Category Archives: California

‘Signs of distress’: beloved P22 mountain lion to be captured after attacking dogs

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Los Angeles’ resident big cat will have his health assessed after recent attacks on two chihuahuas and roaming too close to homes

Los Angeles’s most famous mountain lion, known as P22, will be captured and studied in order to assess his health following recent attacks on two small dogs and close encounters with people near the park he calls home.

Wildlife officials made the announcement on Thursday and said in a statement that, following the evaluation, California department of fish and wildlife veterinarians and National Park Service biologists will determine the best next steps for the animal while also prioritizing the safety of the surrounding communities.

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Twitter sued for disproportionately firing female workers after Musk buyout

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The proposed class-action lawsuit alleges that after the takeover, 57% of women were laid off compared with 47% of men

Twitter has been hit with another lawsuit in the wake of Elon Musk’s mass layoffs, with the latest legal action accusing the company of disproportionately targeting female employees for cuts.

The proposed class action, which was was filed late on Wednesday in San Francisco federal court, said that after Twitter was taken over by Musk, the world’s richest person, it laid off 57% of its female workers compared with 47% of men.

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US vice-president Kamala Harris will swear in Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass

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The ceremony will be a nod to the barriers broken by the two most powerful women in California politics and beyond

US vice-president Kamala Harris will swear in Karen Bass as Los Angeles mayor, marking the historic election of the first Black woman to lead the second largest city in the country.

The swearing-in ceremony on Sunday will bring together two elected leaders who have repeatedly broken barriers in California politics and beyond. In 2020, Harris became the first woman, first Black person and first Asian person to be US vice- president. In 2008, as a California state assemblymember, Bass became the first Black woman to serve as the speaker of any US state legislature; she was elected to represent Los Angeles in the US congress in 2010 and later became chair of the Congressional Black Caucus.

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Michael Avenatti sentenced to 14 years for cheating clients out of millions

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Lawyer known for representing Stormy Daniels also ordered to pay $7m on top of time he is already serving

The incarcerated lawyer Michael Avenatti was sentenced in southern California on Monday to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay $7m in restitution after admitting he cheated four of his clients out of millions of dollars.

The sentence should run consecutively to the five-year prison term he is already serving for separate convictions in New York, the US district judge James V Selna said during a hearing in Santa Ana, California.

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Man who shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker and stole bulldogs sentenced to 21 years

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In a deal, James Howard Jackson pleaded guilty to one count of attempted murder after he was accidentally released from custody

The man who shot Lady Gaga’s dog walker and stole her French bulldogs in Los Angeles last year has been sentenced to 21 years in prison for the high profile robbery that saw the star offer a $500,000 reward for the return of her pets.

James Howard Jackson, one of three men and two accomplices who participated in the violent robbery of dog walker Ryan Fischer, pleaded no contest to one count of attempted murder, the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office said on Monday.

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Two-year-old girl survives coyote attack in Los Angeles daylight

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Security footage shows animal drag child across lawn and sidewalk before father intervenes

A coyote grabbed and injured a two-year old girl outside her Los Angeles home in a daytime attack before her father chased the animal off, her family said.

Home security video obtained by KTLA-TV showed the animal grab and drag the toddler across her lawn and sidewalk, seconds after her father took her out of a car seat, set her down and turned back inside the vehicle to gather her toys. They had just arrived home from preschool.

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Pentagon unveils first strategic bomber in over 30 years to counter China

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The nuclear-capable B-21 Raider is set to become a key component in US’s effort to match the Asian country’s military build-up

The Pentagon unveiled its first new strategic bomber in more than 30 years on Friday, a nuclear-capable bat-wing plane that will become a central component of the US effort to counter China’s military build-up when it enters service around 2027.

Almost every aspect of the B-21 Raider is classified, but in a tightly-controlled unveiling at the Air Force’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, currently home of Lockheed-Martin’s legendary Skunk Works, the new strategic plane was briefly shown to the public.

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Ex-warden who allegedly ran California prison ‘rape club’ goes on trial

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Ray J Garcia is charged with abusing at least three female prisoners from 2019 to 2021 in prison areas out of view of cameras

First, the prison’s male warden would flatter the incarcerated women under his charge who attracted him, shower them with compliments and promise them early releases or transfers to lower-security facilities, according to authorities.

Eventually, he would allegedly take them to places in his lockup that he knew weren’t watched by surveillance cameras, force sex on them and take nude photos of them.

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Failure of officials to follow policy caused California gun owners’ data leak

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Investigation says personal information of nearly 200,000 people was released as officials didn’t understand their website

California’s department of justice mistakenly posted the names, addresses and birthdays of nearly 200,000 gun owners on the internet because officials didn’t follow policies or understand how to operate their website, according to an investigation released Wednesday.

The investigation, conducted by an outside law firm hired by the California department of justice, found that personal information for 192,000 people was downloaded 2,734 times by 507 unique IP addresses during a roughly 12-hour period in late June. All of those people had applied for a permit to carry a concealed gun.

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Judge declares mistrial in actor Danny Masterson’s rape trial

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The jury said they could not come to a consensus over the allegations after a month-long trial

A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked at the trial of That ’70s Show actor Danny Masterson, who is charged with three rapes.

Los Angeles judge Charlaine F Olmedo had ordered the jurors to take Thanksgiving week off and keep deliberating after they told her on 18 November that they could not come to a consensus about the rape allegations after a month-long trial in which the Church of Scientology played a supporting role.

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Weinstein trial: prosecutor says ‘hotels were his trap’ in closing arguments

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Six-week Los Angeles trial wrapping up after graphic testimony from four women accusing ex-producer of rape and sexual assault

Closing arguments began on Wednesday in the Los Angeles rape trial of Harvey Weinstein, following weeks of emotional testimony that saw multiple women take the stand, including the wife of California’s governor.

Marlene Martinez, a prosecutor in the case, began her final arguments with a photograph of Weinstein smirking at the camera, at the height of his power as a “titan of the film industry”. Seated in the courtroom, Weinstein, looking shrunken and pale as a corpse, stared at the photograph of himself on the screen.

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US to spend $250m on cleanup at California’s toxic Salton Sea

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The drying lake is fed by the Colorado River and the fiscal responsibility of its future is a flashpoint in water negotiations

The federal government said on Monday it will spend $250m over four years on environmental cleanup and restoration work around a drying southern California lake that is fed by the depleted Colorado River.

The future of the Salton Sea, and who is financially responsible for it, has been a key issue in discussions over how to prevent a crisis in the Colorado River. The lake was formed in 1905 when the river overflowed, creating a resort destination that slowly morphed into an environmental disaster as water levels receded, exposing residents to harmful dust and reducing wildlife habitat.

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Triple homicide suspect was sheriff’s deputy who drove across US to meet girl, police say

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Suspect met teen online and ‘catfished’ her before killing three members of her family, according to officers

The suspect in a triple homicide in southern California who died in a shootout with police was a Virginia law enforcement officer who police believe drove across the country to meet a teenage girl before killing three members of her family.

Austin Lee Edwards, 28, also probably set fire to the family’s home in Riverside, California, on the day of the shooting on Friday before leaving with the girl, the Riverside police department said in a news release.

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San Francisco police propose using robots capable of ‘deadly force’

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City’s board of supervisors to consider proposal involving remote-controlled devices

The San Francisco police department has proposed that it be allowed to use robots with “deadly force” while responding to incidents, according to a policy draft.

The document outlines how the department proposes to use its collection of robots, which number 17 in total although 12 are not operational.

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Family of Katie Meyer sues Stanford over soccer star’s death

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Suit alleges university caused ‘acute stress reaction’ that led to goalie’s suicide

The family of Katie Meyer, a star soccer goalie for Stanford University who died by suicide in March, has sued the university for wrongful death.

The lawsuit, filed on Wednesday and reviewed by CNN, alleges that the university administrators’ actions caused her to “suffer an acute stress reaction that impulsively led to her suicide”.

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California’s last nuclear power plant gets renewed boost with $1bn funding

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Biden administration approved the conditional funding to keep Diablo Canyon facility online beyond it’s scheduled 2025 shutdown

California’s last nuclear plant could get a new lease on life after the Biden administration announced the approval of up to $1.1bn in conditional funding on Monday. The grant funds may offer a path to keeping the aging facility known as Diablo Canyon online beyond its scheduled shut down in 2025.

Tucked against picturesque bluffs along California’s central coast, the plant has faced a spate of controversies over the decades, for its impact on underwater ecosystems, the production of toxic waste and its proximity to earthquake fault lines. It’s planned closure by 2025 seemed an all-but-certain step in California’s ambitious journey toward a greener future.

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Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes sentenced to more than 11 years for defrauding investors

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The harsh ruling sends a message to Silicon Valley that the government will hold founders accountable for what’s promised

Elizabeth Holmes, founder of Theranos, has been sentenced to more than 11 years in prison over her role in the blood testing firm that collapsed after its technology was revealed to be largely fraudulent.

Holmes was convicted in January on four counts of defrauding investors. She appeared on Friday afternoon at the San Jose, California, courthouse where her nearly four-month-long trial began in August 2021, alongside relatives and supporters, including her partner, Billy Evans.

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More than 20 Los Angeles county sheriff’s recruits injured after SUV hits class

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The cadets were on a training run when a 22-year-old driver going the wrong way crashed into them, critically injuring five

More than 20 Los Angeles county sheriff’s academy recruits were injured early Wednesday morning when an SUV driving the wrong way hit the class while they were on a training run.

Authorities have detained a 22-year-old driver in connection with the incident, which left 25 people injured, five critically, including head trauma, broken bones and “loss of limb”, said Sheriff Alex Villanueva.

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Karen Bass becomes the first female mayor of Los Angeles

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The Democrat takes over as the second Black mayor in LA’s history, beating a rival who spent over $80m of his own money on the race

The congresswoman Karen Bass was elected mayor of Los Angeles, defeating billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso and becoming the first woman to run the second-largest city in the US.

The Democrat, who has served as a US representative for more than a decade, had amassed an insurmountable lead of nearly 47,000 votes, with 70% of the votes counted, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday, nearly one one week after the election. Caruso had a slight lead in the first counts after the polls closed, but Bass soon surpassed him and steadily increased her lead as ballots were counted.

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Graduate workers across University of California system to strike for better pay

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Students, researchers and scholars are negotiating contracts in what could be the largest strike in US’s higher education history

Graduate workers including teaching assistants and student researchers, academic researchers and postdoctoral scholars in the University of California system have voted to authorize a strike which could be the largest in higher education history in the US.

Their unions – UAW 5810, UAW 2865 and SRU-UAW – representing 48,000 workers are currently negotiating union contracts for four separate bargaining units. They are coordinating to push increased compensation, childcare reimbursements, job security protections, sustainable transit incentives, eliminating fees for international scholars and stronger disability accommodations.

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