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Ex-probation chief’s suit alleges L.A. County fired him for being a whistleblower

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Former Los Angeles County Probation Department chief Adolfo Gonzales, who was fired last March amid widepread dysfunction at the agency’s juvenile halls, alleges in a lawsuit that he was ousted for reporting dire staffing shortages to state regulators.

Gonzales’ two-year, one-month tenure was marked by near-constant controversies. But in a lawsuit filed last month, he argued that county supervisors decided to terminate him only after he was frank with inspectors from the Board of State and Community Corrections about the agency’s staffing crisis.

The board, referred to as the BSCC, has the power to shut down juvenile detention facilities if inspections reveal that conditions aren’t up to state standards.

“Gonzales candidly reported to the BSCC inspectors the staffing shortages in Probation Department which caused lack of compliance with various California State regulations and mandates,” the lawsuit says. “As a result of Gonzales’ reports to BSCC, he was terminated by the County.”

The state board declined to comment. Mira Hashmall, outside counsel for L.A. County, called the lawsuit baseless.

“The Probation Department suffered from a lack of leadership under Adolfo Gonzales, which is why his employment was terminated,” she wrote in a statement to The Times. “He is no whistleblower.”

Under Gonzales’ leadership, the perennially struggling agency careened from one problem to the next. There were more lockdowns, more fights and fewer staff members to deal with them. Deputies said they were too scared of the violence inside the juvenile halls to come to work. Youths were traumatized too, forced to urinate in their locked rooms because no one was around to let them out.

Gonzales’ attorney, Michael Conger, said his client’s account of staffing issues heavily influenced a Jan. 13, 2023, report from state inspectors, which found, among other shortcomings, that the county’s two juvenile halls were dangerously short-staffed. Months later, the board would shut down the two halls after the county repeatedly failed to improve conditions.

Conger said it was Gonzales’ “candid” portrayal of staffing problems that led to his termination two months later.

The state inspection was not the only embarrassment Gonzales’ agency suffered in the months leading up to his firing, however. On Feb. 11, 2023, The Times reported that Gonzales overrode an internal disciplinary board’s recommendation to fire an officer who had violently restrained a 17-year-old. After The Times’ report, a majority of the Board of Supervisors called for Gonzales’ resignation.

Gonzales’ attorney said this was not what earned the board’s ire.

“We don’t believe that had anything to do with it,” he said. “That was a complete non-issue. They were not mad at that.”

Records show the county spent more than $900,000 on Gonzales during his stint with the department.

By the time he left, Gonzales had received $927,000 in compensation, according to county salary data. It’s unclear if that figure includes other perks Gonzales was entitled to under his employment agreement with the county, which promised relocation costs and severance pay.

According to his employment agreement, reviewed by The Times, Gonzales was entitled to up to $25,000 to relocate from San Diego, where he worked for five years running the county’s Probation Department.

Records show he also received $172,521 — equivalent to six months’ salary — as severance pay after he was fired.

The board replaced Gonzales with Guillermo Viera Rosa, promising a new chapter for the long-troubled agency. But so far, his tenure has been plagued by the same staffing crisis that haunted his predecessor.

A report released Thursday from the county’s Office of Inspector General found that “dangerously low staffing levels” had contributed to the chaotic Nov. 4 escape of a youth from Los Padrinos juvenile hall. After several teens attacked a staff member, one briefly escaped to a neighboring golf course.

At the time of the incident, only one staff member — who had never before been assigned to juvenile halls — had been in the unit with 14 youths, the report’s authors found. The report notes the staffing level violates state law, which requires the agency maintain a ratio of one staff member for 10 youths.

That day, the Probation Department had scheduled 100 staff members to work at the facility — the minimum required in order to operate.

Sixty of them didn’t show up.



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Timelapse Satellite Imagery Shows Storm Beryl’s Formation

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Satellite imagery shows the path Storm Beryl took from forming in late June, to sweeping through the Caribbean, before eventually hitting parts of the United States in July.

This timelapse footage from the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) spans 16 days from June 27, to July 12, showing Beryl’s “formation as a tropical storm, through the post-tropical severe weather and flooding it brought to eastern North America”.

Remnants of Beryl prompted flood warnings for parts of New York and northern New England on July 10, before the storm tapered off. Credit: CSU/CIRA & NOAA via Storyful



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Wordle Answer for Today, July 13, 2024

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If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for July 13, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is medium difficult; I got it in four. Beware, there are spoilers below for July 13, Wordle #1,120! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!


Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

Almost all of today’s letters are from our mnemonic. Only one isn’t, and it’s still pretty common.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

To establish, as in a law.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

There are no repeated letters today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There are two vowels.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with E. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with T. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is ENACT.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE then tried BLOND and MATCH to eliminate common consonants. This left ENACT as the only possible solution.

Wordle 1,120 4/6

⬛🟨⬛⬛🟨
⬛⬛⬛🟨⬛
⬛🟨🟨🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was hard. The hint was “be there in one of these—i.e., in a hurry” and the answer contained one common letters, two somewhat common letters, and two uncommon letters.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was JIFFY.

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

  • Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

  • Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

  • CRANE

  • TRACE

  • SLANT

  • CRATE

  • CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

  • SALET

  • REAST

  • TRACE

  • CRATE

  • SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:





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Harrison Butker says Serena Williams’ jab at him was an ‘opportunity to disinvite’ those who disagree with her

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Serena Williams said women “don’t need” Harrison Butker to celebrate women’s sports.

The tennis legend made the comment Thursday night at the ESPY Awards alongside her sister Venus Williams and actress Quinta Brunson.

The Kansas City Chiefs kicker drew criticism when he delivered a commencement speech at Benedictine College that included encouraging female graduates to embrace being a “homemaker.” 

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Harrison Butker

Harrison Butker at the 2024 ESPY Awards at the Dolby Theatre July 11, 2024, in Los Angeles.  (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)

“You can enjoy women’s sports, just like any other sport, because they are sports,” Venus said.

Serena gave her response about Butker while barely able to control her laughter.

Butker, who was in attendance, released a statement saying Williams was a “great host” but didn’t use the “opportunity” for good.

Serena Williams and Harrison Butker

With Harrison Butker in attendance, Serena Williams threw shade at the Chiefs kicker at Thursday’s ESPYS. (Getty Images)

“I thought Mrs. Williams was a great host and applaud her for using her platform to express her beliefs on a variety of topics,” Butker told NBC Sports. “Sports are supposed to be the great unifier. And at an event dedicated to celebrating a diverse group of men and women who have accomplished great feats, she used it as an opportunity to disinvite those with whom she disagrees with from supporting fellow athletes.”

Williams’ jab got a positive reaction from the crowd and went viral.

butker

Harrison Butker (Robin Alam/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

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Butker remained unapologetic for his speech when he made another public appearance a couple of weeks later, saying it was “not people, but Jesus Christ who I’m trying to please.”

Butker’s jersey sales have since skyrocketed on NFL Shop, and many in the media remain split about the speech.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X, and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.





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