Latest news with #EssentialCalifornia
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Feds charge SoCal medical workers with interfering in ICE raid
Two staff members from an Ontario surgery center have been charged with allegedly interfering with U.S. immigration officers trying to detain landscapers who ran into the center to escape. Jose de Jesus Ortega, a 38-year-old Highland resident, was arrested Friday morning and is expected to appear in U.S. District Court in Riverside, according to a U.S. attorney's office Central District of California news release. Officials are still looking for the other suspect, Danielle Nadine Davila, 33, of Corona. Both are charged with assaulting a federal officer and conspiracy to prevent by force and intimidation a federal officer from discharging his duties, authorities said. According to video obtained by KTLA-TV, staffers at the Ontario Advanced Surgical Center earlier this month told two agents to leave because they didn't have a warrant to go onto the property. The agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement were trying to detain 30-year-old Denis Guillen-Solis and two other landscapers who had been working outside and ran into the surgical center when the agents showed up. In the video, Guillen-Solis is shown holding onto the doorway at the surgical center and asking the agents to present identification. The agents then pulled Guillen-Solis from the doorway and detained him. 'The illegal alien arrested inside the surgery center was not a patient. He ran inside for cover and these defendants attempted to block his apprehension by assaulting our agents," said U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in a statement. According to an affidavit, the two ICE agents wore government-issued equipment, including vests and were using unmarked government-operated vehicles when they conducted their operations. The agents followed a truck with three men inside and approached them after the men exited the truck in the parking lot of the surgery center, according to the release. Two of the men ran away and one of them, an alleged undocumented immigrant from Honduras, was detained near the surgery center's front entrance and tried to pull away, causing the ICE officer to fall to the ground. A medical staffer helped the man off the ground and pulled him away from the officer, according to the news release. The man went into the surgery center and was chased by the ICE agent, who eventually stopped him. The incident occurred amid an extraordinary immigration enforcement effort by the Trump administration in Southern California. Thousands of unauthorized immigrants — many without a criminal record — have been detained at work, in courthouses and on public streets going about their day. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
California sues Trump administration over loss of high-speed rail funding
California's high-speed rail authority sued the Trump administration Thursday over its cancellation of billions of dollars in federal funding. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California by state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, comes one day after the Federal Railroad Administration pulled $4 billion from the project that was intended for construction in the Central Valley. The suit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief and challenges the legality of the decision. The lawsuit calls the administration's actions 'arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law, and threatens to wreak significant economic damage on the Central Valley, the State, and the Nation." It names Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and acting FRA Administrator Drew Feeley as defendants and details President Trump's 'personal animus' toward the project and long-standing criticism of it. Trump previously pulled funding from the train during his first term. The suit calls the president's past statements over the project's budget as untrue. The project is about $100 billion over budget from its original proposal of $33 billion. Trump previously said it was 'hundreds of billions of dollars' more. 'Trump's termination of federal grants for California high-speed rail reeks of politics." Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement Thursday. 'It's yet another political stunt to punish California. In reality, this is just a heartless attack on the Central Valley that will put real jobs and livelihoods on the line. We're suing to stop Trump from derailing America's only high-speed rail actively under construction.' The fast train to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles was originally expected to be completed in 2020. But while the entire route was environmentally cleared last year, no portion of the line has been finished and construction has been underway only in the Central Valley. The Trump administration initiated a compliance review in February after Republican lawmakers called for an investigation into the project and demanded that it be defunded. The 310-page review found significant failures in the project, citing budget shortfalls and missed deadlines in its assessment, and found 'no viable path' forward. In two letters disputing the findings, Ian Choudri, chief executive of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said the review was filled with inaccuracies that misrepresented the project's progress. In early July, Choudri asked that the Federal Railroad Administration delay its decision and requested another meeting. Less than two weeks later, the Trump administration canceled the funds instead. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
Los Angeles Times
14-07-2025
- General
- Los Angeles Times
UCLA vs. UC Berkeley: Which California institution is the best in the country?
Who's really the No. 1 public university in the country? UCLA and UC Berkeley have staked their claims on social media after U.S. News and World Report's global rankings placed Berkeley as the top U.S. public university. Technically, it ranked No. 6, behind five private campuses, including Harvard, MIT and Stanford. But being the top public university on the global list was enough for Berkeley. It wasn't long before an influx of celebratory boasts spread on social media saluting the oldest UC campus. UCLA said not so fast. 'Still #1' went up on UCLA's TikTok account, citing another U.S. News national ranking of public universities that came out nine months ago, putting the Bruins in the top spot among public campuses in the nation. Fans and alumni of both schools have been sparring ever since, including proud Berkeley alum and Essential California writer Jim Rainey, who was too biased to write about this himself. It depends on which list you're referring to. As my colleague Jaweed Kaleem wrote, the U.S. News and World Report rankings differ in methodology and scope. The global list — which looks at 2,250 institutions both private and public — focused on academic research, including citations and regional reputation. On that list, UCLA ranked as the third-best public university in the country, behind the University of Washington in Seattle. Yet on the national list of public colleges and universities, UCLA takes first place, with Berkeley trailing behind it at No. 2. The national list homed in on the undergraduate experience at 1,500 campuses, weighing graduation rates, first-year retention, how well students from lower-income families perform, and the results of 'peer assessment surveys' sent to college presidents, provosts and deans of admissions. Although the rankings are popular as many campuses around the country covet the lists, they are controversial. Over the years, several prominent professional schools have pulled out of providing data to the U.S. News law school rankings. In 2022, UCLA's and UC Irvine's law school deans said they'd boycott the rankings because of the group's methodology, which they said disincentivized schools from supporting public service careers for their grads. In the competing world of list-makers, Berkeley beats Westwood overall. Sorry, UCLA. I promise Jim had nothing to do with this. Both campuses are great places to study. The schools share a lot more in common than not. After all, a bruin is a bear. Sergio Carabarin writes: 'Pfeiffer Beach in Big Sur.' Wayne Bernhardson writes: 'Sculptured Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore.' Email us at essentialcalifornia@ and your response might appear in the newsletter this week. Today's great photo is from Times photographer Myung J. Chun at AGWC Rockin' Rescue animal adoption center in Woodland Hills, which has taken in pets left behind after ICE raids. Jim Rainey, staff writerDiamy Wang, homepage internIzzy Nunes, audience internKevinisha Walker, multiplatform editorAndrew Campa, Sunday writerKarim Doumar, head of newsletters How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@ Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Portraits of Homelessness: The faces that comprise L.A.'s homeless crisis
"I have to drink eight fifths in a 24-hour period. If I do not, I go through withdrawal, which is similar to heroine withdrawal." Jerry Nichols, 1987 "Let's go to L.A., where there is money and opportunities." Geneva Reesa, 1987 I've got a family, but I'd rather be here. I like to drink and smoke, and they don't approve of it. Rene Melendez, 1991 Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
08-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
I've covered California for more than four decades. That's why I'm taking on Essential California
For more than 40 years, I have reported on some of California's biggest ruptures, contradictions, characters and conundrums. Now I'll be working the phones, roving this blessed and sometimes cursed state and arriving most mornings here in your inbox as the regular host of Essential California. I'll be trying to help you understand the people, places and events that are changing California, though we know it's a place that's always a little beyond our grasp, a place, as John Steinbeck said of 'Cannery Row' that 'is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.' I hope that the rest of you essential Californians, expatriate Californians and Californians-in-waiting will respond with inspiration, recriminations and story ideas for me and the rest of our crackerjack crew: fellow reporter Andrew Campa, multiplatform editor Kevinisha Walker and Times newsletters czar Karim Doumar. You can reach us at essentialcalifornia@ Here's how I got here: Though I was born in New York City, my parents moved us to L.A. when my brother was a toddler, and I was an infant. My sister soon joined us, born in Beverly Hills. One of my earliest memories was of grabbing the L.A. Times off the front stoop the morning after Bobby Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel, right here in Los Angeles. His sudden, inexplicable death was a 9-year-old's introduction to the concept of impermanence. Journalism found me at Santa Monica High School, where you signed up for the school paper, the Samohi, because faculty advisor Larry Knuth was way cool and because Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein had just sent President Nixon packing for San Clemente. At UC Berkeley's Daily Californian I covered sports, including football, and witnessed the greatest play in college football history, which I write about as often as I possibly can. I entered the pro newspaper ranks with a tiny daily in Danville, east of Oakland. I wrote about playwright Eugene O'Neill's historic home and came face to face in a prison interview with Sara Jane Moore, the suburban housewife who tried to gun down President Ford. More than four decades on, California and its people have remained the center of my reporting world. I was on the streets the fearful night when L.A. burned, after a Simi Valley jury decided not to hold rogue LAPD officers responsible for the savage beating of motorist Rodney King. I've covered every L.A. mayor from Tom Bradley to Karen Bass. I wrote about torment in the state's youth prisons and heartbreak in the overburdened foster care system. I rode horseback into the Sierras to watch a biologist reestablish trout in a high mountain lake. I swam along (for a mile or two) with a young doctor who conquered the Catalina Channel. I hung out with nudists, wearing nothing but combat boots, in a remote desert oasis. On rare occasions, my family became part of the news. It happened joyously, when I wrote about my dad on his 90th birthday, celebrated as a working actor. It happened tragically, when someone beat my older brother to death in his Culver City chiropractic office, a crime that remains unsolved. The news blasted onto the Rainey family doorstep again in January. The epic Palisades fire incinerated the Malibu home where I grew up. I'd be reporting on the fire recovery anyway. Now it has become extra personal. The fire reintroduced me to an old friend named Bill Stange. He's a surfer, fisherman, contractor and a bit of a sage. After Bill's home burned he said something about Malibu that might apply to California as a whole. 'No matter what, [it] goes back to its wildness,' he said, in part. 'It turns out we are all just renters here.' As I help shepherd Essential California, I am fortunate to remain on the story of this singular place. I hope you'll spend some time with me, seeking out the serious, the silly and the sublime. Email us at essentialcalifornia@ and your response might appear in the newsletter this week. Today's great photo is from Juliana Yamada at Gladstone's in the Pacific Palisades. Six months after closing due to the Palisades fire, the iconic seafood restaurant finally reopened last weekend. Jim Rainey, staff writerDiamy Wang, homepage internIzzy Nunes, audience internKevinisha Walker, multiplatform editorAndrew Campa, Sunday writerKarim Doumar, head of newsletters How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@ Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on
