Apparent tornado near Los Angeles rips apart roofs, damages vehicles

Apparent tornado near Los Angeles rips apart roofs, damages vehicles


A Los Angeles suburb was hit by a possible tornado Wednesday afternoon, with significant damage done to a line of commercial buildings and one person suffering an injury.

The National Weather Service sent teams to assess damage in Montebello, as well as the city of Carpinteria, where a separate tornado was rumored to hit Tuesday.

Five structures and a small number of vehicles were damaged, but the full assessment is still ongoing.

The lone individual who was injured was taken to the hospital but the severity of the injury is unknown, according to city spokesman Alex Gillman.

Damage to a building is seen on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 in Montebello, Calif., after a possible tornado.

The likelihood that the violent cloud was a tornado is “very possible” said meteorologist Rose Schoenfeld. “It’s definitely not something that’s common for the region,” she said in a statement from the weather service.

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Schoenfeld noted that the last time they had sent out tornado assessment teams from their Los Angeles office was for an event in Ventura County in 2016.

The severe weather was part of a massive rainstorm that swept through San Francisco earlier this week, killing two people.

Trees and power lines were blown down during the storm, several glass windows were torn off of San Francisco high-rises, and three barges got loose causing damage to a nearby bridge.

Damage to a building is seen on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 in Montebello, Calif., after a possible tornado.

A record was broken in Los Angeles, as the 1.4 inches of rainfall surpassed the 1.34 inches recorded in 1983.

Roughly 121,000 customers throughout California were without electricity early Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us.

For the state that’s coming out of an unusual winter marked by a “blizzard warning,” in addition to heavy rainfall and snow in its mountainous regions, the first couple days of spring have brought much of the same.

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Prince William shows support for Ukraine with surprise visit to Poland

Prince William shows support for Ukraine with surprise visit to Poland


Prince William showed his support for war-torn Ukraine on Wednesday with an unannounced trip to neighboring Poland, where he met with members of the British and Polish militaries.

William visited the capital city of Warsaw, as well as Rzeszow, a city near the Ukraine border that has accommodated Ukrainian refugees and helped ship aid packages into the country.

“I’m here because I want to personally thank the Polish and British troops working in close and crucial partnership,” William said in a statement, according to CNN. “I also want to pay tribute to the inspiring humanity of the Polish people. You have opened your hearts as much as your homes.”

“That’s why this afternoon I visited Rzeszow to hear their stories and recognize their duty,” he added. “I was struck by their passion as well as their shared determination to defend our shared freedoms.”

Prince William, Prince of Wales shakes hands at an accommodation center during his visit on March 22, 2023 in Warsaw, Poland.

William, a former pilot with the Royal Air Force Search and Rescue Force, plans to meet Thursday with Polish President Andrzej Duda and with Ukrainians living in Poland.

Britain — where William, 40, is next in line to the throne — has sent more than $2.8 billion in military aid to Ukraine since Russia invaded the country 13 months ago.

William’s visit comes a month after President Biden made a surprise stop in Ukraine, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, ahead of a scheduled trip to Poland.

“One year later, Kyiv stands,” Biden said during the Ukraine trip, which took place days before the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion. “And Ukraine stands. Democracy stands. The Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”

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Stephen Smith death, first ruled a hit-and-run, now being investigated as homicide following Murdaugh case

Stephen Smith death, first ruled a hit-and-run, now being investigated as homicide following Murdaugh case


South Carolina police are investigating the death of Stephen Smith — which came to light in the recent high-profile trial of attorney Alex Murdaugh — as a homicide, says a local law firm working with Smith’s family.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division will participate in an exhumation of Smith’s body to gather more evidence, the Bland Richter law firm said Tuesday, citing a phone call with Chief Mark Keel.

The 19-year-old Smith was found dead on a rural Hampton County, S.C., road after an alleged hit-and-run incident in 2015. Investigators initially thought the teen had been struck while walking from his car after running out of gas.

No suspect was ever identified and no arrests were made, although Paul Murdaugh and his brother Buster were interviewed as persons of interest.

Buster Murdaugh, left, and his girlfriend Brooklynn White watch a video clip from Buster's brother Paul's phone in the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, S.C., Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023.

The investigation halted and Smith’s death was labeled a highway vehicular manslaughter. But the recent trial of Alex Murdaugh for the 2021 murders of son Paul Murdaugh and wife Maggie Murdaugh prompted police to reopen the probe, according to Bland Richter.

Buster Murdaugh broke his silence about the matter on Monday, claiming he had no involvement whatsoever in Smith’s death.

The victim’s mother Sandy Smith has insisted that the death was no accident and that her son’s injuries were “not consistent with a hit-and-run.”

She recently started a GoFundMe page to raise money for an independent autopsy. The page has already secured over $80,000.

“We have a chance to right eight years of wrongs, and we intend to do just that,” lawyer Eric Bland of Bland Richter said in a statement.





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Biden designates indigenous ancestral land in El Paso a national monument

Biden designates indigenous ancestral land in El Paso a national monument


A historical landscape known as Castner Range is now a national monument, President Biden announced Tuesday.

The swath of land in El Paso, Tex., which generations of Latinos have fought to preserve, spans about 7,000 acres and is situated along the Rio Grande.

The indigenous ancestral lands include numerous archeological sites and abundant wildlife.

President Joe Biden speaks at the White House Conservation in Action Summit at the Department of the Interior, Tuesday, March 21, 2023, in Washington.

The move came as part of a larger announcement from Biden, who said over half a million acres in Nevada and Texas are becoming national monuments. The president is also instituting a marine sanctuary in U.S. waters near the Pacific Remote Islands near Hawaii.

These are “natural treasures” that “define our identity as a nation,” Biden said Tuesday during the White House summit on conservation action. “They’re a birthright we have to pass down to generation after generation.”

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Avi Kwa Ame, a desert mountain in Nevada that Native Americans consider sacred, was named a national monument along with Castner Range.

Conservation and tribal organizations praised Biden for the move to protect the lands, but Nevada’s Republican governor saw it as an improper “federal confiscation” of Nevada’s territory.

“This kind of ‘Washington Knows Best’ policy might win plaudits from unaccountable special interests, but it’s going to cost our state jobs and economic opportunity,” Gov. Joe Lombardo said in a statement.

The Nevada land that is now protected spans more than 500,000 acres and borders Arizona and California state lines. The site is home to bighorn sheep, desert tortoises and Joshua trees, some of which are 900 years old.

In addition to protecting Indigenous land, the Castner Range will also honor the training and testing sites of the U.S. Army during World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

The area is still littered with unexploded munitions, according to NBC News. The plan is to make the landscape safe again for the people of El Paso to explore and “learn from nature,” the White House said in a statement.

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Colorado man attacked by mountain lion while sitting in hot tub

Colorado man attacked by mountain lion while sitting in hot tub


That’s one way to ruin the vibes.

A man was attacked from behind by a mountain lion while sitting in a hot tub outside a rental home in rural Colorado.

The incident occurred around 8 p.m. on Saturday night in a forest roughly five miles west of Nathrop. The man told officials he was soaking in the hot tub with his wife when he felt something grab onto his head.

“He and his wife began screaming and splashing water at the animal,” said Colorado Parks and Wildlife in a statement.

Mountain lion

The man’s wife then shined a flashlight on the animal and saw it was a mountain lion. The light, splashing and noise caused the animal to retreat about 20 feet away.

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“They continued to scream at the mountain lion and after a short time it moved up to the top of a hill near some rocks where it crouched down and continued to watch the couple,” the statement continued.

The couple then made their way back into the house to call authorities.

The wildlife agency said the man had superficial scratches on the top of his head and by his right ear that were consistent with mountain lion claws. He had already administered first aid to himself by the time Parks and Wildlife arrived to the home and he declined further medical assistance.

Wildlife officials set up a trap but were unable to find the animal because of snowy conditions.

The agency said this was the 24th mountain lion attack on a human in Colorado since 1990 and the first since last year. Three of those attacks were fatal.

“We think it’s likely the mountain lion saw the man’s head move in the darkness at ground-level but didn’t recognize the people in the hot tub,” Sean Shepherd, area wildlife manager, said in the statement. “The couple did the right thing by making noise and shining a light on the lion.”

“Although this victim had only minor injuries, we take this incident seriously,” he continued. “We have alerted neighbors and posted signs warning of lion activity. And we will continue to track the lion and lion activity.”



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Trump supporters begin gathering in NYC with indictment in Stormy Daniels hush money probe possible Wednesday

Trump supporters begin gathering in NYC with indictment in Stormy Daniels hush money probe possible Wednesday


Donald Trump supporters flocked to the lower Manhattan courthouses Tuesday — the day he predicted his arrest — with possible criminal charges against the former president expected to land as soon as Wednesday in the Stormy Daniels hush money probe.

Cheri Saxon, 45, said she had traveled from Chicago to protest the potential indictment on charges related to Trump’s alleged payment to porn star Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.

“I’m here to protest what’s going on right now with the DA here,” Saxon said. “I hate Biden. I hate this whole administration. They’re ruining us. Biden is making us look weak. He’s bringing us into World War III. I mean, for Christ’s sake, it’s gotta stop. We need to stage a coup and get him out of there.”

Daniel Wolverton from Arizona is pictured Tuesday outside the New York County Criminal Court in Manhattan.

Matthew Eastman, 34, of Manhattan, was selling “Make America Great Again” caps off the back of his pickup truck outside Family Court.

“I’m out to support my president. I don’t want to see him go to jail. I don’t think he’s going. I think he’s a free man. He deserves to be free. He did a lot for this country that no other president has,” Eastman said, waving a flag that read “F–k Biden.”

DA Alvin Bragg has remained mum on the status of a grand jury investigation into Trump believed to be wrapping up based on an invitation to testify extended to Trump himself — which he declined — sending veteran defense lawyer Robert Costello instead.

Former President Donald Trump and District Attorney Alvin Bragg

The panel heard from Costello on Monday. The attorney, who’s represented former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and right-wing strategist Steve Bannon, said he contacted prosecutors seeking to provide evidence he said would discredit Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime fixer-turned-enemy.

Cohen, who’s twice testified before the grand jury, is central to the probe into the $130,000 payment to ls paying her off to stay buy Daniels’ silence about a sexual tryst she alleges she had with Trump during a 2006 Lake Tahoe charity golf event.

Cohen went to federal prison for issuing the payment to Daniels, spending half his sentence at his family residence at Trump Park Ave. in an ankle monitor.

Press, protesters and supporters of Donald Trump are pictured Tuesday in Lower Manhattan.

Cohen was in the building on standby during Costello’s testimony but left without the DA calling him as a rebuttal witness. It wasn’t clear whether they planned to when grand jurors next meet on Wednesday, when the grand jury will meet convene again.

Once all the evidence is presented, the panel will vote on whether to indict Trump. The criminal charges would mark the first brought against a former U.S. president.

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Sources connected to the investigation say DA Bragg is considering felony level charges against Trump related to how he paid Cohen back for payment to Daniels.

In his guilty plea, Cohen said the hush money was made at Trump’s direction for the “principal purpose” of influencing the 2016 presidential election. The feds said he falsely billed Trump for retainer services, with the president and his company falsely logging the reimbursement as “legal expenses.” Trump was famously referred to in the federal case as “Individual 1.”

Protesters of Donald Trump are pictured Tuesday in Lower Manhattan.

Costello, who acted as a legal adviser to Cohen after his office and hotel room were raided by the FBI in 2018, sought to show grand jurors at least 300 emails concerning his relationship to Cohen. He said they were only interested in a handful and that he asked the panel to request to review all of them.

In a tweet on Tuesday, Daniels said she had plans for how to celebrate if Trump winds up getting his mugshot taken.

“I won’t walk, I’ll dance down the street when he is ‘selected‘ to go to jail,“ Daniels said.



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