Home Care In Dodson, LA

The Dodgers on Friday traded outfielder Luke Raley to the Rays in exchange for minor league pitcher Tanner Dodson. This clears a 40-man roster spot for the Dodgers, who later in the day signed free agent left-hander Tyler Anderson to a one-year contract.

The Dodgers-Rays trade was first reported by Jeff Passan at ESPN.

Raley has now been involved in three different Dodgers trades in his career. He was drafted by Los Angeles in the seventh round in 2016 out of Lake Erie College. The Dodgers traded him to the Twins as part of a deal for Brian Dozier at the 2018 trade deadline, then reacquired him as part of the Kenta Maeda/Brusdar Graterol trade in February 2020.

After spending time at the alternate site in 2020, Raley made his major league debut with the Dodgers last April 9. He appeared in 33 games in the majors in 2021, including eight starts in right field and seven starts in left field. Raley had 12 hits, including two home runs and a double, in 66 at-bats last season, hitting .182/.250/.288 with 25 strikeouts.

Raley batted once in the National League wild card game, and struck out.

Raley is one of 13 players drafted and signed by the Dodgers to reach the majors, their most prolific draft in team history in that regard.

“I mean, there’s a lot of good talent here and other places from that draft,” Raley said last April. “It’s a really cool thing to see and be a part of.”

Raley was originally scheduled to start in right field in the Dodgers’ spring training opener on Friday, but with the trade was a late scratch. Zach McKinstry started in right field instead.

Dodson was drafted by the Rays in the second round in 2018 out of Cal, and had a 3.20 ERA in 37 games between High-A Bowling Green and Double-A Montgomery in 2021. The right-hander had 64 strikeouts (a 26.3-percent strikeout rate) and 23 walks in 56? innings.

From Joshua T. Morgan at DRaysBay:

He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019 and early in the 2021 season he transitioned to the mound full time. In 56.1 innings as a multi inning reliever he put up a 3.20 ERA and 3.59 FIP. He posted a 26.3% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk rate. He throws an upper 90s fastball and high 80s slider.

Dodson was a two-way player in college, and played both center field and pitched in 2019, his first pro season. But he hasn’t played the outfield since 2019. The switch-hitter turns 25 in May.

Fatima Dodson’s Runway Boutique LA has vintage, contemporary, and handmade garments and jewelry. Photos by Jason Lewis

Fatima Dodson sells Afrocentric women’s clothing and she created Head Wraps in the Park.

By Tracey Edwards

Fatima Dodson’s Runway Boutique LA has a collection of vintage, contemporary, and handmade garments and jewelry that feature Afrocentric styles.

“I love my culture, I love bright colors, and I love prints,” Dodson said. “I feel that connects us to our African roots. When you look at the African culture you’ll see a lot of mixing prints. You’ll see a lot of tribal prints and metric shapes. That’s what I gravitate toward when I’m purchasing for the store.”

Many of the items at Runway Boutique LA are one-of-a-kind pieces that are hand selected by Dodson. She picked up her fashion sense from her mother, who was a fashion designer and artist.

“I grew up immersed in fashion,” Dodson said. “I started off helping my mother when I was a child, and when I got older I started styling my friends.”

Dodson is from Los Angeles, and she attended Los Angeles High School. Before opening Runway Boutique, she would host house parties where she would invite her friends over to view her clothing. For several years she had a booth at the Melrose Trading Post, which is a weekly flea market at Fairfax High School. She went on to open her store on La Brea in the Miracle Mile area. Her store is now on Adams Boulevard in West Adams.

As the curator of the boutique, Dodson purchases pieces with a very specific style or person in mind.

“It’s all about the woman who wants to really make a statement and show her personality through her style,” she said.

One of the most popular items at Runway Boutique LA is the head wrap, which led Dodson to create a new venture. Five years ago she created Head Wraps in the Park, which is a yearly festival that is held at Grand Park in downtown.

“I started the festival because I felt that we needed a place to go where we could gather, celebrate ourselves, and support small Black-owned businesses,” she said. “Head wraps are a very big aspect of Runway Boutique. So I do workshops and classes. The question that I got a lot was, ‘Where do I wear this head wrap to now that I know how to wrap it?’ So I thought to create this festival where we can celebrate one another. Women, children, men, and families come out. Women adorn their head with beautiful clothes. People come to learn the history about it. It’s a really good energy.”

The head wraps come in many different colors and patterns, and they attract a lot of positive attention.

“When I wear my head wrap, I feel like a queen,” Dodson said. “I feel taller and I feel magical.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Dodson would host weekly classes at her boutique, teaching women how to wear the head wraps and showcasing the clothes at her store. But with social distancing, she has held classes virtually on Facebook, Instagram, and Zoom. While people have been less social over the last few months, that hasn’t changed Dodson’s customer base’s desire to dress nice.

“Even though we may just be running errands and we’re not going to events, looking good makes us feel good,” she said. “It brightens our day. Women still want to look fly. Earrings and necklaces are by far the best sellers right now because women have to be on point on that Zoom meeting.”

Harem pants and kimonos are also hot sellers right now.

“A lot of women want things that they can just throw on and not think about it, but they still want to look like they put an effort into it,” Dodson said.

Currently Dodson is seeing customers by appointment only to reduce the amount of traffic in her store. People can also purchase items online. Runway Boutique LA is located at 4755 W Adams Boulevard. Visit their website at www.shoprunwayboutiquela.com, and follow the shop on Facebook and Instagram.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Six years ago the Los Angeles Chargers had an undrafted rookie running back from a small Colorado college make the roster after a great preseason.

Could the Bolts strike twice? Elijah Dotson certainly hopes so.

Dotson had 92 yards on six carries, including two long touchdowns in the fourth quarter of the Chargers’ 34-17 victory over the Los Angeles Rams Saturday night.

Dotson, who went to Northern Colorado and signed with the Chargers after going undrafted, got a motivational pep talk from someone who was once in the same situation. Austin Ekeler is going into his seventh season in Los Angeles after signing as an undrafted rookie out of Western Colorado.

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Having Ekeler as a mentor isn’t a bad thing considering he leads the NFL with 38 scrimmage touchdowns over the past two seasons and was the fifth running back in league history last season to have at least 100 catches in a year.

“He was like ‘Don’t do too much. You don’t have to be a superstar. Just take what was given and execute.’ So that’s what I did,” Dotson said.

Dotson describes himself as a finesse back, who also likes to use his speed. He displayed that with touchdown runs of 37 and 40 yards in the fourth quarter to give the Chargers breathing room after the Rams closed to 20-14 late in the third quarter.

On both runs, Dotson took the handoff from Max Duggan and got a wide lane up the left sideline after getting great blocks.

“They had everything blocked up. All I had to do was just bounce,” Dotson said. “I have to take advantage of the opportunities, especially being an undrafted free agent. It’s about executing and playing smart football.”

Dotson began his career at Sacramento State and was a two-time, first-team All-Big Sky selection. He was a graduate transfer to Northern Colorado last year, where he had 933 yards rushing, led the Bears with 48 catches and had an 82-yard punt return TD.

In 2019 at Sacramento State, Dotson had 1,445 all-purpose yards and 11 TDs, but didn’t play in 2020 as the pandemic cancelled Football Championship Subdivision seasons. Dotson played in only four games in 2021 before deciding to redshirt and save his last year of eligibility.

“There’s a lot to learn from pass protection and the pass route receiving-type role, but he’s trying to improve in all ways,” Chargers coach Brandon Staley said. “I thought what you saw tonight is kind of what we have seen since rookie minicamp, is that he does have a burst. He is decisive and we think he can finish runs, so even for a stature, he runs powerful. It was a good night for him and I’m happy for him because he practices the way you should practice as a rookie.”

Dotson will need to continue momentum over the next two weeks if he hopes to land a spot. The Chargers traditionally have kept four running backs with Ekeler, Isaiah Spiller and Joshua Kelley entrenched in three of those spots. Dotson and Larry Rountree are likely in competition for the final position, with special teams one of the deciding factors.

Dotson wasn’t the only running back who had a good night against the Rams. The Chargers rushed for 214 yards and averaged 6.9 yards per carry as new offensive coordinator Kellen Moore is looking for more balance and consistency from his unit.

Spiller, who had 27 yards on five carries, had a 71-yard touchdown called back early in the third quarter due to a holding penalty.

“I thought the offensive unit came to play. I thought the line, tight ends, and receivers really blocked their front well,” Staley said. “Our running backs did a nice job of making one cut and being really decisive.”

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On Facebook and group chats, the rumors are spreading.

With more cases of the novel coronavirus being confirmed daily, will L.A. Unified School District close its 860-some campuses this week, or next week, or not at all? Should it follow in the footsteps of the universities that are rapidly moving to online learning or the K-12 districts in Northern California and across the country that have shuttered as they have confirmed their first cases of the virus?

The answer, as of Thursday afternoon, was no. Despite mounting cries for LAUSD to close, officials said it would not.

Still, the district has been preparing for that step. Schools are engaging in contingency planning that includes granting the superintendent broad emergency powers, canceling large events and planning for lessons delivered on TV. The district also has two online platforms: a system through which teachers and students can communicate and a separate system of self-contained online courses.

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To date, no coronavirus case has been linked to an L.A. public school, although there are confirmed cases elsewhere in the county that have spread through the community without a clear origin. Public health and school officials said say they plan to keep schools open unless a confirmed case reaches a campus.

Nonetheless, the head of United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that represents about 30,000 L.A. Unified employees, demanded the district shut down campuses during a news conference on Thursday evening.

“We are calling for the rapid, accelerated and humane closure of all schools in L.A.,” UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said. Experience in other countries, he said, has shown that limiting the reach of the virus by closing schools “actually slows the spread, flattens out the spread and makes sure that healthcare providers are not crushed with an overwhelming demand.”

He acknowledged that additional planning might be required. Many students rely on L.A. Unified for meals during the school day. Those considerations, though serious, have to take a back seat to public health priorities, UTLA leaders said.

The union also called for an expansion of the social safety net through such measures as stipends so parents could stay at home with their children, extended sick leave to cover the incubation period of the coronavirus illness and funding to cover the cost of testing and treatment. More broadly, the union is calling for “debt forgiveness” to prevent families from financial hardship caused by the loss of jobs or work hours related to the crisis.

“We are only as protected collectively as the most vulnerable person is protected,” Caputo-Pearl said.

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Many parents agreed on the call to close schools. More than 19,000 people had signed a Change.org petition to close all schools in the district because of the coronavirus. “Let us not wait for an individual to test positive but make sure we close schools before that happens,” the petition urged Thursday.

Also on Thursday, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced that 43 school districts across three counties in that state would be closed for the next six weeks. This followed similar announcements from Ohio and Maryland.

In the Los Angeles area, some private schools have announced campus closures and a transition to online learning, including Campbell Hall in Studio City, Harvard-Westlake’s two L.A. campuses and Mayfield Senior School in Pasadena. Also, the school district that serves Santa Monica and Malibu announced that it would close Friday and Monday for a deep cleaning and staff meetings after “a community member with children in our schools” was exposed to coronavirus, according to a release from Supt. Ben Drati.

The Los Angeles Unified school board is scheduled to meet in a closed session on Friday for a status report from L.A. Unified Supt. Austin Beutner.

Board President Richard Vladovic said Thursday it was important to rely on the advice of health officials in making the call on whether to close schools. “The prudent decision is to take direction from the doctors and the healthcare providers that happen to know,” he said. “I can’t second-guess a pandemic and how it’s spread. If there’s ever a doubt, the safety of children will come first.”

Officials from the governor on down have avoided calling for closing schools, citing the hardships for families, the difficulty in providing academic services and even the school meals that children depend on. But Vladovic acknowledged there was widespread debate among parents and employees about what was best.

“I’m very sensitive to that, and I’m in that group that is very susceptible, and I know that many of our employees are as well,” said Vladovic, who is 75 and has battled health issues in recent years.

So far, L.A. County has been taking cues from Singapore, which did not close schools en masse but screened people for illness and had strict protocols for who could enter schools, said Dr. Barbara Ferrer, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, at a news conference Thursday.

The district, she said, serves many parents with “very limited income, who don’t get sick leaves,” who often are working multiple jobs and can’t necessarily put kids in daycare. Schools should be kept open if they can function safely, Ferrer said, but sick people need to stay away.

As the nation’s second-largest school district, LAUSD serves about half a million students, eight in 10 of whom rely on free or reduced-price lunches and 18,000 of whom are homeless. L.A. Unified school board member Nick Melvoin said the decision on whether to close was therefore a hard one. Plus, he said, the district’s actions can create a domino effect, putting pressure on other large urban school districts to shut down, too.

The federal government has given California a waiver to allow meal distribution to students even if school is canceled, but that could still present logistical challenges.

“They’re relying on us for meals, for child care and I also think from a public health concern,” Melvoin said. If schools close, parents who have to go to work may be forced to take their children with them. Also, children in middle school and high school would likely congregate in public areas anyway, as teenagers tend to do.

“The school environment is one we can control right now,” Melvoin said Thursday afternoon.

School nurse Stephanie Yellin-Mednick said she’s been inundated with questions and dealt with many sick children at the Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies. But it’s the seasonal flu, not the coronavirus, and so far, absences have not spiked beyond typical levels.

Ferrer said a clear tipping point for closing a school would be if a person with infection was identified at that campus. A complication, said Vladovic, is the interconnection among schools. Siblings attend different campuses; children are bused from one neighborhood to another; employees come from all parts of the city.

“There are so many connections in the district. I’m trying to figure out how you isolate something to one, two, three, four or five schools. You don’t,” Vladovic said. “I think at some point, the closing of schools is inevitable.”

UTLA Elementary Vice President Gloria Martinez said Thursday that some teachers are anxious, but mainly because they haven’t been reassured that district officials have planned properly for managing school closures.

Some parents have already started keeping their kids at home. On a Facebook group started during last year’s strike, Parents Supporting Teachers, families are sharing resources for at-home learning.

“For those parents who have said to me, ‘I don’t feel comfortable sending my kids to school,’ I have said I’m ... going to do everything I can to make sure absences during this period are excused,” Melvoin said.

L.A. Unified isn’t the only district to close large events; Long Beach Unified announced a similar policy Thursday. Elsewhere in L.A. County, schools are closing temporarily so they can prepare for online instruction. Las Virgenes Unified, for example, will close for two days next week for “staff in-service time to prepare for the likelihood of a district-wide closure,” the district’s Supt. Dan Stepenosky said in a letter to families Thursday.

State funding, which accounts for most of the money that goes to California public schools, is doled out based on how many students attend school each day. In the case of a pandemic like this, schools can seek to recover funding if they close schools, as long as they do so under the direction of public health agencies.

The California Department of Education’s guidance to schools notes that “closing a school simply as a precaution” may mean the district will not qualify for such a waiver, and the school could incur “a penalty for failure to offer the statutorily required instructional days and/or minutes.”

Melvoin said he would push for LAUSD to receive funding from the state regardless of what happened with school closings.

Emma Alvarez Gibson, whose son attends Dodson Middle School in Rancho Palos Verdes, said the possibility of lost funding wasn’t a good enough reason to put children and their families at risk. She believes there’s not enough soap or hand sanitizer at her son’s school and that efforts to keep students apart are logistically unfeasible on such campuses.

“I’m not sure how lunch period, nutrition period and however many passing periods they have ... I’m not sure how that’s not a large event,” Alvarez Gibson said.

Her son has been attending school, Gibson said, but she will likely pull him out after Thursday.

“They are not safe as far as I’m concerned,” she said.

Times staff writer Paloma Esquivel contributed to this report.

The Los Angeles Rams’ starting lineup this weekend will feature a couple of familiar faces for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Two players who began the 2022 season as starters in Pittsburgh are now serving in that capacity for the Steelers’ next opponent.

The one most people seem to want to talk about, however, is G Kevin Dotson, whom they traded at the end of the preseason. The Rams had been pursuing him for a while, and were willing to swap a pair of mid- to late-round draft picks to get him.

The fourth-year veteran opened the season as a backup but opportunity presented itself and he seized upon it. He’s been starting for weeks now and receiving strong reviews for his play. Even his former teammates think so—at least before Sunday.

“Their scheme is a little different from ours, but shoot, Dotson’s been looking good”, Steelers starting nose tackle Montravius Adams told Brian Batko of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “We know the kind of player he is. For the most part, I think Dotson looks good. And, shoot, it’s up to us to say that he don’t”.

The offensive line is not a position that you can really evaluate statistically, at least through traditional statistics. But try to find any credible sources bucking the narrative of him playing at a high level right now for the Rams. You won’t.

Though their grading should be taken with a grain of salt, as goes without saying, Pro Football Focus has Dotson as their highest-ranked offensive guard so far this season. And that doesn’t mean you can’t see for yourself when a lineman is doing a good job.

Dotson started 30 games in his three-year career with the Steelers, including 17 last season. He was a bright spot as a rookie coming off the bench to fill in when injuries occurred, but he never quite built upon that. An injury of his own kept him out of the second half of his sophomore season.

Many feel that his skill set was not ideally suited to the Steelers’ offensive line. On the evidence, the Rams do seem to be getting more out of him than Pittsburgh did, though at least as it pertains to the 2023 season, they were never realistically going to give him a chance.

After all, they went out in free agency the past two offseasons to throw money at new starting guards. It was James Daniels last year and Isaac Seumalo this year. As soon as that move was made, Dotson saw the writing on the wall.

As much as he likely enjoyed the opportunity to play for the team he grew up rooting for, it’s no surprise that he seems to have found a better situation for himself professionally elsewhere. At least, that’s based on who he’s looked for the past three games. The Steelers intend to make him look so bad that the Rams wonder why they gave up anything for him at all.