Category Archives: West Coast

Wildfires destroy historic lodge on Grand Canyon’s North Rim, park says

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Grand Canyon Lodge consumed by two wildfires that have burned more than 45,000 acres in area

The historic Grand Canyon Lodge on the monument’s North Rim has been destroyed by a fast-moving wildfire, the park said on Sunday. The blaze has forced officials to close access to that area for the season.

The Grand Canyon Lodge, the only lodging inside the park at the North Rim, was consumed by the flames, park superintendent Ed Keable told park residents, staff and others in a meeting Sunday morning. He said the visitor center, the gas station, a waste water treatment plant, an administrative building and some employee housing also were lost.

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Farm worker dies a day after chaotic immigration raid at California farm

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Jaime Alanis died after sustaining injuries during raid where authorities say they arrested about 200 people

A farmworker died Friday from injuries that he sustained a day earlier in raids on two California cannabis farm sites as US immigration authorities confirmed they arrested 200 workers after a tense standoff with authorities.

Jaime Alanis’s death was confirmed in a social media post by the United Farm Workers advocacy group. “We tragically can confirm that a farm worker has died of injuries they sustained as a result of yesterday’s immigration enforcement action,” the post read.

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Trump sues California over transgender athletes in girls’ school sports

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Justice department says state policy violates Title IX, which offers legal protection against sex discrimination

The Trump administration has sued California over its policies allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ school sports, alleging that their participation violates federal anti-discrimination laws.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, claims that California’s policies violate Title IX, which affords legal protection against sex discrimination.

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Families confirm five people died in blast at California fireworks warehouse

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Remains of two victims of seven people who went missing in the explosion are yet to be recovered

Family members are still searching for answers following last week’s explosion at a fireworks warehouse in northern California. Authorities confirmed on Sunday that the remains of the seven people missing in the blast have been recovered.

Family and community members have confirmed five of the victims as Jesus Ramos, Jhony Ramos, Joel “Junior” Melendez, Angel Voller and Carlos Rodriguez. Two victims are still unidentified.

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‘I want my vote back’: Trump-voting family stunned after Canadian mother detained over immigration status

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Family of Cynthia Olivera reconsiders support for president after Ice detained her at green card interview

The family of a Canadian national who supported Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations of immigrants say they are feeling betrayed after federal agents recently detained the woman in California while she interviewed for permanent US residency – and began working to expel her from the country.

“We feel totally blindsided,” Cynthia Olivera’s husband – US citizen and self-identified Trump voter Francisco Olivera – told the California news station KGTV. “I want my vote back.”

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Ice raids leave crops unharvested at California farms: ‘We need the labor’

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Trump’s immigration crackdown has made many immigrant farmworkers scared to go to work

Lisa Tate is a sixth-generation farmer in Ventura county, California, an area that produces billions of dollars worth of fruit and vegetables each year, much of it hand-picked by immigrants in the US illegally.

Tate knows the farms around her well. And she says she can see with her own eyes how raids carried out by agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in the area’s fields earlier this month, part of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, have frightened off workers.

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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs and son Justin accused of rape in new US lawsuit

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Suit filed in Los Angeles court accuses mogul, son and two other men of ‘brutal gang-rape’ in 2017

As closing arguments got under way in the federal sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs this week, the music mogul and his son Justin Combs were hit with a new lawsuit, accusing them of a “brutal gang-rape” in 2017.

In the suit filed in a Los Angeles court on Monday, a woman alleges that Justin Combs used his father’s celebrity status to “lure [the] plaintiff, a young female, from Louisiana to Los Angeles where she was literally held prisoner for a weekend and repeatedly raped” by the pair and two other masked men, according to the complaint.

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California legislature acts to keep film and TV production at home

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Legislation will more than double current tax incentives under larger bill slated to be signed by Gavin Newsom

Hollywood’s home state of California will more than double annual tax incentives for film and television production to $750m under a measure passed by the Democratic-led legislature on Friday.

The increase from the current $330m was approved as part of a broader tax bill that is expected to be signed into law by California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.

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California officials say seventh person found dead after Lake Tahoe boat capsizes

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Fast-moving weekend thunderstorm caused high winds and swells as authorities say one person still missing

The El Dorado county sheriff’s office confirmed Monday that it had found a seventh person dead after a boat capsized on Lake Tahoe during a fast-moving weekend thunderstorm that caused high winds and swells of up to 8ft. One person is still missing.

A 27ft-long gold Chris-Craft vessel with 10 people aboard overturned Saturday afternoon after apparently being hit by a large swell near DL Bliss state park on the lake’s south-west edge, according to the US Coast Guard.

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Six people dead and two missing after boat capsizes on California’s Lake Tahoe

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Boat overturned after apparently being hit by a large swell, in a region that’s a popular spot with tourists

Six people have died and two others were missing after a boat capsized on Saturday on California’s Lake Tahoe, local authorities have said.

A 27ft-long boat overturned in the afternoon after apparently being hit by a large swell near DL Bliss state park, according to the Coast Guard. Lake Tahoe and its surrounding wilderness region is a hugely popular spot with tourists.

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Los Angeles Dodgers donate $1m to families affected by Ice raids

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Team, which said it stopped Ice agents entering parking lot on Thursday, makes donation to immigrant families

The Los Angeles Dodgers have donated $1m to assist families affected by two weeks of immigration raids in southern California.

The World Series champions also said they intend to form partnerships with the California Community Foundation, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and other organizations to continue providing aid to immigrant families.

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Brush fire forces evacuation of 50 Maui residents as other wildfires burn in continental US

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Kahikinui fire is 85% contained as firefighting crews battle blazes in Pacific north-west, California and the Rockies

A fast-moving Hawaii brush fire fueled by fierce winds forced the evacuation of about 50 Maui residents on the opposite side of the same island where a devastating blaze killed more than 100 people two years ago.

The fire started on Sunday in a sparsely populated area with land set aside for Native Hawaiians.

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Ice agents detain US citizen as LA immigration raids continue: ‘It’s racial profiling’

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Officers arrest people at swap meet in Santa Fe and detain people in Montebello as curfew in LA remains in place

US immigration raids continued to target southern California communities in recent days, including at a popular flea market and in a Los Angeles suburb where US citizens were detained.

On Saturday, as mass protests swept the nation, including tens of thousands demonstrating in LA, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents descended on a swap meet in Santa Fe Springs in southeast LA county. Video showed dozens of heavily armed, masked officers carrying out the raid before a scheduled concert at the long-running event that features vendors, food and entertainment every weekend

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California bill proposes misdemeanor for officers who cover their face on duty

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Law enforcement officials would also be required to be identifiable by uniform carrying their name

Local, state, and federal law enforcement officers who cover their faces while conducting official business could face a misdemeanor in California under a new proposal announced Monday.

The bill would require all law enforcement officials show their faces and be identifiable by their uniform, which should carry their name or other identifier. It would not apply to the national guard or other troops and it exempts Swat teams and officers responding to natural disasters.

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Trump ally Ric Grenell says he’d ‘look at’ California bid if Kamala Harris runs

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Kennedy Center interim director says he would have consider running for California governor if Harris opts in

Donald Trump loyalist Ric Grenell says he would “have to” strongly consider running for California governor in 2026 if former vice-president Kamala Harris signs up to campaign for the position.

Grenell – a foreign policy adviser to the president and the interim director of Washington DC’s John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts – made the remark during an interview airing Sunday on the Politico podcast The Conversation with Dasha Burns.

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Judge seems skeptical Trump can call in national guard and will rule ‘very soon’

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California governor Gavin Newsom filed suit challenging US president calling up troops to suppress protests against Ice

A federal judge expressed skepticism on Thursday with the Trump administration’s arguments that the president has the power to federalize national guard troops and deploy them to suppress protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles.

The US district judge, Charles Breyer, said he intends to rule on California’s request for an injunction halting the deployment “very soon”, and that he was hopeful his ruling would come by the end of the day. He said he would also decide on whether the justice department could stay the order pending appeal.

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LA protests: LAPD says it has made ‘mass arrests’ after mayor issued curfew for downtown – live

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Mayor Karen Bass issues curfew for one square mile area in downtown, beginning at 8pm local time on Tuesday until 6am local time on Wednesday

Governor Greg Abbott has pledged to deploy National Guard troops across his state of Texas, becoming the first governor to do so as protests against Trump’s immigration raids spread throughout the United States.

Abbott said on X that the Texas National Guard will “use every tool & strategy to help law enforcement maintain order”.

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LA police announce ‘mass arrests’ as Newsom intensifies criticism of Trump | First Thing

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Protesters defy overnight curfew as California governor issues searing rebuke of administration. Plus, who is behind the hedonistic party palaces of New York’s Fire Island?

Good morning.

Los Angeles police have announced they are making “mass arrests” in the city’s downtown area, as people gathered in defiance of an overnight curfew imposed after days of protests against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and military deployment.

What has Newsom said? Trump’s decision to deploy the national guard in LA was “a brazen abuse of power”, that has “inflamed a combustible situation”, Newsom said in a searing rebuke of the administration.

What about Trump? In an address to troops at the Fort Bragg military base in North Carolina yesterday, Trump spread conspiracy theories, maligned California’s Democratic leaders and misleadingly portrayed protesters as part of a “foreign invasion”.

Were they really armed by Israel? Yes. Israeli defence officials acknowledged last week that they had been arming the group, with the aim of undermining Hamas. Aid workers said the group had a long history of looting from UN trucks.

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LA public schools will protect students and families at graduations from Ice

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‘Perimeters of safety around graduation sites’ aim to prevent any immigration enforcement action

Public schools in Los Angeles have announced a new security plan to keep immigration officers away from any potentially undocumented students and their families who are attending this week’s school graduations.

“Every single graduation site is a protected site,” said Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the country’s second largest school district, at a Monday press conference, having previously said he was “dismayed by recent immigration enforcement activity occurring near our schools”.

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Misinformation about LA Ice protests swirls online: ‘Catnip for rightwing agitators’

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Many posts spread the idea that mayhem overtook LA while police confrontations were limited to a small part of the city

Since protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles began, false and misleading claims about the ongoing demonstrations have spread on text-based social networks. Outright lies posted directly to social media mixed with misinformation spread through established channels by the White House as Donald Trump dramatically escalated federal intervention. The stream of undifferentiated real and fake information has painted a picture of the city that forks from reality.

Parts of Los Angeles have seen major protests over the past four days against intensified immigration raids by the US president’s administration. On Saturday, dramatic photos from downtown Los Angeles showed cars set aflame amid confrontations with law enforcement. Many posts promoted the perception that mayhem and violence had overtaken the entirety of Los Angeles, even though confrontations with law enforcement and vandalism remained confined to a small part of the sprawling city. Trump has deployed 2,000 members of the national guard to the city without requesting consent from California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, which provoked the state to sue for an alleged violation of sovereignty. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has also ordered the US military to deploy approximately 700 marines to the city.

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