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Opinion: Court decision hurts ability to remove internet false speech

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:13:07 GMT

A decision on Friday by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit puts in jeopardy one of the few tools that exist to deal with false speech on the internet.The court ruled that the White House, the FBI, the surgeon general’s office and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cannot communicate with social media platforms to encourage them to remove false speech. Although it narrowed a federal district’s broader injunction issued in July, the appeals court left in place a restriction of important speech by the federal government.False speech over the internet and social media can do great harm, even causing the loss of life. One aspect of the case involved the federal government’s concerns with false information being spread about COVID-19 and vaccines on social media. Federal officials rightly feared that false claims by anti-vaxxers would reduce vaccinations and put lives in jeopardy.The lawsuit against the Biden administration was brought by Loui...

Review: ‘Cassandro’ shows Bernal at his infectious best

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:13:07 GMT

By Jake Coyle | Associated PressAnyone who has eagerly followed Gabriel Garcia Bernal since his breakthrough roles in “Amores Perros” and “Y tu mamá también” likely never foresaw him one day in the world of lucha libra wrestling.Bernal, far from the most brawny actor, has been a slyer shape-shifter, whether in heels as a femme fatale in Pedro Almodovar’s “Bad Education” or on a motorcycle as Che Guevara in Walter Salles’ “Motorcycle Diaries.”But while almost anything with Bernal in it has been worth seeing, it’s been a little while — maybe his pair of movies with Pablo Larrain, 2012’s “No” and 2016’s “Neruda” — since Bernal had a sufficiently good part to, well, really go to the mat for.He’s found it, though, in “Cassandro,” Roger Ross Williams’ based-on-a-true-story drama about the Mexican wrestler Saúl Armendáriz. He was an exótico in 1990s lucha libra wres...

Mama bear, cubs surprise diners on busy California street

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:13:07 GMT

A mother bear flanked by two cubs wandered southbound down a busy Lima Street in Sierra Madre on Thursday, Sept. 14, as surprised lunchtime diners scrambled inside and public safety personnel alerted the family to change direction.It all happened near the patios of the restaurants that line Sierra Madre Boulevard. It was just a few blocks from City Hall, where officials and residents have been sounding off on how to deal with a recent rise in the number of bear sightings – as recent as the day before, where a bear, apparently attracted by mangos, got into a home in the same general area as Thursday’s sighting.“It’s learned behavior now,” Police Chief Gustavo Barrientos said. “With positive and negative stimuli, you know, they know that by going through a window, there’s a reward and they’re going for it.”As she ambled east toward the closest eatery Thursday at lunchtime, Nano Cafe, the police PA system loudly alerted patrons to head inside, which also alerted the bear to change dire...

California issues $267 million in grants to combat epidemic of retail and other thefts

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:13:07 GMT

More than $267 million in state grants will be distributed to law enforcement agencies and prosecutors in 51 cities and counties to help crack down on brazen retail, motor vehicle, catalytic converter and cargo thefts.Amid an epidemic of such thefts, many organized on social media and carried out by flash mobs, the California Board of State and Community Corrections on Thursday, Sept. 14, unanimously approved the allocation request from Gov. Gavin Newsom.Among recipients slated for funds that will begin flowing next month are the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and Los Angeles Police Department, which will each receive more than $15 million.Additionally, district attorney’s offices in Orange and Riverside counties each have been awarded $2 million to dedicate at least one prosecutor solely to organized retail theft cases.The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, which sits at the epicenter of some of California’s most recent high-...

LA Police Department to test new Tasers with longer range

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:13:07 GMT

The Los Angeles Police Commission this week approved arming several hundred officers in Hollywood and South L.A. with new Tasers that have more than double the range as their old models, an upgrade they hope will help prevent officers from resorting to using their guns in encounters with combative people.The test pilot for the Taser 10 approved Tuesday, Sept. 12 will run for one year starting in late October. LAPD will deploy 200 Tasers each to the Hollywood, Central, Southeast and 77th Street stations. Officers already trained on the old Tasers will get two hours of additional training on the new devices.LAPD’s previous model, the Taser 7, fired two barbs attached by electric wires to the weapon itself, allowing officers to deliver an electric shock to a person with a pull of the trigger. That weapon had a range of 22 feet, said LAPD Deputy Chief Marc Reina.The new Tasers fire 10 barbs up to 45 feet, which officers can activate depending on which barbs have actually attached.Reina ...

Case against notorious California priest could be 1st in new wave of sexual abuse trials

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:13:07 GMT

A childhood sexual abuse case involving a priest who was one of Orange County’s most notorious predators is expected to be among the first of a massive wave of lawsuits filed against Roman Catholic dioceses statewide that are on track to go to trial next year.More than fifteen years after a string of dioceses — include Orange County and Los Angeles — agreed to pay hundreds of millions related to hundreds of claims of sexual abuse by the clergy, an even larger wave of litigation is on the horizon due to a state law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for such cases, opening a three-year window to allow now-adult survivors to file lawsuits related to decades-old abuse.Roughly 2,000 Southern California childhood sexual assault cases allegedly involving the Catholic church were filed in Southern California during the three-year window, including roughly 250 against the Orange County Diocese, according to attorney Morgan Stewart, whose high-profile Orange County-based firm...

Disneyland theme park expansion moves one step closer with impact study

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:13:07 GMT

Disneyland’s long-term plans for theme park, retail and parking expansion moved one step closer to reality with the release of a key report by the city of Anaheim as Disney continues to reimagine what the future of the resort district will look like over the next four decades.Anaheim released a 17,000-page Environmental Impact Report on Thursday, Sept. 14 for Disney’s expansion initiative known as DisneylandForward.Disneyland hopes to have the project go before the Anaheim City Council for approval before the end of 2024. A public workshop outlining highlights of the DisneylandForward EIR will be held on Oct. 9 at Anaheim City Hall.The biggest impacts of the project involved air quality, greenhouse gas emissions and noise — but not transportation or neighborhood aesthetics.Air quality would be significantly and unavoidably impacted during the construction phase and park operations of any Disneyland Forward project, according to the EIR.Greenhouse gas emissions were considered a sign...

Review: ‘Million Miles Away’ is charming and inspiring

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:13:07 GMT

By Mark Kennedy | Associated PressIf ever there was an inspirational story about reaching for the stars, it’s “A Million Miles Away,” the real-life journey of a how a boy who grew up as a migrant farmworker became a NASA astronaut.It starts in the corn fields of Michoacan, Mexico, as José Hernández looks up into the sky in wonder, and it ends two hours later with him 200 miles above the Earth in the International Space Station.“Tell me something,” his cousin tells him. “Who better than a migrant? Somebody who knows what it’s like to dive into the unknown. Who better than that?”Biopics with outsized heroes can lay it on thick, but “A Million Miles Away” manages to keep its hero’s feet firmly on earth before his space shot, largely thanks to star Michael Peña as Hernández and Rosa Salazar as his wife. They keep their characters’ humanity even as the soundtrack and visuals blast off. He may be an astronaut, but som...

Germany faces call to rethink sports system after World Cup-winning basketball team defies rankings

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:13:07 GMT

DORTMUND, Germany (AP) — Less than a week after Germany won the Basketball World Cup, some are calling for a rethink in government funding.Basketball placed last of 26 sports in the Potential Analysis System, known as PotAS, which ranks German sports’ governing bodies by their potential to succeed on the world stage.The system is backed by the government and the German Olympic committee and is used in deciding how to allocate public funding. The most recent edition for Summer Olympic sports was published in 2021. The report described itself as “objective and transparent,” but it has been criticized as too rigid for using the same criteria to judge sports as diverse as boxing and equestrian.While basketball placed last in the study, the top-ranked sport was track and field. Last month, the German track team failed to win a medal at the world championships for the first time ever, less than a year before the 2024 Paris Olympics.“After this summer we should finally understa...

EU faces deadline on extending Ukrainian grain ban as countries threaten to pass their own

Published Sun, 16 Feb 2025 16:13:07 GMT

LONDON (AP) — The European Union faced a Friday deadline to decide whether to extend a ban on Ukrainian food from five nearby countries that have complained that an influx of agricultural products from the war-torn nation has hurt their farmers. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria still allow grain and other Ukrainian food to pass through on the way to parts of the world in need. The five EU members have said food coming from Ukraine has gotten stuck within their borders, creating a glut that has driven down prices for local farmers and hurt their livelihoods. The issue has threatened European unity on supporting Ukraine as it fights Russia’s invasion.The leaders of Poland and Hungary have called for a renewal of the import ban on Ukrainian agricultural products, threatening to adopt their own if the EU doesn’t act.“For the moment, it seems that the bureaucrats in Brussels don’t want to extend it,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said in a Friday radio ...