Los Angeles
‘Free Palestine’: Protesters in major US cities decry airstrikes over Gaza
Pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta and other U.S. cities on Saturday to demand an end to Israeli airstrikes over the Gaza Strip.
Thousands of people shut down traffic on a major thoroughfare in west Los Angeles as they marched two miles from outside the federal building to the Israeli consulate. The protesters waved signs that said “free Palestine” and shouted “long live intifada,” or uprising.
A protest that started in a neighborhood in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, which has a large Arabic-speaking community, continued through the streets for several hours on Saturday afternoon. Footage on social media showed people had climbed up the poles of street lights to wave flags while others set off fireworks. As the sun set, some protesters walked onto the Interstate 278 shutting down traffic in at least on direction, according to video posted online.
Read:Israeli military says it bombed home of a top Hamas leader
Bella Hadid, a well-known Palestinian-American model, participated in the Brooklyn protest.
The marches coincided with Nakba Day, which commemorate the 1948 displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians amid Israel’s declaration of independence.
In Atlanta, hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators, including grandparents, teenagers and mothers and fathers with youngsters in tow, assembled downtown to wave signs and chant slogans, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.
One sign read, “We can’t breathe since 1948” — a nod to the racial injustice and police brutality protests in the U.S. during the past year in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody after he couldn’t breathe, the newspaper reported.
In San Francisco, a raucous crowd banged drums and yelled “Palestine will be free” as they marched across the Mission district to Dolores Park.
A similar scene played out in Boston as protesters walked a short distance from Copley Square to the Israeli Consulate for New England, blocking traffic.
Footage on social media shows protesters unfurl a banner in the colors of the Palestinian flag with the words “Free Palestine” while standing on top of the awning of the building where the consulate is located.
In Washington, thousands of protesters streamed from the Washington Monument and to the National Archives. In Philadelphia, demonstrators filled Rittenhouse Square to decry U.S. support for Israel.
Read:AP 'horrified' by Israeli attack on its office
At a protest in Pittsburgh, one speaker called on lawmakers to put restrictions on how Israel can spend aid from the United States.
The protests were stoked by five days of mayhem that left at least 145 Palestinians dead in Gaza and eight dead on the Israeli side. The violence, set off by Hamas firing a rocket into Israel on Monday, came after weeks of mounting tensions and heavy-handed Israeli measures in contested Jerusalem.
Israel stepped up its assault and slammed the Gaza Strip with airstrikes Saturday, in a dramatic escalation that included bombing the home of a senior Hamas leader, killing a family of 10 in a refugee camp and destroying a building that house the offices of The Associated Press and other media.
5 arrested in violent robbery of Lady Gaga’s dogs
The woman who returned Lady Gaga’s stolen French bulldogs was among five people arrested in connection with the theft and shooting of the music superstar’s dog walker, Los Angeles police said Thursday.
Detectives do not believe that the thieves initially knew the dogs belonged to the pop star, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a statement. The motive for the Feb. 24 robbery, investigators believe, was the value of the French bulldogs — which can run into the thousands of dollars.
The dog walker, Ryan Fischer, is recovering from a gunshot wound and has called the violence “a very close call with death” in social media posts. He was walking Lady Gaga’s three dogs — named Asia, Koji and Gustav — in Hollywood just off the famed Sunset Boulevard when he was attacked.
Video from the doorbell camera of a nearby home shows a white sedan pulling up and two men jumping out. They struggled with Fischer and one pulled a gun and fired a single shot before fleeing with two of the dogs, Koji and Gustav.
Also read: Lady Gaga’s dog walker speaks out after Hollywood shooting
The video captured Fischer’s screams of, “Oh, my God! I’ve been shot!” and “Help me!” and “I’m bleeding out from my chest!”
Lady Gaga offered a $500,000 reward — “no questions asked” — to be reunited with the dogs. The singer had been in Rome at the time filming a movie.
The dogs were returned two days later to an LAPD station by a woman who originally appeared to be “uninvolved and unassociated” with the crime, police initially said. The woman, identified Thursday as 50-year-old Jennifer McBride, had reported that she’d found the dogs and responded to an email address associated with the reward, police said.
McBride turned out to be in a relationship with the father of one of the suspects, the LAPD said Thursday. It was not immediately clear if she had received the reward.
Police arrested James Jackson, 18; Jaylin White, 19; and Lafayette Whaley, 27, in connection with the violence. They are charged with attempted murder, conspiracy to commit robbery and second-degree robbery, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Jackson, who authorities say was the shooter, also faces charges of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and a felon carrying a concealed firearm in a vehicle. White faces one count of assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury.
White’s father, 40-year-old Harold White, and McBride were arrested and accused of being accessories to the attack. The elder White also was charged with one count of possession of a firearm and McBride faces a charge of receiving stolen property.
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Jackson, Whaley and the Whites are all documented gang members, according to the LAPD.
The five suspects were scheduled to be arraigned Thursday, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. It was not immediately clear if they had attorneys who could speak on their behalf.
All five were being held on $1 million bail each, online jail records show.
Lady Gaga did not immediately address the arrests on her social media accounts Thursday afternoon. Fischer and Lady Gaga’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
Mother arrested after 3 children found slain in Los Angeles
The mother of three children — all under the age of 5 — found slain inside a Los Angeles apartment Saturday morning has been arrested, police said.
Liliana Carrillo, 30, was arrested in Tulare County, about 200 miles (322 kilometers) north of Los Angeles. It wasn’t immediately known if she had a lawyer who could speak on her behalf.
The children’s grandmother returned home from work and found their bodies and the mother missing, Los Angeles police Lt. Raul Jovel said.
The Los Angeles Police Department tweeted the children appeared to be under 5 years old. A police spokesman initially said they were under the age of 3.
The gruesome discovery was made around 9:30 a.m. in the 8000 block of Reseda Boulevard, Jovel said.
Police said initial reports suggested the children had been stabbed to death, but no official cause of death has been released.
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Jovel said investigators were still working to determine a motive.
The department received reports Carrillo was driving her car and heading north on Interstate 5 when she got in an altercation in the Bakersfield area. She abandoned her car and carjacked another vehicle, Jovel said.
Carrillo was detained in the Ponderosa area of Tulare County, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Bakersfield, police said.
“At this point, she is a suspect in this incident but that doesn’t exclude other people,” Jovel said.
Lupe Cuevas, a neighbor of Carrillo and her children, told the San Bernardino Sun that she interacted with the three children and their grandmother during afternoon walks around the neighborhood.
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One of the children, a girl, was drawn to her Chihuahua, Rosie, Cuevas told the newspaper.
“Those babies were such sweet little ones,” she said. “It hurts.”
Cuevas said she thought the girl was the middle child of the three.
“She wasn’t shy. She was sweet.” Cuevas said. “An angel shouldn’t have to go that way.”
Lady Gaga’s dog walker speaks out after Hollywood shooting
Lady Gaga’s dog walker, who was shot last week during a robbery in Hollywood when two of the singer’s French bulldogs were stolen, described the violence and his recovery “from a very close call with death” in social media posts Monday.
Deal reached in suit alleging James Franco sexual misconduct
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