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Coloradans challenging COVID vaccine mandates see tepid results from courts even as legal landscape shifts

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:28:12 GMT

Coloradans who brought legal challenges to employers’ COVID-19 vaccine mandates have received a tepid response in state courts even as the wider legal landscape starts to shift to become more friendly toward claims that the right to religious freedom should protect people against mandatory vaccination, The Denver Post found.Such constitutional challenges to vaccine mandates have long been dismissed by courts — the U.S. Supreme Court first upheld vaccine mandates in 1905 — but recent moves by the justices to strengthen religious freedom in other contexts have begun a shift away from that long-held precedent, legal experts told The Post.“If you had written the textbook on public health law three or four years ago, what it would have said about (these) challenges is — not very likely to succeed,” said Daniel Goldberg, associate professor at the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus. “…The textbooks are being rewritten as ...

KTLA celebrates Founder's Day by beautifying trail to Hollywood Sign

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:28:12 GMT

KTLA is joining 115 other Nexstar Media Group stations in celebrating our company's Founder's Day. KTLA employees will spend the day improving the trail to the famous Hollywood Sign. Nexstar’s Founder’s Day of Caring occurs each year in June. Staff members at our TV stations receive paid time off for volunteer work in their communities. The choice of which organizations to support is made at the local level and covers a wide range of charities and social service agencies.

Colin Thorpe Dies in Pedestrian Collision on 98th Avenue [Peoria, AZ]

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:28:12 GMT

80-Year-Old Man Pronounced Dead after Pedestrian Accident near Peoria AvenuePEORIA, AZ (June 16, 2023) – Monday afternoon, Colin Thorpe was killed in a pedestrian collision on 98th Avenue.The incident occurred around 3:00 p.m., near Peoria Avenue on June 12th.Per reports, the driver of a westbound red 4-door sedan struck Thorpe who was crossing mid-block from north to south Peoria Avenue.Due to the extent of injuries sustained, medics pronounced 80-year-old Thorpe dead at the scene. Meanwhile, the involved driver did not suffer any injuries or pain, and remained at the scene to cooperate.The team at Sweet James would like to offer their heartfelt sympathies to the friends and family of Colin Thorpe who are grieving over the loss of their loved one. May you find comfort and strength during this difficult time.Losing a loved one in a pedestrian accident leaves a lasting impact on those left behind. At Sweet James, they know you and your family are going through a difficult time....

From Chloe to Beastie Boys — the New LA Weekly Playlist is Live

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:28:12 GMT

From Chloe to Beastie Boys: The 161st LA Weekly playlist, reviewing the musicians that we’ve been writing about all week, is live now. There’s electronic music from LUUDE, hip-hop from Coi Leray with Lil Kayla, R&B from Chloe and Nia Archives, rock from Nick Lowe and Elvis Costello, and so much more.Find us on Spotify here,or on Soundcloud here.Don’t forget to “Like” the playlists and “Follow” the profiles.Goblynne (Kiersten Friesen)From Chloe to Beastie BoysAlso this week:Print star Goblynne told us that, “The project is a lot about femininity and being told I was a woman, and then realizing that I’m nonbinary later on in my life. I often had this feeling growing up, especially when I’d be in ‘girls night’ or whatever, that I was different but I could never describe it. And whenever I’d be asked to look really feminine and this particular sort of girly way, I often just had this feeling of, I’m a creature, I’m a monster. It was this intrusive, at the time very negative self-tal...

United Airlines employees allegedly conspired to steal marijuana from baggage, unaware that both the feds and local robbers were onto them

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:28:12 GMT

SAN FRANCISCO — For years, a group of cargo agents allegedly worked together to steal massive amounts of marijuana from checked bags, in amounts so high some of the participants were reportedly paid $10,000 per week for the thefts.But in June 2021, the conspirators learned the hard way that word of their scheme had gotten around, when two of them were robbed at gunpoint for an undisclosed amount of marijuana at the San Francisco International Airport’s employee parking lot. Seventeen months later, they got another wakeup call; another co-conspirator was stopped in the airport’s parking garage while transporting 30 pounds of marijuana, but this time by the FBI, according to the criminal complaint.Now, the two men accused of leading the operating, Joel Lamont Dunn and Adrian Webb, are facing federal charges of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. According to the criminal complaint, Dunn, Webb and other cargo agents — all employed by United Airlines...

Truck driver found guilty of killing 11 at Pittsburgh synagogue, faces death penalty

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:28:12 GMT

By Peter Smith | Associated PressPITTSBURGH — A truck driver who expressed hatred of Jews was convicted Friday of barging into a Pittsburgh synagogue and shooting everyone he could find, killing 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror for which he could be sentenced to die.The guilty verdict was a foregone conclusion after Robert Bowers’ own lawyers conceded at the trial’s outset that he attacked and killed worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue on Oct. 27, 2018, in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. Jurors must now decide whether the 50-year-old should be sent to death row or sentenced to life in prison without parole as the federal trial shifts to a penalty phase expected to last several weeks.Bowers was convicted of all 63 criminal counts he faced, including hate crimes resulting in death and obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death. His attorneys had offered a guilty plea in return for a life sentence, but prosecutors refused, opting i...

Father’s Day reality check: Dads can give really odd advice

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:28:12 GMT

Today is all about gauzy tributes to the deep, soulful wisdom of our beloved fathers, about proclaiming our eternal gratitude for Dad’s profound guidance on how to live and grow and thrive.Except most of us didn’t have THAT father.“Eighty percent of people don’t care about your problems, and the other 20% are glad you have them,” the decidedly unsentimental father of art dealer and erstwhile Laguna Beach city councilman Peter Blake once observed, setting him up for years of internal reckoning.Peter Blake  (File Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG) “You can’t run with the big dogs if you piss like a puppy” was the tough-guy motto of the Sartor family of — where else? — New Jersey. Their father’s alleged wisdom has provided material that  Lisanne Sartor and Colette Sartor of Los Angeles — identical twins, writers and filmmakers — mine to this very day.Colette Sartor and Lisanne Sartor (Courtesy Sartors) Diana Hong’s dad had a rather dark sense of humor. When...

Drive-by shooter targets Berkeley freeway landscape crew

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:28:12 GMT

BERKELEY — The California Highway Patrol was continuing to search Friday for a drive-by gunman who targeted a landscaping crew Wednesday morning on the University Avenue offramp from Interstate 80.None of the 14 workers were injured.The shooting happened about 11:50 a.m. Wednesday on the offramp from the westbound lanes of I-80.The CHP said 14 people employed by a landscaping company that contracts with Caltrans were working on the off-ramp.The CHP said a passenger in a white Ford Crown Victoria pointed a black handgun out a window and fired two shots at the crew as the car kept going.Detailed descriptions of the shooter and driver were not released. The CHP said the motive for the shooting was unclear.Traffic was not impacted by the shooting, the CHP said.Anyone with information about the suspects is asked to call the Oakland CHP office at 510-457-2875 and ask for Officer Corbell.There have been numerous shootings on East Bay freeways so far this year, including several that ...

Southern California water company to get $21 million to transform Delta island

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:28:12 GMT

Grazing cattle on an island in the central Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta could soon make way for Contra Costa County’s first rice fields and a mosaic of restored wetlands now that its owner has received a $20.9 million state grant.The company plans to restore nearly 5,000 acres of Webb Tract, including 3,000 in wetlands, 1,500 in rice fields and the rest in other habitats, such as grasslands and scrub.The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy Board recently approved funding for the restoration work at Webb Tract, which the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California proposed on land it purchased along with three other islands – Bouldin, Bacon and Holland – for $175 million in 2016. At the time, the district said it could use them to store construction equipment, but critics warned that it would make it easier for the governor’s proposed — and later scrapped — California Water Fix project to send more water to Southern California, with twin tunnels to...

Feds accuse Minneapolis police of rights violations after George Floyd’s killing

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:28:12 GMT

By Jim Salter and Mark Vancleave | Associated PressMINNEAPOLIS — The Justice Department alleged Friday that Minneapolis police have systematically discriminated against Black and Native American people for years and often violated constitutional rights following a sweeping investigation that began after George Floyd was killed.The two-year probe found that Minneapolis officers used excessive force, including “unjustified deadly force,” and violated the rights of people engaged in constitutionally protected speech. The investigation also found that both police and the city discriminated against people with “behavioral health disabilities” when officers are called for help.“We observed many MPD officers who did their difficult work with professionalism, courage and respect,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told a news conference in Minneapolis. “But the patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible.”Garland said officers routinely disregarded the safe...