California Dolphin

The Los Angeles Police Department has graduated an average of 31 recruits in its past 10 academy classes, a Times review shows, about half the number needed to keep pace with Mayor Karen Bass’ ambitious plan to reach 9,500 officers. The smaller-than-hoped-for classes — coupled with the number of experienced officers who are retiring or leaving for other jobs — have fueled speculation around City Hall and LAPD headquarters about whether Bass will reevaluate the department’s staffing needs in her new budget proposal, due Monday. City officials have said they need to hire about 60 new officers a month to overcome the force’s attrition rate. The mayor gave no timetable for her police hiring plan. But the statistics indicate that increasing the size of the force from its current 8,832 sworn officers to 9,500 is unlikely to happen soon. Given the city’s steadily worsening financial picture, some leaders and progressive activists argue that it makes little sense to keep funding the department for staff it may not be able to hire. A Times analysis of graduation class data and news releases posted to the department’s

The California Fish and Game Commission has formally recognized the Mojave desert tortoise as endangered. The designation, granted Thursday, is the latest in a long series of steps to try to protect the dwindling population of the desert creature, which biologists say is heading toward extinction. The tortoise was designated as threatened under the California Endangered Species Act in 1989 and as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990. In 2020, Defenders of Wildlife, Desert Tortoise Council and Desert Tortoise Preserve petitioned to change the tortoise’s status to endangered, which would give it higher priority and funding for conservation measures such as habitat protection and recovery efforts. The commission then granted temporary endangered species to the desert tortoise while it considered adding it permanently to the list. A recovery plan was created in 1994, and then revised in 2011 after there were issues implementing the recovery strategies. Between 2001 and 2020, population densities in tortoise conservation areas went down by an average of 1% per year in the Colorado Desert and Eastern Mojave Recovery units, according to a February 2024 California Department of Fish

It was more than two decades ago when an Arizona man called sheriff’s deputies in Yavapai County, Ariz., to report a unique and disturbing discovery: While perusing his childhood rock collection, he’d found a human jawbone that had been mistaken for a stone. The county medical examiner’s office tried for years to find the owner of the errant piece of mandible, but their DNA databases turned up no matches. And then, earlier this week, one finally emerged when the Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center at Ramapo College in New Jersey announced that it had confirmed a genetic match. The bone belonged to deceased U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Everett Leland Yager. There’d been no mystery about Yager’s death; the Orange County Register, named the Santa Ana Register at the time, reported that the 30-year-old Missourian had crashed and died during flight training in 1951 near the El Toro Marine Air Station in Orange County. The surprise was that part of Yager’s jaw hadn’t made it into his grave along with the rest of his remains. “We have absolutely no idea how [the jawbone] came into the child’s

The phrase “spring in L.A.” has about the same level of meaninglessness as “ it feels like a Tuesday .” Yes, we have jacaranda season and June gloom (or May gray) — both of which fall in the three months known as spring — but it’s hard to think much more of spring in this part of the world than “a little warmer than winter” and “slightly cooler than the summer.” That’s the price of living in year-round Mediterranean pleasantness: We forgo the seasonal rejuvenation that inspires poets and songwriters . All that is true if your idea of L.A. encompasses only the paved landscapes of the city and its suburbs. Venture just beyond the reach of our northern urban frontier and into the San Gabriel Mountains, and you’ll see a real spring unfolding — snow melting, rivers and streams flowing, wildlife emerging — in sublime glory. This isn’t news to hikers or anyone else who spends time wandering in the local mountains. We salivate over the springs and summers nurtured by a winter of decent rain and snow ( as this one was );

A premier L.A. County teaching hospital has fired one of its highest-ranking doctors following a two-year investigation that found he regularly gawked at the genitalia of anesthetized patients and never disclosed that he was being paid by a medical device company whose products he used on patients. Staff members at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, a public hospital run by the county, told investigators that Dr. Louis Kwong sometimes looked under the surgical covers of Black males who were under anesthesia and discussed the “genitals of the day,” according to his discharge notice, which was obtained by The Times. Kwong also discussed his favorite sex positions and his preference for “auto-erotic asphyxiation,” his colleagues told investigators. Additionally, investigators found that Kwong, an orthopedic surgeon, received more than $700,000 from the medical device company Zimmer Biomet, which makes joint replacements, without reporting the conflict of interest to the county. He flew twice on the company’s private plane to its Indiana headquarters with medical residents from the hospital, according to the Feb. 27 notice informing him of his firing. The discharge notice makes no mention of the gun that

Devin Haney vs Ryan García: Round x Round EN VIVO; resultados de la velada (Steve Marcus / Associated Press) El “rey de la controversia”, Ryan García, va por el título de peso superligero que tiene en su poder Devin Haney, un día después de haber dado tres libras sobre su peso. Ryan García poco a poco se ha convertido en el “rey de la controversia”. Las distracciones y lo que parecen ser problemas personales, que algunos consideran como falta de estabilidad emocional, ponen en duda de la posibilidad de ver a un García listo para dominar el boxeo. El sábado, García (24-1, 20 KOs) va por el título de peso superligero del Consejo Mundial del Boxeo que tiene en su dominio el invicto David Haney (31-0, 15 KOs). Sin embargo, entre todas las extrañas publicaciones y comportamientos de ‘King Ry’, se le suma que en el pesaje del viernes, García dio 3.2 libras más sobre lo estipulado, por lo que debido a una apuesta que hizo con su rival durante la conferencia de prensa del jueves, tendrá que pagar medio millón de dólares por cada

Paso Robles Fire and Emergency Services responded to reports of an aircraft off the runway at the Paso Robles Municipal Airport. It happened Friday at about 11:24. When first responders arrived they found an aircraft 300 feet off the runway that had flipped over and was on its roof. After making access to the plane first responders found three trapped inside. Fire officials say the plane was leaking fuel from both wings. Fire officials controlled the leak and extricated the three people in the plane. Fire officials say two people were treated at the scene and one person was taken to the hospital. First responders say their condition is ‘stable’. The incident has been turned over to the NTSB for further investigation. No further information has been released about the cause of the plane flipping or the identity of those involved.

With Earth Day on Saturday, North County residents are showing their commitment to the planet by cleaning up their community and homes. In Atascadero, those wanting to purge their homes of trash can do so between April 20th and 27th. Every household who is a WM customer in Atascadero can receive one voucher to use for free trash dumping services at the Chicago Grade Landfill – located at 2290 Homestead Rd in Templeton. They must simply present proof of address or a WM invoice at the WM office to receive their voucher. Public Sector Manager Elizabeth Gomez shared how the week of free trash drop-off aligns with WMs mission to protect the environment. You just don’t understand the importance of it is in going forward that we do protect our environment, that we are good stewards of, you know, where we live and what we need to do with items that we are no longer using. And there is a proper way to dispose of them and we are always there to help them to do that, Gomez said. Those whod like to help pick