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On Thursday morning, the campus at the University of California, Los Angeles, reflected the aftermath of a protest in defeat. Littered across the lawn was a mass of trampled tents, sleeping bags, pizza boxes, blankets and poles. About 200 people were arrested and booked after a standoff with the authorities, according to Nicole Nishida, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Most were charged with misdemeanors such as unlawful assembly, she said, and the majority had been released by midmorning. About 300 protesters left voluntarily, according to the university.

Persons: Nicole Nishida Organizations: University of California, Los, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, midmorning Locations: Los Angeles

☆ Ohtani’s Dizzying 3 Weeks End in Exoneration by Authorities
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-13 | by ( Tim Arango | Michael S. Schmidt | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

In the clubhouse after the Los Angeles Dodgers won their season opener in Seoul last month, Shohei Ohtani’s longtime interpreter, Ippei Mizuhara, made a stunning admission to the team: He was a gambling addict, and Ohtani had paid his debts to a bookmaker. Ohtani, who is not fluent in English, listened but failed to fully grasp what Mizuhara said. He knew enough to grow suspicious, however, and he wanted answers. A couple of hours later, around midnight, Ohtani finally had the chance to pull Mizuhara into a conference room in the basement of the Fairmont Ambassador Hotel in Seoul. With just the two of them there, Mizuhara leveled with his boss: He had accrued enormous debts to the bookmaker and had been stealing the baseball star’s money to pay them off.

Persons: Shohei Ohtani’s, Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani, Mizuhara Organizations: Los Angeles Dodgers Locations: Seoul, Fairmont

☆ Prosecutors Say Ohtani’s Interpreter Stole $16 Million From Star
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-11 | by ( Tim Arango | Michael S. Schmidt | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Federal prosecutors released a detailed complaint on Thursday that claimed Ippei Mizuhara, the former interpreter for Shohei Ohtani, orchestrated a sprawling scheme over years to steal $16 million of the baseball star’s money to feed his gambling addiction. The money that Mizuhara took from Ohtani came directly from an account where Ohtani’s baseball salary was paid, the authorities said. “There’s no indication Mr. Ohtani authorized the $16 million from his account to the bookmakers,” said E. Martin Estrada, the U.S. attorney for the Central District of California. The authorities charged Mizuhara with bank fraud, for which the maximum penalty is 30 years in prison. The complaint contains a message sent by Mizuhara in which he admits to a bookmaker that he stole the money from Ohtani.

Persons: Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani, Mizuhara, Ohtani, “, ”, Martin Estrada Organizations: Central, Central District of, Mizuhara Locations: U.S, Central District, Central District of California, Ohtani

☆ Ohtani’s Former Interpreter Is Said to Be Negotiating a Guilty Plea
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-10 | by ( Tim Arango | Michael S. Schmidt | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ippei Mizuhara, the former translator for Shohei Ohtani who was fired late last month amid allegations he stole millions of dollars from the baseball star’s bank account to cover debts that Mizuhara owed to an illegal bookmaker, is in negotiations to plead guilty to federal crimes in connection with the purported theft, according to three people briefed on the matter. The investigation, which began about three weeks ago after news of the alleged theft broke while Ohtani’s team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, was opening its season with two games in South Korea, is rapidly nearing a conclusion, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is continuing. A guilty plea from Mizuhara before a federal judge — likely to include an admission of a range of facts related to any illegal conduct — could confirm the account that Ohtani gave to reporters two weeks ago, in which he said he had no knowledge of what happened to the money. Those briefed on the matter claim that prosecutors have uncovered evidence that Mizuhara may have stolen more money from Ohtani than the $4.5 million he was initially accused of pilfering, the people said. In particular, the authorities think they have evidence that Mizuhara was able to change the settings on Ohtani’s bank account so Ohtani would not receive alerts and confirmations about transactions, the three people said.

Persons: Ippei Mizuhara, Shohei Ohtani, Mizuhara, —, Ohtani, pilfering Organizations: Los Angeles Dodgers Locations: South Korea, Mizuhara

☆ Shohei Ohtani Is Home and Focused on Baseball. Dodgers Fans Are Relieved.
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Tim Arango | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The top deck of Dodger Stadium is far from the action but may have the best view in baseball. During night games, as the sun goes down, the sky glows pink. Down below, the full choreography of the game is on display, offering a panoramic view shunned by the movie stars and moguls who fill the sections behind home plate. “Tears of joy,” said Ego, a retired schoolteacher who has been coming to Dodgers game since the 1960s. “My father worked so hard maintaining the garden.”

Persons: Sotaro Suzuki, Kimi, Suzuki’s, ”, “ Organizations: Dodger, Dodgers, Brooklyn Locations: Gabriel Mountains, Japanese, Japan, Los Angeles

☆ Young Victims, Young Suspects: The Kansas City Shooting and Gun Violence
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-16 | by ( Tim Arango | Robert Gebeloff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

After the shooting in Kansas City this week at a parade to celebrate the Super Bowl victory of the hometown Chiefs, children who had been struck by gunfire flooded into Children’s Mercy Hospital, less than a mile from Union Station, where the shooting occurred. “Fear,” the hospital’s chief nursing officer, Stephanie Meyer, told reporters. “The one word I would use to describe what we saw and how they felt when they came to us was fear.”On the other side of the guns were young people, too, according to the authorities who said on Friday that two teenagers detained in the aftermath of the shooting had been charged with “gun-related” offenses and with resisting arrest. What had seemed like an attack on the parade itself turned out to be a far more common act of American violence: a dispute that ended in gunfire, and in this case, left one person dead and 22 people injured, about half of them younger than 16.

Persons: Stephanie Meyer Organizations: hometown Chiefs, Mercy, Station Locations: Kansas City

☆ A Mom’s Conviction Offers Prosecutors a New Tactic in Mass Shooting Cases
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-06 | by ( Tim Arango | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The guilty verdict on Tuesday against the mother of a Michigan teenager who murdered four students in 2021 in the state’s deadliest school shooting is likely to ripple across the country’s legal landscape as prosecutors find themselves weighing a new way to seek justice in mass shootings. But, legal experts say, don’t expect a rush of similar cases. Ethan pleaded guilty in 2022 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Ms. Crumbley was convicted on four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each student her son killed. She faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, and sentencing is scheduled for April 9.

Persons: ”, Eve Brensike Primus, “, I’m, that’s, That’s, Jennifer Crumbley —, Ethan Crumbley, Ethan, Crumbley Organizations: University of Michigan, Oxford High School Locations: Michigan

The rare torrent of rain that slammed the San Diego area on Monday forced numerous residents to navigate life-threatening scenes that they had trouble believing even as they recounted them. “What happened yesterday was extraordinary,” said Todd Gloria, the mayor of San Diego. On Tuesday, officials assessed the devastation in a region where very few residents have flood insurance. The record pace of the rainfall — a deluge of nearly three inches in three hours — had quickly overwhelmed drainage systems. According to the National Weather Service, it was the fourth greatest total for any day in recorded San Diego history, going back to 1850.

Persons: ”, Todd Gloria, — Organizations: National Weather Service Locations: San Diego, Diego

A jury on Thursday convicted David DePape of federal crimes for breaking into the San Francisco home of Nancy Pelosi and beating her husband with a hammer in an attack last year that raised fears of political violence ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. The jury reached its decision after deliberating for roughly eight hours following a trial that lasted four days. Mr. DePape’s lawyers did not contest the evidence against him, which included police body camera video of the attack on Paul Pelosi and Mr. DePape’s own admissions to the police and on the witness stand. Mr. DePape, 43, faces a possible sentence of life in prison. Defense lawyers had argued to the jury that Mr. DePape’s bludgeoning of Mr. Pelosi, 83, while on a mission to kidnap his wife — then the speaker of the House and second in line to the presidency — did not amount to federal crimes.

Persons: David DePape, Nancy Pelosi, Paul Pelosi, DePape’s, DePape, Mr, Pelosi, — Organizations: San Locations: San Francisco

It was a typical low-key evening for Paul Pelosi while his wife was out of town: dinner out, home around 10 p.m., watch a little television, and then lights out close to midnight. Then about two hours later, he was woken up by an intruder who burst into his third-floor bedroom. “The door opened and a very large man came in with a hammer in one hand and some ties in the other,” Mr. Pelosi, 83, told a jury on Monday. “And he said, ‘Where’s Nancy?’”In a San Francisco courtroom, Mr. Pelosi, the husband of Representative Nancy Pelosi, spoke for the first time publicly about the brutal attack last year that left him hospitalized for days with a cracked skull. The testimony came during the federal trial of David DePape, who has been accused of bludgeoning Mr. Pelosi as he sought out Ms. Pelosi, who was the speaker of the House and in Washington at the time.

Persons: Paul Pelosi, Mr, Pelosi, ‘, Nancy, ’, Nancy Pelosi, David DePape, DePape Locations: San Francisco, Washington

☆ Lahaina’s Immigrants Weigh an Uncertain Future
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-10 | by ( Tim Arango | More About Tim Arango | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

But she found a measure of happiness: peace, community, beautiful sunsets and an apartment near the Pacific Ocean. Now even that modest bit of paradise is in jeopardy, after the wildfire that ravaged Lahaina in August and killed 99 people. She soon found herself living in the hotel where she worked. “You can start a new life in another place,” she has told her children. Many families are facing similar dilemmas as they wonder whether a future Lahaina will have a place for them.

Persons: Nancy Morales, Morales Locations: Hawaii, Mexico City, Mexico, Maui, Lahaina, United States

David DePape lived a solitary life, worked carpentry jobs and was seemingly obsessed with right-wing conspiracy theories on the internet, where he railed about “wokism,” questioned the Holocaust and embraced Pizzagate and QAnon. Then in October 2022, the police said, Mr. DePape, 43, bust into Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and bludgeoned her husband, when she was still the House speaker. The case will now be presented to a jury when Mr. DePape’s federal trial in San Francisco opens on Thursday. That the case is coming to trial at all is something of a surprise, given the evidence. Mr. DePape admitted to the crimes in a police interview after his arrest, prosecutors say.

Persons: David DePape, “, ”, DePape, Nancy Pelosi’s, Ms, Pelosi, Paul Pelosi, didn’t Locations: Francisco, United States, San Francisco

☆ Feinstein Battle Over Her Late Husband’s Fortune Heads to Mediation
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-11 | by ( Tim Arango | More About Tim Arango | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A judge in San Francisco on Monday ordered the two factions of Senator Dianne Feinstein’s family fighting over the estate of her late husband, the wealthy financier Richard C. Blum, to try to settle the case through mediation. The order, which both sides agreed to, came as the lawyers in the case appeared in a courtroom for the first time after trading hostile accusations in legal filings over the summer. On one side is Senator Feinstein, who at 90 is in declining health and has faced questions about her ability to carry out the duties of her job, and her daughter, Katherine Feinstein, a former San Francisco judge. On the other side are the three daughters of Mr. Blum from a previous marriage, and his former business partners who are the trustees of his estate. In three separate lawsuits, Senator Feinstein, with her daughter serving as her legal representative, is fighting to sell a multimillion-dollar vacation home in Stinson Beach, north of San Francisco; seeking proceeds from the estate, including from Mr. Blum’s life insurance policy, to pay for her medical expenses; and asking the court to allow her to appoint Katherine Feinstein as a trustee of the estate.

Persons: Dianne Feinstein’s, Richard C, Blum, Feinstein, Katherine Feinstein, Mr Organizations: Monday Locations: San Francisco, Stinson Beach

Five more people have been identified, but their names have not yet been released because the authorities have not been able to notify their families. The last time the death toll changed was on Aug. 21, the day that President Biden visited Lahaina, a span of time that reflects the new phase of the recovery effort, as well as the likelihood that many people’s bodies were reduced to unrecoverable ash. The actual death toll is unlikely to be determined for weeks or months. He said that ANDE’s technicians have left Maui, and that determining the final death toll would now largely rely on slow-paced detective work — for instance, interviewing the family and friends of those missing to determine if they were in Lahaina that day and where. The authorities will have to determine whether their investigative results are sufficient to declare those still missing as dead.

Persons: Biden, Stephen Meer, — Locations: Lahaina, California, Colorado, Maui

Officials have been bracing the public for the likelihood that the number of confirmed dead from the fires — which stands at 115 — will rise substantially. officials, along with Maui Police, the Red Cross and other agencies, examined various lists compiled by shelters, cross referencing and combining them into one tally. Many people died near Front Street in Lahaina, which runs along the sea wall, in their cars or in the ocean. So far, the authorities have released the names of 35 people who are confirmed dead and have been identified through DNA testing. On Thursday, the first child, a 7-year-old, was added to the list of confirmed deaths.

Persons: Mr, Pelletier, F.B.I Organizations: Maui Police Locations: Lahaina

In the aftermath of the Camp fire that destroyed Paradise, Calif., in 2018, the tally of the missing reached almost 1,300. But by releasing the names of the unaccounted for, the authorities were able to slowly whittle down the list. Of the more than 1,000 still missing in the Lahaina fire, officials from the county of Maui said they did not have any estimate of how many were presumed dead. They did say they had not identified any minors in official tallies of the missing. Classes at four schools on West Maui had been canceled the morning of the fires because of high winds and power outages, according to local news reports.

Persons: ” Steven Merrill, whittle Locations: ’, Honolulu, Maui, Calif, Lahaina, West Maui

Jason Musgrove has spent every day for the past two weeks trying to find out whether his mother is alive or dead. He and his stepfather drive to shelters, clinics and aid distribution sites around Maui, lurching between hope and despair, like hundreds of other families still searching for relatives and friends in the wake of the fires that destroyed the coastal town of Lahaina. Mr. Musgrove asks: Has his mother, Linda Vaikeli, 69, ended up as a Jane Doe in a burn unit? The fire’s official death toll of 115 marks the worst wildfire in more than a century, but that figure has overshadowed a potentially more ominous statistic: Roughly 1,000 to 1,100 others are still listed as unaccounted for, according to the F.B.I. They include immigrant hotel workers who spoke little English, multigenerational families who were living in close quarters when the fire swept through their homes, residents of homeless encampments, and grandparents who had trouble walking and did not use cellphones.

Persons: Jason Musgrove, Musgrove, Linda Vaikeli, Jane Doe Locations: Maui, Lahaina, Mr

It was the firestorm that wildfire experts and residents on Maui had warned about for years — a blaze fueled by hurricane winds roaring through untamed grasses and into a 13,000-person coastal town with few ways in or out. Local officials had released plan after plan acknowledging that wildfire was all but certain. Cellphone sites were burned and lost power, leaving people unable to communicate or receive emergency alerts. And while fire departments and wildfire-preparedness groups have long urged people in fire-prone areas like West Maui to be ready and leave early, other advice from the authorities was far less concrete. The state of Hawaii’s own guide for how people should respond to hurricanes, tsunamis and other disasters does not include any direction on what to do in a wildfire.

Locations: Maui, Lahaina, West Maui

☆ First, a Ferocious Fire. Now a Slow, Grim Search for the Dead.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-16 | by ( Tim Arango | More About Tim Arango | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

DNA specialists who have been working with Ukrainian investigators to document suspected Russian war crimes. Veterans of the post-Sept. 11 search at ground zero. Anthropologists who were enlisted to examine human remains after the California wildfire that until last week was America’s deadliest in more than a century. They are among the experts who have been arriving in Maui this week to join the painstaking process of recovering and identifying at least 101 people who perished last week in the historic Hawaii town of Lahaina. “Over the course of the next 10 days, this number could double,” Gov.

Persons: Josh Green, “ Organizations: ”, CNN Locations: California, Maui, Hawaii, Lahaina, “, Northern California, Paradise, Sierra Nevada

Many wildfires in the United States occur when poles owned by utilities or other structures carrying power lines are blown down, or when branches or other objects land on power lines and cause them to produce high-energy flashes of electricity that can start fires. Image Nearly a week after the wildfire tore through Lahaina, state and local officials have not determined a cause for the blaze. Like most other utilities, Hawaiian Electric operates under the scrutiny of public commissioners who have to approve its spending plans. Power lines have caused catastrophic wildfires in California in recent years, prompting lawsuits that have led to multibillion-dollar payouts by the state’s utilities. Hawaiian Electric in a regulatory filing last year detailed measures aimed at reducing the risk of its equipment causing fires.

Persons: Hurricane Dora, “, ”, James Frantz, Frantz, There’s, Max Whittaker, Shahriar Pourreza, Shelee Kimura, ” Ms, Kimura, Pourreza, Michael Wara, Philip Cheung, Bob Marshall, Jim Kelly, Ken Pimlott, Anne Lopez, Mr, Wara, Kellen Browning, John Keefe, Susan C, Beachy, Alain Delaquérière Organizations: Wildfire, National Weather Service, Frantz Law, Hawaiian Electric, The New York Times, Guggenheim Securities, Maui Electric, Pacific Gas, Pacific Gas and Electric, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Pacific Disaster Center, Stanford University, The New York Times Lightning, Western, NASA, Whisker Labs, Labs, California Department of Forestry, Stanford, U.S . Energy Information Administration Locations: Lahaina, West Maui, Maui, California, United States, Northern California, Paradise, Hawaii, Western United States, Maui County, Germantown, Md, San Francisco

Raised in affluence, Senator Feinstein has long been among the wealthiest members of Congress. Among the backdrops to the fight over Mr. Blum’s estate, however, are questions about the extent of his fortune, as well as the out-of-pocket cost of home health care that Senator Feinstein has received since her bout with shingles earlier this year. During his lifetime, Mr. Blum, Senator Feinstein’s third husband and a private equity magnate, was often referred to in public accounts as a billionaire. However, people familiar with the family’s finances dispute that characterization and say that Mr. Blum’s wealth was less than some heirs had expected. Mr. Blum’s friends said that the pandemic cut deeply into his investments, particularly his extensive holdings in hotels.

Persons: ”, Jerry Roberts, Dianne Feinstein, Feinstein, Blum, Feinstein’s, Blum’s Organizations: Senate Locations: San Francisco neighborhood, Pacific Heights, Aspen, Colo, Hawaii, Kauai, Washington ,

☆ Survey of 30 U.S. Cities Shows Nearly 10 Percent Drop in Homicides in 2023
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Tim Arango | More About Tim Arango | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Even so, violent crime is still considerably higher than just before the pandemic, the benchmark that police chiefs and city leaders are striving to return to, as cities remain awash in guns. In the new report, the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice examined crime data from 30 U.S. cities — including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Denver — and found that through the first half of the year there were 202 fewer homicides, a drop of more than 9 percent. Still, homicides across those cities are 24 percent higher than in same period of 2019. “I would call the result heartening,” said Richard Rosenfeld, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who was the lead author of the report. Most cities have not returned to the homicide levels that were prevailing just prior to the height of the pandemic.

Persons: George Floyd, “, ”, Richard Rosenfeld, Louis Organizations: Criminal, Denver, University of Missouri Locations: Minneapolis, United States, U.S, Chicago, Los Angeles , New York, Philadelphia

☆ Schools Bring Police Back to Campuses, Reversing Racial Justice Decisions
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( Tim Arango | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The trial — thought to be the first in the nation against a member of law enforcement for inaction in a school shooting — has raised questions about the duty of campus officers during school violence. A CBS News poll conducted after the Uvalde shooting showed that 75 percent of parents of school-age children wanted armed security on their campuses. The role of school resource officers is as complicated as ever. And the Parkland and Uvalde shootings highlighted failures by the police to stop mass killings, bringing into question how effective they may actually be. Less than six weeks later, a 17-year-old student at the same school shot and wounded two school administrators; he was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot.

Persons: Scot Peterson, —, Peterson, Luis Garcia Organizations: CBS, East High School Locations: Florida, Parkland, Uvalde , Texas, Denver

☆ Liberal Prosecutors Are Revisiting Police Killings but Charging Few Officers So Far
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Eliza Fawcett | Tim Arango | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The special prosecutor, Lawrence Middleton, had secured convictions in a 1993 federal trial against Los Angeles Police Department officers for beating Rodney King. (“Both officers’ use of deadly force was reasonable under the circumstances,” Ms. Lacey wrote in a 2019 memo.) The re-examinations themselves take time, and liberal prosecutors may yet file criminal charges against more officers in past cases. The police had responded to a call that Mr. Gonzalez, 26, was acting strangely in a park and talking to himself. The officer, Hector Jimenez, was cleared in each case and remains with the Oakland Police Department.

Persons: Lawrence Middleton, Rodney King, Christopher Deandre Mitchell, ” Ms, Lacey, Irving, “, Ed Obayashi, Mario Gonzalez, Gonzalez, Obayashi, Price, Mr, Ms, Price’s, Moppin, Hector Jimenez Organizations: Los Angeles Police Department, Attorney’s Office, Oakland Police Department Locations: Maine, California, Alameda, Alameda County

☆ San Francisco’s Ousted District Attorney Has a New Job
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Tim Arango | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It was almost a year ago that San Francisco voters ousted their liberal district attorney, Chesa Boudin, in a recall election, as public frustration was growing over property crime and the visible despair and squalor on city streets. There was no compelling evidence that Boudin’s policies had made crime worse; overall, crime in San Francisco changed little in the time he was in office. The job is wide-ranging and will involve teaching, researching the effects of changes in criminal justice laws in California and advocating new laws, in the State Capitol and in court. “It’s a job that’s going to allow me to draw on the lived experience I had visiting my parents in prison for a combined 63 years, and the practical professional experience I had both as a public defender and elected district attorney in San Francisco,” Boudin said. When he was a toddler, his parents, members of a radical left-wing group, went to prison for their roles in a botched robbery that left three men dead.

Persons: Chesa Boudin, Boudin, “, ” Boudin Organizations: San Francisco, Law, Justice Center, Berkeley School of Law, State Capitol Locations: San Francisco, California

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