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...

Rishi Sharma is hoping local veterans will help him with his mission to interview combat veterans of World War II. The 18-year-old Aguora Hills resident has completed more than 100 interviews and is shifting his attention to the Inland Empire. The recent high school graduate has decided to defer his college education so that he can conduct daily interviews. “When I first started, I was an armchair historian about WWII. I knew more than the average person, but delving into this, there’s an amazing amount of raw information,” he said. “After each interview, the picture becomes slightly more clearer of what they faced.” Through his nonprofit, Heroes of the Second World War, Sharma is conductin...

Between 1999 and 2013, Califoia’s Academic Performance Index boiled everything about the state’s K-12 public schools down to a single number between 200 and 1000. That’s going away in a new, more nuanced system that’s now under construction. In the old model, the desirability of neighborhoods or even whole communities in large part hinged on their API score. Careers were made or lost based on how far a school or district was from the magic 800 target number. And under the federal No Child Left Behind law, failure to steadily increase an API score — even an already high one — could mean dire trouble for a school or district. But the API was only based on the results of standardized tests tak...

PROVINCETOWN, Mass. — It was a very busy, very lucrative weekend for Hillary Clinton in the summer playground of the East Coast’s moneyed elite. She brunched with wealthy backers at a seaside estate in Nantucket, snacking on shrimp dumplings and crabcakes. A few hours later, she and her husband dined with an intimate party of thirty at a secluded Martha’s Vineyard estate. And on Sunday afteoon, she joined the singer Cher at a “LGBT summer celebration” on the far reaches of Cape Cod. • RELATED STORY: Nearly 15,000 new Hillary Clinton emails gleaned in FBI probe By Sunday evening, Clinton had spoken to more than 2,200 campaign donors. But what she told the crowds remains a mystery. Clinton ha...

LOS ANGELES >> The death sentence of the “Grim Sleeper” serial killer last week put to rest a case that spaed more than three decades, but it left another mystery wide open. Police are still trying to identify 33 women whose snapshots were found in Loie Franklin Jr.’s home after his arrest. The images were part of a chilling discovery of nearly 1,000 photos of women or teenage girls — many nude and some who appeared to be unconscious or dead — hidden in Franklin’s house. The collection included photographs of several victims, which leads police and prosecutors to believe Franklin left behind many more. Detective Daryn Dupree said Franklin is one of the most prolific killers and could ...

Four convicted killers drew 16 year-to-life prison terms Wednesday for the 2012 Jurupa Valley-to-Long Beach slaying of a man who was shot in the head, beaten with a sledgehammer and strangled. But the motive for the brutal murder of 24-year-old Orange resident Hector Jauregui Campos remains a mystery. “We don’t know for certain the reason for the attack,” Los Angeles County District Attoey spokeswoman Sarah Ardalani said hours after the sentencing of Jurupa Valley residents Jose Duenas, 23, and Rafael Antonio Porales, 25, Long Beach resident Christopher Arevalo Ramirez, 24, and 25-year-old Rafael Bravo, whose hometown was unavailable. All four were convicted July 25 of second-degree murder ...

The number of teenagers finding summer jobs surged in June to a three-year high, according to a new report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Employment among teens ages 16 to 19 increased by 691,000, the report said. That was up 13 percent from the 609,000 teen jobs that were added in June of 2015, and it was the biggest boost for that month since 779,000 teens secured summer work in June 2013. Teen hiring for May and June — the first two months of the three-month summer hiring period — outpaced hiring for the same period last year. A total of 847,000 teens were hired in May and June of this year, a 7.1 percent increase over the 791,000 who were hired during the same t...

ATWATER >> A crash that nearly sliced a bus in half on a central Califoia highway killed four people, not the initial report of five, a local sheriff said Wednesday. Merced County Sheriff Ve Wake, who also serves as coroner, gave the new total after canvassing hospitals and checking with coroner’s officials in a neighboring county. He said he knew of no deaths among those taken to hospitals. Shortly after Tuesday’s crash, a Califoia Highway Patrol officer at the scene said five people died. The dead include a married couple from Mexico who were traveling to visit a daughter in Pasco, Washington, and a man from Avalon, Califoia, whose spouse was hospitalized, Wake said. A fourth victim...

HOLLYWOOD — Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who guided the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences through some major changes prompted by a controversy over its lack of diversity, was re-elected as the organization’s president, the Academy aounced Tuesday night. Boone Isaacs was re-elected to her fourth one-year term as president by the organization’s Board of Goveors. In June of this year, the Academy aounced that it had invited a record 683 people to become new members, with 46 percent of the invitees female and 41 percent minorities. This came after an outcry when the Academy’s signature event, the aual Oscars, featured an all-white slate of acting nominees for two consecutive years. Boone Isaa...

A lot of dirt has been moving around this week at a pair of Long Beach middle schools. Grading for new all-weather athletic fields was under way at Perry Lindsey Middle School, 5075 Daisy Ave., and Jessie Nelson Academy Middle School, 1951 Cherry Ave., in Signal Hill. Dump trucks were at both sites this week hauling dirt away in preparation for storm-drain installation, according to Les Leahy, Business Services Administrator at the Long Beach Unified School District. The fields, funded by Measure K, are expected to be finished by Oct. 1. Advertisement Let's block ads! بخوانید...

The Space on Pacific won’t be quite like any other theater in downtown San Pedro. For starters, it’s going to house a spaceship. In a warehouse next door, web shows on all things UFOs, the supeatural and the metaphysical will be streamed to tens of thousands of viewers around the world. And on Aug. 19, hip-hop mogul Damon Dash will debut the feature-length film he co-produced with Kanye West, “Too Honorable,” in the venue’s intimate 78-seat theater. The 1920s-era department store tued theater and soundstage at 624 S. Pacific Ave. — formerly the San Pedro Theatre Club — will have a soft opening Thursday for the First Thursday Artwalk with two $12 performances by magician Paul Davids. ‘Consci...

Firefighters and lawmakers have been droning on about the need for drone pilots to steer clear when aircraft splash bubble-gum-colored fire retardant or clear water on wildfires. But the message doesn’t seem to be getting through. Stray drones continue to pop up repeatedly around the state when firefighting aircraft are making drops, forcing them to abort missions. And it happened again last week close to home. A firefighting helicopter was prevented from dousing a small brush fire buing along the 134u2009Freeway in the Eagleu2009Rock area of Losu2009Angeles. Photos on social media showed a small white drone flying just beneath a helicopter. Ultimately, water drops proved uecessary. Losu200...

SPRINGFIELD, N.J. — The search for another first-time major champion in the final one of the year began Thursday with Jimmy Walker at the PGA Championship. Walker had no problem with the stifling heat at Baltusrol, and he was thrilled to see some putts finally go in. It led to six birdies on his way to a 5-under 65 and a one-shot lead over Emiliano Grillo and Ross Fisher among the early starters. It was Walker’s best score in a major. “I feel like all year it’s just been real stale and stagnant,” Walker said. “It’s just ebbs and flows of golf. Just haven’t been scoring. ... It’s frustrating. I would have loved to have had a better year than I’ve had so far to this point, but I know there’s a...

Among the most highly paid blue-collar workers in the United States, West Coast dockworkers will decide next month whether to enter labor talks three years before their contract expires. The unusual push for early negotiations comes amid pressure from manufactures, retailers and other local, regional and national groups dependent on the ports to move everything from flat-screen TVs from China to Central Califoia grain for export as consumer demand for fast, cheap products continues. Delegates representing 20,000 Inteational Longshore and Warehouse Union workers at 29 ports will meet at district headquarters in San Francisco from Aug. 10-12 to discuss whether to extend their current five-year...

POMONA >> Cal Poly Pomona is training an army of tiny wasps to battle the Asian citrus psyllid, a voracious pest responsible for crippling the Florida citrus industry that has recently infiltrated Los Angeles County. Armed with a $400,000 grant from the Citrus Pest & Disease Prevention Program, the agriculture-oriented university unveiled a new research greenhouse Monday that may become the second-largest facility in Southe Califoia (the largest is in Mt. Rubidoux) for breeding the Tamarixia radiata, a natural predator of the tree-killing psyllid. The new flank in the war against the citrus plant disease Huanglongbing, carried by the pest, is part of a multi-pronged battle to redu...

Surf instructor Richard Dagampat tried to wa two students, both from North Dakota, that the ocean off Doheny State Beach was too warm for wetsuits. But they insisted and wore the thick neoprene anyway -- until they couldn’t stand it. “After about 20 minutes of paddling, they said ‘Can we take them off? We are buing up’,” Dagampat said. The water isn’t that hot every day, but after two summers of sometimes strange El Nino-fueled conditions, the ocean off Southe Califoia this summer remains warmer than normal. This week, ocean temperatures off San Clemente reached the mid 70s, about 10 degrees higher than what is normal for early July. Typically, ocean temperatures peak in August and September...

Surf instructor Richard Dagampat tried to wa two students, both from North Dakota, that the ocean off Doheny State Beach was too warm for wetsuits. But they insisted and wore the thick neoprene anyway -- until they couldn’t stand it. “After about 20 minutes of paddling, they said ‘Can we take them off? We are buing up’,” Dagampat said. The water isn’t that hot every day, but after two summers of sometimes strange El Nino-fueled conditions, the ocean off Southe Califoia this summer remains warmer than normal. This week, ocean temperatures off San Clemente reached the mid 70s, about 10 degrees higher than what is normal for early July. Typically, ocean temperatures peak in August and September...

SAN DIEGO >> When “Supeatural” retus this fall, the cast and crew have promised that the CW television series will be getting back to basics. “What fans are going to love the most (this season) is kind of this back to the core of the show, back to family,” executive producer Andrew Dabb said Sunday during a Q&A with press at Comic-Con Inteational. With the retu of their mother Mary Winchester (Samantha Smith), the upcoming 12th season will give main characters Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) a “common purpose.” “This is going to be the first year where they are generally of a like mind,” said executive producer Robert Singer of how the season will begin. ...

Thousands of trees across Southe Califoia are dying because of an invasive beetle for which there is no remedy. The polyphagous shot hole borer is attacking hundreds of tree species and can reproduce in 41 of them, including some of the trees most favored by gardeners, city landscape designers and universities, such as maples, elders, cottonwoods and oaks. The first infections were discovered in 2003 in the Whittier Narrows in L.A. County, and the beetle was implicated for the mass deaths of box elder trees in Long Beach in 2010. Long Beach parks officials say the pest continues to be a conce, noting it has spread from the Box Elder trees to sycamores. Kelly Parkins, a grounds maintenance s...

Protracted policy questions. Big-money battles. Contradictory proposals that are difficult to disce. It’s shaping up to be an all-too-typical fall election, once again confronting Califoia voters with an unwieldy ballot. This wasn’t supposed to happen. After polls confirmed that Califoia voters were frustrated by ballot overload, lawmakers two years ago made changes aimed at pre-empting at least some initiatives from landing on the ballot and improving those that do. One change gave the Legislature extra time to hold hearings to try to compromise with interest groups pitching complex issues. “We’re taking an important step to modeize and strengthen direct democracy,” Gov. Jerry Brown said a...