press-news

PIGEON PASS >> Want to know what it cost to buy more than two-dozen acres for the DonkeyLand wild-burro rescue operation in Reche Canyon? It’s no trick question. Just ask Bob Barker. The former “Price is Right” host donated $400,000 from his DJ&T Foundation to help the small animal-rescue operation run by Amber Levoe and her father, Phil Saavedra, acquire land of its own. The two work tirelessly on behalf of DonkeyLand, an organization they and others founded about five years ago on rented land, in a secluded area north of Moreno Valley, with no identifying sign. When orphaned baby burros are brought to them, and Saavedra, 67, stays up all night, feeding them a special milk-replac...

Califoia legalizing recreational marijuana could grow the industry there to $6.5u2009billion in 2020 — and also serve as a “watershed moment” for the industry in and outside the United States, according to a report released Tuesday. Market research firms ArcView and Newu2009Frontier delved into Califoia’s massive and uniquely complicated caabis industry to project its direction and what may be in store if voters pass Propositionu200964 in November. If the Adult Use of Marijuanau2009Act succeeds and is implemented by 2018, Califoia’s legal marijuana sales likely will climb by $1.6u2009billion within the first year, according to the ArcView and Newu2009Frontier market report. That would put t...

LAS VEGAS — Nate Diaz and Conor McGregor really don’t like each other. Or apparently press conferences for that matter. Just five months after their press conference for UFC 196 broke into a wild melee, the pair and their camps hurled insults, profanities and drinks at each other Wednesday at the UFC 202 press conference at the David Copperfield Theatre at the MGM Grand. Diaz and McGregor are the main event Saturday in a welterweight rematch of their scintillating March showdown, shockingly won by Diaz via a second-round rear-naked choke. McGregor arrived nearly 25 minutes late to the presser Tuesday, which also featured UFC President Dana White and light heavyweights Anthony Johnson and Gl...

RIO DE JANEIRO — Lilly King has her sights set on wiing Olympic gold and she’s not about to let anyone get in her way, especially not world champion breaststroker Yulia Efimova of Russia. King made that clear in a finger-wagging display after her 100-meter breaststroke win over the Russian, who has a history of doping. King pointedly disparaged the Russian after the event over her drug history, and the feud has helped make doping spats among swimmers an intriguing subplot in the Rio Games so far. A separate fight over doping between swimmers from Australia and China escalated on Monday, prompting officials from the two nations to join the fray. And the dispute between King and Efimova has t...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Team USA posted the highest Olympic Games qualifying round score by nearly 10 points as Simone Biles also kept her bid to become the first woman gymnast to win five gold medals in a single Olympics. A U.S. athlete posted the highest score on all four events to post a total score of 185.238. China had Sunday’s second highest score at 175.279. Biles had the highest individual all-around score (62.366) as well the top marks on the vault (16.050), balance beam (15.633) and floor exercise (15.733). The U.S. was so dominant that the next two athletes in the all-around standings were Biles’ teammates, Alexandra Raisman (60.607) and defending Olympic all-around champion Gabb...

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said Saturday that the results of November’s U.S. presidential election could weigh heavily on his city’s chances of hosting the 2024 Olympics, saying that a victory by Donald Trump could tu off IOC voters. In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Garcetti also said Los Angeles could offer “the last best hope” for the United States to host the Summer Olympics again before the American people begin “tuning out” from the games. Garcetti, a 45-year-old Democrat and supporter of Hillary Clinton, is in Brazil to observe the Rio de Janeiro Games and pitch his city’s bid to members of the Inteational Olympic Committee. One of the main topics of conversati...

TOKYO — While Rio Olympic organizers are under immense pressure to finish preparations before Aug. 5, their Tokyo counterparts are already facing skyrocketing costs for an event four years away. Tokyo 2020 organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori acknowledged at an executive board meeting this week the cost of building seven temporary venues for the Olympics has surged to an estimated $2.6 billion, up from an initial estimate of $690 million. Mori said the original figures were the result of sloppy calculations which he blamed on the Tokyo metropolitan govement and the Japanese Olympic Committee. The organizing committee hasn’t disclosed an official estimate of the overall costs but has ...

Workers have only just begun removing millions of tons of oil-caked soil left buried for decades in the yards of Carson’s Carousel tract, but a long-awaited financial settlement for the pain and suffering of residents likely will be disbursed before Christmas. The final payout from two companies deemed responsible for the mess will be $120 million for emotional and physical turmoil, according to an agreement between attoeys reached Friday. The deal comes after more than a year of legal wrangling between Shell Oil Co., which operated the former oil-tank storage farm on the site, and Dole Food Co., which bought the tract’s developer, Barclay Hollander Corp., and was named responsible for clean...

SAN DIEGO >> The original series of “Star Trek” didn’t even finish out its original five-year mission, getting the axe after three seasons. But syndication made those three years of boldly going where no one had gone before into a cult favorite, leading to an animated television series, movies and additional televisions series. Since the series first debuted in 1966, its vision of a future where war and greed have been abolished and all humans -- and many other species -- live in harmony in a technological utopia has influenced countless people around the world. That 50-year legacy was celebrated Saturday at Comic-Con Inteational in a panel and subsequent press conference, featuring “S...

LOS ANGELES — President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday endorsed Califoia Attoey General Kamala Harris to be the state’s next U.S. senator. In a statement, the president called Harris “a lifelong courtroom prosecutor with only one client: the people of the state of Califoia.” “Kamala’s experience has taught her that if you’re going to give everybody a fair shot, you’ve got to take on the special interests that too often stand in the way of progress,” Obama said. He added that Harris “fights for us.” The dual endorsements represent a political coup for Harris, who faces fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez, a 10-term congresswoman, in November. But they are not a surprise. Wh...

NEW YORK >> Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, the Romanian-bo Holocaust survivor whose classic “Night” became a landmark testament to the Nazis’ crimes and launched Wiesel’s long career as one of the world’s foremost witnesses and humanitarians, has died at age 87. His death was aounced Saturday by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. No other details were immediately available. The short, sad-eyed Wiesel, his face an ongoing reminder of one man’s endurance of a shattering past, summed up his mission in 1986 when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize: “Whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation, take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encou...

For West Long Beach residents like Alvaro Contreras, a BigRig crash near 33rd Street and Santa Fe Avenue was a terrifying reminder of the neighborhood’s perils. The stretch of Santa Fe Avenue between West Willow Street and 34th Street is accident-prone, Contreras said as he stood outside his apartment building Thursday moing looking out at where the truck had smashed into at least 10 parked vehicles hours before. He and other neighbors say a traffic signal or other calming measures are desperately needed to help protect pedestrians, including children walking to and from several nearby schools. “Everyone is lucky it happened at night,” Contreras said. The crash happened around 1 a.m. in the...

PG&E says it will close Diablo Canyon, Califoia’s last nuclear power plant, by 2025 By The Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO >> A utility company and environmental groups have reached an agreement that will close Califoia’s last nuclear power plant, ending the state’s nuclear power era. The state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., and the groups said Tuesday that the Diablo Canyon plant will close by 2025. The accord would resolve disputes about the plant that helped fuel the anti-nuclear movement nationally. The 30-year-old plant supplies 9 percent of Califoia’s aual power. The agreement will replace it with solar power and other forms of renewable energ...

LOS ANGELES - Viewing parties will be held at six locations in the Southland for tonight’s telecasts of the U.S.-Argentina Copa America Centenario semifinal men’s soccer game. The game from NRG Stadium in Houston will begin at 6 p.m. and be televised in English by cable’s FS1 and in Spanish by Univision and cable’s Univision Deportes Network. The viewing parties will be held at: -- The Auld Dubliner, 2497 E Ave., Tustin; -- The Brew & Meatball Co., 325 N. Citrus Ave., Covina; -- Q’s Billiard Club, 11835 Wilshire Blvd., Brentwood;. -- 1739 Public House, 1739 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz; -- Shaon’s On Pine, 209 Pine Ave., Long Beach; and -- Underground Pub & Grill, 1332 Hermosa Ave., H...

WASHINGTON — The slaughter in Florida and an attention-grabbing filibuster in the Senate did little to break the election-year stalemate in Congress over guns Thursday, with both sides unwilling to budge and Republicans standing firm against any new legislation opposed by the National Rifle Association. Democrats renewed their call to action after Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Co., held the floor along with colleagues in a nearly 15-hour filibuster that lasted into the early hours Thursday. “We can’t just wait, we have to make something happen,” said Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., at an emotional news conference where Democrats joined family members of people killed in recent mass shootings. “These are pe...

The Walt Disney Company has donated $1 million to help the victims of the Orlando shooting massacre, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer aounced Tuesday afteoon. “Thank you @WaltDisneyCo for donating $1 million to #OneOrlando,” Dyer tweeted. The One Orlando Fund is an organization created to raise money to assist those affected by the mass shooting, which claimed 49 lives when a gunman opened fire at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday moing. “We are heartbroken by this tragedy and hope our commitment will help those in the community affected by this senseless act,” Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Bob Chapek said in a statement. “With 74,000 Cast Members who call Orlando home, we mou the...

WASHINGTON — In a big win for the Obama administration, a federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the govement’s “net neutrality” rules that require inteet providers to treat all web traffic equally. The 2-1 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is a victory for consumer groups and content companies such as Netflix that want to prevent online content from being blocked or chaeled into fast and slow lanes. The rules treat broadband service like a public utility and prevent inteet service providers from offering preferential treatment to sites that pay for faster service. Consumers are not likely to see an immediate impact, since the ruled have been in eff...

Califoia Attoey General Kamala Harris opened up a big early lead Tuesday over Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Orange, in the race to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer. But Sanchez led Republicans Duf Sundheim, Phil Wyman and Tom Del Beccaro – and the rest of the 34-candidate field – laying the groundwork for what would be a November race between two Democratic women. Califoia’s open primary sends the top two vote-getters to the November ballot regardless of party affiliation. “We will continue to run a campaign about fighting for our ideals,” Harris told supporters in San Francisco, apparently focusing her comments more on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump than on her l...

LOS ANGELES— It’s been more than 20 years since one of Califoia’s two U.S. Senate seats has been up for grabs, and there is no shortage of candidates in today’s primary election hoping for a chance to grab the post being vacated by retiring Democrat Barbara Boxer. By most accounts, state Attoey General Kamala Harris and Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Garden Grove, are sitting atop the field of 34 candidates. Under Califoia law, the two top vote-getters in the primary will face each other in November, meaning that the senate race could end up being a contest between Democrats Harris and Sanchez. But a trio of Republicans are hoping to gaer enough support to overtake one of the leading Democrats, fin...

CLEVELAND — Kevin Love was cleared to fly. His playing status remains up in the air. Cleveland’s forward, who sustained a concussion in the first half Sunday in a Game 2 NBA Finals loss to Golden State, traveled with his teammates on Monday as they regrouped. A Cavs spokesman said in an email that Love was on the team’s flight from San Francisco to Cleveland. It’s not yet known if Love, who dislocated his left shoulder in the first round of last year’s playoffs and missed the finals, will play again in the series. He is following the NBA’s protocol on concussions, which requires that he’s symptom free and passes certain requirements before he can be cleared by a physician to retu to the cour...