After Gareth Southgate resigned from the role of senior team boss following Euro 2024, Carsley had a six-game spell in charge of the Three Lions, winning five matches and losing one and guiding England back to the top tier of the Nations League.
He is now back at under-21 level and recently signed a new deal with the Football Association that lasts until 2027.
“It’s important I just do a good job, I’m just trying to do it again [win the Euros],” said Carsley. “The priority is the Euros and I won’t be taking my eye off of that.
“Hopefully we’ll be good to watch. That’s what you want. You want people back home watching the next generation of England players and being excited by it.”
There are 16 nations in the tournament in Slovakia, with England placed in Group B, along with Czech Republic, Germany and Slovenia, with the top two from each section moving into the quarter-finals.
Carsley’s 23-man squad includes Newcastle full-back Tino Livramento, who has one cap for the senior side, along with plenty of players with Premier League experience, including Liverpool’s title-winning duo Jarell Quansah and Harvey Elliott.
Other players named include Nottingham Forest’s Elliot Anderson, Tottenham’s Archie Gray, Brighton’s Jack Hinshelwood, Bournemouth’s Alex Scott, Manchester City’s James McAtee and Ipswich’s Omari Hutchinson.
Arsenal winger Ethan Nwaneri, at 18, is the youngest player in the England squad after a breakthrough season for the Gunners, which saw him score nine goals in all competitions.
West Bromwich Albion forward Tom Fellows is a late addition to the squad, replacing Jobe Bellingham, who has been included in Borussia Dortmund’s squad for the Fifa Club World Cup after joining the German club from Sunderland earlier this week.
Fellows had travelled to Slovakia as an additional training player.
Goalkeepers: James Beadle (Brighton), Teddy Sharman-Lowe (Chelsea), Tommy Simkin (Stoke).
Defenders: Charlie Cresswell (Toulouse), Ronnie Edwards (Southampton), CJ Egan-Riley (Burnley), Tino Livramento (Newcastle), Brooke Norton Cuffy (Genoa), Jarell Quansah (Liverpool).
Midfielders: Elliot Anderson (Nottingham Forest), Archie Gray (Tottenham), Hayden Hackney (Middlesbrough), Jack Hinshelwood (Brighton), Tyler Morton (Liverpool), Alex Scott (Bournemouth).
Forwards: Harvey Elliott (Liverpool), Tom Fellows (West Bromwich Albion), Omari Hutchinson (Ipswich), Sam Iling Jnr (Aston Villa), James McAtee (Manchester City), Ethan Nwaneri (Arsenal), Jonathan Rowe (Marseille), Jay Stansfield (Birmingham).
Lancaster — A California law aimed at reducing the amount of climate-harming greenhouse gases at landfills is exacerbating the problem of illegal dumping in the Antelope Valley, according to local officials and residents.
The law, dubbed California’s Short-Lived Climate Pollutant Reduction Strategy, requires residents and businesses to separate food waste, yard trimmings and other organic waste from their trash to reduce the amount of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, being emitted into the atmosphere.
Signed into law in 2016, the bill mandated a gradual increase in the amount of organic waste that must be diverted away from landfills to sites where the waste could be treated and composted, thus reducing the emission of greenhouse gases. The law required the diversion of 50% of all green and food waste from landfills by 2020; by 2025, that number was to hit 75%.
A separate law closed a legal loophole that had previously encouraged waste haulers to cover landfill debris with green waste.
Although experts say the law appears to be working in most regions of the state, the Los Angeles area has been a problem. They say the city of Los Angeles and many of its surrounding municipalities haven’t invested in the infrastructure needed to process increased organic waste, nor is there the agricultural demand for the finished product that there is farther north.
“Illegal dumping has been a problem in the Antelope Valley for decades,” said Chuck Bostwick, a senior field deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents much of the area. “But, since these laws were passed, it’s gotten markedly worse.”
Bostwick said state regulations have made disposal of organic waste “much more expensive and hard to deal with,” and therefore increased the financial incentives for waste haulers to dump illegally, thus circumventing the high processing costs of composting and treating the material.
A truck leaves the Circle Green mulch dump site near El Mirage.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Antelope Valley residents say there are dozens or more rogue dump sites across the region. Although a few are just straight-up garbage and trash, most of the more than 80 identified by residents appear to be some form of unprocessed mulch.
One such site, located in San Bernardino County near the El Mirage Dry Lake bed, gave off a rancid smell on a cool spring afternoon. The material underfoot was dark brown and appeared to be a mix of wood chips and woody debris, dotted with cast-off rubber and plastic — the shred of a Spalding basketball here, a purple plastic squirrel there. The stumps of dead Joshua trees jutted from the fetid ground cover, while a few others, still alive, appeared anemic and were adorned in wispy strands of plastic debris and dust.
A lawsuit filed this year in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles by Antelope Valley residents claims that waste-hauling companies including Athens Services and California Waste Services are dumping hazardous substances without authorization, which the companies deny. Athens noted that the law encourages the distribution of compostable material to “farmers and other property owners for beneficial use.”
It’s this interpretation of land-application that has caused consternation among the valley’s desert-dwelling residents: There are no laws preventing landowners from applying compost to their fields or property.
According to Bostwick and others, landowners in the Antelope Valley are granting permission for waste haulers to come and dump on their property in return for payment.
That’s completely legitimate, according to Lance Klug, a spokesman for CalRecycle, the state’s waste agency. Property owners can spread waste on their land, he said as long as the material is compostable and not mixed with non-organic material; contains less than 0.5% of plastic, metal or other contaminants; contains only minimal amounts of metals and pathogens; and is not deposited in piles higher than 6 inches.
At sites such as the one near El Mirage, the legality of the material is questionable. A spreadsheet compiled by CalRecycle officials during a visit in November describes the waste as “illegal.” But at other sites, the waste appears to be in line with state regulations.
But even if it is legal, its presence threatens to cause lasting damage to the desert ecosystem, said Wesley Skelton, assistant land manager at the Portal Ridge Wildlife Preserve, a protected area near the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve.
Yard trimmings often contain seeds of invasive plant species and toxic herbicides, he said, and mulching is also problematic, disrupting fragile ecosystems, contributing to poor air quality and potentially the spread of the dust-loving fungus that causes Valley fever.
“We’re concerned that these landowners aren’t having to do any environmental impact report when they do dump on their land,” Skelton said. “The effects of these dumpings are long-lasting habitat destruction, and introduction of invasive plants that’s going to affect the air quality of Lancaster and Palmdale for years to come.”
Trash is dumped at this Lancaster location north of E. Avenue J. on April 18.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“We put in a lot of effort to combat these plants— the Russian thistle and the mustard and all the different grasses and everything,” Skelton said, naming two invasive species that are crowding out the native flora. “It’s a huge problem.”
Nick Lapis, director of Californians Against Waste, doesn’t think the composting laws are the problem in the Antelope Valley. He said dumping has been happening there for more than decade — long before the composting laws were in place.
A sneaker among the trash dumped at Adobe Mountain near Lancaster on April 18.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Irrespective of the cause, it is a big problem, he said, and state and local enforcement agencies need to stop it — both by requiring jurisdictions to track waste, at every step of its journey, and implementing a clear strategy for enforcement.
“It is outrageous that while some companies are investing millions in legitimate composting operations — real facilities with real customers and real climate benefits — others are just dumping raw green waste in the desert and calling it farming,” he said. “It’s a slap in the face to everyone doing the right thing.”
Sitting in the Birmingham High bleachers wearing headphones before running the 400 meters at the City Section track and field prelims, 17-year-old senior Nathan Santa Cruz looks like a teenager comfortable and confident. Teammates gravitate to him. Maybe it’s his smile. Or maybe they want to be near someone enjoying each and every day.
A traumatic experience changed his outlook on life in the fall of 2022 when he suffered a brain injury in the opening football game for Venice High and underwent emergency surgery to stop bleeding.
“We don’t know if he’s going to make it,” his mother, Crystal Clark, remembers being told at the hospital.
Nathan Santa Cruz, who survived a brain injury in 2022, goes for a City Section title at 400 meters.
(Craig Weston)
Santa Cruz recovered so well that he played two more years of football, but his real love was using his speed in track. Last season he finished second in the City Section 400. This year, he ran a career-best time of 47.74 seconds at the Arcadia Invitational.
On Thursday, he’ll have a rematch against Justin Hart of Granada Hills in the 400 final. They ran one-two last season.
“I think it’s going to be a real competitive race,” Santa Cruz said. “I’m going to try to come out on top.”
If he doesn’t finish first, he’s already won. He has a track scholarship waiting for him at Cal Poly Pomona, where he plans to study business or criminology. And he has grown up fast because of what happened to him. He’s no normal teenager when you listen to what he believes.
“At the end of the day, it’s God giving you another chance to wake up,” he said. “Make sure I’m better than yesterday. That’s what I do.”
Granada Hills’ Justin Hart, the son of former NBA player Jason Hart, is favored in the City 400 and 200.
(Craig Weston)
His competitor, Hart, has his own story to tell. He’s the son of Kentucky basketball assistant coach Jason Hart, who spent 10 years in the NBA. An older brother, Jason II, also played basketball but Justin was different.
Justin played lots of sports, including basketball, but when he was 7, he told his father, “I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want you to waste your money.”
He wanted to run.
“I didn’t want to be in my dad’s shadow. I wanted to create my own identity in my own sport,” he said.
He won the 400 and was second in the 200 at last year’s City final. He’s going for a sweep on Thursday and is just getting started.
“I think the ceiling is really high,” Granada Hills coach Johnny Wiley said.
He’ll welcome his father and mother in the bleachers cheering loudly.
There really won’t be any losers when Hart and Santa Cruz square off. They come from great families and have learned lessons that will help them succeed for years to come.
Santa Cruz makes it clear he runs to make his mother proud because he’ll never forget a memory from his hospital experience.
“Seeing her cry at the hospital, I knew I had to go make an impact in her life, make it so she didn’t have to pay for her kid to go to college,” he said. “Seeing her smile, that’s why I do it.”
And when days don’t go as well as he might like, Santa Cruz said he has learned, “It’s just the way life goes. I think God gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers.”
