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Another surf industry wipeout is hitting Orange County as Liberated Brands – which held the distribution license for big brands like Billabong, RVCA, Honolua and Volcom – shutters its Costa Mesa corporate offices and lays off nearly 400 employees.Details of the closure and layoffs came from a California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, dated Jan. 8, required by the state when a company issues large-scale layoffs.“As part of a company-wide restructuring, Liberated Brands is closing its corporate offices and laying off all employees who work at those locations.The terminations, which include the company’s chief executive, are anticipated to be permanent,…
If you take Gov. Gavin Newsom at his word, California will have a budget surplus for the first time in several years, and his fellow Democrats who control the legislature won’t need to cut more programs as they try to make the state more livable.In reality, the state’s financial future is murkier.Newsom’s proposal for the 2025-2026 budget, unveiled Friday, has plans to pull $7.1 billion from the state’s rainy day reserve fund. That’s on the heels of a $5.1 billion draw from the fund that the governor agreed to last year, along with sizable cuts to government agencies and programs.…
LOS ANGELES — It was eerily similar to 2018, when the Woolsey fire ripped through Los Angeles and Ventura counties. Rams right tackle Rob Havenstein heard a teammate point out a new cloud of smoke on the horizon, and his heart dropped at the thought of another blaze in the community.Then, as he stared to the west, a new, horrible thought crossed his mind.“You’re like, wait a second, I live over there,” Havenstein said.Such was the state of things at the Rams facility in Woodland Hills Thursday as the Kenneth fire broke out. Head coach Sean McVay called the team…
With thousands of homes destroyed by wildfires across the Los Angeles County this week, homeowners, renters and business owners are likely scrambling to launch their property claims.They’ll need several key documents to get that process started, according to Joel Laucher, a program specialist with United Policyholders, a San Francisco-based nonprofit insurance and consumer rights advocacy group.We asked Laucher to walk us through the preliminary details. His answers have been edited for length and clarity.Q: What is needed to file a claim? A: Whether you were a homeowner, renter or a business owner, a key is to have a copy of your…
By GISELA SALOMON, Associated PressMIAMI (AP) — About 600,000 Venezuelans and more than 200,000 Salvadorans already living in the United States can legally remain another 18 months, the Department of Homeland Security said Friday, barely a week before President-elect Donald Trump takes office with promises of hardline immigration policies.The decisions mark the Biden administration’s latest in support of Temporary Protected Status, which he has sharply expanded to cover about 1 million people. TPS faces an uncertain future under Trump, who tried to sharply curtail its use during his first term as president.The announcement, which came as Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro took office for a…
LOS ANGELES — Lincoln Riley hasn’t bit his tongue, for the better part of a year, on his belief on the modern world of collegiate football. This was a “business,” and had been for a while, USC’s head coach said at a spring event hosted by NIL collective House of Victory. Staff structuring, Riley said in July at the Big Ten Media Days, was moving towards a “professional model.” And in December, Riley referred to a range of USC’s transfer-portal movement as “business decisions.”They were business decisions made, though, without any structure. Collegiate athletes have yet to be legally recognized as employees…
With the new year in full swing, tax season is cut around the corner. Millions of Americans must file their 2024 returns to the IRS by Tuesday, April 15, 2025.When can you start filing 2024 taxes?For taxpayers who had an adjusted gross income (AGI) of $84,000 or less in 2024, the IRS’ Free File Gilded Tax Software becomes available online on Friday, Jan. 10.For taxpayers with an adjusted gross income of more than $84,000, Free File Fillable Forms opens on Monday, Jan. 27.To access IRS Free File, visit IRS.gov/freefile.When does the IRS start processing returns?The IRS has not yet announced…
By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and MICHAEL R. BLOODLOS ANGELES — Earlier this week, as hurricane-strength winds blew through bone-dry hillside subdivisions, Los Angeles saw its worst nightmare realized as long-predicted firestorms engulfed wide swaths of the nation’s second-largest city.For Mayor Karen Bass, the horror show was compounded by every chief executive’s worst nightmare. She was halfway around the globe, on a trip to Ghana as part of a presidential delegation.As her city faced its greatest crisis in decades, the first-term mayor confronted a critical test of her leadership two years after taking office. After rushing home to help manage the city’s…
Smarting from a lashing in St. Louis that was over not long after it began on Thursday, the Ducks moseyed along for a weekend double dip in the Metropolitan Division.They will exchange some Brotherly Love with the Flyers on Saturday before dealing with a Storm Watch in Carolina on Sunday.Saturday, they’ll face what’s sure to be the most hostile Philly crowd they’ve encountered. What had typically been a mundane inter-conference matchup gained new significance when 2022 lottery pick Cutter Gauthier refused to sign with the Flyers and ended up being traded to Anaheim last January.Gauthier, 20, has seldom if ever…
In the last few days, Los Angeles has experienced what may become the most expensive and destructive wildfire catastrophe in U.S. history. Entire communities in Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Pasadena, and Altadena have been decimated, with at least ten lives lost and thousands of structures reduced to rubble. I personally had to evacuate from my Santa Monica home with my two young children, watching in shock as the flames visibly approached, while smoke choked our neighborhood. It is a tragedy for which local and state leaders cannot hide behind excuses—this was tragically predictable and preventable.For years, California’s top officials have known…