WASHINGTON — 

President Trump, looking to make inroads with African American voters, touted the bipartisan sentencing reform legislation he signed into law last year during a speech Friday at a historically black South Carolina college.

Speaking to a conference on criminal justice reform at Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., where a number of Democratic hopefuls will also appear this weekend, Trump used an official White House event to make the political case for his reelection and to take credit for the First Step Act, which eased harsh minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.

“Past administrations tried and failed,” Trump said. “They didn’t try very hard, I will say.”

Trump rarely speaks before black audiences and has been criticized for rhetoric that incites white rage. The White House had billed this speech as an opportunity to make his case directly to black voters, who oppose him by large margins.

“We’ve had so many people with empty political rhetoric. We’re doing the opposite. We’re acting, not talking,” he said, citing lower unemployment figures and higher wages.

In the end, however, not many black voters were there to hear his words. Only seven students from the college were seated in the small hall in which Trump spoke, college officials confirmed to the press pool traveling with Trump. About half the seats were reserved for administration allies and guests. News of the seating plan was first reported by McClatchy.

Trump cast the 2018 sentencing bill as a moment of “hope and optimism.” And he reframed his “America First” slogan as a promise to speak up for the voiceless, including African Americans.

“From the beginning, my vow has been to stand up for those who have been forgotten, neglected, overlooked and ignored,” he said.

Trump was less combative than usual and talked about the criminal justice overhaul in moral terms he seldom uses in speeches.

The bill was something bigger than politics and “was not a theme of my campaign initially,” he said.

“To this day, I’m not sure what I did was a popular thing or an unpopular thing, but I know it was the right thing to do,” Trump said.

Trump called three people to the stage, one whose sentence he commuted and two others who have benefited from the new law.

Alice Johnson, whose case was brought to Trump’s attention last year by Kim Kardashian, thanked Trump for her freedom.

“If it wasn’t for you, Mr. President, I’d still be serving five years in prison,” Johnson said, as Trump stood just behind her on stage.

Trump also made a point of praising Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who was eulogized Friday by two former presidents at a funeral service in Baltimore earlier in the day that drew scores of prominent politicians, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Trump told the audience he hoped to get legislation passed to lower the cost of prescription drugs in honor of Cummings, recalling his passion for the issue.

“I want to give my warmest respects, please,” he said.

Just three months ago, Trump had trashed Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee that was investigating him, in a tweet storm using racist language, describing the lawmaker’s majority-black district as “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” and a “very dangerous & filthy place” where “no human being would want to live.”

The president’s absence Friday at yet another political funeral underscored his isolation from Washington’s political class and his pariah status, especially during moments of national mourning.

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The funeral in Baltimore celebrated Cummings’ life with tributes which, like those delivered at other political funerals over the last two years, sometimes sounded as if they included veiled critiques of Trump.

As a member of Congress, Cummings was referred to as “the honorable,” former President Obama said in his eulogy. “This is a title we confer on all kinds of people who get elected to public office,” he said. “You’re supposed to introduce them as honorable. But Elijah Cummings was honorable before he was elected to office.”

“There’s nothing weak about looking out for others,” Obama continued. “There’s nothing weak about being honorable. You’re not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect.”

The comments came the same week that Trump, on Twitter, compared the Democratic-led impeachment probe to a lynching, drawing sharp criticism from many African Americans. As he departed for Friday’s speech, Trump showed no regret.

“It’s a word many Democrats have used,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “That’s a word that’s been used many times.”

Toward the end of his speech, he compared the threat of impeachment to the disproportionate prosecutions of African Americans, who are incarcerated at five times the rate of white Americans.

“You know I have my own experience,” he told the crowd. “You see it’s a terrible thing going on in our country. It’s an investigation in search of a crime.”

Mary and Charles Lindsey went to sleep to the glow of the Tick fire, but they had seen wildfires before, and their two-story home in the Santa Clarita foothills seemed safe enough. All Thursday, they hadn’t gotten a reverse-911 alert, or an emergency email, or a phone call. All had seemed quiet since 11 a.m., when Southern California Edison shut off their power.

It wasn’t until 2:30 a.m. Friday that something — maybe the whir of helicopters or perhaps the providence of God — woke Mary up. She saw the unusual light creeping through the bedroom curtains. “That’s not right,” she thought, grabbing a flashlight.

Outside, a sheriff’s deputy cruising by noticed the flashlight in the window and flicked on his siren, then shouted into the home: “It’s a mandatory evacuation!” The deputy wondered why the occupants hadn’t gotten an alert. She told him that entire section of the Stonecrest community didn’t have a clue. They were all still in their homes. “Oh, my God!” the deputy replied.

What followed, by Mary Lindsey’s recollection the next day at an evacuation center at the College of the Canyons in Valencia, was a pitch-black rush to safety for the Lindseys and dozens of their neighbors — just a microcosm of the unsettling new abnormal confronting residents in California’s sprawling wildfire country: managing emergency evacuations without lights, electrical garage doors, internet-enabled phone lines or air conditioning.

In the Lindseys’ case, it was too smoky to open any windows. When they finally evacuated during the dark morning hours Friday, Mary Lindsey had to reach under the bed for the flashlight she’d stashed there. She also put an extra one in her purse.

“It was pitch black,” she said. “Pitch black.”

As fires still raged in Northern California’s wine country and close to the suburbs above the 14 Freeway in Southern California, evacuees described how getting out, and getting on, felt markedly more frightening because the state’s biggest utilities had cut power as part of wide “public safety power shut-offs.” There was no small irony in the fact that the discomfiting power outages had been ordered to prevent the fires in the first place.

California has built much of its emergency response system around the premise that alerts and evacuation orders will be received by residents with cellphones or landlines. But landline technology has changed, and telecommunications companies are increasingly relying on internet technology, which is subject to power outages, to serve households with voice calls.

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Utilities say they are working to address such challenges. A spokesman for Southern California Edison said a “critical-care customer” program offers advance warning to people who need further assistance in the event of an outage. But it’s unclear whether most customers in need of such service are aware that the program is available, or whether the warning time is enough.

Phil Herrington, Edison’s senior vice president of transmission and distribution, said the utility tries to give customers 24 to 48 hours’ advance notice of outages. “That gives customers time to make preparations — if they’re going to be out of communication, to identify other sources of communication,” he said. “We’re doing this for public safety, keeping in mind the trade-off.”

Asked about the evacuation challenges, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department did not respond to specific questions but issued a general statement: “There were several evacuation areas just south of the fire’s flash point,” the statement said. “In instances where there is a a fast-moving fire, no one method of emergent notifications can cover the need for public safety.”

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Even before this week’s fires, Californians have learned the difficulties of getting out without electricity.

Janice Bell, a Chatsworth resident who has multiple sclerosis, had to get out of her Porter Ranch home in a hurry in the predawn darkness Oct. 14 because of the Saddleridge fire. But Bell’s car was trapped inside her garage, behind an electric door, and she could not open it. After two hours of waiting, she flagged down a neighbor who helped her open the garage door, and she drove to her office in Woodland Hills.

Bell said she received no advance notice of the power outage. And she said there would have been no way of learning from Edison’s website, which had been down for two days.

“It was just crazy to me that that can be allowed to happen…. I guess they never thought of people getting their garage doors open,” she said.

Evacuations were particularly complicated at the Isis Oasis, an animal sanctuary in the Sonoma County wine country town of Geyserville, where operators had to exit with an array of exotic creatures. Stumbling through a darkened pen, deTraci Regula tried to secure two emus, aggressive 5-foot-tall birds.

“Just as we began to evacuate, all the power went out,” Regula said, adding that a warning from Pacific Gas & Electric Co. about a shut-off had been canceled earlier. “We didn’t know that we were going to have one.” She said the darkness “pretty much doubled the effort…. We literally could not see what we were doing, and there was heavy ash.”

In Southern California, an evacuee at the College of the Canyons, Judy Intenso, had faced an Edison power outage at her apartment a week ago. Though there was no fire emergency then, she recalled the difficulty feeling her way to the door, where she stores a battery-operated flashlight.

She couldn’t imagine the stress of dealing with a loss of power with flames approaching. “To try to gather your things and your dog, and do all that in the dark without hurting yourself,” she said, trailing off. “Very scary.”

So, knowing she might lose power Thursday, Intenso prepared for the worst. When she got home, Intenso, an electrical technician, parked outside her garage, knowing that she would need electricity to open the door. She also filled up her gas tank, knowing that she’d want to leave her car running so she could use it to charge her cellphone. She got away cleanly and seemed to be coping well at the evacuation center, where she was joined by her adult son.

The fear of lost homes and possessions loomed large for many at evacuation centers. It came with an abiding anxiety for many — fear of running out of power for their mobile phones.

Outside the College of the Canyons on Friday, one evacuee sat under a blazing sun, where a Red Cross volunteer suggested he’d be more comfortable in the shade.

The man pointed to an electrical outlet and said, “I need juice.”

Times staff writers Phil Willon, Anita Chabria, Joe Serna and Colleen Shalby contributed to this report.

By John Myers and Taryn Luna

SACRAMENTO — 

The money wouldn’t have gone far to help Californians who needed to replace spoiled food, those who fled to hotels or shopkeepers forced to buy generators and fuel during the power shut-off by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. earlier this month.

Still, Gov. Gavin Newsom urged PG&E to do something symbolic: Give a $100 rebate to each of its frustrated residential customers and $250 to every business with no electricity.

“Lives and commerce were interrupted,” Newsom wrote on Oct. 14 to William Johnson, the utility‘s president and chief executive. “Too much hardship was caused.”

But last week, PG&E refused. And in doing so, what could have been a goodwill gesture became a symbol of defiance and futility: California’s investor-owned utilities may be criticized for their efforts at wildfire prevention, but they’re also calling the shots.

For a variety of reasons — the limits of existing regulations, the off-season for lawmaking in Sacramento, challenges in finding political consensus on policy — the status quo isn’t likely to change anytime soon. Millions of Californians can do little more than watch as the lights go off, then on and maybe back off again during the blustery autumn of 2019.

“This is simply unacceptable,” a visibly angry Newsom told reporters in Los Angeles on Thursday. “It is infuriating beyond words to live in a state as innovative and extraordinarily entrepreneurial and capable as the state of California, to be living in an environment where we are seeing this kind of disruption and these kinds of blackouts.”

In some ways, the disruption is by design. State officials have long known that in the otherwise highly regulated world of utilities, they have little control over what is known as a “public safety power shut-off.”

Existing rules state that utility companies have broad discretion over when and where power outages will be imposed. Neither the California Public Utilities Commission nor local governments have a formal role in the decision-making process. CPUC officials can only weigh in after power is restored.

The events Wednesday in Sonoma County, where an energized PG&E transmission line failed near what’s believed to be the origin of the Kincade fire, offer a glimpse at how subjective the decision-making can be. Company officials said Thursday that PG&E’s own forecasters believed wind speeds in the area would require turning off only distribution systems, not transmission lines. Johnson, who became chairman of PG&E six months ago, told reporters only that the utility uses “a formula or an algorithm” to evaluate historical data on winds and fire danger, but did not offer further details.

State regulators have established guidelines for the types of anticipated weather conditions that should prompt utilities to turn off electricity service and the warnings that should be issued before an outage. But many actions are left to the discretion of the companies, an opaque process criticized by state Public Utilities Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma during an Oct. 18 meeting.

“I keep coming back to the Wizard of Oz, where smoke and mirrors and this and that,” Shiroma told PG&E officials.

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California’s other large utilities, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., have the same relative autonomy over when and where to turn off power. Within 10 business days of an outage, a company must submit a report to CPUC officials explaining its decision to shut off power, including information on weather conditions in the outage area.

The report must include details on the types of customers affected and the advance notice they were provided, the location and duration of the shut-offs and an accounting of any wind-related damage to company equipment.

Regulators are supposed to use the report to determine whether the outage was reasonable. But the documents often provide only summary information, making their value unclear. Though CPUC officials can penalize companies for how they carry out wildfire-prevention blackouts, they never have. Even then, an administrative law judge would decide such a case under a process that could take several months.

Only the California Legislature can strengthen the CPUC’s power over utilities. And reaching consensus on expanding the agency’s operations could be tough — it has struggled with oversight of a vast and varied portion of the state’s economy, including electricity, telephone service, ride-hailing and limousine companies.

Even if lawmakers want to do something now, they can’t. The Legislature has adjourned for the year and isn’t scheduled to reconvene until January. The only way to engage more quickly is to convene a special legislative session.

History offers a lesson from California’s last energy crisis of almost two decades ago. In December 2000, then-Gov. Gray Davis promised to convene a special session to draft plans to help the state’s utilities. One key proposal — requiring the state to sign long-term energy purchase contracts with major utilities — went from introduction to law in just a month. Additional efforts to address the causes of the widespread blackouts were put in place that spring.

Laws passed in a special legislative session, even those requiring a simple majority vote, take effect 90 days after the end of the proceedings. Similar bills in a regular session don’t become law until the next calendar year. And unlike in 2000, when an election had just taken place and lawmakers had yet to take the oath of office, California legislators this year are in the middle of their terms and appear more inclined to act. Varying ideas have been floated, including incentives for clean energy that can be locally stored for broader outages and a broad investment in “microgrid” technology to better isolate power shut-offs to communities where fire danger is most extreme.

Action could be swift at the state Capitol, but only if Newsom convenes a special session.

So far, the governor has sounded unconvinced.

“To the extent that’s necessary, I would be open to it,” he told reporters in Sacramento on Oct. 17. “But in the absence of the necessity, I’m not sure. I think it’s more symbolic benefit than a substantive one.”

That leaves lawmakers few options other than convening informational hearings. Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) said Thursday that a “working group” would study blackouts, comprising state senators from many of the communities hit hardest. Atkins also announced a public hearing on the issue to be held next month, just days before Thanksgiving and probably after dangerous fire conditions have dissipated.

The state budget that legislators approved and Newsom signed in June sets aside $75 million to offset the effects of mandatory blackouts. Half of the money will be spent by state officials to ensure government services aren’t disrupted, with the rest allocated to grants to help affected communities purchase generators or other energy backup systems. But state officials haven’t said whether the money will provide widespread help over the coming weeks.

Perhaps the most difficult part of what happens next is deciding who ultimately bears responsibility with the public for the blackouts. The governor wrote to each of the state’s major utilities on Thursday to complain that they haven’t fully kept state emergency services officials in the loop on outage plans.

“They better step up,” he said of the utilities on Thursday.

But the key players, including Newsom, undoubtedly realize the danger in being seen as decision-maker when lights are turned off or homes and businesses are destroyed by utility-sparked wildfires. Johnson wrote in a letter to the governor last week that the state should consider taking over the responsibility of making the final determination when to shut off the electricity.

Newsom, who told reporters just last week that his advisors had considered the effects of broader government control over power shut-offs, rejected the idea after touring firefighting operations in Sonoma County on Friday and lashed out at the state’s most embattled utility.

“It doesn’t surprise me that PG&E is looking for a bailout,” Newsom said of the now-bankrupt company. “We will not bail out PG&E.”

Times staff writer Phil Willon contributed to this report.

Former U.S. Rep. John Conyers, one of the longest-serving members of Congress whose resolutely liberal stance on civil rights made him a political institution in Washington and back home in Detroit despite several scandals, has died. He was 90.

Conyers, among the high-profile politicians toppled by sex harassment allegations in 2017, died at his home on Sunday, said Detroit police spokesman Cpl. Dan Donakowski. The death “looks like natural causes,” Donakowski added.

Known as the dean of the Congressional Black Caucus, which he helped found, Conyers became one of only six black House members when he won his first election by just 108 votes in 1964. The race was the beginning of more than 50 years of election dominance: Conyers regularly won elections with more than 80% of the vote, even after his wife went to prison for taking a bribe.

That voter loyalty helped Conyers freely speak his mind. He took aim at both Republicans and fellow Democrats: He said then-President George W. Bush “has been an absolute disaster for the African American community” in 2004, and in 1979 called then-President Carter “a hopeless, demented, honest, well-intentioned nerd who will never get past his first administration.”

Throughout his career, Conyers used his influence to push civil rights. After a 15-year fight, he won passage of legislation declaring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a national holiday, first celebrated in 1986. He regularly introduced a bill starting in 1989 to study the harm caused by slavery and the possibility of reparations for slaves’ descendants. That bill never got past a House subcommittee.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Sunday that without Conyers there would be no King holiday.

His district office in Detroit employed civil rights legend Rosa Parks from 1965 until her retirement in 1988. In 2005, Conyers was among 11 people inducted to the International Civil Rights Walk of Fame.

But after a nearly 53-year career, he became the first Capitol Hill politician to lose his job in the torrent of sexual misconduct allegations sweeping through the nation’s workplaces. A former staffer alleged she was fired because she rejected his sexual advances, and others said they’d witnessed Conyers inappropriately touching female staffers or requesting sexual favors.

He denied the allegations but eventually stepped down, citing health reasons. “My legacy can’t be compromised or diminished in any way by what we’re going through now,” Conyers told a Detroit radio station from a hospital where he’d been taken after complaining of lightheadedness in December 2017.

“This, too, shall pass. My legacy will continue through my children.”

Conyers was born and grew up in Detroit, where his father, John Conyers Sr., was a union organizer in the automotive industry and an international representative with the United Auto Workers union. He insisted that his son, a jazz aficionado from an early age, not become a musician.

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The younger Conyers heeded the advice, but jazz remained, he said, one of his “great pleasures.” He sponsored legislation to forgive the $1.6-million tax debt of band leader Woody Herman’s estate and once kept a stand-up bass in his Washington office.

Before heading to Washington, Conyers served in the National Guard and with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers during the Korean War supervising repairs of military aircraft. He earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from Wayne State University in the late 1950s.

His political aspirations were honed while he worked as a legislative assistant from 1958 to 1961 to U.S. Rep. John Dingell, a fellow Michigan Democrat who, when he retired in 2014 at age 88, was Congress’ longest-serving member. That mantle then was passed on to Conyers.

Dingell died in February.

Soon after Conyers was elected to Congress, his leadership at home — in the segregated streets of Detroit — would be tested. Parts of the city were burned during riots in July 1967 that were sparked by hostilities between black residents and Detroit’s mostly white police force, and by the cramped living conditions in black neighborhoods.

Conyers climbed onto a flatbed truck and appealed to black residents to return to their homes, but he was shouted down. His district office was gutted by fire the next day. But the plight of the nation’s inner cities would remain his cause.

“In Detroit you’ve got high unemployment, a poverty rate of at least 30%, schools not in great shape, high illiteracy, poor families not safe from crime, without health insurance, problems with housing,” he told the Associated Press in 2004. “You can’t fix one problem by itself — they’re all connected.”

He was fiercely opposed to Detroit’s finances being taken over by a state-appointed emergency manager as the city declared bankruptcy in 2013. Conyers, whose district included much of Detroit, sought a federal investigation and congressional hearings, arguing it was “difficult to identify a single instance” where such an arrangement, where local officials are stripped of most of their power, succeeds.

Conyers was the only House Judiciary Committee member to have sat in on two impeachment hearings: He supported a 1972 resolution recommending President Nixon’s impeachment for his conduct of the Vietnam War, but when the House clashed in 1998 over articles of impeachment against President Clinton, Conyers said: “Impeachment was designed to rid this nation of traitors and tyrants, not attempts to cover up an extramarital affair.”

Conyers also had scandals of his own.

In 2009, his wife, Monica Conyers, a Detroit city councilwoman largely elected on the strength of her husband’s last name, pleaded guilty to bribery. The case was related to a sludge hauling contract voted on by the City Council, and she spent nearly two years in prison.

Three years earlier, the House ethics committee closed a three-year investigation of allegations that Conyers’ staff worked on political campaigns and was ordered to baby-sit for his two children and run his personal errands. He admitted to a “lack of clarity” with staffers and promised changes.

But he couldn’t survive the last scandal. An ethics committee launched a review after a former longtime staffer said Conyers’ office paid her more than $27,000 under a confidentiality agreement to settle a complaint in 2015. She alleged she was fired because she had rejected his sexual advances, and others said they had witnessed inappropriate behavior.

Conyers initially said he looked forward to vindicating himself and his family, but he announced his immediate retirement in December 2017 after fellow Democrats called for his resignation. The chorus included Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the House’s top Democrat.

Conyers became chairman of the House Judiciary Committee when Democrats regained the House majority in 2006. He oversaw 2007 hearings into the White House’s role in the firings of eight federal prosecutors and 2009 hearings on how the NFL dealt with head injuries to players.

Conyers frequently swam against the prevailing political currents during his time in Congress. He backed, for example, anti-terrorism legislation that was far less sweeping than a plan pushed by then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

He was also an early supporter in 2007 of then-Sen. Barack Obama, who was expected by some in the Congressional Black Caucus to push public health insurance, sharp funding increases for urban development and other initiatives long blocked by Republicans.

“We want him to stand strong,” Conyers said in 2009.

Conyers enjoyed his greatest support back home in Detroit — except when he tried to venture into local politics. Conyers took on 16-year incumbent Mayor Coleman A. Young in 1989, launching his bid with the statement: “Look out, Big Daddy, I’m home.” But a poorly organized campaign helped him finish a mere third in the primary. He ran again for mayor when Young retired in 1993, and lost again.

Along with his wife, Conyers is survived by two sons, John III and Carl.

MEXICO CITY — 

Lewis Hamilton overcame Ferrari’s front-row start to win the Mexican Grand Prix on Sunday, moving the Mercedes driver closer to a sixth career Formula One championship.

Only Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas’ third-place finish denied Hamilton the championship by the slimmest of margins. Hamilton needed only to beat Bottas by 14 points, but picked up 10 instead. That sends the championship to next week’s U.S. Grand Prix, where Hamilton has won five times since 2012.

“I don’t mind. I love racing,” Hamilton said after climbing out of his car. “This is a race I wanted to win for some time. It came together nicely.”

Mercedes gambled on an early tire change and Hamilton rode it all the way to the finish to get his 10th win of the season and first in Mexico City since 2016, the last time he was even on the podium in the high altitude of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Hamilton clinched the 2017 and 2018 titles in Mexico City.

Ferraris’ Sebastian Vettel was second, with teammate Charles Leclerc, who started on pole, fourth.

Leclerc and Vettel had started 1-2. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen had been stripped of pole position for driving too fast under a yellow flag after Bottas’ crash in the late stages of qualifying Saturday.

That penalty also lifted Hamilton to start third with a chance to chase a win and the championship at a track where he had struggled badly the last two years.

Ferrari protected the lead from the start as Vettel moved to edge out Hamilton on the long opening straight. Hamilton then tangled with Verstappen on the second corner as they bumped tires and both cars went into the grass.

Hamilton was down to fifth after the opening lap, but quickly pushed his way back to fourth, setting up a long chase for the win.

Hamilton’s tire change on Lap 23 proved pivotal as he inched toward the front that left him needing to go 48 laps to the end. Vettel waited another 19 laps and Leclerc was on a two-stop strategy. That backfired when Leclerc’s second stop was botched on the tire change and his chances of hunting the leaders over the final laps was finished.”

“He was cruising,” Vettel said about Hamilton. ”(Our) strategy could have been sharper.”

Bottas earned his podium in car that had to be repaired overnight after the hard crash in qualifying. His pushing Vettel from behind helped ease pressure on Hamilton at the front.

Verstappen had a miserable start before rallying to finish sixth.

The two-time defending race champion got caught in traffic after his bump with Hamilton, and he was quickly down to eighth. He fought back to pass Bottas on the second lap, but suffered a tire puncture when he bumped Bottas’ front wing. The tire shredded off and Verstappen drove nearly an entire lap with a bare wheel as the field passed him by.

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A look at the significant numbers behind the Rams’ 24-10 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals in London on Sunday.

220

Career-high receiving yards for Rams’ Cooper Kupp, eclipsing previous high of 162 vs. Minnesota last season. He has five 100-yard-plus games this season.

160

Career catches for Kupp, reaching the plateau in the fewest games by a Ram in the Super Bowl era (31). He had seven catches on 10 targets Sunday against the Bengals.

12

Rams’ offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth became 12th starter to record victories against all 32 teams, the Bengals being his previous employer.

5

Sacks of Andy Dalton by the Rams, including 1 1/2 by both Dante Fowler and Obo Okoronkwo, and one by Aaron Donald. Dalton has lost 11 starts in a row.

9

Consecutive games without a 100-yard rushing performance by Rams’ Todd Gurley, his longest streak since 20 in 2015-17. He ran 10 times for 44 yards Sunday against the Bengals.

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CHICAGO — 

The diagnosis of a pulmonary embolism caused by blood clots was scary enough for Russell Okung to fathom in June. That the Chargers left tackle’s condition would also be career-threatening felt like a twisting of the knife.

“I’ve had plenty of football injuries — I hurt an ankle, a toe, I blew out my shoulder — but nothing life-threatening like this,” Okung, 32, said. “You’re on a table and a doctor is literally telling you you’re not going to play football again. I decided that I didn’t want that to happen.”

Okung spent the first six weeks of the season on the non-football illness list. When he returned to the practice field in mid-October, he said he “definitely looked death right in the face” during his medical ordeal.

In his first game back on Sunday, against the Chicago Bears on a brilliant autumn afternoon at Soldier Field, Okung stared three-time All-Pro edge rusher Khalil Mack right in the face, and it didn’t seem nearly as frightening.

“Yeah, if I were to compare Khalil Mack with a blood clot, I think I’d take Mack any day,” Okung said after the Chargers pulled out a 17-16 victory over the Bears. “Look man, the guy’s a beast. He and [linebacker Leonard] Floyd are really good at what they do. We had our hands full, but I think we did a good job with them.”

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Okung played every offensive snap of the first three quarters before departing early in the fourth quarter because of a calf injury that he described as “mild,” a tweak that isn’t expected to sideline him for next week’s game against Green Bay.

Floyd lined up across Okung on the Chargers’ first two possessions, but Mack moved to Okung’s side late in the first quarter and remained there for most of the game.

The Chargers had little success running the ball — netting 36 yards rushing on 12 carries after accumulating only 106 yards on 51 carries in three straight losses to Denver, Pittsburgh and Tennessee — and quarterback Philip Rivers had a so-so day, completing 19 of 29 passes for 201 yards, with one touchdown and one interception.

But the Bears, who allowed the fifth-fewest points (17.5 a game) and fourth-fewest yards per play (4.91) through Week 7, sacked Rivers only once for a loss of six yards with two minutes left, after Okung was replaced by Trent Scott. Chicago hurried Rivers five other times, once on the first-quarter pick. Mack, who had the sack, and Floyd had four tackles each.

“The snaps weren’t easy, “ Okung said. “I had [Mack and Floyd] breathing down my neck. Those guys can play some ball, you know? But up front, as a group, I thought we did a good job of protecting Philip for most of the game.”

The Chargers have been decimated by injuries on both sides of the ball, but Okung’s return should boost an offensive line that lost veteran center Mike Pouncey to a season-ending neck injury in Week 5 and guard Forrest Lamp to a season-ending leg injury in Week 7.

The Chargers’ run game has ground to a virtual halt in four straight games, and elite pass rushers such as Houston’s J.J. Watt and Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt gave the Chargers fits.

“We’ve been fighting, we have starters down, we’ve been dealing with injuries, and what we’ve been able to prove as a line is we’re a resilient group,” Okung said. “But the expectation, the standard, is really high. We have to play better.”

Okung, a two-time Pro Bowl selection in his 10^th NFL season and third with the Chargers, first felt shortness of breath and chest pains during the team’s offseason program last spring.

On June 1, at the insistence of his family, including his wife, Samar, he went to an urgent care facility, where doctors discovered the embolism. Okung was placed on blood-thinning medication, which had to clear through his system before he returned to action.

Okung cringes to think what might have happened had he not gone to that urgent care facility. Blood clots can lead to a heart attack or a stroke and a pulmonary embolism can block the flow of blood to the lungs and cause death.

“Look man, I’m appreciative about my life,” Okung said. “I’m alive and well, I have activity in my limbs, saneness of mind, I can go out and do what I have to do. I have a grateful heart, you know? There was a time when I was laying on a bed and trying to figure out if I would ever play football again.

“I’m so happy to be out there. I’ve been working my butt off every single day to get back and help my team win. To get a win in my first game back is great.”

The fun bunch was back.

Safety Elisha Guidry gripped the ball tightly in delight after defensive lineman Odua Isibor forced a fumble on the game’s fourth play.

Safety Stephan Blaylock turned his sideline into a joyous mass of bouncing bodies with an early third-down stop.

Cornerback Darnay Holmes leaped into the air in the fourth quarter, bumping bodies with quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson to commemorate a fourth-down stand.

There was plenty to celebrate Saturday night at the Rose Bowl after UCLA’s once-beleaguered defense delivered a second consecutive strong performance, even if this was one instance in which the numbers appeared to indicate otherwise.

UCLA’s defense dominated during a 42-32 victory over No. 24 Arizona State despite giving up four touchdowns and 383 yards of offense. The necessary disclaimer: Three of those touchdowns came after the Bruins had built a commanding 42-10 lead and the bulk of those yards were of the meaningless variety.

All that really matters is that this defense bears no resemblance to the one that was among the worst in the country through the season’s first 1 1/2 months.

“Coach says at this point in the season, you either get better or worse,” defensive lineman Osa Odighizuwa said, referring to Chip Kelly. “I feel like we’re on the rise so we just have to keep it going.”

Odighizuwa logged the Bruins’ only sack one game after they had recorded a season-high seven sacks against Stanford, but they were equally disruptive against the Sun Devils.

Arizona State running back Eno Benjamin, one of the top rushers in the Pac-12 Conference, managed just 46 yards and 3.5 yards per carry. Quarterback Jayden Daniels never found a rhythm until his team trailed by 32 points. The Sun Devils were stuffed on both of their fourth-down attempts.

“They step up to the challenge,” UCLA running back Joshua Kelley said of a defense that had long been the Bruins’ lesser half. “They make sure to cause turnovers, get three-and-outs.”

Isibor’s forced fumble in the first quarter led to the first of Kelley’s career-high four rushing touchdowns and served notice that the defensive effort UCLA had unveiled against Stanford, when it held the Cardinal to 198 yards, was not a one-week wonder.

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The Bruins’ offense didn’t do its defense any favors, turning the ball over three times on fumbles. One of the fumbles came at UCLA’s four-yard line and another at its 36. Arizona State scored touchdowns off all three turnovers.

“We put the defense in some difficult situations,” Kelly said. “I thought they responded to those. Really, what we talk about is when you face challenges and adversity, how do you approach them? Is it, ‘Oh God, here we go again.’ Or is it, ‘All right, let’s go.’ I think that’s the way our defense is starting to play. It’s starting to round into form.”

Odighizuwa pinned the defensive improvement on a more aggressive approach in which the Bruins were “just a little bit more vertical” in attacking the offense. But he acknowledged some necessary improvement before UCLA (3-5 overall, 3-2 Pac-12) can have more fun next weekend against Colorado (3-5, 1-4) at the Rose Bowl.

“We started fast,” Odighizuwa said, “we just got to close out a little stronger.”

Etc.

Demetric Felton Jr.’s two catches gave him 36 for the season, matching George Farmer’s school record for catches in a season by a running back. Farmer set the record in 1969. … Receiver Kyle Philips has caught a touchdown pass in three consecutive games, becoming the first Bruin to do so since Jordan Lasley compiled a four-game streak in 2017. … UCLA scored a touchdown on its opening drive for the fifth time in eight games this season.

HEALDSBURG, Calif. — 

The Kincade fire had Sonoma County wine country under seige Sunday, burning buildings in the famed Alexander Valley and destroying the Soda Rock winery.

“We’ve seen the news. We are devastated,” Soda Rock posted on Facebook. “We don’t have much information, but we will update you as soon as we know anything. Our staff is safe—right now what is most important is the safety of the first responders battling the fire. Thank you everyone for your concern.”

The stone-walled winery is considered a major historic site in the Alexander Valley and a popular tourist destination.

“Soda Rock is the original site of the Alexander Valley general store and post office, and was once the central hub of activity for the valley. Historic records provide evidence of the first bonded winery on this property in 1880,” the winery said on its website.

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The site said the current owners were in the process of a painstaking restoration of the historic parts of the property.

The fire hopscotched the area, burning some homes and structures and sparing others.
Fire officials said Sunday morning that the fire jumped Highway 128 and moved into the Alexander Valley region around 4 a.m.

There is worry that it could jump Highway 101 between Healdsburg and Windsor.

Fire officials have deployed resources in an attempt to prevent that, but if the fire does cross the freeway it would enter a narrow buffer zone of flat agricultural land mostly used to grow grapes before reaching a dense mountainous region of old-growth redwood that Sonoma County Sheriff Mark Essick said was difficult terrain to reach but sparsely populated.

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Healdsburg and Windsor, north of Santa Rosa along the 101, were evacuated Saturday, and on Sunday morning fire officials urged holdouts to leave immediately, saying the winds were pushing the fire rapidly. Officials said 79 structures had been destroyed and 31,000 were threatened.

The National Weather Service recorded one gust Sunday morning at 93 mph just outside Healdsburg.

Essick said anyone remaining in Healdsburg or Windsor was in “significant danger.”

PETALUMA, Calif. — 

Heather Deghi oversees a care facility for disabled people in Windsor. When the Kincade fire broke out, she anticipated possible evacuations, similar to what she went through during the Tubbs fire just two years ago.

When she got the word to leave, one of her first priorities was to keep those in her care calm. Her clients live with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, among other mental illnesses.

Major major disruptions can be especially negative for those whose health relies on routine.

“I tried to take away from the severity and reality of it as much as I can,” she said. “Change and trauma is not easily tolerable.”

Deghi and her 10-year-old daughter, Ava, said they could see the glow of the Kincade fire over the hills.

Their neighborhood had been pitch-black for hours following power outages, but their home didn’t lose electricity until shortly before they had to evacuate at 4 a.m. Sunday.

When the sheriff shouted for people to evacuate over a loudspeaker, Deghi and her family left the area with three clients whose families were not able to retrieve them. They’ve landed at the Petaluma Veterans Hall, alongside several other families and pets.

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The Deghis hope that their neighborhood won’t be consumed by flames, but they understand the possibility of destruction. “The winds are so unpredictable.”

Evacuating the frail and disabled during blackouts has become an issue since PG&E started the blackouts aimed at reducing wildfire risk.

Several youths who live at a treatment center were also hunkered down at the Petaluma Veterans Hall following evacuation orders.

Ximiya Jenkins, 18, said staff had told them to pack a go-bag in anticipation of evacuations. Jenkins said that although she felt calm during the process, stress was running high.

If the group leaves the evacuation center, Jenkins said they’ll first need to ensure that that their spots remain secured for a return.

Sunday morning, the giant banquet hall inside the center was packed with cots, and in an adjacent room, a home-style breakfast of pancakes, eggs and sausage links was served.

Some watched the local news in a nearby space, as others filed in and out of the hallways, unsure of their next move.

“I’m trying to figure out what’s going on,” one woman was overheard saying into a phone.

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