California Dolphin

Like a lot of parents, I’ve carried a picture of my son everywhere I go for many years. Unlike a lot of them, I have a child who never ages: My son George was shot and killed on July 17, 1996. My photos of my son remind me of the days before I had to tell my grandson Gabriel, on what happened to be his 6th birthday, that his father had died. The scream I heard on the other end of the phone is one I wouldn’t wish on my enemies. Though I turned my pain into purpose as the president of the anti-gun-violence group Brady California , I trudge through every day with unanswered questions, one of which echoes the loudest: Who killed my son? That’s because my son’s killer has never been brought to justice. Not knowing who killed George is unfathomably difficult but not unusual. California’s statewide case clearance rate for homicides has been near or under 65% for the last decade. That means more than a third of the state’s killings go unsolved, leaving families and communities to bury people they

April 12, 2024 / 7:02 AM EDT / AP Detroit — The U.S. government’s auto safety agency has opened an investigation into a Ford recall for gasoline leaks from cracked fuel injectors that can cause engine fires, saying in documents that the remedy doesn’t fix the leaks. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in the documents posted Friday on its website that the probe will “evaluate the adequacy and safety consequences of the remedy” that Ford specifies in the recall. The agency moved with unusual speed, posting documents detailing the “recall query” just two days after the recall was made public. The recall covers nearly 43,000 Ford Bronco Sport SUVs from the 2022 and 2023 model years, and Escape SUVs from 2022. All have 1.5-liter engines. The NHTSA said that fuel injectors can crack, causing gasoline or vapors to leak at a high rate onto hot surfaces in the engine compartment. The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Ford’s remedy for the leaks is installation of a drain tube to send the gas away from hot surfaces and a software update to detect a pressure

Updated on: April 12, 2024 / 6:22 AM EDT / CBS/AP Inside Mexican/American gunrunning networks Inside Mexican/American gunrunning networks 03:12 The head of traffic police was shot to death Thursday in Mexico’s troubled Pacific coast resort of Acapulco . The city government said gunmen killed Eduardo Chávez, the head of municipal traffic police. The assailants opened fire on Chávez on a street relatively far away from the resort’s beaches. The crime is under investigation. Drug cartels in Mexico often force bus and taxi drivers to work for them, and thus could have been angered by traffic stops of such vehicles. Videos posted on social media in March showed drug gang enforcers brutally beating bus drivers in Acapulco for failing to act as lookouts for the cartel. One video showed a presumed gang enforcer dealing more than a dozen hard, open-hand slaps to a driver and calling him an “animal,” and demanding he check in several times a day with the gang. It was the latest incident of deadly violence in Acapulco, which is still struggling to recover after being hit by Category 5 Hurricane Otis

California’s highest-ranking court officials are warning of a growing “constitutional crisis” playing out across the state’s judicial system, as hundreds of thousands of hearings are held without a precise record of what occurred. The problem is a shortage of public court reporters, the stenographers who transcribe proceedings, and state law that bars electronic recording devices from being used in certain types of hearings — even when a reporter isn’t available. Courts have tried to triage the problem by reserving available court reporters for the most important cases, such as felony trials. But other critically important proceedings — such as for domestic violence restraining orders and child custody disputes — routinely are going unrecorded. On a daily basis, litigants are told they can either hire their own reporters — for hundreds or even thousands of dollars per hearing — or simply go without a record. The result, officials and advocates agree, is that poorer Californians have less access to justice. Without a verbatim record of a proceeding, litigants can struggle to defend their rights — including against abusers — and find it impossible to appeal rulings

Of all the sounds now vanished from the heart of old downtown Los Angeles — the songs of the Tongva , the whistles of steam locomotives, the clanging of streetcars — there’s one you’d never have expected: the Rebel Yell. The battle cry of the Confederacy resounded a long way from its home, but throughout the Civil War, you could hear it in secessionist hangouts like the old Bella Union Hotel. The yell usually went along with hollering and arguing, and maybe the bibulous singing of “We’ll Hang Abe Lincoln To A Tree.” That was the Confederates’ poor rejoinder to the Yankees’ insult song about the Confederate president, “We’ll Hang Jeff Davis From a Sour Apple Tree.” (Poor, because the meter doesn’t scan, and who hangs anyone to a tree, anyway?) Like the song, the Confederacy was a failure. But here — here, in now politically azure-blue L.A. — sympathy for the South was muscular and, as far as the U.S. government was concerned, a potential menace. Think of Jets and Sharks decked out in buckskins or Yankee blue, ambling down our grubby streets, swapping

After the Supreme Court overturned the Roe vs. Wade decision in 2022, jeopardizing abortion access for millions nationwide, California emerged as a “hot spot” and saw a surge in procedures — an influx probably due in part to out-of-staters facing new restrictions and looking for care. Tuesday’s decision by the Arizona Supreme Court that aims to impose a near-total abortion ban in the neighboring state has put Southern California providers on alert and reignited leading state Democrats’ efforts to provide a “safe haven” for reproductive rights. “We stand with the people of Arizona, and all those who live in states that have enacted dangerous abortion bans and restrictions. No matter what comes, we remain steadfast in our resolve to protect and expand access to safe and legal abortion care for all,” said Darrah DiGiorgio Johnson, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest. The regional Planned Parenthood operates clinics in Imperial, Riverside and San Diego counties, where 10% of patients are from outside California. Arizonans were already traveling to California for abortion, because before this week’s ruling the state banned abortions at

With two major expansions of downtown Los Angeles cultural institutions in the works, Bunker Hill is primed to elevate its status as the region’s leading arts center even as the area around it struggles with persistent homelessness and post-pandemic losses of office tenants. Bunker Hill will soon have the largest concentration of buildings designed by Frank Gehry in the world and promises to become a cultural center “like no other place,” the architect told the Los Angeles Times. The Broad recently announced a $100-million project that will increase gallery space at one of the city’s most popular museums by 70%, and the Colburn School for performing arts just broke ground on a $335-million expansion that will include a mid-size concert hall — designed by Gehry — that is expected to be in near-constant use for events put on by students, professional artists and academics. Gehry has been a key player in the decades-long comeback of Bunker Hill, a former residential neighborhood that is now home to cultural institutions, office skyscrapers, apartment towers and hotels. With the coming additions, Gehry said, Bunker Hill stands to surpass

Sunday is Tia Mowry’s favorite day of the week because it’s the day that she gets to do whatever she wants. “With my career, there’s always some sort of schedule,” the actor and entrepreneur said. But on Sundays, “it’s just really free-flowing. I mean, yes, there are some routines and traditions that we have on Sunday, but it’s not a strict schedule.” Mowry has been lighting up our TV screens since her debut on the beloved ‘90s sitcom “Sister, Sister” alongside her twin sister, Tamera. Since then, Mowry has picked up several other notable roles on shows and films like “The Game,” “Twitches” and “Family Reunion.” She also starred in a Style Network reality show about her and her sister’s lives called “Tia & Tamera,” released two cookbooks and launched 4u by Tia, a sustainable, science-backed hair care line for natural hair. In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends. The latest venture for the mom of two? Mowry

By Shawna Mizelle April 12, 2024 / 6:00 AM EDT / CBS News Katie Hobbs backs repeal of 1864 abortion ban Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs calls for repeal of near-total abortion ban 10:57 A Colorado campaign that’s trying to enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution has gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the ballot this November, CBS News has learned.  To amend Colorado’s constitution, petitioners must gather 124,238 signatures from the state’s voters, including 2% of the total registered voters in each of Colorado’s 35 Senate districts, according to the secretary of state’s office. Coloradans for Protecting Reproductive Freedom said its volunteers gathered more than 225,000 signatures and met the district requirements, as well. The deadline to turn the signatures in is April 18. A person familiar with the operation told CBS News that the group expects challenges from opposition groups on the validity of the signatures. The announcement underscores the ongoing push to put abortion on the ballot at the state level after the Supreme Court ended federal abortion protections with the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which struck down the landmark

Updated on: April 12, 2024 / 5:53 AM EDT / CBS/AP How will O.J. Simpson be remembered? How will O.J. Simpson be remembered? 04:29 Los Angeles — O.J. Simpson died Thursday without having paid the lion’s share of the $33.5 million judgment a California civil jury awarded to the families of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. Acquitted at a criminal trial, Simpson was found liable by jurors in a 1997 wrongful death lawsuit. The public is now likely to get a closer look Simpson’s finances, and the families are likely to have a better shot at collecting — if there’s anything to collect. David Cook, an attorney who’s been seeking to collect the civil judgment for Goldman’s family since 2008, said Simpson “died without penance. We don’t know what he has, where it is or who is in control. We will pick up where we are and keep going with it.”  Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in undated photos. CBS News How the next few months may play out Whether or not he left behind a will, and whatever

By Phil Galewitz April 12, 2024 / 5:00 AM EDT / KFF Health News Americans struggling to pay for health care Many working-age Americans struggling to pay for health care 05:15 Nearly a quarter of adults disenrolled from Medicaid in the past year say they are now uninsured, according to a survey released Friday that details how tens of millions of Americans struggled to retain coverage in the government insurance program for low-income people after pandemic-era protections began expiring last spring . The first national survey of adults whose Medicaid eligibility was reviewed during the unwinding found nearly half of people who lost their government coverage signed back up weeks or months later — suggesting they should never have been dropped in the first place. While 23% reported being uninsured, an additional 28% found other coverage — through an employer, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplace, or health care for members of the military, the survey by KFF found. “Twenty-three percent is a striking number especially when you think about the number of people who lost Medicaid coverage,” said Chima Ndumele, an associate professor