California shooting suspect kills himself after Lunar New Year massacre

MONTEREY PARK, California — A gunman killed 10 people at a ballroom dance hall during a Chinese Lunar New Year celebration late on Saturday near Los Angeles before fleeing the scene and later killing himself when approached by police on Sunday, authorities said.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said during a Sunday afternoon press conference the motive for the shooting was not known. He identified the suspect as Huu Can Tran, 72, who wielded a pistol with a high-capacity magazine.

“We want to know, we want to know how something this awful can happen,” Luna told reporters.

Luna said Tran turned a handgun on himself on Sunday morning as police approached a white van he was driving in Torrance, about 20 miles (34 km) from the site of the shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio in Monterey Park.

Five of the victims were male and five were female, Luna said. Their identities have not been made public. Another ten people were shot, and seven of them remain hospitalized, with at least one person in critical condition, authorities said.

The sheriff’s department released images of the suspect apparently taken from surveillance camera footage showing him wearing spectacles, dressed in a dark jacket and a dark beanie hat with white stripe.

Luna confirmed that Tran was involved in another incident at a dance venue in the neighboring city of Alhambra about 20 minutes after the Saturday night shooting in Monterey Park. At the second venue, witnesses said Tran walked in holding a gun that patrons were able to grab. No one was shot and Tran fled, Luna said.

When police arrived at the Monterey Park ballroom, people were “pouring out of the location screaming,” department captain Andrew Meyer told reporters at a news briefing.

The shooting took place after 10 p.m. PST (0600 GMT on Sunday) around the location of a two-day Chinese Lunar New Year celebration where many downtown streets are closed for festivities that draw thousands of people from across Southern California. Police said the celebrations planned for Sunday were canceled.

A close-knit community

Residents stood gazing at the many blocks sealed off with police tape on Sunday in Monterey Park. Chester Chong, chairman of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles, described the city of about 60,000 people as a quiet, peaceful, beautiful place where everybody knows each other and helps each other.

About 7 miles (11 km) from downtown Los Angeles, the city has for decades been a destination for immigrants from China. Around 65% of its residents are Asian, according to U.S. Census data, and the city is known for its many Chinese restaurants and groceries.

“People were calling me last night, they were scared this was a hate crime,” Chong said at the scene.

The Star Ballroom Dance Studio opened in 1990, and its website features many photographs of past Lunar New Year celebrations showing patrons smiling and dancing in party clothes in its large, brightly lit ballroom.

Most of its patrons are middle-aged or elderly, though children also attend youth dance classes, according to a teacher at the studio who asked to not be named.

“Those are normal working people,” the teacher said. “Some are retired and just looking for an exercise or social interaction.”

A flyer posted on the website advertised Saturday night’s new year party, running from 7:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Sunday.

The gunshots were mistaken by some for new year fireworks, according to Tiffany Chiu, 30, who was celebrating at her parents’ home near the ballroom.

“A lot of older people live here, it’s usually really quiet,” she said. “This is not something you expect here.”

Video taken by local news media showed injured people, many of them appearing to be middle aged, being loaded into ambulances on stretchers.

President Joe Biden condemned the killings in a written statement and said he had directed his Homeland Security adviser to mobilize federal support to local authorities.

Mass shootings are recurrent in the United States, and the attack in Monterey Park was the deadliest since May 2022, when a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers at a school in Uvalde, Texas. The deadliest shooting in California history was in 1984 when a gunman killed 21 people at a McDonald’s restaurant in San Ysidro, near San Diego.

-reuters

At least six dead in California shooting

SAN FRANCISCO — Six people were killed and 12 others injured, some critically, in a shooting early Sunday morning in California's state capital of Sacramento.

The city's police chief, Kathy Lester, told reporters that around 2:00 am, "a large fight took place" in the downtown area just before "multiple shooters" opened fire.

Officers on patrol nearby heard the gunshots and saw people running, she said.

Upon arriving at the scene, "they encountered a large crowd and multiple gunshot victims."

Despite attempts at resuscitation, 6 victims were pronounced dead at the scene, 3 men and 3 women -- all adults.

Twelve others were hit by gunfire and are being treated in local hospitals, Lester said.

At a press conference Sunday morning, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg described some of the hospitalized as "seriously and critically injured."

He also called on anyone with information to contact authorities or submit evidence via a scannable QR code.

Lester said that a "stolen handgun" had been recovered at the scene, and that investigators had already received multiple videos and tips from members of the public.

A video posted online Sunday appeared to show people scuffling in the street, then starting to run as gunfire can be heard. AFP could not verify the footage, and it was not known if there was a direct relation, but local police said they were aware of the video.

"It was just horrific," said community activist Berry Accius, who arrived minutes after the shooting.

"Just as soon as I walked up you saw a chaotic scene, police all over the place, victims with blood all over their bodies, folks screaming, folks crying, people going, 'Where is my brother?' Mothers crying and trying to identify who their child was," he told local broadcaster KXTV.

The shooting happened in the downtown area, just blocks from the state capitol and close to the venue where the NBA's Sacramento Kings play.

The San Francisco Chronicle quoted a woman at the scene as saying she had been told that her husband of 12 years was among the dead.

The woman, whom the paper did not name, said a stranger had answered her husband's telephone when their daughter called, but that she had been unable to find out what had happened, despite being on police lines for several hours.

"It sounds like a lot of innocent people lost their lives tonight," the Chronicle quoted the woman saying.

"We haven't gotten an answer."

'DIFFICULT TO COMPREHEND' 

Mayor Steinberg said it was difficult to find the right words to describe the tragedy.

"The numbers of dead and wounded are difficult to comprehend," he said, adding that he was waiting for more information about the incident. 

"Rising gun violence is the scourge of our city, state and nation, and I support all actions to reduce it," he said.

The mass casualty shooting is the latest in the United States, where firearms are involved in approximately 40,000 deaths a year, including suicides, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, in a post on Twitter, said "We cannot continue to let gun violence be the new normal," and described gun violence as a "crisis" for the United States.

Lax gun laws and a constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms have repeatedly stymied attempts to clamp down on the number of weapons in circulation, despite greater controls being favored by the majority of Americans.

Three-quarters of all homicides in the US are committed with guns, and the number of pistols, revolvers and other firearms sold continues to rise.

More than 23 million guns were sold in 2020 -- a record -- on top of 20 million in 2021, according to data compiled by website Small Arms Analytics.

That number does not include "ghost" guns, which are sold disassembled, lack serial numbers, and are highly prized in criminal circles.

In June 2021, 30 percent of American adults said they owned at least one gun, according to a Pew survey.

Agence France-Presse 

Powerball tickets sold in Wisconsin, California split $632M

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Powerball tickets sold in Wisconsin and California were winners of the latest jackpot and will split $632 million, officials said.

The Wisconsin Lottery didn’t immediately announce where the winning ticket in its state was sold. The winning ticket in California was sold at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Sacramento, the California Lottery said.

The winning numbers for the Powerball jackpot drawn Wednesday night were 6, 14, 25, 33 and 46. The Powerball was 17.

The winners have a cash option of splitting $450 million. The jackpot was one of the largest in the history of the Powerball game, but it didn’t rank among the Top 10 largest in U.S. lottery history.

In the drawing there were also 14 other tickets that won several million dollars.

Powerball is played in 45 states plus Washington, D.C., the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

-Associated Press

California police seek 80 suspects in flash-mob department store robbery

Police in California on Sunday were seeking about 80 suspects who they said swarmed into a Bay Area Nordstrom department store in a coordinated robbery, ransacking as much as they could carry and fleeing in cars they had parked outside.

Three people were arrested at the scene of the "organized theft" reported shortly before 9 p.m. local time on Saturday in suburban Walnut Creek, about 15 miles (25 km) east of Oakland, police said.

"The remaining participants in this criminal mob fled from the area in cars at high speeds," Walnut Creek police said in a statement on Sunday.

The robbery followed another brazen mob-heist of high-end stores on Friday night in San Francisco's Union Square, about 25 miles (40 km) to the west.

Video posted by a KNTV television reporter showed several people running out of the store with merchandise and climbing into about 25 parked cars that ringed the building and jammed traffic on the streets.

"It was crazy for a second," said Brett Barrette, a manager of a restaurant across the street, who told KPIX-TV that the thieves wore ski masks and were armed with crow bars and weapons. "All the guests inside were getting concerned."

Police said the suspects assaulted two Nordstrom employees and pepper-sprayed another. They said they are reviewing surveillance footage in an effort to identify them.

Arrested at the scene were Dana Dawson, 30, and Joshua Underwood, 32, of San Francisco, and Rodney Robinson, 18, of Oakland, police said. Charges brought in the arrests included robbery, burglary, conspiracy, possession of stolen property and illegal possession of a firearm by a felon, police said. (Reporting by Peter Szekely in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)

-reuters

8 reported missing in huge California wildfire

LOS ANGELES - US authorities said Saturday they were searching for eight people missing as a huge wildfire raged in northern California, leaving two towns in little more than cinders.

The Dixie Fire, the largest active wildfire in the United States, recently became the third-largest in California history.

As of Saturday it had blackened 446,723 acres (180,782 hectares) in four counties, up from the previous day's 434,813 and surpassing the vast Bootleg Fire in southern Oregon. Dixie is now 21 percent contained, the CalFire website reported.

While the fire continued to grow, officials said Saturday that cooler, calmer weather was giving firefighters a much-needed break.

Those conditions are expected to continue into Sunday.

"We expect the same fire behavior as yesterday, which was fairly moderate," Jake Cagle, a firefighter sections chief, said in a briefing Saturday.

Earlier, the Dixie Fire left the Gold Rush town of Greenville charred and in ruins, while also burning through the small town of Canyondam.

The Plumas County sheriff's office said it had received the descriptions of eight people considered missing in Greenville and was searching for them.

RESIDENTS REFUSE TO LEAVE

As authorities urge thousands of locals to evacuate, they have been met at times by armed residents refusing to budge, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

Law enforcement officers are asking any residents who stay for the names of next-of-kin -- to be notified if the fire claims their lives.

The Dixie Fire's movement northeastward has been slowed in part because it has reached the "scar" of an earlier blaze, the 2007 Moonlight Fire, reducing available fuel, CalFire said.

More than 5,000 personnel are now battling the Dixie blaze, which is sending enormous clouds of smoke into the air that are easily visible from space.

A preliminary investigation has suggested the fire was started when a tree fell on a power cable owned by regional utility Pacific Gas & Company (PG&E), a private operator that was earlier blamed for the huge Camp Fire in 2018, which killed 86 people.

By late July, the number of acres burned in California was up more than 250 percent from 2020 -- itself the worst year of wildfires in the state's modern history.

A long-term drought that scientists say is driven by climate change has left much of the western United States parched -- and vulnerable to explosive and highly destructive fires.

Agence France-Presse

Power back in California after brief rolling blackouts

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California’s utilities on Saturday night are bringing back power to thousands of customers across the state after a brief outage, according to the authority that operates the power grid.

The California Independent System Operator (California ISO) said in a statement that the brief rolling blackouts throughout the state were caused by the failure of a power plant and the loss of wind power.

California ISO said it ordered the end of rolling blackouts about 6:48 p.m., when wind power increased.

The restoration of service by the utilities come as a heat wave baking California in triple-digit temperatures continued to strain the electrical system.

California ISO ordered the first rolling outages in nearly 20 years on Friday when it directed utilities around the state to shed their power loads. The state’s three biggest utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas and Electric — turned off power to more than 410,000 homes and businesses for about an hour at a time until the emergency declaration ended 3 1/2 hours later.

The move came as temperatures around the state hit triple digits in many areas, and air conditioning use soared.

The power grid is mostly stressed during the late afternoon and early evening because of higher demand and solar energy production falling. The state tried to prepare for the expected rise in electricity use by urging conservation and trying to buy more power. But a high-pressure system building over Western states meant there was less available.

A power outage caused a pump to fail at a wastewater treatment plant in Oakland, resulting in a sewer backup and the release of some 50,000 gallons of raw sewage into a waterway, the East Bay Municipal Utility District said.

The district said the outage began around 5 p.m. Friday, more than an hour before the rolling outages occurred, and sewage began to spill early Saturday. The agency said the sudden outage affected its ability to connect to backup power at the plant and during that time, workers were dealing with flooding while trying to restore power.

The agency warned boaters to stay away from the Oakland Estuary as it investigates the accident.

The state remained gripped by the heat wave Saturday, with several records either tied or broken, according to the National Weather Service.

The last time the state ordered rolling outages was during an energy crisis in 2001. Blackouts occurred several times from January to May, including one that affected more than 1.5 million customers. The cause was a combination of energy shortages and market manipulation by energy wholesalers, infamously including Enron Corp., that drove up prices by withholding supplies.

Counties up and down the state reported scattered outages, although the city of Los Angeles, which has its own power generating system, wasn’t affected.

The heat wave brought brutally high temperatures, increased wildfire danger and fears of coronavirus spread as people flock to beaches and parks for relief. A thunderstorm rolling from the Central Coast to inland Southern California also brought dry lightning that sparked several small blazes, wind and flash flooding in the high desert.

Records were set in Lake Elsinore, where the mercury hit 114; Riverside at 109 and Gilroy at 108, according to the National Weather Service. The high in Borrego Springs, in the desert northeast of San Diego, was 118. Coastal cities such as San Francisco and Los Angeles sweltered in 86 and 98 degrees, respectively.

Several cities opened cooling centers, but with limited capacity because of social distancing requirements.

San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management issued simultaneous tweets urging residents to prepare for power outages and to protect themselves from the coronavirus during the heat wave.

“Stay home when possible. If it feels too hot indoors, seek cooler temps outside, keep physical distance, wear a face covering,” the department tweeted.

The scorching temperatures are a concern for firefighters battling blazes that have destroyed several homes and erupted near rural and urban foothill neighborhoods, driving through tinder-dry brush.

In addition to the possibility of heat stroke and other hot-weather illnesses, health officers were concerned that people will pack beaches, lakes and other recreation areas without following mask and social distancing orders — a major concern in the state that has seen more than 613,000 coronavirus cases.

Israel saw a COVID-19 resurgence after a May heat wave inspired school officials to let children remove their masks, Dr. George Rutherford, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

“People will want to take off their masks when it’s hot,” Rutherford said. “Don’t do it.”

Associated Press

Wildfire burns homes in Southern California desert town

NILAND, Calif. (AP) — A wind-driven wildfire destroyed homes and forced evacuations as it tore through a rural Southern California desert town near the Salton Sea, authorities said Monday.

The fire erupted Sunday evening in Niland, a small and poor agricultural community about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from San Diego.

Damage was still being assessed but the current estimate was 20 homes destroyed and about 130 people displaced, said Linsey Dale, a spokeswoman for Imperial County.

The American Red Cross Southern California Southern California Region said it was working to provide shelter.

“It’s very devastating in that area right now,” Dale said.

Niland, population about 1,000, is located at the north end of an agricultural region that stretches south to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The fire was pushed by strong winds, forcing evacuation of the entire township.

Every local fire truck and firefighting team responded and firefighting help also came from elsewhere.

The fire is the latest blow to California’s Imperial County, which has been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 500 patients have been moved to hospitals in other counties over the past five weeks to relieve strain on the county’s healthcare system.

Associated Press

Some violence, but California protests mostly peaceful

LOS ANGELES (AP) — National Guard reinforced police in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Vallejo after a second night of violence. That was among scattered incidents that stood in contrast to largely peaceful California protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Fifty members of the Guard arrived Tuesday after they were requested to “assist in securing locations that are considered high-risk,” said statement from the city.

A person was shot by police during looting that began late Monday, according to local news reports, and another round of violence erupted late Tuesday.

“A group of approximately 100 individuals armed with batteries and nearly 40 vehicles surrounded the Vallejo Police Department,” the city said. “Additionally rocks and bottles thrown at PD units and a subject with a Molotov cocktail was observed.”

Elsewhere, police cordons — in some cases backed by National Guard troops — kept a tight watch on marchers from San Francisco to Hollywood but on the fifth day of protests the mood seemed far less tense. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and some police officers took a knee during a clergy-led demonstration outside police headquarters.

People marched up the Great Highway along San Francisco’s Ocean Beach while at San Jose’s City Hall several hundred people showed up for a demonstration organized by the local branch of the NAACP.

Protesters held about nine minutes of silence in front of the state Capitol in Sacramento — approximately the amount of time that a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck.

After evening curfews fell, police began moving in to disperse demonstrators outside the Los Angeles mayor’s residence. More than 200 people were detained, including about two dozen who lay down on a Hollywood apartment building rooftop and spelled out “BLM” with their bodies, for “Black Lives Matter.”

Police Chief Michel Moore said nearly 3,000 people had been arrested since the protests began, most of them for failure to disperse or curfew violations.

Moore himself came under fire at a civilian Police Commission hearing where speakers called for his resignation or firing because of remarks he made a day earlier. Moore had said rioters and thieves were “capitalizing” on the demonstrations to commit crimes and had Floyd’s death on their hands just as much as the Minneapolis police officers who killed him.

He quickly said he misspoke and later issued a written apology. Garcetti on Tuesday defended Moore and praised him for correcting his “wrong” statement. “Moore is among police chiefs who have denounced Floyd’s death.

The Los Angeles County curfew was extended to a fourth night Tuesday. Authorities credit it and the arrival of more than 1,000 National Guard troops with significantly reducing vandalism and thefts.

In Redwood City, protesters chanted “take a knee and we’ll leave” at California Highway Patrol officers, and began leaving after an officer dropped to one knee, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Law enforcement officers said during the protests, organized gangs of thieves took advantage of the distraction to hit dozens of businesses.

The Sacramento Police Department is investigating an officer shown on cellphone video using a carotid restraint on an 18-year-old man arrested following a sidewalk chase early Monday, The Sacramento Bee reported. The technique, which can cut off blood flow to the brain and render a person unconscious, has been banned by many departments but is allowed in Sacramento under certain conditions. The suspect was arrested on suspicion of looting and resisting arrest.

San Francisco Police Chief William Scott asked supervisors Tuesday to keep an overnight curfew order for at least the “next few days.” He said burglars are organized, with vehicles waiting to ferry away people rushing out of stores with armloads of goods.

Oakland’s interim police chief, Susan Manheimer, asked for video or other information on a shooting during Friday night’s protest that killed a federal officer and injured another. The victims were guarding the U.S. courthouse. She said investigators believe the assailants were targeting law enforcement.

___

Associated Press journalists Olga Rodriguez and Janie Har in San Francisco; Kathleen Ronayne, Cuneyt Dil and Adam Beam in Sacramento; and Christopher Weber and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

The Associated Press

Patriots star Edelman arrested for vandalism in California

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — New England Patriots star Julian Edelman was arrested in Southern California on suspicion of misdemeanor vandalism after jumping on the hood of someone’s car, authorities said Sunday.

Edelman, 33, caused unspecified damage when he jumped on the vehicle Saturday night on a commercial block of Beverly Hills, police Lt. Elisabeth Albanese said in a statement.


Edelman was released on a citation and is scheduled to appear in court April 13. It wasn’t known Sunday if he had an attorney, and the Patriots had no immediate comment.

The wide receiver made huge plays during the Patriots’ historic comeback victory over Atlanta in the Super Bowl following the 2016 season. He won Super Bowl MVP honors in New England’s victory last season over the Rams.

Edelman led the Patriots during the regular season with 100 receptions, 1,117 yards and six touchdowns. But nagging injuries took a toll. He was mostly a non-factor in New England’s wild-card upset loss to the Tennessee Titans.

source: sports.inquirer.net

California utility meets with governor amid bankruptcy case

SACRAMENTO, California — California’s governor called the chief executive of a troubled utility to his office on Tuesday for a closed-door meeting as the company struggles to emerge from a high-profile bankruptcy while facing criticism for its practice of shutting off power for millions of people to prevent wildfires.

A spokesman for Gov. Gavin Newsom says the first-term governor “spelled out in vivid detail” how the blackouts have prevented people from “refilling lifesaving prescriptions and power breathing machines” and how small businesses and schools were closed for days.

Newsom also reiterated the state would consider a potential takeover of the utility if the bankruptcy is not resolved by June 30.

Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. CEO Bill Johnson defended the company, telling reporters after the meeting that the power shutoffs have been “well planned and executed.”

“I came to California with one basic purpose: Let’s make sure we don’t kill anybody at our operations,” said Johnson, who worked for a Tennessee power supplier before joining PG&E in April. “I think we achieved that this year. I understand the hardship, I apologize for it, but for me, safety has to come first.”

State and local government leaders disagree, saying PG&E has communicated poorly and often given conflicting accounts about when the lights would go out. In a response to the Public Utilities Commission last week, the company acknowledged “various, and in some cases, extreme, shortcomings.”

Last year, strong winds knocked down some of PG&E’s power lines, which sparked a series of devastating wildfires. One in Northern California mostly destroyed the town of Paradise, burning down more than 18,000 buildings and killing 85 people. In January of this year, facing potential damages of up to $30 billion, PG&E filed for bankruptcy.

This year, the company has been aggressive in shutting off power during dry, windy conditions to prevent wildfires. Johnson said Tuesday he believes the company won’t have power shutoffs on this scale in 10 years as it works to “sectionalize the system.”

“There will be fewer (power shutoffs) every year, and eventually we will get out of it,” he said.

Since the utility’s bankruptcy filing in January, PG&E’s shareholders and creditors have battled for control of the company, putting forth competing plans in bankruptcy court that would maintain PG&E’s long-running setup as a for-profit company. It’s a structure that critics contend caused management to look for ways to cut corners instead of investing in equipment and other measures that would have made its electricity system far safer than it is now.

A judge appointed a mediator, and the first meeting is scheduled for Wednesday in San Francisco. But Tuesday, mayors and local leaders from more than two dozen cities and counties scattered across PG&E’s sprawling service area endorsed an alternative proposal by urging regulators to consider a still-nascent proposal to convert the utility into a customer-owned cooperative.


The request outlined in letter to the California Public Utilities Commission echoes an idea already floated by Newsom and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, who joined the chorus of other leaders pushing for an alternative to keeping PG&E under the ownership of profit-driven investors.

Turning the utility into a nonprofit company “would allow PG&E to begin the process of restoring public confidence, in part by allowing the public to have greater role in determining decisions that increasingly have come to define matters of life and death,” the letter asserted.

To make it happen, the participating counties and cities would likely have to raise tens of billions of dollars in the municipal bond market to buy PG&E and then pay for the expensive improvements needed to ensure the utility could keep the power on instead of resorting to planned blackouts during the late summer and early autumn when California’s climate traditionally escalates the risk of wildfires.

Johnson, the PG&E CEO, told reporters Tuesday he understands the cities’ interests. But he said it is not the best solution for customers in the 70,000 square miles (181,300 sq. km.) covered by the company as it would potentially shift costs to rural customers outside of the big cities.

“I think the way it is structured now is the best idea for the majority of customers,” he said. /jpv

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Ryan Lochte wins 200m medley title at US swimming championships

LOS ANGELES — Six-time Olympic gold medallist Ryan Lochte, back from a 14-month suspension, won the 200m individual medley on Sunday at the US swimming championships in Palo Alto, California.

Lochte, 35, clocked 1min 57.76 to win a 27th national title and stamp himself a contender to make a fifth Olympic team next year.


“This was a lot easier 10 years ago,” said Lochte, who finished 1.07sec in front of silver medallist Shalne Casas. “I’ve got a lot of ways to go for 2020.”

Lochte was suspended from swimming for 10 months after a scandal at the 2016 Olympics, when he was found to have fabricated a story about a robbery during a drunken late-night episode in Rio de Janeiro.

He had returned from that ban when he was handed a 14-month suspension by the US Anti-Doping Agency over a prohibited intravenous infusion of legal vitamins — which he posted about on social media.

In his time away from competition, Lochte appeared on the US television reality show Celebrity Big Brother, and also sought treatment for alcohol addiction.


Lochte, who would turn 36 during next year’s Tokyo Olympics, won individual Olympic gold in the 200m backstroke in 2008 at Beijing and in the 400m individual medley in 2012 in London and won 4x200m freestyle relay gold in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. He has won a total of 12 medals in four Olympic appearances.

source: sports.inquirer.net

Student Debt a ‘Life Sentence’ for Millions of Americans

Haley Walters is five years away from earning her law degree. If everything goes according to plan, she will be under a mountain of $100,000 in student debt by the time she enters the workforce. Like millions of Americans, Walters is paying a steep price for an education that will likely weigh her down financially for much of her adult life.

“I think the student debt crisis is truly a life sentence,” the 19-year-old Californian told AFP.

With 45 million borrowers owing some $1.6 trillion, the debt burden of American college graduates has exploded in recent years.

It has emerged as a key issue in the 2020 presidential campaign, with candidate Bernie Sanders unveiling an ambitious plan Monday to erase all student loan debt.

“Somebody who graduates from a public university this year is expected to have over $35,000 in student loan debt on average,” said Cody Hounanian, program director of Student Debt Crisis, a California non-profit that assists students and fights for reforms.

According to official statistics, 71 percent of US students are burdened by such debt, with minorities the hardest hit.

“Black women particularly are the most impacted group with the highest student debt total per graduate,” Hovnanian said.

Despite scholarships and financial aid available to many, the cost of higher education is such that the majority of students are unable to repay their loans on schedule.

“When borrowers leave school, they’re in a program that’s supposed to take 10 years… but more and more are enrolling in federal programs that are actually 20 or 25 years in length,” Hovnanian said.

In the long term, the loan balance for such people increases, interest accrues, and the debt burden just keeps going upwards, he added.

Hovnanian spoke of his own experience as an example.

“I had $30,000 in student loan debt, I pay over $150 a month, and that’s in one of these affordable repayment programs,” he said. “By doing that, my loan balance is actually increasing. I’m not covering even the entire interest that’s accrued.”

“I’m paying every month,” he added, “just to be more in debt.”

– ‘System isn’t working’ –
Several experts interviewed said it’s not unusual to have two generations in one family burdened with student debt.
That’s the case for Walters, who just graduated with a two-year degree in political science from Pasadena City College, near Los Angeles.

While she managed to go through that school without accumulating debt, come autumn she will be entering the prestigious — and much more expensive — University of California Berkeley, with a law degree the ultimate goal.
Despite being awarded scholarships, Walters said she will still have to take out loans to pay for nearly $20,000 in annual fees.

“That is basically going to turn into a loan after loan after loan… each with individual interest rates and individual payments,” Walters sighed.

She said she grew up listening to her mother, 58, bemoan the student debt that still haunts her.
“I would hear my mom talk about… how it was basically crippling our finances,” she recalled.
“You know, we couldn’t go on vacation, sometimes I didn’t get school supplies for the new school year, sometimes we got fewer birthday presents.”

Walters said she hopes student debt will be a key issue in the 2020 White House race.
For some candidates, it is already front and center.
– ‘The system isn’t working’ –

Sanders’s “revolutionary” bill aims to erase all student loan debt and make public colleges tuition-free — and he wants the financial industry to help pay for it.
“The American people bailed out Wall Street,” Sanders said, referring to lenders deemed “too big to fail” during the late 2000s recession.

“Now it is time for Wall Street to come to the aid of the middle class.”
Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren also has a debt cancellation and free public college plan.

“My dad grew up in an extremely poor family in southern California,” said Walters. “The only reason he went to university was that it was free.”

Tuition, however, is not the only financial burden of students.

In California, for example, housing and living expenses represent more than half of the $35,000 needed annually on average for public universities.

Hovnanian said it was crucial to address those issues to ensure students don’t end up saddled with heavy debt before starting their professional lives.

“The system isn’t working for students,” he said. “It’s working for profiteers, for big companies and for those who are making money off of students and borrowers.”

source: usa.inquirer.net

Beck wins Grammy for Best Alternative Album

Beck, the genre-bending experimental artist whose postmodern arrangements have endured since the 1990s, won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album Sunday.

The 48-year-old Californian whose eccentric sound collages have won him both critical and commercial success, beat competition from fellow musical shapeshifters Bjork and St Vincent.

The 13th studio album of Beck, “Colors”, found praise for its lush soundscapes and energetic ear candy.

The album was the first for Beck since 2014’s “Morning Phase”, for which he earned three Grammys, including the coveted Album of the Year.

“Colors” is also nominated this year for Best Pop Solo Performance and won for Best Non-Classical Engineered Album. Beck boasts 20 career nominations, of which he has now won seven awards.

Two of Beck’s earlier albums, “Odelay” and “Sea Change”, are ranked as Rolling Stone magazine’s 500 greatest albums of all time. JB

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Plane breaks apart over California neighborhood, 5 killed

YORBA LINDA, California — Five people died and two were injured after a small plane apparently came apart Sunday over a suburban Southern California neighborhood, raining debris on streets and backyards and igniting a house fire, authorities said.

Four people in the house that burned in the city of Yorba Linda were killed, along with the pilot, who was the only person in the twin-engine plane, Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Cory Martino told reporters.


Martino said the dead occupants of the home were two males and two females but did not provide other information about them.

The Cessna 414A that can carry up to eight people took off from the Fullerton Municipal Airport about 19 kilometers (12 miles) west of the blaze, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said.

The two-story house burst into flames after being hit by the plane’s main cabin and one its engines, sending panicked neighbors into the streets.

The second engine dislodged and fell onto the street, creating a large hole in the asphalt, according to Eliott Simpson, an aviation accident investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board.

“It was a boom. It sounded like something exploded. It shook our house,” said John Wolbart, who lives a block away.

He said he ran to the burning house and saw a woman come out with singed hair.

The wounded were taken to a hospital with burns, said Pokey Sanchez, an assistant chief with the Orange County Fire Authority. A firefighter was also treated for a minor injury.

Clint Langford, who lives about a half-mile (0.8 kilometers) away, said he was in his living room when he heard a low rumbling.

“It’s the eerie, low rumbling sound that keeps getting lower and louder. It was scary,” he said. “And then all of a sudden boom. It shook the house.”

He looked out his front door and could see plane parts falling out the sky in the distance.

Pat Rogers, who lives about a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the crash site, told the Orange County Register he saw the plane on fire and coming apart.

A video posted on Twitter showed panicked residents running to the house as it became engulfed in flames and dark smoke. One man used a garden house to douse a burning wing that landed on the street.

Aerial footage from news helicopters showed plane parts, including side panels and a propeller, scattered on rooftops and driveways near the burned house.

The main body of the plane was found in the backyard of another home not far from the burned house. The fire spread to an SUV that was parked in the driveway.

Debris was scattered over four blocks, Simpson said.

Rain from a winter storm helped firefighters extinguish the house fire.

The National Transportation and Safety Board will investigate the cause of the crash. /atm

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

LOOK: Google turns 20, and here’s the garage where it all began

September 2018 sees Google celebrate its 20th anniversary.

To mark the milestone, we look back at the early days of one of tech’s biggest success stories with a selection of pictures from the firm’s beginnings.


Like many an American start-up story, the history of Google begins in a humble garage.

When Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched their company in September 1998, they set up office in the garage of Susan Wojcicki’s house in Menlo Park, California.

They stayed there until the firm moved to Mountain View one year later.

Susan Wojcicki is now the CEO of YouTube. JB

source: technology.inquirer.net

California’s largest wildfire burns nearly 115,000 hectares of land

Two blazes mercilessly charring northern California have grown so rapidly that they became the US state’s largest in recorded history Monday, authorities said.

Collectively dubbed the Mendocino Complex, the wildfires have burned through 283,800 acres (114,850 hectares) — an area nearly the size of the sprawling city of Los Angeles — and are just 30 percent contained, according to state fire authority CalFire. Two people have died in the inferno.


“Today a higher pressure system brought warmer weather, drying, and strong winds to the region,” CalFire said in an evening update.



“Tonight fire crews will try to take advantage of the lower temperatures to increase suppression and hold current containment lines.”

It was the second fire to break records in the fire-prone, most populous US state in as many years, following the Thomas Fire in December 2017, which stood at 281,893 acres.

Further north in the state, the deadly Carr Fire has scorched more than 164,400 acres of land since July 23, and killed another seven people along the way.

Its intensity was so great at one point, that it generated a tornado-like whirl of fire — as well as its own weather system.

Authorities say it was triggered by the “mechanical failure of a vehicle” that caused sparks to fly in tinderbox-dry conditions.

The fire has razed more than 1,600 buildings, including some 1,000 homes, state officials say.

More than 14,000 firefighters were battling the blazes across the state.

Several thousand people have been evacuated as the fires swept across the state, although some have been given permission in recent days to return to their homes.

The wildfires are “extremely fast, extremely aggressive, extremely dangerous,” said Scott McLean, a deputy chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

“Look how big it got, just in a matter of days… Look how fast this Mendocino Complex went up in ranking. That doesn’t happen. That just doesn’t happen.”

President Donald Trump raised eyebrows by tweeting about the wildfires inaccurately, claiming there was not enough water to fight them and appearing to place the blame on environmental laws, not climate change.

“California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized,” Trump said.

“It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!”

In fact, “we have plenty of water to fight these wildfires, but let’s be clear: It’s our changing climate that is leading to more severe and destructive fires,” Daniel Berlant, CalFire assistant deputy director, told The New York Times.

In an unrelated long-running dispute, farmers have demanded more water to irrigate crops for years, while environmentalists say diverting more water to crops would kill off fish stock and hurt rivers.  /vvp

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Governor asks Trump for wildfire aid as California battles 17 blazes

SAN FRANCISCO — Gov. Jerry Brown on Saturday called on President Donald Trump to help California fight and recover from another devastating wildfire season.

Brown, who inspected neighborhoods wiped out by a wildfire in the Northern California city of Redding, said he was confident the president he has clashed with over immigration and pollution policies would send aid, which Trump did last year when California’s wine country was hit hard.

“The president has been pretty good on helping us in disasters, so I’m hopeful,” said Brown, a Democrat. “Tragedies bring people together.”

Brown’s call for help came shortly before authorities called on residents in Glenn and Colusa counties in Northern California to evacuate as a wildfire there continues to grow.

Cal Fire issued the evacuation order Saturday night for people who live in several parts of the counties, including an area just east of the boundary of Mendocino National Forest.

The blaze, known as the Mendocino Complex fire, has grown to 357 square miles (92,463 hectares) and is 32 percent contained, according to Cal Fire.

The National Weather Service forecasts hot and windy conditions to persist in Northern California.

There are 17 major fires burning throughout California, authorities said. In all, they have destroyed hundreds of homes, killed eight people — including four firefighters – and shut down Yosemite National Park.

Hundreds of colleagues, family and friends attended a memorial service Saturday in Fresno for National Forest Service Capt. Brian Hughes, the Fresno Bee reported.

Hughes was killed July 29 by a falling tree while fighting the wildfire that has closed Yosemite National Park at the height of tourist season.

Firefighters have achieved 41 percent containment of that forest fire.

The fire had reached into remote areas of the country’s third-oldest national park. Workers who live in Yosemite’s popular Valley region were ordered to leave Friday because of inaccessible roads.

The biggest blazes continue to burn north of San Francisco, including twin wildfires fueled by dry vegetation and hot, windy weather. Those fires destroyed 55 homes and forced thousands of residents to flee their neighborhoods about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of the city. They have grown to a combined 300 square miles (77,670 hectares).

The two fires have charred an area of the forested, rural area five times the size of San Francisco and were only 27 percent contained. Thousands of people remain evacuated.

The National Weather Service issued red flag warnings of critical fire weather conditions through Saturday night, saying a series of dry low-pressure systems passing through the region could bring wind gusts of up to 35 mph (56 kph) that could turn small fires or even sparks into racing walls of flames.



“This is a particularly dangerous situation with extremely low humidity and high winds. New fires will grow rapidly out of control, in some cases people may not be able to evacuate safely in time should a fire approach,” the weather service said in its bulletin for the Mendocino area north of San Francisco.

Meteorologist Steve Anderson said temperatures will remain in the 90s in the region throughout the week with wind gusts reaching 25 mph (40 kph) during the day Sunday.

“It’s not good firefighting weather,” Anderson said.
More evacuations were ordered Saturday afternoon for an area of Mendocino and Lake counties where the week-old twin fires are threatening about 9,000 homes. The largest of the two fires was 50 percent contained.

The fire remained several miles from the evacuated communities along the eastern shore of Clear Lake, but “it looks like there’s dicey weather on the way,” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection spokeswoman Jane LaBoa said.

However, most evacuations were lifted by Saturday in and around Redding, where armies of firefighters and fleets of aircraft continue battling an immense blaze about 100 miles (160 kilometers) south of the Oregon line. Some areas on the fire’s southeastern flank were reopened to residents.
The fire near Redding, which killed six people and incinerated 1,067 homes, started two weeks ago with sparks from the steel wheel of a towed-trailer’s flat tire, Department of Agriculture and Fire Precention officials said.

The blaze is currently 41 percent contained.

The fire burned slowly for days before winds suddenly whipped it up last week and drove it furiously through brush and timber.

It burned so furiously on July 26 that it created what is called a fire whirl. The twirling tower of flame reached speeds of 143 mph (230 kph), which rivaled some of the most destructive Midwest tornados, National Weather Service meteorologist Duane Dykema said. The whirl uprooted trees and tore roofs from homes, Dykema said.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said the blaze had blackened nearly 206 square miles (53,354 hectares).

“Fire season is really just beginning,” Cal Fire chief Ken Pimlott said. /atm

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Homes burn as crews battle separate blazes in California

Homes burned as a fast-moving wildfire forced an entire Southern California mountain town to evacuate Wednesday, while tourists emptied from the heart of Yosemite National Park so firefighters could battle a growing blaze nearby.

Authorities ordered residents to leave Idyllwild, home to about 12,000 people, and surrounding forest communities in the San Jacinto Mountains east of Los Angeles. At least four homes burned as crews used aircraft to attack the flames that quickly burned nearly 5 square miles (12 square kilometers) of dry brush and timber in inaccessible terrain. No injuries were reported.

Officers detained a motorist for questioning after people called 911 to report a suspicious vehicle near the fire’s starting point in Riverside County, the California Highway Patrol said.

As his neighbors tried to corral dogs and horses, William Blodgett fled when flames hopped a highway near his home in Idyllwild.

“We were all peeling out of there as fast as we could,” he told KNBC-TV. “It was apocalyptic.”

The fire is one of several across California amid a statewide heat wave. To the north, in the San Francisco Bay Area, at least one home burned in a fast-moving blaze in Clayton, where houses are spread out around windy roads.

Yosemite Valley, the scenic heart of the national park, was closed at noon Wednesday during the height of tourist season as smoke cast a pall on the region from a fire in the Sierra Nevada. The closure was heartbreaking for travelers, many of whom mapped out their trips months in advance to hike and climb amid the spectacular views of cascading waterfalls and sheer rock faces.

“We had one guest who planned a weeklong trip,” said Tom Lambert, who owns a vacation rental property near Yosemite Valley. “It was a father-daughter trip, for her high school graduation … Now it’s done. It’s sad.” Another guest had to delay plans to climb Half Dome.

The closure has also been a financial blow to Lambert and other businesses that rely on the summer tourist traffic.

Most people left the valley Tuesday, when officials reluctantly announced the closure, park spokesman Scott Gediman said. The remaining campers packed up their gear Wednesday, joining the exodus that has been mostly orderly.

“People have been very understanding,” Gediman said.


Officials emphasized that Yosemite wasn’t in imminent danger from the fire. Authorities decided on the shutdown to allow crews to perform protective measures such as burning away brush along roadways without having to deal with traffic in the park that welcomes 4 million visitors annually.

On Wednesday, an extended family from Los Angeles on their annual trip to Yosemite prepared to leave the Upper Pines campground.

“Very disappointed,” Lisa Salgado said. “We look forward to this all year. This is the trip of our summer.”

The group arrived Monday and had planned to stay through Saturday. Instead, they packed tents and other gear into vehicles, hoping they could find another campground elsewhere.

“So, this is a new memory,” said Miguel Martinez. “I’ve never been evacuated before.”

Yosemite Valley will be closed until at least Sunday, along with a winding, mountainous, 20-mile (32-kilometer) stretch of California’s State Route 41 that leads into the area, Gediman said.

At least 1,000 campground and hotel bookings were canceled — to say nothing of the impact on day visitors, park workers and small businesses along the highway, Gediman said.

The last time the 7.5-mile-long (12-kilometer-long) valley was closed because of fire was 1990, he said.

Lambert and his wife, Theresa Ho, were briefly evacuated last week when smoke cast an unhealthy pall over the home where they live upstairs and rent the downstairs to tourists.

“Basically June, July and August are the big revenue months,” he said, estimating that about 100 nearby vacation properties would be forced to offer refunds.  “We’re gonna lose half of July and half of August probably.”

Yosemite Valley is the centerpiece of the visitor experience, offering views of landmarks such as Half Dome, Bridal Veil Fall, El Capitan and Yosemite Falls. The glacial valley has been enveloped by a choking haze of smoke from the Ferguson Fire.

Over nearly two weeks, flames have churned through 60 square miles (155 square kilometers) of timber in steep terrain of the Sierra Nevada just west of the park. The fire was just 25 percent contained.

Mandatory evacuations are in place in several communities while other people have been told to get ready to leave if necessary.

More than 3,300 firefighters are working the fire, aided by 16 helicopters. One firefighter was killed July 14, and six others have been injured.

Gediman suggested valley visitors divert to Tuolumne Meadows, on Yosemite’s northern edge, or to Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks to the south.

In the state’s far north, a 7-square-mile (18-square-kilometer) wildfire has forced the evacuation of French Gulch, a small Shasta County community that dates to the Gold Rush.  /muf

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Will Hollywood be in the mood to party at Golden Globes?

Is Hollywood in the mood to party?

On Sunday, the movie industry will gather for the Golden Globes, which are regularly one of the most freewheeling and frothiest award shows of the year. Champagne will flow. Punchlines will fly.

But the tone of this year’s ceremony may be different, and not just because it will be the first time in nearly a decade that someone other than Ricky Gervais or the Tina Fey-Amy Poehler duo is hosting.

Jimmy Fallon will emcee this year’s show, to be broadcast live from Beverly Hills, Calif., by NBC at 8 p.m. EST Sunday. But the transition on the minds of Hollywood is the one taking place in Washington on January 20. The election of Donald Trump has loomed over this year’s awards season, where the movie industry’s usual self-congratulatory toasting has been mixed with a foreboding sense of dread.

“We are living in very troubled times,” Kenneth Lonergan, writer and director of one of the season’s favorites, “Manchester by the Sea,” said Wednesday at the National Board of Review Awards. “How troubled, we don’t know yet. It’s going to be a lot of trouble, or it might be bad trouble like we’ve never seen.”

Such speeches have been commonplace throughout the litany of awards that lead up, ultimately, to the Feb. 26 Academy Awards.

At Tuesday’s New York Film Critics Circle Awards, “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah compared the lauded “O.J.: Made in America” to the election: “another bad decision based on fame and race.” At the Gotham Film Independent Film Awards in November, Damian Lewis archly intoned, “The film that receives the most votes … is the winner. It’s a brilliant idea,” referring to Trump’s loss of the popular vote.

Barry Jenkins, the writer-director of the tender coming-of-age tale “Moonlight,” said at the National Board of Review Awards: “As we make America great again, let’s remember some inconsiderable things in our legacy, because there was a time when someone like me was just not considered.”

Fallon, who was criticized for what was considered a soft-ball interview of Trump on the “Tonight Show” during the campaign, isn’t likely to set a very political tone for the evening. But speaking to The Hollywood Reporter , Fallon promised Trump jokes at what he called “the first and maybe the last party that we’ll have in 2017.”

The late-night host will also be trying to turn ratings back in a positive direction. Last year’s ceremony, hosted by Gervais, drew 18.5 million viewers, down about 4 percent from the year before. Among the presenters on tap for the show, put on by the Hollywood Foreign Press, are Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Stone, Ben and Casey Affleck, Viola Davis, Amy Schumer, Sting and Matt Damon.

Award show TV audiences have generally been slumping, but the Golden Globes have certain advantages. Aside from their generally boisterous vibe, the Globes are distinct in honoring both film and television. Its TV awards have long been second to the movie honors, which have more significance coming shortly before Oscar nominations. But the TV awards are increasingly on equal footing at the ceremony.

This year’s categories are full of recent shows that weren’t eligible for September’s Emmy Awards, including “The Night Of,” ”Westworld,” ”Atlanta,” ”This Is Us” and “Insecure.”

On the film side, Damien Chazelle’s Los Angeles musical “La La Land” leads all nominees with seven nods, including best picture, comedy or musical. Its primary Oscar competition, “Moonlight” and “Manchester by the Sea,” will be separated by the Globes’ split between drama and comedy.

And surely many attendees will be thinking of those absent. After a year full of notable deaths, the back-to-back passing over the holidays of Debbie Reynolds and her daughter Carrie Fisher, was felt particularly in a Hollywood that revered them both. Reynolds and Fisher were to be laid to rest Friday in Los Angeles.

Sunday night’s biggest question may between whether to let loose or sober up. TVJ

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Google company to provide self-driving tech for Honda cars

Honda R&D Co., Ltd., the R&D subsidiary of Honda Motor Co., Ltd., announced today that it is entering into formal discussions with Waymo, an independent company of Alphabet Inc., to integrate its self-driving technology with Honda vehicles. This technical collaboration between Honda researchers and Waymo’s self-driving technology team would allow both companies to learn about the integration of Waymo’s fully self-driving sensors, software and computing platform into Honda vehicles.

As part of the discussion on technical collaboration, Honda could initially provide Waymo with vehicles modified to accommodate Waymo’s self-driving technology. These vehicles would join Waymo’s existing fleet, which are currently being tested across four U.S. cities.

If both parties agree to enter into a formal agreement, Honda R&D engineers based in Silicon Valley, California and Tochigi, Japan, would work closely with Waymo engineers based in Mountain View, California and Novi, Michigan.

Honda previously announced its intention to put production vehicles with automated driving capabilities on highways sometime around 2020 related to its goal of a collision-free society.  In addition to these on-going efforts, this technical collaboration with Waymo could allow Honda R&D to explore a different technological approach to bring fully self-driving technology to market. These discussions are an initial step that will allow Waymo and Honda R&D to further explore the potential of a broad range of automated driving technologies.

source: motioncars.inquirer.net