Category Archives: Los Angeles

California struggles under a staggering 2.5m coronavirus cases

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Hospitals are overwhelmed with 22,000 patients as officials warn hospitalizations could reach 30,000 by February

As the coronavirus in California rages out of control, staff in the state’s overwhelmed medical centers are warning they are increasingly struggling to keep up and may need to ration care as intensive care beds dwindle.

Only Arizona tops California in cases per resident and, with nearly 40 million residents, the huge coastal state is seeing staggering caseloads: more than 2.5m confirmed infections.

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When every set looks like Contagion: inside Hollywood’s pandemic year

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Actors are slowly returning to work after a long shutdown caused vast economic damage: ‘How many people gave up their dreams?’

For decades, the sound stages of Hollywood have built alternate universes in the middle of Los Angeles – fictional courtrooms, hospitals, homes and offices. Today, they all resemble the set of Contagion.

Make-up artists walk around in astronaut helmets. Actors take breaks inside plastic bubbles. And healthcare professionals swab everyone’s nose to test for a deadly infection before they’re allowed inside.

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LA’s Covid ‘tsunami’: inside the new center of America’s raging pandemic

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An exponential surge is crushing Los Angeles hospitals, with desperate nurses warning ‘there’s no place to take care of you’

Los Angeles is becoming the center of America’s out-of-control coronavirus pandemic in these final days before the new year, with officials warning that a meteoric rise in infections is crushing the healthcare system in one of the country’s largest metropolitan regions.

LA county has faced an onslaught of terrifying Covid developments in recent days, including a surge in deaths, dire shortages of hospital resources, and fears that doctors will have to make agonizing choices to ration care.

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Los Angeles reverses plans to close Covid-19 testing site for film shoot

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City faced widespread uproar over news that Union Station testing center would be closed for filming of She’s All That remake

Los Angeles reversed the planned closure of a downtown coronavirus testing site, after the news that the center would be closed because of a film shoot for the remake of the popular teen comedy She’s All That was met with widespread uproar.

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Bobby Brown Jr found dead in Los Angeles home at age 28

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Police pronounced son of singer Bobby Brown dead at the scene but provided no additional details

Bobby Brown Jr, the son of singer Bobby Brown, was found dead at a Los Angeles home late Wednesday. He was 28.

Los Angeles Police spokesman Jeff Lee said officers were responding to a medical emergency when they found Brown Jr’s body around 1pm at a home in Encino, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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Lana Del Rey criticised for wearing mesh mask to poetry reading

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Musician posed with fans at a Los Angeles bookshop wearing a glittery mesh mask that did not fully cover her nose and mouth

Fans of Lana Del Rey have criticised her for wearing a glittery mesh mask that did not appear to fully cover her nose and mouth at a surprise poetry reading and book signing event.

The musician read from her new collection, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass, and posed with fans at a Barnes and Noble store in Los Angeles at the weekend, wearing a net facial covering that did not seem to assist in preventing the spread of the coronavirus.

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Donald Trump’s Hollywood Walk of Fame star vandalized again

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A man dressed as the Incredible Hulk reportedly took a pickaxe to the star, ‘destroying it beyond recognition’

Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been severely vandalized again, the Los Angeles police department has confirmed.

At 5.55am PST on Friday morning, officers responded to a call regarding the vandalism and took a report on the scene, a spokesman confirmed. He said the police department could not say how much estimated damage was caused.

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Convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein facing six new sexual assault charges

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The disgraced film mogul, who is serving a 23-year prison sentence for rape, is accused of alleged LA attacks between 2004 and 2010

Harvey Weinstein, the convicted rapist and imprisoned film mogul, is facing six new sexual assault charges, prosecutors in Los Angeles announced on Friday.

Weinstein, 68, was charged with three additional forcible rape felonies and three forcible oral copulation charges stemming from alleged attacks between 2004 and 2010 in Beverly Hills. The new criminal complaint expands the LA case to a total of five victims, authorities said.

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Two Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies wounded in Compton attack

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  • Sheriff expresses dismay as protesters gather at hospital
  • Donald Trump tweet says ‘animals must be hit hard’

The shooting of two Los Angeles county sheriff’s deputies in an apparent ambush prompted a manhunt, reaction from the president and protests outside the hospital where the wounded deputies were being treated on Saturday night.

The deputies were shot while sitting in their patrol car at a Metro rail station, around 7pm and not far from the the Compton sheriff’s station. They were able to radio for help, Sheriff Alex Villanueva said. The department shared video of the shooting, showing a person open fire through the passenger-side window.

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Gucci heiress files lawsuit alleging stepfather sexually abused her

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Alexandra Zarini alleges Joseph Ruffalo sexually abused her from the age of six to when she was about 22

Alexandra Zarini, the 35-year-old granddaughter of Aldo Gucci, the man who turned a small Italian artisanal company into a global fashion brand, has filed a lawsuit in a US court alleging that her stepfather sexually abused her over a period of 16 years.

The action, filed in the California superior court in Los Angeles, describes years of sexual abuse from her former stepfather, Joseph Ruffalo, and complicity and a cover-up on the part of her mother, Patricia Gucci, and grandmother Bruna Palombo.

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Lake fire: huge blaze north of Los Angeles forces evacuations

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  • Firefighters battle to contain blaze before temperatures rise
  • Fire in Angeles national forest produces vast plume of smoke

A huge wildfire has prompted evacuations north of Los Angeles, with firefighters hoping to rein in the blaze before temperatures spike later on Thursday.

The Lake fire broke out on Wednesday afternoon in dense forest land in the Lake Hughes area of the Angeles national forest, some 60 miles (97km) north of downtown Los Angeles.

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Chateau Marmont in Hollywood to become members-only hotel

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Celebrity hangout will allow select group to own shares in ‘world’s best real estate’

The Chateau Marmont, a Hollywood hotspot and hangout for nearly a century, will be converted into a members-only hotel over the next year.

The owner, André Balazs, confirmed his plans to turn the 91-year-old building into a hotel at which a select group of members could buy into “a piece of a portfolio of the best real estate in the world”, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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Police shot Los Angeles security guard in the back five times, autopsy shows

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  • Andres Guardado was killed on 18 June during a foot pursuit
  • All five gunshot wounds were fatal, report said

The official autopsy report for Andres Guardado, an 18-year-old security guard killed by Los Angeles police last month, revealed that a deputy shot him in the back five times.

The findings from the Los Angeles county coroner, released on Friday, confirm an independent autopsy report released earlier this week by a family attorney. The sheriff’s department had faced intense scrutiny over its initial decision to request the findings be kept confidential under a security hold.

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Record Covid-19 cases in California as some countries prepare for ‘universal’ testing

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LA closes beaches and businesses as hospitals fill up while Bavaria announces ‘test offensive’

California has reported record new infections following its reopening as Los Angeles county ordered all beaches closed for 4 July and the re-shuttering of some businesses.

Amid warnings hospitals were filling up and others could run out of intensive care beds in the coming weeks, the state broke its record on Monday for the highest number of new coronavirus cases reported in a single day, with more than 8,000 – the third time in eight days the state has broken a record for new cases.

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Oakland moves to bar police from schools as bigger cities reject change

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Movement to get officers out of schools sees progress even as Chicago and Los Angeles school boards vote to keep them in place

A growing movement to get police officers out of US schools saw a major victory this week when Oakland’s school board voted to eliminate the school district’s dedicated police department.

But in Chicago and Los Angeles, despite protests by youth activists, support from teachers’ unions, and an outpouring of public support, school boards voted to keep police in public schools, at least for now.

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Ron Jeremy: adult film star charged with rape and sexual assault of four women

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  • Charges could lead to sentence of 90 years in prison
  • Los Angeles prosecutors will ask for bail of $6.6m

The adult film star Ron Jeremy was charged with raping three women and sexually assaulting a fourth, Los Angeles county prosecutors said Tuesday.

Jeremy, 67, whose real name is Ron Jeremy Hyatt, was charged with three counts each of forcible rape and forcible penetration by a foreign object and one count each of forcible oral copulation and sexual battery.

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Police officers shoot and kill Los Angeles security guard: ‘He ran because he was scared’

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Sheriff’s deputies chased and shot dead Andres Guardado, 18, a security guard at an auto repairs shop

After sheriff’s deputies chased and shot dead a security guard at an auto repairs shop in Los Angeles on Thursday evening, family members have identified the dead man to local media as Andres Guardado, 18.

The killing came amid national protest and unrest over the deaths of African Americans, and other people of color, at the hands of law enforcement.

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Pilot in Kobe Bryant crash thought he was climbing rather than descending

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  • Documents say Ara Zobayan was trying to climb out of clouds
  • Crash killed NBA legend, his daughter and seven others

The pilot of the helicopter that crashed in thick fog, killing Kobe Bryant and seven other passengers, reported he was climbing when he was actually descending, federal investigators said in documents released on Wednesday.

Ara Zobayan radioed to air traffic controllers that he was climbing to 4,000 feet to get above clouds when, in fact, the helicopter was plunging toward a hillside where it crashed northwest of Los Angeles. The report by the National Transportation Safety Board said Zobayan may have “misperceived” the pitch of the aircraft, which can happen when a pilot becomes disoriented in low visibility. Experts said shortly after the crash that the path of the flight indicated Zobayan had lost his bearing.

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George Floyd killing: protests rage as anger mounts in cities across US – live

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In Los Angeles, protesters marched through the downtown area before shutting the 110 freeway.

From @KTLA: protestors have shut down the 110 freeway pic.twitter.com/1WI75tIMOl

LAPD seen trying to detain protesters after squad car windows smashed, officer attacked downtown https://t.co/uHrpaRp3xm pic.twitter.com/gmxNAdO1uM

Demonstrator in DTLA made a cordon blocking the road out of Bird scooters pic.twitter.com/aV8c63SG4k

Kellie Chauvin, the wife of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with killing George Floyd, is divorcing her husband because of his role in Floyd’s death.

Kellie Chauvin,
Through her attorney wife of former Officer Derek Chauvin the former Minneapolis Police Officer charged with murdering #GeorgeFloyd released a statement saying she is devastated by Floyd’s death, sends condolences to his family and is divorcing her husband @wcco pic.twitter.com/A5n7bYgdbK

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