For many children, the game of hide-and-seek is played for fun, but for Betty Nasiell, hiding during part of her childhood was the key to her survival.

When she was 6 years old and living in her native Netherlands, Nasiell saw German soldiers marching past her house singing a song about continuing on to England.

It was May 1940, and the Germans had overrun her country in their bid to dominate Europe and the world during World War II.

“My father told me not to worry, and I was too young to realize the consequences,” Nasiell, 89, said in a recent interview at her home in Laguna Woods, where she has lived for 35 years,

When her mother asked if the family could go to America, her father said it was too late to escape, she recalled.

Soon Nasiell was unable to attend school or play with neighborhood children due to German decrees regarding the treatment of members of the Jewish faith.

“We had to wear a yellow star on our coats, which was sewn on to designate we were Jews,” she said in an account of her life written up by friend and neighbor AJ Lane.

“I had no idea what it was for,” Nasiell said. “I was mad about not playing with my other girlfriends.”

Although they had enough food on the table, her parents, Leo and Sascha van der Horst, had to close the department store they owned in the town of Steenwijk and relinquish their car. Leo was taken away briefly by the Germans but fortunately returned to his family in time for his wife’s birthday.

By 1942, Nasiell’s parents knew it was time to disappear with help from the local underground movement.

“My sister and I were deposited with some former store employees nearby for one night,” Nasiell said in Lane’s account. Strangers from the underground picked her up and took her by herself to the home of a couple named Liefland in Utrecht to go into hiding.

“I wasn’t thinking anything at the time but knew I couldn’t go outside except at night so I wouldn’t be seen,” Nasiell said.

During a necessary visit to a doctor, she was briefly reunited with her sister, Kathy, who was three years older, in the waiting room. She discovered that her sister had been sent to several homes in hiding but was so homesick and depressed, she was reunited with their parents.

When neighbors collaborating with the Germans entered the house where Nasiell was staying and asked her point-blank if she was Jewish, she answered that she was.

“No one had told me to say that I wasn’t,” she said.

Taken in for interrogation, she told the authorities honestly that she didn’t know where her parents were despite threats of having her ears cut off.

She was taken away to Amsterdam and held with other Jews in a theater before they were to be shipped off to Poland. Members of the underground managed to find out that she had relatives in the city who owned a kosher restaurant.

Her aunt and uncle, named Hiechentlich, paid a ransom to have Nasiell freed, and she stayed with them for several months.

Again the Germans were threatening to send Jews on their “last trip.” A member of the underground picked up Nasiell and took her to a drugstore.

“I was sitting in the corner with the Star of David under my coat,” she related to Lane. When a Nazi soldier came in and asked what she was doing there, the pharmacist said she was waiting for a prescription.

An underground worker then spirited her across the Netherlands by train to the eastern town of Nijverdal, where she joined the household of a childless couple named Pieter and Klasien Bakker. Along the way, they passed through Nasiell’s native city, but no one recognized her.

At her new hiding place, Nasiell experienced more freedom of movement. She could go anywhere she wanted.

“The neighborhood knew I was Jewish, but I did not have to display the star,” she told Lane. As the school principal was also hiding a Jewish boy, they both could go to school.

When German troops commandeered the house she was living in, she and the family went to the country, where they lived on a farm in Hellendoren. During the time she was with the Bakkers, Nasiell said she grew so much that she had to cut the toes off her shoes because new ones were not available.

As the Germans retreated toward the end of the war, they became more desperate, even launching a hand grenade through the house where Nasiell was living, nearly striking her.

In May 1945, the Netherlands was liberated. Canadians and Americans on tanks came driving into town, throwing loaves of Wonder Bread at the exhilarated people, who were finally free. When she tasted the bread, Nasiell thought it was cake, she recalled.

A few weeks after returning to the Bakkers’ house, she was reunited with her mother and sister. They had all lived in hiding, including her sister, who had been transferred 16 times.

When she asked where her father was, she learned that he had died of a heart attack two weeks before the war ended. “I never saw my father again,” Nasiell said.

“If I hadn’t been sent to eastern Holland, I would have starved,” she told Lane. “The western part of Holland had no food. And the fact that I was oblivious to what was happening around me saved my life.”

The reunited family went back to their hometown, where her mother reopened their store.

“Mother had a box of buttons that she displayed in the store’s window,” Nasiell recalled. “That’s why people came back to the store, because they needed buttons!” The store also sold clothing and linens.

Nasiell returned to school, entering fifth grade as if she had never missed any learning time.

An uncle with a store in northern Holland helped the family get back on its feet, and three years later, her mother was remarried to a man named Hans Hartog.

In 1959, Nasiell came to the United States with her first husband, a Dutchman who served in the U.S. Army, and lived in California. They had two sons, Leon and Irvin. Later divorced, she married Gus Nasiell, a Swede, with whom she moved to the Village. He died last year.

Neighbor Lane met Nasiell at the pool three years ago, became fascinated by her story and wrote a short biography for the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, which chronicles the history of the Holocaust.

“You are living history,” Lane tells Nasiell and feels adamant that her friend’s story be told before it is too late, before living witnesses to the horrors of the Holocaust are gone.

Nasiell said she feels great gratitude to the people who risked their lives to hide her.

“I regret that I never went back to thank the families I lived with,” she said. “I never saw them again nor remained in contact.”

She and Lane hope that by publicizing her story, descendants of the families who saved her may reach out and make contact after all these years.

The final week of the 2023 high school football regular season is here.

Several Inland teams already have secured playoffs spots, and many other teams can clinch berths this week.

Teams that do not secure automatic berths from their league can apply for an at-large postseason berth.

The CIF Southern Section will release brackets for the football playoffs Sunday, Oct. 29., beginning at 10 a.m.

The number of automatic berths for each league is in parenthesis.

BASELINE LEAGUE (2)

Rancho Cucamonga clinches with a win or a Damien loss

Damien clinches with a win

Upland clinches with a win plus a Damien loss

BIG WEST CONFERENCE-NORTH DIVISION (3)

Centennial has clinched

Chaparral clinches with a win

Murrieta Valley clinches with a win

Roosevelt clinches with a win

Vista Murrieta clinches win a win

BIG WEST CONFERENCE-SOUTH DIVISION (3)

Great Oak has clinched

King has clinched

Murrieta Mesa has clinched

CITRUS 4 LEAGUE (2)

Colony has clinched

Glendora has clinched

CITRUS BELT LEAGUE (3)

Citrus Valley has clinched

Beaumont has clinched

Cajon has clinched

COTTONWOOD LEAGUE (3)

Maranatha has clinched

Whittier Christian has clinched

Santa Rosa Academy has clinched

DESERT VALLEY LEAGUE (3)

Yucca Valley has clinched

Coachella Valley clinches with a win or a loss by Desert Hot Springs

Desert Hot Springs clinches with a win or a loss by Indio

Indio clinches with a win plus a loss by Desert Hot Springs

HACIENDA LEAGUE (2)

Diamond Bar has clinched

Walnut clinches with a win

Nogales clinches with a win

INLAND VALLEY LEAGUE (2)

Hemet has clinched

Rancho Christian clinches with a win

Moreno Valley clinches with a win

IRONWOOD LEAGUE (3)

Aquinas has clinched

Ontario Christian has clinched

Village Christian clinches with a win

Cerritos Valley Christian clinches with a win

IVY LEAGUE (3)

Orange Vista has clinched

Rancho Verde has clinched

Elsinore clinches with a win

Temescal Canyon clinches with a win plus a loss by North

MANZANITA LEAGUE (3)

Silver Valley has clinched

Webb has clinched

Temecula Prep clinches with a win

California Military Institute clinches with a win plus a loss by Nuview Bridge

MESQUITE LEAGUE (3)

Capistrano Valley Christian has clinched

Linfield Christian has clinched

Arrowhead Christian Academy has clinched

MIRAMONTE LEAGUE (2)

La Puente has clinched

Garey has clinched

MT. BALDY 4 LEAGUE (2)

Hacienda Heights Wilson has clinched

Baldwin Park has clinched

MOUNTAIN PASS LEAGUE (3)

Liberty has clinched

San Jacinto has clinched

Tahquitz has clinched

MOUNTAIN VALLEY LEAGUE (3)

Miller has clinched

San Bernardino has clinched

Jurupa Valley has clinched

MOUNTAIN WEST LEAGUE (2)

Ayala has clinched

Bonita clinches with a win

Charter Oak clinches with a win

RIVER VALLEY LEAGUE (3)

Norte Vista has clinched

Hillcrest has clinched

Patriot clinches with a win or a loss by Ramona

Ramona clinches with a win plus a loss by Patriot

SAN ANDREAS LEAGUE (2)

Kaiser has clinched

Rim of the World has clinched

SAN ANTONIO LEAGUE (2)

Don Lugo clinches with a win or loss by West Covina

West Covina clinches with a win plus a loss by Claremont

Claremont clinches with a win plus a loss by West Covina

SIERRA LEAGUE (2)

Chino has clinched

Covina clinches with a win

Rowland clinches with a win

SKYLINE LEAGUE (3)

San Gorgonio has clinched

Bloomington clinches win a win or a loss by Fontana

Arroyo Valley clinches win a win

Fontana clinches with a win plus a loss by San Gorgonio

SUNBELT LEAGUE (2)

Paloma Valley has clinched

Vista del Lago clinches with a win

Riverside Poly clinches with a win

SUNKIST LEAGUE (2)

Eisenhower has clinched

Jurupa Hills clinches with a win

Summit clinches win a win

VALLE VISTA LEAGUE (2)

Northview clinches with a win or a loss by San Dimas

San Dimas clinches with a win plus a loss by Diamond Ranch

Diamond Ranch clinches with a win plus a loss San Dimas

Joe Biden didn’t set out to be a wartime president, but he made himself one.

Last week, the president staked his place in history on the outcomes of two conflicts: Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine’s war against an invading Russia.

When Biden came to the White House in 2021, his foreign policy goals were more modest. He wanted to rebuild alliances that had frayed under his predecessor, Donald Trump. He wanted to refocus on great-power competition with China. And he wanted to withdraw the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan — a mission he accomplished in chaos.

Two events have changed the landscape.

Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, seeking to turn an independent country into a colony. Last week, Israel prepared to launch a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip to destroy the Hamas regime that attacked Israeli towns and villages.

On Thursday, Biden yoked the two crises together and declared a new primary goal for American foreign policy: “Making sure Israel and Ukraine succeed.”

“We’re facing an inflection point in history — one of those moments where the decisions we make today are going to determine the future for decades to come,” he said.

“We cannot and will not let terrorists like Hamas and tyrants like Putin win,” he said, adding, “I refuse to let that happen.”

Consciously or not, he was echoing President George H.W. Bush’s response to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait: “This will not stand.”

In a narrow sense, Biden’s speech was merely a legislative gambit. On Friday, he sent Congress a request for $105 billion in emergency funding — mostly for Ukraine, but with substantial sums for Israel, Palestinian humanitarian aid, U.S. border security and Taiwan.

His hope is that Congress, including Republicans skeptical about supporting Ukraine, will find it easier to pass a bill that includes something for everyone.

But the president’s message was much broader than the wrangle over funding, and his real target was the American public.

He clearly wanted to push back against increasing sentiment among voters, especially Republicans, that the United States should reduce its commitments overseas.

In several polls over the last year, a gradually growing share of voters has said the United States should take a less active role in the world. In a September survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a majority of Republican voters — 53% — said they believed the United States should “stay out of world affairs,” the first such finding in the poll’s 49-year history.

Biden has reframed his rationale for helping Ukraine and Israel. Last year, after Russia’s invasion, he described the stakes as a “battle between democracy and autocracy” — a formula that may have been too abstract for some voters.

Last week, he focused his pitch closer to home.

“Making sure Israel and Ukraine succeed is vital for America’s national security,” he argued. “It’s a smart investment that’s going to pay dividends for American security for generations [and] help us keep American troops out of harm’s way.”

Biden had another broad point to make.

“American leadership is what holds the world together,” he said. “American alliances are what keep us — America — safe.”

He quoted the late Madeleine Albright, who as the irrepressibly activist secretary of State under President Clinton called the United States “the indispensable nation.”

And he reached back to 1940, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed the United States to be “the arsenal of democracy” in the early days of World War II.

In effect, Biden is trying to build a new version of the Cold War thinking that dominated U.S. foreign policy for much of the second half of the 20th century, when he began his political career: the principle that assertive U.S. leadership is essential to world peace.

The two conflicts he is tackling won’t be easy to manage.

Israel can presumably prevail in a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, but it will then face more difficult challenges: pacifying and administering the battle zone, and reviving the neglected search for peace with the Palestinians. Biden gave Israel’s leaders advice on those counts both publicly and privately last week; to help Israel succeed over the long run, he will need to give much more.

Ukraine’s 20-month war has been costly in blood and treasure (the United States has already provided more than $75 billion, European countries even more), and Putin appears dug in, waiting to see whether his longtime admirer, Trump, will return to the White House in 2025.

Presidents are often measured by how they lead in times of crisis. Last week, Biden put his place in history on the line.

He set an ambitious goal — making sure both Israel and Ukraine “succeed” — and made it the yardstick of his leadership.

Voters are more likely to judge him by the state of the economy. But historians will evaluate him by the measure he set for himself.

Jim Meduri answered a terrifying phone call in January from a man pretending to be his son.

The caller, who sounded on the verge of tears, said he’d been in a car accident. Meduri was convinced his son had been arrested for driving under the influence and injuring a pregnant woman and her daughter.

The San Jose resident later spoke to people impersonating a defense attorney and a courthouse clerk, who told him his son might be sent from the Bay Area to Nevada because of a monkeypox outbreak at the jail. Panicked and in a rush, Meduri agreed to send bail money through cryptocurrency. The fake lawyer directed Meduri, 65, to an ATM where people can buy the digital currency bitcoin. He inserted $15,000 in cash into the machine, scanned a code provided by the scammers and transferred the money.

When Meduri realized he’d been duped, his money was gone.

“They played on fear and what a parent would do to help their kid, and it was elaborate,” said Meduri, who was able to get most of his money back with help from the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office.

Meduri’s misfortune is just one example of how scammers are using bitcoin ATMs to swindle victims out of thousands of dollars, fraud that law enforcement officials warn is on the rise.

The machines, located in convenience stores, gas stations and even bakeries, are an easy way for people to buy cryptocurrency quickly with cash, which is harder to track than a wire transfer or check. As scammers exploit the convenience these machines provide, bitcoin ATMs are also attracting the attention of lawmakers, regulators and consumer advocacy groups looking to protect people from fraud and exorbitant fees.

Starting in January, California will limit cryptocurrency ATM transactions to $1,000 per day per person under Senate Bill 401, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law. Some bitcoin ATM machines advertise limits as high as $50,000. The new law also bars bitcoin ATM operators from collecting fees higher than $5 or 15% of the transaction, whichever is greater, starting in 2025. Legislative staff members visited a crypto kiosk in Sacramento and found markups as high as 33% on some digital assets when they compared the prices at which cryptocurrency is bought and sold. Typically, a crypto ATM charges fees between 12% and 25% over the value of the digital asset, according to a legislative analysis.

“This bill is about ensuring that people who have been frauded in our communities don’t continue to watch our state step aside when we know that these are real problems that are happening,” said Sen. Monique Limón, D-Goleta, who co-authored the bill.

While similar scams have existed long before the rising popularity of cryptocurrency, the use of these digital assets by fraudsters has been increasing, according to the Federal Trade Commission. Since 2021, more than 46,000 people reported losing over $1 billion in crypto to scams, the agency reported in 2022.

Victims of bitcoin ATM scams say limiting the transactions will give people more time to figure out they’re being tricked and prevent them from using large amounts of cash to buy cryptocurrency. But crypto ATM operators say the new laws will harm their industry and the small businesses they pay to rent space for the machines. There are more than 3,200 bitcoin ATMs in California, according to Coin ATM Radar, a site that tracks the machines’ locations.

“This bill fails to adequately address how to crack down on fraud, and instead takes a punitive path focused on a specific technology that will shudder the industry and hurt consumers, while doing nothing to stop bad actors,” said Charles Belle, executive director of the Blockchain Advocacy Coalition.

While California lawmakers have striven to balance the need to support the cryptocurrency industry and protect consumers, recent legislation has hewed toward tighter state regulation. Another law would by July 2025 require digital financial asset businesses to obtain a license from the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation.

When signing the legislation, Assembly Bill 39, Newsom included a message that said the law needed further refinement to provide clarity to consumers, businesses and state regulators.

“It is essential that we strike the appropriate balance between protecting consumers from harm and fostering a responsible innovation environment,” he wrote.

In 2022, months before the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Newsom vetoed a similar bill that would have required cryptocurrency companies to get a state license, citing concerns a new regulatory program would be costly and the actions were premature.

Erin West, a Santa Clara County deputy district attorney who helped Meduri recover his money, said scammers turn to bitcoin ATM machines because they accept large amounts of cash. The value of bitcoin can also rise, giving fraudsters a way to increase their plunder.

Scammers use different tactics to trick people into handing over their money, including creating a false sense of urgency and winning over their trust. Some befriend or seduce their victims through social media or dating apps, luring them into a web of lies that include fake emergencies. Other times, the scam starts with a text message directing victims to a fake cryptocurrency investment site.

West said her team has been able to recover $2.5 million for scam victims like Meduri by tracking down the cryptocurrency exchange that was involved in the transaction. After Meduri put $15,000 into a kiosk operated by Bitcoin ATM Services, the digital money ended up in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. The exchange complied with a search warrant, allowing her team to retrieve the stolen funds from Binance and return them to Meduri.

While it’s possible for cryptocurrency victims to get their money back even if it travels overseas, West said it’s rare. Some cryptocurrency exchanges are more cooperative with law enforcement than others, she said.

“This whole thing is a speed game,” said West, who is part of a task force called REACT — Regional Enforcement Allied Computer Team — that combats high-tech crimes. “Can we get the victim in front of a competent investigator who knows how to find things on the blockchain in the least amount of time?” Blockchain is a type of shared digital database that stores information about crypto transactions.

An 80-year-old retired teacher in Los Angeles, whom The Times previously interviewed, said she hasn’t been able to recover $69,000 she sent to scammers through a bitcoin ATM over multiple days in May. The stolen funds ended up in Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchanges KuCoin and Huobi.

The scam started when Mrs. K, who wants to remain anonymous because she’s more wary about giving out her personal information, got a loud pop-up alert that her computer was infected with a virus. After calling a fake tech support number and later talking to a person impersonating the FBI, Mrs. K thought her Chase bank account had been taken over by foreign Chinese hackers involved in a child pornography case. To keep up the elaborate ruse, the scammers also sent Mrs. K fake Chase bank emails.

“If it wasn’t this convoluted mishmash, I probably would have been a little smarter and not fallen into this trap,” Mrs. K said. “I feel so disappointed in myself that I just fell hook, line and sinker.”

Mrs. K said the FBI impersonator told her to withdraw $75,000 in cash over three days from her Chase checking account and not tell anyone. If workers at the bank asked, the scammer told Mrs. K to say that she was withdrawing cash for construction.

The FBI impersonator convinced Mrs. K she could help law enforcement catch the child predators if she converted the cash to cryptocurrency and transfered the funds to a digital wallet the agency would monitor. The intricate lie eventually led Mrs. K to a Coinhub Bitcoin ATM machine at a doughnut shop in Highland Park that accepts up to $25,000 in cash daily per person.

By the time she realized it was a scam, Mrs. K had already sent $69,000 to the fraudsters. She reported the crime to police, but hasn’t been able to recover her money.

Under federal law, bitcoin ATM operators are typically considered money services businesses so they’re required to register with the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN. The agency collects and analyzes financial information to combat money laundering and other illegal uses. The businesses must also maintain an anti-money-laundering program and report suspicious activity to the agency.

Logan Short, the CEO of LSGT Services, which does business as Coinhub Bitcoin ATM, said in an email the company does “everything in its power to protect consumers, but unfortunately fraud is not 100% preventable in any industry.” The Las Vegas-based company is registered with FinCEN but faced allegations that it operated crypto ATM machines in Connecticut without the required state license.

Bitcoin ATM Services, which operates the kiosk used by Meduri, says on its website that it is registered with FinCEN. The Times couldn’t find a record of Bitcoin ATM Services being registered as a money services business with FinCEN. A company called Cash ATM Services that has the same mailing address as Bitcoin ATM Services was registered. Bitcoin ATM Services did not respond to a request for comment.

Law enforcement has cracked down on unlicensed crypto ATMs,but it can be tough for consumers to tell how serious the industry is about addressing the concerns. In 2020, a Yorba Linda man pleaded guilty to charges of operating unlicensed bitcoin ATMs and failing to maintain an anti-money-laundering program even though he knew criminals were using the funds. The illegal business, known as Herocoin, allowed people to buy and sell bitcoin in transactions of up to $25,000 and charged a fee of up to 25%.

Cryptocurrency regulations vary by state. California has long exempted crypto ATMs from licensing requirements for businesses engaged in money transmission.

Crypto ATM machines serve people who don’t have a bank account or just want the convenience of buying cryptocurrency at a gas station, convenience store or other shop, said Ayman Rida, CEO of Cash2Bitcoin, who works with cryptocurrency ATM operators including in California on complying with state regulations. The fees ATM charge are higher than online exchanges, he said, to cover certain expenses. That includes the cost of leased space, machine maintenance and cash management.

Crypto ATM operators aren’t opposed to having clearer rules and guidelines, he said, but they are against capping fees and transactions. Crypto ATM operators typically require more forms of identification if a customer makes a transaction more than $1,000 and in some cases flag high-value transactions, which could help stop scammers.

“Scammers are getting smarter,” he said. “My question for the regulators is, why are you killing an industry when scams also happen to other industries but they’re not doing anything about it as well?”

As for Meduri, who was duped in a bitcoin ATM scam, he’s just relieved his son wasn’t really arrested and in a car accident. Oddly enough, finding out it was all an elaborate lie came with a sense of relief.

“My wife and I were just wrecked that day,” he said. “I didn’t even care. I was happy he was OK.”

Often, when I sit down with a client to sign and notarize a large stack of documents that make up their estate plan, the client will exclaim “This is like buying a house!”

I usually respond by saying, “It should be — it’s dealing with everything you own and everyone you love.”

But, having recently bought a house, I can also add, “No, it’s not that much paperwork.”

Even as a lawyer, I was floored by the number of documents and contracts I signed to buy, spruce up, repair and move into a house. Since it’s fresh in my mind, let me share what to look out for when you’re buying, repairing or moving into a house.

The Realtor

I hired a Realtor to help me find and buy a home. Please note these are licensed real estate agents who belong to the National Association of Realtors and are subject to the NAR’s code of ethics. While it’s not guaranteed, the Realtor designation is generally a good indication of professionalism, expertise and an ethical commitment. And, if there is a problem, you have recourse to file a complaint with NAR.

Whether you’re buying or selling a home, your Realtor should walk you through the purchase contract, advise you on terms, and negotiate on your behalf.

Let them handle negotiations — you’ll be way too emotional (trust me!).  Once you’re in escrow, your agent will also provide you with a number of disclosures — read them and have them explained to you.

One of the disclosures I received advised me that the home inspection does not include mold testing. I was concerned about mold simply because the house was built in 1972, there had been a lot of rain this past year, and I have a friend who suffered greatly from mold exposure. There was no visible evidence of mold.

Nonetheless, we paid extra for a mold test, discovered there was mold, and negotiated credit for closing costs from the buyer in order to make the repairs. The mold was remediated before we moved in. Read those disclosures and ask questions if you’re not comfortable with anything you read.

The movers

We hired movers to pack and move us. I was careful to be certain we were hiring a moving company and not a moving broker.

A moving company owns trucks and has staff that handles your move directly. Interstate movers must be registered with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and have a U.S. Department of Transportation number. In California, movers require a “household mover permit.”

A moving broker is none of those things. They are not movers, they don’t own trucks, are not authorized to transport your goods, and, most importantly, they don’t have any responsibility if anything goes wrong.

A moving broker merely bids on your move and then hires someone else to carry it out, taking a commission off the top. You’ll have no idea who is showing up to move you, and if the broker can’t get anyone to handle your move, no one may show up.

Moving brokers are also supposed to be registered with FMCSA, but often they aren’t. In most cases, there is no reason to use a moving broker.

Instead, find a moving company through referrals. Ask the moving company for their FMCSA registration and permit. Legitimate moving companies will ask for only a small or no down payment. Payment is made when your goods are safely delivered. A request for a large deposit is a sign of a scam. A demand for quick payment in full upfront is itself a scam.

Check out FMCSA’s web page on protecting your move before you hire a mover. And a practical hint: buy your movers lunch and tip them. They’re handling your precious possessions and are working really hard.

Construction contractors

We had to hire multiple contractors for work on our home before we moved in. Electrical, flooring, fencing, painting, and general handyman work were needed. It took time, but we got referrals, made sure we had three written estimates for each job and checked licenses.

One contractor showed up, talked to us, looked around, and gave us a verbal quote. I asked for a written estimate. He declined. He was immediately removed from consideration — his word would be as good as the paper it was (not) written on.

A contract should always be in writing and should include the specifics of the job, the full price, a timeline for completion and what materials are included. Be sure to know up-front if a permit will be needed and whether that permit is included in the bid.

In California, a contractor can only request a down payment of $1,000 or 10% of the total cost, whichever is less. Make sure you pay on a schedule based on work completed and never pay in cash — you’ll have no evidence you have paid.

If there is no “good faith dispute” over the work done, you are obligated to pay within 30 days. Make the final payment only when you are satisfied with the work.

Finally, make sure you are working with a licensed contractor.

In California, work that costs more than $500 (labor and materials) requires a licensed contractor. If you use an unlicensed contractor, your homeowner’s insurance likely will not cover any damage to your property or your neighbors, and you may be personally liable. If the unlicensed contractor or their employee is injured while working on your property, you may be held liable for their medical bills and lost wages.

Buying and/or moving to a new home is exciting. It’s also stressful. Alleviate some of that stress by carefully researching and hiring professionals who are properly licensed. It’s worth the extra time and could save you a lot of time, money, and heartache.

Now, if I could just hire somebody to unpack those boxes.

Teresa J. Rhyne is an attorney practicing in estate planning and trust administration in Riverside and Paso Robles, CA. She is also the #1 New York Times bestselling author of “The Dog Lived (and So Will I)” and “Poppy in The Wild.”  You can reach her at Teresa@trlawgroup.net

LOS ANGELES – It probably is too simplistic, and maybe unfair, to say that Utah coach Kyle Whittingham owns Lincoln Riley. But after USC’s third straight loss to Utah Saturday night, this one in excruciating fashion, the thought came to mind that Whittingham not only owns him but might contemplate renting him out as an Airbnb during the summer.

Utah beat Riley’s Trojans twice last season, a 43-42 regular season thriller in Salt Lake City in October and a 47-24 rout in the Pac-12 championship game in Las Vegas. Saturday night’s result was even more excruciating, a 34-32 Utah victory on Cole Becker’s 38-yard field goal as time expired, just 1:46 after USC had taken the lead for the first time since late in the first quarter.

USC’s shot at getting to the College Football Playoff is done, of course. It was probably done after last week’s rout at Notre Dame, but the Utes definitively slammed the lid shut. USC’s chances of getting back to the Pac-12 championship game are fading fast, too. The Trojans are 4-1 in conference but after facing Cal next week in Berkeley – presumably a breather, but you never know – they get Washington here and Oregon in Eugene. By the time they face UCLA in the Coliseum on Nov. 18 they could be playing for a spot in the LA Bowl.

Not exactly what anyone here expected, right? It’s definitely not what the high-priced, high-profile coach was expected to deliver.

Riley insisted that his team is still focused, though at times in his postgame remarks he discussed outside distractions, at one point saying, “When you get too focused on the outside things, which I think, at times, our team has been, then a lot of times you can miss an opportunity right in front of you.”

The question involved those national championship aspirations and the impact they can have on young athletes playing for a glamorous program in a glamorous city with seemingly limitless NIL opportunities. Certainly, those can be head-spinning.

But you can also make the case that the biggest outside noise generated here – even bigger than the weekly criticism of the Trojans’ defense – was of Riley’s own making a month ago when he attempted to bar SCNG beat writer Luca Evans from access to the team for two weeks. He reversed that decision after two days, but not before he and the USC program received a firestorm of criticism from coast to coast.

The attempt to control the narrative continues, incidentally. No players were made available following Saturday night’s loss.

As for this week’s defensive report, consider: Utah (6-1 overall, 3-1 in conference) entered Saturday night 122nd in the nation in passing offense, 149.5 yards a game. Bryson Barnes, who had thrown 66 passes all season for 79.6 yards a game, was 14 for 23 for 235 yards and three touchdowns, and Utah added 247 yards on the ground for a season-high 482 yards total offense. The other times they’d topped 400 this year were against Weber State and Cal.

Barnes and Nate Johnson have both played in the absence of Cam Rising, who is still recovering from multiple ligament tears suffered in last January’s Rose Bowl. Rising was No. 1 on the depth chart going into Saturday’s game, but Whittingham said afterward he’ll be shut down for the rest of the season and likely will seek a waiver to regain a year of eligibility.

“We’re six games in, (and he’s) not ready to play, nope,” Whittingham said. “We’ve been hoping for him each week, but the medical staff is the one to make those calls, and we’re not going to question that at all.”

Consider, also, that Whittingham maintained faith in his stopgap quarterback even after Calen Bullock’s 30-yard interception return for a score early in the fourth quarter. “Bryson is our guy, he’s our quarterback, and we have confidence in him,” Whittingham said. “We just keep moving forward with the guys that we have healthy.”

Bullock’s score brought USC within 28-23 on a night that its offense sputtered plenty after the first quarter, and made it close enough that two decisions by Riley to settle for Denis Lynch field goals – on a fourth-and-9 from the Utah 27 at the end of the third quarter, and a fourth-and-15 from the Utah 19 with 3:03 left – turned out to be significant. In an era where coaches can be foolhardy on fourth down, these were sane decisions.

Equally significant, if not more so: On the two touchdowns the Trojans did score in the fourth quarter, Bullock’s pick six and Caleb Williams’ 11-yard run on a quarterback draw with 1:46 left for a 32-31 lead – immediately following a 61-yard punt return by Zachariah Branch – they went for two both times and misfired on each.

Making either one would have meant that what turned out to be the game-ending kick would only have forced overtime. Come to think of it, kicking both extra points would have meant the same.

And it all went awry anyway, when Utah went 75 yards on 11 plays in the final 1:46, helped by two reviewed plays, three timeouts and three penalties, including a targeting penalty on Bear Alexander at the end of a third-and-9 play that moved the ball from the Utes’ 26 to their 49. The other key play was a 26-yard rush by Barnes on second-and-15 with 16 seconds left to get the ball to the Trojans 19, well within Becker’s range.

“It comes down to little things here and there, and we haven’t quite played clean enough here in the last couple of weeks to take advantage of it,” Riley said. “We have played very hard, and the guys really sold out. We got a lot better this week at practice, and our fight cannot be questioned.”

But it’s obvious that this has not been a well-oiled Trojan machine in recent weeks, with the second-half defensive collapse at Colorado, the far more difficult than necessary overtime win over Arizona, last week’s debacle at Notre Dame and Saturday night’s soul-crushing loss to the Utes. Even Williams, last year’s Heisman Trophy winner, hasn’t quite seemed himself lately.

Maybe it’s an aftereffect of the Trojans’ major use of the transfer portal. Maybe the coaching staff isn’t quite getting through to these players the way it did initially. And maybe those distractions – self-inflicted and otherwise – have taken a toll. But something seems off.

Riley can say all he wants about practicing well, but the proof comes on the field – and on the scoreboard – on game day. And right now, harsh as it might sound, these Trojans don’t seem that much more disciplined than those of the Clay Helton era.

jalexander@scng.com

He built his brand on being a roaring archconservative unafraid to take on liberals. He was a pioneer of this new right-wing faction that has become the face of the Republican Party. He was former President Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. House of Representatives. And now, he’s put California Republicans in a tough spot.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan ended his bid to lead the lower chamber Friday after facing stiff opposition from moderates and other lawmakers in key districts.

But all five California Republicans from districts President Biden won in 2020 — Young Kim of La Habra, David Valadao of Hanford, Mike Garcia of Santa Clarita, Michelle Steel of Seal Beach and John Duarte of Modesto — stood firmly behind Jordan throughout his three failed attempts to secure the gavel.

The five Californians’ decision to back the Ohioan could come back to haunt them. Jordan’s deep ties to Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election may not sit well with key voters in swing districts, Democratic strategist and pollster Cornell Belcher told The Times on Friday.

“You have someone in Jim Jordan that encapsulates all that they dislike about MAGA and the Trump era,” Belcher said. “Jordan is the Donald Trump of the House of Representatives. And those swing voters have rejected Donald Trump.”

House Republicans have struggled to pick a leader since eight Republicans on Oct. 3 led a vote, joined by Democrats, to remove Rep. Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield from the speaker’s chair.

McCarthy’s historic ouster has left the lower chamber in chaos. Republicans have proven unable to secure a simple majority to elect a speaker who can call floor votes on critical legislation, including bills to respond to the conflicts engulfing Israel and Ukraine and to avert a government shutdown by mid-November.

Polling indicates voters are annoyed by the chaos.

Forty-nine percent of GOP respondents disapprove of how congressional Republicans are handling their jobs, according to a Thursday poll conducted by Global Strategy Group and released by Navigator Research, a Democratic firm. Sixty-nine percent of all voters said they disapproved of the way congressional Republicans handle their jobs.

Republican voters have become more likely to hold their own party accountable for the chaos in Washington. On Sept. 11, 32% of Republicans polled said they would blame their party most if
the government were to shut down. By Oct. 16, that share had grown to 36%.

“The fact that Jim Jordan has gotten up to 200 votes is a reflection: He and Trump represent the GOP,” Sarah Longwell, an anti-Trump Republican strategist, told The Times. “They are symptoms of the same problem. The party has moved hard into the MAGA direction.”

“It’s not right, it’s not left,” Longwell said. “It’s just Trump.”

Duarte and Garcia’s races are considered “toss-ups,” Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog, noted on Friday. Cook rates Valadao and Steel’s races as leaning Republican, and Kim’s as likely to go Republican.

Spokespeople for Garcia, Steel and Duarte did not respond to requests for comment.

In a statement, Kim told The Times that McCarthy’s removal had kneecapped the chamber from responding to pertinent issues.

“I have worked in good faith to be part of the solution and support our conference’s nominees, but it’s clear no candidate has the votes to be Speaker at this time,” she told The Times in a statement Friday.

Kim said her conference should empower North Carolina’s Rep. Patrick T. McHenry, who is serving as speaker pro tempore, to pass critical legislation until a leader is elected.

Valadao has said in statements that he backed Jordan “because we need to get back to work” and that he would support a plan to empower McHenry.

Spokespeople for Kim and Valadao would not say who the lawmakers would back after Jordan dropped out and at least five Republicans — Reps. Austin Scott of Georgia, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Pete Sessions of Texas, Byron Donalds of Florida and Jack Bergman of Michigan — said they would run for speaker.

McHenry has said he will not run to stay in the chair. But giving him more speakership powers could still be on the table if his caucus can’t agree on a leader.

The proposal to grant him more power, which would probably need buy-in from Democrats, fell flat Thursday when it became clear Republicans were overwhelmingly against it, leaving the lower chamber foundering as it’s set to enter its fourth week without a permanent leader.

California Republicans’ pragmatic explanations for backing Jordan have not stopped anti-Trump groups from going after them.

Before Jordan dropped out on Friday, Congressional Integrity Project, a Democratic-aligned nonprofit, released ads highlighting the Ohioan’s ties to the right wing of his party.

The digital ad noted that Jordan founded the arch-conservative House Freedom Caucus, denied the results of the 2020 presidential election and is “arguably the member of Congress most involved in Donald Trump’s attempted coup.”

“Anyone who endorses Jordan and any member who votes for him is affirmatively voting for a coup plotter, an election denier and a foe of American democracy,” the ad said.

Jordan, who voted not to certify many election results, “was a significant player in President Trump’s efforts” to stay in power, the House Jan. 6 committee noted in its final report on Trump supporters’ 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol during the certification of Biden’s victory.

Garcia is the only one of the five Californians in question who voted against certifying some election results.

Denying the outcome of the 2020 presidential election remains deeply unpopular among key voters, Belcher said. In 2022, many Democratic candidates ran on a platform saying their party would save American democracy. This argument resonated with voters as Democrats blunted what should have been a massive red wave for the GOP, Belcher said.

The protracted infighting among House Republicans is “an absolute gift” to Democrats, he added. He predicts that progressives competing in tight California districts will run attack ads featuring their opponents’ support for Jordan, as advocacy groups have.

Other experts, though, say all hope is not lost for the five California Republicans.

Their chances to stay in office will heavily depend on their messaging, said Whit Ayers, a longtime GOP pollster. If they can show they backed Jordan for practical reasons, voters may excuse their support for him.

Voters who are paying very close attention may recall that the GOP refused to empower McHenry to get business done while the speakership race continues. But Ayres doubted most voters are following that closely.

“It’s so much of an inside game,” he said, “most people are simply not aware of it.”

Logan reported from Washington and Pinho from Santa Barbara.

Netflix added 9 million subscribers during the third quarter, the Los Gatos, Calif., streaming video giant said Wednesday, citing popular original shows and older licensed content, as well as the company’s crackdown on password sharing and its budding advertising business.

Revenue was $8.5 billion in the quarter, up 8% from the same period last year, which was in line with analyst estimates. Net income was $1.68 billion, compared with $1.4 billion a year earlier. Netflix’s profit and subscriber numbers beat Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts on average had projected 6.1 million added subscribers and $1.57 billion in net income, according to FactSet.

Like other entertainment companies, the streamer has faced long strikes by screenwriters and film and TV actors that have roiled the industry. The Writers Guild of America strike ended in late September, but SAG-AFTRA’s strike, which began in mid-July, continues. Talks broke down last week between the actors guild and the major studios when the alliance of entertainment companies decided to walk away from negotiations.

But Netflix has so far been able to weather the production stoppages because of its large library of original content and the popularity of licensed titles such as the legal drama “Suits,” which has been a top streaming show in the U.S. since its arrival on the platform, according to Nielsen numbers. The company also said that its free cash flow is now expected to be around $6.5 billion this year, compared with its prior forecast of at least $5 billion, in part due to the money saved on production during the strikes.

During the third quarter, Netflix launched programs including a live-action version of popular manga “One Piece,” the second season of coming-of-age drama “Heartstopper” and Season 5 of reality dating series “Love Is Blind,” which ranked fifth in last week’s Netflix’s top 10.

The company has expanded into new areas, including hosting its first live sports event, “The Netflix Cup,” in which drivers from the sports documentary series “Formula 1: Drive to Survive” and golfers from “Full Swing” will compete in a match play golf tournament in Las Vegas on Nov. 14.

Netflix on Wednesday announced a deal for David Ellison’s Skydance Media to produce animated content for Netflix. Skydance Animation, run by former Pixar leader John Lasseter, previously had a deal with Apple.

Additionally, Netflix has moved to increase its revenue by pressuring nonpaying users sharing passwords to buy a subscription and by offering a cheaper ad-supported plan.

The company continued to boost revenue by cracking down on nonpaying Netflix users who have been using shared passwords with friends and family. Nonpaying Netflix users can sign up for their own subscriptions or ad-free subscribers can pay an extra $7.99 a month in the U.S. to add people to their account who do not live in their household.

“The cancel reaction continues to be low, exceeding our expectations, and borrower households converting into full paying memberships are demonstrating healthy retention,” Netflix said in its shareholder letter.

“They’re really smart about how they’re doing it because it’s inoffensive,” said Michael Pachter, a managing director of equity research for Wedbush Securities.

To further improve profits, Netflix said it is raising prices on its ad-free basic and premium plans in the U.S. The basic plan will be $11.99, a $2 increase from the previous $9.99 a month. Premium subscribers will pay $22.99, up from $19.99. Prices also increased for those plans in Britain and France, the company said.

However, prices on standard and ad-supported plans will remain the same. Those tiers cost $15.49 and $6.99 a month, respectively. Streamers have been increasing prices as subscriber growth slows and companies are looking to raise more revenue.

“We think it’s a bad idea for customers but good for shareholders,” said Ray Wang, principal analyst at Constellation Research, on Netflix’s price increases. “In the long run, it will give Netflix better returns on more content.”

Netflix says it’s continuing to invest in its cheaper, ad-supported plan, which launched last year but has made changes to its leadership, with executives acknowledging its fledgling advertising business still has a long way to go.

Netflix co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos said at the Bloomberg Screentime conference, “We’re definitely in our infancy, and it’s definitely not at the scale that we want it to be at yet.”

Earlier this month, Netflix announced the exit of Jeremi Gorman, who was credited with building the streamer’s ads business, and said Amy Reinhard, Netflix’s former vice president of studio operations, would be president of advertising.

The company said on Wednesday that the number of its customers on the cheaper ad-supported plan continues to grow, with membership up almost 70% quarter over quarter, but has not said how many people subscribe to that version. The ad-based tiers account for roughly 30% of signups in the countries where Netflix offers its service with commercials.

Netflix also said it would adjust its executive compensation structure in response to widespread concerns shareholders have voiced for years. “We are listening to our shareholders and plan on substantial changes for 2024 to a more conventional model,” Netflix said. “Our executive compensation plan will continue to be built on pay for performance.”

Netflix shares closed Wednesday at $346.19 a share, down 2.7%. They rose 12% in after-hours trading.

CYPRESS — A 53-year-old exercise rider died Saturday in a training incident at Los Alamitos Race Course.

Alfredo Luevano was riding the 2-year-old filly Fly From The Fire on the backstretch during morning training hours at the Cypress track when the incident occurred, according to Los Alamitos Race Course publicity director Orlando Gutierrez.

Luevano was on the ground when assistance arrived, then taken to Long Beach Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, Gutierrez said.

There have been no eyewitness accounts with any precise details on the incident, according to Gutierrez.

Fly From The Fire ran off under her power and was not injured. The quarter horse was entered in Saturday’s seventh race but scratched as a precaution, Gutierrez said.

Luevano was born in Luis Moya in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. He had 33 mounts as a jockey, mostly in Mexico and Colorado.

Luevano was issued an exercise rider license by the California Horse Racing Board this year.

Luevano is survived by his wife, Marisela Martinez; their children, Lisbet, Alfredo Jr., Alex, Aldo, and Camila; six grandchildren; and his father, Augustine.

A moment of silence will be held in Luevano’s memory before Sunday’s race card at Los Alamitos.

“On behalf of the Los Alamitos Race Course family, we express our deepest condolences to Mr. Luevano’s family members and friends,” Gutierrez said.

Fly From The Fire has run in five races in her career, all at Los Alamitos. A second-place finish in a handicap race July 30 was the only time she has finished in the money.

A 40-year-old pedestrian was killed in a hit-and-run crash in Corona, police said Saturday.

The crash was reported at 10:10 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19 in the 200 block of E. Parkridge Avenue, where officers found a man lying on the roadway with significant injuries and surrounded by vehicle debris, according to the Corona Police Department.

Officers later located a vehicle in the 300 block of N. McKinley Street with damage consistent with the collision, according to the Corona PD.

The 53-year-old driver of the vehicle was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, but was later released. His possible involvement in the crash is still under investigation.

The victim has been identified as Rodrigo Hernandez of Corona.

Anyone with additional information about the deadly crash was encouraged to contact Officer Jacob Westall at 951-817-5784.

President Biden’s voice may be more of a whisper than a roar these days, but on Thursday night, he was as loud and strong as he’s ever been.

“The terrorist group Hamas unleashed pure unadulterated evil in the world,” Biden said. “But sadly, the Jewish people know, perhaps better than anyone, that there is no limit to the depravity of people when they want to inflict pain on others.”

Opinion Columnist

Robin Abcarian

Condemning the corrosive forces of antisemitism and Islamophobia, he said the United States would continue to support and arm Israel as it wages war against Hamas, and would also send millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to Gaza to help ameliorate the effects of Israeli’s airstrikes and expanded blockade, which has cut off food, medicine, water and fuel to the area’s 2 million-plus impoverished inhabitants.

Israel has the absolute right to exist in peace and defend itself; Palestinians have the absolute right to self-determination and freedom. “We cannot give up on a two-state solution,” Biden said Thursday.

It is still difficult to contemplate the enormity of the gruesome Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli civilians, and the horrific price that so many Palestinian civilians are now being forced to pay. Both sides have suffered and will continue to suffer in unthinkable ways.

On Wednesday, Anderson Cooper interviewed the sisters of Amit Man, a 22-year-old Israeli medic who spent hours exchanging messages with her family on WhatsApp from a clinic in a kibbutz as Hamas gunmen stalked and slaughtered her neighbors.

“I don’t think I’ll get out of here,” she wrote, moments before she was killed. “Please be strong if something happens to me.”

In Gaza, Palestinian parents have discussed whether to write their children’s names on their palms or on their backs, so that when they are killed, the family can be buried together.

“It feels like humanity is kind of deserting us in this moment,” Melanie Ward of Medical Aid for Palestinians told Crooked Media as she relayed the conversation her Gaza director, Mahmoud Shalabi, said he’d had with his wife about how to mark their children.

Like most engaged Americans who lack any real Middle East expertise, I read as much as I can, and watch as much as I can. I pay attention to those with deep experience, knowledge and understanding of the age-old conflict. I try to tune out the extremists on both sides.

I avoid offensive commentary from the “what did you expect?” factions of the American left and right. There is nothing on Earth — nothing — that can begin to justify the atrocities that Hamas unleashed on Israeli civilians. Anti-Israel demonstrations like the one that took place Monday at the Sydney Opera House, where pro-Palestinian protesters chanted “Gas the Jews,” and the letter by Harvard students blaming Israel for the Hamas attacks are but two examples of the reprehensible way this conflict has robbed so many of their humanity.

“One can believe that the Palestinians have the same kinds of rights as Israelis and that the Palestinians’ rights have been violated by Israel for many, many years,” foreign policy and national security expert David Rothkopf told Salon. “One can also believe that the plight of Palestinians who are trapped in Gaza or in the West Bank is grave and deserves the world’s attention. But if you have a friend or a relative who just died, you don’t go to the funeral and talk about their flaws. You wait for a few days at least. It’s just the wrong moment.”

It is difficult to wade through the disinformation, misinformation and just plain confusion about what is happening on the ground in Gaza.

Like many, I was taken in by initial news reports, based on information from the Gaza Health Ministry, about who was to blame for the massive explosion on Tuesday at the Ahli Arab Hospital, and texted a Jewish friend: “How can Israel hope to maintain the moral high ground if it’s doing this?”

My friend blasted back: “Why would Western news media and media all over the world believe news reports from Hamas without verification, examination and review?”

Of course he’s right.

The growing consensus from impartial sources — including open source investigative sites like Bellingcat — is that the explosion was not consistent with an Israeli airstrike. Thursday, Biden said flatly that it “was not done by the Israelis.”

Each side may cling to its belief that the enemy did it.

But we must never let go of the desire to find a way for Palestinians and Israelis alike to raise their families and live in peace.

Biden was correct to caution Israel against overreacting in rage as the U.S. did so disastrously after 9/11. If the U.S. is to support Israel in its war on Hamas, we must also be committed to alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people, who have once again been buffeted by forces over which they have no control.

At this point, what other choice do we have?

@robinkabcarian

At 10 a.m. Thursday, dozens of shoppers were already lined up outside the Forever 21 store at the Ontario Mills mall. Most were patiently waiting to shop a brand rarely seen in 3-D. And it wasn’t Forever 21.

The doors were about to open for Day One of a four-day pop-up for e-commerce giant Shein. A section of Forever 21’s permanent storefront had been transformed into a shop for apparel, beauty products and accessories sold by the online-only Chinese-founded retailer, complete with its own employees and checkout counter.

The event drew a mixed crowd, including teens with curled hair and full glam makeup and mothers pushing children in strollers. One woman, a government employee, said she had called in sick to make it to the pop-up.

When the doors opened, the stream of shoppers beelined toward a neon Shein sign hanging above black curtains that subtly divided the pop-up from the rest of the 50,000-square-foot store. Some took out their phones to film the crowd as a DJ Khaled song thumped in the background.

Shein and Forever 21 may seem more like competitors than collaborators — the fast-fashion brands have made names for themselves selling trendy, inexpensive apparel, mostly for women — they began a partnership in August. The goal is to leverage each of their business strengths to remain competitive in the notoriously tough apparel market.

For Forever 21, it’s a chance to tap into Shein’s online customer base. And for Shein, the collaboration offers access to Forever 21’s footprint at malls across the U.S., where it has more than 400 stores. The Ontario Mills event is the first Shein pop-up inside a Forever 21.

“There was a brief moment in the pandemic, while stores were shuttered and online commerce was soaring, when retailers started to wonder what kind of role the physical store still had to play,” Jill Standish, global retail lead at consulting firm Accenture, wrote in a Forbes column in April.

“Three years on, and we can say definitively that stores remain absolutely key to the retail industry’s future.”

But the strategies behind running a successful bricks-and-mortar store are shifting, Standish said. “Retailers need to be willing to reset their store strategies — and do so as part of a broader reinvention of the business — if they want to truly capitalize on the growth opportunities.”

In August, Shein acquired about a third of the shares of Sparc Group, which operates Forever 21, and Sparc Group became a minority shareholder in Shein. Sparc Group is a joint venture between shopping mall operator Simon Property Group, which runs Ontario Mills, and Authentic Brands Group. Sparc Group’s other brands include Brooks Brothers, Lucky Brand and Eddie Bauer.

Now, Forever 21’s stores can host pop-ups for Shein, where customers can try things on and touch the fabrics before they buy — and peruse the racks of Forever 21 apparel afterward.

“There’s an experimental phase going on right now with retail, particularly malls,” said Kevin Fagan, head of commercial real estate economic analysis at Moody’s. “So this is kind of part and parcel with that trend.”

Successful malls used to be built around department stores, which attracted other tenants that wanted to set up shop in the same complex. Today, malls need more demand drivers to keep afloat — food courts, temporary pop-ups, gyms, and other offerings, Fagan said.

“These malls are becoming something very different than what they used to be,” Fagan said. “The old mall was a very simplistic business model.”

Shoppers Ashley Sanchez, right, and Joscelin Flores shop the Shein pop-up inside Forever 21 at the Ontario Mills mall on Thursday.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Ashley Sanchez, 18, and her friend Joscelin Flores, 19, both dressed in mostly Shein apparel, arrived at Ontario Mills for the pop-up about an hour before the doors opened, just to be safe. When asked what they shop for at Shein, the answer, for Flores, was simple: everything.

Sanchez said she favors Shein for everyday clothes. “They do have good basics, but it sucks that I can’t feel the material,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to come — to see the materials in real life.”

The pop-up occupies 8,000 square feet of Forever 21’s space, and has sections for women’s, men’s and children’s clothing, along with beauty products. An Instagram photo-op backdrop was bedecked in faux fall foliage and another neon “Shein” sign. Customers frantically flipped through the racks of clothes, putting pieces that caught their attention into canvas totes handed out by employees.

Despite the success of digital-first brands, bricks-and-mortar stores still have the advantages of a tactile experience and a chance to connect with shoppers in real time. FWRD, the luxury arm of popular e-tailer Revolve, had its first Los Angeles pop-up over the summer. Princess Polly, the Australian brand that supercharged its popularity through TikTok, opened its first store in the U.S. last month at Westfield Century City.

“From the discovery phase to the shopping phase to the post sale phase, more and more retailers are moving towards a multichannel experience — or in some cases you call it omnichannel — that incorporates online and physical across all elements of selling,” Fagan said.

“Shein and Forever 21 having a partnership makes a lot of sense in the context of the move of retailers towards omnichannel selling,” he added.

Forever 21, a mall staple that filed for bankruptcy protection in 2019, is in the midst of a turnaround under new ownership. The company announced plans in 2022 to expand its bricks-and-mortar footprint by 14 stores, focusing on outlet mall locations. Shein has channeled its energy into cultivating a massive customer base online and a giant inventory, which has grown a loyal following of Gen Z consumers. According to a 2021 report by the BBC, Shein is estimated to have as many as 600,000 items listed on its site at once.

“This is just one example of how we will combine Sparc’s leadership in brand development and physical retail with Shein’s products and passionate customer base,” George Chiao, Shein’s U.S. president, said in a statement, noting that more pop-ups will open across the country.

The brand has soared in popularity in part because of its shockingly low prices: A pair of women’s cargo pants on display were priced at $22.49; a pair of pointy-toed flats was $21.70; a solid-color baby T-shirt cost just $4.99. Although they cater to similar demographics, Shein’s clothes are slightly cheaper than Forever 21’s.

How Shein is able to achieve this financially has been the subject of debate. Recent reports allege that Shein overlooks poor working conditions at its factories and uses forced labor to keep prices low. Shein has denied those claims and has said that it is working on supply chain issues. The private company, which Reuters values at more than $60 billion, is reportedly eyeing a U.S. public stock offering as soon as 2024.

So far, the controversies have done little to stem Shein’s fierce fandom. More than 1,000 shoppers passed through the Ontario pop-up Thursday, according to a company spokesperson.

Although consumers are growing comfortable with online purchasing, physical retail can legitimize brands in a way that online-only doesn’t. “A physical presence gives customers a sense of security and reassurance that they’re dealing with a reputable company,” Standish said.

Christopher Lewis, 25, and his fiancee, Raysa Rubio, 23, found out about the pop-up the day before by chance. Despite Lewis’ day job at rival fast-fashion store H&M in the same mall, they were some of the first in line Thursday, arriving at 8:30 a.m. He left with a half-zip sweater, chino-style pants with an elastic waistband, and a flannel for layering; Rubio snagged two pairs of pants.

Sanchez and Flores also walked away with new clothes: a shirt, a skirt and a purse.

Said Sanchez, “I wish they had actual stores all the time.”

LA HABRA – The Sonora football team collected six Troy turnovers and needed every one of them to pull away with a 34-14 victory Friday that moved the Raiders one step closer to winning the Freeway League championship outright.

The Raiders intercepted four passes, with Renner Williard and Alexsay Nazaroff each returning a pick for a touchdown, and recovered two of Troy’s four fumbles.

“That’s the game right there,” Sonora coach Kevin Oberlander said. “On the other end, you can’t win a game making that many turnovers.”

The Raiders (8-1, 4-0) clinched a share of the league title with the victory and seized sole possession of first place with one week left in the regular season. Troy (5-4, 3-1) and La Habra (5-4, 3-1) are tied for second.

Sonora will play La Habra on Friday, Oct. 27, with a chance to win the title outright. Troy will play its league finale against Sunny Hills.

Sonora broke a 7-7 tie on Anthony Abed’s 5-yard touchdown with 5:09 left in the first half. Two minutes later, a Rudy Alcala pass was tipped at the line by Brady Ackerman and was snatched out of the air by Willard, who went 43 yards for the TD and a 20-7 lead.

“I’ve never been part of a game like that,” Willard said. “This game, we’ve worked so hard for this, and we did our jobs The ball got tipped at the line by Brady Ackerman, I got it, and I saw my opportunity and took it to the house.”

Oberlander said he considered Nazaroff’s pick-six a dagger shot.

The Warriors ( 5-4, 3-1) opened the second half by driving from their 32 to the Sonora 22, when Nazaroff stepped in front of an Alcala pass and went 89 yards for the score.

“I dropped back, I saw the ball, I got it and I just ran for it,” Nazaroff said.

It was the first interception for the sophomore, and he made it memorable.

Sonora nearly had a third TD on a spectacular interception at the goal line. Alcala was looking for Vander Ploog, the 6-foot-5 junior who caught 13 passes for 122 yards. But Steve Peru of the Raiders got in front of Ploog and tipped the underthrown pass.

Robert Hernandez of the Raiders grabbed the deflection and was off to the races, going 92 yards before being knocked out of bounds at the Troy 8.

Troy’s defense salvaged the moment when Jacob Guahgorena blocked Landon Martin’s 24-yard field goal attempt.

Alcala threw for 226 yards, and only two of his 26 passes hit the ground. Oberlander called him an efficient quarterback, but the defensive scheme was to make Alcala carry the day.

“Our plan was to stop the run,” Oberlander said. “We wanted them to go to the pass, and that’s what they did. But if you can contain the run, we feel like we had pretty good control of the game.”

Troy, meanwhile, could not stop Sonora’s run game. Abad led both teams with 177 yards on 22 carries. Martin needed to attempt just two passes, with the second a perfectly thrown deep ball to Tyler Robertson, who got behind Troy’s double coverage and pulled in Martin’s pass in stride for a 49-yard touchdown.

Take a look at the scores as they come in from the high school football games Friday, Oct. 20.

A complete list of scores will be published at the end of the night.

FRIDAY’S RESULTS

Servite 50, Santa Margarita 42

St. John Bosco 42, JSerra 20

Mission Viejo 36, Tesoro 0

San Clemente 35, Capistrano Valley 18

Sonora 34, Troy 14

La Habra 45, Fullerton 7

Trabuco Hills 24, San Juan Hills 17

Newport Harbor 21, Corona del Mar 20

Edison 56, Fountain Valley 7

Los Alamitos 63, Huntington Beach 13

El Modena 38, El Dorado 10

Rancho Alamitos 21, La Quinta 14

Rancho Cucamonga 36, Damien 35

Upland 45, Chino Hills 21

Chaparral 17, Norco 13

Centennial 63, Murrieta Valley 27

Eastvale Roosevelt 28, Vista Murrieta 21

Northview 48, Los Altos 13

St. Anthony 53, La Salle 14

Arroyo 21, South El Monte 0

Diamond Bar 35, Walnut 12

Don Lugo 41, West Covina 40

Bishop Amat 35, Chaminade 17

Sierra Canyon 35, Serra 28

Thousand Oaks 31, Agoura 7

Valencia 37, Hart 7

Birmingham 43, Cleveland 6

Notre Dame 42, Alemany 6

Granada Hills Charter 30, El Camino Real 2

St. Francis 42, Crespi 27

Cathedral 28, St. Paul 21

Long Beach Poly 50, Compton 6

Bellflower 16, Lynwood 10

Lakewood 41, Wilson 27

Downey 49, Mayfair 14

Palos Verdes 34, Culver City 31

Inglewood 27, Leuzinger 2

San Pedro 42, Banning 20

North Torrance 21, Lawndale 12

Redondo 28, Santa Monica 7

Gardena 27, Carson 7

South Torrance 28, El Segundo 0

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to hear a second major case on social media and will decide whether the Biden White House violated the 1st Amendment when it urged platforms to take down “misinformation and disinformation” about COVID-19.

Three conservatives dissented and said the court should have kept in place a judge’s order that barred administration officials from contacting social media sites.

“Government censorship of private speech is antithetical to our democratic form of government,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch wrote, calling the court’s move to rule on the issue “highly disturbing.”

The justices now have before them two contrasting views of how the 1st Amendment’s right to free speech applies to social media, both of which were endorsed by conservative judges from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

The first view holds that a state (in this instance, Texas) does not violate the 1st Amendment if it imposes heavy fines on privately run social media sites for allegedly discriminating against conservative viewpoints.

The second view is that federal officials violated the 1st Amendment when they “significantly encouraged” social media sites to remove disinformation.

The common element in both cases is that Republican officials in Texas, Louisiana and Missouri as well as the 5th Circuit judges believe conservative viewpoints are being unfairly suppressed on social media.

Last month, the justices agreed to hear a free-speech challenge to a Texas law that authorized the state to regulate popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. NetChoice, a coalition of tech groups, contended the law violated the free-speech rights of the social media sites, but the 5th Circuit upheld the law on the theory that the state was seeking to combat “censorship.” The high court had blocked the law from taking effect by a 5-4 vote.

The new case did not arise from complaints by social media sites but instead from a suit brought by Republican state attorneys general from Missouri and Louisiana. They said federal officials, including the surgeon general and the FBI, had conspired to “censor disfavored speech” by “significantly encouraging social media platforms” to remove some postings.

They took their complaint to U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, a Trump appointee in Monroe, La., who handed down an unusually far-reaching order on the Fourth of July that prohibited dozens of federal officials and agencies from “urging or encouraging” the removal of “protected speech” from social media. He described the administration’s conduct as “arguably … the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

The Biden administration appealed to the 5th Circuit, but in early September, a different panel of three judges upheld most of the judge’s ruling.

They said administration “officials have engaged in a broad pressure campaign designed to coerce social-media companies into suppressing speakers, viewpoints, and content disfavored by the government. The harms that radiate from such conduct extend far …. It impacts every social-media user.”

The injunction says the White House and “their employees and agents, shall take no actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech.”

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, representing the government, filed an emergency appeal asking the Supreme Court to block the judge’s order and to rule on the constitutional dispute.

She said the case “concerns an unprecedented injunction installing the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana as the superintendent of the Executive Branch’s communications with and about social-media platforms — including senior White House officials’ speech addressing some of the most salient public issues of the day.”

She said the district and appellate judges in Louisiana “did not identify any threat, implicit or explicit, of adverse consequences” if a social media site refused to remove certain content. Even so, they “entered a sweeping preliminary injunction governing thousands of federal officials’ and employees’ speech concerning any content posted on any social-media platform by anyone,” she said.

She argued the states had no standing to sue, and White House officials were free to speak out against the spread of falsehoods about COVID vaccines or the 2020 election. “It is undisputed that the content-moderation decisions at issue in this case were made by private social-media companies, such as Facebook and YouTube,” she said in Murthy vs. Missouri.

The complaints from the Republican state attorneys general were not limited to COVID-19. In their response to the appeal, they told the court that “the FBI orchestrated a deceptive campaign to induce platforms to censor the New York Post’s October 14, 2020 story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, just before the 2020 election.” In early 2021, when President Biden moved into the White House, “federal censorship activities escalated dramatically,” they added.

Jeff Landry, the Louisiana attorney general who filed the original suit, won election last week as the state’s governor.

In the preface of the new book by vaccine expert and pro-science crusader Peter Hotez, there are several acknowledgments of a kind that may never have appeared before in a book like it.

There, Hotez expresses gratitude to the Houston Police Department, the Texas Medical Center Police Department and the security force of the Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine.

These are all places where Hotez plies his profession. He thanks all those departments “for keeping my family and me safe during this time of aggression.”

These words tell a story all their own: how the anti-vaccine and anti-science movements have incorporated physical threats into their despicable arsenals. I wrote nearly two years ago that, unable to produce scientific support for their views, they had turned to stalking and intimidation to discourage critics.

Things have only gotten worse since then, as Hotez reports in his new book, “The Deadly Rise of Anti-Science: A Scientist’s Warning.” A professor of pediatrics and molecular virology at Baylor and a courageously outspoken advocate for public health, Hotez documents how agitators on the extreme right have graduated from trying to sow mistrust in science to targeting individual scientists such as himself.

The heart of his book is a call for government agencies and professional organizations to wage an aggressive battle against anti-vaccination and anti-science propaganda. What’s needed, he says, is something akin to an interagency task force to address the problem, because the scientific community as it’s currently organized can’t do so on its own.

“The health sector and the scientific sector don’t quite know what to do because this is a politically driven attack, coming from extremist elements of the Republican Party,” he told me. “What you see instead are responses that skirt around the edges. You’ll see public health agencies step up their pro-vaccine messages, and sure, that’s important, but it doesn’t get to what’s really driving this.”

Hotez identifies several reasons for scientific organizations’ ineffective response to the spread of scientific misinformation and disinformation. “They don’t have the skill set or the background to know how to deal with this,” he says.

Then there’s their traditional commitment to political neutrality. “They say, ‘We’re a scientific or health organization, we have to be politically neutral.’” He cites the observation by Elie Wiesel that “neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.”

On Oct. 13, Hotez received the inaugural Anthony Fauci Courage in Leadership Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America for his long public campaign against anti-science propagandists. The battle came at a considerable personal cost.

Online trolls have compared Hotez to Hitler and Stalin. He has been “doxxed” through the publication of his email address and office phone number, and showered with email threats calling for his torture or public execution. Many threats were larded with antisemitism.

Hotez is not alone. “I get hate mail, I get physically harassed, I’ve gotten three legitimate death threats that have had to be investigated by the FBI,” Paul Offit, a prominent vaccine scientist in Philadelphia, recounts in “Shot in the Arm,” a new documentary by Scott Hamilton Kennedy about the damage done to public health by anti-vaccine propaganda. (The documentary will open at the Angelika Film Center in New York on Nov. 2 and the Laemmle Glendale in Southern California on Nov. 17.)

The film includes a clip of Del Bigtree, a leading anti-vaxxer, addressing an audience with the words: “Do you think it’s a good idea to let the government own your baby’s body? Anyone that believes in the right to bear arms to stand up against your government, I don’t know what you were saving that gun for then.”

Hotez’s book and the film both trace the evolution of vaccine science, starting with the discovery by Edward Jenner in the 1790s that people exposed to cowpox via inoculation would be rendered immune from the much more dangerous smallpox (“vaccination” derives from the Latin for “cow,” vacca), and the evolution of the anti-vaccine movement.

“As both a pediatrician-scientist who develops vaccines and a parent of an adult daughter with autism,” Hotez writes, “I have had a front-row seat on the modern anti-vaccine movement in America.”

Anti-vaccine activism had existed almost for as long as there were vaccines, but the movement got an enormous shot in the arm, so to speak, from a notorious article in the Lancet, a respected British medical journal, in 1998. The paper by a team headed by British physician Andrew Wakefield purported to identify a link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism.

The Lancet retracted the paper in 2010. After an investigation, British medical authorities effectively revoked his medical license. Countless subsequent scientific studies have established that there is no connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Nevertheless, Wakefield’s paper promoted an almost immediate plummet in MMR childhood vaccinations in Britain and its claim remains central to the anti-vax movement to this day — a movement that continues to lionize Wakefield, who now lives in the U.S., as a truth-teller.

The historical roots of the anti-science movement date back more than 100 years, Hotez writes, to when authoritarian regimes such as Stalin’s recognized that discrediting scientific experts assisted their path to personal power. Its appeal to the modern Republican Party has much to do with economics — challenging the scientific consensus on global warming, for example, allows the GOP to serve the anti-regulation interests of its Big Business patrons.

The anti-vaccine movement was in many respects a natural fit. Its invocation of shibboleths such as “medical freedom” and “health freedom” — coded justifications for opposition to vaccine mandates — led to its getting “picked up by the Republican Tea Party in Texas,” Hotez says.

U.S. vaccination rates against COVID show a partisan slant, with counties that voted for Trump in 2020 falling well behind those that voted for Biden. COVID death rates show the same pattern, with red counties showing higher rates than blue.

(ACAsignups.net)

“It was mutually reinforcing,” he told me. “The anti-vaccine groups were getting attention and PAC money that they never had before, and the far right got a new set of adherents and a new faux outrage to rally the base. It just became part of the canon.”

The anti-vaccine and anti-science movements exploit and amplify the lay public’s ignorance about the scientific method and the technical aspects of how vaccines work.

“Vaccines were compelling because vaccine-preventable diseases were compelling,” Offit explains in the documentary. Smallpox, polio and measles were recognized nemeses when they ranged the world untreated. Smallpox alone took the lives of an estimated 500 million people over the centuries, but thanks to vaccination it was judged eradicated from the world by the late 1970s.

The introduction of the polio vaccine in 1955 and the measles vaccine in 1963, accompanied by public mass vaccination campaigns, dropped the number of U.S. deaths from those diseases to zero by the early 1980s. Since then, those diseases have recurred only in discrete communities where vaccine resistance reigns, and among the unvaccinated.

Yet “vaccines are a victim of their own success,” Offit observes. “When vaccines work, nothing happens. I think that’s what makes them a little less compelling. People don’t really see what they’re doing.”

When once-common photographs of children hobbling on crutches, confined in an iron lung, or consumed with the bright red measles rash, much less perishing from the diseases, disappear from news reports, people forget how devastating the diseases once were.

“I understand how easy it was to appeal to the notion that vaccines are doing more harm than good” — a common feature of anti-vaccine hysteria — “because we weren’t seeing the vaccine-preventable diseases and their harm,” Offit says.

When the affiliated anti-vaccine and far-right movements turned their firepower on the COVID-19 vaccines introduced in 2021, the consequences were dire. Hotez estimates the unnecessary toll at 200,000 American lives loss because of vaccine refusal and anti-vaccine propaganda.

The partisan character of this outcome is manifested in a distinct divide in COVID vaccination rates between blue and red counties, with the latter having notably lower vaccination rates and higher per-capital COVID death rates. The partisanship is curious, given that Donald Trump has boasted that the development of the COVID vaccines was spurred by his own Operation Warp Speed. But COVID vaccine resistance has also been spurred by his persistent efforts to minimize the severity of the pandemic.

Despite his own efforts and those of other science advocates, Hotez sees only minor glimmers of hope that the trend toward science skepticism can be beaten back. Medical boards have fallen woefully short in enforcing their own regulations against physicians spreading misinformation and disinformation.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed a repeal of one of the very few state-level regulatory initiatives — a law passed only a year ago that empowered the state medical board to treat COVID misinformation as an element of professional misconduct. The original law’s critics argued that the board already had the power to discipline doctors for spreading misinformation about COVID — and the law had been temporarily blocked by a federal judge on grounds that it infringed on doctors’ free-speech rights.

On the federal level, debate over science policy has been ceded to the Republican right wing, which has held hearings to try to humiliate scientists who have done unrefuted studies identifying the origin of COVID as a natural outbreak from wildlife to humans, debunking the factually unsupported partisan myth that it was produced in a Chinese government lab.

“They’re not even pretending at anything other than political theater,” Hotez says. Even moderate Republicans shy away from questioning the GOP right’s position.

“I don’t see mainstream Republicans coming to the defense of science,” he says. “But we’re not really hearing from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. The Health and Human Services agencies are pretty quiet.” He says he’s had conversations with like-minded scientists “about how we get organized better to respond to this. But it’s slow going.”

The real danger, as Hotez sees it, is that anti-science politics will become globalized. “It’s not going to stay in the U.S. We export movies, we export music, we’re going to export this stuff.”

In the past, he says, a sort of social auto-correction counteracted anti-vaccine activism. In the past, if vaccine resistance led to an outbreak of measles or pertussis, word would spread across the community, creating pressure on resistant parents to vaccinate their children.

“I don’t see that, even after 200,000 lives lost. These were victims of a predatory disinformation campaign,” Hotez says. Instead, the vaccine opponents “are doubling down, just telling a bigger lie, blaming the vaccine and the scientists. I don’t see that getting any better, at least until the 2024 election. And what happens after the election is anybody’s guess.”

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said Friday that Detroit’s Big Three automakers have put better offers on the table, but still have a ways to go to “finally, finally start to make things right” as the union’s historic strike enters its sixth week. 

Stellantis, General Motors and Ford Motor have all proposed 23% pay hikes over four years, the union leader said in a webcast on Facebook, speaking hours after GM sweetened its offer to match an offer from Ford; Stellantis (which owns Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram, along with several foreign car brands) later also enhanced its proposal, Fain said.

“We’ve got cards left to play and they’ve got money left to spend,” Fain said. “That’s the hardest part of the strike. Right before a deal is when there is the most aggressive push for that last mile.” 

In launching a coordinated strike against the three automakers on Sept. 15, the UAW demanded on a 36% wage hike spread over four years. The union also asked the automakers to eliminate a two-tiered wage system the companies adopted in 2007 as the companies were struggling financially, along with annual cost-of-living adjustments, pension benefits for all employees, greater job security, a faster path to full-time jobs for temporary workers and a four-day work week. 

“Room to move”

In the past 24 hours, the UAW has received new offers from two of the three companies, “so despite all the bluster about how much the companies are stretched, clearly there is room to move,” Fain said.

“What happened this week — with no new plants out, both companies put a lot more on the table,” Fain said of GM and Stellantis. “That’s because they know if they didn’t move, there would be serious consequences.” 

Roughly 34,000 workers at six Big Three vehicle assembly plants and 38 parts distribution warehouses are out on strike. 

In a statement, GM said on Friday that it offered “substantial movement in all key areas in an effort to reach a final agreement with the UAW and get our people back to work.”

GM’s overture included a pay increase for most UAW workers to $40.39 an hour, or about $84,000 by the end of the four-year contract, according to the automaker. That’s up 23% from the $32.32 an hour that most factory workers currently earn. 

Cost-of-living raises relinquished by many workers in 2007 also would be reinstated, boosting the total value of the proposed pay increase to more than 30% by September of 2027, according to GM.

The vehicle maker had previously agreed to include new electric vehicle battery plants in the national UAW contract, a move that basically ensures they are unionized — a key goal for Fain and the UAW.

“It is time for us finish this process, get our team members back to work and get on with the business of making GM the company that will win and provide great jobs in the U.S. for our people for decades to come,” GM said.

Ford make a similar call earlier in the week, with Bill Ford, the company’s executive chairman, saying the UAW and its leaders were casting the company as the enemy, instead of “Toyota, Honda and Tesla — and all the Chinese companies that want to enter our market.”

Stephen McCray, one of the striking GM workers at a factory in Wentzville, Missouri near St. Louis, was pleased by the autmaker’s last offer, but worries the company will wait a year to give cost of living increases.

Still, McCray thinks workers will ratify the contract because of the raises, cost of living pay and other benefits, if Fain tells workers this is the best deal they’re likely to get.

“If this is what he’s going to bring to the table, after everything that has been going on since September, I believe it will be ratified,” McCray said. “This might be the best that they might bring out.”

—The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling with thoughts about suicide, please contact the national suicide and crisis lifeline by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

Kody Decker’s Navy service began in 2018 with excitement and anticipation for the future.

“Look at his smiling face,” said Kody’s father, Robert Decker, motioning to a framed photo in his Chesapeake home. “That was during boot camp. The kid was very excited.”

A tri-folded flag given to the family at Kody Decker’s funeral now sits on the mantel in the living room. Next week, Oct. 29, will be the anniversary of the 22-year-old’s death.

A wave of suicides among sailors has brought the tides of change to the Navy. The service is undertaking a massive effort to change the way it treats sailors experiencing mental health crises.

“I am often asked what keeps me up at night,” said Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander of U.S. Fleet Forces. “The answer is the health and welfare of our sailors. There is nothing more impactful to the Navy than to lose one of our own through suicide.”

Fleet Forces, at Naval Station Norfolk, has taken the lead of the Navy’s cultural shift following another year of elevated sailor suicides, which came in at 79 across the service last year, according to Defense Department data. The count represents a 14.5% increase from 69 suicides in 2021. The highest tally in recent previous years was 80 suicides in 2019, and the lowest was 62 in 2016. This includes active and reserve members.

“There’s a difference seeking help for a broken leg and seeking mental health — let’s face it,” Caudle said.

The stigma of seeking help for mental health is not unique to the Navy. It is a reality of society.

Around 1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness, according to a 2021 study by the National Alliance on Mental Illness. But less than half receive treatment. The stigma of seeking help is often a barrier to care. This can include public perceptions, discriminatory behavior, labeling and fear of reprisal in the workplace.

It is a barrier, Caudle said, the Navy is working to lower.

“I know it’s hard to ask for help when you are struggling, but suffering in silence is certainly not the answer,” Caudle said in a message to sailors during a recent suicide prevention event. “Seeking help is an act of strength, not weakness.”

Suicide, the Department of Defense and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found, is more common among men aged 18-25 — the primary demographic starting a Navy career.

While the Navy’s suicide rates are comparable to those in the general male population, suicide clusters among sailors linked to the same command have brought the service under scrutiny in recent years.

At least seven of the sailors who died by suicide in 2022 were assigned to two Hampton Roads-based installations — the USS George Washington and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center.

Kody Decker, an electronics technician, served aboard the USS Bataan based out of Naval Station Norfolk from December 2019 to August 2022. He was subsequently diagnosed with adjustment disorder and reported to the Norfolk maintenance center on limited duty.

He died by suicide two months later on Oct. 29.

___

‘Getting help was frowned upon’

Decker’s family and a sailor who knew him said he was targeted by leadership for requesting time off. The bullying worsened, they said, when he sought mental health treatment on Aug. 1, 2022.

“First, it was public and indirect — kind of like throwing shade — but it was in the air,” said a former sailor, who agreed to be interviewed by The Virginian-Pilot on the condition of anonymity because he fears reprisal.

The former sailor, who was assigned to the Bataan from 2020 to 2022, said leadership eventually became comfortable speaking more directly about Kody Decker, even talking about him around other junior sailors.

“They thought he was using what he was going through and all the appointments as a way out of work,” the former sailor said.

A Navy investigation into Decker’s death reported the climate in his department on the Bataan was a contributing factor to his mental health stressors. According to the investigation report released in May, sailors described the command as “high operational tempo” even when the ship was in port with no time off.

The suicide investigation did not look into whether Decker was the target of hazing or unfair treatment while he was assigned to the Bataan, said Lt. Cmdr. David Carter, public affairs officer for Naval Surface Force Atlantic.

But the investigation did explore if Decker was targeted while at the Norfolk maintenance center where he was assigned when he died. No evidence of hazing was found. The investigation did not define hazing or unfair treatment.

Both expectant parents in late 2021, the former sailor and Decker had grown close at work and in their personal lives.

“We quickly became close friends, brothers even,” the former sailor said.

Working in the same department, the former sailor witnessed many of Decker’s interactions with leadership aboard the Bataan. And given their personal relationship, the two often vented to one another.

“We never had leadership. We had a chain of command. It’s like having a boss and a leader — two totally different things,” the friend said.

The former sailor said Decker was stressed about missing the birth of his son in January 2022. As the due date approached, Decker asked a chief about beginning paternity leave. The chief’s response, the friend said, was that Decker would not begin leave until his wife “was on the table with her legs open, giving birth.”

The remark, the former sailor said, was sickening.

“Kody was furious. But mentally you succumb to the realization that you have to take it,” his friend said. “It is frustrating, but it is our reality.”

Snap, emotional responses to harsh leaders were kept in check by a 45-day restriction that could prevent junior sailors under disciplinary action from leaving the ship, the former sailor said. He also said crew members under disciplinary action could have their common access cards confiscated by the department chief. This prevented sailors from accessing email while underway and meant they were unable to contact family unless the chief gave them permission to do so.

The sailor’s allegation, Naval Surface Force Atlantic said, is not consistent with the Bataan’s official policy. From 2020 to 2022, only the commanding officer, via nonjudicial punishment or for pretrial restraint, could impose restrictions on crew members in accordance with the Uniform Code of Military Justice and Manual for Courts-Martial. At the time, the security department was authorized to confiscate the common access cards of crew members on restriction, as ordered by the commanding officer. But in August 2022, the command’s restriction policy was updated in accordance with Department of Defense policy to remove any and all authority to confiscate the access cards of crew members on restriction.

The former sailor said Decker expressed he was “beyond stressed” due to leadership aboard the Bataan during conversations spanning about eight months. And on Aug. 1, Decker requested mental health treatment from the ship’s medical team. Decker told the medical team he was not experiencing suicidal thoughts at the time, the Navy’s investigation reports.

“Getting help was frowned upon, to say the least. If you needed signatures to take time off for an appointment, the higher ranking chiefs or officers in charge have a condescending attitude, like a personal grudge against you,” the former sailor said.

Decker turned to his dad, Robert Decker, for guidance on how to work with difficult leaders. 

“I told him, if you have got bad leadership, you just keep your head down, you keep grinding. You do your job and you go home,” Robert Decker said.

But his father was unaware of how bad things were.

“But I didn’t know. I did not fully understand,” Robert Decker quietly said. His gaze lingered on his son’s smiling portrait from boot camp atop the mantel.

The ship’s medical officer planned to enter a referral for a mental health appointment for Kody Decker, according to the Navy’s investigation. The report does not say if that referral was ever put in the system. On Aug. 10, Kody Decker drove himself to Naval Medical Center Portsmouth. He was admitted for an inpatient mental health evaluation because he was suicidal.

Kody Decker completed five days of inpatient treatment and on Aug. 31, he reported to the Mid-Atlantic maintenance center on limited duty. Two months later, the Decker family was planning Kody’s funeral.

“I had lunch with him, his wife and my grandson that day. There were no signs,” Robert Decker said, his words trailing off as he wiped tears from his eyes.

Following Kody Decker’s death, Robert Decker said he has witnessed the very culture and the deep-seated stigma the Navy is trying to break down.

“I see the comments and the stories published online. People saying, ‘This generation — what’s wrong with them? They are not tough.’ And I am thinking to myself, they are tough. They are just different,” Robert Decker said.

Robert Decker, a high school football coach, has learned to approach each kid as an individual, finding out “what makes them tick.” He said the Navy should follow suit.

“The way I coached in ’91, I cannot coach today. It was hardcore. It was in-your-face intense. You do that to these kids today and they are shutting down,” Robert Decker said. “I understand the Navy — and the military — is a war machine. But you cannot take a blanket way of doing things and think that you are going to get the best out of them.”

___

Moving away from ‘do as I say or else’

In April 2022, three sailors connected to the USS George Washington died by suicide within a week while the carrier was undergoing an extended overhaul at Newport News Shipbuilding. Less than eight months later, the Norfolk-based Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center reported four suicides within 28 days.

In May 2022, the Department of Defense established the Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee. The committee was comprised of 10 subject matter experts and military veterans, who explored how to prevent suicide among service members.

The committee found that the younger generation, ages 18-25, have different motivations to work and expectations of their employers. They prefer open communication and continuous feedback, quick responses to questions, have an urgent sense of immediacy and are “unlikely to readily accept organizational policies that limit the sharing of information.”

This is true of the incoming workforce for the military, the committee’s report says.

Improving communication across generations is key for the Department of Defense to prevent suicide, the report says. It suggests Navy leaders move away from the “do as I say or else” style of leadership.

Younger personnel display more openness toward help-seeking and self-disclosure of their struggles. Older personnel, by comparison, were more likely to view help-seeking and self-disclosure of struggles as indicators of low resilience, the report says.

Fleet Master Chief John Perryman, who enlisted in the Navy in 1994, said he doesn’t think the qualities of a good leader have changed.

“What has changed is sailors’ willingness to put up with bad leaders,” Perryman said during a recent Fleet Forces meeting with reporters to discuss the Navy’s cultural shift.

Perryman — alongside Caudle — outlined the Navy’s efforts to tackle the stigma of seeking mental health care and how the service is reinforcing that message to leaders at all levels.

“The ability to make those decisions on an individual sailor or Marine basis rests on that leader’s ability to really know their sailors and to demonstrate that they really genuinely care about them,” Perryman said.

But, Perryman said, the Navy has run into senior leaders who “are not comfortable operating in that space.” Those leaders will default to sending that person to medical for mental health treatment or will haphazardly attempt to handle it themselves.

“If I don’t have a pre-existing relationship with you, why would you trust me to try to help you through whatever difficulties you have?” Perryman said.

___

Playbook implores leaders to get personal

Guiding sailors from the deck plate to the most senior positions are two newly implemented programs: the Brandon Act in May and the Navy’s Mental Health Playbook in February.

The Brandon Act allows service members to seek help confidentially for any reason at any time and in any environment — in the hope that would prevent the stigma associated with seeking such treatment.

“The Brandon Act legislated what good leadership looks like,” Caudle said. “I think good commands were already doing this.”

The Mental Health Playbook is meant to educate leaders within any size chain of command by detailing scenarios and outlining possible paths forward. It requires leaders to set conditions by creating a climate of trust and respect with open, two-way communication and encourages them to use empathy and have conversations that go beyond professional performance.

“But a playbook is not worth the paper it’s written on if we don’t put it into practice,” Caudle said. “And that’s a responsibility throughout the chain of command.”

Leaders can’t take a hands-off approach where they are more comfortable interacting via emails and text messages, Caudle said.

“When it comes to the subject we are talking about — mental health — I don’t think that is good enough. That is not even close to being good enough,” Caudle said.

He wants to see a more personal leadership style become the standard for the Navy, from petty officers to the most senior military officials.

“They have to actually know their sailors. They need to know where they live, their family members, their kids’ names, their financial situation,” Caudle said, in order to pick up on day-to-day differences a sailor is exhibiting.

On. Sept. 28, the secretary of defense approved a “5 Lines of Effort” campaign based on the Suicide Prevention and Response Independent Review Committee’s recommendations that is meant to strengthen the department’s suicide prevention strategy.

The first line of the effort is to foster a supportive environment by investing in taking care of “people priorities,” improving morale through facilities to enhance quality of life and empowering leaders to improve schedule predictability. The second line is to improve the delivery of mental health care by expanding programs to recruit and retain more mental health professionals and increasing appointment availability. The third line is to address stigma and other barriers to care by expanding nonmedical counseling for suicide prevention, mental health services in primary care and telehealth services for mental health.

The department plans to fully implement the campaign by the end of fiscal year 2030.

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‘Talking to me didn’t hurt their career’

In the meantime, nonmedical resources are available to sailors who are struggling with a mental health crisis, clashing with a leader or just need someone to talk to. These resources are bound by confidentiality and are not logged in a sailor’s file.

Aboard the USS George Washington, just down the corridor from the aft mess deck where junior enlisted personnel eat and have access to Wi-Fi, is Terrance Levine’s office.

“Hey, how you doing?” Levine says to a sailor in passing during a recent underway.

Affectionately dubbed Talk Boss, Levine is a deployed resiliency counselor. He reported to the Washington in May after it left Newport News Shipbuilding. Deployed resiliency counselors are civilian licensed clinicians assigned to aircraft carriers and large-deck amphibious assault ships. They offer confidential, short-term, nonmedical counseling for all sailors attached to the ship.

The resiliency counselor program supports two counselors on every carrier and amphibious ship in the fleet. On the East Coast, 10 of 22 positions were vacant as of Oct. 17, according to Navy Installations Command, which oversees the Fleet and Family Support Program that provides nonmedical mental health counseling for sailors and family members.

“I see sailors that maybe are having work-related problems, family issues, maybe an email they received from home while deployed saying, ‘I don’t want the marriage or the relationship.’ So, they are coming to me for that engagement. My job is to patch them up, get them to work through it and return them back to the mission,” Levine said.

But, a lot of sailors, he said, still have concerns that talking to him will impact their work life.

Around 35% of service members believe receiving mental health care would negatively impact their careers, according to the Defense Health Agency’s Psychological Health Center of Excellence. Fears include being perceived as weak or less competent or receiving blame or different treatment from leaders for seeking mental health care.

Levine relies on word of mouth to break down that stigma.

“From what I have been told by these same sailors is that talking to me didn’t hurt their career. And they are talking to other sailors, saying that if you have a problem, go to the Talk Boss, go to psych, seek out the resources,” Levine said. “I see more people really taking control of their mental health and seeking the help that they need.”

Another resource available to sailors is the Command Religious Ministries Department.

The Navy is working to increase the presence of chaplains on ships based in Norfolk from 37 to 47, the Associated Press reported in March. Previously, chaplains were routinely deployed only on the largest aircraft carriers, which have up to 5,000 personnel.

“In my opinion, from my experience, I don’t think that we’re seeing an increase of issue. I think we are seeing an increase in education, an increase of resources being developed and implemented and pushed into our sailors’ lives in a good way,” said Marlin Williams, a chaplain aboard the USS George Washington.

The ministries departments are diverse groups of religious clergy who are also naval officers and of various denominations. The chaplains provide pastoral counseling — not mental health counseling — but they often have advanced degrees in counseling.

“What we bring to the table, whether someone has a faith community or not, is that sense of greater purpose bigger than oneself,” Williams said.

The chaplains are able to offer sailors absolute confidentiality. He said this applies when sailors express suicidal thoughts.

“The ability to come in and talk to someone knowing that whatever you say is going to be held in confidence opens up an amazing door to healing for someone,” Williams said.

Williams checked in aboard the Washington at the start of January. By the end of the month, another Washington sailor died by suicide.

“That was tragic,” Williams said. “It ripples through the whole command and, quite honestly, it ripples into the fleet.”

For Williams, suicide is personal. Two of his brothers have died by suicide.

“There is a sense of hopelessness. Making sure I articulate there is hope — that is not a 5-minute conversation. That is not a 10-minute conversation. That is a journey,” Williams said.

Williams seeks a personal connection that lets sailors know they’re heard and cared for, he said. That’s the same leadership style Caudle, with Fleet Forces, wants to become standard across the Navy.

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‘God forbid more families have to go through this’

After Kody Decker’s death, his friend and fellow sailor separated from the Navy a year before his contract was scheduled to end. He cited his own mental health struggles.

“The Navy can either be really good — amazing enough that you want to retire with them. But if you get dealt a bad hand, which comes down to the leadership that runs the show, it can lead to things like this: depression, anxiety, suicide,” the former sailor said.

Since the start of October, Robert Decker has been bracing himself.

“It’s like I’m standing on the shore and I’m looking at the ocean and I can see the storm coming,” Robert Decker said. “The winds are picking up now. Oct. 29 is coming, and it’s going to be hell.”

Over the past 12 months, the family has experienced their first holiday, his child’s first birthday and major milestones without Kody Decker.

“This will be the last big first,” Robert Decker said, slowly exhaling a deep, shaking breath.

In the midst of the grief, Decker said this year has also brought much-needed change and an improved awareness of mental health struggles to the service and the general public.

“Being angry at the world, being angry at an institution is not the answer. I am not happy with them, but I am happy that they are willing to address their problems,” Robert Decker said, quietly adding, “It cost me a son, unfortunately.”

Moving forward, Robert Decker said he would like to see a more personal leadership style standardized across the service. For the leaders who are unwilling to change, he hopes the Navy will weed them out, beginning with those who work closest with junior sailors.

“Leaders have got to be willing to adjust,” Robert Decker said. “I pray they do. God forbid more families have to go through this.”

Caitlyn Burchett, caitlyn.burchett@virginiamedia.com

As the Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival prepares its 41st event, attendees can make plans to buy general camping tickets.

They go on sale Wednesday, Oct. 25, and typically sell out quickly, a festival news release states.

The three-day, weekend festival is scheduled for May 17 to May 19 at the Lake Skinner Recreation Area in Winchester. It will once again offer hot-air balloon rides, live music, food, wine and vendors.

“The Temecula Valley Balloon & Wine Festival is not just your neighborhood festival,” festival board President Scott Soares Sr. said in the release.

Exclusive Festival Experience tickets are already on sale and offer the highest-level VIP and camping package. VIP and general admission tickets will be available later this fall.

The festival’s musical lineup will be announced at the end of November.

Information: www.tvbw.com

President Biden used a rare Oval Office address Thursday to urge Americans to support more military funding for Israel in the wake of a deadly Hamas attack and more aid for Ukraine in its protracted war against Russia, warning that both conflicts pose a threat to U.S. national security.

“Our alliances are what keep us safe. And our values are what make us a partner that other nations want to work with,” Biden said in only his second address from behind the Resolute Desk. “We put all of that at risk if we walk away from Ukraine or turn our back on Israel.”

Biden said he planned to send an emergency funding request to Congress that would provide more assistance for U.S. allies. The request, which the White House is expected to unveil Friday, totals more than $100 billion. The proposal also includes money for Taiwan and for security along the U.S. border with Mexico.

Biden said that although these conflicts can feel “far away,” Hamas and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose a threat to democratic stability around the world.

“Hamas and Putin represent different threats,” he said. “But they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy completely.”

Biden traveled this week to Tel Aviv, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss Israel’s military campaign against Hamas and push for more humanitarian assistance for civilians trapped in the crossfire in the Gaza Strip.

Failing to aid Israel and Ukraine would only embolden their foes, Biden warned.

“When terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death, and more destruction,” he said. “They keep going, and the costs and the threats to America and the world keep rising.”

But he faces an uphill battle in Congress, where progressive Democrats have spoken out against sending more weapons to Israel and right-wing Republicans have questioned continued military assistance for Ukraine.

In August, the White House asked for $24 billion in aid for Ukraine as part of a supplemental funding request, but the provision was left out of a short-term spending measure despite an appearance by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the U.S. Capitol.

Before the speech, Biden spoke with Zelensky to underscore “continued strong bipartisan support” for Kyiv, according to a White House readout of the phone call. But U.S. public support for supplying Ukraine with weapons has waned, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Oct. 5. The survey found 41% of respondents agreed Washington should supply weapons to Ukraine, compared with 35% who disagreed. In May, 46% of respondents said the U.S. should send weapons to Ukraine, compared with 29% who were opposed.

The U.S. has so far provided more than $75 billion in military, humanitarian and financial aid to Ukraine, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy.

House Republicans’ failure to elect a new speaker to replace ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) has also halted Congress, limiting the lower chamber’s ability to act on any request made by the president.

Biden arrived in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, hours after a massive blast at a Gaza Strip hospital killed hundreds of people, prompting Israel and the Hamas-run Health Ministry to blame the opposing side for the devastating attack. The president reiterated in his Oval Office address that he agrees with Israel’s version of events.

Biden had initially planned to travel Amman, Jordan, to meet leaders from Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, which has no ruling position in Gaza but oversees the larger West Bank. The meeting was scrapped before Biden’s plane left Washington.

During his trip to Israel, Biden vowed to help restore the beleaguered country as a “safe place for the Jewish people.”

“And I promise you: We’re going to do everything in our power to make sure that it will be,” he said in a speech after meeting Netanyahu and his war Cabinet.

But Biden warned Israelis not to be “consumed by rage,” using the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. as a cautionary tale, noting that while the United States sought and found justice, it also made mistakes.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel and 3,400 in Gaza since the conflict began Oct. 7 with Hamas’ surprise incursion of the Israeli border.

“Tonight, there are innocent people all over the world who hope because of us, who believe in a better life because of us, who are desperate not to be forgotten by us and are waiting for us,” Biden said.

“But time is of the essence. I know we have our divisions at home. We have to get past them. We can’t let petty, partisan, angry politics get in the way our responsibility as a great nation.”

In Biden’s only other Oval Office speech, in June, he delivered remarks after reaching an agreement with then-Speaker McCarthy to avoid defaulting on the nation’s debt, a deal that was scrapped months later by House Republicans.

It’s a bad time to be online.

If you’ve logged on to any given social media platform in the last two weeks, you’ll know what I’m talking about: Ever since Hamas unleashed its horrific attack on Israel, and Israel unleashed its horrific retaliatory bombing campaign on Gaza, there has not only been a deluge of heartbreaking and disturbing stories and images, but of fake videos, out-of-context posts, phony experts, enraged screeds, and falsified news — all raining down our feeds in biblical storm-like volumes.

Disinformation researchers and journalists have called the mess an “algorithmically driven fog of war” and news analysts have decried the flurry of bad info, the harder-than-ever effort of sorting fact from fiction online. It culminated this week in a mad scramble to parse the blame for a terrible attack on a Gaza hospital that left many civilians dead, Hamas-allied groups blaming Israel and vice versa, and a legion of online sleuths posting away in a mostly vain pursuit of the truth.

But let’s be clear about a few things — this digital fog of war has existed as long as social media’s been around to angrily scroll through in times of crisis. And even if that haze has occasionally been punctured for the greater good, as when it’s been used for citizen journalism and dissident organizing against oppressive regimes, social media’s incentive structure chiefly benefits the powerful and the unscrupulous; it rewards propagandists and opportunists, hucksters and clout-chasers.

As so many of us feel furious and powerless, we might take this occasion to consider the ways that social media deludes us into believing we’re interacting with history, rather than yelling at a screen, and how big tech bends that impulse to its benefit too; encouraging us to spew out increasingly polemical posts, even before the facts are at all clear, promising to reward the most inflammatory with notoriety, and perhaps even payouts.

If we ever hope to fix any of that, and shape a social network that aspires to reliably disseminate factual information, we should pay close attention to what’s happening in the digital trenches of the platforms right now — and the particular ways that our current crop is failing.

Many have been quick to blame Elon Musk for the worst failings of the social media ecosystem. After all, Musk owns X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, once considered the premier online destination for finding up-to-the-second information on the major happenings of the world. Without doubt, X nee Twitter has become a significantly less reliable source for news since Musk took over and gutted the content moderation teams in charge of keeping hoaxes, harassment, and bad info at bay.

To make matters worse, Musk’s substitution of the previous “blue check” system, which, while imperfect, sought to verify identities of officials and newsmakers, with a pay-to-play system that lets anyone purchase that verification for $8 a month, means that “verified” sources can push bad info — and even earn cash for it through X’s creator revenue sharing program. (A study by the news-rating service NewsGuard found that 74% of viral false or unsubstantiated claims about the Israel-Hamas war were spread by paid “verified” accounts.) Now it’s just a skeleton crew against millions of posts every day, new incentives for power users to post vitriolic rubbish, and a barebones “community notes” program where users can volunteer clarifications and context.

But the competition isn’t faring much better. Facebook and TikTok have been actively working to limit the amount of news that even shows up on their platforms in the first place. For one thing, they’re protesting new and proposed laws in Canada and the U.S. that compel tech giants to compensate the media companies that produce content that gets shared on their platforms. For another, news is harder and more costly to moderate than vacation pics and celebrity sponcon. On Instagram, Meta has been erroneously inserting the word “terrorist” into text translations of user account bios that contained the word “Palestinian.”

But this problem hardly began with Musk or TikTok. What we today call misinformation has attended every major crisis or catastrophe since the era of following them online has begun; it’s a symptom of large-scale social media, period. There are always hoax images — of that shark swimming down the highway after any major city floods, of a recycled photo from a previous tragedy, of a horror transposed from another context — and breaking “news” that turns out to be false or half-true.

This is because social media is not in any way built to be a news delivery service. As numerous scholars have shown, social media that’s engineered to reach (and serve ads to) as many people as possible is built to incentivize inflammatory content; violent stuff, the polemics, the sensational fakes. This may be common knowledge by now, but the trend has only been exacerbated by the removal of buffers such as robust content moderation or trust and safety teams. It’s digital cable news at best, an unhinged 8chan comment board at worst.

Take the all-consuming online skirmish that unfolded online this week over whether it was Israel that bombed a hospital in Gaza, killing nearly 500 people, or a Palestinian rocket that misfired, killing far fewer. Right out of the gate, ideologies ran hot, and perhaps the biggest predictor of what your online explanation of the tragedy would be was your political orientation.

Amateur sleuths took to available satellite imagery and footage of the arcing rockets to spam out lengthy threads detailing why or why not one side was responsible based on factors like whether the impact crater from the blast could or could not be the size seen in the available footage. It reminded me of the Reddit detectives who went into overdrive after the Boston marathon bombing 10 years ago, piecing together evidence from digital errata from cellphone videos and news footage, and ultimately fingering an innocent bystander as the culprit.

That said, the example also highlights a fact of the new media environment: In the algorithmic fog of war, those with more power and resources have a distinct advantage. While Gaza officials blamed the Israel Defense Forces for the attack in a statement, the IDF responded with a far slicker social media package to rebut the claims — a graphic-laden series of posts claiming the explosion was the result of a misfiring rocket, complete with what it claimed was intercepted audio of Hamas fighters discussing the accident in peculiar levels of detail. Critics accused the media product of being staged, noted that Israel has falsely denied responsibility before, and round and round we went.

As was true 10 years ago, the online hyperactivity — the fevered theorizing, the parsing of screenshots, the relentless opining — served very little purpose in the end, at least with regard to 99% of those involved. Little was accomplished that would not have been if the posters simply waited for journalists and investigators to carry out their work.

Social media can still be crucial. I was on a flight yesterday, scrolling X for hours until I nearly dissociated. So I turned on CNN, and what I saw there was somehow even worse — wall-to-wall coverage aligned almost exclusively with Israel’s viewpoint. A story about how Hamas was seeding disinformation online, about the victims of Hamas’ brutal slaughter, about a heroic Israeli who fought back against the militants, about the Biden administration backing Israeli claims that Gazans were to blame for the explosion in Gaza. None of which would be terrible stories on their own, but in the hours of coverage I watched, there was just one story about Gaza, and it was about an American doctor stranded there. To see evidence of the fallout from Israel’s bombing campaign, I had to turn to social media. Despite everything, it’s still the place where you can hear the voices not broadcast anywhere else. There is a reason, after all, that Israel is seeking to cut off Gaza’s internet access.

But we urgently need to figure out how to up the quotient of reliability and safety on the platforms, how to restrain our worst impulses in using them, and increase our media literacy on them in general — none of which is likely to happen when the platforms in question are either run by a self-serving megalomaniac, dependent on infinitely ratcheting up ad revenue, or both. In the age of COVID denial and Qanon and collapsing trust in our institutions everywhere, truth feels as malleable and elusive and even unknowable as ever; in the aftermath of an unspeakable attack that’s drawn comparisons to 9/11, and knowing how fallible our institutions were in the wake of that tragedy, it is indeed hard to know whom to trust, from mainstream to social media on up.

One thing is certain: We do need a place where we can grope toward shared understanding of world events. But the playpens owned by billionaires will never be that place.