WASHINGTON — 

The top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine will testify before House investigators Tuesday as Democrats move forward with a shortened schedule this week on their impeachment inquiry into President Trump.

William B. Taylor, who came out of retirement to lead the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, has already provided Democrats with what they consider some of the most damning evidence that Trump was engaged in a quid pro quo with Ukraine.

He and U.S. ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland exchanged text messages in July in which Taylor expressed concern about whether a delay in sending congressionally approved aid to Ukraine was linked to Trump’s demand that the new Ukrainian government open an investigation into whether that nation interfered in the 2016 election.

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“As I said on the phone, I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign,” Taylor wrote in a text message.

About four hours later, Sondland texted Taylor that Trump “has been crystal clear, no quid pro quos of any kind.”

Sondland told House investigators last week that Trump personally told him in a short phone call that there was no quid pro quo.

But on Thursday, White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney confirmed that Trump’s decision to withhold about $400 million in aid was in part due to his desire for Ukraine to look into claims that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. Mulvaney later tried to walk back his comments, insisting there was no quid pro quo.

There has been no evidence that Ukraine intervened. Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s report confirmed the conclusion reached by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the presidential election to help Trump.

Taylor came out of retirement to take the job in Ukraine shortly after Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was removed from the post. She testified earlier this month that she was removed for political reasons.

Trump administration officials have said they would not cooperate in the House’s impeachment investigation.

House Democrats had originally planned up to seven depositions this week but they are now expected to hold as few as two because of the recent death of House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.). He will lie in state in the U.S. Capitol National Statuary Hall on Thursday and his funeral will be Friday.

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — 

Tom Brady set the tone with a long slice-and-dice touchdown drive, New England’s blitz-happy defense forced Sam Darnold into five turnovers and the Patriots remained undefeated by cruising to a 33-0 victory over the New York Jets on Monday night.

Brady threw a TD pass to Phillip Dorsett and Sony Michel ran for three scores to help the Patriots improve to 7-0 for the third time in franchise history, and first since 2015.

They also swept the two-game season series against their AFC East rivals for the fourth straight year, outscoring the Jets (1-5) 63-14 in the two meetings this year.

And, the top-ranked Patriots defense was a big reason in this one.

Darnold was the AFC offensive player of the week after leading New York to a 24-22 win over Dallas last Sunday in his return from missing three games with mononucleosis.

He was miserable against New England, finishing 11 of 32 for 86 yards and a 3.6 quarterback rating.

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HOUSTON — 

A strange scene played out at Minute Maid Park on Monday. At a time when major league front offices cherish young and inexpensive players more than ever, the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals, two teams featuring several stars and a long list of contributors in their 30s, conducted workouts in preparation for the World Series.

They are two of the four clubs in the major leagues with the oldest players, and they are four victories from a championship. They have zagged where others zigged, they have thrived and they will play Game 1 on Tuesday.

“Our slogan is, ‘Let the viejos play,’” said Sean Doolittle, the Nationals’ 33-year-old reliever, using the Spanish word for old men. “It’s definitely something that, as a group, we take a lot of pride in.”

The teams, in addition to sharing a spring-training facility in West Palm Beach, Fla., have also allocated substantial resources to veteran starting pitching, bucking another trend that had teams rely more heavily on bullpens in recent years. And although they stay below the luxury tax line — a threshold that doubles as a de facto salary cap, four of the 10 highest-paid players in baseball will play in the Series. They’re all workhorse starting pitchers, two for each team, and they’re all in their 30s.

Washington’s Stephen Strasburg ($38.3 million) and Max Scherzer ($37.4 million), the Game 1 starter, were paid the most money in baseball this season. Houston’s Zack Greinke had the third-highest salary at $34.5 million and teammate Justin Verlander’s $28 million was ninth. Strasburg is 31 and Scherzer is 35. Greinke turned 36 on Monday and Verlander is 36.

Patrick Corbin, the third cog in the Nationals’ premier troika, turned 30 in July and signed a six-year, $140-million contract in the offseason. Gerrit Cole, 29, is the baby of the group of six elite starters in the Series. The Astros’ Game 1 starter has emerged as their ace at just the right time — before hitting free agency after this season. He is expected to command a contract that will vault him into his colleagues’ paycheck stratosphere.

The Astros acquired each of their top three starting pitchers in trades. Verlander joined them during the 2017 season, which Houston capped by beating the Dodgers in the Series, Cole landed before the start of last season and Greinke was three months ago. Houston has 35-year-old Yuli Gurriel at first base, 32-year-old All-Star Michael Brantley in left field, and mid-30s catchers Martin Maldonado and Robinson Chirinos.

The veterans supplement a younger core of position players that the Astros, for the most part, drafted and developed as they endured three consecutive 100-loss seasons at the start of the decade to keep their window for contention ajar.

“I think our team did a good job of acquiring pieces,” said Alex Bregman, the Astros’ 25-year-old third baseman and an American League MVP candidate. “Everyone says ‘Oh, the Astros lost 100 games and then they just drafted high.’ Well, they also spent some money and made some big acquisitions.”

The Nationals were the oldest team in the majors this season. Of the 50 players who appeared in a game for them, 26 were at least 30 years old. They employ the oldest player in baseball, 42-year-old reliever Fernando Rodney. Howie Kendrick, 36, was the National League Championship Series MVP. Ryan Zimmerman, the franchise’s first draft pick after moving to Washington from Montreal in 2005, is 35 and still producing. Anibal Sanchez, 35, and Gerardo Parra, 32, are credited for keeping the clubhouse loose.

Their experience was imperative when the Nationals went into May 24 with a 19-31 record. The team’s championship window appeared slammed shut after four NL East titles this decade without a postseason series victory to show for it.

Manager Dave Martinez’s seat was getting uncomfortably hot. Speculation of a fire sale to begin a rebuild in the wake of Bryce Harper’s departure surfaced. Reaching the playoffs, never mind the Series, was a longshot.

That all seems so long ago. They were 74-38 over the last 112 regular-season games to nab a wild-card spot, outlasted the Milwaukee Brewers in the wild-card game, toppled the Dodgers in an NL Division Series, and needed only four games to dismiss the St. Louis Cardinals in the NLCS.

“The veteran presence in our clubhouse was a reason why we were able to right the ship in May and ride that out,” Doolittle said. “I don’t know if a younger team kind of mails that in.”

The Nationals didn’t and, as a result, are playing in the Series for the first time in franchise history. Across from them will be a team that expected to be there all along, a 107-win juggernaut vying for a second championship in three years. The paths were different, but the birth certificates are a lot alike.

::

Sports Illustrated reported Monday that amid the Astros’ clubhouse celebration after winning the ALCS, assistant general manager Brandon Taubman turned to a group of three female reporters and yelled repeatedly, “Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so . . . glad we got Osuna!”

The Astros traded for Toronto Blue Jays closer Roberto Osuna in 2018 after he was suspended for 75 games for allegedly assaulting the mother of his child.

The Astros responded with a statement saying Osuna “was being asked questions about a difficult outing [he had given up a two-run home run to the New York Yankees’ DJ LeMahieu in the ninth inning]. … [Taubman’s] comments had everything to do with the game situation that just occurred and nothing else — they were not directed at any specific reporters.”

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The horn sounded Monday, and a procession of injured USC players hobbled toward the practice gate, their presence an ominous reminder of how much was lost in a bittersweet victory.

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Talanoa Hufanga, the Trojans’ star safety, wore a sling on his right shoulder. Drake Jackson, the standout freshman defensive end, lumbered closely behind, wearing a bulky padded boot on his left foot.

Both have established themselves as not only the future of USC’s defense, but also the present. But now, after a 41-14 win over Arizona, their status was uncertain. Neither was medically cleared to practice Monday — and may not be for some time.

Coach Clay Helton wouldn’t offer a timetable for either player’s return. But Hufanga, who dislocated his shoulder against Arizona, and Jackson, who suffered a high ankle sprain, both are expected to miss at least one game — and likely more. For both, Helton said, “it’s going to take some time.”

Neither will be easily replaced, even after a fleet of replacement players filled in admirably against Arizona. Hufanga leads USC in solo tackles per game this season, while Jackson paces the defense in sacks.

They’re not the only key players who suffered a serious injury against Arizona. An already beat-up backfield will be without running back Markese Stepp, who tore a ligament in his left ankle that will require surgery. He’ll be sidelined between three and five weeks, with a chance to return before the end of the season.

Stepp, who is averaging 6.4 yards per carry, wore a boot as he walked into practice alongside another injured back, Stephen Carr, who suffered a Grade 2 hamstring strain. Carr is likely to return before Stepp, but his timetable also is uncertain.

With both sidelined and leading rusher Vavae Malepeai nowhere near a return after surgery on his knee, USC will turn to a freshman and walk-on at running back.

That freshman, Kenan Christon, turned in quite a debut, speeding to two long touchdowns on his way to an eight-carry, 103-yard performance Saturday. But how much of a load the diminutive Christon can carry remains a question. Walk-on Quincy Jountti, who fumbled on his first carry against Arizona, is expected to complement Christon as a power back.

“He’s got to get reps,” running backs coach Mike Jinks said of Christon. “He’s got to get touches. You’ve got to put on that grown-man weight. If he had to go play a 12-game season, it’d be kind of tough, just where he is at a physical standpoint.”

There’s no sugarcoating just how much injuries have decimated USC’s depth over the last two weeks. As Helton spoke to the media, he needed a separate list to address all the injuries.

But with USC turning its attention to Friday’s game at Colorado, Helton refused to bemoan his team’s bad luck.

“As a coach, we’re not paid to make excuses,” Helton said. “We’re paid to find answers, and we’ll find those answers.”

Some answers on defense could be on the way, as a few players who battled injuries are hoping to return. Cornerback Olaijah Griffin, who sat out with lingering lower back issues, was at practice Monday and was joined by nickel back Greg Johnson, who sat out with a shoulder injury.

Senior defensive end Christian Rector, who has fought a painful high ankle sprain over the last month, could play on a limited basis. He did not practice Monday. Linebacker Palaie Gaoteote IV remains in a walking boot and is unlikely to return from a high ankle sprain this week.

Still, as he answered injury question after injury question, Helton reminded again that USC (4-3, 3-1) controls its destiny in the Pac-12.

“We’ve got a huge opportunity that stands right there for us,” he said. “We can write our own story right now.”

But after Saturday, with Hufanga, Jackson, Stepp and Carr all injured, even Helton seemed to realize how much harder finding a positive ending had become.

“We’re going to believe in the kids that are out here,” Helton said. “Hopefully we’ll get some back here soon.”

Hello and welcome to another edition of the L.A. Times soccer newsletter. I’m Kevin Baxter, the Times’ soccer writer and we start today with El Trafico VI. That would be Thursday’s MLS playoff game between the Galaxy, the winningest franchise in league history, and LAFC, the best single-season team of all-time.

The two will meet in the Western Conference semifinal after the Galaxy scored twice in a four-minute span late in the second half Sunday to upset Minnesota United in a first-round match, earning their first postseason win in nearly three years.

(Watch the highlights by clicking here.)

LAFC and the Galaxy have met five times before with the Galaxy winning twice and three games ending in draws. But the two wins came in Carson and Thursday’s game will be played at Banc of California Stadium in Exposition Park, where two previous derby games have finished in ties. The asking price for tickets on the secondary market was as high as $3,600 Monday night.

“I think the whole world was waiting for this game,” said Galaxy midfielder Jonathan dos Santos, whose 75^th-minute goal proved to be the game-winner in Minnesota. “I do not think they have the desire; in the last matches they could not win. Anything can happen in the playoffs, everything is 50-50.

“We are playing at their field, against the best MLS team in my opinion and everyone else in the world’s opinion.”

LAFC (21-4-9), in just its second year in MLS, broke the league record for points with 72, equaled the single-season best with 85 goals and outscored opponents by 48, shattering the record in that category as well. And its captain, Carlos Vela, broke the individual goal-scoring record with 34.

Galaxy coach Guillermo Barros Schelotto seems unimpressed.

“Those were the statistics,” he said dryly.

“We know they were the best team in the regular season,” he continued. “They played very well; they won the Supporters’ Shield. But now it’s playoffs and it’s just 90 minutes.

“We know what team we are going to play but we have a lot of confidence about ourselves.”

The showdown will not only be the most heated of the MLS season but the most star-studded as well, matching MVP candidates Vela (34 goals, 15 assists) against the Galaxy’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic (30 goals, third-most in MLS history) in a one-game, winner-take-all contest.

Ibrahimovic, 38, made his MLS debut against LAFC last year, scoring the tying and winning goals in a 19-minute cameo off the bench. If the Galaxy don’t win Thursday, his last league game could come against LAFC as well.

“They are the two stars, the two-goal scorers,” Dos Santos said of his captain, Ibrahimovic, and his best friend, Vela. “In the end we know that Zlatan is very important for us and that in any given match he can be a decisive factor.”

In fact Ibrahimovic led MLS with nine game-winning goals, three more than Vela. And Ibrahimovic has eight goals in the five matches with LAFC, including five this season; Vela has seven against the Galaxy, at least one in every game.

“We have to play against everybody if we want to win,” Ibrahimovic said. “Whoever comes in the way, we have to play against them. I think everybody’s excited for this game and I think everybody wanted this game.”

LAFC, by virtue of its conference-best record, got a first-round playoff bye, meaning Thursday’s game will be the team’s first in 17 days. The Galaxy had to earn their way in with Sunday’s 2-1 win in Minnesota, with Sebastian Lletget and Dos Santos scoring four minutes apart late in the second half. And even though he had one of his most difficult games of the season, Ibrahimovic was right in the middle of that with his deflection of a weak shot bouncing right to Lletget, who banged it home to break open a scoreless game.

Dos Santos’ long curler off a feed from Romain Alessandrini made it 2-0 in the 75^th minute and proved to the game-winner when Minnesota’s Jan Gregus scored with three minutes left in regulation. For Alessandrini, the game marked his first appearance since knee surgery in April. And Dos Santos was in position to score his goal only because Perry Kitchen, playing for the first time since Aug. 11, took the defensive midfield role, allowing Dos Santos to join the attack.

If the Galaxy can get midfielder Joe Corona back by Thursday, they’ll go into the LAFC game healthier than they have been in months – good timing since they’ll have to win two games in the space of five days to make it back to the MLS Cup final.

“We have to play against everybody if we want to win. Whoever comes in the way, we have to play against them,” Ibrahimovic said of the LAFC match. “I think everybody’s excited for this game and I think everybody wanted this game.”

Game on.

Playoff results and pairings

First round

(all times Pacific and subject to change)

Western Conference

Saturday, Oct. 19

Seattle 4, FC Dallas 3 (et)

Real Salt Lake 2, Portland 1

Eastern Conference

Atlanta 1, New England 0

Toronto 5, D.C. United 1 (et)

Sunday, Oct. 20

Eastern Conference

Philadelphia 4, New York Red Bulls 3 (et)

Western Conference

Galaxy 2, Minnesota United 1

Conference semifinals

(all times Pacific)

Wednesday, Oct. 23

Toronto FC at New York City FC, 4 p.m., (FS1, Fox Deportes)

Real Salt Lake at Seattle 7 p.m. (FS1, Fox Deportes)

Thursday, Oct. 24

Philadelphia at Atlanta United, 5 p.m. (ESPN2, ESPN Deportes)

Galaxy at LAFC, 7:30 p.m. (ESPN, ESPN Deportes)

One and fun

MLS will use a one-and-done, single-elimination format throughout the playoffs for the first time this fall. And if the rest of the tournament plays out the way the first weekend did, it figures to be the best postseason in league history.

Five of the six games were decided by one goal and three went to extra time, with the top seed winning five times.

“Maybe Eurosnobs hate the playoffs… but if you turned on the TV and watched MLS this weekend, I think it’s been incredible for the game,” Philadelphia Union coach Jim Curtain told The Athletic’s Pablo Maurer after his team twice rallied from deficits to beat the New York Red Bulls in extra time.

In the past, MLS played two-leg series, decided by aggregate score, for the conference semifinals and final but it did away with that this year largely to fit the entire playoff tournament between the October and November international breaks. But the league was also hopeful the change would also make the games more dramatic by removing the margin for error.

“When we looked at it, we realized that often one of the two games was not a compelling game. Either because teams were playing tight in the first game or if there was a lop-sided score in the first game, the second game became meaningless,” said Mark Abbott, the league’s president and deputy commissioner . “We think this is going to be a more compelling format and one that teams will play really exciting soccer and aggressively to win those games.”

So far it’s worked with Seattle beating FC Dallas in time extra on Jordan Morris’ third goal of the game; D.C. United getting a score from Lucas Rodriguez three minutes into stoppage time to force an extra period with Toronto, only to give up four goals in a 5-1 loss; Real Salt Lake’s Jefferson Savarino scoring with three minutes left in regulation to eliminate Portland; and Philadelphia’s Fafa Picault’s goal in the 78^th minute forcing an extra period in Philadelphia, allowing Marco Fabian to win it midway through overtime.

The Galaxy was the only road team to win.

“Home-field advantage has a more significant meaning because of the single-elimination,” Abbott said. “That has made the regular season and your performance in it more impactful and gave you more to play for.

“Since it’s not a home-and-away any more, it really is meaningful to be in a position to host.”

Whoa, Canada?

Gregg Berhalter, hand-picked by general manager Earnie Stewart to guide the long-needed renovation of the U.S. national team, has been on the job less than a year. Yet after last week’s embarrassing 2-0 loss to 75^th-ranked Canada in a CONCACAF Nations League match, there are serious questions about whether Berhalter is the man for the job.

The U.S. was awful, lacking for inspiration, ideas and, at times, desire. In many ways it resembled the lackluster 4-0 loss to Costa Rica in World Cup qualifying, the game that cost Jurgen Klinsmann his job as coach.

Even Christian Pulisic, who was battling the flu, couldn’t save Berhalter, leaving in the 60^th minute with the game scoreless having completed just 11 passes.

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But the result, Canada’s first victory over the U.S. in 34 years, was no fluke. If anything, it would have been more one-sided had Canada finished more than just two of its five shots on goal, the goals coming on second-half tries by Alphonso Davies and Lucas Cavallini.

That marked the first time Canada scored multiple goals against the U.S. since 1993.

“I think the first thing that stands out to me was desire, the desire of Canada,” Berhalter said. “Give them credit. But having said that, the minimum we expect is to match that.

“I don’t think it was lack of effort. I don’t think it was purposeful. But I wasn’t happy with the desire that we displayed tonight to win the soccer game. Too many 50-50 balls we lost, and that hurt us.”

That sounds a lot like a coach saying his players weren’t willing to play for him.

Berhalter, a former Galaxy player and assistant coach, was hired away from the MLS Columbus Crew more than a year after Bruce Arena resigned in the fall of 2017 following a failed World Cup qualifying campaign. Berhalter’s job was to establish an identity for the U.S. team by making it younger, more athletic and more dynamic.

But the U.S. hasn’t progressed under his leadership; if anything it’s gone the other way. The team has struggled to grasp his complicated possession-based playing style, one his players seem ill-suited for, and as a result it has won just one of its last five games. Another loss in November’s Nations League rematch with Canada would leave the U.S. facing relegation to the tournament’s second tier.

“It’s been nine, 10 months now. There’s been some good parts, some bad parts. It’s not just one person’s fault. It’s the group,” said Lletget, who is refusing to panic. “We’re in it together. And in our way, we are progressing. We’ve just got to stick with it.

“Of course people are going to be impatient. They’re always impatient with the U.S. national team. I know they want results. But we want to change the entire game. We’ve got to be behind the coach. We can’t just throw it all out just over one game or two games. We’ve got to stick with it.”

While they’re doing that, the gap between the U.S. and Mexico is widening. El Tri beat Panama 3-1 last week to run its record to 13-1-1 under Tata Martino who, like Berhalter is a former MLS coach but unlike Berhalter was never interviewed for the U.S. job.

Mexico has scored at least three goals 11 times in 15 games under Martino. The U.S. (9-5-2) has scored three goals just four times and has been shut out five times in 16 tries under Berhalter.

Martino, like Berhalter, was tasked with refreshing a national team roster that had grown old. And by all accounts he’s done that — the roster he called up for Nations League wins over Bermuda and Panama featured 17 players younger than 24 and 16 with fewer than six international caps – while winning a Gold Cup title and beating the likes of Chile, Paraguay and Ecuador.

For Canada, meanwhile, the win over the U.S. continues its remarkable growth under English-born manager John Herdman, who guided the Canadian women to two Olympic bronze medals and the quarterfinals of the 2015 Women’s World Cup. Since taking over the men’s team in January 2018, he’s won eight of 10 games, reaching the Gold Cup semifinals last summer.

Now Herdman has Canada on the verge of a spot in the hexagonal round of World Cup qualifying for the first time this century.

“We’re going in the right direction,” said LAFC midfielder Mark-Anthony Kaye, one of Herdman’s regular call-ups. “And it’s exciting. I’m glad to be a part of it.”

(View the highlights – at least from Canada’s perspective – by clicking here.)

A woman’s place is on the field

Last week we chronicled the declining attendance in MLS. Well, it’s a different story in the NWSL. Thanks in large part to a bump in fan interest following last summer’s Women’s World Cup, the league sent an attendance record this season, averaging 7,386 fans a game.

As Soccer America reports, that’s a 23% increase over the previous high of 6,024 set in 2018. Contrast that with MLS, which has seen attendance fall the last two seasons.

NWSL attendance in 2019 was also the second-highest average in the history of women’s pro soccer behind the 8,116 set in WUSA’s inaugural season in 2001. And the Portland Thorns drew 24,521 to their final regular-season, boosting their season average to 20,098 a game, making them the first women’s team to average more than 20,000 fans. The Thorns’ 2019 average tops that of 15 MLS clubs and six Major League Baseball teams.

(They couldn’t reach the NWSL title game, though, losing Sunday to the Chicago Red Stars on a goal by Sam Kerr. Chicago will play the North Carolina Courage — which eliminated Megan Rapinoe’s Reign FC in extra time – in the Oct. 27 championship match.)

Seven of the nine NWSL teams — all but Houston and Orlando — broke their season record for average attendance and every team registered double-digit gains year-over-year, Soccer America says.The league experienced a similar jump in 2015, the last Women’s World Cup year, when attendance increased almost 22%. And speaking of the World Cup, FIFA announced last week that last summer’s tournament in France was watched by a record 1.12 billion viewers.

Interest in the club game isn’t growing nearly as fast in the rest of the world though. Although Mexico’s Tigres averaged 13,107 fans, including three playoff crowds, in the Liga MX Femenil’s 2019 Torneo Clausura, the league as a whole averaged just 1,825 fans for the season. Average attendances in 2018-19 for the major European leagues were also meager: England (1,010), France (911) and Germany (833), according to Soccer America.

2019 NWSL Average Attendance

1. Portland 20,098 (+19%)

2. Utah 10,774 (+14%)

3. Washington 6,105 (+57%)

4. NC Courage 5,875 (+15%)

5. Orlando 5,565 (+15%)

6. Chicago 5,451 (+36%)

7. Reign FC 5,213 (+36%)

8. Houston 4,053 (+13%)

9. Sky Blue FC 3,338 (+32%)

League Average: 7,386 (+23%)

Quotebook

“I’m pretty sure they are afraid of us. I think so because they never beat us. And it’s a good opportunity for us to show who owns L.A.”

Galaxy midfielder Romain Alessandrini on cross-town rival LAFC, Thursday’s opponent in an MLS Western Conference

Podcast

Don’t miss my weekly podcast on the Corner of the Galaxy site as co-host Josh Guesman and I discuss the Galaxy each Monday. You can listen to the most recent podcast by clicking here.

Until next time

Stay tuned for future newsletters. Subscribe here, and I’ll come right to your inbox. Something else you’d like to see? Email me. Or follow me on Twitter: @kbaxter11.

If you’re a high school student in San Diego County, it may appear your chances of getting a good grade are better or worse depending on which teacher you have.

Some teachers will give you an A if you score a 90% for a course, while others will give you an A for 88% or 85%, a Union-Tribune review of more than 60 course syllabuses from high schools around the county shows.

There are teachers who will give an F for 67% or below, some for 64% or below, others for 59% or below, 54% or below, and even 19% or below.

Some teachers choose not to give any D grades at all. Morse High math teacher Alex Powell was one of a handful who indicated on their syllabuses that they give no Ds.

He said D grades don’t help students graduate. D grades also don’t qualify a student for admission to California’s public universities.

“My goal was to kind of push away the idea that Ds were something that they should be getting,” Powell said.

There’s a wide variation in grading scales that highlights how inconsistent grading systems are from teacher to teacher. Experts say it points to deeper issues — of equity and privilege — plaguing age-old grading practices in U.S. schools.

A few points difference

Several experts say middle and high school grades are frequently unreliable, arbitrary, subjective and widely varied in terms of what they actually measure. Research studies dating as far back as 1912 show that a single sample of student work can draw scores all over the map from different teachers.

Experts point to the 100-percentage-point grading system as a prime culprit.

Percentage ranges for letter grades are often arbitrary, and one number out of a 100-point scale doesn’t communicate much about what or how much a student has learned, said Ken O’Connor, a Toronto education consultant who helps schools and teachers change their grading practices.

“Realistically, nobody can tell the difference between 90% and 93 in any meaningful way,” O’Connor said.

Some common grading practices, such as giving extra credit and averaging grades over time, can perpetuate inequities for disadvantaged students, said Joe Feldman, an Oakland consultant who works with schools and teachers on equitable grading practices.

For example, giving extra credit to students who complete additional projects or attend outside events ends up rewarding students whose families have resources for those tasks, Feldman said, while it disadvantages students whose families do not.

Also, the practice of producing one cumulative course grade by averaging a student’s performance from beginning to end can discredit improvements that a student made over time and can penalize students who started class behind grade level, Feldman said.

Despite these flaws, grades are used to determine vital parts of students’ futures.

Grades determine who gets to take honors courses, who gets to receive scholarships, who gets to graduate, who gets into a desired college and more.

Besides academics, people use grades to label a student’s worth, Feldman said.

“A big part of adolescence is identity construction,” Feldman said. “And there’s no more formalized way that adults tell children who they are than by the grades that students get. And so students will actually define themselves by their grades. They’ll say, ‘I’m a B student,’ or ‘I’m a C student.’”

Despite how much grades affect students’ lives, teachers are typically given zero training on grading, teachers and experts say. That’s largely why teachers often default to how they were graded when they were students years before, experts say.

Grading is one of the few aspects of a teacher’s job over which he has virtual autonomy. California law protects the right of teachers to be the final authority in determining a student’s grade.

“Teachers are weirdly protective and private about their grades,” said Kimberly Lepre, an English teacher at Rancho Del Rey Middle School and a 2017 County Teacher of the Year nominee. “They don’t want anyone to judge them based on their grades.”

Yet some teachers say they feel conflicted about grading.

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“I am constantly unsatisfied with grades and grading policies,” said Gina Vattuone, an English teacher at Bonita Vista High School. “I want my grades to be fair and accurate, but I don’t know within the confines and constraints of this system what that means.”

Vattuone and other teachers say they believe current grading systems and the value society places on grades cause some parents and students to care more about grades than about what they’re learning. Lepre said parents will press her with questions about how to raise their child’s grade from an A minus to an A.

“I think about the lengths students will go to secure an A grade,” Vattuone said. “It doesn’t become about the learning or the content. It becomes about these external rewards.”

What’s in a grade

There are two main reasons why grading practices are widely inconsistent, said Thomas Guskey, a University of Louisville senior research scholar who has written books about grading and assessment.

The first, Guskey said, is that educators don’t agree on the purpose of grades.

Is the grade to inform students about their performance or their parents? Is it to incentivize students to do schoolwork, or to document their behavior? Is it to sort students into groups in school based on skill level?

When Guskey has asked teachers to rank reasons why they give grades, their responses were “all over the place,” he said.

“We just don’t agree on why we’re doing it,” he said.

The second reason, Guskey says, is that teachers don’t agree on what should be counted in a grade.

Teachers grade students on much more than just how well they know course content.

Students can also be graded on actions that enable learning, such as homework completion and class participation, and how much they improved over time — distinct considerations often lumped into the same overall grade with content mastery, Guskey said.

Teachers also end up grading students on their behaviors, not just academics.

“Very often grading has been as much about compliance as it has been about achievement,” O’Connor said.

For example, it’s common for teachers to dock students’ grades for turning in work late, even though that doesn’t necessarily relate to how well the student knows the content.

The result is that, theoretically, a student who follows class rules but doesn’t know the content and a student who knows the content but doesn’t follow class rules can get the same grade.

Because teachers include so many other factors into grades besides content knowledge, students’ in-school grades can be inconsistent with scores they get on outside standardized exams, such as Advanced Placement tests or the state’s annual tests, Feldman said.

“When teachers use traditional grading practices, it’s actually making the grades inaccurate, where they’re not accurately describing a student’s level of knowledge mastery,” Feldman said. “Instead it’s this hodgepodge of all this disparate data that makes the grade almost meaningless.”

Different ways of grading

Some teachers have been experimenting with ways some experts recommend to make grading more equitable.

Several schools in San Diego County give separate “citizenship grades” that are solely about students’ behavior, such as tardiness and class participation.

Vattuone and Lepre both allow students to revise their assignments after they have turned them in, to try for a better grade, a practice recommended by Feldman.

They say revisions give students a chance to improve their work and learn from feedback, rather than just getting a grade and moving on from the assignment.

Both teachers say they also don’t give zeroes.

Vattuone gives her students a 50% on an assignment instead, which she says is still failing but gives students a better chance to improve their grade.

“If you get a zero on a 100-point scale, it’s like an anchor. It takes you forever to dig yourself out … and there’s no evidence that it motivates students to do better,” Feldman said.

Lepre doesn’t penalize her middle school students for turning in late work because doing so can end up punishing those who didn’t have adults available at home at the time who could help them, she said.

“I actually don’t have that much of a problem with late work,” Lepre said.

In her classroom, Lepre uses a 1, 2, 3, 4 grading system, where 4 means mastery of the content and 1 means no mastery. Such grading systems outline specific definitions of what mastery looks like at each of the four levels.

Experts recommend this “standards-based grading” because they say it more clearly tells students and their parents how well their students know the content.

Guskey also says that having a smaller number of grades — say, four, versus the 101 possible grades in a percentage system — reduces subjectivity and increases reliability.

“I found that when I grade that way, it also gives students a sense of their progress and they can take ownership of their learning,” Lepre said.

Guskey, Feldman and O’Connor all said they want teachers to avoid the 100-percentage point system.

“Teachers complain that students only talk about learning in terms of points, but that’s how we’ve taught it to them. And we can un-teach them, by the way,” Feldman said. “The amount of stress and anxiety that students feel is a big problem in schools, and our traditional grading contributes to that.”

The vast majority of syllabuses reviewed showed that most San Diego County teachers use the 100-point system to score students and arrive at letter grades.

Some teachers said that although they might like to experiment with different grading systems, at the end of the day they still have to input a letter grade into their school grade books.

Cities across the U.S. have seen residents abandon rail and bus services despite investments, with the notable exception of Seattle.

SAN DIEGO — 

Elected officials are preparing to ask San Diegans to approve not one but two tax increases to fund billions of dollars in bus and rail investments, including a San Diego Grand Central Station to connect riders to the airport.

The ask comes at a time when many cities around the country — from Atlanta to Houston to Los Angeles — have invested heavily in public transit only to lose riders. Seattle is the only major metropolitan region in the U.S. that has seen ridership increase in recent years.

Those who hope to see San Diego follow Seattle’s example say it will take more than spending massive amounts of taxpayer dollars. It’s going to take something politicians in Southern California and beyond have been reluctant to do: Make it harder to drive.

“Los Angeles is very much a cautionary tale,” said Michael Manville, a professor of urban planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. “You can’t take a region that is overwhelmingly designed to facilitate automobile travel and change the way people move around just by laying some rail tracks over it.”

Transportation experts have recommended bold steps for metropolitan regions attempting to get people out of cars and onto public transit, including eliminating parking in major job centers, encouraging dense neighborhoods with vibrant street life, ending freeway expansions and limiting suburban home construction. Most have also called for instituting some form of congestion pricing, such as highway and road tolls that fluctuate based on traffic.

Michael Manville, a professor of urban planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs.

It’s unclear whether the San Diego region will see walkable urban communities sprout up around bustling new train stations, but the idea is gaining traction, at least in the region’s larger cities.

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San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer, arguably the most high-profile elected official in the region pushing for a major transit expansion, has called for a “balanced approach,” including building a new high-speed rail system and adding lanes to state routes 78 and 67.

It’s the kind of strategy for transportation planning that some say has led other cities to spend billions on transit systems that many people don’t ride.

In his own city, the Republican official has taken some major steps to increase density, including nixing parking requirements around transit stops and unveiling a plan to lift height limits on new construction in those areas.

Still, transforming the region would probably take decades of dedication by local leaders and policies likely to upset many homeowners, said Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington.

“I won’t say it’s an insurmountable problem, but it’s really hard to change it,” Hallenbeck said.

“The heart of whether this will be successful or not is how much stuff are you going to build within walking distance of these stations,” he said. “Can you stop growth from going out to Santee and Poway?”

Road to the Emerald City

Hallenbeck said a large part of Seattle’s success has been its urban growth boundary, which restricts how far out the city can build. The metropolitan area is also surrounded by water and ridge lines that deter sprawl.

At the same time, Seattle’s major employers, such as Amazon and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, along with associated biotech businesses, are all centrally located. The city’s major stadiums are also downtown.

As a result, traffic in Seattle is notoriously gridlocked, but its bus and light-rail systems are well used, according to an analysis of federal data out of MIT. Since 2002, the region has seen a per capita ridership increase of 22%.

Over the same period, the L.A. region saw a ridership decrease of 11%, while the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth regions in Texas both saw a whopping 28% drop.

“I don’t think there’s a magic formula that people are keeping secret from cities,” said Yonah Freemark, a doctoral candidate in urban studies at MIT, who compiled the figures on his website the Transport Politic.

“You have to make sure it’s not so easy to drive around, and that means reducing the amount of parking that’s available or that is required for new [building] projects,” he said. “It means reducing the number of car lanes and, in some cases, increasing the taxes on gasoline.”

Many regions have blamed their transit woes on the economic rebound from the 2008 global financial crash, as well as the rise of ride-hailing companies such as Uber and Lyft. However, Freemark said, that can’t be the whole story, as other cities affected by those trends have made significant gains in transit ridership in recent years.

Beyond Seattle, cities throughout France, for example, have been seeing significant gains over the last decade, including a 9% per capita ridership increase in Paris, a 19% bump in Strasbourg and a 43% jump in Bordeaux.

Freemark said many of these cities could have chosen to sprawl into the countryside but have instead restricted growth.

No place like home

San Diego faces some unique challenges when it comes to planning its multibillion-dollar 100-mph rail system. Most notably, the region’s employment centers are decentralized.

Downtown San Diego, the densest and easiest location to serve with transit, has only 5% of the region’s employees.

The largest job hubs are auto-centric Sorrento Valley and Kearny Mesa, but even those areas combined have only about 16% of the region’s workers.

San Diegans drive long distances all over the county to get to work, with major employment centers located from National City to El Cajon to Escondido and Carlsbad.

The San Diego Assn. of Governments’ ambitious rail plan includes laying hundreds of miles of track throughout the county to connect residential areas to these job centers. Agency experts are analyzing the region’s commuter patterns in an attempt to design rail service that lures commuters off the most congested highway corridors.

The lines, many of which are planned as subways, will go through existing residential areas with the added aim of encouraging dense development along the routes.

“I think this region is more suited to follow up with transit-oriented development than any other region in the country,” said SANDAG Executive Director Hasan Ikhrata. “All California and the U.S. is designed around the car, around the interstate system. It took 50 years to have the land use we have. It’s going to take 50 years to reverse it with the rail.”

To pay for it, top transportation officials are eyeing a 1-cent sales tax increase on the November 2022 ballot that could bring in about $100 billion through 2062.

However, some outside experts have raised concerns about SANDAG’s proposed approach.

“It’s a pretty comprehensive commuter rail map, but it’s not going to address the sprawl issue,” said Ethan Elkind, director of the climate program at UC Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment. “If anything, it might make sprawl worse, and these tend to be expensive to run.”

Elkind said the region would do better to encourage employers to move to more central and walkable locations before building fixed rail lines.

“It’s about San Diego leaders working with their businesses to encourage them to locate back downtown along transit lines and give them some incentives to do so,” he said.

Funding a more limited transit system that services only the most urban communities could be more feasible now in San Diego. In the past, SANDAG would have needed to put its tax proposal before all voters in the county.

However, a new law spearheaded by Assemblyman Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) gives metropolitan planning organizations such as SANDAG the ability to place tax proposals before selected jurisdictions within a county.

For example, SANDAG’s board of 21 elected officials from around the region could decide to ask only the voters in the cities of San Diego, Chula Vista and National City to fund a new rail system. With two-thirds voter approval, the new levy would be enacted only in those cities.

That would eliminate the need for support from North and East County communities that have routinely opposed transit expansions.

Such a subregional ballot measure could concentrate new rail lines within the most urban communities, eliminating the need to run long and costly service to far-flung parts of the county.

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It’s Tuesday, Oct. 22 and I’m writing from Los Angeles.

California is in a moment of long overdue reckoning with the state’s original sin — the blood-soaked treatment of the people who inhabited this land long before any white settlers ever dreamed of Manifest Destiny.

In recent months, we’ve seen Gov. Gavin Newsom issue a formal apology that refused to mince words (“It’s called a genocide. That’s what it was,” the governor said), along with a rethinking of the symbolism of mission bells.

In 1860, Indian Island in Humboldt Bay was purchased without the consent of the Wiyot people, just days before an unthinkable massacre almost decimated the tribe. Nearly 160 years later, Indian Island was effectively returned to the Wiyot when the city of Eureka deeded more than 200 acres over to tribe during a signing ceremony on Monday.

Historically, “the island was home [to the Wiyot tribe] for at least 1,000 years, according to an archaeologist, and since time immemorial, according to the tribe,” as Humboldt County alt-weekly the North Coast Journal put it.

This rectification of sins past has been a long time coming.

Eureka has owned the majority of the island since the 1950s. Cheryl A. Seidner, a former tribal chairwoman and current Wiyot cultural liaison, told me over the phone that an effort to regain the sacred land had been underfoot since the 1970s.

In 2000, the tribe bought 1.5 acres of land on the eastern edge of the island for $106,000 — a sum raised tirelessly over the course of several years by selling fry bread, T-shirts and $10 posters, among other things. The city deeded 40 more acres to the tribe in 2004, but still controlled the majority of the land on the island.

The Eureka City Council voted to return its remaining 202 acres to the Wiyot in December 2018, and it was made official during Monday’s ceremony. There are a handful of remaining private homes on the island, but the vast majority of the island is now in tribal hands.

“Indian Island was the center of our world,” Seidner said. “That’s where we would go to pray. That’s where we would have ceremonies.”

[See also: “ ‘We’re Coming Home’ The unprecedented return of Indian Island to the Wiyot Tribe” in North Coast Journal]

The 1860 massacre was an event so horrific that it garnered national attention even in those Wild West days of early California statehood. It continues to stain the annals of the state record as “one of the most notorious massacres in California history,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle. As the Wiyot completed their weeklong world renewal ceremony, with many of the men away gathering supplies, a small group of white settlers made their coordinated, vicious attack on multiple Wiyot communities. Somewhere between 60 and 250 people — primarily women, children and the elderly — were slaughtered. The perpetrators were known locally, but never faced formal charges.

There was extensive environmental contamination on the site when the tribe reacquired that first parcel of land in 2000. From the 1870s to the 1990s, a ship repair facility had operated on the island, leaving a toxic legacy of paints, solvents, metals and petroleum products on the sacred earth. “The tribe spent years and years doing restoration work,” tribal administrator Michelle Vassel said.

In recent years, candlelight vigils have been held every February to coincide with the anniversary of the massacre. “Those vigils brought out a lot of people, both Indian people and non-Indian people, and I think that they were really a part of the healing process,” Vassel said, explaining that the environmental restoration work had also been a part of that healing process.

On Monday evening, Steve Watson, Eureka’s chief of police, took to Facebook to reflect on what he had witnessed earlier in the day at the transfer ceremony. “It may have been 160 years too late, but returning the island to the tribe was the right thing to do,” Watson wrote. “While no one living today is personally responsible for those terrible events (the massacre and the theft of the island etc.), we as a community had the moral obligation and present ability to right an incalculable wrong in a meaningful way that exceeds mere symbolism.”

And what has long been locally known as Indian Island will now be Tuluwat. “The village side was called Tuluwat, so now the island itself is going to be dedicated as Tuluwat Island,” Seidner explained.

And now, here’s what’s happening across California:

TOP STORIES

Tens of thousands of Californians could be without power again this week as two major utility companies consider shutting off electricity to large swaths of the state amid heightened concerns that hot weather and strong winds could lead to wildfires. PG&E may shut off power in 17 California counties as dangerous winds return. More than 17,000 Southern California Edison customers in five counties — Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, Santa Barbara and Ventura — are also under consideration for power outages in coming days. Los Angeles Times

Firefighters battled a brush fire that quickly chewed through at least 30 acres in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, burning dangerously close to multimillion-dollar homes in a hillside neighborhood. About 200 homes in the area were under evacuation orders, which have since been lifted. A separate brush fire on Little Mountain in San Bernardino County was threatening homes on Monday evening. Los Angeles Times

[Map: Here are the active wildfires in California]

California independents can cast ballots for Democrats but not Trump in March primary: In accordance with the political parties’ wishes, California voters who are unaffiliated with a political party will be able to participate in the Democratic presidential primary next year, but they will be prohibited from casting ballots for President Trump or any possible Republican challenger, according to information released Monday by state elections officials. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

They paid $800 a month to live without water or power in an illegally converted South L.A. church. Los Angeles Times

A reporter’s first time covering a California wildfire became a baptism by hot pink fire retardant. Los Angeles Times

Because you can only do so many Happy Meals: Here are 16 kid-friendly L.A. restaurants to check out. Eater LA

Residents can complain about airplane noise in the valley with the push of a button. But is anyone listening? Los Angeles Daily News

Dating Art People is the new hot trend for A-list actresses, per the gossip-chasers at Page Six. (Jennifer Lawrence married her art dealer boyfriend last weekend; several starlet wedding guests brought their own art world plus ones.) Page Six

Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. Subscribe to the Los Angeles Times.

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Citing gasoline prices that are as much as 30 cents a gallon higher than those in other states, Gov. Newsom asked the state attorney general to investigate whether California’s leading oil and gas suppliers are involved in price-fixing or other unfair practices. Los Angeles Times

A “blatantly racist’ billboard attacking San Francisco Mayor London Breed has been denounced by a bevy of city and state elected officials, who called for its removal. The billboard was paid for by a fringe mayoral candidate. San Francisco Chronicle

San Jose’s mayor wants the the city to explore breaking up with PG&E. He’s directing staff to study the feasibility of creating a municipal utility, which would potentially require the city to purchase power lines off of PG&E. San Jose Inside

Need an Eric Swalwell-branded shoelace? Just kidding, no one does. But the Dublin congressional rep still has $7,000 worth of them left over from his short-lived presidential run. San Francisco Chronicle

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has quietly recommended campaign hires to Pete Buttigieg’s campaign in a rare example of direct political involvement from one of tech’s most powerful executives. Bloomberg

CRIME AND COURTS

Facing prospect of added bribery charge, four parents pleaded guilty in the admissions scandal despite having previously maintained their innocence for months. Los Angeles Times

HEALTH AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Coachella Valley schools remained closed Monday because of the Thermal dump fire. Smoke from the recycling center fire has reduced air quality and sickened numerous students last week. The Desert Sun

Officials want to declare a public health emergency at the Salton Sea, aiming to force Gov. Newsom and federal officials to free up emergency funds and take immediate action to tamp down dangerous dust. The Desert Sun

Gusty winds could cause problems for San Joaquin Valley residents with respiratory issues. The winds are expected to cause blowing dust in areas where soils are exceptionally dry, which can create unhealthy concentrations of particulate matter. A health cautionary statement was issued for San Joaquin, Stanislaus, Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties over the weekend. Visalia Times-Delta

Black mold is growing in California prisons, but federal officials won’t test it. Sacramento Bee

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

Growing pains at Joshua Tree National Park: Annual attendance at the park has nearly doubled in the past five years, making for hour-long waits at the park’s west entrance and choked parking lots inside the park. Several construction projects and proposals could help. The Desert Sun

The largest private collection of African American quilts was donated to a Berkeley museum. The UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive will receive the nearly 3,000 quilts. Hyperallergic

In the city of Bakersfield’s ever-evolving quest to revitalize its downtown, loosened parking restrictions for developers are now on the table. Bakersfield Californian

Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and his wife, Anna Malaika Nti-Asare-Tubbs, announced the birth of their first child on Saturday. Welcome to the world, Michael Malakai Tubbs Jr. Stockton Record

Despite public concerns, Napa County approved a “remote” winery on a mountain road. Concerns were raised about how winery visitors would evacuate on the narrow road in case of wildfire, among other things. Napa Valley Register

Beyoncé or Bears Boulevard in downtown Berkeley? It’s all on the table as the city reconfigures part of Shattuck Avenue, and asks the public for suggestions on a new name for the two-block stretch. Berkeleyside

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles: sunny, 94. San Diego: sunny, 87. San Francisco: sunny, 73. San Jose: sunny, 84. Sacramento: sunny, 85. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

Today’s California memory comes from Martha Purinton Perry:

“In reading about the scare of earthquakes I remembered back to 1950. I was 10 years old living in Lancaster, Ca., but had come from West Virginia where I had never experienced [an earthquake]. I was in the bathtub having a relaxing bath when it seemed the tub was bouncing up and down and bottles flying everywhere. We soon moved back to West Virginia.”

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints, ideas and unrelated book recommendations to Julia Wick. Follow her on Twitter @Sherlyholmes.

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This photo by writer Jean Kentle accompanied her article in Oct. 20, 1935, Los Angeles Times:

An all-year-round hobby that contributes an inestimable amount of happiness to children is Mrs. Guy Stewart McCabe’s — that of creating, collecting, dressing and distributing hundreds of dolls to underprivileged children.

A director of the Ruth Protective Home, Mrs. McCabe’s original goal was set at fifty, but through the interest and generosity of friends and friends of friends the number has now reached 600 dolls of various sizes, styles and degrees of completion, while there are an additional 200 miniature dolls that are being appropriately dressed to be the exclusive decoration for a large Christmas tree.

Humorous and lifelike clown dolls were the center of attraction yesterday at the all-day garden party and fair on the spacious lawns of the E.W. Knowlton estate on South Grand avenue, Pasadena, held under the auspices of the First Congregational Church. …

The Prospect Boulevard home of the McCabes in Pasadena is like “Christmas every day” with dolls and doll clothes — bits of fur, brocades and satins, calicos and cashmeres contributed by hundreds of friends, many of whom come in groups to sew tiny seams, buttons on bootees or crochet caps, delighted to do their Christmas sewing early.

::

A followup article in Dec. 15, 1935, Los Angeles Times reported the donation drive collected 1,100 dolls.

This post originally was published Nov. 3, 2014.

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View this post on Instagram

We have turned part of our basement into a ball pit and I have never been happier.

A post shared by Rachel Bloom (@racheldoesstuff) on Dec 16, 2017 at 6:19pm PST

Renovation work at the front of the house was “rushed and improperly phased, without providing sufficient time for the improvements to settle before moving on to the next phase,” the suit says, resulting in foundation work that’s now cracking and chipping.

“Raul Menjivar as a California licensed contractor had unique and heightened knowledge of what was and was not a material aspect or defect of the property prior to the sale,” the lawsuit says.

The only defects listed? “Garage concrete paid [sic] is cracked in a few areas and has new wood framing and post that were installed as a result of termite dry rot damage in garage,” according to the suit.

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Bloom and Gregor say in the document that they tried to go to mediation but were refused. In addition to compensatory damages of at least $500,000, they are asking for punitive damages, attorney’s fees, court costs and more.

Menjivar and Hance are both associated with the RUN Group II and are listed as co-founders of Avenue Homes, with the former focusing on acquisitions and the latter serving as chief executive. Leinart is listed as a partner/business development.

Leinart and Hance played football at USC together in 2003 and 2004. Leinart was the starting quarterback in the 2003, 2004 and 2005 seasons and won the Heisman Trophy in 2004. After playing for six years in the NFL, he’s now an analyst for Fox Sports.

Menjivar was not immediately available for comment Monday, and members of Bloom’s team did not respond immediately to a request for comment.