California

Subterms

    More stories

    • 138 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Claims He Has Helicopter Trip Records and Threatens to Sue

      by

      Former President Donald J. Trump on Friday afternoon vehemently maintained that he had once been in a dangerous helicopter landing with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, and insisted he had records to prove it, despite Mr. Brown’s denial.In an angry phone call to a New York Times reporter as he landed several hours away from his planned rally in Bozeman, Mont., because of a mechanical issue on his plane, Mr. Trump excoriated The Times for its coverage of his meandering news conference on Thursday at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and home, during which he told of an emergency landing during a helicopter trip that he said both he and Mr. Brown had made together. Mr. Trump was expected to keep his rally schedule on Friday as planned, boarding a smaller plane to complete the journey.Mr. Brown denied on Thursday that he had ever flown in a helicopter with Mr. Trump. It appeared Mr. Trump may have confused Willie Brown with Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, with whom Mr. Trump traveled by helicopter in 2018 while surveying wildfire damage in the state. But Jerry Brown, who left office in January 2019, said through a spokesman, “There was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris.”Willie Brown, who was a boyfriend of Vice President Kamala Harris during the 1990s, knew Mr. Trump as a potential business associate during those years, when Mr. Trump, then a New York developer, was working on new projects. A biography of Ms. Harris, “Kamala’s Way: An American Life,” reported that Mr. Trump had sent his private plane for Mr. Brown and Ms. Harris in 1994 to fly them from Boston to New York City. “We have the flight records of the helicopter,” Mr. Trump insisted Friday, saying the helicopter had landed “in a field,” and indicating that he intended to release the flight records, before shouting that he was “probably going to sue” over the Times article. When asked to produce the flight records, Mr. Trump responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice. As of early Friday evening, he had not provided them.Mr. Trump has a history of claiming he will provide evidence to back up his claims but ultimately not doing so.He has also told the helicopter story before, in his 2023 book, “Letters to Trump,” in which he published letters to him from a number of people, including Mr. Brown. In the book, Mr. Trump wrote, “We actually had an emergency landing in a helicopter together. It was a little scary for both of us, but thankfully we made it.” More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      US Capitol rioter sentenced to 20 years – one of the longest punishments yet

      by

      A California man with a history of political violence was sentenced on Friday to 20 years in prison for repeatedly attacking police with flagpoles and other makeshift weapons during the US Capitol riot on 6 January 2021.David Nicholas Dempsey’s sentence is among the longest among hundreds of Capitol riot prosecutions. Prosecutors described him as one of the most violent members of the mob of Donald Trump supporters that attacked the Capitol as lawmakers met to certify Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.Dempsey, who is from Van Nuys, stomped on police officers’ heads. He swung poles at officers defending a tunnel, struck an officer in the head with a metal crutch and attacked police with pepper spray and broken pieces of furniture, prosecutors said.He climbed atop other rioters, using them like “human scaffolding” to reach officers guarding a tunnel entrance. He injured at least two police officers, prosecutors said.“Your conduct on January 6 was exceptionally egregious,” the US district judge Royce Lamberth told Dempsey. “You did not get carried away in the moment.”Dempsey pleaded guilty in January to two counts of assaulting police officers with a dangerous weapon.Only the former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio has received a longer sentence in the January 6 attack. Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years for orchestrating a plot to stop the peaceful transfer of power from Trump to Biden after the 2020 election.Dempsey called his conduct “reprehensible” and apologized to the police officers whom he assaulted.“You were performing your duties, and I responded with hostility and violence,” he said before learning his sentence.Justice department prosecutors recommended a prison sentence of 21 years and 10 months for Dempsey, a former construction worker and fast food restaurant employee. Dempsey’s violence was so extreme that he attacked a fellow rioter who was trying to disarm him, prosecutors wrote.“David Dempsey is political violence personified,” assistant US attorney Douglas Brasher told the judge.The defense attorney Amy Collins, who sought a sentence of six years and six months, described the government’s sentencing recommendation as “ridiculous”.“It makes him a statistic,” she said. “It doesn’t consider the person he is, how much he has grown.”Dempsey was wearing a tactical vest, a helmet and an American flag gaiter covering his face when he attacked police at a tunnel leading to the lower west terrace doors. He shot pepper spray at the Metropolitan police department detective Phuson Nguyen just as another rioter yanked at the officer’s gas mask.“The searing spray burned Detective Nguyen’s lungs, throat, eyes and face and left him gasping for breath, fearing he might lose consciousness and be overwhelmed by the mob,” prosecutors wrote.Dempsey then struck the Metropolitan police sergeant Jason Mastony in the head with a metal crutch, cracking the shield on his gas mask and cutting his head.“I collapsed and caught myself against the wall as my ears rang. I was able to stand again and hold the line for a few more minutes until another assault by rioters pushed the police line back away from the threshold of the tunnel,” Mastony said in a statement submitted to the court.Dempsey has been jailed since his arrest in August 2021.His criminal record in California includes convictions for burglary, theft and assault. The assault conviction stemmed from an October 2019 gathering near the Santa Monica pier, where Dempsey attacked people peacefully demonstrating against then president Trump, prosecutors said.“The peaceful protest turned violent as Dempsey took a canister of bear spray from his pants and dispersed it at close range against several protesters,” they wrote, noting that Dempsey was sentenced to 200 days of jail time.Dempsey engaged in at least three other acts of “vicious political violence” that didn’t lead to criminal charges “for various reasons”, according to prosecutors. They said Dempsey struck a counter-protester over the head with a skateboard at a June 2019 rally in Los Angeles; used the same skateboard to assault someone at an August 2020 protest in Tujunga, California; and attacked a protester with pepper spray and a metal bat during a August 2020 protest in Beverly Hills, California.More than 1,400 people have been charged with January 6-related federal crimes. More than 900 of them have been convicted and sentenced, with roughly two-thirds receiving terms of imprisonment ranging from a few days to the 22 years that Tarrio received. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Chopper whopper: Willie Brown shoots down Trump’s helicopter story

      by

      In his press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, Donald Trump’s stream of invective, wild claims and outright lies included a story about a brush with death during a helicopter ride with Willie Brown, a veteran California politician who once briefly dated Kamala Harris, now Trump’s Democratic rival in the presidential election.Claiming to “know Willie Brown very well”, Trump said: “In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought, maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie was … a little concerned. So I know him pretty well.”Trump also said Brown told him “terrible things” about Harris and was “not a fan of hers very much at that point”.Both parts of Trump’s story turned out to be untrue.It quickly became clear after the news conference on Thursday that Trump was talking about a helicopter ride with Jerry Brown, then the California governor. Furthermore, Willie Brown had nothing bad to say about Harris.The pair dated nearly 30 years ago. Brown, 90, told the New York Times, adding: “No hard feelings.”Of Trump’s helicopter claim, he said: “You know me well enough to know that if I almost went down in a helicopter with anybody, you would have heard about it!”Speaking to KRON4, a San Francisco-area radio station, Brown said: “I’ve never done business with Donald Trump, let’s start with that. And secondly, I don’t think I’d want to ride on the same helicopter with him. There’s too many people that have an agenda with reference to him, including the people who service helicopters!”It was widely established that Trump’s helicopter ride happened in 2018, when Trump was president and he and Jerry Brown took a trip to inspect wildfire damage.Through a spokesperson, Jerry Brown said: “There was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris.”It turned out that Gavin Newsom, the current governor of California, was on the flight too, as governor-elect.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I call complete BS,” Newsom told the Times, while “laughing out loud”.Trump did repeatedly bring up the subject of crashing, Newsom said, but: “We talked about everyone else, but not Kamala.”Trump held his press conference in an attempt to highlight Harris’s lack of such events since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee, after Joe Biden dropped his re-election campaign less than three weeks ago and endorsed his vice-president to replace him at the top of the 2024 presidential ticket. But the former president’s chaotic and bad-tempered event did little to reset a campaign narrative showing Harris surging in popularity on the campaign trail as the former president flounders.Newsom told the Times he thought the press conference was “an act of desperation”. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      What to Know About the Park Fire, the 4th Largest in California History

      by

      The rapidly spreading fire has consumed over 426,000 acres since it started burning in late July. The Park fire, the largest wildfire currently burning in the United States, has torn through over 426,000 acres in Northern California in recent weeks and has destroyed hundreds of homes and other structures.The fire ballooned in size in a matter of days, and it is the largest blaze in California so far this year. Thousands of firefighters and other personnel, some from as far as Utah and Texas, are battling the fire, which was 34 percent contained as of Wednesday.The hot and dry weather has made it difficult for firefighters to suppress the blaze, which is spreading northeast within Lassen National Forest and “ascending slopes with critically dry fuel,” according to Cal Fire. But forecasters say the coming days could bring lower temperatures and higher humidity levels in the fire zone. Current unseasonably warm temperatures are expected to steadily fade and give way to highs in the 70s next week.“It’s not a dramatic change, it’s slow. But each day is getting a little better,” said Eric Kurth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Sacramento. “That’s certainly helpful.”Here’s what to know about the fire.The Park fire has burned more than 426,000 acres.Loren Elliott for The New York TimesWhen and how did the fire start?The fire ignited on July 24 near Chico, a college town in Butte County, north of Sacramento. After igniting, the fire exploded to more than 120,000 acres by the next day and then nearly doubled in size the night after that. Officials said the cause of the fire was arson.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      San Bernadino Fire Destroys Homes and Forces Evacuations in California

      by

      A blaze in San Bernardino burned suburban homes and threatened others nearby, adding to an already intense California fire season.A fast-moving brush fire burned homes and forced evacuations in the inland California city of San Bernardino on Monday afternoon. Shocking views of the fire tearing across a residential hillside stoked fears that an already dangerous fire season could threaten the more populated parts of the state.The fire in the Southern California city, about 60 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, has grown to 100 acres and burned multiple buildings, said Eric Sherwin, a spokesman for the San Bernardino County Fire Department. Residents of dozens of homes in the Shandin Hills neighborhood are under evacuation orders, and the county has set up an evacuation center at a nearby elementary school.Multiple suburban houses with tile roofs could be seen on live TV engulfed in flames on Monday afternoon.The fire was first reported at 2:40 p.m. in a northern San Bernardino neighborhood, where firefighters found a grass fire spreading quickly. Very dry weather and temperatures approaching 110 degrees conspired to “allow this fire to move at a ridiculously rapid clip,” Mr. Sherwin said.The fire, which has been named the Edgehill fire, is zero percent contained, and 200 firefighters from various agencies are battling the blaze.In San Bernardino, gusty winds coming from the southwest on Monday were helping to push the fire up a hill where many of the homes were perched, said Sam Zuber, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in San Diego, which provides forecasts for the San Bernardino region.“That’s probably why it’s been so difficult for them to get containment,” Ms. Zuber said, adding that low humidity and high temperatures were further fueling the fire. “It’s the perfect conditions for it to spread right up to the ridge top.”California has had a particularly bad fire season so far after scorching temperatures this summer parched the heavy vegetation that grew over the two past wet winters. Those dry grasses and brush have turned into abundant fuel.Hundreds of miles to the north, the Park fire began nearly two weeks ago near Chico and has ballooned into the fourth-largest fire in California history, spreading more than 403,000 acres. The fire, which is 34 percent contained, is expected to keep expanding, though its growth has slowed over the past week.That fire alone has burned more acres than all of the fires in California did last year combined, according to Cal Fire. This year, more than 778,000 acres have burned statewide, compared with roughly 325,000 acres in all of 2023, and the peak of the fire season has not yet arrived. More

    • 113 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Doug Emhoff, Husband of Kamala Harris, Acknowledges Long-Ago Affair

      by

      Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, said on Saturday that he had an extramarital affair during his first marriage, years before he met Ms. Harris.The acknowledgment, which was released in a statement, came hours after a British tabloid reported that Mr. Emhoff had a previously undisclosed relationship with a teacher who worked at the elementary school his children attended in Culver City, Calif., approximately 15 years ago.At the time, Mr. Emhoff, an entertainment lawyer, was married to Kerstin Emhoff, a film producer, with whom he had two children. The couple filed for divorce in 2009. Mr. Emhoff met Ms. Harris in 2013, and they married the following year.“During my first marriage, Kerstin and I went through some tough times on account of my actions,” Mr. Emhoff said in the statement. “I took responsibility, and in the years since, we worked through things as a family and have come out stronger on the other side.”The Biden campaign was aware of the affair before it decided to tap Ms. Harris as vice president in 2020, according to a person familiar with the vetting process, who spoke on condition of anonymity. In addition, this person said that Ms. Harris knew of the affair before she married Mr. Emhoff in 2014.According to an article published by The Daily Mail on Saturday, Mr. Emhoff had the relationship with a woman who at the time worked as a teacher at The Willows Community School, a private school in west Los Angeles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Tulsa Creates Commission on Reparations for Race Massacre

      by

      The NewsThe mayor of Tulsa, Okla., announced on Thursday the creation of a commission tasked with developing a plan for reparations for the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst racial attacks in U.S. history. The commission will study how reparations can be made to survivors of the massacre and their descendants, as well as residents of North Tulsa.Community members, activists, city leaders, clergy and children prayed in 2019 beside two grave markers for victims of the Tulsa Race Massacre.Joseph Rushmore for The New York TimesWhy It MattersDuring the 1921 massacre, white mobs burned Greenwood, a prosperous neighborhood known as Black Wall Street, to the ground. As many as 300 Black people were killed, hundreds more were injured, and thousands were left homeless. City officials, historians and the courts acknowledge that the massacre has led to generations of racial inequity in Tulsa.Calls for reparations in Tulsa are longstanding and have resulted in apologies, a scholarship program and other actions, but not direct financial redress.The last two known survivors of the massacre, now centenarians, have pursued reparations through the courts, but the Oklahoma Supreme Court dismissed their case in June.Two reports — one from a commission created by the State Legislature in 2001 and one by a group of Tulsa residents in 2023 — recommended reparations, including financial compensation. The commission announced Thursday, named the Beyond Apology Commission, follows the 2023 report’s calls for the city to create a group to examine and carry out a reparations program.Mayor G.T. Bynum, a Republican, has signaled that he wants this body to make recommendations that would result in tangible action. He wrote a social media post this week that the commission is not intended to be merely a “study group.”He also noted that part of the group’s mission is to produce a plan for a housing equity program by the end of November. (The mayor, who created the commission by executive order, is not seeking re-election, and his term will end in December.)Funds that could be used for that program have already been approved by voters, the mayor said.The debate over reparations has at times divided the city. In 2021, a dispute over who should compensate the survivors and their descendants preceded the sudden cancellation of an event commemorating the 100th anniversary of the massacre.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Passenger Who Tried to Open Cockpit Gets 19 Months in Prison

      by

      Juan Rivas, who threatened flight attendants with a champagne bottle and a plastic knife, tried to open an exit door of an American Airlines plane, prosecutors said.A California man who tried to intimidate flight attendants on an American Airlines flight using plastic silverware from a service cart and a glass champagne bottle, and then tried unsuccessfully to open an exit door and the cockpit, was sentenced on Wednesday to 19 months in prison.The man, Juan Remberto Rivas, 52, was arrested and charged with interfering with flight crew members on Feb. 13, 2022, after a flight from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.During the flight, Mr. Rivas, who, according to court records, admitted to using methamphetamines before the flight, began to panic and told flight attendants that the plane was not moving and that his family was in danger, court records said.His behavior led to a physical struggle that forced the plane to make an emergency landing in Kansas City, Mo.Mr. Rivas, who pleaded guilty in January, had faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison but prosecutors sought a sentence of 41 to 51 months despite him threatening to “bring down the plane,” court records and the attorney’s office said.“The government believes that the defendant’s actions were reckless because of his use of methamphetamine, rather than an intentional effort to bring down the aircraft,” the prosecution, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul S. Becker, argued in a sentencing memorandum.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More