California
Neil Thwaites promoted to ‘Vice President of Global Sales & California Commercial Performance’ for Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines – Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines and Horizon Air
Thwaites will lead the strategy and execution of all sales activities for the combined Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines team. His responsibilities include growing indirect revenue on Alaska’s expanding international and domestic network, as well as expanding Atmos for Business, a new program designed for small- and medium-sized companies.
Thwaites joined Alaska Airlines in January 2022 as regional vice president in California. Since stepping into the role, Thwaites has significantly sharpened the airline’s focus and scale in key markets and communities across the state, strengthening Alaska’s position as we continue to grow in California. He will continue to be based at the company’s California offices in Burlingame. The moves take effect Dec. 13, with Thwaites also continuing to lead his current California commercial planning and performance function in addition to Global Sales.
Prior to Alaska, Thwaites worked in multiple positions within the airline industry, including a decade holding roles in London, New York, and Los Angeles for British Airways (a fellow oneworld member); most recently as ‘VP, Sales – Western USA’, where he was responsible for market development strategy and indirect revenue for both British Airways and Iberia across the western U.S.
Thwaites is originally from the United Kingdom and graduated from the University of Brighton with a double honors degree in Business Administration & Law.
California
California Tesla driver seen napping behind wheel on Interstate 5
Cellphone footage appears to capture the driver of a moving Tesla snoozing behind the wheel on a Southern California highway Sunday.
The incident, according to the motorist who recorded the footage and sent it to KTLA, occurred in the southbound lanes of Interstate 5 near Camp Pendleton.
In the footage, the driver’s head appears tilted to the right as the vehicle, likely in self-driving mode, traveled down the roadway. Occupants of the vehicle who spotted the sleepy driver can be heard laughing during the ordeal.
The video ends before the driver’s apparent nap does.
This is not the first time Tesla drivers have been caught mid-snooze. As far back as February 2023, video obtained by KTLA showed two separate drivers sleeping behind the wheel in the span of a week, one in Los Angeles and the other in Temecula.
More recently, KTLA’s San Francisco sister station KRON obtained footage of an East Bay driver apparently asleep behind the wheel of a Tesla Model 4 while on Highway 4 in March.
Per Tesla’s guidelines, drivers using the vehicle’s Full Self-Driving mode are required to remain attentive and ready to take control of the car at any moment.
In past incidents, the California Highway Patrol told KTLA that drivers must be awake, conscious and sober to legally operate a moving vehicle.
There have been arrests of drivers filmed sleeping in moving Teslas, though it is unclear whether witnesses in this incident contacted authorities.
The electric vehicle maker has been at the center of numerous controversies but remains the top-selling brand in California for the fourth year in a row. The Tesla Model Y far outsold any other new vehicle in the state in 2025.
California
Nature: Cormorants in California
California
Raman closes in on Pratt as more votes in L.A. mayor’s race are tallied
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman cut deeper into the lead of reality television personality Spencer Pratt on Saturday, as his lead slimmed to just a single percentage point.
Pratt fell to just over 27% of the vote while Raman jumped up to slightly over 26%, according to the results from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder. Pratt now leads Raman by just 7,494 votes.
“We’ve seen Nithya Raman catching up on every update and the last two in particular she’s accelerated,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of the bipartisan voter data firm Political Data Inc. “She’s continued to gain at a rate that means she will eventually catch up unless Pratt starts getting some ballots coming in that are either geographically or demographically better for him.”
Democratic consultant Michael Trujillo, who doesn’t represent anyone in the mayoral race, said the results suggest Raman will surpass Pratt as more votes are counted.
“I think it’s over,” Trujillo said. “It appears Nithya will be in the runoff. Pratt doesn’t appear to be growing much more.”
The second-place finisher in the mayoral primary will face Mayor Karen Bass in a Nov. 3 runoff. On election night Tuesday, the Associated Press determined that Bass had secured enough votes to qualify for the runoff.
Pratt has been in second place since then, but Raman has gradually eroded his lead as mail-in ballots have been counted. The updated vote tally released Thursday showed Pratt with 29% of the vote and Raman with 23%.
With Friday’s update, Raman’s share had risen to 25% and Pratt’s shrank to 28%, for a 3 percentage point gap.
In the most recent batch of mail-in ballots counted, Raman received 23,514 votes, while Pratt gained 10,336.
Election analysts expected Raman to gain ground as the mail-in ballots were tallied, reasoning that many left-of-center voters — Raman’s base — held onto their mail-in ballots until the last minute as they waited to choose between Democratic gubernatorial candidates. They also say younger, more progressive voters tend to hold onto their ballots longer generally.
Although the mayor’s race is nonpartisan, Pratt is a Republican in a city that is overwhelmingly dominated by Democratic voters and elected officials.
A poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which was co-sponsored by The Times, had Pratt running in third place behind Bass and Raman.
The poll of 1,351 likely voters conducted May 19-24 had Bass with 26% support, Raman with 25% support and Pratt with 22% support, with a 3% margin of error.
Los Angeles voters have become accustomed to seeing election results change as late-arriving ballots are tabulated. In the 2022 mayoral primary, real estate developer Rick Caruso led the pack for about a week before Bass pulled ahead.
Pratt was favored in many of the same neighborhoods that voted for Caruso, according to a Times analysis of precinct-level returns provided by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder on Wednesday, when an estimated 62% of the projected vote had been counted. Raman, by comparison, made inroads in progressive areas dominated by Bass four years ago.
Pratt, whose Pacific Palisades fire home burned in the January 2025 fire, was strong there and on the Westside, as well as in the San Fernando Valley communities of Encino, Woodland Hills, Chatsworth and Sunland-Tujunga.
Raman dominated precincts known for their progressive politics, particularly those with younger people in renter-heavy neighborhoods stretching from Hollywood to Highland Park, including her home base of Silver Lake.
Mail-in ballots with an election day postmark will continue to be accepted by county election officials through Tuesday.
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