August 13, 2026
August 13, 2026
CEUTA, Spain — Are Ceuta residents fed up over African migrants or over right wing politicians? It depends on whether you believe the NY Post or the NY Times. In the days after tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in late July 2026, two major American outlets offered sharply different accounts of what unfolded next. The New York Post highlighted local anger over migrants occupying a beach with makeshift huts, portable toilets,...
ASPEN, Colo. - A young black bear cub wandered into a restaurant in Aspen on the evening of August 11, 2026, walking among set tables in the dining room before leaving, according to a video shared online by actress and filmmaker Justine Bateman. In the roughly eight-second clip posted to X (formerly Twitter), the cub can be seen moving through a formal dining area with white tablecloths, polished place settings, and booths. The animal pauses near one table, appearing to lower...
**LEÓN, Spain** - Crowds gathered across northern Spain on Wednesday evening as a total solar eclipse swept over León, briefly turning day into twilight and revealing the sun's shimmering corona just before sunset. The moon's shadow reached the city around 8:28 p.m. local time (CEST), with totality lasting approximately 1 minute and 45 seconds. Partial phases began near 7:32 p.m., peaked at maximum eclipse around 8:29 p.m., and concluded about 9:22 p.m. At the height of...
LOS ANGELES - A Los Angeles County grand jury has indicted Nick Reiner on murder charges in the December 2025 stabbing deaths of his parents, acclaimed actor-director Rob Reiner and photographer-producer Michele Singer Reiner, at their Brentwood home. The indictment, returned July 20 and unsealed today, charges the 32-year-old with two counts of murder. Prosecutors added special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and murder by means of lying in wait, along with a...
Two federal detention officers were stalked and beaten by protesters outside a downtown Los Angeles jail Saturday night - and both ended up in the hospital. The attack went down around 10 p.m. near the Metropolitan Detention Center on Alameda Street, where a crowd of 40 to 50 anti-ICE demonstrators had gathered, LAPD said. The protesters followed the off-duty federal employees to their cars in a nearby parking structure on East Commercial Street. There, the group "suddenly...
Jackie, the internet-famous bald eagle whose nest-cam life with mate Shadow captivated millions worldwide, has died. The Ojai Raptor Center confirmed the 14-year-old raptor - known as Patient 26-519 - passed away in the early hours of Monday, Aug. 10, after more than three weeks of intensive medical care. "It is with profound sadness that we share that Patient 26-519 passed away," the center said in a statement. "Our team is heartbroken. It has been an extraordinary privilege...
LOS ANGELES - Multiple AutoZone stores in East Los Angeles and South Los Angeles were broken into and ransacked over the weekend of August 8–9, 2026, following illegal street takeovers, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and local news reports. No arrests were reported in connection with the primary weekend incidents as of early coverage. In East Los Angeles, the AutoZone at 1131 Atlantic Blvd. (near the intersection of Olympic Boulevard and Atlantic...
CEUTA, Spain - As of 11 August 2026, local authorities in the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta continue to estimate that between 8,000 and 11,000 migrants remain in the territory nearly two weeks after a mass border crossing from neighbouring Morocco, a figure far higher than central government estimates of roughly 2,000–2,500. Ceuta President Juan Jesús Vivas has repeatedly described the situation as "absolutely unsustainable" and rejected claims that the city has...
Thirteen of the largest coral trees along San Vicente Boulevard in Santa Monica were cut down on August 4 and 5, immediately before a scheduled community meeting about their future, according to longtime resident Caroline "Cai" Dixon. The trees had formed one of Southern California's most distinctive urban landscapes for nearly 80 years. Dixon said approximately 32 coral-tree vacancies had accumulated in only four years. She described the timing of the latest removals as...
A woman riding an electric scooter was killed in a collision with a commercial truck on Friday morning, August 7, 2026, in downtown San Francisco. The incident occurred around 8:18–8:30 a.m. near the intersection of Market and Powell streets (also described as Fifth and Market), close to the cable car turnaround. San Francisco Police Department officers responded to reports of a vehicle collision involving injuries. They found the woman in the street with life-threatening...
SANTA MONICA, Calif. - Two people were found dead inside a home early Sunday after firefighters extinguished a fire that engulfed the structure, according to local officials. Helen and Anthony Spaulding, married 70 years, were both in wheelchairs and well into the 90's. They died together in the house where they raised 5 children. The blaze was reported shortly before 3 a.m. (around 2:50 a.m.) in the 500 block of Lincoln Boulevard, the Santa Monica Fire Department said....
It's obvious now that California's roughly 18-year-old High-Speed Rail Project (authorized by voters in 2008), which has spent on the order of $15–18 billion and still has not laid a single mile of actual high-speed track on the main alignment, is a train to nowhere. Practically speaking, how can Californians derail it permanently? The project has produced substantial civil work-about 80 miles of guideway and dozens of structures in the Central Valley-but no operational...
