Author: Don Thompson
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L.A. leader in racism scandal resigns council seat
LOS ANGELES • The former president of the Los Angeles City Council resigned from public office Wednesday, three days after a recording surfaced of her making racist remarks in a meeting that is now the subject of a state investigation. Nury Martinez, the first Latina to hold the top post on the council, announced her…
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Gov. Newsom denies RFK assassin Sirhan Sirhan parole
SACRAMENTO, Calif. • California’s governor Thursday rejected releasing Robert F. Kennedy assassin Sirhan Sirhan from prison more than a half-century after the 1968 slaying that the governor called one of America’s “most notorious crimes.” Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has cited RFK as his political hero, rejected a recommendation from a two-person panel of parole commissioners.…
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California’s Pacific Gas & Electric charged in 2019 wildfire
SACRAMENTO, Calif. • A California prosecutor filed 33 criminal charges Tuesday against troubled Pacific Gas & Electric for a 2019 wind-driven wildfire officials blamed on the utility, accusing it of injuring six firefighters and endangering public health with smoke and ash. The company denied that it committed crimes even as it accepted that its transmission…
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New virus case escalates U.S. response
VACAVILLE, Calif. • Public health officials were retracing the steps of a Northern California woman on Thursday believed to be the first person in the U.S. to contract the highly contagious coronavirus without traveling internationally or in close contact with anyone who had. The diagnosis, confirmed Wednesday, marks an escalation of the worldwide outbreak in…
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California approves wide power outages to prevent wildfires
SACRAMENTO, Calif. • California regulators on Thursday approved allowing utilities to cut off electricity to possibly hundreds of thousands of customers to avoid catastrophic wildfires like the one sparked by power lines last year that killed 85 people and largely destroyed the city of Paradise. Utilities’ liability can reach billions of dollars, and after several…
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Agency: Deadly Calif. fire caused by homeowner equipment
SACRAMENTO, Calif. • In a long-awaited report, state investigators said Thursday that a 2017 wildfire that killed 22 people in Northern California wine country was caused by a private electrical system, not equipment belonging to embattled Pacific Gas & Electric. The state firefighting agency concluded that the blaze started next to a residence. It did…
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N. California fire death toll now at 42
PARADISE, Calif. • The dead were found in burned-out cars, in the smoldering ruins of their homes, or next to their vehicles, apparently overcome by smoke and flames before they could jump in behind the wheel and escape. In some cases, there were only charred fragments of bone, so small that coroner’s investigators used a…
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Dead in cars and homes: N. California fire death toll at 29
PARADISE, Calif. • The dead were found in burned-out cars, in the smoldering ruins of their homes, or next to their vehicles, apparently overcome by smoke and flames before they could jump in behind the wheel and escape. In some cases, there were only charred fragments of bone, so small that coroner’s investigators used a…
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Northern California wildfire nearly quadruples in size; five found dead in vehicles
PARADISE, Calif. — A wildfire that moved so fast firefighters didn’t even try to stop it killed five people, authorities said Friday as the blaze quadrupled in size after leveling much of a Northern California town of nearly 30,000 people. Only a day after it began, the fire near the town of Paradise had grown…
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Thefts rise after California reduces criminal penalties
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California voters’ decision to reduce penalties for drug and property crimes in 2014 contributed to a jump in car burglaries, shoplifting and other theft, researchers reported. Larcenies increased about 9 percent by…