Eaton fire shapes art in poignant installation at ArtCenter showcase

• April 25, 2025

The Eaton fire, and the loss and destruction it wrought, is raw material for an immersive installation from the ArtCenter College of Design at the Pasadena Convention Center this Saturday.

“Resilience in the Ashes” gathers three artifacts from the fire, recreated into pieces inviting reflection, healing and remembrance. James Meraz, ArtCenter associate chair of spatial experience design, Everard Williams, chair of photography and imaging, and alumnus Jeffrey Sugishita collaborated on the installation.

“The Eaton Fire struck just a week before the start of the ArtCenter term and caused profound loss and trauma for many in our community, including our alumni, faculty and students,” Meraz said. “As artists and designers, the way we process grief is we create and create and create. We find and share meaning, memory and beauty in the chaos in life. This special installation represents our shared memories, dreams and our resilience.”

The installation brings together three symbolic elements recovered from the destroyed residences of the ArtCenter family, Meraz said: “a chair – representing memories- from the residence of a beloved faculty member, Norman Schureman, who passed away in 2010. A charred tree – representing dreams — from alumnus Jeffrey Sugishita’s home.  And a haunting, beautiful photograph of a burnt remnant of wood – representing resilience – taken by ArtCenter chair of photography and imaging, Everard Williams.”

It took Sugishita 30 minutes after he’d returned to the ashes that was his home on Mendocino Avenue in Altadena to cast an artist’s eye over the devastation.

“I made the decision to create something new out of this disaster, on Jan. 8,” he said.

The ArtCenter’s former valedictorian graduated in 2023 and said he was able to save some items the night the Eaton Fire erupted: a handful of artwork and some clothes. Several sculptures he had made that stood outside the home did not burn.

The tree in the installation is from a maple in his front yard. People are invited to hang cards with messages and reflections on the tree, creating a living memorial and collective expression of community strength and resilience.

“It’s a nice gesture to have an installation that people can interact with and be able to crystallize that communal emotion into a physical structure that only art can accomplish,” Sugishita, 27, said. “It was a personal experience I hope helps in the collective effort of recovering.”

The installation is part of ArtCenter’s spring Grad Show, which opens free to the public from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, April 26, at the Pasadena Convention Center.

“ArtCenter’s Spring 2025 Grad Show showcases the work of 327 graduating students and serves as an incredible celebration of creativity and the next generation of artists and designers,” Meraz said. “But this year, as the first Grad Show and graduation after the fires, it was equally important to also create a space for collective remembrance and to acknowledge and pay respect to those in the community who are still coping with tragic loss and ongoing recovery.”

College president Karen Hofmann said visitors to the show will see the creativity and innovative thinking that define an ArtCenter education. Graduates display works in animation, art, film, furniture design, game design, illustration, graphic design, photography and more.

“The quality of work shown at Grad Show is nothing short of extraordinary,” Hofmann said.

“While we are delighted and eager to celebrate the accomplishments of our talented Spring 2025 graduates, we do so in the wake and midst of significant challenges within in our community,” added Babette Strousse, ArtCenter dean, industrial design. “A great many of those impacted by the fires have had a hand in the outcomes we are exhibiting and celebrating at Grad Show. I want to acknowledge their extraordinary efforts, continued commitment, and profound resilience in the face of ongoing adversity and recovery.”

The showcase is one of the West Coast’s largest exhibitions of emerging artists and designers, the college said. It opens immediately following the spring graduation commencement at the Pasadena Civic Center. Steven Lewis, Altadena architect and social justice advocate, is the commencement speaker.

ArtCenter Spring Grad Show, featuring “Resilience in the Ashes”

When: Noon to 5 p.m. Saturday,  April 26

Where: Exhibit Halls A and B, Pasadena Convention Center, 300 E. Green St.

Admission: Free. The one-day public showcase opens immediately following the college’s private commencement ceremony.

For more information: artcenter.edu

​ Orange County Register 

Judge maintains death penalty as possible punishment for Bryan Kohberger despite autism diagnosis

• April 25, 2025

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors can pursue the death penalty against Bryan Kohberger if he is convicted of murdering four University of Idaho students in 2022, despite the defendant’s recent autism diagnosis.

Kohberger, 30, is charged in the stabbing deaths of Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle, Madison Mogen and Kaylee Goncalves at a rental home near campus in Moscow, Idaho, on Nov. 13, 2022.

Prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty if Kohberger is convicted at his trial, which is set to begin in August.

But his attorneys asked Judge Steven Hippler to remove the death penalty as a possible punishment, citing Kohberger’s diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. They have also filed several other motions challenging the death penalty, including one based on purported violations by the state in providing evidence.

“Mr. Kohberger’s autism spectrum disorder (ASD) reduces his culpability, negates the retributive and deterrent purposes of capital punishment, and exposes him to the unacceptable risk that he will be wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death,” defense attorneys wrote in court papers.

They argued that executing someone with autism would constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Prosecutors argued that under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the only mental disability that precludes imposition of the death penalty is an intellectual disability — and Kohberger’s diagnosis was of mild autism “without accompanying intellectual . . . impairment.”

Kohberger was a criminal justice graduate student at Washington State University, in Pullman, about 10 miles (16.1 kilometers) from Moscow, at the time of the killings in November 2022. He was arrested in Pennsylvania weeks later. Investigators said they matched his DNA to genetic material recovered from a knife sheath found at the crime scene.

Autopsies showed the four were all likely asleep when they were attacked, some had defensive wounds and each was stabbed multiple times.

​ Orange County Register 

Trump pardons Nevada politician who paid for her plastic surgery with funds to honor a slain officer

• April 25, 2025

By RIO YAMAT

LAS VEGAS (AP) — President Donald Trump has pardoned a Nevada Republican politician who was awaiting sentencing on federal charges that she used money meant for a statue honoring a slain police officer for personal costs, including plastic surgery.

Michele Fiore, a former Las Vegas city councilwoman and state lawmaker who ran unsuccessfully in 2022 for state treasurer, was found guilty in October of six counts of federal wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She was out of custody ahead of her sentencing, which had been scheduled for next month.

In a lengthy statement Thursday on Facebook, the loyal Trump supporter expressed gratitude to the president while also accusing the U.S. government and “select media outlets” of a broad, decade-long conspiracy to “target and dismantle” her life.

The pardon, issued Wednesday, comes less than a week after Fiore lost a bid for a new trial. She had been facing the possibility of decades in prison.

Federal prosecutors said at trial that Fiore, 54, had raised more than $70,000 for the statue of a Las Vegas police officer who was fatally shot in 2014 in the line of duty, but had instead spent some of it on cosmetic surgery, rent and her daughter’s wedding.

“Michele Fiore used a tragedy to line her pockets,” federal prosecutor Dahoud Askar said.

FBI agents in 2021 subpoenaed records and searched Fiore’s home in Las Vegas in connection with her campaign spending.

In a statement, Nevada Democratic Party Executive Director Hilary Barrett called the pardon “reckless” and a “slap in the face” to law enforcement officers.

Fiore, who does not have a law degree, was appointed as a judge in deep-red Nye County in 2022 shortly after she lost her campaign for state treasurer.

She was elected last June to complete the unexpired term of a judge who died but had been suspended without pay amid her legal troubles. Pahrump is an hour’s drive west of Las Vegas.

In her statement Thursday, Fiore also said she plans to return to the bench next week.

Nye County said in an email to The Associated Press that it is awaiting an update from the state Commission on Judicial Discipline on Fiore’s current suspension. The AP sent emails seeking comment to the commission, as well as Fiore’s lawyer.

Fiore served in the state Legislature from 2012 to 2016. She was a Las Vegas councilwoman from 2017 to 2022.

While serving as a state lawmaker, Fiore gained national attention for her support of rancher Cliven Bundy and his family during armed standoffs between militiamen and federal law enforcement officers in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 2014 and Malheur, Oregon, in 2016.

​ Orange County Register 

DNC chair rips vice chair David Hogg’s plan to challenge incumbent Democrats

• April 25, 2025

By JONATHAN J. COOPER

PHOENIX (AP) — Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said Thursday that party officers should be banned from taking sides in primaries, countering DNC Vice Chair David Hogg’s plan to raise money for candidates challenging Democratic incumbents.

Martin’s proposal escalates a public feud between the new DNC boss and Hogg, who rose to prominence as a gun-control advocate after surviving the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida. Both were elected by DNC members earlier this year.

Martin said he’s drafting proposed bylaw changes to require officers to remain neutral in all Democratic primaries.

Martin said party neutrality is crucial to maintaining the confidence of voters, pointing to the bitter feud that emerged after supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign believed he was stymied by party insiders putting their thumb on the scale in favor of Hillary Clinton, who won the nomination but went on to lose the general election to Donald Trump.

“You can’t be both the player and the referee,” Martin wrote in an opinion piece published by Time.

Hogg has said he’ll raise millions of dollars through a political action committee unaffiliated with the DNC to support primary challengers running against longtime incumbents in solidly Democratic congressional districts. He says the party needs a shakeup to bring in leaders who will more aggressively confront Trump and connect with younger voters.

Hogg said in a statement posted on social media that he is not breaking any current DNC rules, and his actions don’t interfere with the party’s responsibilities, including setting a presidential nominating calendar, supporting state Democratic parties, building data infrastructure and creating the campaign infrastructure for a future Democratic presidential nominee.

Voters don’t view Democrats as a “real alternative to the Republican Party,” he said.

“That will not change if we keep the status quo,” Hogg said. “We have no other option but to do the hard work of holding ourselves and our own party accountable.”

Also on Thursday, Martin said the DNC would increase its financial support for state Democratic parties by $5,000 to $17,500 per month, with an additional $5,000 monthly for Republican-led states.

​ Orange County Register 

Newsom welcomes additions to state’s firefighting air fleet

• April 25, 2025

Citing a fire season that “never went away” this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom officially welcomed expansion of the state’s aerial firefighting force on Thursday in an airplane hangar at McClellan Park near Sacramento.

Standing before the first of the state’s enormous, fully equipped C-130 Hercules tanker planes, which prides a 4,000-gallon water capacity and increased speed to fight fires, officials expressed appreciation that after several years of waiting, seven of these planes will ultimately be situated throughout the state.

“This is a big deal,” Newsom said, noting California has the largest civilian aerial firefighting fleet in the world. “There’s not another state in the country that can lay claim to a moment like this.”

Joe Tyler, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), said that along with the two tankers currently in use, a third was being retrofitted with the latest tech and communication equipment.

“We plan to have the third air tanker available in the middle of the fire year, late summer, this year, and continue to retrofit the rest, looking at opportunities to have them done by the end of 2026,” Tyler said.

The first tanker, 122, will be housed at McClellan Park, while the second, 121, will be placed in Fresno. The third tanker will be placed in Ramona in San Diego County, with others ultimately being housed also at McClellan, Paso Robles, Chico, and the seventh tanker designated for “surge and spare.”

Tyler said that, with an increase in fires in the western United States, there is a growing and greater need.

“We can expect more to come,” Tyler said of wildfires. “The conditions have changed in California. The hotters are hotter. The driers are drier.

“This is the right time to have these aircraft,” he said.

Tyler said that the U.S. Forest Service originally tried to create a fleet of seven C-130s in 2013, but couldn’t get adequate funding to maintain it. Cal Fire then went after acquiring the fleet, ultimately acquiring it in a cooperative agreement with both the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Coast Guard.

Because of federal maintenance requirements, however, use of the fleet was delayed for years until, with the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act, the fleet was finally transferred to California on Dec. 14, 2023.

“Immediately the (Cal Fire) aviation management unit went into retrofitting these aircraft,” Tyler said, with the first finally available for use last summer.

Newsom, citing bi-partisan support in obtaining the fleet, both praised the state’s work and acknowledged there was more to be done.

“We have close to doubled the investment in the last couple of years at Cal Fire,” he said. “We have significantly increased investments in the aerial fleet well beyond the C-130 H’s.”

Newsom cited a range of technology investments, including night vision capabilities, communication access, and employment of Artificial Intelligence, with partnerships in both private and military sectors.

“People come from all across the globe to learn more about how it’s being done through the Office of Emergency Services and Cal Fire,” he said. “We’re proud of that. We’re also mindful we have to do more.”

“We have to step up our game,” he said, noting that the January fires underscore the urgency for progress.

Newsom said that along with work on fire suppression, additional attention is being given to prevention, including “unprecedented investments in vegetation and forest management.”

“We’ve heard people loudly and clearly,” he said. “We can’t make up for 100 years of what wasn’t done and we’re not looking in the rearview mirror (but) we’re focused on what we can do today.”

Toward that end, Newsom put in a plea to Washington, D.C., to be more involved.

“We need federal support … Fifty-seven percent of the forest land in California is federal responsibility. Three percent is the state,” he said.

“We have a shared stewardship agreement with the federal administration, but we need to see it funded,” Newsom said. “This administration just cut 10% of the U.S. Forest budget. You can’t even make that up. That’s not risk-taking, that’s recklessness.”

“We’ll do our part, but we need stronger partnership,” he said.

Newsom said that this past year, fire season never went away, so people need to remain wary.

“Fire season never went away, but it’s about to peak. Be prepared, take things seriously,” he said.

Jarret Liotta is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and photographer.

​ Orange County Register 

Houthi rebels have shot down 7 US Reaper drones worth $200 million in recent weeks

• April 25, 2025

By LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON (AP) — Houthi rebels in Yemen have shot down seven U.S. Reaper drones in less than six weeks, a loss of aircraft worth more than $200 million in what is becoming the most dramatic cost to the Pentagon of the military campaign against the Iran-backed militants.

According to defense officials, three of the drones were shot down in the past week — suggesting the militants’ targeting of the unmanned aircraft flying over Yemen has improved. The drones were doing attack runs or conducting surveillance, and they crashed both into the water and onto land, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.

The U.S. has increased its attacks on the Houthis, launching daily strikes since March 15, when President Donald Trump ordered a new, expanded campaign. He promised to use “overwhelming lethal force” until the Houthis cease their attacks on shipping along a vital maritime corridor. The U.S. has done more than 750 strikes on the Houthis since that new effort began.

Another defense official said that although hostile fire is likely the cause of the drone losses, the incidents are still under investigation. The official noted that the increase in U.S. strikes can add to the risk to aircraft, but said the U.S. will take every measure possible to protect troops, equipment and interests in the region. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to comment on sensitive military issues.

The sophisticated drones, built by General Atomics, cost about $30 million each, and generally fly at altitudes of more than 40,000 feet (12,100 meters). Houthis leaders have consistently touted the strikes in public statements. One of the defense officials said the U.S. lost Reaper drones on March 31 and on April 3, 9, 13, 18, 19 and 22.

U.S. senators, meanwhile, are raising concerns about civilian casualties caused by the American strikes in Yemen. Democratic Sens. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tim Kaine of Virginia wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday questioning whether the Trump administration is “abandoning the measures necessary to meet its obligations to reducing civilian harm.”

Specifically, they questioned reports that U.S. strikes at the Ras Isa fuel terminal in Yemen last week potentially killed more than 70 civilians.

“Military leaders agree that ingraining civilian harm mitigation practices within U.S operations leads to better outcomes and that civilian casualties actually undermine the mission that the military has been sent in to do,” their letter said.

In addition to downing the drones, the Houthis have been persistently firing missiles and one-way attack drones at U.S. military ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. They haven’t hit any.

The U.S. has been using an array of warships, fighter jets, bombers and drones to strike the Houthis, and aircraft can now launch from two Navy carriers in the region.

Hegseth decided in March to beef up the Navy warship presence in the Middle East, ordering the USS Harry S. Truman to extend its deployment there, as the USS Carl Vinson steamed toward the area.

The Truman, along with two of the destroyers and a cruiser in its strike group, is now in the Red Sea. And the Vinson, along with two destroyers and a cruiser, is in the Gulf of Aden.

The third destroyer assigned to the Truman is in the Mediterranean Sea. And two other U.S. Navy destroyers are in the Red Sea, but aren’t part of the Truman’s group.

Hegseth is weighing whether to grant a request by U.S. Central Command to once again extend the Truman’s deployment. A decision to do that could keep the Truman and at least some of its strike group in the region for several more weeks.

It has been rare in recent years for the U.S. to have two aircraft carriers in the Middle East at the same time. Navy leaders have generally been opposed to the idea because it disrupts ship maintenance schedules and delays time at home for sailors strained by the unusually high combat tempo.

Last year, the Biden administration ordered the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier to remain in the Red Sea for an extended time, as U.S. warships waged the most intense running sea battle since World War II.

Prior to that it had been years since the U.S. had committed that much warship power to the Middle East.

The Houthis have been waging persistent missile and drone attacks against commercial and military ships in the region in what the group’s leadership has described as an effort to end the Israeli war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

From November 2023 until this January, the Houthis targeted more than 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones, sinking two of them and killing four sailors. That has greatly reduced the flow of trade through the Red Sea corridor, which typically sees $1 trillion of goods move through it annually.

​ Orange County Register 

Bonobos in Congo form girl groups to fend off male aggression, study says

• April 25, 2025

By ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN

NEW YORK (AP) — Female bonobos find strength in numbers, teaming up to fend off males in the wild, a new study finds.

Along with chimpanzees, bonobos are among humans’ closest relatives. Scientists have long wondered why bonobos live in generally female-dominated societies since the males are physically bigger and stronger.

Three decades of observations in Congo — the only place the endangered bonobos are found in the wild — lend support to the idea of a sisterhood where female bonobos band together to assert their power.

These girl groups chased male bonobos out of trees, securing food for themselves, and females that grouped more ranked higher in their community’s social ladder, researchers found.

“It’s very clear that you don’t want to overstep as a male bonobo,” said study author Martin Surbeck from Harvard University.

Findings were published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology.

Female bonobos’ combined numbers seem to turn the tide against a male’s physical strength, Surbeck said. It’s one of the rare times such a strategy has allowed females to come out on top in the animal kingdom. Spotted hyenas similarly find power in groups.

Female bonobos linked up even when they didn’t have close ties, supporting one another against the males and cementing their social standing. The observations show how female bonobos work together to protect themselves from male violence, said biological anthropologist Laura Lewis with the University of California, Berkeley.

The findings support “the idea that humans and our ancestors have likely used coalitions to build and maintain power for millions of years,” Lewis, who was not involved with the research, said in an email.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

​ Orange County Register 

A Detroit nonprofit’s former finance chief gets 19 years for $40 million theft

• April 25, 2025

DETROIT (AP) — A former executive at a major Detroit nonprofit was sentenced Thursday to 19 years in prison for stealing more than $40 million meant to help beautify the city’s riverfront.

Investigators said William Smith routinely used Detroit Riverfront Conservancy money for travel, hotels, limousines, household goods, clothing and jewelry. He had side gigs in real estate, a nightclub and amateur basketball.

Smith, 52, was fired as chief financial officer last May and arrested the following month. He pleaded guilty in November to wire fraud and money laundering. A federal judge in Detroit also ordered Smith to pay back the $44.3 million he stole.

Funding for the conservancy comes from private donors and public grants, and the nonprofit says Smith’s theft forced the delay of portions of a popular riverwalk project.

Smith on Thursday called his actions “wrong, plain and simple.”

“I recognize I allowed selfishness, pride and poor judgment to lead me down a destructive path,” he told the court prior to sentencing.

The conservancy is transforming miles of shoreline along the Detroit River into recreation space, with plazas, pavilions and parks. It has been the driving force behind the city’s Riverwalk.

“Every dollar that Smith spent on luxury goods for himself is a dollar that the conservancy could not spend beautifying and improving our city’s riverfront,” acting United States Attorney Julie Beck said in a release.

Smith controlled the money for waterfront projects as chief financial officer from 2011 to May 2024.

After the theft was uncovered, then-conservancy chief executive Mark Wallace resigned and the nonprofit’s auditing firm was replaced, according to The Detroit News.

The Riverfront Conservancy said he stole the money “through a complex web of deception” and is grateful he’s being punished.

“The U.S. government accurately described him as a man of ‘corrupt and depraved character,’” the conservancy said in a statement following the sentencing.

Conservancy attorney Matthew Schneider said in a victim-impact statement that Smith chose greed over Detroit’s prosperity.

“As much as Smith may wish to mask himself as a professional, upstanding Dr. Jekyll, the reality is he was embezzling in the shadows as a cunning and calculating Mr. Hyde,” Schneider wrote.

​ Orange County Register