Category Archives: California

Two people and dog dead after small plane crashes into Los Angeles-area neighborhood

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Officials warn people to stay clear of area in Simi Valley after two homes sustained structural damage from collision

A small plane crashed into a neighborhood in Simi Valley on Saturday afternoon, killing two people and a dog aboard the aircraft and damaging two homes, authorities said.

Fire crews responded, and police cordoned off the streets, warning people to stay clear of the area. Smoke could be seen billowing from the roof of one home in the Wood Ranch section of the community, which lies nearly 50 miles (80km) north-west of Los Angeles.

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Powerful earthquake could raise Pacific north-west sea levels ‘dramatically’ – study

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Likelihood of potentially devastating quake above 8.0 magnitude in next 50 years is 15%, study states

A massive earthquake in the Pacific north-west could rapidly transform areas of the coast from northern California to Washington, causing swaths of land to quickly sink, “dramatically” raising sea level and increasing the flood risk to communities.

That’s according to a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examining the potential impact of the “big one”, a powerful quake along the Cascadia fault that stretches from Canada to California.

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Trump administration investigating California university over foreign gifts

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DoE investigation revives reports that UC Berkeley failed to disclose Chinese funding for a now severed partnership

The Trump administration launched an investigation into the University of California, Berkeley, on Friday centered on foreign funding, making it the latest university to be targeted by the federal government.

The investigation revives criticism from several years ago about the university’s partnership with China’s Tsinghua University. It comes after Donald Trump earlier this week signed a series of executive orders focused on universities that he views as liberal adversaries to his political agenda.

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Trump administration investigating California university over foreign gifts

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DoE investigation revives reports that UC Berkeley failed to disclose Chinese funding for a now severed partnership

The Trump administration launched an investigation into the University of California, Berkeley, on Friday centered on foreign funding, making it the latest university to be targeted by the federal government.

The investigation revives criticism from several years ago about the university’s partnership with China’s Tsinghua University. It comes after Donald Trump earlier this week signed a series of executive orders focused on universities that he views as liberal adversaries to his political agenda.

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California’s economy surpasses Japan’s as it becomes fourth largest in world

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State’s nominal GDP reaches $4.1tn, edging out Japan’s $4.02tn, ranking it behind the US, China and Germany

California’s economy has surpassed Japan’s, making the Golden state the fourth largest economy in the world, Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday.

The state’s nominal GDP reached $4.1tn, according to data from the International Monetary Fund and the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, edging out Japan’s $4.02tn nominal GDP. California now ranks behind the US at $29.18tn, China at $18.74tn and Germany at $4.65tn.

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Steve Hilton, former David Cameron adviser, to run for California governor

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Ex-advertising executive, who hosted a Fox News show and has criticised Kamala Harris, will stand as a Republican

David Cameron’s former top adviser Steve Hilton has joined the 2026 race for California governor, running as a Republican to replace the Democrats’ Gavin Newsom, who is prevented by law from seeking a third term.

Hilton, who hosted a show on Fox News for six years, launched his campaign with the theme “Golden Again: Great Jobs, Great Homes, Great Kids”. His campaign said Hilton would be “reinforcing his commitment to positive, practical solutions instead of today’s ideology and dogma”, and that his brand of “positive populism” would focus on helping working families.

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Barbara Lee, trailblazing former US Congress member, elected Oakland mayor

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Lee defeated a moderate backed by outside groups working to push the Bay Area’s progressive politics to the center

Barbara Lee, a trailblazing former member of Congress, has been elected as the next mayor of Oakland, California, after fending off an insurgent challenge from the center at a critical moment for the Bay Area city.

Lee defeated the former city council member Loren Taylor after nine rounds of ranked-choice voting gave her more than 52% of the vote to Taylor’s 47%, according to the Alameda county registrar of voters.

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Further delay as Menendez brothers seek freedom after decades in prison

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Brothers had hoped resentencing hearing would pave way for immediate release – but judge orders pause until May

The Menendez brothers have spent years waiting for another day in court and a chance to prove that they should be freed after serving more than three decades in prison for the 1989 slayings of their parents.

This week it appeared their time was perhaps finally coming – a judge was set to review their request for a resentencing and determine whether they have been rehabilitated. Their attorney, Mark Geragos, planned to ask the Los Angeles county judge Michael Jesic to reduce Erik and Lyle Menendez’s charges to manslaughter, which would allow them to be released from prison immediately.

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Drummer for indie rockers the New Pornographers arrested over child sexual abuse images

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Joe Seiders in custody following search of home, vehicle and phone, after allegedly attempting to film child in California restaurant restroom

Joe Seiders, the American drummer with Canadian indie rockers the New Pornographers, has been arrested for possession of child sexual abuse imagery.

A statement made by the sheriff’s office of Riverside county, California, alleged that evidence has implicated Seiders in two incidents. On Monday 7 April, an 11-year-old boy reported that a man attempted to film him in a restroom of a fast food restaurant, and on Wednesday 9 April, police officers received another report from the restaurant, that a man was “entering and exiting the restroom with juvenile males at the business”.

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The great Mississippi tops list of most endangered rivers amid fears over Trump rollbacks

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Cuts to disaster agency and deregulation of fossil fuels, plus rise of water-guzzling datacentres, highlighted in new report

The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal climate disaster agency – and the full-throttle deregulation of fossil fuels and water-guzzling datacentres – could prove catastrophic for America’s endangered rivers, threatening the food, water and livelihoods of millions of people, according to a new report.

American Rivers’ annual most-endangered rivers list lays bare a myriad of human-made threats including floods, drought and other extreme weather events driven by the climate crisis, as well as industrial pollution and poor river management – all of which Trump’s regulatory rollbacks will almost inevitably make worse.

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Judge allows resentencing hearings for Menedez brothers to continue

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Erik and Lyle Menendez were convicted of parents’ murders at Beverly Hills home in 1989

A judge has decided the resentencing hearings for Erik and Lyle Menendez, who were convicted of murdering their parents, can continue despite a new Los Angeles district attorney opposing their release after 30 years behind bars.

The brothers appeared in court over Zoom on Friday for the proceedings.

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Immigration agents turned away after trying to enter LA elementary schools

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School district says DHS agents, seeking five students in first through sixth grades, were barred from entering

Immigration officials attempted to enter two Los Angeles elementary schools this week, but were turned away by school administrators. The incident appears to be the Trump administration’s first attempt to enter the city’s public schools since amending regulations to allow immigration agents to enter “sensitive areas” such as schools.

At a Thursday press conference, the Los Angeles unified school district superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, confirmed that agents from the Department of Homeland Security were seeking five students in first through sixth grades.

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Weezer bassist’s wife shot by LA police and booked for attempted murder

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Jillian Lauren treated for non-life-threatening wound after incident where officers searched for hit-and-run suspects

Weezer bassist Scott Shriner’s wife was shot by police on Monday as officers searched for hit-and-run suspects in her Los Angeles neighborhood.

Jillian Lauren, 51, was treated for a non-life-threatening gunshot wound at a local hospital after the incident, but later booked for attempted murder, according to Los Angeles police.

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Revealed: drug tests in California prisons yielded false positives, affecting thousands of people

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Records suggest Quest Diagnostics erroneously detected opiates. Lawyers say parole requests were jeopardized in the process

Thousands of drug tests used by a major US diagnostic company in California prisons last year are suspected to have generated false positive results, an enormous error that has jeopardized the parole requests of some incarcerated people, according to civil rights lawyers and prison medical records.

California prison officials have known about the issue for months, but have failed to clear people’s records or reverse the consequences people have faced from the tests.

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They fled Putin’s Russia for the US. After Ice detention, they’re choosing to leave again

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Sergei and Marina were building a new life in California after protesting the Ukraine war. But Sergei was arrested during a routine check-in – and everything has changed

Sergei and Marina escaped Russia three years ago under threat of arrest after protesting against the Ukraine war, seeking asylum in the US. Now their best chance of remaining together, as a family, is to flee again.

In a whirlwind three weeks, the couple’s plans to rebuild their lives in the US were abruptly upended.

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As Trump ignites tariff war, a US city is embracing Canadians with all its heart

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An estimated 300,000 Canadians visit Palm Springs each year and Trump’s levies threaten tourism in the region

Worried that Donald Trump’s policies are scaring away Canadians, a key segment of their tourist industry, a California resort city has put up “Palm Springs Loves Canada” signs across its downtown.

“It was a gesture to let our Canadian visitors know that what happens in Washington DC, is not the way that Palm Springs is looking at Canada,” Ron deHarte, the city’s mayor, said of the signs, which were installed on Friday.

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California university to expand student minds with new psychedelic studies course

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California Institute of Integral Studies, located in San Francisco, will welcome its first undergrad class this August

The home of the Summer of Love will soon house the first undergraduate program in psychedelic studies.

The California Institute of Integral Studies – a non-profit university founded in 1968 and located in San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood – will welcome its first class of undergrads to its Bachelor of Science in Psychedelic Studies program this August. The program’s launch symbolizes the renewed attention hallucinogens like MDMA and psilocybin have received in recent years as a growing body of evidence suggests they may be powerful treatments for psychiatric conditions, like PTSD and treatment-resistant depression.

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Los Angeles agrees to $4bn deal to settle thousands of sexual abuse claims

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County’s offer – largest of its kind – would settle lawsuits filed over alleged abuse in juvenile facilities since 1959

Los Angeles county has reached a $4bn agreement to settle nearly 7,000 claims of sexual abuse in juvenile facilities since 1959, officials said Friday.

The agreement, which still needs approval from the Los Angeles county board of supervisors, would be the largest of its kind and have long-lasting financial effects for the county, officials said.

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California: sea lion attack on teenager raises fears of toxic algae poisoning

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Animals affected by domoic acid are known to exhibit erratic behavior and poisonings are becoming frequent

A teenager was attacked by a sea lion in southern California, raising concerns that a recent increase in algae-induced poisonings among marine mammals could have elicited the erratic behavior.

Phoebe Beltran initially feared it was a shark when she was bitten repeatedly during a 1000-yard swim test for the Junior Lifeguards cadet program in Long Beach on 30 March. Relatives onshore saw the sea lion pop its head out of the water before it swam away, the Los Angeles Times reported.

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California Uber and Lyft drivers push for settlement in wage theft claims

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Ride-share drivers held demonstrations from San Francisco to San Diego amid ongoing negotiations affecting 250,000

Ride-share drivers in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego held demonstrations in front of city hall buildings on Wednesday as California state attorney General Rob Bonta, city attorneys and attorneys representing ride-share drivers continue negotiations next week with Uber and Lyft to settle thousands of claims of wage theft for drivers.

At least 250,000 individual ride-share drivers in California who drove for the apps between 2016 and 2020 are estimated to be eligible for the settlement for wage theft claims of tens of billions of dollars, according to Rideshare Drivers United in California.

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