“Defending your right to know”
(Photo Essays)
05.13.2022 - This Orange County High School Baseball Team Just Won Its First League Title in 54 Years
By: Omar Sanchez
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. — The final stretch of the year has arrived for more than 200 high school baseball teams across Orange County.
This time of year is a weekly fight to extend the season as long as possible until they are the last team standing.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes things go according to plan, sometimes they fall apart before your eyes.
That’s not just life, that’s baseball.
And while the season ended for one Division 7 program this week, it was a season unlike any other for these Fountain Valley families.
All across the country, conference titles & championship banners hang from the walls or ceilings inside school gymnasiums. Athletes and teams are immortalized, cementing legacies in the years printed on the fabric for generations to see.
The banner that displayed Los Amigos High School’s league championships for baseball inside the gymnasium was empty for the last 54 years.
It won’t be for much longer.
10.05.2022 - SoCal Rallies in Irvine to Protest Iranian Repression
By: Omar Sanchez
IRVINE, Calif. — This past weekend, the City of Irvine became a focal point alongside protests all across Southern California, the nation and the world, where throngs turned out in over 130 cities to amplify their voices in solidarity with the people of Iran.
All across Iran, crowds of enraged women and men are flooding the streets protesting the recent killing of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman who was arrested, beaten and killed by Iranian morality police for not properly wearing a headdress, called a hijab. Government officials say she died of a heart attack but few people have accepted that version of events.
Women are now taking off their hijabs, burning them, and even cutting their own hair in support of Amini and anti-government protests.
As of Oct. 2, over 130 people –including children– in Iran have been killed during these demonstrations, according to Norway-based human rights group Iranian Human Rights.
Residents from across all of Orange County and the region were no strangers to those demonstrations as women, children, and men –walking with baby strollers, canes, wheelchairs, flags, posters, and a demand for action to support an oppressed country– gathered by the hundreds at Mason Park near the corner of Culver and University Drive in Irvine Saturday morning.
10.10.2022 - Orange County Reflects on Indigenous Peoples Day
By: Omar Sanchez & Julie Leopo
SANTA ANA, Calif. — Everyone across Orange County today gets a federal holiday to reflect on the first contact between Europeans and the Americas.
But as with many historical events and icons, there has been an increasing refocus on this federal holiday in recent years with an eye toward a retelling of the first contact, one that acknowledges it was also a conquest.
This retelling has been gaining momentum since worldwide events in the 1990s commemorated the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to America in 1492.
There’s more than 500 recognized indigenous tribes in the U.S, and another 800 across Latin America.
Yet there’s few places where this retelling plays out more starkly than Orange County.
This past weekend, City of Santa Ana officials inaugurated their first Indigenous People’s Day.
City officials said they organized the event to honor the history and contributions of Native cultures and communities through their knowledge, spirituality, creativity, art, technology, and philosophies, according to the city of Santa Ana.
10.28.2020 - Orange County Residents Remain Resilient After Two Days of Two Fires
By: Omar Sanchez
At least 90,000 residents have been pushed from their homes as two wildfires blaze across the county’s eastern canyons. Here we see the community’s perspective as the fires continue on day two in a series of photos.
06.27.2021 - Photos: Hundreds of People Show Their Pride in Ladera Ranch
By: Omar Sanchez
LADERA RANCH, Calif. — Pride Flags, streamers and rainbow party decor gave Founders Park in Ladera Ranch some new color last Friday, as more than 200 people of all ages showed up for the LGBTQ+ community during Pride month.
“This is the Ladera Ranch that we want to see … you don’t have to stay hidden,” said resident and mother Morgane Sabin, who led organizers in planning for the event in the south Orange County unincorporated town.
Sabin said she and other organizers already plan to organize another Pride event in Ladera Ranch next year.
It didn’t come without controversy around the community, as the local homeowners association and organizers found themselves in a dispute over issues of reserving space for the celebration.
— click on images to read more —
06.12.2021 - Orange County Remembers Residents Who Died from Coronavirus in Countywide Memorial
By: Omar Sanchez
COSTA MESA, Calif. — More than 5,000 candles were lit Friday night vigil in the first memorial sponsored by county government to residents who died from Coronavirus.
Cutouts of doves imprinted with the message “Forever loved forever missed” were placed around the lake behind the Costa Mesa Avenue of the Arts Hotel in the 7:30 p.m. gathering with more than 50 attendees.
Some people who came carried with them photos and flowers in honor of loved ones who died of the virus. Violinist Richard Adkins and Violette Remington sang to open and close the ceremony.