Today’s Headlines: When a California dream ends in homelessness

Hello, it’s Monday, July 24, and here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:

TOP STORIES

From a one-way flight to sleeping in a parking lot: Diary of a California dream gone sour. Andrew Truelove’s story is a familiar one, a modern iteration of the starry-eyed striver headed west with a dollar and a dream. But in 2023, the landing for a troubled person at the end of his rope can be brutal.

He arrived at LAX from his native Virginia, hoping to start a new social media platform. Within weeks, the 37-year-old was low on money and living behind a Torrance shopping center.

Truelove is left to navigate a confusing social services landscape and jostle for scarce shelter beds and scarcer permanent housing in a sprawling region with too long a line for too little help.

Video shows trans man beaten by L.A. County deputy during stop. The 23-year-old teacher said he was followed by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department cruiser into a 7-Eleven parking lot, where the deputy approached him, forced him to the ground and beat him. In the official report, the deputy said he’d spotted an air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, supposedly obstructing the view of the road from the man’s black Honda Civic.

Citing the possibility of litigation, the department declined to comment specifically on the Feb. 10 incident. After Sheriff Robert Luna ran on promises of reform, the Sheriff’s Department has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks for two other use-of-force incidents caught on camera.

July is on track to be the hottest month on record — so far. Global warming, El Niño and regional heat waves are pushing civilization into uncharted thermal territory, experts say, and it could get worse.

As a sizzling heat dome spread misery over the American Southwest and hospitals reported increasing numbers of heat-related illnesses, government officials told reporters that it was increasingly likely that July would rank as the hottest month ever recorded, and that 2023 and 2024 may end up being the hottest years ever.

A Russian exile won $200 million from a Putin crony. He could lose it all in U.S. courts. in 2010, Ashot Yegiazaryan, a wealthy businessman and Russian politician, fled his home country, alleging he had been squeezed out of a hotel project by prominent oligarchs. From Beverly Hills, he managed to extract a nearly $200-million settlement from a U.S.-sanctioned Russian billionaire over the busted deal.

But in a seemingly unrelated dispute, he lost an $84-million arbitration award to a former business partner, and was convicted in absentia of criminal fraud in Russia.

Today, he stands increasingly hemmed in, legally and financially, as he claims to be the subject of a “witch hunt.”

CALIFORNIA

After Rolling Hills Estates landslide, weary residents could wait weeks for answers. Officials are warning evacuated residents that it could be up to two months before the geological experts evaluating the landslide will have any preliminary results.

Fifth bus of migrants sent from Texas arrives in Los Angeles. The migrants arrived on Saturday in downtown Los Angeles from Brownsville, Texas, around 11: 30 a.m. where they were met by members of the L.A. Welcome Collective.

Temecula school board avoids fine but faces civil rights inquiry. A conservative Riverside County school board that had previously rejected a social studies curriculum that mentioned gay rights activist Harvey Milk reversed course Friday night.

NATION-WORLD

Biden to establish monument honoring Emmett Till. President Biden will establish a national monument honoring the Black teenager from Chicago and his mother. Emmett was abducted, tortured and killed in 1955 after he was accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississippi.

Barabak: How New Mexico went from battleground to blue. The change is part of a pattern that has remade the West, turning the onetime Republican redoubt into a deep well of Democratic support, columnist Mark Z. Barabak writes in a new series exploring how Western states have reset the political competition nationwide.

Conservative party poised to win Spain’s election but without a majority. Early election returns showed the Socialist Party of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez running neck and neck with the conservative Popular Party.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE ARTS

‘Barbie’ beats ‘Oppenheimer’ in record-breaking, industry-revitalizing showdown.
The film industry received a much-needed shot in the arm this weekend thanks to the cinematic, cultural phenomenon that is “Barbenheimer.”

Social media stars, rarely unionized, try to navigate Hollywood’s hot strike summer. With actors explicitly barred from doing press, red carpets and social media to promote their films, studios are expected to turn to influencers to fill in.

The irrepressible joy of Tony Bennett could never be unplugged. Bennett, who died Friday at age 96, was perhaps pop’s most prominent surviving devotee of the trove of pre-rock tunes known as the Great American Songbook.

BUSINESS

Column: Hollywood is on strike because CEOs fell for Silicon Valley’s magical thinking. Studio heads are touting the disruptive properties of emerging technologies — and how writers and actors must adapt to this new future. But this talk too often amounts to a smokescreen that lets executives and investors line their pockets and risks leaving workers holding the bag.

NBCUniversal slapped with $250 fine in foliage flap. After striking Hollywood writers and actors formed picket lines outside the studio, the leafy canopy that shaded the sidewalks out front fell victim to the trim saw.

SPORTS

Inside the Dodgers’ juggernaut farm system, the lifeblood of the club. Over the last nine years, the Dodgers have had one of the highest-rated, most productive farm systems in baseball, churning out waves of prospects and a parade of major leaguers without many high draft picks, large signing bonus pools or any rebuilding seasons to replenish their system.

U.S. flaws were exposed during its World Cup opener, but the team isn’t worried. The U.S. pushed aside Vietnam 3-0 in an opening performance that was more clumsy than clinical, more sloppy than sensational.

OPINION

The Menendez brothers have been behind bars for 33 years. Is that long enough? The family’s awful story was one chapter of a particularly traumatic era in Los Angeles. But attitudes toward domestic violence and sex abuse have changed and it’s time to revisit the case.

It’s not just streaming or AI — actors are striking because we’ve long been in crisis. Actors have long been conditioned to feel grateful that they are being included and paid for it. Working actors learn very early on to settle for little if it means getting to do their art, and they’re tired of always getting a bad deal.

ONLY IN CALIFORNIA

People ski and snowboard during the 2019 summer season in Mammoth Lakes, Calif.

(George Rose / Getty Images)

Summer skiing? Mammoth Mountain extends season into August for third time ever. While much of the Southwestern U.S. endures sweltering heat that continues to topple daily records, historic snowfall has brought an unusually extended ski season to Mammoth Mountain, where snowboarders and skiers continue to soar down the slopes in shorts and sunglasses.

FROM THE ARCHIVES

People fish off the end of Redondo Beach pier at sunset. This photo, from the L.A. Times Archive at UCLA, appeared in the July 22, 1979, edition of the paper.

( Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

Los Angeles was once home to many piers. The structures served a practical purpose but also provided space for residents to fish, relax and interact with one another. Some piers even grew to become destinations, such as Santa Monica pier, which replaced the “Shoo-fly” pier, a commercial port for vessels from San Francisco. Ultimately, though, many of the structures were not maintained and fell into decay over time. Read more about L.A.’s former piers here.

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