars though he doesn’t reveal the with his partner Kasper, they were so often torn out by others.
ings and details. can remain etched in those true breadth of his emotions whom he admits to the cam- cheap (or maybe lost) motor- Thomas said he was “in
First he’s a young boy violently fractured from fam- until much later. era doesn’t yet know all of the ists. the right time and place” to
dancing through the streets ily, home and the promise of For Nawabi, the ingrained dark and painful secrets of Then came GPS and traf- start his career as a distribu-
of 1980s Kabul, carefree as safety, even long after the instinct to repress his iden- his past. The more Kasper fic-beating apps. tor about 30 years ago — and
Western pop music blasts journey is complete. tity in the name of self-pres- pushes for them to put down Despite its huge data- that his last name was a
from pink headphones on his As he and his family fled ervation ran even deeper: As roots, the more Nawabi puts base, the Thomas Guide lucky factor.
ears. Later he sits rapt in the from country to country a young man, afraid he’d be up walls. stumbled in the digital age, “I got the blessings of the
backyard of his family home putting their lives into the rejected by the only family he That reluctance, he and owner Rand McNally re- original owners, the Thomas
listening to tales of his father, hands of human traffickers, had if they knew he was gay, comes to understand, is tan- placed cartographers and brothers, who said that my
who’d been taken by the Nawabi learned to keep his he’d kept the truth obscured gled up in his sense of guilt cut costs. The guides seemed last name wouldn’t infringe
Communist government and head down, be wary of au- — a memory he recounts to over the sacrifices his family destined to be lost to nostal- their copyright,” he said, “so I
would never be seen again. thority figures and stay alert great dramatic effect in one made for him to survive. gia, yet they didn’t disap- could legitimately call myself
Some time after that, he at all times. Even in animated of the film’s most surprising In the film’s gentle final pear. Thomas Maps.”
recalls the shock of fleeing form, the grief for what was scenes. frame, Rasmussen lifts a veil From his office outside Angelenos complain
war-torn Afghanistan in 1989 lost along the way is palpable But that kind of lifelong that suggests that his friend, San Antonio, Larry Thomas, about how a glitch in their
with his mother and siblings in Nawabi’s voice. It’s notice- knife’s edge anxiety can be in speaking truth to the past, now the majority owner of traffic app made them late.
— only to be stuck in limbo able as he reads from his exhausting and destructive. has finally begun to carve his the Thomas Maps brand, Could the Thomas Guide be
with expired immigration pa- teenage diary, struggling to Elsewhere, Rasmussen’s own path forward. said that at one time the poised for a vinyl-like revival?
pers in desolate post-Soviet
Russia, watching dubbed
Mexican telenovelas to mark
the time before mounting
ever more harrowing at-
tempts toward a better fu-
CULTURE MONSTER
All the arts, all the time
ture.
Decades of lingering anxi- “PITCH PERFECT!
ety, fear and buried pain re-
veal themselves as Nawabi, latimes.com/culturemonster
To advertise here go to www.latimes.com/placead
Such a celebration of love, the holidays,
now an academic living in Co-
penhagen with his boyfriend, and the movie itself that it’s hard to not
recounts his experiences as
an Afghan child refugee to di- fall in love, actually.”
rector and longtime friend
Jonas Poher Rasmussen in –Entertainment Weekly
“Flee” (the film, which won
the Sundance Grand Jury
Documentary Prize earlier
this year, is also Denmark’s
“If you are a fan of the original
official Oscars entry.)
Rasmussen first met
movie, seeing Love Actually Live is
Nawabi (a pseudonym for the
subject and co-writer of the
an absolute necessity.”
film) as middle school stu- –The Hollywood Times
dents. The film includes his
own animated memory of
first seeing the guarded
young Amin, then a quiet im-
“WOW! Love Actually Live is once
migrant kid in a strange land
trying hard not to be noticed. again December’s most scrumptious
Now, after decades of close
friendship, Rasmussen at- theatrical treat.”
tempts to record the story of
his friend’s early life. He ends
–Stage Scene LA
up bearing witness to painful
truths Nawabi had kept
locked deep inside from ev-
eryone around him, the film
becoming not only testimoni-
al but catalyst for catharsis.
Interspersed with archi-
val news footage and pre-
sented mostly in expressive
2-D color animation se-
quences, “Flee” grounds
Nawabi’s recollections in the
contexts of the geopolitical
clashes that left him, his fam-
ily and thousands of fellow
refugees displaced and des- THE WALLIS & FOR THE RECORD PRODUCTION OF
perate enough to risk danger,
separation and worse for bet-
ter lives.
Animating interview ses-
sions conducted over several
years and Nawabi’s descrip-
tive memories, “Flee” utilizes
the freedom of its format to
paint a more complete pic-
ture of its subject, his lived ex-
periences and his emotions
than might otherwise have
been possible. The choice
gives buoyance to moments
of humor and tenderness, as
when Nawabi admits to his
boyhood crush on Jean-
Claude Van Damme (who, in
animated flashback form,
winks to him from the poster
NOW THRU
on his bedroom wall) and re-
visits a sweet bond with an
DEC 31, 2021
older boy that bolstered a
lonely and perilous episode in
his life.
But it’s his vivid memories
as a trafficked refugee —
smuggled first to Russia,
then to Denmark, where he TheWallis.org/Love | 310.746.4000
eventually arrived alone and
E4 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
But seriously,
about Spotify
and comedians
[Comedians, from E1]
company pays a royalty
that goes to the late Hous-
ton’s estate and a separate
cut for Dolly Parton, who
wrote the song.
The comedians argue
that Spotify, as well as
companies including Sirius
XM and Pandora, should be
paying them similarly as
the writers of the jokes, not
just as the people perform-
ing the bits.
Primarily leading the
charge in this skirmish is
Jim King, CEO of the Nash-
ville-based company Spo-
ken Giants, which was
founded in 2019 to adminis-
ter royalties for spoken
word artists. King used to
be an executive at the big
performance-rights organi-
zation BMI, one of the
groups that collects and
distributes pay for music
publishers.
He argues that the so-
called literary rights of
comedians have always
existed under U.S. copy-
right law but have histori-
cally not been a big enough
potential revenue stream
for a company like his to
bother demanding pay-
ment.
That has changed, he
said, as streaming services
and satellite radio provide
increasingly massive plat-
forms for comedy routines,
podcasts and speeches.
“This is a right that has
existed for decades and
decades,” he said. “Now
we’re exercising it on behalf
of our members.”
Spoken Giants is also
seeking back payments on
behalf of artists for their
literary rights. King said
the rates for comedy bits
should be similar to the
revenues for songwriters,
which are set by the U.S.
government.
Spotify said in a state-
ment that it “has paid sig-
nificant amounts of money
for the content in question,
and would love to continue
to do so.”
“However,” the company
continued, “given that
Spoken Giants is disputing
what rights various licen-
sors have, it’s imperative
that the labels that distrib-
ute this content, Spotify
and Spoken Giants come
together to resolve this
issue to ensure this content
remains available to fans
around the globe.”
King called Spotify’s
takedown of comedy al-
Nicole Vas Los Angeles Times; Chris Pizzello AP;
Photo illustration by
Richard Shotwell Invision / AP; Robert Gauthier L.A. Times
STAND-UPS Kevin Hart, left, John Mulaney and
Jim Gaffigan are among those Spotify has removed.
Info Line
ROYAL
11523 Santa Monica Blvd. West L.A.
BENEDETTA
1:00 4:00 7:00
DEATH OF A
TELEMARKETER E
7:30 PM
TRY HARDER!
1:00 PM
LADY BUDS
4:20 PM
I WAS A SIMPLE MAN
4:10 PM
KURT VONNEGUT: UNSTUCK
IN TIME
1:10 PM
Y TU MAMA TAMBIÈN E
7:00 PM
MONICA
1332 Second Street Santa Monica
SILENT NIGHT
1:00 3:10 5:20 7:30
THIS GAME’S CALLED
MURDER
1:20 4:10 7:00
WOLF E
1:30 4:20 7:10
HOUSE OF GUCCI E
1:00 4:00 7:00
C’MON C’MON E
1:10 4:25 7:30
BELFAST C
4:30 PM
THE FRENCH DISPATCH E
1:30 7:20
BARGAIN IN ( ) CLOSED CAPTION
L AT I M E S . C O M / CA L E N DA R
bums an “aggressive” tac-
tic. Not being on Spotify is
bad for comedians because
they’re missing out on a
giant platform and royalties
as the two sides work out
their differences.
This controversy is fa-
miliar ground for Spotify.
Royalties in the music
business are notoriously
complicated, and that has
led to blow-ups over who
gets paid what and how
much. As the biggest sub-
scription-based music
streaming company, Spo-
tify has been at the center of
many such disputes.
As Spotify was filing for
its IPO in 2018, it was sued
for $1.6 billion by a music
publisher over so-called
mechanical royalties, a type
of payment with roots dat- Melody Kim
ing to the early 20th century JENNIFER KIM VAN NGUYEN and Richard Tran pose in their BTS-inspired fashion at SoFi Stadium.
and the reproduction of
musical compositions on
player-piano rolls (I told
you these things were
weird). That lawsuit was
settled.
In 2019, Eminem’s pub-
Fans channel BTS faves
for SoFi Stadium shows
lisher filed a copyright
infringement lawsuit
against Spotify, alleging
that the streamer did not
have the proper license to
host about 250 of the rap-
per’s songs. Earlier this [BTS, from E1]
year, hundreds of K-pop ARMY made her more confi-
songs were removed from dent in expressing her femi-
Spotify amid a dispute with nine-meets-preppy aes-
the artists’ distributor. thetic. “Just seeing [BTS]
“Spotify has done to dress with ease but remain
comedians what it did to stylish has always been
songwriters who com- something I’ve looked up
plained that the company to,” she said. “I think when
was unlawfully profiting you begin to love yourself
from their works — close more ... you become more
the door after the horse has comfortable while also wear-
left the barn with a take- ing styles that make you feel
down,” said music attorney your best.”
Christian L. Castle in an As the global megastars
email. dominated L.A., creative
The frequent fights types showed up to every gig
reflect an ongoing tension with get-ups referencing the
for Spotify. The company is band in some way, ranging
credited with popularizing from the cute BT21 and
a subscription model that TinyTan characters’ official
has basically saved the merchandise to inside-joke
music industry from ruin DIY outfits to the sleek suits
and built $44 billion in stock and colorful pastels the
market value in the process. group members are known
But artists, naturally, want to sport, whether in their lat-
their fair share. est music videos or in their
Now comedians are off-duty “airport” fashion.
getting a taste of what mu- Their growing influence Christine Terrisse
sicians have dealt with for caught the eye of late fashion MOTHER-AND-DAUGHTER fans in looks from the band’s “Dynamite” video.
years. visionary Virgil Abloh, artis-
tic director for Louis Vuit- covering the band’s style de-
This article is taken from ton, who appointed them as livered a shot of adrenaline
the Dec. 7 edition of The brand ambassadors for the into their closets during the
Wide Shot, a weekly French luxury label before pandemic. Newer fans like
newsletter about everything he died last month from can- Toshiko Kadir have fun
happening in the business cer. hunting down the real labels
of entertainment. Sign up at Manimbo and other BTS worn by their icons. The 57-
latimes.com/newsletters. event holders select creators year-old real estate agent
to showcase high-end BTS from Singapore flew out for
fan-made fashion pieces. the L.A. shows and said the
These wares are coveted by BTS Twitter fashion ac-
those who still wait in line to count under the handle
buy official merch but also @Bangtan_Style07 has
desire clothes and acces- helped her find designer
sories beyond the standard pieces the group wears. She
fare. Many items celebrate recently tracked down a
BTS with fresh apparel straw Ruslan Baginskiy hat
that’s hard to replicate on a Huey x Solange member V sports in the
mass scale — stuff refer- A STRAW BAG with a BTS-inspired scarf by Huey x “Butter” video and the sheer
encing “Namjooning” (the Solange’s SoCal-based accessories brand Kyootpop. Casablanca top worn by
art of chilling out like BTS Jungkook at both online and
member RM) in stylish fonts be sad to see these inde- inspired scarves, pins and the SoFi concerts.
and on-trend prints. pendent shops be affected,” mask chains, giving options “I’m not a totally fashion-
However, speaking on Manimbo said, noting wear- to people in search of a more able person,” Kadir said.
the condition of anonymity, ing homemade or small-cre- mature, understated look. “But, ever since BTS, I have
makers of the unofficial ator-made merch makes Especially since, as late- elevated my fashion. ... Dur-
merch told The Times that fans more excited to buy offi- night host James Corden ing the pandemic, I started
BTS’ parent company, cial items and participate in found out the hard way, BTS to [dress up] for myself, and
Hybe, has started to crack concerts. fans are of diverse ages and I would prance around the
down on merchants for po- “I think one of the big is- might want some profes- room with makeup on. I
tential copyright infringe- sues, too, is that I feel like sional-looking swag to rep at went to buy a Louis Vuitton
ments via the third-party Hybe doesn’t really cater to the office. handbag,” she said. “And I
React.org. “It would kind of plus sizes, and I think that’s “For us, it’s BTS’ deep was curious about what
also a big thing,” Manimbo lyrics, dedication to their items BTS members wore.
said. “I bought a plus-size craft, and love for their mu- Now, only the men’s sales
fan-made shirt for my friend, sic that inspires us,” Kyoot- section will call me.” A mem-
and she was just so happy to pop said via email. “Our de- ber of the BTS ARMY Over
TM
NOTAFRAID
OF SUBTITLES represent BTS because she signs are subtle,” they went 40 Club Facebook page,
finally felt included.” on to say, “so ARMY can eas- Kadir so appreciated the in-
310.478 .3836 www.LAEMMLE.com In the past, BTS them- ily incorporate it into their jection of joy BTS gave her
selves were no strangers to style and everywhere they during the shutdown that
TOWN CENTER PLAYHOUSE NoHo 7
17200 Ventura Blvd. Encino 673 E. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena 5240 Lankershim Blvd. No. Hollywood wearing off-label brands — go.” she later started a project
BENEDETTA even with a dash of lowbrow Ahead of the SoFi shows, with the online group to
1:00 7:15 GORILLAZ: SONG MACHINE
GORILLAZ: SONG MACHINE LIVE FROM KONG humor thrown in. creators Melody Kim, Kris- send thank-you notes to the
BETRAYED LIVE FROM KONG
7:00 PM In a recently circulated tine Le and Jennifer Kim band’s pro stylists.
1:10 PM 7:00 PM
ENCOUNTER E SILENT NIGHT meme featuring honey- Van Nguyen of Montebello- On the other end of the
1:30 4:30 4:00 7:10 voiced member Jimin, the based fashion company age and gender spectrum, a
BENEDETTA
HIM & HER 4:10 7:15 WOLF E band member is pictured Daebop wanted to create the fashionable young trio
4:30 PM 1:30 4:20 7:00
HOUSE OF GUCCI E sporting a sweater with the perfect concert and festival talked outside the stadium
1:00 4:00 7:00 ENCOUNTER E ENCANTO B Chanel font in an early photo bag. Their tote is designed the first night of the resi-
1:30 4:20 1:20 4:30 7:30
C’MON C’MON E circa 2013. But instead of for stadium compliance and dency. The BTS influence
1:20 4:10 7:30 Chanel, the logo on his has inserts so you can show was clear, especially from
SILENT NIGHT HOUSE OF GUCCI E
THE POWER OF THE DOG E 1:00 4:00 7:00
7:10 PM 7:40 PM knockoff threads says off your photo card or pin one whose elegant tan coat
BELFAST C C’MON C’MON E “Channel,” and in place of collections. For BTS ARMY, and LV belt evoked member
4:25 PM TRY HARDER! 1:40 4:40 the iconic interlocking C’s Daebop created an “I Purple V’s off-duty style.
1:00 PM
GLENDALE BELFAST C logo are two circles. The ad- You” strap, as both the Brothers Karan Bhogal
207 N. Maryland Ave Glendale
WOLF E
1:00 4:30 jacent photo is of today’s phrase and the color purple and Preet Bhogal, 20 and 21,
THE SLEEPING NEGRO
5:30 7:40 1:20 4:00 7:10 THE FRENCH DISPATCH E Jimin: a fully realized global hold significance for the fan- both from Diamond Bar,
CASTLE FALLS 1:20 7:30 icon, complete with chiseled dom. along with their best friend,
3:10 PM HOUSE OF GUCCI E jawline, wearing the authen- “We made Daebop be- Ryan Chang, 20, from San
CLAREMONT
DEADLOCK E 1:00 4:00 7:00 450 W. 2nd Street Claremont tic version of the high-end cause all fans come in differ- Jose, confirmed as much.
1:30 PM
ENCANTO B brand. The caption reads: “If ent shapes and sizes and “I’m influenced by V and
HOUSE OF GUCCI E C’MON C’MON E
1:00 4:00 7:00 1:10 4:10
1:15 4:25 7:30 you didn’t love me in my they have unique styles. We Jungkook to look cleaner,”
C’MON C’MON E Channel...then you don’t de- wanted to create a bag that said Karan. “In a way that’s
HOUSE OF GUCCI E
1:20 4:20 7:30 THE POWER OF THE DOG E 1:00 4:00 7:00 serve me at my Chanel.” could be inclusive to all me as well.” Preet added, “I
THE POWER OF THE DOG E 1:10 4:20 While trading and craft- ARMY,” Le said. “We made a definitely feel they help us be
1:10 4:15 C’MON C’MON E
BELFAST C
1:30 4:30 7:30 ing have long been a part of blank canvas. The clear bag more comfortable in the way
BELFAST C K-pop tradition, upscale is actually not just for BTS we look and have style in a
4:30 PM GHOSTBUSTERS:
4:30 PM AFTERLIFE C
THE FRENCH DISPATCH E small-batch items like those but all types of K-pop fans. ... way we can feel more confi-
7:30 PM 1:20 4:15 7:20 made by Huey x Solange, the We wanted to make a bag for dent. A key concept for BTS
Y TU MAMA TAMBIÈN E THE FRENCH DISPATCH E
1:15 7:30 THE POWER OF THE DOG E design team behind SoCal- any type of concert so you is diversity and to love your-
7:00 PM 1:10 7:10
BONGEE BEAR AND THE based Kyootpop, help ex- don’t have to spend so much self. I think the ‘Love Your-
KINGDOM OF RHYTHM Y TU MAMA TAMBIÈN E THE FRENCH DISPATCH E pand the band’s reach. money.” self ’ theme and message
1:00 PM 7:00 PM 4:20 PM Kyootpop makes BTS- For others, simply dis- transcends.”
NON-STANDARD PRICING FOR 12/8/2021 ONLY
L AT I M E S . C O M / CA L E N DA R W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 E5

TV Highlights
The prime-time TV grid is
on hiatus in print. You can
find more TV coverage at:
latimes.com/whats-on-tv.
SERIES
Jay Leno’s Garage (season
finale) Dwight Yoakam and
Paul Reiser. 7 and 10 p.m.
CNBC
Survivor (N) 8 p.m. CBS
Chicago Med (N) 8 p.m.
NBC
The Masked Singer (N)
8 p.m. Fox
Crossroads Brett Young
hosts this holiday episode.
8 p.m. CMT
Tough as Nails (N) 9 p.m.
CBS
Chicago Fire (N) 9 p.m.
NBC
Alter Ego The winner is
chosen in the season finale.
9 p.m. Fox
Tyler Perry’s Sistas Karen
(Ebony Obsidian) confronts
Fatima (Crystal Renee
Hayslett). 9 p.m. BET
The Real Housewives of
Orange County (N) 9 p.m.
Bravo
CSI: Vegas (N) 10 p.m. CBS
Chicago P.D. (N) 10 p.m.
Francine Orr Los Angeles Times NBC
MARTIN CHALIFOUR is soloist for Julia Adolphe’s “Woven Loom, Silver Spindle” at the Los Philharmonic’s final concert of 2021. Twenties Nia (Gabrielle
Graham) weighs her op-
tions in movie roles and in
dating. 10 p.m. BET

Philharmonic makes connections It’s Always Sunny in Phila-

[L.A. Phil, from E1]
cy and strength required of
motherhood.” Nor was
Zhang’s volcanic perform-
ance of Beethoven’s Seventh
Symphony after intermis-
sion.
But the program did be-
gin with Ngwenyama’s “Pri-
mal Message,” which should
be the last word in comfort-
giving. Originally written as
a chamber piece in 2017, the
brief score for strings, harp
and percussion takes its in-
spiration from the “Arecibo”
message, a friendly greeting
from Earth to aliens sent
from a radio telescope into
outer space in 1974. Instead
of a digital representation of
our DNA, however, Ng-
wenyama seemed to won-
der: What if our “primal
message” were to be sheer
gorgeousness?
More accurately, she
wondered whether she
might play around with
some mathematical musi-
cal relationships and come
up with a musical DNA map.
Those rhythmic and melo-
dic numerical manipula-
tions sounded, if not primal,
like meaningful little mes-
sages among the different
string instruments, punctu-
ated by harp and percus-
sion, pervaded by sweet-
ness. The sounds get along
not necessarily through tra-
ditional harmonic conso-
nance (although there is
plenty of that), but through
a kind of rightness of being.
“Primal Message” can
turn a little soupy, but that
hardly matters. Ng-
wenyama is showing our
global good side to us, not
the universe; her reason to
save the planet being be-
cause we are, in fact, worth
saving. Still, if whatever
funny, advanced creatures
that possibly inhabit globu-
lar cluster M13, where the
original primal message is
headed, somehow tune in to
this musical version, there
just might be hope.
Adolphe is also explor-
atory in “Woven Loom, Sil-
ver Spindle,” her third L.A. bols of loom and spindle do
Phil commission (the pre- act as musical metaphors.
miere of her second, a cello The violin spins, the orches-
concerto, fell victim to pan- tra interlaces musical
demic cancellations and will threads and occasionally
be rescheduled). In her new looms over the soloist. But
concerto, the solo violin the messages remain frag-
sends out her own little mes- mentary, rather than weave,
sages, primal perhaps in the value being in the explo-
their own right, to different ration rather than fulfill-
instruments in the orches- ment.
tra, which are more like feel- For this, Adolphe has the
ers that set off a host of mo- perfect protagonist in Chali-
mentary repercussions. four. He makes “silver spin-
The concerto begins with dle” audible, gleaming
tentative pizzicati. A through an orchestra that
plucked solo violin amid or- has long known him and he,
chestral mists, the rustles it. There can hardly be any-
and some glitter from a dis- one in the L.A. Phil with
tant piano ends 20 minutes whom he has not played
later in soft, ethereal shim- chamber music, which
mer. Once the initial fog makes every interaction in
lists, the violin gingerly sug- Adolphe’s concerto feel like
gests melodic shards of fascinating conversation.
ever-varying character. A If Zhang remained an en-
solo cello takes the bait and thusiastic, detail-oriented
enters into a brief dialogue. facilitator of “Primal Mes-
A bassoon and groups of sage” and “Woven Loom,”
winds take their turns inter- she became the astonishing
acting. Metallic percussion primal messenger of Bee-
has a say. thoven’s Seventh. She used
Now and then the sym- a big orchestra, produced a
big sound and did so with
overwhelming energy. In
even the dullest of hands,
Beethoven’s symphony is a
rhythm machine. In Zhang’s
dancing hands, phrases
swelled and dotted rhythms
quickened with propulsive
force, sonic gravity be
damned.
COVID-19 restrictions re-
quire L.A. Phil players who
can to wear masks while
playing. Conductors, who
depend on facial expres-
sions, are typically ex-
cepted. Zhang kept hers on.
Her arms vehemently
swooped like that of a Pros-
pero commanding the
weather. She needed noth-
ing more.
If a symphony could be a
space ship launched into
space with a primal mes-
sage, this Beethoven Sev-
enth was it. The orchestra
played gloriously and
looked happily dazed after-
ward, which may well sum
up its past year. Comfort
zone. What’s that?
immerses us in a cloistered
delphia Dee (Kaitlin Olson)
is excited to head off for
Hollywood in the first two
new episodes of the raunchy
comedy. 10 and 10:30 p.m.
FXX
Hard Knocks in Season:
The Indianapolis Colts (N)
10 p.m. HBO
Intergalactic Ash (Savan-
nah Steyn) gets the cold
shoulder from the rest of the
crew. 10 p.m. Syfy
SPECIALS
Nickelodeon’s Treasure
Truck Four families com-
pete in three rounds of
holiday-themed challenges.
7:30 p.m. Nickelodeon
Christmas Around the
World Dean Cain and Laura
McKenzie host this new
holiday special. 8 p.m. The
CW
CMT a Tennessee Kind of
Christmas Country music
artists perform their favor-
ite Christmas songs. 9 p.m.
CMT
SPORTS
NBA Basketball The Bos-
ton Celtics visit the Clip-
pers, 7:30 p.m. BSSC
TALK SHOWS
CBS Mornings Michael J.

Sex, scatology in convent life world that nonetheless re-

[‘Benedetta,’ from E1]
dulged a scene of rectal
torture in “Soldier of Or-
ange” and dumped a vat of
feces onto his World War II-
era resistance heroine in
“Black Book.”
And so no one should be
shocked when his latest re-
sistance heroine, Benedetta
Carlini (Virginie Efira), and
a fellow nun get acquainted
side by side in a convent out-
house, complete with realis-
tically muffled sound ef-
fects. It’s a veritable meet-
toot. Verhoeven clearly
wants us to laugh; the mov-
ie’s a gas. But he doesn’t
mind if we think too — about
the earthy realities of the
body, the higher abstrac-
tions of the soul and all the
thornily ambiguous ways
they do and don’t connect.
“Your worst enemy is your
body,” a nun tells the young
Benedetta when she first ar-
rives at the convent. “Best
not to feel at home in it.”
Eighteen years later, the
adult Benedetta will both
accept and reject this ad-
vice. She’s prone to frequent
out-of-body experiences,
beholding visions of a studly
Jesus (Jonathan Couzinié)
who is her savior, protector
and, on occasion, seducer.
But she also surrenders her-
self to the flesh, especially
once she sets eyes on Bar-
tolomea (Daphne Patakia),
a battered urchin who, in
one of Verhoeven’s wittier
visuals, is swept into the
convent amid a flock of
sheep. Bartolomea herself
may be something of a wolf,
given the half-feral, half-
mischievous twinkle in
Patakia’s eyes and the
hunger with which she turns
Benedetta’s body into a ves-
sel for pleasure as well as a
temple of the spirit.
The assumption of “Ben-
edetta,” by turns transgres-
sive and matter-of-fact, is
that sexual and spiritual
epiphanies can be cut from
the same cloth. Two things
can coexist. Three things
can coexist, if the concept of
“BENEDETTA,” starring Virginie Efira, is loosely based on Judith C. Brown’s
1986 book, “Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy.”
‘Benedetta’
In French with English
subtitles
Not rated
Running time: 2 hours,
6 minutes
Playing: In general release
it is). Verhoeven, now 83 and
still operating with his
trademark slipperiness of
theme, tone and genre,
treats “Benedetta” itself as a
demonstration of this prin-
ciple. Is it a takedown of reli-
gious patriarchy, an act of
cinematic blasphemy or a
sincere portrait of Christian
devotion? A love story, a his-
tory lesson, a psychothriller
or a sex farce? Si to all of the
above — or rather, oui. (It’s
an Italian-set drama but a
French production.)
Benedetta herself ap-
pears to be one of the Middle
Ages’ great multitaskers. In-
troduced as a precocious no-
vitiate (played by Elena
Plonka) at a Theatine con-
vent in Pescia, Tuscany, she
turns out to be a radiantly
gifted actor, as we see from
the lead role she’s assigned
in a theatrical pageant.
(That talent will come in
leader, dispensing practical
wisdom and sometimes
overzealous punishment.
She might also be a prophet,
anointed by God to receive
his strange, often violent vi-
sions, some of which resem-
ble Monty Python sketches
and leave her marked with
stigmata. Before long the
force of these visions has
swept her to the top of the
convent hierarchy, displac-
ing the longtime abbess, Sis-
ter Felicita (Charlotte
Rampling).
Efira, a gifted actor
(“Sibyl”), submits to these
tribulations with wit, poise
and surprising equanimity,
given that she spends a lot of
her time bellowing like Mer-
cedes McCambridge in “The
Exorcist” and bleeding from
her wrists and ankles. Hap-
pily, she does none of those
things during the movie’s
abundant sex scenes, which
are as candidly explicit as
you’d expect from the direc-
tor of “Basic Instinct,”
“Showgirls” and “Starship
Troopers,” here operating
well beyond the jurisdiction
of Hollywood censors.
Benedetta and Bar-
tolomea awaken and gratify
each other’s desires, at
times making strategic use
of a sacred figurine retooled
IFC Films
with more parochial sen-
sibilities in the audience.
I doubt that too many of
those viewers will stumble
onto “Benedetta” unawares,
though if they do, they will
not be alone in taking of-
fense. Benedetta’s rise to
power ignites the indigna-
tion of Sister Christina
(Louise Chevillotte), who
tries to out her as a charla-
tan and a heretic. The im-
posing Sister Felicita, whom
the ever cliché-resistant
Rampling invests with sar-
donic wit and moving vul-
nerability, seeks out an ally
in the local nonce (a su-
premely punchable Lamb-
ert Wilson), who swiftly de-
scends on the church with
armed guards and genital-
torture devices at the ready.
The arrival of all these pow-
erful men on the scene
opens Pescia up to the
threat of the plague that
happens to be ravaging the
Italian countryside. (Yes,
“Benedetta” is also a pan-
demic movie.)
It also upsets the delicate
balance of the matriarchal
power structure that Verho-
even has spent much of the
movie so carefully observ-
ing. Loosely inspired by Ju-
dith C. Brown’s 1986 book,
“Immodest Acts: The Life of
buffs our usual assumptions
about the oppressive joy-
lessness of monastic life,
and not just because of all
the sex.
There may be hard ma-
nual labor and a little self-
flagellation, but sardonic
laughter sometimes erupts
within these walls, as do wit-
tily barbed negotiations
over money. (“A convent is
not a place of charity,” dead-
pans Sister Felicita, who de-
mands an awfully high
dowry for each “bride of
Christ.”) Even the fluidity
and mobility of the camera-
work in these shadowy envi-
rons (the movie was shot by
the gifted Jeanne Lapoirie)
feel like a rejection of auster-
ity.
So does Efira’s decidedly
modern glamour, one of
many reminders here that
“Benedetta” is all too aware
of its own artifice. Although
less sustained or surprising
than Verhoeven’s previous
feature, “Elle” (2016), the
movie similarly centers on
an extraordinarily intelli-
gent and imaginative hero-
ine who finds herself in an
impossible position — and
who responds by flouting
sexual norms, interrogating
her own desires and ulti-
mately threatening the stat-
us quo. Both movies derive
much of their intrigue not
only from Verhoeven’s film-
making dexterity — for all
that flatulence, he has a
marvelously soft touch —
but also his inscrutability.
He can blur seriousness and
irony until they seem almost
indistinguishable.
Close followers of Verho-
even’s career will know him
as an obsessive Christ schol-
ar, having co-authored a
book about the life of Jesus
and spent many years trying
to make a movie about him.
That project never came to
fruition, but the director’s
spiritual curiosity lives on in
“Benedetta.” He has found a
heroine whose genuine fer-
vor, though hardly beyond
the reach of parody, also
awakens his sympathy and
his generosity. It takes a par-
ticular deftness for a movie
to wear its intelligence and
Fox; Paola Pimienta. (N)
7 a.m. KCBS
Today Cynthia Nixon. (N)
7 a.m. KNBC
Good Morning America
Zachary Levi; Kurt Warner;
David Rose; Shaggy per-
forms. (N) 7 a.m. KABC
Live With Kelly and Ryan
Cynthia Nixon; Heather
Graham. (N) 9 a.m. KABC
The View Gov. Gavin New-
som; Penn & Teller. (N)
10 a.m. KABC
The Drew Barrymore
Show Ben and Erin Napier;
Kristin Chenoweth. (N)
2 p.m. KCBS
Kelly Clarkson Sandra
Bullock; Yvonne Orji;
Robert Plant and Alison
Krauss. (N) 2 p.m. KNBC
The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Rosario Dawson; Ed
Sheeran. (N) 3 p.m. KNBC
Amanpour & Company (N)
11 p.m. KCET
The Daily Show (N) 11 p.m.
Comedy Central
The Tonight Show Nicole
Kidman; Úrsula Corberó;
Stromae performs. (N) 11:34
p.m. KNBC
Jimmy Kimmel Live! Rob
McElhenney; Ariana De-
Bose; Sting performs. (N)
11:35 p.m. KABC
The Late Late Show With
James Corden Mariah
Carey. (N) 12:37 a.m. KCBS
Late Night With Seth Mey-
ers Brian Cox; Wet Leg
performs; Nikki Glaspie
with the 8G Band. (N) 12:37
a.m. KNBC
Nightline (N) 12:37 a.m.
KABC
Syfy

the trinity is to be believed useful down the road.) She’s to heighten their pleasure a Lesbian Nun in Renais- its irreverence so lightly. You SAVANNAH STEYN in
(and full disclosure, I think a devoted sister and a born and, of course, offend those sance Italy,” “Benedetta” might even call it grace. “Intergalactic” on Syfy.
E6 W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21
SUDOKU
KENKEN
Every box will contain a number; numbers depend on the size of the grid. For a 6x6
puzzle, use Nos. 1-6. Do not repeat a number in any row or column. The numbers in each
heavily outlined set of squares must combine to produce the target number found in the
top left corner of the cage using the mathematical operation indicated. A number can be
repeated within a cage as long as it is not in the same row or column.
HOROSCOPE
By Holiday Mathis
Aries (March 21-April 19):
There’s noise in your head
that’s too cacophonous to
sort. You’ll do better to listen
for the silence around it.
Taurus (April 20-May
20): As for those things you
feel you must or mustn’t do,
your obedience won’t apply
to today’s puzzle. You’ll have
to forget there were rules.
Gemini (May 21-June 21):
You’ll glimpse a gap in your
knowledge. There is no
shame in ignorance — only
in pretending to know. That
keeps people from learning.
Cancer (June 22-July 22):
The hours with people you
do not enjoy can be like long
roads that lead to the wrong
place. You like to exercise ex-
citing options when the
company is your choice.
Leo (July 23-Aug. 22):
This scene you’re a part of is
in tenuous balance. You’ve
an urge to test to under-
stand what’s important and
CROSSWORD
Edited By Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis
By Ed Beckert
ACROSS
1 Midday tide-me-over
6 Landlocked African
land
10 Acrimony
14 Common wrist
measurement
15 Tatting fabric
16 Geometry calculation
17 Execs who only look the
part
19 Pics for docs
20 Stephen Colbert’s
network
21 Jury makeup
22 Beyond heavy
23 Burden
24 Screwdriver, e.g.
25 Ostentatiously nice sort
31 MLB game-ending
accomplishments
32 Tomatoes used to make
paste
33 Guest beyond a velvet
rope
35 Pac-12 squad
36 Shrink in fear
37 Spreadsheet input
38 Debussy’s sea
39 Expert
40 More delicate
41 Pompous types
44 High-flying mil. group
45 __ museum
46 Land divisions
48 Hard stuff
51 Pollution watchdog org.
54 Designated money
55 Pretentiously elegant
one
57 Help in a bad way
58 Puckish
59 Type of coffee or
whiskey
60 Start from scratch
61 Simple tops
62 Tot’s tea party guest
DOWN
1 Project detail
2 Without feeling
3 European range
4 Wisconsin winter hrs.
5 Security system
components
6 Game with rooms
7 Rapunzel’s “ladder”
8 Play divisions
how it works. Remove each
element one by one to see
what’s lost or gained.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Why does today’s peaceful,
easy feeling seem like it may
have all the qualities of pris-
tine goodness? The only flaw
is it doesn’t go on forever.
Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 23):
You need someone to agree
to your plan, or to choose you
over the others. A direct ap-
proach won’t work. Employ
principles of attraction.
Scorpio (Oct. 24-Nov. 21):
You don’t know enough to
make your next move, and
not everything you’re told is
the truth. Keep observing.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-
Dec. 21): Meditations and
mantras that focus on de-
taching from stressful situa-
tions will be helpful. Mantra
“Let it go” will do wonders.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan.
19): People want what they
can’t have. Is it mean to offer
a reason to reach out and
then pull it away? Maybe. Or
maybe setting up such a
9 __ Moines
10 Panda’s diet
11 Of no consequence
12 Parts of Hawaiian
greetings
13 Get (into) carefully
18 Attention-getting, in a
way
22 Reactions to fireworks
23 Little piggies
24 Winter Palace monarch
25 Starting spots for some
races
26 Reversed on appeal
27 Treasure __
28 Blew away
29 Dark clouds, maybe
30 Internet destinations
31 What a capital sigma
symbolizes, in math
34 Course standard
36 Informal London eatery
37 Gossip
39 Degs. for
choreographers
40 Campsite staple
42 Familiar with
43 Unclear
46 Off in the distance
COMICS
12/8/21
game is a gift.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb.
18): If you didn’t have the
things that make your life
full and interesting, you’d
pay a lot to acquire them. In
fact, you already have. Enjoy
them like it’s your first time.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March
20): What was exciting can
be, in another season, quite
taxing. Familiarity can ease
the way or complicate it.
You’ll dance between polar-
izations, delight in ironies.
Today’s birthday (Dec.
8): You give the love you
want to receive, attracting
your brand of attention and
affection. Your triumphs are
feted. What you care about is
supported, and people go
out of their way to accommo-
date your wishes or spend
time with you. Cancer and
Scorpio adore you. Lucky
numbers: 3, 10, 33, 1, 38.
Mathis writes her column
for Creators Syndicate Inc.
The horoscope should be
read for entertainment.
© 2021 Tribune Content Agency
47 Rubik creation
48 Reveal
49 Almost never
50 Protest singer Phil
51 Children’s author
Blyton
52 Returning GI’s
diagnosis
53 Pallid
55 Considerable, as a
bonus
56 “Where __ you now?”
ANSWER TO
PREVIOUS PUZZLE
12/8/21
BRIDGE
By Frank Stewart
Cy the Cynic showed me
his list of New Year’s resolu-
tions:
1. Stop making lists.
B. Be more consistent.
4. Learn to count.
That last item should be
at the top of Cy’s list; he
often neglects to count the
defenders’ distribution. Cy
played at today’s four
spades after North opened a
barren assortment of high
cards. West led a heart:
queen, king, ace. Cy drew
trumps, shrugged, led a dia-
mond to dummy’s king and
returned a diamond.
When East discarded, Cy
had four losers.
“It was partner’s fault,”
the Cynic grumbled, “for
opening that junky hand.”
Cy must try to get a
ASK AMY
A jab to their holiday plan
Dear Amy: I am struggling
with the fact that my hus-
band’s family refuses to get
vaccinated.
My husband under-
stands that we shouldn’t cel-
ebrate the holiday with his
unvaccinated family mem-
bers, but he says that in turn,
we shouldn’t see my widow-
ed 75-year-old mom who,
like us, is fully vaccinated.
He and I routinely see my
mom, but he says that if we
don’t have a meal with his
family, then we can’t have
one with my mom, even
though they have a great re-
lationship!
I’ve even suggested that
it doesn’t have to be a full tra-
ditional dinner and that we
could do something differ-
ent this year, but he doesn’t
seem responsive.
I am so confused, as he
and I both agree about how
frustrating it is that people
carry this mentality of “not
my responsibility to care
about anyone but myself.”
I just lost my job, which
provided health insurance
for both of us, so we cannot
get sick! I don’t know how to
handle this. Can you help?
Upset
Dear Upset: Your husband
is sad and frustrated, for a
variety of reasons, and he is
taking it out on you (and
himself).
FAMILY CIRCUS By Bil Keane
ARGYLE SWEATER By Scott Hilburn
BLISS By Harry Bliss
L AT I M E S . C O M / CA L E N DA R
count. He takes the king of
trumps at Trick Two, then
leads a club: three, jack,
king. East wins the heart re-
turn and forces dummy to
ruff a heart. Cy loses a sec-
ond club to West, ruffs the
club return, leads a trump to
dummy and ruffs a club.
Then Cy knows that East
had two trumps, six hearts
and four clubs, so one dia-
mond. Cy can take the ace
and confidently lead to dum-
my’s nine.
You hold: ♠ A J 9 8 7 ♥ A 3 2
♦ A J 4 ♣ J 5. You open one
spade, your partner re-
sponds two hearts, you raise
to three hearts and he bids
four clubs. What do you say?
Answer: Hearts is the
agreed trump suit, so part-
ner’s four clubs is an ace-
showing cue bid to show
slam interest. If he can try
for slam when you have three
His behavior isn’t ma-
ture, or kind, or hewing to
the holiday spirit, yet this
sort of conflicted behavior
forms the main plot of many
of our favorite holiday-in-
spired stories, songs and
movies. The basic theme is:
“I’m feeling hurt and disap-
pointed, so I can’t do Christ-
mas this year.”
In the movie version, you
would be very understand-
ing and patient, and — just
before it was too late — he
would come around. I vote
for the movie version.
Don’t trash his family or
comment on their choices.
Plan something simple
with your mother. Tell your
husband, “We really wish
that you would join us, but
understand if you don’t want
to. I know this is a tough year
for you.”
Dear Amy: My fiancée and
I have been together for al-
most 10 years. Unfortu-
nately, during that time,
there has been a lot of infi-
delity.
I was spending time talk-
ing to girls on Facebook after
I said I wouldn’t, even
though I didn’t really feel as
though I was doing anything
wrong at the time. Obvi-
ously, saying I wouldn’t do it
and then doing it, I was do-
ing something wrong.
She has cheated on me
DENNIS THE MENACE By Hank Ketcham
MARMADUKE By Brad & Paul Anderson
SPEED BUMP By Dave Coverly
aces, you must cooperate.
Cue- bid four diamonds.
Even if he signs off at four
hearts, you can cue-bid four
spades next.
North dealer
Both sides vulnerable
NORTH
♠KQ43
♥Q5
♦K93
♣Q742
WEST EAST
♠62 ♠ 10 5
♥84 ♥ K J 10 9 7 6
♦Q87652 ♦ 10
♣K98 ♣ A 10 6 3
SOUTH
♠AJ987
♥A32
♦AJ4
♣J5
NORTH EAST SOUTH WEST
1 ♣(!) 2 ♥ 2♠ Pass
3♠ Pass 4♠ All Pass
Opening lead — ♥ 8
Tribune Content Agency
three different times be-
cause I wasn’t being affec-
tionate enough, and I was
very boring. I’ve taken care
of her for years, paying all the
bills including her child sup-
port. She can’t survive on
her own. She just got a job
and doesn’t make enough
money.
Recently, I’ve had feel-
ings for someone, but it was
only for a short time. I know
I’m all over the place, but I
guess I feel like our relation-
ship will always be abnor-
mal. What do you think?
Confused
Dear Confused: Your fi-
ancée can survive on her
own. She just doesn’t. And
you two can be faithful to
each other instead of weap-
onizing your mutual infidel-
ity — but you aren’t.
My basic point is that you
two can either behave like
goldfish — bumping end-
lessly into the sides of your
bowl — or you can be a com-
mitted couple and attack
your lives as a team.
If your pattern of 10 years
is based on goldfish drama, I
don’t hold out a lot of hope
for you as a couple, but I
hope that you as an individu-
al can change.
Send questions to Amy
Dickinson by email to ask
amy@amydickinson.com.
L AT I M E S . C O M / CA L E N DA R
DOONESBURY By Garry Trudeau
LA CUCARACHA By Lalo Alcaraz
CANDORVILLE By Darrin Bell
HALF FULL By Maria Scrivan
PEARLS BEFORE SWINE By Stephan Pastis
LIO By Mark Tatulli
ZITS By Jerry Scott & Jim Borgman
TUNDRA By Chad Carpenter
PRICKLY CITY By Scott Stantis
FRAZZ By Jef Mallett
NON SEQUITUR By Wiley
COMICS
Doonesbury is on vacation. This is a reprint.
W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 E7
DILBERT By Scott Adams
BABY BLUES By Jerry Scott & Rick Kirkman
CRANKSHAFT By Tom Batiuk & Chuck Ayers
JUMP START By Robb Armstrong
9 CHICKWEED LANE By Brooke McEldowney
TO OUR READERS
The “9 Chickweed Lane” comic that we syndicated comic strips we publish.
published Dec. 1 included an ethnic The Comics pages should be a place
slur and did not meet our standards. where our readers can engage with
We regret that it was published and societal issues, reflect on the human
apologize. We have decided to discon- condition, and enjoy a few laughs. We
tinue publication of “9 Chickweed intend to maintain that tradition in a
Lane” and to review all of the other way that is welcoming to all readers.
BLONDIE By Dean Young & John Marshall
GET FUZZY By Darby Conley
BIZARRO By Wayno and Piraro
DRABBLE By Kevin Fagan
MUTTS By Patrick McDonnell
PEANUTS By Charles M. Schulz
E8 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021 LOS ANGELES TIMES

APPLE MUSIC CONGRATULATES

H.E.R.

SONGWRITER OF THE YEAR

Watch on
L AT I M E S . C O M / CA L E N DA R W E D N E S DAY , D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 21 EE1
Wednesday, December 8, Prime-time: Broadcast
Wednesday TV Highlights 7:30 pm 8:00 pm 8:30 pm 9:00 pm 9:30 pm 10:00 pm 10:30 pm 11:00 pm 11:30 pm
CBS Entertainment Survivor (TVPG) Castaways Tough as Nails (TVPG) The CSI: Vegas (TV14) Hodges News Å The Late Show:
Tonight “West need to alter their plans final crew members compete goes missing, the team Stephen Col-
Side Story”; after the winner of the im- in a series of challenges that
searches for evidence that bert (TVPG)
James Cord- munity challenge throws test their life skills and phys-
can help locate him, clear (11:35) Å
en; Alicia a wrench in their next big ical strength. (N) Å his name and save the lab’s
Keys. (N) Å move. (N) Å reputation. (N) Å
NBC Access Holly- Chicago Med (TV14) The out- Chicago Fire (TVPG) Gallo, Chicago P.D. (TV14) With the News Å Jimmy Fallon
wood (TVPG) come of Halstead’s investi- Violet and Ritter debut their FBI closing in on the Roy (TV14) Nicole
(N) Å gation weighs heavily on his microbrewery business at Walton investigation, Voight Kidman;
mind as he works with Scott Winterfest; Brett prepares and Halstead strategize a actor Úrsula
to save an infant; Hammer to present her paramedicine way out; after a city bus Corberó;
and Taylor both struggle to program to an oversight driver is shot by a passenger, Stromae per-
keep their secrets. (N) Å panel; Firehouse 51 gets in the team investigates a pos- forms. (N) Å
the holiday spirit. (N) Å sible abduction. (N) Å
CW 2 & 1/2 Men Christmas Around the World A look at the history of how News Å Sports Final News Å Friends
(TV14) Å Christmas is celebrated around the world; special Christ- (N) (10:45) (TVPG)
mas performances; Dean Cain and Laura McKenzie host; Å (11:35) Å
Elizabeth Stanton and Montel Williams co-host. (N) Å
ABC Wheel of For- Olaf’s Frozen Toy Story That The Conners Home Econom- The Chase (TVPG) Three new News Å Jimmy Kimmel
tune (TVG) Adventure Time Forgot (TVPG) Å ics (TVPG) Å contestants compete. Å Live! (TV14)
(N) Å (2017) Voice (TVG) Ani- (N) (11:35) Å
of Josh Gad. mated. Å
Syfy KCAL Family Feud News Å News Å News Å Sports Central black-ish Å black-ish Å
IMOGEN DAINES, left, and Savannah Steyn in the FOX TMZ (TVPG) The Masked Singer (TV14) Alter Ego (Season finale) The News Å You Bet Your You Bet Your
science fiction series “Intergalactic” on Syfy. (N) Å (N) Å final four contestants com- Life With Jay Life With Jay
pete and one is crowned the Leno (TVPG) Leno (TVPG)
champion. (N) Å (N) Å Å
SERIES
MyNet Big Bang Å Big Bang Å Big Bang Å King of Queens King of Queens Seinfeld Å Seinfeld Å The Simpsons Dateline
Jay Leno’s Garage In the season finale, Leno rides a me- KCET Visiting Å Celtic Woman: Postcards From Ireland (TVG) Å Yellowstone Symphony Å Amanpour and Company Å
chanical bull with country icon Dwight Yoakam. Then Leno UNIVISION Fútbol (6:50) Vencer el pasado (N) La Rosa de Guadalupe (N) Å Noticias Noticiero
and Paul Reiser ride a pair of Johnny Carson’s Corvette-pow-
KOCE Ken Burns: The National Parks (7) Å Memory Rescue With Daniel Amen, MD (TVG) T Å Longevity Paradox (TVG) Å
ered swan boats. 7 and 10 p.m. CNBC
KDOC News (N) Law & Order: SVU (TV14) Å Dateline (TVPG) Å Family Guy Family Guy Seinfeld Å Seinfeld Å
Crossroads This holiday episode features Darius Rucker, KLCS The Seaside Guilt (TV14) No Second Chance (TV14) Å Sustaining Us Everybody L.A. County Board of Supervi-
Colbie Caillat, Gavin DeGraw, Maddie & Tae, Boyz II Men Hotel (7) Å sors Meeting Å
and Chris Tomlin. Brett Young hosts. 8 p.m. CMT Wednesday, December 8, Prime-time: Premium Cable Channels
Alter Ego The final four contestants compete and the 7:30 pm 8:00 pm 8:30 pm 9:00 pm 9:30 pm 10:00 pm 10:30 pm 11:00 pm 11:30 pm
winner is chosen in the season finale. 9 p.m. Fox Cinemax The King of Kill Bill: Vol. 1 ››› (2003) Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu. Awak- Kill Bill: Vol. 2 ››› (2004) Uma Thurman, David Carradine.
Staten Island ing from a coma, an assassin seeks vengeance against her Before confronting her former boss, an assassin goes after
Tyler Perry’s Sistas Karen (Ebony Obsidian) confronts ››› (2020) former boss and his ruthless gang. (R) Å the man’s younger brother and her one-eyed counterpart.
Fatima (Crystal Renee Hayslett) while Maurice (Brian Jor- (5:41) Å (R) (9:53) Å
dan Jr.) agrees to meet Que (Mackenro Alexander) at the po- Encore Narc ››› (2002) Ray Liotta, Jason Patric. Legally Blonde ›› (2001) Reese With- Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde ››
A policeman and a tough veteran try to erspoon, Luke Wilson. A sorority queen (2003) Reese Witherspoon, Sally Field.
lice station as he turns himself in. Devale Ellis also stars in solve the murder of the latter’s undercover enrolls in Harvard to prove to her former Fired from her firm, a young Boston lawyer
this new episode. 9 p.m. BET partner. (R) (7:14) Å boyfriend that she has more than good heads to Washington, D.C., to fight for ani-
looks. (PG-13) Å mal rights. (PG-13) (10:40) Å
Twenties Nia (Gabrielle Graham) weighs her options in
movie roles and in dating. Also, Marie (Christina Elmore) EPIX Condor The Fighter ››› (2010) Mark Wahlberg, Christian Bale. Crazy Heart ››› (2009) Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal.
(TVMA) Having earned a shot at a world championship, boxer Struggling with the reality of his declining career, an aging
challenges the premise of Ben’s (Alex Alomar Akpobome) (7:10) Å Micky Ward reunites with his estranged brother to train for country-music star finds unexpected inspiration with a
idea for a movie. 10 p.m. BET the fight and become the new Pride of Lowell. (R) Å small-town reporter and her young son. (R) Å

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Dee (Kaitlin Olson) is HBO Landscapers Space Jam: A New Legacy › (2021) LeBron James, Don Hard Knocks in Season: The Succession (TVMA) At a
(TVMA) (7) Cheadle. Live action/animated. Trapped in digital space by Indianapolis Colts (TV14) wedding in Italy, Roman airs
excited to head off for Hollywood while Charlie and Mac’s Å a rogue AI, LeBron James teams up with Bugs Bunny and Following the Colts as they suspicions; Gerri draws a
(Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney) jobs at the roller rink are in the rest of the Looney Tunes gang for a high-stakes bas- navigate the challenges of an line, and the Waystar team
jeopardy in the first two new episodes of the raunchy comedy. ketball game against digitized champions of the court — a NFL season and battle for a grows concerned over rogue
powered-up roster called the Goon Squad. (PG) Å playoff berth. (N) Å tweets. (10:50) Å
10 and 10:30 p.m. FXX
Showtime Silver Linings Dirty Tricks (2021) Documentary. When a Casino ››› (1995) Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone. A New York bookie and
Intergalactic Ash (Savannah Steyn) gets the cold shoul- Playbook competitive bridge player is accused of his pal turn a Las Vegas casino into an empire, then one’s money-hungry
der from the rest of the crew over her suspected betrayal of ››› (2012) cheating, the ensuing scandal confounds wife helps bring it down. (R) (9:45) Å
Bradley Coo- experts, criminal science, celebrities and
Dr. Grieves (Natasha O’Keeffe). Meanwhile, Candy (Eleanor per. (5:55) Å basic belief. Å
Tomlinson) is devastated over her mother’s death in this Starz Power Book II: Ghost (TVMA) Captain Phillips ››› (2013) Tom Hanks, Catherine Keener. In 2009, Somali Power Book II: Ghost (TVMA)
new episode of the science fiction adventure. 10 p.m. Syfy Diana grows wary of Cane’s pirates storm a U.S. containership and hold Capt. Richard Phillips and his Diana grows wary of Cane’s
motives. (7:40) Å crew captive. (PG-13) (8:42) Å motives. Å
SPECIALS TMC Young Adult Forces of Nature ›› (1999) Sandra Bullock, Ben Affleck. A The Hollars ›› (2016) John Krasinski, Made in Italy
››› (2011) bridegroom hurries by plane to his wedding, but he and his Margo Martindale. A man returns home to (2020) Liam
Nickelodeon’s Treasure Truck Four families compete in (R) (6:25) Å seatmate must find other modes of travel. (PG-13) Å his dysfunctional family after learning that Neeson. (R)
three rounds of holiday-themed challenges for the chance to his mother has a brain tumor. (PG-13) Å Å
win a truckload of presents. 7:30 p.m. Nickelodeon Wednesday, December 8, Prime-time: Cable News Channels
Christmas Around the World Dean Cain and Laura Mc- 7:30 pm 8:00 pm 8:30 pm 9:00 pm 9:30 pm 10:00 pm 10:30 pm 11:00 pm 11:30 pm
Kenzie host this new holiday special that showcases how the Bloomberg Markets: Asia Technology (TVG) Å Paid program Paid program Daybreak: Europe (TVG) Å Bloomberg Markets: Europe
holiday is celebrated around the world, including what vari- CNBC Jay Leno’s Jay Leno’s Garage Sugar Ray The News With Shepard Smith Jay Leno’s Garage Dwight Dateline (TVPG) Å
ous cultures regard as Christmas foods. 8 p.m. The CW Garage (7) Leonard; Ray Liotta. Å Å Yoakam; Paul Reiser. Å
CNN Don Lemon (7) Don Lemon Tonight (N) Å Anderson Cooper (TVPG) Å CNN Tonight Å Don Lemon Tonight Å
CMT a Tennessee Kind of Christmas Country music art-
CSPAN Politics and Public Policy Today (7) Å Politics and Public Policy Today Å
ists share holiday traditions, personal memories and per-
form their favorite Christmas songs in this holiday special. CSPAN2 Public Affairs Events (4:30) Public Affairs Events
9 p.m. CMT Fox B American Gold The Pursuit The Pursuit American Gold Bear Gulch Paid program Paid program Paid program Paid program
Fox News Ingraham (7) Gutfeld (N) Å News Å Tucker Carlson Å Hannity Å
SPORTS MSNBC Last Word (7) The 11th Hour (N) Å The Rachel Maddow Show Last Word Å The 11th Hour Å
College Basketball Ball State visits Xavier, 3:30 p.m. FS1; NEWSNTN Banfield (7) On Balance With Leland Vittert Dan Abrams Live Å NewsNation Prime Å Banfield Å
Connecticut visits West Virginia, 4 p.m. ESPN2; Maryland- SN-1 News News News News News News
Baltimore County visits Georgetown, 5:30 p.m. FS1; Mar-
Wednesday, December 8, Prime-time: Cable
quette visits Kansas State, 6 p.m. ESPN2
7:30 pm 8:00 pm 8:30 pm 9:00 pm 9:30 pm 10:00 pm 10:30 pm 11:00 pm 11:30 pm
NBA Basketball The Milwaukee Bucks visit the Miami A&E Court Cam Å Court Cam Å Court Cam Å Court Cam Å Court Cam Å Killer Cases (TV14) (N) Å Court Cam Å Court Cam Å
Heat, 4:30 p.m. ESPN; the Portland Trail Blazers visit the AMC Vegas Vacation National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation ››› (1989) Chevy Chase, Beverly National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation ›››
Golden State Warriors, 7:05 p.m. ESPN; the Boston Celtics (6) Å D’Angelo. (PG-13) Å (1989) Chevy Chase. (PG-13) (10:15) Å
visit the Clippers, 7:30 p.m. BSSC Animal P Alaska (7) Å The Last Alaskans (TV14) The Last Alaskans (TVPG) The Last Alaskans (TVPG) The Last Alaskans (TV14)
NHL Hockey The Dallas Stars visit the Vegas Golden BBC A L&O (7) Law & Order (TVPG) Å Law & Order (TVPG) Å Law & Order (TV14) Å Law & Order (TV14) Å
Knights, 7 p.m. TNT BET Sleepless ›› (2017) Jamie Foxx, Michelle Tyler Perry’s Sistas Karen con- Twenties Twenties After Tyler Perry’s Sistas (TV14)
Monaghan. (R) (6:30) Å fronts Fatima. (N) Å (TV14) (N) Å Show (N) Å Karen confronts Fatima. Å
TALK SHOWS Bravo Housewives of The Real Housewives of Orange The Real Housewives of Orange County (TV14) The Real Housewives of Orange Sex and the
Atlanta (7) Å County (TV14) (N) Å (N) Å County (TV14) Å City Å
CBS Mornings Michael J. Fox; Paola Pimienta. (N) 7 a.m.
KCBS CMT Jeff Dunham’s Crossroads (TVPG) Christ- CMT a Tennessee Kind of Crossroads Christmas: Brett Mom (TV14) Mom (TV14)
Christmas Spe- mas: Brett Young. Featuring Christmas Country music art- Young & Friends. Featuring Å Å
Today Cynthia Nixon. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC cial (TV14) Darius Rucker, Colbie Caillat, ists share holiday traditions, Darius Rucker, Colbie Caillat,
(7) Å Gavin DeGraw, Maddie & personal memories and per- Gavin DeGraw, Maddie &
Good Morning America Zachary Levi; Kurt Warner; Tae, Boyz II Men and Chris form their favorite Christmas Tae, Boyz II Men and Chris
Tomlin. (N) Å songs. (N) Å Tomlin. Å
David Rose; Shaggy performs. (N) 7 a.m. KABC
Comedy South Park (TV14) (7:45) Å South Park Å South Park Å South Park Å South Park Å South Park Å Daily Show South Park Å
Live With Kelly and Ryan Cynthia Nixon; Heather Gra- Discovery Moonshiners Moonshiners (TV14) (N) Å Moonshiners: Master Distiller Moonshiners: Deck the Stills (TV14) (Season premiere) (N) Å
ham. (N) 9 a.m. KABC (7) (TV14) (N) Å
The View Gov. Gavin Newsom; Penn & Teller. (N) 10 a.m. Disney Big City Greens Big City Greens Big City Greens Raven’s Home Raven’s Home Big City Greens Big City Greens Miraculous Å Miraculous Å
KABC E! Modern Family Modern Family Modern Family The Bradshaw Clash of the Cover Bands The Nightly Pop (N) (10:45) Å Access Holly-
(TVPG) Å (TVPG) Å (TVPG) Å Bunch (TVPG) music of Dolly Parton and wood (TVPG)
Rachael Ray Vanessa Lachey (“NCIS: Hawai’i”). (N) (N) Å Carrie Underwood. (N) Å (N) (11:45) Å
10 a.m. KTTV Food Guy’s Grocery Guy’s Grocery Games (TVG) A Guy’s Grocery Games (TVG) Å Guy’s Grocery Games (TVG) Å Guy’s Grocery Games (TVG) Å
Games (7) Å holiday cook-off. Å
The Wendy Williams Show (N) 11 a.m. KTTV Freeform Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch ›› (2018) (PG) Å The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) Å The 700 Club (N) Å
The Talk Kimberly Williams-Paisley and Ashley Williams. FX Jurassic World: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood ››› (2019) Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood ›››
(N) 1 p.m. KCBS Fallen Kingdom An investigative journalist who receives an assignment to profile Mr. Rog- (2019) Tom Hanks, Matthew Rhys. A jour-
(5) Å ers. (PG) Å nalist profiles Fred Rogers. (PG) Å
Tamron Hall Debbie Allen; Cameron Mathison. (N) FXX The Simpsons Family Guy Family Guy Family Guy Family Guy It’s Always It’s Always It’s Always It’s Always
1 p.m. KABC (TVPG) Å (TVPG) Å (TV14) Å (TV14) Å (TV14) Å Sunny in Sunny in Sunny in Sunny in
Philadelphia Philadelphia Philadelphia Philadelphia
The Dr. Oz Show Patricia Heaton (“Everybody Loves (TVMA) (N) (TVMA) (N) (TVMA) Å (11:35) Å
Raymond”); a cold vs. RSV vs. COVID-19. (N) 1 p.m. KTTV Hallmark Never Kiss Crown for Christmas (2015) Danica McKellar. After getting Sister Swap: A Hometown Holiday (2021) Kimberly Wil-
a Man in a fired from her job as a maid at a ritzy New York City hotel, liams-Paisley, Ashley Williams. Two sisters find a new
The Drew Barrymore Show Ben and Erin Napier Christmas a woman accepts a temporary job as governess to a young sense of purpose and discover what they both truly need in
(“Home Town”); Kristin Chenoweth. (N) 2 p.m. KCBS Sweater (6) Å girl who is part of a powerful European family. Å life during the holidays. Å

The Kelly Clarkson Show Sandra Bullock; Yvonne Orji; HGTV Property Property Brothers: Forever Property Brothers: Forever House Hunters House Hunters Flipping Showdown (N) Å
Brothers (7) Home (TVG) (N) Å Home (TVG) Å (TVG) (N) Å International
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss perform. (N) 2 p.m. KNBC
History Forged in Fire Forged in Fire (TVPG) Å Forged in Fire (TVPG) (N) Å Forged in Fire (TVPG) Å
Dr. Phil Human trafficking; sexting; what to look for on a IFC Raymond Å Raymond Å Raymond Å Raymond Å Raymond (TVPG) (9:42) Å Raymond Å Raymond Å Raymond Å
child’s phone. (N) 3 p.m. KCBS Lifetime A Sweet Christmas With a Crown (2020) Lisa Durupt. When a suc- Miracle in Motor City (2021) Tia Mowry, Mark Taylor. A
Christmas Ro- cessful woman returns to her hometown to revive her fami- woman takes charge of her church’s annual Christmas
The Ellen DeGeneres Show Rosario Dawson; Ed mance (2019) ly’s Christmas festival, she meets a dashing stranger who’s pageant and unintentionally promises to deliver a special
Sheeran. (N) 3 p.m. KNBC (6) Å on a quest to find the holidays’ true spirit. Å performance by Motown legend Smokey Robinson. Å
The Real Porsha Williams; Surgeon General Dr. Vivek MTV Ridiculousness The Challenge (TV14) (N) Å Ridiculousness Ridiculousness Ridiculousness Ridiculousness Ridiculousness
Murthy. (N) 3 p.m. KCOP Nat Geo To Catch a To Catch a Smuggler: Peru Å Trafficked With Mariana van Zeller (TV14) (N) Trafficked With Mariana van Airport Securi-
Smuggler (7) Å Zeller (TV14) (10:15) Å ty Peru
Amanpour & Company (N) 11 p.m. KCET Nickelodeon Treasure Truck (TVG) (N) Å Despicable Me 2 ››› (2013) Voice of Steve Carell. (PG) Å Friends Å Friends Å Friends Å
The Daily Show With Trevor Noah (N) 11 p.m. Comedy OWN 20/20 (TV14) A Sisterly Christmas (2021) Deborah Joy Winans, Lisa Mi- Baking Christmas (2019) Tim Reid, Aloma Wright.
Central (7) chelle Cornelius.
Paramount My Cousin Vinny ››› (1992) Joe Pesci. (R) (7) Å Forrest Gump ›››› (1994) Tom Hanks, Robin Wright. (PG-13) (9:40) Å
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Nicole Kid- Sundance Criminal Minds Criminal Minds (TV14) Å Criminal Minds (TV14) Å Criminal Minds (TV14) Å Criminal Minds (TV14) Å
man; Úrsula Corberó; Stromae performs. (N) 11:34 p.m.
Syfy Back to the Future Part III ››› (1990) Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd. Intergalactic (TVMA) Emma Back to the Future Part III ›››
KNBC A young man takes a DeLorean time machine to the Old West, where his deals with the death of her (1990) Michael J. Fox, Chris-
inventor friend is courting a schoolmarm. (PG) Å mother. (N) Å topher Lloyd. (PG) Å
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert 11:35 p.m. KCBS
TBS Big Bang Å Big Bang Å Big Bang Å Big Bang Å Big Bang Å Big Bang Å Samantha Bee Samantha Bee Young Sheldon
Jimmy Kimmel Live! Rob McElhenney; Ariana DeBose; TCM For Whom the Bell Tolls ››› (1943) Gary Cooper, Ingrid Bergman. (7:15) Å Stromboli ›› (1950) (10:15) Å
Sting performs. (N) 11:35 p.m. KABC TLC Pimple (7) My 600-Lb. Life (TVPG) (N) Dr. Pimple Popper (TV14) 1000-Lb. Sisters (TV14)
The Late Late Show With James Corden Mariah Carey. TNT NHL Hockey Dallas Stars at Vegas Golden Knights. From T-Mobile Arena in I Am Legend ››› (2007) Will Smith. After a man-made
(N) 12:37 a.m. KCBS Las Vegas. (Live) (7) Å plague transforms Earth’s population into bloodthirsty vam-
pires, a lone survivor desperately searches for a cure. Å
Late Night With Seth Meyers Brian Cox; Wet Leg per- Toon Teen Titans Go! Teen Titans Go! Teen Titans Go! King of the Hill King of the Hill Bob’s Burgers Bob’s Burgers American Dad American Dad
forms; Nikki Glaspie with the 8G Band. (N) 12:37 a.m. KNBC (TVPG) (TVPG) (8:45) (TVPG) (TVPG) (TVPG) Å (TVPG) Å (TV14) Å (TV14) Å

Nightline (N) 12:37 a.m. KABC Travel Ghost Adven- Ghost Adventures Zak and the crew confront an extremely Portals to Hell (TV14) (N) Å Ghost Adventures (TVPG) Å
tures (7) Å hostile entity at the infamous Goatman’s Bridge. (N) Å
MOVIES TruTV Jokers (TV14) Jokers (TV14) Jokers (TV14) Jokers (TV14) Jokers (TV14) Jokers (TV14) Jokers (TV14) Jokers (TV14) Jokers (TV14)
Christmas With a Crown When Cassie (Lisa Durupt) TV Land Andy Griffith Raymond Å Raymond Å Raymond Å Raymond Å Raymond Å Raymond Å King of Queens King of Queens
travels home to help revive her family’s traditional Christ- USA L&O: SVU (7) Law & Order: SVU (TV14) Å Law & Order: SVU (TV14) Å Law & Order: SVU (TV14) Å Law & Order: SVU (TV14) Å
mas festival she works with Nicolas (Marcus Rosner), a char- VH1 The Equalizer ›› (2014) Denzel Washington, Marton Csokas. A former Mayor of Kingstown (TVMA) Brothers Mitch and Mike Mc-
commando comes out of retirement and puts his special skills to work to Lusky navigate Kingstown, home to multiple prisons, as
ismatic stranger who has volunteered his service. She has no rescue a girl who is under the control of ruthless Russian mobsters. (R) they act as the liaisons between prisoners and the commu-
idea he is actually a prince, going incognito and hoping his (7) Å nity. (N) Å
masquerade will help him get into the Christmas spirit. Teryl
Wednesday, December 8, Prime-time: Cable Sports Channels
Rothery, Michael Lazarovitch, Dianne Mahoney and Jesse
Gervais also star in this 2021 holiday romance. 8 p.m. Life- 7:30 pm 8:00 pm 8:30 pm 9:00 pm 9:30 pm 10:00 pm 10:30 pm 11:00 pm 11:30 pm
time BSSC NBA Basketball Boston Celtics at Clippers. (Live) Postgame Clippers NBA Basketball
BSW Ninja (7) Å American Ninja Warrior Å Shogun Fights Shogun Fights Poker
Dirty Tricks Director Daniel Sivan’s 2021 documentary ESPN NBA Basketball (Live) (7:05) SportsCenter (N) (9:35) SportsCenter (N) SportsCenter
takes viewers inside the world of elite competitive bridge to ESPN2 Basketball (6) SportsCenter (N) Å SportsCenter Relentless Around Horn Interruption NBA Basketball (N)
examine a cheating scandal. The story focuses mainly on
FS1 NFL Films Huddle Skip and Shannon: Undisputed Å TMZ Sports NFL Films College Basketball Å
Lotan Fisher, an Israeli prodigy with a photographic memo-
ry who with Ron Schwartz, swiftly rose through the ranks un- NFL Football (5) NFL Total Access (TVG) Å NFL Fantasy Live Å NFL Football (Tape) Å
til a former teammate accused them of cheating. 8 p.m. NBC Sports Chess Å Mecum Auto Auctions Å
Showtime SNLA Dodgers Rewind From Aug. 20, 2021. (6) Dodgermentary: 1988 World Series Connected Fernandomania
EE2 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021 LOS ANGELES TIMES

($.(.!,'%

*.!& )-#(%)

฀
฀

฀
฀

*!,(" ($%++#%)

)0..'$ ',//#/)
LOS ANGELES TIMES WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021 S1

IS

Learn More at Our

IMPROVE YOUR
HEARING EVENT
December 13–17
Engage your brain’s full potential and
experience the advanced technology of Oticon.
Try a FREE technology demo at our event!

Call today to
save your spot!

South Bay Hearing 310.803.9411

Torrance • 3734 W Sepulveda Blvd
S2 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021 LOS ANGELES TIMES

You Hear With Your Ears and Your Brain

When you hear a sound, your brain locates it, focuses your attention on it,
separates out background noise, and tries to recognize it to create meaning. But
hearing loss jumbles sounds, so your brain has to work harder to understand,
which leaves less brainpower for other things — like thinking and remembering.

Hearing Technology Lightens

Your Brain’s Load
Today’s hearing technology locates the sounds you’re trying to hear, focuses on
them, and separates out background noise — before the sound even reaches
your eardrum. Your brain then easily processes the sound, which frees up
brainpower for thinking, rememberin d much
ng, and h more.
Today’s tech can:

SEAMLESSLY STREA AM
Advanced technology letss you stream
audio from your mobile de
eviice
es

RELIABLY RECHARG GE
Rechargeable options freee you u fro
om
the hassle of changing batttterie
es*

TACKLE TINNITUS
Sound therapy options dec eccreaase the
e
stress of tinnitus (chronic ringing in the ears)*

CONTROL WITH CONFIDENCE

Discreetly ine-tune,personalize, and
geotag your settings from your smartphone*

APPOINTMENT-FREE ADJUSTMENTS
Use your smartphone to request setting updates
from your provider via the cloud*

*Not available in all hearing device models.

Test-Drive an Oticon Hearing System

FOR
75 DAYS RISK-FREE
 LOS ANGELES TIMES WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021 S3

How’s Your Hearing?

If two or more of these sound familiar, contact us to
o
schedule a complimentary hearing consultation
and tech demo.
You frequently have to turn up the volume on the TV.
You often ask people to repeat themselves.
You avoid talking on the phone because it makes you tired.
You can hear people but have a hard time understanding them.
You have diiculty understanding speech in background noise.
Your family complains about your hearing.

Learn More at Our

IMPROVE YOUR
HEARING EVENT
December 13–17
J
JOIN US AT OUR EVENT TO: • Learn about your hearing care options
• Meet our expert hearing care team • Experience a hands-on
• Receive a complimentary hearing demonstration of the latest hearing
screening and consultation technology and accessories

Space is limited.
Call today to RSVP!
310.803.9411
South Bay Heari
Hearing
ng Torrance • 3734 W Sepulveda Blvd

SouthBayHearing.com
S4 WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2021 LOS ANGELES TIMES

FINDING THE
RIGHT SOLUTION
REQUIRES BEST-IN-CLASS
HEARING CARE
We want to help you make the best decision about your hearing health care —
an informed one. We work with you to understand your hearing health, your
hearing needs, and your technology options. The nature of our relationship
isn’t transactional, it’s personal. When you come to see us, we’ll talk about your
concerns, your questions, and our favorite part: how you can engage fully with
your world through better hearing.

Engage your brain’s full potential — join us at our

IMPROVE YOUR
HEARING EVENT
December 13–17

Space is limited. Call today to RSVP!

310.803.9411

$500
TRADE-UP ALLOWANCE OR
UP
TO NEW-USER CREDIT TOWARD NEW
HEARING DEVICES (OFF MSRP)
All trade-ins are accepted regardless of where they were purchased. Good toward
the purchase of an AGX5, 7, or 9 two-device hearing system. Offer cannot be
combined with any other promotional discount. Expires 12/31/21.

South Bay Heari

Hearing
ng
Torrance • 3734 W Sepulveda Blvd

Melinda “Sunni” McBride, Au.D., Doctor of Audiology • Chris Johnson, Au.D., Doctor of Audiology
Ian Gerszewski, Au.D., Doctor of Audiology • Matt Young, Au.D., Doctor of Audiology • Anna Javins, Au.D., Doctor of Audiology

SouthBayHearing.com