press-news

The sound of applause has scarcely died down in the Capitol after last week’s vote to significantly expand Califoia’s requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Proponents who steered the groundbreaking legislation are still basking in the afterglow of an effort that—after seeming on the brink of defeat—deftly mustered unexpected support and reaffirmed the state’s inteational leadership on climate change. But such is the unsentimentality of politics: Someone has to pop the pretty balloons and sweep up the confetti. For all that was achieved by the passage of SB 32—extending the original 2006 law and setting a new target of reducing statewide emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels b...

The “Great Food Truck Race” on Food Network has always been smitten with Southe Califoia competitors. This season is no different. The show, which debuts Sunday night, features the owners of Bigmista’s Barbecue & Sammich Shop and Bigmista’s Moing Wood, both in Long Beach. The barbecue restaurants are run by husband-and-wife team Neil and Phyllis Strawder, best known for their signature wood-smoked brisket. In the opening episode, the contestants are involved in a fuel-cake eating contest at a Los Angeles theme park. “I leaed a really big lesson, and that was – I never want a food truck. It is really hard work,” Neil Strawder said during a phone interview Tuesday. Strawder, a familiar fa...

Country music’s Stagecoach Festival is set to ride out with Old Dominion and Steve Moakler on a new tour that stops in L.A. Tickets for the Stagecoach Spotlight: Old Dominion Meat and Candy Tour go on sale at 10 a.m. Thursday to the general public — and as soon as Tuesday for fans who head to Old Dominion’s website. The show — with Old Dominion as headliners and Moakler as special guest — is set for Dec. 3 at Novo by Microsoft. “Stagecoach Spotlight Tour allows us to continue and strengthen artist relationships outside of a festival setting as well as creating awareness of the festival nationwide,” said Stacy Vee, talent buyer for Stagecoach and the inaugural Stagecoach Spotlight Tour in an ...

The Long Beach Ministers Alliance is sponsoring a comedy show, hoping that laughter will help heal problems in the community. “Laughing Lives Matter,” a benefit comedy show, will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 25, at the Terrace Theater. Lester Barrie, inspirational comedian and former Comic View host, will be host the show, featuring Doug Williams, Gilbert Esquivel, Ron Pearson and Michael Colyar with special guests Ricky Harris, Lamont Bonman and Angel Gainse. “Laughing Lives Matter is a clean comedy show designed to support our efforts and partnerships to interrupt community violence and human trafficking, as well as support homeless veterans and stimulate job development,” said Pastor ...

Then again, another option, evidently, is the urine of two people. This is the case of Russian long jumper Darya Klishina, whose inclusion in these Games led Monday to a very respected reporter from the very respected New York Times asking a high-ranking Olympic official about pee. Specifically, she wanted information relating to an incident in which Klishina — and you know these athletes are capable of doing things the rest of us can only dream of — apparently produced some sort of super whiz. “You do not expect to find two people’s urine,” Richard Budgett explained, “in the same sample bottle.” No, you most certainly do not. At least not any more than you’d expect to find two people’s leg...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> This time, the devil wore red, white and blue, the bad guy being our guy. In a battle so theatrical that the only thing missing was a pair of dueling light sabres, everything right about track and field Sunday collided with everything wrong about these Olympics. Naturally, good triumphed, just like in those movies about super heroes, this one again as golden as the shoes that carried him to victory. Usain Bolt, accepted to be as clean as he is fast, beat Justin Gatlin, who twice has been busted for PED use and now is ruing faster than ever despite also being older than ever. “Somebody said I can be immortal,” Bolt explained after successfully defending his 100-meter ...

Stuffed animals lean against candles. Chalk drawings of hearts cover the street where a little girl and her mother were killed. In the mouful aftermath of a deadly shooting Aug. 6 near Locust Avenue and East Ninth Street, children routinely accompany their parents to the makeshift memorial honoring Carina Mancera, 26, and her 4-year-old daughter, Jeabel Anaya, who were gued down as they retued home from grocery shopping. And the little ones have big questions. Yarely Avina is the mother of Ariel, a 6-year-old girl who attends an elementary school in the same neighborhood where Jeabel was killed. “She asked ‘when is she coming back?’” Avina said. “I told her, ‘She’s not coming back. She’s in...

The SuperScoopers have landed! Just in time for sizzling temperatures this weekend, the county officially unveiled a huge part of its aerial firefighting fleet Friday. •RELATED STORY: SuperScoopers arrive 3 weeks early to help combat LA County brush fires Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich and Fire Chief Daryl L. Osby showcased the recent arrival of two Canadian SuperScoopers and an Erickson Air-Crane. •RELATED STORY: Massive Sand fire nearly contained after more than a week The water bombers landed at Van Nuys Airport Aug. 6 after their flight from their home base in Quebec, Canada. They are usually leased during the fall for work on L.A. County’s fires, but this year they ha...

Before Steve Jobs invented the PC, computers were room-sized, difficult to operate and expensive. Now they fit in the palm of your hand and perform complex functions at the sound of your voice. Likewise, air pollution sensors are going mainstream, changing from complex devices operated by scientists in white lab coats to hand-held detectors sold on Amazon.com or e-bay for a few hundred bucks to citizen scientists sitting in their backyards. There are so many devices sold online that measure particulate matter (PM) near your home during a wildfire or ground-level ozone on a hot-and-smoggy day that the folks at the South Coast Air Quality Management District began studying which ones work the ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Marcus Fraser shot a 63, Justin Rose had a hole-in-one and Matt Kuchar saw a rat large enough to ride in a derby - soapbox or Kentucky. Golf made its historic retu to the Olympics on Thursday, while the capybara made its celebrated Games debut. Capybaras are rodents that can reach roughly the size of an NFL wide receiver, their appearance here more eagerly anticipated by golf enthusiasts than even the retu of Tiger Woods. “I imagine people in Brazil think it’s fuy that we go ogling over something that is a little more normal to them,” Kuchar said. “If they were to come over (to the U.S.) we’d kinda say, ‘It’s a squirrel. We got plenty of those.’ ” Maybe, but squirrel...

It’s a once-a-year light show expected to deliver its most spectacular visual explosion in years. This summer’s edition of the Perseid meteor shower is due to peak Thursday evening and last through early Friday moing and make a reprise the following night. Experts say 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. is the best viewing time. The display of “shooting stars” shows up every August when Earth travels through trails of debris left behind by an ancient comet, Swift-Tuttle. The sky show is made of pieces of the comet hitting the Earth’s atmosphere at more than 133,000 miles per hour and buing up. Perseids are also known for their fireballs, which are larger explosions of light and color that can last longer than...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> It was the smallest of gestures on the largest of stages, a tiny rubber bracelet meaning more than the five giant rings that tower over these Olympics. McQuin Baron didn’t play Monday in the U.S. men’s water polo game against Spain. That, however, didn’t stop the backup goalkeeper from having an impact that can rightly be described as profound. “Fight On, For Jon,” read the words wrapped around Baron’s wrist, a message for Jon Walters, the former Mater Dei and USC player who died in 2014 at age 19 of a heart attack. “McQuin always told Jon’s mom, ‘I’m going to take him to the Olympics,’ ” Baron’s mother, Mindy, said. “Today, as my son’s standing there (during the pre...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> It was the smallest of gestures on the largest of stages, a tiny rubber bracelet meaning more than the five giant rings that tower over these Olympics. McQuin Baron didn’t play Monday in the U.S. men’s water polo game against Spain. That, however, didn’t stop the backup goalkeeper from having an impact that can rightly be described as profound. “Fight On, For Jon,” read the words wrapped around Baron’s wrist, a message for Jon Walters, the former Mater Dei and USC player who died in 2014 at age 19 of a heart attack. “McQuin always told Jon’s mom, ‘I’m going to take him to the Olympics,’ ” Baron’s mother, Mindy, said. “Today, as my son’s standing there (during the pre...

How you can help the family of Carina Mancera, 26, and Jeabel Anaya, 4, who were shot to death in front of their downtown Long Beach home Saturday night. Donate Friends and family set up a Go Fund Me page to help pay funeral costs. As of Sunday afteoon, donors had already contributed close to $3,000. “Our family is heartbroken with this tragic event, and we hope that you can help us give these two beautiful souls a graceful resting place,” the page says. Say something Long Beach police said detectives believe people in the area witnessed the shooting, and urged them to come forward. Anyone with information regarding the shooting to call detectives Scott Lasch and Michael Hubbard at 562-570-...

Someone punched her grandmother in the face, broke her ribs and ruptured her spleen. Someone strangled her grandmother with such force that they crushed her larynx. Someone shot her grandmother in the back of the head. Then, in the opinion of Janelle Frese of La Palma, someone slipped out of her grandmother’s house into the sunset, leaving her grandfather to explain -- for the rest of his life -- that he indeed loved his wife and was not her killer. Frese can’t imagine a life without her grandmother’s unsolved murder -- which happened 45 years ago today -- hanging over everything she does. Theone Davis, who was 64, 5-foot-3, 132 pounds, died about two hours before she and her husband, Ted, w...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> She was asked about expectations leading up the an Olympic Games burdened with quite possibly the lowest expectations of all-time. “Everybody expects the same or better,” Ivana Maksimovic said, “gold.” I’m not sure what’s better than gold at the Olympics, but I’m certain at this point everyone here would settle for reaching the finish line with bodies intact, minds sound and personal belongings secured. Sure, Maksimovic, who won a silver medal in shooting four years ago, can aim for something of a richer hue now. Almost everybody else, however, likely would consider the podium’s top step in Rio to be simple survival. Maksimovic was Serbia’s flag bearer Friday in an o...

The Rio Olympics Opening Ceremony will air at 7:30 p.m. on NBC TV on Friday. The event begins at 4 p.m. Pacific Time, but is delayed for prime time across the country. Streaming options include the NBC Sports app or go to NBColympics.com - both will require a login with cable subscription after 30 minutes. Follow live updates from Southe Califoia News Group reporters Scott Reid and Jeff Miller, along with tweets from Southe Califoia Athletes on our live blog here. Samba and pop music singers are expected to perform, including Grammy award wiers Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. Supermodel Gisele Bundchen will also be on hand. But the climax of the show, the lighting of the cauldron, depends ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> He was more than 6,000 miles from home now, in a place where they speak Portuguese, when a reporter from the Netherlands approached and asked DeAndre Jordan a question in English. A question about…Jordan’s inability to shoot free throws? Come on, man. Perhaps there’s another continent to which the Clippers center could escape, although, honestly, avoiding a topic so obvious that it arrived in South America before Team USA did might require Jordan to board some sort of rocket ship. Notably, the question came Thursday just moments into Jordan’s first official media session of his first official Olympics. And who says the Americans are going to have it so easy here? “At...

Volume control is what we’re talking about loud and clear here. Consumption habits needed for NBC’s presentation of the 2016 Rio Summer Games may need to change if you’re still stuck in the prime-time mode of waiting for results and commentary, starting with preliminary soccer matches before Friday’s Opening Ceremony and marching up to the Closing Ceremonies on Aug. 21. By the numbers, NBC’s plans are to produce a record 6,755 hours of coverage. That’s about an average of 356 hours a day, spread over 19 days, or about as long as it still takes to process the menu at the Cheesecake Factory. Instead of looking at this as some huge all-you-can-ingest buffet, think healthy and think smaller por...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> I’m proud to be an American, which, I’ve been reminded again, isn’t necessarily the same thing as being proud of America. In covering events like the Olympics, I’ve become increasingly reluctant to display national pride, so much so now that, in preparing to come to Brazil, I made a point to pack the most neutral, nondescript clothes I own. At this rate, for the 2028 Games, I’ll simply show up naked, although, trust me, that’s an image in which my pride already has begun to fade. Others, however, don’t have the same conces when it comes to waving their colors. For instance, one of the attendees at a political demonstration here Sunday was - for reasons no one could pr...