California

Jan 10 (Reuters) - Police in Los Angeles, California, pulled the pilot from a crash-landed Cessna seconds before the aircraft was hit by a train on Sunday, sending debris flying in all directions.

Dramatic video obtained by Reuters shows several officers freeing the man from the downed plane, which had crashed shortly after takeoff in the Pacoima neighborhood, according to local media. The officers and pilot are just a few feet away from the tracks when the passing train destroys the plane.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) — A Marine Corps battalion commander testified Friday that in retrospect he would have halted the exercise that killed nine of his Marines whose amphibious assault vehicle sank off the Southern California coast but at the time he did not have accurate information to make such a decision.

Lt. Col. Michael J. Regner said his decisions were based in part on what other commanders told him, including that all the Marines had completed their swim certifications and that the aging vehicles they were in had been fixed and were ready for the mission.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The California surge in coronavirus cases has shut down schools and sidelined thousands of police, firefighters, teachers and health care workers but officials are hoping it will be short-lived.

“My hope is that, you know, by the time we get to February, we’re on the downside of seeing that massive amount of community transmission,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lawyers for Los Angeles County have failed to persuade a federal judge to end Vanessa Bryant’s lawsuit over gruesome photos of the helicopter crash that killed her husband, Kobe Bryant, her daughter Gianna and seven others.

U.S. District Judge John F. Walter on Wednesday rejected a county motion that would have dismissed the case, saying that “there are genuine issues of material facts for trial,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter said Sunday it had banned the personal account of far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for multiple violations of the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy, the latest strike against the firebrand whose embrace of conspiracy theories has been called “a cancer” for the GOP and led the House to boot her from committees.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — After an extended holiday break, the jury weighing fraud charges against former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes will get back to work Monday.

The eight men and four women who will determine Holmes’ fate spent much of their holiday season behind closed doors in a San Jose, California, courthouse, weighing reams of evidence presented during a three-month trial that captivated Silicon Valley.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — The jury weighing fraud charges against former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes will resume their lengthy deliberations amid some intrigue raised by a closed-door meeting among her attorneys, federal prosecutors and the judge presiding the case.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila held the “in camera” hearing Tuesday morning with two of Holmes’ lawyers, Kevin Downey and Lance Wade, along with a two of the prosecutors, Jeffrey Schenk and Robert Leach, according to a court filing late Tuesday night. Holmes was not present at the 23-minute hearing.

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 29 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has earned an "incomplete" grade in its first-year foreign policy because of its anti-China approach, said an op-ed published recently on the Los Angeles Times.

In the article titled "Does the Biden administration deserve a passing grade in foreign policy," Gregory F. Treverton, former chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, wrote that "on the Biden administration's first-year report card, its approach toward China earns it an 'incomplete' in foreign policy."

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Heavy overnight rains in Northern California left two people dead in a submerged car as authorities on Thursday ordered evacuations for a fire-scarred Southern California canyon area because of possible mud and debris flows.

Firefighters in Millbrae, just south of San Francisco, rescued two people who had climbed atop a vehicle at a flooded underpass. But they weren’t able to reach people in a fully submerged car, San Mateo County sheriff’s Det. Javier Acosta said.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles police fatally shot a 14-year-old girl who was inside a clothing store dressing room Thursday as they fired at a suspect who had assaulted a woman earlier, authorities said.

Police also killed the male suspect, authorities said. He and the girl have not been named. The woman who had been assaulted was taken to the hospital with moderate to serious injuries.

The shots were fired around 11:45 a.m. at a Burlington store — part of a chain formerly known as Burlington Coat Factory — in the North Hollywood area of the San Fernando Valley.