Category Archives: California

Sacramento shooting: police hunt at least two suspects after six shot dead

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Police in California ask for help in identifying those responsible for gunfire that broke out after ‘large fight’

Police in Sacramento, California, are hunting for at least two suspects after six people were killed and 10 others injured during a shooting in the city’s downtown early Sunday morning.

Kathy Lester, chief of the Sacramento police department, said at a news conference that police were patrolling the area at about 2am after hearing gunfire. When they arrived at the scene, she said, they found a crowd gathered on the street and six people dead.

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Betty Reid Soskin, America’s oldest active ranger, retires at the age of 100

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She began working with the National Park Service at 84 to reveal ‘untold stories’ of Black people’s efforts during the second world war

Betty Reid Soskin, the National Park Service’s oldest active ranger, has retired at the age of 100.

Soskin, who worked at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front national historical park in Richmond, California, spent her last day as she had for the last decade and a half: sharing her experiences and those of other women who worked on the home front in the second world war.

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Great white shark killed California bodyboarder on Christmas Eve, coroner confirms

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Autopsy determined the man suffered a crushed skull as well as injuries to a large vein and died within minutes

A bodyboarder was attacked by a great white shark in central California on Christmas Eve and died within minutes, official reports have concluded.

Tomas Butterfield, 42, was bitten in the head, chest and shoulder in the Morro Bay attack and died from “complications of multiple penetrating blunt force traumatic injuries,” according to a coroner’s report, the Tribune of San Luis Obispo County reported on Tuesday.

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Muslim Americans sue over US border officers’ ‘invasive’ questions on religion

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Trio file lawsuit against homeland security department, alleging questions about faith were in violation of constitutional rights

Three Muslim Americans filed a lawsuit this week alleging that US border officers questioned them about their religious beliefs in violation of their constitutional rights when they returned from international travel.

The men involved in the lawsuit claim that US border officers at land crossings and international airports peppered them with questions about whether they were Muslim and attended a mosque and how often they prayed.

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Man accused of smuggling 1,700 reptiles from Mexico and Hong Kong

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Jose Manuel Perez from California allegedly smuggled reptiles, including baby crocodiles and Mexican beaded lizards, since 2016

A Southern California man is accused of smuggling more than 1,700 reptiles – including baby crocodiles and Mexican beaded lizards – into the US since 2016, authorities said Thursday.

Jose Manuel Perez, also known as “Julio Rodriguez”, was taken into custody on 25 February at the San Ysidro border crossing with Mexico.

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Hollywood Forever cemetery, resting place to the stars, named a historical site

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Los Angeles city council unanimously bestowed the designation to the 123-year-old site where many movie legends are buried

The Hollywood Forever cemetery, the final resting place of stars such as Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney and Burt Reynolds, is now a historic-cultural monument.

The Los Angeles city council unanimously voted this week to grant the designation to the 123-year-old cemetery, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1999. An architectural historian who prepared a report on the cemetery for the city found it “exemplifies significant contributions to the broad cultural, economic or social history”.

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Judge terminates former actor Amanda Bynes’s nine-year conservatorship

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The 35-year-old petitioned last month to end legal arrangement that has given her mother control of her estate and personal affairs

A judge terminated Amanda Bynes’ conservatorship on Tuesday, ending the legal arrangement that has given the former actor’s mother control of her estate and personal affairs for nearly a decade.

The 35-year-old filed a petition last month, with support from her mother and psychiatrist, to end the conservatorship she was placed under in 2013 after she was forcibly hospitalized on a psychiatric hold.

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Elizabeth Holmes looms large on first day of Sunny Balwani’s Theranos trial

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Prosecutors portray ex-executive as accomplice in a health scam while defense paints picture of well-meaning businessman

The specter of Elizabeth Holmes loomed over the opening day of a trial that will determine whether Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, her former romantic and business partner at Theranos, was also her partner in crime.

Tuesday marked the opening of a case slated to begin last week, which was delayed by a Covid-19 exposure.

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California man rescued after being trapped in a storm pipe the ‘width of a pizza’

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He had entered the stormwater system intentionally and became stuck for two days before being rescued uninjured, but dehydrated

A man who was trapped 15ft (4.5m) underground for two days in a San Francisco Bay area storm pipe the width of a large pizza was rescued in an effort that lasted hours and involved at least 50 firefighters, police officers and rescue personnel, officials said Monday.

Officials freed the man from the 16in (40cm) pipe around 9.30pm on Sunday, said Steve Hill, spokesperson for the Contra Costa county fire protection district.

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California: kidnapper sentenced in case police first said was ‘Gone Girl’ hoax

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Matthew Muller guilty of rape and false imprisonment in intricate attack which authorities first dismissed – to their cost – as staged

A man who sexually assaulted a northern California woman who was kidnapped from her home in what police initially thought was a hoax was sentenced on Friday to 31 years in state prison.

Matthew Muller, already serving a 40-year sentence for federal crimes, was sentenced in Solano county superior court after pleading no contest to two counts of forcible rape of Denise Huskins, who was dragged from her Vallejo home in 2015, the county district attorney’s office said.

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California man died screaming ‘I can’t breathe’ as police restrained him, video shows

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Newly released clip from two years ago shows Edward Bronstein being forced to a mat with at least five officers holding him down

A southern California man died nearly two years ago as he screamed “I can’t breathe” while multiple officers restrained him as they tried to take a blood sample, according to records and a video.

Edward Bronstein, 38, was taken into custody by California highway patrol (CHP) officers on 31 March 2020 following a traffic stop. Bronstein died less than two months before George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis as he, too, repeatedly told officers “I can’t breathe.”

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Sunny Balwani’s Theranos trial delayed after possible Covid exposure

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Ex-executive faces same charges as his former romantic and business partner in Silicon Valley scandal

The trial of Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the former romantic and business partner of Elizabeth Holmes, was reportedly delayed on Wednesday after a possible Covid-19 exposure forced a judge to send a full courtroom home.

Wednesday was meant to be the day that Balwani finally has his first chance to defend himself against charges that he was Holmes’ accomplice in a Silicon Valley scam that brought down the blood-testing startup Theranos.

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‘It’s not worth it’: rising gas prices force drivers to work for less than minimum wage

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Drivers already hit by low wages and poor working conditions are spending more time driving to keep their wages the same

By Tuesday afternoon, Lyft driver Elida Zabaleta had earned $100 in the five hours she spent ferrying passengers across the city of San Jose. With gas prices in California surging, she’d have to use more than half of that to cover fuel for the day, leaving her with just $45.

The rising cost of gas has made a difficult job all the more difficult, Zabaleta said, forcing her to spend more time behind the wheel to earn enough to afford living in one of the country’s most expensive cities.

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‘Pretty awesome’: celebrity mountain lion’s walkabout excites Los Angeles residents

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P22, known as the Brad Pitt of his species, has been visiting residential neighborhoods and welcomed like a star

On Tuesday night, a quiet street in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles had a rare celebrity visitor. P22, the city’s most famous mountain lion, was spotted around 7pm on Berkeley Circle, about three and a half miles south of his home in Griffith Park. The National Park Service later confirmed his presence through a radio collar.

Residents shared photos from doorbell cameras and grainy pics from inside their homes. “Ultimately, it’s pretty awesome,” one resident told the LA Times. “The whole neighborhood’s excited.”

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California jogger accused of faking own kidnapping leaves jail

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Sherri Papini out on bond but must undergo psychiatric treatment and surrender passport, judge rules

Sherri Papini, the northern California woman arrested last week for allegedly faking her own 2016 kidnapping and lying to federal agents, was released from jail on Tuesday after her family posted a $120,000 bond.

Papini, 39, was seen leaving the Sacramento county jail on Tuesday afternoon, after a judge approved her release on conditions including that she undergo psychiatric treatment and surrender her passport.

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California jogger Sherri Papini staged own violent kidnapping, FBI says

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Papini’s 2016 disappearance was long cloaked in confusion, as a friend raised funds for a ‘reverse ransom’

Sherri Papini seemed to be just another small-town northern California mom, when, a little over five years ago, she disappeared in the woods. By her own account, she was abducted, chained to a pole for three weeks, half-starved, beaten, branded and burned and then – for no apparent reason – released again by the side of a busy highway.

Now, after an exhaustive search for her captors, the US government has concluded that Papini made up the whole story.

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California debates naming heatwaves to underscore deadly risk of extreme heat

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Experts and advocates are also exploring new ranking systems to add urgency to the growing disaster of rapidly warming landscapes

Climate scientists from around the world issued dire warnings on Monday, in the latest IPCC report on the dangers posed in the unfolding climate crisis. Among them is extreme heat, a crisis that on average already claims more American lives than hurricanes and tornadoes combined.

Though the impact is already being felt, heatwaves are largely silent killers. Often, the toll is tallied far into the aftermath of an event and is vastly undercounted. Unlike fires and floods that produce immediate and visible destruction, heat’s harmful effects can seem more subtle – even if they are in fact more deadly.

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Very hungry bear ‘Hank the Tank’ is in fact three bears, DNA shows

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Officials say a trio of oversized bears is responsible for home invasions that had been blamed on a 500lb black bear dubbed Hank the Tank

DNA evidence has shown that the 500-pound black bear the public had nicknamed Hank the Tank is, in fact, at least three not-so-little bears who have damaged more than 30 properties around Lake Tahoe in recent months.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife on Thursday said it would soon begin trapping bears in the South Lake Tahoe area to tag the animals and collect evidence for genetic analysis. The bears will be released in a “suitable habitat” and the agency said no trapped animals will be euthanised as part of the project.

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Lindsey Pearlman, US TV actor, found dead after being reported missing

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  • Pearlman, 43, appeared in General Hospital and Chicago Justice
  • Los Angeles police said Pearlman had failed to return home

Lindsey Pearlman, an actor known for television series including General Hospital and Chicago Justice, was found dead in Hollywood several days after going missing, authorities and her husband said. She was 43.

“Today around 8.30am, Hollywood area officers responded to a radio call for a death investigation at Franklin Avenue and North Sierra Bonita Avenue,” Los Angeles police said on Friday.

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Black workers accused Tesla of racism for years. Now California is stepping in

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The company has been hit with several discrimination lawsuits but this from a government agency may have wider implications

For Black employees at Tesla’s flagship California plant, coming into work could mean being harassed, bullied by a supervisor or finding racist graffiti sprayed on factory walls.

That’s according to a new lawsuit filed by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), which alleges that Black workers in the company’s Fremont factory experienced “rampant racism” that the company left “unchecked for years”.

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