An Orange County Superior Court judge has rejected a defense request for a court outside the county to determine whether the District Attorney’s Office should be removed from prosecuting a drug case. Judge Kimberley Menninger ruled there were no legal grounds to disqualify the Orange County bench from doing its “ethical and statutory duty.” The…
The Mendocino Complex fire grew this week to become the biggest wildfire in California history, scorching 300,086 acres by Wednesday, Aug. 8. The devastating blaze already destroyed 116 homes and 105 other buildings, with another 10,300 structures still threatened, according to the US Forest Service. This latest disaster follows a national trend of less frequent wildfires growing…
The SoCal Harvest event at Angel Stadium draws an estimated 100,000 people over its three-day run each summer, but it won’t be recruiting attendees at Fashion Island mall, where the Irvine Co. took down a billboard advertising the event. The ad showed Harvest Christian Fellowship’s Senior Pastor Greg Laurie holding a microphone and raising a…
Living in California in the Trump era is like being in a movie inspired by “Groundhog Day,” with each day a little worse than the last. You wake up and he’s coming after us again, tweeting, taunting, twisting the truth. Are we living in a dream, is this a hallucination, a nightmare? What follows…
Under a smoky haze, Larry Wiedey idled Tuesday in a parking lot outside a makeshift shelter at Mountain Vista Middle School in Lake County, where several fire refugees had set up cots and parked their cars. He’s been camping there for three nights, displaced by what is now the largest fire on record…
You’ve heard of fly fishing, but how about fish flying? “The Little Mermaid” in Tustin’s Peppertree Park features saltwater creatures “swimming” through the sea – or, rather, gliding high above the stage in front of an ocean-view backdrop. On Monday evening, Aug. 6, elaborately costumed actors practiced their roles at the dress rehearsal for this…
By LARRY NEUMEISTER | Associated Press NEW YORK — Republican U.S. Rep. Chris Collins of western New York state has been indicted on charges that he used inside information about a biotechnology company to make illicit stock trades. The charges were announced and the indictment unsealed in New York City on Wednesday. The indictment charges…
LAKEPORT, Calif. — The largest wildfire ever recorded in California needed just 11 days to blacken an area nearly the size of Los Angeles — and it’s only one of many enormous blazes that could make this the worst fire season in state history. Some 14,000 firefighters from as far away as Florida and even…
By CHAD DAY, MATTHEW BARAKAT and ERIC TUCKER | Associated Press ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The star witness in Paul Manafort’s financial fraud trial says the former Trump campaign chairman told him to be truthful about offshore shell companies and bank accounts during a 2014 interview with the FBI. Rick Gates said under questioning from Manafort’s…
After a few years of sharp double-digit increases, the city of Los Angeles saw hate crimes decline by 6.8 percent in the first half of 2018, according the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. However, violent hate crimes bucked that overall drop, rising 8.3 percent, increasing from…
