Police say ‘multiple injuries and multiple fatalities’ and say suspect among dead after shooting at railyard in California city
Police reported multiple fatalities and injuries after gunfire erupted early on Wednesday morning at a light rail maintenance yard in San Jose, California.
A Santa Clara county sheriff’s spokesman, Deputy Russell Davis, said he could not specify the number of fatalities and injuries, but said that the suspect was confirmed to be among the dead.
Continue reading...While on a routine patrol, Greg Francek came across bone fragments from prehistoric animals that existed millions of years before humans
Imagine a California with volcanoes erupting to the east and Los Angeles buried under the Pacific Ocean. Giant camels, rhinoceros and four-tusked miniature elephants graze on a lush landscape, only to be preyed upon by bone-crushing dogs.
This is the prehistoric scene conjured up by a trove of new fossils discovered in California’s Sierra foothills – a hugely significant find, and one of the largest in the state’s history.
Continue reading...Loopholes surrounding these weapons make them untraceable – and a hot commodity in many vulnerable communities
When Brian Muhammad, a program manager at a gun violence prevention group in California, asked a 16-year-old boy in 2018 how young people were getting guns, he assumed the answer would be Nevada, the neighboring state with looser gun laws.
“Who would waste time going to Nevada when you can just get them in the mail and put it together?” the Stockton teen nonchalantly replied.
Continue reading...The national park is instituting a permitting system for overnight rock climbers. Many see it as inevitable as the sport gets more popular
For years, rock climbers Graham Ottley and Keith Bouma-Gregson dreamed of scaling the 2,800ft (853 meters) pillar of granite known as the Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite national park.
In early May the pair finally got their chance, making a climb that required spending two windy nights camped on tiny ledges with harnesses holding them to the rocks. But Ottley and Bouma-Gregson realize that soon it may not be as easy to enjoy Yosemite’s anything-goes climbing culture.
Continue reading...The driver of a Tesla car in a fatal crash that California highway authorities said may have been operating on autopilot posted social media videos of himself riding in the vehicle without his hands on the wheel or foot on the pedal.
The 5 May crash in Fontana, a city 50 miles east of Los Angeles, is also under investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). It is the 29th case involving a Tesla the federal agency has investigated.
Continue reading...The winner of a $26m California Lottery prize may have literally washed the chance of a fortune down the drain.
Related: Shelter releases 1,000 feral cats on to Chicago streets to combat rat crisis
Continue reading...Majority of counties now under emergency declaration as California faces extensive dry spell and dwindling water supply
California has expanded a drought emergency declaration to a large swath of the nation’s most populated state amid “acute water supply shortages” in northern and central parts of California.
The declaration, expanded by Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday, now includes 41 of 58 counties, covering 30% of California’s nearly 40 million people. The US drought monitor shows most of the state and the American west is in extensive drought just a few years after California emerged from a punishing multiyear dry spell.
Continue reading...More than 15 rare birds, whose population is at about 160 in the state, showed up at Cinda Mickol’s home – and they’ve made a mess
Giant California condors are rare – but not at Cinda Mickols’ home.
More than 15 condors, an endangered bird whose population hovers at around 160 in the state and under 500 in the US, have recently taken a liking to Mickol’s house in Tehachapi – and they’ve made quite a mess.
Continue reading...The US coast guard has ended its search for survivors after a boat capsized off the coast of San Diego, leaving three people dead and dozens injured.
Officials believe the boat, which had at least 30 people onboard, was being used to smuggle migrants into the US and the man who was captaining the vessel has been taken into custody.
Continue reading...Commercial beekeepers in the US say counterfeit honey from Asia is forcing down prices and pushing them to financial collapse
Imports of cheap, fake honey from Asia are pushing American beekeepers to financial collapse, according to a lawsuit.
Thousands of commercial beekeepers in the US have taken legal action against the country’s largest honey importers and packers for allegedly flooding the market with hundreds of thousands of tonnes of counterfeit honey.
Continue reading...State officials will truck the young fish to the ocean, with the waterways they use to travel downstream historically low
California officials will truck more than 15 million young salmon raised at fish hatcheries in the state’s Central Valley agricultural region to the Pacific Ocean because projected river conditions show that the waterways the fish use to travel downstream will be historically low and warm due to increasing drought.
Officials announced the huge trucking operation on Wednesday, saying the effort is aimed at ensuring “the highest level of survival for the young salmon on their hazardous journey to the Pacific Ocean”.
Continue reading...Singer rarely takes part in hearings but has asked to speak directly to court, lawyer says
Britney Spears will personally address the Los Angeles court dealing with her long-running conservatorship in June, a judge agreed on Tuesday.
Spears, 39, has been under a conservatorship since 2008 but rarely takes part in hearings. Her lawyer said on Tuesday that she had asked to speak to the court directly, but he did not say what matters she wished to raise.
Continue reading...They scored a UK No 1 single and the biggest-selling independent album ever. Thirty-seven years into their career, the California band ponder middle-aged sex – and being denied respect
“It’s very fashionable now to say, ‘When we were young, we didn’t fit in,’” says Dexter Holland, frontman for multi-platinum punk-rockers the Offspring, Zooming from the band’s plush Orange County recording studio. “But it really was true for us in high school, where everything was about looks, athleticism and popularity. I mean, look at us!”
Kevin “Noodles” Wasserman, guitarist and Holland’s long-standing foil, leans in and taps his milk bottle-lensed specs. “And you should have seen me back when I had braces and headgear,” he grins.
Continue reading...Deaths discovered over a course of nine days are ‘just the tip of the iceberg’ for the species, says expert
Four dead gray whales have washed ashore on San Francisco Bay Area beaches in the last nine days, with experts saying on Friday one had been struck by a ship. They were trying to determine how the other three had died.
“It’s alarming to respond to four dead gray whales in just over a week because it really puts into perspective the current challenges faced by this species,” says Dr Padraig Duignan, the director of pathology at the Marine Mammal Center.
Continue reading...Tiger Woods was driving at speeds up to 87mph (140km/h) in a 45mph zone when he was involved in a serious car crash earlier this year, Los Angeles police revealed during a press conference on Wednesday.
Los Angeles county sheriff Alex Villanueva said the speed was “unsafe for the road conditions” and Woods did not brake in the run-up to the collision, perhaps because he pressed the accelerator instead of the brake pedal in a state of panic. Villanueva said Woods will not receive a citation over the crash and blamed the incident of Woods’s excessive speed and loss of control of the vehicle.
Continue reading...Tens of thousands flood Santa Monica Pier as authorities send mixed messages about coronavirus safety
Authorities across southern California are scrambling to contain large holiday crowds on beaches, boardwalks, and piers this weekend, anxious about a possible new surge in Covid-19 cases.
But they face a restive public eager to party in the sun after more than a year of lockdowns, and appear to have few tools at their disposal to enforce mask-wearing and social distancing.
Continue reading...Police arrived as shots were being fired; suspect taken to hospital after being shot by officers
Four people, including a child, have been killed and a fifth person injured in a shooting at a southern California office building, with the suspected shooter wounded by police.
It happened at around 5.30pm on Wednesday at a two-storey office building in Orange, south of Los Angeles.
Continue reading...Homicides in the city have risen 314% and while some back shifting resources to prevention and healing, others want alternatives in place to keep Black and brown people safe
Since the visceral video of George Floyd pinned beneath a police officer’s knee sparked massive uprisings in US cities last summer, movements to defund police departments have grown from siloed local campaigns into a national movement. But in multiple cities, this work is being done amid a disturbing rise in gun violence that is affecting the same Black and Latino communities most affected by police misconduct.
While some crime survivors support shifting resources from police and into prevention and healing services, others who have lost loved ones to shootings and live in high-crime areas worry that depleting police budgets without proven alternatives to fill any gaps will make Black and brown communities less safe.
Continue reading...Analysis: more than a serious effort to unseat the governor, it is likely a strategy to rally voters, boost Republican candidates and raise funds
Nearly a year after Gavin Newsom became the first American governor to issue a statewide stay-at-home order to combat the coronavirus, the California leader delivered his “state of the state” address from an empty Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
“Let’s allow ourselves to dream of brighter days ahead,” Newsom said on Tuesday.
Continue reading...Effort to oust governor – though unlikely to succeed – reflects political polarization that has widened amid Covid
Across California, hundreds of thousands of people armed with signs and clipboards are gathering outside of local Walmarts, in shopping center parking lots, and on beachside boardwalks, trying to convince their neighbors that the governor needs to go.
An effort to recall Gavin Newsom has gained momentum in recent weeks, as the California governor’s approval ratings dipped amid mounting frustration over how the state has handled the Covid pandemic, and the economic slump caused by closures.
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