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California man kills co-worker over alleged affair with wife: report

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California man kills co-worker over alleged affair with wife: report


A California man mentioned he beat his co-worker to dying as a result of he believed that the colleague was having an affair along with his spouse, in keeping with a report.

Jose Gutierrez-Rosales, 49, allegedly beat Hector Javier Castaneda Vasquez, 56, with an irrigation pipe whereas the 2 had been working collectively on April 18, in keeping with particulars concerning the killing that had been revealed this week.

“We had been there choosing up the pipes,” he mentioned to Kern County Sheriff’s investigators, in keeping with KGET, citing court docket paperwork. “I ate about two tacos, and I felt my physique like unusual, after which impulsively, I grabbed the pipe, and I simply began going at him.”

“That is for getting concerned with my household,” Gutierrez-Rosales reportedly mentioned he instructed Vasquez as he stored hitting him.

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The sufferer was pronounced useless on the scene. He suffered facial fractures and cuts to his face and again of his head. A number of of Vasquez’s tooth had been additionally knocked out, in keeping with KGET, citing paperwork.

Gutierrez-Rosales claimed his co-workers made enjoyable of him over the alleged affair earlier than he carried out the assault. He argued “they provoked all of this,” KGET reported.

However it stays unclear if he was even married, in keeping with the court docket paperwork. The information station reported an unidentified lady instructed authorities she and the Gutierrez-Rosales had been in a three-month relationship however stopped seeing one another earlier than the killing. She talked about he had anger points.

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Witnesses and associates pointed to Gutierrez-Rosales because the killer and he was arrested on April 28 and charged with first-degree homicide, in keeping with KGET.

After Vasquez’s dying, Gutierrez fled in his automobile, however ultimately deserted the automobile and started strolling to Bakersfield, in keeping with court docket paperwork, KGET reported.

He requested God for forgiveness and began chopping himself with a field cutter, the tv station reported.

He instructed investigators if he needed to run he would have escaped to Mexico.

“I’m going to come clean with it like a person,” he reportedly mentioned.

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Endangered plant may have made California wildfires worse

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Endangered plant may have made California wildfires worse


A move to protect a federally endangered plant by halting the state construction of new utility lines is being highlighted in a newspaper report as a potential factor in California’s Palisades fire.

Downed utility lines in the area are being investigated for fuelling, and potentially even causing, the immense Palisades fire, says The New York Times.

However, the California Coastal Commission, who intervened in the utility line construction, have said that they did give out new permits for the utility pole project and “are very supportive of wildfire resiliency work.”

Why It Matters

The cause of the Pacific Palisades fire is under investigation by the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and if government negligence was found to play a part, it would further fuel existing frustration with Mayor Bass, and Governor Newsom expressed by some California residents.

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LA is also facing a climate-change-shaped future of increased droughts which will further impact the scope of wildfires, and needs to figure out how to balance everyday conservation with fire protection for the entire region.

Left: Braunton’s milkvetch, Astragalus brauntonii. Right: Utility pole in Altadena. Protection over the milkvetch plant suspended the building of new utility poles in the Palisades.

Left: Michael Charters, Right: Carolyn Kaster/Left: US Forest Service, Right: Associated Press

What To Know

In 2020, the California Coastal Commission fined the Los Angeles Department of Public Works (LADWP) $1.9 million over their utility pole project in the Pacific Palisades, as the project had bulldozed almost 200 federally protected Braunton’s milkvetch (Astragalus brauntonii) plants.

According to the Sierra Club, there are only 3,000 of these “purple-petalled perennial wildflower” plants left in the mountains, and they are listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The utility pole project policed by the Coastal Commission in 2020 was a public works project designed to install stronger, metal, utility poles in the Palisades, as some of the utility poles in the area were built almost 100 years ago. Downed utility lines have caused blazes in the past, and reporters from The New York Times have now found bits of power line debris in the Palisade hills.

The Coastal Commission told the LADWP in 2020 that they needed to seek a permit from the Coastal Commission to restart the development, as well as undo their roadwork and revegetate the area. While the LADWP paid the fine, it does not appear they ever restarted the utility poles project.

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The LADWP has been contacted via phone call and voicemail for comment.

Sarah Christie, a spokesperson for the Coastal Commission, spoke to Newsweek about this incident saying: “In 2019, a hiker reported unpermitted bulldozing through an area of endangered plants and hiking trails in Topanga State Park.

“In addition to damaging native plants and public trails, this type of grading also can also encourage highly flammable, non-native grasses to flourish. But the damage was repaired the following year, and the Commission approved a permit for the Utility to move forward with their work to replace the poles.

“We are very supportive of wildfire resiliency work and will continue to promote efforts to harden homes and public infrastructure and create defensible space.”

What People Are Saying

Eric Edmunds, Chair of the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force in a 2020 letter: “Our task force has been involved with far too many cases of utility companies not using good judgment and failing to comply with the laws, policies, and ordinances that are in place to protect and preserve our finite natural resources.”

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The LADWP in 2020: “[This project is] essential in regards to our wildfire mitigation plan.”

What Happens Next

The cause of the Palisades fire is still under investigation by the ATF, who have said it will take time to figure out the root cause of the blaze.

In the meantime, Angelenos are still combating active blazes, with the Eaton fire now at 55 percent containment, and the Palisades fire at 22 percent containment.



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LA fires clobber California economy after recession | Opinion

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LA fires clobber California economy after recession | Opinion

Three days after immensely destructive and deadly wildfires broke out in and around Los Angeles, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a $322.3 billion state budget with a positive revenue forecast “based on an assumption of continued but slowing economic growth.”

The new 2025-26 budget is already outdated because the fires, which are still growing, will have a heavy impact on both the income and outgo sides of the budget, by reducing economic activity in Southern California and increasing pressure for fire suppression and recovery aid from Sacramento.

The fires struck as California’s economy was still recovering from the brief but sharp recession that hit the state five years ago when Newsom ordered shutdowns to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. About 3 million workers were idled, and recovery has been mediocre at best. California’s unemployment rate, 5.4% in November, the latest month for which data are available, was the second highest of any state, with more than a million unemployed workers.

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A broader federal Bureau of Labor Statistics measure of unemployment or underemployment provides an even dimmer picture. The U-6 rate, as it’s dubbed, counts “total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.”

(Marginally attached workers are people who aren’t working or looking for work but who want a job and have looked for one in the last 12 months.)

California’s current U-6 rate is 10%, by far the highest of any state and more than twice the national rate. It’s even higher — 11.8% — in Los Angeles.

Beacon Economics, in an analysis of the latest data, says that employment growth in California has trailed the nation in recent years: “Since February 2020 (the start of the pandemic), total nonfarm employment in the state has grown 2.5% compared to a 4.6% increase nationally.”

“There are a mix of influences both driving and constraining the state’s job growth,” Justin Niakamal, Beacon’s research manager, commented. “On one hand, California is seeing comparatively high incomes, strong consumer demand, and high economic output, but our critical lack of housing supply has led to the state’s well-known labor force contraction, and that is most certainly holding back job growth.”

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The wildfires are obviously one uncertain factor in how California’s economy fares over the next few years — but not the only one.

Newsom’s budget, without mentioning him by name, cites Donald Trump’s recapture of the White House as “the most immediate risk to the forecast,” listing Trump’s vows to impose tariffs on imported goods and deport undocumented immigrants.

“California would also be especially vulnerable to tariffs as the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, and Oakland and the logistics industry that is concentrated in the Inland Empire are highly dependent on foreign trade,” the budget declares, adding, “To the extent that existing workers are deported and potential new workers banned or discouraged from immigrating, many sectors of the U.S. and California economies could face labor shortages, leading to price increases in the goods and services produced by these sectors.”

However, even if the fires had not occurred and Trump not been elected, the state would still face a declining labor force, as a new report from the Public Policy Institute of California notes.

“In the last two decades, the share of the population participating in the labor force has fallen five percentage points (from 67% to 62% today) due to the aging of California’s population,” PPIC analyst Sarah Bohn writes. “As the population continues to age and the state faces a shrinking workforce, preparing Californians who can and want to work will become more essential.

“California’s current economic realities reflect the volatile macroeconomic conditions we’ve weathered since the pandemic as well as long-term challenges that have been brewing for decades,” she continues.

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Right-wing media figures call for withholding California wildfire aid, blame ‘liberals’ for disaster | CNN Business

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Right-wing media figures call for withholding California wildfire aid, blame ‘liberals’ for disaster | CNN Business



New York
CNN
 — 

Prominent right-wing media personalities are calling on the federal government to withhold or place conditions on aid for victims of the devastating Los Angeles wildfires, blaming California’s own policies for the scale of the devastation and response.

As firefighters slowly gain control of the wildfires raging near Los Angeles and thousands of residents return to find their homes in ashes, pro-Trump personalities are blasting state and local officials for “woke” policies that they fault for the disaster.

On Fox News, the network’s hosts have lined up behind the politicized approach, taking pot-shots at the state for its progressive values. Host Sean Hannity told viewers California doesn’t “deserve one federal dollar” because of its immigration policies and placed blame on the state’s forest management.

“Any aid has got to insist that the science of forestry be implemented so you, the American people, you don’t have to keep bailing people out,” Hannity said Tuesday night. “They’ve got to clear out the brush and do things like, oh, control burns and maybe not put a little shrub above the safety of people’s lifeblood, their home.”

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Fellow Fox prime time host Jesse Watters suggested that California, with its higher state income tax rate, shouldn’t need additional funding but that officials had squandered tax dollars on unrelated issues.

“Will American taxpayers rebuild L.A. without strings attached?” Watters asked his audience Tuesday night. “L.A. spent more on homeless than firefighters, and both problems are getting worse. They lost $55 billion in Covid money, lost it. They spent $20 billion on a high-speed train that doesn’t go anywhere.”

Glenn Beck, who hosts a podcast and program on The Blaze, blamed the wildfires on the state’s homeless population and railed against the state’s preparation for the extreme winds that fanned the flames.

Gov. Gavin Newsom “and the leaders of California can’t admit that their own disastrous policies, NOT climate change, fueled these fires, they shouldn’t get a DIME of federal aid without serious conditions attached,” Beck wrote on X.

Scientists said this week that climate change contributed to the explosive growth of the wildfires, with the region experiencing exceptional dry conditions that fueled the flames. Other regions are also grappling with alarming fire behavior. Texas saw its largest wildfire on record last year and Canada experienced its worst wildfire season on record in 2023.

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On Fox, host Laura Ingraham questioned California’s ability to properly disburse funds, telling Sen. Tommy Tuberville in an interview that “the money will be going to friends and people who are politically connected or have the same environmental agenda even though today (Mayor) Karen Bass and yesterday Gavin Newsom said, ‘Oh, no, we’re going to streamline a lot of this permitting.’”

“I don’t think they have any credibility on any of that,” Ingraham said. “Not with our tax dollars.”

Republican Sens. John Barrasso and Bill Hagerty have called for public hearings to investigate Democrats’ alleged “gross mismanagement” in the state following the fires, which as of Wednesday afternoon had scorched more than 40,000 acres and killed at least 25 people.

“There can’t be a blank check on this,” Barrasso told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday. “I expect there will be strings attached to money that is ultimately approved, and it has to do with being ready the next time because this was a gross failure this time.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson joined the budding chorus of conservatives calling for conditional relief on Monday, telling CNN that he, too, thought “there should probably be conditions on that aid.”

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Republican calls for California wildfire relief to have “strings attached” are by no means a novel idea. When wildfires surged across the state in 2018, then-President Trump reportedly withheld disaster relief funds given the state’s Democratic lean. However, Trump reversed course after he was informed that he had a larger voter base in the impacted county than in some states, a former official said.

The next year, Trump posted on social media that “billions of dollars are sent to the State of California for Forest fires that, with proper Forest Management, would never happen. Unless they get their act together, which is unlikely, I have ordered FEMA to send no more money. It is a disgraceful situation in lives & money!”

Right-wing media personalities have regularly cast California in a negative light, using it as a punching bag to stir outrage over progressive policies that if allowed to spill beyond its borders would devastate the country.

“So why pick fights with California?” said University of California, Berkeley political scientist Henry Brady. “Well, watch Fox News. California is the boogeyman. California has cities out of control. California is doing all these crazy things with climate change. We are the people who have sanctuary cities and the place where people are woke beyond belief.”

“Punishing California is something that is, from their perspective, a positive good,” he added.

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Trump himself has used his Truth Social platform to spread misinformation about the fires and stoke a feud with Newsom, falsely declaring last week that the governor had “refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him,” allowing the fires to spread.

Trump’s media allies similarly picked up on his talking points, with Ingraham saying on her show, “we know where California liberals choose to spend billions, and we do know that their environmental fanaticism has shoved common sense thinking out the door.”

“Now, while the winds are horrific, experts insist that bad forest management can make a bad situation worse,” Ingraham added. “And Trump called this out six years ago … He’s right. Incompetence kills.”

On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Trump rekindled threats that, if elected, he would make wildfire aid to the state conditional if Newsom didn’t agree to divert more of the state’s water supply to farmers.

“If he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires,” Trump said in September. “And if we don’t give him all the money to put out the fires, he’s got problems.”

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