Tag Archives: Los Angeles

Freak Rainstorm Washes Away California Highway Bridge

The California Highway Patrol (CHP) confirmed that heavy rains in a remote desert area of California has washed away an elevated part of Interstate 10 including a highway.

The CHP told the Los Angeles Times that 30 feet of the eastbound highway “is washed away and bridge is gone.”

The highway, the most direct route between Los Angeles and Phoenix, averages more than 20,000 cars a day.  Now the vehicles will have to travel hundreds of miles out of the way Interstate 8 or Interstate 40.

Forecasters say the storm was a foreshadowing of what could be striking California later this year with a strong El Nino season.  Tropical Storm Dolores, which roared far off the Mexican and California coasts, allowed for muggy and rainy weather to reach an area decimated by crippling drought.

“Even though Dolores is a pretty good wake-up call for us, we should start preparing for late August or early September,” Stuart Seto, an National Weather Service specialist, said to the Los Angeles Times.

The storms that blew through Southern California brought flash flooding in San Bernardino and Riverside counties.  The storms brought dangerous lightning, hail and high surf to the region.

The storm was so rare for this time of the year that the Anaheim Angels baseball team had a game against the Boston Red Sox rained out…the first rainout for the team in 20 years and 1,609 consecutive home games.

Planned Parenthood Accused of Selling Body Parts of Aborted Babies

A new video shows a Planned Parenthood executive drinking wine in a Los Angeles restaurant while talking about how the organizations sells body parts from aborted babies.

The video, filmed by the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), shows two undercover actors posing as representatives of a human biologics company.  They met Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services, Debroah Nucatola, for lunch.

The video depicts Nucatola explaining in graphic detail how abortionists harvest the organs from aborted babies based on the demand.

“Yesterday was the first time she said people wanted lungs,” Nucatola told the undercover buyers in the video. “Some people want lower extremities, too, which, that’s simple. That’s easy. I don’t know what they’re doing with it, I guess if they want muscle.”

“Yeah – a dime a dozen,” an actor responds.

“I’d say a lot of people want liver,” Nucatola said. “And for that reason, most providers will do this case under ultrasound guidance, so they’ll know where they’re putting their forceps.”

Planned Parenthood claims the video does not tell the real story.

“In health care, patients sometimes want to donate tissue to scientific research that can help lead to medical breakthroughs, such as treatments and cures for serious diseases. Women at Planned Parenthood who have abortions are no different,” Planned Parenthood’s vice president for communications, Eric Ferrero, said in a statement to the London Guardian newspaper.

Planned Parenthood claims the video is just another attempt by a group focused on damaging the abortionist’s reputation.

David Daleiden of CMP claims that Planned Parenthood’s response shows that they’re lying in their response because they admit money is exchanged despite denials.

“Planned Parenthood makes two key admissions in their statement today; first, that aborted fetal parts are harvested at their clinics, and second, that money is exchanged in connection with this,” Daleiden said.

Earthquake Could Cut Off L.A.’s Water Supply

Los Angeles is one earthquake away from losing a major part of their water supply.

The city of Los Angeles gets almost 90 percent of its water from three major aqueducts.  These aqueducts run from the Colorado River, Owens Valley and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

The aqueducts cross the well-known San Andreas Fault a total of 32 times.

This means any major quake along that fault line could end the water supply into the nation’s second largest city.

Mayor Eric Garcetti is calling on city officials to create better plans to protect the city’s water supply.

“[Water is] one of L.A.’s greatest earthquake vulnerabilities,” Garcetti told the L.A. Times. “If it were to take six months to get our water system back … residents and businesses would be forced to relocate for so long that they might never come back.”

Officials are looking to San Francisco’s Public Utilities Commission for a possible solution.  The SFPUC recently installed a specially designed pipe over a fault line that has “accordion-like joints” that would allow the pipe to flex and move in any direction should the fault line move.

“We’re the first city that’s really bet its life on outside water,” U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Lucy Jones told the Times. “We have to cross the faults. There’s no way to not go over the fault.”

“There should be a serious dialogue among the agencies that are responsible for the three sources of water to Southern California,” said Thomas O’Rourke, a Cornell University engineering professor. “Sometimes it’s very difficult to go beyond those institutional barriers…. Somebody just has to take it up.”

Yellow Fever Transmitting Mosquitoes Found In Los Angeles County

The mosquito that transmits yellow fever has been found in two locations in Los Angeles County California.

The aggressive mosquito is known for biting in the daytime and was found October 7th and 8th in Commerce and Pico Rivera.

The species, Aedes aegypti, transmits yellow fever along with others such as dengue fever and chikungunya.

“While these debilitating viruses, so far, aren’t locally transmitted in L.A. County, the mosquitoes that can transmit them are now here,” Susanne Kluh, the district’s director of scientific-technical services, said in a statement quoted by the LA Times. “Infected travelers can bring these viruses to Los Angeles County.”

The yellow fever mosquito thrives in urban environments and usually uses small, man-made containers to lay eggs.

Officials speculate the mosquitoes arrived in California through eggs on imported tires or plants.

LA Dream Center Opens Transitional Home for Foster Care Youth

A partnership between Free Chapel church and the LA Dream Center is opening a transitional home for youths between 18 and 23 who are coming from the foster care system.

The residence, called Freedom House, will also help young adults who are dealing with the probation system.

“More than a transitional home, we are believing Freedom House will be a place where students come to know the love of Jesus Christ, that He is our only hope and our Savior,” Pastor Jentezen Franklin of Free Chapel told The Christian Post. “…We are just so privileged to be a part of the dream … we can provide resources but we can’t do the other things that they do so well, the programs the facility.”

Pastor Matthew Barnett of the Dream Center told the Christian Post “the hope of America is in dynamic partnership of churches working together.”

Statistics show that up to 50 percent of foster kids end up homeless or in jail after they reach 18 and are forced out of the foster care system.  Barnett says they hope the Freedom House will help individuals make “positive lifestyle choices” that promote physical and mental well-being.

New L.A. Lakers Player Celebrates By Feeding Homeless

Outspoken Christian NBA player Jeremy Lin celebrated his joining the L.A. Lakers in a way that seems unusual in the world of high-dollar sports.

He fed the homeless.

“Famed shooter Jeremy Lin who was recently acquired by the L.A. Lakers, embraced his new city by serving meals to the homeless today along with teammates Xavier Henry and Laker Girls at The Midnight Mission SoCal’s largest social service provider,” the Midnight Mission shared online.

Lin has previously conducted multiple outreaches in cities where he plays as part of the Jeremy Lin Foundation.  The foundation says their work is “compelled by [Lin’s] relationship with Jesus.”

Lin’s official first interview with the Lakers, posted to the team’s website, had Lin saying that he was going to be playing for God and would let the Lord decide the results and how it will benefit his team and his community.

“When I look back on the past two years, I think I’ve grown and learned a lot as a person, as a Christian and also as a basketball player,” Lin said.

Dream Center To Fight Possible Ban On Feeding Homeless

The Los Angeles Dream Center is mobilizing opposition to a potential ban on feeding Los Angeles’ homeless residents.

L.A. City Councilman Tom LaBonge introduced a motion that would prohibit all organizations, including religious ones, from providing outdoor food services to the needy.  LaBonge said such activities “get in the public’s right of way” and they can have “negative impacts to the surrounding community.”

The Dream Center and supporters have started a petition drive to show that the public does not support the restrictions on feeding those in need.

“If feeding were to be banned or restricted, it would cut off our lifeline to not only feed the homeless but families,” Pastor Matthew Barnett told The Christian Post.  “Tens of thousands of people would be impacted. Mobile trucks are the only way to reach people. We’ve been doing this for nearly twenty years. Mobile outreach meets people in their world and that’s where the impacts are made.”

The National Coalition for the Homeless, based in Washington, D.C., said they will be mobilizing to help the L.A. effort.

“It’s mean-spirited to deny hungry people food and wrong for the city council to ban charitable acts,” Jerry Jones of Coalition said. “If volunteers want to feed homeless people, the city shouldn’t be throwing up roadblocks, they should be thanking them.”

Earthquake Rocks Los Angeles

Many Los Angelinos didn’t need their alarm clocks Monday morning due to an early morning earthquake.

The quake only measured 4.4 on the Richter scale but was so shallow that it caused a jolt significant enough to started the usually jaded southern California residents.  The 6:25 a.m. quake was only 5 miles deep and centered around 15 miles west-northwest of L.A.’s downtown civic center.

That put the epicenter within 6 miles of Beverly Hills and 7 miles from University City and Santa Monica.

Police and fire officials say there were no immediate reports of significant damage.  Residents of the area took to social media to say they had items fall off shelves in their home and a few had bookcases or curios knocked over by the shaking.

Academy Awards Strips Christian Movie of Oscar Nomination

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has taken away an Oscar nomination from an independent Christian film following outrage from Oscar watchers and industry members.

The Academy claims that a former member of the board of Governors who sits on the Academy’s music branch’s executive committee violated rules against lobbying by e-mailing members of the music branch about the song during the nomination period.

The film had made a small run in Los Angeles to allow it to qualify for Oscar consideration before going into wider release next year.  The tactic is very common for smaller films and was used this year for Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises” to get a nomination for Best Animated Feature.

The nomination was first attacked by critics who tried to disqualify the song claiming the movie did not purchase advertisements for the run of the movie in Los Angeles.  The Academy ruled in that case the show times published in the newspapers of the area qualified as meeting the advertising requirement.

The Academy has not previously taken action against someone sending an e-mail to members asking them to nominate a song for Oscar consideration.

Ocean Waves Help Predict Major Earthquakes

Scientists at Stanford University and MIT have found a new way to predict earthquakes and possible damage in areas where seismologists have struggled with oceans causing small seismic waves.

The scientists have developed a way to use ocean waves as a model for earthquakes and its impact on different types of soil.

The study says that Los Angeles is very vulnerable to a large quake from the San Andreas Fault.

The study shows that because the city sits on what’s called a ”sedimentary basin” shock waves from quakes could be magnified as much as three times their usual level.  A sedimentary basin is softer, sandier dirt surrounded by a ring of rock.  The waves would bounce off the rock and increase in magnitude.

One member of the scientific team said it was similar to a large bathtub full of water.  If you shake the tub, the tub does not shake much but the water within violently shakes along with anything on top of it.

The study says the new system will allow scientists to test the impact of an earthquake on buildings in areas that have not experienced an earthquake for many years.