press-news

SAN FRANCISCO >> Knock, knock, Google’s video chatting app has arrived. The app, dubbed Duo, represents Google’s response to other popular video calling options, including Apple’s FaceTime, Microsoft’s Skype and Facebook’s Messenger app. Duo isn’t much different from the other video chatting services, except that it gives a glimpse at who is making the call, helping the recipient decide whether to answer. Google calls this feature, “Knock, knock.” The new app, aounced in ...

Bapu Madhu used to fly model airplanes. Until it got boring. “It’s very mellow. You don’t take risks,” said Madhu, 36, who lives in Hemet. “I mean, what’s the fun in that?” So when he heard about the exploding sport of FPV or “first-person view” drone racing, he leaped at the opportunity to give it a whirl. “These are way more complicated to fly,” Madhu said. On a sweltering Saturday in a park hugging the Santau2009Ana River, the weekend drone warrior who holds down a job as a county auditor during the week was honing his goggle-aided navigation skills on a makeshift course. He and two friends who started the Riversideu2009Elite racing club had set up the course at Martha McLean-Anza Narrow...

LOS ANGELES — One person was killed and 11 others were injured when a car plowed into a house in the Harbor Gateway area and the driver fled the scene, authorities said today. Details about the person killed were being withheld pending family notification. The crash took place just after 8 p.m. Wednesday at 14837 S. Orchard Ave., according to Brian Humphrey of the Los Angeles Fire Department. At least one of the victims was trapped inside the home for a time, he said. A female underwent CPR before she was loaded into an ambulance, according to a news videographer at the scene. All of the injured, 10 women and a man ranging in age from their 40s to 80s, were taken to hospitals, said Humphrey...

NICE, France >> France called up thousands of reserve security forces Friday as authorities tried to determine why a Tunisian deliveryman known only to be a petty criminal took the wheel of a 19-ton truck and plunged through a terrified seaside crowd on Bastille Day, leaving 84 people dead and more than 200 wounded. Witnesses described how Mohamed Bouhlel barreled his truck in a zigzag path down a crowded Nice promenade, aiming directly for children, for mothers pushing strollers and for families cowering behind plastic benches. President Francois Hollande extended for three months a state of emergency that stretched back to the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and was ...

Several trucking companies have settled a $5 million class-action lawsuit brought by nearly 400 big-rig drivers who contend they should be classified as employees, not independent contractors. The settlement marks another tu in what has been a bitter dispute between truck drivers, backed by union organizers, and the companies who employ them to haul goods from the local ports to warehouses throughout Southe Califoia. “Hopefully, this sends a message that some of the schemes these companies use to evade responsibility are not going to work,” said Laboni Hoq, litigation director for the Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, one of two nonprofits that brought the lawsuit. “Workers know...

Several trucking companies have settled a $5 million class-action lawsuit brought by nearly 400 big-rig drivers who contend they should be classified as employees, not independent contractors. The settlement marks another tu in what has been a bitter dispute between truck drivers, backed by union organizers, and the companies who employ them to haul goods from the local ports to warehouses throughout the Southe Califoia. “Hopefully, this sends a message that some of the schemes these companies use to evade responsibility are not going to work,” said Laboni Hoq, litigation director for the Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, one of two nonprofits that brought the lawsuit. “Workers ...

Several trucking companies have settled a $5 million class-action lawsuit brought by nearly 400 big-rig drivers who contend they should be classified as employees, not independent contractors. The settlement marks another tu in what has been a bitter dispute between truck drivers, backed by union organizers, and the companies who employ them to haul goods from the local ports to warehouses throughout the Southe Califoia. “Hopefully, this sends a message that some of the schemes these companies use to evade responsibility are not going to work,” said Laboni Hoq, litigation director for the Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles, one of two nonprofits that brought the lawsuit. “Workers ...

NICE, FRANCE >> Nice prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre described a horrific scene, with bodies strewn along the roadway, and Sylvie Toffin, a press officer with the local prefecture, said the truck ran over people on a “long trip” down the sidewalk near Nice’s Palais de la Mediterranee, a building that fronts the beach. Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice native who spoke to the AP nearby, said that he saw a truck drive into the crowd. “There was caage on the road,” he said. “Bodies everywhere.” He said the driver emerged with a gun and started shooting. France’s Interior Minister Beard Cazeneuve said 80 people were killed, including children, and 18 were in critical condition, and the Paris prosecuto...

NICE, France >> A truck loaded with weapons and hand grenades drove onto a sidewalk for more than a mile, plowing through Bastille Day revelers who’d gathered to watch fireworks in the French resort city of Nice late Thursday. At least 77 people were killed before police killed the driver, authorities said. Nice prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre described a horrific scene, with bodies strewn about along the roadway and Sylvie Toffin, a press officer with the local prefecture, said the truck ran over people on a “long trip” down the sidewalk near Nice’s Palais de la Mediterranee, a building that fronts the beach. Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice native who spoke to the AP nearby, said that he saw a ...

NICE, France >> A truck loaded with weapons and hand grenades drove onto a sidewalk for more than a mile, plowing through Bastille Day revelers who’d gathered to watch fireworks in the French resort city of Nice late Thursday in what some officials and eyewitnesses called a deliberate attack. Authorities said at least 75 people were killed. Nice prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre described a horrific scene, with bodies strewn about along the roadway. However, he stopped short of using the word attack, while acknowledging that “it has many ingredients of an attack that allow us to think that.” The ranking politician of the Alpes-Maritime department that includes Nice said the truck plowed i...

NICE, France >> A truck drove on to the sidewalk and plowed through a crowd of Bastille Day revelers who’d gathered to watch fireworks in the French resort city of Nice late Thursday in what some officials and eyewitnesses described as a deliberate attack. The president of the Nice region said at least 60 people were killed. Sylvie Toffin, a press officer with the local prefecture, said that the truck “hit several people on a long trip” down the sidewalk near Nice’s Palais de la Mediterranee, a building that fronts the beach. She called the incident “an attack.” Nice regional president Eric Ciotti said on France Info radio that “It’s a scene of horror” and gave a figure of 60 dead. He ...

The three sons of a 91-year-old Long Beach man who was struck by a truck and killed on Veterans Day while riding a motor scooter in Signal Hill filed a wrongful death suit today against the truck driver and his employer. Joseph, John and Raymond Lopez Jr. filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court against Matthew Licht and Signal Hill-based PFT Alexander Inc. The suit seeks unspecified damages stemming from the death of Raymond Lopez Sr., who served in the Navy in World War II. Licht could not be immediately reached for comment. The accident occurred at about 1:30 p.m. Nov. 11 at Willow Street and Temple Avenue in Signal Hill. Lopez was riding a scooter because he had difficulty walkin...

Police are searching for the driver of a stolen vehicle that fled the scene after hitting a woman on her bicycle early Saturday in North Long Beach. The woman was transported to a local hospital where she later died from her injuries, police said this moing. The Long Beach Police Department said officers found the woman lying unconscious in the eastbound lanes on the 400 block of Market Street between Linden and Elm avenues at approximately 1:20 a.m. Saturday. A preliminary investigation determined the woman was riding her bike in the center median when she was struck from behind by a white Kia illegally passing a vehicle on the left while traveling at a high rate of speed. The white Kia ne...

Police are searching for the driver of a stolen vehicle that fled the scene after hitting a woman on her bicycle early Saturday in North Long Beach. The woman was transported to a local hospital where she later died from her injuries, police said this moing. The Long Beach Police Department said officers found the woman lying unconscious in the eastbound lanes on the 400 block of Market Street between Linden and Elm avenues at approximately 1:20 a.m. Saturday. The woman was riding her bike with a male friend when she was struck from behind by a white Kia traveling at a high rate of speed while illegally passing a vehicle on the left in the center median, police determined in a preliminary in...

This week’s Mailbag is as farflung as it gets, both in terms of distance and subject. Our inordinately ardent following in New South Wales, Australia, coughed up an interesting item from Phil Ross, who lives on the east coast of NSW: a copy of a lease from the Jergins Trust Building. “My late father John Ross, although bo and raised in Detroit, spent a lot of time living and working in Long Beach before and after World War II before moving to Australia with his Australian war bride where he lived and worked for the rest of his life,” wrote Phil. While going through some of his dad’s papers, Phil found a lease document dated December 1945 for the use of a little space in the Jergins Trust’s ...

WASHINGTON >> A driver so enamored of his Tesla Model S sedan that he nicknamed the car “Tessy” and praised the safety benefits of its sophisticated “Autopilot” system has become the first U.S. fatality in a wreck involving a car in self-driving mode. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration aounced the driver’s death Thursday, and says it is investigating the design and performance of the Autopilot system. Officials say the victim, 40-year-old Joshua D. Brown of Canton, Ohio, was killed May 7 in Williston, Florida, when his car’s cameras failed to distinguish the white side of a tuing tractor-trailer from a brightly lit sky and didn’t automatically activate its brakes. Just...

A BigRig whose driver was asleep at the wheel hit at least 10 parked vehicles in Long Beach today, police said. The accident occurred around 1 a.m. in the 3300 block of Santa Fe Avenue, just west of the Long Beach (710) Freeway, Long Beach police Officer J. Orantes said. No one was injured in the incident, and drugs or alcohol were not believed to have been involved, added Long Beach police Lt. Greg Schirmer. The driver was not taken into custody. Officers initially responded to the call expecting an injury, but no one was hurt, although the crash produced considerable damage, Schirmer said. Schirmer noted that accidents of this type occur on occasion. “People fall asleep driving, whether i...

SAN ANTONIO HEIGHTS >> “He’s the real Angie’s List,” said Mark Ravelli about UPS driver Roger Flores, who can help remedy or resolve almost any situation for the San Antonio Heights neighborhood. “If you need something done, he’ll know the best person to get it done or can give you good guidance,” Ravelli added. Everybody — and their dogs — along Flores’ UPS route know, love, trust and appreciate him. To express their gratitude for his consistent willingness to go the extra mile, residents responded quickly to Lori and Mark Ravelli’s request to raise money to send Flores to see the Dallas Cowboys, his favorite football team. Some couldn’t come to the surprise presentation on Sunday af...

The driver of an SUV drove over a woman on a Long Beach street just after midnight Sunday, then backed up and drove over her again, before driving off, police said. The woman was killed by the male driver and his white or beige Ford Expedition, the Long Beach Police Department reported. The Expedition had been driven west on Anaheim Street near Ohio Avenue, when it struck a 49-year-old who was crossing Anaheim Street. The pedestrian was heading south from the northeast curb of Ohio Avenue, in an unmarked crosswalk. After the initial contact, the SUV driver reversed and made a right tu onto northbound Ohio Avenue, and struck the woman a second time, before leaving the scene. The woman was th...

A Los Angeles County jury has awarded more than $2.3 million in damages to a man who was injured after being run over by a Long Beach city vehicle in 2014. The jury reached its decision Wednesday at Long Beach Superior Court. David R. Lira, an attoey with the Los Angeles law firm of Girardi Keese, provided a copy of the verdict. Lira said his client, Jonathan Soto, 66, of Long Beach, was grateful for the verdict. “He shed a tear, you know, because he’s had some suffering because of his injuries,” Lira said. Long Beach City Attoey Charles Parkin could not be immediately reached for comment after 5 p.m. Thursday. An October 2014 article on Soto’s filing of the lawsuit reported Soto was asleep...