Category: Washington Post

Potential culprits in mystery lung illnesses: Black-market vaping products

Post author By Rob
Post date September 24, 2019

By Rob Kuznia and Lena H. Sun

LOS ANGELES — Doorways chained shut and “Members Only” signs warn casual passersby against stopping along this five-block stretch of downtown known as the “Cannabis District.” This gritty corridor is a major hub for the estimated $9 billion black market for the state’s illicit cannabis products.

Products sold here, including a flood of counterfeit vape materials from China, are coming under scrutiny as federal authorities investigate the mysterious vaping-related lung illness that has sickened at least 530 people in 38 states and claimed nine lives.

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As hate crime laws expand, who to exclude as victims?

Post author By Rob
Post date September 10, 2019

Sept. 10, 2019

In California, a man is accused of a series of unprovoked attacks on homeless people. In Arizona, a Democratic congressman’s aide breaks the ankle of a Republican wearing a Make America Great Again hat. In Connecticut, a police officer has a brick thrown through his cruiser’s window; authorities say the suspect talked about hating cops.

All are acts of violence, but are they hate crimes? In a growing number of states, the answer is yes.

Tags Blue Lives Matter, hate crimes, homeless, Utah

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Veterans talking veterans back from the brink: A new approach to policing and lives in crisis

Post author By Rob
Post date March 20, 2019

March 20, 2019

LOS ANGELES — The former Army soldier was slumped in the back seat of a sheriff’s department squad car when Shannon Teague and Tyrone “T-bone” Anderson arrived on the scene. A couple of hours earlier, high on meth, he’d been yelling “you will die” from the front porch of a transition house for homeless veterans.

Teague made the introductions. Neither she nor Anderson wore a uniform, except for the patch on their jackets and the ID tags clipped to their shirts.

“I’m a social worker, and this is my partner, T-bone,” she told the man. “We are from the VA. You’re not in trouble.”

Encounters such as this one represent a new approach to dealing with veterans in crisis.

Tags veterans affairs

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Suffering pickaxes and dog poop, Trump’s Hollywood star has become a symbolic spectacle

Post author By Rob
Post date December 9, 2018

Dec. 9, 2018

LOS ANGELES — On the Hollywood Walk of Fame one summer night, a man with a neck tattoo knelt over Donald Trump’s star, armed with a black Sharpie.

The piece of plywood concealing the newly repaired star was already a sorry sight, defiled by spat-out gum, littered potato chips and scrawled words: “MAGA,” “SAD,” “Q-Anon.” The young man had come to add his own message.

“What’s he writing?” somebody in the bevy of onlookers murmured as Juan Larrazabal began tracing out letters.

Tags Donald Trump, Hollywood star

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Some people with dementia wander away and get lost. A bracelet can help find them.

Post author By Rob
Post date November 3, 2018

LOS ANGELES — In October 2016, a 55-year-old retired software engineer with early-onset Alzheimer’s wandered out of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as her husband used the restroom. Nancy Paulikas hasn’t been seen since.

Kirk Moody still spends time nearly every day looking for her. “There hasn’t been a single trace,” he says.

Her disappearance and his anguish have prompted what may be the nation’s most ambitious system for tracking down people with cognitive conditions that make them prone to roaming — and getting lost.

In commuting 20 murder convicts’ sentences, California governor draws praise, condemnation

Post author By Rob
Post date September 9, 2018

LOS ANGELES — Thomas Yackley fatally stabbed two men at a party. Kimberly LaBore took part in a home invasion that ended with one person dead. Virgil Holt killed his boss at a fast-food restaurant shortly after he’d been fired.

All are among the 20 killers serving life sentences that were recently commuted by California Gov. Jerry Brown (D). With barely four months left in office, California’s longest-serving governor is granting forgiveness to record numbers of criminals.

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In L.A., skid row’s homeless deal with yet more misery as tents go up in flames

Post author By Rob
Post date July 24, 2018

He woke up hot and sweaty in his tent. But when he tried to crawl out for fresh air, he found a ring of flames around the sidewalk where he’d pitched the canvas.

“I rolled out and come up fighting through the fire,” 58-year-old Bobby Holiday, a tall man with a Dodgers cap and a faraway gaze, recalled on a sweltering July afternoon. “Burned my heel. All the clothes I had all got burned up.”

On the mean streets that collectively are known here as skid row, where several thousand homeless men and women wander, the fire was just one of the many that have consumed tents in recent years.

Tags skid row, tent fires

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Fleeing domestic violence in El Salvador, mother’s asylum quest in U.S. is complex

Post author By Rob
Post date July 1, 2018

By Rob Kuznia

July 1, 2018

The little girl, a 6-year-old from El Salvador, never really knew her father until she was 5.

That’s when the man, a police officer, suddenly decided he wanted to rekindle his family life, and began demanding that she and her 23-year-old mother — his ex-girlfriend — spend time with him. He drank heavily and fought with the mother, often inflicting physical harm.

One day, during a fight with the mother, he pulled out a gun and pointed it at the little girl.

Tags domestic violence, separated children

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Los Angeles tenants increasingly engaging in rent strikes amid housing crisis

Post author By Rob
Post date June 2, 2018

By Rob Kuznia

June 2, 2018

LOS ANGELES — A few dozen tenants from a working-class neighborhood here hopped into their vehicles, creating a caravan that would head to affluent Orange County.

After the hour-long drive in late May, the group converged on the sidewalk in front of a two- story house with Spanish-tile roofing belonging to Gina Kim — their landlord’s daughter.

Tags Los Angeles, rent strikes

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It’s happened again: A fraternity is under fire for racist behavior, and a university has cracked down.

Post author By Rob
Post date April 25, 2018

By Rob Kuznia

April 25, 2018

A California university has suspended all fraternities and sororities following racially insensitive incidents and become the latest school to crack down on campus fraternal organizations.

The trouble at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo began April 8, when photos of a Lambda Chi Alpha party surfaced that showed white attendees — one in blackface — flashing gang signs. The university’s administration suspended the fraternity for at least a year.

Tags fraternities