Category: Los Angeles

We may receive commissions from some links to products on this page. Promotions are subject to availability and retailer terms. There are safe and dangerous ways to use your home equity funds this December. Getty Images When used properly, home equity can provide a vital financial lifeline for homeowners in need of extra funding. Whether it be with a home equity loan , home equity line of credit (HELOC) or other source, home equity can provide homeowners access to a large, six-figure sum of money, often at an interest rate many points lower than what would be available with popular alternatives. And with the average homeowner in possession of around $319,000 worth of equity, according to the November 2024 ICE Mortgage Monitor report, there’s likely plenty of money to use both now and, potentially, for additional expenses in the future. That noted, using your home equity needs to be a carefully considered decision, approached strategically. If you’re unable to repay all that’s borrowed you could risk your homeownership as the property serves as collateral in these exchanges. Understanding this risk, then, it helps to know

An Ohio native who was killed in the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor will be brought to his final resting place in California one day before the 83rd anniversary of the infamous air raid on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. Fireman 2nd Class William Kubinec was one of 105 casualties from the USS West Virginia during the Japanese attack that also sunk the USS Oklahoma, USS California and USS Utah on Dec. 7, 1941. Kubinec enlisted in the Navy on Sept. 4, 1940, as a Seaman Apprentice and advanced to Seaman 2nd Class, Fireman 3rd Class and finally Fireman 2nd class. William Kubinec is seen in an image provided by the U.S. Navy. William Kubinec is seen in an image provided by the U.S. Navy. “Despite the name, this rating is not just about fighting fires. Part of the job functions include rescue, but the career path is also geared towards engineering. Fireman stand engineering watches, as well as power plant and ship security watches both in port and while underway, and are responsible for performing minor maintenance repairs. While performing watches they ensure

Los Angeles County District Attorney-elect Nathan Hochman will officially take the reins on Tuesday, as he’s set to be sworn in on the front steps of the Hall of Justice. Hochman replaces District Attorney George Gascón, who lost his reelection bid in a landslide. The former federal prosecutor Hochman told LAist that he’s excited for the “opportunity of a lifetime.” “I’m taking over an office that has been considered one of the premiere D.A.’s offices in the nation,” he said. Hochman takes over from the reform-minded Gascón, whose policies were criticized by Hochman and others as being “pro-criminal.” Despite his criticism, Hochman said his changes won’t “replace one extreme policy with extreme policies on the other end of the pendulum swing.” “I’m not bringing back mass incarceration policies,” he said. This combination of two booking photos provided by the California Department of Corrections shows Erik Menendez, left, and Lyle Menendez. (California Dept. of Corrections via AP) FILE – Lyle, left, and Erik Menendez sit with defense attorney Leslie Abramson, right, in Beverly Hills Municipal Court during a hearing, Nov. 26, 1990. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)

More changes could be coming to the lands within Disneyland and Disney California Adventure following the revamp of Bayou Country, formally known as Critter Country. The “Happiest Place on Earth” is apparently considering ways to “amplify” areas such as Frontierland, Adventureland, and Star Wars: Galaxy Edge following the changes made at Bayou Country. Along with the retheme of Splash Mountain, Disney also reimagined the former Hungry Bear Restaurant, now known as Hungry Bear Barbecue Jamboree, and two retail stores when the land temporarily closed during the summer. What does the future hold for Disneyland’s Tomorrowland? Similar changes have also been made at Mickey’s Toontown at Disneyland and San Fransokyo Square at Disney California Adventure Park. Disney content creator David Vaughn made a video discussing the potential changes, citing Disneyland President Ken Potrock. KTLA reached out to Disneyland Resort but didn’t receive a statement in time for publication. The potential land revamps coincide with the plans Josh D’Amaro, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and Bob Iger, Walt Disney Co. CEO, have teased for the parks’ future. Avengers Campus at Disneyland will double in size

For the second year in a row, a group of knitters is making essential warm clothing items for the Santa Barbara-area community in the “Chase the Chill” annual event. Chase the Chill project manager Carolyn Chaney has been knitting since high school. “I can knit a hat in two evenings watching TV,” Chaney said. Shes one of many community knitters making hand-made items for this years Chase the Chill event. “Its all about trying to keep people warm,” Chaney explained. Hats, gloves, socks, and scarves, handmade or store-bought, are currently being collected at the Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Goleta simple items that Chaney says can warm more than just your body. “One time, a man took over a pair of socks to someone who was newly homeless and he put the socks tenderly on this man’s feet and I was there. Seeing this brought tears to my eyes. Makes me cry just to think about it, how important a new pair of warm socks could be,” she recalled. Last year, around 200 items were distributed throughout Goleta and Isla Vista by the congregation.

Happy Monday everyone, this is Shannon MacNeil your Senior Daybreak Reporter. Here are some local headlines to get you out the door and start the week off right! First up, weather… it’s finally December, but it’s going to feel a little more like Spring today, check with Meteorologist Vivian Rennie for more. It’s Cyber Monday. If you plan to shop, check out this article for some tips to avoid online scams: How to shop safely on Cyber Monday. Calling all knitters and crocheters! In a story you’ll see first on Daybreak this morning, Goleta community reporter Juliet Lemar shows us how the Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Goleta is helping people experiencing homelessness keep warm this winter. Tune in at 6:05 a.m. to find out how you can participate in “Chase the Chill.” And here’s a heads up for drivers in Paso Robles: Today through Friday, the city will conduct road repairs requiring closures. Here’s what you need to know to plan ahead: Red River Dr. will be closed from Golden Hill Rd. to Shadow Meadow Way. Vista Colina full closure. Residents on Salida Del Sol

On a fall morning in East L.A. in 1974, Dolores Madrigal and her husband, Orencio, ate breakfast while listening to ranchera radio station KWKW when a news segment aired that would change her life. The couple heard about how 100 people had protested in front of Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center to decry the hospital’s years-long practice of sterilizing low-income women without their consent. The rally came in the wake of a lawsuit filed against the Boyle Heights hospital by three Mexican American women who alleged they were victims. After hearing the story, the 40-year-old Madrigal wondered out loud to her husband: Was she one of those women? The previous year, they had welcomed the birth of their second son, Sergio, at the hospital. Before going into labor, however, Madrigal shooed off a wave of nurses who asked if she wanted to have her fallopian tubes tied. She finally signed a form in the haze of her pre-labor pains, then quickly forgot about it. A visit to the hospital the day after the KWKW report confirmed that the document authorized doctors to sterilize Madrigal. She

Elton John, the visionary “Rocket Man” and “Tiny Dancer” pop icon, says his eyesight has deteriorated. The 77-year-old singer-songwriter made his latest health revelation Sunday during opening night of “The Devil Wears Prada” musical in London. John, who wrote the score for the stage adaptation, told the audience that he struggled to experience the West End show in its full glory because of his deteriorated vision. “I haven’t been able to come to many of the previews because, as you know, I have lost my eyesight,” the Grammy Award winner said, adding, “So it’s hard for me to see it, but I love to hear it, and, boy, it sounded good tonight.” Before Sunday’s London showing, “The Devil Wears Prada” musical — based on the popular 2006 film of the same name — originally debuted in Chicago in 2022. John shared new details about his vision loss after revealing in September that a severe eye infection from the summer left him with “limited vision in one eye.” In a statement shared to Instagram, the EGOT winner said his recovery had been an “extremely slow process”

WASHINGTON —  The Supreme Court on Monday did not sound ready to sharply limit the power of the Food and Drug Administration to prohibit the sale of new candy-colored vaping products aimed at teenagers. Instead, the justices, both conservative and liberal, said Congress in 2009 gave the agency the power to stop the sale of new tobacco products, and it has used this authority in recent years to reject new vaping flavors with names like “Rainbow Road” and “Peachy Strawberry.” This is exactly the kind of regulatory question that companies hope to get before the conservative Supreme Court, but it was not clear they will win this time. Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh questioned the vaping industry’s claim of FDA overregulation, saying its objection rests with the law itself. “You disagree with the statute giving this authority to FDA,” he told an attorney for two companies whose products were denied approval. Justice Elena Kagan agreed. “Everyone knows these flavors are particularly dangerous in terms of kids starting the use of smoking product,” she said. “The FDA has been upfront about this. There is not a lot of

In announcing that he was pardoning his son Hunter in two federal cases, President Biden said the criminal charges “came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.” The president’s claim that the cases were politically motivated — which his son’s camp has long asserted — has been met with skepticism from some corners. Biden was convicted by a jury of illegally purchasing a handgun in Delaware, and he pleaded guilty to tax charges in Los Angeles. Here is what we know about the cases and the pardon. What is the gun case? Earlier this year, a federal jury in Delaware convicted Biden of federal gun crimes, including lying about being drug-free when he purchased and briefly owned a gun while he was addicted to crack cocaine. Biden was on trial for three felony charges, and the jury convicted him of all three. In addition to lying on a federal background check form and giving a false statement to a federal firearms dealer, he was also convicted of possessing a gun while being an

More than 72.3 million people are scouring the internet right now looking for a deal this Cyber Monday. This is the second-most popular day, just after Black Friday, for holiday shoppers to fill their (virtual) carts with gifts for their loved ones, according to the National Retail Federation, which gave the event its name in 2005. Consumers are expected to spend a record $13.2 billion Monday, 6.1% more than last year, according to Adobe Analytics, which has been tracking online shopping behavior. Shoppers who are checking out retailer websites and searching the internet for popular items should be aware of scammers looking to do some shopping of their own. Online fradusters want to steal cardholder information and money on popular online shopping days like Cyber Monday, Visa’s Ecosystem Risk and Control team warns. Here are some tips from experts to help you navigate the busy shopping day and avoid online scams, retailer tricks meant to pressure shoppers into making a purchase, and potential porch thieves who hope to steal packages from your front door. Avoid online scams When you peruse the internet for sales from

The Shen Yun dance group is facing allegations of forced labor and child labor in a lawsuit filed by a former dancer for the troupe. Chun-Ko Chang, who lives in Taiwan but formerly danced for the group, claims Shen Yun runs “a sophisticated operation that is designed to identify and recruit vulnerable people to work as Dancers, ensnare them in a system that dominates every aspect of their lives, and force them to work grueling hours through multiple methods of control and coercion,” as detailed in a lawsuit first reported by Seamus Hughes’ Court Watch. Also listed as defendants are associated entities, Shen Yun’s financial backer the International Bank of Chicago and executives Hongzhi Li, Rui Li and Shujia Gong, who is also known as Tianliang Zhang. Chinese agent who targeted Shen Yun group gets 20 months in prison The suit contains numerous allegations, including that those dancers who are perceived to have stepped out of line are subjected to public humiliation and not allowed to leave the group’s compound or speak with their families. Shen Yun, which advertises itself as a depiction of China

Do Angelenos have the most fun? Well, it might depend on your idea of a good time. A new study by Wallet Hub ranked Los Angeles 18th on its list of Most Fun Cities in America but the City of Angels did finish first in a couple of key metrics. According to the study, Los Angeles was number one out of more than 180 U.S. cities when it came to Restaurants per Capita and was also first in Number of Attractions. Downtown Los Angeles at night. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images) Complete Fun in Los Angeles rankings (1=Most Fun, 91=Avg.): Overall rank for Los Angeles: 18th 20th – Festivals per Capita 1st – Restaurants per Capita 35th – Playgrounds per Capita 23rd – Parkland Acres per Capita 88th – Fitness Centers per Capita 6th – Dance Clubs per Capita 1st – Number of Attractions As for the most fun city in the U.S., Wallet Hub declared Las Vegas the big winner. “Las Vegas is the most fun city overall, boasting an extremely large number of attractions and restaurants rated at least 4.5-stars,” Wallet Hub stated.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies have arrested the father of a 9-year-old boy who was recently shot and killed while he was playing in the backyard of his grandfather’s home in Compton, the Sheriff’s Department announced Monday. Homicide detectives honed in on the boy’s father shortly after the shooting on the night of Nov. 30 in the 15000 block of South Haskins Avenue. His arrest was made on the same day that a vigil was held for the boy, whom family identified as Princeton Nicholas Jones. Creole Green, the boy’s mother, could not be immediately reached for comment. In a written statement, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department identified Nicholas Jones, 32, as a murder suspect in the killing. Detectives did not release any details about his arrest. Jones was booked at the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s Station on suspicion of murder and child abuse resulting in death. He is being held in lieu of a $2 million bail. Reached by phone, Jones’ father declined to comment. In an interview with ABC-7, Green said she was devastated over the loss of her son, who was

The late John McCain — a member of the shrinking tribe of climate-forward Republicans — once griped , “It’s always darkest before it’s totally black.” His gallows humor quip seems apt right now when it comes to the defining challenge of our time: the fight against the climate crisis. That fight suffered a one-two punch over the past month as the stakes grew more dire. Here in North America, we recently saw the destruction caused by hurricanes including Helene and Milton, which have been made more deadly by human-caused warming, as well as wildfires stretching from the West to the East Coast . Yet despite the blinking-red global danger sign, the needed action seems more out of reach than ever. Limiting planetary warming below a truly dangerous 1.5 degrees Celsius (almost 3 degrees Fahrenheit) feels less attainable than it did just a few weeks ago. Physically, it’s still within reach: The “carbon budget” we have for keeping planetary warming below that level has not yet shrunk to zero . Existing renewable energy from wind, solar and geothermal sources, combined with energy storage, also makes it

Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair apologized to Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence on Monday morning, a day after Al-Shaair’s late and violent hit led to Lawrence being carted off the field with a concussion and sparked two ugly skirmishes during a game between the AFC South rivals at EverBank Stadium in Florida. On a second-down play during the second quarter, Lawrence scrambled to his left then initiated a slide that should have ended the play. Instead, Al-Shaair appeared to continue at full speed, crashing into the defenseless quarterback’s facemask with his forearm. In a lengthy X post, Al-Shaair said he “genuinely didn’t see [Lawrence] sliding until it was too late,” adding that “it all happens in the blink of an eye.” Lawrence, who was making his first start after missing two games with a sprained left shoulder, remained on the ground for several minutes. Al-Shaair was ejected for “an illegal hit on the quarterback, unnecessary, to the neck and head area,” referee Land Clark said in a pool report. “To Trevor I genuinely apologize to you for what ended up happening,” Al-Shaair wrote on X.

Amazon vice president of global operations on Cyber Monday – CBS News Watch CBS News Sarah Rhoads, vice president of global operations for Amazon, joined CBS News to talk about how holiday sales have gone so far this year and the company’s preparations for Cyber Monday. Be the first to know Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Not Now Turn On

Will Biden comment on Hunter Biden pardon decision? – CBS News Watch CBS News White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Biden made the decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden over the weekend. CBS News’ Willie James Inman has more on Mr. Biden reversing his stance on the pardon as he begins his trip to Africa before departing the White House in January. Be the first to know Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Not Now Turn On

A San Fernando Valley man charged with slapping an autistic child at a bus stop is set to appear in court on Monday.  Scott Sakajian was charged with willful cruelty to a child and battery on a person by the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office in connection with a July 1 incident involving 10-year-old Alfredito Morales.  The boy had touched the emblem on Sakajian’s Mercedes-Benz sedan while Alfredo and his older sister Claudia were crossing the street.  Read this before you shop on Cyber Monday Sakajian immediately made a U-turn and followed the siblings to a bus stop near Laurel Canyon Drive and Osborne Street before stepping out of the car, walking up to the bench Alfredo was sitting on and slapping him as Claudia tried to intervene.  Cell phone video – which later went viral on social media – shows Claudia explaining that he has autism, but the man still struck the boy.  A man seen walking up to Alfredo Morales, 10, and slapping him in the face after the boy touched the emblem on his Mercedes-Benz sedan in Pacoima on July 1, 2024.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has arrested the father of a 9-year-old Compton boy in the child’s shooting death on Saturday. Princeton Jones, who was shot while playing outside his grandfather’s home at Haskins Avenue and Alondra Boulevard at around 7:40 p.m., was killed by his father, 32-year-old Nicholas Jones, officials said in a news release. The elder Jones was arrested on Sunday on charges of murder and child abuse resulting in death, the release added. Jail records show he is being held in lieu of $2 million bail at the East Los Angeles Station. He’s due to appear in Compton Municipal Court on Tuesday. Compton family holds vigil for 9-year-old killed in shooting Further details were not disclosed by investigators, but on Sunday, Najee Ali, director of Project of Islamic Hope, said the child was “shot down in cold blood” and implied that gang violence could be the cause. “There used to be a time where women and children were off limits to murder and gang violence,” Ali told KTLA’s Carlos Saucedo. “Unfortunately, those days are long gone.” The family has set up a

A season of protests, forfeits and lawsuits ended quietly Saturday on the volleyball court with San José State losing the Mountain West Conference women’s tournament final to Colorado State. The loss deprived San José State from claiming the conference’s automatic bid to the 64-team NCAA tournament, which could have extended the controversy centered on the team’s transgender player. Instead, top-seeded Colorado State earned the automatic bid by winning in four sets. Fewer than 200 spectators attended the match at UNLV, and the fans were respectful, cheering every player during pregame introductions and during the action. Players encouraged one another throughout the match and exchanged hugs when it was over. The only bit of political activity came when Colorado State star player Malaya Jones and teammates Kennedy Stanford and Naeemah Weathers knelt during the national anthem. Colorado State coach Emily Kohan told reporters the players have knelt before matches since 2020. “They’ve knelt since their freshman year, when the Black Lives Matter movement was going on, and, in this program, we raise critical thinkers to make decisions for what’s important to them,” Kohan said. “And, for