California says bars that reopen without state permission could lose alcohol license

Home color kits and Zoom crystal readings fill the void. But underground services break the lockdown.

More children are likely to experience toxic stress during the pandemic, which could lead to devastating impacts in the future.

California's state government faces a $54-billion budget deficit through next summer, according to an analysis released Thursday.

11 photos: Businesses and restaurants open to customers in rural California counties.

Pool parties are frowned on, as health officials offer guidelines for the use of apartment and HOA pools and spas.

Across Southern California and in the Bay Area, communities are preparing to allow retailers to reopen, with restrictions.

The fire broke out shortly after 2 a.m. in medium brush between Gaviota State Beach and the Hollister Ranch guard gate.

LAPD leaders are concerned about a looming decline in black officers, particularly as pandemic-related restrictions undercut recruitment efforts.

The DOJ ordered an Orange County company to stop distributing hand-sanitizer products until it got FDA approval or removed certain claims from its labeling.

The Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission voted Thursday to subpoena L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva for testimony regarding the coronavirus outbreak in the jails.

Teachers have adapted to the coronavirus outbreak and school shutdowns.

The mask rule comes after Metro bus drivers said they were scared for their health and for the well-being of essential workers on board.

A Palm Desert man crashed his car, stabbed a good Samaritan who tried to free his daughter from the wreck and flung the girl off a cliff, killing her, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department.

Two youths have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in L.A. County's juvenile halls. The teens were only recently booked and were kept away from the general population, officials say.

Officers Luke Coyle and Kevin Ruiz of the department's Newton Division fatally shot Daniel Hernandez during an April 30 pursuit.

Single shooting in South L.A. is believed to have touched off vicious cycle of retaliation, officials say

Some 80% of state voters support employers providing full replacement wages to farmworkers to stay home when sick with COVID-19, poll finds.

Long Beach police alerted the CHP to the man, who was walking on the freeway about 1:30 a.m. and wielding a knife.

California allows some retailers to open with curbside service, including bookstores, florists and toy stores. Many parks will reopen Saturday.

A bear in Castaic was fatally struck by a car while walking through traffic near the northbound 5 Freeway the early Friday morning hours.

A federal judge overseeing the college admissions case on Friday declined to dismiss charges against Lori Loughlin and her co-defendants.

A man is dead and a Pasadena police officer is hospitalized following surgery after a car pursuit ended in gunfire on Friday afternoon, the Pasadena police said.

Vanessa Bryant has filed a claim against the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department over deputies sharing "unauthorized" photos of the scene of the helicopter crash that killed her husband Kobe Bryant, their daughter and seven others.

California's tepid reopening amid the coronavirus sparked a mix of excitement, confusion and uncertainty.

Los Angeles has been touted for implementing a swift stay-at-home order to combat the coronavirus, but those efforts have not come without consequence, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said.

Tourist spots prepare to welcome visitors once coronavirus restrictions are lifted

More beaches, trials and parks opened as officials ease coronavirus restrictions

Coronavirus infections explode at a Lompoc federal prison with 792 testing positive, making it the largest federal penitentiary outbreak in the nation.

Pasadena is warning against Mother's Day gatherings after its public health department traced a cluster of coronavirus cases to a birthday party.

Music sharing pioneer Audiogalaxy returned this week, but not with the features its former users — or its founder — hoped to offer. The former Napster competitor found that, even with music-industry support, a legal file-sharing service is a long way from becoming reality. Continue reading on GigaOm.com.

German rights holders have turned litigation against file sharers into a money machine that just keeps on giving. P2P activists estimate estimates that Germany’s BitTorrent users faced more than half a million lawsuits in 2010. Some people even got sued multiple times for the same file. Continue reading on Newteevee.com.

Looks like mass lawsuits aren't just for Germans anymore: The Electronic Frontier Foundation is estimating that some 75,000 people have been sued for allegedly sharing pornographic movies in the US. This revelation comes as part of a new amicus brief (PDF) the civil liberties group just filed on behalf of 500 file sharers, asking an Illinois judge to squash a lawsuit against people accues of sharing videos from First Time Videos LLC, better known under the porn brand FTVGirls. A footnote of the amicus brief states:

"As of January 14, 2011, by an informal count, well (over) 75,000 people have been sued in similar (in some cases nearly identical) complaints arising from the alleged infringement of pornographic movies. This includes 4507 individuals sued in the Northern District of Illinois alone, in nine separate lawsuits. In addition, mass copyright complaints based on non-pornographic movies have also been brought against over 13,500 people in the District of Columbia."

I just wrote a story about lawsuits like these on NewTeeVee, explaining how German rights holders have filed more than half a million of such lawsuits in 2010. It looks like U.S. rights holders are well on their way to repeat these numbers, unless courts step in - which is of course exactly what the EFF wants. The group blogged on Monday:

"Friday's brief is the latest of EFF's efforts to stop copyright trolls -- content owners and lawyers who team up to extract settlements from thousands of defendants at a time. Tactics include improperly lumping defendants together in one case and filing it in a court far away from most of the accused people's homes and Internet connections. When adult film companies file these predatory lawsuits, there is the added pressure of embarrassment associated with pornography. All of these factors can convince those ensnared in the suits to quickly pay what's demanded of them instead of arguing the merits of their case in court."

It's worth noting that not everyone in the porn biz ready to sue the file sharing masses. Pink Visual's Allison Vivas told me recently that she has no intention to sue individuals, and Private CEO Berth Milton even said that piracy is promotion. Watch the entire interview with him embedded below:

Hollywood has set its sight on file hosters like Hotfile.com, which was sued this week by the MPAA’s member studios. Many of the legal arguments made against Hotfile could also easily be applied to RapidShare, Megaupload and even cloud-based backup and file synching services like Dropbox. Continue reading on NewTeeVee.com.

The controversial file hoster RapidShare has taken a first step towards entering the digital content business: The company launched a download store for video games last week, and it is promising its end users to enable the sale of any kind of file soon. Continue reading on Newteevee.com

BitTorrent’s new Project Chrysalis client now makes it possible to share files of unlimited size with your friends even when you’re not online. The company is caching files and using a revamped UI to make the facilitation of BitTorrent downloads much easier than before. Continue reading on NewTeeVee.

German content owners have been busy pursuing alleged infringers: Local ISPs have to hand out around 300,000 names and addresses of file sharers caught in the act ever month, according to data from a German industry association. Will we see similar numbers in the U.S. soon? Continue reading on GigaOM Broadband.

Have you ever watched a TV show episode or Hollywood blockbuster on a website that didn’t have the proper licenses? Then you could be in trouble, at least if the example of Kino.to catches on. Rights holders are threatening to sue users of the now-defunct site. Continue reading on NewTeeVee.

Warner Bros. systematically abused an automated takedown system provided by Hotfile, the file host claims in a countersuit against the studio. The claims made by Hotfile include information on the behind-the-scenes actions taken by Hollywood to enforce its rights against file sharing on cloud file hosts. Continue reading on NewTeeVee.

BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen and his company are moving forward with its P2P live streaming project, expanding field trials and courting indie bands to stress test Cohen’s algorithms. However, it could still take months before BitTorrent Live is ready for prime time. Continue reading on NewTeeVee.

A newly released Reuters/Ipsos poll evaluating President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in a head-to-head matchup shows troubling news for Biden. According to the poll, a lead once enjoyed by Biden has completely “evaporated,” while Trump’s numbers continue to ascend. Reuters/Ipsos said that “Joe Biden’s advantage over President Donald Trump in…

The post Biden’s Lead in Poll Tumbles as Trump Gains Support for Pandemic Response appeared first on The Western Journal.

After three decades of mystery, the cold case murder of a 17-year-old Ohio teen named Barbara Blatnik has been solved thanks in part to DNA genealogical research. The last time anyone saw Blatnik alive was around midnight on Dec. 19, 1987, when a friend dropped her off in Garfield Heights, Ohio. The following day, Blatnik,…

The post 32 Years After Teen’s Body Found Strangled on Side of Road, Suspect Finally Arrested appeared first on The Western Journal.

If you’ve been holding on to the presumption that gun confiscation will never take place in the United States, it’s time for you to wake up. Gun confiscation is already here, and it’s not slowing down anytime soon. As a result of the passage of red flag laws, 412 guns have been confiscated in Broward…

The post Op-Ed: The Case Against Red Flag Laws appeared first on The Western Journal.

During times of panic and suffering, it is important to take a step back and remember that “God is always in control.” One NFL star known for proudly displaying his faith made that message quite clear during an episode of the Fox Nation show “Bible Study: Messages of Hope” which debuted this week. Demario Davis,…

The post ‘Man of God’ NFL Star Points Out Things To Be Grateful for During the Pandemic: ‘There’s So Much’ appeared first on The Western Journal.

The World Health Organization is once again facing increased scrutiny and outrage. The renewed public outcry is not, however, directed at the shoddy initial response to the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic, instead coming as a result of unsettling details recently discovered in the organization’s child and adolescent sexual education guidelines. Set forth by global health…

The post WHO Comes Under Fire for Saying Kids Under 4 Should Be Taught About ‘Early Childhood Masturbation’ appeared first on The Western Journal.

Newly appointed White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany continues to impress in her new position working for the White House. Two days after absolutely leveling members of the White House media corps, the 32-year-old former Trump campaign spokeswoman made waves Friday by warning Americans that they, like former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, could also…

The post New White House Press Sec Issues Dire Warning to Americans About the FBI appeared first on The Western Journal.

In 1971, a man named Gregory Harris was murdered. Richard Phillips, an autoworker, was convicted of the crime and spent the next 45 years in prison. The problem? Phillips was innocent. Instead, it was the star witness during the trial who framed Phillips, and it took his alleged partner-in-crime, Richard Polombo, decades to admit that…

The post He Spent 45 Years in Prison for Crime He Didn’t Commit, Turned to Art as His Escape appeared first on The Western Journal.

A powerful player on Facebook’s new content oversight board infamously mocked Barron Trump during last year’s impeachment hearings, sowing doubt in the social media platform’s promises of unbiased moderation. The selection of Pamela Karlan, a professor at Stanford Law School, was announced Wednesday by Facebook, according to CNBC. Karlan will sit alongside 19 other experts…

The post Academic Who Infamously Mocked Barron Trump Gets Censorship Gig from Facebook appeared first on The Western Journal.

The mainstream media is still a powerful entity in America, even as its influence wanes in favor of social media. The evidence of this has come again in recent polls that show Republican Gov. Rob DeSantis’ slipping poll numbers in Florida versus Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s rising numbers in New York. And the curious part…

The post Media Lies at Work: As NY Deaths Go Up, So Do Cuomo’s Polls – As FL Deaths Go Down, So Do DeSantis’ Polls appeared first on The Western Journal.

Imam Shaker Elsayed offered an explanation for the coronavirus pandemic that is not surprising considering the source: He blamed the Jews. The controversial imam didn’t stop there during his sermon at the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center last month. The Falls Church, Virginia, mosque has a history of ties to terrorism, according to the New York…

The post Virginia Imam: Allah Used COVID-19 To Punish Jews appeared first on The Western Journal.